Destroying SNC-Lavalin because of corruption is like bombing the village to save it

Millions of pixels have already been spilled on the Jody Wilson-Raybould SNC-Lavalin deferred prosecution brouhaha. Lines are being drawn, flamethrowers are being taken to the place, talking points are being honed to rapier edge, petards are being hoisted…you get the drift.

The essential question, though, is whether SNC-Lavalin deserves to be forced out of business (or out of Canada) for the actions of a corrupt few related to contracts in Libya between 2001 & 2011? 

That's 54,000 jobs, 9,000 of them in Canada. The vast, overwhelming majority of these employees (not to mention shareholders) are totally innocent. Given the above, Jody Wilson-Raybould is wrong and Justin Trudeau is right.

Ministers either toe the party line or quit. That's not what she did. She didn't quit when she was being subjected to "pressure," and she still hasn't quit after trying to incinerate her government. 

Loyalty is everything in politics. The PMO was only asking her to do what was in her rights to do, by virtue of her position. For the good of the country, she should have.

Spirited conversations are taking place on my Facebook page, and other places. I understand those holding the opposite position. The thing is, this is politics, “the art of the possible,” not abstract morality class. 

Don't get me wrong, I agree that the individuals who committed wrongs should be punished, just not the entire economy. The PM would be derelict in his duty to let it go under. It's a jewel in Canada's economic life, one of the largest engineering and construction companies in the world.

I'm actually more concerned that the penalties being handed down to the guilty are too lax.

But what did JWR think she was getting into, in becoming a politician? She should stick to the PTA if she can't handle the big leagues. Why didn't she quit when she was being pressured, if she thought it was so wrong?

Basically, this scorched earth/woman scorned campaign of hers proves (to me, at least) she is not cut out for government.

JRW herself has said “that while she believes she was inappropriately pressured, she doesn’t think any law was broken,” according to Chantal Hebert in the Feb. 28^th Toronto Star ("Trudeau’s waist deep in the big muddy," p.4). 

Politics is serious business and no doubt has a steep learning curve. Of course having a deferred prosecution law on the books means the government would want to use it. That is what laws are: tools to goose the art of the possible.

Women deserve better from the CBC than to be told their “bad attitude” can give them cancer

I rarely catch White Coat, Black Art, but I was intrigued by the subject of the January 19th program “After breast cancer and failed reconstruction, this mom found beauty by going flat”, which I listened to recently. 

Like most middle-aged people, I'm no stranger to cancer: in November, I accompanied a close relative to her second lumpectomy (and associated follow-up treatment), my aunt died of breast cancer nearly a decade ago, my mother-in-law died of breast cancer in 1980 (~12 years post-mastectomy, no reconstruction), and a friend who had reconstructive surgery post-mastectomy is experiencing post-surgical infection and necrosis. And that’s just the breast cancer stories.

What surprised me was the program’s attempt to balance the terrible experience of Joanna Rankin, who describes being bullied into reconstructive surgery in Toronto (frankly, needing a double mastectomy at 32 means reconstruction was not her greatest worry) with the pro-reconstruction attitude of the “expert” interviewed by Dr. Brian Goldman on the program, Dr. Angel Arnaout, breast cancer surgeon and Ottawa region director of breast surgical oncology.

Basically, Arnaout said being happy and well-adjusted after breast cancer surgery reduces the chances of cancer recurrence. Which is misinformation, coming from a layman, but flat out shocking when delivered by a breast cancer specialist. 

Between approximately 21:23 and 22:25 of the recording. Dr. Arnaout says:

The reason [for encouraging immediate breast reconstruction] is because there is a lot of evidence now, especially in breast cancer, that your psychological emotions and your outlook on life is a very strong predictor of how well you will do from cancer, prognosis-wise. And that linkage of how you feel about yourself and therefore how confident you are and how well you present yourself and integrate yourself back into a normal life, and breast reconstruction is supposed to help with easing you back into a normal life and getting out there and doing exercise and being happy. All of it is linked in a lot of studies to your survivorship and your prognosis from a cancer point of view. There is a lot of evidence to show that if you are happier and you’re exercising, because you’re happier you’re taking care of your body and you’re eating well, all those things reduce your chances of recurrence. And so having the option of breast cancer reconstruction is actually now considered part of cancer treatment.

