Those Detestable Hospital Parking Tabs

Makes a lot of good sense. To finally do away with exorbitant and irritatingly stupid parking fees at area hospitals. As though people do not experience enough distress and stress as it is, attending a hospital clinic or meeting a scheduled appointment, or arriving for a surgical procedure, either as an out-patient or for a stay; people really do not appreciate the aggravation of worrying about parking fees.

It isn't convenient for many people to take public transit to get to a hospital, even for those patients - perhaps particularly for those patients - who must attend regularly for something like chemotherapy or kidney dialysis. Fretting about the nuisance of finding a parking space, and paying for the privilege of parking their vehicle reasonably close to where they're getting treatment is an additional burden for people.

Let alone the exorbitant price to park; $3.50 a half-hour, a $13.00 limit each day. Even passes for a week or a month are hefty and represent another financial burden. Which some have pointed out is simply yet another surtax on top of already-burdened taxpayers who have little other option than to pay and get on with it. Worrying all the while if they're going over their limit on parking.

An editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, written by its interim editor-in-chief, Rajendra Kale, addresses this very issue. And comes out squarely in favour of abolishing the hated tariff. "And what about parents who have to drive sick children to hospital?" Dr. Kale, an Ottawa neurologist writes: "a more civilized society might offer volunteer-run valet parking."

He's right there. The tally for parking amounts to roughly 1% of a hospital's income. Not too much of a burden, it seems, that it cannot come from another source. The Canada Health Act guarantees Canadians access to health care without financial barriers. It can be stated that the burden of paying for repeated and necessary visits to hospitals can impose a real hardship through expensive parking fees.

Hospital administrators point out that the money collected for parking is streamed directly into purchases of new technological devices to benefit the hospital and its patients. That's food for thought, that there is a defined usefulness involved in the additional taxes imposed on already-stressed individuals. But it's not good enough.

Marketing Monopolies

If you think about it, and it needn't take too much of your time to do so, it was a sound and intelligent arrangement. For a micro-brewery to enlist the assistance of Operation Come Home, an Ottawa charity whose function it is to assist homeless young people - in deliveries of the brewery's product. Of course, those who made this agreement more or less 'forgot' Ontario law which forbids clients from purchasing directly from the source.

There is a provincial monopoly on the sale of both hard liquor and wines, and beer products. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario has established by law its retail outlets through which all such products are sold. Harking back to the unlamented days of prohibition and the state solution of government control of such products, which could then be controlled, taxed and sold through government sources.

More than a trifle outdated, to say the least. But it is still the law. Under the Liquor Licence Act. Which, as a matter of provincial law, requires delivery services or individuals to purchase liquor products, whether wine, beer or spirits from the LCBO outlets or The Beer Store outlets, owned and operated by that very same Liquor Control Board.

So that when Micro brewery Beau's beer, a specialty brew, contracted with the charitable group that it would receive a good portion of the delivery price for its program, it was turned in to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario by a competitor for unfair and illegal practises.

As it happens, Beau's specialty beer selections are not very well represented at the LCBO, and this partnership had the potential of enlarging their business as well as profiting the charitable enterprise, and helping young people, in the process gain some work experience along with dignity and modest earnings potential.

The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario took immediate steps to shut down the newly-launched delivery service. In one foul swoop, cutting off potential earnings for young homeless kids looking for employment, and charitable funds for a private group looking out for their interests, along with the brewery that came up with such an enterprising solution.

The service was to have profited Operation Come Home by $8.25 of every $15 delivery order. Operation Come Home's venture into business profitability to assist in their charitable work was put to an immediate stop. But, it seems, perhaps a little common sense may yet prevail. It would appear that word of the imbroglio has reached the ears of Premier Dalton McGuinty.

And it is just possible that he may see the practicality of altering a law that has grown hoary with monopolistic use and abuse.

"We're in the process of looking at the legislation now and the wording of it to determine how we can make some changes to make sure that this great initiative continues to move forward", said a Liberal MPP representing the riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, where Beau's All Natural Brewing Co. is located.

Here's hoping...logic and practical necessity coincide to produce a workable solution.

Misadventure

Not that long after Barack Obama became President of the United States he was faced with a situation that seemed to highlight the uneasy divisions between black and white in his country. A well-known academic who just happened to be black, entered his home at night, by means certainly devious if they had been employed by anyone other than the homeowner.

Professor Henry Louis Gates
and Sgt. James Crowley

Henry Gates, a professor at Harvard University, had just returned to Cambridge after an international trip, to discover his front door was jammed shut. He attempted to force it open. Someone witnessed this, calling police to report a burglary in progress. Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley responded, did not believe Professor Gates' explanation that this was his own home, and charged him with disorderly conduct.

In the ensuing public melee when the incident was reported, President Obama became involved, implying that the incident was an example of racial profiling, and a national debate resulted over whether this represented a legitimate charge. Eventually the charge against Professor Gates was dropped, both he and the arresting officer who was chagrined and insulted that he might be thought of as a racist, were invited to have an informal chat with President Obama over a shared beer.

The incident was an unfortunate one. Many people find themselves locked out of their homes. And they seek means by which they can effect entry that may include trying to open a basement window to slide into the house, or breaking a window to unlock a door, or accessing a ladder from a neighbour to climb to an open second-story window. This incident occurred at night in an otherwise-quiet neighbourhood; it could have happened anywhere, to anyone.

It was embarrassing, all the more so as it gained national attention. In the end, however, the public discussion settled down, and both the arresting officer and the taken-aback professor marked it as a life experience, one they might far preferred to have missed. It might have had far more serious consequences, improbable as that might seem, for the relatively simple and innocent act of attempting ingress to a home of one's own.

It certainly turned out extremely ill for one man, whose home was in Windsor, Ontario, when he found himself locked out of his house. Forty-nine-year-old Reeve Cuerrier, attempted to clamber through a second storey window next to a porch in the backyard of his home. He managed to get his feet and his torso through the window, and must have thought he was 'home-free', and had succeeded in his initiative.

What happened next certainly proved him wrong, and proved also that we never know what comes next. The window slammed down on his chest. And the impact somehow took his life. The man was trapped, incredibly, fatally, within the frame of the window. A call was placed to police when someone in a nearby building looked out on the scene. But when police arrived the man was dead.

And the cause was listed as misadventure, awaiting a post-mortem.

Ikea's Manipulative Success

Free advertising and huge public notice is always good news for any commercial enterprise. Although it hardly seems that this particular global commercial enterprise needs any assistance from the local independent media. Their own public relations and what they pay up front for advertising is more than capable of addressing the !exciting! issue of a huge new warehouse-market for Ikea products about to open locally - my goodness, what impeccable timing - before Christmas.

The Swedish mega-marketer that has established a giant marketing foothold on the global market and is such a favourite of householders and university students for their much-vaunted frugal, simply-designed, functional furniture and household accoutrements seems to appear on everyone's top list of shopping experiences. Oh well, that should be corrected: not everyone's.

Certainly not my family's. There isn't much about this vendor of Swedish-inspired goods that I find personally attractive. Their cute habit of naming each and every object may seem inspired to some, but it's gag-inducing to me. The conformity of their straight-design (some, inspired by turning a sow's ear into a silk purse, consider the design, 'sleek', and 'elegant', which says much for their aesthetic sense) is boring.

The new store will comprise 398,000-square feet in size; a temple to showcase the mediocre design and inexpensive construction of goods. Remember Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer being clever enough to entice other kids to believe his wily assertion that fence-painting is not as tedious as it looks, but is actually a lot of fun? This wry and absurd poke at the intelligence of some and the naivete of others is an instructive tool.

One that Ikea uses to their advantage. Manufacturing knock-down components which the purchaser must labour to assemble, even simple as the designs are, enables the manufacturer to save in the manufacture, assembly and in shipping and packaging costs. Which they are able to convince shoppers represents a huge bonus for them, in buying cheap and having a hand in the construction of their acquisitions.

The very worst excess of their ability to manipulate is the manner in which they teach people to react like sheep whom a working sheep dog channels into a specific routine to manage the flock. In this case, Ikea uses the huge labyrinthine warehouses (cheap construction there, too) in which their products are showcased and sold from (arrange your own delivery) to use directional corridors to herd people through the store before they are able to escape its confines.

