If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich?
December 2014
Ayako Fujitani stars in Dave Boyle’s Man From Reno
Hillary Clinton on Power and Politics
Edward James Olmos Actor, Political Activist, Father
METANOIA EXECUTIVE AND STAFF
A NEW WAY OF THINKING
PUBLISHERS
SALME JOHANNES LEIS & ALLISON PATTON
COPY CHIEF
CALEB NG
ASSISTANT COPY CHIEF
CASSIDY SCOTT
EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS
JR LEIS AND HEINO LEIS
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
DAL FLEISCHER
PHOTO ARCHIVIST
GALINA BOGATCH
PHOTOGRAPHER CONTRIBUTORS
SYLVESTER LAW
Maureen Bader Alex Barberis Andy Belanger Donald J. Boudreaux Dr Tim Brown Brian Croft Miki Dawson Cheryl Gauld Kulraj Gurm Marilyn Hurst Richard King IV Peter and Maria Kingsley Suzette Laqua Marilyn Lawrie
METANOIA MAGAZINE is a publication of METANOIA CONCEPTS INC. For questions, comments, or advertising contact by Phone: 604 538 8837, Email: metanoiamagazine@gmail.com, Mail: 3566 King George Blvd, Surrey, BC, Canada, V4P 1B5 2
Hank Leis Salme Leis Chris MacClure Seth Meltzer Dr Caleb Ng Janice Oleandros Dr Allison Patton Luis Reyes Cara Roth Pepe Serna Dan Walker Harvey White Dr Bernard Schissel Dr Jack Wadsworth
METANOIA CONTENTS
A NEW WAY OF THINKING
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY VANCOUVER WEB FEST EDWARD JAMES OLMOS MAN FROM RENO RANT STOP THE CRISIS THE STOCK MARKET NEW YORK, NEW YORK TEENAGED SOLDIERS YOUR SECOND FIFTY POWER AND POLITICS MISSIVES DAN WALKER CHRONICLES
BY SUZETTE LAQUA BY HANK LEIS BY HANK LEIS BY HANK LEIS BY DR ALLISON PATTON AND STEFANIA SECCIA BY DR JACK WADSWORTH BY DR ALLISON PATTON BY DR BERNARD SCHISSEL BY HANK LEIS 8Y DR ALLISON PATTON 8BY DONALD BOUDREAUX SHANGRI-LA TO SHENYANG
4 8 10 12 14 15 16 22 24 28 31 37 38 3
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The cover story in this issue is about director Dave Boyle’s award winning feature film Man From Reno. Veteran actor Pepe Serna stars with the beautiful Ayako Fujitani and the handsome Kazuki Kitamura. Man From Reno is a different kind of movie in many ways and may even become a trend setter in how to present commingling cultural paradigms. The bubbly, loquacious, authentic, red-headed Ms Suzette Laqua discusses the creation of her Web Fest and her connections to the fabulous and famous. Edward James Olmos is a story onto itself. It is just on being Olmos. Royal Roads University Professor, Bernard Schissel’s article, War And Teenaged Soldiers, is a compelling read. Jack Wadsworth, PhD asks the question, If You’re So Smart, Why Aren’t You Rich? Hank Leis will provide a reciprocal answer later, from his book entitled If You’re So Dumb, Why Are You Rich?
And there is more.
Kazuki Kitamura in Man From Reno
Kazuki Kitamura and Ayako Fujitani in Man From Reno
Pantheon
Veteran actor, Pepe Serna, stars in Man from Reno. Metanoia interviews director, Dave Boyle, about his bilingual Film gris.
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A NEW WAY OF THINKING
METANOIA METANOIA March/April 2012 Edition
A
NEW WAY OF THINKING
By Hank Leis
The New Face of BC Politics President of the BC Conservatives White Rock-Surrey Constituency Association
Dr. Allison Patton, MBA
The
Greek origins of the word Metanoia [met-uh-noiuh] convey the notion of an experience or a moment that is transformative. In fact the change itself would be so remarkable as to shift paradigms and these shifts actually would cause a change in behavior and ultimately the consequences of those behaviors. The articles in this magazine are intended to introduce a different way of thinking so that ideas and notions we take for granted can be reframed in such a way as to renew our life by making it more interesting, challenging and rewarding.
Naturopathic Medicine Week 2011 May 9-15
METANOIA METANOIA METANOIA March 2011
June /July 2012 Edition
Vanova
We at Metanoia believe we are all capable of more than that and more importantly are able to generate epiphanous moments for you. We hope that our plethora of deep-thinking writers will be able to transform your life into something meaningful and wondrous. Every one of us, to a varying degree, has experienced these moments and most of us who have been so transformed are driven to rediscovering the process that first allowed us our enlightened clarity of mind.
Sings us...
DECEMBER 2011 SPECIAL EDITION
METANOIA 778-788-0073/604-542-5213 jninkovich@stevenashsportsclub.com
Vancouver Is Burning June 2011
CAND Health Fusion Issue
An Interview with
George P. Shultz
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Betty Mobley
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July 2011
Events list & schedule
ie ab ull er Lynx, Her Pa ssion, Her L H
The Rant
the December 7
Steve Nash Christmas Bash
TOUR DE WHITE ROCK
“Lullabies”
WILL JOHN CUMMINS BE ABLE TO CHANGE BC’S POLITICAL LANDSCAPE?
Thank you for 10 years Present
Many of us have abandoned our intelligence, our ability to think, our various gifts for being able to create and instead joined the masses whose only goal is to perpetuate the species and dwell in a complacent and apathetic state amounting to nothing more than mere existence.
METANO Apollonia
THE RANT GEORGE SHULTZ PART 3 Interview with a Statesman
Daughter of Texas
La lumiere d’une Chandelle
METANOIA METANO
In the last decade, scientific advancements have given insights into human phenomena that were previously thought science fiction, such as the viral theory as a contributing factor in the feeling of “love”. Anthropologists may have noticed nuances in human behavior early in our development, but these scientific discoveries now actually explain the physiology of “metanoic thinking”. Our own behaviors are being re-examined in light of these discoveries about brain function, and in particular that our usual way of thinking leads us to our usual results. Moreover mostly we do not think- but react- not unlike reptiles- and this process does not always serve us well.
WeThank You For 10 Years!
magazine
Humankind is evolving, and more and more the primitive fears that govern our behaviors are being discovered to be limiting rather than opportunistic. What we are discovering about ourselves is what our evolution is all about; the beast within will soon be quelled and what will emerge is anybody’s guess.
2011 magazine Media Kit
METANOIA magazine
2011 Media Ki magazine Special Fall 2011 Edition
METANOIA February/March 2012 Edition
METANOIA
Individually, the context of one individual within a population of seven billion suggests his/her insignificance – let alone a lifetime in the span of eternity. And yet we still have this narcissistic sense that our existence is of tremendous relevance. And while there may be something to this belief, how do these enormous discrepancies in size and time fit together to explain the relevance of this epic story? Simplified, what is the relevance of a person making a living to pay for food and shelter to the formula E=mc2. Our mission, certainly for Metanoia is to explore all those ideas, and to change ourselves and you in pursuit of this intelligence. To put it another way, we want your brain to be engaged in way it never has been before. Are you ready for the challenge? M
METANOIA
Pepe Serna
Actor, Artist & Motivational Speaker The Scarface Anniversary what it was like on set
2011 Media K 5
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BEAUTY FROM WITHIN Healing Your Skin Is All In Your Mind BOOKNOW 604.538.8837 www.mountainviewwellnesscentre.ca
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VWF
VANCOUVER WEB FEST CANADA’S PREMIER INTERNATIONAL WEB FESTIVAL
MARCH 2015
Come join us March 6-8 at Performance Works at Granville Island
discover • experience • participate
www.vancouverwebfest.com
MY YEAR IN THE MAKING OF VANCOUVER WEB FEST By Suzette Laqua
P
eople ask me all the time how I got into running not just a festival, but a web festival, and how long I’ve been in the ‘business’. It’s kind of weird to tell them that it’s really only been since 2009. Although I’ve had friends in the ‘business’ for years, I personally come from a business entrepreneurial background. I was asked by a friend in 2009 if I’d help finance a reality web based show, as well as be a part of it, including creating it, writing it and producing it. I had no idea, but I thought it might be fun. We started investigating the different outlets of getting the project going, meeting with a web designer, searching for hours on the internet to source out what we could do with the reality show and then it came to an abrupt end when my mom was
Suzette Laqua with Jason Priestly
diagnosed with cancer. I turned my focus to her and the project was put on the back burner. It wasn’t until December 2010 that Brad Whitlock, my buddy who wanted me involved in the first project, called me up 8
again and said he had a completely different idea for a show. This time it was a sitcom, an original comedy based on the exploits and adventures of the quirky office staff at a struggling and dysfunctional casting agency. L.C. Casting is where Producers and Directors come to in search of talent for their movies, TV shows, commercials, etc. only to be stupefied by what’s really out there. We wrote it within two weeks, cast it two weeks later in a weekend, shot it over two weekends and then took over five months to edit it. We thought it was amazing, which is important when you’re sending it out to the different stations such as Global, CTV, CBC, etc. We had some replies saying nice things such as “great idea but get a production company.” So that was our next task. We sent it out to a lot of production companies, those who did take the time to reply also said “great idea” but they also let us know that they have their own projects, so thanks but no thanks! So fast forward a year to September 2012. After a year of sending out and getting
With Jack Monroe, Dan Payne and Naomi Priestley
nowhere and wanting to keep Last Chance Casting alive, I was searching the internet for more options on what to do with it and I came across an ad that LA Webfest was taking submissions and the deadline
