Full disclosure: I am 65 years old and smoked my first joint in or around 1965, when I was ~18. I haven't smoked a joint in or around 10 years, but in the intervening years I smoked almost every day. I quit simply because I lost interest in the effects. My personal preference was for hashish rather than marijuana, but the point is moot.
For decades I have advocated the legalization of these substances, and frequently compared their side- and after-effects to those of alcohol. Numerous studies have evinced, for example, the fact that stoned drivers tend to be far more cautious than drunk drivers. I did read the results of many studies on various drugs, also including LSD, mescalin, peyote, etc. I fancied myself well-acquainted with the published literature.
But now that Colorado and Washington have voted in favour of either decriminalization or outright legalization, I have become aware of the side effects -- not of the substance itself but rather the complications inherent in outright legalization, and also of my naive simplification of these issues. Consider a few of these:
1. Regulation by content: in the case of alcohol, this is easy. Despite all the talk among devotees of wine or whiskey, from the regulatory point of view there is only one significant measurement: the percentage of alcohol within any particular beverage. Depending on the country, percentages vary considerably. On average, however, beer contains about 4-6% of alcohol. "Hard" liquors such as Scotch or vodka or gin can go to 40% content. The governments tend to price them relative to that content factor. For example, the price of a single liter of vodka is equivalent to a case of 24 beer, and both are taxed accordingly.
I used to think that equivalent rules could be applied to the world of marijuana and hashish, in the belief that the THC count was the only important measure. But lately I've been doing some reading of the research available, and have come to realize how naive were my original beliefs. First and foremost, measuring the THC content is woefully insufficient: between 35 and 40 other variables factor into the ultimate effect of any given sample of marijuana; to cite just one, the content of triptamine significantly affects the resultant effect. The net result of this research is that one cannot test simply for one element, but must factor in the relative presence of many others as well.
2. In the case of alcohol, one simple measure indicates the content, and can easily be printed on any given brand's label. But how should we deal with the fact that 35-40 elements all factor into the resultant affective content? Who makes a label that large, upon which to print such information?
3. No two batches, even grown from the same seeds under the same lights, will be equivalent. Granted, that could ultimately result in a market in which, say, the 1998 batch was far superior to the 2010 batch, and the result would be something akin to the wine or Scotch markets, which in itself might be a good thing, but which would place an enormous burden on both the growers and the governmental machinery required to conduct these measurements -- not to mention the huge task awaiting the equivalent of wine-reviewers, whose lives would be further complicated by the simple fact that most wine-reviewers take a sniff and then a taste and then spit it out rather than ingesting it. Not possible with marijuana or hashish.
One argument often proposed by those who object to decriminalization is that marijuana is a gateway drug (i.e. it leads to the use of cocaine, crack, heroin, Oxycontin and similar hard drugs). My counter-argument is that tobacco is the gateway drug, not marijuana.
I have written frequently about the incredible costs of criminalization of these substances: the number of people in jail, the vast costs of finding the traffickers in terms of police expenditures, the overall failure of the War on Drugs, and perhaps most significantly, the movement of billions of dollars per year into the hands of criminal empires. All these arguments remain relevant, in my opinion, but I used to think it was a simple problem to solve, and I now see that this is far from the case.
Time was, I thought that decriminalization was senseless, since it prevented the governments from acquiring a huge new source of taxation revenue. But now I'm thinking that decriminalization is the middle path. As now, go after large-scale grow-ops and prosecute them to the full extent of the law, but permit Joe and Joan Average to grow a few plants at home with impunity. Keep it as a cottage industry, so to speak. This would effectively cut the legs out of the criminal empires, while simultaneously avoiding the nightmare of regulation. It might not be the perfect solution, but then what is? A world in which people had no desire to take recreational drugs, perhaps, but what is the likelihood of that?
Friday, 26 July 2013
Friday, 5 July 2013
On Influential Teachers
I'm not sure why this happened this morning, but probably it was due to listening to something on cbc radio. The topic is my favourite teachers in my life. There are three, two of whom suffered me during school and the third being in university.
The first is Peter Cowie, who taught Literarture. He lived it, not just taught it. When he introduced a new poem, he delivered it. The poem that I remember most was called "David", by Earl Birney, and it concerned two mountain climbers; David fell off a cliff and his friend scaled down to where David lay, back broken, and David said "Over", and his friend understood what he meant, and pushed him over. David did not want to live as a wheelchair-person, and asked his friend to end it. Peter Cowie read that poem to us and I wept. I still remember his green corduroy sports jacket with its leather patches, and him standing there in the front of our classroom, not so much reading that poem but living it.
A couple of years later I took another course from him, and he did the same thing with "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." I have memorized that poem, and several others by T.S. Eliot. Peter Cowie gave life to these poems. He would stand at the front of the room and speak the words like an actor, not merely reading the words but breathing life into them. He turned them from poems into songs from the soul.
The second most influential teacher was Mr. Christie. I never did learn his first name. He taught math, with genius. At one point when he was telling us about the congruency proof, I raised my hand in objection and said, Wait a minute, a point is a location in space, and therefore cannot be moved; you can't move triangle ABC and lay it atop DEF. He chuckled, and we got on exceptionally well from then on, and he taught me some pretty advanced stuff for a grade-ten student. For example, he showed me the Galois proof that it is impossible to trisect an angle using only a compass and a straight edge. Actually, to tell the whole story, he challenged me first to solve it, and I slaved every night for several hours, for a month, and then went to Mr. Christie's office, pouting, and said, "Mr. Christie, I can't do it/" And he said, "It's ok, Arthur, nobody else can either."
Those are my recollections of my two favourite teachers. There was a third, Philip Wright, from whom I took two courses in Philosophy, and a specialist in Greek philosophy. From him I learned about Heraclitus, Parmenides, Socrates and Plato, the Atomists, the Cynics and so much more. I will never forget his classes. At one point, in Philosophy 301 or whatever its number was, we were challenged to present a paper to our fellows. Mine was on math+art, and my central argument was "The Nude Descending a Staircase", by Marcel duChamp, which when initially exhibited at the 1914 exhibition in New York, was described by one NYT journalist as "an explosion in a shingle factory". Fine. You're entitled to your opionion. I saw an equivilance to Minkowski's math theories of the time, about the universe being an involuted four-dimensional hypersphere -- or to simplify this for the casual reader, imagine that your life is a single strand of spagetti in a bowl of similaar strands -- beginning and end are alfready disctated, and your only job is to travel this strand.
That's what I got from Marcel duChamp and the great mathematician Minkowski.
Subsequent to his teaching, I encountered a book by W.F. Stone, "The Trial of Socrates", that changed my life, and I wish that Phil were still alive so I could present some of Stone's arguments to him. Sadly, I missed that chance, but on the other hand, Phil got me addicted to philosophy and linguistics, and even at age 65 I still read this stuff. I'm a big fan of Noam Chomsky and Stephen Pinker, to name just two.
I can't let it go at that. I a huge fan of Neal Stephenson. He steered Speculative Fiction into entirely new realms. Snowcrash was awesome, but then a couple of years later came Cryptoniicon, The Primer and then the gigantic trilogy called The Baroque Cycle. This is writing on the scale of Thomas Pynchon, as evinced by V. and Gravity's Rainbow. These books are Art, not just some forgettable fling on the subway. These books are Art. It's difficult if not impossible to select a favourite, but if push comes to shove, I think that I would go with Cryptonicon or The System of the World -- not that I dislike Neal's other books, it's just that one captured my soul, perhaps because of the Turing connection. The point is, Neal Stephenson has written some of the finest literarure that I have ever read. The man is a rock-solid genius
The first is Peter Cowie, who taught Literarture. He lived it, not just taught it. When he introduced a new poem, he delivered it. The poem that I remember most was called "David", by Earl Birney, and it concerned two mountain climbers; David fell off a cliff and his friend scaled down to where David lay, back broken, and David said "Over", and his friend understood what he meant, and pushed him over. David did not want to live as a wheelchair-person, and asked his friend to end it. Peter Cowie read that poem to us and I wept. I still remember his green corduroy sports jacket with its leather patches, and him standing there in the front of our classroom, not so much reading that poem but living it.
A couple of years later I took another course from him, and he did the same thing with "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." I have memorized that poem, and several others by T.S. Eliot. Peter Cowie gave life to these poems. He would stand at the front of the room and speak the words like an actor, not merely reading the words but breathing life into them. He turned them from poems into songs from the soul.
