The United Nations Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Erika Feller (left), gave a speech in Fairfax, Virginia today that contained this remarkable and sad statistic: There are more than 1.6 million children around the world who have become separated from their parents or guardians and, worse, even the most developed countries have few systems in place to deal with a situation in which a child refugee or migrant shows up within a national border and the child's parents are somewhere else.
Fellers said current asylum and migration procedures are designed primarily for the needs of adults and she said that a common problem in many countries, including the US, is the lack of government-appointed counsel or guardians for these children.
“The absence of representation to enable a child to navigate the legal hurdles of entry and proper assessment of protection needs is fundamentally detrimental to children’s best interests,” she said.
With the announcement this afternoon that U.S. President George Bush will host leaders of the G20, including Canada, in Washington on Nov. 15 for an economic summit, the calendar for Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Parliament is starting to firm up. Here's what we know with best guesses denoted by a (?):
Week of Oct. 27 : New cabinet sworn in ? PMO types are saying sometime in the next two weeks for this although the buzz around Ottawa is that a new cabinet will, in fact, be sworn in at Rideau Hall on Monday, Oct. 27. UPDATE: Nov 13-15 – Conservative Party convention in Winnipeg. Pencil in Harper to speak in the evening of Nov. 14 before jetting to Washington? Maybe he speaks on the 13th to open the convention? Nov. 15: Harper joins G20 leaders in Washington, D.C. for economic summit.
Nov. 16-21: Harper joins APEC Leaders in Lima, Peru for annual leaders summit.
Week of Nov. 24: – 40th Parliament opens with Throne Speech ? followed in short order by Economic and Fiscal Update ?
And English is apparently McCain's first language…
“… last week.. a Pennsylvania Democrat, Representative John P. Murtha, .. told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, speaking of his home base, that “there is no question that Western Pennsylvania is a racist area.”
Mr. McCain referenced Mr. Murtha’s comments in his third stop of the day [in Pennsylvania], at Robert Morris University here, when he said, “I think you may have noticed that Senator Obama’s supporters have been saying some pretty nasty things about Western Pennsylvania lately.” As the crowd booed, Mr. McCain became tangled up in the rest of his remarks. “And you know, I couldn’t agree with them more,” he said, to silence, and then wandered around in a verbal thicket before finally managing to say, “I could not disagree with those critics more; this is a great part of America.” [From the NY Times]
I've been off the Hill for the last couple of days fighting a nasty little flu bug.
When I was a kid, staying home sick meant that I got to watch a lot of daytime TV like The Price Is Right. I know Price is still hot what with Drew Carey hosting and all but, nowadays, when I get a sick day, it's a chance for me to do some e-learning.
Here's one that looks interesting — it's a quick five-week course from Stanford University professor Martin Lewis called “The Geography of U.S. Presidential Elections.” In it, Lewis challenges the idea that our American neighbours can be neatly divvied up into so-called red states and blue states.
Stanford's “iTunes U”, I should note, has a pretty broad collection of courses and lectures. One that I listened to over the summer and would recommend was a course from professor James Sheehan titled “History of the International System.” (In the iTunes store, search for “stanford sheehan” and you should see it.)
… and they all are men — white men — from famed New York investment bank Goldman Sachs who, for no clear reason, seem to end up playing key roles in central banks and finance departments around the world, a phenomenon which gets a fresh look from Julie Cresswell and Ben White in today's NY Times.
The Bank of Canada governor, Mark Carney, for example, is a Goldman Sachs alumni as is U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson:
. . . Goldman’s presence in the department and around the federal response to the financial crisis is so ubiquitous that other bankers and competitors have given the star-studded firm a new nickname: Government Sachs.
The power and influence that Goldman wields at the nexus of politics and finance is no accident. Long regarded as the savviest and most admired firm among the ranks — now decimated — of Wall Street investment banks, it has a history and culture of encouraging its partners to take leadership roles in public service.
It is a widely held view within the bank that no matter how much money you pile up, you are not a true Goldman star until you make your mark in the political sphere. While Goldman sees this as little more than giving back to the financial world, outside executives and analysts wonder about potential conflicts of interest presented by the firm’s unique perch.
Here I am in my mid-forties, pretty much an old fogy now (heck, the Bank of Canada governor is younger than me and if that isn't a signal you're over the hill, I don't know what is), but I still try to keep an eye on what the kids are listening to nowadays.
One of the differences that struck me about music today compared to when I was a kid growing up in the late 70s and early 80s was the whole concept of the “live album.” DJs nowadays do sets and move them around the Web the way Grateful Dead fans used to trade cassette tapes of any one of the 200 or so live shows the Dead used to play every year. And that's fair enough.
But back in my day, the big 'live album' set, usually a double- or triple-LP set complete with fold-out sleeves was a Very Big Deal.
I ran across a few of those collections tonight — the original vinyl editions — as I continue the long process of digitizing my records. One of those collections I consider one of the finest live rock records ever made: Ian Hunter's Welcome to the Club. Hunter was the dude that put Mott the Hoople on the map and, on this record, released in 1980 and recorded over seven sold-out nights in beautiful, downtown Cleveland, he resurrects Mott the Hoople's most famous track “All the Young Dudes” (right, with a version that seems, to me, a lot like the one on the record. I love the knee-length leather boots), the David Bowie-penned anthem that speaks to all of us who think we're just too hip to be cool.
Mick Ronson, the guitarist who played with Mott, is on this record and absolutely shines with a George Gershwin's “Slaughter on 10th Avenue”, played, on this live set, right after dudes.
Welcome to the Club also rocks out with “Cleveland Rocks”, “All the Way to Memphis”, and “Just Another Night”. If you've never heard the record, get thee to the nearest online music store and spend the $10. As for me, though I'm trying to cull some of the vinyl in the basement, this one's staying with me even if I never own another turntable.