was December 31st. I looked into what was needed to submit and I went to Brad and told him that I thought we should do it. We both agreed and knowing that the extended deadline to submit was about 30 days away, the end of December, we had to get working to edit the show. We took our 22 minute pilot, added back about 25 or so minutes and made it into a 10 episode web series with the episodes ranging from 5-8 minutes. I submitted it to LA Webfest and we were accepted. YAY! I went down to Los Angeles at the end of March 2013 and was introduced to my first web series festival. I was nervous, excited and curious and what an amazing experience it was. It was a whole new world. The great people I met. The good, the bad and the ugly web series’ I watched. The overall experience of LA Webfest was definitely an eye opener. While I was down there, I started talking to a new friend, who I’d just met, she was from New York, and we started talking about web festivals in Canada. So we Googled it and it turned out that Canada did not have a web series festival. Right there and then I decided that it does now. I came back to Vancouver and talked to a couple people about starting a web festival and they said ‘good luck with that’, a little discouraged that they weren’t as excited as I had been when I first thought about it down in Los Angeles, I put it on the back burner. A couple days later I read a tweet from a fellow web series creator that said ‘who wants to see a web fest in Canada?’ Well, I have to say that lit the fire under my butt. I went to my husband, Myles, who happens to be an IT guy, and told him to buy all the Vancouver Web Fest domains both .com and .ca in a variety of ways such as Van Web Fest, Vancouver Web Series Festival, Vancouver International Web Fest, you get the idea. And that was it, a
done deal. I started a Facebook (FB) & Twitter page. Myles worked on the web page and that was it, I was on my way, a new journey. I had no idea how I was going to get there. But I knew that I had to, I’d planted the seed and there was no turning back without feeling like a failure. I felt that I not only had to do it for myself, but also for the web series creators. There just wasn’t enough exposure out there for what was being produced on the web. There was some amazing web series and they needed to be recognized. At this time there were only 4 web series festivals in the world. LA Webfest, Marseille Webfest, Melbourne Webfest & Hong Kong Webfest. When Vancouver Web Fest was announced as Canada’s Premier International Web Series Festival in April
With Dan Rather and Ben Mulroney
on Go!Vancouver as well as The Rush with Fiona Forbes. I have met some amazing people including my Director of Development, Paula Hoffmann. I had originally met Paula in Los Angeles at LA Webfest and we’d kept in touch over the summer and talked a lot about the upcoming festival. I’d bounced some ideas off her and she was really great at giving me the feedback. I’d asked her to come on board and she’d declined but offered to help me whenever she could. It was a happy day when she came to me in October 2013 and said she was in and wanted to be a part of the Vancouver Web Fest. Our inaugural year was amazing. I had certain expectations, however, I was
With Alan Thicke
2013, we were officially the 5th web series festival in the world and the first and only one in Canada. Our inaugural year (May 2nd 4th 2014) was a huge success. All screenings, panels, parties and the awards gala were full for the entire festival. I started on the social media bandwagon not knowing a lot about With Oliver Stone it, but I definitely learned as I went With Michael Moore along. The followers started coming in on Twitter, even though the festival prepared for disappointment just to be wouldn’t take place until May 2014 I had safe, but was absolutely thrilled with the over 2000 followers by April 2014. The success of it. The feedback was absolutely ‘Likes’ starting coming in on FB. I started phenomenal. For instance this was sent to talking about submissions, tweeting about us by a colleague who had no need to suck them, posting about them on FB. I went to up to us, in fact if anything he would have events in Vancouver such as the Celluloid also told us how we could have improved Club, The Cold Reading Series, Vancouver the festival: Asian Film Fest, Vancouver Short Film Fest, Crazy 8’s, you name it, and I was “I just wanted to send you a quick note there to promote Vancouver Web Fest. to say thank you for putting on such an amazing event. I am SO frickin’ proud I was thrilled by the positive feedback of you both and proud of our city. You I was getting and the support from the did so many things right and I hope community. I was invited as a guest to talk you’re happy with the way everything about the upcoming Vancouver Web Fest turned out. I also hope things turned
out well enough and that you have the energy to do it all again next year! Vancouver Web fest wasn’t just one of the best (if not THE best) webfest I’ve attended but it was up there as one of the best film events I’ve attended in Vancouver over the last 15yrs. Massive congratulations. I suspect you’ll have plenty more sponsors willing to cough up support next year.” VWF was a dream I never knew I had. But once I realized the dream was real, it was exciting, it was new, it was different and most of all it was a challenge. A challenge that I was definitely up for to prove, not only to myself, but to those who doubted me, that I could and would do it and I’m very proud to say I did it.
With Henry Winkler
Vancouver Web Fest 2014 has been rated, by those who have attended other web festivals around the world, to be the best out there. I just received this message via Facebook tonight while writing this article from a web series creator/actor: “VWF was the best organized and run fest of the five we attended. Hands down. Plus you guys are awesome and we want to see you again!” I just wanted to share, it makes me feel like the hard work has paid off. It’s an incredible feeling to know that I made that much of difference in my first year and it only makes me more keen to make Vancouver Web Fest one of the biggest and best Web Festivals in the world. Vancouver Web Fest 2015 will take place March 6th – 8th 2015 at Performance Works on Granville Island. We have an amazing line up of guests, panels, screenings, parties and live entertainment. A festival you won’t want to miss. See you there. M For more information on Vancouver Web Fest visit www.vancouverwebfest.com.
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Edward James Olmos and Hank Leis circa 1997
THE EDWARD JAMES OLMOS STORY
Dr. Allison Patton, Bodie Olmos, and Salme Leis in Whistler BC for Ironman Canada 2014
By Hank Leis
Edward
James Olmos is a political activist under the guise of being an actor. And that is why he is such a damn good actor. He understands personally the pain of the oppressed and the arrogance of the ruling class. Olmos is a family man – and for me to “interview” him is a kind of family event. He brings them along, and they are his entourage. His son is a triathlon competitor and an actor, but biking is his passion. He too is part of the group. Olmos has a certain lightness of being. He is fun – but engage with him in serious conversation and he is no lightweight. His words weigh heavily on the subject; measured, thoughtful, sometimes angry – looking for changes that will help in the enhancement of the Latino community he has come to represent. As an actor, there is no one to surpass him and the movies he has chosen to act in make a profound statement about mankind. Even his performance in Miami Vice brought a certain gravitas to the series. One looked forward to each episode to see how the loner in command handled with quiet, unassuming, authority his “flaky” subordinate detectives. One reason for his outstanding performance is that he had total script control for his character. 10
In my mind, Triumph Of Spirit is more profound than Spielberg’s Schindlers List. Both are excellent movies, but the less heard of Triumph Of Spirit serves the need of those who desire to understand being there, and the darkness of the period that in a historic sense caused a mass paranoia in just being, both in the persecutors and the persecuted. Olmos is the consummate actor, the centerpiece of the story – who through his words and actions – reveals what happens. The story is emotional, so much so that Schindler’s List is easier to watch. The subject matter in both movies is similar – but Triumph Of Spirit has no heroes. Only scared and fearful people. Olmos in his character is the containment of these fears and knows the time to do something is when it is impossible to do anything.
Edward James Olmos and Hank Leis in Whistler, BC
Olmos has diligently selected his career path - to only act in movies that have substance. Almost in total they are cerebral in content, and moreover serve as a teaching tool for would be actors who actually want to act, rather than look for stardom. In my books, Olmos is also a star – because he has starred in so many movies that are thought provoking as well as entertaining. His roles are memorable and will continue to be on his life journey. M
MAN FROM RENO INTERVIEW WITH DAVE BOYLE By Hank Leis
Dave Boyle has a quiet presence. In my experience, this is
unusual, with bombastic narcissistic egomaniacs populating the entire movie industry. Boyle chooses his words carefully, not to hide the truth, but to be clear and coherent. He is a man who is in his own way, a seeker of truth, but recognizes that the characters in his movies are flawed, with ulterior motives-who camouflage the truth to accomplish their own vicious self-serving motives. He is humble-even about the reasons for his own choices in shaping his story line. We meet in an absurdly dark restaurant at Tinseltown. As we
Hank Leis meets with Director Dave Boyle at the Vancouver Screening of Man From Reno
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shake hands, our rapport is almost instantaneous. This would not be an interview-but a discussion-about the script of life-and how it unfolds in his movie, The Man from Reno. Because there is no light-when we are having the conversation-his words emerge from the outline of a shape that barely has any features. The discussion itself seems surreal. It is easy for us to talk. We have friends in common. Pepe Serna, an old friend of mine, stars in the movie. Serna has appeared in another of his movies, White on Rice,- where promises were made to do another movie-with Serna in the starring role; promises were kept finally eight years later.
