Conundrum in True Grit

Confession time:  I loved True Grit.  It may mark the first time I felt moved by a Coen Bros. film.  I’ve often laughed, been disturbed, and have been impressed by Joel and Ethan Coen’s ever broadening cinematic vision, butTrue Grit got to me.  Maybe it’s the ‘road movie’ escapades of a 14 year-old character named Mattie Ross with vengeance in her heart (played brilliantly by Hailee Steinfeld), her horse, the grizzled gun-slinging Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges, unparalleled as usual) and a sometimes comic performance by the versatile Matt Damon as a Texas Ranger that worked so well for me.

The film is both a classic John Ford western with beautiful scenery, great sets and some well-filmed action (wait for the sight of Mattie Ross attempting to cross a very wide, fast moving river on her horse);  but it’s also an ‘acid’ western in the tradition of Arthur Penn’s The Missouri Breaks, or perhaps even more, Jim Jarmusch’s  Dead Man, in that it subverts the ‘western’ genre while augmenting it.

It’s also a re-make. None other than John Wayne won Oscar for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in a 1978 True Grit. Both films are based on source material by the novelist Charles Portis.

Here’s my dilemma:  the protagonists, under the urging of the wannabe vengeful angel Mattie, head off into “Indian Territory”.  A problem arises in a film that otherwise complicates many iconic ‘western’ approaches: with the exception of a few children who are swatted around by Rooster, there appear to be no Indians in ‘the Territory’. While I am unfamiliar with Portis’ novel, the absence of Indian characters seems odd.  I’m uncomfortable offering such a critique, that could fairly be considered awkwardly ‘politically correct’, because the Coen brothers have made a fabulously entertaining film. Still I wonder about that scripting choice.

Allow me to now make a partial Oscar assessment.  Bear in mind that I have yet to see 127 Hours, Inception or The Fighter. Having stated that caveat: I say it’s a toss up between Black Swan and True Grit for best film. The King’s Speech is lovely, but very mainstream. And, as I have written earlier in this space, The Social Network struck me as an MOW worthy, shallow caricature that does not belong in the same conversation.

I’m off next to see Montreal director Denis Villeneuve’s, Incendies, Canada’s entry in the Best Foreign Language film category. 

The (lame) Social Network

So…I got all pumped up to see the multiple Oscar nominated film The Social Network.  Unfortunately, I found it to be a very disappointing cinematic experience.

The creation of ‘Facebook’ is one of the great media, communications technology sagas of our time. Mark Zuckerberg is a revolutionary. How is it that this film singularly fails to depict him in fully human terms?  The Social Network manages to evoke irritation very similar to that of relying on ‘Facebook’ for any authentic, meaningful connection with human beings – it is essentially superficial.

After watching The Social Network, I began thinking about Citizen Kane, Orson Welles’ film based on the life of another media revolutionary, Randolph Hearst, the brilliant, if unsavory, American newspaper and broadcasting kingpin. Charlie Kane emerges from Welles’ film as a fully developed, complex, contradictory character.  The Mark Zuckerberg portrayed in David Fincher’s film is, to my mind, a barely believable enigma.

Welles made a film for the ages worthy of its subject.  The creators of The Social Network have produced, at best, a mildly interesting, trendy film trapped in its own time.

P.S. Black Swan is spectacular and as compelling as The Social Network is tepid.

Stephen Harper Five Years On

Yes, Canada, he’s been Prime Minister for five years!

Those of you outside this place called Canada are perhaps dimly aware of Conservative Stephen Harper, the economist and political activist who was elected to the head of a minority government on January 23, 2006. Minority governments are generally very short-lived here; it’s a testament to Harper’s strategic acumen that he’s lasted this long. Lingering doubts about his intentions mean that Canadians have not given him a majority government – yet.

Harper is vilified routinely by what passes for a left in Canada.  He’s regularly accused of things he would not dare bring to Parliament, such as restrictions on access to abortion, or a return to the death penalty. He’s consistently accused of damaging national cultural programs when it was Liberal governments that truly  put the ax to institutions such  as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Some even suggest that he’s responsible for Canada’s role in the war in Afghanistan, forgetting that Conservatives and Liberals have agreed on the policy from the get-go.

