Into Thin Air

The controversy of yet another celebrated and popular book, Three Cups of Tea, representing as more fancy than fact is once again demonstrating that the art of writing owes much to the imagination. Imagination and the artful embroidery of events to suit the purpose of the writer. This is, after all, what writers do.

It isn't supposed to be what writers do, in the popular imagination. Which is somewhat to science what the detailing of real-life adventure and experience is supposed to be. In science, when someone hatches a theory and convinces himself that he has to prove it through constructing experiments designed to prove the theory, this is falsification of the very essence of science.

When someone writes a book recounting his experiences upon which he bases an argument for the world at large and generous donors in particular to become seriously involved in good works and charity, readers must depend upon the veracity of his account if he is to realize their support.

Greg Mortenson's book grew a huge readership and convinced people that they must respond in assistance of providing Afghan girls with educational opportunities. His description of his experiences in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, his abduction by Taliban in Waziristan earned him respect by the U.S. military elite.

An adventurer-climber, he began with his K-2 experience, and his gratitude to villagers in a remote Afghanistan village earning his determination to provide their children with a school and learning opportunities. His commitment spread to other tribal communities, and his idea of educating girls in fundamentalist Islamic villages caught the imagination of donors.

Except that there was an expose on television that seemed to cast real doubt on Mr. Mortenson's claims when a research team discovered that schools were closed or were being used for storage, or taken over by the village itself to teach their young. And none other than mountaineer Jon Krakauer of Everest fame, a formidable adversary if actual events be fouled also cast doubts on the original village incident.

So the issue now is whether the account in Three Cups of Tea is entirely fraudulent, written to serve a specific purpose; the achievement of fame and fortune, or whether, despite some critical details having been embellished and dates reversed, the uplifting charitable venture of financing schools for Afghan children should continue.

If wealthy donors are looking for places where their charitable dollars might do some good, the financing of schools for children in Afghanistan is as good as any. Even if some of them end up as storage sheds for animal feed.

Getting On With His Life

Thank you for the feedback. Report another imagePlease report the offensive image. CancelDoneHow does this sound? French rock star Bertrand Cantat, in a raging drunk, beat Marie Trintignant to death. Beating her with his bare hands he caused mortal brain damage to the young woman who was his girlfriend. That brutality, where the young woman suffered fractured facial bones through 19 strikes upon her face and head, cost Mr. Cantat four years of his life behind bars.

He had been convicted in a Lithuanian court and sentenced to 7 years in prison, but having served half his sentence, was released for good behaviour in 2007. The man is in the throes of reviving his illustrious career as one of France's most famous stars. Famous, then infamous, and striving once again for the mantle of fame.

He has been tapped by a personal friend, the Lebanese-Canadian playwright-director Wajdi Mouawad - whose origins accustomed him to violence and the need to get over it - to compose the score and sing, as part of the chorus in a rock adaptation of three Greek tragedies by Sophocles at the Theatre du Nouveau Monde, scheduled to open a year May.

Word does get out. Mr. Cantat's reputation has preceded him, angering theatre-goers and groups who work with abused women. They, if not the theatre communications director and others willing to forge ahead with their plans, can hardly believe that all can be forgiven in a spirit of theatrical "the-show-must-go-on" bravado since, after all, Mr. Cantat 'paid his dues' to society.

But as a convicted felon under Canada's Immigration Laws, anyone with the background that Mr. Cantat boasts is forbidden entry on a visa or by any other means to Canada, unless a sponsor persuades a Minister of the Crown to issue a special permit. And it is highly unlikely, if a Conservative-led government comes back to power, that any such special Minister's permit would be issued.

Despite that Mr. Cantat's friend is eager to aid with his rehabilitation: "Wajdi considers that it is also an opportunity for his friend to exorcise the horror of the act he committed .... To make amends in a show that denounces violence against women." (Theatre du Nouveau Monde director Lorraine Pintal)

Is that not too precious for words?

Action? What Crisis?

"If it's ordered we can do it, but frankly there is a lot of loose talk about this. Let's call a spade a spade - a no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy air defences." U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates

But if the United States, the United Nations Security Council, the European Union are talking tough what good does it do to have a dilatory response when so much carnage is ongoing? Yes, it's a tough call. The Arab League sits on its hands: "The Arab countries cannot remain with their arms folded when the blood of the brotherly Libyan people is being shed", but they are doing nothing.

Moammar Gadhafi has promised the international community that blood will flow, and flow it does. After attempting repeatedly to bomb ammunition dumps, and failing to come close to the target, those living relatively close to those dumps were worried there would be a success. And there was, resulting in a gigantic explosion - and more carnage.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, after lamenting the huge numbers of people desperately fleeing the crisis in Libya, now worries that there has been a sudden halt of the surge of people flowing into Tunisia looking for refuge. They have been held back by force, by government troops, from continuing their flight.

That 100,000 internally displaced refugees are in dire straits, with food, water and shelter absent. "They are outdoors in the freezing cold, under the rain, many of them have spent three or four nights outside already", appealed a UN Refugee spokeswoman, asking for "tens if not hundreds of planes" to help clear the refugees.

So, unleash a no-fly zone? Plenty of uncertainty, not the least of which is the interference of the international community in a state's sovereign affairs. But then there is the UN-advanced Responsibility to Protect international obligation at play here, as well. The U.S. in particular has no wish to become embroiled in another Afghanistan or Iraq. And the anti-Gadhafi
protesters have no wish to welcome the U.S. troops on Libyan soil.

But they would appreciate a bit of a boost that bombing Gadhafi's air arsenal would bring. Of course Col. Gadhafi would welcome UN human rights representatives to enable him to 'prove' that there have been no gratuitously grisly events like deliberately targeting civilians. And he has his fervent supporters who shout "He is like an eagle. He is our only eagle."

One nowhere near prepared to fly from his comfortable aerie.

Meanwhile, the country is in virtual lock-down. Libya imports most of its food. Transportation, food distribution, most infrastructure for delivering aid and food has been impaired. Aid groups are anticipating a huge humanitarian crisis that might affect millions of people, with fuel, medical supplies, food and water in severe shortage.

The World Health Organization warns of a "precarious" situation in the country. with the food supply chain at risk of total collapse. Government planes have attempted to blow out the main water pipelines carrying water to Libya's main cities. Col. Gadhafi envisions starving his opponents, cutting them off from electricity and water, outwitting and outwaiting them.

And Europe shudders at the prospect of having to give shelter to hundreds of thousands of fleeing Libyans. The foreign workers who worked the oil fields and the food distribution centres have fled. The country's seaports are at a lockdown and supplies are not arriving. If conditions continue to deteriorate, the country will collapse in upon itself.

But not before a protracted standoff takes even more civilian lives.

