End-of-Year Curiosities

As ridiculous goes, this story is a fairly good example. Perhaps a little more than ridiculous; pointing out perhaps our ability to discern good nutrition from bad, value from potential harm. Of course it was long ago pointed out that something as essentially innocuous as the popular soft drink Coca-Cola (and its like counterparts) is inimical to health, particularly when used to excess. The high sugar content and the chemicals in the drink prove, over time, to be injurious to human health.

Those who become addicted to the liquid sugar-cola should experiment as many have done, to see that it can be a very effective, quite volatile and harsh cleaning tool. More than that, it's also effective in destroying textiles, for example, through its harsh chemical interaction. It might make a better toilet-bowl cleaner than a harmless, good-tasting alternative to fruit juice or milk, on the other hand, so it does have its conceivable uses.

And then there's the so-popular fast-food choices available at someplace like McDonald's, the franchise first-choice of millions of people that took the consuming public by storm, appealing to the human taste for extreme amounts of internal-human-organ-damaging fats, sugars and salt. A woman living in Windsor Ontario, has kept a McDonald's hamburger, untouched, for a full year on her kitchen counter.

What could be more perishable than a soft bun and a grilled hamburger? Yet this combination of bun and beef has managed to withstand the ravages of time. It appears, visually, unchanged from the time it was placed on Melanie Hesketh's kitchen counter. Whenever her teen-age children agitate for fast food, their mother points to the presence of the hamburger.

Untouched by mould, maggots or fungi, it squats there, awaiting consultation with a chemist, a nutritionist, an economist and a teen. "It makes me wonder why we choose to eat food like this when even bacteria won't eat it", commented Ms. Hesketh, herself a nutritionist at Windsor's Lifetime Wellness Centre.

The casual observer would see that the hamburger looks eminently edible, though the meat patty itself appears to have shrunk as the original moisture content contained within it has evaporated over time, though it "still smells slightly like a burger". McDonald's Restaurants of Canada Ltd. has yet to comment.

And, more or less in the same type of genre - food, that is - there is the Restaurant Les Princesses d'Hochelaga whose special allure to foodists has been catering to people who enjoy having their bacon-and-eggs brought to table by waitresses wearing shoes, a see-through skirt and a smile. In operation for 11 years, the restaurant and the city have been wrangling over the lack of a permit.

Making the restaurant's nearly-nude waitressing service illegal. The restaurant's owner finally succumbed, and the waitresses are now suited out in mini-dresses with small vests, serving clients their bacon and eggs, more modestly dressed. The result was interesting; the waitresses report receiving about 50% less of the tips they were formerly accustomed to receiving.

The Apple and Its Tree

Now, that's using the old noggin. Sometimes, the activities of young people in a community become so tirelessly troublesome to the mature people among whom they live that radical, drastic action must be taken in attempts to dissuade them - or at the very least - encourage them to curtail their objectionable activities, or even take them elsewhere.

There have been instances where (gasp!) classical music has been played in areas where teens like to gather and create problems with loitering, making it difficult for shoppers to access store fronts, and the shop owners, in desperation turn to such measures as forcing the exquisite sound of Renaissance music upon the ears of hip-hop-loving youth, causing them to scatter in disgust.

And here's another unconventional solution to a community's classic problem of wayward youth. where the city council of Middlesbrough in north-east England hit upon a truly unique solution to their common-enough problem of young people smoking cannabis and drinking alcohol in a woodland area near a housing estate.

Solution: they spread a thick layer of pig manure on the ground around the paths and trails and places where the teens were apt to gather. Although, because of its proximity to the woodland area, residents of the housing estate were able to catch a 'whiff' of the pig manure that sent the youth elsewhere, "they would much rather have a pong than a bong".

In Vancouver, on the other hand, what do you do when your neighbours don't much care what happens to your home in your absence, when it's their teens who illegally enter and trash your place? As occurred to a family taking a holiday in Italy, returning to discover their home had been used as party central for three straight days, in their absence.

A neighbour, as it happened, living close by but without the burden of having to admit that any of the invading teens were his responsibility, forewarned them as they arrived home, that they would find all not to be quite normal, on inspection. The peculiar thing about this is that the neighbour obviously was aware of what was happening, but did nothing himself about it. Like informing police.

They discovered their bed, and the bedrooms of their teen-age daughters who had been with them on the trip, had been used for sex, the house had become a casual drop-in-spot for friends of the friends who had occupied it, and their garbage was strewn everywhere. Meat had been taken out of the basement freezer and tossed on the floor, where when it was discovered by the returned family, it had become thick with festering maggots.

One neighbour called, afterward, to apologize, and offer to pay for the damage himself, saying he and his wife planned to move from the neighbourhood to get their teen-age daughter away from the influence of the neighbourhood kids who had mounted this three-day party. He had informed the victimized family that he had called other parents in the neighbourhood whose kids were also involved, but no one had returned his calls.

The family, who had a lot of cleaning up to do, and involved themselves in a lot of deep thinking about the value of neighbours, and their sterling neighbourhood, heard from none others of their neighbours, apologizing or taking any kind of responsibility for what their teens had done. Evidently none of them had any interest in what had occurred, much less having to take responsibility.

How's that for neighbourliness and responsibility in raising kids to respect themselves and the rights of others, let alone the letter of law? The invading kids, by the way, were so little concerned about the morality and legality of what they had done, that they left indelible and identifiable evidence of who they were for the family to discover on their return.

Disheartening at the very least, infuriating at the other end of the spectrum. The family should take it upon itself to press charges and mount a legal offensive. But in all likelihood they weighed the potential outcome to realize that little would come of it.

Utter Mindlessness

CARLOS OSORIO/TORONTO STAR

Smile! You're a shopping maniac. Well, perhaps not you, if you're a sensible, ordinary individual who wouldn't think of emerging from your nice warm house on a miserably cold winter's day in the wee hours of the morning to establish yourself in a waiting group patiently awaiting the five hours it will take for the store you're anxious to rush into to grab all those bargains, at ten in the morning.

Seems it's the electronic gadgetry emporiums that manage to entice the majority of people into these mindless goods-consumption highjinks. People who are prepared to bring along sleeping bags, tents, hot thermoses full of coffee, and good cheer, to await daylight and the opening of the front doors to the stores that have advertised "Boxing Day Specials" at knock-down prices.

"I have been here since 1:30 a.m. this morning", said one young man, brimming over with glee, standing beside his father. It's a family affair. Two grown-up men happy to stamp their feet in the cold and determined not to succumb to the misery of an overnight camping plan that will end with their acquiring a 42-inch flat screen television, a laptop computer, a personal video recorder.

Now that's quality-of-life. That's value for time spent mindlessly anticipating the "savings" to be had for patiently standing about and eagerly awaiting the opportunity to flow into a store whose inventory will be slipping out that same front door in the satisfied arms of customers who have already depleted their bank accounts buying Christmas gifts the weeks before.

Doesn't take long as shoppers grab shopping carts in their eagerness to grasp all those attractive bargains before someone else manages to grab the last one. For the determined buyer who had waited for hours for the Santa-and-elves-clad sales staff to unlock the doors, a fast prowl down the aisles, dumping merchandise into the carts and wheeling them directly to the cash takes five minutes.

And the queue that had gathered outside gradually diminishes, while newcomers begin to re-establish a newer line of eagerly anticipating customers. The stores are "crazy-busy", and tempers sometimes run short when people take too long to load up their purchases in car trunks a little too small to hold them, while others waiting to take their parking spots lose their patience.

It's just so much fun and, according to one shopper "family-oriented".

Sub-Prime Lives On...

There's one victory for the Obama administration, reflecting concern and a modicum of relief for the true victims of the sub-prime mortgage chaos. Bad enough that people who could not financially qualify for those mortgages were encouraged to own a house of their own, no down payment, low interest rates, and no payments required for the time being; be a homeowner, it's the American dream.

But now it is revealed that Hispanics and Blacks who had jobs and were capable of responsibly managing their financial affairs and who truly did qualify for home ownership were thrown into the pile - deliberately - by those who made the decisions at Countrywide Financial - since bought out by Bank of America Corp.

