When all else fails, go to the Czech Republic, by Gerry Warner

When all else fails, go to the Czech Republic

Perceptions by Gerry warner

Well, you won’t have Warner to kick around anymore! At least for a while. Let me explain and please forgive me for channeling Richard Nixon.

By the time you read this, I’ll be 30,000 feet or so in the heavens on a KLM flight from Calgary to Amsterdam and then on to one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, Prague, Czech Republic.

In Prague, I’ll be taking a one-month intensive course in teaching English as a second language and if things work out according-to-Hoyle which they seldom do, I may be spending more time in the country formerly known as Czechoslovakia until the so-called “Velvet Divorce” of 1993 when Czechoslovakia became two separate countries; the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Actually, that’s no longer quite true because the Czech Republic is going through another name change that will see it become “Czechia,” a name I won’t try to pronounce but you’ll probably see on TV on the uniforms of the Czech hockey team when they play in the annual International World Jr. Hockey Tournament in Toronto in December.

No, I’m not fleeing North America in the wake of Donald Trump’s stunning victory in last week’s election.  But Czechia may be an interesting, if not safe, place to land in light of what the US may become under the sway of “Herr Donald.” Yes, that’s an allusion to Hitler which I truly hate to make because I was hoping against hope that Trump might surprise us again by continuing to act graciously as he did for a brief while when he spoke to Clinton and Obama in the aftermath of the election. Unfortunately, two events since Trump became “President Elect” have me thinking differently and fearfully.

First his appointment of Steve Bannon as his “Chief Strategist.” Bannon is the man Bloomberg Business Week calls “the most dangerous political operative in America” and one of the leaders of the “alt right,” a secretive, white nationalist, extremist group. Now as chief strategist, the former executive chairman of the ultra-conservative Briebart News, will never be more than a heartbeat away from Trump or the Oval Office. The mainstream media, which underestimated Trump throughout the campaign, calls Bannon a misogynist, an anti-Semite and a neo-Nazi and there is evidence to back up these toxic allegations. Commenting in The Guardian, Michael Keegan, president of the progressive pressure group People for the American Way, said: “By choosing Steve Bannon as chief strategist, Trump has made clear that he intends to carry the racism and anti-Semitism of his campaign straight into the White House.”

Then there was the sickening story Tuesday about the small-town West Virginia official that posted a message on Facebook about First Lady Michelle Obama saying, “It will be so refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady back in the White House. I'm tired of seeing a Ape (sic) in heels."  In response to this incendiary, racist posting, Clay, West Virginia Mayor Beverley Whaling replied, “just made my day Pam.”

I’m not making this up. Pamela Taylor, the official who sent the post has since been fired and the mayor forced to resign. But how do you respond to a racist outburst like this? If ever there was a beautiful, gracious and classy First Lady it’s Michelle Obama. So, was this an isolated incident of toxic racism or is it typical of how millions of Americans think? I’d like to think it isn’t. But if it is, there’s more than a swamp that needs draining in Washington and I manifestly think Trump is not the man to do it. He would only add to the problem and trigger a potential race war. And Trump hasn’t even finished naming his cabinet yet in a cut throat battle a CBC commentator called a “knife fight.”

But maybe this is just another example of the mainstream media getting it wrong. There must be some sort of an explanation for the malignant hatred floating in the ether since Trump’s great victory. In the meantime, there’s only one thing I can say for sure.

I’m so glad I’m going to the Czech Republic.

Gerry Warner is a retired journalist, who hopes that Trump will soon realize that being President is more than just another reality TV show.  

