Category Archives: The Issues

Addiction, Issues, Municipal

Mayor Banman!

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Your proctologist called – he found your head.

That is the politest comment that came to mind after reading Mayor Banman’s comments on Fraser Mental Health and Substance Use’s [FMH&SU] presentation at the harm reduction forum on Tuesday January 29, 2013.

It is also reflects the obtuseness of Mayor Banman’s comments.

“If you want cooperation, you don’t start with threats,” said Banman.

FMH&SU didn’t start with threats. The statement about exploring legal options was made in response to a direct question from the audience.

The representatives from FMH&SU are bureaucrats not politicians, so while a careful choice of words, spin and gobbledegook were to be expected, outright lying remains the purview of politicians.

The panellists were from, specifically, Fraser Mental Health and Substance Use [FMH&SU] and Mayor Banman and any council members present should have been listening to what was being said, rather than being focused on listening for what it was they wanted to hear.

To those who listened, the representatives from FMH&SU conveyed an abundance of  information about the state of affairs within FMH&SU, within Fraser Health and the Ministry of Health.

That the Mayor and Council apparently didn’t hear the useful information being conveyed is not surprising in light of their well demonstrated selective hearing and that, when it comes to the City’s most vulnerable and marginalized citizens, City Council has shown it does not want to hear it, has no interest in the reality of poverty and homelessness in Abbotsford and has no interest in understanding or addressing the issues in an effective manner.

City Council has excelled at using buzzwords and the Social Advisory Committee to sound politically correct…… while accomplishing nothing.

Well, nothing of any positive value. They have managed to let poverty, affordable housing, homelessness and other social issues fester and worsen.

While the colour of the current notices posted by the City remains bright orange, the date reflects the passage of a decade or more while the wording is more politically correct.

The individual is unchanged from a decade ago and remains just as ‘hard to house’. City council’s choices and actions have ensured that, despite the passage of a decade or more, Abbotsford still lacks any accommodations capable of housing ‘hard to house’ individuals. Which continues to leave, as it has for the past decade, those who are ‘hard to house’ no option but to seek out a new location at which to establish their camp, their housing, their home..

Over the decade the zeal with which the City pursues the homeless, the pointless, wasteful chase, has increased to a level of unrelenting harassment that inflicts physical and mental damage on these marginalized citizens, injury that puts the lives of the ‘hard to house’ at risk at levels and in ways they were not at risk a decade ago.

“If you want cooperation, you don’t start with threats,” said Banman.

But extortion by Abbotsford’s politicians is acceptable Mayor Banman? Holding hostage the lives and health of the vulnerable and marginalized citizens harm reduction is   designed to help, in order to get what Mayor Banman and the City want from FMH&SU, is acceptable Mayor Banman?

“They’ve actually made matters worse. The council was expecting some better solution from Fraser Health than what we heard.”

If Mayor Banman had bothered to listen he would have know FMH&SU has neither the funds nor the resources to pay the ransom Mayor Banman demands since, unlike Mayor Banman and Abbotsford City Council, FMH&SU cannot simply reach into taxpayers pockets taking dollars as they want.

Mayor Banman words draw attention to his attempt to use the health and lives of vulnerable and marginalized citizens to extort what he wants from FMH&SU. In hounding the homeless across the City, while impeding any other option for these individuals but homelessness, Mayor Banman and council have increased the risk of mental and physical health injuries – and death.

I would suggest that before Mayor Banman point fingers and question FMH&SU’s behaviour; he and council might want to bring their own behaviour up to at least a minimal ethical standard.

Federal, Finances, Provincial, The Economy

UP 16% ??? That’s……

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I considered myself lucky when I filled up for $111.9 a litre at the Safeway station on Lougheed Hwy in Mission on Tuesday, rather than the $119.9 a litre everywhere else in Mission and  Abbotsford.

Really lucky upon suffering the shock of seeing gas in Abbotsford jump to $129.9 a litre. overnight.

$9.90 saved by deciding to check the cost of gas in Mission because I was there.

18 cents a litre, $9.90 a tank !!

Monsoon float a refinery away? Tornado relocate a refinery to Kansas? Terrorists blow up an oil field? Pipeline? Refinery? Tanker? Pipeline leak millions of litres of oil into a pristine watershed?

No, No, No, No, No, No and No.

Oh wait, it is winter and there have been some unusually chilly days around. Price went up because of all the extra oil needed for heating………although, wouldn’t that mean the price should go down because of all the unseasonably warm days such as those that had Torontonians at the beach in shorts in January?