African-Americans and Hispanics were disproportionately represented by those unhappy home-owners who lost their homes in the financial meltdown accelerated by the sub-prime mortgage debacle. Unknown to those Blacks and Hispanics who were able to qualify and were happy to have approval, they were ushered into those faulty mortgages in their zeal to own a home.

Countrywide was a specialist in sub-prime mortgages, their focus on would-be homeowners who had a record of low credit ratings. And these were the people who were charged higher interest rates; make sense? Non-minority Americans were excused from paying higher fees and interest rates; Hispanics and Blacks were targeted.

Those in the category of responsible homeowner-material with fair credit rating and incomes required to pay mortgages were channelled toward sub-prime mortgages even though they qualified for traditional mortgages. If they were Black, if they were Hispanic. None of this was divulged to them, they thought that everything was conducted conventionally.

"The victims had no idea they were being victimized. They were thrilled to have gotten a loan and realize the American dream. This is discrimination with a smile", said Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department's civil-rights division. It was clearly unspeakably racist.

Although Countrywide's former chief executive Angelo Mozilo has been excused of criminal wrongdoing. Not illegal, simply immoral and unethical. An excess of enthusiasm for the wide range of possibilities available in the free enterprise capitalist system that encourages profit with little thought to the ethics of guiding people down the garden path of ruination to achieve it.

Government investigators undertook reviews of two-and-a-half million loans to discover that African Americans and Hispanics were over three times more likely to receive high-cost sub-prime loans than non-minorities. That's quite an inadvertence.

It smells rather rank, somewhat like the Countrywide decision to illegally foreclose on members of the U.S. military without court orders. Like the decision by the same Countrywide to over-charge homeowners for loan servicing fees, both of which events required the company to face huge fines in civil charges.

This latest, a record $335-million in recognition of its institutionalized gouging of innocent home buyers, leading them to be the recipients of hugely flawed mortgages, risking their investments, while charging them considerably more than should have been done for fees and higher interest rates, reveals the cancerous underbelly of unrestrained capitalism.

Forced To Beg

In such indescribably poor countries of the world as those existing in East Asia, India and Africa many are forced to beg. There are those who know no other way of life. The few scraps of food, the tiny bits of currency they earn through the pity and charity of those among them who are more fortunate prolongs their lives, though they live in squalor and deprivation and ill health.

This is no way for any human being to live, but it is the way that countless human beings are forced to live. For the alternative is to not live. Without sustenance of even the most inadequate kind that may accrue to these beggars, the flotsam and jetsam of humanity, they would die. It is an indignity to the human spirit to be forced by circumstances one cannot control, to be a beggar.

It is an offence to nature not to make attempts - any attempts, however futile they seem - to somehow persevere, to endure the unendurable, and to eke out a life by begging, by eliciting the pity of those whose own level of poverty is slightly above their own, to share whatever they can conceivably spare. For the greatest offence is the waste of a life.

The poor, it is often said, are more generous of nature than are those who have more than they require. They are less loathe, despite their own parlous condition, to proffer some form and some level of help to others. Even the good charity of kindliness, of a warm word, a gesture, an effort at recognition of their shared humanity.

So when Mary Yuranda was swept away by the ferocious force of the tsunami that hit the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day 2004, one of 168,000 in hardest-hit Aceh alone that the tidal wave picked up and pulled into the great wide, raging seas, it was nothing less than a miracle that she survived. And that a woman, herself indigent, took in the child whom her mother was unable to save.

She has now been reunited with her family, telling them the story of her survival and adoption. She was named Wati by the woman who took her in. And with whom she lived for seven years, but never forgetting her family. Although she said she had forgotten other relatives' names, though not that of her grandfather.

Whom an acquaintance of her grandfather had brought her to, after having found her sitting, mute, in a coffee bar. She had somehow made a long journey from where she had been found, to her home. It is entirely possible that 14-year-old Mary Yuranda left her adoptive mother because she was being used as a child prostitute, not a street beggar.

Her parents, good Muslims, would far prefer she be seen as a child beggar. But they love her, and are themselves grateful to have her with them once more. The honour is theirs, in welcoming her back with love and pride at her survival.

Irrespective of what use that little girl was put to by those who saw advantage in saving her from death, she is alive, she is well, she is grateful to be reunited with her family, and they with her. What more, in the face of that indescribable natural disaster, could anyone ask for?

Mountaineering

But then, with the Donjek not yet in sight, they heard the ominous roar of its flooding current. Over the next two days, there followed one setback after another: the futile attempt to build a driftwood raft; the crossing without crampons of the snout of the Donjek Glacier; the wretched bivouac on the ice under the tent with no pole; the shock of the discovery that the true source of the Donjek was not that glacier, but another one twenty-two impossible miles farther south; the dicey rappel off the carved bollard just to get off the glacial snout.

And then, the nearly hopeless effort to ford the river where it braided into some fifty channels, the last one proving the deepest and most treacherous. With their rope improvised from pack cordage, Bob had staggered into that last channel and lost his footing, only to be held by Brad's stationary belay. But then, as Bob forged on, he had lost his footing again, and the taut rope pulled Brad loose. Both men careened out of control, the muddy flood carrying them around one bend after another. Both men had time to think This is it....

Then, with a genius born of desperation, Bob improvised a technique; he would let the current carry him twenty or thirty yards, then touch bottom with his feet, only to spring upward in a mad leap. Brad caught on and imitated his friend.

At last Bob eddied out on the far shore. Brad, too, crawled up into the bushes. Shivering uncontrollably, the two stripped off all their clothes and pulled their single sleeping bag around them.

Two days later, among the willows and alders, Brad and Bob ran by chance into some Indian horsepackers from the Burwash Landing trading post, out rounding up stray steeds. The men were utterly dumbfounded to discover the climbers - no one in the Yukon suspecting that any human being was abroad in the vast wilderness between Kluane Lake and the Saint Elias Range.

The crossing of the Donjek River was the closest Brad would come to dying in the mountains. For Bob, it was one of the two close calls of his life - the other coming on K2 in 1953. From: The Last of His Kind, by David Roberts

For those who are, like me, fascinated by detailed stories of Arctic survival, Antarctic weather and humankind's stubborn persistence in maintaining research stations at both, along with the indomitable will of strong minds geared to adventure and exploration, this book was yet another treat in armchair adventure.

The writer, an intrepidly successful mountaineer in his own right, has documented in this biography the life of his mentor in the climbing world, the former director of the Boston Science Museum.

Before Bradford Washburn became involved with the Boston museum he was involved with the National Geographic Society, which sponsored several of his mountaineering expeditions and published his descriptions of those expeditions, along with breath-taking mountain photography, another area the man pioneered.

Bradford Washburn, who began his climbing career as a teen in the Alps on family vacations in the 1930s, went on to become the premier mountaineer of his era. He was a true polymath, among other attributes; a geologist, author, photographer, cartographer and mountaineer extraordinaire. He excelled in leading expeditions in the Yukon and Alaska's Saint Elias Range; up to then areas of North America, remote and weather-bound that were largely unexplored territory.

As a surveyor and cartographer he produced maps of then-unknown areas of the Grand Canyon, Mt. McKinley and Mt. Everest; his maps and aerial photographs are still in use today, never having been surpassed.

Exploration of Earth's isolated and forbidding surfaces has become fairly routine now, with wealthy amateurs paying hefty sums for expert mountaineers leading commercial expeditions enabling them to view for themselves stupendous heights of nature. The original explorers, whose exploits this book describes, faced the unknown.

They did it with determination, perseverance and dignity. And many lost their lives in the process.

At last we got a spell of six consecutive days of perfect weather. Pushing as hard as we could, we arrived all four together on the summit at 3:30 a.m. on July 30, 1965. A few hours later, we collapsed in our highest camp, all four crammed into a two-man tent pitched narrow on an ice ledge. We fished out our bottle of "victory brandy" - a pint of blackberry-flavored Hiram Walker. Our first and heartiest toast was to Brad Washburn.

The west face of Huntington remains the finest climb of my life. It would have been a perfect expedition, except that it ended in tragedy. In the middle of the night of July 31, as the youngest member of our team. Ed Bernd, and I descended in semidarkness, we paused to set up a rappel. Suddenly, as soon as he leaned back on the rope, Ed was flying through the air away from me. He never uttered a word.

