Archive for June, 2006

Next Entries »
13
Jun

Deaths = 1, Arrests = 25, Lessons Learned = 0

By Cynapse 4 Comments
Categories: Society and Toronto

The GTA breathed a collective sigh of relief today as police announced no less than 25 arrests related to the December 26 shooting death of Jane Creba. Charges ranged from second degree murder to conspiracy to traffic in cocaine, with the actual murder being attributed to 8 of the suspects. For all 10 of you who are unfamiliar with the story, Jane Creba was the 15 year old girl who was killed accidentally in the crossfire of a daytime gang shootout near the Eaton’s Center. The Toronto Star is reporting that the shootout was between two West Toronto gangs and may have started when someone’s hat was knocked off – a noble reason for public execution if ever one existed.

When news of the shooting first broke, the involvement of black youths led to a strong outbreak of hysterical bias throughout Canada, which was of course followed by a hysterically defensive reaction from the black community. The ensuing circus included a warmly-received and brief (though terribly expensive) visit from famed US preacher Eugene Rivers, credited for spearheading the crime-fighting “Boston Miracle”. The Guardian Angels also came to town, but were given the cold shoulder by a defiant mayor and police chief who swore they needed no help. An all-too-brief spotlight was shone on good grassroots groups like the Toronto Youth Cabinet, who launched their own initiatives to address crime and the conditions that cause crime within their communities. Their media coverage didn’t last past January.

And finally, with a federal election looming, leaders from all 3 major parties assured Canadians in the strongest possible terms that they would get tough on street crime (and medicate some of the conditions leading to street crime). Mayor David Miller and Premier Dalton McGuinty joined the chorus, even holding a conference where they were so kind as to send representatives to speak about possible solutions (community activists who had been tracking the escalating violence were not invited).

Now that the suspects have finally been caught after 6 months, Canada can finish writing this circular story:

  • Probably no more than ½ of the suspects charged directly with Creba’s death will serve significant jail time, due in part to the fact the shooting was accidental and due in large part to Canada’s lax criminal code
  • Municipal, Provincial and Federal governments will share credit for “cleaning up Toronto”. They will conveniently forget that the few anti-crime measures launched thus far have not offset Toronto’s crime rate in any meaningful way. David Miller has failed to embrace any particular strategy to reduce Toronto crime, while Stephen Harper felt street racing was a higher priority than gun crime (notwithstanding the CPC’s attempts to dismantle the national gun registry, which was done against police wishes)
  • Community activists will gripe about the lack of funding they’ve received since Stephen Harper was elected into office, completely ignoring the fact that the communities where these hoodies were raised decayed steadily under +10 years of Liberal rule.
  • Bigots who like to call themselves “conservatives” (hence tarnishing the name of real conservatives) will continue to assail one ethnic community for the Boxing Day Murder. They won’t waste precious time looking at the names of the accused to discover that several groups were likely involved in the shootings (unless there are actually a lot of black people with surnames like Tran and Mijatovic)
  • More details will emerge about the suspects, illustrating the same cause/effect patterns that tend to lead to criminal behaviour if left unchecked. Already, details about 20 year-old Andrew Smith (charged with manslaughter) have emerged – no father in the home, mother works multiple jobs, “minor” brushes with the law that were dismissed as trivial, etc
  • Most Canadians will openly support the maximum possible sentences for the offenders … then flush the entire story from their minds
  • Most Canadians will forget who Chantal Dunn is (if they ever knew) and the irony behind her death
  • Most Canadians will wait for the next “big media event”

In other words, history will show that we adequately fulfilled our functions as humans - we reacted to a growing problem only when it was deemed an emergency, emoted profusely/conveniently while in a state of shock and subsequently failed to follow up with any promised preventive action once the story left the front of the newspaper. For most people, the murder became a cash cow, a political bargaining chip or an excuse to air unrelated grievances in a public forum. And as always we blamed the police for failing to ease our collective conscience with speedy arrests, despite knowledge of the copious witnesses on Yonge Street who conveniently caught amnesia. Essentially we primed ourselves for the next high-profile murder, with full intention of espousing the same “shock and grief” we displayed for the murder of Jane Creba.

