Plastic words, climate change and the value of CBC

Yesterday I happened to take a brief look at our municipality’s Central Plan, now under revision   It was aglow with "plastic words" like, stakeholders, strategic, visioning, frameworks, etc.  I hate trying to read these things. The very word strategic planning almost sends me into apoplectic fits.  During my career as a civil servant, I began to see strategic planning exercises as an invitation from government to help them figure out how best to cut your budget using empty rhetoric - in my case, the libraries.  It is far more palatable to cut something called a resource centre than a library

I was trying to remember who developed the concept of "plastic words" – those words that are vague and deliberate diversions from more sinister meanings.  “Not Noam Chomsky,” said my husband over breakfast.  I searched.

First up:  a March 2023 article by Andrew Nikiforuk, especially timely as we observe a climate change conference taking place in an authoritarian city with a culture of human rights abuse. Dubai boasts of its sustainable development but owes its great wealth to the oil industry and nearly enslaved foreign workers. It began its climb as a pearl fishing centre. It is hardly a society to emulate.

How Plastic Words Mask Reality: Latest example: The BC government’s reluctance to say ‘oil and gas.’ 

I have subscribed for a number of years to The Tyee - an online journal based in British Columbia, which offers independent journalism that swims against the current. I should send them more than my humble five dollars a month.

I am forever grateful to my High School Journalism teacher Mr. Brockman who taught us to read the media critically looking for manipulation and fallacies in logic. Every now and then, I need to go back to that list of fallacies for a refresher. Had the concept “plastic words” been around then, he would surely have introduced it. Thanks to Nikiforuk I finally tracked the source: German linguist, Uwe Poerksen:  Plastic Words; the tyranny of a modular language, written in 1988, long after Mr. Brockman’s challenge.

I then recalled that there had been a CBC “Ideas” program about Plastic Words hosted by the well respected Canadian journalist Lister Sinclair.  It featured Uwe Poerksen. Thirty years on, the transcript is well worth revisting.

We have just experienced the announcement of serious layoffs (10%) coming for the CBC, our national Broadcaster, made by a Liberal Government that campaigned to support it. This plays right into the agenda of Pierre Poilievre, our prime ministerial contender who wants to axe our public broadcaster completely.  He is from the Stephen Harper school of politicians who hate the media and has a large vocabulary of plastic words himself.  My inner crone wonders if this was a sop to the supporters of Poilievre who are currently polling too high for comfort.  My inner crone has had enough ankle biting for the day.

 

Are No-Pet Policies yet another way for landlords to renovict tenants. Halifax Examiner writer thinks so.

Now that we can't share Canadian News Items that irk OR delight us on FB I will attempt to circumvent the foolishness by using this dormant old blog. Here is an "Irk-er"  and the letter I wrote to elected folks and the Human Rights Commission.  This will also spare FB friends some of my ankle biting and hissy fits. I feel like I want to aim at higher body parts lately. Perhaps it's the heat, the humidity, the rain, the power outages and the general angst that one feels out there in a world on the brink. The links work, but it's a bit convoluted - 2 steps.

https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/housing/priced-out/the-housing-crisis-has-created-cat-crisis-landlords-are-declaring-their-buildings-pet-free-as-a-way-to-get-around-rent-caps-and-renoviction-rules/

 

 To the Minister of Housing in Nova Scotia ( and the Premier, and heads of other parties and the Human Rights Commission)  with a addendum to an interesting book launch, which I was actually able to share on Face book.

An HRM councillor referred me to the province as my concern does not fall under the municipal jurisdiction.  "Not my Department" is unfortunately the universal default on many housing issues. I refer to an article in the Halifax Examiner:

 I believe no-pets policies to be a human rights issue and will place additional stress and heart break for many lonely and poor people. There is strong evidence of the positive effect of companion animals on mental health. I am sure the policies will not be applied to people in high end apartments. Most pet owners are responsible. Leases can contain clauses for damage made by pets to be the responsibility of tenants. 

I realize this concern may be perceived as a "micro" concern in terms of the larger housing crisis, which has been developing from years of inaction at all levels of government. Yet I see it as one more symptom of an issue that will be dealt with in what sounds to be an important book being launched this  Wed Sep 20 at Dalhousie University.

The Tenant Class, By Ricardo Tranjan
https://atlanticbooks.ca/events/book-launch-the-tenant-class-by-ricardo-tranjan/

Tranjan is a political economist and senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). In The Tenant Class, Tranjan asks the question, What if there is no housing crisis, but instead a housing market working exactly as intended? This book has been described as a “trailblazing manifesto in which Ricardo Tranjan breaks down pervasive myths about renters, mom-and-pop landlords, and housing affordability. Drawing upon a long, inspiring history of collective action in Canada, Tranjan argues that organized tenants have the power to fight back.”

This event will be Hybrid, registration for those joining online is forthcoming.

Dear Customer Service - A small pandemic tale

We recognize this as a “first world” story, and likely a “supply-chain” tale. We ordered a white fridge and dishwasher at Home Depot on June 15 to arrive July 15.  A few days later, our existing refrigerator died.  Anticipating the imminent arrival of the new fridge, we bought ice daily to keep the cat’s insulin and our milk in a cooler during a hot spell.

Several days before the anticipated delivery, they advised us the fridge was back ordered until mid-September and the dishwasher slightly delayed. The dishwasher installer called us on the appointed day and said he was running late. We said “No problem! Nothing here to install.” They don’t co-ordinate installation with delivery. They don't even know who the other party is. Very Spy vs. Spy.  The dishwasher arrived the following day. Rescheduling installation took several weeks of phone tag. I lived dishwasher-free for 50 years. Not serious now - except for a bruise or two tripping over the new dishwasher sitting in the middle of our tiny kitchen.

It would be cheaper and less stressful to buy a mini-fridge than to buy ice every day out there in the lockdown world. It’s tiny freezer quickly displayed inadequacy. Could we chip out enough ice for a gin and tonic - maybe one or two a week. Hardly. Last month on a balmy summer's eve we took to the ferry to Halifax we went for our first restaurant meal since Mar 2020 at The Highwayman and ordered a flight of gin and tonics.They were wonderful. 

On September 3 came a heavily accented and crackly phone call.  I almost hung up thinking it yet another Amazon Prime hoax - until I managed to decipher “gee” as “General Electric.” The agent told me the fridge was back-ordered until Nov 15. I pity the people in these thankless jobs, but thanked her when I got over the shock.

Grasping that there might not be a white fridge left in the universe, Ron Quixote drove to Home Depot, ordered another fridge, negotiated with the pleasant, helpful clerk a discount for “inconvenience” equal to the cost of the mini-fridge, and cancelled the first one. He settled for stainless and was told delivery would be Sep 15.  It was delivered about a week after the expected date. It does not quite fit the space. It sticks 6” out into the kitchen from its niche. I‘ve never had “A Fridge of My Dreams” on my Bucket List anyway. “We’ll cover the glare with fridge magnets,” said Ron, and did.

Now to get it registered! My first incomplete glance at the warranty card said it could be registered by scanning the code, but the code space was blank. OK – I tried on-line. I had to create an account which took more than a few tries. I thought I had been recognized as being in Canada.  When that was finally successful, I entered the serial #  all good

Next I entered the Model #  and got this  “Model not found” message

I clicked the link for “How to find the model #” and got a “404 Page not Found”

Re-examining the paperwork, I realized there was a separate card for Canadian consumers - no option for on-line. I had spent 10 or 15 minutes on a hopeless cause – not for the first tiime in my life. I ‘minds the bitterness of offers on the cereal boxes of my childhood being “void outside the U.S.A. and it’s possessions.” No plastic Thunderbird models or grow your own Sea Monkeys for you Canucks! I filled in the card, put it in an envelope to mail it to the Mississauga. I don’t like sending postcards with personal information through the mail. Such paranoia is beyond naive, of course. I listened to part of the  2020 Massey Lecture series on CBC by "Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society" by Ron Diebert. I learned that ALL our devices, including refrigerators, are collecting data on us. After four episodes I got so depressed, I had to retreat to those Nordic Noir detective shows like "Bordertown" and "Trapped"  for escape.

Life is threatened daily by hurricanes, volcanoes, global warming, species extinction, tyrants, extremists and people off their meds..The loss of many near and dear ones grows exponentially.  Isn’t it a comfort to know we will be soon be outed by our refrigerator as consumers of strange pickled things?

