Scarborough-by-the-Sea Sounds Good Right Now!

Is it just because I’ve become ‘an older version of me’ that I believe the weather in this part of Canada has been changing…and not for the better? No one of sound mind will debate climate change anymore. But I’m not sure how many still want to discuss global warming. I grew up sixty years ago in a Montreal I remember as a definitive study in Canadian winter. A well known Quebec "anthem" is Gilles Vigneault's "Mon pays, ce nest pas un pays, c'est l'hiver" in which the title line translates as "my country is not a country...it's winter". My (then) young boy’s body ran and played amid walls of snow; I built snow forts, tobogganed, expected about six months of winter, and really had no issue with any of it. There were blizzards and there were cold days. But that was then and this is now…and that's before even considering that Montreal is at least 200 kilometers north of the latitude of Southern Ontario. We have been experiencing sustained, biting cold and literally tons of fresh snow. Routine temperatures are in the negative range and as low as -20c. In my childhood, we hadn’t yet “discovered” the Celsius scale and -20c. is close to zero when measured in Fahrenheit! Are you kidding me? Yes, I've experienced that previously but not for a very long time, never sustained, and not in Southern Ontario.

So, I give up. I yield. Recently, I discovered that a round trip to Florida doesn’t have to originate up north. Someone told me that I could actually book a round trip for the same price, on the same planes but they originate in Fort Lauderdale or West Palm Beach and then return there! Who knew? That means I could work from the sunny south, use all the electronic connectivity I have here at home quite seamlessly, and, if a client needed to see me, I could avail myself of one of those south-north-south flights I found out about! Then, I could stay up here and freeze for only two days and spend the other 28 days of the month wearing shorts. Beats the other way around, don’t you think? Consider this my pledge to make that change next winter…no, I’m not kidding!

Life today makes so many things possible. Who knew that the time-wasting cat-fights we all have on Twitter and Facebook could be conducted from Boston’s-By-the-Beach in Delray? And nobody up here would be the wiser! In a recent blog post, I noted that the Americans are a canny lot because they have an amazing ability to see the future. For example, when the Brits were fighting the rebel Yanks a few hundred years ago and finally decided to settle things, the continent was divided. Canada got everything north of the 49^th parallel. As we say in mixed company…B.F.D. 90% of Canucks live within 100 kilometers of the US border for a reason! If those dumb ass Brit negotiators had said “sorry, we want a vertical division”, we could have owned everything from the eastern Arctic to the Florida Keys. The Americans could have had everything from Alaska south to Mexico. Who needs Vancouver or Seattle or California anyway? The midpoint could have been, say, Death Valley! More succinctly, a friend tweeted recently that we should re-open talks with the Turks & Caicos – those islands bluster every couple of years seeking to become the next Canadian province. Great idea. Then we could spend our winter vacations in the sun and not cross a border or pay a premium for the local currency!

Consider this blog post my personal attempt to make light of a bitter cold day in the dead of winter, knowing, as I write this, that we are a scant eight weeks away from rebirth and renewal in what is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful displays of new life in the world…Canadian spring. The squirrels come out and dig up my lawn; they denude my oak tree for the acorns; the raccoons defecate over my entire property (but fear not…for I have fox urine a-plenty to spread around)…racoons smell the fox-pee and then, imagining it is meant to inspire dread, makes them look at me through their facial masks quizzically. Grubs wreck my lawn. Leaves on the trees degrade the TV signals. Maple tags clog the pool pump. I should probably stop right there. I still love spring and summer.

Bottom line…I’ve always viewed Florida as a stop gap. I know people there. I have family there. They have restaurants serving good food (if you look for them) and great shopping. There are lots of highways because they’re cheap to build…construction companies don’t have to consider anything called a “frost line”. Then again, I myself have, more than once, labeled Florida as “Scarborough with Palm Trees”. I’ve weighed the pros and cons. Scarborough isn’t so bad and I really like palm trees. You can read my blog posts next year but they’ll be generated with an underlying happier mood, written (as they will be) from Boca Raton.

