Mike Oldham's Virtual Pen

An answer to the Gulf oil spill?

C.W. Roberts is a contracting company based in Florida. They've come up with a simple, environmentally-friendly but seemingly effective way to deal with that monstrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Two of the company's employees demonstrate how it would work in this YouTube video:

Beatles vs Jesus: Lennon was right

    Let's set the record (if you will) straight, since the Vatican has chosen to re-open this tempest in a chalice.
    When John Lennon remarked in March, 1966, about The Beatles that "...we're more popular than Jesus now..." he was right.
    At the time The Beatles were more popular than anything, as far as anyone could tell. But there was more to it than that. In fact, the period marked a distinct turn toward secularism. People were increasingly skeptical of organized religion. Church attendance was down.
    The prevalent mood was caught in a Time magazine cover that April - after Lennon made his remark but before it had turned into a controversy - posing the question: "Is God Dead?".
    Yes, at that point, at least, The Beatles were more popular than Jesus.
    Lennon made the comment to Maureen Cleave in an interview for the London Evening Standard. It was one of many observations in the wide-ranging chat and no one in Britain paid it any attention. Cleave was later to say that they were used to the Beatles - Lennon especially - making deliberately pointed statements.
    It wasn't until the comment was lifted from that interview and featured in an American teen publication called Datebook that the backlash started. But even then, it was pretty much confined to the American bible belt of the south. Conservative/religious disc jockeys and newspapers started calling for boycotts and burnings of Beatle products. Overnight, teenaged Beatle fans in states like Georgia turned out to smash records and throw their Beatle paraphernalia on bonfires. These gatherings resembled nothing less than Nazi book burnings. The Bible-thumping teens who eagerly turned out to toss their Fab Four fuel onto the flames looked to the rest of us like yokels from another planet.
    There's speculation that in pronouncing its forgiveness of The Beatles, the Vatican is making a feeble attempt to lighten its image. Ringo Starr, in the only official Beatle reaction so far, observes that the Vatican has a lot more to talk about than his former band: namely, the scandal over sexually predatory priests.
    Still, maybe the Vatican's learned something over the centuries. Some wags have observed that it took a lot less time to absolve The Beatles than Galileo (note to Pope Urban VIII, wherever you are: he was right).
    As for me, I'll wager that The Beatles are still more popular than Jesus.
   
Maureen Cleave's original interview:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/carousel/pob/pob24.html


Lennon's response:



Time magazine's article:
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,835309,00.html

The Nobel Prize for Good Intentions

    I confess: I am stunned by the decision to award this year's Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. president Barack Obama.
    Oh, I like the guy and all. If I was an American, I would have voted for him. I wish him every success. But the point is, he hasn't really done anything yet.
    Memory, and a look back through previous award winners, indicates that recipients actually accomplished something. For example, our own Lester B. Pearson won in 1957 for his work on resolving the Suez Crisis (and I guess his peace prize didn't hurt in getting him elected prime minister later).
    Aung San Suu Kyi (1991) spent years both fighting against the repressive dictatorship and for democracy in her homeland, Burma, enduring great personal hardship. Her fight goes on.
    Mikhail Gorbachev (1990) opened the flood gates for the fall of Communism in eastern Europe. Others like the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (1964), the International Committee of the Red Cross (1917) and the Nansen International Office for Refugees (1938) need little explanation.
    Now, you can quibble with the observation that every recipient achieved something. Suu Kyi, for instance, has not yet achieved democracy in Burma. But it certainly isn't for lack of decades of trying. Among the most debatable recipients could be Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, honoured in 1994 for their efforts to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians. As we all know, they failed. But at least they reached an agreement.
    Sometimes, it's felt, the peace prize is given out for political reasons to exert pressure on a situation or cause. That could have been partly the case with Suu Kyi. (Other examples are cited in an article by the Christan Science Monitor.) It's hoped that the attention from the prize will help the recipient accomplish the goal.
    Is this the case with Barack Obama? A friend notes an observation by an acquaintance of his that the Nobel group is crafty because, after all, Obama doesn't want to be known as the "Nobel Peace Prize winner and illegal detention apologist". If the committee is that crafty then it's trying to exert influence on Obama's future behaviour and policies by saying, in effect: better watch it, buddy - you're a peace prize laureate now, so you'd better stand up for human rights and an internationally acceptable rule of law.
    Many people, though, are bewildered or at least unconvinced by the choice of Oabama, as an informal sampling of comments from people I know indicates: "The road to Nobel is paved with good intentions"; "Head scratcher - a Nobel for the potential to do something"; "I intend to write an awesome novel one day. Can I get a Nobel for literature now?"; "Nothing like a Nobel for 'raising the tone'; and "Obama got it for not being George W. Bush".
    Is that it? The eight years under George W. Bush were so awful that Obama gets a Nobel just for sounding and behaving like the leader of the world's most powerful democracy should? Because he's raised the tone?
    Then he really did get the nod because he has good intentions. And as the leader of a country conducting wars simultaneously in two countries, now he'd better deliver.

