Farewell, Sir Arthur

Arthur C. Clarke died today (actually "tomorrow" in Sri Lanka where he has lived for 52 years). Strangely I was wondering only this past week if he was still about but the departure of the man who predicted geosynchronous satellites twenty years before the 1965 launch of Early Bird (Intelsat I) and who collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on 2001: A Space Odyssey was unlikely to be a small ripple. A quick glance at my bookshelf tells me I own about twenty books of Clarke's but I think more remain on the "to follow" shelf in my family's house in Ireland.

Although most renowned for The Sentinel/2001, Childhood's End and Against The Fall Of Night, I would urge someone who has never read Clarke to seek out first his short stories in collections like The Other Side of the Sky, The Wind From The Sun and Tales From Ten Worlds. He had a few weaker works, particularly his later collaborations such as Cradle which I felt were a vehicle more for his co-authors than representative of the solo writing of earlier times, and the 2001 series dwindled with the last two volumes in particular.

For how many years will people shudder at the thought of man's interference with one of Jupiter's moons - "all these worlds are yours - except Europa. Attempt no landings there" and how fascinated were so many of us with the Eye of Iapetus which Voyager 1 blurrily hinted at until Cassini laid it finally to rest with its superior images.

Here is Clarke's 90th birthday broadcast, where at the end he quotes Kipling:

"If I have given you delight with all that I have done, let me lie quiet in that night which shall be yours anon. And for the little, little span the dead are borne in mind, seek not to question other than the books I leave behind."

Ontario Court of Appeal rules on police access to a press source, declines to take bait on bloggers

I was vaguely kicking around a notion to blog about this ruling in R. v. National Post since the pressing by the police on the boundary of press privilege has become more urgent and more widespread in recent years but fortunately for me (and potential readers of my half-assed take) Dan Michaluk had got there first.

Both of the following issues are not going away, however, and I suspect one day soon a Court is going to be forced to tackle them:

[98] The Crown submits that in so finding the reviewing judge made two errors. First, it contends that in today’s society we have no principled basis to distinguish between those journalists who are entitled to confidential source relationships and those who are not. Today, many persons, especially by using the internet, may be called “journalists” or “the press” because they disseminate information to the public, yet may not merit the journalist-confidential source privilege. Second, the Crown contends that we should not sedulously foster a relationship that the respondents are using to shield a possible wrongdoer from investigation and prosecution for a serious criminal offence. Promoting this relationship between McIntosh and X does not advance the public good; indeed the Crown says that doing so is antithetical to the core values underlying s. 2(b) of the Charter – using the constitutional guarantee of freedom of the press not to get at the truth, but to subvert it.

[99] We reject the Crown’s first contention. The case-by-case approach to privilege does not require us to establish the boundaries of legitimate journalism. The National Post is a recognized national news organization and McIntosh is a respected journalist. It can hardly be disputed that they fall within the class of persons who may be entitled to the benefit of journalist-confidential source privilege.

[100] The Crown’s second contention raises a difficult question, but one that we do not need to resolve to decide this appeal. Essentially, the question under the third Wigmore criterion is whether the relationship should be characterized broadly as a journalist-confidential source relationship, or more narrowly as a journalist-criminal wrongdoer relationship. The reviewing judge used the broad approach; the Crown advocates the more narrow one.

At least they didn't say the Post is a respected organisation just as McIntosh was a respected journalist. Ascribing "respected" to the Post might have gotten some people very cross. More seriously however, the Court offered no guidance as to what constitutes "recognised" and "respected" apart from perhaps "we know it when we see it".

Liberals could attack Harper over Kosovo - if they could figure out their own policy first

The way things are going, Stephane Dion will be supporting a constitutional amendment to extend the current Parliament indefinitely. Swamped under the current Cadman fiasco was any reaction to a February 19 blog post by Paul Wells noting Harper's delay in recognising Kosovo as independent (or declining to do so) and theorising that this was while a delay can be seen as dissuading unilateral secession, openly explaining the delay would endanger Adequiste votes for Tory federal candidates.

Well, the only thing worse than a party not declaring a side is to pick both. Jim Karygiannis (from the so-con wing of the Liberal Party) sided with his Serbian constituents and declared opposition to recognising Kosovo. The problem is that his Leader wants to recognise Kosovo - and Karygiannis can hardly say he missed Dion's take since Wells knew about it 12 days ago and the Montreal Gazette the day before that.

That said someone should explain to M. Dion what "unanimous" means, if the Gazette reported in any kind of context. I suppose that compared to the percentage required to rule like a majority in Canada (36.3 percent as of 2006), the proportion of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo might seem quite overwhelming.

