Salem-News.com Canada articles Page 33

Freedom`s Just Another Word for, Nothing Left to Lose

What is freedom?

(CALGARY, Alberta) - In the forty or so years since Kris Kristofferson wrote Me and Bobby McGee I’ve often wondered what his definition of freedom actually means—if anything at all. Musically, it’s a great song (I first heard the Janis Joplin rendition around 1971 or so) but lyrically I see it as another C/W “poor me” song.

(What happens when you play a C/W song backwards? You get your girl back, you get your dog back, you get your truck back.)

The American Problem

Because America is such a huge economy and military power, it has influences, positive and negative, virtually everywhere on the earth. The American problem, in fact, the world’s problem, is that as long as Americans continue to act, politically and militarily, as if they are the only people on earth, the future looks rocky indeed—for everyone.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Sonia Sotomayor said during confirmation hearings: “American law does not permit the use of foreign law or international law to interpret the Constitution.”

She had little choice, when other Supreme Court justices in the past mentioned taking wisdom from other jurisdictions, they received death threats.

A Lesson in Einstein

"For those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present and future is only an illusion, however tenacious" - Albert Einstein

(CALGARY, Alberta) - It started for me in the 1950s with a TV commercial for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. The animated commercial showed a sunbeam zipping from the Sun to an ear of corn in a field. The voiceover said that it takes eight minutes for the Sun’s goodness to reach the corn in the field.

It’s basic arithmetic. The Sun is an average of 93 million miles away; the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. Divide 93 million by 186,000 and the answer is 500 seconds, or eight and a third minutes.

Religion--A Long Way From Its Spiritual Roots

Here in the West we must find ways to take the next step beyond the separation of church and state and encourage not freedom of religion, but freedom from religion.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - After the Danish cartoon fiasco of 2005, French President Jacques Chirac said that “anything liable to offend the beliefs of others, particularly religious beliefs, must be avoided.” Self-censorship is not a positive social direction. Religion, contrary to conventional thought, is not a benign social institution.

The Real Battle of Alberta

There is a global recession on and it's going to get worse before it gets better.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - For the well fed and somewhat inebriated, the Battle of Alberta is all about the rivalry between supporters of the Calgary Flames and the Edmonton Oilers. But the real, unpublicized, Battle of Alberta is about the actual social war between the Government of Alberta and many of its citizens, particularly the poor and the working poor.

Three months ago Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario, assailed the public welfare system, saying that “unwittingly, we have developed a policy that stomps you into the ground.” At the same time he admitted he had no solution to the situation.

Human First, Economic Object, Second

Economic activity is a human activity, suggesting that economics must be based on some model of human behavior. We are not all capitalists, but we have been duped into believing that Homo economicus, economic man, is a valid model of human behavior.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Kevin Tokar, in his late twenties, had been working for four years as a sound editor for TV documentaries in Toronto. On the job, he often found his mind wandering as he realized that he was more interested in the stories than in his job of perfecting the presentations.

"I found myself wanting to be more involved with the people, places and problems presented on the screen in front of me than I could ever be from my comfy chair behind the sound mixing board."

Privatization in Alberta

Privatization of public interests are not necessarily bad but they usually are. The key question for a citizen to ask in each instance is: WHO BENEFITS?.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Private good, public bad is the standard cry of economic and political conservatives. They have been saying it so long, that over the last half century or so, they’ve framed the argument that even liberals have had to respond to. I don’t know anything about privatization issues in Oregon, but the actual experience here in Alberta may offer a lesson.

Up to 1993 the Alberta government controlled a lot of things for the benefit of Albertans. One was the Alberta Liquor Control Board (ALCB) which operated 202 liquor stores throughout the province.

The GM Challenge

In 1979, GM was the largest corporation in the world in terms of sales.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Now that the American public is the major shareholder of GM, a concern raised by many is that government, being inherently incapable of running or overseeing any kind of business, is going to mismanage the whole operation. This assumes that big business is better than big government. In my previous article "Capitalism cannot work."

I drew the obvious conclusion that for the last fifty years, the management of GM, Ford and Chrysler have driven the industry into the ground. So, Big Business itself has obviously failed.

Capitalism Doesn’t Work. Period

The failure of the auto industry which went from king-of-the-hill in 1959 to bankruptcy in 2009 can be laid at one doorstep — auto industry management.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - Capitalism as a group of people working face to face to meet economic and material goals works. It’s part of human nature.

But Capitalism as a cultural phenomenon can’t work because people become “assets” and profit becomes the overriding goal—overcoming the standard virtues like honesty, integrity, morality and so forth.

Another Taser Death (VIDEO)

Many Canadians are now focusing on is the apparent lack of truth and responsibility on the part of the national police force.

(CALGARY, Alberta) - On October 14, 2007, 40 year-old Robert Dziekański arrived at Vancouver International airport from Poland after a flight of nearly 24 hours.

He was emigrating to Canada to live with his mother in Kamloops, B.C. The plan she offered was for them to meet by the baggage carousel. What she didn’t realize was that the carousel was in a secure area to which she had no access. This, otherwise insignificant, error cost Dziekański his life.