Polanski's predicament

    "Does Polanski's art put him above the law", asks one headline, we assume rhetorically. It's a silly question. Of course not. But there are other factors in this case that make his recent arrest questionable.
    Perhaps the most notable is the fact that the other person involved in the director's sexual misadventure, now a woman of 45, has previously forgiven him and wants the case closed. She was an

aspiring model of 13. Her mother had taken her to Polanski so he could do a

photo shoot for Vogue. He also gave her champagne laced with a sedative, then had sex with her. Samantha Geimer says she was frightened as circumstances unfolded but now characterizes it as a mistake by Polanski which she thinks he recognizes, and an unpleasant memory she can live with.
    Even that in and of itself wouldn't excuse the act, but combined with a number of other factors could have the effect of mitigating the case.
    There was a plea bargain. Polanksi was originally charged with rape, but agreed to plead guilty to a reduced charge of illegal sex with a minor. Just before being sentenced he fled to Europe, where he's been ever since. Now there are questions about the way the case was handled. Allegations have emerged that the prosecutor interfered with the legal process by coaching the trial judge. An application has been filed to have the case dismissed on those grounds.
    Some argue (even Geimer suggests it) that by going into exile for more than 30 years, Polanski has in effect served his time, done his penance.
    There's the statute of limitations question. The crime took place 32 years ago.
    And there are a lot of questions about his arrest last Saturday by police in Switzerland, particularly its seemingly dubious motivation. American authorities have acknowledged that attempts were made to arrest the film director on previous visits to Switzerland, but none was successful. All of a sudden, the Swiss are able to scoop him up as he walks through Zurich airport - as if they couldn't have done such a thing before.

    Why now, many people have asked. The timing is interesting. Switzerland has been under a lot of pressure recently to relax the legendary confidentiality of its banking system and hand information on certain accounts over to the U.S. It's looking for information on suspected criminal and terrorist financial dealings. Switzerland has been cowed. Did it offer up Polanski as a sacrificial lamb hoping to partially appease the United States? In that case, this arrest isn't about justice, but expedience.
    The case has also raised European ghosts. France, in the form of foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, regards it as "a little sinister". One of France's outstanding directors, Bertrand Tavernier, says the Swiss action recalls the Second World War, noting Switzerland wasn't exactly a "model of good behaviour".
    This may amuse some, coming from France, itself an example of questionable behaviour with its Vichy government during the war. However, Switzerland has dined out for more than 50 years on its record of neutrality during that period. In the popular imagination, as depicted in movies throughout the 1950s and 60s, this manifested itself as an image of the country as a refuge from the Nazis. However, many Jews were denied entry. Stuck at the border, they'd be rounded up by the Germans and shipped off to concentration camps.
    Mainly, Swiss neutrality was, again, a matter of expedience. Not taking a side (imagine that - not taking a side in the Second World War) allowed Switzerland to remain more-or-less open for business. Preferable to an outright Nazi occupation.
    Now, in fall, 2009, Switzerland's legendary reputation for impartiality, confidentiality and neutrality is so full of holes it's lying on the bottom of Lake Geneva.
    What of Roman Polanski, then? When you add all these things up - the dubious convenience of the arrest, the time already spent in exile, the apparent misconduct of the prosecution in the original trial, the statute of limitations, the desire of the victim to let it all go - not to mention Polanki's meritorious contribution to the world through his artistic achievements, his immensely troubled past and the extreme unlikelihood of his posing any threat to anyone in particular or society in general - they certainly mitigate the case.
    Will U.S. justice officials react in a kneejerk fashion or will they carefully weigh all the merits of the situation? They have over a month to decide. I have to side with artists and politicians of every stripe calling for clemency.
    Hopefully, prosecutors will heed Samantha Geimer's wishes, drop the proceedings and let the two unfortunate principles in this case continue their lives in peace.

