The New Vancouver Identity

The fentanyl crisis is not really all that surprising once we acknowledge the reasons for this overuse and suicidal behaviour. The addicts and those prone to becoming addicts are existing with very little hope in a society driven by greed. Our doors here are wide open and welcoming to criminals laundering their money through dirty real estate deals; including even our mayor getting in on real estate profiteering. The premier, the prototypical west end elitist, hasn’t raised the monthly welfare rate going on eight years. That’s the extent of her care for the extremely poor. The churches are closed at night with their vacant basements while the homeless are turned away by filled-to-capacity shelters. The bodies are sleeping and trembling on the stairs of those closed churches. Christianity at work?  No one can afford the rents any more let alone the welfare recipient and no one really cares about treatment for these addicts. With the exception of a few lone voices in the wilderness. But committee meetings and bureaucrats  on the periphery of the poverty-stricken neighbourhoods are generating fat pay cheques.

Someone who actually cares needs to get in here, roll up his or her sleeves and get the job done: Open rehab farms across the province financed by all the savings which would accumulate from not having to send out the firetrucks and the manpower 24/7 with Naloxone, currently being administered by volunteer citizens.

The wealth-addicted and the Vancouver elitists should be ashamed of themselves.

 Now Vancouver is not only a “no fun” city, it is place to die without a home and without  hope.

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Nero Played Fiddle. Obama Flashed His Teeth

The Winning(?) Smile

The sun is setting on the presidency of Barack Obama. The “Hope and change” era has come and gone. ISIS has murdered, beheaded, burnt and slaughtered countless men, women and children and still occupies pockets of Syria, Iraq, West Africa and elsewhere. Their numbers have increased with the promise of the ‘value package’: a pay cheque, a gun and a woman. Their ideology is totally scrambled but somehow it’s enough to inspire morons around the world to commit cowardly acts of mayhem – suicide bombings; nightclub patron massacres; marketplace bombings etc etc. They really don’t care who they kill. Obama has permitted Putin to invade the Ukraine while their military was on parade in Kiev; bomb the hell out of Aleppo in a wicked little deal with the maniacal Bashar Al-Assad regime and with his thumbs screwed into his ears, wagging his fingers at Obama at every turn, gloating. Putin has identified Obama as a pussy and is crossing that ‘red line’ repeatedly and with riotous nonchalance.

    About two years ago, I suggested in this e-zine a simple plan to resolve the ISIS crisis: In concert with civilized European countries, Declare War on ISIS and their confederate organizations. Simultaneously (so no one country would be targeted for revenge).  With intelligence provided by drones and CIA agents on the ground, ten or so countries could then mobilize the ground forces in such overwhelming numbers as to wipe these bastards off the face of the earth.  No refugee crisis would have evolved. Nobody drowning in the Mediterranean or dying on marathon hikes out of the country.  Obama, much pleased with his glorious speechifying and Hollywood handsomeness, fumbled, dithered and procrastinated. The whole time the murderous thug, Putin, was having and still is having a grand time selling his brand (himself) to his people. The Russians are buying it and willing to suck up the sanctions.

      The other strategy to defeat terrorist organizations is to outlaw the hosting on the internet any such messages which would provoke violence. Crash their internet outreach. And then: the media should never publish pictures of i.e. the Orlando killer or any of the so-called lone wolves. They don’t exist. Don’t give them one second of fame let alone 15 minutes or weeks of it.

    In this writer’s view, all of this should have been implemented years ago during Obama’s first tenure. He will retire with that million dollar smile and the ghastly legacy of millions of innocents dead and a totally destabilized Syria and Iraq and the other morally weak nations following suit.

    The United Nations allows the Russian ambassador to veto any just reciprocation to this ongoing slaughter in Syria. This makes the Council a joke, an embarrassment and its uselessness exposed by the lack of will on the part of civilized countries to do anything. Saudi Arabia is quietly playing their chess game on both sides of the table as are other countries who could bring to bear their military might and make the significant changes that are screaming desperately to be made. Just listen to the bloodied children wailing after their homes and family have been bombed all to hell.

     We have gone to war for a lot less.

