http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:49:16 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. 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Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/12/30/224916.php Jason KoulourasChris Edwards posted this on his blog:In what sounds like another tall tale told by a Texan, the Lone Star State has embarked on an audacious project to build superhighways so big, so complex, that they will make ordinary interstates look like cowpaths. The Trans-Texas Corridor project, as envisioned by Republican Gov. Rick Perry in 2002, would be a 4,000-mile transportation network costing an awesome $175 billion over 50 years, financed mostly if not entirely with private money. The builders would then charge motorists tolls. But these would not be mere highways. Proving anew that everything's big in Texas, they would be megahighways - corridors up to a quarter-mile across, consisting of as many as six lanes for cars and four for trucks, plus railroad tracks, oil and gas pipelines, water and other utility lines, even broadband transmission cables.Jason Koulouras commented:That is an incredibly wild concept - the hurdles are huge for such a project - route selection, land buyouts, environmental hearings, river crossings, interstate crossings, branch/collector roads and highways topography etc.....As for new towns, there are plenty of brownfield sites already around the US and Canada. I think we need to focus our energy on improving what we have and not letting the existing infrastructure go to wasteWith the US bringing in so much from China, is this even the most relevant route.Yes, the Panama Canal is an issue - it is too small, not maintained properly and too slow - it is still the most likely spot for any expansion or change if simply due to geographyAlso, being from Canada, I am not sure conceptually where this route would run once it crosses the borderFinally, the environmental cost of building such a monster project - the fuel for the construction machines, the materials for construction, the ongoing maintenance costs etc....I can see if it is for pure infrastructure such as pipeline, electrical, rail and maybe trucks. I am sure the toll rates would have to be quite high to justify a private sector desired ROIThanks for the post Politics23771@blogcritics.org Thu, 30 Dec 2004 22:49:16 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/11/10/212059.php Jason KoulourasArctic Melting Fast; May Swamp U.S. Coasts by 2099Brian Handwerk for National Geographic News November 9, 2004: Scientists have determined that the ice in Greenland and the Arctic is melting so rapidly that much of it could be gone by the end of the century. The results could be catastrophic for polar people and animals, while low-lying lands as far away as Florida could be inundated by rising sea levels. (Read a story, see a map of how warming may toast Florida's coast). The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment was released yesterday. It will be discussed by the Arctic Council (the governments of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, the Russian Federation, Sweden, and the U.S., as well as six indigenous-peoples organizations) at a meeting in Iceland today. The four-year study of the Arctic climate involved an international team of more than 300 scientists. They used a number of climate models and made a "moderate estimate" of future emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are widely believed to be contributing to the recent warming trend of the Earth's climate. The study concluded that in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia, average temperatures have increased as much as 4 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit (3 to 4 degrees Celsius) in the past 50 years, nearly twice the global average. Temperatures are projected to rise 7 to 13 degrees Fahrenheit (4 to 7 degrees Celsius) over the next hundred years. The rising temperatures are likely to cause the melting of at least half the Arctic sea ice by the end of the century. A significant portion of the Greenland ice sheet--which contains enough water to raise the worldwide sea level by about 23 feet (about 7 meters)--would also melt .... Culture22098@blogcritics.org Wed, 10 Nov 2004 21:20:59 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/10/16/235815.php Jason KoulourasFrom the Toronto StarSick Kids hospital faces $45M cut Red ink means longer waiting lists for children's services Canada continues to struggle with Health Care Costs and Provincial Level Deficits Sick Kids hospital faces $45M cut Red ink means longer waiting lists for children's servicesHospitals struggle with provincial mandate to balance books TANYA TALAGA MEDICAL REPORTERLonger waits and reduced patient care loom at the Hospital For Sick Children as it faces a budget trim of $45 million."Quite frankly, there is no way we can find enough in administration reductions to offset $45 million," said Cyndy DeGiusti, vice-president of child advocacy for the hospital, which received $324,684,000 in funding this year from the Ontario government."Inevitably, it'll impact patient care and at this point, we are assuming quite a significant impact," DeGiusti said.Ontario's health ministry has asked all of the province's hospitals to balance their books by next year. If they project a deficit, they are being asked to submit an accountability plan detailing the cuts they would need to break even.But inflation, rising drug prices and higher health care labour costs means tough choices are going to have to be made, senior hospital officials throughout Toronto say.For the last few months, Ontario's hospitals have been in a war of words with the ministry of health concerning funding.In the past, the provincial government has bailed out some hospitals unable to balance their books. The Ontario Hospital Association says the province's hospitals are facing a $600 million funding gap this year, a number that could be as high as $1 billion next year. The OHA's Steve Orsini says the difficulty for hospitals is that they have to take steps this year to balance budgets for next year. That means they've got to begin looking at making program reductions this year to be able to balance their budgets next year. "That is the challenge," he said.Hospitals want to collaborate, not fight, with the government, he said."The OHA is working with its members to speak out and protect patient care," he said. "We believe the government and the hospitals want to work together to protect patient care."Health ministry spokesperson Dan Strasbourg said a three-step process is in place to help hospitals resolve their financial issues. The first step is asking the hospitals to provide a plan to balance budgets by the end of 2005/2006."If hospitals experience difficulties, we'll set up special turnaround teams made up of ministry officials, hospital executives and outside experts and together they'll work on a plan to address the challenges specific to that hospital," Strasbourg said.If there are still problems, the third step will be a peer review process involving executives from well-performing hospitals. "They'll be available to share their knowledge and expertise in balancing hospital budgets without impacting patient care."Let's not forget all the investments we are doing in other areas to help relieve the pressures that in many