How can things change if we won't learn?

Another blog by sicntired Sometimes things become so frustrating you just want to shout.Fine for you or me but if you are the chief of the police force in the largest city in the west it behooves you to use common sense.Unfortunately,Jim Chiu likes to shoot from the lip.He's been on this "chronic offender" bandwagon again and it drives me crazy.If the chief was a student of Canadian law,or even of the local police force he would know that we have been down this road already.Of course that would require a little due diligence and that's in very short supply today.We have just seen the first case of trial by press.Tony Nguyen punched Michael Levy in the head and was sentenced to 20 months in prison.As he was entering the elevator,pursued by a camera crew,he laughed at the fact the press was all over him.The press decided he was laughing at the sentence and ran with the story till it was unrecognisable.The whole lunatic fringe went along for the ride and Wally Oppal decided it would be a good move to appeal the sentence.Score one for hysteria.The court,battered unmercifully for years now over being soft on crime finally buckled and sent him to jail.The comments made by Levy's mother said it all."Those people,they come here and they take everything."She had a whole lot more racist banter and the cameras ate it up.Score two for hysteria and racism.This is a dangerous precedent.We now have the lunatic fringe running the court system.I guess Chiu is just being an opportunist.He doesn't like the fact that addicts are being treated like human beings and he has to clean up the mess.I feel for the poor guy.It must be annoying having to chase criminals all day long.Seriously,these are addicts. knows it but he doesn't feel it's prudent to say it.Better to use the anonymous"chronic offender"like he's not kicking someone when their already down.Addicts are a problem.Have been for a long time now .If the chief looked up the habitual criminal act he would see that this whole concept was tried in the last century and was turfed as being cruel and unusual punishment.It is true that something has to be done about drug addiction.For 100 years now we have been using prison as the dumping ground for the broken people that have turned to heroin.Now we have a crack epidemic as well.Sending addicts to prison is going to help them is Chiu's claim.This is blatant B.S.and Chiu knows it.He just doesn't know what else to do.I'm a nobody that has spent 40 years as a drug addict and am as addicted today as I have been for the duration.Prison did nothing but embitter me and make me far more dangerous than I should or would have been under any other circumstances.I suppose Chiu would blame the heroin.That is B.S.as well.Addicts have a big hole in their soul.If you can't,won't or refuse to fix the hole.Don't expect the addict to change.I've heard a whole lot of talk about treatment and if there was any treatment that was effective the problem would certainly have been reduced by now.The simple truth is there is no effective treatment for the vast majority of hard core addicts.Treatment has to be available and it should be worked on and tinkered to try to find something that works.No-one expects or wants younger addicts to be given up on .It's the older,"Chronic offenders",and other long term addicts that must be put on a maintenance program like NAOMI.I'm sure Chiu knows this as well as I do .He just doesn't have the courage to say so.Police don't make policy.I understand that completely.I just don't think the kind of disingenuous pap that Chiu has chosen to toss around is going to help anyone.

No way to treat an old man

I received a letter from the provincial government last month informing me that as I was six months from my 60th birthday i had to submit information about my eligibility for a federal pension.It was not quite that polite as it threatened my check if I didn't comply.This means they threatened a near 60 year old man with multiple barriers(health problems)with zero money.To say this was stressful would be an understatement.So I managed to get the paperwork together and take it into the office and what was their response?I just received another letter threatening my check if I don't apply for said pension before the next check.As I said I am on disability and have a lot of trouble getting around.Some days are better than others but gathering all this is a lot of trouble and the result will be that my pension,when I am forced to count on it,will be reduced.I don't understand the need to threaten someone with financial ruin if they want something done.I have been prompt with all my paperwork since being put on disability.I do admit to having some difficulty when I had to live on $500 a month as I never had bus fare after the first week.Since then I am always early with everything I have to do as there is no necessity to do something to add to my income daily.I have been turned down twice for extra assistance for supplements in spite of meeting every requirement with the exception of threat of immediate death.That is the reason for the rejection,no threat of sudden death.I have been on a list for a pain clinic as that is the only way I can receive the care I need.It is very painful for me to be on my feet for more that 15 mins.My condition leaves me very vulnerable to stress and prone to panic attacks,which are very unpleasant and scary.I am very grateful that there is a system that takes care of people like myself who have a limited work history and are totally unfit for any job.That doesn't say I condone the way people on assistance are treated.I see no need to threaten a persons security for any reason.To do it so that the government can force me to apply for an early pension at a reduced rate is really sick.Are they so desperate for a hundred dollars a month?I have been without teeth for over three years because the dental coverage is a joke.I had three teeth pulled and found out that that was all the dental coverage I qualified for for two years.I have been in chronic and terrible pain since 2003.I have no idea how long I have to wait as no-one can tell me.I suppose I should be grateful as the way I am being treated I will probably have a shortened lifespan so I won't have to worry about what kind of future I will have.At least I am not living on the sidewalk yet and am able to eat once a day.As long as I can complete an application for an early pension that is.Otherwise i will have to learn to suck air and live in the park.

