Finally, some sense

The US Supreme Court has finally ruled that affirmative action programs, based on race, for university admissions are unlawful:

The ruling was of against the Harvard and the University of North Carolina.  Naturally, the reaction was the predictable hysteria among those who will now have to meet academic and other standards for admission.  Race will no longer cut it:

When I was in the federal public service, affirmative action (AA) was introduced to enable more Francophones, women and minorities to be put into senior positions.  I worked for the Public Service Commission at the time, whose supreme objective was the application of the sacred Merit Principle in all hiring practices.  Remember?  

That went out the window with AA, as preference and competitive points were given to people from the above-categories.  I wrote a memo to the chairman, stating that we had to take the position that the Merit Principle had been suspended in favour of AA.  Well, all Hell broke loose in Bedlam, a.k.a. his office, on the 18th floor!

The chairman -- who happened to be a Francophone, by the way -- doubled down and insisted that the Merit Principle would still be rigorously applied via AA.

Huh??!!  How??!!

He never could answer that question, so we muddled along lying to ourselves and everyone else about how we did business.  Wanting the best candidates for jobs on offer, managers naturally found ways of getting around this bureaucratic stranglehold, rendering the whole thing a complete charade.  It was 'The Emperor's New Clothes' all over again, as supremely under-qualified people were plunked into managers' chairs hither, thither and yon all over the service.

Did it piss people off?  Did it create chaos and bad decision making?  Of course, but AA ruled and continues to this day.  You only have to look at Brenda Lucki and Anne Kelly to see just a few of the disastrous results.

As for the US, admissions offices still have a number of ways to skirt this latest ruling.  The decision eliminates AA based on race, but leaves in place AA based on legacy, donors and athletes.  So, even though Harvard has won neither a national football championship in more that a century, nor a hockey in more than 30, it can still recruit athletes, as do dozens of universities considered powerhouses.

With collegiate athletics a US$20 billion industry, let's see how they wiggle around this one.

   

Toronto mayoral election

Predictably, Toronto's mayoral race unfolded along racial and ethnic lines. Olivia Chow won over 102 other candidates.  (To have more than 100 candidates shows you just how unhappy people were with John Tory, but I digress.)

Toronto is 50 percent white and 37 percent ethnic; Chow garnered 37.2 percent of the votes.  It's all in the numbers, folks.  Always is.  Chow tapped into the ethnic vote, just as did Naheed Nenshi and Jyothi Gondek in Calgary.  

People seem to leave their brains and critical thinking faculties at the polling station door and just vote for the ethnic candidate, if they themselves are ethnic.  Toronto attracts hundreds of thousands of immigrants.  In fact, nearly half of the population of 2,900,000 is foreign-born -- second only to Miami.  

So, never mind that Chow's reckless money-giveaway platform -- which will further bankrupt the city -- she is now the mayor.  "We going to make Toronto more affordable and united," she claimed in a euphoric moment of complete delusion.

I lived in Toronto.  All I can say is, G-d help Toronto.

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So, RoseAnne Archibald has been dumped.  The National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) has just had her ass handed her by 71 percent of the 231 chiefs who voted no-confidence in her leadership.

Beset by acrimony from the day she was elected two years ago, Archibald faced accusations of abuse, bullying and harassment by her own staff.  Last June, she was actually suspended by the AFN, a suspension she said was unlawful.

Frankly, they got rid of her because she was determined to get to the bottom of what she called long-standing corruption within the organization, calling it, "The most widely-known secret in Indian country."  She claimed this was why she was being smeared.

One dissenting voice was that of Chief Jeffrey Copenace, of the Onigaming nation in Ontario. 

"This not how the Anishinaabeg conduct business," he said.  "We don't try to fire the first-ever woman national chief.  This is all about gender.  She is being held to a higher standard that any other former male national chief.  You would never do this a male chief," he added.  

That's undoubtedly true, but the real reason is money.  Part of the agenda included a presentation by a law firm that would have provided an update on findings from an investigation and audit of the AFN's financial and management policies.

That, my friends, was the death knell for Archibald.  

Note:  Comments from my status friends would be most helpful!

Divisive

Frankly, I believe the many pride parades held all over by this group and that are more divisive than unifying.  They create an "us versus them" mentality and separate people from each other when we all need to support and be supported.

As I have blogged before, I would love to take my grandchildren to a pride event to remember their great-uncle, my brother John, who was gay and committed suicide because his lover of many years was getting married, but I can't because these parades are more porn than pride, in my opinion.  