Screen shot of Ayako Fujitani and Kazuki Kitamura of Man From Reno
Hank Leis interviews Director Dave Boyle
So it turns out that this “interview” is really a discussion between friends talking about friends. I met Pepe Serna in Corpus Christi some twenty years ago. We hit it off immediately and he shared his family with me and escorted me around the Latino community with its vividly painted houses, lush vegetation, and precious family time in the evenings spent outside. Serna had an important role in the movie, Scarface. The most memorable, horrific scene in the movie is where Serna’s character gets sawed to pieces in the shower. Subsequently he played a detective in the TV action series, Miami Vice. Doyle and I had also shared in the hours of entertainment Serna provided in restaurant meetings when in front us he changed from one character he had portrayed to another. Elisha Skorman who plays Pepe Serna’s onscreen daughter, Deputy Teresa Del Moral
In the movie, Serna is almost Boyle’s surrogate. He is the quiet man, who gets things done absent of adulation or acknowledgement. His actions speak for him. He has all his experience chiselled in his rough-hewn face. The face says it all. He’s done it all before and this is not going to be any different. Although he is tired, with his daughter pressing him to take over the investigation-he is loath to give it up-and and persists in taking control. Yet he still has a glint in his eye for the young female star. He is old but not yet dead. Pepe Serna has done over 150 movies including: The Jerk-1979, Scarface-1985, American Me-1992, Amerian Family-2002, Big Dreams Little Tokyo-2006 and The Black Dahlia-2006. He has died many times-because he is the guy you empathize with and say “awe” because you really felt for his character. In Man from Reno, it is not Serna who gets the “awe”. The dialogue in Man from Reno is primarily in English although subtitles are used when it turns to Japanese. Boyle lived in Japan (even though he learned to speak Japanese in Australia), so in a sense, the movie embraces both the American and Japanese culture. The Japanese stars, Ayako Fujitani and Kazuki Kitamura, are well known in their own country. Their American Englishnevertheless, is impeccable. The one sex scene is coordinated beauty. It is Japanese, absent of the “in your face” absurd and raw gymnastics so prevalent in Amercian movies. Love making is subtle, nuanced and a thing of beauty. It is intimate, spontaneous, and erotic without the twists and turns and not so veiled body parts. In other words, there is no embarrassment felt by the audience because there is no intrusion in the moment. It is poetry- not unlike “Haiku”. The movie, at the beginning, takes its time to draw the audience in-almost dangerously so-because everything that ends up becoming an adventure begins with the mundane. Nothing
happens until something does and when it does you are in-having a commitment to participate in the fantasy, and at the end there is a new beginning-not necessarily a renewal, but a restart. Boyle captures life-in his very unique style. He has many more movies in him-and he will be one of the great ones. In the meantime-I highly recommend Man from Reno, already winner of the Outstanding Narrative Feature at the 12th Annual Tallgrass Film Festival and winner of the Best Narrative Feature Award at the 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival. M
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 12/1/2014
MAN FROM RENO staring Pepe Serna is nominated for Film Independent Spirit Award. The Hollywood award season got underway this past week with the nomination of Man From Reno, starring veteran actor Pepe Serna (Scarface, Car Wash) and directed by Dave Boyle for a Film Independent Spirit Award as Best feature made for under $500,000 which qualifies for the John Cassavettes Award recognition. The Spirit Award nomination arrives on the momentum and word of mouth created by Man from Reno having recently won the San Diego Asian Film Festival and The Los Angeles International film Festival award for Best narrative feature this past June. In Man From Reno, a bi-lingual atmospheric Film Noir, Serna plays Paul Del Moral, a small town sheriff who investigates a series of grisly real life murders that involve a celebrated beautiful Japanese mystery novelist visiting San Francisco. The film also screened to standing room only audiences at The Honolulu International Film Festival, The New York Asian Film Festival and the Dallas Film Festival. “It’s quite possibly my best role”, says Serna, “It’s a great gift for me to be in Man From Reno with such a talented group of actors and filmmakers led by director Dave Boyle.” Serna is enjoying a late career renaissance, for he can also be seen in Cake, starring Jennifer Aniston and in the upcoming Gino’s Wife as Gino and in Richard Montes’ Aguruphobia. The Film Independent Spirit Awards will be handed out on February 21, 2015 at a star studded Awards ceremony held at Loew’s Santa Monica on The Beach Hotel and televised on The Independent Film Channel. Now in its 30th year, The Film Independent Spirit awards is an awards celebration honoring artist driven films made with an economy of means by filmmakers whose films embody independence and originality. The Spirit Awards recognizes the achievements of American Independent filmmakers and promotes the finest independent films of the year to a wider audience. Press Contact: Luis Reyes Public Relations 626-429-6543 E-Mail: luisreyestiki@yahoo.com 13
Rant Rant HEAVEN AND HELL By Hank Leis
Any person with a modicum of the ability to think rationally would know that the concept of heaven and hell has been badly thought out. It appears that everyone “should” want to get to heaven (when they die) and all “should” avoid going to hell. But none of this makes any sense. To keep things in balance-the good should be punished with good and the bad rewarded with bad or conversely, the good get rewarded with doing bad and the bad get punished by doing good. First of all if someone, as a result of their nefarious acts is deemed evil, then having died after a lifetime of dedicating their life to dirty deeds, the reward for this in hell would be to have more of the same. If a good and honest life is rewarded by good things – merely a continuation of virtuous life on Earth only better – then evil doers should be “punished” by allowing them to perpetuate the life they have already lived. After all the concept of reward and punishment has a different interpretation to the beholder. If one is into sadomasochism, the punishment would be to withhold this delightful pleasure. On the other hand, “Goldilocks” might want to experience a departure from her staid and bland life and sadomasochism would be her reward. In fact, if we were to determine the concept of heaven and hell logically, then all the “good” people would get their reward by doing naughty things and the “bad” people would be forced to do good things. Putin, would then be required to give back the Crimea to the Ukrainians, plus a piece of Russia as well. The good Ukrainians would be given permission to pillage Russia. Heaven and hell would then be in balance.
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But this tilted world which we live in, offers no rational reward. The bad are not rewarded by doing more bad things, whereas the good are rewarded by having more good things happen to them. No wonder the planet wobbles as its travels in space around the sun. If there is going to be retribution for the way we live – then in death we should continue as we were on Earth – only more and better. Why should the Devil reward his people as God rewards his people? I mean what the Hell is going on? The Devil seems to be in cahoots with God by forcing even the bad people to want to go to heaven. This is not a great recruitment strategy. If God is to have his domain then why not the Devil? It makes sense then that hell would be a place where successful living and a quality life would be one of debauchery, cheating, lying, murder and other assorted pleasures of the decadent mind. Now if Hitler, Stalin and other classical extremists were to be punished, they should be received with honours in heaven. Now I’m not out to get anyone – but logic is logic – like, “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorned” ~William Congreve I have been there, at least as the recipient of the fury. I know of what I speak. Let’s rethink this whole thing.
M
VANCOUVER MUSLIM COMMUNITY LOOKS TO END RADICALIZATION NOVEMBER 25, 2014
By Stefania Seccia
I
n an effort to end radicalization in the wake of the recent attacks in Quebec and Ottawa, the local Ahmadiyya Muslim community is joining a national movement to counter it. On Nov. 26, a Stop the Crisis event is set for UBC Robson Square with live presenters and video presentations to delve into the issue. The event’s lead speaker Balal Khokhar said his community found it necessary to condemn radicalization by “standing shoulder to shoulder with other Canadians.” “In our community, we have taken the responsibility to educate other Muslims where there is a chance,” he said. “It is our responsibility to let other Muslims know to be loyal to countries we’re living in.”
When Muslim convert Martin Rouleau murdered a soldier in Quebec, and Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot and killed a soldier at the National War Memorial — amongst other reports of Canadians going abroad to join terrorist groups — Khokhar said it sparked the nation-wide campaign of events to spread awareness about the issue. “First of all, we have to understand radicalization doesn’t only happen in Muslim youth,” he said. “It happens all over.” Khokhar said lack of direction, lack of purpose in youth and boredom are symptoms that lead some to radicalization. “We want to educate not only the Muslim youth, but educate people why radicalization happens,” he added. And radicalization is an issue that has struck a chord with at least 74% of
DR PATTON’S SPEECH “Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for
coming out to this very important event. I am pleased to have participated with you on this occasion so that all our voices are heard. We are here today because we are proud to live in Canada. Indeed, given all the turmoil in this world, living in Canada is an awesome privilege.
In the last few weeks there has been an outrage committed in this country. Our soldiers have been attacked and murdered on Canadian soil. Those of us who call Canada our home are here to express our thoughts and feelings. To the families and friends of those who died we express our condolences and sorrow. To the murderers who took these young soldier’s lives, we want to express our condemnation and anger.
Canadians who say they are now watching the issue and homegrown terrorism quite closely, according to a recent Angus Reid Institute poll. From Nov. 10 to 12, Angus Reid polled about 1,609 Canadians — including 400 British Columbians — and found that 67% believe radicalized people are living in their communities. “What was striking is that the results tell two stories in terms of how we view homegrown terrorism, whether it’s a threat or whether it’s been overblown,” said Shachi Kurl, with the institute. In B.C., respondents believed the recent shootings were a result of mental illness, almost two-to-one, over terrorism. For more information about Wednesday’s event, visit stopthecrisis.ca.
include us as part of the horror they have perpetrated. We want to say that we are not part of them, and they do not represent our will in any way whatsoever. We are in Canada, because we elected to live here, and be part of the harmony and peace that is expected and endeared by all Canadians. We are all Canadians – and we all stand on guard for thee. Anyone who attacks Canada is our enemy and we will do whatever it takes to protect this great country from those who endanger us and our freedoms. Those who dare threaten us need to remember that. Thank you.” M
We are outraged that those who have tried to hijack our religions or heritage, dare to 15
IF YOU’RE SO SMART, WHY AREN’T YOU RICH? A REALISTIC ASSESSMENT OF MAKING MONEY IN THE STOCK MARKET By Dr Jack Wadsworth
“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” -Ecclesiastes 9:11
Why is it difficult to make money?