     The only positive aspects of Obama’s legacy are the Affordable Care Act (which needs serious reconstruction) and thanks to his wife, Michelle, the prevention of Donald Trump from becoming president. Not much for eight years. 

    With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau riding high in the popularity poll, why couldn’t he prevail now upon these countries and instigate this aggressive but sensible plan?  He needs to find his military pants. Enough smiling, folks. Roll up your sleeves, man up and do the right thing. Annihilate ISIS.  Obama has until January.  Pick up the phone, Justin.

Leaps of Faith

As the author of this book and two others previously, I take a leap of faith in a readership.  It takes years to write a book, especially when the writer is not independently wealthy, and the time it takes is a sacrifice.

It's your turn to take a leap.

Similar to ordering from the net, it takes time to deliver the product. Your product will be delivered on November 15th at the book launch. If by then there are not more than 500 orders for this title, the contest will be cancelled - no treasure chest.

The onus is on the readership now. My work is done.

THE TABLET

THIS TABLET NEEDS A REWRITE. MORE POETIC PLEASE. THEN IT NEEDS TO BE REITERATED EVERY WEEK. THE ECO-ORGANIZATIONS, LIKE OCEANA AND LEONARDO DICAPRIO'S GROUP COULD JOIN IN ESTABLISHING A PROTOTYPE CITY NEWSPAPER SUPPORTED INITIALLY BY SPONSORHIP ADS FROM THESE ECO-ORGANIZATIONS.

UNLESS THE MESSAGE IS REPEATED WITH SOME VARIATION, IT WON'T MAKE THE NECESSARY IMPACT. IT HAS TO GET IN TO THE MAILBOXES. 

As a free willed and intelligent species we need to  acknowledge the impact of our activities on the health of our planet and its sustainability as supportive of human existence.

Look no further than the establishment to find culpability.  Disengage from immoral institutions starting with your bank.
PURPORT: Banks are corporations. Legally, corporations are considered “individuals.” By their impersonal and greedily collusive conduct, they qualify as individuals. Psychopathic individuals. 

Suspend trawling and all forms of industrialized fishing. 

PURPORT: Just because advances have been made in mass harvesting techniques doesn’t make them good advances. Empowering boat owners to rape the seas is not forethoughtful management of the fish stock. Certain breeds of fish are nearing extinction, to wit the east coast cod.

WE MUST END:
*clear cutting and other destructive forms of deforestation; fracking which destablizes the water table, wasting the water; and modernize factories and manufacturing plants and situate them away from rivers and oceans. 
PURPORT: Foresters, manufacturers and factory owners now have the option to implement new design and functioning methodologies which would not so severely devastate the environment.

*the use of plastics starting with shopping bags.

PURPORT: Residue of plastics are choking the seas and require immediate removal. Use the same biodegradable  grocery bag when shopping.  

*all industrial activity which pollutes the air or negatively affects the ozone;  then turn off the city lights so the wonder of our neighbouring galaxies can be witnessed world over.

*sport hunting and trade in ivory and anything else which would threaten the existence of a species.

PURPORT: Trade trophy hunting for trophy photography. Same thrill minus the bloodlust. Owning ivory products should be a matter of shame, not pride. Education is required of the Chinese masses.

Disarm civilians and reduce the arming of police to eliminate the use of  lethal force. PURPORT: If a civilian wants to enjoy the handling of guns and rifles, let him go to a gun range. There are many alternatives to subdue an attacker or violent person which don’t involve the use of lethal force. Killing a pencil-wielder is supporting bloodlust and is not a sign of an enlightened civilization. 

Destroy the poppy fields of Afghanistan replacing the crops with viable alternatives: rice, melon and beans etc. PURPORT: The poppy fields of Afghanistan represent the supply source of 90% of hard drugs.

Redistribute obscene private wealth to offer financial relief to those affected by these reforms. And then: heal the wealth addicted.

PURPORT: The wealthy will finally find relief and joy in doing something meaningful with their money. 

For Vocal Coaches

Hi Josh:

As we work together in reacquainting me with reading music and then to singing those notes crisply giving each its due, I wonder if we might also occasionally examine an area of cymatics which I believe the bewildered scientists aren't getting.