Harper surprises. He is the Prime Minister who offered a national apology for Canada’s historic crime over residential schools for aboriginal children. He’s also an economic nationalist, when it suits his purpose, witness his government’s decision to block the sale of the province of Saskatchewan’s potash industry to an Australian company.  And just when you think he’s nothing but a complete “suit”, Harper sits at the piano and plays rather delightful renditions of Beatles’ and Rolling Stones’ tunes.

On the dark side, Harper is a control freak.  He is the face and the lips of Canada’s government. Back bench MPs, civil servants, even cabinet ministers, quail at uttering anything that does not echo what the great one has already decreed.

More grievous still, the Harper government’s environmental record is woeful.  However, in that respect, sadly, he cannot be accused of being out of step with the electorate. Canada, as a whole, with the possible exception of Quebec, treats climate warming as a mere nuisance about which nothing truly serious needs to be done. Harper reflects national values.  Toronto, after all, the country’s biggest city, just elected a mayor who ran against public transportation, and for the redemption of the fossil fuel burning automobile. Further, any party with a hope of achieving government and the need to win votes in Alberta is committed to the rampant expansion of the oil sands project in northern Alberta.

Overall, Canada’s Prime Minister is a man of his country’s time.  He’s to the right of the mythic Canada that liberals (and Liberals) cling to. He survives, and will, perhaps, endure, because he’s toughly competent. Like the Canadian banking system, about which he and his government exhibit so much pride (and take too much credit), Harper is not flashy, but nor is he out of control. Unlike Jean Chretien, he has not allowed political scandal to erode his government. Unlike Paul Martin, Harper has the good political sense to focus on small accomplishments and steady management rather than shooting for the moon.

Jays' Update

Goodbye Vernon Wells. Now that’s a major league baseball trade!

It’s a daring strike by Alex Anthopoulos.  Mike Napoli is a veteran catcher who offers protection for the emerging, promising, yet completely unproven, J.P. Arencibia.  Napoli can also play first base – which might be necessary if Adam Lind can’t adjust.

Principally, the move is a coup because the Jays are out from under Wells’ gargantuan contract.

If Anthopoulos is savvy, Jose Bautista will become the face of the Toronto franchise. Unloading Wells’ albatross of a deal should open space to sign Bautista, a player who seems capable of leadership off and on the field, to a medium term contract. I’m never expecting another 54 home-run season from Bautista, but he’ll provide steady power and stellar defense whether he’s in the outfield or third base.

Late last year, I wrote about the “hollowing out” of the Blue Jays.  Allow me to re-assess in light of recent developments.  The trading of Wells, a fine player and perhaps a likable chap, but a 32 year-old on a superstar’s contract without superstar performance, is a significant step forward. Further, the addition of Octavio Dotel and Jon Rauch means that the bullpen is reconstructed.

Boston is set to run away with the American League East. However, the Yankees are weaker; and so are the Tampa Rays.

Here’s hoping that Anthopoulos and Paul Beeston don’t resume their, ‘we’re in a development year’, blather in the few weeks prior to spring training. The Jays are maybe, just maybe, set to make a run for a playoff position this year.

After Tucson

American President Barack Obama delivered a beautiful speech earlier this week at the memorial for the victims of the recent Tucson blood bath and the attempt on the life of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Obama has been lauded, even in unexpected places such as Peggy Noonan’s resolutely neo-liberal column in the Wall Street Journal.

I believe the speech, being a fundamental slice of the conversation Americans are having after the tragedy, is equally notable for its omission.  Obama did not seize the opportunity to talk about laws which could strengthen gun control in the United States. The young man who is suspected of committing the crimes was legally able to obtain a killing gun with a clip designed to fire off up to 30 rounds in rapid sequence. This despite a life history that smacked of mental instability.

President Obama’s speech is part of the discourse of silence in the United States about gun control. Gun control is not a meaningfully permissible part of the conversation, even after such a dire episode. In Washington, a majority of congress members apparently agree there is no need to create stronger gun control legislation. In fact, such legislation as exists was weakened federally in 2004; and as recently as last year, the Supreme Court defeated an effort by the city of Chicago to limit use of guns there. Some reports this week claimed that sales of the clip used in the attack were brisk. In Arizona this weekend, a major gun show, “Crossroads of the West”, went on in Tucson as scheduled.

