The value of a vote in Alberta

I can't complain. The value of my vote, under the constituency boundaries recommended by the Alberta Electoral Boundaries Commission, will be close to average. At least for now. According to the Commission, the average population per electoral division in the province is 40,880. The population of my proposed new constituency, Calgary-Buffalo, is 40,381. I did much better than, say Calgary-Hawkwood, which will have a population of 47,686, yet much worse than the rural constituency of West Yellowhead which will have a population of only 31,338 privileged citizens, if the Commission's report is accepted by the Alberta Legislature.

How democratic is this? Well, not very. Democracy means political equality, but a citizen in West Yellowhead has a vote worth 50 per cent more than that of a citizen in Calgary-Hawkwood. Actually, it's even worse. The population of Dunvegan-Central Peace, considered a special case because of its vast area, is only 24,584. A vote in that "special case" has almost double the value of a vote in Calgary-Hawkwood.

And that is now. This distortion will be greater by the time the next boundary review takes place. The trend is for rural ridings to decrease in population while urban ridings increase. Considering this trend is now a century old, it is long past the time boundary commissions took it into account.

Sadly, the rural/urban perversion of democracy has been sanctioned by no less an authority than the Supreme Court. In a 1991 decision, Madame Justice Beverley McLachlin stated: “the purpose of the right to vote enshrined in s. 3 of the Charter is not equality of voting power per se, but the right to ‘effective representation’.” She went on to say, "Factors like geography, community history, community interests and minority representation may need to be taken into account to ensure that our legislative assemblies effectively represent the diversity of our social mosaic. These are but examples of considerations which may justify departure from absolute voter parity in the pursuit of more effective representation; the list is not closed."

Unfortunately, in practice the list is closed. The discrepancies allowed are generally based on area and sparsity of population, thus advantaging rural voters over urban ones. In an inner city riding, an MLA or MP may face an additional challenge of dealing with many citizens for whom English is a second language. This would seem to fit into Madame Justice's "community interests" or "minority representation," but are the populations of such ridings ever reduced to compensate for the greater challenge of representation? I think not.

At one time, we might have been able to make an argument for offering rural areas special consideration because of the distances their representatives had to travel. Even then, however, reducing the democracy of urban citizens to compensate was never justified. It should have been dealt with by providing appropriate assistance to the representative such as a greater travel allowance or more aides. And it certainly isn't justified in an age of instant communication. It matters not at all to me where my MLA is if I want to contact him. I can do so instantaneously by email or phone, and even snail mail takes only a couple of days.

Madame Justice McLachlin's definition of the right to vote is arbitrary and undemocratic. Democracy rejects her "effective representation." It demands equal representation. Saskatchewan most closely approaches equality, restricting deviations from the average population of only plus or minus 5 per cent (except for two special cases of its own). Alberta still allows the grossly excessive 25 per cent. Our votes are discounted enough by our archaic first-past-the-post voting system; we don't need persistent gerrymandering in favour of rural constituencies.

Headline of the day

 

Wednesday's prize for headline of the day has to go to to an article by Nick Spicer in Al Jazeera online:

Does McChrystal play for France?

A perfect splicing of sports, politics and international affairs. And, of course, humour. Give this headline writer a medal!

How is the U.S. not a banana republic?

Last week Jon Stewart of the Daily Show had a bit of fun with Texas Representative Joe Barton. (He put him on the cover of Disdainful A**hole Magazine.) Barton, at a Congress hearing, apologized to oil giant BP for agreeing, after conferring with the President, to provide a $20-billion fund to compensate victims of the Gulf oil spill. Barton referred to the agreement as a "shakedown." He was soon brought to task by his Republican colleagues and apologized for his apology.

That he would be contrite is not a surprise. He is in line for chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee (he is currently the GOP's ranking member) if the Republicans win big in November, so he is eager to keep the party bosses happy. But it isn't surprising that he would defend BP either. He is the major beneficiary of oil industry campaign contributions since 1990, receiving over $100,000 in the last year and a half alone.

The obvious question here is how the American people can possibly believe that a man taking money from the oil industry for years will manage the House Energy and Commerce Committee in their best interests, keeping in mind that if the Republicans were in power this is the guy who would be in charge of BP. His electoral dependency may be legal but it's also corrupt -- he's bought and paid for. Democracy has been traded in for dollars and American energy and environmental policy may well be the loser.

Nellie McClung returns to Manitoba Legislature

Nellie McClung, perhaps Canada's leading figure in the fight for women's rights, returned to the Manitoba Legislature this week, to the same building where 96 years ago she began her campaign to convince the government that women should be allowed to vote. She returned, not in the flesh, but commemorated in bronze. A statue of Nellie and the rest of the Famous Five was unveiled at the legislative building on Friday. It was here in Manitoba in 1916 that Canadian women, largely because of Nellie, first received the franchise. The federal government followed Manitoba's lead shortly thereafter. 

The Famous Five were the women who successfully petitioned for women's inclusion as persons in the British North American Act, making them equal to men in the eyes of the law. The statue at the legislature depicts the signing of the petition.

Nellie's interests went well beyond political rights. She campaigned for dental and medical care for school children, property rights for married women, mothers' allowances, factory safety legislation and many other causes. She was also a writer of note, author of much non-fiction and a number of novels, one of which, Sowing Seeds In Danny, became for a time the best-selling novel in Canadian history.

An accomplished and committed lady. A true hero, well-deserving of the honour Manitoba has bestowed.

War as a prosecutable offence: This is a big f.... deal

War has, throughout the ages, almost been a sacrament for men. This was how men became men, by becoming warriors. In the last century, this began to change, perhaps because of the massive, horrifying and utterly pointless deaths of millions of men in the First World War -- a slaughter of unprecedented proportions. In any case, it began to lose its cachet.

The International Military Tribunal at Nuremburg described aggressive wars as a "supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." The Nuremburg tribunal, and others since, have prosecuted those "other war crimes" but not the crime of aggressive war itself. It may have been a crime, but it was a crime above the law.

No longer. Last Saturday, at a conference in Kampala, the member states of the International Criminal Court gave waging aggressive war a precise meaning and made it a prosecutable crime in international law. The states made a resolution that criminalizes the use of force against another country in violation of the Charter of the United Nations and gives the Court the power to prosecute political and military leaders who plan, prepare, initiate or execute illegal wars.

The resolution also establishes the conditions under which the Court can exercise jurisdiction. Although the UN Security Council is the principal body that can classify an action as a crime of aggression, thus initiating judicial proceedings, if the Council doesn't act within six months, the Court can proceed on its own. This ensures that if the Security Council -- a political organ -- doesn't act, the Court is not hindered in its duty.

