Helping Hand or Enablers?
There is a reason the Black Rod is the undisputed heavyweight champ of the
The BR mentions that the Toronto AIDS conference participants lauded the B.C. safe injection sites. He/she/they then go on to provide articles that cast a pall over any reason for joyous celebration.
How is it that we allow talking heads to make claims without any semblance of numerical data to back them up? How has the site been a resounding success? Has it lowered crime statistics? Are fewer people using hard drugs? Has this centre set up a target of getting 5% of “guests” off of junk and managed to achieve this target? If you have no tangible way to make an assertion then a case could be made that you are actually making things worse by facilitating suboptimal societal conduct.
Some social activists paint us business folk as callous wretches preoccupied solely with acquiring wealth. Perhaps they would best be served by adopting some of the principles we abide by. We identify needs that have yet to be fulfilled and allocate our budgets accordingly. The vitriolic left may call this heartless but I like to call this leveraging finite resources.
How can you begin to solve a problem when you can’t even articulate measurable ways to decree the problem eradicated or at the very least on the path to progress? Poverty, homelessness and addiction are serious societal issues. One day I hope my kids or grandkids can grow up in a world without them. Unsubstantiated flowery and self-congratulatory rhetoric won’t help make this a reality…
Motivational Tunes:
Porno for Pyros – Tahitian Moon
The Alan Parsons Project – Standing on Higher Ground
W.A.S.P. – The Heretic (The Lost Child) – blame Andy Fletcher’s Manimal reference for that one…
posted by Unapologetic Ex-Winnipegger @ 10:06 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
BR is a part time stringer (freelance correspondent). The stuff that shows up on the site is whatever she can't flog to the MSM.
The stuff is reasonably well written, albeit a mixture of inuendo, supposition, and fact although most of what's covered off is nothing new or earth shattering to the long time local MSM staffers who've been around a while and know the full background of stuff.
There's all kinds of reasons why stories don't appear in the MSM most of which have absolutely nothing to do with lack of knowledge or information by people in the business, or any form of arcane motive someone wants to assign.
They're just a business that forthe most part operates under the same constraints that every other business does.
Given the popularity of blogs like the Black Rod I hope the folks in the MSM are doing some serious soul-searching now. Granted they can't adopt the same tone and have to fact check umpteen times (although the 'Rod has managed to call them on that too) but one must wonder if stories like the Income Trust Scandal would have broke at all without a helping hand from blog pundits....
Facts don't protect anyone against expensive and time consuming civil suits - just ask Dan Lett and the Winnipeg Free Press - although I would hope that Dan is sharp enough to not even discuss the subject of facts and legality in even the most broad and general terms in a blog.
Nor does it, in certain circumstances, provide complete immunity in a law suit against the fact discloser - in particular when it involves the media.
My comments in Manimal Farm about Dan's Blog were in large part related to this point, although they might have come across a bit harsh, not to mention peculiar, since I do like and read Dan's stories in the paper, and in the less formal blog.
Perhaps I should risk chewing my cabbage twice and take another whack at it in Manimal Farm later today if and when I get some fee time.
It seems my long suffering wife has filled the to do jar to the brim with round tuits - sigh.
I don't like Junkies. I think they should be captured and pressed into rehab.
The world wide drug trade helps fuel some very violent and dispicable terrorist and criminal organizations.
I say we just capture the junkies, interrogate them (or simply withhold their last shot of heroin), find the dealers and literally shoot up the ranks.
I think the media practices a form of triage, as there isn't enough time to get the whole story.
I think the "measurable" goal should be getting junkies cleaned up. The strategies from both the right and left camps should be evaluated in large part on this criteria.
You raise a great point - who the money flows to. Not only does society lose a potentially productive participant to junk but their habits fund some pretty unsavoury folks...
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