Justice Lampooned -- Media Covers the Shafia Sentencing -- America Shames Canada and Britain

Justice Lampooned  --  Media Covers the Shafia Sentencing  -- America Shames Canada and Britain

First up, the always bemused and inarticulate Andrew whatshishead on CBCNN, utterly out of his depth and dismayingly inarticulate.  He was joined by a greasy-headed kid named D’Souza, who embarrassed second-year journalism students everywhere with his lack of command of any language.

Over on CTV, a brilliantined blonde woman, quite perplexed, at last got on to Genevieve Beauchemin, who was hyperventilating so much that her family may be wondering even now if she has been able to get to sleep, or is alive.  Alas, no commentator on either network was able to provide sustained, sober, or knowledgeable reflection on what had transpired.  Why?  The trial had only gone on for months.  Both CBC and CTV appeared to have had to find ties for rushed-in bald lawyers.  Good thing no-one takes any of this seriously.

The CBC, above all, has been interested in the possibility that “others” have been interested in this trial.  Well, let’s have a look.

Britain’s _The Guardian_ emphasizes its basic Murdoch approach, misquoting the judge, highlighting evanescent sideshows, and generally observing the British taste for the Sunshine girls n’sleaze.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/30/honour-killings-jury-afghan-family

Huffington post, unsurprisingly, goes for “coverage” that can’t even be called that, so there’s no point in linking to it.  I’m not sure if Arianna had a thong on, but if it got her clicks, its hot chicks, and it’s Guardian sleaze all the way.

Notably, CNN—and lord knows the Americans are good at trials and killings—provided the most concise and informative piece on the matter.  CNN, notably, was the *ONLY NETWORK* that even attempted to observe and contextualize the death of Rona Amir Mohammad, second infertile wife of killer Shafia; Canada’s CBC, and other networks, dismissed the death of an ‘old lady’ as merely collateral damage, uninteresting beyond the teen attractions the trial had so far provided.  As veteran CBC reporter Terry Milewski noted: “        .”  Wendy Mesley observed: “            , Terry.”

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/30/world/americas/canada-honor-murder/?hpt=wo_c2

Mock news organization Aljazeera offered: Afghan immigrant accused of killing former wife and three daughters tells court he was a caring father.

Horrible to think that in this case Canadians have to go to Americans to get decent reporting, but such is as it is.

zr

Postscript: A couple days after this post, the Globe ran a story about Rona Amir Mohammad, under the byline "Timothy Appleby."  It wasn't very informative, and I think indicated that there was information about her that could not be released during trial proceedings.  Funny thing about trial proceedings, though, is that one can often release an awful, awful lot of material, even under a ban, if one wants to.

Jim Flaherty Urges Lower Mortgage Rates; Insists Banking Sector Needs Freedom from Government Constraints

Jim Flaherty Urges Lower Mortgage Rates; Insists Banking Sector Needs Freedom from Government Constraints

November 13, 2014

(CP) – Daniel Zorg

Former Ontario and Canada finance minister Jim Flaherty today announced that Canada’s banking sector must be able to operate with complete freedom, without any government meddling.  Having left office 48 hours ago, former minister Flaherty, who has since accepted chairs with the boards of all of Canada’s major banks, has been able to gross over $2 million in his first hours out of government.

In a speech with Canadian Club, Flaherty observed, “when I was finance minister during the 2008 recession, I was able to achieve massive bailouts for the major banks.  Moreover, so that banks could keep their taxpayer money, I moved to ensure that Canadians who just didn’t have the serious cash required to own something could never, ever get a mortgage.”  “Now,” he added, “it seems that the government wants to prevent people from letting the private sector determine what is best for it.”  “When I was minister,” Flaherty contended, “I never failed to let Canadians know that only the private sector could ever rescue them.”

Former Minister Flaherty was asked why, after Canadians had bailed out banks and private sector concerns such as auto companies, and after auto companies had not paid back monies as they were not required pay back, and banks had not lent to increase liquidity as they were supposed to do, he felt that banks should now be able to do even more as they wished.

