Societal (or Multicultural) Death Knell

"We have been too concerned about the identity of the person who was arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him." French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy

That great civil exercise in expressing understanding, compassion, solidarity and equality among cultures, ethnicities, religions and heritage has come to a thudding halt. Not that all those generous extensions of civility are to be halted, no longer to be honoured. But not at the expense of the expectation that when people of diverse backgrounds migrate to a country other than that of their origins, they must value the prevailing culture, social mores and values, and their laws, and take steps to integrate into the welcoming social system.

That is not too onerous an expectation. When people seek shelter, refuge, a place for themselves in countries not their original ones because of social or political unrest, or unjust conditions, or endemic poverty, they must be prepared to pay some dutiful homage to the welcoming country. The most effective way to do that is to recognize the national values and the social contract that others within the country honour and practise.

The bright idea of multiculturalism, having due regard for other cultures' diverse practises as a way to help people adjust to a new social environment might have sounded like a good idea, and made the welcoming parties feel generous to a fault, but there was an unforeseen fault that resulted in the incoming immigrants and refugees deducing from that generosity that it was no longer incumbent upon them to make any kind of obligatory overtures, to 'fit in'.

Multiculturalism resulted in people feeling confident about retaining all their old cultural practises, of living in the social comfort of a familiar language, social customs and religious practises that were often divisive, and which certainly led them to keep themselves physically apart from those whose society they joined. Ignorance of the welcoming society's values and priorities resulted, as well as an ongoing and growing sense of undeserved entitlement to ever-increasing demands for special treatment.

Which led inevitably to feelings on both sides of the cultural/values divide that were antagonistic in nature; that far too great an accommodation was being made for immigrant communities, effectively diluting the importance of the prevailing society - and the reverse, that the prevailing society's expectations of the immigrant community were unfair, insensitive and intrusive.

The rise of disaffected first- and second-generation youth from immigrant families who felt outside both experiences, belonging securely to none, led invariably to those youth feeling aggressively aggrieved against the prevalent, majority society, particularly in the case of the Muslim demographic. For whom the vision of their adopted homeland's response to an emerging, violence-based Islamic jihad was interpreted as "Islamophobia", and toward which the disaffected homeland youth responded as new recruits for violent jihad.

"The French national community cannot accept a change in its lifestyle, equality between men and women ... freedom for little girls to go to school", said Nicolas Sarkozy, choosing to focus on that aspect of Islamic cultural differences at odds with France's, rather than addressing the more incendiary problems of youth violence in France's infamous Muslim ghettos rife with restless, unemployed and resentful youth ripe for jihad.

"If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome to France". As to the question of whether multiculturalism has succeeded or failed: "My answer is clearly yes, it is a failure", he said during a television interview. Fairly well echoing the statements of British Prime Minister David Cameron, German chancellor Angela Merkel, Australia's ex-prime minister John Howard and Spanish ex-premier Jose Maria Aznar.

Multiculturalism has encouraged immigrants to retain far too much of their singular and often-oppositional cultural mores that set them apart from those of the prevailing culture. Integration became an unachievable dream, far from reality. Prime Minister Cameron's vision of a "more active, muscular liberalism", where equal rights, rule of law, freedom of speech and democracy are actively promoted has overtaken the misguided multiculturalism ideology.

Although other countries in Europe have not yet pronounced themselves completely fed up with the strains that 'accommodation' has placed on their patience, on the remarkable changes that have taken place in their nations' consciousness, and their countries' physical and social landscapes, many have taken steps to indicate their displeasure with prevailing Islamic stealthy infiltration, undermining their valued historical European roots.

The United States, in attempting to come to terms with, and to acquire a deeper understanding of the emerging violence among home-grown Islamists exercising their options to join al-Qaeda derivatives and enacting atrocities there, has turned to Canada and to Australia. To try to emulate those two countries in their attempts through their national security agencies to defuse palpable dissatisfaction and arrest the potential for fanatic-jihad violence. By liaising at the community level with organized Islamic elites.

Which would be akin to the halt aiding the blind. America's melting pot society, that absorbs immigrants with the expectation that they will readily adopt and adapt to prevailing social values has hardly been less disappointing than that of multiculturalism. Call it a melting pot, call it a cultural mosaic; when an adverse ideology or religion has the strength and determination to be interpreted as adversarial to prevailing values, its result is akin to multiculturalism, by default.

If the organized face of Western-based immigrant communities dedicated to their Eastern-based religions, ideologies, politics and cultural mores continue to preach and teach and support differences rather than exhort the acceptance of the adopting countries' nurturing social values, what point is there of liaising with them? It is from the crucible of the fundamentalist, organized mosques and clerics that impressionable young Muslims are encouraged to surrender to militant, political Islam.

This is one of the many results of multiculturalism, along with emigrant-acceptance policies incapable of distinguishing which immigration-seeking applicants based on background and assessable criteria present as reasonable candidates for immersion in and acceptance of Western society.

Suitable for Canadian Immigration

In Winnipeg, a dozen Muslim families, recently arrived in Canada have informed a Winnipeg school division they deemed it in their children's best interests to be excused from mandatory elementary school music and coeducational physical education programs. So much for adjusting to and adapting one's family to a welcoming new society.

One of the main criteria for acceptance into Canada is the immigration officer's perception of adaptability. Adaptability, meaning the willingness of new immigrants to recognize other social mores than those they have left behind. Values, cultural and traditional that might present as antipathetic to those of the host country.

In an officially multicultural country that prides itself on going out of its way to make newcomers feel accepted and appreciated, we run the very real risk of persuading immigrants by default that they need not take seriously urgent formal/official recommendations to integrate with the prevailing societal normatives.

If children in particular are treated differently than children native to the country by excusing them from otherwise compulsory subjects and activities, they are effectively being taught they are different, they are outsiders, they do not belong. If this doesn't create confusion and indifference to the greater society, as well as resentment, what would?

If parents cannot understand that they are obligated to adjust to the host country, how will their children?

The Muslim parents did not wish to have their children attending elementary school exposed to singing, or the playing of musical instruments. In response, the division has recommended the children could satisfy the music requirements of the mandatory arts curriculum otherwise, by completing some other type of project.

This request for exclusion is not universally accepted by all the local Muslims; one leader claims to be unhappy about the situation, having heard of others making similar requests. In Islam, said the executive director of the local Islamic Social Services, there is no problem with elementary-school children taking part in co-ed physical education.

"Not with little kids under the age of puberty."

"Music is controversial in our community; this is a North American phenomenon. There is a minority view that music is forbidden. That view is not accepted by the majority." Within Islam traditionally there has been an appreciation for literature, the plastic arts, architecture, poetry and music; a more rigid interpretation of Islamic values seems to deny such aesthetic pleasures.