One might suggest that the aftermath of such a “heinous’ (the adjective used by the suspect’s family) act was no time for Obama to raise the contentious topic of gun control; that the moment called for healing and compassion, for a large gesture aimed at bringing the American ‘family’ together.  In all regards, one might also ask, how could there be a better opportunity to renew the discussion about one of America’s singular failures: the nurturing and maintenance of a murderous gun culture.

"I Confess" - Hitch takes Quebec

This week’s audiovisual ramblings included Alfred Hitchcock’s I Confess, his 1953 thriller filmed in Quebec City.

I knew of the film from Robert Lepage’s brilliant narrative and visual references to it in his first feature film Le Confessional (1994). It’s about time I took in the source which so inspired Lepage.

I Confess is not one of Hitchcock’s great films. Even so, it’s extraordinary to watch.  Hitchcock uses the backdrop of Quebec City to great effect.  The Chateau Frontenac, l’Assemblee Nationale, many churches and the ferry across the St. Laurent to Levis figure prominently.  Many of the characters speak some lines in French. Hollywood actors Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter and Karl Malden work seamlessly in a French language milieu which is well incorporated in an English language production.

I was startled to see Canada, especially Quebec, appear as itself in an English language, international film. Given present day English-speaking Canadians’ reluctance to watch films about themselves produced in their own country, Hitchcock’s evident fascination with his fabulous Quebec City location is noteworthy in itself.

'Keef' Essays

Back from the sunny Atlantic shores of Cuba where, in addition to sampling local liquid treasures, I read Keith Richards’ can’t-put-me-down memoir,Life. It’s a splendid and stupefying work. 

Richards claims that he’s been awake for the equivalent of three lifetimes. Perhaps.  What’s undeniable is that he has remembered a great deal.

In collaboration with his friend, the former Times of London journalist, James Fox, Richards has ingeniously fleshed out a narrative that is not only chock full of content; it’s humorous, tragic and, often, quite moving.

As social and cultural  history, Life supplies an unparalleled first person account of working class post-World War II Britain and London in the swinging 60s. Musicologists and rock ‘n’ roll fans will lap up Richards’ detailed account of recording techniques and guitar tunings. Equally notably, it’s refreshing to read one person’s unapologetic, frank account of the ecstatic highs and miserable lows associated with the extravagant use of mind altering substances over many years.

Life reminds one of the outlandish inventive energy and intelligence of a great Rolling Stones recording. Decades have past since LPs such as Beggars Banquet, Exile on Main Street or Some Girls. Richards’ autobiography approaches the prosaic equivalent.

It is fashionable in some circles to assault the ‘rock aristocracy’ of the 60s and 70s. There’s no denying that Richards’ account leaves much to question about the human cost of the drug and sexual excesses that Richards chronicles with glee and panache. At the same time, it is equally undeniable that a plucky working class lad from the edge of London fell in love with some classical forms of American music, and that along with a handful of British musicians like Eric Clapton and Peter Green, ‘Keef’ and his mate Mick Jagger, helped give Chicago blues and 1950s rock ‘n’ roll back to the world just when they were being abandoned by American mass audiences. Life is a suitably rollicking take on the singular rebel spirit behind that enormous contribution to world culture.

Woe the Toronto Sports Fan

Bah! Hum-bug!

How numb and uninformed are Toronto sports fans?

Let’s see:

Brian Burke spends millions to build a losing NHL team without centres. Waffle chuckers aside, the ACC still sells out and the pathetic ‘Leaf Nation’ remains loyal with its $$$$ – which is all that counts with MLSE.

The Raptors, another MLSE product, cannot and will not play defense. This does not require great talent. It takes will – which is lacking at an NBA outpost where even quality players excel only while plotting their moves back to a real basketball city.

Finally, let’s look at the Blue Jays.  Alex Anthopoulos gets a free ride from fans, perhaps because he’s Canadian,  young and has a cute family. This, while he has spent the off-season dismantling a winning, entertaining team.  Anthopoulos traded viable Major League pitcher Shaun Marcum for a AA minor league player (also a Canadian).

