Collateral damage ... where does it end?

Doctors in Iraq have recorded a sharp rise in the number of cancer victims south of Baghdad. In the province of Babil, about 500 cases were diagnosed in 2004. Two years later, the figure was almost 1,000. By 2008, it was 7,000 and this year there have been 9,000 cases to date.

Iraqi researchers believe the cancers are caused by radiation. The source of the radiation is a substance first used on the battlefield in the first Gulf war - depleted uranium (DU). The Iraqi people, and American and other military personnel, have been the guinea pigs in an experiment with what was largely an unknown material.

DU is a byproduct of the manufacture of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. The heaviest metal in the world, bullets tipped with it are so tough they can easily slice through tank armour. Unfortunately, when they hit a target, they explode, sending millions of radioactive particles into the atmosphere. These particles can be inhaled, pollute water tables and enter the food chain. Exposure can cause genetic damage even unto the next generation because they easily cross the placenta to the fetus. The U.S. Department of Defense admits that at least 40 tons of DU were left on the battlefields of southern Iraq.

According to nuclear physicist Marion Fulk, because uranium has a natural attraction to phosphorus, it is drawn to the phosphate in the DNA. As it decays, it releases alpha and beta particles with millions of electron volts. When a particle makes this transformation in the human body it releases "huge amounts of energy in the same location doing lots of damage very quickly." The body's master code is altered.

We tend to think of wars ending with negotiations or surrenders. And maybe they do, but the death and suffering can go on for generations.

The Nobel president and Israel's "secret" nukes

U.S. President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples." One certainly cannot dispute that Obama has strengthened international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples relative to his predecessor. But some things he has not changed from the previous administration. He still vigorously wages war in central Asia, for example. And he has agreed, like his predecessors going back to Richard Nixon, to collaborate in suppressing the fact Israel has nuclear weapons. Everyone knows they do, of course, the trick is to act as if they don't.

Obama has done much toward nuclear disarmament. In particular, he has established a new dialogue with Russia toward serious reductions in their arsenals. He and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev have pledged to deliver a major new strategic arms reduction treaty by the end of the year. And of course he has agreed to shelve the plan to station antimissile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. This is significant in itself and sends a strong signal to other nuclear powers.

So one can appreciate the Nobel Committee's decision. Yet there is the unfortunate fact of his agreement earlier this year with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to not pressure Israel to disclose its nuclear weapons or to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The understanding was once described by former U.S. national security adviser Henry Kissinger in a memo that read, "While we might ideally like to halt actual Israeli possession, what we really want at a minimum may be just to keep Israeli possession from becoming an established international fact." The appropriate expression I believe is, "Don't ask, don't tell."

Palestine remains the most dangerous problem in international relations. The United States opposes Iran's nuclear research on the grounds it is attempting to produce a nuclear weapon and that will ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. But Israel has already precipitated a nuclear arms race in the region and that race is likely to continue as long as Israel maintains its arsenal. Yet the United States has promised to not even talk about it. This, unfortunately, is in keeping with the Americans' servile compliance with Israel's perceived interests.

Peace will not come to the Middle East until the U.S. muscles Israel into seriously committing to a fair settlement for the Palestinians. If Obama ever does that, no one will doubt he deserves a Nobel.

Italy opts for the rule of law

The rule of law simply means the law applies to everyone equally. It includes both governor and governed, but in its application it is most important when applied to the governors, to the people at the top. We at the bottom can be assured the law will be applied to us. We lack the power to avoid it. It is only when it is equally applied to the influential and the powerful that it has real meaning. The very intention of the rule of law is to safeguard against arbitrary governance.

We have seen a number of examples recently where attempts have been made to justify exceptions to the rule. Some conservatives have suggested the Bush Administration should be exempted as it was leading the country through perilous times. Some artists and politicians have suggested Roman Polanski should be exempted apparently because of his artistic stature. And then there was the legislation passed by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government last year that gave him immunity from prosecution for as long as he remained prime minister.

The latter attempt to negate the rule of law has been struck down by Italy's constitutional court. Berlusconi may now have to face the music on charges of embezzlement, tax evasion and bribery. We shall wait with interest the fates of the Bush administration and Polanski.

Schadenfreude and the Aspers

The word is schadenfreude, and yes I'm guilty of it today. A German word, it means pleasure derived from the misfortune of others. The others in this case are the Aspers, the owners of the CanWest media empire. I doubt I'm alone in enjoying the dismantling of this debt-riddled monster.

Is part of my glee due to the right-wing bent of CanWest? Of course. But it's also due to the failure of its organs, the National Post first among them, to present a balanced view of the political world. With so few mass media owners in the country, they have a responsibility to report news objectively and offer a thorough range of opinion. Unfortunately, with the exception of the CBC, the only independent and only democratic mass medium we have, all the mass media belong to the corporate sector and therefore promote a corporate agenda. Nonetheless, some make a far better effort at balance than the National Post.

Of course, the empire could be sold off to another narrow-minded, right-wing outfit. Certainly nobody on the left can afford to buy a media giant. As the famous American journalist A.J. Liebling once said, "Freedom of the press belongs to those rich enough to own one." But at least a chance now exists for a more moderate, responsible ownership.

As for my schadenfreude, it may be petty and sinful, but sometimes it's just plain irresistible.

Chemically changing the species: Making violent girls with BPA

According to Health Canada, manufacturers and importers apply to introduce approximately 1,000 new chemicals and polymers into the marketplace every year. We live in a sea of man-made chemicals. What, many of us sensibly wonder, are they doing to us. Are they changing us in harmful or dangerous ways we are not aware of? Are they changing us into something we don't want to become?

That question was answered recently while answering yet another question about modern society, and the answer was yes. Many commentators have remarked on the apparent increase in violent behaviour among girls. Are the females among us becoming as inclined to violence as the males? And if so, why? Apparently part of the answer at least is bisphenol A (BPA).

A recent study measured BPA levels in the urine of 249 pregnant women at 16 and 26 weeks into pregnancy and at birth. Two years later, investigators assessed the children's behaviour and found an association between the degree of exposure and aggressive and acting out-type behaviour in the daughters. Boys did not appear to be affected.

BPA is commonly used in the manufacture of such products as plastic bottles, canned food linings, water supply pipes and medical tubing. Over 90 per cent of Americans have detectible levels of BPA in their urine. In Canada, BPA is banned from products that infants are exposed to but that, it appears, may not be nearly good enough.

More work will be necessary to firmly establish cause and effect, but the indications are frightening. And insidious. The harm occurs not in the people who ingested the chemical but in their children. And of course we must wonder what else the substance is doing to girls' nervous systems.

The importance of the question "What are chemicals doing to us?" is ratcheted up another notch.