See you then.

11
Jun

Pulse24 is Dead; Long Live CityNews

By Cynapse 1 Comment
Categories: Technology and Toronto

Pulse24.com will be closing its doors tomorrow. In its place will be citynews.ca, a portal-looking website with modern features like RSS Feeds and Podcasts (actually, the old site toyed with these features as well, though not to the extent of the Toronto Star or CTV).


citytv-pulse24.jpg
Pulse 24 Layout (click to enlarge)

Citynews.ca Layout
CityNews Layout (click to enlarge)

There was no doubt that Pulse24 was rather ugly and awkward to navigate when compared to rival news websites; however it had two great advantages over its competitors:

  1. A list of breaking news articles occupied the entire right ledge of the “Top Stories” section, often going back several weeks. This feature allowed users to do a very quick scan of what was new without having to click through overly complicated interfaces or rely on RSS feeds (which vary greatly in quality between news sources)
  2. Pulse24 left its articles free and online seemingly forever. You can research articles years old on Pulse24 without having to pay fees or sign up as a member. This was a bonus for bloggers concerned about dead links. Conversely, Canada.com websites (including the National Post) and the Globe & Mail require signup for so-called “premium content”. Sun media sites sell older articles while the Toronto Star deletes them entirely.

Then again, I just might be resistant to change. Admittedly, the new site layout is sharp and current; however Cynapse is on the hunt once again for a simple website that just “gives the details”.

11
Jun

Is Terrorism the Issue or Not?

By Cynapse 0 Comments
Categories: American Politics, Politics and The Art of Blogging

A violent plot was recently foiled in Maryland. A bomb was set to detonate in a civilian building, followed by a mass shooting of the building’s inhabitants. The motivation was political in nature, as the attacker disagreed with the policies and activities of individuals located in the building. The accused, a 25 year old man, will be in court Monday to face federal weapons charges.

Sounds like terrorism so far, right?

Read the MSNBC report:

GREENBELT, Md. - The father of a man accused of plotting to bomb an abortion clinic said he felt he had no choice but to contact police about his son’s activities. Robert Weiler Sr. told The Washington Post for an article published Saturday that the decision was agonizing, but that “our concern was just to make sure nobody got hurt.

Weiler planned to use the bomb and a gun to “shoot doctors who provided abortions,” according to an affidavit filed Thursday in federal court by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He called the ATF from the rest stop where he was arrested and later confessed to the plot, authorities said.

Of course, in today’s selectively paranoid e-world, the MSM (mainstream media) cannot be trusted because they are agents of special interests; the real story can only come from individuals who type on home computers. So where is the outrage? Where the outrage is NOT is more the story. Very little commentary on this foiled terrorist plot has appeared in the more vocal anti-terrorist blogs (and I say “many” because obviously I could not check every single anti-terrorist blog, but the ones I did check had nothing on Maryland). Yet physical confrontations at a native blockade apparently warrant comparison to the widespread Islamacist campaign against the West. Failing to blindly support the aggression du jour can also find one labeled a terrorist “sympathizer”.

This small exercise simply enforces the notion that the terrorism label is simply a function of perceived legality and the palatability of the cause. With such double-standards, it’s difficult for any fair-minded person to get too excited about the enduring non-MSM hysteria concerning terrorism.