When will Toronto sports media cotton to the fact that dear Alex’ real agenda has been to assist owner Rogers in cutting costs?  As I wrote earlier, Jays’ fans, contemplate 75 wins this year on the upside.

Women Marching to the Right

5 million viewers tuned in for the debut this autumn of Sarah Palin’s Alaska,the former state governor’s manipulative excess in ‘reality’ television. Millions also follow her Tweets and Facebook posts; and her two books are selling like hot-cakes.

Once a joke of the self-admiring North American liberal class, the undeclared Sarah Palin is easily among the favourites for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Her uncanny ability to reach mass audiences, even her use of language…”lamestream media”…”refudiate”… may make liberal elites titter, but has her growing crowd saying, ‘You tell ‘em, Sarah!’

But let’s leave world headquarters in Washington behind us for a moment. Go north young woman…not all the way to Alaska, but to Alberta.  In that province, Danielle Smith of the Wildrose Alliance was holding a comfortable lead over the government of Ed Stelmach in polls taken earlier this year. Ms. Smith, a former journalist and climate change skeptic, champions more rapid development of Alberta’s oil sands. Significantly to the right of Alberta Conservatives, Ms. Smith could well be the next provincial premier.

November’s Republican sweep of America’s lower house illustrated many things. Obviously ‘folks’ were angry with President Obama. His inability to reduce unemployment; his unpopular, hugely bureaucratic approach to “universal” health care; and  his fawning approach to Wall Street interests and automobile manufacturers are among the factors that both infuriated his opponents and alienated his base.

What’s less well documented are the crucial roles that politicized women of the right have played in the opposition to Obama.  Sarah Palin is simply  the prototype for a newer brand of female politician that is surging throughout the United States and influencing Canadian politics.

 Nikki Haley, governor-elect of South Carolina and Jan Brewer, who signed a shameful immigration bill as Governor of Arizona, are but two of the right-wing politicians who embrace the Tea Party’s program of radical change to American politics.

Of course, the role model for all these women is Palin.

What do these female politicians share?  They manage to extract the individualism and empowerment of earlier feminist movements while eschewing the social democratic components.  They often represent faith…usually evangelical Christianity. They revel  in poking a finger in the eye of older, more liberal, male dominated elites. They are often physically vigorous, active, attractive women with children.

Palin’s TV show works like a series of parables in which the heroine displays her pluck and shares lessons about life and America.   See Sarah shoot a gun…see Sarah overcome her fears to rock climb up the side of a mountain…see Sarah at the gym for a workoout at dawn…see Sarah and her beautiful family fly down a wild river in a raft. It’s raw, iconic, America as frontier, stuff. She wears her patriotism on her sleeve.

Sarah Palin, Danielle Smith and their ilk are no joke. Their mastery of twenty-first century media and the simple populism that they proclaim has a receptive audience.  It is likely they will have transformational appeal in the years ahead.

Hollowing Out the Blue Jays

From our sports desk: a wintery baseball flash report:

The Toronto sports media is oddly quiet about the evisceration  of a team that won 85 games last year in the formidable American League East. As I write this post, the dismantled Toronto Blue Jays squad that will arrive in spring training in just over two months time would be fortunate to win 75 once the regular season begins in April.

Let’s review: Pitcher Shaun Marcum traded for Brett Lawrie, a Double AA player; catcher John Buck signs as a free agent with the Florida Marlins, a team that no one watches; lefty relief pitcher Scott Downs takes his talents to Malibu; closer Kevin Gregg cut loose to free agency… The Blue Jays also added a player in the speedy outfielder Rajai Davis, but he is a minor addition in comparison to the flood of losses of established major league players.

Blue Jays management mollifies by talking about ‘talent accumulation’ and creating a mild buzz about the aforementioned Double AA player, Lawrie , because he’s a Canadian. It’s a public relations mirage.

At the moment, the Jays are a team without an experienced every day catcher, an experienced first baseman or a proven closer.  GM Alex Anthopoulos is the happy face on a movement to limit player costs while waxing smilingly about a brighter future ahead.

