Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Racial embarrassment at Campbellford Legion an outrage!

This is the picture (from Toronto Star, November 3, 2010) of the party at the Campbellford Legion Halloween Party on Saturday night, showing a KKK "member" pulling a "black man" around on the end of a noose.
At least one person, himself a black who attended, left the party in disgust. Anyone of us would have shared his disgust, but apparently, even after hundreds of phone calls in protest, an investigation is still in progress.
Why, for example, did those hosting the party not declare the costumes unacceptable?
Why were these two people permitted entry into the party in the first place?
Why did it take those hosting the party so long to recognize the horror of the scene that was unfolding right before their eyes?
Cleaning up the harm that has been caused, to the Legion, to the citizens of Campbellford, and to the people of Ontario will take a long time, because we are all ashamed of this outrage.

American 'eagle' struggles with broken wing

From Associated Press, in Toronto Star, November 3, 2010
The Republican party — energized by the ultraconservative tea party movement and voter disillusionment with Obama, incumbents and high unemployment — captured at least 53 seats from Democrats, and would exceed the 40 needed to gain a majority.
It is not that Republicans won over the House; it is the kind of Republicans that are going to Washington. They are not representative of the people of the country, except for the anger of those people. These same people, and party, have blocked Obama at every step of the way in the last two years, have offered no alternative policies, refuse to collaborate with Democrats and now have considerable power to obstruct even more.
And while a 10% unemployment rate is deplorable, especially for those families who have no income and no prospects, (and many of them are more than qualified with at least one and often two university degrees) and while the president and his party have not trumpeted their accomplishments, in the brash 'texan' manner that might have carried more seats, the Republicans spent shiploads of cash telling the voters horror stories about the Democrats individually and from a policy perspective, while offering nothing but "lower taxes and less government."
The auto companies have more than paid back their government loans; the financial services sector definitely required sanctions and regulation and only Republicans dependent on their money and votes would even consider undoing those accomplishments of the last two years. The U.S. is the only country in the western world without adequate health care, and while considerable progress was made in the health reform act, under Obama, the libertarian thrust of the new congress might attempt to undue some of the provisions of that act.
If the country is divided 50-50, as the Chair of the Democratic Party put it on MSNBC last night, the noise seems far louder from the "right" than from the left. And the language of the political debate is more like verbal AK-47 firings across everyone's bow, and there is little chance of reasoned, thoughtful and far-sighted debates or policy proposals coming from such a cacaphony.
And now the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, has declared his top priority for the next two years is to make sure Obama is a one-term president. That means gridlock through obstruction, and more decibels and more heat with less light coming from Washington when the world looks to American for leadership.
Certainly, with the Brits and the French signing a 50-year treaty to share military forces only yeesterday, leaving both countries with reduced military spending, and enhanced signs of collaboration, more and more of the world leaders will be looking to those countries, and to Europe for political models and leadership than they will to the U.S., in spite of the 2008 election of the first black president, who inherited a terrible hand and who has dealt with it as courageously and creatively and pro-actively as could be expected.
The people of the U.S. really do seem to have something close to amnesia, forgetting the devastation left by the last Republican regime under Dubya-and-Cheney.
Comment from an American reader:
It is nice to read a blog from a like minded individual. You should send this to the opinion page, in a republican paper. I would like to hear what the shortsighted, fear based individuals would have to say about it. I feel like the last administration colored on the wall then pointed at Obama and said, in their childish tone, "He did it."

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

acorncentrenblog.com finding readers slowly and globally! Thanks!