Counting on people viewing other merchandise on their long and tortuous way out of the warehouse on their way to eventually reaching the cash and check-outs, to select from among other objects that are placed to entice shoppers' well-honed acquisition-instinct, and maximizing Ikea's profits.

The racks inside the IKEA warehouse. Photograph by: Wayne Cuddington, Ottawa Citizen

The Religion of Polygamy

Well, although not everyone is completely satisfied by B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Bauman's 300-+-page carefully-considered explication in defence of his ruling in defence of Canada's polygamy law, as opposed to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteeing freedom of religion, it does represent a logical decision, one that reflects Canadian values.

There has been a slow erosion of such values with the introduction through immigration of people coming from sources in Africa and the Middle East, knowingly introducing 'extended family' members such as purported cousins or sisters or other relatives to the country, who are in actual fact, part of a polygamous family situation.

Islam does permit a man to marry multiple wives. And although Islam also decrees that such men should take on the responsibility of extending their families through additional wives and children with the proviso that the men must be able to afford to support such large families, it has been seen that men gravitate to the multiple-wife attraction and disregard the affordability nuisance.

Living in Canada, those who practise polygamy have learned to hide it, and in some instances, to manipulate the system of public services such as welfare, to fund separate living quarters for disparate wives and children. But of course, pre-dating the more recent incursion of Muslim polygamous relationships there has been the fundamentalist Mormon sect in British Columbia.

Which, although the parent Mormon Church set aside polygamy as socially inappropriate in the 19th Century, a few offshoots have embraced it. These are largely men who have pedophilic tendencies, men who enjoy dominating women, and who believe they have a right to acquire as many tender young wives as possible, fathering countless children in the process.

Young girls are victimized by their fathers being complicit in the process, offering them up for marriage as soon as they become nubile, and even before they can legally do so, to men far older than they are. These are the same fathers who themselves select for their sexual gratification other men's (who are loyal to the sect) daughters.

Although men like to feel that it is their divine right to own as many females as possible, women who are coerced through custom and their lives within a rigidly cultish, quasi-religious, isolated group, have little other yardsticks of normalcy to believe in, and they submit to the will of the patriarchy. Living their cloistered, abnormal lives.

For many, fear and loathing results. Fear of the oppressive lives they live, loathing of other female contestants for the attention of a sole husband and father to the many children that result. And the young boys who grow to maturity and who represent as potential suitors for the young girls as would occur in a normal society, discover that they are persona non grata.

"Women in polygamous relationships are at an elevated risk of physical and psychical harm. They face higher rates of domestic violence and abuse, including sexual abuse. Early marriage for girls is common, frequently to significantly older men. The resultant early sexual activity, pregnancies and childbirth have negative implications for girls, and also significantly limit their socio-economic development."

Polygamy is an offence against social normalcy, against the normal maturation of the genders and their relationships. It represents an insult to the concept of gender equality. It is, above all, an offence against the children that result from these abnormal alliances, who grow up into a predestined lifestyle that curtails their most basic human rights.

Chief Justice Robert Bauman's ruling firmly set aside the notion that polygamy represents a perquisite of permissibility through religious right. It was the only decision he could have reached morally and in recognition of Canadian human rights values.

No Sympathy or Remors

The definition of chutzpa is someone whose blatantly egregious effrontery comes with an air of injured innocence. Along with a touch of the pot calling the kettle black. Offensively uncivil, unbelievably hubristic. Actually words tend to fail when confronted with the spectacle of a young thug who justifies his thieving activities by claiming that his victims are at fault because of the conspicuous appearance (to him) of laxity in protecting what they own.

This kind of attitude is not prevalent in some societies. In a country like Japan, for example, where people live virtually cheek-by-jowl on their little Pacific islands with mountainous regions leaving scant enough room for population growth, people are just as acquisitive and anxious to own things as anywhere else. But they live in more confined spaces because there simply is not enough room in a mega-metropolis like Tokyo for people to live in roomy houses set on ample acreage.

People there are largely crammed into tiny, very expensive apartments. And the Japanese drive a lot of cars; they're consummate consumers but also very particular about quality. Yet they respect private and public ownership. Common thievery is rare. Valuable and vulnerable belongings may be left out on a public sidewalk adjacent to an apartment; no one will touch them. The Japanese may leave their mopeds, motorcycles, bicycles in a very visible public area, trusting that no one will attempt to make away with them, and they're quite correct. No one does, although they are rarely locked.

Yet in a country like Britain, (or anywhere in North America), young thugs feel so entitled to take what they feel is inadequately protected from entry-and-acquisition, that they express huge contempt when their targets fail to observe that not drawing their curtains when night falls leaves them susceptible to curious eyes followed by illegal home entries and careful selection of valued objects that have appeal to thieves.

It is as though there is a progression from being acutely socially impertinent to viciously criminally impudent. As evidenced by a British teen-turned-burglar whom West Yorkshire Police took steps to interfere with, by intercepting the note below, as his court-ordered 'apology' might not have appeared as such to the intended recipients. The teen wrote a page-long letter, as instructed, to the family whose home he had burgled:

"I dont no why I am writing a letter to you! I have been forced to write this letter by ISSP. To be honest I'm not bothered or sorry about the fact that I burgled your house. Basically it was your fault anyways. I'm going to run you through the dumb mistakes you made. Firstly you didn't draw your curtains which most people now to do before they go to sleep. Secondly your dumb you live in Shainburns a high risk burglary area and your thick enough to leave your downstairs kitchen window open. I woulnt do that in a million years. But anyways I don't feel sorry for you and I'm not going to show any sympathy or remors.
Yours sincerly"

From the plethora of spelling errors it's abundantly clear that the young man didn't take his schooling all that seriously, either. And it appears that he's fairly complacent about the direction he's chosen to take in his life; the fork in the road that led to criminal activity. Because it's so easy, because there are so many poor sods about who don't believe they will be victimized by petty little larcenists like this.

Try It On For Size

Imagine yourself living in a country surrounded by other countries. Yet your country is isolated from those other countries which surround yours. Moreover, yours is but a sliver of a country, a tiny bit of land, contrasting hugely with the land occupied by each of those other countries all co-located within the same geography. Your country has a relatively slight population, well under ten million people. The other countries have far larger populations.

There is little in common between the type of country yours represents and those by whom your country is surrounded. Their governments are headed by autocratic rulers, by fundamentalist theocracies, by tyrannical kings and their retinues, by powerful militaries. Yours is an elementally Western liberal democracy.

The entire geographic region honours one particular religion. And that religion informs the laws and the social structure of all the countries except yours.

Your country worships another religion entirely, although both types of religion had their origins in the region, and there is a nexus between the two; the other is a type of successor to yours. But the religion is not universally representative of all the inhabitants of your country, which has become a tolerant, pluralist society, welcoming other religions as well.

Violence always threatens because your neighbours do not accept the presence of your country in their midst. It is offensive to them that your country is there, within the same geography that they dominate. As a result there is always the threat of attack by the military of one of the countries, and attacks have been common enough in the past, when combined military forces have sought to unseat your country.

Finally, circumstances where your country repelled all such attacks and in fact won such wars imposed upon it by its neighbours, caused them to lose face. And your country gained additional territory. And two of the neighbours made a decision to sign a peace pact with your country. Peace between your country and those two neighbours has lasted for a period of 38 years.

But peace has not been universal, since non-state militias dedicated to the destruction of your state, and one country in particular announces to the world at large that its intention is to destroy your country, and the non-state militias are a creature of that state, all of whom plan to totally annihilate the population of your state.

Worrying, isn't it, if you are a citizen of that embattled country?

But you take each day as it comes, and hope for the best. Even though there are constant across-the-border rocket attacks against your people and their villages and towns, your leaders, in ordering repercussions to be visited on your attackers, give you hope that some day peace will reign.

And then you discover that the largest, most populous of the countries with whom yours has a peace agreement is prepared to abrogate it.

