I survived another day of CBC News

The absurdity of media today has gone beyond the pale.  Every day the CBC cries the ‘skies falling’ but never do they make a retraction.
They insist that the IPCC is a ‘consensus of scientists’ yet because of the shoddiest of political patronage this turns out to be a complete fiction.  The Professor Emeritus of Meteriology at MIT says that these Climate Change ‘alarmists’ aren’t even scientific. He says they’re a cult.  So does Environmentalist Patrick Moore, the founder of Greenpeace, the greatest original  environmental movement of our time.  Then there’s the odd Nobel Prize Winner who happens to think these folk at the United Nations are political frauds.  I have to do the least amount of research to find that this is all apparent to everyone because it tweaks my curiosity as a scientist why CO2, the breath of plant life is suddenly being demonized and there’s this misinformation about ‘greenhouse gases’.
Meanwhile Justin Trudeau has named a cabinet Portfolio " Environment and Climate Change".  This is like saying the “Portfolio of Justice and Waterboarding” or “Portfolio of Medicine and Leeching.”  This is the very problem of politics these days.  I like Justice but I don’t like waterboarding. I like medicine but Leeching is nonsense.  Environment is important and I’m all for stewardship of the planet’s resources.   Global Warming is man made political fiasco.  The Paris Conference of Politicos just listened to pseudoscience for millions of dollars while reality is happening in the middle east.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote a novel once where the world came to an end only because fat cat politicians were eating extravagant dinners and producing such hot air that they missed a nuclear weapons attack.
Now in Cologne today I hear how hundreds of migrant men from North Africa and the Middle East systematically attacked and raped countless women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve.  We know that 1200 girls were gang raped in England, and the total may be closer to a million.   These were made up of  Muslim men.  We know that Boco Harem , a muslim terrorist group steals hundreds of girls for sex slaves. We also know that ISIS asked learned muslim Imans to confirm that it was alright for old men to have sex with 12 year old girls.  They responded that yes it was okay  but that they shouldn’t have sex with the girl and the mother at the same time.  But what is so absurd that only CBC could be counted on to report seriously,   is that the Leader of the German Feminists says she doesn’t want these hundreds of rapes of German women on the main streets of Cologne to cause Germans to think ill of the Muslim migrants from Syrians.
It’s alright for feminists  to condemn all men as rapists or at best potential rapists but never shall we say a Muslim man can be a rapist.
The next news item was a Senator Roxanne Persaud who is right out of the ‘theatre of the absurd’.  I listened to the CBC interview of her and thought compared to Donald Trump this woman is a total fruitcake.  She wants to propose a bill limiting the sale of ammunition in America so the NRA put a picture of her juxtaposed by a picture of ammunition. This Senator says that she knows that this is ‘a threat’ and an innuendo done purposely by the NRA because some of it’s ‘supporters’ have emailed her harassing letters.  She says that those who support the NRA are ‘irrational’ but a person who insists that she can perceive a threat in a picture of her and ammunition as a threat, when the bill she is proposing is about ammunist,  is herself not by any means sounding particularly ‘rational’.  Yet she insists  that people won’t talk to her.  I personally warn people to avoid talking to people who label you insane unless they are your doctor or psychiatrist.
But what’s worse , the CBC reports these stories, seriously.
I love the ONION.  It’s a media journal that presents news as ‘farce’.  You know when the NEWS is a FARCE with the ONION.  With CBC I know the NEWS is a FARCE but as ludicrous and absurd as it gets I really don’t think the so called journalists know this.
Thank God though I survived another day of the CBC News.  .

(Now the CBC I loath is mostly News - to be clear I loved Vinyl Cafe on the weekend, and love Vinyl Tap, Ideas, tapestry and white coat black art.  apparently CBC saves this absurdity solely for those of us commuting at 8 am or 6 pm when they really do have the worst programming. Apparently programming is planned for the audience so it may be that the CBC believes the stupidest people listen to them at these times and I’m frankly the stupidest of them. I know better. It’s like looking for love in all the wrong places. CBC News is propaganda at best, ignorant at worst.  )

But I survived it, another day.

