Featured Post

How To Deal With Gaza After Hamas

Friday, October 31, 2014

Kathy Shaidle: Lessons on Being a Grown-Up from… Vincent Price?



The Seventies was a lousy time to be a kid.
Oh, sure, it wasn’t all bad:
We didn’t wear bike helmets. Our parents made us play outside (“Get out of this house, and don’t come back ’til the street lights come on!”).We “bounced around in the back of the station wagon.” No one was allergic to peanut butter, or very much else.
Evel Knievel was a role model.
But something freakish, sinister, and incomprehensible was always being talked about, over at the Me Decade’s grown ups’ table:
Watergate (which had something to do with “bugs” invading America, I concluded; men in suits talked about it on TV so much, they interrupted my lunchtime Flintstones for months), the Patty Hearst kidnapping, Vietnam, Jimmy Carter, Bicentennial toilet seats, The Gong Show, hijackings, the Loud family, D.B. Cooper, divorce, things called “muggings,” crying Indians, gas station lineups and an unprecedented combination of high inflation, unemployment, and interest rates that adults muttered about in worried voices just out of earshot.
Epitomized by Howard Hughes’ will, fakery was epidemic:
We decorated our houses with plastic flowers and fruit. Squeaking drugstore paperback racks were laden with books about astrology, crypto-zoology, alien astronauts, and other junk history. “Everyone knew” that some all-powerful “They” had gotten away with killing the Kennedys and King. What chance did a timid, puny seven-year-old girl have?
If a rich child porn aficionado could bury a bunch of kids in their school bus, what the hell couldn’t happen?
A kid needed a break.
If you lived in my part of the world, starting around 1971, that respite came in the form of a cheap local TV show called The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.
More HERE

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Canada praised for leadership on standing up to Iran

 OTTAWA - Canada was praised for its "tough stance" on Iran one day before the Islamic Republic's human rights record is up for review before the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Foreign Minister John Baird welcomed the UN's rapporteur on Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, to Parliament Hill Thursday and proffered that Shaheed's work was "crucially important."

Shaheed said Canada's strong stance served as encouragement to those living within Iran...


John Gray: The truth about evil

"...Ever since it was spun off from al-Qaida some 10 years ago, Isis has made clear its commitment to beheading apostates and unbelievers, enslaving women and wiping out communities that will not submit to its ultra-fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. In its carefully crafted internet videos, it has advertised these crimes itself. There has never been any doubt that Isis practises methodical savagery as an integral part of its strategy of war. This did not prevent an abortive attempt on the part of the American and British governments in August of last year to give military support to the Syrian rebels – a move that could have left Isis the most powerful force in the country. Isis became the prime enemy of western governments only when it took advantage of the anarchy these same governments had created when they broke the state of Iraq with their grandiose scheme of regime change.
Against this background, it would be easy to conclude that talk of evil in international conflicts is no more than a cynical technique for shaping public perceptions. That would be a mistake. (Tony) Blair’s secret – which is the key to much in contemporary politics – is not cynicism. A cynic is someone who knowingly acts against what he or she knows to be true. Too morally stunted to be capable of the mendacity of which he is often accused, Blair thinks and acts on the premise that whatever furthers the triumph of what he believes to be good must be true. Imagining that he can deliver the Middle East and the world from evil, he cannot help having a delusional view of the impact of his policies.
Here Blair is at one with most western leaders. It’s not that they are obsessed with evil. Rather, they don’t really believe in evil as an enduring reality in human life. If their feverish rhetoric means anything, it is that evil can be vanquished. In believing this, those who govern us at the present time reject a central insight of western religion, which is found also in Greek tragic drama and the work of the Roman historians: destructive human conflict is rooted in flaws within human beings themselves. In this old-fashioned understanding, evil is a propensity to destructive and self-destructive behaviour that is humanly universal. The restraints of morality exist to curb this innate human frailty; but morality is a fragile artifice that regularly breaks down. Dealing with evil requires an acceptance that it never goes away... "

Christian priest tells UN: "Israel is the only Mideast country not persecuting Christians"


Wednesday, October 29, 2014

The message from the Toronto Global Forum: The Future is Technology

Yesterday and Monday, Toronto's Royal York Hotel was filled with hundreds of high-powered financial and political notables who were there to mingle and listen to panels prognosticating about economic growth at the International Economic Forum of the America's Toronto Global Forum.

