Frequent perusers of my blog will notice there hasn't been a lot going on lately. This isn't due to a shortage of material or events that I consider blog-worthy, just a shortage of time in which to write. Unfortunately, thanks to the sudden need to read four or five books a week (and think about them!) this trend isn't likely to end any time soon.
But for those of you still interested, fear not: I will be commenting occasionally as part of the Hoboken Group. I urge you to take a look!
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Richard Bradshaw, 1944-2007
Richard Bradshaw, the general director of the Canadian Opera Company, died on Wednesday night of an apparent heart attack. He was 63.
I was lucky to hear Bradshaw speak at Trinity College two years ago - he was a sincere, impassioned and successful advocate for the performing arts in Canada, and his sudden death is sad for opera, and sad for all of us.
I was lucky to hear Bradshaw speak at Trinity College two years ago - he was a sincere, impassioned and successful advocate for the performing arts in Canada, and his sudden death is sad for opera, and sad for all of us.
And if you believe that, I've got a real cheap duplex in Idaho I can sell you for cheap...
The aspect of the current financial upheavel I find most thought-provoking isn't, as Ann Pettifor points out, that free-market institutions who scoff at the notion of state intervention in sacred cash cows - like, say, health care - are currently on life support thanks to governmental reserve spending - this kind of Monopoly-money hypocrisy on the part of business is hardly new ("oops, I ran out of money Mr. Banker - let me have some more!").
What's astonishing (especially when watching it in action) is the level of groupthink, overt and covert, being perpetuated by anybody and everybody involved in market institutions - bankers, traders, inverstement analysts, and crucially, business reporters - desperately attempting to convince the public of the transitory, minor, perfectly reasonable nature of the crisis.
Groupthink's not new, but I wish that when billions of dollars and the direct and indirect livelyhoods of billions are at stake, a little analysis might win the day. For instance, it seems clear that if millions of people don't have enough money to pay the debts their debtors knowingly bestowed on them, it's going to be a problem - just as it seems equally clear that if a society (species?) uses up the physical resources of a planet at an unsustainable rate, the result isn't going to be children's feeding time at the Boise County Zoo - or rather, not in the way one would like to think.
I do wonder how much of the opinion-setting is conscious. Does Jim Flaherty really have any base in his perspective on reality to say, for instance, that Canadian household savings are "very strong" - when they're at their lowest level since the 1920s?
It's remarkable how effective the perpetuation and propagation of this sort of mass belief can actually be. Unless confronted by cold hard physical facts (like having no cash on hand to pay the cleaning lady), people will plow ahead believing all sorts of bosh. The convincingly smooth platitudes of a thousand (self-serving? surely not) financial managers may convince everybody that the show can, and will go on.
Except that there are still all those people out there with no money to pay their mortgages. And to paraphrase Bill Clinton, when push comes to shove "it's the money, stupid."
What's astonishing (especially when watching it in action) is the level of groupthink, overt and covert, being perpetuated by anybody and everybody involved in market institutions - bankers, traders, inverstement analysts, and crucially, business reporters - desperately attempting to convince the public of the transitory, minor, perfectly reasonable nature of the crisis.
Groupthink's not new, but I wish that when billions of dollars and the direct and indirect livelyhoods of billions are at stake, a little analysis might win the day. For instance, it seems clear that if millions of people don't have enough money to pay the debts their debtors knowingly bestowed on them, it's going to be a problem - just as it seems equally clear that if a society (species?) uses up the physical resources of a planet at an unsustainable rate, the result isn't going to be children's feeding time at the Boise County Zoo - or rather, not in the way one would like to think.
I do wonder how much of the opinion-setting is conscious. Does Jim Flaherty really have any base in his perspective on reality to say, for instance, that Canadian household savings are "very strong" - when they're at their lowest level since the 1920s?
It's remarkable how effective the perpetuation and propagation of this sort of mass belief can actually be. Unless confronted by cold hard physical facts (like having no cash on hand to pay the cleaning lady), people will plow ahead believing all sorts of bosh. The convincingly smooth platitudes of a thousand (self-serving? surely not) financial managers may convince everybody that the show can, and will go on.
Except that there are still all those people out there with no money to pay their mortgages. And to paraphrase Bill Clinton, when push comes to shove "it's the money, stupid."
Friday, July 20, 2007
On Brinksmanship
It only works if those on the brink a) believe they're at the edge of the cliff and b) care if they fall over the side.
In the case of the crisis now enveloping us here in poor, stupid old Hogtown, I'm unconvinced that either the a) or b) above applies. But I know for sure the answer to that naive question, "Is Toronto a world-class city?" How many other "world-class" cities are closing subway lines?