The second most influential teacher was Mr. Christie. I never did learn his first name. He taught math, with genius. At one point when he was telling us about the congruency proof, I raised my hand in objection and said, Wait a minute, a point is a location in space, and therefore cannot be moved; you can't move triangle ABC and lay it atop DEF. He chuckled, and we got on exceptionally well from then on, and he taught me some pretty advanced stuff for a grade-ten student. For example, he showed me the Galois proof that it is impossible to trisect an angle using only a compass and a straight edge. Actually, to tell the whole story, he challenged me first to solve it, and I slaved every night for several hours, for a month, and then went to Mr. Christie's office, pouting, and said, "Mr. Christie, I can't do it/" And he said, "It's ok, Arthur, nobody else can either."
Those are my recollections of my two favourite teachers. There was a third, Philip Wright, from whom I took two courses in Philosophy, and a specialist in Greek philosophy. From him I learned about Heraclitus, Parmenides, Socrates and Plato, the Atomists, the Cynics and so much more. I will never forget his classes. At one point, in Philosophy 301 or whatever its number was, we were challenged to present a paper to our fellows. Mine was on math+art, and my central argument was "The Nude Descending a Staircase", by Marcel duChamp, which when initially exhibited at the 1914 exhibition in New York, was described by one NYT journalist as "an explosion in a shingle factory". Fine. You're entitled to your opionion. I saw an equivilance to Minkowski's math theories of the time, about the universe being an involuted four-dimensional hypersphere -- or to simplify this for the casual reader, imagine that your life is a single strand of spagetti in a bowl of similaar strands -- beginning and end are alfready disctated, and your only job is to travel this strand.
That's what I got from Marcel duChamp and the great mathematician Minkowski.
Subsequent to his teaching, I encountered a book by W.F. Stone, "The Trial of Socrates", that changed my life, and I wish that Phil were still alive so I could present some of Stone's arguments to him. Sadly, I missed that chance, but on the other hand, Phil got me addicted to philosophy and linguistics, and even at age 65 I still read this stuff. I'm a big fan of Noam Chomsky and Stephen Pinker, to name just two.
I can't let it go at that. I a huge fan of Neal Stephenson. He steered Speculative Fiction into entirely new realms. Snowcrash was awesome, but then a couple of years later came Cryptoniicon, The Primer and then the gigantic trilogy called The Baroque Cycle. This is writing on the scale of Thomas Pynchon, as evinced by V. and Gravity's Rainbow. These books are Art, not just some forgettable fling on the subway. These books are Art. It's difficult if not impossible to select a favourite, but if push comes to shove, I think that I would go with Cryptonicon or The System of the World -- not that I dislike Neal's other books, it's just that one captured my soul, perhaps because of the Turing connection. The point is, Neal Stephenson has written some of the finest literarure that I have ever read. The man is a rock-solid genius
A Story about Backgammon
The
old version of backgammon was radically revised in about 1920 with the
introduction of the doubling cube. There are no clear answers about who
introduced this change, but it totally transformed the game.
I
learned the game, well no, I knew the basics, but played Vladimir Dobrich for
40 hours straight and after that read every available book about the game. A
summer later Vlad and I attended a World backgammon championship in Nassau. For
the unacquainted, even though the first prize was then $50k, that's not where
the money is: it's on tables beside the swimming pool. And there is a variation
of championship backgammon called chouette, which involves several people
playing on a team, against a person who is called The Man In The Box. So if we're playing for $10 a
point, if TMITB loses, he loses $10 a point to each player, e.g. if the cube was passed
(e.g. doubled), then it's $20 not ten, and if passed backed (redoubled) it's now $40 per game. In other words, this can get expensive very quickly.
Anyway, I was in
Nassau, attending the Nassau Championship ($50K prize), playing in a game by the swimming pool, approximately two hours after arriving on the island. There was a chouette game underway at the pool. I knew all the opponents on sight because all but one at that point had written books. How are you going to learn except by playing your superiors? There is no other path. The opponents were:
1. Paul Magriel, who
wrote perhaps the definitive book about the game, simply called Backgammon, and resulted from his
extensive analysis of the game on a PDP-11 while teaching math at Princeton.
2. Bruce Becker, who
wrote Backgammon for Blood
3. Kent Goulding, a
Floridian and absolutely cool and expert player. I don't know if he's written a
book on the subject, but if anyone is qualified to add to the literature, I
would most certainly recommend him.
4. Vlad Dobrich, seven
times the Canadian chess champion and twice the world champion of backgammon, and
my principal instructor in the game.
5. Ozzie Jacoby, most
known for his skills in Bridge, but also the author of a book on backgammon,
and one of the greatest players in the world.
I was The Man in The
Box (which means that I'm fighting all of these world-greats). There had already been a couple of doubles, and they redoubled me, taking
the cube to 16, which meant if I accepted and lost the game, I would owe five
players 16 * $10, which would have bankrupted me and left me with only the
vague hope that I might win the tournament. I looked at the stats (for those
readers unacquainted with backgammon, the secret to success is your ability to
do rapid stats on any given position). I looked at the position and calculated
the stats and eventually concluded that they had doubled prematurely, which is
to say, ignoring the amount of money at stake, I had no alternative but to
accept the double.
Bruce was the Captain of the team, and rolled the dice, and got his worst possible roll. I followed up with one of
my several excellent possible rolls. They took another roll, which turned out
ugly. I redoubled and they all declined, and I won more money in half an hour
than I ever done in my life.
Don't get this story wrong. I am most definitely not saying that my backgammon game is superior to theirs, not even close. I think of these people as the most gifted people in the game. But that, ironically, is the point of the story. There I was, playing five of the best backgammon players in the world, and I just kind of closed my eyes and said, "It's not about the money; it's about the math." And I looked at the math and decided that I must accept this double. Emotion and drama and fear did not enter into the equation. Only one thing did: the math,
There may not be a
moral in this story, but if there is, it’s “Stick to the math, and damn the
torpedoes.” That’s what I did and continue to do. Now and then, forecasting does not correspond
to outcomes. That is to be expected. But more often than not, cold, cool
calculation wins.
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Patterns and Anti-Patterns
On this past CBC Sunday Edition The Sunday Edition, there was a fascinating piece on the lost art of walking. As it happens (oops, another CBC radio show), I walk a few kilometers per day, and sometimes lots more. I'm no marathoner, but it's not unusual for me to walk 20 kilometers in a day. Perhaps the exemplary walking marathoner would be Edward Payson Weston, who in 1909 walked from New York City to San Francisco in 105 days. Go ahead, calculate the daily rate. The astonishing thing is that he did it at age 70.
Other parts of the episode included a short piece on the virtues of walking slowly, and paying attention to what is around you. Stop and look. Is this street paved or cobblestone or something else, and why?
This thought caused me to ponder the subject of this post. It caused me to recognize my patterns of walking -- always on this side of a street rather than that, always following the same set of streets to the shopping centre, etc. So I decided that every time I detect a pattern of my own, I will consciously break it and do something else instead. Rather than overwhelm myself, I concluded that breaking just one pattern per day would suffice.
Today, however, I broke several patterns, and found the results revelatory. Upon awaking, I habitually make coffee and check my email. This morning I made tea instead, and then did not check my email, but decided to for a walk instead. I found myself drifting toward the usual street, and decided instead to use the next street over. I walked slowly, partly because I had no particular destination in mind, and partly so I could take the time to notice my surroundings. This porch is elegant; that staircase could use some paint; this front garden is exquisite. Each flower on this plant has a pentagon of stamens and one pistil. I never noticed that building before: it's called St. Ann's Church; who knew there was a Saint Ann? Splendid architecture! I seldom visit churches but made a note to visit this beauty soon, to check out the interior, which is doubtless as beautiful as her exterior.
In the past few days, I have learned something remarkable: the art or science or whatever of consciously breaking patterns. And it has caused me to look at the world around me with new eyes. I go for walks every day, typically to the grocery or the hardware or the library or the liquor store, but now I have decided that I shall forego the habitual paths and try a new one each day. I only began this anti-pattern strategy three days ago, but can testify that the results are astounding.
Doctor David Suzuki has an aphorism that I have followed since I first heard him say it on a CBC program called The Nature of Things: "Never take an elevator for fewer than 5 storeys and never drive for fewer than five blocks."