cases has caused financial hardships for the hospitals," Strasbourg said."We are investing more in homecare, in community care, in priority areas so people don't have to wait so long for treatment. We want the entire health-care system to work better together."Bloorview MacMillan Children's Centre, the largest rehabilitation hospital for children in Canada, is looking at a projected deficit of $750,000 on a total budget of $58 million for this fiscal year and growing to about $1.2 million for 2005/2006.Budgetary cuts at both Sick Kids and Bloorview will mean longer waits for children's services, senior staff at both hospitals say."I can't imagine how we'll reduce patient care areas without having an impact on waiting lists," said DeGiusti. Sick Kids, one of the largest pediatric academic health centres around the globe, is known for its cardiac care, brain tumour and genetics research, and numerous clinics dealing with everything from diabetes, ear nose and throat problems to fractures.Sick Kids' board of directors will be meeting to discuss their plan on Oct. 21. They have asked for and been given an extension until Oct. 29 to submit their report to the province. "Everybody is working away at this," DeGiusti said."When the board meeting is over next week, we'll have a better sense of details."For the 2004-2005 year, Sick Kids' deficit forecast is $30 million, which climbs to $45 million the following year. The hospital had a third party come in to look at operations and they found the hospital's costs rise 9 per cent a year largely due to inflation, medical supplies and salary costs."Because we are in a children's hospital we have more staff than in adult hospitals," DeGiusti said.Earlier this week, the board of directors at Bloorview met to go over the report they'd be submitting to the government. Bloorview, operating out of sites at Bayview and Eglinton Aves., and at Leslie St. and SheppardAve., is the largest children's rehabilitation hospital in Canada. The centre is already operating as efficiently as it can, says president Sheila Jarvis. Besides reducing costs in food services and housekeeping, the centre is forced to look elsewhere to trim. To do this, they are bringing in consultants to help do things like consolidate patient scheduling."The tough part is service consolidation," she said. One of the hardest calls may be reducing respite services for families. Currently, families caring for children with chronic conditions can send them to Bloorview for temporary care so they can have a break at home.Reducing outpatient services will also be hard. For example, cuts here will mean children with cerebral palsy will have to wait longer for assessment and treatment."We see only the most complex care patients," she said. "Increasing wait times will be difficult."Construction is currently taking place to consolidate Bloorview into one state-of-the-art hospital site at Bayview and Eglinton Politics21066@blogcritics.org Sat, 16 Oct 2004 23:58:15 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/10/02/141007.php Jason KoulourasObesity is now reaching epidemic proportions with huge long term implications for the country (US and Canada) - long term medical problems, soaring health costs, quality of life issues, ulitmate impacts on worker productivity and all considering potential impacts to national securityFrom News on RednovaChildhood Obesity Needs ActionBy RANDOLPH E. SCHMIDWASHINGTON (AP) -- A wide-ranging effort involving parents, schools, communities and government is needed to turn the tide of childhood obesity, the Institute of Medicine said Thursday."No single factor or sector of society bears all of the blame for the problem," and no sector alone can correct it, Dr. Jeffrey Koplan of Emory University in Atlanta, chairman of the committee that prepared the recommendations, said at a briefing.Shiriki K. Kumanyika of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine likened the recommendations to other long-term public health efforts, such as reducing smoking and getting people to use seat belts."This is not something that can happen overnight," she said, though some things can be done quickly, such as making schools commercial-free zones.Strong, coordinated leadership will be needed to make the effort succeed, said Russell R. Pate of the University of South Carolina, and "government at all levels should provide coordinated leadership."The country has drifted into a situation where the number of obese youths has more than doubled over the last 30 years, Koplan said, "but we're not going to drift out of it."Today, some 9 million children older than 6 are obese, the report said.The report called for a wide-ranging effort that includes less time in front of television and computer screens, changes in food labeling and advertising, more school and community physical education programs, and education to help children make better choices."It is now critical to alter social norms and attitudes" so that healthy eating and physical activity become routine, said Koplan.Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy G. Thompson noted that the Food and Drug Administration is examining how to revise food labels to ensure that parents understand how many calories they and their children are consuming."Accurate, helpful information will allow them to make wise food choices at home, at supermarkets and in restaurants," Thompson said.Margo G. Wootan of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said the report recommends many sensible steps."But frankly," she added, "how many more of these reports do we need before the government actually starts adopting some of these policies? How many more kids will start on a lifetime of disease before the nation starts treating this epidemic like an epidemic? It's time for action."Mary C. Sophos, senior vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers of America, said the food industry is reformulating products to reduce calories, fat and salt and is offering smaller package sizes."To achieve successful behavioral change, we will need to emphasize positive, motivational messages and tools across society, rather than relying on restrictions or negative messages," she said.Robert Earl of the National Food Processors Association also noted changes being made by food manufacturers, and added: "The food industry also supports programs to promote physical activity among children. This report emphasizes the importance of including physical activity in any effort to address obesity - at school, at home, and in communities."Dr. Thomas N. Robinson of Stanford University, a member of the committee that prepared the report, said that many health care providers are worried about the future as obese children age and adult chronic diseases are beginning in the teen years and younger. "Everything is affected by overweight," he said.The report from the IOM, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, is the latest to focus on childhood obesity. Over the last 30 years the rate of childhood obesity has tripled among youngsters aged 6 to 11 and has doubled for those aged 2 to 5 and 12 to 19, the institute reported.Obesity can lead to increased likelihood of developing diabetes, high blood pressure, sleep problems, high cholesterol, gallstones and other problems.Specifically, the panel suggested that parents limit kids' TV hours, that schools provide healthier