Toronto's expansion of property taxes: no panacea for urban financing?

Toronto's assumption of a land transfer tax places the city's financing doubly dependent on the peaks and valleys of the property market. The take looks attractive given the strength of a booming market in the City at present. It looked attractive in Cape Coral, Florida too:

(The Mayor) was keen to build a new high school. He hoped to widen roads and extend the reach of the sewage system, limiting pollution from leaky septic tanks. He wanted to add parks.

But then the US property crash happened, and property revenues crashed with it. What's it like in Cape Coral now?

Last month, the city eliminated 18 building inspector jobs and 20 other positions within its Department of Community Development. They were no longer needed because construction has all but ceased. The city recently hired a landscaping company to cut overgrown lawns surrounding hundreds of abandoned homes.

“People are underwater on their houses, and they have just left,” Mr. Feichthaler says. “That road widening may have to wait. It will be difficult to construct the high school. We know there are needs, but we are going to have to wait a little bit.”

Waiting, scrimping, taking stock: This is the vernacular of the moment for a nation reckoning with the leftovers of a real estate boom gone sour.

"Waiting, scrimping, taking stock" - the definition of Toronto in the last decade. Are we in for more of the same if people realise in 2008 that the 75 year old house they are looking at really isn't worth $500,000, as they thought in 2007?

Toronto needs access to a tax not tied directly to the property market and which rewards additional industrial and commercial activity which currently is almost entirely remitted to the federal and provincial governments. To my mind that tax should be a share of PST, and the sooner the better.

"Who will take the honour out of these killings?"

From the Daily Times in Lahore, Pakistan, Farrukh Saleem addresses the murder of Aqsa Parvez in Mississauga, Ontario by her father. Here's an excerpt from a stunningly direct analysis:

Honour killing is our export to Canada. Women who do not wear hijab are not virtuous. Hijab is a Muslim woman’s identity. Hijab is religion. Hijab is the sixth pillar. Hijab symbolises sexual modesty. The West is conspiring to crush Islamic identity. Fact or fiction?

Here’s a fact: Aqsa has been murdered. For us, denial is not an option. According to the United Nations Population Fund more than 5,000 women worldwide fall victim to honour killing. Denial is not an option.

According to the UN’s Special Rapporteur “honour killings had been reported in Egypt, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Pakistan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey and Yemen”. Egypt is 90 percent Muslim, Iran 98 percent, Jordan 92 percent, Lebanon 60 percent, Morocco 99 percent, Pakistan 97 percent, the Syrian Arab Republic 90 percent and Turkey 99 percent. Of the 192 member-states of the United Nations almost all honour killings take place in nine overwhelmingly Muslim countries. Denial is not an option.

More recently, honour killings have taken place in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada. Intriguingly, all these honour killings have taken place in Muslim communities of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Canada. Denial is not an option.

In reading some of his other work, he pounds the drum for better education and does so here also:

Illiteracy and honour killings are correlated. Jacobabad District has a literacy rate of 23 percent, the lowest in Sindh. Jacobabad has the highest rate of crimes of honour; 91 honour killings in 2002. In illiteracy, next to Jacobabad are Ghotki and Larkana. Both Ghotki and Larkana have high rates of crimes of honour: 67 honour killings in Ghotki and 62 in Larkana. Hyderabad, on the other hand, has a literacy rate of 44 percent and there were 5 honour killings in 2002. Denial is not an option.

Ontario Liberals Family Day means no extra day off for some.

When the OHIP "Premium" was introduced with a name designed to spin the impact of an extra tax, many people noted that unions with collective agreements retaining a provision to pay the old OHIP Premium would make claims. The Liberals said "we don't think that will happen" but declined to outlaw the possibility. Now TTC (among others) is paying the OHIP Tax on behalf of their unionised staff, at a cost of $6 million annually to the Commission (that's over two million TTC tokens, Dalton).

Before the last election, the Liberals promised an extra holiday - Family Day - in February, which will cost Toronto taxpayers $2.3 million but some private sector workers are finding out that they will lose a non-statutory holiday in August in return. Typically, the Labour Minister's response is a shrug - "no big deal".

"I think it's a terrific initiative and 83 per cent of Ontarians agree it's something this province should be doing," said Duguid, "Well the holidays outside of the nine public holidays are negotiated municipally or between employers and employees."

Red Hot Chili Peppers likely to lose to cannier Showtime?

The Red Hot Chili Peppers recently launched a lawsuit against Showtime's show "Californication" claiming that they had lifted the title, a character name and some dialogue. The Register notes some possible icebergs on the horizon:

Showtime Networks is expected to argue that the band did not coin the word, a portmanteau of California and fornication. It first appeared in print in Time Magazine in 1972, in an article called The Great Wild Californicated West.