Peter

Beer, Vaccinations, Kathleen Wynne and Ontario

Two divergent and unrelated news events got me going today. Beer sales in corner stores and vaccinating our kids. How different does it get? Well, I am known as a conservative thinker and a former Member of Provincial Parliament elected under the Progressive Conservative banner. Truth be told, I am more libertarian than I am conservative. So, in a perfect world, I like the concept of “live and let live”. But, it’s not a perfect world. So, conservatism will suffice…and my interpretation of it is that laws are a set of rules that protect us from each other…period. People often ask me about laws enacted to protect us from ourselves…what we can eat or drink or whether we should be allowed to expose ourselves to the ultraviolet light of a tanning bed. My reaction is unequivocal...leave me alone, I’m an adult!

This began to gnaw at me when media reports emerged saying that the Premier of Ontario had announced that we'd see no beer sold in corner stores. She did say the Beer Store monopoly would be changing this Spring but she was absolute in her “no convenience stores” position. Well, Premier Wynne, just who do you think you are? This province elected a majority Liberal government of which you are leader, therefore Premier. We did not crown you Queen nor pump white smoke up a chimney to anoint you the first female Pope. So, you govern...but you don't rule.

Basically, every jurisdiction in North America has beer available in privately owned chain stores. These are often supermarkets but they could, alternatively or in addition, be corner convenience stores. This acknowledges several things…consumer demand, lengthier hours of availability, non-monopolistic competition in price and product, and (importantly) the fact that we are adult decision-makers, fully capable of electing to buy and consume beer when and where we like…or not. No one likes a dictatorial government, notably where the rights being curtailed involve government trying to protect us from ourselves. Please stop this silly nonsense, Premier Wynne, and just give Ontarians what every other state and province has. Quit trying to be 13,000,000 peoples’ mom!!

Perhaps you should focus on another news story of the day and begin doing your job properly...protecting us from each other. As an MPP, I recall, all too often, misguided idiots passing for parents presenting themselves at my office to have documents notarized which would prevent their children from receiving any vaccinations. They’d say they didn’t believe in injecting “monkey pus” into their kids’ bloodstreams. I wanted to jump across my desk and slap them…but, alas, I had to smile and sign.

We are seeing a resurgence of measles in various places around North America, now including Ontario. This tells us several things. a) These controlled diseases are not anymore controlled now than they ever were, absent preventive vaccination; b) There are many people like those parents still out there; c) Communicable diseases can spread rapidly. So, here are some laws we actually need...and, Premier Wynne, it's your job to pass them!

Parents who deny their children a vaccine proven to prevent a disease are criminals and do not deserve to be parents. Premier Wynne, enact a law forcing them to stand aside and shut up as their children are properly vaccinated against all diseases for which we have proven preventives. That would be good legislation for Ontario. Instead, you appear to prefer screwing around with where we can buy beer and when. Hey...leave that to us…we are as adult as you are and, it would seem, many of us are a good deal brighter.

You have clear priorities...fix your flagging economy. Create a solid economic development plan. Develop a parallel jobs plan. Get out of peoples’ lives and out of our faces except when it comes to protecting us from each other…or, in this case, protecting the most precious and vulnerable among us, young children, from the stupidity and irresponsibility of parents who refuse to vaccinate.

Peter

Canada & Money: A Loonie Combination

I have not yet become a snowbird, that strange avian breed which (once having entered 'advancing years') heads south sometime in November only to return in April. Snowbirds have developed an odd aversion to the colour white and to  temperatures lower than approximately 10 degrees Celsius. Who can blame them? When North America was divided, the rebel Yankees knew a good thing when they saw it and took the lower half for themselves. Had the division been vertical, perhaps we Canucks could have owned the entire East Coast...so we'd have everything from the Manitoba border to the Atlantic Ocean all the way down to the Florida Keys. Imagine! New York, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta,  Savannah, Miami...wow! But I digress. I only alluded to snowbirds because they're wailing about the 78-cent Canadian dollar. That $5 breakfast at the IHOP has become $6.50 for no other reason than some Saudi Arabian oil sheiks opened the petroleum tap, thereby halving the price of a barrel of oil. Besides, New York would probably look a lot like Yellowknife if Canadians had been in charge anyway!