food, that restaurants offer nutrition information and that communities provide more recreation opportunities.The IOM report calls for increased federal involvement, including creation of an interdepartmental task force to coordinate activities, developing nutrition standards for school food, setting guidelines for advertising and marketing to children and increases in research funding. -----On the Net:Institute of MedicineMore science, space, and technology from RedNova Copyright © 2004 The Associated Press Culture20581@blogcritics.org Sat, 2 Oct 2004 14:10:07 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/10/02/135315.php Jason KoulourasApparently Russia, Canada and Denmark are trying to see if they can lay claim to the North Pole - Denmark by virture of having Greenland is in the thick of things - seems kind of silly at first glance but with new technologies, hunger for resources and global warming opening up access in the area, it makes a lot of sense if you are greedy...From News On RednovaDenmark trying to build evidence for claim on North Pole!By JAN M. OLSENCOPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- Denmark is joining Russia and Canada to see if it can lay a claim to the North Pole - and whatever natural riches may lie beneath it.The key to Denmark's claim is Greenland, the world's largest island and a semi-independent Danish territory, just 500 miles south of the North Pole. Researchers hope to find evidence that Greenland may be connected to a huge ridge beneath the floating Arctic ice, the country's science and technology minister said.If high-tech measurements can prove that Greenland is attached to the 1,240 mile underwater Lomonosov Ridge, then "maybe there is a chance that the North Pole could become Danish," Cabinet minister Helge Sander said Friday.Since the spring, teams of experts have used sonar, seismological instruments and Global Positioning Satellite data to survey the ridge and have drilled into the sea bed in search of natural resources.Last year, Denmark allocated $25 million for the project, which is also surveying four other areas around Greenland. The Canadian government allocated $55.4 million for similar sea bed mapping, said Allan Boldt of the science and technology ministry.The question Danish scientists are trying resolve is where Greenland's continental socket ends and the ocean sea floor begins."We must be able to argue that it is a natural extension" of Greenland, added Trine Dahl-Jensen of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.Another key to claiming ownership of the territory lies in the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, a 1986 accord that allows coastal countries an economic zone extending 230 miles from their shores.Only countries that have ratified the convention can claim the offshore economic zones, said Allan Boldt of the science and technology ministry.Of the countries surrounding the North Pole, Norway, Russia and Canada have signed the document, while the United States has not. Denmark's parliament is set to ratify it before the end of the year, though an exact date has not been set, Sander said.The North Pole is an ocean covered by ice and therefore falls under the U.N. convention.The mapping could be a bonanza."It could give us access to natural resources. There could be oil and gas," Sander said.Neighboring Norway's offshore oil fields make it the world's third-largest oil exporter.Canada and Russia, which also is likely to claim ownership of the Lomonosov Ridge, are also making similar investigations around the North Pole.Mapping the Arctic is difficult because of moving ice floes, freezing temperatures, fog and poor visibility, said Dahl-Jensen."We can only work there for about a month-and-half," she said. -----On the Net:Mapping siteUN conventionMore science, space, and technology from RedNova Copyright © 2004 The Associated Press. Politics20578@blogcritics.org Sat, 2 Oct 2004 13:53:15 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/10/01/054252.php Jason KoulourasDue to the outsourcing of their Visa Credit Card operations, CIBC has put many Canadians in a potential position where their spending records could be obtained by a foreign country (United States) where the privacy and access to records laws are more lax than Canada'sI received this insert and was disturbed by the content and now I know whyU.S. law could open millions of Canadian Visa records U.S. law could open millions of Canadian Visa records MICHELLE SHEPHARD STAFF REPORTERA small sheet of paper slipped in with the bills of millions of Canadian Visa cardholders has sparked an investigation by Canada's Privacy Commissioner and calls for the federal government to stand up for the privacy rights of its citizens.Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Visa customers were sent an amendment to their cardholder agreement this month warning their financial information could be disclosed in accordance with U.S. laws.NDP MP Brian Masse criticized the Canadian government yesterday for not challenging controversial American legislation, such as the U.S. Patriot Act, which was passed in the wake of 9/11. Canada's complacency, he said, could now lead to privacy violations. "Information can now be passed on without your knowledge, without even the CIBC knowing it and nothing has been done about this," Masse said in an interview yesterday.In recent years both CIBC and RBC Financial have outsourced their credit card operations to a Georgia-based company called Total System Services Inc., which means that Canadian cardholder information now falls under U.S. legislation.Spokespersons with Scotiabank and Bank of Montreal said all their operations are in Canada so American legislation does not affect their customers. At TD Financial Group, only people holding the U.S. Dollar Advantage Visa are affected. "We, along with the CBA (Canadian Bankers Association) are assessing the implications of it all on existing privacy laws for our Canadian clients," RBC Financial Group spokesperson Beja Rodeck said yesterday.But CIBC spokesperson Susan McDougall said yesterday the notice sent to cardholders did not indicate any changes in the way information is handled."Nothing in the Patriot Act or any other post-9/11 legislation has altered CIBC's relationship with its service provider or the types of information it processes," she said."CIBC decided to update the privacy provisions in its cardholder agreement, in order to provide more detailed disclosure about our collection, use and disclosure of personal information. There is no new legislation behind the amendments."Masse interprets the notice differently and says Canadians are now affected by Section 215 of the U.S. Patriot Act, which was enacted a month after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and greatly expands the powers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. A lawsuit launched by the American Civil Liberties Union, currently before the U.S. District Court in Michigan, strives to have that section of the act ruled unconstitutional. "To obtain a Section 215 order, the FBI need only assert that the records or personal belongings are `sought for' an ongoing foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, or international terrorism investigation," the lawsuit says. "The FBI is not required to show probable cause -- or any reason -- to believe that the target of the