The price of oil, no doubt to the chagrin of those blackguards at Big Oil, has been languishing under $100. At one point struggling to avoid slipping below $90 a barrel and when the cost of a barrel began to leap upwards looking like it was going to gush over the $100 a barrel mark……..the ‘gusher’ petered out several dollars shy of the $100 mark.

What could cause this precipitous price jump?

Well, thanks to our Big Business profit protecting, consumer forsaking, Conservative federal government Big Businesses – wireless, banks, cable, gas, internet, et al – feel free to bleed Canadians for every last cent they can. Secure in the knowledge their political donation dollars ensure the Conservative government in Ottawa will protect them from competition and, claiming “it’s capitalism” [doesn’t capitalism favour competition and open markets?] ignore unreasonable, unjustified pricing and price increases.

Shaw sells Rogers, the dominant company in wireless, the advanced wireless spectrum Shaw had purchased in 2008 to enter the wireless market. The spectrum covers areas of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and northern Ontario.

Meanwhile Rogers announced  it will seek regulatory approval for the transfer of wireless licences after September 2014 to respect Ottawa’s probation on the sale of new entrant licences to incumbents.

Respect? No. Scorn? Yes. Arrogance? Yes? Contempt? Yes. An iota of Respect? No.

If the Conservative government acted with, or had, a crumb of the concern it lavishes on Big Business on behalf of ordinary Canadians……Shaw’s spectrum would be going to enhance and encourage competition in the wireless market instead of being snuck into the back pocket of one of those proscribed from purchasing it originally – an incumbent wireless provider.

And if the Conservative government in Ottawa had any concern for the ordinary Canadians who make up the majority of the Canadian population and who are the citizens who bear an inequitable proportion of the ever increasing cost (financial and declining standard of living) for politicians mismanagement of Canada’s resources there would be no talk of a Rogers/Shaw merger.

But then If any concern for the ordinary Canadians existed, Shaw would not have been allowed to monopolize ownership of media in Canada by purchasing Global. The existence of any concern for the ordinary Canadians would mean wrongs of that magnitude to, and the negative consequences for, the Canadian consumer/taxpayer would NOT be allowed.

Any government concerned with the welfare and standard of living of ALL Canadians, rather than wholly the welfare of Big Business, the privileged and favoured few, would not be permitting so many sectors to become oligopolies or duopolies that not only function in monopolistic fashion – but give disturbing evidence of becoming monopolies, or effective monopolies.

Evidence foreshadowing Canada’s continued evolution (devolution?) into more and more of an economy of corporate socialism; an evolution encouraged, aided and abided by the Conservative government in particular, and by the entrenched behaviours of the traditional political parties and by ‘politics as usual’.

The victims of surging gas prices, wireless prices twice the cost of elsewhere in the world, restricted competition, creeping corporate socialism, and the promotion, embedding of GREED as THE Canadian Ethos these victims are ordinary Canadians..

Canadians who can continue to say baaaaa to politicians, big business, the wealthy and the privileged…………

…………OR can tell politicians they are tired of politicians arrogant abuse of privileges and of being forced to fund the poloticians unmerited golden retirements; we can say enough to corporate executives ridiculous, UNEARNED salaries and bonuses; say no to corporate oligarchies, monopolistic, actions to circumvent laws and regulations.

We can demand opening markets to competition; we can tell the wealthy that their wealth is based on the hard work of Canadians and it is time they contributed their fair share; and when they inevitably threaten to sulk and take their money elsewhere, we can tell that is their right as Canadians.

Canada is a great place to live and do business, if the wealthy want to leave there are innumerable entrepreneurs around the world who would seize the opportunity to become Canadian, do business in Canada and contribute to the well being of Canada and Canadians.

It is time for Canadians to stand up and tell the existing political parties and politicians GOODBYE, you have had your opportunity and you all have demonstrated a level of incompetence and self-interest that threatens the liveability of Canada and promises a continued decline in the standard of living for Canadians who are not among the few that benefit from our current political parties and Politics and Business ‘as usual’.

 

Tell the Conservative government, Stephen Harper and his cronies (all his cronies, not just Conservative politicians) that:

  1. ignoring the needs of Canadians favour Big Business and others with wealth who enrich the Conservative Party coffers and bank accounts
  2. facilitating the downward mobility of substantial numbers of Canadians;
  3. not simply permitting but enabling wage levels to fall to levels below that at which a wage earner can live – frugally – on;
  4. enabling, through legislation, Big Business to reduce wage levels not simply below the level of poverty, but below the level of survivability:
  5. enabling, promoting changes that reduce Canadian wages to ‘slave’ wage levels that deny Canadians the ability not just to thrive, but to survive;
  6.  that campaigning for office using fear to obscure the issues;
  7.  The gross misrepresentation of the Conservatives ability to manage Canada’s economy, society and future and not (as they have and continue to do) undermine the future of Canadians, their standard of living, and what it is to be Canadian by creating the economic conditions of a growing sink hole that threatens to plunge Canadians into a deep black pit – by ignoring or wilful denial of the increasing prevalence and power of the trickle up economy is:

 

Canadians cannot afford politics or behaviour ‘as usual’ if they want to stop the downward spiral so many Canadians, a number that continues to grow, are trapped in.