I encourage you to try these simply formulae, and pretty much guarantee that they will change your awareness of the world around you, and hence yourself.
A.
Other parts of the episode included a short piece on the virtues of walking slowly, and paying attention to what is around you. Stop and look. Is this street paved or cobblestone or something else, and why?
This thought caused me to ponder the subject of this post. It caused me to recognize my patterns of walking -- always on this side of a street rather than that, always following the same set of streets to the shopping centre, etc. So I decided that every time I detect a pattern of my own, I will consciously break it and do something else instead. Rather than overwhelm myself, I concluded that breaking just one pattern per day would suffice.
Today, however, I broke several patterns, and found the results revelatory. Upon awaking, I habitually make coffee and check my email. This morning I made tea instead, and then did not check my email, but decided to for a walk instead. I found myself drifting toward the usual street, and decided instead to use the next street over. I walked slowly, partly because I had no particular destination in mind, and partly so I could take the time to notice my surroundings. This porch is elegant; that staircase could use some paint; this front garden is exquisite. Each flower on this plant has a pentagon of stamens and one pistil. I never noticed that building before: it's called St. Ann's Church; who knew there was a Saint Ann? Splendid architecture! I seldom visit churches but made a note to visit this beauty soon, to check out the interior, which is doubtless as beautiful as her exterior.
In the past few days, I have learned something remarkable: the art or science or whatever of consciously breaking patterns. And it has caused me to look at the world around me with new eyes. I go for walks every day, typically to the grocery or the hardware or the library or the liquor store, but now I have decided that I shall forego the habitual paths and try a new one each day. I only began this anti-pattern strategy three days ago, but can testify that the results are astounding.
Doctor David Suzuki has an aphorism that I have followed since I first heard him say it on a CBC program called The Nature of Things: "Never take an elevator for fewer than 5 storeys and never drive for fewer than five blocks."
I encourage you to try these simply formulae, and pretty much guarantee that they will change your awareness of the world around you, and hence yourself.
A.
Monday, 18 February 2013
Rep by Pop: Re-drawing the USA
Despite their differences in governmental style, the USA and Canada share one political fact: the glaring inequality of voting regions based on geography rather than population. Such a scheme may have made sense two or three centuries back, but as our societies grow increasingly urban, the result is that the vote of a citizen in a sparsely populated region vastly outweighs the vote of a voter who lives in a large city or densely populated area.
One possible solution has been proposed by Neil Freeman, an artist and urban planner who, in an article posted at his site, proposes a radical re-drawing of the map of the USA (Electoral College Reform (fifty states with equal population). Mr. Freeman was careful to preserve the number of states, although he did rename them all. For a refreshing look at a possible America, I urge you to visit his site.
I for one think this is a great idea, albeit extremely unlikely to occur. I would like to apply the same principle to the map of Canada, and shall do some work on this soon. In Canada we have what we call Ridings, which are regions that elect a Member of Parliament. I have the populations of all Ridings in Canada; I just have to average them and redraw the boundaries.
One possible solution has been proposed by Neil Freeman, an artist and urban planner who, in an article posted at his site, proposes a radical re-drawing of the map of the USA (Electoral College Reform (fifty states with equal population). Mr. Freeman was careful to preserve the number of states, although he did rename them all. For a refreshing look at a possible America, I urge you to visit his site.
I for one think this is a great idea, albeit extremely unlikely to occur. I would like to apply the same principle to the map of Canada, and shall do some work on this soon. In Canada we have what we call Ridings, which are regions that elect a Member of Parliament. I have the populations of all Ridings in Canada; I just have to average them and redraw the boundaries.
TreeViews -- A Powerful Yet Simple Alternative
Treeviews – A Powerful
Alternative
I have written previously on using the TreeView within
Access (Using TreeViews).
There are a number of good reasons to use TreeViews – perhaps highest among
them is that they are everywhere within the Windows UI, with the result that virtually
everyone knows how to use them.
TreeViews are not especially easy to program. Further, they
have a number of limitations. However, I have stumbled upon a powerful
alternative that delivers an interface much more to my liking. Not only that:
it’s very powerful and flexible, and delivers precisely the amount of control
that I want. Best of all, it’s dead-simple to create – so simple, in fact, that
I wonder why it took me so long to think of it.
The following example was developed in Access 2007 and will
work in later versions. I have not tested it in previous versions.
Figure 1: Three-Level "TreeView"
This looks a lot like a formless browse of the parent table.
Access does this automatically when you have defined relationships among your
tables. However, it happens automatically only when any given parent table has
exactly one child table. When two or more child tables exist, Access can’t
determine which one to use, and therefore prompts you for the table to use. And unfortunately, once you've made that decision, you're stuck with it: every time you open the parent table, you get the same child you originally selected.
Although Figure 1 looks a lot like a formless
browse, it is actually a series of forms created in DataSheet style, then
nested. If you wish, you can even create normal forms for each level, and open
them on double-click anywhere within the row of interest. (In this app, I did
not do that, because the target users are all very comfortable in Excel, and used to the "spreadsheet" format depicted above.)
By using DataSheet forms
rather than simple table-browses, you get complete control over columns, events, validations, lookups
and so on that are available in a form. In this example, I chose to freeze the
first two or three columns at each level, so the user never loses track of which
row is active.
To create such a “treeview” form, follow these steps:
2. Starting at the bottom of the tree, create a datasheet form for each level. This command is hidden a little bit on the Create ribbon. Figure 2 shows where it is.
Figure 2: Create a DataSheet form.
3. Starting one level above the bottom, add a
subform. In this example, we create three DataSheet forms and save them. (Call
them DS1, DS2 and DS3.) Then we add a subform to DS2 , selecting DS3 as the
subform to add. Then we add a subform to DS1, selecting DS2 as the subform.
Presto! Your hierarchical form is ready to go.
4. Customize each form to suit your requirements. Write
code for events, add validations, combo-boxes. Do everything you would do to a
standard form that displays only one record at a time. Decide whether it would
be useful to freeze one or more of the columns.
That’s all there is to this simple trick. When I presented
the app to the users, they were wowed. With their approval, I used this
technique throughout the whole app, wherever hierarchies were involved.
Sunday, 27 January 2013
Idle No More
The Idle No More movement is clearly one to be reckoned with, not only by non-indigenous people but also by the "white" establishment (which will suffice as a shorthand term for all Canadian citizens that are non-indigenous; it includes citizens of all races but the emphasis is on "establishment"). Finally, it is of major concern to the Assembly of First Nations (AFN), whose national chief is Sean Atleo.
When we feel anything at all, most Canadians feel ashamed at the treatment served up to our indigenous people. We have consistently violated historical agreements, and this practice dates back a century and more. Most Canadians are oblivious to the fact that South Africa modelled its system of apartheid explicitly on the Canadian Indian Reserves model. That fact is not taught in our schools, perhaps because we are too ashamed of it -- and rightly so.
New events have cast all this history in a new light. I'm thinking specifically of the recent Supreme Court ruling that our Metis and non-status Indians are to be now recognized as Indians under the Constitutional Act. And of course, the Idle No More movement has brought all this to the forefront of consciousness in this country. It is too big to ignore.
Some of the opinions on this decision could be predicted. The economists, epitomized by Robert Lovelace (a global development studies professor at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario), declare that "This ruling could cost the government billions." On the other side, more than a few non-Metis First Nations people see this as a dilution of the moneys they currently receive. And finally, more than a few Metis people themselves are grateful that they were not included in the original definition of First Nations people, because their exclusion kept them out of the reserves system and forced them to fend for themselves; hence, overall they are doing better than the traditional First Nations people.
The Indian Act itself, whose most recent iteration was in 1985, has come under fire, with some on both sides arguing for its abolition. (For the document in full, see The Indian Act (RSC 1985.)
One thing is perfectly clear: the gap between the AFN and the federal government is so huge that tinkering with a clause here and there satisfies no one, and further, gives the federal government both grounds to say "We're trying" and excuses to do nothing substantive.
I have a more radical, but in my view far more sensible, proposal:
Abolish the Indian Act and replace it not with some similar act, but rather to declare a new Canadian province, comprised of all the reserves, crown lands, and lands currently under territory arising from land-claim settlements.