order is a criminal suspect or foreign agent." Politics20518@blogcritics.org Fri, 1 Oct 2004 05:42:52 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/29/053023.php Jason KoulourasArticle in Toronto Star this morning on election tomfoolery in Florida happening yet again....who will do Jeb Bush these favours when he runs in 2008?Florida Election process marred again!Florida voters fearing déją vu Flaws could mar presidential raceRoadblocks, fraud case among issues TIM HARPER WASHINGTON BUREAUMIAMI--It's happening again.Four years after Florida became a national embarrassment for its chaotic voting system, charges of intimidation, disenfranchisement and potential irregularities are swirling across a state which again could determine the country's next president.Some see a pattern that leads all the way to the door of Governor Jeb Bush. His brother, George W., needed this state to win the White House in 2000 and could need it again Nov. 2.This year's Florida presidential vote will face unprecedented scrutiny from both U.S. and international observers, but even in the face of such attention, activists and interest groups want answers they can't get from their state legislators."One thing we're doing is trying to shed some light on this, because when you do, it's like cockroaches, they have to scatter," said Thomasina Williams, a Miami lawyer and voting rights activist.In no particular order, they'd like to know why:Florida law enforcement officers showed up at the doors of elderly African-American voters in Orlando, perhaps the key battleground in this swing state, seeking evidence of voter fraud from bewildered residents.Ezzie Thomas, a well-known 73-year-old resident of the city -- an African-American -- is under investigation in that case after the probe had once been closed and has now been reopened in the run-up to the vote.Police in Jacksonville set up roadblocks in predominantly African-American districts on a primary voting day in August. Was it really to search for lapsed drivers' licences and vehicle registrations, or was it something more sinister? Did they really not know, as they said, that it was voting day?How, after the scandal of 2000 -- when it was revealed that a disproportionate number of blacks were wrongly identified as felons and prevented from voting -- did a similar, erroneously bloated list show up again this year. Why were there so many errors when it came to blacks, who vote overwhelmingly Democrat, but not Hispanics, who back President Bush in this state?"There is a pattern here," said Greg Bush, a political scientist at the University of Miami (and no relation to the governor and president)."This is very serious business, the second time around, and worthy of a national investigation. It is a reflection of the incredibly partisan nature of the electoral system in the state of Florida."Anger is still so close to the surface after allegations that George W. Bush "stole" the election from Democrat Al Gore here after a 36-day recount and Supreme Court drama, that Greg Bush worries there will be street violence if there are irregularities in 2004.But there is more.Gone are the butterfly ballot and the antiquated punch-card voting -- with its notorious "hanging chads," replaced in 15 of the most populous counties in this state by touch-screen machines which provide no paper trail of the vote and thus make it impossible to provide an audit of a close vote.A federal appeals court in Atlanta, Ga., Monday night ordered a lower Florida court to hear a lawsuit brought by a Democratic legislator to force the state to issue paper receipts to voters.Others point to security problems because the machines must be started the night before voting and it could be months before errors are identified.Jeb Bush was so certain of the infallibility of his new machines that his government outlawed manual recounts, until that was successfully challenged in court by the American Civil Liberties Union.The fiercely partisan nature of the staffing of the election system in this state has even led to accusations that Glenda Hood, the secretary of state and former Orlando mayor, improperly intervened to get Ralph Nader on the ballot here, perhaps foreshadowing a replay of 2000 when Nader's 98,000 Florida votes were blamed by many for putting Bush in office."I am deeply disturbed that Governor Jeb Bush and Glenda Hood continue to be an impediment to repairing the disaster of 2000," said Robert Wexler, the Palm County Democrat who brought the lawsuit trying to force the paper trail. "Essentially, Jeb Bush has created another election mess by not fairly applying Florida law and ignoring the constitution."From the felon list to inserting Nader on the ballot and voter intimidation tactics, Jeb Bush has led the effort to influence Florida elections."Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, an international election observer, joined the fray in a Monday op-ed written for The Washington Post, maintaining that the problems that vexed this state in 2000 have not been addressed.Yesterday, Jeb Bush fought back."There's this constant haranguing of nonsense, including by President Carter, which is a huge surprise to me because I have admired his compassionate actions in his post-presidency," the governor said. "Without talking to a single person, without getting any information, he joins up with the MoveOn.org (liberal) crowd."Concerns about touch-screen voting are nothing more than "conspiracy theories," Jeb Bush maintained."It's not just little old Floridians crying wolf in the dark," Williams said. "Jimmy Carter believes this is all about partisan politics. He has worked on elections all over the world and he thinks Florida is one of the worst."There is already proof touch-screen voting is not perfect.In a special election in Broward County in January, 2004, conducted on a touch-screen machine, the margin of victory was 12 votes. Yet, the computer that tabulated the results found almost 150 ballots cast with no choice.In state primaries in August, 245 votes were improperly downloaded in Tampa and not discovered until after the vote was certified.Dan McCrae, of the non-partisan Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition, says the touch-screen machines undermine the foundation of democracy -- voter confidence. "You as a voter have no option but to trust computer software that cannot be independently tested and you must trust an elections department that does not respect the most basic rules of ethics," he said.Meanwhile, Ezzie Thomas has gone to ground after working for Democrats in Orlando for decades.He is alleged to have marked blank absentee ballots for elderly voters, all backing the Democratic candidate for mayor in Orlando.The Democrat, Buddy Dyer, did pay Thomas $10,000 to show voters how to properly complete their ballots and Thomas delivered. The Democrat swept the absentee ballot.Beyond that, Thomas maintains, he did no wrong and said he was doing nothing he hadn't done before.Police visited those who marked absentee ballots, but denied intimidating the elderly voters.Martha Glenn, 72, said she has known Thomas since she moved from Mississippi in 1966 and he has never tried to influence her vote.She first met him when he ran a radio and television repair shop in town."I don't know what people are trying to do to him," she said.Williams says the timing of the investigation of Thomas is, at best, suspicious. It sidelines a key member of the Democratic team and puts the entire Democratic operation in Orlando under a cloud during this campaign."Somebody has to give orders for these things to happen," Williams said. "Police don't just show up at your door and state troopers in Jacksonville don't just set up roadblocks wherever they feel like it." Additional articles by Tim Harper Politics20416@blogcritics.org Wed, 29 Sep 2004 05:30:23 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/25/073421.php Jason KoulourasArticle on Immigrants coming into Public Schools - average of 220,000 people coming to Canada every year creating challenges in the school system for teaching and education with many of the new citizens not having English as first language********** Toronto StarImmigrants, ESL and Education ChallengesSep. 