Surrey's recipe for the homeless

   

Got to admit, it's a novel way of dealing with a homeless problem.
    Heck, Toronto's been trying to encourage the homeless to go elsewhere by gentrifying individual neighbourhoods. New York, more ambitiously, transported, and in some cases, flew them out of Manhattan to neighbouring boroughs and municipalities.
    None of that for Surrey, B.C. The Vancouver suburb used a much more basic approach: smell. City workers spread chicken manure on an empty lot beside a drop-in centre for the homeless and at another nearby location, reported to be a food bank. (What's for dinner? If it's chicken, forget it!)
    The empty lot, especially, had become a gathering place for vagrants who could be unruly, according to some reports. Megan Baillie, a community services worker, says it's the quietest she's seen the street in a while, though the whole area stank and she doesn't approve of the idea.
    Nor do many others. One reader of the local Surrey Leader newspaper wonders if someone could be charged with Assault using a Noxious Substance.
    Councillor and acting mayor Barinder Rasode describes it as an unacceptable, draconian approach.
    "We're being treated like dogs," commented one homeless man in a video posted by the paper.
    City officials are trying to sniff out the culprits. No one seems sure who exactly gave this idea the go-ahead. However, it's been confirmed that city trucks delivered the fowl poop and city workers scooped it onto the properties.
    But who, exactly, was responsible?
    Fingers (chicken fingers?) are pointing at municipal bylaw officials. Dan Bottrill, a deputy city manager, says the RCMP was also involved and there are reports it was done at the behest of the Business Improvement Association.
    In a model example of deadpan humour, the mayor, Diane Watts, says: "I'm certainly going to get to the bottom of this."
    Um... the bottoms in question have already been identified. You just have to nab the human shit disturbers now.

Watch the Surrey Leader's video.

Suu Kyi getting the short end from both sides

    As I've said before, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I don't give credence to the vast majority of conspiracy theories, but - you knew there'd be a "but", didn't you?
    I'd love to know what's behind the latest manoeuvring involving the Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
    Her troubles are long and well documented. Her most recent difficulties began last spring with an allegedly well-meaning but certainly misguided American named John Yettaw. In addition to a litany of health problems the man also claims he has visions, and in one he ascertained that Suu Kyi was in danger of assassination. He decided to warn her.
    Suu Kyi was under house arrest and visitors were forbidden by the military dictatorship. Nonetheless, Yettaw went to her house by swimming across a river (his health problems didn't seem to be an impediment there). They were both arrested.
    Suu Kyi was sentenced to three years' hard labour, but that was reduced to another 18 months of house arrest.
    Yettaw got seven years' hard labour and, even though he was just arrested in May, he was released over the weekend into American custody.
    Now here's some interesting timing. Myanmar, or Burma, holds a general election next year, one which Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party could well win. They did just that in 1990 but the military annulled the results and remained in power.
    Yettaw's idiotic stunt leading to the extension of Suu Kyi's house arrest effectively removes her from the 2010 campaign. Yettaw gets sentenced to seven years, but now that Suu Kyi's trial and sentence are over, what happens? Yettaw is sprung, handed over to a senator from Virginia, Jim Webb.
    All very convenient.
    Webb is now saying it's an act of good faith on the part of the military dictatorship, a gesture the U.S. "should be grateful for and hopefully build upon". For example, it could lead to the softening or dropping of U.S. sanctions against Myanmar.
    Webb is in a good position to help steer such a change in policy because he is chair of a U.S. Senate sub-committee on east Asia and Pacific affairs.
    Yettaw, at best, is a meddlesome fool. (Way to go, buddy. You really did Suu Kyi a big favour.)
    Is he anything more than that? I'm not implying his swim to Suu Kyi's house was an orchestrated part of a plot (though who knows?). However, since he was caught, did he become a useful foreign policy pawn?
    (Incidentally, reports described Yettaw as looking pale and haggard upon his release. Haggard? Does this man look haggard to you? To me he looks like he spent three months in prison eating daily turkey dinners with all the trimmings.)
    The U.S. could be accused of engaging, again, in its tendency toward the tunnel vision of narrow self-interest. The American's freed. That's it. Oh, Suu Kyi? What about her? It's just more house arrest. She'll be fine. The Burmese democracy movement? Ahhh, well, that's, like, an internal matter?
    Or perhaps the U.S. has a reason to change its tune regarding the military junta. If this was back in the 1960s we could blame the Domino Theory: the U.S. is using Burma's military government as a bulwark against Communism spreading out of Vietnam and sweeping across southeast Asia.
    But that's over. So what could it be? Not terrorsim, surely. The Burmese are Buddhists, not Muslims.
    If the United States wants to soften its approach to the Burmese dictatorship, there must be a reason. The U.S. has led the campaign to punish the military regime for its politcal and human rights abuses through sanctions. However, those measures have always been ineffective to a large degree because of China's continuing support for Myanmar.
    Maybe that's it: the growing U.S. obsession with China, the world's developing second superpower and the threat it presents to American hegemony.  Perhaps it hopes to blunt Chinese influence in Rangoon by softening its own approach and Yettaw is the lynchpin on which to hang the policy change.
    In the eyes of some Americans, a happy, strong Burmese dictatorship may be a better counter to the spread of Chinese influence than a pro-democracy government, even though "democracy" is always what the U.S. claims to be exporting to the world. It always seems to be dispensable, though, when the grander U.S. vision of its own interest is involved. This would merely be the latest in a long string of dictatorships supported by the U.S. for ulterior reasons.