"It looks like it is going to be a long Arab Winter. The Islamists are going to inherit the mantle of the dictators. A wave of Islamic rule, with all it entails, is sweeping across the Arab world. It will replace secular dictatorships with Islamic ones. We should have expected nothing else." Moshe Arens, former Israeli defence and foreign minister

"The political context in Egypt, when it comes to peace with Israel, might be changing. Islamist parties - led by the Muslim Brotherhood but not exclusively - could be a dominant political bloc." David Makovsky, Washington Institute for Near East Policy

A Presidential Pardon

Canada and its NATO partners, while withdrawing gently and gradually from military action in Afghanistan still have a huge investment in helping to train civil authorities and various government departments in the art of good governance. Afghanistan is a country wracked by incessant wars, its people tormented by their recent memory of rule by the unyieldingly-stern fundamentalism of Islamist Taliban.

As an Islamic country whose tribes honour an Islamic code of life under sharia law, it is also a hugely societally primitive society. Lest any Westerners choose to overlook or forget this fact of Afghan life, there are occasional reminders. Like the death sentence handed out to anyone foolish enough to attempt to shed their Muslim religion and take up another faith instead, like Christianity. This is forbidden; the sentence is death.

Like women guilty of confessing to having been raped. Women who are then charged with responsibility for the rape. Guilty as charged, for men cannot be held responsible for a woman's wiles, enticing a man beyond self-control, culminating in non-consensual conjugal relations. Such a woman may be innocent and a victim as far as the West is concerned; she is a loose woman who caused a man to sin, in the eyes of Afghan society.

Twenty-one-year-old Guinaz was imprisoned as a result of having been raped by a relative. In prison she gave birth to a child. Authorities offered her the opportunity to leave jail, if she agreed to marry the man who raped her. On behalf of her innocent infant daughter she agreed to the condition imposed upon her, reasoning that her child would then have a family.

And under Muslim Sharia law her honour would be restored to her. "I had no choice. I did it for my daughter", she explained. Despite which, the prosecutors appear to have added another condition. She was to be punished for the crime of not reporting the rape in a timely manner. She would therefore have her sentence reduced from 12 to three years.

But since she has served only two years, she must remain in prison for yet another year. And good news: she may also receive a presidential pardon.

Female Competitiveness

To silly for words. Talk about re-inventing the wheel. Who in their unwitting innocence is unaware that women, particularly those women in the game of searching for a suitable male partner, can be very suspicious of other women who are also in hot pursuit of partners.

Women who are more-than-average attractive, and whose sexuality is on clear display have always earned disparaging comments from other women. These women have always been given a cold shoulder, edged out of social gatherings, found themselves on the periphery of activities and cliques.

They do not, in fact, actually have to groom themselves conspicuously to gain the attention of males. If they happen to exude attraction, despite being garbed modestly, or behaving in a modest manner, they earn the jealous scorn of other women.

So was a special study launched by a University of Ottawa professor on this very topic really necessary? If she had wanted to confirm what she obviously suspected, all she would have had to do was interview a few young women.

Instead, the results of her study published in the journal Aggressive Behaviour, was validation gained through enacting a scenario.

In which instance one very curvaceous, beautiful young woman dressed provocatively on one occasion when she entered a room full of other young women, and alternately dressed modestly on another occasion. The reactions and attitudes toward her on the part of the onlooking young women were recorded.

And the predictable result: enmity and animosity.

This information garnered through a structured study. Which, presumably, gives it more resonance than a series of casual interviews. Even the casual interviews wouldn't be a requirement in any age when human relations between competing young females for males' attention is gauged. It is so common as to be an assumption.

It is so self-evident as to be laughably-predictable. One can only hope she managed to conduct her study which took place at McMaster University in Hamilton, without a grant. Which funding might surely have been capable of producing far more useful data had it been directed elsewhere...?

Reasonable Debate Over Passionate Shopping

"It's been an empty, soulless kind of ritual that very, very few people enjoy. this is a chance for us, the occupiers to take Christmas back and have a bit of fun and remind people that Christmas can be a helluva lot more than just shopping and Black Fridays, and maxing out on your credit card." Kalle Lasn, Adbusters

Not, actually a totally bad idea. Although it is abundantly clear it would never become wildly popular. So, to Adbusters, the brains behind Occupy Wall Street, good luck on that one. Those who are smugly righteous will be quick to queue up for inclusion, without doubt.

And it is beyond true that advertisers have long gone amok in the interests of helping themselves to well-paid contractual agreements with the purveyors of junky toys, tasteless jewellery, expensive tech toys and other such paraphernalia of Christmas cheer-and-gift-giving.

Adbusters is keen to launch a month-long "Buy Nothing Day". Starting with Black Friday. They'll have to be a little more alert than that, since commercial interests in the United States and their public relations and advertising armies have decided to jump the gun on this one. Which is to say, not recognize even one day separating Thanksgiving and the Christmas shopping spree that enlivens the beginning of winter.

Perhaps they can suggest to their followers that they boycott Bleak Thursday...? Which will doubtless overtake Black Friday as the busiest shopping day of the calendar year in the United States, arguably the world's largest market for Christmas shopping expeditions.

In Canada this will also go over like the proverbial lead balloon. Canadian shoppers, already well launched into the Christmas shopping season, won't tolerate any political/ideological movement snowing on their bandwagon parade of acquisition excess. Mind, there might be a way to do this up right.

Convince people that they would benefit by recycling, re-using, reducing waste.

Like the jovial gentleman seen at my local Salvation Army Thrift Shop this past Tuesday as I was myself browsing about, filling up his shopping cart with an unbelievable array of clothing, toys, videos and DVDs, happily shopping, carefully considering each item he added to his cart. He wracked up $252 in thrift shopping. As gifts for family and friends.

He will doubtless wrap them tastefully in recycled wrapping paper left over from last year and the year preceding. Thoroughly conscionable.

In so doing he benefits the Salvation Army. Which uses the profits gained from their shops to help give comfort and warm, well-fed stomachs to those who need their helping hand.

Identical Circumstances

It's rather a good thing that there are schools in existence whose purpose it is to take in children who are considered to be socially problematic. Cevenol international school for children aged from 11 to 18, is evidently one of those schools. They specialize in taking in problem children. And, evidently, doing their best to normalize them while educating them.

A teacher and a hospital administrator whose 17-year-old son is undeniably a huge problem for society, brought their son to Cevenol international school. And the school generously accepted that 17-year-old boy as a student. Now, its headmaster has claimed in an interview: "We knew he had had problems with the law, but didn't know the nature of those problems."

They didn't? Why wouldn't they have enquired? Surely if parents approach such an institution it is an obvious signal that their child has not been able to adapt to the environment in an ordinary school. Perhaps he is a serious malefactor. Wouldn't any responsible school administrator seek to discover the background involved in any instance where a student is brought to them?

At the very least to determine that he would not present as a possible danger to their other students? For whom they most certainly have an obligation of security. It is one thing to be modestly discreet, another entirely to be careless with the well-being of those whom one is responsible for. And the parents of the young man, people with responsible positions themselves, they made no effort to disclose the reality?

In this particular instance, the 17-year-old boy is a rapist. He is also a vicious murderer. The private boarding school admitted the 17-year-old after he had spent four months in prison. Four months served, awaiting the trial for rape. This, evidently was not divulged during the admission interview.

He went further the second opportunity that was available to him; he selected a thirteen year old schoolmate. He lured her to a forest near the Cevenol international school to go mushroom picking. And there he raped her, murdered her and set her body on fire. And he admitted to having done all that, to the police.

"She was killed in an extremely violent and brutal fashion", explained the Clermont-Ferrand prosecutor. "He presented no danger, but psychiatry is not an exact science", he clarified further. The young man was awaiting trial for the rape of a 15-year-old former fellow student. "The circumstances were identical, except the victim (of the first attack) remained alive", said the prosecutor.

He presented as well-behaved and quiet. Psychiatrists had reached the conclusion after studying the young man that he posed no additional threat to those around him and was ready to be "re-inserted" and "re-adapted" to normal life. At which point he was released from detention before the trial, considered healed from a drug addiction.

And he was slated to receive regular psychiatric treatment. The 15-year-old girl who had survived described her ordeal to her mother: "From what my daughter told me, I felt that this would happen."

Slipshod Hospital Treatment

Would you really believe that caveat emptor relates to critical surgical procedures undertaken by a senior surgeon who has been practising for a lengthy period of time, and who is so highly regarded that she is appointed the head of gynaecological surgery at the hospital where she has privileges as an area doctor? At St.Thomas Elgin General Hospital, Dr. Cathy Frank could be identified on the hospital website as the head of the institution's obstetrics and gynaecology department.