Wednesday Morning 7 am

I don’t know what to write.  I woke at 6 am.  It didn’t feel like I slept much.  It was chilly.  So much heat in the day and chilly at night.  I was in bed early enough. Tired from the day.  Stress having it’s toll.  So many demands.  So much to do.  Confusion.  Muddling through. Moving in molasses. And always the self pity gnawing at my heart like a cockroach.  I would walk in the light.  Gravity has it’s hold on me though.  I’d be weightless and lift off.
I’ve been running.  It’s a joy that I can.  For the last few years injuries made all activity acutely painful.  The knee injury and ankle injury and foot injury. The feet still hurt. Funny for a dancer to have sore feet but this from a crush injury.  Orthotics and new shoes and physio all served to restore me to walking pain free (relatively) and now running. But the body is fat and older and complains with exertion. I can only run a couple of times a week. The period in between is recovery.  I ran last night.  I was in shock after. My body watched tv in paralysis. We’d only just exercised on Saturday.  My body was utterly unprepared.  A surprise run.  Trying to sleep at night my eyes wouldn’t close. Open staring up at the skylight crying, ‘why me, why is he doing this to me.’  I’m confronting sloth.  There’s a war within. One part of me wishes to curl up in the fetal position and eat hagen daz till I die while the other says this exercise thing is good.  I was doing tai chi in the woods too. My knee is shouting out it’s concern angrily.  Parts of me are in rebellion.  My waist is smug though. Not budging.  I do have more energy.  I feel more alert. I’m less likely to be suicidal with all this cardio. If I have to be homicidal I’ll be more effective.
I guess I slept.  The night before I dreamed of sex and was young again.  Last night I must have been in a futuristic war zone. I feel all beat up.
Now the coffee has helped. I’ve put on the heat. I’ve walked the dog.
I’m supposed to write.  I told myself I 'd write. I tell myself to write. I'm my own robot.
I was meditating on Julian of Norwich, remembering something St. Theresa said that was the same.  An intellectual I know annoyed me as I whizzed through the hundred or so emails and references.  I have less and less time for conceit and drivel. I’ve been deleting arbitrarily, withdrawing from face book ‘interests’.  I’ve found I’m increasingly less interested.  The fact is I’m just a tad grumpy.  The self pity is palpable. It’s like a shark now rising out of the unconscious. Big teeth.  The very big teeth of self pity and the gaping maw.
I’m supposed to be working on the great canadian novel.  How will it ever get finished if I don’t contribute. Instead I’m blogging.  I’m a modern day ‘diarist’.  This was a thing of the 18th century and before.  Self indulgent wandering mental vomitus on page.
I could comment on the news. There are forest fires. There have always been forest fires.  But these forest fires are said to be worse forest fires.  They’re the worst forest fires. The media is hysterical.  They are even saying it’s a drought and those farmers who didn’t put in irrigation equipment are demanding that we the tax payer bail them out.
I’m unprepared for my day. I want a bail out.   I didn’t become a banker. I could have been a lawyer. I could have focused on the lucrative aspects of medicine. I was wrong.  Assassin would have been a more monetarily fulfilling term. I compare myself with others financially.  I’m a mere doctor.  I could have saved better. I could have bought houses. I could have focused more on finance. Read financial magazines rather than comic books.  The price of meat is three times what it was. Fuel prices are up now that the environmentalists have destroyed Alberta and want to return us to the communes of the 60's.  I didn't like the communes of the 60's .  I've done my time tenting. I wanted to die quietly in a fine nursing home with clean sheets like the Gods of old England in Dick Slaterly's Holistic Detective  Agency.
