Blog about politics (mideast and pro-Israel, Canadian and local Montreal), world events, and random thoughts.

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The World I Know is updated on a semi-regular basis by segacs.

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Comments are open and unmoderated, although obscene or abusive remarks may be deleted. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of segacs's world i know.

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12:18 PM
Damian's been having shovel troubles digging his way out of the big east coast snowstorm.

We're supposed to get dumped on tonight. Hopefully there'll be some good ski weather.

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10:50 AM
Canada's Citizenship and Immigration board has essentially signed the death sentence of Song Dae Ri, a North Korean defector who escaped with his son to Canada and petitioned for refugee status. With this ruling, the board has thrown out the temporary reprieve it issued to Ri.

Once again, I'll state that without knowing all the facts of the case, it's hard to judge. There have been numerous cases of people claiming refugee status who were clearly abusing the system.

But even Immigration Canada doesn't seem to think that Ri is guilty of any crimes against humanity:

Robert Genier, a senior analyst with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, endorsed a much-criticized decision from the Immigration and Refugee Board. That ruling found Mr. Ri guilty of war crimes merely for being a trade official in North Korea's secretive, repressive regime. No allegations of specific crimes against humanity have been made against him, and Canada's War Crimes Unit found no evidence of wrongdoing.

[ . . . ]

"I am satisfied [Mr. Ri] would be at risk of cruel and unusual punishment if he were to return to North Korea," ruled C. Lemonde, a pre-removal risk assessment officer with the Canadian Border Services Agency.

However, Mr. Genier, a more senior immigration official in Ottawa, reviewed the findings and concluded last week that Mr. Ri was not entitled to Canada's protection "because of the nature and severity of the acts committed" by him.

Something doesn't jibe here. There's a contradiction. Either he's a war criminal or he's not... but IRB seems to want it both ways.

The deportation order can still be stayed on humanitarian grounds:

A source in the Immigration Department indicated that Mr. Ri would likely get a favourable ruling and be permitted to stay.

Still, critics suggest the fact that he was twice labelled a war criminal shows the refugee-determination system is flawed. There has never been any specific evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Ri. But IRB member Bonnie Milliner found him complicit in crimes against humanity because he willingly joined the government and did not leave at the first available opportunity.

It's not as though you can just hop on the first flight out, so that criteria seems harsh in light of the facts. But as they say, something smells fishy here. I suspect we're not getting the whole story, and I wonder what's not being said.

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5:18 PM
I didn't want to write anything about the Mel Gibson "Passion" controversy. Really I didn't. I felt - and still feel - that all the whining is just giving the film tons of publicity that it wouldn't have been able to get otherwise, and I didn't want to feed the media frenzy in any way.

But whatever one thinks of Mel Gibson, Meryl has the scoop on Mel's dad, giving credence to the theory that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Even if there's no direct evidence that Mel shares his father's extremist views, in light of the film and surrounding controversy, can you really blame a person for wondering?

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5:06 PM
Gazette columnist Henry Aubin adds his two cents into the volatile pool of Quebec language issues, proposing free French lessons for students who graduate from university in Montreal and then end up leaving the province to seek employment elsewhere. It's Aubin's idea of a way to solve the brain drain:

Students flock here from outside Quebec, then leave in droves, diplomas in hand.

[ . . . ]

But that ignores an important fact. As the city-hall study confirmed with numerous interviews, the majority of these people love Montreal and would be happy to make their lives here were it not for certain constraints.

Like what? Political instability and a rotten job market have faded. The new disincentives, the study suggests, include high taxes, the city's secondary status in the global knowledge economy and, finally, "language policy." The first two problems are complex and can't be solved quickly, but one facet of the language issue is - believe it or not - easy to improve.

Aubin's idealistic proposal has a few problems attached to it, though.

First, a few French classes are unlikely to improve someone's fluency level to that needed to work in most positions. I've been learning French for almost my entire life, and while I'm functional, I'm certainly not perfect. If I - a fourth-generation Montrealer with a bilingual education - had trouble finding a job because of the language issue, then what's to say that a free French class will help grads from outside Quebec get employed?

Second, there are a number of programs and language courses already offered either for free or extremely cheap, similar to what Aubin proposes. YES Montreal, for example, offers a basic French course. Most of the universities, have continuing education classes held in the evenings that are cheap. And the best deal of all: students from outside Quebec who decide to come here and major in French language or literature can attend university paying Quebec resident tuition. That's a discount of thousands of dollars to encourage people to flock to Montreal to study French! A few do it... most don't.

Perhaps most important of all, most people in Quebec don't see the departure of visiting university students post-graduation as a problem in the first place. After all, students come from outside Quebec, pay higher tuition, get educated, live here a few years, and then go back home so they don't take up jobs. And by leaving, they don't threaten Quebec's "French character". After all, most of the English-speaking ones aren't desirable immigrants to Quebec precisely because they're not francophone... so people are not looking for a solution because to them, there's no problem. It's no use telling them that a better-educated workforce will lead to job creation and an expansion of the proverbial pie, with more prosperity all around. No, to them, the English interlopers are stealing their French jobs, and good riddance to them anyway.