25, 2004. 01:00 AM Why Canada's schools are failing newcomers ANDREW DUFFY ATKINSON FELLOWIn Room 212 of Brampton's Great Lakes Public School, teacher Charlotte Mullin stands in front of a Grade 8 class in which there is one white face other than her own. At 27, four years removed from teachers' college, her challenge is this: To explain the science of light to 30 students, few of whom grew up speaking English. In this classroom, Punjabi, Tamil, Urdu and Vietnamese are more likely first languages. Some of the students breeze through the material, while others with more modest English skills are mystified by dense words such as phosphorescence, fluorescence, incandescence. Equipped with the boundless energy of all good teachers, however, Mullin halts her description of the types of light for a brief vocabulary lesson.Then she presses on, circling back again and again to test students' understanding of words and ideas. She relies heavily on pictures to convey the properties of opaque, translucent and transparent materials. She keeps her instructional language simple. "Which material likes to share the light?" Mullin asks."Translucent," comes the reply.At Great Lakes Public School, more than 60 per cent of the students speak a first language other than English. In Mullin's class, one-third of students are officially designated as English-as-a-second-language learners, which means they came to Canada within the past four years with few English skills. These students are withdrawn for daily language lessons tailored to their needs, but they spend most of their day in regular classes. For Mullin, it means she must constantly reinvent her lesson plans, infusing them with language lessons and illustrations. "This is why I chose this school," says Mullin, "I knew it would be a challenge."Her daily challenge is one shared by teachers in every big city across Canada -- and it is one that has become more pointed with each passing year. Canada has settled 3.3 million immigrants during the past 15 years, an average of 221,000 a year.The immigrants, 60 per cent of whom come from Asia and the Middle East, are less likely to speak English at home than previous waves of newcomers. Those speaking English as a second language make up 20 to 60 per cent of the student populations in large cities such as Toronto and Vancouver. In the Vancouver School Board, for instance, only 39 per cent of students reported English as the primary language spoken at home. Meanwhile, in the Toronto District School Board, there are 117 schools that have at least one-quarter of their enrolments made up of students who have arrived in Canada within the last five years. Those actively studying ESL make about 13 per cent of the school population in the Greater Toronto Area and 25 per cent in the Vancouver School Board. Language experts contend more immigrant students need support, but don't get it.Indeed, while demands for English-as-a-second-language (ESL) instruction have increased, school board resources have not kept pace. Many boards have curtailed their spending. And the classrooms where immigrants learn English have been particularly hard hit, with Alberta, Ontario and British Columbia cutting deep into ESL budgets during the past decade.In recognition of the needs of ESL students, the Ontario government recently increased its funding for them. The province will spend $225 million on ESL services in 2004-05, an increase of 20 per cent over the previous year. But how that money is spent still depends on school board trustees and individual school principals, many with a track record of dipping into funds earmarked for ESL services to finance smaller class sizes, improved library services and other school priorities.To make matters worse for immigrant students, many provinces have embraced standardized testing. Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Nova Scotia all have at least one provincial English exam that students must pass to graduate from high school.Concerned parents and teachers fear that the combination of reduced services and rigid provincial standards will drive an already troubling dropout rate among ESL students -- particularly those from poor families -- still higher. "That we're wasting all this talent is a tragedy; it is scandalous," says University of Calgary professor Hetty Roessingh, who co-authored one of the country's most detailed studies tracking ESL students between 1989 and 1997. Her study of one Calgary high school pegged the dropout rate for ESL learners at 74 per cent (as opposed to 30 per cent for the general population of high-school students). Those findings have been echoed in other studies. "ESL learners are consistently over-represented in dropout statistics, failure and enrolment in non-academic track programs in both Canada and the United States," Roessingh wrote in a recent study."It would seem that 20 years of program development and research into best practices has done little to alter the pernicious effects of chronic underfunding of these programs. An entire generation of ESL learners has passed through our school system who may never come to realize their potential."What makes the situation more maddening, she says, is that Canada has successfully structured its immigration system to draw the best and brightest from other countries, yet it seems willing to squander both their talent and that of their children. "We're getting immigrants with double the number of university degrees than the general population. But the parents are having a really hard time integrating into the economy because credentials aren't being recognized because of higher language thresholds and a lack of Canadian experience. ``So, the next big hope is for the immigrant kids to make it in school, but the evidence suggests that by and large, they're not making it,'' Roessingh says.In this country, public education has traditionally been looked upon as the great leveller, as the vehicle that gives all students an equal chance to succeed. But the state of ESL services in Canadian schools -- and the existence of such high ESL dropout rates -- raise troubling questions: Why are ESL students struggling in school? Do these students have the same chance to succeed as their Canadian counterparts? Are we in danger of creating an immigrant underclass in Canada, one fuelled by persistent dropouts? The 2001 census redrew the demographic portrait of Canada's largest cities. For years, anyone living in Toronto or Vancouver recognized that these cities served as magnets for newcomers. But the census -- and the social change