Harper’s Government

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PMO directive rebrands ‘Harper Government’ – Canada – CBC News.

Yes, it’s his government all right. Not ours. Not all Canadians. His. Give him a majority and watch him change what many of us value, starting with Parliament, and the concept that the government belongs to us, not him.

The other interesting item was in the Globe today. Apparently, some Republicans in the US want to reduce the number of incarcerated people, because IT COSTS TOO MUCH. Really. What a surprise. The article goes on too little is spent on helping individuals reintegrate into society creating the revolving door.

Another big lie?

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“allowed the party to exceed the campaign spending limits and allowed candidates to claim rebates on expenses that weren’t actually incurred, the agency said.”

via Campaign financing ruling goes against Tories – Canada – CBC News.

So all the time the Tories were running those nasty attack ads, they were fudging the books. Why do people keep voting for these people. They’re contemptuous of Parliament; take the low road whenever possible, and apparently thinks it’s okay to use taxpayer money to exceed the spending limits. That’s called stealing in the Ottawa Valley where I was raised.

Another big lie from Big Pharm

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Drug R&D costs are less than estimated – so why the high prices? – The Globe and Mail.

Andre Picard, writing in the Globe this am, has deconstructed the often-repeated figures about the many millions or even billions needed to bring medications to market. The original estimates, derived entirely from unchecked figures provided by the drug companies themselves, used huge percentages to estimate income lost because the money that went into R&D was not otherwise invested. When was the last time you got a steady 11% over the course of decades? The usual figure is 3-5%. All in all, it sounds like another big lie.

Mr. Picard also makes the point that most drugs developed aren’t brand new, but rather “me too” drugs–think the cholesterol lowering drugs for example, or the multiple formulations of methylphenidate(Ritalin and its brothers). These cost less to develop because the basic research has all ready been done. Even older drugs, like AVONEX for MS, developed in 1999, are still enormously expensive. The cost of this drug has in fact risen. Surely the R&D costs have been paid off by now?

It seems to be a theme with the powers that be. Tell a lie often enough and even if it’s outrageous, people will start to believe it.

Oda

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/gerald-caplan/stephen-harpers-worst-enemy/article1913681/

The worst enemy of Stephen Harper described in this article by Gerald Caplan, is Harper himself, at least the mean-spirited, nasty, revenge-seeking, never-say-you’re-sorry side of the man. He punishes dissent as quickly as any Middle-Eastern despot, although not with bullets and truncheons. The article above is dealing with the ramifications of the Oda affair, which has the autocrat’s stamp all over it. What I found disconcerting was the line-up of members of Kairos, churches from the Anglican Church of Canada to the Evangelical Lutheran, to the Mormon Church, all of them working together for decades to bring compassion and health care to violated women in Africa. But they spoke out against the decisions of Harper with which they disagreed, and so the funding, long-established and carried forward for thirty-five years is gone, as has the funding for countless other smaller organizations on the other side of political debate.

And then they lied, yet again. “Who did that? Not me?” she says to the Commons committee, not to a newspaper, or her friends at lunch, but to Parliament. Apparently the Harperites despise, not just the Upper House, but the whole thing. And it’s not the first time.

Gerald Caplan writes that this reflects the abandonment of the view that a government of the people is responsible for maintaining civil society. That is the difference that Canadians, who value our civil society and its support of the ill and the weak and the old, will have to consider at the next election.

Go to the end of the article and read the list of activities Harper has indulged in over the five years he has been in power. Why would we want to keep him?

He isn’t conservative with our money either. Look at the millions of dollars that is the estimate to carry out his further acts of vengeance against those convicted of crimes, many of them minor ones committed by people with serious mental illness, condemning them to be stacked like cordwood in cells barely adequate for one let alone three or four. Our prisons are going to resemble those in the third world. And for what? Rehabilitation doesn’t occur under these circumstances. Education in crime does. Getting mental heath resources for children is extremely difficult in this country. Perhaps he could spend a few dollars at the root of the problem.

Pictures from Seville

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One Saturday, we walked into the Plaza Nueva, Sevilla Spain. On one side a basketball tournament, on the other wedding parties lining up to attend the civil ceremony in the city hall that formed on side of the square. The music, oddly, a piper, a busker, playing Scottish airs interrupted occasionally by “Here comes the Bride.”

The plaza in Spain, like the piazza in Italy, is the centre of civic life. It is our loss that we have nothing like it.

Egypt’s Children

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They are there by the thousands, the children of Egypt, a country with 2/3 of its population under 30 years of age. They have been born and raised entirely in the shadow of Mubarak’s regime. Huge numbers are illiterate and poverty-stricken. What they have developed in the past few weeks is hope, hope for a future without secret police, without tyranny, without fear. Today, they waited for hours in Liberation Square, singing and dancing and chanting, believing that when Mubarak spoke it would be to resign.