In this rambling, slightly incoherent paragraph, Dr. Arnaout is actually saying that how a patient/survivor feels about herself will directly influence cancer recurrence and "survivorship". Now, this is a wonderful thing to believe (especially if you’re a cancer patient/survivor or surgeon) but unfortunately, it’s not true. Which makes it gobsmacking to have been uttered on CBC, and by an oncology specialist to boot. That Goldman has no problem accepting this proposition is equally staggering.

Because the corollary is: if you don’t feel good about yourself or you don’t have "a good attitude", you’re bringing the cancer (or recurrence) on yourself.

This is known as blaming the victim.

This isn’t just my opinion. The American Cancer Society website goes to great lengths to dispel these antiquated notions, on their page on “Attitude and Cancer”:

Treatment that deals with our emotions and relationships (sometimes called psychosocial interventions) can help people with cancer feel more upbeat and have a better quality of life. But there’s no good evidence to support the idea that these interventions can reduce the risk of cancer, keep cancer from coming back, or help the person with cancer live longer.

Further down that page, in a section on “Personality Traits and Cancer”, they go on:

For many years there have been those who were convinced that people with certain personality types were more likely to get cancer. The common thought was that neurotic people and introverts were at the highest risk of cancer. Along with that, some believed that personality affected the outcome of cancer – the likelihood that a person with cancer might die….In 2010, the largest and best-designed scientific study to date [on the question] was published. It looked at nearly 60,000 people, who were followed over time for a minimum of 30 years. This careful study controlled for smoking, alcohol use, and other known cancer risk factors. The study showed no link between personality and overall cancer risk. There was also no link between personality traits and cancer survival.

Finally, in a section titled “Does a positive attitude affect cancer?”, they write:

…many people want to believe that the power of the mind can control serious diseases. This is a comforting belief that can make a person feel safer from the risk of serious illness. If it were true, you could use your mind to stop the cancer from growing. But the down side of such beliefs is that when people with cancer don’t do well, they may blame themselves. To learn more about attitude and survival, researchers looked at the emotional well-being of more than 1,000 patients with head and neck cancer to find out whether it affected survival. Over time, those who scored high on emotional well-being showed no differences in cancer growth or length of life when compared with those with low scores. Based on what we know now about how cancer starts and grows, there’s no reason to believe that emotions can cause cancer or help it grow.

At Mayo Clinic.org, one finds, in a section on cancer myth-busting, the following:

Myth: A positive attitude is all you need to beat cancer

Truth: There’s no scientific proof that a positive attitude gives you an advantage in cancer treatment or improves your chance of being cured. 

Huge sums are no doubt being spent in the public system to provide reconstruction to mastectomy patients. Joanna Rankin’s story is that some women are bullied into accepting it. Maybe CBC journalists should be investigating that, and whether many/most oncology specialists have confused quality of life issues with the science of recurrence.

CBC Journalistic Practices related to Science and Health read, in part, “In matters of human health we will take particular care to avoid arousing unfounded hopes or fears in persons living with or close to those living with serious illnesses.”

Given the above, I would like Drs. Goldman and/or Arnaout to provide evidence for the notion they are putting forward: that breast reconstruction (and “a good attitude”) results in lower breast cancer recurrence rates.

And, if they cannot, I would expect the program to be corrected or pulled, and an apology to be prominently published on the White Coat, Black Art website.

Because people with cancer, and those who love them, deserve better from the CBC than to be told that their sadness, anger, or other “bad attitude” can give them cancer.

Paintings for sale 1

I've been working on my abstract acrylics the past year or so and have been meaning to feature the collections on my blog, for the my own edification as well as that of interested collectors (I will post those already sold separately). So after some well-meaning prodding from hubby, here's the first set.

I will organize an online store at some point. Meantime, if anything interests you, please contact me by leaving a comment here or via Facebook Messenger. Or email me: beverly.akerman@gmail.com.

If you'd like to commission a specific size and colour set, I would be thrilled to work with you!

Hope you enjoy!

These are acrylic paintings, 12 x 12 inch canvases, $125 each:

Sea Ice

Crimson 1

Crimson 2

Untitled 1

Untitled 2

Bejewelled

Blue and White

Organized Chaos

Untitled 12

Untitled 13

Untitled 14

Untitled 15

These are 20 x 20 inch canvases, and look wonderful as a triptych, $250 each:

Crimson 3

Crimson 4

Crimson 5

These are 16 x 20 inch canvases, $200 each (without frame):

Untitled 3

Neutral Beauty

Coral Haven

You Can't Take It With You

Untitled 4

Blue Harbour

Untitled 5

Wisterian Wit

Black is Beautiful

Untitled 9

Untitled 10

SOLD!!

