blinkit

B.C. will do OK, says Bernard

WMD: Frequent Blinkit reader Bernard weighed on my previous post and column about the economic future for Ireland versus that of B.C. (He sent the comments in on email, since I've turned off comments until I'm satisfied Typepad has dealt with comment spam sufficiently.) We're not going to see a recession in Western  Canada, he says, but Ireland might. His reasons:

1) Ireland has a current account deficit - and it has been high for some years now. We have a surplus.

2) Ireland uses the Euro, but is too small to impact the value of the Euro and therefore interest rates.   Ireland had interest rates that have been too low for about ten years, this has lead to a horrific overpricing of housing because interest rates were too low. We are likely to have this problem in BC and Aberta for the next two to three years as the recession in Ontario and Quebec will lower interest rates in Canada.

3) Ireland has been running a budget deficit for years and a rising national debt. Canada has been the opposite.   Ireland is going to have major governmental financial problems over the next few years. Canada meanwhile will be doing very well.

4) Ireland was built on subsidies coming from the EU that has now come to an end.   In Canada we have no one funding internal subsidy. Canada is also a major global destination of investment dollars.

All I can add is good thing I didn't buy any vacation property in Westport. My thanks to Bernard for the comment. He, of course, is currently best known for singlehandedly boosting fertility rates in B.C. and for his most recent campaign to improve what he says is the miserable state of hospital food in this province.

Today's bLINKit: Apple gets more massive free publicity from a product-blind media, says John Dvorak. Kind of like the Obama campaign.

Web Poll Nation: Pro-police, anti-everything else

WMD: Latest Courier column, divining vox populi via the weekly web polls. Source is here, copy reproduced below:

'Web Poll Nation' took the pulse of Vancouver in 2007

Poll participants want more cops, fewer mascots, no socks and sandals

Barry Link, Vancouver Courier

Published: Wednesday, December 19, 2007

We stay awake at night wondering who you are. We wait breathlessly for your responses. We live by your word, thankful that you bothered to answer our tiny, fragile little question of the week.

You are the people who answer the Courier's weekly online web polls. We adore you. And this year, in our annual analysis of your answers to our questions, we're giving you a name: with apologies to Stephen Colbert, you are Web Poll Nation. Be proud.

So who was WPN in 2007? Tough. Really tough. In the competition to win the affection of WPN, the Vancouver Police Department was in. The civic strike, the mayor, New Age mysticism and the 2010 Olympics were out. Trees, surprisingly were also out, unless it meant dissing the Games. WPN liked sticking it to the Games.

The citizens of WPN tired of crime this year, with nearly half of them saying the run of gang violence made them feel unsafe. Three quarters report it diminished their idea of Vancouver as Lotusland.

As a result, the VPD received solid support. Slightly more than half of WPN said Tasers should remain in the department's inventory. Sixty-seven per cent supported the VPD proposal that chronic criminals be shipped back to their home provinces. Fifty-six per cent applauded putting more cops on the streets, and nearly 70 per cent backed spending more money to do so.

WPN's cooing at cops, however, had boundaries. Former VPD chief Jamie Graham's idea to put Support Our Troops stickers on police cars earned lukewarm support at 44 per cent. Get the criminals, forget the politics.

Politics seemed to annoy WPN, and its members had absolutely no love this year for Mayor Sam Sullivan. Three quarters didn't believe the mayor when he said he wanted the supervised injection site to remain open. Three quarters urged him to stay out of labour negotiations. Sixty-three per cent remained baffled about why the lengthy civic strike happened, while roughly the same number didn't expect it to last for months. The endless, meaningless strike made WPN grumpy, with three quarters decreeing no job deserves the 318,838 sweet ones city manager Judy Rogers received as her salary.

Like a date from Toronto, WPN was notoriously difficult to impress. Sixty-four per cent shot down the notion that giant robotic versions of NPA parks board commissioners installed in Stanley Park would create new revenue for the park. Sixty-eight per cent said Valentine's Day is the Air Supply of holiday observances. Three quarters said women should not be jealous of men's ability to grow playoff beards. One third didn't bother to celebrate Canada Day.

Fifty-six per cent rejected the notion the Law of Attraction, the theme of the bestselling book and DVD The Secret, would attract a delicious and healthy organic vegan stew into their lives just when they needed it the most. We're concerned about the 44 per cent who said it would. Same goes for the 42 per cent of WPN who harboured a secret desire to become a ninja.