There's a big difference between legal and ethical

The current case of the investigation of former Solicitor General John Les by his own police forces and government will end with Les being exonerated.Like the police themselves,investigations of politicians by their colleagues rarely results in anything sticking in a legal sense.This case is brand new and there's a whole lot more to be learned before the thing is put to rest.From the information released one thing is clear.Les used knowledge gained while he was Mayor of Chilliwack to later make land deals that made him very wealthy.Did he break any laws?Probably not,Mr.Les is too savvy a politician to make any slips that could get him busted.Did he use insider knowledge to enrich himself and get around some rules he had intimate knowledge of?Beyond question.Les will be exonerated of any crime because he had all the rules and boundary exemptions at his fingertips.He refused permits or oversaw their refusal and waited for the right time to do the machinations that he,as former Mayor knew all about.He profited from his knowledge and position but probably did it in such a way that he is immune from prosecution.I sincerely hope that he won't be allowed to escape the obvious conflicts of interest that he used to enrich himself where the ordinary citizen was unable,even after two attempts,to do the same.This government has never had any concept of the meaning of conflict of interest.Even Ken Dobell is still lobbying for the company supplying the turnstiles for the skytrain terminals.They feel self enrichment of self and friends is a perk of the job.I thought the idea of the huge pay hike they just gave themselves was supposed to eliminate the impulse to cheat as they are well paid.Not well enough for any of the Campbell insiders as they are continually getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Party of the poor wants penny banished

I recently received an e-mail from Jack Layton telling me how the NDP was the only party providing an opposition(true,unfortunately)and extolling all the good things the NDP had done.I answered back that I had been a voter for the NDP all my life and was now leaving for the Green party as I felt they better represented my personal view of my country.I feel the NDP has abandoned it's roots and forgotten where it came from.Now i read this article in the paper about an NDP MP that wants to banish the penny to history.Pat Martin wants prices rounded off to the nearest five cent mark.I guess he finds it annoying having to mess with pennies when things could be rounded off.I happen to come from an upper middle class family.I have ,however been down on my luck a few times and was counting my pennies,literally.Mr Martin doesn't care any more about people that have to count pennies than he does for the penny.He would like the penny and all those that count them to be put somewhere and forgotten.The one thing that makes the penny so important,coincidentally,is that it is so unimportant to people like Mr.Martin and probably mr.Layton as well and therefore they're willing to part with them for charities and panhandlers and anyone else that's down on their luck.Like the old fellow that was just recently on the news because he was collecting pennies for charity.I see this as the same kind of mentality that you hear whenever the minimum wage is brought up.There are those that care about making life better for everyone and there are those that only care about themselves.You hear them complain that if the minimum wage is raised then they'll lose spending power on their money.So what if people are working and can't afford to eat.I'll have to pay more for my beer.The penny is always a way of anyone being able to put a few bucks aside for a rainy day and easier than collecting your empties for a few months.It's sad that the party of Tommy Douglas that gave us our health care system has forgotten where it comes from.Like the health care system that is being starved out of existence by politicians in collusion with the CMA in a selfish and greedy push for a two tiered medical system the NDP is now more about the money than it is about making life a little more even for everyone in this country.When I saw the country sign on for the necessity to possess picture ID in order to vote.I knew there was no-one in Ottawa that was working for the poor and lower income working stiff.If picture ID is to be a requirment,it must be provided free to every voter.Otherwise it's a means of disenfranchising a large segment of society that isn't capable of holding on to or keeping up to date,photo ID.