I was a guest of one of the Forum's sponsors, the wonderful people at The Stampede Group, and the message that came out loud and clear at the sessions on Monday that I attended was that the future lies in the fields of technology and infrastructure development.

A fascinating lunch panel moderated by the CBC's Amanda Lang provided some interesting perspectives from former New York City Deputy Mayor and current (although soon to be outgoing) President and CEO of Bloomberg L.P., Daniel Doctoroff and Michael Sabia, President and CEO of the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, which manages that province's public pension funds.

The staggering figure of three to four trillion dollars annual required for global infrastructure development and maintenance that Mr. Sabia mentioned was the catalyst for some difficult questions about the balance between the need for investment and the challenges of paying for it. Infrastructure development contributes to productivity by easing transport and flow of goods and people, which is something much on the minds of Torontonians, who face the worst traffic congestion of any major city in North America. Infrastructure investment also, in addition to providing jobs, contributes to technological developments and the ability to make further economic gains.

During a speech prior to the lunch panel, Ontario's Finance Minister Charles Sousa had committed, on behalf of the provincial government, the willingness to spend $120 Billion on such projects during the current government's term. He also pledged to balance the provincial budget by the fiscal year of 2017/18. For a province facing an enormous debt load by which about 10% of all taxes are used to pay interest on debt, it will be intriguing to see if and how those commitments are achieved.

The question of income inequality came of, as it almost invariably does at economic discussions these days, and Mr. Doctoroff provided some insightful perspectives on how the subject is in effect a red herring.

He believes it is "middle class fear" that is driving much of that perception, but the reality is that so-called income inequality is not a dangerous economic factor. That suggestion is borne out of data that indicates that poor people in developed countries are in fact richer than ever, with more access to services and technology, and with more potential for upward mobility than at any other time. Beyond that, on a global scale, poverty is being alleviated at a greater rate and widespread famine is on the verge of becoming a thing of the past. The "income inequality" argument is frequently based, not on any actual detrimental effect on lower economic classes, but on a manipulative effort on the part of some social and political activists to serve their own ideological interests.

At a later discussion on the future of technological Sony Computer and Science Lab's President and CEO Hiroaki Kitano, Sophie Vandebroek, Xerox's CTO and President of its Innovation Group both expressed the view that the big thing coming that will have a major effect on how we all live will be Artificial Intelligence. Integrated systems will be a major game changer, including self-driving cars, voice-controlled, and self-regulating appliances, and more.

By an extraordinary coincidence, almost at the same time, Tesla Motors and Space X founder Elon Musk, with whom I'm acquainted and who was kind enough to give me a tour of the Space X plant a few years ago,  came out with a warning while speaking at MIT that Artificial Intelligence could actually represent an existential threat to mankind. Musk referred to it as "summoning the demon" which we may not end up being able to control. Those of us who are fans of science fiction have been aware of that nightmare scenario for some time.

One thing that is certain is that those who are informed of and educated in science and technology will be the ones who decide our future. But whether the technological advances coming ease the human condition or threaten it are all confusing questions to which only time will provide the answer.


Tuesday, October 28, 2014

A tactical election loss but a big strategic win for education and democracy

Entering the race for Toronto District School Board Trustee in Toronto's Trinity-Spadina district was something I did for what I believe were and are very important reasons. There are serious issues plaguing the education system in Toronto aside from the mismanagement, waste, and incompetence that so obviously are pervasive in the Board.

Among the most egregious issues that afflicts education as a whole in Ontario are the asinine ideologies shaping the Province's curriculum, which, under the guise of "equity," are in effect racist and help to perpetuate racism. This type of backwards thinking that is pervasive in the top ranks of the TDSB in manifest in many ways but nowhere more clearly than its "Afrocentric" school.

Some of the most vocal opponents to the Afrocentric school are African-Canadians who rightfully see it as racist and a backwards step towards racial segregation. While any sensible person would understand that a child who immigrated to Canada from Somalia three years ago, and a child who has lived in Canada all her life and is from a family that has been here generations, and a child who is a second-generation Canadian with grandparents from Jamaica are all of very different backgrounds and are informed by extremely different cultural values, the TDSB would place them all in the same category if they are "black." That's right, the TDSB is in essence saying skin color is the most important determining factor of a person, and there is no other way to describe that reprehensible view than as being racist.