Foreign intervention?:

"Be warned that if you intervene militarily one more time, in any of the countries in North Africa or the Middle East, the regional nations will rise and dig the graves of your soldiers." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

While the Turkish government expresses its strong opposition to external intervention in the crisis in Libya, the head of Turkey's main opposition party would support it if the Libyan people agree:

"In the 21st Century no one can sit back and watch as people are murdered." Kemal KilicdarIglu, Republican People's Party

Saving Libya

"The international community must send a very clear message: the killing of innocent civilians - the citizens of its own country - constitutes a gross violation of human rights and must carry serious consequences." Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Citizens of countries other than Libya are also at grave risk. Their governments are hastily assembling means and methods of delivering them to safety, away from strife-torn Libya. But there are citizens of African countries whose governments are not so well organized, have not the wherewithal to come to the aid of their citizens, and perhaps would not even if they could.

Col. Moammar Gadhafi has engaged thousands of Africans to come to Libya to work as labourers. He has, more latterly, brought in additional thousands of Africans soldiers as mercenaries, arming and instructing them to violently assist in putting down the insurrection that has broken out across the country.

Unlike Libyan soldiers who might hesitate to murder Libyans, the African mercenaries harbour no humanitarian scruples.

They have paid dearly for the reputation they swiftly gained by the use of extraordinary violence against Libyan protesters. Any that have been separated from their units have been summarily dispatched by angry Libyan mobs. But the larger fall-out for Africans in Libya is that innocent black African workers are being wrongly identified as mercenaries and they now fear for their lives.

On a larger, country-wide scale, anti-regime forces are meeting against pro-regime forces, but it can be assured that the former represent the majority. It is assumed that several thousand Libyans have already given up their lives in battling for the cause of their country's freedom from the tyrannical rule of Moammar Gadhafi, the King of Kings, their great revolutionary hero, a much-misunderstood figure of benevolent love for his people.

He has addressed his countrymen declaring his love for them and his bellicose determination to settle with blood the criminal acts of defiance on the part of regime protesters. He has urged Libyans to: "Feel at ease in the squares and the streets. Live the life of dignity. Moammar Gadhafi is one of you. Dance, sing, rejoice!".

They would dearly love to do all of these things, but without Moammar Gadhafi. Currently they are unable to dance, sing and rejoice, nor do they have much dignity in their desperate search for security from the threats imposed on their longevity by the helicopter gunships, warplanes and other similar threats mounted against them by their great benefactor.

Moreover, because the country is in a dreadful turmoil and chaos itself reigns comfortably along with the delusional Gadhafi, transportation has been hobbled. Desperate people willing to become refugees fleeing their country are finding it difficult to find refuge elsewhere. Worse, those undertaking the dangerous and arduous migration out of country are being set upon and robbed of their meager possessions.

And the UN's World Food Program is warning that the country's food supply chain has been disrupted and is "at risk of collapsing". Aid agencies fear that many Libyans are trapped, unable to travel, and unable to find sources of available food in a country that is a net food importer. People are fast running out of what little food they have, but fear exposing themselves to harm should they exit their homes.

All eyes have turned to the American President Barack Obama and his careful announcements. Registering that caution against the recent situation in Egypt which resolved relatively peacefully with a minimum of lives lost, and when the U.S. turned against a long-time ally, urging President Hosni Mubarak to leave office and depart his country.

Toward a long-time adversary, a known supporter of international terrorism, a human-rights abusing megalomaniac, the U.S. administration has made nothing resembling a direct call for the relinquishing of power by Moammar Gadhafi, even while Libya's ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Shalgham, addressed that body, imploring of them "Please UN, save Libya.

Gadhafi's Iron Grip

It is not yet a jubilant revolution, but will become one. The question is at what cost to human life?

Libya's Col. Moammar Gadhafi, in his raving rants has stated that he has not yet ordered his armed forces to deploy for the greatest effect in putting down the popular insurrection. A blasphemous one, in his regard. His gruesome disregard for the lives of his subjects mark him as the monster he is. But then he has always been known as a 'mad dog' of a revolutionary dictator.

His history of training, arming and sending out terrorists abroad branded with the holy fire of Islam is well enough known. He was long since identified as the Globe's single most significant supplier of world-wide terror. His exploits recognized and he held in abhorrence as a megalomaniac lunatic. Yet this did not stop world leaders from ingratiating themselves with him in the name of acquiring rights to fossil fuel extraction.

His sly and crafty recognition that he could parlay the world's greed for energy into a general pardon for all the violent ills he has ever committed in the deliberate murder of thousands of human beings speaks volumes about the principles and character invested in those whom the free world elect to represent their best interests in executive, administration, lawmaking capacity.

Nor did the greed and the felonies start and stop with oil extraction, since the sale of advanced weaponry to this madman, and the helpful training of his Revolutionary Guard by foreign powers also represented a chapter in the long story of his acceptance as a world leader of a respectable country. His feral cunning stood him in good stead; others saw him as unique, complex, unpredictable.

He was all of that, and absolutely starkly without conscience, as the ultimate representative of what nature can produce in the form of a hugely damaged psychopathic personality. It is amazing that the country's best minds, those individuals whose abilities led them into the professions of law, medicine, science and business accustomed themselves to bend to the will of this soldier.

Finally, they rose en masse with courage overtaking the fear in their hearts, and demanded justice. Finally, they followed the lead of the youth of Libya who truly were fearless in their insistence on being recognized and deserving of opportunities and respect. The wealth of their country's resources used to obtain weapons, no thought to governmental and civil infrastructure.

The brutal tyrant declaring himself to be his nation's father and that all who valued their lives must view him as their deity. Just as the Almighty permits events to reveal themselves in all their raw and primal fervour, never intervening as some elements of civilization unravel civilization and resort to primitive carnage on their fellow humans, so too does Gadhafi reign.

"We want the international media to drive in with their cameras and see for themselves what they have done to Benghazi. They were burning people alive. When the army refused to fire at their brothers, the mercenaries set them on fire."

Injured Heels

Oops, seems clear that some of the WikiLeaks revelations have nipped at some very tender heels. And the damage done thereby may not be readily healed. Particularly as some of them hit the target; the heel in question is an autocrat burdened with dictatorial impulses, and who heartily detests to the point of outraged chagrin being made light of.

For this is not a light-humoured man, but rather a traditional Russian ironman, capable, as serendipitous photographs have demonstrated, of posing as Superbear.

It is an absolute disgrace, an offence against the dignity of democratic freedoms, that the United States is flexing its (rather diminished) influence in attempting to silence Julian Assange, and close down WikiLeaks.

"Maybe, nominate him as a Nobel Prize laureate", the recommendation from President Dmitry Medvedev's office. That's the office of the junior confederate of the senior executive of the Corporation. The grizzled bear himself, erroneously referred to as an "alpha-dog" by American diplomats snarled appropriately.

