Hold the cynicism. Nothing but seasonal sweetness and light here today, starting with 2017’s volunteers honoured by the West Vancouver Community Arts Council and, briefly, their contribution:
Dal McCrindle (seniors, Remembrance Day services); Wendy Janz (seniors centre 17 years); Dianne Allan (Girl Guides, seniors); Jo-Ann Wood (hospice society, library, Lions Gate Hospital);
Eric Keller (youth sports, Lions Club); Goli Massah (founder, Why Waste?, distributor of grocery food to the needy); Elaine Graham (Lighthouse Park Preservation Society); Vi Roden (seniors health, youth drug prevention); Barrie Chapman (founder, Fit Fellas); and organizations Meals on Wheels, and West Vancouver Fire Service Museum and Archives Society.
• • •
A loss touching many, softened by a flood of uplifting praise: the retirement last week of CBC Radio Vancouver’s Rick Cluff – a Lions Bay resident, but on whom I generously bestow honorary West Vancouver citizenship.
The undersigned has little to add but this: Cluff had the rare gift of hiding his cleverness under his enormous competence. Does that sound like a put-down? Not. He was clever without brandishing it, a broadcaster without gags or a strained shtick. The humour and the (unfashionable word ahead!) gentlemanliness were unforced and without stuffiness – listeners will miss his cue to the weather reporter: “What’s goin’ on out there, Amy?”
And am I the only one to suspiciously notice that Cluff and Santa Claus were never seen in the same room at the same time?
• • •
What a boat! A black, swoopy Chev sedan drew goggle-eyed stares recently in Horseshoe Bay. Owner of this 1967 beauty? Warner Bros. You know, the movin’ pictures people.
A TV crew had turned the village into a set for an episode of a long-running Netflix serial (into its 13th season), Supernatural. Theme: “Siblings Dean and Sam crisscross the country, investigating paranormal activity and picking fights with demons, ghosts and monsters.”
No wonder I’ve never heard of it. It’s way too Shakespearean for my simple country tastes. Hamlet on wheels. But what wheels.
• • •
“Geller’s Twelve Days of Christmas” was architect Michael Geller’s smart and charming list of advice to attack this area’s housing paralysis. Some of the 12:
A return to the small, plain rental apartment buildings on 50- and 66-foot lots. Legalized basement suites. “Gentle” densification – Geller cited his Hollyburn Mews development (controversial at the time) that replaced three single-family homes with a duplex and a coach house on each lot.
Also: Relocatable modular housing, which can be “quite attractive.” Smaller lots, like 50-footers divided to make two. Subdividing heritage house properties with infill dwellings. Mixing light industrial and rental.
There’s more, but nothing on Geller’s list that so flatly indicts local councils’ role in crazed real estate prices: their approval processes, scandalously slow and ridiculously costly (my words). If another generation is as shut out from housing as today’s millennials, serious social upheaval looms.
• • •
Okay, Christmas is over, back to normal. The millionaire Emerys, Jodie and motormouth Marc, have pleaded guilty to trafficking in marijuana and other drug-related offences, and each fined $150,000 and placed on probation for two years.
Will the media now stop referring to them, and others like Dana Larson, as “activists”? They’re businesswomen and businessmen, period, and they’re in business to make money – not social thinkers.
A specialist cannabis lawyer, Kirk Tousaw, crooned that “we need to acknowledge” that such talented persons “are pioneers, not criminals.” Humbug.
If the humbug continues, one can predict Marc will become prime minister, Jodie governor general, and one day they’ll be honoured with a commemorative stamp.
• • •
West Vancouver town hall and Jeff McDonald, director of community relations and communications, have parted company. Regrettable. In my experience, a consummate professional, nice guy.
• • •
Political backroomer/backrumour Agent Jf83M9sW declares unequivocally that newspaper executive Kirk LaPointe has already got the nod from the Non-Partisan Association to reprise next November his 2014 bid for mayor of Vancouver. He lost to Gregor Robertson by fewer than six percentage points.
• • •
Notwithstanding a wild-eyed president, the U.S. economy soared this year – the S&P 500 Index up 23.5 per cent at the release of a report early this month by Murray Leith of Odlum Brown.
Does business actively back Trump? Or does business get on with business, heeding only the politics that affects it and ignoring TV geniuses and the funny papers of New York and Washington? Which is it?
This is for certs: Trump gets no credit for U.S. prosperity from the usual wordy suspects. But what if the economy had tanked? Ha, thought you’d never ask.
• • •
And The Higher Canadian, not a rare species (founding faith, “thank God I’m not American”), should be grateful for Trump. He’s a saving distraction. For all his buffooneries, Trump had a better year – more hot air than dumb action – than one Justin Trudeau. He’s been an out-and-out, end-to-end disaster (write for details).
But you’ll never get the smug Ottawa-Toronto-Montreal leftish-Liberal power triangle, least of all State Radio’s self-parodying Toronto newsroom, to cough that up.
• • •
This lightning bolt hit me: Surely Donald Trump will announce the Newsfaker of the Year!
What are your thoughts? Send us a letter via email by clicking here or post a comment below.