It was issues like those that I had hoped to highlight in the TDSB trustee campaign.

But things took an unexpected turn.

The NDP-backed candidate in the race turned out to be someone who had spoken at a rally which could easily be characterized as supportive of the terrorist group Hezbollah. Even more significantly, there were numerous articles in the University of Toronto's newspaper, The Varsity, detailing how she was deeply implicated, while a union official, in election-rigging and a serious undermining of democracy.

For the NDP to run a candidate such as that without any valid explanations suggested serious contempt for the voters and I thought it important to highlight these issues, since no other candidate was doing it. It was particularly important since the dire problems at the TDSB mainly arose from a lack of openness and integrity.

By raising those issues and proposing serious reforms for the TDSB, I was able to run a very effective campaign for a time and put the NDP on the defensive. This was true up until the last week of the election even though the media was focusing on the Hezbollah aspect while for weeks, I was desperately trying to get them to talk about the much more concerning issue of election-rigging.

Then things went off the rails at the very end due to the intervention of disgusting morons and cowardly bigots who decided to insert themselves, mostly anonymously, into the race. Some of those idiots tried to prevent Ms Malik, the NDP Trustee candidate, from speaking at a public meeting and I had to shout at them repeatedly to respect her right to speak, as did at least two other trustee candidates.

Then deplorable cowards anonymously started leaving door hangers in the ward, trying to tie Ms Malik directly to Hezbollah. It's difficult if not impossible to conceive how anyone in their right mind could have come up with such an imbecilic plan. If their intent was to help her get elected, they couldn't have possibly done a better job, since quite naturally and predictably, they created a massive sympathy movement for her in the ward. I was half-tempted to declare that I was going to vote for her myself when all that happened.

It was appalling, and as it happened just days before the election and got widespread publicity, she quite naturally won the Trustee election on Monday.

And to her credit, though I detest Ms Malik's politics and radical positions, as a person, she comported herself with courage and dignity throughout the whole process.

Because of the debacle of the final weekend, I finished next to last in the election, but all-in-all, it was a huge strategic victory from my perspective.

Realistically, there was virtually no chance I would have won the TDSB race in Trinity-Spadina entering it about eight weeks before election day.  I was up against an organized NDP campaign that had been going on for six months, where two high-profile Council candidates were coordinating their campaign with their trustee candidate who had union resources and money behind her.  That two council campaigns which are legally barred from accepting union donations could share an office, use common signage, and coordinate campaigns and campaign literature with a trustee candidate who, the way the law is structured, can accept union donations, is an open invitation for an investigation into the way elections are conducted in Toronto.

Though the focus was sidetracked, the Trinity-Spadina race became the highest profile Trustee race in the province and it made vast numbers of people more aware of issues facing the public school system.

It forced the NDP and unions to allocate huge resources, including push-polls, phone banks, robocalls, and finance, into what would normally have been an effortless win for them, and in so doing, altered the public to the records of those politicians involved.

I believe through all of this, I helped to remind people that democracy doesn't only matter around election time, but that we as citizens must be vigilant, always, of what happens in our School Boards and City Councils. We must be aware of who is making decisions for us, what they are doing and why, and to speak up, very loudly, when they are not acting in our best interests.

I want to offer my sincere thanks to all of those who supported me through this tumultuous campaign, particularly family, friends, volunteers, endorsers, my "War Room Director," and those of you who cast a ballot for me.

Now I can go back to working on things that are more fun and interesting to me than the prospect of being a municipal politician. But make no mistake, though I didn't get elected as School Board Trustee, the results of what happened will a big long term 'win' for those who believe in democracy and accountability from politicians, as long as we keep our eye on the ball.

Richard Klagsbrun

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Teachers paid to canvass for union-backed candidates

TORONTO - Toronto secondary school teachers are being given paid time off by their union to canvass for a slate of union-approved municipal candidates, the Toronto Sun has learned.
Teachers who canvass for two three-hour stints get a day off teaching. Their union, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF), reimburses the school board for their time.
The union representing Toronto’s public secondary school teachers confirmed teachers are being given paid “time release” to canvass for a union-backed list of school trustees, councillors and mayoralty candidates.
One teacher, who spoke to the Sun on condition of anonymity, said some teachers oppose the deal because they do not support the union-endorsed candidates.
“Yes, some members have received time release to work for candidates,” said District 12 (Toronto) OSSTF President Doug Jolliffe.
“This is allowable under the Election Act,” Jolliffe said by e-mail.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

Richard Klagsbrun's statement on recent controversies in Trinity-Spadina TDSB race



When I entered the Public School Trustee race in Trinity-Spadina, I did it because the Toronto District School Board is plagued with major problems which have not been properly addressed and I wanted to raise awareness about them.

