Maison Sauvage, Saint-Germain-des-Pres, Paris

I stopped here at Maison Sauvage . In my mind I remembered it as the ‘savage house’.Laura and I had a lovely pancake,egg and bacon brunch here earlier this week.  I’m an hour earlyfor the opening of Apple 5 minutes from here. This cafe has outdoor heaters. My hair was still wet from the shower.  It was a warm day for March, especially in the sun, cool yet in the shade. The waiter Laura and I had when we were here was a handsome young man with a great sense of humor.  I ordered in my bastardized French Spanish and he answered in French Spanish before translating in English. 

.This time a gorgeous slim and petit black girl with braided hair took my breakfast order. I’m pathetic in French. 

“Je desire ‘oeuff’ 

“You want eggs,”

‘Si’

‘An omelet?’

‘Yes’

With cheese or bacon’

‘Oui”

‘And toast.’

‘Toast?’

‘Pan.’

‘You want bread’

‘Oui’

‘Okay.’

I would say her English is far superior to mine. The food came. It was perfect. The Chef again is a genius. 

I watched people passing on the street. Mostly young. Mostly well dressed.  This is the Latin Quarter. Lots of galleries, high end shops, cafe’s.  Also tourists.  

A couple of stunning well dressed young women sat down next to me. They were so chique and savoir in their manners  I assumed they were French.  But then  they spoke English with a slight London accent.  I can’t tell.  The stereotypes are all gone.There’s homogenization and diversification in overlying levels of sophistication. 

I passed a sign  that said ‘tribal Paris’.  That probably says it.  

 

