Homeless, Issues, Municipal

Homeless Left Wondering

Leave a comment

Considering that City Council’s answer to the questions “If not Now, When? If not Here, Where?” posed to Council at the public hearing on the ACS 20 bed Housing First proposal was, stripped to its bare bones, “Never, unless forced! Then – ADBA! [Any District But Abbotsford] it is no surprise the homeless find themselves wondering:

 

Having 1) ensured there is nowhere for the homeless to go, other than somewhere else on the streets of Abbotsford; 2) ensured their prey cannot escape them by transitioning off the streets using the proven housing first approach; 3) confirmed their willingness to act with total irrationality with respect to the homeless and the issue of homelessness……..

……..how long can it be before City Council returns to chasing the homeless around Abbotsford, ignoring the fact that more than a decade of experience demonstrates that this approach accomplishes nothing other than allowing the problem to worsen…….

……. and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around…….

…….Abbotsford. Ad nauseam.

Pool betting is that the City will welcome the return of the Wild Hunt before March 1, 2014.

Pool betting also favours the gentleman who relocated his camp in order to secure first in line status in case Council decided to pursue services and housing based on best practices that have been demonstrated to be effective and financially prudent being the first victim of a renewed Hunt.

Hmm? You don’t suppose that those squandering spendthrifts who voted NO did so because they were unable to vote for a course of action that was ‘financially prudent’?

Be that as it may, pool betting is that this individual is at the top of council’s new hit list since the location of his camp is a pointed reminder of yet another ‘Folly’ by Abbotsford civic misgovernment.

Are the homeless correct? Is the course indicated by the betting in the Pool correct? Will Abbotsford’s Mayor and City Council add to Abbotsford national and international reputation for pointless, reprobate, simpleminded behaviour by resuming the City’s Crusade against the homeless?

 

 

 

Of course the question may well become moot, should Pivot seek and secure an injunction against the City starting a new Crusade against the homeless until the court rules on the question as to whether the 2009 ruling by the BC Court of Appeals, that the homeless have a right to camp in a City’s parks if the City is not  making sufficient effort to provide affordable housing the homeless can access, applies to the current state of affairs – vis-à-vis the homeless – in Abbotsford.

Given City Council’s demonstration at the February 17, 2014 council meeting that, not only is the City not acting to provide affordable, accessible housing but, the city is actively preventing such housing from being built…….

…….none should be surprised if the court issues an injunction preventing the city putting the health and lives of the homeless at risk by chasing them around Abbotsford. Nor should anyone be surprised if the court, in light of council’s behaviour, upholds the right of the homeless to camp in any of Abbotsford’s parks and not be harassed by the City or its APD.

So that, while there may be no homeless housed in their Backyards, there may well be homeless housed in camps in City Parks.

A situation that potentially will motivate mayor and council to abandon their irrational behaviour.

Media, Politics, The Economy

Border Services Death – Part Two

Leave a comment

What if, as discussed in Part One, the broadcast Media does not want to re-label as “Pseudo News” or attach a content warning label to what is currently labelled ‘News’; changes needed to provide warning to those watching the broadcast that the material being broadcast does not meet even the most minimal of standards required to inform, reveal or contribute to the understanding of issues?

Then there should be consequences for misleading the public as to the nature of the material being broadcast.

Take, for example, Global Vancouver’s support of those calling for an inquiry into the in custody death of a woman being held for deportation by Canadian Border Services.

The report aired on Global Vancouver suggested [certainly appeared to suggest] that Canadian Border Services is covering something up because they have made only limited information on what happened available.

Canadian Border Services has stated that they will be releasing more details as soon as the Coroner completes his investigation and that – as is usual with matters under investigation – Border Services cannot comment until the Coroner is finished investigating.

I think it would be very beneficial to any decision on what course of action to follow, to know if the Coroner rules the death suicide.

I am not suggesting that the death be ignored should the woman have died as a result of attempting, ultimately succeeding, suicide. We need to understand what happened and what, if anything, we can REASONABLY do to prevent such a death from happening in the future.

We seemed to have gone inquiry mad as a society, demanding an Inquiry for anything that upsets someone or where someone [or somones] don’t like the answer[s] they are given.

Let us remember that inquiries are not free, that there is no such budget item as ‘Inquiry’, which means the cost of inquiries comes from an item included in the provincial budget – such as healthcare. The more inquiries you have, the less healthcare the government can purchase for citizens.

If a group of people want an inquiry, let them pay for it; if the actions of the media force and inquiry, let those in media whose actions forced/led to the inquiry pay for it. Should something important, something that would have been found only through an inquiry, be found whoever paid for the inquiry can be reimbursed.