Pageviews by Countries
United States 859
Canada 628
United Kingdom 90
Romania 76
Singapore 70
Netherlands 58
Russia 53
Taiwan 36
Germany 25
Iraq 19

If I had thought, in my wildest imagination, that after only six months of putting this blog up, there would be the number and range of pageviews, I would have thought I was high on something beyond the smokeable.
Thank you to all the people who have found this site! Thank you to all of you who have read these pieces!
I am utterly shocked. I had no idea. I only checked the figures for the first time a few minutes ago.
There was a time, many lives ago, that when I hosted a public affairs open line radio program on Sunday morning in a Northern Ontario city of approximately 50,000, I might have 3,000 listeners for part of the 90-minute show. I thought that was fairly respectable, given that the total audience for that time slot measured somewhere around 5,000. So our show had approximately 60% of the audience.
Now, if these figures are even close to being accurate, some 900 people in the U.S. and 600 in Canada have found this site. That readers in another 8 countries have found it, simply astounds me. Thank you to everyone!
Now, what can we do to help you to forward your responses so that we can listen to your reactions?
Please, just drop a line, letting us know where you are, and what is moving you, and what you would like to read more about.
In the meantime, a huge thanks, just for finding us.

Transformation needed, but don't hold your breath waiting

By Paul Krugman, New York Times, November 2, 2010
The key thing to bear in mind is that for the world as a whole, spending equals income. If one group of people — those with excessive debts — is forced to cut spending to pay down its debts, one of two things must happen: either someone else must spend more, or world income will fall.

Yet those parts of the private sector not burdened by high levels of debt see little reason to increase spending. Corporations are flush with cash — but why expand when so much of the capacity they already have is sitting idle? Consumers who didn’t overborrow can get loans at low rates — but that incentive to spend is more than outweighed by worries about a weak job market. Nobody in the private sector is willing to fill the hole created by the debt overhang.
So what should we be doing? First, governments should be spending while the private sector won’t, so that debtors can pay down their debts without perpetuating a global slump. Second, governments should be promoting widespread debt relief: reducing obligations to levels the debtors can handle is the fastest way to eliminate that debt overhang.
But the moralizers will have none of it. They denounce deficit spending, declaring that you can’t solve debt problems with more debt. They denounce debt relief, calling it a reward for the undeserving.
Another heinous victory for the religious fundamentalists who have to see things in black and white terms, given their own self-righteous "white purity."
Krugman's is a lone voice in the wilderness on government stimulus at a time when his advice and counsel would be "just what the economic doctor ordered" for the current conditions.
There is a quality of the sacred to the plea to "stop spending by government" just as there is a quality of irresponsbility to the plea for more stimulus spending. However, it is precisely this Manichean split of the world into a duality that does not exist that is entrapping the public debate on the current crisis.
It is not an "either-or" proposition, not about spending, not about taxing, not about innovation versus traditional manufacturing, not about technology or the arts, not about science versus the humanities.
This is a pivotal time in the life of the planet, when we must bridge the kind of divide that reduces our problems to an either-or resolution.
All consitutencies, all points of view and all values (positive) are needed for any resolution to be effective. And yet we refuse to grant to any one, or to any institution, the opportunity to bring all the diverse voices together to devise a long-range, mature, sensible and sustainable approach that all of the people can and will support.
  • First, we have to shed our addiction to instant gratification;
  • next we have to shed our addiction to our own power;
  • next we have to shed our addiction to our own sanctimonious self-righteousness;
  • next we have to learn to listen to opposing points of view;
  • next we have to admit that insanity is doing more of the same while expecting different results.
And finally, let's not hold our breath for all of these transformations to suddenly take hold in Washington any time soon.

$3.5 million gift to U.W.O. to study LEADERSHIP!

By Paul Waldie, Globe and Mail, October 29, 2010
When Ian Ihnatowycz read the results of a recent Canadian study on corporate leadership, he felt compelled to do something.