Should the parents not be satisfied with the response by the school division, they will without doubt, take advice from other members within the Islamic community, with their own similar rejectionist experiences for guidance. Who will then direct them to take their grievance to the Manitoba Human Rights Commission.

Canada's immigration consultants, and federal Citizenship and Immigration officers know full well that it is not in Canada's best interests to continue accepting immigrants from countries where rigid social strictures are imposed, where fundamentalist religious dictates are accepted as guides to everyday life situations.

People immersed in these traditional types of societies do not present as good candidates for immersion in Canadian life.

If they are in the refugee category it becomes problematical to deny them entry on the basis of a recognized incompatibility with Canadian values. Which does not excuse immigration and visa officers from not making full use of their discerning capabilities to make the right decision, rejecting those who clearly appear as poor candidates to become future citizens.

There is an additional problem here; when immigration officers do make those decisions and deny applicants who are clearly unsuitable for Canadian life, there is interference by politicians and even Ministers who will have been lobbied on behalf of the rejected applicants, and who have a vested interest in placating future voters.

Live With Parents: Do Not Consume Alcohol

Young men from good families, behaving like louts. Drunken louts to be specific. Behaving that way because that is precisely the condition they were in.

In their mid-20s, might it be too much to expect that they would be imbued with some common sense? That the kind of thoughtless bravado and juvenile pretensions to being tough guys might have given way to a little bit of intelligence? Of course, a state of inebriation does not result in intelligent conclusions.

So a group of friends, all of whom had indulged beyond the point of intelligent decision-making exited a bar and felt like having a rip-roaring fun time of it. Into a rented truck they piled, with the driver demonstrating his driving skills, ripping around the parking area in circles, tearing up the asphalt, grinding the wheels, smelling the burnt rubber and roaring with good humour at their clever antics.

That's clever, taking the wheel of a vehicle, stinking drunk.

How many times have people thought to themselves they wouldn't mind if people who hadn't the sense not to drink and drive injured only themselves, not other innocent people who share the road trusting to the good sense of others to drive sensibly and in full control of their vehicles. It's their potential threat to others that make them so reviled.

If they want to kill themselves, another story.

Of course their parents don't think it's another story. It's their offspring who endanger themselves and who, in the event of an accident fuelled by drink and sluggish responses will leave them a life of anguished longing for their dead children. It seems no one is immune from stupidity.

The son of a former provincial premier and his coterie of friends out for a night on the town.

Christmas, a time of celebration and jollity. And they were celebrating and they were certainly jolly. Until John Tobin and his friends went a little haywire. And the result is one dead, many in shock, and one at least charged with a number of offences.

How about impaired driving causing death, dangerous driving causing death and driving over the legal limit?

How about the fact that his brilliant idea and his brilliant driving skills led to the death of his best friend? How about the parents of the young man Alex Zolpis, left with memories instead of a living son? This young man who is now out on $100,000 bail, ordered to live with his parents until he is brought to trial, has had previous driving incidents, too many in total.

The thing of it is, why must it be that the lesson is brought home at such a dreadful expense?

Haitian Traditions

More violence in Haiti. Ongoing violence in Haiti. No clear prospect of the nightly, daily violence receding into dim memory. People go about their normal activities during the day and bulwark themselves as best they can, against the marauding gangs of protesters that come out like cockroaches, during the night. It is politely called "unrest".

Civil disobedience usually takes the form of quiet and peaceful protests, to bring home a message to a ruling elite. In free and democratic societies civil disobedience, while breaching established laws, is not seen to be anything other than a mild form of illegal protest. While it is not condoned, neither is it prosecuted to the full extent of the law, representing a minor misdemeanor.

One, however, generally heeded for the message it sends, by those toward whom it is directed. Not so much as the protesters would like it to be acknowledged, but sufficiently so in reflection of the fact that civil disobedience most often is a reflection of group thought of a minority of people, not reflective of the majority in the social contract.

In Haiti the opposite is true and the reason is more than obvious. It is an insidiously failed state. The country represents a state that has failed repeatedly, miserably, even impressively in the complete paralyzation of government to heed the will of the people, to establish itself as a free and just society, to implement useful and meaningful civil infrastructure and wield just laws.

Haiti is a nation that continually implodes into itself, succumbing to an inner anarchy, served by a political-social elite that benefit themselves through the purloined avails of international donations meant to assist the government in instituting real advances in governance, resulting in real change for the improvement of Haitian lives.

The viral and violent disagreement following the recent elections - following the basic hygiene-health failure resulting in a runaway cholera epidemic following the natural catastrophe of a dreadful earthquake that levelled much of the country and its already-weak infrastructure and killing tens of thousands of Haitians, leaving over a million people internal refugees - all relates to Haiti's failures.

The disputed election results overseen by the U.S., U.N., Canad and the E.U., all of which had expressed reservations about 'irregularities' resulting from government-sponsored ballot stuffing and more, saw the populist candidate, a Haitian entertainer of high repute shut out of the final run-off, and two other candidates, both establishment politicians, succeed in the final ballot count.

Presidential candidate Michel Martelly, a charismatic singing star who has no political experience whatever, has voiced values that Haitians are eager to see put into place: "the right to education, to health, to be able to drink clean water from a tap". Martelly has his own sense of responsibility, seemingly lacking elsewhere, that Haiti "put its own house in order".

Whether he is the one to enable that is unknowable, although his supporters are passionate that he be given the opportunity. But then there is certainly that about Haitians; they are passionate, they are spiritual, they are hopeful even while they are despondently desperate, and they enthuse readily.

But they are also impressionably volatile and manipulable, and given to violent reaction. And all of this along with the miserable past gives no reason for hope for progress in Haiti. The human spirit is inextinguishable, but it is also ill-equipped to transcend its own failings.

Gay Pride, "Sex Parade"?

Well, isn't it? Is that not precisely what the Gay Pride Parade indulges in? Very obvious sexual cavorting; more than innuendo, more than innocent posturing, but in-your-face, blatant sex. Amusing to many no doubt, but equally without doubt, rather offensive to many more. An extravaganza of excess, with rude gesturing and ruder implications.

Those who find it objectionable have the option of absenting themselves from the gayness of it all.

Those who delight in a colourful show of delinquent morals and the public vision of what should be kept decently private, seeing in it a celebration of alter-lifestyles have the option of attending and revelling in the freedom of it all. So be it. As long as the public in general accepts that this display of vulgarity is also an expression of freedom to confront life as a socially indulged alt-gendered adolescent with behavioural issues, that's that.

Well, that isn't quite that for some; for strait-laced and judgemental evangelicals for whom the entire event represents an assault on their sensibilities, their values and social-religious imperatives. They too have the right, however, to speak their minds. To a degree. That degree was over-extended, evidently, by Christian broadcaster Crossroads Television System. And they have been summarily disciplined, found in violation of broadcasting codes.