Really, how much more reassuring a search could be conducted by a patient before going in for what is considered to be routine surgery? Hysterectomies represent serious surgery, it is true, but they have been routinely done for an awfully long time. On the other hand, any surgical procedure runs the risk, due to its invasive character, of running into serious difficulties. And this is what Lorraine Kinninmont discovered, post-surgery.

She was more than satisfied with what she discovered about the surgeon who would be performing her impending surgery. Trouble was that during the hysterectomy procedure she suffered a perforated bowel. Additional, corrective surgery had to be done. And she was left with ongoing pain, and intestinal problems that have complicated her life and embarrassed her socially. She has launched a malpractice lawsuit against Dr. Frank. She had discovered that botched operations were not a rarity with Dr. Frank in charge.

Despite which, Dr. Frank simply continued her practise. And months after she had calamitously performed on Lorraine Kinninmont, Dr. Frank removed Debbie Cernanec's uterus. In the process, causing an abnormal vaginal opening leading to incontinence and further operations. And Dr. Frank is now being sued by Debbie Cernanec as well, for malpractice. Neither of these women had any idea whatsoever that the expert surgeon, chief of the hospital's gynaecology department, had a history of poor surgical outcomes.

"I'm very disappointed and very angry that I was not warned about Dr. Frank. This is information that should have been made available to me before I let Dr. Frank operate on me. Dr. Frank should have told me, the hospital certainly should have told me. I feel the system has failed. It's let me down. It's let us all down." Lorraine Kinninmont

She is perfectly correct in all of those claims. while the lawsuits have yet to see a court of law and the allegations brought against Dr. Frank proven, the inalienable reality is that those surgeries were botched, and the women involved have been victimized by a system that looks after its own. They're by no means the only patients of this doctor who have a grievance. Another 80 of whom have reached the law firm involved in these suits with allegations of their own relating to surgeries they experienced at Dr. Frank's expert hands.

Complaints were also lodged with the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons. And their response too was rather lacklustre, having taken an awfully long time to address these complaints. They did, in the end, order Dr. Frank not to apply for surgical privileges at any hospital. They also posted Dr. Frank's practice restriction on the college website under the provincial directory listing of doctors. Of course, one has to know enough to access the website and look for that specific information to be forewarned.

The women have named the St.Thomas Elgin General Hospital as well in their lawsuits, claiming it should have been seen as a hospital responsibility to ensure that any patients of Dr. Frank were made aware of the accusations of incompetence lodged against her. Far more than that, the hospital itself should have launched an intensive investigation to determine for themselves all the details relating to these surgical outcomes. And then considered the appropriateness of having her continue on as chief of that department, let alone allowing her to continue surgical procedures in any capacity.

They eventually did do that, appointing an independent reviewer to assess the professionalism and reliability of surgical interventions on the part of their chief of obstetrics and gynaecology. It took over a year afterward, for Dr. Frank to resign from the hospital.

From The Shelf To The Self(ish)

"The consumer society was laid down by the late Steve Jobs coming down the mountain with two tablets, iPad one and iPad two, and the result is that we now have a culture of iPad, iPhone, iTune, i, i, i. When you're an individual, egocentric culture and you only care about i, you don't do terribly well." Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

Now there's an interesting speech. From a man of the cloth, addressing the issue of social alienation, of a general public release from a religious bond, of the new religion of proud possession of technology to bring comfort and satisfaction to our dreary lives. Comfort is no longer found in the pews of churches and synagogues, in temples or gurdwaras, or kneeling on a rug facing Mecca. It is found in lining up overnight in the cold to ensure first crack at owning the latest iToy.

And who is the Great Satan in this soul-disfiguring transformation? Why, couldn't you guess? The world's master-whiz at marketing, none other than the late, lamented Steve Jobs who made lust for technology his life's work. He was, in fact, the serpent who offered Eve the forbidden fruit. And he named his company after that fruit. And his undying devotion to streamlining and beautifying and making desirable every Apple product that his fevered mind rested upon galvanized the world.

Lord Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of Great Britain, spoke at an interfaith reception attended by the Queen, explaining: "People are looking for values other than the values of a consumer society. The values of a consumer society really aren't ones you can live by for terribly long. What does a consumer ethic do? It makes you aware all the time of the things you don't have instead of thanking God for all the things you do have.

"If in a consumer society, through all the advertising and subtly seductive approaches to it, you've got an iPhone but you haven't got a fourth-generation one, the consumer society is in fact the most efficient mechanism ever devised for the creation and distribution of unhappiness." The 70th-anniversary meeting of the Council of Christians & Jews in London, heard out the Chief Rabbi.

"Unless we get back to these values we will succeed in making our children and grandchildren ever unhappier. I think this is a great opportunity for faith and a great moment for Jews and Christians to come together and leading from the front embrace those other faiths. Without friendship between faiths we will drown."

Well, it seems the younger generation doesn't much care. It certainly isn't attuned to the message. It is besotted with the message that Steve Jobs lobbed at them. And the irresistible urge to own and to cherish and to worship the very latest, magical, treasured technological invention. They're a 'must-have'. Everything depends on having one. They're drowning in i's.

Happiness? Well, what's that? There's a climate of dissatisfaction if that acquisition-urge is not fulfilled. And the spiral is endless.

And Steve Jobs? Did he ever give a cent to charity?

To The Rescue!

Members of the Real Life Superheroes movement gather in Hollywood in 2009 for a photo shoot. While most members are based in the United States, there are members scattered around the world, including Canada. Photograph by: Peter Tangen, Postmedia News

When we were kids, all those years ago, we used to avidly read superhero comics. About improbable characters, larger-than-life who were inspired to do good and battle crime and the evil that exists in society. They were not ordinary men and women, but people possessed of superhuman strength and endurance. They wore fantastic costumes and sped through the night - or the sky - to defy the criminal community and uphold societal norms and decency.

Who might ever imagine - even back then when we were kids - that they would ever come to life? Well, Hollywood in the last few decades brought some of them to life - Superman, Spiderman, Batman and Robin and Wonder Woman, to name a few. We do love our heroes, even if they're the heroes of someone's fantasy. The struggle of good over evil is a noble cause, and we cheer them on, all of them.

And now, they've actually come to life. Likely it's the movies that managed to inspire young people to dress in costumes resembling those of comic book heroes. Heaven knows, society could use some help in rounding up the malefactors among us who threaten safety and security, the sociopaths and psychopaths that make life dangerous and of whose dreadful depredations the news media are always full.

With the possible exception of the name Thanatos, a spine-tingling name of horror from the Greek, and which means bringer-of-death in myths - but then perhaps the name is meant to inspire apprehension in the minds of the social deviants who prey on decent law-abiding citizens - the personae assumed by those who have registered as members of the Real Life Superheroes movement, are admirable in intent.

Long may they venture out into the dark streets and prowl mean back alleys for a potential face-off with some thugs or creeps that create mayhem and inspire fear. While they are living their fantasies of righteous confrontation, they are also presenting as a shimmering light in the darkness. And when business is slow, and they don't come across some testosterone-laden sot seeking to threaten women, they turn their attention to the homeless.

We're informed that over 600 people globally have joined, becoming members of the elite group of society's protectors and avengers. Listed as members on their website: www.reallifesuperheroes.org. Most are American, but Canada has its share of superheroes, too.

The Passion of Addiction

"The reason we think that people suffer from addiction is because of cravings. A craving is a form of emotional memory - it's a fond memory, but it's a memory that's very strong. But once things around you remind you of your drug use it triggers your cravings and you very much want to use. What we found a few years ago that emotional memories, be they positive or negative, can be turned down or dampened." McGill psychologist Alain Brunet

This is the reasoning of psychologists attempting to establish a remedial protocol for people suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, and likening it to an addiction. Both, it is claimed, are driven by powerful memories. And the search for a successful way in which to treat that memory that impels people to set aside reason and succumb to the emotion of craving something irrespective of how harmful it is has McGill university scientists working with habitual-memory minimization.

Cravings and addictions are obvious symptoms of a mind that has succumbed to the powerful draw of a substance that sparks a welcome response, even if the result is completely debilitating, transforming an ordinarily reasonable person into a psychotic, sensual-driven zombie. Anyone who has become addicted to mind-altering drugs and who cannot find it in themselves to shrug off the powerful impulse to indulge even when they are aware on a certain level that they harm themselves and others becomes a threat to society.