The fathers of the American Revolution – Franklin, Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, Hamilton, Paine, Burr……felt that the preservation of democracy and government for the benefit of all citizens, not just the privileged few and the special interests, required a revolution every few generations. Not necessarily violent revolution, but revolution at the ballot box by throwing out all the current crop of politicians (all, not just those in power) and replacing them with fresh individuals free of any ties to special interests or others benefitting from government largesse.

The health and wealth of a country and its citizens needs eyes and minds that are not mired in Newspeak, AcceptableThink, CorrectThink, PoliticalThink, BusinessThink or bound up with special interests.

Re-invigorating Canada, governmens in Canada, the standard of living and the future of Canadians requires effort by Canadian voters to seek out members of their communities who are engaged in issues at a municipal, provincial and federal level; whose ideas, thoughts and positions on issues exist in the public domain – accessible for examination and consideration; and have established community involvement, ability, ethics and being trustworthy.

Canadians stand at a spot where they can continue their wilful denial of the issues and realities facing Canada and Canadians, opting to continue to wear their rose coloured glasses and to take the easy – and ill-fated – way out by voting for one of the ‘politics, business as usual’ traditional parties.

OR, Canadians who feel that Canada needs new priorities, needs to remember what it is to BE Canadian (not wana-be Americans) and needs to strike out in a new direction……..

……… those Canadians  need to forsake “there is nobody to vote for” and “I am forced to hold my nose and vote for the least bad choice” (you are still voting for a bad choice) and adopt “the choices I am offered are not only unpalatable, but totally unacceptable and I WILL DO whatever is required, to find someone who cares for all the community (not just the special interests etc), is engaged with the issues, has demonstrated integrity and is willing to lose the next election rather than telling him/herself that it is more important that they get re-elected, rather than behave with integrity and risk defeat, because the good of the voters is best served by doing whatever it takes for them to get re-elected.

As much as politicians, media and special interests have worked to impair, confuse and defeat the public’s ability to think about the issues and discern truth among the gobbledegook, political speak and doublespeak – politicians, media and special interests have not so far managed to make it illegal for Canadians to Think. Nor, as much as politicians, media and special interests may want to have, have they been able to take away the right to seek out and vote for whoever voters trust to represent their interests and the interests of community, province and country as a whole. At least not yet.

We do not have to take the path of least resistance, we have the ability, the right, to say enough is enough, leave the ‘business as usual path’ and boldly strike off blazing a path to Our goals; not the goals of politicians, corporations, special interests…….

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”   Ralph Waldo Emerson

All that is required is the Will……

“Again and again, the impossible problem is solved when we see that the problem is only a tough decision waiting to be made.”

To assert our Will and send politicians, media and special interests packing……

“Revolution manifests when those defined as the problem, achieve the power and influence to redefine the problem.”  Tao of James

It is time to tell Politicians, Big Business, The Wealthy, The Privileged, Special Interests et al they have been……..

Caveat emptor, Hmmm, Issues

A Fallacy of Words

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While the public is subjected to counterfactual statements like the recent letters about needing to “Put Christ back in….” our schools etc throughout the year – it is at this time of year, the Christmas season, that delusive statements about the need to “Put Christ back in…….” abound.

The cry “Put Christ back in Christmas” seems to have an alliterative lure that those who believe that words are what manifest Christ in the world find irresistible.

You can strive to keep the words out, but you cannot keep Christ out of anywhere that a practicing Christian is because they act as a conduit for Christ’s love.

What this prattling on about “putting Christ back…….” clearly demarks is the distinctness between Christians who self label as Christians by virtue of membership in a Christian religion or church or as is often the case membership in both a religion and a church, and practicing Christians who often don’t call themselves Christians, holding that to be a judgment that only Christ can, or has the right to, make.

A demarcation rooted in the difference between words as the central tenant of being Christian versus your actions and behaviours as the central tenant of being Christian.

The fallacy of using words as the central tenet, is the fact that words encompass a degree of variation in meaning that denies any certainty in conveying exactitude in any message the words may have been meant to convey.