Snowflake

The designs they see being created by i.e. the sand granules are in fact the original, universal note configurations. Would it not be possible then to 'write' music with these designs; and/or videotape the designs created when playing i.e. Mozart, or Beethoven etc? with a view to eventually composing the most beautiful looking score as shown in the arrangements of these cymatic designs? I would expect the loveliest of music would lend itself to remarkably symmetrical, exquisitely balanced designs. Perhaps, you may some day be composing a musical score within a mandala you are creating in accordance with these universal designs reflecting the assortment of cymatic 'notes.'? 

Is the snowflake design then evidence of a divine orchestra? Musical notes falling from the sky?

NEVER LONELY

I live alone. No pets. Don’t enjoy TV much. Don’t eat out. Cook alone. Eat alone. I walk alone. I sleep alone. I am the victim of ageism. Sometimes slander. And have been assaulted and am occasionally threatened.
I am not afraid. And I am not lonely.
When I encounter a person, a stranger, I make a point of saying something gentlemanly like “Good morning. How are you today?” and I sound like I mean it; because I do. I do care about how they are today. When I find a reason to expand on the one-liner and perhaps mention the weather as being pleasant or find some other relevant anecdotal comment to include, I watch their reaction with extreme care and I find in their hint of a smile, which I aim and look for, a contentment. I hear in their voice all of their humanity and sometimes it seems I notice an ancestral presence too. I can usually tell them them if they’re European, Irish, Brit or American and they find that charming. Sometimes, when I'm on my game, I surmise that they are a parent and tell them how many children they have and which genders (has to do with micro-observation, their breathing etc.). And usually, within a minute or shorter, I can find something humorous to add. And then there in their face I see the handwriting of God. It is in this brief exchange that I am filled. The magnificence of their humanity has touched me. I have been, as it were, topped off. 
Good to go.

THREE TELLING HOURS

The SWAT team in Orlando arrived and rather than taking immediate action to gain ingress to the nightclub where murder was in progress took positions outside the club and waited. For three hours. They waited and listened to the gunfire for three hours until an armoured vehicle was finally dispatched to go in through a wall. By then 50 people had been slaughtered. How many of them had been killed after the SWAT team had arrived and proceeded to do nothing?  What explains why they waited? Could they not have used equipment to locate the shooter and then gain ingress at a point where they would have been safe?

This isn’t the first time this lethargic sort of response has been the order of the day while mass murdering was going on.

It may not be politically correct to call it this way but this writer sees cowardice. And the lack of action could be argued to be criminally negligent. These members of this elite fighting group need to take their own pulse, and come alive. We have evidence of men acting frightened to the point of immobilization at the scene of a horrendous crime being undertaken by one gunman. One. Where were the stun grenades? Sleeping gas? Snipers? Anybody doing anything for three hours?

The American SWAT team has become the SQUAT team.

Gun Crazed Consequences

The Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando is the latest scene of mass murder in the U.S. Fifty people no longer have a pulse and that is the direct consequence of a gun-crazed culture. 

The Yanks will never get it. Their movies (with the actors' complicity); their TV and video games; their whole culture is driven by gunplay. The Second Amendment ('Right to bear arms') was written  when horse thieves were hung.  Who needs an assault rifle (700 rounds a minute) today, in a land of the free?  Not even the bobbies in Britain are armed with lethal weapons and the murder count there is almost non-existent.  

All this grieving and day after condolence-giving is meaningless. Amend that Amendment and make it illegal to own assault rifles and make it extremely difficult to even own a gun. 

Create theme parks where people can go and use rifles and guns under controlled circumstances. 

Institutions like Canon cameras and Nikon could lead a campaign against the NRA to eliminate trophy hunting and replace that weird 'sport' with trophy photography. Assist the gun retailers with switching over to camera and video equipment sales. Make movies instead of killing living beings. 

There are ways to satisfy this gun-crazed desire. 

But as long as our movies and video games glorify killing with guns, and the guns are at hand, we're all victims-in-waiting. 

Leadership Please

Dear Editor:

WITH LEADERSHIP ANSWERS ARE SIMPLE

As to our housing ‘crisis’ in Vancouver, may I suggest a simple resolution? Track where the money came from to purchase these homes and if the purchase funds are illicitly gotten as in Chinese criminals laundering their funds through third cousins etc and Hells’ Angels profiteering  in real estate from their dope-dealing activity then expropriate all those properties backdating 20 years and put them back on the market for legitimate immigrants and the at-risk-of-extinction Canadian Vancouverites.