So other tremendous live records?
Strangely enough, for someone who thinks The Clash is, in fact, the greatest band of all time and prefers, say, the 1980s smart white funk of The Talking Heads or The Gang of Four to, say, long-haired white guys in Grand Funk Railroad and The James Gang, I'm hard pressed to identify a terrific live record that wasn't made by, well, long-haired white guys. The Talking Heads even had two “live” records neither of which make my list. Stop Making Sense was a better movie than a soundtrack and The Name of this Band Is … seems, like so many live efforts, an excuse to throw out a greatest hits package.
So here's my list of best live rock on vinyl. Throw yours in the comments section:
J. Geils Band : Live! Full House! – J. Geils in mid-70s with Magic Dick at his most magical. If you're a big fan, you could try the other live sets they put out on Blow Your Face Out but for my money, this is the better live album and one of the all-time greats.
Rolling Stones: Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out: “You wouldn't want me trousers to fall down now, would you?”, a very young Mick Jagger drools in this outstanding 1970 live set notable for the best recorded live version of “Jumpin' Jack Flash”, “Midnight Rambler”, and “Sympathy for the Devil.”
Allman Brothers Band – At Fillmore East – OK, like how cool is this — two songs on this landmark live set — “Whipping Post” and “”You Don't Love Me” take up two of the four sides the double-LP vinyl release. The Allmans would later release a 34-minute version of “Mountain Jam” which, believe it or not, sounds like it's too short! Here's rock critic David McGee writing about this in 1979: “…there are no wasted notes, no pointless jams, no half-realized vocals — everything counts …” McGee, I think, sums it up nicely and also sets the standard that another top-seller from my teen years, Peter Frampton's Frampton Comes Alive, fails to meet 30 years on. There are some great tracks on Alive but Frampton's double-LP sounds too bloated.
Cheap Trick : Live at Budokan — The energy in “I Want You To Want Me” and “Surrender” alone make this one an all-time great — whether you're talking “live albums” or just “greatest albums.”
Paul McCartney and Wings : Wings Over America — John Lennon once witheringly dismissed the Tin Pan Alley-esque tunes like “Martha My Dear” that Paul kicked into the The White Album as “Paul's Granny Music.” Well, post-Beatles, Paul seemed to wallow in “Granny Music”, if you ask me. But on a couple of nights in America with his band, Wings, Paul actually rocked out and this is the result. Many will dismiss this effort and that's fair enough. But “Jet” and “Band on the Run” have never had so much power. And there's no getting around the fact that when it comes to ballads like his “Blackbird” or Simon and Garfunkel's “Richard Cory”, Paul could sing a song. Oh – and this one gets bonus points because it's a triple LP!!!
The Who : Live at Leeds — My second favourite band after The Clash cuz, like The Clash, there's a lot of brains behind their electric brawn. On this record, there was way too much power for my tiny stereo when I was growing up and now, nearly 40 (that's right, 40!) years later, there's still nothing that touches it for its energy and Daltrey's howls.
Josée Verner is the Conservative Heritage Minister. She is her party's candidate in the Quebec City riding of Louis St. Laurent. But Verner lives in the riding of Portneuf-Jacques Cartier, the only riding in the country where there is no Conservative candidate and that is where, according to the BQ, she voted this morning.
The Tories opted not to run a candidate in Portneuf preferring instead to let independent incumbent André Arthur have any votes that come from the right side of the political spectrum. (Though he is an independent, Arthur tended to support the government on most votes and the government did him a favour in giving a seat and speaking time on the Commons' Industry Committee).
So, with no Tory running in the riding she lives in, the Bloc Québécois just asked:
“Pour qui donc madame Verne a-t-elle voté?” Who did Verner vote for?
I can't remember where I first heard this but it made enough sense to me that I used it in a speech I gave when I was 15-years-old:
“Bad governments are elected by good citizens who don't vote.”
In the middle of winter in 2006, 14.9 million Canadians braved the cold to vote – a voter turnout of 64.7 per cent.
Will that many Canadians put on a raincoat tomorrow to cast their ballot?
The United Nations Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Erika Feller (left), gave a speech in Fairfax, Virginia today that contained this remarkable and sad statistic: There are more than 1.6 million children around the world who have become separated from their parents or guardians and, worse, even the most developed countries have few systems in place to deal with a situation in which a child refugee or migrant shows up within a national border and the child's parents are somewhere else.
J. Geils Band : Live! Full House! – J. Geils in mid-70s with Magic Dick at his most magical. If you're a big fan, you could try the other live sets they put out on Blow Your Face Out but for my money, this is the better live album and one of the all-time greats.
Rolling Stones: Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out: “You wouldn't want me trousers to fall down now, would you?”, a very young Mick Jagger drools in this outstanding 1970 live set notable for the best recorded live version of “Jumpin' Jack Flash”, “Midnight Rambler”, and “Sympathy for the Devil.”
Paul McCartney and Wings : Wings Over America — John Lennon once witheringly dismissed the Tin Pan Alley-esque tunes like “Martha My Dear” that Paul kicked into the The White Album as “Paul's Granny Music.” Well, post-Beatles, Paul seemed to wallow in “Granny Music”, if you ask me. But on a couple of nights in America with his band, Wings, Paul actually rocked out and this is the result. Many will dismiss this effort and that's fair enough. But “Jet” and “Band on the Run” have never had so much power. And there's no getting around the fact that when it comes to ballads like his “Blackbird” or Simon and Garfunkel's “Richard Cory”, Paul could sing a song. Oh – and this one gets bonus points because it's a triple LP!!!