that it mapped -- still managed to awe Canadians.Three million people in Ontario called themselves immigrants in 2001. In the Greater Toronto Area, 40 per cent of residents told Statistics Canada that they spoke a first language other than English. Toronto is made up of more immigrants (44 per cent) than Los Angeles (41 per cent), Vancouver (37 per cent) and New York City (36 per cent). In British Columbia, 1 million people -- more than one-quarter of the overall population -- said they were foreign-born. The vast majority lived in Vancouver and other cities on the Lower Mainland, where fewer than half the residents consider English to be their mother tongue.With more immigrants landing in Canada with fewer English skills, the demand for English-as-a-second-language classes has skyrocketed. In Calgary, ESL enrolment has more than tripled since 1992 to 14,000 students. In Coquitlam, B.C., the number of students enrolled in ESL jumped 580 per cent during the 1990s to 5,178 students from 761. In Vancouver and Surrey, almost one-quarter of the entire school populations are now studying ESL. But it's not simply ESL programs that school boards finance. With the influx of ESL students come demands for translation services so that parents can be informed of school events; bilingual tutors to help ESL students in their first language; cultural liaison workers to bridge cultural and religious divides; and new classroom materials comprehensible to those who have not grown up in Canada.School boards have also been forced to wrestle with unusual problems. In Richmond, B.C., so many Chinese immigrants have enrolled in some schools that the ability to absorb English by listening to native English speakers has been lost. Students are being sent into the community to learn English. In Toronto, the board had to develop a program to assist older high school students, oftentimes refugees, who were arriving without the most basic of academic skills. For Canada's big-city school boards, the biggest challenge created by immigrant students remains the provision of English-as-second-language instruction. For the students, it is an essential service. As Hetty Roessingh says: "You can't do chemistry, and you can't do physics and you can't do social studies without English." Indeed, it is the acquisition of English that gives immigrant students the chance to pursue their dreams in Canada. But consider their challenge. These students must adjust to a new country while learning English quickly enough to finish high school and compete with native English speakers for places in university, college or the workplace.Roessingh compares it to a horse race in which immigrant students are initially set well behind, and must challenge for the lead by the time they reach the finish line. In Grade 2, a typical student can use about 7,000 words of English. A Chinese student who emigrates to Canada in Grade 2 can, with hard work, gain the ability to use about 5,000 words of English after two years. But by Grade 4, his classmates have now vaulted ahead and most have added thousands more words to their vocabularies while absorbing more of the general curriculum. "Often," Roessingh said, "they keep moving ahead faster than the immigrant kids can catch up. It's a never-ending race for them."In recognition of the extraordinary challenge faced by students, most large school boards in Canada began offering ESL classes during the 1960s. The program expanded dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s as immigration levels rose and more newcomers came to Canada from non-English speaking countries: China, Hong Kong, Somalia, Sudan, Croatia, Afghanistan, Russia and Iran. The expansion of ESL programs was supported by research that suggested these students needed help to develop the advanced English skills that would allow them to deal with the sophisticated language of textbooks in high school, college and university. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- `I think ESL kids need not only a good teacher, but a good language teacher.'Hetty Roessingh,University of Calgary-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- `We realized ... nobody fought for the immigrant children and youth.'Hieu Van Ngo, Coalition for Equal Access to Education-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Although most immigrants can develop a working knowledge of English within a few years, the range and accuracy of their vocabularies are limited, making it difficult to perform well on tests and exams.Some critics, however, point to earlier waves of immigrants -- those who came after World War II from places such as Italy, Portugal, Germany, Poland and Ukraine -- to argue that ESL classes are an unnecessary luxury. Those newcomers made the transition to life in Canada by being thrown into mainstream classrooms, so why can't the new generation do the same?But those earlier immigrants likely suffered from dropout rates that were as bad or worse than today's ESL students. (Such statistics, however, simply were not kept then.) Moreover, those immigrants who did leave high school during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s still made comfortable lives for themselves in Canada. There was little stigma attached to being a dropout and high-paying union jobs in construction, mining and manufacturing were largely filled by post-war immigrants. Circumstances have changed for more recent immigrants, especially those to arrive during the past 20 years. High-school education is now considered a bare minimum qualification by most employers; many high-paying, low-skilled jobs disappeared in the 1980s as the economy was reshaped by free trade and technology. Elizabeth Coelho, a University of Toronto professor and the former co-ordinator of ESL services at the Toronto Board of Education, says post-war immigrant students could drop out in Grade 8 and still live a life of full employment. "Well, that's absolutely not possible anymore," she says.University of Calgary professor Roessingh's work has helped to establish the importance of intensive English-language training in an immigrant student's academic chase. While a teacher at Queen Elizabeth High School in northwest Calgary, Roessingh was disturbed by how many immigrant students had stalled in their language development at or near a Grade 5 level. She saw many of them later drop out of high school.With the help of her principal, Roessingh re-ordered the resources at Queen Elizabeth to more than double the annual hours of ESL instruction. With 750 hours of ESL instruction, the success rate soared. Roessingh tracked her students through high school and found that 78 per cent of them (47 out of 60 in the study) managed to pass the Grade 12 high school English literature exam and enter university."I think ESL kids need not only a good teacher, but a good language teacher," Roessingh says, "since all the other kids who come to school have the language and have the basic grammar."In many places, however, immigrant parents are beginning to fight back. In Toronto, Somali-Canadian parents, worried about the academic achievement of their children, have started to advocate on their behalf. They feel that too many Somali students are being sent to special education classes and into applied programs that rule out university. What the students need, the parents insist, is more help with English. "We need more