Morning Pages

Julia Cameron in Artist’s Way encouraged people to write, without censorship, ‘morning pages’. This was her exercise to help people get their ‘creativity’ ‘flowing’.  She felt ‘creativity’, especially as a writer, was a spontaneous childlike process that had been stymied by years of criticism and restriction.  So she said, ‘write each morning, whatever comes to mind’.
In Recovery, it seems that often the twin vultures of fear and resentment are sitting on the bedside ready to begin their days attack on our peace of mind. Hence, for me, morning pages, when I practiced this process seemed a kind of way of ‘squeezing the shit out of my mind’. I wrote down whatever was troubling me first.  Today that’s change of staff and a contractor making a mistake that will not only cost me thousands more dollars but lose me thousands and require me to conjure up a half day of my time out a week already squeezed full by the 8 or 9 days expected out of 5 work working days available.
I’d really like to wallow in self pity. I’d like to whine and blame someone else for my troubles but frankly no one cares.
That raises it’s whole other sort of issues. I’m in the last third of my life and feel like I’ve let everyone else through the door, actually helped them, and now chivalry is dead and I’m left standing at the rear in a culture of agism and misogyny.  So there’s a whole new source of self pity.
I”m normal. I liked to suck on the tit of self pity. I want to cry to my long dead mother. I want someone else to shoulder my burdens.  I want Jesus to get down off the cross and make me breakfast. I mean, really!
I was happy to hear these last few days that when a man 100 years old was asked how he felt, he answered 20.  I don’t feel my age.  Like my still gorgeous friend who told me in her 40’s she was leering at a young man who wasn’t paying any attention when she had the insight that she was looking out at this young hulk from the inside of a corpse. She had this realization halfway through life with a body and beauty many would die for. I’m there now.  I describe myself more and more as the ‘fat old white guy’.  This is in a hip slick world of self help talk gurus who says things like ‘it’s a privilege to be getting old’.
Sure, but it doesn’t seem to help getting laid.
I’m a master of the quick retort when anyone wants me to get off the nipple of self pity or better still the other nipple of fear and resentment.  Notice how the metaphors of vultures and breasts intertwine.
It came up when a patient told me that the Conservatives had passed a bill outlawing men seeking to pay women for sex while making it legal for women to sell sex.  Meanwhile I answered that I thought it remiss that last year there was no laws against prostitution in Canada and somehow I’d missed that memo.  It all brought to mind the famous comedian joke which went, when I was a young man I was disgusted at the idea of paying for sex, but now that I’m in my 50’s and begging is no longer working so well, I don’t think the idea is such a bad one.
Meanwhile the proponents suddenly began talking about teenagers (young women) being ‘exploited’ and evil male ‘pimps’ abusing ‘women’. And I found myself involuntarily retching like I do when I hear the Quebec separatists get on their soapbox.  This is when women are in fact the ones who are confronting this ‘bill’ because they say it will ‘interfere’ with their ‘business’.  But these ‘older women’ who are indeed the ‘madames’ must be stopped because they’re ‘obviously exploited’ by some as yet undiscovered ‘men’. I used to ask radical feminists how can they actually believe their rant about women having nothing when Queen Elizabeth was our monarch. I just listened to an Australian woman going on and on and on, the way they do, when I asked her if she happened to know that the richest most powerful 'person' in Australia was a woman.  These people seem truly gender blind to Hillary Clinton while they ignore the 20 year old male hookers offering blow jobs at half the price of their female co workers in a tough street market.