Blackburn's revenge

Elizabeth Blackburn, an Australian-American biochemist at the University of California in San Francisco, was once fired by George W. Bush. A member of his council on bioethics, she was axed for criticizing his opposition to embryonic stem cell research. She later observed that his administration seemed to have the "strange impression that science was the enemy of morality."

Blackburn, who is included on Time Magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people, was informed early Monday morning that she had won a Nobel Prize in Medicine for her contribution to the discovery of a biological gatekeeper that prevents genetic code from fraying with age. She shared the award with two geneticists: Carol Greider, of Johns Hopkins University, and Jack Szostak, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

One wonders which is the biggest honour, winning a Nobel or being fired by George W. Bush.

Marijuana, football and brain damage

Young people are frequently warned to avoid marijuana because of the damage it may do to their brains. Whether or not these warnings are justified, I'll leave to another day. My question at the moment is, what if something highly recommended to young people was found to cause brain damage? Say, for example, sports. Or more specifically, a particularly popular sport such as football.

As it turns out, it does. A study of retired National Football League players reports they are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or related diseases vastly more often than the national average for men. For middle-aged men (30 through 49) the rate is 19 times normal. The study is consistent with papers published by the University of North Carolina that found a correlation between N.F.L. football and depression, dementia and other cognitive impairment. That getting hit in the head a lot might scramble your brain is hardly a surprise.

Although these studies cover professional players, we might expect damage is occurring among high school and college players as well. The Brain Injury Association of Arizona estimates there are about 41,000 concussions suffered every year among high school players alone, many undiagnosed and untreated.

So, one is inclined to ask, does this mean the American government will now campaign against young people getting involved with football in the same way it warns against involvement with drugs? Will we see ads of former football players staring vacantly into space and mumbling incoherently while a voice-over ominously intones "he thought quarterbacking in high school was just harmless fun"?

Not bloody likely. Football is the United States' national sport, akin to religion in some parts of the country. The brain-rattling will go on, perhaps with better helmets and more attention to treatment, but it will undoubtedly go on, brain damage be damned.

And the war against marijuana will also go on, no matter how slim the evidence against it. Football is big in American culture and marijuana is bad, at least as far as the reigning powers are concerned, and American culture, like everyone else's, has little regard for consistency.

Equality is good for everyone

I normally don't recommend books. Other people's tastes are just too easy to misinterpret. You think you know what they'd like but you're just a bit off and that bit is critical. However, there is one book I will recommend, not to specific readers but to everyone who is concerned about dealing with the social ills that plague our society. The book is The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better by epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.

The book, based on thirty years of research, discusses two profoundly important discoveries about human societies:

• More equal societies have lower rates of heart disease, crime, drug abuse, obesity, mental illness and other social ills than less equal societies, and
  
• The rates are lower not only for the poor but for the rich as well, i.e. everyone benefits from equality.

The authors graphically illustrate that in those societies with the most unequal incomes, health and crime rates are much higher than in more equal societies. Furthermore, they show that the rates aren't determined by absolute levels of poverty but by relative levels within a society. The reason, they argue, is that in more unequal societies, there is less social cohesion, less trust. There is increased insecurity, more stress and a greater obsession with status.

The authors determined that if the United States, the most unequal of the rich countries, reduced its income inequality to the average of the four most equal of the rich countries (Japan, Norway, Sweden and Finland), the proportion of Americans who felt they could trust others might rise by 75 per cent, rates of mental illness and obesity drop by two-thirds, teenage birth rates by half, the prison population by 75 per cent, and people could live longer while working less.

The most mind-expanding book I have ever read is Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene, which astonished me by revealing the purpose of life. This book isn't that astonishing but it is a groundbreaking work that challenges governments to seriously rethink their social policies based on a paradigm of equality. Apparently the authors had considered calling it Evidence-based Politics. They certainly provide the evidence.

The elephant will dance

This one's too good to miss. Concerned Christians Canada has complained to the Calgary Zoo that a statue of a dancing elephant in front of the Asian elephant compound was showing "selective religious partiality," and should be removed. The statue is apparently modeled after the Hindu god Ganesh.

The zoo, however, says the statue contains no religious symbols and simply illustrates the connection between Asian culture and elephants. The statue is a popular background for picture-taking. Angie Thomshaw, visiting the zoo with her children, commented, "We like it. We think it's cute. And I'm Christian."

A spokesman for Concerned Christians Canada insists the Zoo should not be "a place of religious expression," but in fact it is. It features carols and a light display at Christmas, as well as events at Easter. Apparently, there have been no complaints from Hindus.

So dance on, Ganesh.

Today is Earth Overshoot Day

It is well-known that we are using up the Earth's resources faster than they can be replenished. In order to remind us of that fact, the Global Footprint Network has created the concept of Earth Overshoot Day, "the day when humanity begins living beyond its ecological means."

This year, Earth Overshoot Day occurs today, Friday, September 25th. Tomorrow, according to the Network, "we move into the ecological equivalent of deficit spending, utilizing resources at a rate faster than what the planet can regenerate in a calendar year."

By the Network's calculations, we first went into overshoot in 1986. Until then we were consuming resources and producing waste consistent with what the planet could produce and reabsorb. By 1996, we were using 15 percent more resources per year than the planet could supply. Now, we use up resources 40 percent faster than the planet can produce them. We are devouring the Earth.

Today is a good day to pause and reflect on our dissolute ways. Those of us fortunate enough to live in the First World live a life of great indulgence. None of us, I think, would want our young people to be the last, or perhaps the second last, generation to enjoy this life. But that's the direction we are headed. The reminder from the Global Footprint Network is timely indeed.

The important voices weigh in on climate change

We live in a democracy the theory goes. How nice if it were true. But it isn't. When the mass media is owned by a few media barons and the economy dominated by corporations, the voice of the people is only part, and possibly the least part, of the political dialogue. The plutocracy is at least as important. And now a select group of plutocrats has weighed in on climate change. The prospect of the politicians doing something suddenly looks much brighter.

The Prince of Wales's Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change has issued a Copenhagen Communique. It states, "Economic development will not be sustained in the longer term unless the climate is stabilized. It is critical that we exit this recession in a way that lays the foundation for low-carbon growth." The high-powered group includes over 500 leading global companies including Bombardier, Scotiabank, Sun Microsystems, British Petroleum and Shell. Note particularly the presence of oil companies.

The communique insists that, "These targets will need to be guided by science," and goes on to reference the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It emphasizes that, "Developed countries need to take on immediate and deep emission reduction commitments that are much higher than the global average."

The big dogs have barked. Will the politicians listen now?

U.S. Medicare battle -- remember Saskatchewan

As Americans wage a verbal war over President Obama's medical care proposals, we Canadians should not be too critical of the unseemly behaviour of some of the participants. We might recall the battle over medicare we waged in this country. As a son of Saskatchewan, where the fighting took place, I remember well the descent into name-calling and fear-mongering.