Vacant homes would no longer dot our landscape and our neighbourhoods would become alive (and healthy) again.

Taking a stand against money laundering requires one little element in play: Leadership.

Curiouser and Curiouser

When completing a book manuscript I feel a tremendous sense of gratification on several levels. That I finished it at all. That it is a creative completion. That it is an offering made with thoughtfulness to entertain and educate the reader. That it required discipline. That it will read well for generations and that it is a statement of the times and of my perspective being offered with some humility to contribute to the pool of knowledge by which we may guide our lives to new dimensions of happiness and continuity of joy. 

Then the response. Nothing. My neighbours haven’t read The Dead Sea Revelation or Raising a Banner on a Path of Heart. Included in this non-readership,  my relatives. Two of my neighbours actually returned the Banner book, unread. The library claims of the two Dead Sea books, one was stolen; and one was damaged but they haven’t reordered.

My neighbours and acquaintances like to introduce me as a famous author – or at least an author – but that’s it. No readers.

I explore and write about human potential. And the absence of curiosity about my work is telling its own tale.

I happen to believe I am now writing from the dark side of the Doomsday Clock given that we as a species are facing the very real possibility of annihilating ourselves as we continue to strike an imbalance thanks to the wealth-addicted one-percenters. I wrote Leonardo DiCaprio, head of a New York based ecological foundation and recently winner of an Academy Award with a suggestion we establish a dialogue to help his foundation become much more effective. After some string-pulling to get the letter into this celebrity’s hands, no response.

This across-the-board disinterest is getting curiouser and curiouser. In a depressing way. For more than ten years I have been e-zining this English Bay Banner and there have been almost no comments posted. 

Soon enough I won’t exist. And my words having been dismissed before being read will wilt away.  And people will go on reading the fashionista and foodie columns in the ad rags masking themselves as newspapers and live(?) as usual scratching away in darkness at the interior wall of their cave of fear. 

When our globe is finally exhausted and collapsing, the last of the whales beaching themselves and the bumblebees having become extinct, people will still be texting, looking at fashionista pages in our puerile papers, becoming foodies and laundering their money. And those guilty one percenters will have a tremble in their step as they make their last trek to the bank.

Barber shops in Vancouver are starting to look quite spiffy, recalling the shops of yesteryear. This one, The 18th Amendment, is located on Cordova Street in Gastown.

The Adventures of an Urban Wizard will be released to the reading public this month of February, 2016. A public reading by Harry Langen at the Vancouver Central Library on February 20th at 2 pm. will present this work.

Dear Mr DiCaprio:

I am writing to you today from the dark side of the Doomsday Clock.

Is it too late? Can all we do now is just mitigate the inevitable upheaval we legitimately expect: this annihilation of innumerable species and the irreversible damage – already underway – to our planet. Our place in the universe is now tenuous at best.

I believe I have ideas which may go directly to resolving this dilemma of global proportions.

As a professional writer and newspaper publisher since 1978, I have witnessed with profound discontent the downward swing of civilization and there it is having proceeded from my generation and now lurking at my doorstep.

Yes, we can save this earth. There is one word which, with the leadership of enlightened individuals, can awaken people to having hope again. We can enjoy enthusiasm again; and even innocence if we could but implement this word. If we can just drive this peg in.  

This letter is not intended as a tease from some hair-brained egomaniac but a query really as to whether you would enjoy a dialogue with a man of conscience who is enduring daily the misfiring of the media with  distractions to which the programmers are witheringly wed. Creating conflict and grief and relentlessly exposing young minds to this crude display in their movies, TV shows and throughout the print industry is precisely not what the doctor is ordering. We are as a people being betrayed and action now needs to be taken.

The resolution(s) I have in mind involve big ideas and in the working of them, courage. But those few righteous leaders among us may be given a wider audience crammed with people hungry for information of a nature which will make them feel useful and allow them to enjoy – with continuity – participating with Creation. Let’s satisfy their beseeching; and enjoy the thrill of that: meaningful action.

If interested, get back to me.