I guess, sitting at the Red Square last week in a MacDonalds enjoying a Mc Cafe and egg Mc Muffin I kind of hoped that “social communism’  might eventually fall like the Berline wall.  All this  “I”m the poor proletariat and you’re the bad bourgeoisie”  rant should somehow end. I hoped that seeing a shopping mall in the Red Square might shut up all the 'rhetoric' of that old dead 'regime'.  I'd seen the phoenix rising in the church revival in St. Basils. I'd seen the new life infused in the very heart of the death culture of the old communist world.  Yet I came home to Canada to hear this old debate still couched in the old language of the 'victim' and 'victimizer'.  Meanwhile it's just 'me and them".  I'd just listened to the song 'ding dong the witches dead' and watched the children running about the village playing again and the bells ringing only to return to the Conservative Government of Canada spouting communist rant about 'exploited women' while wanting us to buy their 'market approach to the world' .  This is insane!!!
One day, in the 90’s, it was recognized that those who were always ‘helping the exploited’ were, well, like Hitler who went to the ‘rescue’ of the poor Austrians, or Stalin who invaded his neighbours to ‘help’ them.  The 'exploited' never get better with the activists and the hand outs but rather they get better with community and helping each other. I don't even want to talk about this anymore because the world is 'caregivers and victims' and the 'caregivers' will kill me if I even question their corruption. I just watched the millions of dollars of government corruption called the 'Portland Hotel Society' and the major benefactors who stole the milk right out of the babies mouths got off with a handshake.   MP Jenny Kwan actually blamed her 'man' .
So, forgive me, but I see the people ‘protecting adult women’ from ‘evil men’ as essentially ‘exploiting’ the prostitutes.  The legislators want a cut of the action. They're the 'dirty men'.  I remember too well when the women prostitutes of Paris marched through the streets and shut down the city because they didn’t want these pompous ‘daddies and mommies’ to interfere in their ‘business’.
In the ‘metaphor’ of ‘capitalism’ , “my body is my own’, means I can be a mercenary or a prostitute.  Historically men risked their bodies in work or war whereas women risked their bodies in sex or childbirth but today men and women die in war and men and women work the sex trade. Men and women ‘sell their bodies’ but all the language of the 'bill' about prostitution was disgusting gender biased so there was little talk of 'men' and no mention whatsoever about the most outcast in todays society, the 'transexuals'.
There's always been a 'trade' in 'blood'. I sold my blood to pay for my tuition to medical school.   Right now everyone is up in arms about ‘sale of body parts’. Meanwhile just like health care, the 'local's' are denied services whereas  the elite 'shop for health care globally'. The 'elite' go overseas for postitution and buy babies they bring back to Canada where women are told "your body is your own' but the fact is the 'state' and the 'courts' especially ,own your body.  There is supposed to be ‘suppy and demand’ but the ‘law makers’ and ‘judges’ in this business world are introducing sanctimonious stupidity into an area where all acknowledge the need for ‘regulation’ not ‘censure’ ,because ‘censure’ simply doesn’t work.  It drives the industry into the black market and removes it from taxation and medical attention.
The next three people I spoke to about the Conservative government’s prostitution bill immediately mentioned ‘young girls’.  Girls and boys are not considered men and women in Canada until they are 19 and maybe even 21 or 25 because they can look older but until they’re about 25 or 30, men can go to jail for having sex with them because our child protection laws are the most stringent in the world. So the prostitution bill has nothing to do with ‘girls or boys’ but says instead we will put adult women out of work who are in the sex trade by arresting their johns because ’women’s bodies in Canada are not their own’ but rather a woman’s body is the ‘property of the state’.  