Fate is very cruel to Torontonians - dazzling us with mirages (10 new LRT lines!) before sticking the knife in (oops! wrong! we're going to close one of the subway lines you already have instead!) Or at least to those Torontonians who care. But the no-taxes at any cost lobby won the day. Not enough people told their councillors they understood that you only get what you pay for. Maybe not enough be people do understand. Maybe now they will.
The right-wing of City Council is acting in what they can only believe is a statesmanlike fashion, and it never hurts to turn bald hypocrite and accuse someone of petulance: paradoxically, it's the best way of discrediting an opponent in our juvenile political culture. But if you examine what's being said, you'll get the distinct impression that the right is upset not with cutting things, but with cutting things in a way that means everyone will notice. They'd prefer the city be disembowelled quietly - destroyed by stealth, so that by the time the people realise what's happened, they'll take it as a fact of life.
This Toronto apocalypse is, as Rick Salutin notes ($), a texbook case. Of how not speaking the truth, on all sides, can lead to disaster. Of the great difficulty (perhaps impossibility) of passing progressive policies in a country so beholden to monied interest, and to the media that supports them. And of how, more and more and more, we disenfranchise ourselves by our own volition, render ourselves impotent in the face of threats to our city and to our future.
Write your city councillor - yes, you have one. Write the Mayor. Vote on October 10, for someone who cares the city. 'Cause, as Jane Jacobs wrote, "you can run anything into the ground." I'm glad she's not here to see this - she would have taken no pleasure in being proven, yet again, to be right.
In the case of the crisis now enveloping us here in poor, stupid old Hogtown, I'm unconvinced that either the a) or b) above applies. But I know for sure the answer to that naive question, "Is Toronto a world-class city?" How many other "world-class" cities are closing subway lines?
Fate is very cruel to Torontonians - dazzling us with mirages (10 new LRT lines!) before sticking the knife in (oops! wrong! we're going to close one of the subway lines you already have instead!) Or at least to those Torontonians who care. But the no-taxes at any cost lobby won the day. Not enough people told their councillors they understood that you only get what you pay for. Maybe not enough be people do understand. Maybe now they will.
The right-wing of City Council is acting in what they can only believe is a statesmanlike fashion, and it never hurts to turn bald hypocrite and accuse someone of petulance: paradoxically, it's the best way of discrediting an opponent in our juvenile political culture. But if you examine what's being said, you'll get the distinct impression that the right is upset not with cutting things, but with cutting things in a way that means everyone will notice. They'd prefer the city be disembowelled quietly - destroyed by stealth, so that by the time the people realise what's happened, they'll take it as a fact of life.
This Toronto apocalypse is, as Rick Salutin notes ($), a texbook case. Of how not speaking the truth, on all sides, can lead to disaster. Of the great difficulty (perhaps impossibility) of passing progressive policies in a country so beholden to monied interest, and to the media that supports them. And of how, more and more and more, we disenfranchise ourselves by our own volition, render ourselves impotent in the face of threats to our city and to our future.
Write your city councillor - yes, you have one. Write the Mayor. Vote on October 10, for someone who cares the city. 'Cause, as Jane Jacobs wrote, "you can run anything into the ground." I'm glad she's not here to see this - she would have taken no pleasure in being proven, yet again, to be right.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Power Off
Well, buh-bye, subway. I guess when push comes to shove, you're really not so important after all.
But I bet Denzil Minnan-Wong is real happy he holds the Don Valley East ward on the south side of the 401 - and not the one through which runs poor ol' Sheppard Avenue.
Seyonara, Transit City. We hardly knew you.
But I bet Denzil Minnan-Wong is real happy he holds the Don Valley East ward on the south side of the 401 - and not the one through which runs poor ol' Sheppard Avenue.
Seyonara, Transit City. We hardly knew you.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Placeholder
Well, that was a lengthy absence. Sorry, all. To coin a great BBC phrase, I was overtaken by events. Stay tuned!
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
Dumb mouths, that ope' their ruby lips
The other Harperite perversity on ample display this week has been vicious, short-sighted, destructive policy petulance. The cuts to the Canada Summer Jobs program are a prime example.
Heard about this? Like the Court Challenges Program, like the Status of Women Office, like the money for museums, Canada Summer Jobs doesn't cost, in the grand scheme of things, a whole lot - it subsidizes/funds temporary positions for high school and university students in organisations that wouldn't otherwise be able to hire over ther summer. So why has $11 million been axed from its budget? Disabled little league baseball; an award-winning camp for autistic kids; daycamps in Jamestown - none of these things are apparently "worthy" enough, to quote Human Resources Minister Monte Solberg, to qualify.