I don't remember anyone referring to Tommy Douglas as Hitler, or anyone bringing guns to the many demonstrations, but I do remember a prominent Catholic priest removing his collar and loudly proclaiming that Communism was descending upon Saskatchewan. The Medical Care Insurance Act was passed in November, 1961, and came into effect in July, 1962. The same day it came into effect, 90 per cent of the province's doctors went on strike. Keep Our Doctors Committees, supported by the media, launched well-organized and well-funded campaigns against the government. Rallies and petitions fired the political climate to a white heat. The government responded by bringing in doctors from Britain and encouraging others from the U.S. and other parts of Canada to help meet the emergency. Local citizens established medical clinics and hired doctors to staff them.

The struggle in the U.S. is, like the struggle in the early 1960s in Saskatchewan, about much more than medical care. As David Shribman recently pointed out in an article in The Globe and Mail, it is about power, about the relationship between the people and their government.

There is a similarity in the times. The paranoia and economic uncertainty of today reflect the red scare of that earlier period. American individualism and greater distrust of government will give an even greater intensity to their fight than was experienced in ours.

The good news, of course, is that in this country it had a happy ending. Within months of the Saskatchewan legislation coming into effect, the Keep Our Doctors support had dissipated, doctors were returning to work, and the government had amended the Act, including giving doctors the right to practice outside the plan. Mistrust lingered, but by 1965 most doctors supported the plan and within ten years every province had one of their own. Today it is an integral part of Canadian culture.

It will be much more difficult for the Americans to come to terms with the patchwork efforts they are being offered. We can only wish them the same happy ending.

Bill C-435 suggests a route to fair trade

On Wednesday, New Democrat International Trade Critic Peter Julian tabled a Private Member’s bill in the House of Commons which suggests a way "free" trade agreements might be turned into fair trade agreements. The bill, the Made in Canada Procurement Act (C-435), intended to ensure Canadian companies and industries are given top priority on all government procurements and services, calls on Ottawa to purchase goods and services from countries and companies that adhere to the International Labour Organization (ILO)'s core labour standards.

The bill's requirement of preferential treatment for Canadian companies and industries could be argued as interfering in free trade, but the requirement that countries and companies meet ILO labour standards could not. On the contrary, it would ensure freedom for workers and could, therefore, be argued more sensibly as contributing to free trade as well as fair trade.

The core labour standards of the ILO are contained in the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. The section on freedom of association states, "The right of workers and employers to form and join organizations of their choice is an integral part of a free and open society. It is a basic civil liberty that serves as a building block for social and economic progress. Linked to this is the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining. Voice and representation are an important part of decent work."

Not that trade agreements ignore worker rights entirely. NAFTA, for example, has a side agreement on worker rights; unfortunately, it is toothless. For the most part it simply insists that countries enforce their own labour laws, whatever those might be, and only three out of 11 principles can be enforced by sanctions. Freedom of association and the right to organize can only be enforced by discussion which pretty well reduces them to nothing more than talking points.

Including ILO standards in trade agreements, along with rigid enforcement mechanisms including sanctions, would be a good start to ensuring the agreements serve workers as well as corporations.

Tire tariff tiff

So the United States and China are going to war. Well, a trade war ... a little one. President Obama ticked the Chinese off rather severely it seems by imposing a 35 per cent tariff, on top of an existing four per cent duty, on tires from China. The tariff was in response to a surge in Chinese tire imports and pressure from the United Steelworkers Union.

The union's concern is understandable. From 2004 to 2008, U.S. imports of Chinese tires more than tripled and China's market share in the U.S. increased from 4.7 percent to 16.7 percent. Four American tire plants closed in 2006 and 2007 and three more are closing this year with just one new plant opening. The Steelworkers claim 5,000 American jobs have been lost as a result.

The U.S. tire companies, on the other hand, are not complaining and don't support the tariff. And why would they? They have been busy shifting their production from the U.S. to countries such as China to save on labour costs. Their factories in China will be subject to the tariff if they export products to the U.S.

Meanwhile, the Chinese are retaliating with a complaint to the World Trade Organization and an "anti-dumping and anti-subsidy" investigation into imports of U.S. vehicles and chicken products. China claims to be "consistently and resolutely" opposed to protectionism, yet its market advantage depends heavily on a workforce denied the basic freedoms of association and speech, a work force that cannot organize itself to protect and promote its interests. This coerced labour, which reduces Chinese workers to little better than serfs, certainly serves to protect Chinese export advantage, but is not precluded under trade rules.

The contrast in views between American workers and their companies illustrates what global trade agreements are all about. Touted as mechanisms for free trade, they are really mechanisms for cheap labour for corporations. Global trade is in no small way a continuation of the old struggle between capital and labour brought to the world stage.

The world frets that the dispute will slow economic recovery from the recession. The world should instead fret about "free" trade agreements that insist on freedom for corporations but not for workers. It is a perverse system that punishes a country for a tariff but has nothing to say to a country that ruthlessly exploits it work force, even though both are clearly protective measures as well as hindrances to any meaningful concept of free trade.

This time workers are fighting back and, surprisingly, their country's leader has supported them. I wish them and their president the best of luck.

Patriotism, political loyalties, and citizenship

At this point in the Canadian story we have the strange situation where the leaders of the two major parties are suspected of being less than committed to the country. Conservative attack ads portray Michael Ignatieff as a political dilettante who has just dropped by to be prime minister for a while before he goes on to other adventures abroad. Stephen Harper, who famously refused to say he loved this country, at one time wanted to firewall his home province of Alberta from the insidious feds.

This perceived lack of patriotism raises some intriguing questions about political loyalties. For example, how important is love of country to political responsibility? Traditionally, political loyalties are exercised primarily within the nation-state. We may be conservatives, liberals or socialists but we are first and foremost Canadians. We emphasize that mightily with flag-waving, anthem-singing and other exercises in patriotism. Indeed we fight wars on that basis.

Patriotism is simply tribalism in modern guise, the last refuge of a scoundrel according to Samuel Johnson. Tribes needed ceremony and tradition to ensure collective security in a dangerous world, but today, in a modern, globalizing world, the biggest danger is often tribalism itself. Patriotism may not only be unnecessary for the good of the state but a threat to the good to the state, or at least to its people. The globalizing world, with communications now instantaneous, has at the same time allowed political loyalties to break out of the nation-state. And so they should. After all, conservatives in Canada may well have more in common with conservatives in the U.S., or indeed anywhere else, than they have with Canadian socialists or liberals. Political loyalties now have the opportunity to form natural alliances rather than alliances constrained by geography.

What then should our political relationships with the nation-state be based on if not love of country? I would suggest citizenship -- the idea that we owe a responsibility to any community we are a member of to be good citizens, whether that community be local, provincial, national or global. Treating our fellow citizens with respect and participating in the governance of our communities at all levels can be the basis of a fine relationship.