“Well,” Flaherty responded, “it’s simple.”  “I tried to protect the banks as much as possible when I was in office.  Routinely, they said to me, let us lend more money.  ‘No, I said,’ ‘let Canadians lend it to _you_, and then they will pay you back. Now we find ourselves in a situation in which the government of the day is attempting to dictate to us how we should withdraw our money from Canadians.  It’s absurd.’”

 Commenting further on Canada’s low interest rates, Flaherty stated: “banks have to protect themselves from Canadians.  If Canadians want to take out low-interest mortgages offered by banks, then banks have to be able to protect themselves.  That means, no more government meddling.  There has got to be a situation in this country whereby banks, who want it, can get access to taxpayer funds without strings attached.  And me and my board are here to stand up for those banks, and make sure they get their hard-earned dollars from the people they’re going to come from.”

 Flaherty will be addressing business luncheons in Calgary and Vancouver during the rest of the week.

Dan Zorg

Reflecting on World War One WWI Great War writing

Brooke passed, Owen died.

Sassoon is just a trifle too made up—crazy and unhinged, in the sense of hanging off a new geranium.

Brittain saw more and said less than anyone.   This is a testament.

Harrison is brutal and he knows it; there’s something attractive about that.

Remarque is deshabille; Musil, not there, probably got it more.

Montgomery understood.

Manning was endorsed by Hemingway, and the velvet touch of the non-combatant does leave things seeming just a little bit as if you would be wasting time reading it.

Blunden blundens over the flowers.  So desperate is he to make poetry of pottery, he trods in a pool with a  moon in it.

I think it’s got to be Graves; candid, struggling for truth, seemingly unvarnished.  It is him that I would read again, and again, for the truth I can't imagine.

El Presidente – El Perfecto

Just before the new year I was able to watch a great thing, Dennis Martinez’s perfect game at Chavez Ravine in 1991.  If I’m fortunate, I may be able to watch it again, but we’ll see.

Now, now, I know that the internet has provided us all with endless opportunities to study such things as those that I am about to relate.  But trust me, trust me, my friends, you can search and search after 50 years, and you will never find people who really do remember it or who saw it.  I know.  From falling hands.

What a hot day it was, nothing for Dennis.  The ‘spos had been shut down lately—Mark Gardner almost throwing a no-hitter on his own—clearly, the ‘spos were beginning to round into the form that made them World Champions in 1994.  Dodgers were  hot—league leaders, huge team average.

The ‘spos had that idiot coach, Tom Runnells, who initiated spring training with a foghorn and in fatigues, previewing the Jays’ Tim Johnson, who said he was in ‘nam when he wasn’t.  Baseball brings out the worst of Americans. . . .   Having gone through Earl Weaver, Dennis, Nicaraguan, would have regarded such things if not with irony, then with experience and determination, one of less than 10 to win 100 in both leagues.

I think, if I remember it right, Andres Galarraga was either in the doghouse or on the d/l, and a youngish Larry Walker came in to play 1^st base.  He proved to be pivotal.  Alongside Delino DeShields, who took most of the chances, it was Walker, above all, who just had the feel and the grit and know-how for the game that got Dennis through the perfect game—and Walker was clearly not at his accustomed position, or anything like it—he was just one hell of a ballplayer.  One hell of a ballplayer—five tools and smart—Larry Walker was six tools.

Dennis was pushed by Mike Morgan, the tired Dodgers’ starter—in fact, it was more or less a perfect game for both through about 4.  Morgan was a top starter, and the Dodgers had an astonishingly good hitting team, very American league, with Kal Daniels and Eddie Murray as relatively easy at-bats. The Expos knew they were good, but they had an idiot manager.  Dennis, I think, was challenged a bit by Morgan, not so much by his own team or his manager.  On the other hand, Gardner had gone out there and shown he could shut down a team completely—Dennis had to show he could still do that. Morgan pitched very well, but Dennis found another gear through the middle innings that truly asserted his presence; he would not be schooled by a boy.

In those days, they didn’t have all the newfangled devices we do now.  If Dennis threw about 110-112 pitches, I bet at least 95 were curves.  He had that tight curve working, and the Dodgers had a left-handed lineup, and as expert analyst and perennial .300 hitter Ken Singleton said, “you’d need a pitching wedge to get that one.”  Delino DeShields, at 2^nd base, must have had 12 chances, easy (remember, Walker).  The outfield probably only got about 3 chances all afternoon.

