death

Wednesday April 6, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday April 6, 2022

In Bucha, death, devastation and a graveyard of mines

March 12, 2022

The Russian forces had not been in town for long before they came to the home of Volodymyr Avramov, a resident of Vokzal’na Street in the quiet Ukrainian suburb of Bucha.

Three Russians kicked in the doors and threw in a grenade, the 72-year-old Avramov said. Inside were Avramov, his daughter, and his son-in-law, Oleh.

They dragged Oleh outside and made him kneel – then shot him in the head as Avramov and his daughter watched, he said. The two then had to shelter in a basement for weeks as the fighting continued.

“Oleh was laying on the street for a month. I could not come close or bury him, nothing,” he said.

Images of dead civilians lining the streets of Bucha have shocked the world in recent days and heightened concerns that Russian soldiers are committing war crimes in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called it genocide.

March 1, 2022

“There were piles of dead corpses lying here, without arms, without legs, without skulls,” Avramov said. “You wouldn’t see it in a nightmare. It’s horror.”

Stories resembling the one told by Avramov have been documented by Human Rights Watch, which found evidence of execution-style killings of civilian men in multiple Ukrainian cities, including Bucha.

Now Ukraine has intensified its calls for the West to provide more military aid and take greater action against Russia, in hopes of tipping the scale as the fight shifts from Kyiv to eastern Ukraine.

“If we had already got what we needed – all these planes, tanks, artillery, anti-missile and anti-ship weapons – we could have saved thousands of people. I do not blame you — I blame only the Russian military. But you could have helped,” Zelenskyy said in a speech Monday.

February 20, 2014

As part of the effort, Ukrainian authorities have organized tours for foreign journalists to see the extent of Russia’s devastation of Bucha: Destroyed homes, blackened buildings, blown out windows, and the apocalyptic Vokzal’na Street – a half-mile-long graveyard of burned out tanks and cars.

Amid the ruins, members of a demining crew showed journalists some of the explosives that have been recovered from homes in the city. About 4,000 were found on Monday alone, officials said, a mix of mines, ammunition and unexploded missiles.

The bodies of some 200 civilians have been recovered so far in the Bucha area, officials say, and more are uncovered each day as crews work to remove mines and clear rubble. (NPR) 

 

Saturday April 10, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday April 10, 2021

Prince Philip loved Canada, and knew this country in good times and bad

Prince Philip, in personal encounters, had a special ability to put you immediately at ease at the same time as he kept you on edge. It was his style: he loved to demystify the monarchy so you didn’t sound like a blithering idiot when you were addressed by a member of the family. But at the same time, he also brought to conversation a degree of forthright questioning that sometimes could turn you into … well, a blithering idiot.

October 3, 2002

He loved Canada and probably visited this country more than any other on the planet, both officially with the Queen he served so dutifully and lovingly all those years, and privately on many more occasions, especially in connection with the Duke of Edinburgh Awards or the World Wildlife Fund.

In a life spread throughout most of the 20th century and well into the 21st, he met thousands of people and graced hundreds of institutions. When he made one of several visits to Massey College in the University of Toronto during the Golden Jubilee Year (2002) to become the college’s first Honorary Senior Fellow he was asked — inevitably — to unveil a plaque honouring the visit. The college flag was draped somewhat ornately over the plaque and he went up to it with a certain degree of familiarity:

June 11, 2016

“You about to see the handiwork of a master unveiler of plaques,“ he said with a wry smile. Then he took one corner of the flag and with a few twists of the wrist made it twirl in the air which made everyone laugh.

He wrote later that he had “a soft spot” for Massey College. He had laid its cornerstone in a previous visit in 1962 and he was a particular friend of the college’s founder, Vincent Massey, the first Canadian-born governor general. It was part of a much larger soft spot for Canada as a whole.

January 23, 2021

And he knew the country in good times and bad. Famously, during the troubled visit of 1964 during the height of the Quiet Revolution Quebeckers backs were turned on him and the Queen as their official car headed for the provincial legislature. Later at a press reception, he pointed out that if Canada was tired of being a monarchy perhaps we could try to end it with a bit of civility. “We don’t come here for our health,” he pointed out. “We can think of other ways of spending our time.”