Meanwhile a national woman's magazines carries an article by a new executive woman complaining about the lack of gigalows available for her sexual needs at the end of a work day when she is travelling. And a major Vancouver newspaper carries the several page story of the 50 years prostitute who finds that the 'money' makes the 'work attractive' because she can 'set her own hours' and only bemoans that fact that the younger' competition' can get 10x the rate of pay. The story sounds as much like any aging sports athlete that I thought it would do well to be in the sports pages where the 'body worker's' get paid and complain about the 'young talent' put them out of work middle aged. Meanwhile brain workers like me complain about different shit but try to sound more intelligent about it than they do on the sports pages.  Meanwhile pole dancing, a wholly different matter, is showing up as the latest medical solution to an increasingly gluttonous and slothful generation all the while old men and old women in parliament are devoting their attention to lust in what was once considered a place where the state had no business, i.e. 'the bed rooms of the nation'.  Now the State , which reads your every email, wants to shake down the man who leaves some money under the pillow while claiming that they're really not interested in shaking down the woman that leaves money under the pillow or god forbid the gay man or lesbian that leaves money under the pillow or god forbid even more a 'transexual' that leaves money under the pillow. The language of the bill is so 'sexist' it should cause an adult to retch. No wonder we have "Wrecking Ball" songs.
So the whole feminist ‘my body, my own’ argument goes out the window. Right? Really?
Which may be okay because that was  the pillar that ‘abortion’ was built on. So if the state doesn’t allow women to ‘control their vagina’ and it certainly is already against women being ’surrogate mothers’ for hire in Canada there is no longer any ‘basis’ any longer for "personal' abortion.
Hence from the perspective of ‘pro life’  todays ‘prostitution law’  is truly revolutionary.
Seen otherwise, it would just be more post communist ‘rant’ in an age that is so far beyond bourgeoisie and proletariat.  While these old tenured London School of Economics red  ’sillies’ were squabbling in another centuries debate, usually smoking dope and wearing paisley bellbottom flower power earmuffs, the world moved back to the medieval days with the ’super elite’ new world order. We're no longer in the Beougeoisie and Proletariat wrong ideology but rather we're in the Emperor, Senate, Citizens and Slaves reality.  There’s no proletariat and beougeosie. We’ve devolved politically to a pre Marx reality, all the while the irrelevant ’separatists’ and their other 'ist' die hards, are being used by those who always benefit from ‘divide and conquer’ for their own ends and the stupidity of scaredy cat tenured fat cat academics with their Marxist rhetoric.
Personally, I’m certainly not the emperor and I’m not even a senator. Further my pay cheque excludes me from being a ‘citizen’ because today’s ‘citizenship’ isn’t defined by ‘landowner’ or ‘vote’ but rather a more ‘elaborate’ ’status’ indicator. It’s obviously about ‘money’.  To be a citizen I think one needs first to be a millionaire or multi millionaire but at least a ’net’ millionaire.  I think if you even have to ’think’ about the cost of any purchase you wish to make short of lear jets and rocket ships, you’re not a citizen.  Further, a real 'citizen' can't 'work' in a Marxist sense. They're rather more likely the 'Wolves of Wall Street'. A citizen should 'gamble' for money, perhaps or buy and sell slaves or something but not actually 'make' anything.
I’m a wage slave, myself.  In Russia a ‘worker’ was a person to be admired. Work was admired and skills and talents were admired.  Slaves, like monkeys, are ‘cute’ when they do things but the Chinese emperor had long fingernails because long fingernails are the outward manifestation and symbol of not needing to work.  The elite don't 'work'. They don't 'sweat'.  They 'play'.  In the movie Elysium they were so far above us they lived on space stations.
Corporate leaders today are not ’national’ but ’transnational’ which is why the word ’nation’ has become an adjective.  Corporations can be good or bad but the best make the most money for their stockholders so as Robert Hare says they are judged little differently than we judge snakes and other reptiles. Corporations aren’t ‘warm blooded’. Nations once were or at least aspired to be.  Nations were 'tied' to land and history.  Corporations are unearthly and make history. There is no ‘idealism’ surrounding the ‘brand’ whereas the very word ‘culture’ in its highest form derived from the very best a nation state had to offer. There is no need for 'locality' to corporations. Indeed right now all the wealth of the world is to some extent 'offshore' or 'off world' but specifically 'off the grid'.  There is no privacy in the bedroom but there continues to be no end to the privacy of banks and the elite whoever they may be.