In and  out.  The Dodgers’ lefties would top ball after ball to DeShields at 2^nd.  Looking back, you would say, how could they do it?  But that was just how tight Dennis’s spin was.

Umpiring—let’s talk about umpiring, for that always must feature, just as refereeing does in hockey.  Well, I think Dennis got more calls than Morgan did, but only about 2-1, in terms of obvious calls that should have been gotten.  There were only a couple of calls that either pitcher should have gotten, and if you watch the game, well, Dennis maybe got at most 2 that Morgan didn’t get.  It was pretty even up, I think even Morgan would say.  Dennis also didn’t get a couple, but on the whole I would say Morgan was -1 or -2.  I’ll have to go to the tape.

Morgan tired, and Dennis knew he had his stuff.  He shook it out in his kinky way and then twisted into that trademark delivery.

Dennis threw at most 3-5 fastballs the whole afternoon, up and in, smokin’ 90, if that can be called smokin,’ at the Dodgers’ lefties. . . .  Dennis threw maybe 5-6 changes the whole afternoon, but when he did, they were devastating.  The Dodgers were looking curve so much that they might get fastball and then they get. . . change.  I really think Dennis should have thrown the change more that day, at Chavez Ravine, when he threw a perfect game.

In the final at bat, the Dodgers pinch hitter got just a little bit out in front of it, and it was just a bit in on his hands.  It was a good piece of hitting, because he had been studying up.  I actually think Dennis was a bit lucky.   Dennis felt that way, too.  We’ll never know, but it would have taken a good 20 ft more to get it out of the park—that was no warning-track shot; that one was caught on the wide green field of dreams.

The Chavez Ravine fans, they were classy.  They knew they’d seen a fine duel between Morgan and Martinez.  They clapped when Martinez came on for the ninth, and even stood while Dennis completed his perfect game—very, very classy fans in the true Vin Scully mode.  In Canada, you know when people know hockey, and they applaud it; I’m no Dodgers fan, but the Dodgers fans did show they liked baseball.

And then.

So what.  El Presidente, El Perfecto.  Dave Van Horne gets a new piece of turf, and Dennis is only one of the less than 10, joining Fergie Jenkins, who did it in both leagues.  What an achievement.

The ‘spos move on.  On to be the best team in baseball in ’94, so far out in front they  played with water pistols in Georgia before the Strike.

Best team ever.

zr

Canada’s Conservative Stephen Harper Government Emulates, Flatters, and Praises by Imitation Assad, Kim Jong-il, Various Dictators, and Anti-Christian Fellow Travellers

The story:

Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, Joe Oliver, has become the latest politician to blame the United States for problems affecting his own country.

 At issue is the so-called “Gateway” pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia that, if built, would allow Canada to ship Alberta tar sands products to Asia.

Piqued by an American deferral of the “Keystone” pipeline, which would run north from Alberta south to the Gulf of Mexico, the Harperites, as they are known in Canada, thought they’d play a little hardball with the U.S. and say that Canada would take its oil and ship it to China as a result of U.S. dithering over environmental concerns.

What the Harper government knew, though, was that there was already plenty of opposition to a Canadian pipeline across territory that includes First Nations (Indian) land.  In an effort to get out in front of any opposition, the Harper government, in the voice of hapless Joe Oliver, decided to blame environmentalist American “billionaire socialists” (warning: massive CBC advertising amplification!! http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/News/TV_Shows/The_National/1233408557/ID=2185209491) for any potential impediments to the east-west Canadian pipeline.

Just one part of the reason Minister Oliver could not rail against his own citizens (Natives) was because they’d already shown themselves to be fairly savvy with respect to business and resource deals, and had in fact made agreements that didn’t involve pipelines.  Can’t criticize at home, better go abroad, is what Joe was counseled.

The implications:

By so doing, the Harper government has become just the latest one to blame the U.S. for pretty well everything.  Typically, I’m right out in front of that one; I’m ready to blame the U.S. for just about anything, and generally the U.S. richly deserves it.  There are big and/or powerful countries out there, besides the U.S., that don’t choose to bankrupt themselves by meddling in other countries. 