Although a deeply intelligent and inherently kind man with an extraordinary sense of duty, it was his testiness that was a big part of his appeal, and also what got him into trouble. Depending on your views of the monarchy, his off-the-cuff quips were either a sign of the blatant ridiculousness of the Crown or proof of its enduring power. It was usually a matter of perspective.

April 9, 2002

He certainly understood the often murky deal between the Crown and the media that both sides played. On the one hand, there was deep resentment within the Royal Family and those officials who served them at the brutal way the media could often push into their lives during troubled periods. At the same time, the media has for some time now been the leading handmaiden in securing the Crown’s hold over people’s imagination, to the equal irritation for their own reasons of republicans and royalists alike.

He was a man marked for life by his earliest experience of being poor but royal, impoverished but often in the presence of vast wealth, alone in the world but determined to survive and make his mark. And it was all done with a sense of duty that has few parallels in our own time. (National Post) 

 

Saturday December 12, 2020

December 12, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday December 12, 2020

Trump largely mum on toll of coronavirus as he continues to fight election results

U.S. President Donald Trump has been highlighting lots of really big numbers this week: New highs for the stock market. The 100-plus House members backing a lawsuit challenging his election loss. The nearly 75 million people who voted for him.

November 24, 2020

All the while, he’s looked past other staggering and more consequential figures: The record numbers of coronavirus deaths, hospitalizations and new cases among the citizens of the nation he leads.

On Friday, Trump’s team blasted out a text with this strong, high-minded presidential message: “We will not bend. We will not break. We will never give in. We will never give up.”

But it was not a rallying cry to help shore up Americans sagging under the toll of a pandemic that on Wednesday alone killed more Americans than on D-Day or 9-11. It was part of a fundraising pitch tied to Senate races in Georgia and to Trump’s unsupported claims that Democrats are trying to “steal” the presidential election he lost.

November 6, 2020

Of Trump’s tweets over the past week, 82 per cent have been focused on the election and just 7 per cent on the virus — almost all of those related to forthcoming vaccines — according to Factba.se, a data analytics company. Nearly a third of the president’s tweets on the election were flagged by Twitter for misinformation.

As he talks and tweets at length about the election he is futilely trying to subvert, the president is leaving Americans without a central figure to help them deal with their grief over loved-ones’ deaths and the day-to-day danger of the pandemic that still rages. His strategy is to focus totally on the shiny object coming soon — the prospect of a vaccine.

Friday night, the the Food and Drug Administration gave the final go-ahead to a vaccine from Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, launching emergency vaccinations in a bid to end the pandemic. But Trump’s three-minute internet address hailing the vaccine made no mention of the toll the virus has taken.

July 28, 2020

Calvin Jillson, a presidential historian at Southern Methodist University, said Trump has proven himself unable or unwilling to muster the “normal and natural, falling-off-a-log simple presidential approach” that is called for in any moment of national grief or crisis.

“He simply doesn’t seem to have the emotional depth, the emotional reserves to feel what’s happening in the country and to respond to it in the way that any other president — even those who’ve been fairly emotionally crippled — would do,” Jillson said.

November 21, 2020

Trump did convene a summit this week to highlight his administration’s successful efforts to help hasten the development of coronavirus vaccines and prepare for their speedy distribution. And he spent part of Friday pressing federal authorities to authorize use of the first-up vaccine candidate from Pfizer.

At his summit, the president put heavy emphasis on the faster-than-expected development of the vaccines, calling it “an incredible success,” “a monumental national achievement,” “really amazing” and “somewhat of a miracle.” He’s also claimed credit, though Pfizer developed its vaccine outside the administration’s “Operation Warp Speed.”

In a passing nod to the pandemic’s toll, Trump promised the coming vaccines would “quickly and dramatically reduce deaths and hospitalizations,” adding that “we want to get back to normal.” But it will be months before most Americans have access to a vaccine.

Asked what message he had for Americans suffering great hardship as the holidays approach and the virus only gets worse, Trump’s answer had an almost clinical tone.

April 23, 2020

“Yeah, well, CDC puts out their guidelines, and they’re very important guidelines,” he said, “but I think this: I think that the vaccine was our goal.”