ESL," says Maryan Abdi, who once had to move schools to get the appropriate language help for her 11-year-old daughter, Asha. Immigrant parents in Calgary are the best organized. They created the Coalition for Equal Access to Education in the wake of school board cutbacks in 1992-93 that decimated ESL services."No other program suffered the same kind of destructive cuts," says coalition co-ordinator Hieu Van Ngo, who estimates that more than 50 per cent of ESL services were slashed. "We realized it was too easy for them to do it since nobody fought for the immigrant children and youth."Van Ngo says school boards have steadily replaced qualified ESL teachers with other instructors who have no formal training in the complex learning needs of immigrant students. The cuts have been such that for every qualified ESL teacher in Alberta, there are now 119 ESL students, according to the coalition's statistics. The government of Alberta recently increased its annual per student funding for ESL students to $1,028 from $736 -- something the coalition considered an important victory. But Van Ngo says much remains to be done. Among other things, the coalition wants school boards to track ESL students through high school to determine how many succeed; it wants the provincial government to establish ESL as part of the core curriculum to make it harder for boards to dismantle the program in times of restraint; and it wants the federal government to develop national benchmarks for ESL and set a national ESL curriculum. "They talk a lot about diversity," says Van Ngo, "But they (governments) are reluctant to move to the next step, which is to integrate diversity into the way they work, and to give our children a meaningful education." In Ontario, a survey published in September, 2003 by the parent advocacy group, People for Education, showed that 76 per cent of urban elementary schools reported having ESL students, but only 26 per cent had ESL teachers. The number of elementary schools with ESL programs has declined by 33 per cent since 1997-98 despite the fact the number of immigrants in Ontario has increased annually by an average of 13.5 per cent during the same period.It means in elementary schools, ESL students are often being taught by parent volunteers or by special education teachers, says Annie Kidder, a spokesperson for the group. It also means regular elementary teachers are having to play a much larger role in the language development of ESL students. At the York Region District School Board, for instance, the number of elementary school ESL teachers has been slashed during the past decade despite a steady increase in the number of immigrant students. About 1,700 new immigrant students enrol each year in York Region public schools. But the board now employs 60 ESL teachers in elementary schools compared to the 120 that it employed in 1994. In Toronto, librarians and ESL teachers bore the brunt of staff cuts that were ordered to reduce the board's $100-million deficit in 2002-03. ESL staffing has been reduced by about 30 per cent over the past two years. Toronto board assistant director Gerry Connelly says provincial laws that mandate class sizes left officials few other targets. Mainstream classroom teachers had to be retained, she says, to keep classes within legal limits.Each province makes its own rules for what constitutes adequate ESL services. Although ESL experts say it takes immigrant students five to seven years to acquire the English skills required to succeed in high school, most provinces do not fund ESL classes that long. British Columbia is the most generous province, paying for up to five years of ESL assistance; Ontario recently increased its funding to cover four years from three. Nova Scotia earmarks no funding for ESL. In the complicated world of education financing, the province grants school boards money based on the size and the make-up of their student population. Supplementary grants, for instance, are issued for students who require special education, French immersion and ESL. In Ontario, the province gives boards $3,960 for each elementary school student and $4,771 for each high school student annually. Each ESL student now attracts an additional $7,847 over four years."When school boards are really in a bind about money, like the Toronto District School Board has been, and at the same time, they're told they have to maintain class sizes, they have to find the money somewhere," says Elizabeth Coelho. "If you tried to close the swimming pool, you're going to get a lot public awareness and criticism. You would never dare cut special-ed programs; they wouldn't let you. If you tried to abandon French immersion, you'd hear about it from the parents. But you can cut ESL with relative impunity."Toronto District School Board budget chief Don Higgins concedes administrators have had to rethink their delivery of ESL -- and deliver more of it in regular classrooms -- because of other budget demands. "That's the only way we've been able to manage it," he says.An award-winning teacher and ESL researcher from Toronto, Mary Meyers, has authored a scathing criticism of the handling of immigrant students' educational needs. Her report, Myths and Delusions: The State of ESL in Large Canadian School Boards, contends governments and school boards have sold to the public a false bill of goods: that the wholesale integration of ESL children into regular classrooms is appropriate to bring their language skills up to speed.The move, she says, has allowed boards in Ontario and B.C. to curtail the growth of expensive ESL programs and to redirect money. But Meyers says most classroom teachers are not trained to deal with the needs of ESL students. Teachers' colleges in Canada offer ESL instruction only as an elective.To complicate matters, most ESL students are assessed on the basis of the same tests administered to native English-speakers. Meyers believes it "sets the ESL students up for failure" and leads to many being streamed into applied education and special education programs designed for those with learning disabilities, emotional and behavioural difficulties. "The state of ESL in large, multi-ethnic school boards is abysmal, and in essence, a betrayal of public trust," Meyers concludes. "The reality is that ESL students are denied access to supports necessary for their academic success, and contravene Canadian laws for equal rights." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- National Newspaper Award-winningreporter Andrew Duffy is the 2003 recipient of the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy. The Ottawa Citizen reporter, formerly with the Star, recently completed his year-long study of the relationship between immigration and education in Canada. Culture20253@blogcritics.org Sat, 25 Sep 2004 07:34:21 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/25/070723.php Jason KoulourasUncertain future of water diversions from the Great Lakes - only 1% of the great lakes water system is renewable per year, and the water levels have gone up and down in the past significantly - in essence, there is no margin in the system for withdrawl of water outside of the Great Lakes Basin***** Editorial from The Toronto Star Sep. 25, 2004. 