For the record, still blooming November 5th 2016

Opinion BC’s LNG Fraud Behind the Trump-like hype: fleeced taxpayers and a surge of climate pollution by Andrew Nikiforuk 10 Nov 2016 | TheTyee.ca

http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/11/10/BC-LNG-Fraud/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=101116

Back in 2013 Premier Christy Clark promised that LNG would make the province rich, create a $100-billion savings fund, erase all debt and employ tens of thousands of people.
None of the hype materialized, nor will it for the long foreseeable future. Thanks to a global methane glut and a collapse in methane prices by 75 per cent, the LNG industry faces “an extremely challenging business environment.”
According to Forbes, Australia’s LNG industry is now bleeding billions of dollars of cash and earning nothing for the owners of the resource: Australians. It is also noteworthy that Asian markets have contracted four per cent despite the fall in LNG prices.
As a consequence, no company has made a final investment decision on 20 LNG proposals in B.C. — with the single exception of Woodfibre, a company owned by a Singapore tycoon, Sukanto Tanoto.
It is telling that one of Tanoto’s companies, Asian Agri, has been found guilty of tax evasion. (But that hasn’t caused Clark to rethink who she invites to do business in B.C.) 

We should have seen it coming!, Gerry Warner

We should have seen it coming!

Perceptions by Gerry Warner

Now that Homer Simpson is president, what are we going to do? I guess we better hope that Trump is lovable, if not a bit stupid like Homeromer, rather than the devil incarnate.

And speaking of “stupid,” oh boy, where do I begin? Let’s start with the pollsters. They blew it with the Alberta election. They blew it with the Brexit referendum and now they’ve blown it with the biggest political prediction fiasco of them all, Trump’s stunning victory. Frankly, I find it reassuring to see Big Data can get it wrong too and that there’s still a place for human intuition. Mind you, this human also got it wrong, something I’ve been doing a lot of lately in politics.

Despite this, I take more than a small measure of schadenfreude – that wonderful German word for taking pleasure in the distress of others – watching the TV political pundits twist themselves into pretzels trying to explain Trump’s unexpected victory and their own failure to see it coming. The entire, miserable lot of them should be ordered to stand in a dark corner wearing dunce caps, myself included.

OK, enough self-flagellation. Yes, I got it wrong, but I think I can make a point or two why so many others got it wrong too. Obviously, the overwhelming, visceral hatred of Hillary – both as a person and as a politician – played a huge role in the Democrats’ debacle. What isn’t so obvious, and it wasn’t taken up by the punditry, is that a large chunk of the American electorate also hate Hillary’s lying, cheating and philandering husband Bill even more than they hate her and projected that hatred on poor Hillary’s shoulders. Holier-than-thou evangelicals and Tea Party types are hugely powerful in the rabid, Republican right wing and they never forgave Bill Clinton for his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky. Nor did they forgive Hillary for not dumping Bill when she found out. Too far out, you say? Well let me tell you something. If the polls can occasionally be trusted they showed the highest personal popularity Hillary ever achieved was in the middle of the Lewinsky affair when Bill was turning himself inside out denying his adultery. Women universally felt sympathy for Hillary and revulsion for Bill and they have long memories, especially the hypocritical, evangelical types.

What this all means, of course, is Democrats ran the wrong candidate for president and I don’t need to tell you who the right, or maybe that should be the left, candidate was. It was Bernie Sanders, of course, who wanted to lead a “revolution” against the establishment just as Trump successfully did. I’m even willing to bet that some of the Sanders supporters, bitter that their candidate wasn’t the Democrat nominee, ended up voting for Trump or not voting at all. And in an election as razor close as this one that’s all it would take to change victory into defeat.

So right off the top, the Democrats chose the wrong candidate and then compounded this mistake by the hardly-subtle distain they displayed for Trump and his supporters. They openly questioned their intelligence, their anger and their pain as they were pushed down the economic ladder by forces they couldn’t control like automation and immigration, both legal and illegal, that has taken away their jobs. And when people, especially men, even more especially, older white men lose their jobs they get angry, frustrated and open to radical solutions. It’s at times like this that authoritarian, strong men become very appealing. In this context, Hitler is often mentioned not without justification. But you could also say, Stalin, Mao or Margaret Thatcher for that matter. 