The study, called Leadership on Trial, was conducted by the business school at the University of Western Ontario and it surveyed 300 executives from Canada and around the world to find out what caused the financial meltdown in 2008.
The study concluded that the root cause of the crisis was a failure in leadership at companies, governments, banks and business schools. It also offered several proposals to help prepare future leaders.
“That got me to thinking,” said Mr. Ihnatowycz, founder of Toronto-based Acuity Investment Management Inc., who was among those surveyed for the study. “I’ve seen leadership failures at many levels in many different industries over the years. It has caused me some concern.”
(Hence the $3.5 million donation to the project from Ihnatowycz and his partner, Ms Witer to the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario.)
The people who are responsible for curricular decisions at Royal Military College in Kingston believe that "leadership cannot be taught" and they focus on academic disciplines like psychology. We disagree.
So do, apparently, Mr.Ihnatowycz and his wife Ms Witer.
There are many studies focused on the meltdown in 2008, including one at Cambridge University, that is considering the implications of excessive testosterone as one of the principal causes of the 2008 meltdown.
There is certainly a need for both research and discussion, including the development of curriculum around the subject of leadership, and one of the potential routes to its understanding is through individual biographies.
Who cannot read Nelson Mandela's Long Walk into Freedom, for example, and not be inspired to emulate such strength of character, such commitment to a cause, such persistence and such nobility? Unfortunately, in today's academic culture, the study of leadership will likely come down to statistical measurements of certain qualities and skills, without the necessary muscle, blood, guts and belief systems that are at the core of any leader.
There is also a danger, especially in Canada, that business leadership will be focused primarily on the generation of profit for the sake of the investor, and for the sake of the bonuses of the CEO and the human relationships and the commitment to continuous learning will focus on more and more studies of the successful enterprises whose role models were at the centre of the Wall Street debacle.
Intellectual incest infects all academic departments to the degree that those who might contribute significantly to the design of the project in Leadership at the Ivey School of Business at Western will be excluded. Representatives of the departments of History, English, Psychology, Politics, Philosophy and Ethics, not to mention Genetics, Law and Art and Design would be welcome in any discussion that the acorncentreblog.com would host or initiate. Let's hope that the leaders responsibile for implementing the design and delivery of this innovative project will include as broad a range of disciplines as possible, even some that would not fit into the "box" of conventional thinking.
A history of Leadership in various cultures, at various times over the centuries would be a welcome window into the discussions. A list of biographies, such as Michael Isner's recent work on Partnerships would also be a welcome addition to the initial bibliography for the program.
Here is an opportunity for the people who design curricula at the Ivey School of Business to reach beyond their comfort level, and provide real leadership.
Unfortunately, it was the Assistant Dean of the same school who told us, in an interview a couple of years back, that creative thinking was not being taught in the MBA program."We are teaching students to operate a system and if that kind of thinking (creative) is required, it would have to come from the corporations themselves in their own training centres."
Let's hope the donors will participate in the initial stages of the design of this worthy project, and insist that it encompass the whole range of academic disciplines. That would be an inspiration for other schools and for all corporations for a long time into the future.
And  to say that there is a derth of leadership in this country is one profound understatement.



Monday, November 1, 2010

Lancet Study: Alcohol most harmful drug

By Maria Cheng, Globe and Mail, November 1, 2010
Heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine, or crystal meth, were the most lethal to individuals. When considering their wider social effects, alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the deadliest. But overall, alcohol outranked all other substances, followed by heroin and crack cocaine. Marijuana, ecstasy and LSD scored far lower.