So perhaps neither Ignatieff's nor Harper's seeming lack of patriotism is of any particular relevance. If they are committed to serving the community of Canada well, what difference does it make if Harper doesn't adore the place or if Ignatieff has spent much of his life elsewhere? Affection for the people they serve is, on the other hand, of very great importance ... but that's a different story entirely.

A harem for the shoe-thrower?

"This is your farewell kiss, you dog. This is for the widows and orphans of Iraq." With those immortal words, Muntazer al-Zaidi hurled his shoes at then-president George W. Bush and claimed his place in history. And quite a place it is. Al-Zaidi, who will be released from prison on Monday, is a hero to millions of Arabs who believe he stood up for them with the courage their leaders lack.

On his release he has been promised a new house, cars, money and the hands of many lovely maidens in marriage. Ahmed Jouda, a Palestinian farmer who convinced his relatives to contribute tens of thousands of dollars to al-Zaidi's defense, said, "We are willing to present him with a bride loaded with gold." He added, "We are people who have tasted the bitterness, sorrow and agony of occupation, too. What he did, he did for all the Arabs, not just the Iraqis."

Al-Zaidi's fame in the Middle East not only illustrates Arab animosity toward the United States but also the need for leaders that truly represent the sensibilities of the Arab street. At least, for the moment anyway, they have the shoe-thrower.

Vote? Don't think I'll bother

Such a lot of talk about elections these days. Politicians posturing left and right. Michael Ignatieff suddenly getting all antsy. I should, I suppose, be gearing up to exercise my sacred right to cast a vote. And I would if it would make any difference, but it won't, so I'm not.

I vote in Calgary Centre. Lee Richardson, the Conservative candidate, will win this constituency. He will win with 15-20,000 votes over his nearest opponent. My vote will make absolutely no difference, not in my constituency, not in the overall result of the election. Not one whit. My vote simply won't count. It would if we had a proportional representation voting system. Then it would help elect an MP for the party I support. It would count the same as each and every other voter's. But we don't, and it won't.

I have debated this with a good friend of mine who has seen no point in this futile exercise for some time. I have insisted, with decreasing conviction, that he should vote because after all we are lucky to live in a democracy. I'm afraid this time the conviction has faded away, not enough left to even convince myself to vote.

Democracy is political equality manifested in one citizen/one vote. But when your one vote doesn't count, where's the democracy for you? You've been hustled. I accept my democratic responsibility to attempt to change the system if I don't agree with it. I support Fair Vote Canada, and I pressure my elected representatives to support proportional representation, but progress is glacial. So I've decided not on a protest vote, but on a protest non-vote. Perhaps if enough of those electors whose votes are rendered irrelevant by our corrupt first-past-the-post system stop co-operating with the system, our legislators will take notice and fit democracy into their agendas.

I will continue to vote municipally and provincially. My ward and provincial constituencies are sufficiently competitive that my vote matters. But the idea of voting in the next federal election increasingly makes me feel like I'm participating in a charade, a democratic fraud. So I will not waste my time.

Is the war on drugs winding down?

Prohibition made criminals rich. Prior to 1920, the year the United States decided to cure Americans of the drinking habit the hard way, crime wasn't a particularly lucrative business. Prohibition didn't stop Americans drinking, of course, but it did make large sums of money available to the criminal element. They could sell a product to millions of normally law-abiding citizens at prices made artificially high by the product's illegality, and crime became a very big business indeed. The newly created crime syndicates protected their turfs diligently and violently -- the murder rate increased tenfold.

Prohibition in the U.S. was repealed in 1933, but the damage had been done. The syndicates had branched out, using their immense profits to move into legitimate businesses and invest in gambling, loan sharking, labour racketeering and other criminal enterprises.

History now repeats itself. Prohibition on drugs has created a similar bonanza for criminals. The Mexican drug trade alone offers profits of an estimated $35-billion US a year. Head of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin Guzman, is on the Forbes List of Billionaires (ranked 701). Guzman makes Al Capone look like a pickpocket and his hired killers, including military deserters professionally trained in counterinsurgency warfare by the United States, would send shivers up Mafia spines. Drug authorities estimate the Mexican cartels now operate in 230 American cities. And, as with Prohibition, the bloodshed follows the money. Last year Mexico's drug wars cost 6,000 lives.

The "war on drugs" was declared by U.S. President Richard Nixon in 1969, and the Americans have prosecuted it vigorously ever since, nationally and internationally, bribing and cajoling allies as necessary. Now it appears some of those allies, and perhaps even the U.S. itself, are beginning to recognize the futility and destructiveness of the war and are considering alternatives. The final report issued by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, evaluating current drug policy and its affect on Latin America, concludes, "The orientation of battling drugs with prohibition, repression, sanctions and punishment not only does not resolve the problem, but generates new and more serious ones."

Three former Latin American presidents -- Fernando Cardoso of Brazil, Cesar Gavira of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico -- declared in a Wall Street Journal article that the war on drugs is a failure and are demanding that U.S.-inspired drug policies be reexamined.

Argentina's supreme court has ruled that punishing people for using marijuana for personal consumption is unconstitutional, freeing the Argentine government, which favours decriminalization, to amend its drug laws. Mexico has decided to stop prosecuting people for possession of small quantities of marijuana, cocaine and other drugs, instead referring them to clinics. Brazil and Ecuador are considering partial decriminalization

So far, the U.S. response to all to this has been mild. Indeed, glimpses of a changed attitude are appearing there as well. Some states have decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana while the Obama administration has emphasized public health solutions to drug abuse. The US. Attorney General has announced the federal government will no longer pursue groups that supply medical marijuana. In California, this amounts to legalization. A federal government led by a confessed former toker might be expected to open a new era in drug policy.

The sum of these changes is modest, but a clear shift nonetheless toward more enlightened drug policies. Ending prohibition of drugs won't end problems of abuse, but it will cut the financial feet out from under drug barons like Joaquin Guzman.

Doing better for Canadian children

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released its first-ever report on child well-being in the 30 countries that make up its membership. Canada receives solid marks, but there are areas which need attention.

The report compares child well-being using six yardsticks, chosen to cover the major aspects of children's lives: material well-being, housing and environment, education, health and safety, risk behaviours, and quality of school life. Canada does particularly well in education, ranking third out of 30. The performance of Canadian 15-year olds is high and the gap between good and poorly performing students is small. Only Finland and South Korea showed better outcomes.

Our child poverty rates are less impressive, however. Fifteen per cent of Canadian children live in poor households compared to the OECD average of 12 per cent. Two other weak areas are immunizations and suicides. We immunize less than many other countries and our suicide rates for 15-19 year olds are 50 per cent higher than the OECD average.

Risk behaviour is a mixed bag. While the smoking rate of Canadian teenagers is half the OECD average, only Britain, Denmark and Finland have higher rates of drunkenness.