Evangelical minister and broadcaster Charles McVety, it would appear, implied a "malevolent, insidious and conspiratorial purpose" within the gay community. That implication is of course questionable, and also veers toward hate-mongering. Little surprising, since it's clear that Mr. McVety does hate everything revolving around the Gay Revolution and the very public exhibitionism that it has engendered.

But that's his opinion and he has a right to it, in a free and democratic society. It is offensive, actually, when displays that go against the grain of perceived normalcy are flaunted. After all, normative sexual behaviour is kept nicely behind closed doors, why should gay activities be seen as public displays so many conceive as distasteful? But Rev. McVety is said to have violated the clause that calls for "full, fair and proper representation" in broadcasting.

In his view, obviously, his incendiary remarks do indeed reveal "full, fair and proper representation", as he sees them. The broadcasting council, however, felt that in describing Gay Pride as a "sex parade", Rev. McVety was indulging in a "disparaging tone". Gulp. No! He wouldn't? And, on top of that, it was evident he felt skeptical about the parade's popularity. He also wasn't quite thrilled with the City of Toronto's tourism slogan.

"As gay as it gets" is kind of cute isn't it? But when, added to that there is this: "On any given day, hot boys and hot girls fill Church Street with energy, passion and opportunity", you've got a recipe for a kind of disgusting suggestibility. Representing as fairly repugnant to many, in fact. Obviously including Rev. McVety, but most certainly not exclusively. That kind of stupid messaging would offend many within the greater community.

But Charles McVety most certainly did require his knuckles to be rapped. When he stated: "We send little Johnny and little Jane to school, not to learn to be homosexuals and lesbians. We send them there to learn reading, writing and arithmetic and history and all these wonderful things, but unfortunately there is an activist group that is afoot that wants to change our curriculum. Why? Because unfortunately they have an insatiable appetite for sex, especially with young people. And there are not enough of them, so they want to proselytize your children and mine, our grandchildren and turn them into homosexuals", he crossed the red line.

Looks like there's an atmosphere redolent of stupidity all around, actually, fairly well balanced on both sides; the outrageously public gay community and the outraged public evangelical community.

Versional Incompatibility

If there are two individuals involved in a dispute there are always two versions of what caused the dispute and how it accelerated and the manner in which it proceeded, let alone its conclusion. Even when people are in accord when they've been twinned in an occurrence that hasn't been unpleasant, their recall of events will be nuanced variously; that which one person remembers clearly will be recalled quite differently by the other person.

It is human nature to observe and to commit to memory and to recall in an idiosyncratic manner.

And of course it is also human nature to viscerally recall what reflects well upon yourself and badly upon your adversary. So there is little surprise in learning, through news reports, of two quite different versions of events in the incident that took place at the Ottawa airport on May 11, 2009 when a verbal altercation deteriorated into a physical confrontation between an Ottawa police officer, Shyldon Safruk and a cabbie, Sami Aldoboni.

Immediately post-event sympathy went with Mr. Aldoboni, who had the support of his peers present at the time and witness to the event, because of the manner in which the proceedings had been reported. And because Mr. Aldoboni had sustained an injury which caused him to suffer not only pain, but a lapse in his ability to carry on with his profession until his wound healed. And also because Mr. Aldoboni's story clearly identified Mr. Safruk as an aggressor.

However, the trial that resulted from the event revealed some very interesting details that were not previously known. There was a video that clearly demonstrated Mr. Aldoboni to have been as much an aggressor as Mr. Safruk. There was also a witness, a colleague of Mr. Aldoboni's who testified that Mr. Aldoboni had initiated physical contact. And there was Mr. Aldoboni's own testimony before Justice Radley-Walters which demonstrated his propensity to twisting the truth.

"This clear attempt to mislead the court impacts negatively on Mr. Aldoboni's credibility and reliability", Ontario Court Justice Grant Radley-Walters stated when Mr. Aldoboni was caught in an outright falsification of the truth. He had denied responding to an insulting gesture that Mr. Safruk offered when he had almost been run off the road by Mr. Aldoboni's cab on the Airport Parkway.

The off-duty policeman, Constable Shyldon Safruk, was, in fact, acting in self-defence when he responded to a "sweeping" punch levelled against him by Mr. Aldoboni. It was the action of committing to that "sweeping punch" that led Mr. Aldoboni to fall to the ground, injuring his wrist, arm and fingers; a natural correlation to a fall of the kind Mr. Aldoboni sustained.

The injuries he had attributed to Mr. Safruk's physical violence were in fact, self-inflicted.

So it is just as well that Justice Radley-Walters found Constable Safruk not guilty. All the more so since he stated he found the driver's claims of brutality by the off-duty policeman to be laced with lies, well contradicted by surveillance video. Although the court of public opinion was firmly on Mr. Aldoboni's side immediately post-incident, it appears now that justice has been done.

Look To Yourselves, Heal Yourselves

Canadian Muslims are purportedly in a renewed state of apprehension that a backlash will assault them from a Canadian public fed up with Islam presenting itself all too frequently as a crucible of hate-filled crusades of murderous intention against the West.

That Canadian Muslims - men born and raised in Canada, find themselves torn between an obviously uneven struggle of patriotism versus loyalty to religious custom - are once again beginning to make the news as discrete cells of jihadis planning attacks against this country does not sit too well with most Canadians.

And where on Earth, in any event, do these indecisive-then-decisive jihadis receive their instruction? Enabling them to present as ordinary Canadians with a splendid talent at appearing just like anyone else in society, while submersing themselves in a stew of plans and purposeful revenge. Whose detection succeeds in averting tragedy.

Not, surely, only with contacts made over the Internet, sites that recruit and spew poisonous messages of victimhood and revenge. But of course, there are other, more immediate and perhaps initially more impressively concerning places that successfully recruit and radicalize those whose resentments and visions of victimization make them prime targets; emissaries from abroad speaking forcefully at area mosques and community centres.

Of course there are other, additional arenas of opportunity. For a still-minority community, young Muslims are disproportionately in the news as perpetrators of criminal activities, ranging from murder to petty crime, robberies and assaults. When they land in prison, they're primed and ready to be Islamicized by other inmates where the cancer of violent jihad has already metastasized.

So, not only has Canada and the larger Western, democratized world got a very serious problem with home-grown jihadists, along with imported ones who enter the country on various types of visas, overstaying their welcome, integrating into the Muslim community, passing on their message of the nobility of mass slaughter in the name of Islam, but the Muslim community itself has a huge problem.

One which they have collectively shunned, refusing to believe that good Muslims would resort to such vile activities in the name of Islam.

Well, good Muslims might not, but the bad ones certainly appear to have few compunctions about turning on their fellow Muslims as well as non-Muslims. The issue appears to confuse the broader Muslim community who insist - in response to any new revelations of those among them who pass for 'normal', while covertly planning atrocities - that the community is being unfairly targeted.