Some democracy that is, bringing up charges of rape against a man doing his best to accommodate a few raunchy Swedish women. Vladimir Putin knows all about that kind of thing; once you begin a mission, you finish it; ask Georgia; not the peach-cheeked one, the neighbour.

"If it is full democracy, then why have they hidden Mr. Assange in prison? that's what, democracy?" Actually, yes. The alternative is a system such as obtains in Russia, and Russian reporters have a thing or two to say about that.

Not the reporters who dutifully write in the manner and on subjects they are permitted to write about. Those who defy government dictates and honour their profession. The legitimate reporters who put their lives on the line reporting about the corruption and brutality of their government, those reporters.

The ones who are honoured by their peers, those reporters. The ones who have been threatened, who live in constant fear, but continue to write revealing stories, those reporters.

Above all, the highly acclaimed reporters who dug relentlessly for the real background, the real story behind the story, the ones who shamed their government and angered it, those reporters. Those are the reporters who will never again challenge their government by unloosing on the public messages that betray their government's agenda.

They weren't imprisoned. They were slaughtered. Those reporters.

That impassioned puck you thought hit the target, Vladimir? MOOOOO!

Stalwart of Peace and Disciple of Christ

His nobility of purpose and presence is palpable. That is, toward and as perceived by a very specific audience. That would be those within Canada who remain invested in the belief that Israel has wrought unspeakable carnage in the Middle East, and presents as a threat to the world order and above all, international peace. They are a quite specific audience, comprised of Islamists and Arabs who have gravitated to Canada to live in peace and freedom and security and from that distance maintain their stake in the unrelentingly grim and unforgiving politics of the Middle East.

Supported most enthusiastically by the liberal-left contingent of Canadian society, the trade and academic unions, university student councils and academic staff, and churches like the United Church, the Quakers, the Unitarians and the members of the public who see great moral utility in helping to sabotage Israel's reasonable desire to remain in the geography of the Middle East as a nation dedicated to the welfare of world Jewry in the full knowledge that the world will never be engaged in ensuring the welfare of Jews.

He is, on the other hand, viewed as a grinning imbecile clownishly lapping the limelight, by those who support the right of Israel to exist even as an embattled state in a geography which has always been hostile to its presence and prepared to push it into the sea, if they could. Where once Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan did their best to accomplish just that, an uneasy truce now exists. In the place of the Arab kingdoms and dictatorships, proxy militias attempt the same destiny for Zionists who dare blemish the landscape by their presence.

In the service of those who have invited him to speak at venues across the country, to impart his great wisdom on the solution to the intractability of Israel's presence among Muslim neighbours, George Galloway is only too happy to expansively broaden his slanderous censure of Israel to include Canada whose current government is a staunch supporter of its right to exist. Curious George revels in all the coverage he has garnered, proudly brandishing his right to practise freedom of expression.

Canada, among other NATO countries, is ripe for condemnation for intruding on the affairs of Muslim countries, notably Afghanistan. And Canada's current Prime Minister and his Cabinet represent the forces of dark and evil neo-conservatism. Deservedly shut out of the UN Security Council because of its unwavering support for Israel, deliberately making enemies of Arab countries intent on opening international skies to predatory pricing, and bringing Lebanon to the brink of civil war by rank interference.

Mea culpa.

The Arab and Islamic voting bloc is not to be trifled with. Putting Hezbollah in a questionable light is intolerable; they should be free to assassinate those whom they will, since they will in any event and it is no other countries' business. George's friends in odd places, like Iran, Syria and Lebanon are not amused at the nosy interference of Canada in their affairs. It makes perfectly good sense for a failed British politician in bad odour at home to spread libellous slanders about a political and social ally in Canada, but it is intolerable for Canada to have any part in judicial investigations within the United Nations.

Afghanistan's prime minister Hamid Karzai is described as corrupt and unreliable, and the ISAF-NATO attempts to bring a 19th-Century sensibility and law and order and security and social advancement to the country deplorable, leaving the indelible impression that the Taliban and their reign of terror were perfectly acceptable and they should be allowed to get on with their business of fanaticism and human misery. Al-Qaeda's presence and security within the Taliban apparatus is simply the way things are done in that part of the world - and get used to it.

George Galloway is effusive in his praise for brave Palestinians under a dread occupation, and delighted to deliver his message of Israel-as-Zionist-apartheid-occupier. The wall separating suicide bombers from innocent civilians is condemned as representing a truly inconvenient human-rights abuse; that it has saved innumerable lives is irrelevant since they're the wrong lives. The Gaza defensive by the IDF was indefensible because not enough Israelis died as a result of the rockets fired across the border and too many members of Hamas did, as a result of the Israeli response.

Back to noble George, a modern-day Don Quixote, tilting at the windmill of imperialist Zionism and Canadian perfidy, for he states, from the heart, that "I am trying to bring about an end to all of this, to bring peace to the Holy Land. And the price of peace is justice for the Palestinians as the Prince of Peace would surely have recognized." Does he shudder at the thought of Christ's Jewish heritage, or simply overlook it as yet another of life's inconvenient little factoids?

Should we care?

"Reasonable Force"

Better be careful, living in Vancouver. About opening the door to unwanted intruders. When you hear that knock on the front door, and peer out and see a uniformed police officer or two, perhaps it might be better to just not respond. Walk away. One naturally thinks of peace and security and safety, seeing uniformed police. It appears that those uniforms can camoflage thuggish-oriented temperaments.

"I was beaten by police for no reason at the door of my home. My family and I feel extremely disappointed and angry." Yao Wei Wu

This was a sadly unfortunate misunderstanding; Mr. Wu was simply the wrong man at the right place at the wrong time. Police were looking for someone whom they intended to arrest, but it was not Mr. Wu. It was the resident who lived in the basement suite of the home. It was Mr. Wu who responded to the knock at the door. Question: do police regulations permit beating a suspect prior to arrest?

Mr. Wu claims he was grabbed by one officer and beaten for ten to twenty minutes the minute he opened the door. The two police officers informed investigators that Mr. Wu refused to allow the officers into the house, that Mr. Wu shoved Constable Florkow and attempted to wrestle him to the ground.

Is that reasonable? Would a sole man resist the presence of two uniformed police officers? And for his trouble end up battered and bruised. That ten to 20 minutes Mr. Wu described as the length of time his ordeal took, might have been one-tenth that time, and would have seemed far longer. When the officers realized they had the wrong man he was taken to hospital.