Somehow the anchor had failed - and to this day, I do not know why. It was obvious, however, that Ed had fallen 4,500 feet to his death. The "perfect expedition" turned into a survival ordeal, as I had to climb without a rope down to the next camp, then wait two days for my other two partners to join me.

Ed had fallen to a glacial basin so inaccessible that we never had a chance to search for his body.

Utter Compulsion

There is something utterly compelling about books like Trekking in the Everest Region, Living Arctic, Into Thin Air, Icebound, the Arctic Grail, The North-West Passage by Land, Ice: Stories of Survival From Polar Exploration, and The last of His Kind. They grip the imagination, holding the reader spellbound in fascination for the daring, foresight and courage of the human will to explore this world we inhabit.

Humankind's curiosity to know as much as possible about the world's far frozen reaches and the majestic heights, the geological formations, hostile and forbidding, but irresistible, leading people from northern nations to discover, explore and engage with the realities of raw nature never fails to amaze.

Those intrepid explorers who set out with faith in their capacities and abilities to survive the most formidable existential odds; man against nature at its most unpredictable, inclement. Where indeed, humankind and even other forms of animal or bird life avoid being trapped in an environment they will never be able to extricate themselves from alive. These relatively few who set out with mountain conquest in mind, intent on summiting the most impossible heights must be imbued with a special gene rendering them immune to the fears that usually grip others far less adventurous.

That they do fear the unknown but yet convince themselves that the draw of their will to survive equalling the wish to discover and to know, along with the perceived integrity of their search far outweighs the potential for disaster places them in a very special category. To read about their adventurous exploits is to experience a wan reflection of what it is they face against the imperious contours of the Earth's crust, the hostile environments that nature has bestowed upon vast, isolated areas of this Planet we call our home.

The ferocity of their dedication to searching out the mysteries of Earth's natural formations, mapping them, surviving countless ordeals to bring back news to the more timid of us - which describes the huge majority of people - is matched only by nature's own ferocious determination to demonstrate, time and again, her imperial mastery over humankind's ingenuity and stolid perseverance.

The book I've just completed reading, by a master American mountaineer, David Roberts, writing of his mentor, Bradford Washburn, in The Life and Adventures of Bradford Washburn, America's Boldest Mountaineer; The Last of His Kind, is a lesson in the stubborn resolve and fascinating life-work of one such man. As an explorer extraordinaire, master alpine photographer, geologist, and science museum curator, Bradford Washburn was indeed one of a kind in his huge sense of curiosity, his perfectionism, his assurance that determined will would conquer all.

Leaving behind a legacy comprised of new methods of mountain exploration, concise mountain, glacier and icy-canyon photographs, and detailed instructions to match his experiences with the new generation of enterprising, committed young men and women who are compelled to repeat his, his climbing peers', their predecessors' and successors' fabulous exploits.

Restoration of Honour

Strange values to cling to, engrained over hundreds of years, instructing the faithful that their first oath of fealty is to family-clan-societal 'honour'. Honour being invested in the male control of a female's genetic inheritance whereby nature - the Almighty, to believers - invested in the female of the species the honour of bringing forth new life.

In some societies she who rocks the cradle has the power; in rabidly patriarchal ultra-religious societies, he who controls the womb is the power.

And so it is that another form of honour killing has been revealed. Leaving the original impression given the West intact, that full control of female sexuality and gestation is so integral to male cultural imperialism that girls and women who have the effrontery to defy their male relatives' dictates with respect to modesty flirt with death. But adding another proviso, giving it greater depth.

The primitive notion that women may be kept as chattel, valued not as human beings in their own right, but for their ability to conceive and bring forth a new generation represents a controlling social instrument that maintains women as gender slaves, facing the penalty of death for disobedience. Disobedience can come in the form of having been raped, for this too is a fault of women, not men.

But in a story unfolding in England where Britain's Court of Appeal ruled that a baby at risk of being slaughtered by its grandfather should he become aware of its out-of-wedlock-birth, must be left for adoption, to spare its life we learn of additional honour remediations. The baby's Muslim mother had a love affair with an already-married man. To his credit, he would have taken the baby. But the chance of the mother's father discovering the truth would have been too great.

"In the particular circumstances of this case, the judge rightly regarded the risk of physical harm to [the baby] and [its mother] as being of major importance. Here the evidence was, in our judgement, compelling," was the opinion of the appeal court in its final decision.

"[The baby] was conceived in a relationship which was unacceptable to [the mother's] traditional Muslim family and conducted in secrecy.
"When she realized she might be pregnant she ran away from home for fear of the reaction of her family and, in particular, her father.
"Shortly after her pregnancy was confirmed, [the mother] took steps to have her baby adopted at birth."

The mother did return to her parents' home, concealing her pregnancy as it advanced by the wearing of loose clothing.

"As soon as [the baby] was born, she was relinquished for adoption because [the mother] genuinely feared for [the baby's] safety should [the grandfather] become aware of or be forced to acknowledge her existence.
"[The mother's] evidence supported as it was by her actions and the evidence of [the father] and an experienced police officer, drove the judge to conclude that refusal of the order would carry with it a significant risk of physical harm. In our judgement this conclusion cannot be criticized."

In their great wisdom, the judges imposed a wide reporting ban on the publication of names and locations linked to this case because of the obvious above-related danger. To the father of the pregnant daughter, it would have represented a deep and abiding personal shame, an outrage to the values of a Muslim family, blotting that family with an indelible shame.

The death of the baby would have helped to lift the dishonour to the family name. But, even more shocking to Western sensibilities - the values and sensibilities of any intelligent being in fact - was the pregnant woman's mother's testimony. She had informed police that should her husband discover the truth of the matter "he would consider himself honour-bound to kill the child, the mother, the grandmother herself and the grandmother's other children".

In other words, to wipe the slate clean in its entirety, and to restore honour to the paterfamilias of this Muslim family, his entire family would have to be sacrificed to his sense of outrage over one of his female possessions' intolerable acts of disobedience. Having committed an outrageous sin, and bringing shame to Islamic values, his daughter, her child, his wife, her children must be destroyed.

To put a moral balance on the story, the child has been adopted by a Muslim couple originating from a different community, albeit the same country as that of the mother.

Charities: Do Not Gift!

All year 'round charitable organizations send out multiple times yearly, requests for donations. It might seem sensible to the average individual who receives multiple requests for donations from a single charity that it is enough to receive one request annually per charity. Obviously charitable organizations themselves receive no such recommendations that they might take seriously.

If one charity takes the initiative to send out multiple requests, then they all will, rather than permit one of them to have a potential advantage in fund-raising.

Charitable organizations seem increasingly more invested in perpetuating themselves as corporate interests than in their dedication to the causes that they serve in search of a better world. That, in any event, is the impression that many who give are increasingly subjected to. Which does not, actually, stop most people from continuing to send in their donations in the hope that it will indeed help to make a better world.

And it isn't as though these charitable groups have only one method of fund-raising at their disposal; mailed-out requests.

Increasingly, for those who choose to donate on-line, more sophisticated of the charitable organizations, such as Medecins sans Frontieres, for example, and other international groups, contact potential donors through the Internet, by email. It is, without doubt, an expeditious way to forward donations and a preferable one.

And then, there are additional ways of enlisting the help of volunteers in raising funds for charitable causes. Local branches of national charitable groups organize door-to-door campaigns with volunteers going out to knock on their neighbours' doors, requesting that they relinquish donations for a charitable receipt written then and there.

There are organized runs and walk-a-thons to raise funds for research into medical conditions benefiting the bottom lines of charitable organizations who fund disease-and-condition-specific research.

And then there are all of those newer fund-raising devices, selling tickets for specific charities that promise those who purchase the tickets that they have a fairly good chance at winning a top-of-the-line vehicle, a luxury, furnished house, an outstanding, all-equipped cottage, an all-expenses-paid exotic trip, or free food shopping for a year.

All these enticing gambits gain charities the funding they seek to ensure they remain in the game. Sometimes it seems like an never-ending game.

Where many people become irritated is when they receive, through the mail, unsolicited 'gifts' from these charities. Greeting cards, address labels, pens, notebooks, festive wrapping paper and ribbons, all geared toward obligating people who receive them to respond generously with a donation. Some people, myself among them, find this practise beyond irritating.