Other Views on the Maryland Bomb Plot:

  • Shakespeare’s Sister sees the scant attention paid to the Maryland plot as a symptom of a fatalistic cultural shift to the right: “This is what happens when we, as a culture, tolerate eliminationist rhetoric and treat it as legitimate discourse. I wish liberals would get half as exercised about the steady stream of eliminationist speech directed at us as the wingnuts do about the phrase ‘Happy Holidays.’ “
  • Peregrin Wood of Irregular Times cited partisanship in the apparent double standard applying the terrorist label: “In the view of the Bush Administration, nonviolent progressive activists who disagree with George W. Bush are more of a threat than right wingers who plan to kill Americans with bombs.”
06
Jun

No Room for Moderation in the War on Terror

By Cynapse 2 Comments
Categories: Politics, Toronto and World Politics

“Let’s assume for a minute that everything we’ve heard so far about the foiled Toronto terror attacks is true as reported …”

Canada’s perceived immunity from terrorist threats (FLQ Crisis notwithstanding) came crashing to the ground last week, as 17 suspects spread around Kingston and the Greater Toronto area were arrested for planning to blow up several targets around Southern Ontario. Led by 43-year old Qayyum Abdul Jamal, the group was apprehended after attempting to import 3 tonnes of ammonium nitrate and other assorted firearms for terrorist activities. The 12 adults (Abdelhaleen, Qayyum Abdul Jamal , Fahim Ahmad, Zakaria Amara, Asad Ansari, Shareef. Mohammed Dirie, Yasim Abdi Mohamed, Jahmaal James, Amin Mohamed Durrani, Saad Khalid Abdul Shakur and Ahmad Mustafa Ghany) are in court facing a variety of charges while the youths (who cannot be named) are still being held. Suspected terrorist targets include the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa and the CSIS Office on Front Street in Toronto. Because the amount of fertilizer purchased was roughly three times what was used in the Oklahoma bombings, collateral damages would likely have been very high.

And so ends our delusion about not being involved in “Bush’s war”.

Canadian moderates –ever weary of the right’s endless battle cries- no longer have the luxury of dismissing the war on terror as a Christian crusade or war for oil. While business interests and Evangelical fundamentalism no doubt factor in the zeal of some war proponents, this war –as seen through our enemies’ eyes- is ideological at its core. Western affiliation aside, Al Qaeda’s targets are fairly indiscriminate: the 9/11 bombers apparently had few qualms about attacking a large building that contained business interests from all over the world – including their homelands. Similarly, the British bombers who attacked the London Underground were well aware of the diversity among their targets – a war weary city whose casualties surely included people heavily opposed to military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As the next planned target, Canada has reached a turning point. Our nation is no longer on the sideline playing quiet cheerleader, nor is our military presence in Afghanistan being labeled “peacekeeping” or some other palatable euphemism. The role of the political moderate in the war against terror should be to make sure this war –though defensive in nature- is nonetheless waged in a focused and ethical manner:

  • Actively monitoring and reporting suspicious activities or behavior within the Muslim community is necessary; terrorizing and intimidating Muslim communities is unacceptable
  • Supporting our troops overseas is fundamental to boost national morale; excusing criminal behavior by troops should be avoided
  • Supporting the right of Israel -permanently on the front lines of this “culture war”- to self-defense against militant Palestinian attacks falls under basic ethics; Support for expansionist or apartheid policies under such pretenses should be shunned.
  • Allowing police and national security officials more legal freedom for [targeted] surveillance and interrogation may be a [short-term] necessary evil; Allowing police and the government trample our basic rights to free speech and freedom of information under the guise of “security” would be both ironic and tragic

Most of all we must not lose sight of who our enemies are. These enemies cross all geographic, racial, cultural and age barriers. While all would refer to themselves as “Muslims”, their actions ultimately harm more Muslims than any other identifiable group. Similarly, the Islamacist rarely distinguishes demographic differences or political adversity among his/her prey. We are all “evil Westerners”.

Canada as a whole must help defeat Islamism, rather than merely copy and invert it. The ideal response to Western society can provide to those who would deny us our freedoms and (relative) tolerance is simply to exercise those freedoms with even greater zeal. Most of all, regular Canadians/Americans/Brits must be vigilant against fundamentalists among us who may seize the opportunity unleash their own totalitarian agendas amid growing insecurity.