So the groundwork was well laid. The soil was well tilled and the conditions were ripe except few could see it coming. Now, we’ve seen it in technicolor and all we can do is wait for the next chapter. And how ironic can it get when the man that introduced many of us to realty TV and “you’re fired” is now “The Apprentice” himself and trying to learn how to be a world leader.

There’s a Chinese saying about being condemned to live in interesting times. The times coming up couldn’t be more interesting.

Gerry Warner is a retired journalist, who will be taking a hiatus shortly while he explores new opportunities in Trump’s world.

 

The election crystal ball is murky but don’t hit the panic button yet, by Gerry Warner

The election crystal ball is murky but don’t hit the panic button yet

Perceptions by Gerry Warner

So the world is coming to an end.

By this time next week, the world’s greatest democracy will be ruled by either a corrupt, secretive woman who should be “locked up” and never again allowed to send an email or by a bigoted, racist, Putin-loving bully who believes “building a wall” will solve our political problems and should never be allowed within groping distance of a woman.

Not inspiring choices, I admit.

And even though I look at this salacious, soap opera from afar, it concerns me because, like it or not, as the US goes, so goes the world, and if the American Empire is suddenly reduced to the status of a dysfunctional, Third-World banana republic there’s going to be a gaping, power gap in terms of who’s leading the world. We all know Nature abhors a vacuum and vacuums always get filled.

So who’s going to fill the coming vacuum of world leadership?

China, the second biggest economy in the world, but the most polluted country on earth with growing imperial ambitions to become the strongest military power in Asia and all the scary implications that goes with that? Can’t you see Japan looking anxiously over its shoulder as the Middle Kingdom casts a covetous eye at the real estate around it? Maybe that’s why the Japanese government is currently debating scrapping its pacifist constitution?

And what about Russia, the former empire of the Soviet Union, which is lusting to restore itself to its former imperial glory? Putin, is a mean and vicious SOB, but he’s by far the best geo-political, strategic thinker on the world stage today and not to be under-estimated.

Then there’s the European Union with the biggest economy on earth per capita, but a stumbling giant with Britain soon to be negotiating its way out and Germany bending under the pressure of dealing with more than a million dirt-poor refugees escaping the Middle East and Africa.

And we won’t even talk about the the Middle East powder keg and the potential it has to trigger the next world war with such toxic and unresolved issues as the Israeli-Palestinian standoff, the Syrian Civil War and the Sunni and Shia divide which spawns terrorism world-wide. Nor has the world economy recovered fully yet from the Great Recession of 2008-2009.

Yes, Virginia, we live in a dangerously, unstable world and there’s nothing Santa Claus can do about it.

Not to be unduly apocalyptic about things, but one can’t help but think the world is facing a perfect storm of problems now with modernism clashing with traditionalism, Christianity with Islam, rural lifestyles with urban, secular with religious, the top one per cent with the rest of us and – let’s be honest – colored vs white.

The crystal ball is dark and murky, and it’s at times like this, it helps immensely to have strong, ethical and intelligent leadership at the top. And the choice Americans are facing is Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, two heavily, compromised candidates.

No matter who wins, I think some earnest praying would be advisable now. Sometimes great leaders emerge in spite of themselves.

Gerry Warner is a retired journalist, who remains optimistic about this election because he believes Americans always show their best when things seem the worst.

 

Wayne's World - Keeping our Democracy Healthy , MP Wayne Stetski

ONE YEAR LATER

Now that the first anniversary has passed since the 2015 federal election, I’m often asked how I like being your Member of Parliament. Great question!

Every time I walk to Parliament Hill and see the Peace Tower, my place of work and home to Canada’s House of Commons, it still has the wow value. It is such an honour to be serving the citizens of Kootenay–Columbia!