Those issues include exposing the politicization of the school curriculum, the decline in standards, and that the TDSB has infused what is actually racist ideology into the school system by promoting the idea that children should be treated more as part of a collective and less as an individual and that the Board needs to focus more on race.  And of course the gross waste, mismanagement, and incompetence at the TDSB.

But as it so often happens in life, things didn't go quite according to plan. 

The NDP ran a candidate as part of their ticket that included Mike Layton and Joe Cressy named Ausma Malik, a person with an extremely questionable past. 

There are numerous reports in the University of Toronto's newspaper, The Varsity, pertaining to when Ms Malik, as a union official tasked with investigating a disputed student union election was, according to those articles, shown to have colluded with the people she was investigating to produce the results they wanted. That scandal led to the University's Provost taking the extraordinary measure of freezing funds to the student union. 

That is the more serious of the controversies regarding someone seeking a position of trust that would be involved in overseeing a $3 Billion budget that is supposed to be devoted to public school students' needs.  

Unfortunately, another controversial aspect of Ms Malik's past has become the media focus. In 2006, Ms Malik delivered an anti-Israel speech at a rally filled with supporters of the terrorist group Hezbollah, at which the deaths of Israeli soldiers were cheered. That 2006 event was organized by the so-called "Canadian Peace Alliance," a group that is intimately involved with the annual anti-Semitic al Quds Day rallies.  At one such rally, Ali Mallah, a Steering Committee member of the Canadian Peace Alliance, shouted at the Khomeinist crowd that he supports "resistance ..by any means necessary!"

While the U of T election scandal is I believe a far more serious issue, the Hezbollah angle became the media's sole interest. I have spoken to reporters at the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, and the National Post about The Varsity articles and they are all aware of them, but they prefer to write about Hezbollah because they think  it's "sexy" and easier for their readers to comprehend.

Recently some idiots attended a debate in which they heckled and tried to shout down Ms Malik, at which point I and other Trustee candidates had to intervene and stand up to tell them to respect her right to speak.  

Some idiots have been distributing inflammatory flyers in Trinity-Spadina trying to link Ms Malik directly to Hezbollah. The prevention of a candidate from speaking at a public debate and the flyer distribution are deplorable and reprehensible. Ms Malik is not a member of Hezbollah or any terrorist group. Moreover such actions are counterproductive to shedding light on the real issues facing Trinity-Spadina. 

At this point, the TDSB Trustee race in Trinity-Spadina needs to be one that is about integrity and credibility. Because if a Public School Trustee lacks those attributes, then the serious issues at the School Board will never be properly addressed.

The facts about the candidates in Trinity-Spadina's TDSB race and the truth behind them are matters of public record and can be easily accessed by online research, both through Google and at thevarsity.ca.

It is my hope that the voters selecting the next TDSB Trustee look into the facts and make an informed choice based on them.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Get a "Vote for Richard Klagsbrun" sign for your home in Trinity-Spadina's School Trustee Election

 All the cool kids are doing it!

The Richard Klagsbrun for TDSB Trustee signs are now available!

Get a "Vote for Richard Klagsbrun" sign for your lawn or window and help get Richard elected as Public School Trustee in Trinity-Spadina.

Richard is the Public School Trustee candidate who is opposed to terrorism and corruption, which is not a claim that all of his opponents can credibly make.

For more information about Richard's campaign, check out his website HERE.

If you live in Toronto's Trinity-Spadina ward (City Wards 19 & 20) and want to get a sign before this Monday's election, send an email including your name, address, and daytime phone number to VoteRichard@Outlook.com

UPDATE: ONE MORE UPCOMING DEBATE FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL TRUSTEE CANDIDATES IN TRINITY-SPADINA:


Thursday, October 23, 7-9:30 pm: Ward 10 (Trinity-Spadina)
school trustee candidates’ debate
Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre at 427 Bloor Street West.  