So is it?

From received data, the public response to ongoing news that one group after another of jihadis have had their plans for revenge against the kuffars interrupted, has not resulted in the kind of bigotry against Muslims that the community so bitterly complains of. Instead, the continuing misery of racism and attacks against minorities follow a long tradition of anti-Semitism practised against the country's Jews, and discrimination against blacks.

Hate crimes are directed not against Muslims, despite their clamorous claims to the contrary. Instead, Jews, gays, and blacks remain the more frequent targets of hate crimes. Anti-Muslim crimes are far more rare in occurrence. Which speaks more to the paranoia among Muslims, than it does for the reality of their experience. Which makes it even more needful that the Muslim community begin to do a little more strenuous soul-searching.

It is they, and the religion that they worship, that in infrequent instances that seem far too frequent in occurrence and horrendous in impact when successful attacks occur, that impinge on the safety and security of the larger communities in which they live as equally endowed citizens. That they have somehow managed to breed young men who gravitate toward violence and then mature toward jihad in the name of Islam, is a singular issue they must address.

It is past time that the society which nurtures them as equals with all the opportunities and freedoms open to any other segment of society, no longer rush to assure the Muslim community that there is no ill will against them as a backlash resulting from some new or proposed atrocity against a Western target. It surely is time for the greater Muslim community to take responsibility for itself.

There is little point iterating and reiterating that the greater Muslim community is law-abiding and respectful of others, and that it is a relatively minuscule number of Muslims who subvert the tenets of Islam, and who bring opprobrium to the community. It is high time that the Muslim community take steps to defend themselves against the occurrence of violence emanating from their midst.

And in the process take badly needed steps to mature themselves as citizens dedicated to the values held by all Canadians. Not in defence of their reputations as loyal Canadians, but as a responsible, responsive segment of Canadian society from among whom emanates a viciously deranged mindset that urgently requires remedial attention.

He's a Piece of Work

Spouting age-old accusations against Jews and their amazing ability to turn world opinion in their favour through manipulating world news, and with their fabulous wealth exerting power over heads of state to achieve their end purpose of ruling the world, Mohamed Elmasry has graduated from his elevated spot within Canada as head of the Canadian Islamic Congress to operating an Internet news outlet. Energetically striving to achieve what he accuses Jews of successfully promoting.

Suspicion and violent, unremitting hatred of voices that tell their own truth in a contest for world opinion. Challenging the unspeakably mendacious slander that Elmasry and those of his anti-Semitic fellow travellers revel in, to stoke a public backlash against the Jewish 'entity', 'Zionists' and of course, the source of so much of his grievance as a professional victim, the State of Israel. Regardless of the lengths to which he stretches to legitimize his hateful views, the logic of reality cannot be hidden.

Israel is a democratic country whose citizens, both Jews and Arabs, along with Christians, feel comfortable living within, taking advantage of the freedoms offered them, in stark contrast to the totalitarian, human-rights-abusing countries by which it is surrounded. When Israeli Arabs respond to questions about their preferences, whether to live under the Palestinian Authority or the Israeli government, the majority defend their Israeli citizenship.

But vividly-imagined conspiracies and apartheid characterizations are the stuff that fire the neurotic imagination of Elmasry and his followers, anxious to instill the 'real history' of the Middle East in the minds of Canadian Muslim youth. So, through the Internet site such youth can read the real truth and nothing but the truth about the lies of the Holocaust, comparing them to the reality of the holocaust imposed upon helpless suffering Palestinians.

Teaching them to view their fellow Canadians who happen to be Jews as their enemies in a paranoid trap of intellectual and social distraction from the real world that Canada's egalitarian pluralism is meant to convey. There is no charge levelled against Jews, Israel, Zionists and Canada's Jewish demographic that present as sufficiently scurrilous to satisfy the bitter madness of Elmasry and his ilk. He, and they, remain a miserable blot of soul sickness on the body politic of the country.

"Canada, like the U.S.," according to Elmasry, "is an occupied country where the Israel Lobby is the chief arbiter of truth. Anyone who undermines Zionist dogma can expect to be savaged by the Lobby's media thugs." So, Elmasry is frantically engaged in cramming as much Islamist dogma savaging Jews and their amazing influence on Canada's administrators, politicians, bankers, newspapers, public, service unions and academics, in his own inimitable bid to prove his paranoid theories right.

The prayers by forgiving Christians, first at the blistering condemnatory table of Christopher Hitchens' continued flaying of religious belief and the faithful, will be vastly counteracted by the
unforgivingly livid hatred of Islamists whose celebration of the man's recently-revealed treatment for cancer has been written up at the Elmasry Internet site. The loathsomeness of Elmasry's delirium-in-hate identifies him as a sad excuse for a human being.

That he was elected to represent the Canadian Islamic Congress speaks volumes about the group's dedication to melding seamlessly into Canadian society which (in theory and for the most part, in practise) accepts all citizens as equals, and decries the demeaning of any element of society.

Adaptive Intentions

Canada, like many other Western countries is faced with a true dilemma. For many European countries the dilemma they face is direct and brutal, that their treasured heritage as a nation, their culture, their vision of themselves as reflecting what they thought they were has been assailed in every conceivable manner. The intensely huge influx of Muslims seeking to escape the intolerable existence they suffer under totalitarian rulers, oppressive tribal and religious skirmishes, economic stagnation, has resulted in the changing face of Europe.

Denmark, Holland, Sweden, France, Germany and Great Britain all have large Muslim populations. They form isolated communities all too often, keeping themselves apart from others not of their faith. Some were brought over to Europe as cheap labour, on temporary work visas, but those work visas were extended interminably, and after decades and even generations of labour there is no humanitarian way that those temporary cheap labourers can be deported back to their countries of origin.

In North America the migration that brought large numbers of immigrants to the U.S. and Canada has not quite made the impression that it has in Europe, with its thousands of mosques and muezzins calling five-times-daily to prayer, overtaking the traditional church bells more relevant to the original inhabitants' lives. Now countries are looking askance at the now-apparent rashness of their willingness to absorb another complex religious culture with its political connotations.

Re-visiting their immigration laws and re-working the system of application and qualification, stressing suitability and adaptability to Western values. Which is precisely what Canada has done latterly, with its new information guide to immigrants, alerting them to the necessity of recognizing Canadian values, hugely inclusive of gender equality. Canada faces, like other countries that have absorbed large South-East Asian immigrants, traditional cultural values inimical to safety and security.

Where, given the recent publicity revolving around the repeated and atrocious horrors of 'honour killings' the government is now seriously considering a change to the Criminal Code to include 'honour killings', along with changes to the immigration-acceptance procedures. It is not only these dreadful occurrences where the lives of girls and women are threatened when they move beyond what their original culture demands of them.