O
An introduction to stock market behaviour.
ne of the jokes making the rounds in financial circles in 2001 went as follows: Stock tip of the week: If you bought $1,000 worth of Nortel stock in 2000, one year later it would be worth only $49. If you had bought $1,000 of Budweiser (the beer not the stock) rather than Nortel stock, drank all the beer, and traded the empty cans in for the nickel deposit, you would have $79. The financial advice...start drinking heavily. By the fall of 2002, the $1,000 put into Nortel stock was worth only $3. J. D. S. Uniphase and similar telecom stock displayed exactly the same euphoric rise and the ensuing dismal collapsesee figure 1. This is rather a cruel joke to the number of people who bought these stocks. It has to be appreciated that such stock purchases were legitimately influenced by the reportings of highly respected securities analysts in all the print and electronic media. These reportings extolled the economic and social benefits that would be derived from the resulting miles of fibre-optic cables. With the infallibility of hindsight it is all too easy to pontificate on the ease with which telecoms could raise money from Wall Street which led to massive oversupply—too much long16
Figure 1: Nortel Networks distance fibre-optic cable, too many computers and too many telecom companies. The industry literally choked to death. In the aftermath, the mighty WorldCom declared bankruptcy and many other companies suffered staggering losses and laid off thousands of workers. About one trillion dollars had been put into telecom investments during this era of the romance of the telecom industry. Most of this investment simply vaporized. The stock markets have coined, for all time, a word to encompass this period of intense investor interest followed by a total collapse of investment value. It is a stock market bubble. This word conveys very graphically the nature of the phenomenon. Unfortunately, stock market bubbles are far from being a rare event. They have occurred all too frequently, and of course unexpectedly, throughout
the history of all stock (financial) markets on a global scale. The following are often listed and singled out as noteworthy bubbles throughout the history of financial markets: • The Dutch Tulip Bulb Mania of the early 1600’s to 1637. • The French Mississippi Scheme from 1719 to 1720. • The British South Sea Company from 1711 to 1720. • The US railways from 1840 to 1847. • The stock market bubble from 1880 which burst in 1901.
value of almost 1.5 times the value of all US equities!! See figure 2. • According to Malkie the dot-com or the internet bubble, occurring around the beginning of the new millenium, was “undoubtedly the biggest bubble of the twentieth century”. When the bubble burst $8 trillion of market value evaporated— equivalent to the sum total of the years output of the combined economies of Germany, France, England, Italy, Spain, Holland and Russia. See figure 3. The impact of bubbles on the US stock markets is obvious in the history of price-earnings ratio for the S & P Composite Index (inflation-corrected) for the last millennium displayed in figure 4. This very impressive history was compiled by Shiller. Because of the usually sudden and spectacular rise of stock prices during a bubble and their equally sudden and devastating demise, bubbles should be of special interest to investors seeking profit. The ability to identify a long buy opportunity (to profit
Figure 2: The Nikkei Index • The stock market run up from 1920 to burst in 1929. • The 1959-62 bubble could be characterized as an era of new issues and the fascination with growth stocks whose name embraced some form of “...tronics”. • The 1967-69 bubble resulted from the financial innovation of the conglomerate which sought through the merger of companies to produce a combined company that had more exciting financial
Figure 4: S&P price-earning ratio when the stock prices rise) and a sell or a short sell (to profit when the stock prices fall) opportunity, would lead to very handsome profits. However, when stock market bubbles are discussed in the literature they are merely identified (retrospectively), little effort is made to understand the particular bubble, and they are usually dismissed derisively with some mention of “herd behaviour” or the “madness of crowds”. Rarely is an attempt made to appreciate that it is difficult to know when one is in a bubble or to appreciate that from within a bubble stock market prices may appear to be normal.
Figure 3: NASDAQ Index credentials than the sum of the individual companies. • 1968-70 produced a flood of so called concept and/or performance mutual funds which led to the inevitable bubble. • Over the 1972-80 period an enamourment with the blue chip stocks of IBM, Xerox, Avon Products, Kodak, McDonalds, Polaroid, Disney and the like produced a slow rising and collapsing bubble—but still a bubble. • The early 1980’s saw the inflation of two bubbles attributable to a return to a fascination with new issues and the emergence of biotech companies. • The late 1980’s to the early nineties witnessed the incredible inflation and bursting of the Japanese bubble. Demonstrating that the bubbles are far from uniquely North American. This bubble included both land and stock prices. By 1990 the sum total of all Japanese property was appraised to be worth five times as much as all American property! • Similarly, in December 1989, Japanese stocks had a market
There are two published accounts of how notable financiers and economists have used their understanding of bubbles so that they could profit in the stock markets. Financier Bernard Baruch credited the lessons he learned from reading, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” with his decision to sell or sell-short all his stock ahead of the financial crash of 1929. Keynes described his understanding of rational agents in the stock market that could explain the price fluctuations in equity markets (bubble formation). Keynes attached so much importance to this that he devoted one whole chapter (chapter 12 in the economic masterpiece of 1936) to investor expectations. Keynes described the action of rational agents in the market using an analogy based on a contest that was run by a London newspaper where entrants were asked to choose a set of six faces from 100 photographs of women that were the “most beautiful”. Everyone who picked the most popular face was entered into a raffle for a prize. A naïve strategy would be to choose the six faces that, in the 17
opinion of the entrant, are the most beautiful. A more sophisticated contest entrant, wishing to maximize his chances of winning a prize, would think about what the majority perception of beauty is, and then make a selection based on some inference from his knowledge of public perceptions. This can be carried one step further to take into account the fact that other entrants would also be making their decision based on knowledge of public perceptions. Thus the strategy can be extended to the next order, and the next, and so on, at each level attempting to predict the eventual outcome of the process based on the reasoning of other rational investors. “It is not a case of choosing those [faces] which, to the best of one’s judgment, are really the prettiest, nor even those which average opinion genuinely thinks the prettiest. We have reached the third degree where we devote our intelligences to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be. And there are some, I believe, who practise the fourth, fifth and higher degrees.” (Keynes, General Theory of Employment Interest and Money, 1936). Keynes believed that similar behaviour was at work within the equity markets. This would have people pricing shares not based on what they thought their fundamental value was, but rather based on what they think everyone else thinks their value was, or what everybody else would predict the average assessment of value was. Using this approach Keynes earned several million pounds for himself and increased tenfold the market value of his college endowment, King’s College, Cambridge. This was an explicit use of the type of psychology that was happening in the stock market. This psychological approach to stock evaluation has many advocates in both the financial and academic communities. Shiller argues that the “mania” for internet and high-tech stocks in the late 1990’s can only be explained in terms of mass psychology. At universities, so called behavioural theories of the stock market, stressing crowd psychology, gained favour during the early 2000’s at leading economics departments and business schools across the developed world. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002 for his work in the field of “behavioural finance” for the development of the so called prospect theory. Earlier Oskar Morgenstern had argued that searching for intrinsic value in stocks is a futile activity. In an exchange economy— which is what the stock market is—the value of an asset depends only on an actual or prospective transaction which emphasizes that the following should be the fundamental creed of any investor or speculator: A thing is worth only what someone else will pay for it. The essence of Shiller’s argument that mass psychology explains how bubbles are initiated is to describe it as a form of positive feedback something like as follows: A bubble starts when any group of stocks, such as those associated with the excitement of the internet, begins to rise. This updraft encourages more people to buy the stocks, which causes more coverage and amplification by the media (the business channels on TV and the business sections of the printed media), which causes even more people to buy the stocks, which creates big profits for the earlier purchasers of the stock. These successful investors tell you at cocktail parties how easy it is to get rich, which causes the stock price to rise even further, which pulls in larger and larger groups of investors. The whole mechanism is a kind of pyramid scheme where more credulous investors must be found to buy the stock from the earlier investors. Eventually when the supply of purchasers runs out 18
there is no one to buy the stock offered for sale. The pyramid then inverts itself and the pyramid mechanism operates in reverse—the bubble bursts. It it is probably easy to rationalize, as above, on the mechanism of bubble inflation and deflation, but unless one has the perspicacity of a Baruch or a Keynes it appears to be difficult for the participant to realize that one is actually in a bubble. For instance during the 1920’s (on the run up to the crash of 1929) there was a general feeling that one was entering a new and exciting economic and social era: • The personal automobile was coming into common usage. In 1920 there were 8.1 million automobiles registered in the US and this number increased to 23.1 million by 1929. The personal automobile brought with it a new sense of freedom and possibility, and a widespread feeling that these personal values could be attained through new technology. • Electrification was extending beyond major cities and by 1929 twenty million homes had been electrified. Kerosene lamps were out; electric light bulbs were in. By 1929, nearly half of all the wired homes had vacuum cleaners, and a third had washing machines. • Radio had developed into a mature national entertainment medium with stars and nationally popular shows creating a sense of national culture previously unknown. Also talkies had invaded the previously silent movie screens. • Industries were expanding exponentially due to the fruits of mass production, large research departments, and the availability of capital. • Mechanization of agriculture was taking place at the same ever increasing rate. Rosy and positive pronouncements were coming from authoritative voices in the financial and economic community: “There is nothing now to be foreseen which can prevent the United States from enjoying an era of business prosperity which is entirely without precedent in the pages of trade history”. John Moody, head of Moody’s Investment Services, a rating agency, said in an article about the stock market in 1928, “In fact, a new age is taking form throughout the entire civilized world; civilization is taking on new aspects. We are only now beginning to realize, perhaps, that this modern, mechanistic civilization in which we now live is in the process of perfecting itself.” Perhaps culminating the voluming optimism, in August 1929, a month before the crash, Charles Amos Dice published his book “New Levels in the Stock Market” in which he gave many cogent reasons for the increase in stock prices to continue. The above picture, of voluming optimism and a rationalization that one is now in a “new economic era” where former metrics for judging prices no longer apply, is all too characteristic of the majority of bubbles cited in this treatise. There is a total air of comfort with all the upward moves of stock prices. In fact there is a blissful unawareness of being in a very dangerously overinflated bubble. Furthermore, there is often very little awareness that one has gone over the falls and is now in free fall—the bubble has burst and prices are doomed to go nowhere but down. When Shiller examined the significant printed media (the Wall Street Journal and the Chicago Tribune) very carefully around the last weekend of October 1929 when the crash had taken place he concluded “There is no way that the events of the stock market crash of 1929 can be considered a response to any real news stories. In fact this sequence of events appears to be fundamentally