To focus otherwise would undercut Trump’s goal of minimizing the national pain of the virus’ toll and his claims that the danger will soon vanish.

Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, on Friday answered that approach with a promise for greater presidential leadership. Of the virus, he said: “We can wish this away, but we need to face it.”

Jeff Shesol, a presidential historian and former speechwriter for President Bill Clinton, said Trump’s failure to express empathy was a “personal pathology manifesting itself as political strategy.” (Global News) 

 

Friday November 27, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday November 27, 2020

Black Friday takes on ‘existential moral dimension’ amid pandemic

One of the biggest shopping days of the year is here, just as public health officials impose tighter restrictions in an effort to slow the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The confluence of Black Friday and rising COVID-19 cases has added what experts are calling an “existential moral dimension” to a retail event that has gradually become partof the holiday shopping season in Canada and a crucial sales vehicle for businesses.

November 25, 2011

Black Friday, famous for its pre-dawn lineups and hordes of bargain hunters, has increasingly eclipsed Boxing Day as the country’s biggest Christmas shopping event. Yet those wall-to-wall crowds are exactly what makes the shopping spree a potential health hazard in the time of a global pandemic.

“We’re seeing Black Friday fall at a particularly inopportune time in the pattern of infections,” says Tandy Thomas, an associate professor in the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University.

“There’s a lot more moral complexity to Black Friday this year than we’ve ever seen before.”

Critics have long denounced the rampant consumerism of Black Friday, an event that traces its origins to post-Thanksgiving sales in the United States.

However, retailers rely on holiday sales in general — and Black Friday in particular — to survive the slower winter months. 

May 9, 2020

“It’s the No. 1 day for a lot of retailers in Canada,” says retail analyst Bruce Winder. “It’s literally make-it-or-break-it time for many.”

This year, the Black Friday debate has devolved into “virtuous versus sinful,” says Markus Giesler, associate professor of marketing at York University’s Schulich School of Business.

“Black Friday has been reimagined through the lens of the pandemic along moralistic lines,” he says. “There’s an existential moral dimension to Black Friday this year that has amplified the usual debate.” 

Whereas previous concerns over Black Friday sales hinged on the ethics of an event in which consumers are pitted against one another in a scramble to get a discounted big-ticket item, sometimes resulting in chaos and violence, the issue now is whether in-store shopping will become a potential super-spreader retail event.

Retailers have acknowledged the risk and encouraged customers to shop early this year. Big box stores, which often attract throngs of people on Black Friday, started promotions as early as October.

Life in a Pandemic

Yet despite the online deals, analysts expect some people will still show up in-person on Friday in the hopes of snagging a doorbuster deal.

It’s the thrill of a good find in-store, versus the more transactional and utilitarian nature of online shopping, he says.

“There’s probably still going to be an awkward pandemonium in some stores with lineups and crowds,” Giesler adds. 

“Overall, it should be a little more subdued, but there will still be some deal-prone consumption. I expect we’ll still see some door crashing.” (Times-Colonist) https://www.timescolonist.com/black-friday-takes-on-existential-moral-dimension-amid-pandemic-1.24245971

 

Tuesday September 29, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday September 29, 2020

Long-Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance

Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.

October 4, 2016

He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million.

March 26, 2019

The tax returns that Mr. Trump has long fought to keep private tell a story fundamentally different from the one he has sold to the American public. His reports to the I.R.S. portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes. Now, with his financial challenges mounting, the records show that he depends more and more on making money from businesses that put him in potential and often direct conflict of interest with his job as president.

June 2, 2020

The New York Times has obtained tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office. It does not include his personal returns for 2018 or 2019.

The COVID-19 Pandemic

The returns are some of the most sought-after, and speculated-about, records in recent memory. In Mr. Trump’s nearly four years in office — and across his endlessly hyped decades in the public eye — journalists, prosecutors, opposition politicians and conspiracists have, with limited success, sought to excavate the enigmas of his finances. By their very nature, the filings will leave many questions unanswered, many questioners unfulfilled. They comprise information that Mr. Trump has disclosed to the I.R.S., not the findings of an independent financial examination. They report that Mr. Trump owns hundreds of millions of dollars in valuable assets, but they do not reveal his true wealth. Nor do they reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia. (Continued: New York Times)