The View from Seymour

How Good is the BC Pandemic Plan?

The Tyee has published my article How Good is the BC Pandemic Plan? Short answer: Not as good as it should be.

'Ending Homelessness': Paulsen to Speak at Museum of Vancouver

If you're in the Lower Mainland, you have a chance to hear 'Ending Homelessness': Paulsen to Speak at Museum of Vancouver. Excerpt from The Tyee:

Monte Paulsen has been investigating homelessness in Vancouver -- its causes and its cures -- for nearly three years. We at The Tyee know Monte to be smart, tenacious, and a person who deeply cares. Which is why he finds out so much, and has so many good ideas to share. 

On Friday, October 9, members of the public can gain the benefit of Paulsen's insights when he gives a talk at the Museum of Vancouver marking Homeless Action Week. Titled Ending Homelessness: What Works, the illustrated presentation will survey the state of homelessness in B.C., review the history of homelessness in Vancouver, and explore strategies to end street homelessness across the province.

The column that set the US blogosphere on fire

With a hat tip to Little Green Footballs, which found the column cached on Google after Newsmax.com pulled it: Obama Risks a Domestic Military ‘Intervention’. This is a daydream about a coup against Obama. Excerpt:

Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a “family intervention,” with some form of limited, shared responsibility? 

Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. 

Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making. 

Military intervention is what Obama’s exponentially accelerating agenda for “fundamental change” toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama’s radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible. 

Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don’t shrug and say, “We can always worry about that later.”

Did Young Barack Have a Ghostwriter?

The Tyee has published my article Did Young Barack Have a Ghostwriter? It deals with the current controversy over whether Obama wrote Dreams From My Father himself, or used famous ex-terrorist Bill Ayers as his ghostwriter.

Tourism Industry Howls at Libs' Latest Moves

The Tyee has published my article Tourism Industry Howls at Libs' Latest Moves. Excerpt:

In an interview with The Tyee, Brian Gunn, president of the Wilderness Tourism Association, said Tourism British Columbia has been a "responsible, businesslike operation." He added that he was shocked to see the government fire Harris. 

"They said they're going to improve on what they've got," Gunn said, "but I don't see that as possible with the resources they've got." 

Gunn explained that TBC was the result of years of lobbying for a dedicated marketing arm to serve the industry. The government-run model hadn't succeeded, in part because marketing funding was at the mercy of whoever was finance minister. "That's why we asked for a Crown corporation."

Human Smoke

The Tyee has published my review of Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke--a brilliant but treacherous history of World War II. Excerpt:

In irony, we know more about the characters' predicament than they themselves do. Baker makes us wiser than the people we meet in his book, because we know what their decisions will lead to. 

But our wisdom tempts us to despise Baker's characters -- Churchill, Roosevelt, and others -- for failing to be as wise as we are. This is the historian's sin of "presentism": judging the past by our own values. The brilliance of Baker's storytelling device only deepens the sin.

A take on Question Period

The Tyee has published my article Making Democracy a Commons Insult, about my first visit to Parliament during Question Period. Excerpt:

The conventional view is that Question Period shocks innocent schoolchildren who observe their government in boorish action. The schoolchildren that day seemed to take the uproar pretty calmly. 

Question Period looked like what urban black kids call "doing the dozens," swapping ritual insults to maintain status in the group. Canadian kids of whatever colour would understand what was going on in the chamber: the same ragging and bullying they experience in the schoolyard. 

I saw the MPs’ behaviour not as mere discourtesy to one another, but as a studied insult to the onlookers. Question Period is a kind of vicious parody of democracy, a show deliberately put on for the audience. 

What discouraged me was that all four parties were colluding in the show. Whether it was Libby Davies and Kirsty Duncan sniping at one another, or Tony Clement mumbling about payroll taxes, it was all meaningless -- and the MPs knew it.

Jeff Rubin's Shrinking World

The Tyee has published my review Jeff Rubin's Shrinking World, about his book Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization. In my opinion it's one of the most important Canadian books on politics and economics that we'll see this year.

Hospital safety as a political issue

The Tyee has published my article Germs Winning in BC's Hospitals. While it deals with local issues in the midst of a provincial election, the basic problem, I suspect, is very widespread across Canada and the US.

The cost of Afghanistan

I haven't posted much here lately because I've been too busy blogging on The Hook and writing articles for The Tyee. But I'd like to mention two related articles I've published there this week:

Caring for Vets' Diseases, Stress Could Cost Canada $11.5 Billion: And that's on top of the $7.55 billion it'll cost us by 2012.

Yuri's Invisible Wounds: About the impact of PTSD on one young Afghan veteran.