As the warm snowbirds weep, we still frozen Canucks foolishly celebrate $50 fill-ups at the pump as Americans can't make enough Ford F-150 trucks and 8-cylinder gas guzzling SUVs - the demand for them is epic. But, then again, American lettuce is still selling for a buck at Publix in Fort Lauderdale and flat screen TVs are just $99 at Best Buy in Miami. Why is that same head of crispy green vegetable twice the price at Loblaw's? And we have Best Buy too...so, where are the $99 TVs? Simple. The U.S. dollar is strong while the poor loonie has been decimated. So, we get to pay for the lettuce they grow in California, the picking and transportation process, and warehousing it with our 80-cent loonies while Americans still use their greenbacks which have firmed in value rather than being buffeted by the oil 'crisis'. Our American cousins...you know, the ones with the junk banking system...have wrestled unemployment down into the 5.6% range. They've got their annualized GDP growing at numbers in the 4-5% range. Household debt is down. And what do we frozen Canadians do? We bemoan our reliance on that black goo forced out of an unwilling tundra-like landscape in Alberta. Over 30% of our stock market issues are energy-related. Diversification my ass!

The thing about having the stuffing knocked out of our economy by some middle eastern kingdom that, by accident of birth, sits atop the cheapest, best sludge anywhere is that it gets on my nerves. It demonstrates how un-independent we Canadians and our economy actually are. We don't really make much happen, despite our G8 status. We are people who allow others to make things happen to us! Some Canadians may prefer a weak dollar. Investors holding American stocks are not complaining. But, as you contemplate travel abroad this summer, keep in mind that it will cost over 25% more than it might have, had you taken the same trip last year. But one-off "me" stories are so typically Canadian...and so is the abject lack of any actionable strategy on the part of our leadership. They're exactly like the guy we all know who put every penny into Nortel stock 20 years ago and stayed until the bitter end.

Exporters, manufacturers and service providers selling into the United States think this low dollar development is fine. But anyone buying finished goods does not. Strange how we can live in a country that easily sells the ore that makes the copper circuit boards or the trees used for the panelling or the steel used in automobiles...but by the time these finished products return and are presented to us for purchase, the price has dramatically risen because of the exchange rate.

WARNING!!! Don't listen to what politicians say - it's bogus. They don't actually know anything so the nonsense they spout is about as valuable as white noise. I should know...I was one! They have exercised no real control over any of this, so we can assert that, effectively, they and our economy are 'out of control'. Why? Because, as a country, we rely largely on our natural resources and we are told to celebrate that. But, when a bigger player like Saudi Arabia gets tough, it can bankrupt Alberta and push that much vaunted election-year federal surplus we were being promised 'way into the future. And that's what is happening...with the final chapter still to be written.

Here in Ontario, the epicentre of the so-called 'economic engine of Canada', we languish with a 7+% unemployment rate. We fret whenever we lose even a single company or when we see one struggling (Nortel; Blackberry; Target). We have no visible strategy to reverse our fortunes and we put people in charge of crafting our fate who can talk a good game but play politics when they tell us we are supposed to rejoice in the social web we've been given and cherish our 'great' health care system. In fact, the cupboard is bare and paying for this crap is a stretch at best and may soon prove to be impossible. We, in Ontario particularly, and in Canada generally, can and should be doing better. Leaders want credit. Fine. If you are prepared to take credit, you must also accept responsibility. Oil isn't cutting it for us and you ought not to be waiting for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to change the rules so that you can point to a rising petrodollar and claim you got it there...instead, you should be devising an economic development plan that attracts a broad range of industry, business, tech/R&D, and economically stimulating activity like developing untapped resource treasures in the Ring of Fire, lest you wait for a 50-cent dollar to make  you the real loonies!

Peter

Compromise & Subversion of the British Parliamentary System

The first night of Chanukah found me at Queen's Park (of all places!) for a celebration hosted by the Liberals (of all parties!) and, notably, by Kathleen Wynne, of whom I am a great fan. That's not a partisan comment...I just find her brilliant and eminently likeable. The party featured, as guests, many members of the Jewish community and so I chatted with old friends and met a few new ones. During the evening, I was not surprised to see my 2011 electoral opponent, Bernie Farber, roaming the room and, as we've often done, we shook hands and had a warm chat. He asked if he could take a selfie of us and post it on Facebook. I readily agreed - and he did.

