I've just noticed that Donald Savoie, at the head of his columns, is referred to as a policy expert. As a description. that is absurd. They never referred to Dr. Cleary as a medical expert. In fact, no critic of shale gas or of the Irvings, has ever been referred to as an expert. Nor is an editor qualified to make any such statement about anybody. No editor has the ability to judge who is an expert in history or economics or chemistry because no editor has the training to make such a judgement. Nor would it mean anything if they did.
To call someone expert implies that person is correct. And to think that betrays a profound ignorance of what advanced study is about. In the time of Gallileo, the "leading" astonomers and scholars of his day believed that the sun went around the earth. And they were the experts.
In Darwin's time, experts of all sorts believed that the earth was created in six days - and that man as a species had no ancestors. There are still serious scholars, influenced by religion, who claim that. Experts of all sorts are influenced by religious beliefs, moral values. social values.... There are even some - quite a few actually - who are influenced by the fame or money or both to be gained by thinking the "right" way.
There is no such thing as a polcy expert who can point the way to what is the right policy. Quite apart from all t he limitations of human understanding, our notion of what is the right policy is influenced by all sorts of factors, moral and social. It also requires a knowledge of what the future will be like - something Professor Savoie has not demonstrated.
I have seen no evidence that the editors of Irving press have any understanding of the above. But Professor Savoie should.
He closes by once again telling us to put our shoulders to the wheel. Why is he bothering with us? What influence do we have on all this? The gas companies don't care what we think. They have given us no information - and certainly not a word on any dangers in the process. Ditto for the Tand T. Ditto for the government.
Anyway, why waste advice on us who have nothing to do with the running of this province? The government doesn't run it,, either. As professor Savoie must know, this province is quite blatantly run by Mr. Irving and his buddies. Mr. Savoie, why not give your advice to them?
That would, at least, be more honest than acting as a pimp for them.
_____________________________________________________________________________
In another front page story, a chief of Native Peoples calls for protests to be peaceful. That's so true. There is nothing worse than violence like, for example, poisoning the land and fresh water, then using the fresh water to flush the poisons and dump them in , say, the Bay of Fundy.
Yep. Nothing worse than violence. Somebody should tell that to SWN and Mr. Alward and Mr. Irving, and all those leeches who cling to tnem.
________________________________________________________________________
Lots of great ads in NewsToday.
Your Business has a story by staffwriter Alan Cochrane., "Pipline project could benefit all of New Brunswick." Young Alan must have skipped some of his journalism classes A headline isi supposed to tell us what a story is about. This story is NOT about how the pipeline will benefit us. It is not even a statement that it will benefit us. It is about how some people who want shale gas SAY it will benefit us. There's a difference.
Consider, for example, these two headlines.
"Mr. Alward is the most dyaminic a lovable presmier in Canada."
"Mr. Alward says he is the most dynamic and loveable premier in Canada."
See the difference?
_______________________________________________________________________
Roughly half of the editorial and op ed pages are devoted to giving support to shale gas. When was the last time you saw a column on either page that was critical of shale gas?
_____________________________________________________________________________
Michael Sullivan has a good column on reality television shows. But it's a bit much to suggest, as ge does, that this is because he's a conservative. Most such shows are supported by TV channels that are conservative to the core. And PBS, which he loves, has been under constant attack from American conservatives.
As to reality television shows, these are our equivalent to the old Roman enthusiasm for watching people kill and/or humiliate others in the Coliseum. Worthless and degraded themselves - and knowing it - they hugely enjoyed laughing at people even lower than they were.That's the appeal of Jerry Springer. It's a sign of one hell of a sick society - just like all those scandal mags at supermarket checkout counters.
A suggestion, though, Mr. Sullivan. Get off the conservative/liberal kick. You are talking about things that have nothing to do with either liberalism or conservatism. As well, I'm not convinced you are a conservative - or that there is anything conservative about the conservative party. It's important to know exactly what words mean.
You have a good mind. Let it free of those meaningless labels.
___________________________________________________________________________
Alec Bruce has a column that could be a springboard ro develop some ideas. I don't agrree with the implications of what he says. But he does touch on points that need a lot more thought.
This province has economic problems that are, many of them, unique to it. The only reponses I've seen to those problems have been get-rich-quick schemes - usually promoted by the wealthy and benefitting only them.