Even more irritating is the additional practise of sending out a pleading letter from some celebrity, counting on the weight of his/her name and reputation as a celebrity to entice you to respond with a generous donation. And just to coerce the uncertain into feelings of guilt, affixed to the letter of appeal is a taped five-cent piece.

When I send a donation to a charitable enterprise I like to convince myself they will use the money wisely in the best possible pursuits of fulfilling their humanitarian agenda. Purchasing greeting cards in bulk and then sending them on to potential gifters is not my idea of wise use of funding that comes out of my bank account.

When I receive such packets in the mail I feel no obligation to respond by forwarding on a donation; I freeze my previous habit of funding that particular charity. Which leaves me then in the position of increasing my donation amount to the charities that are left in the running.

They Are The True Victims

Bishop Raymond Lahey who so shocked Nova Scotia and the wider country when he was discovered to be in possession of child pornography after a routine stop by customs agents at Ottawa's Pearson airport on his return from a trip abroad, has confessed and apologized and he has stated that he feels his having been caught represented to him a "blessing in disguise".

The unspoken rest of the story was that he would simply have spiralled deeper into his sick obsession had he not been apprehended.

Now that he has been so widely disgraced, and brought in the process, a wider disgrace to the Catholic Church that he so long represented, he has had the opportunity to look into himself, to engage in a deep-seated introspection that has brought him to the opinion - never too late to repent, obviously - that what he was engaged in was harmful to the lives of children and youth.

Graphic images of sex bondage and torture involving children is about as low as one can sink.

But this realization was evidently not quite top-of-mind, given his statement at his court appearance. "During the past 26 months, I've had a chance to reflect on what I have done. I can say I have come to recognize that I became addicted to Internet pornography on a very indiscriminate basis This was an addiction powerful enough that despite my own distaste for it and my own internal convulsions I could not break it.

"I will take this opportunity to speak out to others who may find themselves in a similar position to my own and urge them to look at what they are doing, cease it and to seize the help that they need. Not just because this is something [1] illegal, but because ultimately it is [2] unhealthy, because it destroys relationships, and above all, where it involves pictures and stories of children, because it [3] causes genuine harm to them", Bishop Lahey expounded.

In that order of importance: 1: illegal - 2: unhealthy - 3: genuinely harmful to the child victims.

He was in the grip of an unforgivably immoral obsession that impacted horribly on the lives of the victims of the story. That he, as a man of the cloth, one who had risen within the Church hierarchy, someone whom other human beings looked up to for moral guidance and comfort, could succumb to the sick allure of watching and taking enjoyment out of children being abused and tortured is beyond belief.

He is an old man, and he has been disgraced beyond redemption. There are those who might find it in themselves to forgive him. He has lived his life and he is now excused from responsibility if he is offered comfort, yet to forgive is considered a moral obligation to many. In this instance, the old stricture: "Judge not lest ye be judged", simply does not apply, for there are few among us who would stoop as low as this man did.

It should not be overlooked that this man's sick obsession with his sexuality as one who consecrated his sexuality to the Church, yet found it in himself to find enjoyment in the degradation of children represents a betrayal of the most profound kind. He was given the trust of many, among them children - and he betrayed his oath and the belief that was entrusted to him.

The harm he and others like him, do is incalculable. "He is and was an individual in a position of trust over many years hiding his shameful sexual depravity and predilection in taking joy in the torture and rape of children." This is the condemnation expressed by Crown prosecutor David Elhadad. And it's as well put a judgement as any.

And his opinion expressed on response to Biship Lahey's lawyer looking for clemency for his client, reminding the court that the man now wears an indelible scarlet letter was clarity itself:

"Mr. Lahey may have to bear the scarlet letter of child pornography on his chest, but the victims of child pornography have endured unspeakable acts and they too must bear a permanent mark, marks that are invisible to the naked eye but are of psychological harm, knowing that their photographed and videotaped sexual encounters are out there for eternity. They are the true victims."

Environmentalism's New Whipping Boy

Chiquita announced that it would direct trucking companies it uses to try to avoid using fuel refined from the oil sands (AFP/File, Ernesto Benavides)

Chiquita Brands bananas made a name for itself back when the world was a whole lot younger by employing Carmen Miranda to sing the famous ditty whose purpose was to entice banana sales in North America while informing purchasers how best to store them in the home. It's now making a name for itself as a banana-empire hypocrite. Having decided to stop using fuel from Canada in trucking their bananas.

The brand may feel it is redeeming itself, at least in the United States, where it has decided to re-locate its head offices. After all, their corporate heads may reason that as long as the Keystone XL pipeline project is being stalled by an election-sensitive Barack Obama, acceding to the demands of the environmental lobby will be a popular move in the U.S. because its economy isn't the target.

But it will be. When Congress and the Senate finally make the decision that the country must balance its energy dependence between continuing to import oil from the Middle East and Venezuela whose political/social interests run counter to that of the United States, and where American money to buy that oil has been used to fund madrassas teaching violent jihad against the West - or from a friendly neighbour.

Charlotte, North Carolina is a beautiful, small city. Situated in a lovely geographic area where the climate is reasonable, the people are proudly civil, and there are amenities galore, including a world-class museum and plenty of professional-medical-research groups headquartered there; like much of the U.S. it too has suffered an employment downturn. So, good for Charlotte, they deserve a break.

But give the northern part of North America a break too. Really, seriously, boycotting the use of Canadian oil from Alberta's oilsands because of environmental groups characterizing it as 'dirty oil'? Chiquita's announcement at its annual conference with trucking companies must have taken them by surprise; it certainly took Canada by surprise to be metaphorically lifted off its feet by its earlobes.

EthicalOil.org is now doing its part to counteract - at least within Canada - the insultingly gratuitous public relations ploy undertaken by Chiquita Brands. Urging Canadians, through a campaign of public information, to boycott Chiquita bananas. As Kathryn Marshall, speaking for EthicalOil puts it: "We find that to be very unethical, discriminatory and misguided", of the boycott of Canadian oil by Chiquita.

"We want to hit back. We want to show Chiquita that Canada is proud of our oil industry. We're proud to be the world's most ethical producer of oil." Canada's opinionated, outspokenly resolute Jason Kenney, Minister of Citizenship, added his opinion: "I gather that Chiquita Bananas has no problem with Iranian oil, but is boycotting Canadian oil. No more Chiquita bananas for me."

And just in case Chiquita is ignorant of the facts, Alberta's Wildrose leader's statement on the issue is clarifying in nature: "Alberta's oilsands are the most safe, secure and reliable source of energy in the world, and tremendous progress has been made in reducing emissions and environmental impacts. Personally, I will boycott Chiquita products until they reverse their ill-informed decision."

In the kitchens of the nation, people are rushing to have a look at their banana clusters, exhaling a sigh of relief as they read "Dole" on those little plastered-on stickers.

Without Compromise

Getty Images Christopher Hitchens at his home in Washington, D.C., on May 17, 2010.

The past week, just before Christmas, has seen three deaths notable on the world scene. The first was that of cancer-stricken Christopher Hitchens, the British-American writer, polemicist, agitator, wit and formidable debater. His point of view on a wide range of subjects brought him fame as well as a circle of like-minded friends and admirers.

And his mindset also brought him enemies. He gave short shrift to the latter, and enjoyed the former.

The man could assemble an argument like few others. He was fully capable of demolishing the irrational, embarrassing the stupidly dangerous, and satirizing the absurd. He began life thinking left, ended it sharp to the right. That trip was given impetus by what he observed of the world around him, and the trajectory to the right was hastened by the events of 9/11, when he was mortally offended by the left chortling that American had it coming.

A mind to be reckoned with, a resolute atheist who alienated his brother who practised missionary zeal in his Christianity, he said and wrote opinion pieces that would shed him those friends whose friendship was a veneer, and cement that of the others, whether or not they shared his unshakeable convictions, because they valued and admired him as an individual with a fine mind.

With his diagnosis a year earlier of inoperable end-stage cancer, which his life-style hastened (his father died of esophageal cancer, and his own chain smoking and hard-liquor indulging weighted the trajectory of his health in the same direction; genetic inheritance aided and abetted by lifestyle, despite that he once claimed that smoking and drinking helped sharpen his mind, and since writing was so vitally important to him, both were worth the risk.)