WPN could be savage in 2007. Nearly three quarters called socks and sandals a summer fashion crime. Eighty-four per cent agreed the 8,400 people who showed up at GM Place for the unveiling of the Canucks' new uniform need to get a life. Fifty-eight per cent said their very own child was not a star in the making. Ouch.

And don't get WPN started on the 2010 Olympics. Nearly half of WPN rated the culturally baffling Olympic mascots as "really, really, really" unimportant to their lives. Most of the rest complained they didn't represent Vancouver. And while a hefty 71 per cent of WPN thought too much time and attention was lavished on a bunch of trees in the wake of the storm that flattened huge parts of Stanley Park, more than half thought some of the bajillions earmarked for the Olympics should go to the park's restoration. Note to VANOC: you got beat out by a grove of fallen firs.

Finally, nature was a minefield for WPN's swaying emotions. Three quarters would pay more for cage-free eggs and rejected the proposal that domesticated apes were the answer to our labour shortage. Yet only 55 per cent felt guilty for accelerating climate change through their carbon-spewing lifestyle. Maybe WPN has already slashed the carbon output and is far ahead of the curve.

In closing, we note WPN felt reasonably happy and considered itself lucky this year, with 70 per cent of the citizenry finding a reason to be thankful every day.

We're thankful, too. See you for more questions in January at www.vancourier.com.

When maps weren't Google ... backing the Challenger

WMD: I had intended to post here weeks ago that the blog was on hiatus, due to my heavy work schedule. For all intents and purposes, it is, but since I don't like the blank page that now greets people because of my lack of posting, some catchup with columns that did not make this space are due ...

First, from early November: defending the Challenger Map, the big, wooden, topographical map any B.C. kid who went to the PNE until the late 1990s would have memories of. The original is here. My cut and paste is here:

Challenger Map offers still picture of vibrant B.C.

Province's geographical heritage worth saving

Barry Link, Special to Vancouver Courier

Published: Wednesday, November 07, 2007

If Europe has art and architecture, Asia has ancient culture and philosophy, and the U.S. has lots of guns, what does B.C. have to offer the world? Geography. Say what you will about Vancouver's vibrant multiculturalism, our shiny downtown towers and diverse array of award-winning restaurants (albeit temporarily minus Rob Feenie)--our standout feature remains the one thing none of us had any hand in creating. That is, the gobsmackingly beautiful backdrop of the mountains, the forests and the sea.

Go further inland, along the Fraser and up the No. 1 or the Coquihalla highways, and you'll cross roughly parallel lines of foothills, mountain ranges, plateaus, rivers and cold, deep lakes, all carved out over thousands of years by the unimaginably relentless forces of glaciation, water and wind. That hard, physical nature is our truest legacy as British Columbians, whether we've lived here 60 years or six months, and it's why Germans, among others, are buying every scrap of B.C. forest land or beach front property in sight. They love our landscape, and when you meet them, they can't stop talking about it. Seriously, you have to kick them in the shins to make them stop.

A great way to shut them up would be to place them in front of the Challenger Map, and until 1998, that was possible by taking them down to the PNE. Painstakingly assembled over seven years from nearly a million pieces of quarter-inch plywood by George Challenger and his family, the Challenger Map is the greatest woodworking project in B.C. history. For years, before redevelopment of the PNE rendered it homeless nine years ago, it was seen by generations of fairgoers who would gawk open- mouthed at the contours of the valleys, high places and water ways. It showed in impressive detail the outlines of a wild topography that extended far beyond Vancouver's tiny, tame footprint. As a kid, when I first saw the map on a school trip, it was a lesson in how big this province is and how small my place in it is even now. Contrary to popular thinking, the "rest" of B.C. isn't Vancouver's backyard. Vancouver is the little concrete pad at B.C.'s side door. Through that door is where our wealth comes from and where much of our food is grown. It's also where the animals and trees are that show up in those Best Place on Earth commercials.

The best thing about the map was that it was physical. It occupied space, and although it was cordoned off, you knew if allowed you could reach out to touch it. The next best thing about the map was its silence. It told its own story by simply being there, the way a real mountain or ocean shoreline tells you its tale through their essential silence. Interpretive centres and Google Maps are unnecessary.

