"Us" and "them"

Why are gay issues always framed as religious issues?  

What about the non-believer who does not favour gay marriage or people marching naked in public, because rightly or wrongly, he believes it against nature or for social reasons?  

Our courts and human rights tribunals operate on a winner take all basis, a "us" against "them" mentality. The result exacerbates differences of opinion and fosters the no-compromise mentality so favoured by the media. 

Diversity works both ways. What needed is clearer legislation and tribunals better trained to resolve such issues to provide accommodation for all honestly held points of view.

International petulance

Prime Minster Harper insists on parading his embarrassing incompetence on the world stage.  

Some months ago, his petulance lost him an opportunity to speak on Ukrainian human rights with Russian President Vladimir Putin.  At the recent Americas Summit, while President Obama discussed an alliance with Raul Castro, Harper refused to speak to the Cuban President. 

With such adolescent behaviour the PM forfeited face-to-face opportunities to advocate the human rights he claims to espouse. To whom does he speak of human rights, if not the offenders?  

Harper has made a career nullifying Canada's international stature. He has lowered our status as renown peacemaker.

Bureaucracy Rampant

Letter to the Toronto Star. Unpublished.

Re Riding without a bell takes toll, April 9:

A cyclist without a bell is fined and loses demerit points on her driver's licence. There is no logical connection between riding a bicycle and a licence to drive a car. Imagine two cyclists, neither with a bell, are both fined. The latter happens to have a driver's licence is doubly punished with demerit points. 

What's next? Demerit points for late payment of taxes? Demerit points for not shovelling the snow in front of our homes?  Surely someone in the bureaucracy can see the nonsense in relating two distinct situations? 

Oil and the Western World

Letter published in the Toronto Star, April 4, 2014

Re PM, NDP clash over legality of bombing March 26:

Winston Churchill advices against legal entanglements. Whether something if lawful or not is of no consequence to the victim. The question becomes: Is it right and just to bomb someone who poses scant, is any, danger?

The existence if ISIS is yet another eruption of discontent that has characterized that region of the world for more than 1,500 years. Let's be honest. If it weren't for oil, the West would ignore the Middle East.

Why are we killing?

A letter published in The National Post March 28, 2015:

Re: A Mission Worth Extending, editorial, March 25.

Your editorial presents reasons why the mission in Iraq should not be extended. It points out that during the past six months, the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham has become even more barbaric. 

In other words, the bombing has done little good. Yet you endorse Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s solution to throw more gasoline on the fire. Despite increased barbarism, you deem the “mission can be judged a success.” You state unless we continue bombing, the bad situation would “spread over much of the Middle East.” Canada’s job is not to defend Israel or any other country in the region. 

You state “the threat is real.” Not to Canada. You state “the international community had to act.” What good did it do in Afghanistan? 

Western nations should stop meddling in Arab wars. It matters little whether the world buys oil from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries or ISIS.

The Hell of War

Two pieces of related information.

I once knew an elderly woman who, during the Second World War, lived in a small German village. She told me that the locals could distinguish a German aircraft from one of the Allied air forces. They could also tell from the drone of the engines if it carried bombs.

As sometimes happened, Allied planes missed their targets and headed back to England with a full bomb load. As an aircraft would never attempt a landing with bombs aboard, the practice was to dump them in the Channel.

She told me that on one occasion they heard approaching their village a plane returning from a mission over Berlin or Frankfurt, but still carrying bombs. It flew over her village. No harm done. Over the next non-strategic village, it dropped its bombs killing some of the inhabitants.

                                                                 *   *   *

In the 1950's, my summer job was with the Air Regulations branch of the Canadian Department of Transport.  I assisted the inspectors, all of whom were veteran pilots.I learned that one of them did not drop the bombs of an aborted mission in the channel. He ordered, "As long as they land somewhere on German soil."

Modern Mediocrity

"The brand new mediocrity is more cherished than the shop worn perfection." So wrote Baltasar Gracian in his 1653 A Truthtelling Manual and the Art of Worldly Wisdom.

The Spanish Jesuit anticipated the noise that today passes as popular music, while the perfection of classical music gets pushed aside. Money interests have dumbed down any pretensions to quality still lingering in the modern soul.