Look at the daily reports of both petty and major crime in local newspapers and disproportionately Muslim and Arab names of malefactors leap to one's consciousness. Assaults, robberies, murders, break-ins, threats. And crimes associated with racism, where individuals and social, cultural and religious institutions of other ethnic minority communities are threatened by individuals and groups whose radical criminal behaviours grate against Canadian values.

Absent obvious adaptive skills and intentions immigration officers tasked with determining the suitability of would-be immigrants to fit into Canadian society, all such applicants should be turned away. More intensive training in psychology and questioning techniques that would reveal the mind-set of those anxious to re-locate to Canada are required to set aside those who seek to make it a useful base, without investing any kind of loyalty, or accepting Canadian values.

We cannot afford to dilute our security and safety, our values and commitments to our populations any further than has already been done, without experiencing ever greater disruptions and threats to the fundamental values we all hold dear. Those willing to adapt, to co-ordinate their deep religious loyalties with an equal loyalty to Canadian law, social constructs, and values will add to our pluralist ideal.

Those who find Canadian citizenship convenient and who use it as a base from which to continue conducting their tribal, ethnic, religious and political adversarial actions against others should no longer feel entitled to acceptance as Canadian citizens. Canada simply cannot afford it.

Censorious!

Life is unfailingly rife with little surprises and disappointments. Just when you think you've read the portents and all signs lead to an explicable conclusion, and you've reacted with the aplomb of one who knows the true picture, along comes a correction and you're left with mouth agape.

As, for example, a contentious issue respecting freedom of expression in a country that prides itself on its status as a democracy where such freedoms are guaranteed.

We do slip, from time to time, to expressing our outrage at certain personalities whose outrageous performances on the speaking circuit insult our intelligence and our values, and then we're yanked back to the reality that allowing bigoted racists and rabid ideologues is part of that freedom.

Damn.

We have the freedom to respond to their allegations, assertions, slanders and bigotry. When they reveal themselves to be viciously malignant, having unleashed their hateful bile, the intelligent among us - and we hope they are legion - then have good reason to be confirmed in their rightful bias against the miserable hate-mongering we so deplore.

And when it comes to speaking out in favour of allowing public figures to speak their incendiary invective against ethnic, religious or ideological groups whose status is protected by law in the country, we're still in the accepting phases of allowing dissent, because it is legal, even though it grates against our sensibilities.

Double-Damn!

And then it is revealed that one of the arbiters of freedoms and rights within the Constitution, one who has experienced high office in governmental hierarchical ministries - and was himself a purported candidate for the office of prime minister, now serving as president of an academic institution - relieved himself of an amazing helping of hateful bile, in the process of hoping to deny a speaking engagement to a controversial lecturer.

"Ann Counter is a mean-spirited, small-minded, foul-mouthed poltroon... 'the loud mouth that bespeaks the vacant mind'. She is an ill-informed and deeply offensive shill for a profoundly shallow and ignorant view of the world. She is a malignancy on the body politic. She is a disgrace to the broadcasting industry and a leading example of the dramatic decline in the quality of public discourse in recent times."

Now, how is that for character assassination, and righteous denunciation. Taking the initiative to advise and inform a subordinate academic within the institution where this woman was invited to speak, of one's personal, scathing opinion of that speaker's style adversarial to reason, and her intention of increasing racial-religious tension - in the name of free speech.

So read her the riot act. Her insolent and irony-laden, quasi-insulting, rather amusing take on a popularly-discussed issue within society must be restrained, for we have laws in this country, do we not?

And this March 2010 directive by University of Ottawa President Allan Rock, to his vice-president academic and provost, Francois Houle, leaves us speechless with dismay, disappointment and disbelief.

A Tragic Waste

But then whenever human beings conspire to incite violence on one another it is a monumental tragedy. In the case of huge numbers of people comprising a distinct ethnic, religious and social group within a specific geography, there is always a search for a place of their own, where they will feel themselves free from the tyranny of others who do not recognize them as equally entitled, and who prey on them as lesser peoples.

The Turks and the Greeks are forever at war with one another and Cypress is a good example of how unresponsive people can be to the need to respect one another equally. The Kurds live in areas controlled by Iraq, Iran and Turkey, with no homeland of their own, because of borders established by successfully powerful interests that excluded them from claiming a geographic homeland.

We see the same thing playing out in the Middle East where ancient Judea was historically demolished and its people sent into mass migration, while neighbouring tribes claimed the geography as their own. And where to the present day Arab countries remain adamant that they will not accept the presence of a renascent Jewish presence in the Middle East within a state of their own.

And there are the Tamils, who live in Sri Lanka and in India, who languish as second-class citizens, scorned by the majority Sri Lankan Muslim population as an inferior and dis-entitled group subservient to the majority. Rebellions break out everywhere in those areas of the world where tribal groups have been separated with the often-arbitrary selections of borders separating countries, leaving groups separated and adrift.

This is a common enough occurrence in Africa, where various African tribes battle one another for supremacy in a shared geography. The world witnessed the slaughter in Rwanda when the Hutu targeted the Tutsi population in a terrorizing initiative to slaughter an indigenous population. We see the same problem repeated in Democratic Republic of Congo with aggrieved brutalization of people reflecting the same tribal offences.

Canada has seen its share, at a remove, of its own citizens being involved in territorial disputes and racial-directed abuses. Canadian citizens suffered a terrorist atrocity in the bombing of Air India flight 182, killing hundreds of Indo-Canadians as a result of the political conflict between Indo-Canadian Sikhs and Hindus in the dispute for a region to be called Kalistan, a homeland for Sikhs, carved out of greater India.

Canada is also host to one of the greatest diaspora-numbers of Tamil Sri Lankans, among whom, like the Sikhs, support was given to a group whom much of the world - because of their extreme violence, exacted both against the Sri Lankan majority and the Tamils themselves - held them to be terrorists. Despite which, because of the despicable treatment of Sri Lankan Tamils by the government of Sri Lanka, many Tamils abroad supported and helped finance the Tamil Tigers.

Reading about Canadian-Sri Lankan-Tamil Surish Sriskandarajah, as an active supporter in helping to finance and arm and smuggle arms and finances to the Tamil Tigers one condemns the man. But the devil is always in the details, such as his having witnessed at first-hand the wretched living conditions of Tamils living in Sri Lanka, the withholding of necessities of life for them, and the dire conditions that led to violent confrontations.

One cannot but have some measure of compassion for this young man, a brilliant student and entrepreneur, a compassionate humanitarian who, because of his passion for justice, lost his way and now, though he has been a Canadian for much of his life, must face deportation to the country of his birth, which continues to persecute his people.

It is all a supremely tragic waste.