Yao Wei Wu demonstrates what he says happened to him during an encounter with Vancouver police Wednesday morning. (CBC)

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2010/01/21/bc-vpd-alleged-assault-yao-wei-wu.html#ixzz14NDUPEER

Preferential to being taken to prison, admittedly. The Vancouver police asked the police in Delta to investigate the occurrence. Unsurprisingly, the Delta police Chief issued a written decision that concluded irrespective of having knocked at the incorrect door, the officers had acted "in good faith". They had reasonable grounds to believe Mr. Wu was their suspect and used "reasonable force" in arresting him.

Mr. Wu was not the man who was assaulting his wife in the downstairs apartment. The 911 call the woman placed with brought the two officers out to the home may not have specified the basement apartment. Hence the knock at the wrong door. Is it par for the course that police batter someone resisting arrest into insensibility?

If that's designated as "reasonable force", one shudders at the what "unreasonable force" might constitute.

The Versatility of Gang-Eruptions

Here's a troubling thesis being put forward by the chair of the Defence Management Studies Program at the School of Policy Studies, Queen's University. That Canada's future looks, at this juncture, fairly close to what has become of Mexico. Mass lawlessness, fuelled by powerful, violent drug gangs. Vicious gangs that have become so insolently secure in their control of areas of Mexico that they provoke and threaten the police, the legal community, the armed forces.

And kill at random, and through careful selection, both innocent civilians and governing authorities, along with police chiefs and opposing gang members. The thrust of their warfare on society itself is simple enough; complete and utter control of 'their' territory and their commerce, brooking no interference by authority. They are, in effect, the only authority, since their deadly attacks have succeeded in demoralizing what authority remains.

The irony is that the drug trade that has become so universal, so appealing, so compellingly profitable has made for some peculiar bedfellows, as it were. With the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan receiving much of its funding through the encouragement and imposition on local Afghan farmers to poppy-farming resulting in widening of the opium trade. And the Taliban now working with Mexican drug lords.

Here's the other uncomfortable side-light; this wide-based and -ranging enterprise responds to demands from within Europe, the United States and Canada largely. People who have become accustomed to recreational drug use. At all echelons of society. And those who are hopelessly addicted not to the societal fun of engaging in its use, but those whose lives have been deranged by the need to consume drugs.

Tribal, ethnic, ideological, criminal gangs are appearing everywhere throughout the world, from Colombia to Pakistan, Russia to Mexico, China to - well, Canada. CSIS revealed in 2009 that up to 750 national and transnational criminal organizations were present and active within Canada. From Italian mafia to Chinese gangs, Sikh separatist groups to - yes, aboriginal gangs dedicated to violence. So it's not just drugs, although drug peddling is often a useful funding vehicle.

Violent aboriginal gangs who hide under the moral protection of aboriginal complaints about neglect and oppression, involve themselves with smuggling of tobacco, drugs, alcohol, firearms and human beings. While they lay claim to land they insist is theirs, and guilt-flushed politicians and law enforcement refrain from confrontations, allowing violence and illegal activities to flourish, native gangs are becoming more bold and entitled.

Canada is now witnessing the steady emergency of third-generation criminal gangs; children of children of immigrant populations who have been coerced or intrigued into joining gangs involved in running drugs and weapons; young black men whose sole-parent Caribbean-originated families have been unsuccessful in discipline and role-modelling.

Our most immediate concerns appear to revolve around the threat of young Muslim men feeling dislocated and disaffected, unable to connect with society around them; easy picking as fresh recruits for violent jihad. The problems seem to lie with the fact that integration does not occur as it might when immigrant populations feel more comfortable in setting themselves apart from the mainstream, find comfort in numbers of others like themselves.

No society is perfect at representing as all things to all people. Within Canada the matter has become more complex because simply put, there are so many 'peoples', within the people. The cultural, traditional, heritage backgrounds that separate people by emphasizing differences were originally viewed as positive, that everything would meld into a beautifully exotic brew, not that ethnic groups would prefer to remain isolated.

The kinds of home-grown spiteful dissent and spurning of societal norms relating to international politics, economics, diplomatic relations that has 'social-activists' spurning their countries' and their governments' values and directions, brings us the society-averse antics of violent 'activists' like the Black Bloc, like obsessed anarchist groups, like Quebec-based radical political groups who agitate for 'change' through violent action.

Within Canada, we have gangs based on ethnic groups, political-ideological groups and, simply, criminal groups, becoming more aggressive, picking up increasing members from disaffected youth, invading towns and cities, causing problems and pervasive unease among authorities who don't seem to have any of the right answers to the questions now beginning to surface.

What do we do about this growing problem?

Canada's Afghanistan

On the one hand, we have a criminal trial seeking to prosecute a Canadian soldier - Capt.Robert Semrau - accused of shooting to death an unarmed, close-to-death-wounded Taliban insurgent. Capt. Semrau defends himself by his declaration that he did what he did as a humanitarian gesture, that he would have wished someone to do to him were he ever in such a situation.

The situation being that a joint foray of Afghan forces along with a small group of Canadian soldiers facing militant, firing insurgents in the throes of a battle, the unpredictable occurs with stunning regularity.

The commanding Afghan officer shrugged with indifference at the plight of the dying Taliban, refusing to offer any medical assistance. And Capt. Semrau, according to the testimony of one of the soldiers under his command at the time, decided not to provide first aid "because he didn't want to use his supplies on a guy who was going to die anyway".

That 'guy' was barely alive, with a severe stomach injury and a severed foot. Capt. Semrau decided to dispatch him. This does not accord with the Geneva Convention.

Which is precisely the reason why he stands accused of second-degree murder and may very well be convicted of same, along with three other charges all connected to the unfortunate incident. If it is proven that this was indeed a "battlefield mercy killing", will it make much difference to the charge and the disciplinary conviction?

Certainly, Capt. Semrau's actions did not represent Canadian mentoring practises toward his Afghan colleagues.

War is definitely a most unpleasant game, vile in its necessity and worse in its outcome, for whoever wins, if anyone does, too many deaths and dreadful injuries will ensue. And there are no guarantees that all combatants will observe the niceties of civilized behaviour.

If a Canadian soldier submits to his instinctual desire to put another human being out of his mortal pain through the final release of death, what are we to think of an Afghan soldier killing his adversary because it is his country, his traditions, his tribal culture that informs and compels him?

And then, we've got Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin, testifying again and again, now informing the Military Police Complaints Commission of Canada's failures, in his estimation, to recognize and to practise all the tenets of the Geneva Convention. Mr. Colvin contends that very few of the 100 Afghan detainees captured by Canadian soldiers, then transferred to Taliban authority had the well-being of their apprehended existence monitored.

Foreign Affairs officials, Canada's military personnel, were all guilty of lack of oversight. Canadians fighting alongside their NATO counterparts in a foreign war of fanatical Islamist attrition, bearing in mind the need to ingratiate themselves with the local populations to ensure their support against the gains of the Taliban, and suffering grievous losses, must perforce be ultra-concerned over the well-being of captured enemies held by the host country.