Yes folks, your 2011 Toronto Blue Jays: younger, cheaper and worse.

Rob Ford: The War on Cars?!?!?!?!

So Toronto’s new Mayor reported to work on December 1, 2010. It was and will remain  a sad day indeed for a wannabe ‘world class’, wannabe NYC North, backward-looking city.

Disturbingly, Ford ran against public transportation; and for cars. He bellowed throughout the campaign that ‘The war on the car is over!’ He repeated that mantra when he assumed office.

Mayor Ford vows that ‘Transit City’, a plan that took close to a decade to negotiate and fund, is also “over”, He claims that under his administration Toronto will build subways, rather than the ‘Light Rail Transit’ (LRT) streetcars favoured by the plan he says he’ll put an ice-pick into. Subways would cost two to three times as much as LRT. It is highly unlikely that there will be the kind of massive subway construction that could substitute for the planned LRT lines. Subways are too expensive.

What a Rob Ford administration probably foretells is more cars and more freeways in Toronto.  To suggest that Toronto ever experienced a “War on cars”, is laughable. Toronto is the hub of southern Ontario which suffers from car addiction economically, aesthetically, environmentally and in terms of public health.

Ford was also elected by campaigning openly against immigration. In Toronto, one of the world’s most multicultural cities, you say? Yes, that’s right.

It gets worse. In victory, a member of his staff slyly all-but-admitted that team Ford had staged calls to a radio phone-in program in hopes of scaring off one potential opponent; and investigative journalists seemed to show how the campaign team had created a false Twitter account to locate and fend off a citizen who had experienced a potentially highly embarrassing encounter with Ford.

In political terms, his victory means that suburban voters and their municipal councilors, largely right-leaning Ford supporters, will significantly determine political life for the minority of voters who live in what most of the rest of the world considers Toronto – its downtown. Downtown areas voted overwhelmingly for Ford’s opponents, but thanks to urban amalgamation, the suburban majority rules. That’s democracy Ontario style. Ford’s victory might foreshadow an American-like economic and cultural hollowing out of downtown Toronto.

Ford ran a sophisticated campaign built on resentment of elites, real and imagined. Good luck to him if he’s serious about rooting out waste and ending the “gravy train” for entrenched interests at City Hall. However, his victory appears to represent nostalgia for a Toronto that ceased to exist 30-40 years ago. His mastery of his opponents in what passed for an electoral contest was astonishing and instructive.  Toronto’s pretense of sophistication has been laid bare by a political campaign that made mockery of environmental concerns, insulted the city’s immigrant tradition and displayed contempt for those who rely on public transportation. World class, eh?

Hereafter - Clint Eastwood's latest

Greetings!

I’ve been engaged with other matters for a bit, but here I am shiny and new like a sturgeon.

Briefly, I suggest you take a long peek at Hereafter, Clint Eastwood’s latest film. No, there is no gun play; nothing remotely western-like; and there are really no tough guys. However, an achingly beautifully photographed Paris, Charles Dickens, and opera all figure into a triptych about death and wondering about the afterlife.

With the notable exception of a glowing NYT review, the film has generally met a lukewarm, mystified response from many critics. To my way of thinking, Hereafter like, Gran Torino, might be unexpected to some, but it’s yet another installment in the astonishingly rich oeuvre of Mr. Eastwood.  As usual in his most recent films, the music, written by Eastwood himself, is wonderful. As well, the opening scene of a natural disaster in an Asian getaway and and the grand visual shock of a terrorist attack in London bear the influence of the film’s executive producer, Steven Spielberg, to great effect. Clint Eastwood is a great artist who continues to renew his vision entering his ninth decade.

Deer along the Don

An update for readers of my Don River musings: I just spotted two deer at a distance of 10 metres along the Don ravine about 20 minutes on foot from the centre of downtown Toronto. Thanks to the Don River reclamation activists for years of tree planting and pushing back rapacious developers and car addicts!