An antithetical observation appears in The Austrian Achievement 1700-1800 where  Ernst Wangermann wrote: "It was for the growing number of these amateur performers, with their great thirst for emotional stimulation, that C.P.E. Bach, Haydn and Mozart wrote some of their most inspired music.  For the challenge to discover the accents of the soul . . . was the one that appealed most strongly to their own personalities and to their artistic aspirations."

Would anyone dare to so describe the concoctors of today's musical offerings?

How to Produce Home-Grown Radicals

There is much in the news lately about Canadians fleeing their native land to work and fight for the Islamic State. This reportage is rive with speculation why these young people would place themselves in harm's way.

Experts in such matters have probed deeply into this behaviour and emerged with equally deep and speculative reasons. They do not see the most salient motivations staring them in the face.

One need not be unduly sensitive or idealistic to become disaffected with a society that condones corporate greed, that is laced with pornography, that promotes people parading naked down our streets, along with worker exploitation and government insensitivity. That is what many young people witness in our secular world.

Add to this mix personal grievances --  no job, uninspiring education, aversion to war, poor counselling etc. and we have produced radicals willing to fight to destroy such a society, or build a society more in keeping with their beliefs.

All quite understandable. No experts needed.

Police Paid Leave Beyond Reason

Letter to the Toronto Star published Feb. 23, 2015

Re Peel Regional police officer convicted in car insurance scam, Feb 14:

It is beyond reason that a recently convicted police officer has been on paid leave since his arrest in the spring of 2011. That’s four years of salary at taxpayer expense.

I trust his conviction ends this nonsense, or will it continue during a protracted appeal process? There is something wrong with a legal system that permits such mischief.

One solution is to place in trust the salary of an arrested officer. If found not-guilty, he receives back pay plus interest. If convicted, the funds are returned to the taxpayer.

In the interim, the police union should cover his basic needs, or he be allowed to find alternative employment.

Charlie Hebdo and Free Speech

Letter to Toronto Star, January 28, 2015. Unpublished.

The initial reaction to the January 7 events at Charlie Hebdo has faded. We may now quietly examine the situation.

This weekly of juvenile effusions itself indulges in censorship. In 2008, the magazine published cartoons challenged as anti-Semitic. Because of the outcry, cartoonist Maurice Sinet  was asked to issue an apology. He refused and was fired.  So much for Charlie Hebdo being "on the front lines of the free-speech fight," as the Toronto Star describes this purportedly satirical publication.

We currently have a visitor trying to raise funds for the cash-strapped magazine (Canadians urged to fight against fundamentalism, Jan 27). She frames her effort as a battle against Islam which "must submit to secularism." Is it Cartesian reasoning to equate a radical element with an entire religion?

Dialogue and accommodation promote understanding, not confrontation. That's something Charlie Hebdo and its fund-raiser apparently do not understand. It is to be hoped that our visitor return to France wiser but empty handed.

Supreme Court Okays Death on Demand

On February 7, 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada jolted downwards the quality of health care in Canada. It approved death on demand. Doctors capable of aborting healthy babies would not hesitate to sign death warrants for the terminally ill, the chronically ill, the mentally ill and the disabled.

Then we have the intervention of human rights commissions and their authority to override Supreme Court decisions and parliamentary restrictions. Spurts in the floodgates are already evident in some European countries where there is currently a demand for lethal injection from a clinically depressed teenager and a healthy prisoner serving a life sentence.

Would denial violate constitutional and charter rights to equality before the law?  Restrictions were once in place against abortion on demand. Remember what our Supreme Court did in that case and what Parliament failed to do. Members of the highest court in the land are out of touch with reality (not for the first time) if they believe restrictions can work.

Too White to Woo

Letter published in the Toronto Star, January 13, 2015 

To claim that the House of Commons is too white, old and male smacks of racism, ageism and sexism.(Parliament too white, old and male, study says, Jan 3). Parliamentarians are elected for the sole purpose of representing our political views as ultimately expressed in the laws they enact. 

I do not care if my federal, provincial and municipal representatives are freckled, polka-dot Luggnaggians, so long we envision our Canada, our province, our city more or less in the same way. If they fail in that, I do my best to see them replaced by someone who does.

Let us never forget the ringing words of Martin Luther King Jr. who dreamed that one day his children would "not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character." 

Political Correctness Rampant

Letter to the Toronto Star published January 13, 2015.