There are various restrictions. For example, the crime won't apply directly to non-member states (111 countries are members) and unfortunately this includes major powers such as China and the U.S. Nonetheless, including the crime of aggression as a prosecutable offence under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court fundamentally changes the ancient macho practice of warfare as "politics by other means."

History has been made. As Vice-president Joe Biden of the United States might say, "This is a big fucking deal."

The Canadian Index of Wellbeing makes the front page

I have mentioned the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW) in previous posts as an alternative to the GDP for measuring society's economic and social health. Unlike the GDP, the CIW measures more than how much stuff we consume. Produced by the nonpartisan, nonprofit CIW Institute, the index "takes into account the full range of social, health, environmental and economic concerns of citizens." It evaluates our quality of life overall and specifically in areas such as health, quality of the environment, education and skill levels, the use of time, the vitality of communities, participation in the democratic process, and the state of our arts, culture and recreation.

Unfortunately, the media focuses on the GDP to evaluate societies' quality of life. Other, more meaningful, yardsticks tend to be ignored. I was, therefore, both surprised and delighted to see a report by the CIW featured on the front page of Tuesday's Globe and Mail.

The report, Caught in the Time Crunch, finds that more of us are working non-standard hours and looking after children and seniors, while fewer of us are able to participate in social activities. The result is poorer physical and mental health and less satisfaction with the quality of our lives. The report offers a number of public policy suggestions for improving our work-life balance.

The publicity the report and the index have received is a healthy sign that Canadians are looking for better ways of measuring our quality of life than the one-dimensional GDP. Roy Romanow, chairman of the advisory board of the CIW, says he hopes this report and others in the series will complement the GDP in measuring Canadians' well-being. I hope the CIW will do much more than that. I hope it will relegate the GDP to nothing more than the measurement of national income it was originally intended to be.

As the inventor of the GDP, Nobel Prize winning economist Simon Kuznets, warned, “Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between its costs and return, and between the short and the long run. Goals for ‘more’ growth should specify more growth of what and for what.” The GDP cannot make those critical distinctions. The CIW does.

The Calgary civic election and the corruption of democracy

With a civic election coming up in October, local developers and home builders in Calgary are preparing to campaign heavily for their agenda, which essentially means campaigning for growth and sprawl. The campaign, including a website to be launched this month, is supported by the Canadian Home Builders Association, Calgary region, and the Urban Development Institute Calgary. "With the mayor's seat and a number of wards up for grabs, it's time to engage and mobilize our industry," says Jay Westman, CEO of Jayman MasterBuilt.

Calgarians who believe in a sensibly-sized, compact city are highly disadvantaged in the debate, lacking the deep pockets of the development industry. City planners, who understand the financial and environmental costs of sprawling cities, are, because of their status as civil servants, banned from partisan participation in the political process. Developers, traditionally the biggest donors to municipal election campaigns, have their way open to elect aldermen amenable to their interests.

What particularly annoys democrats about this is that the money to fund the propaganda comes out of citizens' pockets. We all need a home, to rent or buy, so we all put our dollars into the hands of developers who then use it for whatever purposes they choose, including lobbying, public relations and electing amenable politicians. We are propagandized with our own money.

And paying for the propaganda isn't the end of it. Sprawling cities may be the developers' ideal, but they are costly cities. More sprawl means more roads, sewers, water lines, etc. to maintain. Citizens pay for this either with higher taxes or poorer services. The cost to the environment is also greater with more green space paved over and more pollution.

Democracy, to say nothing of sensible urban development, requires rules that confine the electoral process to citizens, and to citizens equally. That, after all, is what democracy is: political equality. When the plutocrats are allowed to intrude and undermine that equality with their money, democracy is corrupted to serve their interests. Voters do not get a balanced picture of the issues and the alternatives. But that, I'm afraid, is going to be the story of the 2010 Calgary civic election.

Good news on the bad news front

The worst news humanity has ever received is that we are changing the climate of our planet, and if we don't stop we will quite likely wreck our civilization. Or worse. As this wasn't bad enough, recently we have heard that many people are losing interest in climate change, the greatest challenge we have ever faced. And worst of all, that decline in interest seemed most prevalent in the United States. If Americans don't care -- the people who produce 20 per cent of the world's greenhouse gasses -- we are in dire trouble indeed.

But now some good news. A survey released this week found that 61 per cent of Americans believe global warming is occurring, up from 57 per cent in January, and 50 per cent believe it's caused by people, up from 47 per cent. Sixty-three per cent believe it will affect them personally. The survey also found strong support for doing something about it, with 77 per cent supporting the regulation of carbon dioxide as a pollutant and 87 per cent wanting more funding for research into renewable energy sources. 

Maybe there is a silver lining to B.P.'s catastrophic Gulf spill after all. When Americans see the destruction just one offshore oil well can do, one of many thousands, they may realize that all the activities of humanity accumulated might just be capable of changing the climate. The sight of innocent birds trapped in the smothering grip of oil can in itself jog our conscience about our treatment of the Earth.

Fifty per cent of Americans now coming to terms with the well-established scientific evidence is progress, but it almost certainly won't be enough. Convincing politicians who are under the spell of oil, coal and chemical industries will take more. Nonetheless, if the trend continues, it may be strong enough to affect the November elections, and that would be healthy progress indeed.

Are the Palestinians a lesser race?

Are the Palestinians a lesser race? Winston Churchill thought so. At the Peel Commission on the future of Palestine in 1937, he responded to concern for the Palestinians if a Jewish state was established in the region, a cause he strongly supported, by replying, "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." So there you have it, in the words of the great man himself, the higher-grade races replace the lower-grade races, and that presumably is the proper order of things.
 
So do Canadians, as the "higher-grade" race that took the place of the "Red Indians," believe what Churchill did about Jews displacing Arabs? The Conservatives certainly seem to. They support whatever Israel decides is in its best interests, regardless of the suffering this may inflict on the Palestinians. And well they might as the philosophical descendants of Mr. Churchill, their greatest hero and inspiration. But then the Liberals are hardly less committed to unequivocal support for Israel, nor for that matter is our daily press.

This unquestioning support for Israel infers a cavalier, even contemptuous, attitude toward the Palestinians. How can this be explained except by a belief they are less worthy? How else can you explain the indifference to the ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, terror, segregation and relentless land theft they have suffered and continue to suffer? How else can you explain our Prime Minister's Orwellian justification of Israel's assault on Gaza which included the slaughter of 400 children -- 400 children! -- as a "measured response"?