Gaza/Israel, news and the digital conceit

A few observations about the deadly,  tragic fiasco off the coast of Gaza:

Collectively, we are dupes to assume that we are always empowered and privileged by access to information in the digital age. For more than 24 hours after the events of May 31, the state of Israel was largely able to commandeer the news agenda. Its Prime Minister stated that his commandos were attacked and justly defended themselves. There is still precious little information from the mouths of the activists who are being released from Israeli detention. Whatever happened…whoever was responsible for the deaths, the world remains largely unaware of what actually occurred. Israel is resisting calls for an independent international inquiry; it says it will look into the matter itself. It’s Wednesday, June 2.

Netanyahu’s Toronto speech on Sunday in which he proclaimed yet again that Israel is the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ was also widely reported in backgrounds following the events at sea. The only democracy, you say? Well, Bibi, perhaps then the people of, at least, the West Bank, and not just the Israeli settlers who reside there, should be allowed to vote in Israeli elections. The lives of Palestinians in the West Bank have been controlled by the state of Israel and its military since 1967….43 years and counting. To the best of my understanding, Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel itself can vote and have significant legal rights, but most do not enjoy the same package of rights, services and responsibilities that Jewish citizens enjoy. Democracy? Just asking. I write from a country with an appointed chamber of Parliament and a non-elected representative of the British monarch with very real constitutional powers, so I know full well that democracy is a slippery notion, but I am troubled by Netanyahu’s assertion and the North American media’s generally easy acquiescence in it.

The raid on the high seas off Gaza underscores another geopolitical factor: The state of Israel has scant respect for the American administration of Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton may say that the siege of Gaza is “unsustainable and unacceptable”, but the Americans seem largely impotent or simply unwilling when it comes to doing something about it.

Turkey is a member of The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Turkey is a candidate to join the European Union. It would appear that the state of Israel under its current government has decided that it can pursue what it considers its “legitimate security concerns” with barely a nod to the international norms of the democratic club to which it claims membership.

Exile redux: What a beautiful buzz!

I’m seldom one to vaunt a digitized re-release of an analog recording, but the Rolling Stones’ renovated Exile on Main Street is marvelous. If you have never experienced the magisterially murky, smoking evocation of Americana that the Stones captured in the basement of a French chateau and in studios in London and Los Angeles way back in the early 1970s, here’s your chance for satisfaction. There’s good reason the new release is currently the Number 1 CD in the United Kingdom.

The re-mastering of the original album is splendid (even if, as Keith Richards correctly argues, it’s unnecessary.) However, the selection of 10 outtakes and alternate versions is worth the price of admission. In re-working this material, Mick Jagger has reclaimed whatever is left of his artistic soul (not to mention, his voice). Like large parts of The Beatles Anthology, the result makes this Exile more like a new release than a re-hash.

If you figured the Stones had absolutely spit the bit out (I know I had), you might be surprised. As Ben Ratliff, a writer from The New York Times, maintains, the alternate take of “Loving Cup” is perhaps the best track in Stones history. He’s not kidding. On that track, Jagger effectively channels both Muddy Waters and Hank Williams. Charlie Watts’ drumming defies description.

As for The Keef himself, he might be a digital skeptic, as that fascinating article by the aforementioned Ratliff reveals, but his own vocal performance on an early version of “Soul Survivor” is a drawling, semi-improvised, book-marking joy. Only Keith Richards could make repeatedly growling ‘Et cetera!’  into primordial rock ‘n roll.

The Stones have traditionally been slow to plumb their own archive. Further, the early “re-mastered” CD releases of their 60s and 70s LPs were sometimes an audiophile’s nightmare. This re-release, however, shows the possibilities of a harmonious marriage of analog original and digital post-production by the likes of Don Was and mature artists such as Jagger and Richards.

The War On Drugs - a very bad idea

As the body count rises in Jamaica (73 civilians according to BBC at the time I update this post); as Barack Obama sends troops to the Mexican border; as NATO troops ‘eradicate’ poppy production in Afghanistan, the undeniable truth slaps one in the face: The War On Drugs Has Failed.

Most experts agree that up to 24,000 Mexicans have been killed since President Felipe Calderon decided to get tough on the drug lords of Chihuahua, Guerrero, Sinaloa and Sonora. Be-headings, attacks on school children, murderous reprisals against honest cops and journalists have become common in places like Acapulco and Ciudad Juarez.