New Brunswick needs long term planning based on realistic assumptions of what North America will be like twenty years from now - and even more. I have seen no hint of such thinking going on. We need that before we spend a cent more on wildly optimisiic and costly boondoggles like a thirteen thousand seat hockey rink.
We have to invest a lot more in education - and we have to get the interfering noses of big business out of education and, for that matter, out of government. We have to get far more active in redesigning the whole population distribution in this province - and the public transportation system. Similarly, we cannot cut medical services until we first solve the problems that make the services costly. That's where redistribution of population and reorgnization of public transport come into it.
What's wrong with Mr. Flemming on hospitals is that he listens only to Mr. Irving. And Mr. Irving doesn't give a damn about human needs. He just wants to cut costs with wild swings of a blunt axe. And there is no blunter axe than Mr. Flemming.
We need planning. What we're getting is short term scams from brains of low wattage.
__________________________________________________________________________
To the writer of the letter "Aggressive rhetoric thwarts our right to know", I would suggest he buy a good dictionary. Look up words like cohesive and facts. (He obviously have no idea what they mean.) I applaud his demand that we have a right to know. So how come hehas not complained to the Irving press that is has hidden information concerning one side of the debate. He might also, when involking the word "rhetoric' , to mean (wrongly) ranting speech - well, he might also want to tone down his own language.
I see no evidence in the letter that he has made any attempt to find out what the dangers of shale gas might be. Doesn't that make it unwise of him to accuse those who disagree with him of "burying their heads in the sand'?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am more than a bit dismayed by the failure of t his paper to cover much of anything outside local trivia. In Quebec, a province which has driven over half a million people out because they do not speak French, the provincial soccer association, with the support of the government, has forbidden Sikh children who where turbans from playing on public fields - and from playing in any league.
There is no suggeston or evidence that turbans constitute a danger. They are illegal purely because they are not "Quebecois". This is pure racism, and more is coming. In a few months, the Quebec government will dictate laws defining how people must act in conformity with Quebec "culture." More racism.
This is not happening because Quebec is French. It's happening because Quebec is intensely racist. Not is it the only part of Canada that is racist. Harper's Conservatives are running a campaign against Native People to appeal to the large body of racist voters across Canada. BC had a viciously racist policy to Japanese and Indian Canadians. Anti-semitism in Canada was a powerful force well into the 1960s. New Brunswick was notorious for its racist treatment of African-Canadians. Nova Scotia still is.
We are and always have been racist people in this country. Funny how it has almost never made the news.
To call someone expert implies that person is correct. And to think that betrays a profound ignorance of what advanced study is about. In the time of Gallileo, the "leading" astonomers and scholars of his day believed that the sun went around the earth. And they were the experts.
In Darwin's time, experts of all sorts believed that the earth was created in six days - and that man as a species had no ancestors. There are still serious scholars, influenced by religion, who claim that. Experts of all sorts are influenced by religious beliefs, moral values. social values.... There are even some - quite a few actually - who are influenced by the fame or money or both to be gained by thinking the "right" way.
There is no such thing as a polcy expert who can point the way to what is the right policy. Quite apart from all t he limitations of human understanding, our notion of what is the right policy is influenced by all sorts of factors, moral and social. It also requires a knowledge of what the future will be like - something Professor Savoie has not demonstrated.
I have seen no evidence that the editors of Irving press have any understanding of the above. But Professor Savoie should.
He closes by once again telling us to put our shoulders to the wheel. Why is he bothering with us? What influence do we have on all this? The gas companies don't care what we think. They have given us no information - and certainly not a word on any dangers in the process. Ditto for the Tand T. Ditto for the government.
Anyway, why waste advice on us who have nothing to do with the running of this province? The government doesn't run it,, either. As professor Savoie must know, this province is quite blatantly run by Mr. Irving and his buddies. Mr. Savoie, why not give your advice to them?
That would, at least, be more honest than acting as a pimp for them.
_____________________________________________________________________________
In another front page story, a chief of Native Peoples calls for protests to be peaceful. That's so true. There is nothing worse than violence like, for example, poisoning the land and fresh water, then using the fresh water to flush the poisons and dump them in , say, the Bay of Fundy.
Yep. Nothing worse than violence. Somebody should tell that to SWN and Mr. Alward and Mr. Irving, and all those leeches who cling to tnem.
________________________________________________________________________
Lots of great ads in NewsToday.