To claim that the House of Commons is too white, old and male smacks of racism, ageism and sexism (Parliament too while, old and male, study says, Jan 3). Parliamentarians are elected for the sole purpose to of representing our political views as ultimately expressed in the laws they enact.

I do not care if my federal, provincial or municipal representatives are freckled, polka-dot Luggnaggians, so long as we envision our Canada, our province and our city more or less in the same way. If they fail in that, I do my best to see them replaced by someone who does.

We must never forget the ringing words of Martin Luther King Jr. who dreamed that one day his children would "not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character."

Parting Words

"It is obvious to the whole world that a service is better than an injury, that gentleness is preferable to anger.  It only remains, therefore, to use our reason to discern the shades of goodness and badness." So wrote Voltaire in the eighteenth century.

In his television series and book, Civilization, Kenneth Clark elaborated on this theme: "I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction, I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole, I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable the ideology . . . I believe in courtesy, the ritual by which we avoid hurting other people's feelings by satisfying our own egos . . . Above all, I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible."

Clark, nevertheless, concluded his beliefs on a note of pessimism: "One may be optimistic, but one can't exactly be joyful at the prospect before us." This was in the 1960s.

And  three decades or so later, historian Eric Hobsbawm writing of the family, social and political institutions as the foundations of civilization: "Their future is obscure. That is why, at the end of the [twentieth] century, I cannot look to the future with great optimism."

No accommodation in human rights?

Letter to the Toronto Star published August 19, 2014:

Your Aug 11 editorial, "One rule for all," betrays a dated mode of thinking, as false as "one size fits all." 

The issue in this case was the request by a group of visiting Hindu priests to be cleared by men only of the Canada Border Services Agency. Denial of this request bespeaks an ideological and absolutist frame of mind. Would you say the same if a group of Muslim women requested clearance by women only?  

The ham-fisted "one rule for all" is another example of "human rights" gone barking mad. Surely there is room for accommodation? Surely accommodation of legitimate and reasonable requests is the Canadian way?

*  *  *

Letter to the Toronto Star, August 25, 2014
Re: Human rights gone mad, Letter Aug. 19

Letter-writer Raymond Peringer misdescribes the situation when he says that visiting Hindu priests asked Canada Border Service Agency to be cleared by male employees only. What they asked for was to not be cleared by women. When seen in this light, it becomes obvious that the request contradicted Canada’s commitment to gender equality, and should not have been granted.

(Name deleted), Toronto
                                                                               *  *  *

RP comment:

The writer exemplifies that frame of mind which allows for nothing beyond the letter of the law. This utopian, absolutist, zero tolerance, ideological approach to human behaviour has produced more than its share of  nonsense at our human rights commissions. 

Inspiration for my comment ---  A Truth Telling Manual and the Art of Worldly Wisdom, 1653, by Baltasar Gracian S.J.  "Drink nothing to the dregs, either of the bad or of the good. To moderation in everything has one sage reduced all wisdom. Too great justice becomes injustice. The orange squeezed too hard becomes bitter. He draws blood instead of milk who milks too hard. Even in enjoyment, do not go too far. The spirit itself grows weary if worked too long." 

Only the news the Toronto Star wants you to know

No one challenges the right of a publication to print what it wishes, that is to publish only what it wants its readers to know. It becomes offensive when the publication poses as being open to all reasonable viewpoints. Instances of selective reporting by the Toronto Star:

In 2006, a survey by the Toronto District School Board indicated that the bullying of gay students was not even on the radar of complaints. The Star did not mention it. 

* * *

The Star believes all races should be represented in public bodies in proportion to their numbers. The Star disagrees with Martin Luther King Jr whose dream it was that people would "not be judged by the colour of their skin but by their content of their character." The paper did not publish my letter advocating ability as the only necessary quality. 

* * *

The Star made no mention of the death of Heather Robinson. It was she who waged a successful legal campaign against certain media, including the Toronto Star, seeking compensation for artists whose work was used by the Star and others without permission or compensation. Nor did the Star report the results this multi-million dollar class-action lawsuit.