One world order is empiric. Intrinsically it’s digital and paranoid. It’s us and them.
Unfortunately for me, I always feel like a ‘them’.  Indeed even when I’m an “us’ I feel for the ‘outsider’ and working as a physician give myself and my services to everyone irregardless of whether they are ‘us or them’.  Indeed I've been told over and over again by various authorities especially in government that I should treat 'them' in such a way as keep my distance and 'select' the most 'profitable' relationships as opposed to working in the 'old fashioned way'.
The Syrian government and other governments are now arresting doctors who don’t agree with the master race paranoia. Neitze is in and St. Paul is out.   The new fascism says not only Jews require extermination but we all need ‘euthanasia’ because we’re doing the ‘jews’ a favour. Would you want to be a jew, or an ‘outsider’?  Aren’t we being kind to kill them.  Like aborting babies, isn’t this ‘good’. Aren’t we doing the child ‘good’ by protecting it from entering this ‘cruel’ world. Don’t we have to ‘protect’ the ‘planet’ like we would ‘protect the fuhrer’.  The language has shifted but it's still the same old same old. Today the Jew is still the Jew but the Jew is also the gypsey and anyone else who disagrees with, well, you know, disagrees.  Is disagreeable. Doesn't pop a pill to 'feel' good about the 'group think'.
In the end I guess I should be thankful that with the economic crisis continuing my government, in it's wisdom, with these new prostitution laws has perhaps, in it's generosity, offered me the right to prostitute my ass, legally.  Perhaps looking on the bright side, I can hope that they're done with my ass.  They won't even prosecute me for trying to sell my ass, at my age, but if some poor John or, god forbid, a Jane, offers me money for my ass, they're protect me from being 'exploited' by those bastards.
So the trinity of fear, resentment and self pity disturb my peace. I write them down and then hopefully my humpty dumpty ego will feel I ‘listened’ and I heard’ all the fine intellectual arguments that the ‘sky really is falling’ and this ‘really is a steep wall’to fall from.
But gratitude in contrast is all. God is great. So thank you lord for this day. Thank you for my breathing. Thank you for my fingers. Thank you for my dog. Thank you for my life. Thank you for my work. Thank you for my refrigerator with food for breakfast there. Thank you for my shelter this day and my rent being paid this day and all the taxes paid this day in all the hidden and convoluted ways that I am taxed. And thank you for my enemies and thank you for my friends. Thank you for my enemies so that I might better appreciate my friends. Thank you for the rain because the sunshine is so much better. Thank you for the art and industry and technology and all the solutions to all the apparent problems that exist in this ever loving always growing expanding metaphysical spiritual space of coexistence and temporary adventure. Thank you for the sunshine. Thank you for my stomach. Thank you for the coffee I’m about to make.
Thank you for morning pages. Thank you for all your blessings.  Thank you Lord.  Thank you especially today for my ass and my government.  I am so thankful that my government is protecting it from future potential exploitation by scaring away whatever customers I might possibly have ,at my age. I hereby let all and sundry know that I am a prostitute and that if you interact with me, especially younger nubile women, I will expect token financial payment, for which you will be duly rewarded but unfortunately you will be considered a 'john' and subject to prosecution, even if your name is Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie or Ellen Degeneres.  
Now I'll get back to prayer and meditation.  Thank you Julia Cameron for 'morning pages.'  I can  focus on God and Jesus and Creativity and Love and work and gratitude. Thank you.