The man's sanctimonious rectitude is mind-bogglingly self-righteous. He mistook his calling, and should have been schooled to expound from a Sunday pulpit. Canada is not present in Afghanistan to monitor the country's detainment procedures, but it has indeed done what it could to help train Afghan prison guards in humane procedures. All the good will in the world, though, will not turn around in the space of a few years, the cultural social product of a tribal society.

Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association are out of their depth. Their human-rights obsession, matched by Richard Colvin's to shame and blame the government on this matter borders on the obscene. Self-criticism has its place. Which is precisely why Capt. Semrau is currently undergoing his own personal trial.

The Government of Canada does not condone prisoner torture. It does what it can to constrain a purported ally from indulging in what comes naturally to that tradition and that culture. All else is unhelpful commentary.

Another Triumph For Humanity

What on Earth does the United Nations accomplish, other than wringing its hands with "profound regret" over the world's trouble spots; the outcomes of natural disasters, internecine warfare and other urgent events reflecting their insipid inability to project themselves authoritatively as the world's premier partner for peace and security in the world?

Admittedly, it is difficult to persuade enough member-countries to lend enough of their military to the world body to enable it to enter conflict zones with the intention to provide a buffer between warring factions. And since its charter appears to insist that they will enter troubled zones only by invitation of the very totalitarian miscreants who cause all the misery, they're rather hamstrung.

Burma is one of those truculently dangerous hermit states that oppress their people through their churlishly-vicious military-style governance. It wants the outside world to believe it doesn't exist. It cares little how many of its people perish whether as a result of a natural disaster, or through starvation. It simply insists it must go its own way, and brooks no interference. Its great good friend China, respects that.

The Rohingya people, a Muslim minority in Burma exist on the knife-edge of brutal repression and institutionalized privation. Forbidden to own land, requiring permission to marry or to travel, they are prohibited from practising their faith, denied access to public education and to even basic health services.

They are tormented, driven out of their homes, forced to become slave labourers for the Burmese military machine. Their citizenship rights were revoked in 1982, and they are recognized by the United Nations as representing the world's most destitute and persecuted refugees. Perhaps they and the Sudanese Darfurians could take comparative notes in suffering.

They have fled in their hundreds of thousands, hoping for refuge from their living hell, over the border into impoverished Bangladesh. Where they have set up makeshift camps wherever possible, and live there in vastly overcrowded and destitute conditions.

Their squatters' camps earn them the anger of poor Bangladeshis who view the refugees as a challenge to their own miserable hopes for advancement. Roughly a half-million Rohingya have become illegal migrants in Bangladesh.

"They remain trapped in a desperate situation with no future, vulnerable to neglect, abuse and manipulation, and to the kind of intense violent crackdowns they are suffering right now", explained Medecins Sans Frontieres in a news release.

Xenophobic attacks by Bangladeshis - reminiscent of what is occurring in South Africa against desperate refugee Zimbabweans seeking refuge there - has resulted in a surge of beatings, machete wounds and rape. "Malnutrition and mortality rates were past emergency thresholds and people had little access to safe drinking water, sanitation or medical care", reported MSF.

Yet a camp along the Burmese border continues to swell with additional desperate refugees, and there is no hope in sight for these men, women and children. Yet another horrific instance of inhumanity the world looks away from.

Extreme Bravery

On this day at Rideau Hall, Governor-General Michaelle Jean was pleased to confer Canada's Star of Courage in recognition of "acts of conspicuous courage in circumstances of great peril", to an American U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmer. What this man, Drew Dazzo, and his flying partner in their Coast Guard H60 Jayhawk helicopter did - flying 150 metres above three sailors whose 44-ft sailboat had capsized in sub-tropical storm Andrea off the coast of North Carolina - was a miracle of a rescue.

The sea below the helicopter was a raging maelstrom with gale-force winds gusting close to 150 kilometres an hour, turning the Atlantic Ocean into a sailor's nightmare. The three capsized sailors had been in the water for eight hours clinging to what was left of their life-raft in May of 2007. The men had long since given up hope that they would survive their ordeal, and then suddenly, above them was a red-and-white Coast Guard helicopter.

While flight mechanic Petty Officer Scott Higgins was at the controls of the whirlybird, his partner, (second class) Petty Officer Drew Dazzo prepared himself for an Herculean effort that he wasn't certain would result in the rescue they hoped to accomplish. Within the period of an anguished half-hour Scott Higgins had lowered had raised his partner Drew Dazzo from the helicopter to the raging seas below enough times to effect the rescue.

The three men ,whose lives were in imminent peril; 62-year-old Rudy Snel of Ottawa, Jean Pierre de Lutz, a 58-year-old Frenchman, and Britisher Ben Tye, 31 years of age, had finally been lifted aboard the helicopter, soaked and violently shivering. Lowered into raging seas at the end of 30 to 40 metres of cable and tossed about by violent winds there was no guarantee that the rescuer would not himself lose his life.

But he managed to get one man after another into the metal basket, and to haul them to safety into the helicopter. Between each rescue, the raft the men were on drifted further and further away. "It was extremely dangerous. It scared me that we'd made a bad mistake. I thought, what was I going to tell his wife?" said Petty Officer Higgins, fearing his partner would be knocked unconscious by one of the huge waves.

"There wasn't any fear in my mind, I was all pumped up on adrenaline. But I said to myself, 'Man, are we going to be able to do this?' At one point I couldn't see the helicopter on the horizon. That's how big the waves were. I just didn't know if we were going to get the other two guys and myself out", reminisced Petty Officer Dazzo. But they did, and then it was time to hoist him out of danger and into the hovering aircraft.

Just as Petty Officer Dazzo began to slip the collar of the lowered cable under his legs a huge wave hit, twisting him into a violent spasm. "I honestly thought he'd broke his back", the pilot said, explaining that when they later inspected the cable they found that 15 of its strands had snapped. When the diver was finally hauled to safety, in pain from his wrenched back, exhausted from his superhuman efforts and vomiting seawater, the ordeal was almost over.

The three rescued sailors were taken immediately to hospital, and so was the rescue swimmer. "That was a once-in-a-career rescue. One's enough for me", said Dazzo. His heroism urgently required official recognition in gratitude for courage beyond the call of duty.

People Die Out Here

I stepped out into a blinding light, into the whitest world under an impossibly blue sky. The naked sun seared me right through my polarized goggles. The next thing that hit was a cold so deep and complete it was surreal. My first breaths torched my throat and chilled my lungs. It was cold from another dimension, from an ice planet in a distant galaxy. And this was summer in the Southern Hemisphere. *

She's an achiever, little doubt about that. Meagan McGrath on a year's leave from the Canadian Forces where she is a major, is now in Chile, awaiting a flight home to Canada. She has, on her own, managed to ski to her destination, the South Pole. When she had started out on her trip from Hercules Inlet on the coast of Antarctica in early December she had fallen into a crevasse, and was unable to extricate herself without assistance. After her rescue by a team from Patriot Hills, she took time off for introspection, to determine whether she felt herself prepared to continue.