He took the risk, and ran with it. And evidently never once looked back. Not even when his health was so compromised and his condition so dire that anyone else would have sought comfort in dulling the pain with enough opioids they would be unable to think rationally. Instead, he laboured right up to the last day of his life, writing the same kind of personal opinion pieces for celebrated journals that gained in reputation because they carried his work.

Christopher Hitchens was an original, and he owed nothing to anyone but his own hard-headed determination to offer moral resistance where it was due - without compromise.

School Bullying

Some interesting observations that might seem self-evident, about the prevalence of bullying in the schoolyard. Not that it doesn't happen in the classroom. And there's the rub. The point is that many adults in the teaching profession behave toward their students in a somewhat less than professional manner.

That is, if the profession of teaching itself insists that the student-teacher relationship be a two-way effort in mutual respect.

Children often mention that they feel they have been burdened with a teacher who treats them in a cavalier manner. It's often enough heard that when a student approaches a teacher to ask for additional help in understanding a mathematical theory, or a home assignment, they are given short shrift. Instructions additional to what was conveyed in the class room will not be forthcoming.

A response from the instructor such as "use your head", may help the instructor feel good about him/herself, but it doesn't do much good to the student making enquiries and is certain to result in plummeting self-esteem. A serious question deserves a seriously-considered response. The role of the teacher in the classroom is to inspire the student to learn.

When students ask for clarification of an assignment in the classroom itself, and they're put off by the nonchalant, disinterested response of the teacher giving the assignment, they're not likely, either those posing the question, or those listening in, to repeat the scene. All the more so, if the teacher feels a sarcastic quip about the student not paying attention is stated.

Guaranteed to elicit a chorus of nervous giggles from the rest of the class. This lack of respect and serious courtesy communicates to the entire class and sets a standard for general abuse.

One person involved in studying the phenomenon of bullying in the classroom, psychologist/researcher Dr. Tracey Vaillancourt, made the observation that she is capable of instantly discerning whether a particular school will have a bullying problem simply by walking into that school and observing the attitude of the school secretary; friendly results in an awareness that this is a prevailing school culture.

A hostile, rude, dismissive school secretary, in Dr. Vaillancourt's considered opinion is a symbol of the entire school's social-cultural environment. "If schools are to be successful in tackling bullying, they have to model appropriate behaviour on the part of adults", explained Dr. Vaillancourt, Canada Research Chair in children's medical health and violence prevention at the University of Ottawa.

"And there are many schools where teachers are not respectful of each other, and are not respectful of students. If the collective is morally disengaged, kids get bullied."

Actively Obnoxious

There is no one quite so certain of themselves, so passionate about what they believe in, so assured that they are doing the right thing in imposing their beliefs on others, than the convert. Usually someone who has experienced the other side of the coin, and then experienced a personal epiphany that caused them to be 're-born'. That spiritual, insightful elevation inspires the convert to a life-mission to enlist everyone else to their newfound certainty.

Linda Gibbons, grandmotherly yet sprightly and righteously believing, feels that her certainty in the mission she has embarked upon should inspire all others to think and feel and act as she does. Nothing will detract her from her mission. Not the fact that she acts unlawfully, nor the criminal prosecution that escorts her to years in prison for maintaining her belief. She remains resolutely dedicated to saving the lives of unborn children.

Unborn they may be, but they are children in the eyes of the Lord, who has cautioned her that she owes Him a life she had herself sacrificed when she hadn't believed in the sacredness of human life. Isn't that completely typical and predictable? Women are always conflicted to some degree over such decisions. They feel compelled for their own reasons to terminate a pregnancy, and once committed, follow through.

But they are inevitably, at some time or other - close to the incident, or many years afterward - impelled to re-visit their decision, wonder if it was the right call to make. Obviously, at the time it seemed that it was, but in retrospect they wonder if things might have turned out differently. And then, most women simply carry on. Not Linda Gibbons, for she found God whom she had once carelessly discarded, and felt instructed to do His work.

She was no role model as a young woman; several children out of wedlock - common enough now; back then identifying her as boldly indifferent to societal mores. And a terminated pregnancy. For which act God later personally scolded her. Ms.Gibbons feels herself to have been unfairly, unjustly, and illegally disciplined by a justice system that has victimized her. She may be right, to a degree.

She has a right to rant and rave, in a sense. Leave her to it. On the other hand, other people too have their rights. And she has imposed her right upon theirs. There may be a more humane solution to avoiding these clashes of opinions, but they don't appear very obvious, for the most part. She is disturbing women who are vulnerable, and who simply do not wish to be more unhappy than they are due to circumstances they are attempting to deal with.

But the woman is a right royal pain in the buttocks. Far more than that, to the women who walk into an abortion clinic, having to reconcile themselves internally to what they have committed to, only to have her presence, insistent and compelling to deal with as well. She could have carried on had she simply recognized certain constraints, but she shrugged them off, feeling it her right, though it was not, to confront and antagonize.

An injunction that was meant to constrain protesters and 'pro-life', anti-abortion types like her from interfering with the processes and procedures that health care professionals and women in need carried on with as responsible, thinking individuals deciding how best to proceed with their own decision-making was summarily dismissed by her. So she was arrested, imprisoned, released, repeated her confrontations.

"I believe the injunctions do not represent proper law, that they do violence to the law, that they're a malconstruct, that they're there for political purposes", she insists. On the evidence it seems she will forever seek to impose her values and her interpretations of what society must unequivocally accept as needful to satisfy her willfulness.

Saving People From Themselves

It's one of the many and varied mysteries of the human mind. We can understand the human mind that wishes to distinguish itself through acts of charity, adventure and rational intelligence. But that portion of humankind that chooses in the most visible ways possible to distinguish themselves from others, in rejection of prevailing norms to alter themselves in such drastic and visible ways that no one could possibly miss the message?

What the message might be; that is, the underlying, deep-seated message cannot be known precisely. It's entirely possible that the person who so distinguishes themselves can't really explain, even to themselves, what motivates them. Other than the most obvious; a total rejection of what is considered through a longstanding, unwritten, unspoken social contract as normalcy. There is a tradition of self-flagellation that people resort to as an expression of self-sacrifice in support of an ideal.

But that kind of thing doesn't actually apply in these more modern instances of gruesome self-mutilation in drastic alterations of appearance. After all, it isn't exactly normal to make oneself a grotesque parody of human yet unhuman appearance.

David Sidaway / Postmedia News Tattoos and piercings, as exhibited by Montreal Rick Genest, above, are fairly tame.

It's certainly difficult for most people who consider themselves 'normal' to view an appearance such as the one above with anything approaching objective equanimity. We instantly, upon seeing such an apparition, wonder what could possibly inspire someone to perform such drastic and sinisterly-dramatic alterations to their physical appearance. And, instinctively, we wonder what's wrong with them. What could conceivably have driven them to reject how nature conceived them, and embrace the dreadful appearance they exchanged it for?

There are ancient tribal rites, practises and passages that call upon their members at certain stages in life and maturity to embroider their bodies with tattoos and body piercings. Elongated necks that women of a tribe are encouraged to begin working on through the gradual addition of metal loops that eventually results in a giraffe-like neck considered to be a symbol of beauty for that tribe. Or monstrously elongated ears, with gradually heavier rings placed in holes in the earlobes.

Primitive peoples have always tattooed themselves, using sand or grit under wounds, or vegetable dyes to provide a scarred, ridged or coloured effect, in the belief that in so doing, through all the pain, they were increasing their value in their social community as desirable and beautiful members. The painfully tiny feet that were imposed upon women of status in Japan were said to arouse passion in the men who observed and lusted after these women, crippled by their status.

So what exactly, can it be that attracts certain personalities in our present age, within communities in the 21st-Century Western cultures to delve into self-mutilation? It is not, after all, beautification that these modern-day rejectionists of normalcy pursue, but a ghastly attraction to self-mutilation. What else can it be termed, when they seek to experience the joys of having their skin carved and branded, being hung from a ceiling on hooks pressed into their backs?

Laura Morton / Seattle Times

Are they celebrating their exceptionalism, their curious sense of discovery, personal exploration, courage in altering forever their appearance to a grotesque parody? If they are beloved of anyone, it becomes a challenge to appreciate the visual horror that they represent. Is this the expression of those who have nothing but contempt for the values that others hold dear? An absolute and utter rejection of societal acceptance? Their unavoidable appearance a poke in the eye to those whom they reject?