SOLD!!

This one is 18 x 24 inches, $270:

Untitled 6

These are 24 x 30 inch canvases, $450:

Untitled 7

Untitled 8

Untitled 11

SOLD!!

This is a 30 x 30 inch canvas, $500 :

Sea Curl

This is a 36 x 48 inch canvas: SOLD!! (to come)

Help Sue via GoFundMe / Aidez Sue avec GoFundMe

My husband, Russell Copeman, has started a GoFundMe campaign for our local dry cleaner, Young Sook Suh, who has had her shop broken into twice within a week recently. Please consider helping meet the $1500 goal to finance the repairs. Neighbours helping neighbours keep NDG great. The details:

[My NDG dry cleaner needs help. A series of unfortunate events happened to her, putting her 15 year business in jeopardy.

Young Sook Suh, or “Sue” as her customers know her, has operated the Sherbrooke West Dry Cleaner and Tailors in western NDG since 2002. Sue is the sole owner and employee and she personally staffs the store for more than 57 hours a week.

She was recently broken into two times in less than a week. There is no money in the store overnight but she had to replace her glass door - twice. She’s insured, but there is a deductible of $500. Sue also needs to install door bars to keep it from happening again. The $1,500 of unexpected expenses is too much for Sue and she needs help.

Sue’s family was from North Korea. They succeeded in crossing into the South during the Korean conflict sometime in the early 1950s. Sue was born and lived in South Korea and eventually had an administrative job with the Hyundai Motor Company. She and her husband wanted a better life for their children - particularly a better education - so Sue, her husband and their two sons immigrated to Montreal from Inchon, South Korea in 1994.

Sue became a single Mom shortly after arriving here. She learned English and some basic French and worked hard at a variety of jobs before opening the dry cleaning store in 2002. Although not trained as a tailor, her mother was a seamstress in North Korea and she learned fast. She has been providing great service with a smile ever since.

Sue’s experience is typical of hard working immigrants who sacrifice a great deal for their children. Her business survives and supports her but the profit margins on dry cleaning are very small and expenses continue to mount.

Some may say that if her dry cleaning operation is so precarious that she can’t absorb unexpected expenses of $1,500 perhaps she should go out of business. I don’t agree. Small local businesses are one of the key elements in a healthy neighbourhood.

Please consider helping us help Sue by making a contribution towards our $1,500 goal. Let’s demonstrate once again how wonderful a place NDG is. Thank you.

Russell Copeman

N.B. Unfortunately no charitable tax receipts can be issued.

Help Sue here!

* * *

Mon nettoyeur à sec dans NDG a besoin d'aide. Une série d'événements malheureux lui est arrivé, avec pour conséquence que ce commerce, qui a pignon sur rue depuis 15 ans, est en difficulté.

Young Sook Suh, ou Sue comme ses clients la connaissent, exploite le « Nettoyeur et tailleur Sherbrooke West » dans l'ouest de NDG depuis 2002. Sue est la seule propriétaire et employée et elle s'occupe personnellement du magasin pendant plus de 57 heures par semaine.

La porte de son magasin a été défoncée deux fois en moins d'une semaine. Malgré le fait que Sue ne dispose pas de liquidités suffisantes, elle a dû remplacer sa porte en verre - deux fois. Elle est assurée, mais il y a une franchise de 500 $. Sue doit également installer des barres de porte pour empêcher que cela ne se reproduise. Les 1 500 $ de dépenses imprévues sont trop pour Sue et elle a besoin d'aide.

La famille de Sue était originaire de Corée du Nord. Ils ont réussi à traverser dans le Sud pendant le conflit coréen au début des années 1950. Sue est née et a vécu en Corée du Sud et a finalement eu un travail administratif avec la Hyundai Motor Company. Elle et son mari voulaient une vie meilleure pour leurs enfants - en particulier une meilleure éducation - alors Sue, son mari et leurs deux fils ont immigré à Montréal d'Inchon, en Corée du Sud en 1994.