In a city of noise and constant stimulation, such silence is hard to come by, and that's why we should be thankful for the effort of people like Alan Clapp, whose Challenger Map Advisory Group worked hard to save the map, and business people like Larry Rosenberg, who gave up valuable rent revenue to house the map in his moving company's warehouse. Clapp and his group had a straightforward idea: preserve the map, restore it and exhibit it in a prominent location as a reminder of B.C.'s geographical heritage for everyone to see.

Unfortunately, their simple idea met unbelievable indifference, especially when they unsuccessfully attempted to place it in the new trade and convention centre, where it would have told thousands of visitors each year the physical story of B.C. The mayor's office under Larry Campbell dismissed the map as a sentimental relic. The business lobby found no economic value in it. And at 80 by 76 feet, the size of the map was too expensive a square footage for anything merely educational. If you're lucky enough to find an empty 80 by 76 patch of land anywhere downtown, Bob Rennie has already planted a sales centre on it.

But now the map has won a reprieve, and the provincial government, which ought to have carried the ball in the first place in rescuing the map, has kicked in money to move it to temporary digs in Richmond. Clapp and his group are still looking for a permanent home for the map, and they hope to get school kids involved in restoring it.

I hope there's a happy ending, and the map is restored and updated, perhaps by 2010, in a new home. Because when all those visitors, including even more chattering Germans hungry for natural terrain, show up for the Games, we can quietly take them aside to the map. They'll see who and where we are, and the amazing lay of the land we call home.

Long odds and 2010

WMD: The latest Couier column, examining the recently unveiled lottery for seats at the 2010 Games opening ceremony:

Olympic ticket lottery symbolizes out-of-reach dreams

VANOC should put more tickets up for grabs to give working families better chance to participate in party they're paying for

Barry Link, Special to Vancouver Courier

Published: Wednesday, October 24, 2007

For those who have given up hope of buying pricey tickets to 2010 Olympic events, especially the opening ceremonies, there's news. The B.C. Lotteries Corporation announced this week a new lottery (because B.C. residents lack sufficient gambling avenues to part with their money) offering seats to the kick-off event as the top prizes.

As with most lotteries, the cause is worthy and the chance of winning anything of value is miniscule. Money from each $5 ticket will go to amateur athletic organizations, such as KidSport, which helps kids from poor backgrounds participate in sports by paying their seasonal registration fees. Money will also go to travel funds for young athletes and the training of coaches. These are good things.

But if you're angling for a cheap ticket to the Games by participating in this lottery, consider your Wilfrid Laurier a donation only. You won't win a seat. The state-owned bookie that is the Lottery Corp estimates that even with 100 seats up for grabs, your chances of winning an opening ceremony butt post are 1 in 5,000. I'm no deep mathematician, but I'm reasonably sure those are terrible odds. If in my lifetime I had a 1 in 5,000 chance of getting heart disease, cancer, a receding hairline, or a Stephen Harper majority government, I'd be the happiest and luckiest human in the history of the planet.

That's not to say I won't buy tickets. Helping children in sports and the people who coach them is fine. And I'm weak--I can't resist the thrill of scratch and win when buying milk at my local corner store, even though I do far more scratching than winning. But the biggest reason is that a lottery for seats at an Olympic event underscores the same reality painfully illustrated by the many home lotteries in what we now call Metro Vancouver: we can't otherwise afford what is being playfully dangled before us. Just as home lotteries remind us that Vancouver is out of the price range of most families for housing, the seat-lottery's lesson is that the Olympics will be out of the price range for most families for entertainment.

With the cheapest seat running at $175 per person, and the best seats for a mere $1,100 each, the opening ceremonies is admittedly the blue chip event of the two-week Games. It's not the only event to see.

The Vancouver Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games notes that of an estimated 1.6 million tickets to be sold, more than 100,000 of them will be available for $25, and half of all Game tickets will be for $100 or less. Tickets won't be on sale for another year, but projected ticket prices are already advertised on Vanoc's website, including the $25 spots. And it's true: you and your family of four can pay $100 to stand in the snow at Whistler to see Norwegians and Finns you've never heard of zip by during the biathlon, an event made for the dramatic embellishments of TV sportscasting because, as with golf or Frisbee tossing, watching it live is fine progress toward a coma.