I wasted so much time I could have spent on becoming an evil materialist genius. I'm unprepared for old age. My generation were meant to die in the Cold War. Silent Spring promised that we'd be a burnt out planet in 10 years.  We've survived all these catastrophes. I should have died from an STD.  My penis should have fallen off from masturbating. I should have gone to hell for thinking about women'. I should have gone to hell by now. The Rapture didn't take me.  I'm not supposed to be alive. Aliens abducted others.  I paid attention to everything about Roswell.  I wanted my own space ship. I astral travelled. I sought nirvana as a pretzel. I prayed for salvation. I sat twisted up in search of samedhi. I was with the greatest women the earth ever knew. Cleopatras and Dulcineas have been my lovers. I've known the best of men.  But I wasn't supposed to live this long.  If I did there was supposed to be a cyborg body or I'd be lisfted up into a Tron universe.  Why must I continue with limited income when others have helicopters and old small countries and private armies.  I don't think CEO's should be paid more than hockey players. I had just adjusted to hockey player getting paid so much then I realized there were golfers too getting a whole lot and rock stars and I was the doctor whose salary was fixed and everyone loved 'rent controls on doctors' but I was poor. And yet I wasn't. I was rich in experience. I was driving my Miata sports car and living in a trailer park. I have all I could want but for a private jet and a mansion in the south of France and a rocket launcher.  I have been blessed beyond my wildest dreams but I'm haunted by self pity.
I could have done scams. Instead I was a wastrel. That’s one of the terms my self pitying mind throws up for me. I ‘m on austerity in the diet compartment and austerity in the budget compartment.  Greece is withering beneath the gaze of haute germany.  Hollywood is putting out constant television about it’s worst excesses. I have no tv that reflects on me, leave it to beaver, seinfeld , friends. I can’t relate to the Kardashians.  All they bring to mind the idea that physician assisted suicide is necessary.  Imagine an hour in the company of such drivel.  Death would be better.  Yet they show that there’s something wrong with Hollywood, like Michael Jackson sleeping with boys.  Pedophilia is now being called a ‘sexual orientation’.  Are there no limits.
The skies the ceiling.
Pluto pictures are coming back from NASA’s probe.  The Mars studies continue.  Tesla is said to have communicated with aliens.  The geniuses thought the aliens were friendly, not like our human neighbours.  ISI keeps beheading. Syrian refugees increase.  Boco Harem keeps stealing virgin teen age girls.  China kills more dissidents.  All over Christians are persecuted.  There's a whole lot of really stupid people in the world and the self pity tells me it would be better for me if I didn't know so much. The corruption that perpetuates the insanity en mass is mass manufactured.  It's probably not their fault that they're so stupid.  They probably realized in high school what a racket it was. Better to focus on fast food and fucking that politics and changing the world.  There's more substance in a hamburger from Wendys.
The Canadian elections are coming up and the politicking continues.  So much bombast.  So much deceit.  So many people wanting more taxes and I don’t want to pay for more corruption. All I’ve seen of government is corruption. My 5 years of Downtown Eastside was an incredible drowning in city and provincial corruption.  Now 46 pharmacies and pharmacists have been closed down.  So few arrests.  The weed wacker goes through and the stalks come up again. No one addresses the sources.  NDP corruption is the worst and yet so little of it gets to the media.  The profit is in drugs and guns. Everybody is pushing marijuana. It's at the highest state levels.  
And Troudeau wants more taxes.  I wish they'd drug test politicians and Supreme Court judges like the do athletes.
I loved the surfer who punched the shark while the soccer players get thousands for falling and crying on tv. So much corruption.  No wonder old time ruler cut off hands and penis'.