Animal Rights

God made all the creatures and gave them
our love and our fear,
To give sign, we and they are his children,
one family here. Robert Browning

Animal rights? Have they got any? They're just animals. Sensate perhaps, but incapable of acting and reacting to stimuli other than a push here a shove there, a loud voice, maybe a whack in the ribs. That gets them moving, right? They are incapable of distinguishing nuances, of understanding human communication and mood. They just ... are. Lumps of flesh vastly inferior to the integuements of humankind. They do our bidding, or we discipline them. They disobey our orders and pay the price of violent reaction.

Nature teaches beasts to know their friends. William Shakespeare.

It's heart-rending to read newspaper accounts, little fragments of stories that appear from time to time about people violating the trust of companion animals. Cats and dogs tortured by idiotic teenagers. Whom psychiatrists tell us will mature to become abusive psychopaths, and that figures: apprenticing; try out the violence on those incapable of defending themselves before graduating to the higher animals, also unable to defend themselves from what has become a skilled predator.

The behaviour of men to the lower animals, and their behaviour to each other, bear a constant relationship. Herbert Spencer.

One reads on occasion - on too many occasions, if truth be told, and it should be - that people who start out with a distinct attraction to animals, with the intention of giving them safe haven, starting out with one or two abandoned animals, then compulsively picking up ever more to the point where they are functionally incapable of serving their needs, are outed. When animal welfare agencies move in and find the animals starving and diseased, their haircoats feces-clad, in an absolutely pitiable state.

A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast. Old Testament.

It does not really take all that much physical effort and mental determination to understand the needs of a companion animal. In fact, a dependent animal taken into a home as a companion is little different in needs than any other animal, humans as well. Paramount are the needs of security, food and water, fresh air and exercise, and emotional understanding. With those provisions the resulting companionship is worth its weight in gold.

Only a complete and utter imbecile would fail to understand.Behold a beast of nature black;
When one attacks it, it fights back! A Nony Mouse

Animal Abuse Responses

Cruelty to animals seems to many people to represent an unspeakable atrocity. We focus for the most part on the quality of life, or lack of it, borne by the animals that become companions to people, who depend upon the good qualities that reside within human nature to respect the burdens that come with one animal dominating and controlling another, as people do with their pets. Domestic animals are completely dependent upon their human owners.

The quality of life that they are permitted to live through the humane attention of those who claim to own them reflects the quality of the human being to whom they become attached. A sensitive and caring person will accord to his or her companion animal care and attention one would toward another human being. Those who inflict pain and suffering on animals can rightfully be regarded as dregs of society.

Vicious and violent criminal acts are meted out to animals by those who claim to own them, and who feel it is their right to behave toward those animals who trust them, however they wish. There are no real laws in protection of animals with any kind of teeth that would make violators of animals' trust and well-being think twice before regarding an animal as 'property' to be disposed of as they wish.

Human conduct toward animals is that of the regard of the disposable. When an animal that someone has undertaken to care for becomes a nuisance their needs are neglected, they are abandoned and society attempts to pick up the sorry pieces through adoptions. Neglect and violence experienced by trusting animals reflects poorly on all of us.

So when the plight of individual afflicted animals who have been tortured and killed by their owners or by others comes to public light and animal defenders make an effort to alert the public to these dreadful abuses, they are demonstrating their humanity. If we cannot defend the rights of animals other than ourselves to live healthy and cared-for lives, we diminish our humanity.

For groups representing the victims of child abuse or sexual abuse to raise a hue and cry about values, denouncing animal defenders who demonstrate on behalf of abused companion pets, claiming them to be less concerned about humans than they are about animals, misses the point entirely. If we cannot extend sympathy and a will to protect animals, it's unlikely we would care to extend the same to humans.

This reflects one of the weakest links in society, the dependence of helpless animals on the good will of those who 'own' them, and feel free to dispense violence against them because of their purported ownership. This is not a private issue of ownership. This is a very public issue of the rights to humane existence of animals other than humans.

That people will defend the rights of animals does not mean they are uncaring of the rights of children and women. We have ample human resources to represent the interests of all of society's abused and vulnerable.

What's Not To Like?

First off, a whopping debt, over $600-Billion, that's pretty awful. And then there's a deficit of $53.8-billion big ones, that's misery incarnate, no way to balance the nation's books.

So the new budget had to address that pair of bogeymen, and it did, more or less; a little more than less, actually. A 2-year wage freeze for the civil service came as a relief considering what truly drastic measures could have been taken to make the country's bloated but hard-working civil service a scapegoat no one outside the civil service would commiserate with.

Not quite prepared yet to abandon stimulus measures, so there'll be a $19-B extension, and surely that will continue to save some jobs; latest figures are that the country has indeed seen some job growth, to float us a tad higher, along with the last quarter of 2009 5% growth. And that was a very nice gesture, one that all Canadians other than MPs and senators could cheer on; freezing their salaries for the nonce. The corollary to which is the $3.2-B in personal income tax relief.

To which we say, thank you very much. Good messages playing off against eh! ones. A long-overdue national securities regulator.

$62-M to be devoted to elite athletes and amateur sports; now isn't that timely? A new civilian complaints commission for the RCMP; again, overdue, better late than not at all. Clean energy isn't overlooked with $1-B to be devoted to that singular issue, and $300-M for Atomic Energy of Canada and Chalk River laboratories. We're still searching for medical isotope solutions....

This is all very good housekeeping. Who could fault $1-B for training programs for workers? And a big hurrah! for the $4.1-B set aside for social housing. But who can possibly believe that in two years - 2011-2012 the deficit will be cut in half? Also, it makes good sense for the military to gets its boost this year, and then see a reduction in its spending budget in the amount of $2.5 over three years. Makes sense; Afghanistan will be a memory.

Not so nice to know that government plans to cap foreign aid at this year's level with an increase of $364-M for this year, bringing Canada's total foreign aid commitment to $5-B, well below that of other wealthy countries. We can always play catch-up when we're on firmer financial ground in the near future. NGOs will fault us but one gets a little weary with it all; theirs is a burgeoning industry, and foreign aid is needful yes, but there are so many unanswered questions.

Why, one might ask to begin with, would medical tax deductions for purely cosmetic purposes such as liposuction, hair replacement, botulinum toxin injections and teeth whitening quality? The elimination of manufacturing tariffs will help Canadian industry. Increased assistance for single-parent households and funding partnerships with charitable organizations gets a big OK.

Cutting appointments to boards and commissions by 245 positions; long overdue. The Conservative budget has not forgotten victims of crime, aboriginal and northern communities, disabled people and their families, and seniors. And there's an additional $10-M earmarked for the Paralympians, along with $2-M to Special Olympians. Not overly generous, but needful operating expenses.

There's more of the little stuff, like $28-M for CSIS operations improvements; $6-M for ParticipACTION, $45-M for subsidizing healthy food into the North, and a whole host of other responsible government tips-of-the-hat.