* * *

The issue is Liberal Party Justin Trudeau's banning of pro-life candidates. My plea for democracy:

Justine Trudeau disappoints (No choice but pro-choice, Trudeau tells candidates, May 8). Polls consistently show that most Canadians favour at least some control over access to abortion (Angus Read January 2010, Harris-Decima March 2010, Ipsos Reid, July 2012).  The Supreme Court of Canada has stated that with certain conditions an abortion law might be constitutional and not in violation of human rights legislation. Justice Bertha Wilson found the state has "a perfectly valid legislative objective" in seeking to protect the fetus. The fetus has a DNA distinct from that of the mother indicating a different life, to some a different person. There is no law dealing with attacks against womanhood by gender-selection abortions or the rights of still-born babies. The issue is hardly "settled" as Trudeau contends. All this deserves debate, especially in Parliament. It is undemocratic for the Liberal leader to snuff out debate of this important topic among would-be candidates.

On May 20, the Star ran an opinion piece which flies in the face of the truth. The writer, Ottawa professor Paul Saurette, denied, or was unaware of, the results of polls mentioned above. My May 21 letter to the Star:

Re Pro-choice advocates should welcome new abortion debate, May 20: The writers claim that "polls consistently" support abortion, but offer no proof. On the contrary, polls consistently show that a majority of Canadians favour at least some control over access to abortion. Here are three of them:  Angus Reid January 2012, Harris-Decima March 2010, Ipsos Reid July 2012. 

A 2012 Angus Reid poll found that 60 percent of Canadians (66 percent women to 54 percent men) believe a law should be enacted on sex-selection abortions. An Environics poll in 2011 found that 92% of Canadians thought sex selection abortions should be illegal in Canada. In an Ipsos Reid of June 12, 2014, 75 per cent disagreed with Trudeau's refusing admission into the Liberal Party of pro-life candidates. 

This too did not appear in the Toronto Star.

An e-mail to Professor Saurette remains unanswered.

The messenger apologizes for the message. Wrong.

Canada Post has issued a public apology. What did this bedraggled enterprise do that demanded such an action?  It learned that it had delivered to residents of Happy Valley-Goose Bay flyers that condemn gay marriage and homosexuality. 

This gives rise to the obvious question -- With all its current problems has Canada Post also become an censorship agency? Is the messenger now responsible for the message?  Must it read and approve of every flyer it delivers? 

A letter to the Toronto Star that expressed similar reaction to the newspaper's report (Canada post sorry got anti-gay flyers, March 6) was published March 16, 2014.

None of the Above

Members of the Russian Duma (parliament) have been urged to support a bill allowing voters to disapprove of all candidates in an election.

The final slot on the ballot would read "None of the Above."

Should a majority so indicate, there would be a re-run election with all of the present candidates disqualified.

Something to think about in Canada.

Corporate Conscience?

What ever became of Sundays?  The former "day of rest" and family get-together is being destroyed by big business. Employees of banks, supermarkets and big box stores are forced to work on Sundays, and at the same pay as for week days. If the worker does not like that, the employer points to the lines of unemployed knocking at the door, people who would take jobs on any terms the boss dictates. Big business thrives on big unemployment. It thrives on rendering voiceless employees wanting to present a united front against exploitive conditions. It allows corporate bosses to play off one element of society against the other, with the result we are all losers, except the short-term gain by shareholders and bonuses for the bosses.

It is estimated that up to 300,000 people currently work unpaid in some of our largest and wealthiest corporations. The Toronto Star reports on the exploitation of interns (Interns decry all work and no pay, March 3, 2014). The article tells of university graduates working at no pay for a variety of companies such as a Toronto-based think-tank, certain marketing companies, the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel in Vancouver, Bell Canada and untold others.

The interns are warned that if they refuse unpaid work including overtime of up to 60 hours a week, they will not get a reference. This blackmail works. Corporations get labour at no cost, all in the guise of giving young people business experience. They render benefit to the company, a benefit that deserves pay, including benefits.

Anyone who deposits food in the collection bins in the the big box stores is, in effect, subsidizing the store. Low salaries force their staff to frequent food banks, to retrieve the food purchased from their employer who has made a profit from its sale.
  

Law and the Attorney-General of Ontario

Feb. 11, 2014 email to J. Gerretsen, Attorney-General of Ontario. Unacknowledged. A follow-up sent April 15, 2014.

Mr. Attorney-General,

With regard to the Ontario government no longer enforcing prostitution laws, I would appreciate learning your concept of the Rule of Law. Is it pick and choose which laws one will obey?  Is that what you wish to teach young people? Your decision plants the seeds of anarchy.

I request a reply.