The signature Games events, men's hockey, the inevitable women's hockey showdown between the U.S. and Canada, and figure skating, will cost your family considerably more thanks to prices that are a whole lot more Point Grey than they are Collingwood. For almost all medal events, you'll need another lottery to afford a seat.

The cost for Vancouver families to attend 2010 events wouldn't be an issue if the Games and the infrastructure built for it weren't so heavily subsidized by taxpayers, who are being increasingly told they're going to have to dramatically alter their lives for two weeks so that foreign and local elites can use our town for a party. Take the bus, say from Langley to downtown. Start work at midnight. Be obedient to the thousands of security personnel stifling everyday freedoms. If you're on Cambie, you're living much of this now.

Some recognition for what the mass of taxpayers and city residents are and will endure physically and financially is due, and it should be beyond a few crumbs scattered in the direction of the betting hoi polloi. Instead of a mere 100 tickets offered in a lottery for the opening ceremony, make it a few thousand. Install similar lotteries for the medal events people really care about. Most tickets for most events can still be market-based, since the market is a good chunk of revenue the Games require. But give the middle and working classes, those segments of society we once cared about, and even dared to celebrate, a better chance to participate. Wouldn't that fit the Olympic spirit?

The silver lining ...

WMD: Returning to the theme of Vancouver's "language confusion," this time examining its benefits, with also a nod toward the difficulty facing immigrants. Source column here. Reproduced below:

***

Frustration of garbled English makes us stronger

Kids who grow up in melting pot more prepared for new global reality

Barry Link, Special to Vancouver Courier

Published: Wednesday, October 03, 2007

If Vancouver is turning into a linguistic Olympics for longtime residents, think of what immigrants trying to learn English go through.

That was the point made by at least one of the letters I received in the past week in response to last week's column about Vancouver as a mess of potage when it comes to the diversity of languages now found here. The writer, who identified himself only as Arthur, noted what it was like to come to Canada several decades ago as a visible minority with a heavy accent. When trying to get service, both at businesses and with government, native English-speakers often got impatient with him. Some yelled, others slammed doors in his face. It was the traditional Canadian welcome to outsiders: the cold shoulder only a cold-weather country can give.

Immigration to Canada is much easier now than it was when my paternal great-grandparents, who did not speak English, embarked on a one-way trip to North America more than a century ago to scratch out a living as farmers on the prairie. It was worse for non-European immigrants, who Canadian administrations--barely past the colonial stage--tried to legislate out of existence.

Newcomers, especially from the dominant immigrant streams, today enjoy established communities with familiar language and customs supported by energetic non-profits. But while such support is welcome, the thriving immigrant communities that provide it reduce the need to adapt in a new country.

Some readers reminded me that government funds English training for adult immigrants. This past summer, spending for such programs in B.C. received a minor boost of about $11 million a year, in part to alleviate waiting lists for these services. But considering that B.C. took in more than 42,000 immigrants last year, that's not a lot of money.

And mass language training in classrooms for adults is not entirely effective, as people in the industry have told me. One teacher threw up her arms in frustration, claiming that after months of classroom instruction, adult students--with a "look at me I'm an immigrant" innocence--were still using mangled constructions like "What you name?"

Arthur says he learned English partially through ESL classes. But the bulk of his learning came from listening to English-language radio and on the job as a cashier. That he learned largely on his own is a testament to his tenacity, and that of millions of others like him. It also speaks to the limitations of formal, mass education in language training. Those of you who have long since lost your high school French, learned in classrooms of two or three dozen fellow students of varying cluelessness, understand.

So there we are: a city with lots of newcomers and a visible lessening of commonly understood English in ordinary transactions of daily life. Various ethnic groups--English-speakers included--are hiving off into separate cultural enclaves with their own media, shopping and social celebrations. Governments don't take this reality seriously, except to dole out token grants. And no one has a clue about how our city will look or feel in 20 years. We might not like it.

Is there a bright side? Yes. It's frustrating, as readers noted, to do business with scribbled notes and hand gestures, or to turn to strangers for translation help. But perhaps what does not kill us--but merely annoys us--makes us stronger.

I'm thinking of kids. The debate--such as there is--is still on about the quality of schooling in Vancouver elementary and high school classrooms awash in languages. But students today are learning to navigate very complex cultural and social interactions. It's a requirement to survive socially. That experience can't help but prepare our next generation to be flexible, mobile and, we hope, broad-minded in a world of global markets and global problems.