Vancouver, eh?

I love Canadian. I remember returning to England after bicycling across Europe with Baiba and so enjoying hearing the English trying to speak Canadian.
The English in Dover then didn’t speak the language properly as Canadians do but it was a far better proximity to modern Canadian communication than any of the Dutch, Germans, French, Spanish, etc had been able to achieve.  I would think with all their old world knowledge they’d have learned how to communicate in Canadian by now. Their stubborn persistence in maintaining their outmoded communication is probably central to their ongoing difficulties at getting along with each other.  If there’s to be peace on earth everyone must simply learn Canadian, eh?
 So here I was again,returning home from a foreign country, all too full of foreigners, and glad to be back among the chosen and holy.   Having spent weeks studying how the Russians are coming along with their Canadian, I find they’re still not really getting it.  With their excellent hockey capacity and cosmonaut capability you would think they’d be able to communicate in Canadian.  But no.  They persist in making all manner of mistakes with language, not even getting the alphabet right.
I repeated myself.  I even raised my voice.  I  spoke very slowly to them at times.  But they couldn’t even understand Canadian to give me directions,  let alone speak it.   I was glad to return to this land of deep intelligence.  Some Russians actually thought I was the idiot.
Immediately I boarded the KLM plane home the stewardess, with very little effort, was speaking Canadian. I have hope for the Dutch.  When I got off the plane, sure enough everyone in Vancouver appeared to have mastered the art of communication. Given we in Vancouver, make Canadian seem so easy, I wonder if that’s what makes it so difficult for foreigners.  We can’t be faulted with our own genius.  They just have to try harder as nations.    I feel sorry for other countries and understand why so many people come here from there.  It’s the  only place people actually talk properly.
I loved getting in my own truck too.  In Moscow they expected me to share the Metro with everyone else.  Not once did they offer me my own train.  I would have been happy with my own train car but no, they insisted on crowding me into this little space with all these foreigners. Nice people, friendly.  In then end, I expected they all just wanted to be close to a real Canadian.  Probably only get the chance to see us on tv.  So here they were all about me, acting like they were just going from place to place, when they really were having, perhaps, their very first ecstatic  experience of being near a Canadian.  
In the Metro I just hoped  all those foreigners washed, brushed their teeth, and kept up with their  vaccinations.  I confess I sniffed at them a bit, like Canadians do around foreigners. These ones smelt just fine.  I actually think they were probably a better sort of foreigner, the kind  authorities keep, to show off to Canadians.
I really liked having my own Ford F350  truck back..  All that space inside and all that diesel power to drive right over the top of anyone who even thought to mess with a Canadian.
I also really liked being reunited with my real man dog,  Gilbert,  the cockapoo. Hannah  and her girl dog Hamchi took wonderful care of him.  Still when he saw me it was like male prison break from an all girls reform school. He barked, ran circles and danced up and down.   He was pretty clear too after that gleeful reunion the king was back.  He quickly had his  ’subject’ human  throwing ball, fetching food, and scratching his belly.  It was really good to be reunited. He doesn’t speak Canadian but I understand dog.  Dog might be the only language superior to Canadian.
Then we were home.  Home is great. .  I was so excited to see everything I love still here. Hurricanes, tsunamis, zombies and meteorites could well have taken it all away.  I was filled with gratitude.  Mida had been by and tidied up the hectic mess I’d left leaving.  
My Harley Davidson Motorcycle was there too.  Gilbert and I got on that  Harley with Steve Bell music playing full volume and rode on the highway.
I've even enjoyed going back to work. No major crisis while I was away. The plants and fish survived.  The bills had piled up but not so bad that that the tax department has sent around anyone to knee cap me. Aubrey, my assistant, kept things safe.
Then there were friends.  In Russia I only had one friend, Barrett.   Here I have what seem like a gazillion people and family too.  They all know and speak and are Canadian.  Holy sainted geniuses, the lot of them.
I’m really glad to be home.  I don’t know if the rest of the world is going to learn Canadian any time soon. They’re still a little backward.
I keep telling foreigners that if you want to know God,  stop with the om,   amen, or allah akbar.  Just say ‘eh’ ? And everything  will  be okay, eh?