Indeed our overall performance is a mixed bag. We do well by our children in some respects, not in others. Obviously we can do much better.

Odious blogger exposed

Anonymity is the bane of blogging. Nothing undermines the quality of discourse in the blogosphere more than the ability of anyone with a computer to spew toxic verbiage into the web world without any accountability whatsoever. It is as surprising as it is depressing to observe what mischief even normally responsible people will get up to under a pseudonym. I believe there is a blogging law that says if a thread reaches more than ten posts someone will have been called a nazi.

Perhaps the uncivilized behaviour characteristic of so much blogging will be suppressed a little by a recent court case in New York. Model Liskula Cohen, slandered by an anonymous blogger, went to court and forced Google, whose Blogger service the culprit used, to reveal the identity of her tormentor. The case has been described as a "landmark." Ms. Cohen is now able to sue the offending blogger for slander.

Most people who abuse blogging are probably quite decent human beings who would never say the trashy things they do in their posts if they were speaking to their victims face to face. Anonymity simply brings out the worst in them. If this case curbs some of the worst, it will be a victory for responsible blogging everywhere. As a blogger myself, I thank Ms. Cohen, her lawyers and Madam Justice Joan Madden of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.

Want to get high? Sniff your wallet

Don't panic, but you are probably carrying cocaine around in your purse or wallet. Scientists from the American Chemical Society report that 85 to 90 per cent of American and Canadian banknotes are contaminated (their word, not mine) by cocaine residue. This is up 20 per cent from a study conducted only two years ago.

The scientists tested banknotes in five countries -- the United States, Canada, Brazil, China, and Japan -- and found “alarming” evidence of cocaine use. The U.S. and Canada had the highest levels while China and Japan had the lowest.

Of course this doesn't mean that 85 to 90 per cent of Canadians are rolling up their banknotes to snort cocaine. Much of the contamination is no doubt being spread from bill to bill. Nonetheless, obviously a lot of people are using their money to do more than just buy the stuff. And hey, you over there, stop sniffing your purse.

Guilty or ill? A crime problem or a health problem?

At one time, mentally ill people, with their often anti-social behaviour, were locked away in what were little more than prisons. Eventually our understanding of mental illness improved and allowed us to advance beyond this barbaric practice. Now we may be on the verge of yet another advance in both our understanding of and our reaction to anti-social behaviour.

Studies on impulsively violent men and psychopaths show that their brains are different from those of normal people. Brain imaging technology reveals that the amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotions and aggression, and the orbitofrontal cortex, which handles impulses and decisions, are structurally and functionally different in psychopaths. Furthermore, levels of serotonin, the neurotransmitter that regulates aggression and impulsivity, are generally low in these people. To put it simply, their brains don't work right.

It may be hard for us to accept, but the fact is that the impulsively violent and the psychopathic are victims. They suffer from a mental handicap. They are no more responsible for their condition than a crippled man is for his crooked leg, and they are no more responsible for their antisocial behavior than he is for his limp. When they harm others, how are they more guilty of a crime than someone who has a contagious disease who unknowingly spreads it to others? Their disorder is much worse, of course, because it robs them of their basic humanity.

When they pose a threat, they must be sequestered from society, but should they be imprisoned or hospitalized? We can legally detain people with contagious diseases. It's called quarantine. It would seem reasonable to do the same with the dangerously antisocial. We have long had mental institutions for the criminally insane, but their incarceration has always depended on an arbitrary definition of "insane," specifically, knowing right from wrong. Well, psychopaths know right from wrong, at least in the legal sense, yet they too are "insane." They, too, are not responsible for their actions, or at least only marginally so. They do not have free will. (Of course, maybe none of us do, but that's another question entirely.)

This new knowledge offers real promise. If these people suffer from mental conditions, we can develop ways of treating them. By therapy, with drugs, perhaps even with a computer chip in the orbitofrontal cortex. We might eventually be able to turn a serial killer into a perfectly normal human being. Courts and prisons could be replaced by medical treatment just as the old asylums were.

This would be an enlightened age, but it would throw many of our concepts about justice into confusion. The desire for vengeance is very powerful. If a serial killer was cured, if he was literally a different person free of antisocial urges, what would be the point of incarcerating him? And if he were allowed to walk freely amongst us, how would we sate our desire for vengeance, particularly that of his victims?

And then there would be the question of our right to engage in mind control. How far might some in authority want to go in controlling the minds of "anti-social" citizens?

We might do well to ponder these questions. We see promise of knowledge that could revolutionize crime and punishment, and offer us much safer societies, yet offer us also moral challenges we haven't yet faced.

Anti-Semitic Semites?

Critics of Israel's policies toward the Palestinians are frequently charged with anti-Semitism. Which inevitably leads to the question, is the charge justified or is it the old demagogic tactic if you can't attack your opponent's argument, attack your opponent. Bernie M. Farber, CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, has attempted to clarify the matter. "Criticism of Israel crosses into anti-Semitism ," Farber says in a letter to The Globe and Mail, "when it calls into question the legitimacy of Israel's identity as a Jewish state."

Unfortunately, Farber's definition sounds rather like the demagogic tactic. How can one not call into question the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state? Twenty per cent of the population is Muslim Arab. What are these people? Invisible? Nonentities? Members of a lesser race as Winston Churchill once referred to them? To ignore such a substantial minority and define a state by its racial majority is in itself racism. And if this minority is Semitic, as of course it is, then is not the racism anti-Semitism? If so, then Mr. Farber would seem to have his argument backwards.

And we should not be surprised. The whole point in creating Israel was to create a racial state. So we should expect its supporters to justify its definition as such. And to support, also, the continued exile of millions of Palestinian Arabs, denying them the right to return to their homeland solely on the basis of their race.

Or is it race? Is the failure of the Arabs not race but religion? Is it being Muslim that puts them beyond the Pale? Is the prejudice religion rather than race, or is it both? Racio/religious prejudice, so to speak. Not that it matters much, defining a nation by either or both is an odious practice.

Jews such as Mr. Farber are often in the forefront in defending human rights. They were prominent in the struggles against segregation in the American south and against apartheid in South Africa. Yet when it comes to Israel, the same people exhibit a curious blind spot. The rednecks in the South and the Afrikaners in South Africa only wanted one thing -- to maintain the integrity of their race, to maintain their identity as a people. And that is what the Jews of Israel are trying to do. Unfortunately, they are doing it with ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, apartheid and relentless land theft, all of which puts them roughly in the same league as the rednecks and the Afrikaners. Perhaps they have now discovered a little empathy for their former foes.

Farber accuses critics of attempting to "punish Israel for wanting to retain its Jewish identity." Unfortunately, Israel retaining a Jewish identity means marginalizing and punishing Palestinians. So what choice do people of conscience have but to call into question that "identity"?