Nothing occurs in a vacuum, however. And those who make it a point of expanding their horizons by experiencing what it feels like to be hung and flayed like a piece of butcher's meat also flirt with the potential of picking up extremely dangerous-to-lethal infectious diseases. At the least, haemorrhaging dangerously through the processes, and inevitable exposure to infections through bloodborne diseases.

Their desires become public health risks. And public health authorities are beginning to take notice of what is happening in an industry that is unregulated and whose practitioners may be less concerned with the health and well-being of their clients than they might be if they were required by law to ensure they observe strict hygienic processes. There are routine inspections by municipal health authorities, but these extreme passages from normalcy to abnormal occur outside normal business hours.

"We'd inspected a premise we're aware of that's low risk and then suddenly they bring in an artist who is doing more procedures and elevating the risk. It's very difficult, from our perspective." So, is the answer licensing and passing of strict regulations to ensure that those providing these extreme services to a small portion of the public follow health and safety guidelines?

"It's here to stay regardless of whether the medical community wants it to be here. Now it's a case of how do we make it safe, because kids are dumb and they're going to do it themselves if they don't have a professional they can go to." It's been proven in society time and again that the minute something is declared to be outside the law, its attraction-quotient soars. Prohibition simply doesn't work; it attracts more consumers to the prohibited.

It's not rational, but it does reflect the propensity of human beings to seek out the proscribed, the condemned, the adventure of it all, irrespective of the harm it does to them. And no law is capable of restraining people who are determined, to harm themselves irremediably.
You want horns? Here's horns...

Amy Toensing/Getty Images

Safe Then, Is It?

Now that's a little hard to fathom. A humanitarian agency like the Canadian branch of the International Red Cross Society, having on its board of directors someone intimately involved in a business that in actual fact has the effect of destroying human life. Bad enough that the Government of Canada steadfastly ignores calls to ban the export of chrysotile asbestos from Quebec to the developing world where asbestos use, despite its reputation as a carcinogen, is commonly used in building materials.

The governments of Quebec and Canada continue to insist that chrysotile is a type of asbestos whose use is perfectly safe as long as it is used under special, very careful circumstances. As though workers in third-world countries can be assured that those who hire them, let alone local governments, much care for the workplace health and safety of workers. The use of asbestos - any kind of asbestos - leads directly to impaired lungs; the dreaded "black lung" disease.

The Montreal-based Seja Trade Ltd., a subsidiary of Balcorp Ltd., (specialists in international trade and marketing) exports asbestos from the open-pit Jeffrey asbestos mine in Quebec, to India. Baljit Singh Chadha is the founder and the president of Balcorp, a hugely successful enterprise as a $50-million business with offices in Montreal, New Delhi and Mumbai.

The company is involved in agricultural food products, processed foods, forestry products, and minerals. All of which is perfectly straightforward. It is the company's ongoing interest in the export of asbestos, the cause of asbestosis and mesothelioma that is the problem. Asbestos use is banned in most developed countries, as it is for domestic use in Canada.

The World Health Organization, Canadian Medical Association and Canadian Cancer Society have all condemned its use. It is illegal in the European Union and the United States to use asbestos. Government buildings with asbestos used during their construction are slowly being shed of their asbestos, a long and tedious process to bring the buildings to safer status for those who work in them.

Because cancer is a killer, and asbestos is a carcinogen. It's as simple as that. And here's the hitch: Roshi Chadha, the wife of Baljit Singh Chadha, is involved in philanthropy, like her husband. She sits on the board of directors as one of four members-at-large by election, on the 16-person board. She is also, however, an executive of Seja Trade Ltd, a Balcorp subsidiary.

And Balcorp, as it happens is in the forefront of efforts to open a new underground Jeffrey mine. And seeking as well, a $58-million loan guarantee from the Government of Quebec.

A spokesman for the Canadian Red Cross acknowledges that they have received a complaint that points out the conflict between a board director of the Red Cross working for the humanitarian agency at the same time as she works toward the financial interests of a company involved in asbestos extraction and export.

The individual who brought this unsavoury connection to the attention of the Red Cross is someone with intimate knowledge of the destructiveness to human tissues that work with asbestos causes. Her father died of mesothelioma after exposure to asbestos while a young man, working as a labourer and electrician, carrying fibre asbestos on his work clothing.

"We're all extremely hopeful that Red Cross will do the right thing and we are extremely grateful that they're giving it the seriousness that it warrants. With human rights issues, it's very easy to sweep things under the carpet and refuse to deal with them." Kathleen Ruff, awarded the 2011 Rideau Institute Leadership Award in recognition of her lobbying to end Canada's asbestos exportation.

A spokesman for Balcorp, on the other hand, claims that anti-asbestos campaigners ignore ample evidence available on the safe use of asbestos. "We have plenty of studies, people telling us it can be used safely, but they just refuse to recognize (them)." Mostly, because safety in a pristine laboratory setting is not reflected in the casual ignorance used on construction sites in emerging economies.

Proudly Canadian; er, Lebanese-Canadian

If life is good, what more could anyone ask for? And life appears to be good for Lebanese Canadian Roland Eid and his family. Living in Beirut, with the millions Mr. Eid unlawfully transferred from a going concern, ICI Construction Management, to his personal bank account in Lebanon. Well, he founded the company, after all. It's hard to imagine that a company one has founded, and successfully operated, isn't one's own personal bank account.

Good management means good profits. And that's what Canada, like any other country eager to expand its GDP, is looking for. It's why clever and skillful entrepreneurs like Roland Eid are so welcome to come to Canada as immigrants. To become part of the workforce, or to establish a company and employ workers, and the whole enterprise profiting both the country and its founder. There are great opportunities for those who work hard and aspire to success.

Mr. Eid's experience in Canada appears to have been a good one. And Canada appears to have done well by him, just as he did well for Canada. An excellent partnership. However, it transpires, a little on the sinister side of shady...? That successful construction firm that Mr. Eid launched and did well by and with, suddenly collapsed.

Not much mystery why it did; in the words of an Ontario Superior court judge, Mr. Eid's decision to drain the company's cash reserves "effective emptied ICI's corporate treasury, leaving it with little or no operating capital". At the time the company had few assets other than the $1.7-million Mr. Eid took personal possession of - and it had $10.6 million in liabilities.

Might it be too presumptuous to conclude that Mr. Eid chose to skip out on his 'liabilities', and to take advantage of his available cash flow? A mere week after Mr. Eid departed Ottawa with his family to re-establish residence in his native Lebanon, the company he founded, unable to meet its weekly payroll of $50,000, collapsed. A month later ICI was petitioned into bankruptcy.

Mr. Eid easily explains it all away. The money he transferred from ICI to his personal Lebanese bank account represented his profit on the sale of his construction company to an ICI executive. Peculiarly, the bankruptcy trustee of Surgeson Carson Associates found no evidence of any such company-sale transaction.

Mr. Eid did have some cause for complaint; it seems enquiries made by the RCMP to Lebanese officials did have a certain nuisance value in Beirut, causing him some irritating problems. Something appears to have been resolved; he has been able to travel, he claims, without incident. And he simply cannot imagine what might have happened to make ICI go into bankruptcy.

"It's too bad what happened with ICI. I built something that could have gone on for a long time. I have no idea what happened after I left. The whole world turned to hell." The world of those who laboured for ICI, certainly did, and it must have been rather hellish for all those creditors, as well. But hey, that's life.

After all, Mr. Eid explains, he left the company with $1.5-million in receivable accounts. That should have kept the company afloat. Meanwhile, Mr. Eid, the founder of ICI Construction Management, now living in Beirut, is a happy man because "life is good". He's waiting out the flat Canadian economy.

Figuring it may take four or five years. And then, we get him back. "If they want to take me to court, I am ready for it. They don't want me to open my mouth, but I will if they're going to go after me." He's got something on the authorities. Claiming CSIS depended on him for blueprints for a number of embassies which he obtained from subcontractors.

His payoff for his willingness to work with CSIS was assistance with winning a number of federal construction contracts. Right.

Investigation, anyone?