When he spoke it was to stunned silence, and then boos and then renewed chanting for him to leave, leave, leave. Mubarak came to power as a war hero, although I am unsure why, as both his wars were losses to the Israelis. He had until today, the support of the army, and the old generals. Today, he gave operational power to his  friend,  a man who had save his life, perhaps whom he trusted to do his bidding, another military man. The people in the square saw another old man.

Today also, a soldier in the square put down his rifle and joined the people. The rest of the military will have to choose whom to support: the old men in the palace, who rule like kings, or their brothers and cousins and sisters in the square. For the army is young too.

Winter, 2010

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Taken with my Rebel T1i  with the kit lens 18-55 f /3.5-5.6. ISO 200. f/14, 1/400. I took it in my front yard on December 26. It was cropped and the image adjusted with iphoto 11.

Egypt

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The people have been on the streets for a full week now, facing first the police, who have since run away, and now the soldiers, who have said they will not fire on their own people. Today someone or several someones, nascent leaders perhaps, called for a general strike and millions of people in the street. The government appears to be moving towards a change but still Mubarak clings to power. It’s a half a world away; a storm of protest will be playing out in the Egyptian desert while we are waiting for the winter storm that is coming. We have a decision to make sometime soon as well, about our government, about our elections, but because we are the luckiest nation in the world, here in the frozen north, it will be peaceful, orderly lines at the polling booths, with the most violence coming from puerile attack ads on television.

When we lose our communications, it’s the weather, not a dictatorial government that seeks to keep our thoughts from each other. Tyranny always plays it the same, and always the people will find a way. Remember the underground presses of the French revolution.

From food riots in Algeria, to the fall of the government in Tunisia, to the people in the streets, not just of Egypt, but of Yemen and Jordon as well, the world is a more dangerous place this week. There may be leaders emerging who will take Egypt towards democracy and freedom and away from theocracies and despots, and with it the other countries in the region who have been held down too long.

The people are demanding that Mubarak leave by Friday. It will be a long three days.

Death Penalty

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PM’s remarks rekindle debate on the death penalty – The Globe and Mail.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontario/man-acquitted-in-baby-sons-death/article1877244/

These two stories from the Globe and Mail, the first reporting on the response to the Prime Minister’s “musings” on the death penalty, the other reporting a man who has been acquitted of the murder of his child 19 years ago, a death for which he was convicted, went to prison, having been bullied into a confession, and suffered social disgrace for all that long time, demonstrate the constant battle that must be fought against those who would return us to primitive practices. There are only a few countries in the world who actually have the death penalty, China, Saudi Arabia and the USA among them, even in the latter state after state is repealing it.
In this country we have seen over and over again the demonstration of innocence of the wrongfully accused, who would have been killed by the state had we retained the death penalty. The death penalty does not act as a deterrent; it does not decrease the rate of other violent crime. It serves no purpose but revenge.
When I think about the death penalty, I remember that this act of killing would be done in my name, that I would bear responsibility as a citizen for taking the life, that it was my hand on the trigger or plunger or pulling the switch. I won’t be a party to it, and neither will the Supreme Court, which has ruled against it.
I don’t think we should give Harper and the Conservatives a majority. I think they are constrained from carrying our their deeply fundamentalist agenda only by their minority position.

Prisons

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http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/922295–expanding-prisons-getting-it-right-on-crime

The web address of this editorial in the the Toronto Star this morning is a little misleading. I was as astounded as the editorialist to read of the conversion of Newt Gingrich to the side of those of us who are against the expansion of prisons. It would seem that the Harperites are operating about ten years behind American conservatives. The prisons are full of petty thieves and the drug addicted(many of whom are the same people) and serve as finishing schools for criminals. Amongst the things they do not do are: halt recidivism, especially with dollars going to buildings, not programs; address a soaring crime rate–the evening news notwithstanding, it is lower–; treat the mentally ill within the walls; or decrease the use of illegal drugs. As far as I understand it, the prisons are incapable of keeping drugs out of the buildings themselves.
The amount of money spent is staggering. According to the Star editorial, 68 billion dollars/year in the USA. 68 billion! A fraction of that amount would go a long way towards mental health programs, literacy programs, drug rehabilitation, housing the homeless. According to the Star, the amount of new money here over 5 years will be 5 billion. That’s new money, for new beds, not for refurbishing the old prisons that are a crumbling disgrace.

The list of the root causes of crime goes on and on, but tossing people into a revolving door system that turns out ever more hardened criminals is not, to my mind, the answer. I think that Corrections(and isn’t that a misnomer) needs to look at the hospital system, which has turned from a totally inpatient to a largely outpatient system, trying to care for people in their homes, as opposed to beds in an institution as it was when I started(40 years ago). They could begin by eliminating prison time for petty crime and soft drug offenses, turning to community-based initiatives, saving prison for those so dangerous that there is nothing to do except lock them up.