Canadians generally, despite the urgings of their politicians and their daily press, remain decidedly less enthusiastic about Israel's colonial project and much more compassionate toward the Palestinians. But for the powers that be, it seems the assessment of Churchill, the champion of empire, remains their guide -- brothers and sisters in Manifest Destiny.

The billion-dollar meetings

Conservatives have whined incessantly about the billion-dollar gun registry, ignoring concerns from those Canadians who consider guns a threat to their security. But when it comes to putting on a show, it seems a billion dollars isn't such a big deal after all. They spent $898-million on the Olympic games for security and now they are about to spend $933-million for the G8 and G20 meetings. It almost seems they are more concerned about the security of strangers than about the security of Canadians.

Not that I think we shouldn't keep our visitors safe and sound and snug in their beds, but a billion dollars for two meetings? Are these guys, even collectively, worth that much? 

And what are we going to get for our billion? Workable regulation of the world economy? Serious attention to climate change? A just agreement in Palestine? Concrete measures to alleviate world poverty? If there is significant progress on any of these fronts, I will curb my criticism, but I am not optimistic. I doubt they will achieve anything that couldn't just as easily been negotiated by their flunkies at minimal taxpayer expense.

At this price, there is no way we should hold these meetings. Let's leave that to nations who are a lot more desperate for attention than we need to be.

The imams aren't laughing

When the now infamous Danish cartoons created a raging response among certain elements in the Muslim community, I admit to siding entirely with the cartoonists. Partly because I believe in free speech; partly because religions deserve at least as much criticism as other institutions, being the influential and troublesome institutions they are; partly because I have done a fair amount of cartooning myself in my time; and partly because some of the cartoons were pretty damn good.

Now another cartoon featuring Mohammad has caused a bit of a scandal. This time in South Africa. And once again I support it for the same reasons. The Mail and Guardian, a leading South African tabloid, critic of Apartheid and the first colour-blind newspaper in the country, published "a gentle and irreverent poke" at the furor over the hysteria generated by Facebook's "Everybody Draw Muhammad Day." The cartoon, drawn by the award-winning Zapiro, aka Jonathan Shapiro, has created a certain amount of hysteria itself, with the Council of Muslim Theologians taking the newspaper to court to prevent it publishing the cartoon. They failed, but added ominously that while they wouldn't advocate violence, they couldn't guarantee there wouldn't be any.

The Mail and Guardian's editor-in-chief, Nic Dawes, responded, "My view is no cartoon is as insulting to Islam as the assumption Muslims will react with violence." Touché. Nicely said.

With their ridiculous overreaction, the Council of Muslim Theologians not only confirmed the cartoon's point about a lack of humour among Muslims, they insulted the humour and tolerance of Muslims generally. Ironically, the  editor-in-chief of the newspaper shows more respect for ordinary Muslims than they do.

Are liberals masochists?

The United States presidential election of 2004 presented two candidates with sharply contrasting war records. John Kerry had served honourably in Vietnam, done his duty so to speak. George W. Bush had used his family connections to duck the draft and spend the war flying jets around Texas. He ran away, so to speak. Yet during the election, the Republicans attacked Kerry on his war record, putting him on the defensive, and he let them do it. He had an extraordinary opportunity to imply his opponent was a coward and reap the benefits, but he was too much of a gentleman -- or something -- to do it. And of course he lost the election.

Now here in Canada, the Conservatives are doing a job on Ignatieff, claiming his erudition and lengthy sojourn out of the country make him suspect as a Canadian, and it too seems to be working. He admits they have "done a number" on him. Yet, as with Kerry, what an opportunity to retaliate. "Firewall" Harper has on more than one occasion shown his contempt for this country. He has made a speech in the United States ridiculing us. Yet the Liberals let it pass. They could be running ads asking why a man wants to be prime minister of a country he doesn't much like, but they are too much the gentlemen ... or something. Like Kerry, they are allowing the opposition to take one of its weaknesses and turn it into a strength. Ignatieff just takes the punches and doesn't swing back.

But what do I know. Politics isn't my game. Maybe the Liberal strategy will be seen as honourable in the long run and receive its just reward, and God knows politics could use more people with principles. Just ask John Kerry.

Climate change is a sideshow

The Prime Minister has spoken. Climate change is a sideshow. At a recent event on Parliament Hill, PM Stephen Harper, addressing host Senator Mike Duffy, said, "Everything else that also gets so much attention from your former media colleagues, Mike, these are sideshows. The economy is what matters." So there you have it. According to our leader, global warming and all that stuff is a mere distraction.

Personally, I find the Prime Minister's inability to grasp the seriousness of climate change, in effect to grasp reality, frightening. The environment does not need our economy. Indeed, it would be vastly better off without it, but our economy must have the environment. It is utterly dependent on it. Any talk, therefore, of putting the economy first is dangerous nonsense. Nor should we be talking about balancing the two. The only sensible approach is to design an economy that fits the environment, that sustains and enhances it, because only then can we sustain and enhance our civilization.

The failure to recognize this has, throughout history, been a major cause of the collapse of civilizations. Civilizations that put their economy first tended to exhaust their environment. As a result, they could no longer sustain themselves and they fell into ruin. If our leaders don't recognize this and act accordingly our civilization, too, will collapse, only this time the collapse won't be one civilization, it will be global. And that, global civilization, is what is at risk, nothing less. Sadly, our leader seems as oblivious to history as he is to the environment.

"the supremacy of law or the law of the supremes?"

Turkish prime minister, Recep Erdogan, recently asked a central, if politically incorrect, question. “This is the time to discuss whether we believe in the supremacy of law or the law of the supremes and superiors," he states, “While they still have nuclear weapons, where do they get the credibility to ask other countries not to have them?” The "they" he refers to are, of course, the five permanent members of the security council who have just announced agreement on another round of sanctions against Iran.

The announcement followed quickly on the heels of an agreement mediated by Brazilian president Lula da Silva, in which Iran agreed to ship 1,200 kg of low-enriched uranium to Turkey in return for nuclear fuel rods for a medical research reactor. The deal is intended to defuse the crisis over Iran's nuclear aspirations. Prime Minister Erdogan said the deal obviated the need for new sanctions.

But the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, "the supremes" to borrow Mr. Erdogan's phrase, are not about to allow upstart secondary powers such as Brazil and Turkey steal their thunder. They, and they alone, will decide on what action to take with Iran, needed or not.