Now the natives are holding separate parades, like this one in Montreal:

The rest of us don't feel welcome -- or at least I don't.  This summer there are lots, but I won't be going.  Remember when people didn't flaunt their gender or sexual orientation -- whether gay or straight?  It wasn't done in polite company -- or at least not in my world, sheltered though it might have been.

And don't get me started on drag-queen story time for four-year-olds.  Have school boards gone mad?!  Kids that age don't need a message that is confusing and bizarre.  Let them grow up and be what they want with whomever they choose.  Let them have an innocent childhood, for Gawd's sake.

Are we entering a new "End of the Roman Empire/Caligula" debauched phase of civilization?  I wonder.  Some of those parades look like it.  With no effective leadership here, or in the US, and the Chinese establishing branch offices here in Canada and about to do the same in Cuba, what's next?  

Speaking of dreadful "leadership", Trudeau has done more to celebrate separateness than anyone in recent memory.  His disgraceful antics around the Indigenous and LGBTQ communities are abhorrent, nakedly political and exploitative.  He has diminished Canada's reputation worldwide and is again at this very moment galavanting around Iceland to our national embarrassment.  He offends Canada's natural sense of decorum and dignity.  Remember the frightfulness of the cringe-worthy Indian jaunt?  Exactly.  

There are so many fires -- literal and figurative -- to be put out right here in the country of which he is prime minister.  He should be sending ministers to international events, but his overarching hubris and narcissism compel him to be everywhere in person.

To those who voted for him I say, "Please inform yourselves and save our country from his worst excesses."

Not to be outdone, the NHL also badly fumbled the pride ball.  How'd this work out?  It didn't:

Just be quiet and play hockey.

 

Never let the truth spoil a good narrative

 

This poor deputy minister of Fisheries and Oceans, where I was DG of Communications a while back, had to slink out of his job with his tail between his legs because he uttered the truth about reconciliation.  A thirty-year career public servant, Timothy Sargent wrote an internal memo, in which he said, "The Indigenous depiction of colonialism is a gross misreading of history."

It is, he is right.  Just as former Senator Lynn Beyak was hollered, bayed and hounded from her Senate seat for saying that colonialism actually did a lot of good for Indigenous people, so Sargent has been shamed and fired for saying basically the same thing.  Most of the Indigenous leaders in Canada, including a Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, went to a residential school, thanks to colonialism, allowing them to go on to university.  Many became lawyers.  Here are just a few:

By that measure, I would have been tried, convicted and jailed for some of the truth I blog about natives.  Colonialism did both good and bad -- just as is the case with all forms of education, particularly at boarding schools, where you get some of the best education around, but you can also suffer abuse.  

The fact is abuse happens in all fora where children interact with adults in power relationships.  It happened at some of the schools I attended and it also happened to me at the hands of my orthodontist.  (When I recently read his obituary, I was tempted to write a vivid remembrance; B talked me out of it.)

But let's not forget, much of the abuse at native schools was perpetrated by older students against younger.  That's a fact, but you'll never see that in print because, again, it spoils such a good narrative.

As for the unmarked graves accusations, archeological digs have recently shown that some of the sites contain remains that are thousands of years old.  Other research has shown many are actually tree roots, not human bones.  In many cases, the parents of native students who died in schools of influenza and other diseases asked that their children be buried on site, as they could not afford to bring them home.  

But you'll never hear those facts either.  This is what you'll see, a monument to today's popular, hysterical narrative.  Mary Simon, who was at the announcement, along with Trudeau (of course), said the site will serve as a constant reminder of the consequences of "policy actions".  Yes, the consequences of residential schools is the fact that so many who attended became very successful -- unless they moved back the their reserves, where all hope was lost.  Here is the latest hoax:

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The Thunder Bay police force debacle, ongoing for years, has taken another turn:

It'll now be run entirely by Indigenous officers.  We'll see how that pans out.

50 years later

...and some Inuit families want their babies exhumed and tested for DNA to see if they really were their babies who had died of pneumonia.  

50 years later!  They want to dig up a four-month old and a newborn.  What is the point of all this?  It must be more money.  These families have been fighting for 50 years -- using your money, of course -- to get these corpses tested.  

It's all so pointless.

And speaking of wasted money, the Cree living in a hotel in Montreal were temporarily moved to another hotel to make room for the Canadian Grand Prix crowds.  There they were, complaining on TV about having to move.  Can you imagine that?!  Most of them were young people who should be working, instead of living off the taxpayer dime in hotels.

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As I keep saying, cancer is an industry, but people don't believe that so they keep riding for the "cure".  It's all about money for various hospitals and cancer research that keep so many well employed all over the world.  The last thing those toiling in it want is to lose their jobs.  Think about everyone working for the Terry Fox Run and other runs and rides, like the one below, for example.  There are thousands and thousands of good livings to be made in the cancer world.