Paradoxically, the complexity and frustration we face in Vancouver also teaches us the great antidote to prejudice, which is to treat people we meet in this city every day as individuals, and not as stereotypes of whatever ethnic or cultural category we're tempted to cast them into. It's our only realistic choice. Get out and deal with the new Vancouver language confusion by taking people as they come. The alternatives are to stay home, draw the blinds and pretend that nothing has changed--or move to Manitoba.

Misspeaking in tongues

WMD: In more timely fashion, here's my latest Courier column the day it's actually published. You can catch the direct link here. As usual, I'm reproducing the text below:

A note: writing about culture, language or ethnicity in a popular format is always chancy. You run the risk of either being accused of racism or receiving altogether too enthusiastic accolades from people who are indeed racist. But either you try to describe current social reality, however breezily, or you give up and just make stuff up to attract readers. I hope I'm doing the former.

Barry Link, Vancouver Courier

Published: Wednesday, September 26, 2007

The other week one of our reporters asked me to listen to an interview she had just taped. She had talked to a source on the phone for five minutes and barely understood anything he had said. I listened carefully. The man had an exceptionally heavy accent, and I barely understood any of it either.

Vancouver, I have no idea what you're saying anymore. We've become, within a decade, Babel on the Pacific. With a dozen different major languages in currency, and widely varying abilities at English in play, communication on our streets is becoming a tad difficult. At the risk of paraphrasing Dennis Miller, I don't want to go on a rant here, but it's also starting to suck.

Admittedly, it's one of the prices of going global. People are coming to Vancouver from all over the world, and that's fine because we have far better restaurants now.

The variety of skin tones at the beach are also quite nice. And our new global self has created the Great Vancouver Pastime, which is to guess where everyone living here is from. As it turns out, everywhere but here: The latest census figures reveal that only six people in Vancouver are actually from Vancouver. (There was a seventh, but he sold his West End studio, moved to Saskatoon and bought a neighbourhood.)

A multiplicity of languages does make for adventurous living. When I rented a few years back, one of my building's maintenance men was Russian. He was very nice and helpful, and I would talk with him occasionally, which was interesting because he sort of spoke English, and sort of did not. If he showed up at my door with a tool box, I knew he was there to fix something.

Such adventure is now on the increase. When I take a taxi, often the driver sort of speaks English, and sort of does not. I tell him where I want to go, he sort of drives me there, and I sort of get there. And then by looking at the numbers on the meter, I know how much to pay, sort of.

At a cafe near where I live, one of the servers sort of speaks English, and sort of does not. If I order coffee, she understands what I want. But if I order tea, I have to point to the actual box on the counter display so she understands what I mean.

I have the same problem when shopping. At a Canadian Tire this past summer, I was helped by a clerk with an Asian accent so thick he finally--and graciously--wrote down what he was trying to tell me. The person next in line to me also helpfully pitched in as a translator. Between the three of us, we got to the bottom of my problem, which was that Canadian Tire did not have the automotive light bulb I was looking for. Good thing it only took 15 minutes to find out.

Ask around, and you'll find people with similar tales, whether it's buying an iPod at an electronics retailer, calling up a grocery store, or ordering new flooring.

I'm sympathetic to everyone involved, whether they speak English or not, since we're all in the same rocky multilingual boat. It also makes me wish, yet again, that life was like TV or the movies. That is, when someone speaks a language I don't understand, or mauls English so completely that they might as well be speaking a rare Tibetan dialect used only by a dozen monks high up in the mountains, that subtitles would flash in front of our eyes to explain what people are saying.

I could use subtitles while at the mall. I've noticed two things about retail in an economy with a labour shortage. With so many workers going into construction or resource work, the B listers are filling the store jobs. Many of them, especially the younger ones, regard customer service as a contagious disease. Others speak English so hesitantly you're better off using sign language. Or switching to written notes, like that Canadian Tire clerk. The other alternative is for me to take my business elsewhere, and if that starts happening on a wider scale among Vancouverites, business is in trouble.

Is anyone to blame? The provincial government has cut back on ESL funding. The federal government, which sets immigration policy, largely washes its hands of settlement issues when it comes to language training. That leaves local municipalities, schools and community centres and heroic little non-profits to take up the slack, and they have more goodwill than resources.