Nonetheless, the dilemma nicely pointed out by Prime Minister Erdogan, remains. The five are in violation of their obligation under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to rid themselves of their nuclear weaponry, yet they complain that Iran may be violating its obligation by attempting to develop a nuclear capacity. Why should they be taken seriously when they are steeped in such hypocrisy?

Iran, after all, has a credible justification for nuclear arms. It is bracketed east and west by wars fought by nuclear-armed and hostile powers. How, by comparison, do the U.K. and France justify nuclear weaponry? They are surrounded by friends. As, of course, is the United States. It's time to end the hypocrisy and demand every signatory to the Treaty respect their obligations. And time to include the nuclear non-signatories in the obligations as well.

The New York Times critiques the GDP

That the GDP is not only a poor but a highly deceptive measure of the health of a society is hardly new. In fact the inventor of the GDP, Simon Kuznets, was worried from the start that it might lead to a nation’s economic activity being mistaken for its citizens’ overall well-being. And that of course is exactly what has happened, with nations' health now commonly being considered solely in terms of their GDP. Despite a variety of critics, this misguided practice has persisted. Economists like numbers, the media likes things simple, and the GDP is a relatively straightforward way of describing countries with a number, so it prevails.


Opposition has been growing, however, with more comprehensive and meaningful yardsticks presenting themselves, such as the Canadian Index of Well-Being. This, and many more indexes are mentioned in a very thorough article in the New York Times. The article provides an excellent overview of the GDP, its history, its strengths and weaknesses, and its challengers. It is well worth a read.

Perhaps most importantly, when the debate reaches the level of the Times, the possibility of replacing this over-used index as a measure of societal health greatly improves. And better ways of measuring the health of society should lead to improvement in the health itself.

Greeks, guns and Turks

That the Greeks have been living beyond their means is common knowledge. Not so commonly known is their excessive spending on their military. They spend 3.3 per cent of their GDP on weaponry, more than any other nation in the European Union and substantially more than their chief antagonist, Turkey. Greece is the biggest importer of conventional weapons in Europe. The chief providers of its military fix are France, Germany and the United States.

That it can no longer afford its lavish military was amply demonstrated by its last annual military parade. Unlike past parades, there were no tanks. The reason? The government explained it couldn't afford the fuel.

The reason for its big defence budget is of course its long-standing quarrels with its Aegean neighbour, Turkey. Now this is changing. Meeting with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou in Athens, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan announced both countries planned to cut military spending and stated, "I believe ... the 21 accords and co-operation protocols that we will sign with our neighbour and friend Greece will mark the beginning of a new era in our relations." Panos Beglitis, the Greek deputy defence minister, has said this year alone the Greek defence budget will be reduced from from €6.8-billion to €6-billion. 

"A new era" with its neighbour. Good sense is prevailing. If Greece's economic woes have helped end an animosity that endured for centuries, then that is a very silver lining indeed.

U.K. election result disappointing for fair vote supporters

Proponents of a fair voting system for Canada can hardly be encouraged about the results of the recent election in the U.K. The new Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition hasn't committed itself to much despite all the pre-election hype about proportional representation. All the two parties have agreed to is a referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV) system. The possibility of a successful referendum is probably better in Great Britain than it is here because voting reform is actually a relatively high priority among the British electorate; however, even if successful the result would be only a modest improvement. About all you can say for AV is that it's better than first-past-the-post and that isn't saying much -- almost anything is.

In this election, for example, under AV the Liberal Democrats would have increased their seats to 79 from 57, still well short of the 150 their share of the popular vote entitled them to. The Conservatives would have seen their seats drop from 307 to 281, still considerably more than the 246 they deserved. Labour's position would have changed little even though they earned 30 more seats than they received. And, of particular importance to Canadians, significant regional imbalances would still have remained between the parties. AV offers little to us.

Some of the other reforms promised have merit. Fixed-term Parliaments will better balance the parties' chances. Fewer MPs should make Parliament more manageable and reform of political donations and party funding is overdue. Statutory registration of lobbyists is an obvious improvement. And proportional representation was not entirely overlooked: a committee will consider fully proportional representation for an elected House of Lords, although again, the commitment is only to consider, not to actually change anything.

So the reforms should improve the British system overall, but proportional representation is nowhere in sight for the Commons. A disappointing outcome for fair vote supporters on this side of the pond. One consolation, I suppose, is that Canadians may at least realize now that coalitions are a legitimate and appropriate mechanism in a democracy.

Climate change denial ... let me count the whys

A prestigious group of the world's leading scientists, all members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and representing institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, the University of California and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have written an open letter condemning "the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular." The 255 scientists, including 11 Nobel laureates, while emphasizing that "there is compelling, comprehensive, and consistent objective evidence that humans are changing the climate in ways that threaten our societies and the ecosystems on which we depend," decry the "many recent assaults on climate science and, more disturbingly, on climate scientists by climate change deniers, [that] are typically driven by special interests or dogma, not by an honest effort to provide an alternative theory that credibly satisfies the evidence."

My question is what, specifically, drives these "special interests or dogma"? I can offer more than half a dozen possibilities, operating alone and in combination:

1. Greed. Vested interests, such as oil and coal companies, are determined to defend shareholder value, to say nothing of their own financial interest, against what they perceive as a threat.
2. Power. The governments of jurisdictions in which these companies operate are determined to defend their tax bases.
3. Fear. Working people, often thoroughly indoctrinated by the above two groups and their media allies, are afraid that curbing greenhouse gas emissions may cost them their jobs.
4. Ego. Big ideas, such as heliocentricity, natural selection and climate change, diminish humanity, too much so for many people to accept.
5 Ignorance. Many people don't understand how science works. As long as science has not proven absolutely that anthropogenic climate change is occurring, why worry they ask. But, as the letter says, "There is always some uncertainty associated with scientific conclusions; science never absolutely proves anything. When someone says that society should wait until scientists are absolutely certain before taking any action, it is the same as saying society should never take action."
6. Resentment. Some people consider environmentalists to be part of some kind of liberal elite. Who are they to tell us ordinary folk how to live?
7. Contrarianism. This particularly affects media types. Many columnists and radio and TV pundits get paid to be provocative, particularly toward those imagined liberal elites. Science is not deemed to sell newspapers as effectively as controversy.

When other big ideas brought irrational assaults down on scientists, it mattered rather less. What difference did it make if the masses didn't accept heliocentricity or natural selection? Progress persisted regardless. But it matters very much if the masses don's accept climate change. As the scientists' letter puts it, "Society has two choices: we can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively ... delay must not be an option." If the masses don't demand action, the politicians will quite likely delay, and that could mean the end of progress. And worse.