Just how much of a threat can be seen in the too-often-repeated scenario of drunk-driving. And what is even worse, repeated drunk-driving offences. When people under the influence of alcohol, incapable of adequately controlling their impulses, let alone the mechanics of driving and being aware of highway safety, choose to combine their drinking habit with driving, they present as a violent danger. Should catastrophe in the form of a single-vehicle accident take the life of a drunk driver their family members would mourn them.

When that inebriated driver, incapable of reasonable decision-making opts to drive and endanger the lives of others and in so doing takes the life of an innocent human being, they have set themselves apart from the pale of the social contract in human interaction. And by their neglectful decision making, they commit the criminal act of vehicular homicide. Such was the case with Christy Natsis, a Pembroke dentist, who caused the death of a 50-year-old father of three.

She was freed on bail awaiting trial and certain provisions were imposed upon her, one of which was that she was not to drive, the other that she would not consume alcohol. She breached her release conditions, and was taken into custody to appear before court when she was found at a Rideau Centre liquor store on Thursday. It can perhaps be concluded that the charge of impaired driving causing death, driving with over 80 milligrams of alcohol and dangerous driving causing death did not comprise a severely traumatic-enough memory to compel her to cease and desist.

Justice of the Peace Ray Switzer has released this woman for a second time; this time on a $12,000 bond. The previous bond posting of $7,000 should now be forfeit. It represents little enough 'punishment' for those who can afford to surrender that sum, as is clearly the case with Ms. Natsis and her husband. Her trial on the original drunk driving charges is anticipated to take place a year from this date, while another court appearance related to this latest breach of recognizance charge will take place a month later.

Society does have a problem with people like Christy Natsis. Her alcohol addiction feeds her inner compulsion which she either cannot or will not discipline. She was the cause of the premature death of another human being, depriving that individual's family of a father, husband, son. Their grief at the loss of someone whom they loved is surely greater than Christy Natsis' need to feed her craving. One might assume her to harbour feelings of guilt at being the cause of the death of Bryan Casey of Ottawa.

Yet if she does, and she should, it is obvious that any guilt, if it is at all present, is insufficient to deter her from her compulsion to accede to her craving for alcohol. As long as she and those like her are free to conduct themselves as they decide they will, with little regard for public safety and their responsibility in exercising free choice as mature adults, society is held ransom to an individual's addiction cravings.

Presumably, she and her husband have sought medical assistance for this addiction. She is obviously incapable of policing herself, and it may be that counselling also has not been successful in dissuading her from continuing to represent as a social menace. What, in the final analysis, to do with conscienceless people like this, short of continued incarceration?

The penalty of notoriety and public censure, coming afoul of the law, the threat of disciplinary action, and the potential for a court finding her guilty of vehicular manslaughter resulting in a criminal sentence and a term in jail may, in the final analysis, force a stop to indulging in the passion of addiction.

Horrifically Hazardous

China's population is the largest in the world, at roughly 1.3-billion and steadily increasing. And because of the one-child policy in the country, in an attempt to keep its population growth at a controlled slower, steady level, children are all the more cherished.

When accidents occur that involve children there is hell to pay. As with the backlash from furious grieving parents whose children died in the collapse of their school buildings - that were built with low-grade and cost-cutting materials - during a devastating earthquake.

There are other circumstances that commonly occur, it would appear, that place the lives of China's children in peril. Its growing middle class increasingly able to afford what had previously been seen as unattainable luxuries. Like motor vehicles.

China's sales in their automotive sector have been booming. Over eighteen million units were sold in 2010, representing an 32% increase over 2009. China now represents the world's top automobile market.

Which also translates to an awful lot of people trying out their raw motoring skills on China's highways. Road fatalities taken from death registrations from 2002 to 2007 have steadily increased to match the increase in the sales of vehicles.

According to Chinese police the country's road carnage peaked in 2005 when 450,000 fatalities were officially recorded. Currently, the country wracks up about 190 fatalities a day.

But it is when children are involved that the statistics begin to take a human shape.

A head-on collision between a school bus and a truck in northwestern China this week took the lives of 18 children. The bus was meant to hold nine seats. Most of the seats had been removed to allow kindergarten children to cram into it for their trip to school.

Yes, there are fairly stiff regulations about such things but in rural areas they become more casual.

Two adults, the driver and a teacher were among those killed in the bus crash. Another 44 people were injured, twelve in serious condition. Police have detained the truck driver. The front section of the bus was crushed from the impact, the vehicles facing each other, surrounded by crash debris.

A month earlier 35 people were killed, 18 injured when a bus rolled after coming into collision with a car on a highway.

Police have detained the head of the kindergarten, along with two deputy country chiefs and the heads of the county's education bureau and traffic department.

VooDoo

Is it to be believed that there are people so primitive that they cling to the notion of malign spirits, and practise witchcraft? In a sense witchcraft, wizardry, witch doctors, are not all that removed from religion. It represents a leap of human faith, a belief in something out of the ordinary, of powers that transcend human imagination. Human beings ascribe violent natural phenomena to the moods of a divine creature they cannot see, but imagine to exist, manipulating the world.

The primal experience of viewing and noting the world around us without understanding that nature and science control the elements is frightening. Human beings have no idea how to cope with events that cannot be managed, but which threaten and often do great harm. The idea comes to them to propitiate that great malign force that they cannot see but imagine to exist. They must give some kind of sacrifice to the unseen presence to indicate their complete subjection to its will.

And in so doing they somehow assure this great, powerful, unseen presence that they do not seek to compete with it in any way. But they do, hugely, respect and fear it. And are desirous of serving it by being faithful to their belief in its presence. And they imagine what it might be that would please the powerful presence. And often enough what comes to mind is to sacrifice some living thing to it.

If they ascribe all life to have emanated from that powerful presence's machinations, then death too must represent a symbol of that being's invisible yet manifest power. No living thing willingly wishes to die. But if, in offering one's life to indicate undying devotion to that great power, it is possible to convince the power that this represents their utmost dedication to its supreme glory, then death it is.

And since no one wants to die themselves, they select a representative human to become the victim. Someone young, perhaps, so that the sacrifice becomes more meaningful; all those years of potential life given in persuasion of divine devotion. Which may go a long way to explaining what occurred to a three-year-old little girl in Indonesia.

Indonesian residents appear to have blamed her condition on witchcraft. Doctors in Makassar on Sulawesi Island have removed over two dozen 10-centimetre rusty nails, broken syringe needles and aluminum rods from the child's legs. Including the removal of a nail lodged very close to her spine. The child is in the process of recovering from the operation, and said to be in good condition.

She was discovered back in September to have all manner of foreign objects in her legs, revealed through X-rays. The little girl must have suffered horribly. Her surgeon, Kamaruddin, claimed she is now playing again: "The girl is recovering from the operation and is generally in good condition. She is already playing again."

Her parents informed media that the scars resulted from the child trying to remove the nails. They had no idea whatever how the nails became embedded in their child's legs. Local residents are said to have claimed they were somehow inserted magically.

Inappropriate Overreaction

Ottawa's public transit system is on the defensive. It has suffered a week of quite awful publicity. These things do happen; people become frustrated and rude and impassioned about their irritated state and then they vent, saying and doing things they would not normally succumb to. Anyone's patience has a limit. Without background and details leading up to an event, witnesses coming in at the very moment when someone has a psychological meltdown readily reach a judgement.

In the case of the OC Transpo driver whose self restraint melted away when he was confronted with yet another blow in self-esteem and control at the hands of yet another unruly passenger, judgement was swift and without mercy. One passenger was witness to a second passenger, on an otherwise-empty, late-night bus being verbally excoriated and horribly insulted by an out-of-control bus driver. And that passenger used his cellphone to record those few, damning seconds.

And posted the resulting video on Youtube, for all to see, to comment upon, and to condemn. And condemn they did; a seasoned bus driver verbally abusing a young man, a self-professed "autistic" young man, threatening him and ultimately forcing his exit from the bus. This was a 25-year professional bus driver with a previously clean employment slate. And this was an Algonquin College theatre arts student.

