OR, with apologies to poet Lewis Carroll: Of mobs and beds and deficits; of photo-ops and swings.
Over the years, analysts have theorized that Carroll's narrative poems were, in fact, political commentary.
If the theories are correct, what better vehicle for the author than to use Alice Through the Looking Glass to deliver amusing barbs as weapons against the capitalistic and societal ills of Victorian England?
There were too many nonsenses and outright wrongs to be fought with logic, common sense and justice; so Carroll's best defence was to make fools of the perpetrators.
Possessing no such, I favour a full frontal approach: Mobs
What kind of sense is it to spend $313,000 for a report that brought the experts to our own conclusion that deficient system-wide planning, coupled with alcohol-fuelled hooligans and too few police resources facilitated the riot?
On Sept. 6, taking the heat non-stop for multiple city and policing failures, Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu told CBC News, "No one had information that there was going to be a riot. No one had information that the crowd would swell to this size. . . .
We were surprised by the size of the crowd, but that doesn't mean we weren't prepared."
Strange how a small group of young North Vancouver fans knew trouble was brewing by 3 p.m. that afternoon.
Having taken the SeaBus over, they met up with friends at the appointed place, decided the crowd was too large, turned around and headed for home.
They were already this side of the water when I called one of them to warn of the wallto-wall thousands that were hemmed in by buildings and Global TV cameras.
"It's OK, Liz," they said, "we decided to get out and watch the game at a friend's place." Good policing material there.
Beds
Sept. 6 being the day for common-sense stories, we also learned how not to manage health and community-care dollars.
Long ago and far away - well 2001 in Victoria - then Liberal health critic Colin Hansen agreed that one way to save health-care dollars was to provide people in need of 24-7 long-term care more appropriate accommodation than scarce, expensive acutecare hospital beds.
Apparently Mr. Hansen has not had lunch with Premier Christy Clark lately - or at least a lunch where he was doing the talking.
Had he done so, he might have reminded Clark that her "cost-saving" cuts to Community Living B.C. were forcing Vancouver General Hospital to place people like 46-year-old John Gaffney - a man with severe Down syndrome and dementia - in acute-care beds.
Clark's type of costcutting did not begin with her, however. Nor is hers the only example of inappropriate, costly nonsense whereby governments shuffle dollar signs around on pieces of paper without having a clue what they are doing.
Memo to Victoria: prevention is always less expensive than acute care; and it doesn't take privatization to achieve it. If our premier truly wants to create jobs and make families her focus, she might consider fulfilling that 2001 promise to create 5,000 new long-term care beds.
Deficits, photoops and swings
Finance minister Kevin Falcon, concerned about the extra revenue-neutral dollars he says he lost (misplaced?) as a result of the HST referendum, has asked for our advice as to how to save money.
That's easier than answering Jeopardy questions:
- Void the cheques for Standard & Poor's ratings; the auditor general can tell us where we stand.
- Stop padding the profits of independent power producers.
- Repatriate B.C. Ferries; swallow the severances; forego the stadium seats; fire David Hahn and the board of directors; lower fares; sail with a full load of passengers; and, while you're at it, audit the claims about fuel-saving German-built ferries that didn't produce a penny of taxes for our coffers.
- Fire the premier's personal advisers; have her make do with the experts already on our payroll.
- Cut bonuses for people just doing the jobs they were hired to do.
- Use the functioning technology you already have until the budget is balanced.
- Cut communications staff and their feel-good advertising by half - system-wide, including at TransLink.
- Quit making nice at photo-op playground swings, the ruse doesn't work.
- And make do with bag lunches from home - family-like.
While Falcon does that, I'll write some poems.