Sue est devenue une mère célibataire peu après son arrivée à Montréal. Elle a appris l'anglais et quelques notions de français de base et a travaillé dur à divers emplois avant d'ouvrir le magasin de nettoyage à sec en 2002. Bien qu'elle n'ait pas été formée pour ce métier, sa mère était couturière en Corée du Nord et elle a appris vite. Elle fournit un excellent service depuis, et le sourire est toujours au rendez-vous.

L'expérience de Sue est typique des immigrants qui travaillent dur et qui sacrifient beaucoup pour leurs enfants. Son entreprise lui survit et la soutient, mais les marges bénéficiaires sur le nettoyage à sec sont très faibles et les dépenses continuent d'augmenter.

Certains peuvent dire que si son opération de nettoyage à sec est si précaire qu'elle ne peut pas absorber des dépenses imprévues de 1500 $ peut-être qu'elle devrait faire faillite. Je ne suis pas d'accord. Les petites entreprises locales sont l'un des éléments clés d'un quartier en santé.

Je fais appel à vous, à votre générosité et à votre sens de la communauté, afin d’aider Sue en faisant une contribution vers notre objectif de 1500 $. Montrons encore une fois à quel point NDG est merveilleux.

Je vous remercie.

Russell Copeman

N.B. Malheureusement aucun reçu d'impôt de bienfaisance ne peut être émis.]

Aidez Sue ici!

Vernissage November 15th, Atelier d'art METEQUE

Pleased to announce some of my paintings included

in

Atelier d'art METEQUE's upcoming Marché D'Art NDG.

Vernissage November 15th, 5pm to 8pm.

Exhibition runs till Dec. 5th.

Atelier d'art METEQUE address: 5442 Côte Saint Luc Rd, Montreal.

This will be my first professional exhibition!

Would love to see you there!

The Father of Reinvention

I haven't been the most faithful blogger the past year or so. It's been a year of "arts other than literary"... a year with many ups and downs.

For one thing, my father, Max Akerman, died April 6th. He'd had Parkinson's Disease for seven years or so, but his final illness was sudden.

We were shocked...just now coming out of it, I think, the initial part, at least. But so glad he didn't suffer a long, drawn out ordeal.

For another, I've taken up drawing and painting in a pretty big way. I found an amazing portrait teacher, artist Donna Shvil (her website), at Cummings Centre (for people 50 and older).

And, to combine the two, may I present my portrait of my Dad?

The original is pencil on 9 x 12 inch toned paper, which I then laser-jet printed, transferred to watercolour paper, and painted with acrylics...

This isn't my first portrait (I will post more anon), but it is definitely the most meaningful one so far. The expression in his eyes...I feel the love and the slight bemusement. I had him remove his glasses as I was taking the photos, so he's a bit unfocused, but also clearly thinking, "What is she up to now? Well, I love her, I have nothing better to do, it doesn't hurt me to just sit here, so let her do her thing. And we'll see what comes out of it..."

He loved his family in the best possible ways. We miss him...the last of his slew of brothers and sisters.

A few weeks after he died, I helped my Mom empty the apartment of Dad's clothes. Seven large bags...she looked at them, out on the sidewalk as I was about to put them in the car, and said, "A man's life in seven bags."

I said, "No, Mom. Not his life. Just his clothes."

Go in peace, Dad. I'm so glad I followed the urge to draw your portrait. It's been a year of lost and found that will resonate for a long, long time.

Next time, I hope to show you what else I've been doing in the drawing, painting, and abstracting department. But here's a taste of my other portrait work, and my abstracts.

Galloway's fitness for UBC position questionable by 2015

Much of CanLit has been in a tizzy the past couple of weeks, fulminating over issues surrounding Steven Galloway's suspension—later dismissal, without severance--from his post as head of creative writing at the University of British Columbia.* According to media reports, complainants accused Galloway of sexual assault, sexual harassment, inappropriate behaviour, threats, favouritism, and bullying. 

The dismissal followed a months-long investigation by former BC Supreme Court judge Mary Ellen Boyd. Though not all complaints were deemed founded, UBC’s then-president Martha Piper met with Galloway, considered the dean's recommendation and Boyd’s findings, and concluded “a record of misconduct” existed “that resulted in an irreparable breach of the trust placed in faculty members by the university, its students and the general public.”

In other words, he comported himself in a manner unbefitting a UBC professor.

In the hysteria following the UBC Accountable letter, an earlier incident demonstrating Galloway’s unfitness for his position appears to have been forgotten. I was hardly surprised, nearly two years later, to hear he’d been suspended and subsequently fired.