Survival Sex

A nightmarish scenario, that there is every appearance that sex workers in the Ottawa area are being targeted for murder, and there appears to be some reason for police to believe that these murders are the work of an obviously deranged serial murderer. Women have now been warned to be especially vigilant and to take care to appear in public in pairs. Implicit in the message given, was the fear that the murders that have occurred will not end at the last one.

Ottawa's Police Chief Vern White, an estimable man, and outstandingly good chief security officer for this city, took the initiative to request that he be permitted to address women through the downtown aboriginal women's centre, Minwaashin. Tragedy upon tragedy, aboriginal women suffer from abuse in their own communities, and are disadvantaged doubly, in the greater community. If they are street workers, there is a double indemnity.

Life has not been kind to Canada's First Nations in general, and certainly not to First Nations women in particular. Communities living in isolation from the greater population in remote, undeveloped areas appear more prone to abusing themselves through the use of mind-deadening, hope-defeating use of alcohol and drugs. And women in those communities often are abused, a common enough fall-out in any community that is listless with neglect and dispiritedness.

The greater population insists that the vulnerable would be less so if they were only to enmesh themselves in the lifestyle prevalent in highly populated cities. Yet there is still so much negative attitudes prevailing toward aboriginals that when they're among others they feel themselves to be scorned. Under these circumstances, confidence in self is hard to come by. And if women have been abused in the past, they will continue to feel that this is all that life has to offer them.

Chief White revealed to the press, if not to the women with whom he spoke, that "a pattern" appears to have been revealed in the homicides of city prostitutes. He could not or would not elaborate, other than to remark that there is an investigation and it is as yet in its early stages. "In light of recent murders and injuries to various women, there is a sense that there is someone who is targeting women" Minwashin Lodge support worker Kimberley Mansfield revealed.

Chief White was clear, however, with respect to the purpose of his public safety warning:

"I am here at Minwaashin Lodge to speak to Ottawa residents about concerns the Ottawa police has for women's safety. Our major crime investigators have recently identified a pattern with homicides involving sex-trade workers in our community. I am asking women, particularly those involved in the sex trade, to be vigilant and exercise good safety practices. There will be a time when we have more information, but it's not today."

There is an estimated 250 women working the Vanier-Byward Market area of Ottawa. A psychopath intent on violating, raping, torturing and murdering women has ample opportunity to strike. Women are vulnerable at the best of times, out alone at night in various places in the city; when some predator malevolently, violently attacks those women who walk the streets to service men, they are acutely at risk.

Outreach workers explain that women are loathe to report attacks, fearful of being "criminalized" in the process. New legislation currently being considered, that would give protection under the law to sex workers by removing this threat through changes that would give them needed protection, would help a good deal.

Bravo, Nando's!

Admittedly, it would be easier to find comic relief in spoofing Zimbabwe's monomaniacal President Robert Mugabe if he weren't such a destructive tyrannical force in his country, yet there is much to admire in the cleverly ironic prodding a South African restaurant chain, Nando's, has been indulging in, to their credit. A bold audacity that has certainly not been reflected in the attitude that the South African government has taken toward one of its neighbours.

Despite that desperate refugees - fleeing the social/security/employment/economic disaster that Zimbabwe has become under the despotic, despoiling, ruinous reign of Robert Mugabe - seeking tentative refuge in South Africa, and bringing down the wrath of many South Africans fearing competition from the refugees when they are themselves facing dire social, safety and economic conditions.

Nando's "last dictator standing" (they only wish) advertisements are clever and quite to the point. There are those commercials that highlight the chain's six-piece chicken combination plate that depict Robert Mugabe fondly reminiscing over the past with other, now-departed dictators, singing "Those Were the Days".

One commercial features Robert Mugabe engaged in a water-gun battle with Muammar Gadhafi, the deposed and departed Libyan leader. Another with Robert Mugabe joyfully creating sand angels with the late unlamented butcher of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, thinking back to their glory days. And yet another with Robert Mugabe exultantly riding a tank with Uganda's murderous Idi Amin.

Only to awaken from those dreams of what the world of brutal dictatorship was like back then (not that all that much has changed since then; some shuffling about of tyrants has occurred; there are always others standing patiently or impatiently as the case may be, in line to take over from those who are gone. There will never be a shortage of such dynamic, brutal world-class psychopaths) to find himself alone at a dinner table.

Zimbabwe's youth group, Chipangano has taken great umbrage at these commercials, demanding an apology from the Nando's chain, and threatening to boycott it should their demands not be respected and acted upon. The alternative for Nando's is to face retribution. Will they be cursed by Chipangano? Will a cross-border attack on its outlets be mounted?

Or will Zimbabwe's youth seek to ruin the chain's enterprise by boycotting it entirely, ostensibly leading to its financial downfall? Or, might it be possible for Zimbabweans to scrutinize the realities behind the fantasy and take it upon themselves to rid the country of its hatefully ruinous Godfather of privation?

Neither, alas, the threat has been taken seriously, and has resulted in the chain pulling its parodies of one of the world's most heartless egomaniacs whose pleasure appears to lie in the destruction of his country:

“We feel strongly that this is the prudent step to take in a volatile climate and believe that no TV commercial is worth risking the safety of Nando’s staff and customers,” said the company."

The Compassionate Intelligence of Mammals

We humans consider ourselves exceptional as a species of the animal kingdom, and of course we are. On the other hand, all living species of animals, birds, insects, and nature's flora and fauna are singularly exceptional. They are distinctive in one way or another, they all have a special reason to be where they are, in their biological environment, for their presence is intertwined in a chain of dependency on the other living things around them.

We are unique and exceptional as thinking creatures, capable of manipulating our environment but then so too do other creatures alter their environments and use parts of what surrounds them to their advantage, manipulating them as they require to enhance their existence. Our brains may be larger, capable of infinitely greater feats of intelligence and comprehensive thought, and we can look to the future in a way that other animals may not, but we are just beginning to appreciate the capacities for thought and even compassion in other animals.

Neuroscientists at the University of Chicago have experimented with laboratory rats, and their discovery about rats' ability to figure things out, to alter their environment, to assist one another, to feel companionship and responsibility for one another gifts us with information about these little animals that is quite new to us. These researchers placed rats in situations which made them uneasy, witnessing the distress of a peer rat. One of the rats was held in a restraining device, while the other was free to roam in an otherwise-shared enclosure.

The plight of the restrained rat communicated itself to the free one and its empathy for its companion caused it to attempt to free the rat whose movements were restricted. This experiment was repeated with other pairs of rats, both male and female. The plight of the imprisoned rat created a situation which led the free one to attempt, until successful, to figure out the mechanism of a 'door', whereby it could release the imprisoned rat to join the free one in companionable roaming and consuming kibble at their leisure.

"We are not training these rats in any way. These rats are learning because they are motivated by something internal. We're not showing them how to open the door, they don't get any previous exposure on opening the door, and it's hard to open the door. But they keep trying and trying, and it eventually works." Study author Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal

When the incarceration and freedom of the rat in distress was accomplished, leaving it to roam free in an enclosure other than the one where the freed rat was, it became clear that even if the active rate freeing the imprisoned one couldn't contemplate or anticipate companionship because the two rats would be separated, the active rat still went about the business of freeing the restrained rat; its empathy for the unhappiness of the restrained rat sufficient motivation.

"There was no other reason to take this action, except to terminate the distress of the trapped rats. In the rat model world, seeing the same behaviour repeated over and over basically means that this action is rewarding to the rat", explained Dr. Bartal. Even when the free rat was given a treat of chocolate chips, wildly popular with the rats, to tempt it and distract it from its purpose in freeing the trapped rat, the rat remained determined to free the other, their joint reward being together being free to consume the treats at will.

In fact, that kind of altruistic behaviour from a species we consider much lower down the evolutionary scale than ourselves, could likely teach us a good deal about obeying instincts handed down in our genetic code that would impel us to have an interest in and compassion for one another. In all of the animal world, it is humankind alone, with our advanced technological abilities that wages war on itself.

The Culture of Stupidity

"This is something that is once in a lifetime. When do you ever get to do this? You get to meet a whole bunch of new people and hang out. Drink a lot of coffee, eat a lot of pizza and just have a lot of fun." New IKEA warehouse customer, bubbling over with joy and thanksgiving.