Your Business has a story by staffwriter Alan Cochrane., "Pipline project could benefit all of New Brunswick." Young Alan must have skipped some of his journalism classes A headline isi supposed to tell us what a story is about. This story is NOT about how the pipeline will benefit us. It is not even a statement that it will benefit us. It is about how some people who want shale gas SAY it will benefit us. There's a difference.
Consider, for example, these two headlines.
"Mr. Alward is the most dyaminic a lovable presmier in Canada."
"Mr. Alward says he is the most dynamic and loveable premier in Canada."
See the difference?
_______________________________________________________________________
Roughly half of the editorial and op ed pages are devoted to giving support to shale gas. When was the last time you saw a column on either page that was critical of shale gas?
_____________________________________________________________________________
Michael Sullivan has a good column on reality television shows. But it's a bit much to suggest, as ge does, that this is because he's a conservative. Most such shows are supported by TV channels that are conservative to the core. And PBS, which he loves, has been under constant attack from American conservatives.
As to reality television shows, these are our equivalent to the old Roman enthusiasm for watching people kill and/or humiliate others in the Coliseum. Worthless and degraded themselves - and knowing it - they hugely enjoyed laughing at people even lower than they were.That's the appeal of Jerry Springer. It's a sign of one hell of a sick society - just like all those scandal mags at supermarket checkout counters.
A suggestion, though, Mr. Sullivan. Get off the conservative/liberal kick. You are talking about things that have nothing to do with either liberalism or conservatism. As well, I'm not convinced you are a conservative - or that there is anything conservative about the conservative party. It's important to know exactly what words mean.
You have a good mind. Let it free of those meaningless labels.
___________________________________________________________________________
Alec Bruce has a column that could be a springboard ro develop some ideas. I don't agrree with the implications of what he says. But he does touch on points that need a lot more thought.
This province has economic problems that are, many of them, unique to it. The only reponses I've seen to those problems have been get-rich-quick schemes - usually promoted by the wealthy and benefitting only them.
New Brunswick needs long term planning based on realistic assumptions of what North America will be like twenty years from now - and even more. I have seen no hint of such thinking going on. We need that before we spend a cent more on wildly optimisiic and costly boondoggles like a thirteen thousand seat hockey rink.
We have to invest a lot more in education - and we have to get the interfering noses of big business out of education and, for that matter, out of government. We have to get far more active in redesigning the whole population distribution in this province - and the public transportation system. Similarly, we cannot cut medical services until we first solve the problems that make the services costly. That's where redistribution of population and reorgnization of public transport come into it.
What's wrong with Mr. Flemming on hospitals is that he listens only to Mr. Irving. And Mr. Irving doesn't give a damn about human needs. He just wants to cut costs with wild swings of a blunt axe. And there is no blunter axe than Mr. Flemming.
We need planning. What we're getting is short term scams from brains of low wattage.
__________________________________________________________________________
To the writer of the letter "Aggressive rhetoric thwarts our right to know", I would suggest he buy a good dictionary. Look up words like cohesive and facts. (He obviously have no idea what they mean.) I applaud his demand that we have a right to know. So how come hehas not complained to the Irving press that is has hidden information concerning one side of the debate. He might also, when involking the word "rhetoric' , to mean (wrongly) ranting speech - well, he might also want to tone down his own language.
I see no evidence in the letter that he has made any attempt to find out what the dangers of shale gas might be. Doesn't that make it unwise of him to accuse those who disagree with him of "burying their heads in the sand'?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am more than a bit dismayed by the failure of t his paper to cover much of anything outside local trivia. In Quebec, a province which has driven over half a million people out because they do not speak French, the provincial soccer association, with the support of the government, has forbidden Sikh children who where turbans from playing on public fields - and from playing in any league.
There is no suggeston or evidence that turbans constitute a danger. They are illegal purely because they are not "Quebecois". This is pure racism, and more is coming. In a few months, the Quebec government will dictate laws defining how people must act in conformity with Quebec "culture." More racism.
This is not happening because Quebec is French. It's happening because Quebec is intensely racist. Not is it the only part of Canada that is racist. Harper's Conservatives are running a campaign against Native People to appeal to the large body of racist voters across Canada. BC had a viciously racist policy to Japanese and Indian Canadians. Anti-semitism in Canada was a powerful force well into the 1960s. New Brunswick was notorious for its racist treatment of African-Canadians. Nova Scotia still is.
We are and always have been racist people in this country. Funny how it has almost never made the news.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment