Category Archives: Consider
Penny Jodway Plaque
I, I, I, I …
I have no idea what resentments Sharon Ross is holding onto so firmly that she is so agitated over the plaque placed in Penny’s memory. I do however know that the plaque was arranged and paid for by those who knew Penny. The plaque is not about whether there was honour in Penny’s life, but about the fact that people who knew Penny felt the need to honour their memories of Penny as a person, flaws and all.
Ergo, if Ms. Ross truly seeks an answer as to why there is a plaque for Penny and not to herself, she must seek the answer to that ‘why’ in her mirror, in herself.
Penny was not a saint and never claimed to be. Hence the questions: What was it about Penny that people who knew her for who and what she was thought enough of her to place a plaque in her memory? What is it about Ms Ross that that people who know her for who she is didn’t think enough of her to place a plaque?
Ms Ross might want to consider what it reflects that she is upset and complains about having to clean out the alcove rather than about the fact that a human being, a flawed and troubled human being, had to spend the nights in that alcove.
Or the pettiness and meanness contained in her comments on Penny’s son struggling with the scourge of addiction. While only a parent in similar circumstances can understand the pain of a child’s addiction, any human with empathy can understand just why “she wanted to keep young people off the street.”
Perhaps if Ms Ross would stop being judgmental and seek understanding, she would know that complaints about large amounts of taxpayer dollars being spent ineffectually trying to address a health issue through the legal system rather than the health system, should be directed to provincial and federal politicians.
Penny may not have been a saint but she never begrudged someone else what they had or got; accepting personal responsibility, not whining about, what havoc and pain her choices reaped upon her life.
A good look in the mirror and contemplation may enlighten Ms Ross to the fact that the plaque was not about honouring working on a corner downtown but honouring the effect Penny had upon those who knew her and honouring their memories of Penny.
Original Letter: http://www.bclocalnews.com/fraser_valley/abbynews/opinion/letters/82640222.html
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Actually Mr. Scheirer it is your letter and your words that exemplify certain facets of what is wrong with our community.
Not everything that is wrong since ‘everything that is wrong’ covers a wide variety of human weaknesses, behaviours and sins.
The legacy of despair and destruction, of the way your neighbourhood is, does not belong to Penny Jodway. It belongs to you, your neighbours and the many other citizens of Abbotsford, British Columbia and Canada who, in order to protect their ideology and beliefs, see what they want to see.
Unfortunately REALITY does not give a damn about ideology or beliefs, it just is.
It is the chaos that arises from within the differences between the factual reality that IS and the delusional reality our ideology and beliefs bring forth that IS NOT that brings about the issues and problems we are challenged by as Canadians.
It is understandable why those employed as the agency that enforced prohibition would wish to protect their livelihoods by finding a new ‘demon’ to pursue when prohibition ended in 1933. It is also understandable why, given lack of knowledge and experience, the public would buy into this demonization of other drugs as ‘demon rum’ was demonized to bring about prohibition.
Given our 80 years of experience with the futility of trying to address the issue of mind altering substances by waging war upon those who fall under the influence of mind altering substances; our knowledge and understanding of addiction as a health and mental health issue; we have only ourselves to blame for pursuing a course of action that attempts to solve a medical issue with the legal system instead of the health system.
It is choosing to ignore the reality that addiction is a health care issue in favour of pursuing the illusions many want to be, that effective actions do not get taken and ineffective actions are repeated over and over well past the point of insanity.
It is in our stubborn refusal to learn from the lessons in Penny’s life (and far too many other lives) that what is wrong with our community not only lies but thrives in. It is this stubborn refusal to learn from a reality we simply don’t like because it challenges or contradicts ideologies and/or beliefs that condemns us to repeat mistakes and have problems such as poverty, homelessness and addiction grow.
It is our own choices that prevent us addressing and dealing with these problems.
Penny Jodway was merely an evidentiary symptom, not a cause.
Original Letter:
I cannot afford to subsidize Heat ownersip
The first item I got when I moved to Abbotsford was a Library Card.
The second item was a pool pass as I have a bad back and it is either swim regularly or endure periods of crippling pain, an inability to walk and being bed ridden. Needless to say I am highly motivated to swim five or six times a week. It was seven but my old joints need at least one day a week to recuperate.
During the following two decades I have always held a pool pass. A string that will end when my current pass expires because Abbotsford city council has chosen to push the cost of using city recreational amenities beyond what many citizens can afford.
My back requires me to swim if I want to remain mobile and at a pain level that does not require the use of addictive medications such as morphine to manage the pain. So I will be swimming.
My swimming also significantly benefits the taxpayer’s pocketbook by avoiding the costs of the expensive medical services that would result from the back problems associated with the physical consequences of not swimming.
There are two courses of action I can take and will be exploring.
The first is to swim only during the times, the very limited times, of ‘cheap swims’ when the admission price is much more affordable. That limits me to a maximum of four one hour long swims a week, the minimum I need to swim to benefit from swimming. It also means that swimming becomes a ‘cannot miss’ item on my schedule as opposed to the timing flexibility of a pass.
The other option is to check out the private facilities that have pools to see if their pools will meet my needs vis-à-vis swimming lengths. Private facilities because under Abbotsford’s current council’s mismanagement the city’s public facilities are the most expensive facilities in town.
I am sure that someone from city council or management will state that the city gives a credit to those citizens who living (well) below the poverty line; that the city raised the credit by 50% this year. Ignoring or obscuring the fact that it would have taken a 120% increase just to cover the 20% increase in ARC admission fees this year.
Actually, if you factor in the double digit increase that resulted from the two price increases the year before, the cost to use ARC has gone up 35% over the past 18 months.
In order to merely stay even the recreation credit needed to increase by 195%, four times the actual 50% increase. Leaving those who can least afford to pay increased fees significantly worse off than they were just 18 months ago.
Now if I could afford to go to UFV my UFV U-PASS would get me unlimited access to Abbotsford recreational facilities. What does the city collect for this access? $5 per term!
For the same four month period that the city collects $5 per student they charge me $200 – 4000% more. Where is Mayor Peary’s ‘user pay’ or fairness here?
As if having those living in poverty subsidize UFV students was not insulting or outrageous enough, there is the matter of subsidizing a professional hockey team and ownership – the Heat.
It is not only those who struggle to survive living in poverty who cannot afford to attend events at AESC. The working poor, indeed many working families period, cannot afford to attend events at AESC.
Yet we all pay to subsidize ever posterior in a seat at AESC when we use city facilities.
Council constantly cites the need to provide public amenities to attract people to Abbotsford.
Yet, while the city has added the Plan A amenities for those wealthy enough to afford them, it has imposed fee increases across the board at public facilities that deny and/or significantly reduce access to ALL facilities for a substantial percentage of Abbotsford’s citizens.
The purpose of public facilities is to provide public amenities and access to those facilities for ALL citizens, particularly families and children, not just a privileged few. The purpose is NOT to provide cash flow to pay for council’s lack of fiscal acumen and common sense.
Public facilities fees should be the lowest (or at worst among the lowest) in the city in order to maximize public access to and use of facilities. Public facilities fees should not be the highest, thus minimizing public access to facilities and participation in recreational activities.
The Tale of a friend, crippling pain and Fraser Un-Health.
I have a homeless friend I first met shortly after finding myself living on the streets of Abbotsford.
For a period we were among those sharing a pod and both found ourselves returned to living on the streets close to the same point in time and through the same agency, although on different grounds.
I was able to find housing in a couple of months, whereas he has been homeless ever since that point in time.
About three weeks ago I was giving him a bad time about getting old after he hurt his back getting up that morning. His back continued to bother him until one morning a week and a half ago he found himself unable to move or get to his feet.
Late on the second day of being incapacitated and having no water he dragged himself to the road were someone saw him and called the Abbotsford police. Who arrived and asked him if he had been hit by a car (no) or if he was so intoxicated he could not stand (no). Upon explaining about his being crippled by his back the officers called him an ambulance.
At which time he began a close encounter of the unprofessional kind with ‘The Attitude’ that the homeless and too many other powerless sub-groups are treated with by emergency medical staff in Abbotsford.
The Abbotsford ambulance crew expressed … let’s say skepticism… as to his claim of not being an addict. Further, when he said he had not been taken to the hospital by ambulance anytime recently, one of the ambulance attendants insisted he had taken him to the hospital just weeks before.
His treatment did not improve upon arrival at the new Regional Hospital in Abbotsford, where once again the fact he was homeless automatically made him an addict, despite his statements about not having an addiction.
When my friend suggested that labelling him an addict, assuming that he was there to abuse the medical system and that he was there for some reason other than his back was causing him crippling pain was not the way staff should be acting, he was subjected to ‘who are you (a nobody) what have you done with your life (nothing)’ attitude and behaviours.
I am sure that I am not the only one who has had the experience of having a doctor tell you that they cannot find any evidence of a back problem, while you were lying there in agony.
So – anyone surprised the doctor didn’t find any evidence of a back problem when he, the doctor, had decided my friend was a homeless addict who was lying about his addiction and about why he was at the hospital? Me neither.
Most British Columbians, myself included, labour under the impression hospitals are there to provide health care to British Columbians who find themselves in need to 24 hour bed rest and health care. Apparently we are mistaken.
Hospital staff gave him a shot and shipped him off, still unable to move and in agony, to the Salvation Army – which has no facilities or capacity to provide 24 hour bed care for someone. Of course since he could not walk they were forced to call a taxi to have him carted off the premises. Talk about a bums rush!
Fortunately for my friend on his way to, but before he found himself stranded helplessly at the Salvation Army, he spotted his brother who got him to his (the brother’s) place.
Of course since he was an addict and would either abuse or sell any medication he was given, he was sent off without medication or any prescription for medication. As a result of which he got to spend a week unable to move and in a great deal of pain.
The reason I started with the background of how long I have know my friend is so that I can state: that he does not use drugs or alcohol; that his last ambulance trip to the hospital was thirty years ago after a car accident; that if he says his back is causing crippling pain – it is causing crippling pain.
My friend was treated with the usual (unacceptable) lack of respect and professionalism that is standard operating procedure for treatment of the homeless. That’s just a fact of life for the homeless in Abbotsford.
However, his treatment goes beyond the normal standard lack of professionalism into bad health care or as the French would say Mal-practice.
Of Hockey, true Canadian local TV and Generosity
The recent commotion caused by Alex Burrows denunciation of the actions he attributed to referee Stephane Auger caught my attention.
Many Canadians understandably regard hockey as Canada’s game, holding it near and dear to their hearts. Perhaps in hockey’s sportsmanship, teamwork and the generosity of spirit that underlies a team’s success they see a reflection of what it means to be Canadian.
Undoubtedly Canadians found the pettiness of spirit, the ‘it’s all about ME’ attitude and the total lack of consideration for others (in this case the fans) a disturbing reminder of just how americanized ‘Canada’s game’ has become.
Unhappily, I doubt that many recognized in this incident the highlighting of the creeping americanization of Canada that has been corroding the Canadian Soul since the private broadcasting phase of the television age began.
As more and more private broadcasters entered the broadcasting business Canadians were subjected to more and more American programming. This programming has served to indoctrinate Canadians with the underlying principals of American life – Greed and Self-centredness.
This decades long barrage of Americanism has undermined Canadian values to the point our current Prime Minister is an American wannabe whose demonstrated goal is to replace the Canadians Ethical Rectitude with American narcissistic avarice.
It is to reverse this americanization of Canadian mores and allow Canadian mores to reassert and re-establish themselves as the underlying operating principals of Canadian society that the CRTC must not interfere in the Canadianization process that is currently taking shape in over the air broadcasting industry.
It is imperative that Canada get actual local Canadian television and programming that reflects Canadian ethics and values to reverse the americanization of the Canadian Soul.
Despite the misrepresentation of their current “save local television” campaign, the private over the air broadcasters are not Canadian much less local.
Rather than Canadian television we have an American television programming rebroadcast system.
News programming, which should be an epicentre of Canadian values and ideas, is driven instead by the need for profit to feed the conglomerates which have come to own Canada’s media. News is not about ideas, discussion and goal setting but is about what sells – if it bleeds it leads.
Without CRTC interference Canadian over the air broadcasters and/or stations will have to reinvent themselves as true Canadian local television since over the air broadcasters will not survive (without CRTC interference) simply rebroadcasting American programming as is the current state of affairs.
The lack of viability of the current conglomerate media structure should, with the conglomerates failure, return control of television stations to local ownership.
The establishment of true local Canadian television and programming will help reclaim the Canadian Soul.
The desperate need for a restoration, a revitalizing, of the Canadian Soul is written in events occurring now in 2010 and throughout 2009.
Throughout 2009 the numbers of Canadians in need of help from their fellow Canadians to have shelter and food simply to survive grew at an accelerating rate.
In the months leading up to the end of 2009 there was story after story, report after report, concerning the increasingly (20% to 60% increases) large numbers of Canadians needing help just to find food to eat and to survive another night
The result of all this coverage? Charities, despite the well publicized large increases in the numbers of Canadians in need of help, did not make their targets and have had to carry their campaigns into the new year.
At the same time so many Canadians were left in need, other Canadians were spending an additional 3% this year over last year’s Christmas season on indulging themselves.
That’s correct, as the numbers of Canadians in need skyrocketed, those Canadians fortunate enough to be able to be generous were being less generous – except to themselves. How very American.
If Canadians do not want to continue to lose what it means to be Canadian, we must not just stop the americanization of the Canadian Soul but must actively seek to reclaim the Canadian Soul, our Canadian ethical rectitude.
We need to reverse the subtle process of indoctrination and americanization that our television broadcasters have enabled as an American programming rebroadcast industry, by allowing the market to force local ownership and Canadian programming and content.
We need tell Stephen Harper that if he wants to be an American he can immigrate; that we want to be Canadians, are proud to be Canadians and to not interfere with the Canadianization of the over the air broadcast industry currently underway.