Languages, accents, and varying ability at English do create a kind of urban music. But that's as long as everyone can follow the chorus. Increasingly, I fear, we're singing different tunes.

"The best place on what?"

WMD: When is a licence plate a propaganda tool? When it's found in B.C., or so I say in my latest column found here.

Thanks again to continuing uncertainty about the longevity of the link, the column is reproduced below:

***

(Published in the Vancouver Courier Wednesday, September 12, 2007)

In B.C., licence plates identify registered motor vehicles. They're also propaganda.
The latest reminder of this use of personal vehicle space is the recent Olympic specialty plate, available for sale from ICBC since the spring as an alternative to the standard issue plate. Instead of the familiar "Beautiful British Columbia" slogan worn by plates in this province for more than four decades, the 2010 plates feature an image of Mount Garibaldi, the Games logo and the catchphrase "The best place on earth." It's the same catchphrase the B.C. Liberal government used to rebrand B.C. for both domestic and tourist consumption. You may remember the commercials of ordinary but overjoyed British Columbians standing by pristine mountain meadows and coastal fjords proclaiming how happy they are to exist in God's favoured space. Presumably, none of them works in the forest industry.

I hated that phrase when it first appeared on my TV, and I dislike it no less now that it's appearing on our roads. It's a needless boast, and to anyone who's travelled the world even slightly, untrue. Our landscape--pine beetle infestation, sewage runoff and expanding acres of suburban blacktop notwithstanding--is beautiful. And my how we're rich. But in our current fevered monied state, we forget how vulnerable the good times are to forces beyond our control. All we need is a drop in global commodity prices, trouble in Asian markets, or more mortgage and stock trouble in the U.S., and the best place on earth will look like the best place to leave in search of work. When the gas tank runs low, that plate will become a cruel joke.

But according to Christopher Garrish, who runs the fascinating website BCPL8S.ca, using licence plates as political marketing is nothing new. Garrish, a trained historian who lives in Penticton in the Okanagan Valley and works as a town planner for the regional district, started the website three years ago to mark the 100th anniversary of the first registered motor vehicle in B.C. Since then, he's compiled a geekily exhaustive list, complete with photos, of the hundreds of varieties of plates that have been used through the decades. His enthusiasm for the subject is infectious and, for outraged columnists, moderating. He notes that the "Beautiful" slogan was introduced in 1964 by the W.A.C. Bennett government as a marketing tool to draw tourists to B.C. Even then, Garrish reminded me, the uptight complained the slogan was too frothy.

The government of Wacky's son Bill ramped up the use of plates for political ends when it engineered the placement of a wavy version of the B.C. flag between the registration numbers. It happened to be the same flag symbol used by the then-governing Social Credit party. Like any longstanding, arrogant regime, Bennett and his cronies saw no difference between the controlling party and the government machinery they ran. Stylistically dated today, the flag remains on our plates as a reminder of past hubris. Where are the Socreds now?

As it turns out, they morphed into the Liberals, which is why we're getting another new licence plate catchphrase with political overtones. Garrish told me in an email that he's "not too fussed" by the new plates. He thinks the "Beautiful" slogan is overdue for retirement, and he'd love to see the aging Socred-era flag gone. He also points out that the Olympic specialty plates have proved popular. As of August, ICBC reported selling 45,000 Olympic plates to drivers willing to pay $35 for the privilege of participating in a government-orchestrated PR campaign.

Garrish says the slogan could be worse. The Bill Bennett government considered replacing the "Beautiful" slogan with "Supernatural," which was the tuneless Socred marketing slogan of the day. Garrish has also lived in Australia, where he says the state governments have a habit of hamfisted slogans for plates. Queensland actually called itself the "Smart State" on its plates, and the Australian Capital Territory, the seat of the federal government, quickly killed its introduction of "Canberra: Feel the Power," when it realized Canberrans were afraid their car would be keyed if they crossed state lines. Think of how Albertans would react to Ontario plates bearing "Canada's Centre."

Garrish advises us to get used to the new "Best place" phrase. It's already on consular plates, and he believes all plates issued in B.C. will move to the new slogan as an Olympic tie-in. In a province where shameless propaganda is as regular as the rain, I wouldn't bet against him.

Today's bLINKit: You can find Garrish's site here.