"Freedom of the press belongs to those rich enough to buy one."

American journalist A.J. Liebling's famous observation rings true again as a group of wealthy creditors led by Paul Godfrey, former CEO of Sun Media, buys up the Canwest Global newspaper empire for over a billion dollars. Passing from one group of the very rich to another is a huge chunk of Canada's daily press, including the major dailies in every major city west of Manitoba. The nation's principal public forums are the property of the rich, to be bought and sold as mere commodities, the public interest incidental. The West is particularly deprived, its major centres in three provinces largely dependent upon a press owned by one tiny special interest group.

Healthy democracy needs a broad and balanced range of news, something the Canadian press is ill-equipped to provide, beholden as it is to its capitalist masters. As long as Liebling's aphorism applies, that will not change. Freedom of the press is crippled without equal access to the press. Here lies a critical democratic challenge: the daily press remains our major public forum -- how do we ensure that forum provides equal access for all, including those not blessed by great wealth or corporate favour? Until we meet that challenge, democracy will be obliged to continuing sharing the stage with plutocracy.

My oil is safer than yours

I wasn't surprised to see Premier Ed Stelmach down in Washington tactfully exploiting the Gulf spill to promote the tar sands. I am, however, a little surprised to see our federal environment minister playing the same game. Expressing his horror at the tragedy in the Gulf, Jim Prentice said it put the tar sands into perspective as a less risky alternative to offshore drilling. I guess it all depends on what you are risking.

Trying to make tar sands production look good by comparing it favourably to a deep water blowout is a bit like saying being killed with an axe is better than being shot to death. It's a mark of desperation. And when you are the environment minister, you must be very desperate indeed.

Will Clegg do a Layton?

During the run-up to the 2004 federal election, Jack Layton suggested he would make proportional representation a requirement for co-operation with a Liberal minority government. And well he should have. Nothing would improve the NDP's standing in the House of Commons like PR. In the 2008 election, for example, with PR the NDP would have won 50 per cent more seats. But when the Liberals did find themselves with a minority government and negotiating with the NDP began, Layton seemed to set PR aside.

Will the same thing happen with the current negotiations in the U.K.? The Liberal Democrats have been pushing hard for PR. And well they should, too. If the recent election had been run under PR, they would have increased their representation in the British House of Commons by a startling 160 per cent. That kind of incentive might just drive Liberal Democratic leader Nick Clegg to stick to his guns and demand that PR be part of any arrangement with either the Tories or Labour.

Clegg, unlike Layton, has strong support from the public. A recent survey showed electoral reform was fourth on British voters' priority list, ahead of such things as unemployment, taxation, political sleaze and climate change.

Supporters of a fair voting system for this country will be watching the negotiations in the U.K. closely, crossing their fingers that Nick Clegg will remain loyal to PR.

NAFTA and the Arizona immigration law

"Any intervention in a complex system may or may not have the intended result, but will inevitably create unanticipated and often undesirable outcomes." -- Wikipedia's version of the law of unintended consequences.

One possible unintended consequence of our old friend the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is the new Arizona anti-illegal immigration law, much in the news these days. The  Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act makes it illegal for an alien to be in Arizona without carrying legal documents. It criminalizes illegal immigration and allows police to question and demand papers from anyone who they suspect might be an illegal.

Apparently most Americans support the law; however, critics accuse it of racial profiling and it has lead to mass demonstrations, even calls for a boycott of Arizona. Some police chiefs and mayors have criticized it, concerned about police being bogged down enforcing the law and worried about what it will do to police rapport with the Hispanic community. The entire Phoenix Suns basketball team, currently battling for the NBA Western Conference title, are protesting the law and Major League Baseball may move the 2011 all-star game out of Phoenix.

With its long border with Mexico, Arizona has long been a major destination for Mexican immigrants, illegal and otherwise. Pressure to move north in search of work was greatly intensified by NAFTA. While the trade agreement eliminated tariffs on corn, the Mexican staple, coming into Mexico, it did not reduce the massive subsidies American corn farmers receive from their government. Whereas a U.S. corn grower receives an average annual subsidy of $20,000 a year, a Mexican farmer receives only $100. Without a protective tariff, the Mexican farmer simply cannot compete. As a result, Mexico has been flooded with cheap corn from the U.S. driving thousands of small farmers out of business and costing millions of farm workers their jobs. The vast majority head north.

Such are the unintended consequences of a trade agreement that was loudly proclaimed as win-win-win. For Mexican workers and Arizonans alike it may be rather more lose-lose.

Oh my, now it's the Boy Scouts!

Last week, a jury in Oregon made the largest award for punitive damages to a single plaintiff in a child abuse case in the history of the United States. And which arm of the Catholic Church was this awarded against, you might well ask. Well none, actually. It was against the Boy Scouts of America. For being repeatedly assaulted by former assistant scoutmaster Timur Dykes in the 1980s, Kerry Lewis was awarded $18.5-million.

And this appears to be only the tip of a very large pedophilic iceberg. The jury in the trial was allowed to see about 1,200 files kept by the Scouts on suspected pedophiles, part of what is to believed to be a cache of up to 6,000 files held at the organization's Texas headquarters. Lewis's lawyer, Kelly Clark, said the jury was shocked by the existence of the "perversion files." The files revealed that the organization removes about 180 of its leaders every year.

Lewis's abuser was treated in a not atypical way by the Scouts. He confessed his behaviour to the local Scout co-ordinator, who also happened to be a Mormon bishop, but was allowed to continue working with the organization. He then molested Lewis, and other children, over the next two years.

The Boy Scouts of America is no stranger to controversy. It has been mired in legal actions for decades, dealing with dozens of out-of-court settlements for victims of sex abuse and defending its ban on atheists and gays. Not that it isn't in a position to defend itself. Like the Catholic Church, despite a declining membership it is rich, with $900-million in assets, including a $45-million art collection and large property holdings.

What is it with these all-male organizations and little boys? It's not that pedophilia creeps in -- it's bound to, there's always a certain amount around -- it's their reaction to it. The denials, the cover-ups, their refusal to honestly recognize its reality and to act responsibly when it occurs, their pretence that their organizations are immune to contamination when their all-male atmospheres may in fact be just the places that attract it. Maybe the scandals will wake them up. Maybe the experience will bring them into a new era of honest recognition of sexuality and how to deal with it in all its forms. Maybe.

If Parliament is paramount, why not let it govern?