So, what's your point, Peter? Do you want to write a blog post on the subject of meeting Bernie Farber? No, not today. Today's subject is partisanship and how it is NOT serving us well in government. I was reflecting on an article by Michael den Tandt in the National Post over the last weekend. He was discussing the fact that politics is now pretty much done by polling on peoples' attitudes to issues...not giant issues like national unity or bilingualism or abortion...smaller issues, perhaps like taxation changes or day care. And all parties govern based on the results.

Back to Bernie. He posted our little photo and entitled it "two long time adversaries, two old friends"...succinct, cutesy, true! In turn, I thought about how politically different we are and I wrote this post which many people saw and either "liked" or commented on:

"Many of you would have seen (still can!) the photo of Bernie Farber and I that Bernie posted yesterday. It was taken at a Chanukah party at Queen's Park. He captioned it "two old adversaries - two old friends". Bernie was my Liberal opponent in Thornhill for the 2011 election. The reason we get along today is that we did before and during that contest and it speaks to something that's good to share. 

Bernie and I, like many community-minded people, will never see eye-to-eye. But that should not get in the way of mutual respect. If people of good faith could state their views and allow them to stand while "agreeing to disagree", we'd all be much better off and maybe, just maybe, our representatives would, once again, understand that they were sent to do our bidding within the Westminster system which is entirely about give, take, and compromise. I hope and I suspect that the next generation is going to demand this. Happy Chanukah, Bernie...and everyone!"

I didn't spend much time wondering why most people who commented supported my expressed sentiments. As a veteran parliamentarian, I know. And if you think it's not so great in the Ontario Legislature, partisanship in Ottawa is worse...and in the USA (where the President gets voted in directly), there are two chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate, which are now both solidly Republican while the President is a Democrat - not the British system but it demonstrates how systems are internally flawed. Gridlock between the Legislative and the Executive Branches of government has always been an issue but it is reasonable to now make the statement that there hasn't been any really meaningful across-the-floor discussion nor any truly groundbreaking legislation passed for years.

Bottom line and prime thought: Westminster or the British Parliamentary system is about a government side and an Opposition and, often, other parties or independent legislators as well. The government presents legislation for debate, study, modification, and ultimate adoption. As conceived, the debate and study parts were about improving the legislation so as to broaden its positive effects for all citizens, not just the ones who voted the government of the day into office. It's why bills are read and debated three times before passing into law. 

Some will say that my suggestion for increased cooperation, less partisanship, addressing the big picture, and not depending on governance-by-poll is a pollyannish approach. Think what you will. We reap what we sow. But, I honestly feel that we can do better, that our children believe we can, and that when we're out of the picture, they'll pick up the torch and operate with a different prime directive...compromise.

Peter  

Social Media - the 'Dickensian' Comms Tool of the 21st Century

Charles Dickens wrote the memorable line “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” in his epic novel ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ in 1859. I am interpreting his words in 2014 and applying them to social media and my love/hate relationship with it. I know I am not alone…many of my friends and colleagues, young and old, feel the same way.

The genie was out of the bottle the day the first person popularized using the internet personally in the early nineties. Until that point, the net (it wasn’t yet known as the “web”) was an arcane, slow-speed hook-up for cerebral university professors collaborating on research and, to some extent, the United States military. Everyday people like you and me became the beneficiaries of a remarkably powerful communications tool and a range of users and developers recognized that and set out to harness the internet, coming up with grand ideas…Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn are just some of the best known sites in terms of daily usage. But individual and corporate web presence also assumed huge importance in essential ‘one-to-many’ personal communications, marketing, advertising, and news. And it was and is completely interactive. Dickens would probably have called it magic.