The NDP grumbles, the Liberals scoff, but claim they won't bring down the government just yet, and the Bloc Quebecois, true to form outright opposes. Anything. Everything. All the Time.

Human Rights or Downright Idiocy?

The attention to political correctness balanced off against pure common sense is just staggering in its idiotic outcomes. One person's 'right' to matters of values, conscience, creed, sexual orientation out-manoeuvres the right of a charitable organization to conduct its life-saving services and still maintain its code of religious values. Imposing upon a religious institution the 'lawful' requirement to honour a code of conduct clearly in contrast to its own.

The penalty being, in drawing forward the conclusion through the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, that a Christian charitable organization which does not proselytize, nor discriminate when it offers its care and homes for people with severe disabilities, will henceforth be forced to cease and desist. It has the choice of continuing to provide its services at the cost of forswearing its fundamental beliefs.

A provision of the Ontario Human Rights Code permits a religious group hiring discrimination (which is to say, selecting personnel whose own personal code of conduct reflects that of the religious group) as long as it confines its services to people who share their religious beliefs. Once a religious charity determines it will open its services to people of any religion, seeing all needy people as equal, they open themselves to observing the letter of a law running counter to their religious beliefs.

Because Christian Horizons dismissed a woman who openly initiated and admitted to a lesbian relationship - on the grounds that this employee violated Christian Horizons' values system - despite that she had signed a pledge to honour the religious values of that faith before being hired, they have been condemned by the Rights Tribunal.

Lawyers for Christian Horizons attempted to use the logic of common sense in forwarding their case before the commission "The mission is to serve, not to indoctrinate. It does not mean the exceptions should be denied because you don't teach Christian principles." The commission, however, as is their wont, chose to dissent.

Now whose human rights are being violated? A woman who knowingly signed a pledge she had no intention of honouring, and who then complained to the commission when her employer released her from her duties? Or the religious organization which meritoriously chooses to charitably serve all those in need, irrespective of their religious beliefs?

Ah, The Enlightened Liberals

A consumer product safety bill, a full year in the processing toward ratification by the House and the Senate, is stalled in the 'chamber of sober second thought' while noble senators mull on the hardships in store for manufacturers having to produce safe and reliable products, happy to bypass the consumers' right to trust goods manufactured within Canada.

This bill has received unanimous support in the House of Commons. In the Senate of the Upper Chamber, it has stalled, thanks to the vigorous nay-saying of Liberal Senators.

Passing this legislation is long-overdue in amending and up-dating inadequate 40-year-old consumer protection legislation. It would produce reliable legislation protecting Canadian consumers, reflecting like safety-consumer legislation in the European Union and the United States.

The amendments have the full and enthusiastic support of the Canadian Medical Association, the Standards Council of Canada, the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs and other institutions concerned with the safety of the public, and specifically children.

Liberal senators, however, because they still have a majority in the Senate, insist on their privilege. Of preventing legislation that would make Canada resemble a 'police state'. There are 45 Liberal senators insistent on amending the proposed legislation, to bring it in agreement with a lobby group, the Canadian Coalition for Health Freedom.

'Freedom' as in giving free reign to manufacturers to produce shoddy and dangerous products. The very name of the lobby group calls to mind George Orwell's double-speak. The consuming public, in their view, should be free to unknowingly, trustingly, purchase goods that may be inimical to their health.

The senators opposed to the new legislation insist there is a need to curtail the power of Health Canada inspectors in their random safety checks at the facilities of manufacturers and distributors of consumer goods, lest they fine these entities for violating Canada's safety standards.

The health and safety of the Canadian consumer being at risk is obviously not their concern; the support of their very particular version of civil liberties clearly is. The legislation would impact on the 'civil liberties' of producers - and buyer beware.

Not Too Smart, Are We?

Statistics released by the OECD appear to reveal that Canada's university graduation rate has been on a steep decline. Ranking Canada 20th of 24 countries compared in the process of university-graduate rankings. We're ahead of Hungary, Austria, Germany and Greece. But - good grief, isn't that incomprehensible? - behind Poland, Portugal and the Slovak Republic! Wot the hell!

Here we've been burnishing our medals for scholastic achievement in our young, and we've managed, somehow, to fall by the wayside. Canada ranks fourth in university education for our population between 55 - 64 years of age. But 12th in the 25 - 34-age bracket. So our old fogies were smart enough to obtain a good education for themselves, but our younger cadres have resisted the impulse.

Portugal has four times the PhD graduates as Canada! Unbelievable, truly. Finland manages three times the number, and Australia and the U.K. have each twice the number of doctoral graduates as Canada has managed, of late. Why are fewer young Canadians actively seeking out higher education? It's a costly process yes, but it's also a state-subsidized one.

We don't look too bad when college graduates are lumped in with our university graduates. That nicely brings up our numbers, and there's no reason whatever to begrudge college degrees as representative of some elements of higher learning. Still, they're not quite the same thing; community colleges are more directly utilitarian in education-acquisition.

And here's the really scary thing about all of this. It isn't the Canucky-shmuckies who are mostly enrolling in great numbers in Canadian universities. Children of recent immigrants are flocking to Canadian universities in far greater comparative numbers than the young of the indigenous population.

Children of parents who hail from India and Asia, for example, who are far more education-achievement-oriented, and for whom education is a tradition, one honoured and respected by their communities. Whereas Canadians of long standing, by and large, appear to feel that graduating from secondary school is about as ambitious as they can bother striving toward.

Give Us A Break Already!

Not enough that the Government of Canada, at the urging of the opposition parties, alongside those of the automobile industry and the unions whose workers swallowed pride and anger to accept back-tracking on advances, succumbed to investing a huge whack of tax dollars in shoring up General Motors and Chrysler.

Of course, Canada is also in lock-step with the United States on this one, partnering their decision to take partial ownership of vehicle manufacturing.

The United States has gone even further, in setting up a "Cash for Clunkers' program that proved wildly popular with the American vehicle-acquiring public, flinging more tax dollars into that vast pit of heritage debt. Little did American legislators know quite how popular that would be, as funds allocated rapidly disappeared, with additional funding miraculously appearing to continue to please the car-buying public.

A country that believes it would be too fiscally injurious to enact legislation to ensure that all Americans would have adequate medical insurance coverage, celebrates its stimulus-clever tax funding of new vehicles. The "buy American" provision seen elsewhere in stimulus packages for infrastructure, however, didn't kick in for vehicles.

So a large proportion of vehicles were not those of the Big Three, but rather Japanese quality-produced vehicles, and Canada had the benefit of that. Not good enough for the five carmakers with assembly plants in Canada, however; they collectively have urged the federal government to institute a mirror-image of the U.S. "Cash for Clunkers".