Just who's being conned with con-air?

When I first read about this program,I thought:"what's the harm?"So far the people sent back seem to be violent felons and I have no idea why they weren't on Canada wide warrants to begin with.Then I hear they want to ship out every-one with any kind of warrant at all.This begins to sound a lot like another of Sam's Civil City projects.These projects,no matter how pretty you dress them up,are cynical attempts to remove as many of the poor and homeless as possible before the Olympics.By shipping them now,it will do just the opposite.The last guy I saw being loaded on a plane(and what's with the media showing up at a convict extradition?)was very vocal about coming back and wreaking havoc.Can't the warrants be waved so these people can do their time here?This has vigilante written all over it.Now we have vigilante redcoats and vigilante guardian angels and now vigilante air lines.Yes,it's the Olympics at it's plutocratic best.All the security money can buy.Remember those cops Sam said we just couldn't afford.Amazing what you can find when there may be a vote or two in it.Let's get on with the mayoral election and find a Mayor with a sense of vision and one that won't sanction any vigilante group with an axe to grind.

pinecone-burke saved with upper Pitt river

At 12:00PM today,wed.Mar.26,2008.Environment minister Barry Penner announced the run of the river power project scheduled for the upper Pitt river is dead.I would like to thank every-one that responded to all the pleas for rejection of this project.I'm sure there are places where this is a workable kind of project but the upper Pitt is a special place and Pinecone Burke is a class A park.Again,thanks to everyone for opposing what would have been a disaster.

Hypocracy and the newspaper

It isn't bad enough that we have only one major media company in Vancouver.The papers don't actually even try to pretend that they speak with any semblance of independence.When Sam Sullivan first ran for mayor,the media loved the guy.Now he can't get decent press even if he does something right.Not that that happens very often anyway.Now the Media is in love with Dianne Watts.To read the papers she's just an election away from a coronation.Ms.Watts is a very clever politician that is very adept at courting the press.If there's anything happening,Dianne is there for any quotes and all available praise,whether or not it's deserved.I've seen different incarnations of Ms. Watts in my 59 years of watching the local political scene and she's one of the most ambitious and unethical I've seen since Bill Vander Zalm.He was also a mayor of Surrey with political ambitions.Not since Bill have I seen anyone so eager to walk to greater things over the backs of the regions poor and homeless.Now Bill didn't have a homeless problem to deal with but he never hesitated to lash out at the lowest end of the societal spectrum.It was Bills government that tried to have addiction declared a crime and to put addicts in jail forever.The thing is,there's always a mob out there that'll support this kind of poor bashing and it was only by attending meetings and exposing people to the truth that the infamous bill was allowed to slip into history without being put before the house.Ms.Watts is another hard line prohibitionist and is the first to the camera whenever there's a chance to take a pot shot at drug legislation.She took an all expenses trip to Europe to study the drug situation there but like all hardliners before her she saw only that which supported her twisted view of the situation and came back with drug courts and forced treatment.Both of these things have been tried and have failed but then that's the history of the drug war.Try it,shelve it wait a generation and then dredge it up and try it again.As long as we are stuck with these politicians that put their personal views over scientific evidence and studies of the problem,of which there are many,that expose the racist and hysteria based reasons for drug prohibition in the first place.We will continue to have social unrest and wanton killing in the streets.These people look to the south for their ideas and their inspiration.If you think the violence and bloodshed that goes on as a daily occurrence in America is a plan we should be looking at,Ms.Watts is for you.If you want the same old answers that have brought us to where we are today,She's your girl.She takes credit for everything that's going well.She must take credit for the whole picture.If you like what's going on in the lower mainland and don't mind dodging bullets,she's good for it.If you think people with addictions and mental problems are criminals and felons,so does she.The lower levels of society have always been an easy target for ambitious politicians with a sociopath's personality.These are unfortunately the people that last in politics as they have no empathy and no conscience.Such is Dianne Watts.If you would like to discover what Dianne has no time to look into there are many sites on the web that will tell you the true history of drug prohibition:drugsense.org,LEAP,stopthedrugwar.org.Any one of these sites contains links to the others and many more. Canada's Green Party wants to end the drug war.