Note: Until I began to research this notion and its consequences, I had no idea that a formal paper on exactly this proposal exists. It was written by Thomas J. Courchene and Lisa M. Powell, of the Institute for Intergovernmental Relations, at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. (For the full document, see A First Nations Province).
There are more than 2,250 reserves in Canada, comprising approximately 600 First Nations governments. As of the 2006 national census, there were 1,172,790 First Nations people in Canada (this number includes First Nations, Inuit and Metis).
The following chart shows population by province from 2008 to 2012.
To put it another way, the First Nations Province would be larger than Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Given that the creation of FNP would also be the subtraction of these people from the provincial numbers above, it's quite possible that FNP would surpass Manitoba as well, in terms of population.
Above all, the creation of FNP would finally give the First Nations peoples a place at all the First Ministers conferences, and entitle them to all the benefits and responsibilities enjoyed by the other provinces.
This change would have dramatic consequences, virtually all of which would be good in the end. perhaps the most immediate and obvious consequence would be the instant creation of a new "have not" province, and thus a significant shift in the moneys paid out in equalization payments. This new virtual province would also become responsible for education and medical plans; and be able to impose provincial taxes on its citizens. There are many more consequences, which have been addressed thoroughly in the paper cited above. I encourage the interested reader to examine this paper and give it careful consideration.
There remains the serious question of how to consolidate so many First Nations governments into a single entity. One thing is clear, however: this is not a problem for the federal government to solve. That is exactly the wrong thing to do. This is best left for the First Nations peoples themselves to solve.
I don't expect a solution to appear overnight. But I see no reason why the First Nations peoples would object to this proposal. On the other hand, I can easily imagine the federal government's objections, virtually all of which reduce to dollars. That in my view is unacceptable -- as unacceptable as was South African apartheid.
When we feel anything at all, most Canadians feel ashamed at the treatment served up to our indigenous people. We have consistently violated historical agreements, and this practice dates back a century and more. Most Canadians are oblivious to the fact that South Africa modelled its system of apartheid explicitly on the Canadian Indian Reserves model. That fact is not taught in our schools, perhaps because we are too ashamed of it -- and rightly so.
New events have cast all this history in a new light. I'm thinking specifically of the recent Supreme Court ruling that our Metis and non-status Indians are to be now recognized as Indians under the Constitutional Act. And of course, the Idle No More movement has brought all this to the forefront of consciousness in this country. It is too big to ignore.
Some of the opinions on this decision could be predicted. The economists, epitomized by Robert Lovelace (a global development studies professor at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario), declare that "This ruling could cost the government billions." On the other side, more than a few non-Metis First Nations people see this as a dilution of the moneys they currently receive. And finally, more than a few Metis people themselves are grateful that they were not included in the original definition of First Nations people, because their exclusion kept them out of the reserves system and forced them to fend for themselves; hence, overall they are doing better than the traditional First Nations people.
The Indian Act itself, whose most recent iteration was in 1985, has come under fire, with some on both sides arguing for its abolition. (For the document in full, see The Indian Act (RSC 1985.)
One thing is perfectly clear: the gap between the AFN and the federal government is so huge that tinkering with a clause here and there satisfies no one, and further, gives the federal government both grounds to say "We're trying" and excuses to do nothing substantive.
I have a more radical, but in my view far more sensible, proposal:
Abolish the Indian Act and replace it not with some similar act, but rather to declare a new Canadian province, comprised of all the reserves, crown lands, and lands currently under territory arising from land-claim settlements.
Note: Until I began to research this notion and its consequences, I had no idea that a formal paper on exactly this proposal exists. It was written by Thomas J. Courchene and Lisa M. Powell, of the Institute for Intergovernmental Relations, at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario. (For the full document, see A First Nations Province).
There are more than 2,250 reserves in Canada, comprising approximately 600 First Nations governments. As of the 2006 national census, there were 1,172,790 First Nations people in Canada (this number includes First Nations, Inuit and Metis).
The following chart shows population by province from 2008 to 2012.
| 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | |
| persons (thousands) | |||||
| Canada | 33,317.70 | 33,726.90 | 34,126.50 | 34,484.00 | 34,880.50 |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | 506.4 | 509.1 | 511.9 | 512.9 | 512.7 |
| Prince Edward Island | 139.5 | 141.1 | 143.1 | 145.7 | 146.1 |
| Nova Scotia | 937.5 | 940.6 | 945.2 | 948.5 | 948.7 |
| New Brunswick | 746.9 | 749.9 | 752.9 | 755.3 | 756 |
| Quebec | 7,750.50 | 7,825.80 | 7,905.10 | 7,978.00 | 8,054.80 |
| Ontario | 12,932.50 | 13,068.80 | 13,223.80 | 13,366.30 | 13,505.90 |
| Manitoba | 1,205.70 | 1,219.90 | 1,235.70 | 1,251.70 | 1,267.00 |
| Saskatchewan | 1,013.80 | 1,029.50 | 1,044.40 | 1,057.80 | 1,080.00 |
| Alberta | 3,592.20 | 3,672.70 | 3,723.80 | 3,778.10 | 3,873.70 |
| British Columbia | 4,384.30 | 4,459.90 | 4,529.50 | 4,576.60 | 4,622.60 |
| Yukon | 33.1 | 33.7 | 34.6 | 35.4 | 36.1 |
| Northwest Territories | 43.7 | 43.6 | 43.9 | 44.2 | 43.3 |
| Nunavut | 31.6 | 32.2 | 32.8 | 33.6 | 33.7 |
| Note: Population as of July 1. | |||||
| Source: Statistics Canada, CANSIM, table 051-0001. | |||||
| Last modified: 2012-09-27. | |||||
To put it another way, the First Nations Province would be larger than Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Given that the creation of FNP would also be the subtraction of these people from the provincial numbers above, it's quite possible that FNP would surpass Manitoba as well, in terms of population.
Above all, the creation of FNP would finally give the First Nations peoples a place at all the First Ministers conferences, and entitle them to all the benefits and responsibilities enjoyed by the other provinces.
This change would have dramatic consequences, virtually all of which would be good in the end. perhaps the most immediate and obvious consequence would be the instant creation of a new "have not" province, and thus a significant shift in the moneys paid out in equalization payments. This new virtual province would also become responsible for education and medical plans; and be able to impose provincial taxes on its citizens. There are many more consequences, which have been addressed thoroughly in the paper cited above. I encourage the interested reader to examine this paper and give it careful consideration.
There remains the serious question of how to consolidate so many First Nations governments into a single entity. One thing is clear, however: this is not a problem for the federal government to solve. That is exactly the wrong thing to do. This is best left for the First Nations peoples themselves to solve.
I don't expect a solution to appear overnight. But I see no reason why the First Nations peoples would object to this proposal. On the other hand, I can easily imagine the federal government's objections, virtually all of which reduce to dollars. That in my view is unacceptable -- as unacceptable as was South African apartheid.
Monday, 14 January 2013
How about Obama's cajones?
In the US every year, guns kill almost as many people as cars do. Many
of those victims are children, and many of those tragedies happen at
home. If you compare the rational licencing controls on driving a
car with the lax controls on owning and carrying a gun in the US, you feel sick.
So it may seem reassuring that there's broad public support in the US for more effective gun control. In a recent Pew poll, 85% of US respondents support background checks for private and gun show sales, 80% support banning gun sales to the mentally ill, 67% support a federal database to track gun sales, 64% support armed guards in schools, 58% support a ban on semi-automatic weapons, 55% support a ban on assault-style weapons, and 54% support a ban on high-capacity gun clips. A recent Washington Post/ABC poll found even stronger support for gun control.
Yes, you have to worry about that mental illness question. Error rates in psychiatric diagnosis run about 25%. That's at least 2,500% higher than the percentage of mentally ill people who kill themselves or others with guns. Prognostic predictions by psychiatrists are even worse. The simplest Bayesian arithmetic shows how useless such a program would be.
And you have to worry too about armed guards in schools. Would you send your child to a school where the guards are armed?
And the Pew poll revealed an interesting divide. Respondents with high school education or less are 31% more supportive of armed guards in schools. Did we know that the NRA view that "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" plays best to the less well educated?
Still, the polls are clear, the US public wants more gun control, even if two of the controls they favour look dodgy.
Will the US public's preferences translate into effective legislation? Well, about two-thirds of the US public wanted a public option in health care, but the health and insurance industries would have none of it; they made sure no such legislation made it to the floor of Congress, and Obama refused to fight for it.