The Globe leads with an environmental story? What is the media coming to?

I reached for The Globe and Mail today in its usual place on the paper rack and immediately thought my news dealer had messed up. The paper I was reaching for had a lead story about an environmental crisis. Couldn't be the Globe, I thought, must be some ecology rag that got stuck in there by mistake. But I was wrong. Sure enough, the lead headline in the Globe today was "Salmon Run Disaster: 10.6 Million Sockeye Expected... Only 1.7 Million Came: Where Have All the Salmon Gone?" A long headline emphasized with half a page of very red fish.

Destruction of the environment isn't something the corporate press has shown a lot of interest in. Global warming, humanity's greatest threat, ought to be the number one media issue yet it struggles to get a mention. Preserving the environment might involve consuming less, and that's something the corporate press, whose prime function is selling stuff, really isn't eager to talk about.

Maybe the only reason the collapse of a fishery makes the front page is because it's worth a lot of money, but nonetheless I appreciate front-page attention to the biggest challenge facing us -- saving our planet from our own greed, stupidity and arrogance.

Will the Globe keep it up? My mind says not a chance. My heart says maybe. Hope springs eternal.

Is protectionism a bad thing?

The chief economic bugaboo among politicians at all levels these days seems to be protectionism. American protectionism specifically. Prime Minister Harper whispers his concerns in President Obama's ear at every opportunity. The premiers cry out for a new trade deal to save us from Buy America policies, frightened by Canadian municipalities' threats to apply their own buy-local policies in retaliation.

But is protectionism such a bad thing? Indeed, it seems odd for Canadians to wail against protectionism when a version of it just saved our financial bacon. Despite enormous pressure from the U.S. to deregulate, i.e. globalize, our banking system, Paul Martin resisted. If he hadn't, our system would have crashed just as the Americans' did, and Stephen Harper wouldn't be able to boast about what good shape our financial house is in.

John Maynard Keynes, the economist we keep returning to because of his good sense, once said, "Ideas, knowledge, art, hospitality, travel -- these are the things which should of their nature be international. But let goods be homespun whenever it is reasonably and conveniently possible; and, above all, let finance be primarily national.” Keynes was talking about the conservative virtue of self-reliance -- let us be open to the world but let us take care of our own needs. That worked for our banking system, why not for other things and for other people?

So I have a certain sympathy for those Americans who choose to depend primarily on their own resources. Why shouldn't they take care of their own people -- their own companies and their own workers -- first? Why shouldn't they seek self-reliance? And why shouldn't we?

In any case, what is so often pedaled as "free trade" is nothing more than corporate advantage. NAFTA is a good example. It allows American corporations to freely exploit cheap labour in Mexico but does not allow Mexican workers the right to exploit high wages in the U.S. What kind of "free" trade offers freedom to corporations but denies it to working people? Some freedom. The protectionism so feared by politicians and business people is revealed as essentially protection for corporate profit, particularly through exploitation of cheap labour.

Recent events have suggested that strength in the economy is like strength in nature. Strong systems need flexibility and that means they need variety. The more uniform the international economy is, the more a failure in one part affects the whole system. Our banking system remained strong precisely because it retained its individuality, its independence.

Sadly, all political parties have joined the "free" trade bandwagon. Premier Gary Doer has threatened Manitoba municipalities with legislation if they reject a new trade deal with the U.S. "If we have an agreement with the United States, it's my responsibility to deliver it in my own province, through the legal means we have possible," he has said. The right of local governments to choose their own economic path would be overridden. One wonders what happened to the "democratic" in New Democratic Party.

Knee-jerk acceptance of globalized trade, with its erosion of local democracy, workers' rights and self-reliance, is dangerous. We have just witnessed a good example of just how dangerous it is as the whole international system crashes because of irresponsibility in the United States. Protectionism, or self-reliance, or independence -- choose your term -- deserves more than simple dismissal. The fact it was advocated by John Maynard Keynes tells us that.

The welfare state as recession-proofing

One set of countries -- Sweden, Denmark and Norway -- seem to be enduring the current recession rather better than most. According to Harvard Business School economist Christian Ketels, "The outlook for these countries is good. They are going to return to normal quicker, and in better shape, than everybody else."

There are a number of reasons for this. All had sound public finances to begin with. All were running budget surpluses and all had tightened their banking regulations in the 1990s. Norway has accumulated its oil and gas revenues into a sovereign wealth found now worth $420-billion which provided ample funds for stimulus without running a major deficit. And the Scandinavians run highly competitive economies.

That competitiveness hints at yet another reason. It is supported by large, well-funded public sectors. The World Economic Forum insists that high levels of investment in education and training are a key to Scandinavia's success, stating in its competitiveness report, "This has provided the workforce with the skills needed to adapt rapidly to a changing environment and has laid the ground for their high levels of technological adoption and innovation in recent years."

Of particular importance in a recession, these countries' high-tax, high-benefit welfare systems stabilize their economies. Swedish workers who lose their jobs can expect to receive up to 80% of their wages for the first 200 days out of work, dropping to 70% for the next 100 days. In Norway, unemployed workers receive 62% of their salary for up to two years. This makes for a powerful economic stimulus by helping to keep demand high, and it does it by subsidizing working people rather than bankers and car companies.

Norwegian Finance Minister Kristin Halvorsen observes, "We notice more interest around the Nordic model because we manage to combine productivity, growth and welfare. A large public sector is a buffer against the turmoil of the markets." That others are interested is hardly surprising. It has recently become graphically clear how very important a buffer against economic turmoil is in a globalized capitalist economy. We Canadians will be well-served by taking the message to heart and beefing up our welfare state.

Nicaragua's assault on women

Amnesty International has issued a new report claiming that Nicaragua's total ban on abortions endangers the lives of girls and women, denies them life-saving medical treatment, prevents health professionals from practising effective medicine and contributes to an increase in maternal deaths.

The new law, introduced in 2008, makes abortion a criminal offence in all circumstances and provides for lengthy prison sentences for women and girls who seek an abortion and for health professionals who provide them. It allows no exceptions. It applies in situations where continued pregnancy risks the life or health of the woman or girl, and when the pregnancy is the result of rape. Even a pregnancy that cannot possibly result in a viable baby has to be carried to term.

The law goes even further. Medical treatment which results in the unintentional death or injury of a foetus is a criminal offence, regardless of the intention of the medical professionals concerned or the circumstances. Doctors who act to save a patient from dying as a result of obstetric complications risk their career and possibly their liberty. Examples of such interventions include treatment for malaria or HIV/AIDs, urgent cardiac surgery or intervention in a complicated birth. Even health care providers trying to save the foetus during a difficult delivery which results in the injury or death of the foetus can be prosecuted. A pregnant woman with cancer has to have the baby first, then treatment for the cancer, no matter what the risk to her survival.