Consider the ubiquitous Thesaurus, a reference work whose sole purpose is to provide alternate choices for a word. For some words there maybe only 5 – 6 words as alternatives; while for other words there are 100+ alternatives.

In these days of rising illiteracy, functional illiteracy, cant, jargon, vulgarism, acronyms etc we are losing, may have lost, an appreciation for and the ability to use the subtle nuances and shadings in meanings among the words we choose to use to convey more accurately and with more certainty the ideas and meanings we seek to express.

Consider even the ‘simple’ Dictionary:

A book, optical disc, mobile device or online lexical resource (eg dictionary.com) containing a selection of the words of a language* giving information about their meanings, pronunciation, etymologies, inflected forms, derived forms, etc, expressed in either the same or another language, lexicon, glossary. Print dictionaries of of varying sizes, ranging from small pocket dictionaries to multi volume books, usually sort entries alphabetically, as do typical CD or DVD dictionary applications, allowing one to browse through the terms in sequence. All electronic dictionaries, whether online or installed on a device, can provide immediate, direct access to a search term, its meanings, and ancillary information: a Japanese – English dictionary.

*Language: 1) a body of words and the system for their use common to a people who are of the same community or nation, the same geographical area or the same cultural tradition i.e. the two languages of Belgium, the French language; the Yiddish language. 2) communication by voice in the distinctively human manner using arbitrary sounds in conventional ways with conversational meanings. 3) the system of linguistic signs or symbols considered in the abstract (opposed to speech). 4) any set or system of such symbols as used in a more or less uniform fashion by a number of people who are thus enabled to communicate intelligibly with one another. 5) any system of formalized symbols, signs, sounds, gestures or the like used or conceived as a means of communicating thought, emotion etc. i.e. the language of mathematics, sign language.

Thus attempts to use the bible as a cookbook (take Sunday mass, add tithing, judgment and condemnation of fellow human beings because of your moral superiority, support for inquisitions, crusades, witch/heretic burnings, etc etc etc…..) to arrive at the ‘formula’ or ‘ingredients’ that mixed together make a Christian are doomed to fail.

This fallacy of words making the bible a ‘cookbook’ is compounded by the nature of languages and translation between languages.

The meanings of words in one language have subtle (or glaring) different nuances than do the corresponding (or what are considered corresponding) words in another language. The English word love does not carry the exact meaning of the French amour (noun) or aimer (verb). Indeed as you can see in going from the English love to the French language you use different words depending on whether you are referring to the noun or the verb.

A translation from one language to another should not give rise to a single word but a word plus the necessary qualifiers to convey the nuanced meaning of the word in its original language.

Compounding the difficulty of attempting to convey the meaning of a word in one language through translation into another language is the impact the biases of the translator have and the effect the knowledge and skill of the translator has.

The biases, knowledge and understanding of the reader of the reader of the translation also have an impact, a significant impact, on the interpretation of the meaning or message of words.

“You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

 Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott [attribution: “my priest friend Tom”]

One must also recognize the effect that a lack of concepts can have not just on translation but on the form of the expression of the idea takes in the original language.

Take the Christian creation myth of the Universe being created in six days. The ideology of Creationism is based upon the words the Christian creation myth as set out in the bible being meant literally.

Yet, call to mind how little was known about our world and what was not known or understood about our planet, other planets, solar systems, galaxies, the Universe, physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology, etc at that point in time that the Christian creation myth came into existence.

How would you explain the big bang to someone who had no concept of nothing?

In the beginning less than nothing existed, then a tiny spark appeared, causing an immense explosion, as the energy of the explosion cooled it gave birth to the elements the first generation of stars were formed from, the death of this first generation in novas and supernovas gave birth to the heavier elements contained in our generation of stars, planets……and by the way the elements human beings are made of – humans are made of star stuff. And the Universe is still expanding outwards from the initial explosion that was 15 billion years ago; and using a telescope you can look out into space and look back into that distant past.

How would you explain the big bang to someone who did not know the world rotates around the sun, some of the lights in the night skies are other planets in our solar system (what a solar system was), that the majority of lights in the night skies were stars whose light takes tens, hundreds, thousands, millions, billions of years to get to earth (by the way what is hundred, thousand, million, billion?)…….

You could not.

How many truly understand the big bang today? How many are comfortable with the idea of the big bang to have a degree of understanding? How many are overwhelmed with the ideas inherent in the big bang and seek simpler, more human/earth sized in scope explanations to cling to as an explanation of the origin of the Universe. How many find that comfort in the Christian (or another) creation myth?