Likewise, about two-thirds of the US public wants gun control, but the lobby for 5,400 gun manufacturers has the same kind of stranglehold on Congress. A couple of weeks ago, I asked if there were enough Congressional cajones to pass effective gun controls. Since then, only about a dozen Republicans have publicly broken ranks with the NRA. Not nearly enough.
Then does it come down to whether Obama is Chamberlain or Churchill?
So it may seem reassuring that there's broad public support in the US for more effective gun control. In a recent Pew poll, 85% of US respondents support background checks for private and gun show sales, 80% support banning gun sales to the mentally ill, 67% support a federal database to track gun sales, 64% support armed guards in schools, 58% support a ban on semi-automatic weapons, 55% support a ban on assault-style weapons, and 54% support a ban on high-capacity gun clips. A recent Washington Post/ABC poll found even stronger support for gun control.
Yes, you have to worry about that mental illness question. Error rates in psychiatric diagnosis run about 25%. That's at least 2,500% higher than the percentage of mentally ill people who kill themselves or others with guns. Prognostic predictions by psychiatrists are even worse. The simplest Bayesian arithmetic shows how useless such a program would be.
And you have to worry too about armed guards in schools. Would you send your child to a school where the guards are armed?
And the Pew poll revealed an interesting divide. Respondents with high school education or less are 31% more supportive of armed guards in schools. Did we know that the NRA view that "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun" plays best to the less well educated?
Still, the polls are clear, the US public wants more gun control, even if two of the controls they favour look dodgy.
Will the US public's preferences translate into effective legislation? Well, about two-thirds of the US public wanted a public option in health care, but the health and insurance industries would have none of it; they made sure no such legislation made it to the floor of Congress, and Obama refused to fight for it.
Likewise, about two-thirds of the US public wants gun control, but the lobby for 5,400 gun manufacturers has the same kind of stranglehold on Congress. A couple of weeks ago, I asked if there were enough Congressional cajones to pass effective gun controls. Since then, only about a dozen Republicans have publicly broken ranks with the NRA. Not nearly enough.
Then does it come down to whether Obama is Chamberlain or Churchill?
Sunday, 23 December 2012
Cajones for Congress?
Does Fareed Zakaria's support in the Washington Post and on CNN for effective gun regulation indicate we can hope the US will get sensible about guns?
The US has 30 times more gun homicides per capita than Australia, France and England & Wales, twelve times the average for other developed countries.
A child in the US is 42.7 times more likely to die from gun violence than in other OECD countries.
If that were mainly because the US is intrinsically violent, the US would have ten or twenty or thirty times higher rates of robbery, rape and assault. It doesn't. US rates of other violent crimes are comparable to rates in other developed countries.
If it were because of violence in pop culture, other countries with similar pop culture violence, like the US and Australia and Japan, would have gun homicide rates like the US's. They don't. Japanese kids love violent video games, and Japan's gun homicide rate is near zero.
If it were because the US has more crazy people, epidemiologists would find ten or twenty or thirty times more psychosis and sociopathy in the US than in Britain, Australia, France and other comparable countries. They don't. Rates of serious mental are comparable, and psychiatric care is better in the US than in many of those countries with much lower gun death rates.
The difference is gun ownership. The US has more guns than adults. It has 5% of the world's population but 50% of the world's guns.
In the ten years after Australia banned all automatic and semiautomatic weapons in 1996, their gun homicide rate dropped nearly three-fifths and their gun suicide rate dropped nearly two-thirds.
As Zakaria says, the solution's blindingly obvious: regulate guns, ban assault weapons. He thinks the US problem is lack of courage.
To solve this problem, courage is needed in just one place, the US congress, where so many legislators are afraid of losing the NRA's approval and bribes.
It'd be lovely to imagine that those cowards are about to grow some cajones. Dare we hope?
The US has 30 times more gun homicides per capita than Australia, France and England & Wales, twelve times the average for other developed countries.
A child in the US is 42.7 times more likely to die from gun violence than in other OECD countries.
If that were mainly because the US is intrinsically violent, the US would have ten or twenty or thirty times higher rates of robbery, rape and assault. It doesn't. US rates of other violent crimes are comparable to rates in other developed countries.
If it were because of violence in pop culture, other countries with similar pop culture violence, like the US and Australia and Japan, would have gun homicide rates like the US's. They don't. Japanese kids love violent video games, and Japan's gun homicide rate is near zero.
If it were because the US has more crazy people, epidemiologists would find ten or twenty or thirty times more psychosis and sociopathy in the US than in Britain, Australia, France and other comparable countries. They don't. Rates of serious mental are comparable, and psychiatric care is better in the US than in many of those countries with much lower gun death rates.
The difference is gun ownership. The US has more guns than adults. It has 5% of the world's population but 50% of the world's guns.
In the ten years after Australia banned all automatic and semiautomatic weapons in 1996, their gun homicide rate dropped nearly three-fifths and their gun suicide rate dropped nearly two-thirds.
As Zakaria says, the solution's blindingly obvious: regulate guns, ban assault weapons. He thinks the US problem is lack of courage.
To solve this problem, courage is needed in just one place, the US congress, where so many legislators are afraid of losing the NRA's approval and bribes.
It'd be lovely to imagine that those cowards are about to grow some cajones. Dare we hope?
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
USA, pervasively corrupt
The US has 751 people per 100,000 in prison.
That's the highest incarceration rate in the world, five times the rate in England, eight times the rate in Germany, 12 times the rate in Japan. Yet the US mostly refuses to prosecute financial criminals like those whose malfeasance brought on the 2008 financial crash, and like the HSBC executives who for decades laundered money for Al Qaida terrorists.
Why? Those financial institutions and their executives are big-time political donors, and they're big-time practitioners of the bribery that largely controls legislation in the US, and so heavily influences other government action here.
On 13 December a disturbed man attacked 20 or more young pupils and at least one adult in an elementary school.
A day later, another disturbed man attacked 20 or more young pupils and at least one adult in another elementary school.
Every victim of the first attack is still alive. Twenty-six victims of the second attack, twenty of them six or seven years old, died.
What was the difference? The first attacker was in Chengping China and had only a knife. The Sandy Hook attacker brought a semi-automatic assault rifle and two handguns.
Guns do kill. All over the world, people in democracies understand that. They've sensibly persuaded their governments to protect them from guns.
Guns do kill. All over the world, people in democracies understand that. They've sensibly persuaded their governments to protect them from guns.
Even a few undemocratic governments understand that.
Not in the USA. Why? Because 5,400 US gun manufacturers make huge profits on gun sales, $13.6 billion in 2011, and nothing stops them from shovelling enough of that money to the NRA, and directly to politicians, to buy obstruction of effective gun control.
Is this corruption specific to finance and guns? No. It also pervades the US prison industry, the US pharmaceutical industry, the US health insurance industry, the US energy industry, US defence industries and the US media.
You're expecting Sandy Hook to trigger a big change in gun control in the US?
Monday, 17 December 2012
Laurier LaPierre, R.I.P.
Today one of Canada's greatest citizens passed away at the age of 83. He was most famous as the co-host of the ground-breaking CBC-TV program This Hour Has Seven Days, but he was much more than that. A journalist, a teacher, a high-school principal, the first openly gay member of the Canadian Senate, and one of the few broadcasters in the history of the CBC ever to be fired (along with his co-host, Patrick Watson), Mr. LaPierre infuriated his bosses at the CBC and simultaneously won the hearts of the Canadian public from coast to coast to coast.
This Hour made television history, and not only in Canada. Its influence spread around the world, and it served as the model for television journalism worldwide. Its most obvious descendant, in American terms, was 60 Minutes, which although nowhere near as sharp and confrontational, in its own sphere also pushed the envelope. Laurier (one cannot help but call him by his first name, he had that kind of relationship with his audience -- one of intimacy, of empathy, and of absolute fearlessness when dealing with powerful politicians.
In one of his most famous and provocative interviews, with the mother of Stephen Truscott, who was found guilty of the rape and murder of his classmate and sentenced to be hanged -- at the age of 14. A year later, Truscott's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In 2001, Truscott filed for a judicial review of his conviction. In 2007, after examining more than 250 pieces of evidence, the Ontario Court of Appeal declared his conviction a miscarriage of justice, and acquitted Truscott of the murder. During the interview with Truscott's mother, Laurier was seen to shed a tear, and this perhaps more than any other action sealed Laurier's fate with the CBC.