no different from those of other market debacles”. Indeed on the morning of the so called Black Monday (October 28, 1929) the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page editorial stating “everybody in responsible positions says that business conditions are sound”9. It is difficult not to conclude that the important media (at the time) were blissfully ignorant of the actual mechanics of the stock market. It is not widely appreciated that when the US stock market crashed on October 19, 1987 it set a new record one-day decline that nearly doubled that of either October 28 or 29, 1929 (to this day, it is the all-time record one-day price drop in percentage terms). This provided Shiller with the unique opportunity of being able to interview actual participants in the market rather than, as in the study of the 1929 crash, to have to rely upon media interpretations as to what the important news was on investors’ minds. Shiller’s conclusions, from this more recent study, were identical to his study of 1929. There is no doubt that the 1987 event shook the USA, but also the crash spread quickly across the world—for instance stockmarkets in Australia lost 41.8%, Canada lost 22.5%, Hong Kong lost 45.8% and UK lost 26.4%. The crash also raised some mysticism since the main news or events had not predicted the catastrophe and visible reasons for the collapse were never identified. Doubt had been cast on the important assumptions of modern economics relating to the stockmarket, namely: the theory of the rational conduct of the human player, the theory of market equilibrium, and the hypothesis of market efficiency. To prevent the occurrence of suchdisastrous declines in the future the US stockmarkets introduced the concept of the circuit breaker. The circuit breaker halts trading if the market declines a prescribed number of points, and discontinues trading for a prescribed amount of time. What these two studies clearly display is a seeming disconnect between the actual processes occurring in the stock markets and the news media—the means whereby the investing public is informed of what is and what has actually happened to prices. It has to be appreciated that the financial process establishing prices in the stockmarkets is an auction. Each transaction represents a matching of willing sellers (expecting prices to fall) and willing buyers (expecting prices to rise). The majority of the transactions is not due to investors who usually only account for one transaction when they purchase and one transaction when they sell. The majority of the transactions taking place in the stockmarkets is due to traders on the floor or traders at their computers watching price changes by the minute. They are making literally split second decisions completing many buy/sell transactions for their own account. The information processing involved in a decision has to be minimal by the very nature of their chosen profession. It is therefore not too surprising that there is a seeming disconnect between what is really happening on the floor of the exchanges and the news media who have to put some spin upon the realities of price changes. The spin that the media attaches to price changes such as attempting to fit the price changes to the many popular accounts of the psychology of investing is simply not credible. Investors are said to be euphoric or frenzied during booms or panic-stricken during market crashes. In both booms and crashes, investors are described as blindly following the herd like so many sheep with no minds of their own. Most investors are more sensible during financial episodes—albeit they must experience some elation in boom times and hand wringing in crashes. Usually they have been bolstered by their financial advisor who has emphasized buying
for the “long term” and “lock them away” (the stocks, that is). Much of the above is confirmed in the following surprisingly pessimism expressed in the preface of Buffett’s biography12-serving to illustrate what has been happening in the stockmarket during the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st: With each passing year, the noise level in the stockmarket rises. Television commentators, financial writers, analysts, and market strategists are all overtalking each other to get investors’ attention. At the same time individual investors, immersed in chat rooms and message boards, are exchanging questionable and often misleading tips. Yet, despite all this available information (data), investors find it increasingly difficult to profit. Stock prices skyrocket with little reason, then plummet just as quickly, and people who have turned to investing for their children’s education and their own retirement become frightened. Sometimes there appears to be no rhyme or reason to the market, only folly. Reinforcing the above, personal experience confirms that the stockmarket is quite unforgiving of amateurs. Inexperienced investors rarely get the assistance and support they need. In the period running up to the most recent crash, less than 1% of the analyst’s recommendation had been to sell and even during the 2000-2002 crash, the average did not rise above 5%. The media amplified the general euphoria, with reports of rapidly rising share prices and the notion that large sums of money could be made in the so called new economy that the stockmarket was now in. Not too surprising, the media later amplified the gloom which descended in the aftermath of the crash. Sometimes the market tends to react irrationally to economic news, even if that news has no real effect on the technical value of securities itself. Therefore, the stockmarket market can be swayed tremendously in either direction by press releases, rumours, and any number of other fast moving events. Movements in the stockmarket are exceedingly difficult to predict. Some comments have to be made at this stage to provide some realistic perspective on the Dutch tulip bubble. The era when the Dutch were fascinated with the unique and exquisite new flower, the tulip, has probably been grossly exaggerated over the years. Anne Goldgar10, in her scholarly analysis Tulipmania, argues that the phenomenon was limited to “a fairly small group” and that most accounts of the period “are based on one or two contemporary pieces of propaganda and a prodigious amount of plagiarism”. She argues that tulips were treated more like art, for which highstatus people paid exorbitant prices in the pursuit of beauty. But the new Dutch gardeners and collectors appreciated plants for their beauty, not their utility. These merchants and craftsmen grew tulips much as they collected paintings. Indeed, many tulip traders were also art collectors, dealers or painters. They sometimes traded art for bulbs (though paintings never approached the prices paid for flowers). The best analogy for tulipmania is therefore not the dotcom boom but today’s art market—compare to the items discussed on the travelling Antique Road Shows.
To be continued in next issue of Metanoia. 19
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NEW YORK, NEW YORK By Dr Allison Patton
It almost felt like Sex & the City but
without the sex. Four women in New York, out for a good time, not a long time. The plane from Vancouver departed late at night and we arrived in New York early in the morning. Our first day was spent sleeping. A temporary rest turned into a deep sleep. What followed was memorable and fascinating. Feeling refreshed, we left the Ritz Carlton Battery Park in search of some sustenance. We decided to get a feel for the different districts of New York by travelling on the subway; what an experience we had. We made our way to Little Italy and found a modern, romantic restaurant in the heart of the district called the Italian Food Center on Grand at Mulberry. It was named after its predecessor in the same location called the Grand Italian Food Center; a restaurant that served Little Italy sandwiches, breads, pastas, pastries, olives and cheese since 1954. The current Italian Food Center has the same name but a different look. We loved the multitude of candles burning, exposed brick, rugged lighting and open kitchen revealing the large wood-burning
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oven. The food was American style Italian cuisine; we ordered prosciutto and arugula pizza, grilled asparagus, calamari and some spaghetti with meatballs along with some Campari cocktails and Valpolicella wine. We are women who like to eat and we like to eat well. We were excited to be in New York and curious to see where our travels would take us. It was an opportunity to travel to one of the metropolis’ of the world and work together to see if we could navigate our way through the adventure in one piece. No small task for four naifs. By the next day we quickly determined that whenever we needed to seek a bit of refuge and recharge from
the toughness of the city, we would retreat to the Dean & Deluca in Soho and enjoy a cappuccino and a pain au chocolat; did I mention, we like to eat and eat well; coffee is no stranger to us. The gastronomy we experienced in New York was exquisite. We headed over to West Village one morning and found New York’s only gastrotheque (an eating and drinking establishment dedicated to the serious enjoyment of food and wine) a perfect place for the four of us. The establishment is called Buvette which now also has a second location in South Pigalle, Paris. Buvette was started by a New York chef, Jody Williams who has written a cookbook with the same name: Buvette; the pleasure of good food. The brunch was succulent and the flavours rich and so satisfying that a few of us had a second cappuccino. The server was French, the space was tiny, and the ambiance was again romantic. West Village was one of our favourite districts in New York; the architecture was appealing and the people
the “untouchables” from the lower caste are breaking free from their social and economic chains to rise up. Our conversations covered US and Canadian politics, global issues in Central America, Russia, Estonia, Ukraine and Asia. We also delved into education and discussed our thoughts around freedom and what that means to us. This dinner added some gravitas to our day; we will meet Jim again when we are next in New York. were friendly. On our way toward Fifth Ave., we stopped at Avenue of the Americas (6th Ave.), and spotted Benjamin McKenzie known for playing Ryan Atwood in the television series The OC-our first celebrity sighting. On 6th Ave., we came across a boutique called SABON; the essence of pleasure. It started in the mid-nineties in TelAviv by two young entrepreneurs who began making soap in their home using an ancient aboriginal recipe they had come across during their travels. Currently all of the products for the over 130 boutiques worldwide are manufactured by SABON Israel. We fell in love with the Lavender body butter and the salt scrubs and the boy who rubbed the salts on our hands. We experienced the SABON rituals in the boutique and our hands became instantly rejuvenated.