Battle of the beefcake

    Does Vladimir Putin have a Napoleonic complex? Does he feel too short?
    Is it a mid-life crisis?
    Maybe it's just the fact that "prime minister" doesn't sound as manly as "president".
    Whatever, he's been primping himself for the cameras of late, showing off his pecs and abs.

    On the other hand, maybe it was this:

    Barack Obama caused a stir across the U.S. when he showed off his torso. No Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford or Richard Nixon, this guy.
    However, Obama did have competition on the presidential buffness front from JFK, looking here like Sean Connery's Bond:

    Canada hasn't exactly had a string of he-man prime ministers. One wouldn't really want to see Stephen Harper with his shirt off. But world leaders would be challenged to match Pierre Trudeau, pictured here doing a backflip off a diving board during the 1968 election campaign:

    Mahatma Gandhi wasn't in the running. No physique - but then, he was a pacifist.

    Churchill had the macho scowl, but not the bod.

    Perhaps Putin was merely trying to emulate Arnold Schwarzenegger, seen here in his pre-California governor days in this famous photo by Annie Liebovitz:

    Sorry, Sarko, you just don't seem to measure up:

Toronto's stinky residue

    If the longest civic strike in the history of Canada's largest city is any indication, everyone should be glancing over their shoulders when it comes to their jobs.
    It would be very tempting for some people to use the current financial crisis to justify full frontal assaults on employment, wages and benefits. It's already happened to some extent. People have lost jobs; those who have kept them have in some cases been forced into making concessions in what seems on the surface a reasonable argument under the circumstances: better to do that than lose your job either through cuts or having your company go out of business.
    But what happens when employers use the crisis as an excuse to downsize or roll back? You have to admit, it's a great opportunity.
    Unions are easy targets at times like this. That was amply demonstrated in the strike by Toronto civic employees. Cheerled by the media, the public got itself into paroxysms of anti-union vitriol. Fire them all, was a popular refrain, and hire new people. There are lots of folks out there who would be happy to have those jobs.
    I don't think so. Many of those on strike were garbage collectors. It's not a job people are exactly lining up for, and with good reason. It's a shitty job, but someone has to do it and those who do aren't paid enough.
    Really. Those are long hard days. The work, especially collecting compostable decomposing foodstuff, soiled diapers and pet feces, literally stinks. Even with the new mechanical arms in place to tip the garbage and recycling bins into the trucks, it's heavy work. Those people also have to collect sofas and other castoff furniture, appliances and numerous other items not part of the conventional garbage.
    We complain when they leave a bin or yard waste container uncollected because it's too heavy. The reason there are weight limits to what these employees will pick up or haul around is because muscle and back injuries are common in that job. And they can be career enders.
    This work has to be done regardless of the weather. It doesn't matter whether it's one of those punishing Toronto summer days when it's 95 Farenheit with 90 per cent humidity, or whether it's 20 below.
    The work is tough and the days are long. And on top of all that, even though these people are performing a vital service to our society, the public looks down on them.
    A shitty, tough, backbreaking and thankless job. And many people would be happy to have those jobs? Not likely.
    The garbage collectors became the focus of this strike simply because of the city employees on the picket line, they were the most visible in terms of both their work and their absence. Residents were reminded daily of them by the growing mounds of garbage and the increasing challenge of how to cope over a 35-day period making as few visits to authorized temproary city dumpsites as possible.
    But other workers were off the job as well, from lifeguards to park landscaping crews to people who issue permits to daycare workers.
    They were, curiously, the most invisible when it came to media coverage of this strike. Daycare workers. The people entrusted with looking after our children. Grossly underpaid considering they're charged with tending supposedly the most precious things in our lives, our kids. And ignored by the media. Even today, one of the city's papers referred to "the garbage strike", as if that was the only element involved.
    That's what it all came down to. That and 18 sick leave days the union employees are allowed to bank each year.
    The media made this the sole issue of the labour dispute, even though there were others. They were rabid over the fact that CUPE union members had this provision. After all, it was pointed out, no one in the private sector has bankable sick days. That cry was taken up by the public and applied to many of the other benefits the union members had, even to the fact that they had jobs at all.
    How dare they go on strike when people in the private sector had lost jobs!
    But the main rallying cry became: I dont have that benefit, so why should they?