Here we go again, this time for the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto:

  

Letters to the Editor

The letters, below, were not published by 'The Globe and Mail'.  At least one or two should have been because they are all good letters, but I am sure The Globe has decided to block me because they must deem me too right-wing.  Funnily enough, I'm not, but I am definitely not politically-correct and that would be unacceptable for that newspaper.

The fact that my essay had already been scheduled for Mothers' Day, that I had signed all the legal waivers and yet -- oops!-- it was cancelled when it went up the line proves this to me.  As I said, my name is unique in the entire world, so google it and my blog comes up.

I have decided the next piece I pen for 'The Globe and Mail' will be signed by a nom de plume, like George Elliott, for example.  I have many to choose from, beginning with my birth name, my adoptive name or my first married name.

As far as The Globe is concerned, Nancy Marley-Clarke will officially no longer exist.  I'll let you know when I am next published.  

There are always two ways to skin a cat!  Here are the letters that were not published: 

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1.  Dear Editor,

Ironically, just as Britain is tightening its ‘Minimum Income Rules’ for family re-unification because of overwhelming numbers, Canada’s minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship announces we are loosening our own. 

Maybe we should look around the world first and benefit from what other countries are experiencing before we make changes.  This might avoid predictable chaos.

2.  Dear Editor,

Did Justin Trudeau suspect David Johnston would recommend against calling for a public inquiry into foreign interference when he tabled his report?  I suspect Mr. Trudeau must have, otherwise why would he have recklessly vowed in advance to accept all of Mr. Johnston’s recommendations?

It’s sad that Mr. Johnston has decided to dig in and defy Parliament’s wishes and not resign.  His previously sterling reputation is now irrevocably besmirched because when you smell a rat, there’s always a rat to be smelled.

3.  Dear Editor,

David Johnston has finally resigned, but what I cannot understand is Mr. Johnston’s lack of clarity on what constituted his mandate and to whom he was reporting. 

He said he would carry out the mandate given him by the government.  But Justin Trudeau, the person who arbitrarily appointed him, is not  “the government”.  The government consists of three branches:  The executive, the legislative and the judicial.  It is surprising that Mr. Johnston, a learned man and ex-governor general, failed to grasp that basic tenet and instead clung to a determination to carry on and report to one person, to whom he kept referring as “the government”.

Although he has done the right thing by resigning, I fear his once-sterling reputation is now permanently besmirched. 

4.  Dear Editor,

A couple of years ago, I heard Globe and Mail reporter Bob Fife say on television, “The NDP is toast.”  His prediction always comes to mind when I hear NDP leader Jagmeet Singh say he will uphold the supply and confidence deal he has made with the Liberals, regardless of his party’s opposing position on any given issue.

I suspect Mr. Singh secretly agrees with Mr. Fife and fears an election will reduce the number of NDP seats, including perhaps his own. 

No, I don’t think it’s ideology that keeps the NDP in bed with the Liberals.  It’s survival instinct, pure and simple.

5.  Dear Editor,

Justin Trudeau talks of stretched resources for fighting devasting wild fires out of one side of his mouth, while out of the other pledges another $500 million in aid to Ukraine.   We have already given Ukraine $8 billion, money that could have gone to saving Canadians’ homes and wildlife.

The job of a prime minister is to serve Canadians and protect the country.  Unfortunately, our prime minister, like Nero,  prefers international virtue-signaling and fiddling while “Rome” burns.

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What's happened?!

Remember when Chanel was a fashion leader?  Not anymore.  Look at the latest shoe ad:

Coco would be appalled.  The head designer at Chanel is someone called Virginie Ward, shown here with her predecessor, Karl Lagerfeld: 

 

Must be a woman-hater.  Where has elegance fled?  The last designer who oozed it was Oscar de la Renta, may he rest in peace.  His frocks were breathtaking:

Is there a point?

I doubt it.  In the face of India and China opening coal-fired plants every ten minutes, here we are mindlessly doing this:

Totally pointless.  But still we carry on, afraid to idle our cars for two minutes while we pop in somewhere, yet there's climate "guru" Neil Young, idling his huge tour bus for 48 hours outside countless gigs -- all the while lecturing the rest of us about climate change.    

Just so dumb.

Speaking of dumb and pointless, Trudeau and Freeland secretly jetted off to Kyiv in a meaningless display of "caring" for a virtue-signaling photo op.  Hey, Canada is burning and dying and you're swanning around the Ukraine giving speeches and handing out the odd tank or two!  