What I like best is learning more about our communities in Kootenay-Columbia and communities across Canada every day. I learn about the challenges facing those who live in our riding, and the frustrations they are facing with various federal government departments.

I work hard at resolving these concerns because the public service aspect of my role is important to me. I have travelled the riding listening to your concerns about climate change, democratic reform, food security, protecting our rivers and lakes, small business challenges and national parks. By understanding your concerns about these and many other issues, I will continue to be your strong voice in Ottawa.

My team works hard to keep you informed through news releases, articles like this one, monthly enews letters, issue-based mail-outs, and quarterly householders sent to every mailbox in the riding. Collectively we respond to thousands of emails, and hundreds of phone calls and social media messages every month. I love how interested you are in what’s happening in the riding and in Canada - for example we received almost 700 mail back responses on Democratic Reform alone!

The House of Commons sits for six months of the year, and during the other six months I spend a lot of time visiting the amazing places we get to call home here in Kootenay-Columbia. All MPs struggle with striking a healthy work-life balance. We never get used to missing family events like birthdays and anniversaries, or cancelling out on going to the symphony or to WHL or Junior hockey games with family and friends.

That is the price that all members of Parliament pay, particularly if they are from large rural ridings far from Ottawa. Ours is 64,336 sq. km, serves 107,589 people, and is a seven hour drive corner to corner! Every flight between Cranbrook and Ottawa takes 8 to 10 hours one way.

You sent me to Ottawa to work collaboratively to build a better Canada, and I am proud to have developed friendships with Members from all parties.  When personal or national tragedies occur we stand united in our support and in our belief in public service, and you expect no less.

There are three years to go in the life of Canada’s 42nd Parliament and I look forward to meeting many more of you. Thank you for being such great constituents – your interest and caring for our home in Kootenay–Columbia is very much appreciated!

Wayne Stetski

Member of Parliament

Kootenay–Columbia

Stetski joins EF Canadian Youth Ambassador Program Parliamentary Delegation, Announces Scholarship Opportunity for Young Leaders from Kootenay-Columbia

Stetski joins EF Canadian Youth Ambassador Program Parliamentary Delegation, Announces Scholarship Opportunity for Young Leaders from Kootenay-Columbia

Golden – MP Wayne Stetski, as part of an all-party delegation comprised of almost 50 Senators and Members of Parliament, today joined EF Education First to announce the EF Canadian Youth Ambassador Program.

The five-year initiative will provide annual travel scholarships and training to 30 Canadian young people representing every province and territory, with several scholarships reserved for First Nations and at-risk youth.

With the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge and Canada’s 150th Anniversary quickly approaching, the program will celebrate Canada’s history while seeking to impact its future path by recruiting future leaders to make positive change both locally and globally.

This program is designed to celebrate Canada’s history while seeking to impact its future path by recruiting future leaders to make positive change both locally and globally, says Stetski.  “I encourage the youth of Kootenay-Columbia to apply to the program to bring their unique perspectives to the rest of the world and, in turn, discover what it means to be a true global citizen. Applications are due December 1, 2016.”

Each year, the program will challenge young people to identify a local issue that they would like to bring awareness to and gain support in resolving, while considering that issue’s impact in both a national and global context. Recipients will travel three times during their scholarship year—twice to Ottawa and once internationally—as they work to refine their action plans while receiving mentorship from businesspeople, community leaders, and MPs from around the country. In April 2017, the first 30 Youth Ambassadors will travel to France to join an estimated 30,000–40,000 Canadians as they commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

Throughout their scholarship year, Youth Ambassadors will finalize detailed project proposals around their chosen topic, lobby the broader community for support, and present their full plans to various government entities as well as key public and private sector influencers.

Please visit eftours.ca/youthambassadors for more information about the EF Canadian Youth Ambassador Program including the scholarship prompt and important schedules and deadline.

For more information, please contact:

Laura Branswell: 250-417-2250 or wayne.stetski@parl.gc.ca