Support the troops? Sure, but not on police cars

WMD: My most recent Courier column, in which I question the decision of the former police chief Jamie Graham to place "Support Our Troops" stickers on police cars. Since the Courier website is in flux, and I don't know if links today will be in place a couple of months from now, I've reprinted the entire column below, which was published: Wednesday, August 15, 2007, in the Vancouver Courier.

***

When departing Police Chief Jamie Graham says placing stickers with the logo "support our troops" on city police cars is in no way political, he's suggesting he doesn't know what political is. Or he doesn't care.

Graham is a military buff who loves soldiers and tales of war. He said as much to the Courier when he first took the Vancouver Police Department's helm five years ago, and since that time he's become a Henry V among police chiefs, a loyal battalion commander who successfully shepherded his band of troops through the hell of mild civilian oversight and occasional press scrutiny.

It's no surprise that one of his last acts as chief was to supervise the distribution of the stickers on Vancouver police cars. "This is about the safe return of the men and women serving in Afghanistan," Graham said, according to the Globe and Mail.

Amen to that. But there's far more to it.

I want the safe return of our soldiers as much as anybody. And I have no problems with soldiers, guns or shooting people when it's absolutely necessary, unavoidable or even helpful in preventing a massive evil. I sometimes wish more people historically had been shot before they got up to no good: Hitler in 1933, for example, or the people who created the telephone solicitation industry. And while I'm sceptical about the commitment of the major world players to create real change in Afghanistan, leaving earnest junior partners like Canada holding the bag and taking a disproportionate number of casualties, I agree with gadfly Terry Glavin who infamously wrote in the online Tyee that if freeing and lifting up the poor of Afghanistan from religious dictatorship means shooting a few fascists, so be it.

But a gentle, honest question is required: why single out soldiers for special notice on police cars? Yes, our soldiers are doing important jobs, but so are daycare workers (who care for us when we're tiny), workers in seniors homes (who care for us when we're forgotten), and garbage collectors, who when they're not on strike, defend us from the plague. In terms of world history, and keeping cities safe, their work means more than we realize.

Soldiers don't have a monopoly on work that involves risk, physical danger and courage. In 2005 in B.C. alone, 43 loggers were killed in accidents on the job in what was a black year for the forestry industry. Total Canadian combat deaths for 2006, our bloodiest period in Afghanistan, was 36.

So why no stickers for our loggers, who are also essential to the economy?

It may be because they don't wear uniforms. Graham's stickers represent the romanticization of all things military that's crept through Canada in past years. It first appeared when we started getting sentimental about the dying out of the generation who saw us through the Second World War. The shock of 9/11, and the resulting commitment of Canadian troops to war in Afghanistan, intensified our feelings for anyone in boots.

Now military man-love has become part of the national consciousness. Think of how even peacenik Vancouver has shifted culturally. In the 1980s, city council declared Vancouver a nuclear weapons-free zone, thus frustrating the plans of the federal government of the time to put nuclear missile launchers in Mount Pleasant. (How the East Side roared at that one.) Now we're doing Tony Orlando and Dawn to public emergency vehicles.

Our adoration of the military has been more than used by the Harper government. Criticize anything about the mission in Afghanistan and you're immediately accused of not caring about the fate of the soldiers who are there. That's why the slogan "support our troops" is phrased in the imperative. It's a command, and a highly political one. It's not about supporting troops--it's about supporting the agenda of the government. That it's coming from the cops is a problem, because supporting a specific military mission, or supporting the military at all, is not a legal requirement in this country. And political statements should not be delivered by civil servants with guns.

At least one VPD member has served in Afghanistan with the reserves, and another two are scheduled to head there soon. Individually, our police should have the right to express support for their fellow officers heading overseas. But dressing up taxpayer-supplied cruisers with slogans goes too far.

How many VPD cars will bear the stickers is unknown. According to the Globe, the VPD won't reveal the number for "security reasons."

Security reasons? For stickers? That smells like politics.

Happy 140 plus one

WMD: I'm officially 14 minutes late in getting around to posting about my own country's birthday. But don't worry: the card is in the mail.