"The fundamental role of Parliament is to hold the Government to account." - Peter Milliken
"The parliamentary system means government in Parliament and with Parliament, but not by Parliament." - C.E.S. Franks

Speaker of the House Peter Milliken's ruling for primacy of Parliament over the government seemed somehow inevitable even if it produced a sigh of relief. To rule in favour of the government would have in effect reversed the order of our parliamentary system, placing government above the elected representatives of the people rather than at their pleasure. Or, perhaps more correctly, given the grossly excessive power of the position, placing the Prime Minister above the elected representatives of the people.

Despite this reaffirmation of Parliament's supremacy, as C.E.S. Franks, Professor of Political Studies at Queen's University, reminds us, it does not govern. Its function, in Milliken's words, is rather to hold government to account. This is something that deserves great consideration. Why should the elected representatives of the people not govern, or at least be intimately involved in governing? Why should legislation not emerge from legislative committees rather than from Cabinet? And why should the heads of these committees, elected by their members and approved by the legislature at large, not become the cabinet ministers? And why should the legislature at large not choose the Prime Minister? If we adopted a proportional representation voting system to ensure Canadians were fairly represented, such a system would in effect be involving all Canadians in their governance. What an idea -- a people effectively governing themselves! The democratic ideal achieved.

At this time, one of those rare moments when thoughts of democracy are uppermost in the public mind, it seems appropriate to dream of such things.

Industries gang up on green

That elements of the oil and coal industries oppose Obama's green agenda is not news. The efforts of ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company and Peabody Energy Corp, America's biggest coal company, to undermine the science of climate change are notorious. The coal industry is leading the campaign to defeat the climate and energy bill currently before Congress and to prevent the Obama administration from using the regulatory powers of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to curb emissions.

Now it appears the chemical industry is joining the battle. A secretive group linked to Solvay Chemicals is joining other corporate groups and their supporters in legal challenges to the EPA's authority to act on greenhouse gas emissions. Solvay produces sulphur hexafluoride, an industrial cleaner that just happens to be an extremely potent greenhouse gas, 23,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Last year, the EPA proposed regulating sulphur hexafluoride.

The secrecy of the group is typical of corporate efforts to suppress the regulation of greenhouse gases. Corporations that like to present an environment-friendly face to the public prefer to keep their environment-unfriendly activities private.

Opposition in the U.S. to dealing responsibly with climate change is formidable. It includes members of the above industries and others, the legislatures of oil and coal states, right-wing think tanks, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They are powerfully organized, filthy rich, and equipped with all the propaganda tools, lawyers and lobbyists money can buy. This raw power, imposed largely out of the public view, seriously undermines the possibility of honest democratic debate on the climate change issue. It does explain the laggard nature of U.S. efforts to deal with the most important challenge facing all of us, a lagging we cannot afford from the world's major emitter of greenhouse gasses.

Tea parties, power to the people, and the illusion of small government

According to a recent New York Times/CBS News poll, one of the three major concerns of members of the U.S. tea party movement is that they are not being fairly represented in Washington. They have a point. Citizens in the United States are not being heard the way they should be. Obama's health care bill, seemingly a focus of their anger, is a good example. Obama dropped the idea of a single-payer system, the most important item in reducing health care costs, to appease the insurance industry, and he dropped the idea of bulk-buying of drugs by government to appease the pharmaceutical industry. It seemed more important to cater to corporations than to cater to the American people.

However, reducing the size of government, which according to the poll is the tea partiers major goal, will not solve their problem. It won't reduce the influence of the plutocrats. Indeed, it will probably increase it. When power is taken away from government, unfortunately it doesn't always equitably redistribute itself among the citizenry. If it did, even socialists might support downsizing government. What tends to happen is something quite different. For example, when successive American governments reduced their power over the financial industry, with less regulation and weaker regulators, that power did not seep out into the general public. To the contrary, it was absorbed by those best-situated to grab it -- the bankers and financiers. And with diminished government oversight, they exploited and trashed the system.

Another major concern of the tea partiers is excessive government spending. A major contributor to this sin in the U.S.,  as well as a major contributor to the size of government, is the largesse lavished on a bloated military, by far the largest single item of discretionary spending in the federal budget. Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned against the power of the military-industrial complex, but his warning was ignored and now the military-industrial complex, or more appropriately the military-industrial-congressional complex is a giant leech on the American body politic. It is, however, a leech the tea partiers support.

They fail to recognize their system is as much a plutocracy as a democracy. Consider the issue of climate change. While tea partiers gather in public places, as concerned citizens do, the oil-coal-chemical industrial complex conspires in private to array their lawyers and lobbyists against green legislation and the Environmental Protection Agency. They, not citizens, dominate the debate. Yet this, too, seems not to bother the tea partiers.

Most of them blame Congress, not Wall Street, for the current state of the American economy. If they want their voices to continue to ring out in Washington after the current passion for tea parties fades away, they will have to reset their sights. They will have to present policies that dramatically reduce the power of Wall Street -- the patrons of Congress -- not reduce the size of government.

The Anglican Church ... selling indulgences?

If there was one thing about the church of his day that really ticked off Martin Luther it was the sale of indulgences. For a price, you could reduce your time spent in purgatory. It was apparently in reaction to the indulgence-peddling friar Johann Tetzel that Luther wrote his "Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences" and triggered the Reformation.

So has the Anglican Church revised indulgence-selling in a new form? It is inviting corporations to sponsor its national convention, offering everything from corporate logos on documents to a showcase booth at the convention. As other sources of revenue dry up, the fastest-declining Christian denomination in the country has appealed to Mammon for salvation. It may be harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, but for $30,000 he can enjoy a private luncheon with Archbishop Fred Hiltz of the Anglican Church. And that must at least be close to the Kingdom.

I wonder if Luther could have done 95 theses on the power and efficacy of corporate sponsorship.

Women cause earthquakes -- wouldn't you know it

With the excess of faux pas coming out of the Vatican these days, it's time to give another religion a chance to display its ignorance. Enter senior Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi. According to Sedighi,  "Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes." So there you go, seismologists, put your silly instruments away and dress your wives and daughters up in burqas. You will be way ahead of predicting earthquakes, you will be preventing them.

I'm curious, though, Mr. Sedighi. Why is it just the women? Don't men ever lead young women astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society? And what about all the wars men start? Doesn't that shake the Earth a little?

And why is Iran so much more earthquake-prone than Canada? We've got a lot more women "who do not dress modestly" than Iran does. The walls in Canadian cities ought to be tumbling down.

So homosexuality causes Catholic priests to diddle little boys, and women in short skirts cause earthquakes in Iran. Ah religion. The wisdom of the ages.