Finally you have the fact that the Christian gospels were clearly written as theological documents in the context of early Christianity rather than historical chronicles and their authors showed little interest in an absolute chronology of Jesus or in synchronizing the episodes of his life with the secular history of the age.

 

So, if attempting to use the bible as a ‘cookbook’ forces the assumption words can convey an exact meaning mires Christian churches and religions in the fallacy of words, and that the fallacy of words is not hard to see – for those who are not to blind to see – why are churches and religions that mire themselves in this fallacy of words so popular?

Because being a ‘cookbook Christian’ is easy.

Gilbert K. Chesterton was correct in his observation that “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”

Practicing Christians view the bible as a guide for a spiritual journey; a journey you start on by living your life, of behaving, by striving – through your actions – to become the Christ. And while this view may well be relatively easy to come to, walking the path, striving to become the Christ is a daily struggle requiring a focus on asking oneself how would Christ act in this situation? How do the words and behaviours of Christ tell me to act?

Christ’s words “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” are, for human beings, incredibly hard to take into your heat to live by.

To put living by Christ’s words, commands, behaviours and actions into perspective consider Oren Arnold’s Christmas gift suggestions: “To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect.”

Were you among those who were of the opinion that the police should have captured the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter  so he could have been ‘properly tortured’ for his actions? Can (do) you forgive him? Do you want to bring back the death penalty, even though experience and recent history have clearly shown that doing so would result in the execution of innocent persons? Does “you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette” justify taking innocent lives so you can reap vengeance on the guilty (or those you judge to be guilty)?

Practicing Christianity by striving to live your life by acting in accordance to the words, teachings, behaviours of Christ is not only hard it is very uncomfortable, often requiring you to take positions (against the death penalty) that are rather unpopular and that require you to stand against the herd.

The book “Religion for Atheists” suggests that atheists, as part of understanding the overpowering lure and hold churches and religions have for the so many, need to recognize that Christian religions and churches are, or have become, about satisfying human social needs. That churches and religions have become social clubs where you get together with people who share your mindset, pat each other on the back about how wonderful you are, holding forth about being saved by virtue of your membership in a church or religion, confabulation about your morally superior to those who don’t agree with you.

Although ……applied to Christian churches and religions, the psychiatric meaning of confabulation [“the replacement of a gap in a person’s memory by a falsification that he or she believes to be true”] contains a full measure of truth.

Being a member of a Christian church and/or religion holds several advantages over being a member of a Service Organizations [Kiwanis, etc]. Membership in a service organization is not limited to only those who agree with you and as a result what you choose to believe can face challenge. Service organizations work to improve the community, without making judgments as to worthiness. While service organizations serve to fill human social needs the are about service to the community and in serving the community these organizations perform a great deal of hard work.

Christianity is not about popularity, it is not about getting together with people of the same mindset and who agree with your thinking.

If we are all in agreement on the decision – then I propose we postpone further discussion of this matter until our next meeting to give ourselves time to develop disagreement and perhaps gain some understanding of what the decision is all about.
Alfred P. Sloan

More than anything Christianity is not about being easy.

One of the ironies of the past year was the WWCD pencil invasion. For several weeks many of those belonging to our local Christian churches and religions were running around with pencils marked WWJD, treating them more in keeping with a shared in joke or handing them out to persons they judged in need of saving.

These individuals, churches, religions were focused on the words, not the actions and decision making process living your life within the bounds of what Christ would do demand.

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often. Mark Twain

In the North of Abbotsford has arisen a fancy new Tower of Babel, the occupiers of which have cut their support to the food bank. My understanding of the reason they turned their back on the growing number of hungry in Abbotsford is that the hungry in Abbotsford are not Christian enough or the Food Bank is not Christian enough or some combination thereof.

What does the Christianity of either the Food Bank or those in need of food from the Food Bank have to do with anything?

Given the growing tide of hunger in our community is not the question that should be asked whether there is hunger?

Turning away from the hungry because they (or the Food Bank) are not Christian ‘enough’ screams “We are not Christians – no matter what we label ourselves.”

No person or group of persons who live the teachings, behaviours and actions of Christ could, much less would, chose to turn their backs on, deny love and help to, the growing numbers who suffer hunger in Abbotsford. Anyone who would, or does, turn their back on the hungry  makes a clear statement that whatever they may claim to the contrary, they are not Christian.

“However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?”  Buddha

Before the Christian churches and religions in Abbotsford, the province of BC and Canada waste time worrying about “putting Christ back” in Christmas or schools etc, they need to focus on” putting Christ back” in their churches, religions and themselves.