A young man, Matthew Taronno, who as a frequent bus passenger to and from the college, was well known for his rather pushy, obnoxious, loud and unattractive behaviour. Other passengers on buses, indeed other Algonquin college students, were aware of Matthew Taronno's annoying behaviour, and all sought to avoid him. Bus drivers cannot avoid ill-behaved passengers, but they can order them off the bus.

The driver in question did just that, but not before he had vented his anger and frustration in rude and profane terms at the young man. The bus driver, a 25-year veteran with OC Transpo, 52 years of age, had been distracted from doing his job, operating a bus, by the infuriatingly, maddeningly, persistently, annoying antics of Matthew Taronno, who was theatrically, loudly, emoting, insisting on attention.

In the previous week this same driver had been spat upon by one of his passengers. These things happen; drivers are scorned, ridiculed, berated, threatened and victimized on occasion by people who are obviously unfit to be in the company of other, civil individuals. That was one minuscule incident in this driver's life, fraught with serious events impacting dreadfully on his emotions. This was a year in the life of the driver he would happily have done without.

This year of 2011 is not just the year he was fired from his job of 25 years. It is also the year that both his wife and his mother died. And he is the caregiver for his ill father. Weigh that against having to put up with an unappreciative public some members of whom speak or act out their grievance against not-quite-perfect public transit experiences.

As a public servant this bus driver succumbed to the snapped thread of his consciousness, and he swore at a passenger, was exceedingly rude to that passenger, and hostile to the point of threatening him with violence if he did not immediately stop annoying him. And this sad and sorry incident which has embarrassed the city and the management of the transit authority sees the man fired.

One of the very few times that most sane and common-sense individuals would vote for the Amalgamated Transit Union local that represents this driver, to go head-to-head with management.

Love, Blindfolded, Enduring

"Yeah, he did let me down by going and doing something like that, because I thought he was getting out, he was changing his life. You know, he really wanted to start fresh." Jennifer Prince

We humans have imaginations and we have dreams, aspirations and hopes. Sometimes they are realized, more often they may not be. And then we live with the realization that our dreams will not eventuate, that those aspirations that gave us so much hope turned out to be illusory. And we tend to fantasize, to make life more palatable. From there we graduate to accepting the less-than-perfect antidote to loneliness and despair.

And then we tend to live with our illusions. Those illusions become unshakable. For with them lies our salvation, if we have convinced ourselves that we have, at last, found the solution to our dire need to make life worth living. For many women, independent and strong-willed as they may be, life without a partner is simply a half-life. Where many women find it perfectly acceptable, even preferable, to live without a man, many will not or can not or wish not to.

And this is when, as time progresses and nothing substantial occurs to firm up that need, the guard against committing to someone who represents the less-than-desirable object is lowered even as expectations rise again. Granted, some women are imbued with a fascination for 'bad' men, men who have committed societal crimes, including commissions of violence. These women somehow migrate to these types of men, visiting them in prison, marrying them there.

Other women simply pine for the presence of a man in their life; a primary, stabilizing, comforting feature. And such, obviously, was the case with Jennifer Prince who is a still-young and attractive woman, with two teen-age daughters. She is only 38, has worked at the same job for twenty years. A single mother who preferred that her life include a stable partnership with a man who could fulfill her dreams of companionship.

When she met Corey Blaskie it was shortly after his release from prison. He was a petty crook. And he was involved with drugs. She knew his criminal past, but she saw beyond that, to the man he represented to her, a potential mate. And although he never did find a job while they lived together in a house she bought, she valued him for his kindness to her, for the manner in which he demonstrated how much he cared about her.

"He'd surprise me by getting one rose, and when I'd come out of work it would be on my windshield underneath the windshield wiper. I'd come home and he'd say, 'Did I ever tell you how much I appreciate you being in my life?'", she recounted. When she got home from work, he would have cooked dinner and set the table.

"It was his caring. There were just ways about him. You just felt wanted. You looked forward to coming home all the time. We very rarely fought about anything."

They did, though, have disagreements about his going out bicycle riding late at night, when she would far rather have preferred that he remain in bed, with her, through the night. And one night he just didn't come back home to her. He had gone out bicycle riding, her restless partner. He had entered the private property of people whose home had been broken into numerous times previously, and they had installed an alarm system.

Which had alerted them to the presence of someone in their garage. An altercation ensued between the homeowner and Jennifer Prince's Corey Blaskie. Her Corey had grimly attempted to strangle Nathan Woods, and when Mr. Woods' 18-year-old son Jake attempted to free his father from Corey Blaskie's grip, he could not. Until he stabbed Corey Blaskie. After which both Nathan and Jake attempted to resuscitate Corey Blaskie.

They could not.

And now, Jennifer Prince is saving to be able to afford a headstone for the man whose memory she cherishes.

Food Storage Innovation

. Israeli Technology Keeps the Bugs Off Supermarket Shelves
by TechIsrael Staff

There are now seven billion people in the world, and as in the past, experts are wringing their hands over the possibility that Malthus could finally have his day. Malthus was the English philosopher who expected the world to starve eventually because of a lack of resources, and so far he's been wrong. But seven billion, now... that's a lot of people!

All those people do have to be fed. So far, the world has been able to (more or less) supply its population with food, and in fact most people – even in many third-world countries – are better fed today than ever. But still, the system is showing strain: Grain prices have skyrocketed around the world, the seas are overfished, and pesticides are being overused because pests have been building up resistance to smaller, safer doses. Scientists are working overtime trying to come up with new breakthroughs in food production, before Malthus' prediction comes true.

While much of the work on expanding the food supply is taking place on farms and in labs, Israel's Bio[pack] (http://www.biopack.biz/) is taking a different tack – preventing the loss of food after it's been produced.

Supermarkets and other foodsellers lose a significant portion of their stock each year because of insect infestations in warehouses, manufacturing plants, and store shelves. As everyone knows, getting rid of bugs that have taken up residence in a home or office isn't so easy, and usually requires copious applications of insecticide – an option that is less than ideal for places where food is processed, handled, and stored.

Bio[pack] preserves food by keeping bugs away from the places where it is handled and from the packages they are stored in – safely and efficiently. Using advanced technology, Bio[pack] has developed packaging and storage containers (retail and industrial) that keep bugs away using naturally-occurring bug repellents in fruits, vegetables, grains and spices.

“Our solution is safe and natural, based on natural occurring elements,” says Bio[pack] co-founder Shlomo Navarro. “We have managed to distill many of the elements in plants, grains and spices that repel certain insects, and we have thus been able to develop products that repel insects from factories and warehouses, as well as make sure they stay out of packages on supermarket shelves.”

The product is based on research Navarro did with several colleagues at the Vulcani Agricultural Research Center. That research showed that there were many fruits, vegetables, grains and spices that seemed to have a built-in bug repellent; certain insects just seem to stay away from certain plants.

For example, spearmint plants are known to repel ants; the bugs just cannot stand to be in the presence of spearmint. The same holds true for many other plants, like coriander (repels aphids), horseradish (Colorado potato beetle), and even tomatoes (Cabbage maggot) and potatoes (Mexican bean beetle).

“These properties were known for thousands of years in many cultures around the world,” Navarro says, but it was only recently that scientists began studying which elements in plants repel insects. “Our innovation is that we know which elements to remove, and how to integrate them with other solutions – such as packaging that in and of itself repels bugs.”

Bio[pack]'s innovative packaging may not be the innovation that ends world hunger, but it's definitely a poke in the eye at Malthus!

Tags: technology ,TechIsrael

As published online at ArutzSheva, 15 November 2011

Spare The Rod And Spoil The Child...?

Not all advice, obviously, is good advice. But advice from an influential evangelical Christian pastor/writer who with his wife wrote a pithy, informed and biblically-influenced how-to that authorizes parents to use physical force in restraining children's inner devil, was embraced by many thankful parents. The little book, To Train Up a Child, published in 1994 has been translated into 11 languages, with 670,000 sold.

But Michael and Debi Pearl, the book's authors, believe in tough love, but love above all. And in disciplining a child one must be aware of limits. Although the book does recommend using a plastic pipe with which to persuade a child's backside that the penalties of misbehaviour are not pleasant. The trouble with that kind of corporal punishment, of course, is that frustration and anger tend to get out of control.