The study was paid for by Britain's Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and was published online Monday in the medical journal, Lancet.
Experts said alcohol scored so high because it is so widely used and has devastating consequences not only for drinkers but for those around them.
“Just think about what happens (with alcohol) at every football game,” said Wim van den Brink, a professor of psychiatry and addiction at the University of Amsterdam. He was not linked to the study and co-authored a commentary in the Lancet.
When drunk in excess, alcohol damages nearly all organ systems. It is also connected to higher death rates and is involved in a greater percentage of crime than most other drugs, including heroin.
But experts said it would be impractical and incorrect to outlaw alcohol.
According to our family "lore" my maternal grandmother was an avid member of the W.C.T.U. (Women's Christian Temperance Union) in Ontario back in the early part of the twentieth century. As a little girl, as the story goes, she was sent to the gate of the mine in Copper Cliff where her father worked, every Friday afternoon, to retrieve his pay envelope and return it to their home, so that he would not spend every last penny at the bar where the miners gathered after work.
I have watched as other family members, one an aunt by marriage, became dependent on alcoholic beverages, to the tragic awareness of her spouse, my uncle. Whether or not he was also dependent was never clear, since our two families had little to do with each other. I also was told, many times, the story of my mother threatening my father, prior to my birth, after a party they had attended together.
"It's either the the parties and the booze or the marriage!" were the words my mother is reported to have uttered in their small apartment upon their arrival home from the party where apparently a considerable amount of the booze was consumed.
For my own part, in first year at university, at the old CPR Hotel on Richmond Street in London, I once imbibed with three (3) drafts of beer, and found myself quite giddy. Recognizing that I could find enough trouble without the assistance of alcohol, I never drank more than the occasional glass of wine, or Bubonnet, or an occasional "Caesar" with Mott's Clamato ever since.
I have literally poured my roommate into bed, after a particularly "drunk" return at the fraternity house. I have had to walk beside and support an elderly woman who was so drunk she could not make it from her car to the sanctuary of the church for the Sunday service where I served as vicar. I have fallen head-over-heels with a woman who turned out to be an active alcoholic, although I certainly did not know it at the time, and was expecting to marry her, only to learn that she had disappeared from the relationship, and returned to the bottle. Following this debacle, I entered into a form of treatment for people who had had relationships with alcoholics. The sessions involved re-enactments, through role-playing, of the various conflicts in which individuals had found themselves, and sought to learn a different way to approach similar situations. The program is commonly known as "psycho-drama."
I have conducted funeral services for a confirmed alcoholic, only to learn, later that his spouse was also drinking from morning til night every day, and when I tried to suggest that the social worker who was working on her file try to get her off her dependency, I learned that the social worker too was an active dependent on alcohol. His response, in the U.S., "It is not against the law to be drunk, only to kill someone, if one drinks and drives."
Years later, I was also hit upon by another woman who was married to an active life-long alcoholic, and my (internal) rescuer convinced me that I was helping her out of a bad situation, only to learn that our relationship, based as it was on her need for support and my need to be the rescuer, was doomed from the start.
So, I have first-hand experience that alcohol is an extremely disruptive, if not deadly drug, albeit legal, and the source of billions of tax dollars for all of the jurisdictions in which it is sold.
Those who abuse alcohol can be, and often are, the most charming and genial of people, often extremely clever, creative and positive, so long as they are not under the influence of the chemical. Yet, because of their dependence on alcohol, they are also extremely dangerous, to the point they will use whatever story they can concoct to induce support for their dependency, including their own conscious denial of their dependency.
I have known teachers, lawyers, doctors, clergy, social workers, and university professors whose dependency on alcohol seriously impaired their capacity to perform their professional duties, yet, somehow, they seemed immune to discipline, because often their supervisors either did not want to know, or refused to act upon the knowledge.
Once, while consulting with a company, for the purpose of developing a leadership team, I was informed, directly, that two of the members of the team (of five) were active alcoholics. They were both obstructing the performance of the company in serious ways. I informed the CEO of the situation, only to learn that that was not a piece of information to which he was open and receptive.
"Here is you cheque, now get off the property!" was his response.
I learned, through considerable pain, that confronting the alcoholic is never easy, or even likely to result in a happy outcome. I have watched the Betty Ford Life Story film, in which her family, including the former president of the United States, Gerry Ford, and his children confronted his wife (their mother) about her dependency on both alcohol and prescription drugs. Eventually, after her protest, and her entry into treatment, she established the Betty Ford Clinic where, today, thousands have been successfully treated and lead reasonable lives free of alcohol, in spite of their alcohol addiction.
There are several treatment options for alcoholics, including the most famous, Twelve Step Program, which now operates in many countries. Others differ in their assumptions and in their interventions. However, if there is a single person in any family who is dependent on any substance, it is time for those who love him/her to seek help, for themselves first, and then for the person who is dependent. If you live with a person who is dependent on alcohol, you are not the reason for that dependence. However, you may be enabling that dependence to continue, and perhaps to grow.
Like an unshakeable bear claw, that grabs and refuses to open to let the person go, alcohol is relentless in its capacity to win over the user who has become dependent. One person put it this way, in attempting to explain the allure of alcohol: "I was fairly lonely, seeking acceptance; I was also hurting as an abused sixteen-year-old, when I went to the first party where I had a beer. I knew right then, that here was what I was looking for; it could be depended upon to give me that good feeling every time I drank one, and I just wanted more and more of that feeling so I drank more and more, until it took over my life and the life of the person I thought I loved."