Thank you, Paul Martin

According to Statistics Canada, the recent global recession was "less severe and shorter in Canada." While our southern neighbour suffered its worst economic decline since the Great Depression, ours was shorter and milder than the recessions of 1981-82 and 1991-92 . Exports and corporate profits fell sharply but, a report released Thursday states, "domestic spending was sustained by strong balance sheets and savings built up in previous years and a financial system that emerged largely unscathed from the crisis in the U.S. and Europe."

And who do we have to thank for that sound financial system? Why, no one else but perhaps the best Finance Minister we ever had, Paul Martin. At the heart of the failure in the U.S. was deregulation of their banking system. For years, they pressured us to follow their lead. According to Mr. Martin, "You couldn't go to a G7 meeting or IMF meeting without it coming up. ... We were under tremendous pressure to 'loosen up Canada.'" Martin just said no, and for that we owe him a great debt of gratitude. He saved our bacon.

The irony is that Stephen Harper gets the credit. He can now roam the world boasting of our superior economic performance backed up by the stability of our financial system, the best in the world according to the World Economic Forum. Indeed, there's a double irony. If Mr. Harper, the small-government man, the champion of free market economics, had had a majority government during that period, he would have likely embraced deregulation -- get the government off the backs of the banks and all that. And we would have been well on our way toward a U.S. style financial collapse.

Of course, Harper caught a break, too. If he had got a majority in 2006, freeing him to institute the failed policies of the U.S., he would have had to take the fall for the results. As it turned out, he has only had minority governments, confining him to moderate measures, and now he gets to walk tall on the world stage as the leader of the country with the model banking system. He was, you might say, saved from his own folly.

As were we. Looking good because of the astute Mr. Martin. I thank you, sir.

Mexico -- drug war or civil war?

What is usually described as Mexico's drug war is beginning to look like something rather more serious. Despite the deployment of 50,000 troops and the detention of 121,000 drug suspects, the situation worsens. Since 2006 when President Felipe Calderon launched a government crackdown on drug gangs, almost 23,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence. In Ciudad Juarez, a centre of drug violence, 10,000 businesses have closed down in the last 18 months with over 100,000 jobs lost.

Now the violence has taken on an even deadlier turn. Three of the cartels have joined forces to fight the infamous Zetas. The Zetas are former members of elite military units in the Mexican and Guatemalan armies who went rogue to work as enforcers and hit men for the Gulf cartel. With members who received training from American, French and Israeli counterinsurgency experts and the recruitment of federal, state, and local police officers, they are considered the most technologically advanced, sophisticated and violent paramilitary group in Mexico. Their victims include the police chiefs of three Mexican cities and the Secretary of Public Safety. After killing the police chief of Nuevo Laredo, they told his replacement they would kill more and more people until he stepped down. After personally discovering three bodies on the side of a city street, he resigned.

Earlier this year, the Zetas decided to set up shop on their own and have become arch rivals of their former employers. Now, as their range expands, they have become a threat to all the cartels. They have established a presence in the U.S., contacts with the 'Ndrangheta in Italy and training camps in Guatemala. The cartels, normally deadly enemies, are collaborating to deal with the threat. Banners have appeared in the border state of Tamaulipas, announcing the unity of the cartels against the common enemy, one going so far as to urge Mexico's army to get out of the way and let the cartels exterminate the Zetas.

Aside from the Zetas, President Calderon's military approach seems to be failing. Most Mexicans believe the cartels are winning and the army is now contributing to public insecurity rather reducing it. Many are demanding he focus more on crime generally and less on the drug trade which they see as primarily an American problem. The Zetas, picking up on this, have boasted they will eliminate petty crime if left alone to conduct their business to the north. Nor is Calderon immune to the public mood. In Ciudad Juarez, for example, he announced a shift toward investing in social programs and job creation to address the underlying causes of crime. He seems to be shifting focus, and well he might ... before his country is torn apart.

Liberating the barbers

Does it start with the barbers? The Cuban government is turning over hundreds of state-run barber shops and beauty salons to employees in what may be the start of an overhaul of state retail services. Instead of receiving a wage, the barbers and hairdressers will be able to rent their space and pay a fee based on the revenue they generate. They will be required to pay for their own water, electricity and supplies but will be free to charge whatever the market will bear.

This is the first time since they were nationalized in 1968 that state-run, retail-level establishments have been handed over to employees. The action is long overdue for a sector notorious for poor service.

One Cuba-watcher, Phil Peters of the Lexington Institute, suggests that although this is but a small step, it has considerable potential if more broadly applied. "If carried out fully," he stated, "it would convert small state enterprises into leasing arrangements and urban co-operatives." The idea of an abundance of co-operatives sounds very progressive indeed and could set an example for other countries, including ours, something for our governments to consider when they privatize things like liquor retailing.

If this small taste of free enterprise doesn't prove too much for the Castros, it might even lead to larger freedoms for the Cuban people.

Spanking kids: apparently violence does indeed beget violence

According to an article published this week in the journal Pediatrics, if you want children who are defiant, get frustrated easily, demand immediate attention of their wants, lash out physically at others, hurt animals and refuse to share, one thing that will help is spanking them. Social work and public health researchers at three American universities studied 2,500 parents over seven years and discovered that those who were spanking their three-year-olds produced kids that were much more aggressive at age five than unspanked kids. The study accounted for a number of factors including the children's level of natural aggression, parental maltreatment and neglect, family violence, stress, depression and substance abuse.

This is no surprise. Parents are, after all, kids' primary role models. Children learn principally from their parents and principally from example. They model themselves after mommy and daddy. If their parents teach them violence is acceptable, they absorb the lesson. Furthermore, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, corporal punishment becomes less effective with repeated use and also makes discipline more difficult as the child ages. Investing time earlier on to instruct a child why its behaviour is wrong may result in a young person that is more self-aware and in-control later.

Unfortunately, corporal punishment of children is still legal in Canada, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2004. The Court did at least insist that the person administering the punishment must be a parent or legal guardian, the force must be used as a correction which the child must be capable of benefiting from, and the force must be reasonable. Slaps to the head were deemed off limits.

Many countries, including Germany, Israel, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Ukraine and Venezuela, have banned the striking of children. A host of institutions in spanking countries state it is associated with negative outcomes and recommend against it. These include the Canadian Pediatrics Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Australian Psychological Society, The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the U.K., and The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

In light of all this expertise, capped by the most recent study, a particularly convincing one, it's time Canada took one more step toward a fully civilized society and joined the ranks of the non-spankers.