And Harper is vilified.  Scapegoated for everything. This is an anti father society.  The problem is always the man. Blame it on daddy. But the provinces are in charge of health care and instead of putting their money into health care waste that money on million dollar Supervised Injections Sites building palaces for the drug addict society and claiming that housing is health care while letting contractors steal more millions of government money. Every slum land lord has his hand in the pot. it's a feeding frenzy. And how many millions spent on residential schools and pig farmers and revenge and past redresses while children go hungry and people die today of diseases that could be cured if the talkers and the pontificators and arguers didn't want the lions share of money.
Now in the US there’s more election developments with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren facing off in the new sports spectacles of democratic shuffles board.  While the Republicans might have someone but so far all I’ve heard is Donald Trump.  It’s a circus.  There seems to be little more than reality tv to all the entertainment called politics especially in the lies of the ecology and the false pretences, with corporations the new medieval lords and the elections relevant only to the vestiges of left over citizen states.
I am grateful for coffee. I’m grateful for cars. I’m grateful for my family. I’m grateful for my friends. Thank you especially for Gilbert. He licked my face this morning. Thank you for the alarm clock in the iPhone. Thank you for the iPhone.  Thank you for this apple computer. Thank you for my fingers. Thank you for my breathing. Thank you for the air. Thank you for my sight. Thank you for my arms and legs. I especially like my asshole. Thank you for the shitting.  I feel sorry for those who bloat and have obstruction. I’m so thankful for a dump. I really appreciate peeing too Lord. Good engineering. I don’t know why there wasn’t a separate function button for these but then you also used my nose for breathing and smelling so I suppose there were some design decisions.  It’s been a pretty good package.  Probably a beta version. I am enjoying the robots themes on tv and realize that this particular human model has gone a hundred thousand years with lmitted glitch fixes.  Certainly the brain has had it’s moments. I’m concerned about my heart. I seem to have less intuitive and compassionate function these days. I’m tired too so thank you for the sleep function but please make the necessary adjustments so that I can awake feeling young.  I’d like that sexual passion function returned. I’m kind of disinterested .  I’m more afraid and I’d like the stupid courage function beefed up.  I am thankful for everything Lord. God is one , three in one, and we are all in God and God is love and God is good so all is love and all is good so thankfully I can surrender to your love and trust and feel less sustained dread.
Thank you for the sunshine. Thank you for the blue sky. Thank you for the work. I like that I have a place to go thats no longer so chaotic and disorganized. Thank you for the sorting out of all the chaos. Thank you for my assistant . Thank you for the movers and workers. Thank you for telecommunications and wifi.
Please heal my family members. Help them in their illness. Heal my patients. Help them in their illness.  Guide me that I might better do thy wil. Help me be a better doctor. Help me to say and do the right thing.  Thank you for the journal articles and the web studies and the conference in Ireland and the coming conference in Virginia. Thank you for my colleagues who I learn so much from and who inspire and sustain me.  Thank you for these years of experience and that the challenges are wholly different than what they once were. What was once a race that seemed a sprint is now a marathon and much beyond. Help me as I travel this new terrain.
Thank you for doctors, nurses, teachers, engineers, bureaucrats, police, lawyer, judges, the military, our leadership, journalists. Thank you for all the guilds and artisans. Thank you for the entertainers, artists and dancers.  Thank you for sobriety, Thank you for spirituality. Thank you for God.
Thank you for the colours Lord.
Thank you for the flowers my brothers photos remind me to see.