That evening we had plans to meet documentary filmmaker, Jim Tusty, for dinner. We met at an intimate upscale restaurant near Penn Station called Seven Bistro and Grill. Our table was upstairs overlooking the bar and that night there was Quail, Sea Scallops and Raspberry cheesecake on the menu. The conversation was the most interesting part of this dinner; we heard about Jim’s current project in India. The film is called Breaking the Caste: Unlocking India’s Human Potential and is to be released on public television in the spring of 2015. We discussed how Jim went about going to India and meeting the people in the film, the filming and then the most critical piece, where the magic happens, the editing. The film describes the massive changes going on in India and explores how
The next day we went to historic Chelsea Market for brunch and spent time walking around New York taking photos of the architecture. We found Friedmans Lunch, NYC’s premier gluten free dining destination. Nearly their entire menu can be made gluten free. We tried the gluten free bread, and the waffles as well as the eggs benedict. The food was good; the company better. Later that evening, we wanted to find a good Mexican restaurant. We went to Dos Caminos, home of the best Mexican food in New York, Atlanta and Florida. Dos Caminos means Two Paths; it was in the Meat Packing district and it shared an entrance with a club in the basement. We walked in and sat at the bar while we waited for our table; we ordered the best sangria we had ever had-tequila sangria; highly recommended. We were seated outside on the patio; we ordered some guacamole as well as some traditional dishes that included goat. During our dinner, as the traffic slowly passed by us due to congestion, a ruckus started right in front of us between a taxi driver and one of his male passengers. It turned into a bit of a fight as another taxi driver came in to try and calm it down. The man fighting with the cab driver tried to find another taxi to get into but none of the drivers wanted to let him in. Finally, just to stop the scuffle, one of the cab drivers let him and his friends in and they took off. We had front row seats for this spontaneous display of reptilian brain activity. The warmth of the tequila, the spice of the food and the tension in the air all made for a memorable evening.
trails as the bikers and runners streamed past us. Down below by the pond we saw Cookie Monster entertaining the kids; we caught his attention and he waved. After that experience, we found ourselves heading straight to Dean and Deluca for a moment of rejuvenation; that included cappuccinos and pastries. On our final day in New York-we were flying out on a red eye that evening to maximize New York time-we returned to lower 5th Avenue and Avenue of the Americas to look at some of the shops; one of our favourites was Free People-Bohemian fashion-beautiful leather bags. We stopped for a recharge at Dig Inn Seasonal Market serving farm fresh food locally sourced for all budgets; ginger mint lemonade, pomegranate pear smoothies and gluten free cookies were just what we needed. The décor of reclaimed wood and brick were pleasing to the eye as we munched, talked, laughed, rolled our eyes and generally had a beautiful time. Well, as I said, we were here for a good time not a long time, our trip was nearing a close. We had some time to kill in the airport so w e went to Bonfire Grill and titillated our senses at the Duty Free perfumery. In transit near the London gates, one of us spotted John Oliver, the English political satirist who we would have gone to see in New York if his show was on when we were there; it appeared he was heading back to the UK-second celebrity sighting in New York…. Until next time, New York, it truly has been Sex in the City; without the sex and we’ll be back for more.
M
The next day we made our way to 5th Avenue and Central Park. What we didn’t plan on was that it was the Columbus Day Parade; we found ourselves in the midst of this chaos; floats, music, scantily clad dancers, bands, and the streams of people, the streets were cordoned off. We moved through the maze like a herd of cattle. It was a fantastic and overwhelming all at the same time. The park was full and so we just spent a few minutes walking on one of the
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WAR AND TEENAGED SOLDIERS A STUDY OF PATRIOTISM, MASCULINITY, AND DESPERATION By Dr Bernard Schissel, Professor, Royal Roads University
While the exploits and experiences
of teenagers as soldiers in Western armies in 20th century wars have been chronicled in both fact-based and fictional accounts, analyses of how and why underage boys (and sometimes girls) ended up engaged in frontline military activities are quite uncommon. It appears that the realities of being a 14 or 15 year old soldier in World War I or the 18 or 19 year-old in Viet Nam get lost in the overall history-based discourse of war. I am writing a book with the same title as this article to try to understand why young people fought to get into armies, why their communities stood by them in their quest to be part of the fight for freedom, and why and how their families coped with loss—all of which stands in contrast to the moral logic that children and youth should not be exposed to war. I study letters and diaries of soldiers under the age of twenty--some as young as 13 or 14—from the WW1 through to the Gulf War to understand the reality of their lives and their deaths in wartime. The theoretical focus is based on a blend of studies in patriotism, masculinity and disadvantage. 24
Several years ago I had the opportunity to visit the National War Museum of Canada in Ottawa to do some archival work. During my two week stay, I had two experiences that changed not only the way I thought about war but also the way I thought about the place of children and youth in Western Society. The first of those experiences occurred on my first day at the museum as I was touring the public facility. I had the good fortune to become involved in a discussion with a curator of the museum about the authenticity of the artifacts, especially about how well preserved the uniforms were, specifically from the 1st and 2nd world wars and the Korean War. I mentioned to him, in passing, how the uniforms did not look lifelike and he assured they were. I indicated that they seemed too small, that an average-sized man like me could not fit into them. He said, rather impassively, that they were, for the most part, not intended for men my size. I realized without him saying it that they were designed for young men who did not carry the weight and musculature of time. Many of the uniforms were, in fact, for men in their teens and early twenties.
The second experience involved my interview with an elderly man who was volunteering at the museum. He graciously agreed to talk to me about his war experiences and it turned out that he served in the German army in World War 2 at the age of fifteen. Despite his wartime affiliations, he was a member of the Canadian Legion. He was recruited into the German army from Canada because his parents were German immigrants and felt that it was their duty to support their homeland. What was most shocking about his story was that he went to Germany at the age of fourteen and was serving in the Panzer tank command at the age of fifteen. The tank was bombed and he indicated that the only physical effects of the bombing were that his ears started to bleed and that he lost his hearing for several weeks. As I talked to him, I realized that he had a great deal of difficulty sitting still and that he switched from subject to subject without much natural connectivity, very much a stream of consciousness interview. Afterwards, I talked to a museum official who indicated that my interviewee had been severely traumatized as a boy in the army and that the trauma stayed with him.
The official military and medical term for his condition before the war was “shellshock,” a term that had originated in the First World War to describe injury to the nerves as a result primarily of the horrible experiences of trench warfare. In fact, the term became the psychiatric diagnosis neurasthenia. Ironically, the medical condition of shell-shock disappeared from the cultural and medical lexicon during WW2, to be replaced with a discourse that focused on exhaustion, the cure for which lay with rest and relaxation. The famous “Patton slapping incident” is a perfect example of how the tenor of the times had changed. In 1943 Patton visited injured soldiers from the Sicily campaign. He encountered a young man—a boy in any other context-- Private Kuhl, who had not physical injuries but was sitting with his head in his hands. When Patton asked him what the problem was, he replied that he was nervous, not wounded, and that he had reservations about his ability to withstand the war. Patton slapped his face, berated him in public calling him a “gutless bastard” and physically kicked him out of the tent. Patton repeated this conduct with another soldier in similar circumstances a week later. Historical evidence suggests that there was a good deal of public support for Patton’s conduct and a growing intolerance for “malingering.” Patton’s story is important for several reasons, not the least of which it reveals a deep-seated cultural inability to understand the effects of severe trauma on young people. We are only now beginning to understand that wartime experiences often cause post-traumatic stress disorder and that it is a debilitating lifetime condition. Medical research is just beginning to understand the impact that severe trauma at a young age may have on the brain, that it may actually changes brain chemistry and physiology, changes which resulted in the conduct I observed in my interview with the former German child soldier who suffered inside a German tank at the age of fifteen. These two experiences at the War Museum were profound for me as I came to realize that war is a young person’s game. It is not played by those who start wars, it is not played by those who benefit financially from war, and it is not played by those who have the financial and political power to avoid military participation. No matter how noble the cause, wars are fought by young people at the behest of older people.
I write this book in response to much of the ressearch and writing that I have done in my career as an academic and social researcher. In my work, I focus on the marginal position that children and youth hold in most societies and how their marginality is accompanied by either an aggressiveness of social control based on the developmental assumption that young people are incompletely socialized, that they present a danger because of their incompleteness, or by an apathy towards child human rights, that young people’s lack of development prohibits them from conscious, well-informed decision-making abilities—that they cannot engage in, informed decision making and that they are vulnerable as a consequence. The thrust of all of this is that children need to be protected from themselves and from the world at large and the denial of their civil liberties is, as a consequence, unproblematic—it never seems to be an issue. Interestingly, youth participation in war in the western world seems to be equally unproblematic. In part, this is the result that the western world seems only to use the horrific reality of child soldiers in the developing world as the standard for moral outrage. The plight of child soldiers in other parts of the world is so shocking that it seems to disallow us from conceiving that in the recent past, we have sent children and youth off to war and that we did so without reflection or guilt. As I was pouring over letters and diaries from young soldiers in wars from WW 1 to the present, I kept thinking about how to frame an analysis that would encapsulate all of the themes that were embedded in these incredibly rich archival resources. I could certainly feel something common to all the narratives but I had difficulty expressing the collective soul of the words. My understanding at this point was only intuitive, driven by a visceral sense that the words were expressing a phenomenon that was both noble and bleak. To help through my dilemma, I turned to both the theoretical and experienced-based literature which focused on the participation of adolescents in the military and ultimately in war. The literature was clear on several points: that boys have, over history, felt unusually compelled to volunteer for the military, especially in times of national threat; that young men were often the targets of conscription, that war on the ground was a young man’s “game;” and that social conditioning surrounding war and patriotism socializes young men to suppress emotion and to value courage over self-preservation.