Today's bLINKit: One of my favourite so essentially Canadian hobbies is to read what non-Canadians say or write about us. We're probably one of the few nations around that actually does care what people think about us ... So I was delighted to come across the Conservapedia entry for Canada. Conservapedia, calling itself the "trustworthy encyclopedia," is a right wing American response to Wikipedia, which apparently as a creation of vox populi is considered too vox populi (and therefore too "liberal." But it seems to operate on essentially the same organizational principles as Wikipedia in terms of the back and forth discussion and editing between various contributors and editors of various entries. The entry for Canada is fairly even handed. There are some errors (municipal government is not mentioned in the BNA Act, which I think would now be the Constitution), the discussion about health care exaggerates the problems faced by the system, and the obsession with the flag debate is odd (it was changed to appease socialists, among others?). But generally it's solid. And after reading the edit section, I feel for the sole Canadian who's valiantly trying to protect a fair and balanced rendering of his nation to what seems like a predominantly U.S. audience. Writes the contributor known as TrueGrit:

This page is not for comparing Canada to the United States. This is a page for reporting facts about the country. If I was so inclined, I could come up with some really nice things to say about Canada that make us look much better than the United States- but I don't. It's people that come in here and try to drag down my country that make their country look bad. Lose the attitude of superiority. This is not "An American Site". This is a wiki which is open to users around the world. If this site is to gain credibility, then it has to be balanced.

I'm with TrueGrit on that, so on this Canada Day plus 1, my hat's tipped to him/her with appreciation. (And a small note: while it might not be an "American site," its logo is essentially made up of the Stars and Stripes.)

Bedbug survivorship

Bedbug update: They are still here. I have killed a few more spotted on search and destroy missions along my wooden bed frame. I've captured one live (they can live for months without feeding) and am keeping it for interrogation. If it doesn't talk soon about the location of its comrades, I'll hang it under my bed from a tiny, tiny rope as a warning to the others. Meantime, people are very sympathetic when I talk about my problem. They also tend to take a step back an inch or two. I've already been de-invited from one party. Just in case. But that's OK. I am a bedbug survivor and I will prevail.

I've learned a few things. The web is enormously helpful in providing information--there are whole blogs devoted to bedbugs, which I'll link to in coming days. Basically I could have had this problem for awhile, since your chances of spotting one of these nocturnal, sly critters is not very good. They are expert at hiding. Bites are one way to reveal an infestation, but not everyone reacts to the bite. (I can't say I've had any bad reactions, and I have sensitive skin. But I'm wondering if Casper my cat is the main course and I'm just a side dish. He's here all the time, and I'm not.) The bite is basically benign. Bedbugs are not considered a health threat. They're just creepy and very hard to eradicate.

I am sleeping in my bed. I made the strategic decision not to sleep elsewhere in the apartment, like my sofa, because I didn't want the bugs to follow me there and colonize the sofa (assuming they haven't done so already). So I'm offering myself as a temporary target to keep them in place and so I know where they are. So far, I've slept well, although last night every time I felt a twinge on my skin, I went for my flashlight. That's just psychological panic, because apparently you can't feel them biting and inserting their feeding tubes into you (I told you they were creepy). But I will probably toss the mattress and the frame, something I was going to do next year anyway, since both are years old. I'll wrap the mattress in plastic before I do, so I don't spread the bugs around, such as in my hallway or in the building hallway. Same for the disassembled bed frame. In the meantime, I'll have to vacuum almost every day, continue to clear my closets and shelves and get rid of every trace of clutter. Tomorrow I call pest companies, since that will be the ultimate step and, from everything I've read, the only way to finally beat them is to nuke them. More as it happens.

Adventures with cars: I'm also learning this week about brake lights. Never changed one before in my life, but when my rear brake light went out, I had to learn. I changed the light just fine, but somehow shorted out the brake light fuse in doing so. I'm learning about fuses, too. So far, I've made two trips to Canadian Tire and spent about five hours on this sucker. In order to find out which fuse on the fuse box does what, I also spent an hour searching for my car manual. I tossed stuff around in my bedbug-infested apartment, swearing and annoying Casper, before I finally remembered I left the manual in ... the car. It's been that kind of week.

Today's bLINKit: PBS Frontline World looks at NATO in Afghanistan, and how we're not so quickly winning the war. (Video of the show is available online.) It includes a close look at a Canadian Forces hearts and minds effort in a Taliban-controlled village. I haven't seen it all, but it's free of the usual rah-rah coverage we get in Canada--it shows both the desire to help on the part of soldiers and the frustrations they encounter in trying to turn the country around. "It's just a bandaid," says one.

And my regular Courier column, featuring reader responses to my previous column on words and phrases I want banned from good writing.