    Surprising, really, how quickly Toronto was reduced to a level of self-interested pettiness.
    We in the private sector don't have banked sick days. Why should they?
    I don't have job security. Why should they?
    I don't make that much. Why should they?
    These people are asking the wrong question.
    The question should be: They have that benefit. Why don't I?
    Ask your private sector employer.
    It's not the unions' fault that they have these things. They were negotiated, and won fairly and squarely, with employers in legitimate contract talks. And to a large degree, people in the private sector can thank unions for the things they do have. Union contract agreements have pretty much forced private sector employers to at least approximate (the best employers match) those wages and benefits for their own employees in similar jobs.
    With no benchmark, the private sector would be free to do what it chose within the confines of government labour legislation. And if you think unions aren't necessary to set a benchmark - that the competitive market will do that - just look at what happens when the private sector doesn't like conditions in the current market: the employer lays off his workforce, closes his plant and moves the operation to a developing country where he can pay a pittance and provide no benefits.
    The union movement got going to protect flagrant violations of workers in the industrial revolution. A lot has been accomplished since then and most of us feel complacent, not just about workers' basic rights but many other areas. Don't be. If unions were to be disbanded we'd find out very quicly why they're necessary. Society must never turn its back on any gain, from civil rights to workers' rights to women's rights. There are always elements keen to roll those back.
    Times are tough. A lot of jobs have been lost and people in private-sector positions have had to make a lot of concessions. Many of them do not have the same benefits or compensatory wage provisions as unionized employees. That just illustrates why unions are needed.
    As for the sick day bank, it's an extra perk that union happened to negotiate. So what? Get over it. Now the new contract has been signed, that provision will cease to exist. New hires won't get it so it will disappear. As far as how much that provision costs the city, the figure presented in the media is exaggerated. First of all, just over half of the union members received it under the old contract, not all of them. Under the new deal, some will opt for the new short-term disability provision.
    In addition to that, not all of the eligible union members collect on those sick days (which they can save up and cash in when they retire). Some will go to other jobs well before they hit retirement. Others will die. Many of those days won't be cashed in. Even when an employee cashes in all the eligible sick days, they add up to six months' pay. Big deal. Amortize six months' pay over the next 30 years of your life. It's nothing compared to the grotesque bonuses and golden handshakes given out in the corporate world. People should be angrier that their governments are using their tax money to bail out companies that have done such a bad job they're in danger of going under. The theory is they're too big to be allowed to fail. So average working people - unionized and not - foot the bill.
    The Canadian commentator Naomi Klein calls the bailouts "the greatest heist in monetary history".
    Let's get our priorities straight. Banked sick leave for some people in backbreaking jobs is a pittance.
    And anyway, why didn't I have that benefit?
    Last night, I re-watched a 70-year-old movie from a 70-year-old book on television. The Grapes of Wrath. Very relevant to our current situation. Economic hard times. People losing jobs left, right and centre. Share croppers being forced off their farms not by the dust bowls so much as the start of large-scale industrialized agriculture. People forced to migrate in search of piece work.
    Like many, young Tom Joad's family goes to California and finds work picking fruit. Five cents a bucket. Joad (Henry Fonda) doesn't believe it when he's told by people who have been through the experience that soon they'll be chiselled down to two-and-a-half cents. One day a truck of new arrivals comes to the labour camp where the migrant workers live and Joad overhears the foreman telling them that the rate is now two-and-a-half cents. Arbitrary. Just like that.
    "Who are these reds anyway?", Joad asks at one point. "Seems everytime you turn around someone's calling somebody else a 'red'. Who are these 'reds' anyway?"
    They're the people trying to organize union representation for the workers so they can actually be paid what their work is worth. But the employers, with the help of sherriff's deputies, bust heads with ash clubs to stop it.
    Written in 1939, shot in 1940. A book and movie for our times.
    As for Toronto, the strike is over. Let's be glad our pools are re-opened, our kids can go back to daycare, where their overseers make slave wages, and our garbage can be collected again.
    Now we can all go back to debating plastic take-out coffee cup lids, another issue city hall has been vexed about of late. Apparently the city can't recycle the lids. One of its bright ideas? Ban take-out coffee cups.
    As if. But that's a rant for another time.