 The Adventure of the Appliances

The refrigerator and dishwasher were supposed to arrive last Friday. Two days before, Home Depot called to tell us that the refrigerator would not be arriving, but had been backordered and would be here in mid-September. The dishwasher was not delivered either. The dishwasher installation man called to tell us he was running late, and we said, “No problem. There’s nothing here to install,”  We  all laughed and he was relieved as he was behind schedule. T

The dishwasher arrived Wednesday, but now cannot be installed until August 5.  This is not a real problem. I still remember how to wash dishes. Hhowever, going another six weeks without a refrigerator  to keep the cat’s insulin refrigerated – and provide ice cubes for gin and tonic, of course  – was a little more intimidating. Rather than go out to buy ice every day for the picnic cooler, we decided to buy a mini-fridge. I told Ron we would donate it to a worthy cause when we finally had our own up and running, and that he wasn’t supposed to get attached to it. Famous last words.

It will  be interesting to see if this adventure takes on the epic proportions of The Wrong Stove:

The Wrong Stove delivered from Sears to our first house in Corner Brook in 1989 just before Christmas and our flight to Calgary.  We ordered a white stove with solid elements, not a grey one with regular element. We didn’t mind eating out for a couple of days before going to Calgary, but then the Right Stove was back ordered for two months.  

After I complained, Sears told us to use the Wrong Stove in the meantime. Eventually The Right Stove arrived but  the oven failed immediately.  By then, Sear’s had discontinued  their local repair line. The dispatcher on the mainland thought the repair man would be able to pop in right after a job in Burgeo, not grasping that Burgeo was not a suburb of Corner Brook. It’s a remote outport,  almost 3 hours away on a desolate road. When the repair man finally arrived, he  declare the computer chip that controlled the oven and the timer was DOA. Remember the days when timers died within a year, but ovens went on for years.  Now everything dies within 10 years.

A week later, the repair man arrived with the part. Just as he  started to work,  a young starling flew up from the celler and into the kitchen.  The repair man went into shock. Turns out he was seriously ornithophobic. While he cowered in the corner, I found a large basket, cornered the bird, got it into the basket and released it outside. Puir wee thing – it was a frigid day and the bird had come down the chimney into the celler. They do that.  I calmed down the repair man and sent the story to Sears. I  told them I was a storyteller, and if they didn’t do something to help feel better about the whole thing  I would keep telling my story.  The $25 gift certificate didn’t do it . And Sears is no more.  If they had simply offered us a deep discount to keep the Wrong Stove, which probably would have been a better stove in retrospect, I wouldn’t have had the story.  

Neo-Nazis in Cape Breton

Yesterday I wrote to politicians to support the federal court ruling against the safe third countries clause that made it possible to return asylum seekers to places like the United States, which is so clearly no longer a safe third county, and to urge that our country do more to decrease the number of stories of refugee suffering on that front. 

Today, I read in The Guardian, a report on an investigative article by Martin Doerry, a reporter and former deputy editor at Der Spiegel, about the efforts of German neo-nazis to establish a "colony" in Cape Breton. Links to these articles are below and you can get a translation of the one in Der Spiegel.  Refugees from an assortment of oppressions must wait long periods in Canada, many working hard in menial work - if indeed they got this far and are not in detention centres, COVID not withstanding – to find a safe refuge. Asylum seekers risking their lives again as temporary care-givers at Nova Scotia’s epi-centres during the worst of the pandemic, were quickly laid off without notice, and little hope that their efforts would be rewarded. 

Everything is connected.

How is it that rich white Germans with an agenda so seriously counter to Canadian values, can purchase property, and seek citizenship in Canada in order to create a community to diffuse their toxic ideology? What could be more a threat to Public Safety? My husband and I are of an age to be contemporary with, and have met, the children of pro-Nazi immigrants to Canada. Several thousand Nazi war criminals were allowed into Canada and hardly any were ever prosecuted or deported, something many have forgotten or never knew about at all.  I have many other creative activities I would rather be pursuing this on a Saturday afternoon, but my father was a WW2 Vet. He is not here to speak out on this.

From The Guardian article:

Martin Doerry…  spent two months researching the story after receiving a tip from a German national who has been living in Cape Breton for 20 years. The source told Doerry there is an increasing number of German-speaking right-wing extremists moving to Cape Breton. Doerry's research resulted in interviews with almost 30 people and brought him to three companies - Cape Breton Real Solutions, Wissensmanufaktur (Knowledge Manufacturer) and F.E. Property Sales all owned by German nationals who are known for their right-wing extremist views.

The very names of these companies is enough to evoke Third Reich rhetoric:   "Cape Breton Real Solutions" and "Knowledge Manufacturers."  