In a week where Quebec is still reeling from perceived attacks by Don Cherry, Conan O'Brien, and the Liberal corruption scandal, it may not be politically savvy to say this. But I've never really cared much about being politically-correct in the past, so why start now? Quebec needs to grow up, toughen up, and open up. It's that simple.

Our society is threatened by openness and change, and reacts defensively to any attempt to educate and re-create the definition of the future. The politicians keep the French Quebecois here by not enabling them to learn English from a young age, cutting off most of their opportunties elsewhere. They keep the English out by not making job opportunities available to them. In these ways, Quebec's character stays French, that's true. But the economy also stagnates behind the rest of Canada, as one opportunity after another is squandered.

I suspect that when Ontarians who graduate from McGill cite the "language policy" as a reason not to stay in Montreal, they mean much more than being able to function in French. They mean the dirty little secret that nobody likes to talk about but everyone knows: the English are not really "part" of Quebec society. They're not wanted. And even if they stick around and get a job and learn French, they're still the Big Bad Anglos who want to oppress the Quebecois and threaten its precious French majority.

That is the real "language policy" and it'll take a helluvalot more than some free French classes to solve.

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2:57 PM
Because he couldn't pull it off:

The Jerusalem Post asks, in an opinion piece, Why not Mitzna?

Why, when during the last Israeli election campaign, former Labor party leader Amram Mitzna proposed essentially the same "pull out and fence off" plan that Ariel Sharon's government is pursuing now, was he so readily dismissed?

As Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reviewed his year in office in a Knesset speech last night, it was hard not to ask the question, have we not come full circle? In the last election, the now-forgotten Amram Mitzna proposed negotiating with the Palestinians, and if that did not work, unilaterally withdrawing behind the fence.

During the election campaign, the Labor party ran an advertisement accusing Sharon of not building the fence fast enough. The Likud responded with an ad featuring Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, who explained the dangers of Mitzna's plan to withdraw unilaterally from much of the West Bank.

The article claims that it's because Sharon's vision is pragmatic while Mitzna's was idealistic:

Plan B, however, is preferable to the status quo. And we would rather have Sharon implement it than Mitzna.

The reason is that what Israel needs most is consensus on its own red lines. Mitzna could never have redrawn the map the way Sharon is doing while maintaining a consensus, in part because the Left cannot quite shake its ideology that concessions will bring peace, in part because Mitzna would never have been able to gain the trust of the Right. Sharon is doing what Mitzna said he would do but for the opposite reason: drawing the most defensible (politically, demographically and militarily) lines because there is no Palestinian partner. The public will back a pragmatic withdrawal/retrenchment over a utopian one any day, and that consensus is itself critical to maintaining Israel's strategic credibility.

I think that's true. But I think it goes further than that.

The thing is, a leader distrusted by the majority of a population can't sell the tough concessions. There's a reason it was Menachem Begin - with his hardliner background and right-wing affiliation - who signed the peace treaty with Anwar El-Sadat. It's the same reason that Ariel Sharon might be able to sell a Gaza pullout, while Mitzna would never have been able to do so.

Israelis are concerned first and foremost about their security. They won't trust a leadership that they perceive as selling out their security for a worthless piece of paper. They may trust a leader who they perceive as taking steps in the interest of security.

That doesn't make me any more enthusiastic about Sharon's plan. But it does go a long way towards explaining why the Israelis have been voting for people like Sharon over people like Mitzna in these past few years.

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2:34 PM
An opinion piece in today's Gazette speaks of the "dishonourable generation" - in the writer's words, the boomers who now seek to deny future generations the benefits and advantages that they had. Patrick Barnard, a CEGEP teacher, laments the fact that what was good enough for them seems now to be "too good" for their kids. Specifically, he's talking about the government's proposal to reform or altogether eliminate the CEGEP system in Quebec:

The dishonourable generation went to CEGEP and university, enjoyed relatively small classes, received scholarships - all the result of public funds channeled through the state. Now those same people have become private and public managers who wish to wrest those benefits from their own progeny. They are the "chicken hawks" of public policy.

I don't agree that all of the baby boomer generation fits into this category. Most of them - my parents' generation, in fact - only want what's best for their kids and grandkids.

But on the CEGEP issue, I think that Barnard is right on target. Quebec may be a messed-up place, but IMHO the CEGEP system was one of the best ideas that any provincial government ever had. Maybe I'm biased - my two years of CEGEP were two of the best years of my life - but the system itself makes an inherent kind of sense. After all, how many people really know after high school what direction they want their lives to take? It wasn't until I had the opportunity to take a number of different kinds of courses in CEGEP that I had an idea of what field to pursue in university. Not only that, but I learned how to work to a college standard. There's no way that my high school experience would have even come close to preparing me for a university workload.