Portland Hotel Society Scandal

Portland Hotel Society Scandal reminds me of the phoney doctor who worked in a community. He gave all the criminals letters of recommendation. He flew anyone anywhere on tax payer money. He doled out narcotics and benzodiazepines.  He was everyone's friend.
No one got well.  The truly sick people were highly suspicious. Within months there was a realization that what he was doing was extremely, extremely expensive and odd.  He was caught.
Crack pipe dispensers and 3 million dollar a year drug club to shoot up street bought heroin.
Mark Townsend and Liz Evans have made a lot of friends by 'buying them stuff'.   He's given heroin addicts a place to shoot up. He's not interfered with the DTES gangs who haven't had to worry about  losing customers by their getting off heroin.  With all the 'high life' going on while the old heroin users are dying, off the young are stepping up to lead this 'life' or death. The drug dealers have always supported Mark Townsend. They're his biggest fan. All of his programs  promoted a 'culture of addiction'. 
He's even ?'bought'? politicians, though I don't know if that's politically correct to say.  Bought is such a telling word .  However the Canadian media wouldn't think twice about using such language for this sort of thing outside Canada.  In a similar Asian or US scandal , every Canadian reporter would be "asking questions' about  'extortion' and 'kickbacks' because the 'people need to know." .  This would be especially true if "mismanagement" occurred  in the evil 'energy industry'.  But aren't this self proclaimed 'do gooders' even more wrong when they're caught doing serious wrong.
The NDP Jenny Kwan appears before the camera paying back what she says her 'husband', she's 'separated' from 'misinformed' her about. "I never knew" she said.  And all the reporters go, "oh, she never knew. See she's crying. " Yet, only last year for weeks CBC hounded the Prime Minister's office claiming shrilly in every manner that PM Harper must have known what was going on with the Duffy expense 'scandal'.   Did Mulcair know Jenny Kwan was using tax payer money to go to Disneyland?  Now Jenny Kwan is going home to be with her children. Ahhhhh, ooooo.  I'm surprised there wasn't a stuffed animal or a bunny rabbit.
Was the attack on Harper 'racist' or 'gender biased' or the lack of attack on Jenny Kwann, racist or gender biased.?I never can tell anymore with the media so obviously partisan.
It struck me as the most two faced deceitful presentation for a feminist. If Duffy had 'cried' would he have got off more easily? This isn't the age of chivalry, yet there we still accept 'tearful'  presentations by women blaming their husbands  and everyone 'coos'.  Does that mean a man can blame his wife now?
Thank God, Christy Clark doesn't do that silly shit.  Already sick by what this bozo group was  doing  the Kwan pathos nearly made me spew.  I actually could have accepted 'mismanagement' and 'misappropriation' but when this drama queen act came on it really screamed 'cover up'.  With all the conspiracy theories out there, I never take notice until there is an actual cover up. You can't see the conspiracy theories but the cover ups seems to stick out like a sore thumb.
Am I the only one that asks, were any of  these persons connected to the gangs and drug pushers downtown?
Am I watching too many episodes of  Criminal Minds?
The CBC skewered Duffy and the Senate for their 'mismanagement of funds ( ?theft" - I love white collar language. If the rest of us do mismanagement or misappropriation it's called theft)   Martha Stewart and Conrad Black went to jail for that sort of thing but I sure didn't see the media getting all soft and sweet with either of them.  The comedians have however done as good a job with Mark Townsend and Liz Evans as they did with Mayor Ford.
Maybe I listen to CBC going on and on about Ottawa too much.  Then watching Law and Order and CSI and NCSI  I couldn't help but ask, if Jenny Kwann got  $35,000 from one business, were there any other business 'shook down' for money. Oh, sorry, was it possible 'her husband' was 'shaking down' others or, damn, there goes the language problem again.  "Inviting donations', is that the term?   Naturally, the NDP should be with the RCMP looking into the overall finances of Jenny Kwan as a public 'servant' like they did with the senate. Shouldn't they? Will the tax department be looking into Mark Townsend and Liz Evans like they certainly would look into me or you?
But obviously I watch too much tv.  They seem so willing to do 'financial audits' of 'individuals' when those individuals are involved in 'extortion' or "theft" or "kickbacks" or sorry, there's that language problem again.  I can't help but think of thieves thieving.  Mismanagement Mark Townsend.
I just can't figure how you can spend $800 on a hotel room running a supposed 'charity' and 'non profit' business. I asked a few of my profit based "dirty capitalist" friends and none of them had ever spent more than $150 on a hotel room. $800. Wow. That boggles the mind.
So how come we have so much 'mismanagement' in government. This 'unprofessionalism" and lack of 'morality' or even better lack of 'basic ethics' is not tolerated among doctors, accountants or believe it or not, lawyers.  So why should these 'managers' for government funded businesses get a pass on their 'books' when my lawyer and accountant must 'pass' mine.  Is the accountant for the Portland Hotel Society going to be speaking to his professional body about his 'oversight' or 'lack of oversight'.  Is the lawyer for the Portland Hotel Society going to be speaking to the Law Society about his or her 'oversight' or lack of oversight.
Mark Townsend, Liz Evens, Small and Kwan are just a small part of the 'nest' that makes up a 28 million dollar business.
There were doctors involved in the Safeless Injection Site. As a physician I couldn't help but wonder if those physicians will be at very least asked to confirm their 'innoscence' in this thoroughly repugnant scandal. 
Terry Lake, our Health Minister is to be admired for the extraordinary political risk he has taken making sure the provincial audit saw the light of day .  My question is when the RCMP will be tasked to address what really is missing.  Hundreds of thousands or  millions.  We  only got a peak at what the public purse was paying for.
I just can't help but think that the Canadian Tax Department would be all over me if I didn't even keep records as the audit shows over and over again these folks failed to do.
The darkness of the Portland Hotel Society and how far down the management chain the corruption and taint goes is appalling.
 Now that said, the front line workers are awesome. This is what is so sad about the DTES. The workers down here are truly amazing.  The homeless and addicts are also trying very hard to get help in a tough economic climate in a very expensive fast changing city.
And I know with regard to 'all the usual suspects', the Mark Townsends, Jenny Kwans, and Liz Evans, I'm supposed to think, "live and let live". That's why I'm thankful for the Terry Lake.
Thanks to Terry Lake there's more likelihood today the money will get to those who need it most.