01:00 AM Troubled waters on Great LakesWhen it comes to water, the 40 million Canadians and Americans who live within the boundaries of the Great Lakes Basin are truly blessed. Although they represent only two-thirds of 1 per cent of the world's population, they have access to 20 per cent of all fresh water on the planet. While those numbers suggest we have a vast reservoir of water to share with others, the Great Lakes are for all intents and purposes a non-renewable resource. Just 1 per cent of Great Lakes' water is renewed each year. Draw off too much, and there could be dire consequences for the entire Great Lakes ecosystem and every community it now supports. That threat to the health of the Great Lakes took on a new dimension in the mid-1980s when some Canadian businesspeople proposed bulk export of Great Lakes water by tanker. In response, Ottawa and Washington introduced new laws in an attempt to safeguard the Great Lakes. For its part, the Canadian government amended the International Boundary Waters Treaty Act and International Boundary Water Regulations to prohibit any removals from Canadian boundary waters of the Great Lakes.The U.S. chose a different route. Its 1986 Water Resources Development Act allowed for the diversion of Great Lakes water, but only with the agreement of all governors of the eight states that border the Great Lakes. This asymmetry in U.S. and Canadian laws has recently taken on a special significance because demands for diversions are increasingly coming from communities outside the Great Lakes Basin, but in the Great Lakes states, such as Lowell, Ind. and New Berlin, Wisc.In part because the conflicting interests of the state governors do not coincide with the interests of Ontario, which has its own ban on Great Lakes water transfers, or Quebec, with its jurisdiction over most of the St. Lawrence River, it has fallen to these two provinces and the eight states to work out a Great Lakes management agreement. Among other things, the accord would set a standard for water withdrawals from the Great Lakes.After three years of negotiation, their draft agreement was released for public discussion in mid-July. Since then, many Canadian environmentalists have argued that the document amounts to little more than a box of straws for sucking more and more water out of the Great Lakes.While this assessment is unfair -- the critics ignore the fact there is at present no standard for water diversions and no uniform goals or instruments for conservation -- the environmentalists do have a point: the draft agreement doesn't go far enough in protecting the Great Lakes.Four years ago, the International Joint Commission -- an independent binational body set up in 1909 to advise Ottawa and Washington on boundary water issues and help resolve disputes -- issued its own set of recommendations for protecting the waters of the Great Lakes. While the governors' and premiers' draft agreement mirrors the IJC report in some respects, it falls short in other areas, most notably in its failure to incorporate a key IJC recommendation on water removals that would limit the total net loss of water to 5 per cent. That is the current average loss resulting from all uses within the Great Lakes. Since the release of the governors' and premiers' draft agreement, the IJC had the perfect chance to help Ontarians, Quebecers and residents of the Great Lakes states conduct an informed discussion of the issues. In a new report on protecting the Great Lakes waters, the IJC could have offered its own critique of the governors' and premiers' draft agreement. Instead the IJC chose not to get into a political debate, masking its evident disappointment with the draft accord in language urging governors and premiers to follow the recommendations it made in its 2000 report. That's a cop-out. We have a right to know exactly what the IJC thinks. The future of the Great Lakes is too important -- and too fragile -- to be decided without the benefit of the best, independent advice available. Politics20252@blogcritics.org Sat, 25 Sep 2004 07:07:23 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/09/24/054023.php Jason KoulourasPeter Thompson parked his car, was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease - got back to his car after the elapsed parking time and found a private $69.55 ticket on his car. He decided to fight the so called fine (which looks like a police parking ticket) and here is the great outcome - he managed to get the offending companies to donate funds to Parkinson's diseade research - good job!********** Peter Thompson gets companies to give donations - excellent work Peter!Parking hassle has happy ending Companies agree to give $1,000 each to Parkinson's event Man had planned to sue after being harassed over ticket KERRY GILLESPIE CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEFPeter Thompson planned to sue after being harassed for 18 months over an unpaid parking ticket. But then he came up with a better idea.Thompson, a Barrie lawyer, gave Canadian Bonded Credits Ltd., a collection agency, and Imperial Parking (Impark) the option of donating $1,000 each to the SuperWalk for Parkinson's on Sunday.And they agreed.It's a solution that has a certain justice to it: Parkinson's disease is what got Thompson the parking ticket in the first place.On March 23, 2003, Thompson made what should have been a half-hour visit to Toronto Western Hospital. To be safe, he paid for 90 minutes of parking. But the doctor was late and when he arrived, he diagnosed Thompson with Parkinson's.As a result, Thompson was 31 minutes late returning to his car and was greeted by a $69.55 ticket on his windshield.He wrote to Impark, explained what happened and offered to pay for the extra time he parked, but it said no. So Thompson dug in his heels, refusing to pay what he thought was an exorbitant fine.Soon, daily calls started from Canadian Bonded Credits. After about 500 of these automated calls, Thompson finally got an unlisted phone number.After the Star wrote about his case in August and Ontario's information and privacy commissioner called it "completely outrageous," Impark decided to review its procedures and stopped Canadian Bonded Credits from calling people who owe money on tickets until the review is complete.Last week, Thompson wrote to both companies, saying they "have made my life extremely unpleasant for the past two years and I intend to litigate this invasion of privacy and harassment in due course if need be.""There is an alternative, which I propose at this time," he added.Thompson said he would donate $69.55 -- the price of the unpaid ticket -- to the Parkinson's cause, and said if they each donate $1,000 to the SuperWalk for Parkinson's he wouldn't bring a lawsuit."I thought this was a good solution.... Somebody gets $69 out of my pocket and they don't look like such bad guys and Parkinson's benefits," Thompson said.On this point, the two companies agree with him."If this is what is necessary to bring closure to this matter for Mr. Thompson, then we're pleased to provide it," said Gordon Craig, regional vice-president for Impark."It was a settlement that worked for everybody," said Christopher Dorval, spokesperson for IntelliRisk Management Corp., the parent company of Canadian Bonded Credits.Last year Thompson raised $1,400 for the SuperWalk for Parkinson's -- the most by anyone in Barrie. He's expecting to keep that honour this year.With $2,000 from the two companies, Thompson said he has collected $5,000. Culture20206@blogcritics.org Fri, 24 Sep 2004 05:40:23 EDT