CEGEP is a time to adapt to a college-like environment without the stress of a university workload. It's a time to narrow one's area of focus slightly while avoiding having to over-specialize just yet. It's a chance for people to learn a technical career without needing to go to university at all, if they so choose, or to learn the basics of a pre-university field without being too restricted. It's a chance to make the transition from being a high school "kid", subject to strict rules and regulations, and an independant university "adult". And best of all, if you attend a public CEGEP, it's absolutely free!

My own CEGEP experience was great... an amazing social environment and school atmosphere, excellent teachers, interesting classes, and lasting friendships. I'm not suggesting that everyone loved it as much as I did... but most people seem to enjoy it - students and teachers alike. More importantly, it works.

The solution isn't to eliminate CEGEPs but to expand their programs and funding. At the same time, the university tuition freeze should be lifted. This would give students access to quality free education at the CEGEP level, and provide them with the option of attending well-funded, world-class universities upon graduation. And by the time they get to that point, thanks to CEGEP they'll have a fair idea of what they want to study, thus saving wasted money on a year of core courses or on program changes. Hopefully, the government will recognize this and save the CEGEP system before a successful experiment is dumped out the window.

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4:28 PM
63% of respondents to a Globe and Mail online poll think that Conan O'Brien shouldn't apologize for his Triumph skit.

Good parody is never having to say you're sorry.

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2:40 PM
I've maintained for a while that Israel has been shooting itself in the foot by its inability to play the public relations game. While the PA has the international media eating out of its hand, the Israeli government has dispatched standoffish spokespeople with poor English skills, issued a host of "no comments" or "we're investigatings", and has failed to come up with the catchy one-liner soundbytes to advertise its cause.

That appears to be changing, as Israel is at last acknowledging that sometimes it's not enough to be right; you have to be snappy. This media strategy is sure to have an impact:

Jerusalem bus wrecked in a suicide bombing was readied Tuesday for a flight to the Netherlands as part of an Israeli public relations offensive surrounding a World Court hearing on Israel's West Bank barrier.

Israel's Zaka private emergency service said it was sending the charred skeleton of Bus 19, in which 11 people were killed on Jan. 29 when a Palestinian policeman blew himself up, as grim evidence of how Israel has "suffered from terror."

The bus, taken in pieces to Ben-Gurion airport on a flatbed truck, was to be flown out Wednesday and displayed outside the World Court in The Hague during next week's hearings on the legality of the barrier Israel is building in the West Bank.

As an advertising person, this strategy is sound. It's sure to make a strong emotional impact. But it's funny... I've been arguing for so long that Israel should swing a few punches on the public relations front, and now that they're finally doing so, it's leaving a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

I can't help but feeling that it's wrong somehow for Israel to stoop to the level of media ploys or one-liners. I'm in no position to criticize; the cynic in me knows that perception is reality. But maybe I keep thinking that it would be nice if Israel were above these cheap strategies... that it would be nice if the world recognized right and wrong instead of catchphrases and slogans.

Still, a reality check tells me that Israel is just presenting its case in the strongest way possible, and that it's about time.

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2:06 PM
Why we're bad

I was flipping channels the other night, and heard a teaser promo on - I think - the CBC on a story about trans fats and the drive to legislate them out of existence that went something along the lines of "Why don't we eat the way we should?"

Now, I'm not disputing the findings of all the experts who say that trans fats are bad for us, or are a health hazard even. But I am a little wary of attempts to ban unhealthy foods. Even if fat is "the new tobacco", as the Heart and Stroke Association sensationally warns, well, heck, even tobacco's legal.

Every day, we're assaulted by shocking warnings about different kinds of food. One day, it's watch out for the water - it's polluted and will kill you. The next day, don't touch that protein. The day after, protein is king (thanks Atkins) and it's the carbs that'll kill ya. Sugar is bad so sweeten artificially... no, artificial sweetener will cause cancer; use real sugar. It's an eternal yoyo going by with such dizzying speed that nobody can possibly keep it all straight.

In the end, everything'll kill you. But that's ok cause life will kill you. Death is one of the only two certainties in life. You can eat only vegan all-natural vegetables your entire life and get hit by a car.

As long as they are eaten in moderation, most foods won't do you grievous amounts of harm. So if I want to be bad and occasionally eat something that's bad for me, that's nobody's business but my own. It's certainly not the government's. If these interest groups get their way, every guilty pleasure will be illegal, and all the causes of death will drop drastically... but when people realize what kind of dry existence they're left with, suddenly the suicide rate will spiral out of control. After all, what is life if you can't indulge in a slice of triple-chocolate mousse cake on occasion?

I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. But I have the occasional drink, I'm positively addicted to chocolate, and I don't always eat my recommended daily intake of the four food groups every day. Even more shocking: Sometimes I read romance novels, watch cheesy movies, and I've even caught an episode or two of bad reality TV. And the guilty pleasure derived from doing each of those is the same as the guilty pleasure derived from eating greasy onion rings.

So to the NDP and their proposed bill outlawing trans fats, I say try being bad once in a while. Sometimes, it just feels good.

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