Ecocide -- an international crime?

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction over four crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. British lawyer/campaigner Polly Higgins would like to add a fifth: the crime of ecocide.

My Oxford dictionary defines ecocide as "destruction of the natural environment, especially when willfully done." Ms. Higgins would like to define it, for the purposes of international law, as "The extensive destruction, damage to or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished." The inhabitants she refers to are any species, not just Homo sapiens.

Ms. Higgins justifies adding ecocide to crimes under the jurisdiction of the ICC by claiming it is essentially a crime against peace. "Ecocide is in essence the very antithesis of life," she says. "It leads to resource depletion, and where there is escalation of resource depletion, war comes chasing behind." Her argument has considerable merit. Sir David King, Great Britain's former chief scientist, predicts a century of "resource wars," and a report on resource conflicts entitled Lessons UNlearned by the group Global Witness has convinced many skeptics of the threat of resource depletion.

Higgins has already achieved success in her environmental efforts. In 2008, she launched a campaign for a Universal Declaration for Planetary Rights, modeled on the human rights declaration, and the Bolivian government plans to propose a full members' vote on the idea in the United Nations.

Her proposed ecocide law has support in the United Nations and the European Union, among climate scientists, and among environmental lawyers and organizations. If successful, it would have a major effect on energy, farming, mining, forestry and chemical industries. The effect almost seems to overwhelm Higgins herself when she says, "I'm only just beginning to get to terms with how enormous that change will be."

But it's an idea whose time has surely come. Our offences against nature are so immensely destructive, it seems perverse not to call them crimes when offences against members of our own species that are trivial by comparison are subjected to severe criminal prosecution.

Anyone with a desire for justice toward our fellow species will wish Higgins success in her mission. You can follow her campaign at http://www.thisisecocide.com/.

Sad news from Ward 9

I was sorry to hear Alderman Joe Ceci announce his decision yesterday not to run for reelection in this fall's Calgary civic elections. Alderman Ceci's moderate, progressive approach has been a credit to politics and leadership in this city for 15 years. He doesn't represent my ward but, no matter, he has represented my views on how a city ought to function. I will, therefore, genuinely feel I've lost a representative after October 18th.

Alderman Ceci rejected the law and order mantra that has captivated too many Calgary politicians in recent years in favour of creating a more compassionate and equitable city, the best antidote to crime. His has been a strong voice in favour of affordable housing and sound social infrastructure. He has served Calgary well at the local, provincial and national levels, acting as the city's representative on the Federation of Canadian Municipalities for a number of years.

Ceci insists he doesn't intend to run for mayor but will support fellow alderman Bob Hawkesworth if that worthy gentleman decides to seek the job. Supporting the popular and progressive Hawkesworth is yet another wise decision.

In any case, Ward 9 will be the poorer.

Religion and dysfunctional society

"Irish Catholics are in a dysfunctional relationship with an abusive organization." So says Irish singer and activist Sinead O'Connor, who describes herself as a "Catholic by birth and culture [who] would be the first at the church door if the Vatican offered sincere reconciliation."

That the Irish are plagued by a dysfunctional relationship with their religion is hardly surprising at a time when the Catholic Church sinks deeper into pedophilic scandal. The larger question is whether religion brings dysfunction to society generally. Evidence suggests it does.

A paper by Gregory Paul in the Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, entitled The Chronic Dependence of Popular Religiosity upon Dysfunctional Psychosociological Conditions, shows a powerful correlation between the strength of organized religion and social dysfunction. Paul constructed a "Successful Societies Scale," a broad-based measure of socioeconomic conditions, from 25 indicators and applied it against various measures of religiosity and secularism for a number of First World democracies. The Scale included such indicators as homicide, incarceration, lifespan, venereal disease, teenage births, suicide, divorce, life satisfaction, alcohol consumption, income disparity, poverty and employment. The results showed a strong and consistent relationship between the dysfunction of a society and its religiosity. The relationship between social dysfunction and a strong belief in God is shown on the attached graph. Dysfunction increases (social success declines) as the proportion of the population who hold a strong belief in God increases. The "U" toward the lower right represents the United States. This was a typical result.

But correlation is not causation. Perhaps other factors are at work here. Paul discusses other possible causes of the dysfunction, including immigration, population diversity, frontier heritage and the media, and concludes they could not explain the relationship. It would seem religion and dysfunction are indeed cause and effect. But which is the cause and which the effect?

It seems to work both ways. A highly stressed society tends to seek sanctuary in religion, while religion in turn tends to create stress in society. The United States, both the most dysfunctional and the most religious of the Western nations, serves as a good example. The unusually high rates of mental illness in the United States are indicative of high levels of stress and anxiety, caused by such factors as a lack of universal health care, high income disparity and an excessively competitive economic environment. Poorer social infrastructure, a result of Americans' greater preference for faith-based charity over secular government programs for improving social conditions, creates greater poverty and in turn greater social dislocation and crime. Problems such as venereal disease and teenage pregnancy are aggravated by religious opposition to sex education. The United States is caught up in a circular dance of conservative religiosity, stress and social dysfunction.

Ms. O'Connor is certainly right about Ireland being in a dysfunctional relationship with an abusive organization, but that would seem to be the norm for societies and their religions, at least those of a conservative variety.

Women's rights under attack -- as usual

"Eternal vigilance," it has been famously said, "is the price of liberty." That is certainly true for women. In the past month, various items in the news have revealed just how true.

The decline of women's rights in Iraq, for instance. After the Personal Status Law was enacted in 1958, when the British-installed monarchy was overthrown, Iraqi women enjoyed many of the same rights as Western women. But the statutes covering the status of women have been replaced by Iraq's new Constitution which states, "No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam." The undisputed rules of Islam will, of course, be interpreted by religious leaders, all of whom are men. According to Maha Sabria, professor of political science at Al-Nahrain University, "Iraqi women are struggling with oppression and denial of all their rights, more than ever before." She adds, "The real ruler in Iraq now is the rule of old traditions and tribal, backward laws."

"Tribal" and "backward" is also an apt description of Ukraine's new government. The new pro-Russian prime minister, Mykola Azarov, head of an all-male cabinet, has stated the country's economic problems are too difficult for women to handle. "Conducting reforms," Azarov observed, "is not women's business." The man who appointed Azarov, President Viktor Yanukovych, declared during February's election campaign that his opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko, should "go to the kitchen." A right pair of boors.

When it comes to achieving equality, or even respect, the line from the old folk rhyme is certainly true, "A woman's work is never done."