Should the inquiry find nothing that would not have been found, or nothing  significant and important, then the group of people or the media bear the cost – not the taxpayers.

If media chooses to act irresponsibly by calling reports broadcast ‘News’ when those reports fail to meet even minimal standards required to inform, reveal or contribute to the understanding of issues, when in fact the reports broadcast misinform, obscure or prevent the understanding of issues, there must be consequences. The same way the Supreme Court has said there are consequences of standing up and shouting “FIRE!’” in a crowded theater when there is no fire.

‘News’ has become a profit center for the corporate media conglomerates.

Given the focus on profits, the demonstrated lack of ability to manage operations efficiently, effectively and for the long term health and viability of the business, the abandonment of being good corporate citizens, the lack of understanding of the reality and complexity of the economy and the effect the financial health of the entire society has on the viability of a corporation in a timeframe of 1+ years [a state of affairs that applies to politicians, experts and pundits as well as corporate executives]………

……corporations increase profits by cutting costs. Worse, in market conditions such as exist today, with no easy, almost automatic increases in revenue, a market where there is a need to add value in order to increase revenue, corporations and their current inadequate for the task executives the corporations simply cut more costs.

The broadcast hours filled with content created by the station [or network] are the hours where corporate media conglomerates can maximize their profit, making the ‘News’ department a major contributor to the bottom line.

A change in mission, from informing to maximizing profit, that has had a profound effect on the ability to inform, reveal and contribute to understanding as well as the quality of the material generated by ‘News’ departments, as Media conglomerates fill the hours where the station creates the content as cheaply as possible.

Corporations and their executives have a right to choose to race for the bottom and ignore the long term viability of the corporation if that behavior is acceptable to stockholders.

They do not have the right to mislead the public, to fail to inform the public that ‘News’ is no longer what it once was and that the public needs to search out information from multiple sources in order to be able to make informed decisions about how the government manages the health and viability of the economy; about the costs, outcomes and consequences of decisions on social, societal issues.

As stated, where media will not re-label programming, or attach viewer advisors, where the change in standards and practices will mislead the public as to the public’s ability to make informed decisions and choices based on the programming provided by the Media – financial penalties [incentives] must be used to provide incentive for media to either invest the money to provide ‘News’ that meets at least the minimum standards require for reporting to qualify as ‘News’ OR for media to label or use viewer advisories to ensure people understand the purpose [maximize profit] of the broadcasting they are viewing.

Broadcast media today has demonstrated that as a corporation their profit drive is the same as the corporations that dump toxic waste down storm drains or into creeks to reduce the costs of disposal and maximize profit.

In the same manner that it is necessary to impose punitive fines to encourage those who need to dispose of toxic waste to dispose of it in a manner that does not penalize society, financial incentives need to be imposed on  media to encourage media to be responsible, providing either accurate labeling, viewer advisories or programming that meets the standards set out for ‘News’ for programming media labels as ‘News’.

Next: Part 3 – The Conclusion

I’m not going to listen; don’t want to hear it.

The James Commentary

The James Commentary February 10, 2014

Leave a comment

Smoother Pour? I call Bullshit!

Have you seen the ads for the ‘new’ vented beer cans, the ads that tout the vented cans as having a smoother pour?

That the addition of the vent is to give a smoother pour is BS, an evasion because the broadcast media would not be able to carry advertising based on the true purpose of the vent.

Smoothness is a side effect and acceptable as the excuse to advertise the speed……ahem, smoothness…..with which the can empties of beer.

You want a smooth pour you just adjust the angle of the pour to allow air to enter the can as the beer exits the can. Of course this course of action adds to the time it takes to empty the can of beer.

Time is not a major consideration, if it is a consideration at all, in pouring beer from a can into a glass.

But time is a major consideration, a major factor to consider, when pouring a can [or cans] of beer down your throat in a Chug.

With the vent, it is no longer necessary to interrupt the flow of beer out of the can, to permit the entry of air into the can. The vent allows you to smoothly, quickly pour a can of beer down your gullet, without any need for the beer to touch lips, mouth or throat before hitting the stomach.

The need to resort to venting the can in order to promote, testifies to a creative bankruptcy.

Resorting to venting the beer can in order to increase sales and profit is cynical and corporate irresponsible behaviour.

Unfortunately it is likely to increase sales, as well as increase irresponsible drinking, unless…..

…..people drive home that this kind of irresponsible corporate behaviour is not acceptable by not buying any brand of beer that uses a vented can and notifying the brewer that you are not drinking their beer because of their irresponsible behaviour in encouraging irresponsible drinking, simply to fatten the already obscene  paycheques of corporate executives.