Interestingly, in the vast body of work on military and the young, I encountered some rather hidden themes that seemed to resonate with the intuitive issues I felt in my readings of the archival material. The first of these was that participation in war for teenagers allowed them to access civil rights that were denied them outside the arena of war. Military participation meant that young boys grew into citizens overnight, not only in their own eyes but also in the eyes of the world. The young people left at home remained “children of the state.” As minority groups historically sought citizenship through military participation, so did boys. Volunteering was the most public display of masculinity and patriotism available to boys. The second theme was more theoretical but no less profound. War, very surreptitiously, gave boys the context to break away symbolically and literally from their mothers. This theme recurs in the literature on masculinity and sport in which the same argument is made for organized sport, that it is a vehicle for young boys to break the bonds with their mothers and establish bonds of masculinity with fathers or other male “protectors.” The third theme focused on the idea of the young male body as the ideal and the act of perfecting the male body was an act of both physical and cultural maturity. Lastly, the literature was very clear that military conscription solved economic issues at home and that volunteering to fight was often an act of breadwinning and was especially relevant in cultures of masculinity. That adolescent boys seem to volunteer so readily for war seems to be culturally normative and, as I explore in the book, intuitively logical given the personal, cultural, and political contexts. What is less intuitively logical is the active participation of mothers in the recruitment of their young sons—seemingly in defiance of the role of the good mother. The core of the historical work in this regard is based on the contention that the archetype of the good mother as the protector of the child is thrown into confusion during wartime. The mother is transformed from the primordial caring and protecting parent to the patriot as she changes from someone who instinctively protects her child to someone who is willing to sacrifice her child for the good of the state. She is no longer able to keep her child from harm’s way and is compelled to sacrifice him without complaint. The archetype of the good mother and the archetype of the patriotic mother are so driven by wartime and peacetime cultural views of 25
the essential mother, that the role of the protector and the patriot become confused. The wartime press draws on cultural ideals of motherhood and patriotism to recreate the mother as an unquestioning supporter of military participation through her son(s). Mothers are drawn into public discourse and become the creators of patriotic and efficient soldiers. Their grief upon loss is an act of patriotism. Some of the most compelling writing on mothers and war has put forth the argument that the mother of the dead soldier-child suffers in silence because the culture appropriates and controls her grief. Private mothering during peacetime becomes public mothering during wartime. My book, as a result, is essentially a study of mothers and young soldier sons. Much of the information that I use is based on letters to and from home, as teenage soldiers write primarily to their mothers. The letter was the lifeline for soldiers and, in many ways, made the war bearable for both soldiers and families. As I discuss in the book, the narrative embedded in the letter maintained a semblance of sanity and optimism for the sender and recipient. And it is to these letters that I look to make sense of how people dealt with the horrors of war and the agony that distance created for adolescent soldiers who were, at a very basic level, children. This article is excerpted from the introductory chapter of a book by the same title. Bernard Schissel is a Professor and Program Head in the Doctor of Social Sciences Program. His current books include About Canada: Children and Youth (Fernwood, 2011); Still Blaming Children: Youth Conduct and the Politics of Child Hating (Fernwood, 2006); Marginality and Condemnation: An Introduction to Criminology, 2nd (with Carolyn Brooks, Fernwood, 2008); and The Legacy of School for Aboriginal People: Education, Oppression, and Emancipation. (with Terry Wotherspoon, Oxford UP, 2003). In general, his research focuses on the position that children, youth, and young adults occupy in western democracies and how law, medicine, politics and the economy often infringe on the human rights of young people. M 26
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YOUR SECOND FIFTY INTERVIEW WITH LAURENT GOLDSTEIN By Hank Leis
S
ometimes things are just meant to be. We call this synchronicity. That is what happened when Laurent Goldstein and Frank Moffat met in Calgary Alberta. Moffat was looking for someone to do a documentary to provide visual evidence for the book he had written and Goldstein was in search of a subject to make a documentary about. Goldstein was immediately drawn to the title Your Second Fifty and the concept of time and aging. They spent 3 hours talking over dinner at the Cactus Club – one week later they started filming. The highs and lows of filming maintained the excitement throughout the process. They met incredible people. Almost 100 people were filmed, and close to half are in the film. Basically the film explores five dimensions. Mental, financial, emotional, spiritual and physical. It speaks of setting goals and self-discipline. The connections formed in the making of this documentary include motivational speakers, scientists and others, 28
engaged in making life exciting after fifty. Everyone was open to participating. “The importance of our thought to our lives” was a major subject of discussion. Dr. Bruce Lipton contributed his thoughts on the biology of belief. The manifesting of expectation lead to stem cell research resulting in slowing the aging process. Dr. Elizabeth Lauden at 55 reveals her youth through her exquisite dance form. Bob Proctor – the key architect of The Secret reveals the secret to his own longevity. Warren Bergen climbs every mountain, including Everest, at age 76. The documentary is the result of the cooperation of the many who were willing to contribute their stories of how to live happily past the age of fifty. The book is a great read, the documentary a great watch. M
Aging as we have come to know it is about to change! Directed by Laurent Goldstein A YSF Media ~ Citrus Pie Production
POWER AND POLITICS - SHIFTING SANDS By Dr. Allison Patton
Power
is having the capacity to influence how others behave. Political leaders use their power as a means to achieve their specific desired goals. Subtle shifts in power determine how strategies need to be adjusted as time passes in order to continue on the path of achievement and in order to maintain the power as a political leader. On Wednesday March 5th, 2014, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Former U.S. Secretary of State and Former U.S. Senator from New York spoke to an audience in Vancouver of nearly 3000 people, the largest crowd amassed at an event hosted by the Vancouver Board of Trade. Her speech focused on her interest and desire to see women in a position to be fully able to contribute to the economy of their country. Secretary Clinton noted that if this were to happen in Egypt, GDP would rise 34%. She referenced her 1995 speech at the United Nations 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing with her now famous quote, “Women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights.”
Former Secretary Clinton also referenced her concession speech from 2008, “Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it…You can be so proud that, from now on, it will be unremarkable for a woman to win primary state victories, unremarkable to have a woman in a close race to be our nominee, unremarkable to think that a woman can be the President of the United States. And that is truly remarkable.” Clinton noted that in her opinion, the greatest unfinished business of the 21st century is to break through that glass ceiling. Former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has spent over forty years involved in politics as an activist, a political supporter in her college days, a First Lady, a US Senator, a Presidential candidate, and most recently, US Secretary of State. She is no stranger to the intricacies and subtleties of power and politics. She has refined many things about herself over the years, in terms of her speaking style; she has taken on more of the qualities of a stateswoman as
opposed to a politician. In the past, she was quoted saying, “Like it or not, women are always subject to criticism if they show too much feeling in public.” Now she is quoted as saying, “We have to do more to empower women to be peacemakers.” Her advice to the audience at the event on the 5th, “grow skin like a rhinoceros”, something she learned from Eleanor Roosevelt, accept criticism seriously but not personallyunderstand the other person’s motives, and recognize that you will get knocked down and disappointed-get back up, learn from it and go on. In her opinion, women’s self-doubt and perfectionism are the major obstacles to their ability to succeed in terms of power and politics. Secretary Clinton revealed her own moments of self-doubt as she contemplated running to become a US Senator. She was attending an event as part of an initiative called ‘Dare to Compete.’ The captain of the basketball team was standing beside her at one point during the event and this young woman leaned over and whispered in Hillary’s ear, “Dare to compete Mrs. Clinton, dare to compete.” “How could I say no?” she commented to 31
us as her response to the young woman’s advice. The unanswered question from the evenings’ discussion, “Will Hillary Clinton run for President in 2016?” During her presidential race in 2008, Hillary Rodham Clinton was not able to harness enough political power to win the bid; it appears that the strategy has changed this timeif there is going to be a second run. Criticism of her campaign in 2008 was that there was a lack of organization and
to have developed an intimate relationship with power and politics. Once achieved, successfully keeping the power will depend, to a large extent, on the strategy employed by the leader of the day. Sun Tzu said (in The Art of War): Great warriors of ancient times first made themselves invincible. After that they awaited the enemy’s moment of vulnerability. Not being conquered depends upon oneself; conquering depends upon the actions of the enemy. Thus, a skilled
One thing a group or individual can be sure of is that once they have the power, it is the first indication that they will likely lose that very power. Robert Greene is a journalist known for writing books on strategy and power. In one of his books on power he speaks about winning through actions, never through argument. Any momentary triumph you think you have gained through argument is really a Pyrrhic victory.
Accept criticism seriously but not personallyunderstand the other person’s motives, and recognize that you will get knocked down and disappointed-get back up, learn from it and go on. too much dedication and loyalty to those in the inner circle despite evidence that the actions of some of these individuals were harming the campaign. This time, a super PAC that calls itself Ready for Hillary has formed as the grassroots organization amassing support and preparing itself for the future possibilities. Although Hillary herself is keeping a far distance from this organization, it is building an infrastructure ready for her to step into if she makes the decision to run. In order for Hillary Rodham Clinton or any individual seeking to become the next President of the United States or the next Prime Minister of Canada to be successful in achieving their goal, the individual has
warrior can remain unvanquished, but the enemy may not be vulnerable. Therefore, if one cannot conquer, he should wait. When one can conquer, only then should he attack. Great warriors are not victorious because they possess infinite wisdom or boundless courage. Rather, great warriors are those who make no mistakes. Every strategy they employ leads to eventual victory. In politics, like war, once a group or individual obtains the power over another group or individual, it is only a matter of time before others within the group will turn on the leader or another group will employ a strategy to shift the power to themselves.