The website of  https://fe-propertysales.de/en  scarcely veils its toxic purpose.  For starters,  see how F.E. property owner, Frank Eckhardt,  introduces his scheme:

Liberty and self-determination through own initiative – your land in Cape-Breton-Island
One thing was clear to me, however: quality of life and realistically good prospects for the future are steadily and noticeably diminishing for us citizens in a Federal Republic and the European Union, which is determined by increasing control and madness of the authorities. Now you can watch or start actively changing something yourself..

From The Guardian

The RCMP investigated Eckhardt after he allegedly gave a client a storage disk full of Nazi material. This information was sent to Interpol in Ottawa who in turn sent it to Interpol Wiesbaden, but no charges were laid as the crime didn't happen on German soil. Doerry said Echhardt doesn't hide his sympathy for those who deny post Second World War Germany's political infrastructure.

Another of the "influencers" behind this project, Eva Herman

"was fired from her job as a newscaster because of her right-wing views. Through her YouTube and Telechannel social media platforms, Herman talks about the COVID-19 pandemic being a hoax, warns about the invasion of Arab-African-Asian people and the "global vaccination alliance of Bill Gates and Angela Merkel."

When I was in high school living in New York State, my parents, both Canadian WW2 Veterans, were kind and open enough to agree to host the sad daughter of a Nazi as an exchange student in our family. It was an eye-opener for her and us. She spent years dealing with an assortment of depressions, and neuroses, joining one self-help group after another. Her hatred of her father’s Nazi past haunted her. I felt compassion for her. I grasp the roots of facism. I grasp how it could attract when all you know lies in ruins – even, or especially, if your country contributed to its own ruin or suffered greatly from the abuses of Stalinism during and after WW2. It takes brave work to rise above our lesser angels, to seek different and better ways to create a civil societies. Heavens knows - we face many similar situations in today’s world and must be ever vigilant. Democracy, as most of us hope to see it, continues to be a "work in progress". 

This German woman and I formed a long-time friendship, until a few years back, when she told me she has been saved. At first I thought, "Well, it wouldn't be my choice, but if it brings her some kind of peace, I can listen."  Then I discovered this meant she was afraid of many things, and had been lured into the neo-nazi camp in Germany under the guise of personal religious salvation in a fundamentalist form of Roman Catholicism, which some of my Catholic friends disparaged. "New converts are the worst", said one I respect greatly. This group was anti-gay, anti-immigration and a lot more anti’s. I sometimes thought my friend might have been denying some lesbian tendencies in herself. We had arguments on the phone. I spent a lot of time trying to compose what I hoped might be a persuasive letter to express my thoughts on the unwisdom of a "salvation" thus achieved, but before I could send it I learned she had died. Such efforts usually fall on deaf ears when dealing with “true believers” anyway. It is beyond my ken to know if she found the peace she was seeking. I have to work to control my own lesser angels, when they contemplate a hope she did not.

In a time of the global lock-down, it is easy to overlook such threats to Canadian security. While we are busy checking the backgrounds of refugees of many stripes, we must not forget to carry out similar diligence on rich white Europeans who, while they live in countries where some of their activities are rightfully viewed as unacceptable, or illegal face little worse than arrest for hate crimes. Certainly few will be fleeing environmental depredation, torture, real persecution, civil wars and human rights violations in their quest for lebensraum in Cape Breton. 

https://www.theguardian.pe.ca/news/provincial/magazine-claims-right-wing-extremists-trying-to-lure-like-minded-germans-to-cape-breton-477413/

https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/report-german-nazis-are-buying-up-land-in-cape-breton/

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/rechtes-netzwerk-lockt-gleichgesinnte-nach-kanada-elche-baeren-eva-herman-a-ad2c792a-f677-4c0f-a624-50f4aaa93e80  The site will translate the article for you. 

Related articles  https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/na0623-nazis

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/austrian-immigrants-cape-bretoon-1.5123091

This article on an Austrian couple’s involvement is of interest. They were certainly screwed by Eckhardt, but as the articles above indicate, while many Germans came over to hear the sales propaganda for land in Cape Breton, few people would be unware of the hidden agenda by the time they bought into it. It is mere speculation, on my part, but if so, why did this family go public with their immigration issues, hoping to raise sympathy for staying, and not "out" Eckhardt in the interview. I hope Canadian immigration will delve deeply before allowing them to return. 