Thank you.

CBC - Cancer Broadcasting Company

Last year while Canadian soldiers fought and died in Kundahar, CBC ran a month long anti government campaign trying to convince us that Canadian soldiers were wrong to hand over their prisoners to the local authorities even though this was the 'law' of engagement and NATO.  While this "news' was taking place, so that driving to work prime time or returning from work prime time I got to hear the likes of Anna Marie Tremonte go out of their way to create a 'scandal' in hope of blemishing the government.
I remember when the same was done to Paul Martin.  Both Paul Martin, a liberal Prime Minister, and Steven Harper, a conservative Prime Minister, were fiscally responsible and concerned about jobs and the economy.
Now we've heard day in day out about a 'scandal' of Senate's inappropriate spending when this is de rigour for Bureaucrats and Government the world over. It's called 'perks' and thankfully we're addressing the sordid likes of Duffy who is like other senators embarrassing to the government and their constituents.  But it's not the real 'news'.
The real news is the European Trade Agreement.  This is likely to be the most important economic achievement of the decade and CBC, in it's continued anti government, anti free trade, anti economy, anti jobs for Canadians, privileged, entitled skullduggery gives it a foot note.
CBC has a billion dollar tax payer paid budget.  It has unfair advantage over alternative media.  It's programs are some of the finest and for the sake of the programs, like Vinyl Cafe, Tapestry, Spark, the Debaters, Vinyl Tap, White Coat/Black Art I want to forgive the petty stupid propaganda of it's daily news. The Current is sickening regularly.  I heard a story and look it up only to find it's been given this communist spin or some sentimental twist that simply doesn't match the facts.
Then when things really big happen, like the biggest news of the year, a Euro Canadian trade agreement, it's pushed aside because it would only show that in contrast to the wasteful CBC the government is thinking about Canadians out of work and wanting to ensure a future economic well being.
Listening to the arrogance of CBC news I'd believe that Canada's foremost leaders and ministers aren't the extraordinary men and women they are. I write to these leaders and ask about matters of state and find out that in contrast to what CBC says the government is doing it's job.  The debates in parliament and the bureaucrats that supply the ministers are highly intelligent, impressively informed individuals.
CBC news is hurting Canada and if the only way to save the country from ignorance is to slash the CBC budget then that's a must do.  I'd rather keep the pearls and get rid of the pig shit programming of news.  BBC seems to be able to report stories without the obsessive propagandistic communist jingoism day after day as if the journalists really think they're some kind of Woodwards on every matter.
Canada is one of the greatest countries in the world.  We have all manner of strengths.  When our soldiers are fighting overseas Canadians like me want to hear the news not reporter ignorance.  I was in Italy and the news there reported the location and movement of the troops serving in NATO. The country had a moment of silence for the start of their campaign.  A couple of weeks in the US I heard 'both sides' of the discussion on the news, not a cleverly disguised and sold one sided propaganda pitch masquerading as 'balanced ' reporting.
CBC News needs to grow up. it's fat on daddy tax payer support and continues to bite the hand the feeds.  Our governments are democratically elected. It's not the job of the national government funded media to 'pull down' the government whether it's under fiscally responsible, mature Paul Martin or economically wise and responsible Steven Harper.
I don't want my tax payer money going to CBC news.  i love the CBC programs but when I drive to work and return from work, in the prime time listening, I'm thoroughly tired of hearing anti government propaganda.  Even Mulcair is portrayed by CBC poorly.  The only favourite they seem to have is Troudeau and frankly, I fear, they don't like him for his merits but only because they're smoking up.  It sure sounds like the Currents is stuck in bell bottom pants with daddy issues.  CBC news hates the majority of Canadians, that's for sure, and we pay for this perversion of reporting.
Grow up CBC news.  Or  get out and make your own money. I'm tired of supporting such biased stupidity with my hard earned money.  I'm tired of hearing Canadians insulted.

CBC Radio Programs

I'm often critical of CBC Radio news coverage as politically correct left wing propaganda. Issues I'm personally involved with and know thoroughly well have been skewed so far left of centre as to be ill recognizable. That said, CBC Radio has so much redeeming programming it's hard to be angry at it, collectively over, what sounds so often like a pot smoking News Department.
By contrast the following must be said in defence of CBC Radio.

1. CBC's weather coverage and traffic coverage locally are world class.

2. CBC's immediate reporting on emergencies and catastrophes is excellent. They do report the immediate 'facts' well even if their later analysis and 'interpretations' maybe be off as far as Toronto and Montreal management can be from the rest of the country.

3. Individual programs are extraordinarily well produced, informative and highly entertaining. Tapestry with Mary Hynes is one such program. It is a weekly exploration of spirituality, religion and search for meaning. The most recent one I hear Prayers: the Small but Mighty was a blessing indeed.