Finally, the conclusion she reached was that she would go on. She completed her Antarctic Odyssey of 28 kilometres on January 15th 2010, having set off on her original trek on December 1st of 2009. It was, in fact, on her second day out that she had fallen into the crevasse. Her confidence in her ability to resume her odyssey led her to set out again. "I shut out the world for a few days and tried to make my own decision about whether I wanted to carry on. And I carried on, and it seemed to be the right decision."

She finally caught sight of the South Pole base roughly six kilometres distance over the horizon on her penultimate day of solo skiing. Having arrived, she was congratulated and treated to a hot cup of tea and cookies. The day she arrived at her destination the temperature stood at -36-degrees, with a whipping wind. This determined women demonstrated to herself and the watching world that she was able to surmount loneliness, fatigue, extreme cold and the literal unknown on her way to achieving yet another life-time goal.

Ms. McGrath pulled two sleds, each weighing roughly 200 pounds, while carrying about 40 pounds of fuel and supplies on her back. She skied about ten to twelve hours each day. Some of the challenges she faced included white-outs and diminished battery charge due to the lack of sunlight. She was in limited contact throughout with the South Pole Expedition Agency, Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions, reporting her status. A slight cold slightly hampered her progress as she made the final push for the Geographic South Pole, crossing the 89th Degree.

After a few stabbing gulps of thin air I was quickly reminded that I had gained almost two miles in altitude during the three-hour flight from McMurdo. While the plateau was flat as a griddle, it was also as high as the Austrian Alps. The South Pole Station rests on a nine-thousand-foot thick slab of ice soaring ninety-three hundred feet above sea level. I immediately felt light-headed, lead-footed, and slightly nauseated, but I still had to drag my bags and the cooler of vaccines to the Dome. I forced my body to move, even though it felt like I could not.*

"I have shown I'm able, quite capable and knowledgeable about how to function in a polar environment. So I was really happy with that side of things", she said. She also mentioned that the hardships she had faced and overcome had reminded her of the struggles of Scott, Amundsen, Shackleton and other early Antarctica explorers. "When I think of these guys, I think, 'What drove them to want to do this so badly?' Because back then, of course, it was so much more difficult. They challenges they must have faced. Holy crap, you know? People die out here."

And they did. They hadn't the space-age technology available to them back then that modern-day adventurers do now. The high-tech gear, the warm clothing, the speciality foods. They attempted to estimate where they were, they had no GPS devices, no satellite telephones, no way where they could conceivably communicate their status, and their dire situations, requiring emergency assistance. None of which takes away from this woman's feat of courage and strength and creative ability.

The effects of chronic hypoxia, a syndrome caused by oxygen starvation, and hypothermia at the Pole have never been adequately studied. Since enzymes and coenzymes work properly only at certain temperatures, it would be interesting to find out what happens to the chemical reactions in our bodies when our core temperature never rises above ninety-seven degrees, as seems to be the case here.

The history books call the times of Scott and Amundsen and Shackleton the Age of Heroes - an age that ended with Shackleton's fatal heart attack in 1922. But there were still heroes on the Ice: They were here, battling fire and deadly cold to keep us all safe, or for that matter, flying into the deep Antarctic night to drop a precious cargo into a small crescent of burning barrels. * (Ice Bound - a doctor's incredible battle for survival at the South Pole. Dr. Jerry Nielsen.

Secular Saints

In 2001, the Government of Canada declared January 17 as Raoul Wallenberg Day to "honour the courage, character and humanity of an exceptional individual". This coming Sunday will, in fact, be the 65th anniversary of Raoul Wallenberg's arrest by the Red Army, in Budapest, Hungary. After his arrest, nothing more was heard of his whereabouts for decades. It was suspected that he had been held in a Russian prison camp, but Soviet Russia always denied it.

First-hand accounts of former Russian prisoners having spoken directly to this great humanitarian put the lie to that. When and how Mr. Wallenberg died has never been ascertained and it is doubtful whether Russia will ever disclose it, but it is certain that he spent hopeless decades as a political prisoner of the USSR, which doubtless classified him as some kind of "American spy" during the Cold War that succeeded the end of the Second World War.

In March of 1944 Adolf Hitler dispatched Adolph Eichmann to Hungary to organize mass deportations of Hungarian Jews to the death camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau to honour the Third Reich's declaration to the world that it would favour humankind by destroying worldwide Jewry through the Final Solution. An agreement between Sweden and the U.S. led to plans for a rescue mission.

Raoul Wallenberg, multilingual, wealthy, an intellectual banker familiar with Nazi bureaucracy was given free reign under cover of a diplomatic position as first secretary of the Swedish legation, to do what he could to save as many Hungarian Jews as he could manage. He spoke of his mission as a personal obligation to "save a nation".

Knowing full well his personal safety was at risk he used guile and bold ingenuity to perfect a quasi-legal diplomatic document called a "Schutzpass". This document testified that whoever bore it was protected by the Swedish Embassy, and thousands upon thousands of these Schutzpasses were distributed. Raoul Wallenberg is credited with saving up to 100,000 Jewish lives.

Many of those whom he saved came to Canada to live their lives. A park in Nepean, Ottawa, was named Raoul Wallenberg Park to commemorate and give honour to his supreme humanity. Twenty-five years ago, an honourary Canadian citizenship was issued in his name. This courageously brilliant tactician helped the world recover some semblance of its self-respect.

As did also other righteous citizens of the world, such as Pastor Niemoller, the pacifist, anti-nuclear protester who was imprisoned for years by Hitler for defying him; best known for his statement identifying German failure to resist the Nazis:

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”

As did Miep Gies, who risked her life for years to shelter Anne Frank's family and four other Jews before they were rounded up by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz and where Anne died in Bergen-Belson just before liberation. Contrast these and many other splendidly courageous people, "righteous gentiles" who risked their lives in compassion for other human beings, against dread odds.

And then consider the moral amnesia of the single individual with the most powerfully persuasive moral position in the world who chose not to speak out and who has been beatified as characterizing "supreme virtue" in preparation for sainthood following canonization.

Prince of a Fellow

It would appear that in the opinion of the Italian prime minister, the only things that count for anything in life are wealth, entitlements, political power, and sexual gratification. Somewhere in there is the obvious; the gratuitous male appreciation of female pulchritude. Female beauty trumps intelligence, accomplishment, dedication to the public weal. Female enticement of male braggadocio in the bedroom is, according to this aged Lothario, another entitlement of wealth and power - and male prowess.