The Dziekanski case - Are Braidwood's taser recommendations too vague?

    Police forces are studying the first recommendations to come out of the Braidwood Inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski (the Pole died after four RCMP officers shot him repeatedly with a taser at Vancouver's airport in 2007).
    This first report deals with rules and procedures for using conducted energy weapons, the generic term for tasers (the second report, to come out later, will deal with the circumstances of Dziekanski's death).
    The question is: will the recommendations from the first report, if followed, prevent deaths like Dziekanski's?
    The answer is: not necessarily.
    That isn't to say that Thomas Braidwood's recommendations are not worthwhile. They are, and they should be followed. He thinks there should be more training of officers, more testing of tasers and greater restrictions on their use.
    There have been 25 deaths linked to tasers in Canada in the past six years. However, the extent to which the weapon contributed to those deaths has been disputed by its manufacturer, Taser International, and various police officials.
    There are two ways to use a taser. One method is to press the gun against a person's skin and pull the trigger, setting off the electrical current. That jolts the immediate muscles, causing pain. The second way is to fire two darts into a person's skin. Wires conduct the electricity from the gun, through the darts to the body. In this "probe mode" the Braidwood Inquiry found that a taser causes "neuromuscular incapacitation". Since the heart is a muscle, it makes sense that the weapon used this way could cause heart falure when fired at the chest.
    The most likely cause of death, according to Braidwood's findings, is ventricular fibrillation, or arrhythmia. In other words, the taser causes a sudden irregular heart beat which can lead to death within ten minutes. The arrhythmia can set off spasms that interfere with the person's ability to breathe. The body's natural reaction, according to the findings of the inquiry, is to hyperventilate. In Braidwood's words "that can be frustrated if the person is lying face down or if pressure is applied to the neck area".
    That recalls the image of Dziekanski lying on the floor after his multiple taserings, the four officers subduing him, one of the officers with his knee on Dziekanski's neck (clearly captured in the video of the incident). At least one of the RCMP officers later said he noticed Dziekanski's lips turning blue. Lack of oxygen, inability to breathe.
    Notably, the Braidwood findings say multiple taser deployments increase that risk.
    These findings fit well with the circumstances of Dziekanski's death.
    Another area addressed by the inquiry is the police guidelines for when a taser should be used. It's not allowed when subjects are co-operative or passively resistant. However, its use is permitted when a person is deemed to be "actively resisting" police. That's defined as "using non-assaultive physical action, such as pulling away, pushing away, or running away, to resist".
    Those actions sound pretty passive to me. Active resistance suggests to me the person is physically trying to prevent police from restraining him - pushing them, say, or struggling with them.
    Braidwood also feels these thresholds for permitting taser use are too low: "It would embarass me as a Canadian to watch a police officer deploy a conducted energy weapon against a subject...for merely walking or running away from the officer".
    I'll second that emotion. Dziekanski didn't even fall into that category. He simply raised his hands and turned away from the officers momentarily.
    Those are some of the main findings. As for the recommendations, I suggest they are too subjective and not binding. The word "should" appears too much, as in: "The B.C. government should set provincewide standards for conducted energy weapons". I realize Braidwood is not in a position to impose anything. He wasn't given the power and these are just recommendations. Too bad, though, he has to be restricted to "shoulds". Fortunately, the B.C. government has indicated it will adopt all of his suggestions.