Look at the dismaying cartoon strip that is U.S. politics.  I’d like to go on.  But sometimes, you do have to feel for the U.S., which does contain some good and sensible people that you don’t see on TV every night.  And here’s good ol’ Joe Oliver, Canadian government minister, joining every tin-pot dictator and knee-jerk wingnut in condemning the U.S. for messing up Canada’s *own* pipeline dreams.  

In an interview with a Canadian radio show (http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/episode/2012/01/09/the-monday-edition-8/), barely coherent (drunk, sleep-deprived, IQ of 74?) Joe refused to (obviously couldn’t) identify the “billionaire socialists” he’d named above.  He dismissed the fact that fewer than 20 of 4500 of those who signed up to comment on Gateway were American; the rest, he implied (he used the word “parrot”), were merely the equivalent of those who signed petitions (grassroots democracy is a hell of a thing, as Stockwell “Doris” Day found out early).  Meanwhile, of the 250 or so intervenors—those who are allowed to ask questions and not merely offer a few words of comment—multinationals like Exxon figured remarkably prominently.

Speaking of parroting, Oliver’s contemptuous term for democracy, one could note how, in his own open letter, Oliver slavishly emulates Newt Gingrich, the man who has been, in books and speeches, indeed in marriages, standing “at a crossroads” for some decades now: “Canada is on the edge of an historic choice,” the Minister intones.  For his full letter, read here: http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/media-room/news-release/2012/1/3520.  It’s probably worthwhile reading since, because the Minister himself probably doesn’t have a clue what it says, it may give you a random point on a map from which you can then re-orient yourself towards whatever thoughts the Minister may have but is not likely to reveal (unless Harper tells/lets him/gets around to reading them first).

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government, through Minister Joe Oliver, are attempting to cheapen and debase Canadian politics once again, by making outlandish claims about U.S. “billionaire socialists” that they can’t substantiate and honestly never really intended to try to.  (And they probably got scared like hell by lawyers, and that only shows what hick rubes they really are.) Using the Assad mode, Harper is trying to blame foreign interference in Canadian affairs.  Oliver, parroting Kim Jong-il, is attempting to suggest that it is the U.S. that is attempting to undermine the Canadian state, and thus build up Canadian support for projects that, in democracies, would come under public scrutiny.

A Handful of Hard Facts:

It may be that, relatively speaking, pipelines don’t present so much incredible danger.  In the sense that a loaded gun pointed at your head if the trigger isn’t pulled doesn’t present danger, or a bathtub full of water won’t empty if you don’t pull the plug, surely pipelines don’t present much danger.  But Americans just watched an Enbridge pipeline spill into a Michigan river, so how could anyone expect Oklahomans to leap with gaiety at the thought of a TransCanada spill in their own aquifers? 

As Natives point out, one massive oil spill off Kitimat could have ramifications for generations or more—this—this merits Minister Oliver’s contempt.  A man who probably couldn’t find Kitimat on a map with oven mitts is now in charge of it.  There is much to fear.

Get serious, Canada, you don’t even own the sludge you want to export, anyway; China sure as hell isn’t going to wait on a pipeline when it can just come over and buy pretty much anything it wants and mock Canadian energy sovereignty: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Chinese+firm+buys+full+stake+oilsands+project/5943628/story.html  Canadians might just as well live in Guangdong and murder dissidents and serve tea while they’re at it for all Minister Oliver knows or cares about his file. 

Gutless Joe Oliver, in defense of the American multinationals (not those chimerical “billionaire socialists”) he wants to build Canadian pipelines, quails and wheedles and whinges that Canada just doesn’t have what it takes to develop its own tar sands.  You go tell Tommy Douglas, or Lester Pearson, or, for that matter, John A. Macdonald, that.  (In his letter, that one of his 18-yr-old staffers wrote, Oliver hails Macdonald.  But what his keen undergraduate hiree doesn’t know, and what Oliver also doesn’t, is that Macdonald was a patriot who was determined to act in Canada’s interests, not sell them out.)  If the Harper government really wanted to stand up for Canada, it would create a national energy strategy in Canada. 

Bottom line:

Canada’s Stephen Harper Conservative government has emulated the world’s most discredited and despised right-wing dictators by blaming domestic shortcomings on U.S. interference.