For that twofold purpose; to help the environment by getting gas guzzlers off the road, and to stimulate new-car purchases to help the struggling economy. Amazing that SUVs continue to be the vehicles of choice, under those circumstances.

And common sense that the government of Canada has calmly stated it is confident in its current 'Retire Your Ride' scrappage program. The difference being a $300 cash incentive as opposed to the $3,000 cash rebate so beloved of vehicle manufacturers.

Good on Jim Prentice, the Minister of the Environment who so succinctly stated priorities: "The thinking on this has been measured against the original objectives for the program", retiring polluting cars, not funding for manufacturers to sell new cars.

The Aphrodisiac of Power

Isn't it amazing how people relate to one another, view one another, weigh one another's attributes, and respond to one another as a result of those personal and sometimes very intimate ingredients, seasoned with exterior realizations? Political wives often have reason to feel left behind, neglected, their needs overlooked. And the revelations that surface all too frequently of powerful national legislators consumed with their own sense of power, turning to illicit and immoral sexual gratification as an entitlement are revelatory.

The grossness of Italian President Berlusconi's antics as a womanizer, causing no end of amusement to the Italian public which has twice elected him to power, while causing no end of anguish to his wife, another case in point. And how many lawmakers have stood on their high horse of moral condemnation over the sexual indiscretions of others in high public office, pontificating on family values, who are then unmasked for being sexual predators themselves?

But then there's the other facet, that of a couple whose mutual respect and admiration for one another leads them to value one another even more highly when one has attained to high office and the other stands in the supporting role of helpmate. As a refreshing alternative to the scenarios of values gone amok and marriage betrayals there is the example of the new American president and his wife, a devoted couple setting a valuable yardstick.

The seemingly unflappable Barack Obama, who appears to have mastered the ability to remain calm while all about him is in chaos a case in point. His political ambitions have, it would appear, not always been appreciated by his wife. This is a woman who demands notice, and demands above all, that her husband devote unstinting notice to her. As his wife and mother of his children and an intellectually accomplished person in her own right.

His ascent to the ultimate station of the power elite, as president of the United States has accented their relationship with an acuteness of self-awarness. He is demonstrating that she is his escape valve in the pressure cooker of politically incendiary events beyond the control of any man however politically adept and humanly philosophically aware, to manipulate to useful advantage. Michelle Obama feels her mate selection to have been vindicated in his ascent to power.

It demonstrated poor political and diplomatic form to turn away from a shared dinner with President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, in favour of a discreetly romantic dinner for two, but neither President Obama nor his wife appear to have suffered in public opinion as a result. How Carla Sarkozy may view Michelle Obama is another matter altogether. But not dining together spared President Obama's wife the potential agony of pique in the presence of the dashing Nicolas and his confident wife.

That President Obama gallantly whisked his wife to a posh New York dinner and Broadway show in a demonstration of faithfully uxorious dedication to his marriage and the woman of his shared destiny is certain to entrance those who have invested so much in their future as Americans with him at the helm. That it cost taxpayers a reputed $73,000 to have the lovebirds helicoptered, planed and limousined to the love nest is a bit of a splurge.

The model husband, father and successful politician who has the undying support and admiration of his wife who just happens to be enjoying herself in the national and international spotlight, is himself managing to have a good time while juggling the imperatives of presidential decision-making at such an inconveniently difficult time on the international stage.

Nothing exceeds like success, it would seem. And it's for the simple-minded to celebrate the perfection of the ultimate political-social-personal success story as representing what it appears to be, un-nuanced by any troubling, too-human stumbles.

Antidote to Psychopathy

Taxi driver Sami Aldoboni will see some kind of justice done to ameliorate his pain and restore his sense of security. The attack he suffered on Monday at Ottawa International Airport, witnessed by dozens of bystanders will not go underground and become an instance of malfeasance hushed. For that he, and by extension all we others, have the news media to thank for taking up this story and playing it for what it represents; an unprovoked attack on a visible-minority-Canadian by an arrogant racist psychopath.

It will not only be the violent aggression of the unnamed, off-duty police officer that will be under scrutiny but the resulting reactions and follow-up unprofessional behaviour of the six other police officers who responded to the 911 call for help; the first two who colluded with the offending officer, and the later four who showed up once the initial two drove off with Mr. Aldoboni's assailant, hastily removing him from what represented an obvious crime scene.

The province's Special Investigations Unit will look into the off-duty officer's conduct for indications of criminal action - and there were plenty of those - while the investigation into the follow-up conduct of the uniformed police officers will be an internal one. It will be very difficult for this shockingly disturbing event to be hushed up, given the publicity it has received and the resulting outrage of the public. There is reason to anticipate that a full measure of justice will be meted out.

The disquieting thing however, most immediately apparent, is that despite the statements of witnesses and the victim himself, the violent attacker was not immediately suspended, but was 'relegated' to a supervised desk job. That may seem like a harshly temporary demotion to the police, particularly to one as arrogant as the assailant who obviously felt he could comport himself as he wished with his special privileges as a police officer, but doesn't give much comfort to the public.

On the plus side, West Carleton-March Councillor Eli El-Chantiry, chair of the Police Services Board stated the commitment of the board and the city to determining precisely what had occurred with respect to the assault and the puzzling conduct of the uniformed officers who responded to the call for help. "Both incidents are under investigation and I can assure you, as a citizen of the city of Ottawa, as an immigrant myself and as the chair of the police board, no one, and I mean no one is above the law in this country."

A spokesman for the city's chief of police assured the public that the internal police investigation to probe the conduct of the responding police officers will be conducted with a view to determining whether they responded "in a manner that we would normally handle any other member of the community in this type of investigation". Which clearly, they failed to do. Whether taken aback at the bizarre behaviour of one of their own, resulting in confusion over their response, or a deliberately witless attempt at cover-up.

It is, however, the attitude of Mr. Aldoboni, nursing his injuries - his psychical bruising as well as physical damage done to his arm and hand - that confounds. Rather than bitterly denouncing the wholesale lack of professionalism of the police force, he reinforces his earlier opinion of the force as one to which he and other citizens give their trust. He is sufficiently sensitive to the situation as it impacts on the reputation of the Ottawa Police to state that it is his hope the incident does not tarnish the reputation of all officers.

"If we lose trust in our police, to who will we go to seek help?" he asked reasonably, in the process of convalescent, from his bed at home. This is an obviously good-natured and forgiving man. He has five children, and does not plan any time soon to describe to them what happened to their father. Simply because that would undermine what he has always taught them, that police protect the public, they are there, on duty, to ensure that public safety is assured.

"I've never been in a fight with anybody before", he said ruefully. "Now, the first time, it's with a police officer." Well, in fact, he wasn't in a 'fight with' anyone on this occasion. He was the victim of a vicious attack by an obviously malfunctioning human being who just happened also to be a member of a police force, and that's a horrible combination. That, truly, represents a breach of public trust.