As Maya Angelou said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”

After Raziel Reid’s When Everything Feels Like the Movies won the $25,000 Governor General Literary Award for Children’s Literature (Text) in 2014, some voiced their concern the book was inappropriate for young adults; so inappropriate, they petitioned the Canada Council to reconsider the award. Prominent early critics of the book were award winning author Kathy Clark (first signatory of the petition) and columnist and author Barbara Kay.

What were Clark and Kay objecting to? A boatload of vulgar words, deeds, and images—a crack pipe cum anal dildo, masturbation by crucifix, anal sex, deathless prose (“His thick eyelashes were so dark that it looked like he bought them at the drugstore…I fantasized about gluing them on his eyes and then ripping them off when he climaxed”, juicy lips that look “like she had just sucked on a tampon”)--with pervasive cynicism and hopelessness the cherry on top. There’s little doubt Reid set out to ignite a minor Mapplethorpian sensation. Which he got. Clark declared:

I am a strong supporter of the freedom of speech and the petition does not suggest censoring the book. It states that this is not quality literature and should not be rewarded as such. Raziel Reid is free to write what he wants, and I actually commend him for his intentions…

Did WEFLTM really qualify as YA lit? Even CBC didn’t seem to think so, assigning it to the adult Canada Reads competition.

But if one thought it was undeserving of an award, what could be more Canadian than starting a petition in protest? Is it different from writing a letter protesting a university’s handling of a personnel matter?

Reasonable people can differ in their opinion of whether a book merits a children's literature award or YA designation. But Galloway's rejoinder to Clark was anything but reasonable:

I am writing to let you know that your attack of [sic] a fellow writer is disgusting. You may not agree with the content of his book, but if you don't value free speech and think that transgendered [sic] youth have a place in literature, and if you don't understand that your viewpoint is not absolute and privileged above other voices, then you don't deserve to call yourself a writer... here in Canada we don't censor literature...I am ashamed of you, and ashamed to share a profession with you. [Facebook]

Elsewhere, he mentioned that writers he’d spoken with shared “a mixture of support for [Raziel Reid], the desire to forcibly extract Ms. Kay and Ms. Clark’s heads from their rectums, and shame that we are actually having to have a freedom of expression debate in 2015.”

Was this grab bag of insults the way a mature adult handles a difference of opinion? Hardly. This was the hyperbolic language of the social justice warrior, a twining of bullying and ad hominem attack. This was Steven Galloway as pitbull, demonstrating beyond a reasonable doubt that UBC erred in elevating him to head of creative writing.

Where is the moderation one should expect of a professor and university leader? Where, even, is an understanding of the term “censorship,” which could reasonably be expected of a person in his position?

Censorship, as I imagine most thinking people comprehend it, arises when those in authority withdraw a book from publication, remove it from schools or libraries, burn it, or otherwise prevent people from reading it. Only a fanatical ideologue imagines petitioning a granting agency to reconsider an award to be censorship.

In a lengthy** public Facebook conversation with me on January 29^th, 2015, Galloway finally accepted Clark, Kay, and the petitioners, in his words, “have a right to voice their dislike of the book. They also have a right to ask the [Canada Council] to revoke the prize.”

What Galloway would not reconsider was his essential position: disgust and attack. He again assaulted Clark and Kay’s “privilege,” calling them “a couple of elderly women who have no real standing in the world outside of a small, insular bubble,” accusing Kay of “delusion bordering on psychopathy,” and capped his remarks to her with: “You have a newspaper column. I or any one of a number of other people I will see this week could also have such a thing with one phone call. We wouldn't even need our son to be on the editorial board.”

In sum, my contention is that Steven Galloway’s racist, sexist, and ageist insults over the Reid book protest revealed that by 2015, he was clearly unfit to head a university department. Given his propensity for shooting off his mouth, I suspected his dismissal was only a matter of time. Seeded from his own nature.

Read all about it in the dictionary, under the word “hubris.”

----------

Notes:

* The university may have erred in implying they suspected sexual assault. However, given the recent history of events on campus (see here and here), perhaps they were finally attempting to put protecting potential victims first. What would you have them do when an illustrious professor was accused in this way? The complainants must have been pretty credible, to merit the independent inquiry that followed. 

**My pdf transcript runs to 17 pages.