Barack Obama’s stunning rejection: (Former) supporters walk out on him during rally for Democrat candidate

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama has belatedly hit the U.S. election campaign trail amid dismal personal approval ratings that have been reflected in even his own supporters walking out on him mid-speech.

With just two weeks until polling day and Democrats looking in danger of losing control of the Senate, the depths of Mr. Obama’s unpopularity was clear for him to see in one early rally in the state of Maryland.

As he urged a mostly African-American audience to get out and vote, it was reported that “a steady stream of people walked out of the auditorium” as he was speaking...

Monday, October 20, 2014

Study claims season of birth affects your mood later in life

Babies born in the summer are much more likely to suffer from mood swings when they grow up while those born in the winter are less likely to become irritable adults, scientists claim.
Researchers studied 400 people and matched their personality type to when in the year they were born.
They claim that people born at certain times of the year have a far greater chance of developing certain types of temperaments, which can lead to mood disorders.
The scientists, from Budapest, said this was because the seasons had an influence on certain monoamine neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin, which control mood, however more research was needed to find out why.

Saturday, October 18, 2014

Toronto District School Board Candidates Richard Klagsbrun (TDSB Ward 10/Trinity-Spadina) and Jerako Biaje (TDSB Ward 5/York Centre) unveil Curriculum Pledge



Toronto District School Board Candidates Richard Klagsbrun (TDSB Ward 10/Trinity-Spadina) and Jerako Biaje (TDSB Ward 5/York Centre) have crafted a Curriculum Pledge for Trustee candidates in the upcoming municipal election on October 27 to address what they see as major problems with the school curriculum. They believe the current approach inhibits the ability of the Board's students to get the type of education they will require in an increasingly technologically-based, competitive, global environment.  There are serious issues involving the way that the curriculum is delivered in Toronto's Public Schools, including a math curriculum which increasingly emphasises word-based problems which are designed to instil politicized attitudes. Though the Province is responsible for shaping the curriculum, the TDSB has a great deal of latitude in establishing how that curriculum is delivered to its students. As emphasis at the Toronto District School Board has shifted away from providing students with core math and language skills, and increasing numbers of university professors are concerned about post-secondary students graduating high school without requisite skills, Klagsbrun and Biaje feel that a focus on the core subjects of English/Reading, Math and Sciences needs to be restored in the TDSB. Accordingly, they have written the following Curriculum Pledge, which they invite all TDSB candidates to sign:

"We pledge as Trustees to work towards restoring the focus of the public school curriculum on core subjects - Math, Reading/English, and Science. We pledge to do all we can to restore an evidence and fact-based approach to education, in which learning is predicated on using objective facts rather than unsubstantiated opinion and trendy theories. We also pledge to work towards removing the politicized aspects of the curriculum and work towards providing an education which gives students the tools to employ logic, verifiable truth, and reason. Along with students, parents, and teachers, we pledge to do everything we can to enable our students to become successful, engaged citizens."

Richard Klagsbrun,  TDSB Candidate - Ward 10 (Trinity-Spadina) www.klagsbrun.ca
Jerako Biaje, TDSB Candidate - Ward 5 (York Centre) https://www.facebook.com/JerakoBiaje


Richard Klagsbrun is the former Creative and Strategic Planning Executive at Participant Media who was instrumental in conceiving the phenomenally successful marketing model used to make that organization's films, such as the Academy-Award winning An Inconvenient Truth. He is a writer and commentator on education issues in national publications and television, and has worked in both the private and public sector, including having organized the symposium which established, and being one of the first two staff members of, the Centre for Addiction And Mental Heath's Shared Care Clinical Outreach Program, which provides medical and psychiatric care to homeless people in Toronto residing in shelters. Richard has also been a social media entrepreneur, being the co-founder and Senior Vice President of View2gether, which pioneered online social viewing. Richard is deeply engaged with the community in Trinity-Spadina, and that engagement includes having been a co-Chair of the Parents' Council at Central Technical School. His current candidacy for TDSB Trustee in Trinity-Spadina is his first time seeking public office, and he has assembled an unparalleled group of endorsers for his TDSB Trustee campaign effort.

Jerako Biaje is  the TDSB School Trustee Candidate for WARD 5, Advocate, Mediator, Wife, Mother, and a Former Co-Chair of the TDSB's Parent Involvement Advisory Committee

For more information contact Campaign for Richard Klagsbrun:  VoteRichard@Outlook.com