    As for how they would apply to Dziekanski's situation if they had been in force at the time of his death, I don't think they would have prevented it.
    Braidwood says tasers should not be used unless the subject is causing bodily harm "or the officer is satisfied, on reasonable grounds, that the subject's behaviour will imminently cause bodily harm" (my italics).
    That was precisely the argument the four officers used to justify their actions when they made their initial statements and when they testified later at the Braidwood Inquiry. They said they felt threatened, in danger, from an unarmed man who was holding a common office stapler. The four officers were all fully equipped with weapons, batons and bullet-proof vests.
    Braidwood follows that recommendation up with this: "Even then, an officer should not deploy the weapon unless satisfied, on reasonable grounds, that no lesser force option would be effective [in eliminating the risk of bodily harm], and de-escalation and/or crisis intervention techniques would not be effective". He adds: "That is particularly important when dealing with an emotionally disturbed subject". The reason is that emotionally disturbed people are at greater risk of death from taser use.
    It was clear to all at the airport terminal, and to everyone who later saw the video, that Dziekanski was in an emotionally disturbed state.
    Braidwood recommends taser bursts be limited to five seconds "unless the officer's satisfied, on reasonable grounds, that a 5-second discharge was not effective in eliminating the risk of bodily harm."
    Yet that was precisely the excuse used by the officers for tasering Dziekanski repeatedly, with longer bursts than five seconds.
    It's too subjective. The officers could use the same justifications with these recommendations in effect. They could simply say they felt threatened, they were concerned about bodily harm to themselves and therefore they had reasonable grounds to give Dziekanski such a heavy tasering that he ended up dying (and that's leaving out their claims that he was struggling with them; the video showed that to be a lie).
    One columnist observed that using the principles laid out in this first inquiry report it would be a lot more difficult for the officers to justify their actions. Not at all.
    Since the Dziekanski incident, the RCMP has brought in new guidelines of its own on taser use. They state it should be deployed only when someone is deemed a threat to an officer or public safety, or is displaying "assaultive behaviour". Those guidelines would leave ample room for the four Mounties to make the same arguments they tried to pawn off in their statements and to the inquiry.

    What will become of these recommendations? Under his original mandate, Braidwood was not given jurisdiction over the RCMP in this aspect (taser use) . He ignored that on the grounds that it would be ridiculous to exempt the force from the inquiry's findings, when the whole procedure was prompted by an RCMP case.
    The problem is, the Braidwood Inquiry is provincial. The RCMP is a federal force. It is responsible for provincial police operations in 70 per cent of the province but the Dziekanski incident happened at Vancouver's international airport, which would fall under the federal arm.
    B.C.'s Solicitor-General says he expects all police forces in the province to adopt Braidwood's recommendations, and that includes the RCMP. The Mounties are concerned that they'll have two sets of guidelines to abide by - one for B.C. and another for the rest of the country.
    The simple answer is to make Braidwood's recommendations on conducted energy weapons national.
    As to how all this applies to the Dziekanski case specifically, we await the second report from the Braidwood Inquiry.

Click here to read Thomas Braidwood's report.