And, of course, children are generally rebellious by nature. They question and they challenge, and they misbehave because they are children. They are testing the boundaries of their world, while discovering what is out there, and what is in themselves. Pastor Pearl denies that his book exhorts parents to use violence as a means to bring children into line, to make them well behaved.

He urges the readers of his book to use the rod only when anger has passed, and never for extended periods of time. A last resort type of thing. And to desist if it seems that the discipline of the rod is not performing its ameliorative function. He is inspired by Proverbs 13: "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes."

The trouble is that their suggestion that a 10 to 12-inch-long willow branch on a child as young as one - or a one-foot ruler, belt, or three-foot cutting of a shrub; something with flexibility that will inflict pain but which will not overtly bruise the skin or leave distressing marks - seems quite excessive as an influencing tool for good behaviour. In persuading a parent to become that violent with a young child he is encouraging brutality.

According to the Pearl training method, initiated in infancy, a parent is to place something intriguing in front of a child, and when the child reaches for it, he is struck with a switch. In the teaching of obedience this seems somewhat akin to what some dog trainers advance for training dogs. It doesn't work for dogs; punishment that is, so why should it work for human animals?

It's why there are dog rescue groups. And it's why there are state agencies that step in to remove children from abusive home settings. Although sometimes it is too late. As was the case with three children all of whose parents had copies of Pastor Pearl's book of advice reflecting what he believed to be a Christian lifestyle. Which one commentator a religious scholar names "gutter theology."

Three children, beaten with plastic tubes for prolonged periods of time, who died after being viciously abused. Their parents charged with second-degree murder and torture or voluntary manslaughter and unlawful corporal punishment. Two little girls, one thirteen who died of hypothermia and malnutrition, deprived of food, forced to sleep in a barn, whipped on her legs.

Another little girl whose parents beat her for hours, taking care to take breaks frequently for prayer intervals. And a four year old boy who, along with his siblings was beaten daily with a plumbing tube, the "rod" that ensured the child was not spoiled.

Not spoiled, just life-deprived.

Swept To Sea

What goes up must come down, and that is indeed a grave situation. For example, satellites that have spent their usefulness to research and suffer the fatigue of failure, may find their way back from whence they came, by plummeting back to Earth and creating a debris field. The Earth's gravity sees to that.

The wind too has a habit of blowing things back at us if we don't take heed of its direction, causing complications. And what is deposited on one side of the Atlantic or the Pacific will eventually, if it does not sink to the bottom of the deep sea, turn up on its opposite side as objects are carried along by the direction of windblown seas and the pattern of waves.

Flotsam and jetsam are tracked by scientists and oceanographers, both by using computer modelling and by measuring ocean currents and observing how many factors impact on the movement of debris.

"People who base their results on satellite-tracking buoys get a slower speed than those of us who track Nike shoes and hockey gloves and airplane wings", explained Curt Ebbesmeyer, a Seattle-based oceanographer.
"We just finished running a simulation with a drifter, a buoy that got lost in the area of the (Japanese) tsunami, and we [found] that the first of the debris would be here now."

The "here" in question is Canada's West Coat. And beachcombers along the west coast of British Columbia have been alerted to report unusual finds. They can report anything unusual they see in the way of floating debris by photographing it and sending it to Mr. Ebbesmeyer at his website at flotsametrics.com. In the interests of scientific explication of unusual phenomena.

The devastating March 11 earthquake and subsequent catastrophic tsunami that struck Japan and which knocked out Fukushima's nuclear plants created a monumental horror of a mess for that island(s) country. Not the least of which was the loss of life, lost to sea, when people of all ages were swept out into the ocean. And with them houses, boats, vehicles, and all manner of objects.

Resulting in a 20-million-tonne ocean-borne debris field, size-equivalent to the spread of the State of California. Some of which is expected to come ashore, tickling the coast of British Columbia, around 2014. Much of it will remain within a "garbage patch", stuck in the North Pacific, where swirling currents surround the seaborne detritus, and keep it there, a prisoner of stasis.

Some, however, comprised of kitchen appliances, computers, fishing boats (even small freighters) will eventually wash ashore. And that eventuality will begin occurring right about now as a bit of an early surprise. A cargo ship near Midway Island gave notice of having spotted an 18-foot vessel in the debris field, see when these objects land they will be difficult to overlook.

Ocean currents will do their part in delivering a goodly portion of the swept-to-sea objects through 2013 and into 2014, it has been estimated. An eerie reminder that what goes out will in time reappear. Somewhere.

Driving: Right Or Privilege?

Since driving requires an education in manipulating a car, negotiating a motor vehicle on highways with an emphasis on safe handling and understanding of the rules of the road, and it also requires a license for the driver and an identifying plate for the vehicle, driving is a state-controlled activity.

And, as such, it is a privilege only granted to those who are able to prove that they qualify. No one has an uncompromising right to drive.

Yet there are social cretins who believe they are entitled to get behind the wheel of a vehicle and drive it in a manner that clearly contravenes all the recognized rules related to public safety and adherence to the law. A case in point is a young Nova Scotian. This is a 26-year-old who continues to drive despite wracking up a host of offences related to illicit behaviour and driving.

Throughout his driving career at the ripe old age of 26, the fellow has $35,000 in unpaid fines representing over 30 serious violations over a nine-year period. No impaired driving charges, no speeding offences. All the charges represent the man's insistence on driving without a licence, driving without insurance, failing to have his vehicle properly inspected.

The latest charge levelled by police in Nova Scotia was for driving while suspended. At one time someone who would not or could not for whatever reason pay fines would be incarcerated until such time as he cleared the slate. If he were in the Province of Quebec his car would be impounded, and he might just end up in prison.

On the latest occasion when the man was apprehended, he was driving a friend's car. And it is his friend's car that has now been impounded. At this juncture if he is successful in persuading another friend or family member to allow him to drive their vehicle, he will without doubt be right back on the road again.

What misguided attitude leads someone to behave like this is puzzling beyond belief. And beyond irritating to the police all of whom, in Halifax, recognize this repeat offender on sight. The young man might conceivably be modelling himself after another Nova Scotian who has far outstripped the young man in his collection of fines. His stand at $120,000.

A section in the Criminal Code exists to allow police to criminally charge serial scofflaws for "driving while suspended", but it would appear that the province's Crown prosecutor will have none of it. Making no good sense whatever. A court date has been set for the 26-year-old to explain himself.

And he might just respond in the same manner as the one who owes $120,000 in fines: that he intends to continue ignoring the charges and simply carry on.

Preying On Children

It's become something in the nature of a black, cynically-bad joke; the pedophile-school-janitor. Third-rate novels feature such societal outcasts who prey on children. And the Ottawa Catholic School Board, perhaps taking their cue from the manner in which the Church hierarchy dealt with inconvenient predator-priests, had 'disciplined' their in-house child predator for his acted-upon-predilection, yet acceded to his request to be re-located to a high school from an elementary school location.

The Ottawa Catholic School Board was quite aware of this man's dreadfully inappropriate conduct with young girls, attempting to lure them on-line into sex acts with him. When he was transferred to Lester B. Pearson high school to resume his janitorial duties there with the Board, he requested no Internet access for obvious reasons. The Board insisted that to enable this man, Michael Mallette, to properly do his job he would have to communicate with board staff through the Internet.

He was subsequently moved to Our Lady of Peace elementary school. Where he exposed himself on a number of occasions. A probation officer Mr. Mallette was reporting to was informed by him that he was simply "bored" with stimulating himself on his webcam. He needed additional excitement and made an effort to reach children on the Internet. He communicated with a "girl", who was in reality an undercover detective.

This 54-year-old man considers himself to be addicted to sex. Not a pedophile - although all his attention is geared toward young girls - but a sex addict. One for whom pornographic images of bestiality and physical violence being inflicted on adolescent girls was a special treat. He pleaded guilty in May to the use of a computer to assist in his attempts to invite young girls to become sexually involved with him.

"This is a man with a very deep-seated sexual dysfunction. It spans the spectrum from bestiality to incest to sadism", Crown prosecutor Kevin Phillips advised Ontario Court Justice Heather Perkins-McVey. Mallette's lawyer is arguing for a conditional sentence allowing his client to remain in the community to seek help from Sexaholics Anonymous.