All accorded in heaping adulation to him, personally.

It troubles this great man that Italian courts are so incredibly unreasonable as to assert in their rulings that he is no different than any other man on the street. As regards not sex but rather criminal wrong-doing. That if Silvio Berlusconi - media titan, prime minister of Italy, playboy wannabe - indulges in criminal activity, he cannot invoke the privilege of immunity, because of who he is. He, like any other petty little crook with an absurdly huge attitude of entitlement, will have his day in court.

The law in Italy isn't, evidently, impressed by that age-old phrase: "Do you know who I am?"

The thing of it is, they do know. As does everyone else in Italy, whether repulsed or titillated by this man's excesses. Which can only lead the onlooker located elsewhere to wonder how he could possibly have been elected for the second time to lead the country? But then, it is the rare country whose citizens view their politicians with total respect for their whole-hearted commitment to the public weal. Those rare creatures for whom social propriety and zeal to commit to working on behalf of their countrymen, exhibiting the passion of political probity appear all too rare.

But even so, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is in a class all on his own. This is a class that has a single, risible dunce inhabiting it. One who cannot view a woman with respect, but who must, without any provocation other than his connoisseur's eye for physical beauty, comment insultingly on any woman's physical attributes. Or lack of, in his opinion. And it's really about that, that the women of Italy have finally mounted a protest against this man's pleasure in running roughshod over the sensibilities of fifty percent of his country's voters.

The mystery of it all is that Berlusconi, despite all his peccadilloes, his shameless bedroom antics, and political nonsense, his crooked dealings, still enjoys a 50% approval rating from the electorate. Perhaps it's time that Italy's women had a talk with their men. Italians appear to be accustomed to clownish politicians pursuing their tawdry goals.

Cultural Mores

What is it exactly about Italy and France that so sets them apart, or seems to, from other, perhaps more gender-reasonable countries? Ah, it is amour! It is the boastful pride of both countries that they have cornered the globe on a heritage of love. Love. As in the pursuit, and none too genteel at that, of sex. Silvio Berlusconi has no shame in displaying himself as an senescent, buffoonish gigolo, and his sweet regard of self as a charming lover titillates Italians, but does not seem to annoy them overmuch.

A child molester like Roman Polanski has comfortable refuge in France as an artistic genius. In a country that knows a thing or two, they feel, about matters of both art and the art of the bedroom. Polanski is, after all, an artist! An extraordinary man of artistic genius! Much can be forgiven. And, obviously, is. Even state ministers came to his offended defence after his arrest in Switzerland. Alas, Roman Polanski, his lawyer tells one and all, is "tired and depressed". So sad. Life can be so unreasonable at times.

As opposed to Roman Polanski's "unsettled state of mind", there is always the state of mind of other notables. Take, for example, the nephew of former President Francois Mitterrand, now French Culture Minister. Frederic Mitterrand is threatening legal action against those who impugn his reputation. How utterly uncivil of people to assume from an uncannily-autobiographical novel - wherein the hero describes in loving detail of paying for young male prostitutes in Thailand - that Minister Mitterrand speaks from experience.

Coming to his rescue are his colleagues, not only from his own party but those from opposition political parties. Off bounds, the private lives of public personages. Even though the peccadilloes of those private lives raise doubts about the intelligence of life-choices, moral corruptibility, and legality of actions bordering on the socially criminal, as sexual predators, pederasts.

What do the great unwashed know of the value of different types of lifestyles, in any event?

Dilemmas and Circumstances

Well, that was an unexpected turn of events, was it not? After having successfully evaded the social covenant of justice imposed for a cruelly mindless act of lust, Roman Polanski has been detained by the Swiss justice system. At the polite request of the Los Angeles Justice Department. And while his friends and colleagues twist their hands in anguish over the unfairness of it all, the utter duplicity of Swiss authorities, they have ample support from official France and Poland.

The man is now 76 years of age, just drop the sloppy mess and do everyone a favour. He is, after all, a brilliant film director, has gifted the world with thoughtfully analytical cinematic treatises on the nature of humankind. And he has, undeniably, suffered greatly throughout his life, from the time he was a child and escaped the tentacles of Nazi determination to annihilate every Jew that came into their deadly clutches, to the horrible dispatch of his pregnant Hollywood wife.

He experienced tragedy that might unhinge any sane person's mental capacity. Of course this was not exactly the case, with Roman Polanski. He was possessed of a steely character, he was a true survivor, not unlike so many other Jews of his generation, who forced themselves to cope, to have hope and to survive. But then he truly disgraced himself; it is not as though there is any doubt on that score. He undertook to avail himself of forbidden fruit. Any deviant can explain to themselves why they might embark on such a journey.

Curiosity, of the idlest sort, perhaps. What it might feel like to exploit and violate a child. Having experienced so many other types of human injustices personally, perhaps he might have felt in a dark recess of his mind that he was entitled to experience what it would feel like to be a predator and expose a child to a grown man's lust. That child was given alcohol and drugs to prepare her for that experience. Children are fairly trusting, and it wouldn't be all that difficult to dazzle a young girl through the excitement of the attention of an urbane man of the world.

His defence? Claiming that the girl was sexually experienced. At the age of 45 he did not alert himself to the simple fact that he was undertaking a personal mission of molesting a child many times his junior; at half the age he was then, it would have been disgustingly inappropriate. What might he have been thinking? Well, not an awful lot, obviously, other than what an interesting experience plucking this low-growing temptation might be.

It is generous of his former victim to express her wish that he no longer be pursued.

But nothing alters the fact of his having raped her and sodomized her when she was a child. And no one but this child knows how agonized she was, how her life, during her maturing years, was affected, the unhappy memories she yet has. It is highly likely he will never see the inside of a California prison system. There will be sufficient outcry to ensure that the notoriety so recently re-awakened, casting a dark cloud over this otherwise-gifted man will be the final outcome.

There are some crimes against humanity, however, that simply are not forgivable.

Found In Favour

Imagine, a brutal felon - charged , convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for a deliberate murder spree where four young Canadians and a Minnesota police officer lost their lives - is deemed to have the right to sue on the basis of having had his human rights overlooked. What amazing values we have, as a liberal society, infused with a concern over the well-being of mass murderers, intent on seeing that someone like Gregory McMaster does not suffer.

Thirty-one years ago he took the lives of four human beings, all of them far finer representatives of our species than he, but through our system of institutionalized universal human rights recognition - extended even to the most atrociously-behaved among us, convicted of serial murder - he is guaranteed such basic rights.

The families of those he murdered will live forever with the pain and torment of knowing their loved ones' opportunities to experience life on any level, was viciously removed.