What Others Had to Say:

  • Steve Janke pondered the RCMP’s claims concerning the size of the reported bomb, based on the often-reported 3 tonnes of ammonium nitrate: “Using the 94% ratio and the size of the overall bomb, and ignoring the RCMP stated amount of ammonium nitrate used, the Oklahoma bomb used 4700 pounds of ammonium nitrate, or 2.1 metric tons. That means the size of the bomb being imagined by the Toronto terrorists was somewhat larger than the Oklahoma bomb, but not as large as suggested at the news conference. Closer to 50% larger, and not 200% larger.”
  • Red Tory is highly skeptical of the notion that “freedom” is what’s under attack. “Such naïve sentiments have since been a cornerstone of faith for right-wing ideologues and a mixed bag of others from across the political spectrum that refuse to acknowledge the obvious connection between radical Islamic terrorism and the long, dark history of self-serving American foreign policy in the Middle East. Whether through ignorance or obduracy, they remain willfully blind to the historical fact that America has in the past toppled legitimate governments, propped up brutally repressive dictatorships, and even condoned mass murder and atrocities in order to facilitate its own “national security interests” in the region.”
03
Jun

Income Tax Cuts –Not Rebates- Will Save Family Life in Canada

By Cynapse 5 Comments
Categories: Politics and Society

Earlier this week, health insurer Desjardins Financial Security released a report on the most common triggers of mental health problems. Unsurprisingly, workplace stress topped the list:

  • 64% of survey respondents claimed money was the greatest source of stress
  • 59% of workers chose to scale back personal commitments
  • 2/3 of respondents claimed they did not take time off when sick
  • More than 50% of employees surveyed claimed to know someone currently or previously suffering from workplace stress

The most eyebrow-raising aspect of the Desjardins report is that, when combined with other information sources, it becomes clear that our work isn’t necessarily propelling Canada ahead of our “lazy” Europeans cousins – despite working roughly 43 work days more than the French, Dutch and Germans. Consider the GDP per capita of nation (in US dollars):

Canada: $34,000
Holland: $30,500
Germany: $30,400
France: $29,900

(source: CIA World Factbook)

43 additional days of work for an extra $4500 (or less) worth of production? The lowest average salary over this period would be approximately $2200 (gross paid to a minimum wage worker in New Brunswick). Of course a good number of Canadians make far more than the New Brunswick minimum wage of $6.50, and in these instances employers could be taking a hit in terms of productivity.

Most Canadians realize they are working harder than ever, in many cases for less than ever – yet many of us continue to go above and beyond in terms of servicing the workplace at the expense of our personal lives. There are several reasons for our workaholic culture but the prominent reason, in my opinion, is the need to keep up with rising living costs just to “sustain” the living standard of the previous generation. A house that sold for $60,000 in the 1970’s can now sell for several hundred thousand dollars (or even $1 million in some Toronto neighborhoods). Income increases over the same time period have not been so generous. The heavy migration of job-seekers both from inside and outside the country has led to housing resale for more than the asking price in some areas. Add to that the rising cost of gasoline and mounting credit card debts, and it becomes clear that every penny of income counts – no matter what the cost in terms of health or productivity.

Of course Canadians would be able to spend less time working if they simply retained more of the money earned. In an economy where budget surpluses are the norm at both the provincial and federal levels, governments should be able to return some money to taxpayers without serious disruption to regular services. A universal 5-7% income tax cut could provide enough additional income to families who are surviving “because of the overtime”.

For this reason, Stephen Harper should seriously consider cutting income taxes. A Conservative government serious about restoring the family as primary caregiver rather than the state needs to address the economic realities that cause people to put their health and personal relationships at risk. Unlike his child tax rebate, which was only of value to people already not working (taxable income), a tax cut would benefit everyone and maybe even lead to more of the stay-at-home moms that Harper’s socially conservative supporters so persistently cherish.

…

What Others Had to Say About the Desjardins Report:

  • Eugene Plawiuk at Le Revue Gauche (a self-described “Libertarian Communist Blog”) cites the capitalist drive to maximize productivity/profit as the main culprit behind the increased workplace stress - “We need to quit enabling these sick bosses, who download more and more work onto us in the name of productivity, which is wage slavery. Work is driving us nuts”
Next Entries »

Further Research