If you're black, get back

    Was he profiled racially or is he just a shit disturber?
    Depends whose version you're hearing in the case of the Harvard University professor arrested for breaking into his own house in the tony borough of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
    Henry Louis Gates arrived home with his driver to find that his front door was jammed. So they forced it open.
    This comedy of errors began with Lucia Whalen, the circulation and fundraising manager for Harvard Magazine. She's not exactly, as most of the media have described her, a neighbour. She lives in the town of Malden, about 15 miles from Cambridge. The magazine's office, where she works, happens to be next to Gates' home. That answers my first question about this story: how was it that Gates' neighbour didn't recognize him? Because she isn't his neighbour.
    Whalen saw Gates, a 59-year-old black Harvard professor, and his driver, a Moroccan immigrant, trying to force their way through the front door of a house and, thinking she was doing the right thing, phoned police. Both men, she said, were wearing backpacks. Interesting how that utilitarian bag has taken on such sinister tones in our terrorism-addled age.
     Among the officers sent to answer the call was Sergeant James Crowley, who teaches a police course on how to avoid racial profiling. An irony that he should end up enmeshed in this particular net.
    By the time police arrived, Gates was in his house. Crowley demanded his identification. Gates, in the police version of this tale, is not short on attitude. He loudly refused, accused them of racism and yelled: "This is what happens to black men in America".
    Gates eventually did show them a Harvard ID card but it had no address. Gates was taken into custody and later released. Reports say Massachusetts officials are "red-faced" with embarassment.
    Was there a racist tone to the whole thing? Well, obviously the investigating officers did not accept at face value that Gates could be the resident of the house. They were going on an unsubstantiated report from a woman who was mistaken about what she saw. I guess one question is, by the time Gates produced his Harvard ID, why didn't the officers start thinking there was something unusual about the situation? At the very least, they could have radioed their station to request that Gates' name and address be checked in the phone book to determine whether a guy by that name actually lived at that house address. A positive answer surely could have averted the arrest.
    The police could hardly have picked a worse person to target. Gates is a prominent scholar on African-American history and race relations at one of America's most prestigious educational institutions. And a friend of Barack Obama, to boot.
    And that's how the president ended up in this story. He initially came out swinging, saying the police behaved stupidly. Racism still haunts, he lamented. "You probably don't need to handcuff a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who's in his own home."
    Seems like a pretty reasonable statement. But Obama's remarks brought a retort from Sergeant Crowley, the racial profiling "expert". He accused Obama of not knowing all the facts and being "way off base". Um... this is the president you're talking to, buddy.
    Now, Obama's being a little more diplomatic, saying he could have chosen his words more carefully. From outspoken to contrite in 24 hours. However, whatever Obama does, he continues to do it in a presidentially unconventional way. He's now invited Gates and officer Crowley to the White House for a beer!
     Here in Toronto we've had our own, albeit lower-profile, racial profiling case. A black man was stopped while delivering mail in the Bridle Path, a fabulously expensive neighbourhood of the city. The police followed Ron Phipps, spoke to a homeowner and untimately confirmed his identity with a white letter carrier in the neighbourhood.
    Interesting. They weren't satisfied until they'd checked the black mailman's identity with the white mailman. Evidently they thought a black person in the Bridle Path couldn't be there for legitimate reasons. This week, a tribunal looking into the case ruled there was no overt racism. But it found that the officer involved, Constable Michael Shaw, was motivated by the fact that Phipps was a black in a wealthy area. The ruling shows a "flawed misunderstanding" [isn't that redundant?] of a police officers' duties, according to Toronto chief Bill Blair.
    There have been many other instances. A black assignment editor for CITY-TV news was once pulled over while driving, after looking at a passing police cruiser. And there have been reports of athletes being pulled over simply because they're black and driving expensive cars. That wouldn't happen to a white adult. A teen maybe, but not an adult. The police don't seem naturally inclined to think that a black person can be wealthy and have good taste (Miles Davis drove a Ferrari).
    Of course, the police in all these cases denied that racial profiling was involved. In the case of Professor Gates they at least have the veneer of looking into a complaint to lean on. But in all of these cases, it was the perception of a mismatch between race and environment or behaviour that caused the police to act the way they did. Like the song says: "If you're white, you're alright; if you're brown, stick around; if you're black, oh brother, get back, get back, get back".
    As for the advice various pundits have been giving in the wake of the Gates affair that visible minorities are only asking for trouble if they talk back to or don't co-operate with the police, I'd say that's sound advice for everyone to follow. They're in the position of authority and if you tick them off for any reason, well, it's your word against theirs. And they've certainly been known to bend the truth to support their word.