And it goes further yet. Amnesty reports the law may punish girls and women who have suffered a miscarriage as it is often impossible to distinguish spontaneous from induced abortions.

And yet further. According to Amnesty, "Women human rights defenders have been subjected to legal harassment and accused of the public defence of a crime (apología del delito) for campaigning for therapeutic abortion. This legal harassment has caused some fear on the part of others, such as doctors and nurses, and discouraged them from becoming too actively involved in campaigning on the issue. "

Kate Gilmore, Amnesty International's executive deputy secretary general, states, "There is only one way to describe what we have seen in Nicaragua ‑ sheer horror. Children are being compelled to bear children. Pregnant women are being denied essential life saving medical care."

The rape statistics lay out some of the horror to which Ms. Gilmore refers. Seventy-seven per cent of rape cases in Nicaragua involve girls under 17. Between 2005 and 2007, sixteen per cent of those crimes resulted in pregnancy, and the great majority were in girls of between 10 and 14. Wealthy women may, however, be spared the horror. It is an open secret that many well-off families send female relatives to Cuba for the procedure.

The question is why a government led by Daniel Ortega would pass such legislation. Although Nicaragua is overwhelmingly Catholic, the government is independent and secular, and Ortega is a socialist whose first term as president from 1985 to 1990 saw almost a third of executive positions occupied by women. We can only conclude that Ortega decided achieving victory in the 2006 election made a necessity out of betraying women to a misogynistic Church. Sacrificing young women to the gods has a long history in Latin America. The tradition continues.

Big Pharma mugs Obama

President Barack Obama, in pushing for health care reform in the U.S., has emphasized the increasing costs of health care at least as much as he has emphasized the lack of adequate coverage for Americans. "This is an issue that affects the health and financial well-being of every single American and the stability of our entire economy," he has said. That statement is impossible to debate. About one out of every six dollars spent in the U.S. goes on health care, and two-thirds of bankruptcies in the country arise from medical bills. Three-quarters of those bankruptcies come from individuals who already have health insurance.

If Obama achieves universal coverage, ordinary Americans should be financially secure on the health front, but his plan may not do all that much for overall cost. In the first place, it won't include a single-payer system, an important element in reducing costs.

And that's only a start. After hearing from the pharmaceutical lobby, the White House and the Senate have agreed to omit from proposed medicare legislation the government's right to negotiate prices directly with drug companies. This measure has been highly successful in Canada in controlling costs, not surprisingly since drugs are the fasting rising component of the health care bill. Nor will the U.S. government allow cheaper drugs to be imported from Canada. Obama had included both these items in his campaign platform.

Obama and the Senate know that if they are going to get health care legislation passed, they have to take Big Pharma's money out of the equation. American politicians, like our own, answer to two constituencies: the people and the corporate sector. The American political system, again like ours, is less a democracy and more a hybrid system, with a democratic component and a plutocratic component. Both have to be placated. The American people will get the health care system they want to the extent the pharmaceutical companies get the health care system they want. Such is politics in the 21st century.

The Pope as economist

I have long felt that the answer to achieving a humane and sustainable economy lay in neither extreme of a state-owned economy or a purely capitalist market economy, nor in a state plus capitalist economy, but rather in an economy that entertained both state and capitalist participation while emphasizing co-operative entrepreneurship. I am pleased to see that the Pope agrees.

In his recent encyclical letter "Caritas in Veritate," Pope Benedict XVI comments as follows in Chapter Three, Sections 38 and 39:

Today we can say that economic life must be understood as a multi-layered phenomenon: in every one of these layers, to varying degrees and in ways specifically suited to each, the aspect of fraternal reciprocity must be present. ... What is needed, therefore, is a market that permits the free operation, in conditions of equal opportunity, of enterprises in pursuit of different institutional ends. Alongside profit-oriented private enterprise and the various types of public enterprise, there must be room for commercial entities based on mutualist principles and pursuing social ends to take root and express themselves. It is from their reciprocal encounter in the marketplace that one may expect hybrid forms of commercial behaviour to emerge, and hence an attentiveness to ways of civilizing the economy. Charity in truth, in this case, requires that shape and structure be given to those types of economic initiative which, without rejecting profit, aim at a higher goal than the mere logic of the exchange of equivalents, of profit as an end in itself.

The exclusively binary model of market-plus-State is corrosive of society, while economic forms based on solidarity, which find their natural home in civil society without being restricted to it, build up society.

Amen to all that.

We have seen in very recent years the failure of both extremes, of a state-owned model -- Soviet-style Communism -- and of the unbridled capitalist market model of neo-liberalism. We have been reminded, in a particularly dramatic way, of the need for balance. What we need to see now is a greater emphasis on what the Pope refers to as "commercial entities based on mutualist principles and pursuing social ends," i.e. co-operatives. A globalization where "we must compete in the global marketplace" is replaced by "we must co-operate in the global society" is one I could believe in.

Israeli apartheid comes out of the closet

Little angers Israel's supporters more than the accusation that the country practices apartheid. In the country proper the accusation has limited merit. Although Arabs are not equal citizens, they enjoy substantial rights, including the right to vote and run for office. In the West Bank, it's a different matter. There a system replete with walls, roads and checkpoints effectively maintains a high degree of segregation. The Israeli justification is of course the need to protect Jews from Arab terrorists, a justification not particularly satisfying considering that most of the people being protected are illegal settlers.

In any case, this kind of apartheid is now emerging in Israel itself. The minister of housing and construction, Ariel Atias, intends to implement housing policies that create separate townships for Jews and Arabs. He doesn't bother to justify this on the basis of security, but simply on the basis that Jews and Arabs shouldn't mix. His claim is disturbingly similar to the arguments Europe's anti-semites used over the centuries to justify confining Jews to ghettos.

Expressing his concern about the growth of the Arab population in Galilee, Atias observed, "If we go on like we have until now, we will lose the Galilee. Populations that should not mix are spreading there. I don't think that it is appropriate [for them] to live together."

To be fair, Atias is an equal opportunity bigot. He argues further that segregation should exist not just between Jews and Arabs, but also between ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews. He obviously has quite a tidy little country in mind.

How happy are you?

I have posted before about the need for something better to measure a society's well-being with than Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the overwhelming favourite, if not the only, yardstick used by the economic, media and political elite. I have discussed the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) and the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), both excellent measurements of a society's overall health. Now another alternative has come to my attention, the delightfully titled Happy Planet Index (HPI) , a product of the new economics foundation (nef).

The HPI is an innovative measurement that shows the environmental efficiency with which human well-being is delivered around the world. It reflects the average years of happy life produced by a given society, nation or group of nations, per unit of planetary resources consumed. It incorporates three separate indicators: ecological footprint, life-satisfaction and life expectancy. The nations that top the index aren’t necessarily the "happiest" places in the world, they are nations that are achieving, long, happy lives for their citizens without over-stretching the planet’s resources.