Medical Spanish Abroad

Prof.Esquivel is our teacher in the Basic Medical Spanish in our Medical Studies Abroad program in Costa Rica.  It helps that she is very beautiful but that's really secondary to her vast array of expressions.  Her facial expressions and hand communications are an art in themselves.  No doubt Spannish people could understand what she is saying by her body language alone.  Smiles and laughter are a dance unto themselves.  I have thoroughly enjoyed watching her explanations and instructions as well as listening to the actual content of the course.
As a result I've noticed when I try to talk to other Costa Ricans their faces and bodies are doing a similar dance. It makes me feel, in comparison, like the human robot,  DATA, in Startrek.  I think it stems in part from the closeness of family here and the importance of community.  In the north we live much more separate lives with such distances between us.  Here the proximity of relationships gives rise to the subtleties and depth of communications.
The language itself is highly specific for person whereas English is increasingly denuded and increasingly removed from the intimate.  This makes for good science and technology but nothing is gained without loss.  I suspect at an earlier time when people were much more important than things, English too was as familiar.
Profesora Esquival is teaching us as doctors and nurses how best to communicate with patients when they are vulnerable and often afraid.  There are diminutive forms of Spanish words that lessen the fear upon hearing them. There are  imperative forms that clarify actions.  English and Spanish share Latin roots so that much of the vocabulary overlaps amazingly.  I find I understand Spanish far easier than speaking it.  Yet in the class, we talk and share. Much to my surprise all the others are roughly on the same page.  At the start the course was divided into those who were essentially beginners and those who wished to do more advanced study having already learned advanced common spanish in university or elsewhere.
It really has been fun.  After class we discussed how much we'd like to come back and do the same course again but this time having studied what we have now learned. I don't think I'm ready for the advanced class but I've taken great pleasure in coming so far along in my knowledge of basic medical Spanish.  Having to translate English to Spanish in class exercises I've been really surprised at how much I actually have learned.
I'd already taken a Spanish course at Simon Fraser University with Profesora Tejeda.  She was also delightfully expressive and entertaining so I wonder if some of what I  appreciate in process is just a product of the difference in culture.  There is so much more southern colour compared to the relative black and white of functional northern communication.   Profesora Tejedaa's  course increased my vocabulary and helped me understand better sentence structure and tense. I've used that Spanish in the restaurants and getting around here in Costa Rica.
I would certainly never have learned medical procedural Spanish from any of the guide books, what to say when sticking someone with a needle, for instance.
The book, Basic Medical Spanish, by Olimpia Piccardo  is great,  having sections for complete medical history and examination.  Profesora Esquivel has taken us through these correcting our pronunciation and explaining why we might say 'do' whereas in Spanish the word used is 'take'.  The mix of general grammar with specific medical examples has been  extremely helpful.
I am very thankful to have had such a delightful and amusing teacher for this very important study.
Writing now I find myself simplifying my sentences in a way I do when I try to express concepts in Spanish. It's a whole different part of the brain from the now  'automatic' forms learned since childhood in English.
Comparing this course with regular scientific medicine courses I told a colleague that this involved much more exciting learning.  Advanced in my speciality most of what I hear at conferences now is not new.  I could even be accused of being jaded listening to some of the drivel I hear from young academics.  Worse are the pompous pundits promoting some business niche for themselves. I  go though because  I'm still blesed to hear  'pearls of wisdom' that come from experienced colleagues.  I'm also there for  those rarer new breakthroughs that help change my practice of medicine. Here, however,  I feel like a medical student again recapturing all the joy of simple learning because so much of it is new.
The cross section of specialities, obgyn, surgery, ent, er, etc  of all ages plus the nurses with a fair mix of gender and even a spiritual director thrown in makes the class rich in diversity.  The questions asked come from the individual clinical background and the discussions that follow are fascinating.
Profesora Esquival brings knowledge of local culture and idiom into the discussions as well sharing her knowledge as a patient and as a person from a medical family.  I couldn't help but think that the problems facing Costa Rica with it's aging population and mix of social and private medicine were very similar to what Canada is encountering.
I will be sad when the last class finishes later today.  More and more of my patients are from other cultures and many come from Spanish speaking countries. I think all of them speak better English than I speak Spanish so it's unlikely that I'll be conducting my clinics bilingually any time soon.  I have greater empathy for their struggles with language though. I know I will be more attentive to facial and body  expressions.  You really do have to watch to hear Spanish spoken. Who knows, maybe I'll be able to throw in a diminutive spanish word or colloquialism that will improve rapport.
I am thankful to Profesora Esquival and Medical Studies Abroad for this wonderful learning experience in a truly beautiful country.
That said, I thought to take the teacher an apple.  However, thanks to this course, given the complexity of communication and culture  I respect that this particular Canadianism might not apply here.  For all I know Costa Rican children  take their teacher a plantain or orchid.  It's like the words mano, meaning hand, and mono, meaning monkey. We all laughed as Profesora Esquival explained how patients thought it very strange that English doctors learning Spanish always wanted to see or shake their monkeys.

Todo va a salir bien. No tenga miedo.