In our great collective wisdom - our need to know that we behave with a tender concern for the well-being of all, the non-deserving as well as those who do deserve the caution of careful thought and compassion - we have entitled this man, representative of the lowest spectrum of depraved human descent, to insist on his 'rights'.

And thus it is that an appeal court has ruled Canadian taxes must fund $6,000 to this prison inmate in acknowledgement of his "pain and suffering", occasioned by a strain to a knee while exercising, wearing year-and-a-half-old running shoes. Not just any replacements would do for this man; he required extra-wide Size 13 New Balance running shoes.

The "appalling delay" in providing this footwear to this killing machine was cited by Federal Court Judge Leonard Mandamin as reason to reject the federal government's appeal of a ruling by Prothonotary Kevin Aalto when he blasted prison authorities for their unappealing laxity in failing to provide precisely that foot gear for the prisoner's exercise routine.

The lawyer for this murderer congratulates himself for the ruling. John L. Hill's argument is that in his successful prosecution of his client's case, the way has been opened for the general public to go to court in instances when they consider themselves to have been ill-done-by on the part of a federal or provincial civil servant. He flatters himself with frail defence.

He may feel good about arguing for a murderer, but the ordinary person-on-the-street may feel justified in their aversion of lawyers' moral standards, in yet another representation of questionable defence, outrageous outcome.

In the original suit against the federal government the demand was for $50,000 in damages resulting from "misfeasance in public office"; failing to provide adequate footwear in this instance. In the event, the award amounted to $9,000 with $3,000 deducted in acknowledgement of the prisoner's continuing his work-outs despite wearing the old worn-out running shoes.

A slap on the side of the head at the authorities at Fenbrook Institutions who were held to have abused their powers in deliberately withholding the requested footwear. A reminder to public authority figures in our prison system that prisoners' rights must be taken seriously; a reasonable proposition and requirement in most instances, a downright grating one in some instances.

And an obnoxious fist in the pocket of the law-abiding, taxpaying public.

Two Foul Odours

A tawdry affair has recently come to light where a law firm located in Vancouver, Dohm, Jaffer and Jeraj, is being investigated for malfeasance/malpractise by the Law Society of British Columbia. This law firm was engaged by the Catholic order, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate in New Westminster, B.C., to look after their interests in settlement claims related to Indian Residential Schools abuse claims.

Former residential school students had charged the Oblates operating schools across the province with abuses against the human rights of their former students. Over a period of time, after the final closing of the last school in 1984, most of the hundreds of claims were settled. Throughout the process of litigation, the law firm had billed the Oblates quite sensationally high rates for legal tasks performed.

Support staff who worked on the various cases were billed at between $75 to $100 an hour; even a receptionist at the law firm had time billed at $65 an hour. The senior partner in the law firm charged at the rate of $450 an hour, while the junior partner billed at $200 an hour. On occasion billings represented 24-hour workdays. The Oblates, who take a vow of poverty, found themselves truly struggling in poverty to pay these excessive billings.

They sought the services of another law firm to determine whether the billings were legitimate, whereupon the initial law firm simply demanded that the Oblates continue to pay: "Now that the lawyers have been here ... you will do the right thing and pay our bills in full immediately", the senior lawyer wrote to the Oblates. Finally, the Oblates, finding themselves in a deficit position, filed a lawsuit.

The documents filed in B.C. Supreme Court charged that the law firm had billed the B.C. Oblates in excess of $6.7 million, representing $5.1 million in legal fees from January 2000 to December 2004, for work related to settling the claims of 200 individuals, former residential school students who suffered sexual or physical abuse while under the Oblates' care. Discharging the moral and legal obligations of the Oblates at an obviously exorbitant rate.

While the law firm and the Oblates have since reached a settlement, the Law Society of B.C. is continuing its investigation, concerned that the senior partner of the law firm, none other than Senator Mobina Jaffer (The Senate of Canada) and her son, Mr. Jaffer-Jeraj, "engaged in excessive and inaccurate billing of the client and failed to fully inform a client about their retainer".

The second half of this story of miserable human conduct is that the former Oblates administrator, Father James Jordan, who launched the investigation into Senator Jaffer's law firm's inordinately questionable billing practises, having left his administration position some two years later, was arrested in 2009 and charged with one count of possessing child pornography.

Egotistical Entitlement

It's undeniable that society requires the work of reporters who often place themselves in personal danger in the interests of uncovering information that clarifies situations, to educate and inform the news-reading public. It's the courage of many reporters who feel themselves required to go to extraordinary lengths to uncover details, often embarrassing to some political entity, some government bureaucrat, some social groups, some religious adherents, who hypocritically insist on their right to behave counter to social interests.

Often enough, in areas of conflict or general destabilization in countries whose governments are unable to provide safety for its own citizens, let alone for newshounds choosing to overstep the bounds of personal safety simply to break a high-profile news story with information that no other news media has been able to secure, reporters find themselves in danger. Some dauntless reporters, citizens of repressive regimes are threatened and finally murdered by henchmen of those whom they report upon.

And some reporters just seem to be inexplicably unable to grasp just how dangerous their personally-assigned mission can be, insisting, despite advice to the contrary, on embarking on a news-gathering expedition where more caution should be exercised than they are willing to submit to. Often enough, they not only place their own lives in direct danger, but the lives of locally-hired interpreters or drivers.

In the case of New York Times journalist Stephen Farrell - his derring-do won out, despite numerous security warnings that might have caused a better-balanced individual to think twice about embarking on a trip into an area charged with friction, and well represented by Taliban forces - those warnings were for naught. Journalists oblivious to the dangers they are forcing others into, disinterested in their personal well-being represent a special breed.

In Afghanistan, a medical doctor working in a large urban area can earn the equivalent of $100 a month to feed and house his family. Clearly an inadequate sum for an educated professional, let alone any working householder. That same medical doctor, changing his profession to one of interpreter or driver, can earn up to ten times that much and more, and many do engage in that switch, thinking they'll do it for a short while.

And each time they return from a dangerous mission they would prefer not to engage with, but do, because the news agency that hires them insists on it, they congratulate themselves for returning alive once again. Sultan Munadi, 34 years old, and a father of two children, acting as interpreter for Mr. Farrell, was not that fortunate. Nor was one of the British soldiers whom Britain charged with rescuing Mr. Farrell, after his abduction four days earlier.

Where he had set out with Mr. Munadi to reach the site of the German-ordered, U.S.-airstrike that blew up two Taliban-hijacked fuel tankers, that resulted in the deaths of 74 people, most of them civilians, and many of them children. Who were on site, hoping to drain some free fuel for themselves. That same rescue mission by British commandos also killed by inadvertence, a woman and a child.

As for Mr. Farrell, he escaped unscathed, to call the foreign editor at the Times with the great news: "I'm Out! I'm free!" Congratulations.