The resentment and ill will you stir up is stronger and lasts longer than any momentary change of opinion. It is much more powerful to get others to agree with you through your actions, without saying a word. Demonstrate, do not explicate. Resisting the urge to engage in such arguments and remaining detached will delay revolts, suppress dissent and allow the reigns of power to remain intact for longer. It is the failure to follow this simple truth that begins the eventual demise of a leader or group in power. In politics, paradigms can shift on a daily if not hourly basis. Nothing is guaranteed; no one’s position is considered safe….. for long. M
You can take a risk and dive right in- the outcome is always difficult to predict. The challenge is not to be defeated by fatigue and cloudy vision. Trust the clouds will part, the vision will come and energy will be restored. -Salme Leis 32
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A LIVELY CRITIQUE OF THE SLOPPY POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC THINKING THAT PERMEATES AMERICA— DELIVERED ONE LETTER AT A TIME
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Without swearing allegiance to any party or ideology, Boudreaux takes aim at pundits and politicos on the left, right, and everywhere in between. He tackles issues ranging from “lookism” in the office and the futility of border walls to naïve faith in alternative energy and the all-too-common tendency to trust a fallible and ever-expanding government.
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This collection, comprised of one hundred of economist Donald Boudreaux’s best letters, provides intelligent, witty rejoinders to questions like these:
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• Is it “obvious” that “if there are fewer guns, there are fewer shootings and fewer funerals” (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
• Has “slowing population growth” proven to be “critical to long-term Whatever your political affiliation, you’ll be entertained and enlightened by Boudreaux’s incisive responses.
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blog, www.CafeHayek.com, noted ach day, Donald Boudreaux,with professor economist Russ Roberts hasUnilectured of economics at Georgeand Mason Hypocrites and Half-Wits won’t change your deeply convictions. But it will sharpen your Canada, Latin in held the United States, versity, writes a letter to the editor of a eye for shaky facts, faulty reasoning, and intelAmerica, and is the he author lectual dishonesty—all of whichEurope. arepublication. threats to a He Often, major American writes of free, prosperous country. Globalization (2008), and in response to an absurdity offhis eredwriting up by a has columnist or politician, an eye-catching been published in theorWall Street Journal, factoid misleadingly taken out of context.Reason, Investor’s Business Daily, Regulation, Theseon areLiberty, his best letters, each one offTimes, ering a the Ideas the Washington well-reasoned counterpoint an exaggeraJournal of Commerce, thetoCato Journal, and tion, misunderstanding, or outright deception A LIVELY CRITIQ several scholarly journals. printed in a newspaper.
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COVER DESIGN BY GREENLEAF BOOK GROUP Hypocrites and Half-Wits won’t change your LLC AUHTOR PHOTO BY CARRIE CONKO deeply held convictions. But it will sharpen your PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA eye for shaky facts, faulty reasoning, and intel- Hypocrites and Halfdeeply held convicti A D D S lectual dishonesty—all of which are threats to a eye for shaky facts, f C H lectual dishonesty— free, prosperous country. free, prosperous cou
DONALD J. BOUDREAUX
MISSIVES FROM DONALD J BOUDREAUX 25 November 2014
12 October 2014
Editor, Wall Street Journal
Editor, New York Times Book Review
1211 6th Ave.
620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY10018
New York, NY 10036
Dear Editor:
Dear Editor: The subheading describing Alan Blinder’s essay “The Unsettling Mystery of Productivity” (Nov. 25) reads “Since 2010 US productivity has grown at a miserable rate. And no one, not even the Fed, seems to understand why.” Here’s a potential explanation: regime uncertainty. Pioneered by economist Robert Higgs to explain the length and depth of the Great Depression,* the concept of “regime uncertainty” captures the difficulty of investors to foresee how their rights to their property (including to their profits) will be affected by government policies. A rise in regime uncertainty reduces productive, privatesector investments - and a consequence of reduced investment is slower productivity growth. Economists at Stanford and the University of Chicago measure “economic policy uncertainty” - a concept quite close to regime uncertainty.** Data on their website go back to 1985. The average level of U.S. economic-policy uncertainty from 1985 through 2009 is 101.1, while the average level of such uncertainty from January 2010 through October 2014 is 140.7. That is, the average amount of uncertainty (as measured using data found on the website Economic Policy Uncertainty) since the start of 2010 is nearly 40 percent higher than during the preceding 25 years. Whether or not this heightened uncertainty explains the slowdown in productivity growth, such intense uncertainty cannot possibly be good for the economy. Sincerely, Donald J. Boudreaux Professor of Economics and
Reviewer Latoya Peterson notes that one of the topics covered by the socialist-feminist author Laurie Penny is “the woes of the free market” (“A Vindication,” Oct. 12). Never mind that Ms. Penny’s latest book, Unspeakable Things, is retailed by for-profit private firms such as Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble and delivered to paying customers by for-profit private firms such as FedEx and UPS. Ignore the fact that her book is published by a for-profit private company (Bloomsbury) with net assets of $186 million. Pay no heed to the additional royalties that Ms. Penny will receive by virtue of her book being reviewed in the pages of the for-profit private New York Times. And forget that no force on earth has done as much to liberate women from the domination of men and the tedium of housework than has free-market capitalism and the many time-saving consumer goods it has created - goods such as indoor plumbing, automatic clothes washers and dryers, automatic dishwashers, wrinkle-free fabrics, electric vacuum cleaners, kitchen ranges, microwave ovens, and prepared foods. Overlook all of these facts. Instead, ponder the irony that feminists such as Ms. Penny insist that women are inept, helpless, and ohso-terribly vulnerable without the constant aid and protection of Big Brother. Sincerely, Donald J. Boudreaux Professor of Economics and Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Centre George Mason University Fairfax, VA 22030
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center George Mason University Fairfax, VA 22030
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The Dan Walker Chronicles Dan Walker is an adventurer, a businessman, and raconteur. He has visited every country in the world. His trusty Rolls Royce has taken him across many continents. He includes his grandchildren in some of his travels allowing them to select the destination. Originally, he hails from Victoria, British Columbia, but now resides in Costa Rica. At our request he has honoured us by writing a journal of his most recent trip to China. We are pleased to present the Dan Walker Chronicles.
Shangri-La to Shenyang Thursday, June 14, 2012
O
ur destination this morning was Podatso National Park, a forested mountain wilderness area with several lakes. Because of the mass of people visiting access is tightly controlled and confined to permitted areas There was a line to board a bus for the 15 km bus ride to the start of a 3½ km boardwalk along the shore of a lake. The altitude of the lake is 3,600 meters (11,800 ft). There were fish jumping in the clear water - fishing or hunting is prohibited in the park. At the end of walk there was another line to board a bus that stopped at a couple of scenic spots for photos. The only wildlife we saw was a chipmunk, but people in the bus ahead of us spotted a red panda running across the road. There are lots of wildflowers. We didn't see any other foreigners in the area; the buses were loaded with Chinese tourists. Marilynn and I sat separately so I could find a spot for my long legs, something the Chinese were very helpful in arranging. Everyone was super friendly, and we conversed as best we could, however the twisting road and altitude had an adverse affect on a lot of our fellow passengers - fortunately they were provided with motion sickness bags. Others were gasping and sucking in oxygen masks connected to canisters about the size of a hairspray can. After lunch we were driven to Shika Snow Mountain. This was not on our program, but thanks to Nayma we found out about it. There were few people, so no line ups as it is not usually on programs, but it certainly should be. The top of the mountain is reached via two connecting cable cars with a total length of 3 km (1.86 mi), the longest in China. Each gondola on the cable system seats 6. The views on the way up are amazing, and there are fields of azaleas & rhododendrons in bloom. There is a hotel catering to hikers at the joining point of the two cable systems. The second cable reaches the top of the mountain at 4,500 meters (14,760 ft) where we walked the boardwalks in spite of lots of steps. There were stupas, prayer flags and a 360 degree panoramic view of mountain peaks in range after range of mountains for as far as the eye could see. Deep snow drifts were scattered around, with more surrounding mountains, so it was cold and wind. The altitude wasn't a problem and the view was majestic. Nayma accompanied us to get a foot massage, have nails cut, and feet revived once we were back in town. This time it was a place he recommended - a little more expensive than yesterday's but far superior. A light yak meat dinner was accompanied by the good local wine after which I participated in a management meeting in Costa Rica by Skype and to bed.
Friday, June 15, 2012
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or the last time we collected our shoes, which had been nicely shined, from the outdoor locker they were kept in. Only slippers are permitted in the hotel. At the airport we said goodbye to our driver who had been with us for 7 days, and to Nayma who was a lot of fun and more than willing to please. The hour flight to Kunming was on time, and our check-in for the flight to Shenyang went smoothly, but then things fell apart. Apparently they oversold the flight by 16 seats and it took two hours to sort that out. Then the bus didn't come for 20 minutes to get us to the plane. Once away the on board meals were good, but we had to get off the plane for some reason when it made a 15 minute stop at Taiyuan. Two guides and a driver picked us up at the airport to drive us into the city of over 6 million to our hotel. Judging by the number of Cartier, Gucci, etc. department store it is a pretty wealthy place. There are big steel mills and other heavy industry. We'll now be out of touch for awhile. Brooklyn, a guide, has been to North Korea 34 times and said the cell phone will have to be sealed, and there will be no internet of any kind. All electronic items will have to be declared - it is a very closed society! 38
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