New Reddit group     https://www.reddit.com/r/ANTIFAcb/

Choosing Battles

A mindful person, of comfortable means, should take care not to direct too much energy toward any spindling and mutilation received individually at the hands of vast corporations and revenuers and all, but sometimes, ya just gotta fight back, even though it's not personal.  Perhaps you choose the days when you feel your efforts to save the bees and whales seem to be going nowhere, and you just read that a vast underground glacier of radioactive waste - a remnant of developing The Bomb that fell on Nagasaki  - is drifting toward the Columbia River from (PUREX), the ironically named Plutonium Uranium Extraction Facility in remote Washington State. Perhaps you will take a day off from all that to compose a Letter of Complaint to a corporation that has dealt you an admittedly first-world boo-boo.  You know it won’t work, but surprise, surprise: it does. Hurricanes, earthquakes and fires are tearing up half the continent; the Orange One rants on, but the mailman has delivered, or rather deposited in our super mailbox down the street, a cheque from the offending corporation. The cheque arrived with no explanation except a stub noting “overpayment”.  You now have an extra $186 you can direct toward whatever cause you choose, and you will write to the offending corporation telling them of your plan, and retract your plans to blacken their name so energetically. After, there are other causes, that require much more attention and energy. Back to the bees. 

Here is the letter of complaint and my letter of thanks after having received the cheque.'

July 27  Dear UPS

$50 brokerage fee!!            
I received your bill yesterday. The company I ordered from is a small company that I have ordered from before. They haven’t developed a system for collecting duty and taxes like Lands End which is the only company in the universe that sells jeans that fit me. I had put the cautionary note on 2 previous orders, but this time I made the fatal error of forgetting to write on my order DO NOT SHIP BY COURIER. USE USPS.

When the driver arrived at the door with the bill for $180, I was so shocked I refused the shipment. How badly did I really need a new pair of linen pants?  I understand when the Post Office collects GST and/or duty, and charges their $10 for processing,  but on this bill there appear to be taxes upon taxes upon taxes, and brokerage fees upon brokerage fees, much of which you must remit to our government, ie “us”,  but $50 for an “Entry Prep Fee” for a tiny little package that barely weighed a kilogram!   Seriously.  Did you take it out to lunch?  Was medical attention required?  What did you do that was worth $50?  I paid the little company the $40 COD for return shipping and had the stuff shipped back via USPS.

I’m paying the bill because I know I’ll be plagued to the ends of the earth if I don’t, and I certainly wouldn’t want  to cheat the Canadian taxpayer of the $130 taxes on $CD 300 worth of clothing  which I could not find on a Canadian website  -  though I tried.  Meanwhile in Saskatchewan - Cameco Inc is trying to cheat the Canadian taxpayers of $2.2 billion with its shell companies in Switzerland.  I would pay my $130 in taxes and duties much more cheerfully if I thought such companies would pay their share, too.

However, as a service to other small purchasers of small things, I will spare no effort in making everyone I know to make sure they write Ship by USPS.  NEVER  use couriers when ordering anything from away. I am a storyteller and an ankle-biting FaceBook person, and will spare no effort to blacken your name whenever I can. 

Nov 4 Dear UPS

Further to my letter of July 29,  2017, thank you for the cheque reimbursing all charges on the $186 invoice sent  for a shipment I refused, including the brokerage fees.  Not having delivered the package, would have absolved UPS from remitting all those duties and taxes to Revenue Canada, but it did cost you something to get the package to me and therefore I call this good public relations. 

I have donated the entire $186  to the Nature Conservancy of Canada to help their campaign to raise funds to purchase back lands for an urban wilderness park in the Williams Lake area of Halifax Regional Municipality.  Although this  area was zoned for development of this park ten years ago, land-speculating developers continued to acquire property there, and used this to try to pressure the city to re-zone it for high-end residences, or else have to  buy back the property at inflated prices. It looked like the council was  going to cave in to this pressure.  We ankle biters called upon the council not to back down on the zoning, and a deal was reached through the efforts of the Nature Conservancy of Canada. The NCC is soliciting donations to buy back the land. It shouldn’t have got that far, but the park will be there for future generations. 

I seldom need to use courier services, but should I in future, I will consider UPS,  and will share my story of have received a satisfactory response to what was a very irritating experience. 

Annual Foolisness

Annual Foolishness has a new home - in a little side directory on my my main web page.
http://www.elinorbenjamin.ca/AF/