Poor soul. This, arriving a day early, before the grand opening, to camp out overnight trying to keep warm on a cold winter night, among a handful of other delusional hopefuls to be among the first to swarm into the store at its official opening. Her life must be a large vacuum with little in the way of intelligent relief from vacuous sameness if this event represents a social epiphany to her.

Hardcore IKEA fans camp out overnight in anticipation of its grand opening Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011 in Ottawa. Photograph by: Pat McGrath, The Ottawa Citizen

In the end, she - and those who shared her delirious exultation at this 'once in a lifetime' opportunity to witness the opening of yet another big box store with its dreary merchandise and their infuriatingly witless nomenclature, along with the hugely successful marketing scheme to convince people they need all this drek, and moreover will pay to haul it home and assemble it - needn't have bothered.

As a contrast to the furiously rampaging consumer mobs in Indonesia morbidly anxious to be among the first one thousand to be blessed by the god of consumerism to be allowed to buy a half-price BlackBerry, a mere several hundred Ottawans turned out for the grand opening of a dreary but amazingly popular IKEA warehouse posing as an exciting, quality-goods shopping emporium.

Those who did turn out shared sugar-plum holiday dreams of IKEA management, in recognition of their faithful fealty to the brand, handing out free goods in appreciation. It is amazing how people will doff their good sense for the muted prospect of 'getting something for nothing'. As though their time and their absurd enthusiasm was not worth plenty to the IKEA empire.

"I'm here to have fun and to support IKEA for coming into the community and boosting the economy", said another woman who brought along her five-year-old son whose indoctrination will begin at an early age. But that child is not alone. For here's the excited declaration of another shopper: "I'm definitely a crazy IKEA shopper. I've been coming here since I was eight."

How utterly abysmal. These are the values that people cherish; their devotion to a brand whose enterprising founder was clever enough to realize how readily people take to being manipulated if they think they're getting something inexpensive but lending themselves to the belief that what they purchase is of greater value than the hard cash they're parting with to own it.

And too stupid to realize that they're being indoctrinated into a quasi-consumer religion. And that, in the process, they're allowing themselves willingly, eagerly, to be herded like sheep into a vast strand of corridors that will take them on a 1.3-kilometre hiking expedition from the front door to the checkout area. There is no straight-and-narrow short-cut from a selected product to the cash.

All those who enter must submit to the ritual of being firmly guided throughout the entire warehouse, the size of 7 football fields, on three levels, before they are permitted to escape its confines. Difficult to believe that people are so dazzlingly biddable.

Suspected of Guilt

Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world. One of the values of Islam is that piety trumps everything, certainly of absolute value, not to be compared with the mindless consuming of goods. There is no reason to suppose - since we like to believe that all of humankind is born equal and presumably equally endowed with brains, although free will is somewhat stunted in Islamic societies - that Indonesians are any less capable of making informed choices than any other society.

Yes, we understand that because there is a certain amount of behaviour-herding-and-channelling in Islam, that crowds tend to become rather hysterical when they are encouraged to believe that some source - generally un-Islamic, like the infidel West - has blundered horribly by being critical of Islam, its Prophet, or that rumours circulate that some idiot threatens to burn the Holy Koran, it invariably results in a rampage of frightening proportions and intent, all screaming "death to the infidels!".

But come now ... the prospect of obtaining an advanced technological gadget for half-price convincing Indonesians that they must gather in huge numbers to be among the first one-thousand customers to acquire a $540-valued cellphone for $270, being so compelling that they rampage in an inchoate rage when they suspect that something may have gone awry to their expectations?

When Research in Motion's public relations arm in Indonesia had the brilliant idea of concentrating the minds of their valued customers in Jakarta by advertising half-price BlackBerry 9790 models at a shopping centre in that city, they must have felt that this was a truly intelligent marketing gambit geared to increasing their loyal customer base. Which, evidently already has cult status there.

It appears that over 5000 people gathered restively outside the Pacific Place mall in the early hours of November 25. And since the prospect was for only one thousand fortunate souls to be able to take advantage of the half-price sale, obviously there would be four times that number sick to their hearts with disappointment. As the day began to dawn and heat built up, some nerves must have snapped.

Rumours began to spread that all those coveted thousand cellphones had already been distributed. The enraged crowd flung themselves against the barricades, swarmed mindlessly, resentfully, furiously through the shopping centre, in the process crushing over twenty people. Pointing an official finger of blame at the country director for RIM in Indonesia, authorities have named him a suspect in a crime scene.

That crime scene, of course, was the promotion that made thousands of Indonesian hopefuls go utterly berserk, leading to the deaths of twenty people. Not only he, but a number of others, including the mall's own head of security named as 'suspects' in what will ultimately be characterized as a crime earning criminal charges of "negligence causing other people to suffer injuries."

In Indonesia this crime is punishable by a maximum of five years in prison. "At this stage they are banned from leaving the country, as per the legal process in Indonesia", explained the South Jakarta police chief of detectives. "They have not been detained, but have to report to police regularly."

Sigh, is it worth the trouble to attempt to expand a market in a country where RIM was forced to introduce blocks in a futile effort to prevent their cellphones being used to download pornography?

DUIs - Stuck On Stupid

Driving Under the Influence is a universal problem of dreadful proportions impacting society. It's absolutely sociopathic in tenor, influence and outcome, yet so many people just do not understand, do not wish to understand, what they are committing the larger community to when they enjoy a night out and feel perfectly in control of themselves, sufficiently so that they have the right to drive if they wish to.

People at the highest echelons of society do this, not only the young, callow and foolish. Well educated individuals, people in the professions, elite public servants alongside plumbers, painters, bread makers, bank tellers, municipal workers, and punks. Drunk driving is responsible for serious road accidents, many of them impairing people for the rest of their lives. DUIs are responsible for highway deaths through vehicular homicide.

No one seems exempt from this type of inexcusable poor judgement; the former premier of British Columbia was found guilty of drunk driving, and now an Edmonton East Conservative Member of Parliament, pulled over on the road, refused to take a breathalyzer test. But then, MP Peter Goldring two years ago had opposed legislative changes that would permit police to screen all drivers.

"It is safe to say everyone is opposed to drunk driving - but there are civil liberty issues involved. There is the presumption of innocence and the right to not self-incriminate", he wrote righteously in an article he posted on his website, in 2009. How very prescient of him; he knew well of what he spoke and resisted.

Three provincial criminal court judges in Prince Edward Island, appalled at what they saw in their small province alone, decided they would make a few changes, agreeing to crack down on alcohol-impaired drivers. Since their agreement a year ago anyone found guilty of drunk driving has been given a prison sentence (94%).

Those found guilty faced a minimum three days in jail for first offenders, matched with a minimum fine of $1,200, and license suspension. "A lot of the sentencing guidelines are established by the appeal court. [But] in P.E.I., we just decided that the numbers were horrendous and something had to be done", explained now-retired Judge Ralph Thompson.

P.E.I. is still the sole Canadian province where convicted DUIs face incarceration even if they have not caused bodily harm or death. Not only do they face prison, a fine and license suspension, but newspapers report these charges, bringing the community's attention to those among them who continue to care less about their community than they should.

What is happening in P.E.I. is the law, the courts and the community taking closer notice of this antisocial phenomenon and addressing it in a disciplined manner to punish those who take advantage of society's patient tolerance. Yet, sad to say, even these increased measures at demonstrating society's displeasure have not noticeably, positively impacted on the issue.

And the sad statistics tell a story of road carnage without end, although the campaign of MADD over the decades did make a dent in the numbers.

According to Transport Canada's data, someone over 19 driving a vehicle, with a blood-alcohol level of .015, is statistically just as likely to cause an accident as someone with a blood-alcohol level of .099. 80% of all alcohol-related crashes causing death are caused by drivers with a blood-alcohol level of over .08.

Crime rates per 100,000 people involving impaired driving dropped by 55% between 1986 and 2009, according to Statistics Canada. Fatalities resulting from impaired driving accidents also decreased in that period.

In the U.S. the federal government mandated that all states adopt a new standard reducing the legal limit from .10 to .08 in the 1990s. Resulting in a 1995 study undertaken by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration indicating no improvement in making highways safer from dangerous drivers.

It seems that irrespective of the remedial steps hopefully taken by responsible public-safety bodies human nature seems irreversibly stuck on "stupid".