Absolutely odious.  I could hardly watch the phony coverage of the two of them:  

Freeland, whose only agenda is the Ukraine, sickens me.  She forgets she is the finance minister -- hello, Canadians are struggling!  Do something!  She and Trudeau Nero and smirk their way around the former's native country while Rome, i.e., Canada, literally burns.

I hope they brought along a bunch of helmets for our troops, who are so under-funded they have to pay for them out of their own pockets.  Yes, you read that right.  And to add insult to injury, Trudeau just promised another $500 million for a never-to-be won war in a G-d forsaken place because Canada has the second-highest diaspora of Ukrainians in the world.  All about votes, folks.

We've already given them more than $8 billion and what good has it done?!  Oh ya, I forgot, it just bought Zelensky a brand, new mega-yacht.  Great job! 

$8 billion would also go a long way towards helping fund the fights against wild fires in Canada, but no, he virture-signals and fritters it away on Ukraine because Freeland is Ukrainian.  That's about the only point, as far as I'm concerned.    

Shame shame to the people who keep electing these fools.  

 

 

Date day

Every year, we go on a Bubbles date.  Bubbles is a full-service, car detailing shop, where you take your car and wait an hour or more while it is thoroughly cleaned inside and out.  

It costs about $250 and we take both cars, so not cheap.  But worth it.  What I always notice is our cars are the cheesiest there.  Everyone else is driving Mercedes, BMW, Cadillac or Volvo.  I mean, you have to have a few bucks to do this, so we feign prosperity, as we arrive with my 23-year-old Honda Civic and our eight-year-old Honda HRV.  We're definitely the odd men out, but a regular wash does not even come close to how Bubbles deals with a vehicle.

I get the little Civic done so I can go home after our luxurious date lunch and immediately get out the Honda spray paint and go over all the rust.  This has kept it at bay for years -- my objective because I am emotionally attached to the darling after so many years.

Can't tell you how often young men -- usually Asian -- stop me at gas stations asking if I want to sell it.  They, of course, want to juice it up and race it because it is a five-speed and runs on no gas.  I, of course, will not sell it.  Here's what the website says about my little car:  

"Vehicle overview

More than two decades ago, Honda introduced the Civic. It was a small, anonymous, unassuming car, competing in a market saturated by mammoth sedans sporting ornate chrome, garish styling treatments and acres of sheet metal.  The producers of these defunct dinosaurs didn't bat an eye at Honda's fuel-sipping entry, despite the fuel crisis of 1973. Big mistake.

"Since then, Americans have seen six generations of the Civic come and go, each much improved over the previous model, and each becoming immensely popular with consumers.  1996 brought us a new generation; certainly improved but not so much so that we'd consider it revolutionary. 

"Available in hatchback, sedan and coupe body styles, Honda heeded customers who claimed the 1992-1995 Civic was too sporty-looking. A grille was tacked on up front, sheet metal contours provide a squarish profile, and larger rear taillamps give the Civic a more conservative look."

Here's what the website says my little car is worth:  $12,200!  Really?!  I still can't part with my 23-year-old buddy.  Here she is:

    

Me?!

As he walked over to me this morning on the pool deck, I wondered what one of what I call "the middle-aged big dogs" wanted?  Probably going to ask me to clear the lane.  I am not very fast and these guys race each other and do tough sets every day.  I just motor along.

"Hey Nancy, do you want to join our mixed relay swim team when we compete next year?"  I nearly fell over.  "We need a couple more women, so why not give it a try?" he added.  "Well, I do qualify, but only on the gender front.  I'm not fast," I replied.  "Doesn't matter, it's just for fun and it's a great time," he added.

The method in his madness, of course, is that I will considerably up the age of our team.  The way it works is they add up the ages of everyone on each team and then slot each accordingly.  The more collective years, the older the category and scores are adjusted....or something like that.  Anyway, they have invited me because I'm old.   

When I first started swimming at Spray Lakes here in Cochrane, I was just another old bag cluttering up the lanes.  But then the "big dogs" found out I was the mother of someone they know in their triathlon world.  That gave me a little status and a smidgen of respect in their eyes.  Shouldn't be like that, but it is.  Hey, I'll take whatever add-on points I can get.

So, how do you like them apples!  Of course I said yes to the relay team, but who knows?  I might be dead by next year.  But if I'm not, I'll be all in!

A few years ago, one of the lifeguards at the Crowfoot Pool, where I used to swim, actually asked me if I wanted to join her waterpolo team.  I kid you not!  Flattered, I declined because it would have meant expensive, out-of-town travel, but it sure was nice to have been asked.

So, folks, all I can say is keep moving!