Poppy eradication, supposedly in the hands of the taliban is a cornerstone of NATO’s war in Afghanistan. Yet, it is hard to argue for the success of NATO’s neo-colonial Afghanistan policy, although the mainstream press will do all in its power to find it. As I have argued on other occasions, Barack Obama has been largely given a free ride for a policy that is to the right of his predecessor.

In Jamaica, some ordinary citizens have rallied to the cause of a drug dealer and accused murderer that the United States wants to put on trial. The dealer’s paramilitary is engaged in a firefight with police and army that has raged for days. But it’s not the streets of Manhattan that have been turned into a war zone, it’s the slums of Kingston.

As in Mexico, where ordinary people pay the price of the drug war with their lives, Jamaicans are suffering because of the drug habits of comparatively wealthy Americans and Canadians.

One would think that alcohol prohibition would have taught us something. Drug use cannot be stopped. It can be managed. It’s a pity that the likes of Calderon, Obama and the thoroughly comprised government of Jamaica, will spend countless billions of dollars and watch as the body counts rise, pretending otherwise.

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Cuba, April 2010

Just back from Cuba where the sun was shining and temperatures ranged from 25-30 degrees. Very nice, thanks.

More than two years following the retirement of Fidel Castro, some change is apparent in Cuba.

To begin with, Fidel’s successor, his brother Raoul Castro, has overseen a mild lessening of consumer constraints in the Cuban socialist system. Cellphones are ubiquitous. Markets for crafts and garden produce are increasingly evident in the cities.

Darker aspects of Cuban life also appear more transparent than in earlier visits I’ve made.  Prostitution is much more visible.  Based on my non-scientific observation, it would seem that a certain class of European, often German, tourist now freely considers Communist Cuba a sex destination. This must gall Fidel Castro’s revolutionary generation which took aim at the infamous flesh trade of the 1950s as a primary  target for social reform.

Black marketeers trade in rum, cigars and coffee wherever tourists congregate offering prices that undercut the government run shoppes. In my experience, this has always been the case, but not to the the  extent I witnessed in April.

On the political front, there were signs of how Cuba maintains its uneasy consensus over the government’s revolutionary, read authoritarian, goals. Although you may never read about them in North America’s mainstream English language media, elections of a kind do take place in Cuba. Last month elections for regional municipal representatives were held. In a one party state, these elections only offered choices between Cuban Communist Party candidates. I was allowed access to one polling station in the Caribbean city of Trinidad de Cuba where it appeared voters marked and deposited their ballots secretly. Such political practices are but an antidote of a limited kind in a country where freedom of expression is severely curtailed, and in which prisoners of conscience molder behind bars for ‘crimes’ of political thought.

Print journalism and information television are generally woefully weak and subservient to the government’s point of view. While satellite television brings signals in many languages from across North America, Europe and China to many parts of Cuba, there is precious little access to publications that contradict the official view. Communist party publications such as the newspaper Granma have some interesting, intellectually valid content, including often fascinating columns from Fidel Castro himself. Sadly,Granma and related regional publications, also publish vitriolic nonsense of a Stalinist tinge about the Communist Party’s opponents.

Of course, much the same, or worse, is true in many countries, including China which does not suffer the demonizing that North American and European media and political spokespersons regularly visit on Cuba. Perhaps it’s the production of cheap consumer goods for North American and European voters that is the charm.

I am not an expert on Cuba. I have a broad understanding of its history; understand and speak Spanish in a middling manner; and have visited the country about seven times over the past 15 years. For me, certain truths emerge. The social successes of the revolution cannot be dismissed out of hand. Strengths in general health, nutrition, literacy, education and the omnipresence of a diverse cultural heritage in music, dance and visual arts are undeniable.

Cuba’s Revolution has entered its 52nd year. To date, the transition of power from Fidel Castro is occurring without cataclysm for Cuban socialism or an overt opening to North American and European political mores.

Obama veers to the right

Wow! If the Obama-maniacs were expecting their leader to become a reborn social democrat in wake of his health care reform, they were in for a rude surprise. Mind you the drugs they seem to collectively imbibe apparently inure them to Barack’s foibles.