Misdirected anger at Democrats (not Republicans)

November 1, 2010, only 24 hours before U.S. voters go the polls again, and vote for both the House of Representatives and Senate candidates.
Having robbed the treasury of billions while in office,  after inheriting a budget surplus from Clinton, Dubya-Cheney and crew not only waged a pointless war in Iraq, they reduced taxes at the same time, a recipe for disaster. Now Republicans are promising to make the "Bush" tax cuts permanent, while the country limps barely out of a monumental recession, brought on by the Wall Street greed machine, enabled by a significant reduction of regulations starting in the Clinton years. Even David Stockton, budget chief for President Ronald Reagan, tells 60 minutes on CBS last evening, that the Republicans ought to be ashamed of themselves for preaching a blatant and shameful lie: that the solution to the current crisis is to "reduce taxes" as if that bromide will accomplish anything, except perhaps their own return to power in the short run. If Stockton is correct, he believes the U.S. economy has been bloated on limitless credit for the last thirty years, and now must cut spending on all fronts, including the military. And we all know that the debt and deficit are the two most significant elephants in the room which both parties need to confront.
The Republicans have provided no policy solutions, have resisted the offers of collaboration with Obama (and they have been frequent and often) simply by voting "no" to all of the major accomplishments, when they could have helped to shape those initiatives in committee, and now they want the keys to power back and the American people, if the polls are to be believed, are about to give them back.
The Tea Party, in part the expression of anger and frustration at the current desperate economic situation, has provided a bully pulpit for such intellectual fly-weights as Sarah Palin, Sharon Angle and Christine O'Donnell, and generated a mountain of hate propaganda on both sides, because once one has been hit with their stuff, one tends to want to respond in kind and in the current climate, who can blame the Democrats for their joining in the $3 billion junk-campaign of advertising.
First we had junk bonds, and then we had junk financial services managers who paid themselves millions in undeserved bonuses, and then we had junk mortgages sold as derivatives to unsuspecting global investors, and now we have junk politicians running for the "right".
Is the American public so gullible, (or so racist) that it is either incapable or unwilling to see that Obama has accomplished a great deal, on behalf of the average American, in health care reform, and in restoring the jobs of teachers and police and fire fighters, while getting out of Iraq, and committing to getting out of Afghanistan, and in legislation that would prevent another financial meltdown, and all of this without the help of the Republicans who opposed all measures with his imprint on them, just to say 'no'?
Is the American system of government, as now operating, so broken that the real short-term winners are the electronic advertising agencies and the policy alternatives are to be sacrificed on the altar of the acquisition of power for the rich, while the Republicans waltz back into power without offering a single new idea?
If the pundits are to be believed, that is the most likely outcome of tomorrow's vote, and the Harper conservatives will all be chortling in their drinks all over Ottawa tomorrow evening, thinking they are one step closer to a majority north of the 49th. Ugh!!