The leading nation according to the latest nef report is Costa Rica with an HPI of 76. Zimbabwe ranked lowest out of 143 nations with an HPI of 17. Canada came in 89th with a score of 39.

You can determine your own HPI on the Happy Planet Index website. I calculated mine at 70, short of the target (a good life that doesn't cost the Earth) of 83 but better than the world average of 46. Apparently I am using 2-3 times my share of the planet's resources, which surprised me considering I live in a small apartment and drive a small car which I don't drive that much. On the other hand, I ranked tops in the satisfaction with life category. So it would seem I can be best described as a happy glutton.

Happiness is an arbitrary concept of course but it has meaning in a human life that GDP simply does not. The fact we are seeing more attempts to measure the health of our societies comprehensively in ways that matter rather than just on how much stuff we consume is a healthy sign, a sign of maturity. There may be hope for us yet.

Is it still five minutes to midnight?

The last time the board of directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock was on January 17th, 2007. As a result of North Korea's testing a nuclear weapon, Iran being suspected of nuclear ambitions, the renewal of American emphasis on nuclear weaponry, and the continued presence of the U.S. and Russia's 26,000 nuclear weapons, and the addition of climate change as a threat to humanity, the scientists set the clock ahead two minutes to five minutes before midnight, the metaphorical moment of humanity's catastrophic destruction.

Perhaps a recent development will lead the scientists to set the clock back a few seconds. Russia and the United States, who between them have 95 per cent of the world's nuclear weapons, signed an agreement on Monday to reduce their strategic nuclear arsenals by at least one-quarter. This is intended to be a first step toward drastically reducing the threat of such weapons and preventing their spread to unstable regions. The agreement sets the stage for a treaty that will reduce the number of warheads and missiles to the lowest levels since early in the cold war.

President Obama considers the spread of nuclear weapons an urgent issue, "one in which the United States and Russia have to take leadership” he has said, adding, “It is very difficult for us to exert that leadership unless we are showing ourselves willing to deal with our own nuclear stockpiles in a more rational way.” He is of course perfectly right, particularly keeping in mind that under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty the two countries are obligated to reduce and eventually eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

This is a small step with a long, long way to go, but it is at least progress. It should be worth a second or two off the clock.

Urban VIII and Exxon: from denying heliocentricity to denying climate change

Urban VIII was no dummy. Pope from 1623 to 1644, he was a patron of the arts, church reformer, composer of poetry and hymns, and holder of a doctorate in law from the University of Pisa. He was also the pope who arrested Galileo for promoting heliocentricity.

The pope was a friend and admirer of Galileo, yet he stood him before the Inquisition. Why would Urban, an intelligent, well-educated man, turn on his friend because of an idea? Some historians even suggest he accepted the idea of heliocentricity himself. The reason, we suspect, is because his first duty was not to ideas, not to knowledge, but to his institution. He saw heliocentricity as a threat to the Catholic Church, and if the truth had to be sacrificed to defend his institution, so be it.

Remnants of medievalism we might think today. After all, Urban was also the pope who excommunicated smokers because he believed the habit led to sneezing which resembled sexual ecstasy. But modern, enlightened, well-educated men of today are as capable as Urban as putting the interests of their institutions ahead of the truth. I offer as an example the heads of ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company. ExxonMobil has for some time funded groups involved in undermining the science of climate change. It had promised to stop, but in 2008 was still supporting global warming deniers such as the National Center for Policy Analysis and the Heritage Foundation. The question is why men of this stature who are not only well-educated but who depend on science for their livelihood would betray science in this way, and the answer is almost certainly that, like Urban VIII, they put the interests of their institution ahead of the truth, even if they believe it themselves.

It is rather more serious now, however. Whether or not anyone believed the Earth circled the Sun was perhaps of importance only to the intelligentsia. But if climate change is not broadly recognized and dealt with, humanity is in grave danger. We simply can't afford Urban VIII's today. Modern technology threatens the planet in a way men of the 17th century couldn't imagine, and our leaders, in business as well as government, must rise to the challenge. Unfortunately, the leaders of one of the world's premier companies still linger morally in the Middle Ages.

Why privilege the sons and daughters of the military?

Four Canadian universities will participate in a program that offers scholarships to children of parents killed in active Canadian military missions. "It is ... a way of honouring those who pay the ultimate price for serving their country," said University of Calgary vice-provost Ann Tierney.

The program raises some obvious questions. For instance, why offer scholarships selectively to the sons and daughters of parents who died serving in the military? Surely, other young people who have lost a parent are equally deserving.

As for their parent's sacrifice while serving their country, why should that privilege the sons and daughters? They didn't make the sacrifice. And what is special about dying while serving your country in the military? We all serve our country, at least those who are employed do, and people in many professions make the ultimate sacrifice while performing that service: construction labourers, fishermen, firemen, journalists, and so on. The project was launched by retired general Rick Hillier, now chancellor of Memorial University of Newfoundland. As a Newfoundlander, Hillier should recognize that the son or daughter of a fisherman who is lost at sea is every bit as deserving as the son or daughter of a soldier who is lost in Afghanistan. It may be politically incorrect to say so, but I see no reason to especially honour those who serve their country wearing uniforms and carrying guns.

If any young people are burdened in obtaining their education because of the loss of a parent, let's help them according to their need, not according to who their parents were.

Calgary papers opt out of free speech

Calgarians bridle at references to their fair city as cowtown. And rightly so. There is much more to Calgary than cows. Judging by the behaviour of our two daily papers, however, one might think otherwise. The Vancouver Humane Society wanted to run an ad in the Calgary Herald and the Calgary Sun critical of calf-roping. Both papers refused to run it, even when it dropped a reference to the Calgary Stampede. "The greatest outdoor show on Earth" has often been thought to hold excessive influence in the city, but I hadn't thought it had enough to scare the press. Although it may have, I suspect the papers' timidity has more to do with the defensiveness against outsiders more typical of small towns than mature cities.

Calgary Sun publisher Gordon Norrie claimed the ad is in "bad taste." A Sun newspaper complaining about bad taste -- now that's rich. Actually, the ad is in rather good taste. No nudity, no four-letter words, some violence -- a photo of a man hurling a calf to the ground -- but no blood. The theme is that men who bounce baby animals off the turf are bullies. A soft-hearted ad, perhaps, even misguided from a macho perspective, but hardly in bad taste.

The Stampede didn't approve of the ad of course. They trotted out their usual line about caring passionately about animals, etc., etc. According to spokesman Douglas Fraser, "If we in any way mistreated our animals, they would not perform." The animals are performing? I think running for their lives is more accurate.

In any case, all is not lost for the Humane Society. The weekly newspaper Fast Forward is running the ad. It's reassuring to know some press people still respect dissenting opinions, even those critical of sacred cows (OK, enough about cows already).