Let’s review:  First, a surprise visit to Afghanistan where the Imperial Barack pledged His and His nation’s support for the heroic efforts of American women and men in uniform there. In sum, it was extremely good optics and a clever manoeuver to keep Fox News off His case over the `socialistic’ health care reform.

Today, with Bush-like panache, Obama announced that restrictions would be lifted on off-shore drilling for hydrocarbons along significant expanses of the coastlines of the United States. This flies in the face of the received environmental wisdom that Democrats had observed for many years. America is once again open for business; and Americans will damn well drive their cars no matter what price the Arab nations try to put on oil!  Hey Obama-maniacs, how do you spell G-e-o-r-g-e- W. B-u-s–h? Drill baby, drill!!!!!

That leaves us with ObamaSecState Hillary’s odd visit to the northern frontier.  Let’s see… Americans as defenders of indigenous rights?  Sweet… ’nuff said. Freedom of choice and equal access to abortions?  Apparently the Canadian media is not aware that the same rights are clearly circumscribed in His health insurance reform (sic).

As far as Afghanistan goes, in the guise of Hillary, head office has clearly indicated its wish for Canadians to continue serving up the donuts in Kandahar. To his credit Harper immediately said ‘No thanks.’ Please forgive me, but I am cynical/wordly enough to suspect that Michael Ignatieff’s Liberals may yet find a way to the right of Harper to argue that Canadian troops should stand beside Americans in Afghanistan after 2011. But what do I know?

BRAVO Team Obama!

As faithful readers know, I did not imbibe the Barack magic potion in the winter of 2008.  At best, I’ve been sceptically hopeful regarding Obama’s presidency. His Afghanistan, Middle Eastern and immigration policies remain tragically wrong-headed to my mind.

HOWEVER, one must give credit where credit is due.  Yesterday’s vote over Health Reform is a major humanizing step forward in American democracy. Obama and Nancy Pelosi had the courage of their convictions.

The years ahead will be difficult because the very partial analysis of the Congressional Budget Office could not truly account for the costs of expanding health care. Injustice remains: millions of undocumented immigrant workers will continue to keep the economy moving without access to health insurance; women received a slap in the face over access to abortion. Such was the price this time round of hard fought political compromise over meaningful change. May Obama and his crew have the courage and wisdom to improve health care further and to extend their reborn reformist zeal to other pressing matters.

Giambrone - The Real Losers

So Adam Giambrone decided to blow himself up before the Toronto mayoralty race even got truly underway. Of course in some jurisdictions (Brazil and France come to mind), Giambrone’s sexual indiscretions would not have been considered the purview of politics. In settler, retro-puritan Toronto, the revelations were killing.

One hopes that Mr. Giambrone, his family and friends can move forward with their lives. What’s left for the voters of Toronto?  That’s actually the bad news.  Giambrone as TTC Commissioner and former New Democratic Party official had a social democratic agenda. Significantly, he believed in public transit, an underfunded service in Toronto which is deteriorating in front of the citizenry’s eyes.

Front runner George Smitherman, last seen as a ministerial acolyte of ‘The Premier Who Most Resembles Norman Bates’, seems determined to show that he can be a tough guy by fancying himself a budget slasher.  With that mindset, the concern here is that Toronto can kiss much needed rapid transit and subway expansion goodbye.  Smitherman was an integral part of a McGuinty government that fell over itself giving taxpayers’ money to automobile manufacturers.  There’s slim chance Ferocious George will change those stripes now. Rocco Rossi, the erstwhile Liberal whiz kid once deemed capable of saving federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff from himself, argues that bike lanes and public transit just get in the way of cars.  That’s just what Toronto needs – more cars on its roads! How’s that for a visionary twenty-first century campaign in a ‘world class city’?  PUH-LEEEZ!!! Of the remaining viable candidates for mayor, only Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone demonstrates an interest in public transportation. Pantalone has served Toronto well. He will never be elected mayor.

I don’t care what Adam Giambrone has in his pants or what he does with it when it’s removed. He’s not a priest, an elementary school teacher or a psychiatrist…he’s just an idiotic politician who self-immolated. And with him burns his agenda.  Sadly, it is a banner that no one with a chance to win next autumn wishes to embrace.