While the fracas in the House is bad, this is reprehensible. Paul Wells thinks that the Conservatives are preparing a grand new human capital strategy. Well, denying young people in urban areas home to 80% of Canada's population, not to mention all of Newfoundland, summer job opportunities - and money, experience, skills development and the chance to innovate - is really such an outstandingly original way to develop a workforce, isn't it?
Harper knows that with a minority government, he can't chop away at some of the bigger strands of the social safety net. But it's open season on the small fry - and I bet you a $1.3 billion tank purchase that the Primer Minister thinks it will be easier to do away with the big stuff by softening up the victim with a thousand cuts.
Cuts, cuts, cuts. Cuts to the regulation of prime-time television commercials. Cuts to the Official Languages Plan. That holy shibboleth, tax cuts. Students, and everyone else, might want to bone up on their Classics - Canada has become like a man who goes in for a hair cut and is instead attacked with the shears. Or like Caeser stabbed in the back, by a fat man with a lean and hungry look.
Heard about this? Like the Court Challenges Program, like the Status of Women Office, like the money for museums, Canada Summer Jobs doesn't cost, in the grand scheme of things, a whole lot - it subsidizes/funds temporary positions for high school and university students in organisations that wouldn't otherwise be able to hire over ther summer. So why has $11 million been axed from its budget? Disabled little league baseball; an award-winning camp for autistic kids; daycamps in Jamestown - none of these things are apparently "worthy" enough, to quote Human Resources Minister Monte Solberg, to qualify.
While the fracas in the House is bad, this is reprehensible. Paul Wells thinks that the Conservatives are preparing a grand new human capital strategy. Well, denying young people in urban areas home to 80% of Canada's population, not to mention all of Newfoundland, summer job opportunities - and money, experience, skills development and the chance to innovate - is really such an outstandingly original way to develop a workforce, isn't it?
Harper knows that with a minority government, he can't chop away at some of the bigger strands of the social safety net. But it's open season on the small fry - and I bet you a $1.3 billion tank purchase that the Primer Minister thinks it will be easier to do away with the big stuff by softening up the victim with a thousand cuts.
Cuts, cuts, cuts. Cuts to the regulation of prime-time television commercials. Cuts to the Official Languages Plan. That holy shibboleth, tax cuts. Students, and everyone else, might want to bone up on their Classics - Canada has become like a man who goes in for a hair cut and is instead attacked with the shears. Or like Caeser stabbed in the back, by a fat man with a lean and hungry look.
The Bully Pulpit
You know, my immediate greivance with the paralyzing imbroglio slowly consuming the House of Commons has less to do with the tactics being employed by the Conservative government, than with the philosophy of governance the Harperites reveal by doing so. It's reasonably safe to say that most peoples' idea of government is of an institution that, well, governs - sets public policy, uses its authority to supervise a state, yadda yadda yadda. It's the Opposition that's supposed, by definition, to do the opposing.
So what kind of responsible government cancels committees because things aren't going their way, lies blatantly about events that happened, literally, last week, obstructs inquiries into its own alleged malfeisance, and lets the friggin' Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons physically harass an opponent? This is not, as the Globe's byline writers suggest, a war of procedure - it's a kamikaze assault by the governing party on the basic processes of the House that it was elected to protect. It's obscene, it's disgusting, and it's entirely consonant with Stark Contrast's theory about Stephen Harper: that he wants Canadians to expect politics to be as nasty as possible - because he's the reigning king of revile.
________________________________________________________
UPDATE - Hmmmm...I'll tell you what kind of government engineers the above-mentioned dirty tricks - the same kind of government that has 200 pages of material about said kamikaze assault, and an itchy printer finger.
Let's be charitable - maybe it was the clipper again? Someone call the RCMP!
So what kind of responsible government cancels committees because things aren't going their way, lies blatantly about events that happened, literally, last week, obstructs inquiries into its own alleged malfeisance, and lets the friggin' Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons physically harass an opponent? This is not, as the Globe's byline writers suggest, a war of procedure - it's a kamikaze assault by the governing party on the basic processes of the House that it was elected to protect. It's obscene, it's disgusting, and it's entirely consonant with Stark Contrast's theory about Stephen Harper: that he wants Canadians to expect politics to be as nasty as possible - because he's the reigning king of revile.
________________________________________________________
UPDATE - Hmmmm...I'll tell you what kind of government engineers the above-mentioned dirty tricks - the same kind of government that has 200 pages of material about said kamikaze assault, and an itchy printer finger.
Let's be charitable - maybe it was the clipper again? Someone call the RCMP!
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