He so enraged CBC executives at the time that they not only fired Laurier and co-host Patrick Watson, but they also cancelled the show itself, as if determined to eradicate all traces not only of LaPierre and Watson, but of the program itself. This action inspired a nationwide protest the likes of which neither CBC nor Canada at large had ever seen.
Since then, a number of documentaries and books have been published describing the program, its influence and its wars. In its wake have come a number of vaguely similar shows (CBC's The Fifth Estate and Marketplace, CTV's W5, and others), but none have had the same impact as This Hour. It galvanized the nation, and no other journalistic program has ever gathered more viewers. It was almost as if it were a National Hockey League broadcast. Millions of Canadians gathered around the tube once a week, with a palpable aura of excitement.
As a Senator, Laurier continued in his fearless ways. He was a joy to behold, and he will never be forgotten -- even, and perhaps especially by, his enemies. He will be missed by a grateful nation.
In one of his most famous and provocative interviews, with the mother of Stephen Truscott, who was found guilty of the rape and murder of his classmate and sentenced to be hanged -- at the age of 14. A year later, Truscott's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In 2001, Truscott filed for a judicial review of his conviction. In 2007, after examining more than 250 pieces of evidence, the Ontario Court of Appeal declared his conviction a miscarriage of justice, and acquitted Truscott of the murder. During the interview with Truscott's mother, Laurier was seen to shed a tear, and this perhaps more than any other action sealed Laurier's fate with the CBC.
He so enraged CBC executives at the time that they not only fired Laurier and co-host Patrick Watson, but they also cancelled the show itself, as if determined to eradicate all traces not only of LaPierre and Watson, but of the program itself. This action inspired a nationwide protest the likes of which neither CBC nor Canada at large had ever seen.
Since then, a number of documentaries and books have been published describing the program, its influence and its wars. In its wake have come a number of vaguely similar shows (CBC's The Fifth Estate and Marketplace, CTV's W5, and others), but none have had the same impact as This Hour. It galvanized the nation, and no other journalistic program has ever gathered more viewers. It was almost as if it were a National Hockey League broadcast. Millions of Canadians gathered around the tube once a week, with a palpable aura of excitement.
As a Senator, Laurier continued in his fearless ways. He was a joy to behold, and he will never be forgotten -- even, and perhaps especially by, his enemies. He will be missed by a grateful nation.
Worse than we knew
Since the massacre at Columbine High School in 1999, the US has had 31 school shootings. The rest of the world has had less than half that many, 14. To explore the details visit here and scroll down to the interactive map.
More than twice as many as the rest of the world put together is worse than we knew. But you're telling yourself, these violence statistics are just black swans, weird outliers---the US is still one of the greatest countries in the world, right?
Think again. Edward Fullbrook, editor of Real World Economics Review, has published a wee ebook tabulating how the US compares with 29 other OECD countries on 56 measures of personal, social, economic and political life.
On eight health measures, the US ranks an average of 28th of 30.
On healthy life expectancy from birth, the US ranks 24th of 30. Its citizens can expect six fewer years of healthy life than the citizens of Japan, five less than citizens of Switzerland, four less than citizens of Sweden, Iceland, Italy, Australia and Spain.
Its infant mortality rate is 25th worst of 30, 2½ times higher than Sweden's. Its obesity rate is worst of all OECD countries, eleven times higher than South Korea, eight times higher than Japan, four times higher than Switzerland and Norway.
Well maybe, you say. But it's still a great place to live, isn't it? On eight family life measures the US is dead last.
Its teenage pregnancy rate is 23 times higher than that of South Korea, eleven times that of Japan, nine times higher than The Netherlands and Switzerland. On paid maternity, Denmark guarantees 100% of annual wages, Norway 86%, Germany 84%, Sweden 82%, The US provides 0%; no other OECD country is that stingy. The US child poverty rate is second worst, 22%, nine times that of Denmark, eight times that of Finland, five times that of Sweden. Its divorce rate is worst, four times that of Mexico Italy and Ireland, twice Canada's rate.
But you say, at least it's a leading democracy! On freedom and democracy the US is also dead last.
It's worst in voter turnout. It's also worst by a huge margin in prisoners per capita---the US incarceration rate is 77 times that of Iceland, twelve times that of Ireland and Norway, ten times that of Finland, Denmark, Switzerland and Sweden. It's near worst in percent of parliamentarians who are women, press freedom, and collective bargaining coverage
But surely with its emphasis on law and order, the US is a shining example of public order and safety? On public order and safety, the US is also dead last.
I've written about homicide and gun ownership rates. In HIV infection rate and cocaine abuse the US ranks worst. Its robbery rate is one of the worst, 31 times higher than Japan, fifteen times higher than South Korea and France. Road fatality rate and percent of lifetime lost to injury are near worst.
Well, you say, at least the US is one of the most generous countries? On generosity the US also ranks dead last.
On NGO and public tsunami relief pledges, the US is middle of the table; Norwegians and Swiss give eight times more per capita. On government foreign aid, asylum seekers accepted per capita, greenhouse gas emissions per capita, efforts to reduce exploitation of the global commons and ecological footprint, the US is near the bottom, and on net development assistance as percent of gross national income, the US is dead last.
Well at least don't Americans enjoy a nice life? On income and leisure the US ranks 27th of 30.
It's 7th of 30 in GDP per hour worked, 12th in ratio of female to male income, but worst or near worst in hours worked, share of income received by the poorest 20%, income inequality and vacation days per year.
Only in education does the US escape the bottom ranks.
It's in the middle of the table on high school and university enrolment, student reading and scientific literacy; near the bottom in problem solving, math literacy, and in percent of college grads working in scientific and engineering jobs.
The statistics on violence and guns in the US aren't black swans. They look more like indicators of social and political disintegration, due to forty years of neoliberalism and plutonomy.
More than twice as many as the rest of the world put together is worse than we knew. But you're telling yourself, these violence statistics are just black swans, weird outliers---the US is still one of the greatest countries in the world, right?
Think again. Edward Fullbrook, editor of Real World Economics Review, has published a wee ebook tabulating how the US compares with 29 other OECD countries on 56 measures of personal, social, economic and political life.
On eight health measures, the US ranks an average of 28th of 30.
On healthy life expectancy from birth, the US ranks 24th of 30. Its citizens can expect six fewer years of healthy life than the citizens of Japan, five less than citizens of Switzerland, four less than citizens of Sweden, Iceland, Italy, Australia and Spain.
Its infant mortality rate is 25th worst of 30, 2½ times higher than Sweden's. Its obesity rate is worst of all OECD countries, eleven times higher than South Korea, eight times higher than Japan, four times higher than Switzerland and Norway.
Well maybe, you say. But it's still a great place to live, isn't it? On eight family life measures the US is dead last.
Its teenage pregnancy rate is 23 times higher than that of South Korea, eleven times that of Japan, nine times higher than The Netherlands and Switzerland. On paid maternity, Denmark guarantees 100% of annual wages, Norway 86%, Germany 84%, Sweden 82%, The US provides 0%; no other OECD country is that stingy. The US child poverty rate is second worst, 22%, nine times that of Denmark, eight times that of Finland, five times that of Sweden. Its divorce rate is worst, four times that of Mexico Italy and Ireland, twice Canada's rate.
But you say, at least it's a leading democracy! On freedom and democracy the US is also dead last.
It's worst in voter turnout. It's also worst by a huge margin in prisoners per capita---the US incarceration rate is 77 times that of Iceland, twelve times that of Ireland and Norway, ten times that of Finland, Denmark, Switzerland and Sweden. It's near worst in percent of parliamentarians who are women, press freedom, and collective bargaining coverage
But surely with its emphasis on law and order, the US is a shining example of public order and safety? On public order and safety, the US is also dead last.
I've written about homicide and gun ownership rates. In HIV infection rate and cocaine abuse the US ranks worst. Its robbery rate is one of the worst, 31 times higher than Japan, fifteen times higher than South Korea and France. Road fatality rate and percent of lifetime lost to injury are near worst.
Well, you say, at least the US is one of the most generous countries? On generosity the US also ranks dead last.
On NGO and public tsunami relief pledges, the US is middle of the table; Norwegians and Swiss give eight times more per capita. On government foreign aid, asylum seekers accepted per capita, greenhouse gas emissions per capita, efforts to reduce exploitation of the global commons and ecological footprint, the US is near the bottom, and on net development assistance as percent of gross national income, the US is dead last.