Time reporter Sandra Burton wrote: "Legislators, scientists and citizens are now openly concerned about the threat of 'Californication' - the haphazard, mindless development that has already gobbled up most of Southern California."

Kim Walker, head of intellectual property at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, said the band should have registered Californication as a trademark. Instead, the only trademark application was filed in April in the US, by Showtime Networks. The mark has not yet been registered.

"Successful songs, albums and movies can become brands in themselves. What's really surprising is how few songs and albums are properly protected," said Walker. "The Chili Peppers could almost certainly have registered a trademark for 'Californication', notwithstanding Time's article. They made the word famous, but it doesn't automatically follow that they can stop its use in a TV show.

"If they had registered the title as a trademark covering entertainment services, I very much doubt we'd have seen a lawsuit. The TV show would have been called something else," he said. "As it is, the band faces an uphill struggle."

Couldn't happen to nicer hypocrites, not least when you recall Tom Petty's assertions of musical plagiarism against them.

Soldiers with guns, in our schools, in our city... should we make this up?

I am grateful to Bob Tarantino for directing me to John Lorinc's feature, "Deadly Lesson" in this month's Toronto Life.

It points out the central problem with some Toronto schools - that political considerations have led to some of Toronto's schools being largely uncontrolled and that students with serious behavioural problems are being left in those environments with foreseeable consequences to their peers. Shuffling problems from place to place didn't work for paedophile priests and it doesn't work for disturbed and criminal teenagers either. To be in control of a school you must know who is on the premises and be able to quickly eject interlopers. It's not enough to have conduct standards - they have to be taken seriously, enforced and action taken when they are breached.

I can't help but think that the "progressive educators" who refuse to admit that leadership and security are the cornerstones of winning back our troubled campuses should be brought face to face with someone who will give them Trudeau's October Crisis routine. Kathleen Wynne sure as hell won't do it.

Unfortunately the union backed lobby groups mostly ensure human lettuces get elected as trustees, who only want to see problems kept quiet enough for their run for Councillor or MPP to come up. Teachers who try and stem the tide are undercut by their fellow educators, their supervisors and those elected to run the school system. Is it any wonder that the public school system is so ill-regarded, and that so many non-Catholics choose Catholic schools because of a perception of better discipline?

As for Bob's suggestion that proposed separate schools for violent students be patrolled by ninjas, I am waiting for Jack Layton to propose returning our troops from Afghanistan to provide security, given that he was a city councillor when Mel Lastman got them to shovel our snow.

New York slang - it's the Micks' fault

The New York Times have an article on "How the Irish Invented Slang: The Secret Language of the Crossroads" by Daniel Cassidy regarding how many American slang words appear to originate either phonetically or via translation from Irish. (Hat-tip Slugger)

The word “gimmick” seemed to come from “camag,” meaning trick or deceit, or a hook or crooked stick.

Could “scam” have derived from the expression “’S cam é,” meaning a trick or a deception? Similarly, “slum” seemed similar to an expression meaning “It is poverty.” “Dork” resembled “dorc,” which Mr. Cassidy’s dictionary called “a small lumpish person.” As for “twerp,” the Irish word for dwarf is “duirb.”

I think a few of those listed in the NYT are a stretch but still aren't as bad as "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" where Gus explains the Greek roots of the word "kimono".

Well said, your Majesty

Found this from Paul Wells' blog.

While I fully subscribe to the failings generally inherent in a hereditary monarchy, there is no question that the King of Spain has brought his country successfully through a potentially disastrous post-Franco transition to democracy, and that he would know a fascist if he saw one. The advantage of not having to worry about election cycles means you can face down bullies in a human rather than calculated, nuanced, triangulated way.

Here he is in Santiago, Chile, telling the ludicrous, anti-democratic, puffed up on his sulphur laden petroleum leader of Venezuela to "just shut up". Chavez, having accused the recent prime minister of Spain, Aznar, being a "fascist", continued to rant with his microphone off as Prime Minister Zapatero reminded him that he was in a democratic forum and that some respect wouldn't go amiss.

¿Por qué no te callas?

Sadly the following day Nicaragua's Ortega gave some of his time to back up Chavez prompting the King to leave the summit in protest - no doubt a tanker was dispatched to Managua by morning in payment.

This at a summit which will provide millions to South American countries by remitting social security contributions paid by migrant workers in Spain and Portugal. If this is how you treat your friends, your enemies have no incentive to meet you half way Mr. Chavez.