"Being a pedophile isn't a crime. It is engaging in that activity that becomes criminal", said his lawyer, ingenuously. Besides which, the man is no longer employed at schools, he now works as a cleaner at a museum. As though young girls never appear at museums with their school class or their friends or their families. "mechantgarcon1957" was his on-line call name.

It seems peculiar that no questions are being asked of the Ottawa Catholic School Board as to their decisions with respect to this former employee.

Bollywood, Ontario

The government that has just been returned to office in Ontario with a minority-majority after having proved time and again that it is more than capable of wasting tax-payer money has another four years to continue doing more of the same. We must like it, we voted the Liberals back into power. Mind, it seemed there was little alternative....

While unemployment in the province is above the average for the country, and jobs are not re-appearing, even while costs of energy are steadily rising, thanks to the government of Premier Dalton McGuinty determined to squeeze Ontarians through misguided policies, another story of mismanaged tax dollars emerges.

In an obvious move to inspire Ontarians with roots in India to view Dalton McGuinty's continued oversight as premier of the province, the Ontario government made a ploy to bring the International Indian Film Academy Awards to the Province of Ontario. Mumbai promotions company Wizcraft International Entertainment was only too happy to bring its dog-and-pony show to Toronto.

Bollywood is a big attraction everywhere. The Indian productions are raucously good-natured, colourful and romantic. They are pure entertainment. The Indian cinema public is enraptured by their stars, and the films have a very special appeal among an immense population among whom there are huge numbers living in poverty; viewing those films represents an escape from reality, dreams of other lifestyles.

But what kind of an investment sense does it make for the Government of Ontario to pay the full fare for telephone bills, airfares, hospitality, the construction and transportation of sets and all manner of other expenses involved in bringing those awards to Toronto? Dalton McGuinty had the opportunity to show up on the 'green' carpet alongside Bollywood notables for priceless photos.

This government handed $10.5-million to Wizcraft; $5.1-million for producing the show and various related events; another $5.2-million for hotel bills, hospitality, airfare, ground transportation and travel visas to bring workers back and forth between Canada and India. That's some film wizardry; Ontario tax money disappearing into the thin air of Bollywood productions.

Wait: the Ontario Ministry of Tourism & Culture got involved to the tune of an additional $1.5-million representing a business forum and Ontario-featured video advertising. Wasn't that a smoking deal for Ontarians?

The Collector

The world is full of strange people. People who appear to be normal, and then suddenly something appears to affect them in some profound way, changing their personalities, altering their perceptions, motivating them in ways little understood, to involve themselves in strange behaviour.

A Russian historian, with a doctorate in Celtic studies who specialized in necropolises would present, in any event, as an unusual personality with peculiar interests. Bizarre perhaps, but not unheard of. People are entitled to their little eccentricities, after all.

Eccentric behaviour, in a sense, is endearing. It can be. If it does not transcend the boundaries of the social convention. If it just piques one's interest. If it results in odd little characteristics that sets people apart from the ordinary stream of human interests.

Anatoly Moskvin, however, was, it turns out, more than a little eccentric, on the face of things. He appeared to have been drawn completely and irresistibly to the presence of the dead. Dead women. Dead young women. Whose bodies he excavated from their graves and conveyed to his home.

A bachelor at age 45, it behooved him, likely through his parents' encouragement, to install a woman in his life. And he went that wish one better. He brought no fewer than 29 women into his two-bedroom apartment. Some might consider it to be desecration of a corpse.

He staged the skeletons of these women - aged between 15 and 25 at the time of their deaths - whom he abducted from their graves, around his apartment, dressing them in very nice garments, using makeup on their 'faces'. This appeared to please Mr. Moskvin.

Until his parents, with whom he shared the apartment, returned home from a prolonged vacation. They were, understandably, confused and alarmed at what they discovered.

Verdict: Two For One

Dr. Conrad Murray, physician to celebrities, and himself a celebrity, found guilty of involuntary manslaughter of Michael Jackson, entertainer extraordinaire. In fact, there were two people who were responsible for the death of Michael Jackson, and that second person was Jackson himself.

While he did not intend, nor did he deliberately engineer his death, he insisted on the drug protocol that led to his death.

Nor could he have been totally ignorant of the risks involved in his chosen way of life. The man was a truly pathetic figure. Acclaimed as a popular artist, his music and his voice tremendously admired, there seemed to be little about himself that he cared for. He appeared utterly dissatisfied with himself.

The series of profoundly unsettling surgeries he chose to undergo to alter his physical characteristics were symbolic of a self-destructive personality. He chose, through repeated cosmetic surgery and the use of chemicals to alter himself as thoroughly as might be possible.

His facade presented him as a psychically frail and unhappy human being. His life seemed fraught with self-torment.

His Peter Pan complex never stopped weeping for his sad inner child. He had a deep sympathy for his own neurosis of being irretrievably lost in childhood, abandoned to an adulthood that never arrived. He mournfully related to little boys, even to well-celebrated incidents of predatory corruption.

The only doctor who would agree to administering to this ultimately ill, weakly self-absorbed man-child was one whose own private life was as valueless as his. Michael Jackson had been reduced to a shell of a human being, eyesight on the cusp of blind, wisps of hair left, skin pallid, incapable of sleeping, of urinating, arthritic.

He craved drugs and insisted they be available to him.

The doctor whom he paid the princely sum of $150,000 monthly to minister to him was in dire financial straits. His Hippocratic oath meant less to him than his lifestyle of lavish living and woman-chasing. Child support for his 7 children with 6 women had beggared him.

He was addicted to the salvation of his monthly salary, just as Michael Jackson was addicted to mind-soothing chemicals. Michael Jackson is serving his eternal sentence, his entire life a wasteland of delusion and fears.

It is now his doctor's turn.

Using The Democratic Vote

The Occupy movement began with a sense of collective outrage over the disparities that exist, have always existed, but have latterly become more overtly extensive, between the haves in society and the have-nots. The 'haves' having, in fact, an intolerable excess of the riches that society is capable of providing, aptly and amply proving, yet again, that riches beget further riches.

There is simply too much social inequity in most societies in most countries of the world. That it has always been so is an unalterable truth. That it will always be so, is yet another inconvenient truth. There are those who generate money, and in the process while enriching themselves they often provide opportunities for others far less fortunate to find employment in the general scheme of things.

Society itself, that is to say, governments acting at the behest of the societies they govern, understand their obligation to materially, if marginally, support the existential needs of the underclass, those who work for subsistence wages, the unemployed, the unemployable, those with critical disabilities.

There is a need for a re-alignment to take place, to redress the balance so that the avarice of those who bank an unacceptably-large proportion of any country's riches, is held in check, enabling others to make some inroads into taking advantage of possibilities that will lift them too into the 'have' class, if only somewhat.

So the need for a re-structuring of the economic pie is there. Whether or what can constructively be done to adjust the obviously maladjusted picture is moot. Just as society is top-heavy with greed, those at the bottom rungs are no less greedy, they are simply incapable of converting their greed into actual realization. They haven't got what it takes to get ahead.

Sometimes it is opportunity that is lacking, and this is an area where constructive measures can be taken. Not everyone who is under-employed is content to live on social welfare handouts, although many are. And, it seems that the Occupy (OWS) sub-groups have become heavy with the presence of political agitators, the homeless ill, substance abusers, and aggrieved university students.

They're a motley crew, with an amorphous, watered-down message, with their single point of agreement being that they are dissatisfied. They have served their purpose in calling attention to social inequities, and causing much to be written in the news, stimulating public concern and debate. But their insistence on remaining in city parks has become a festering sore.

Much more can be accomplished with political activism that works, by voting and encouraging others to vote, to reflect the values they insist they hold dear. These public camp-outs allowing another venue for partying and drug overdoses, anarchic message-mongering and young people proving they can pout and act the victim in the end will produce nothing but resentment.

Inspired by what was seen as youth rising in anger over life in totalitarian societies - where freedom to speak and assemble has been denied them, where unemployment is rife and life is costly, but death is cheap - the urge to congregate and park themselves in tents was communicated by what was seen occurring in the Middle East.

Just as democracy has found infertile soil there, not readily transportable from the West, the 'Arab spring' hasn't exported too well in the West; the reasons are completely dissimilar, and the solutions are, as well. In a free society those who celebrate their consciences as being clearly superior to those who govern have a vote.

They should use it well.