Well at least don't Americans enjoy a nice life? On income and leisure the US ranks 27th of 30.
It's 7th of 30 in GDP per hour worked, 12th in ratio of female to male income, but worst or near worst in hours worked, share of income received by the poorest 20%, income inequality and vacation days per year.
Only in education does the US escape the bottom ranks.
It's in the middle of the table on high school and university enrolment, student reading and scientific literacy; near the bottom in problem solving, math literacy, and in percent of college grads working in scientific and engineering jobs.
The statistics on violence and guns in the US aren't black swans. They look more like indicators of social and political disintegration, due to forty years of neoliberalism and plutonomy.
Mass Murders and Shooting Sprees in USA
There's a thought-provoking piece on the Mother Jones web site. It includes a map, a portion of which is depicted below:
The original map image depicts the entire nation, and further, if you hover your mouse over the various dots, a pop-up provides additional information about each incident.
I urge you to visit the original article and map:
Mass Murders and Shooting Sprees in the USA.
If Friday's horrific incident is not enough to provoke some serious debate about gun-control in the United States, it's difficult to say what is.
The irony of the situation is that statistically speaking, violent crime has never been lower in the United States. People have never been safer than now. Unfortunately, they do not feel safe, and therefore they feel the need to possess arms -- in case something like this happens to them. The facts, however, speak otherwise. In all these violent incidents, there has been only one occurrence in which a bystander shot the assailant. And even in this case, the facts bear closer scrutiny. What actually happened was this: the assailant escaped the scene on a bicycle; the citizen chased him with his car, knocked him down, and then departed his vehicle and shot the perpetrator. In sum, this is hardly a justification for his possession of the weapon; the vehicle was more than enough.
The standard (one might almost say knee-jerk) justification for the right of an American citizen to possess an assault weapon is the Second Amendment. But even this occurs in more than one version (one version was passed by Congress, another was ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State). The differences are minimal, having to do with capitalization of certain words, but they do have one thing in common: they are almost always cited in part and/or out of context. Here is the version that Jefferson authenticated:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
One might first of all point out that this "right" should be understood in the context of a militia. That would have been my own interpretation. However, in 2008 the United States Supreme Court ruled (District of Columbia v Heller 554 US 570) that the right to keep and bear arms does not depend upon one's membership in a militia, and that the right extends to the use of said firearm for lawful purposes, including defense of one's home.
President Obama has sworn "to do everything in my power to prevent these senseless acts from ever occurring again." The real question, I suppose, is How much power does he have?
As David Frum, well-known conservative thinker and former presidential speechwriter, phrased it, "The real problem is to keep the most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the most dangerous people." Mr. Frum is perhaps being realistic. A general ban on firearms in the United States is simply a non-starter; perhaps he is right to begin with a ban on automatic and even semi-automatic weapons.
Such a ban would demand the surrender of all such weapons to law enforcement agencies, and further that anyone found in possession of such a weapon be subject to an automatic term in prison.
I would also argue for the imprinting of all firearms with a non-removable identification number, which shall appear on every bill of sale of said weapon. This would enable the tracking of each and every weapon from the factory in which it was manufactured through all its middle-men, all the way to the household cabinet in which it ultimately is stored. Obviously, this will do nothing about all the millions of weapons already in the hands of the public, but it is a start.
The original map image depicts the entire nation, and further, if you hover your mouse over the various dots, a pop-up provides additional information about each incident.I urge you to visit the original article and map:
Mass Murders and Shooting Sprees in the USA.
If Friday's horrific incident is not enough to provoke some serious debate about gun-control in the United States, it's difficult to say what is.
The irony of the situation is that statistically speaking, violent crime has never been lower in the United States. People have never been safer than now. Unfortunately, they do not feel safe, and therefore they feel the need to possess arms -- in case something like this happens to them. The facts, however, speak otherwise. In all these violent incidents, there has been only one occurrence in which a bystander shot the assailant. And even in this case, the facts bear closer scrutiny. What actually happened was this: the assailant escaped the scene on a bicycle; the citizen chased him with his car, knocked him down, and then departed his vehicle and shot the perpetrator. In sum, this is hardly a justification for his possession of the weapon; the vehicle was more than enough.
The standard (one might almost say knee-jerk) justification for the right of an American citizen to possess an assault weapon is the Second Amendment. But even this occurs in more than one version (one version was passed by Congress, another was ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State). The differences are minimal, having to do with capitalization of certain words, but they do have one thing in common: they are almost always cited in part and/or out of context. Here is the version that Jefferson authenticated:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
One might first of all point out that this "right" should be understood in the context of a militia. That would have been my own interpretation. However, in 2008 the United States Supreme Court ruled (District of Columbia v Heller 554 US 570) that the right to keep and bear arms does not depend upon one's membership in a militia, and that the right extends to the use of said firearm for lawful purposes, including defense of one's home.
President Obama has sworn "to do everything in my power to prevent these senseless acts from ever occurring again." The real question, I suppose, is How much power does he have?
As David Frum, well-known conservative thinker and former presidential speechwriter, phrased it, "The real problem is to keep the most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the most dangerous people." Mr. Frum is perhaps being realistic. A general ban on firearms in the United States is simply a non-starter; perhaps he is right to begin with a ban on automatic and even semi-automatic weapons.
Such a ban would demand the surrender of all such weapons to law enforcement agencies, and further that anyone found in possession of such a weapon be subject to an automatic term in prison.
I would also argue for the imprinting of all firearms with a non-removable identification number, which shall appear on every bill of sale of said weapon. This would enable the tracking of each and every weapon from the factory in which it was manufactured through all its middle-men, all the way to the household cabinet in which it ultimately is stored. Obviously, this will do nothing about all the millions of weapons already in the hands of the public, but it is a start.
Sunday, 16 December 2012
Violence in the US
Is the US more violent than other developed countries? Here are assault deaths per 100,000 in the US (blue) and in other OECD countries excluding Estonia and Mexico (red) from 1960 through 2010 ...
On the whole, US violence is comparable to that in 16th and 17th century Europe. What parts of the US are most violent? From 1998 through 2010, the South, by a longshot ...
How do US regions compare with those OECD countries?
How about the "race" of the victim?
What's the relationship with wealth and poverty? Not so strong ...
Do states that control gun ownership have less gun violence? On the whole yes ...
What are the biggest positive correlates of high gun death rates in US states? McCain's vote share in 2008, high poverty rates, a big working class, guns allowed in high schools ...
What are the biggest negative correlates? The proportion of college graduates, Obama's vote share in 2008, and gun control legislation.
(To enlarge the chart, click on it. To return, click outside the enlarged chart.)
On the whole, US violence is comparable to that in 16th and 17th century Europe. What parts of the US are most violent? From 1998 through 2010, the South, by a longshot ...
http://www.kieranhealy.org/files/misc/assault-deaths-oecd-vs-us-regions.png
How about the "race" of the victim?
http://www.kieranhealy.org/files/misc/assault-deaths-us-ts-race.png
Do states that control gun ownership have less gun violence? On the whole yes ...
What are the biggest positive correlates of high gun death rates in US states? McCain's vote share in 2008, high poverty rates, a big working class, guns allowed in high schools ...
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/richard_florida/Gun%20ViolenceEDIT.jpg
What are the biggest negative correlates? The proportion of college graduates, Obama's vote share in 2008, and gun control legislation.
Gun advocates are wrong
They say more will guns protect us from homicide.
If more guns protected us from homicide, states and countries with more gun ownership and less gun control would have lower gun homicide rates.
The opposite is the case. Harvard studies found that even when you control for poverty, urbanisation and age, there is more gun homicide where there is more gun ownership.
There are more gun homicides and overall homicides in US states with more gun ownership. That holds for men and women and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanisation, alcohol consumption, and poverty.
Similar findings hold for high-income countries across the world.
Contrary to claims by gun advocates, Israel is not an example of a country where high gun ownership reduces gun homicide. The US has about 89 guns per 100 people. Israel has about 7 guns per 100 people. Israel severely limits who can own a gun.
Neither is Switzerland. It has about half as many guns per capita as the US. Everyone serves in the army, and cantons used to let people keep guns at home, but they're moving these guns to depots.