 4. Quirks and Quarks is especially good. Given the abysmal illiteracy of North Americans collectively in matters scientific this show is genius. Bob McDonald, the host does a fabulous job of clarifying extremely complex ideas and presenting them in a way that engages listeners. You don't need to be a PhD to enjoy the show but the show goes along way to encouraging higher learning and research. It's truly amazing. If we ever hope to see Canada again competitive with the likes of students in India and China then we really need to see a lot more of this kind of programming that informs people of the 'facts' of the world rather than going on and on about the 'politically correct' ideas regarding the world we live in. To hear people talking about 'global warming' it's a team sport event and the ignorance regarding the science surrounding the controversy about what choices can be made in face of it is appalling reflection of the inadequancy of our education system and media coverage of 'scientific' issues.

5. Vinyl Cafe Stories with Stuart McLean are sheer brilliance and a true delight. I have listened to Stuart whatever chance I can get and bought several of his books.  I'm even planning on attending a show if ever I get a chance. Stuart is one of the most sensitive and humorous men I've ever heard making him a Gandhi,  Churchill,  Einstein and Shakespeare  of  humor to my ears.  In Canadian writing he is a direct descendent of the likes of Robertson Davies and early Margaret Atwood.

6. Writers and Company and The Next Chapter are both excellent programs dealing with the latest books being published in Canada. I'm always delighted to know who wins the Booker and was so thankful to the CBC for it's interview of authors in competitions, especially the interesting presentations of excerpts from competing writers. So often I've been on a long drive or caught in traffic and been thoroughly engaged by this kind of programming, excellent interviewing and a leading Canadian writer discussing the ideas and story of their latest book.

7. The Debaters is truly funny. Canadians have a long history of world class comedy and Debaters is a show case for the latest in this genre. It is so well constructed and so fast that I'm surprised how many laughs I get in what is often only a few minutes of listening I might have while grabbing a lunch time snack.

8. Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap is the very best of Rock and Roll. I've always loved Randy Bachman's music but to hear his selection of songs in the way he sees them, with their personal history and the stories has made a long drive home seem to short if I have to turn off the car radio and go inside. Frankly I've often gone inside and turned on another radio to continue to hear Randy's selection and stories. This is my all time favourite music show. I love when he and his wife share together too. They really make such loving music.

9. Ideas has often been good. It can be hit or miss for me but I really have enjoyed listening at times.

10. White Coat, Black Art with Dr. Brian Goldberg is simply excellent. Brian Goldberg presents the latest in medical research, discoveries and controversies in the most insightful and amazing way. 

There's 10 good reasons for CBC to be saved from being smote by a wrathful God of News who can't stand that a national tax funded broadcasting corporation should skew it's reporting to such an elitist minority audience. The sad fact is the programs I've cited, which are better than so much of even what big funded organizations like BBC, CNN and PBS do, are limited by carrying the painful baggage of outdated political reporting.

I can't help but think that if Brian Goldberg and Randy Bachman were asked to heal and tune up the CBC News Department Canadians would collectively benefit from the revitalization and on key relevance that would result. Let Stuard McLean at the CBC News Department and we'd finally get stories worth listening to. Steve Patterson's Debaters does a better job of presenting both sides of a discussion in a truly hilarious way that one can only think if he had a go at the CBC News Department we'd hear much more balanced and broader based reporting. I can't help but think that Mary Hynes would do well to hold an exorcism in the CBC News Department.

Frankly the CBC has so much heart and soul it's wrong that it's news should so often be so politically stupid.

 For the programs I've cited alone, and there are a lot of other good programs, like these on CBC, their gardening shows, the opera, symphony, CBC Radio remains programmed into my car radio and most often the first or second show I listen to. And if I ever get any of the above programs on I don't change the channel. The ones I've cited are all worth listening to from beginning to end. I even get podcasts of these programs. That's how good CBC can be.