None of this is secret knowledge ...
1. Hepburn L, Hemenway D, Firearm availability and homicide: A review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40.
2. Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenway D, Household firearm ownership levels and homicide rates across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997. American Journal of Public Health. 2002: 92:1988-1993
3. Miller, M, Azrael D, Hemenway D, State-level homicide victimization rates in the U.S. in relation to survey measures of household firearm ownership, 2001-2003. Social Science and Medicine. 2007; 64:656-64.
4. Hemenway D, Miller M, Firearm availability and homicide rates across 26 high income countries. Journal of Trauma. 2000; 49:985-88.
5. Florida R, The geography of gun deaths, http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/the-geography-of-gun-deaths/69354/
If more guns protected us from homicide, states and countries with more gun ownership and less gun control would have lower gun homicide rates.
The opposite is the case. Harvard studies found that even when you control for poverty, urbanisation and age, there is more gun homicide where there is more gun ownership.
There are more gun homicides and overall homicides in US states with more gun ownership. That holds for men and women and all age groups, after accounting for rates of aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, urbanisation, alcohol consumption, and poverty.
Similar findings hold for high-income countries across the world.
Contrary to claims by gun advocates, Israel is not an example of a country where high gun ownership reduces gun homicide. The US has about 89 guns per 100 people. Israel has about 7 guns per 100 people. Israel severely limits who can own a gun.
Neither is Switzerland. It has about half as many guns per capita as the US. Everyone serves in the army, and cantons used to let people keep guns at home, but they're moving these guns to depots.
None of this is secret knowledge ...
1. Hepburn L, Hemenway D, Firearm availability and homicide: A review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior: A Review Journal. 2004; 9:417-40.
2. Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenway D, Household firearm ownership levels and homicide rates across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997. American Journal of Public Health. 2002: 92:1988-1993
3. Miller, M, Azrael D, Hemenway D, State-level homicide victimization rates in the U.S. in relation to survey measures of household firearm ownership, 2001-2003. Social Science and Medicine. 2007; 64:656-64.
4. Hemenway D, Miller M, Firearm availability and homicide rates across 26 high income countries. Journal of Trauma. 2000; 49:985-88.
5. Florida R, The geography of gun deaths, http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/the-geography-of-gun-deaths/69354/
Friday, 14 December 2012
Save the children. From our guns.
There are 2 to 100 times more gun murders and suicides per capita in the US than in other developed countries.
You could argue that if US adults are crazy enough to elect politicians who are in the pocket of the gun lobby, if they're crazy enough to elect them over and over again, maybe they deserve their bloody fates.
But a child living in the US is 42 times more likely to die from gun violence than a child living in other developed countries.
Nobody has the right to do that to children.
Starting with the Appeaser-in-Chief, US politicians and pundits have already resumed the chant, "Now is not the time to debate gun control".
This is exactly the time.
Eliot Spitzer said it best:
There's the old line, now is not the time to talk politics. Let's be clear. Silence is politics. Silence is cowardice. Silence is acquiescence. Silence is what the NRA wants. Those who are silent should be thrown out of politics ... If you are silent, you are a coward.
The biggest terrorist menace in the US is the NRA. Now isn't the time to be a coward.
P.S. To get a little closer to the 20 kids and six teachers killed at Sandy Hook, goto http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/15/connecticut-shooting-victims_n_2308463.html and scroll down to the slideshow.
Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Pandit Ravi Shankar, R.I.P.
Like many of the hippie generation, I became interested in Ravi Shankar and Indian classical music generally as a direct result of hearing George Harrison play the sitar on "Norwegian Wood" and "Within You Without You". It's fair to say that these songs changed my musical life.
Before long, I was an avid fan of the music, and specifically, of the tabla (the drums that accompany most classical Indian performers such as Ravi Shankar). Eventually, I found a tabla instructor in Toronto, and became a student of tabla, studying for several years with Ritesh Das, founder of The Toronto Tabla Ensemble. I even dedicated my first book to Zakir Hussain, the master tabla player whose father was the inestimable Alla Rakha, almost always the tabla player who accompanied Ravi Shankar.
One of the most memorable concerts I ever attended was in New York City, and featured several of the leading stars of Indian music -- Ravi Shankar (sitar), Ali Akbar Khan (sarod), Shivkumar Sharma (santoor), Hariprasad Chaurasia (flute) and Alla Rakha. As the years passed, I soon came to love the music of other players such as G.S. Sachdev (flute) and Swapan Chaduri (tabla).
Classical Indian music remains one of my greatest loves. I have a couple of hundred CDs and have attended close to that many concerts. I owe all of this to Pandit Ravi Shankar. He will be missed.
Before long, I was an avid fan of the music, and specifically, of the tabla (the drums that accompany most classical Indian performers such as Ravi Shankar). Eventually, I found a tabla instructor in Toronto, and became a student of tabla, studying for several years with Ritesh Das, founder of The Toronto Tabla Ensemble. I even dedicated my first book to Zakir Hussain, the master tabla player whose father was the inestimable Alla Rakha, almost always the tabla player who accompanied Ravi Shankar.
One of the most memorable concerts I ever attended was in New York City, and featured several of the leading stars of Indian music -- Ravi Shankar (sitar), Ali Akbar Khan (sarod), Shivkumar Sharma (santoor), Hariprasad Chaurasia (flute) and Alla Rakha. As the years passed, I soon came to love the music of other players such as G.S. Sachdev (flute) and Swapan Chaduri (tabla).
Classical Indian music remains one of my greatest loves. I have a couple of hundred CDs and have attended close to that many concerts. I owe all of this to Pandit Ravi Shankar. He will be missed.
Thursday, 15 November 2012
Be brave, be arrested if necessary
Why is the head of a quiet, careful Boston money management firm writing in Nature, one of the two most prestigious science journals in the world, that we need to risk being arrested to stop further global warming?
Here's his argument. The price of 33 crucial commodities went down 70% in the 20th century, helping a lot of economies to grow, but since 2002, prices of most of those commodities have tripled, mostly because of economic growth in the developing world. Climate change is wreaking havoc with food production.
We're facing shortages of two fertilisers, phosphate and potash. Grain productivity growth is now no higher than world population growth, 1.2%. That's a safety margin of zero.
If we're to avoid huge worldwide climate and food disaster, oil producers need to leave 80% of remaining oil reserves in the ground, but they own the US congress so the world's biggest economy is still driving climate change and doing virtually nothing about it.
To the world's scientists he says "Be arrested if necessary. This is not only the crisis of your lives - it is also the crisis of our species’ existence. I implore you to be brave."
That's advice we all need to hear.
Wednesday, 14 November 2012
A man who knew but didn't know he knew
Perhaps unawares, Mitt Romney has acknowledged how important health care insurance is for people living in the US ...
"You can imagine for somebody making $25,000 or $30,000 or $35,000 a year, being told you’re now going to get free health care, particularly if you don’t have it, getting free health care worth, what, $10,000 per family, in perpetuity, I mean, this is huge."
As progressives have been saying in the US for eighty years. He went on to say:
"Our campaign, in contrast, was talking about big issues for the whole country---military strategy, foreign policy, a strong economy, creating jobs and so forth. And by the way ... our strategy worked well with many people, but for those who were given a specific gift, if you will, our strategy did not work terribly well."
There's a strategy the Democrats can use again and again: make sure you win the votes of the folks for whom universal health insurance is a priority.
Inequality and taxes
While Dems and Repubs are fighting about how to manage the US's intentionally misnamed "fiscal cliff", we'll hear a lot about whether to tax the rich more.
Repubs say the rich in the US pay more total taxes than the rich in most other OECD countries.
They do. But not because their rates are higher. Their rates are lower than in most other OECD countries.
The rich pay more in total taxes because they enjoy a much bigger slice of the US pie than the rich of most other OECD countries.
Here's the arithmetic (courtesy Brad DeLong). Suppose the top 10% pay taxes at a 40% rate, and everybody else pays 20%. If the top 10% have 20% of the country's income, their share of total taxes is (20*40 / (20*40+80*20) = 33%. If they have 40% of the country's income, their share of total taxes is (40*40 / (40*40+60*20) = 57%. Same tax rates, different total shares just because of more inequality.
Total share of taxes is a biased measure of the tax burden on the rich. You have to look at their rates. And on that score, Paul Krugman's argument from marginal utility stands: the rates should be much higher.
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