That’s much of what I consider as the “best of times” part. The least desirable  or “worst of times” side is visible in the misuse or abuse of this tool. Strategically accessing Google Earth to see if someone in a rich neighborhood has a BMW parked in the driveway so it can be stolen; telling legions of so-called friends about one’s bathroom or bedroom habits; showing the beheading of some poor soul as a perverse fear tactic in pushing your illogical agenda; hacking the database of a large company to steal thousands of credit card numbers in order to rip off as many people as possible; publishing pure venom or screed in Twitter ‘wars’ with those who have made statements with which you disagree; accessing child porn. These are a few nastier uses of the internet that come to mind. I fret most over social media's duality.

I’ve spent the vast majority of my life in communications-related businesses. Radio broadcasting, TV, telephone/internet sales and service, just to name a few. In these businesses, a level of professionalism, proper language, decorum, and legality were absolute musts. Technically, all of these elements of polite exchange should have simply glided into the various internet-based apps most of us use to communicate, but that didn’t happen.

Now, YouTube gives anyone who avails himself of it, a private, worldwide TV station. You don’t need a broadcasting license anymore to create radio that can be heard around the globe. Twitter lets anybody say whatever he or she pleases about anything with virtually no threat of recourse. Facebook does the same, but on a vastly expanded scale as, unlike Twitter, there are no limitations on size of post. Arguments about one’s right to hold any opinion abound…no one believes their own opinion could possibly be a stupid one…and so, we are bombarded by millions of words every day written by the uninformed (I use that word only to be gentle!). I’ve developed several specific approaches for how and when I use social media, just to avoid viewing all the nonsense. First, birthdays aside, I don’t ever put personal information on line. Second, I work hard to suppress emotional responses to the garbage out there...I often tweet back and then nuke my answers before ever pressing ‘send’. And finally, I monitor only the people I choose to and I block the idiot fringe. I just keep visualizing the staggering number of strangers who can and do look at everything and have a burning need to comment, regardless of what they know (or don't!) about any given subject.

What prompted me to think about and address this now is the sweeter side of social media. I felt great warmth yesterday as literally hundreds offered me heartfelt birthday greetings; a pat on the back; a word of encouragement; or a positive acknowledgement of something I’d once done. I posted a thank-you that said in part:

“You took a moment to send greetings or just make a nice comment. So, I think that the quid-pro-quo for getting older is the great good fortune of having all of the people who are or ever have been in my life out there. It is your interest and your friendship, sometimes your challenges, and always your affection that make me look forward to the next birthday...hopefully, interspersed with exchanges and get-togethers with many of you for no reason at all other than because we want to.”

Now that is the social part of social media. It allows the privilege of ‘one-to-many’ communication in a sincere way. It reflects an aspect of personal contact often absent from daily life and it informs my Dickens quote applying to social media as sometimes being part of “the best of times”. Be well everyone…and use this amazing tool wisely.

Peter

Patriots Only...All Others Please Leave!

I am a patriot. I love Canada unreservedly, always have, always will and I'd never consider living elsewhere. Even when I'm not pleased with some aspect of governance or critical of a Canadian custom, my patriotism never wavers. Canada is, without question, the best place in the world to live. And so, when that way of life is in any way interrupted or threatened, I get agitated...extremely disturbed. I purposely wrote this blog entry as events in our nation's capital unfolded on October 22nd and I am feeling emotional about my country. That emotion includes a dreadful sadness for the victim and for our nation but there is also anger bordering on rage that any of our so-called 'countrymen' would even consider expressing opposition to what we cherish in such a hideous and heinous way. Countrymen they may be...patriots, they are not.

I wrote recently that I believed the ISIS threat was not about a few crazy people half a world away but, rather, a glimpse of what World War III  might look like. I worried then and worry now about the born Canadians, indoctrinated far away or right here at home and eager to cause unrest, even havoc. ISIS and its' ideology are foreign on all levels but can and will do incredible damage in its' stated objective of bringing radical Islam to the world. We have all read the threats and exhortations to kill at random in a list of coalition countries including Canada. When I ask the question "do you believe me yet?", I am not being sarcastic or saying I told you so. Our government warned us of what could happen. Now, I must question why increased precautions were not taken within our own seat of government on Parliament Hill in light of an announced increased threat level.

Canada is indeed under threat. That means that, while shocked, we ought not to be surprised when we find ourselves under attack. That begs another question, one I asked on this blog a few short weeks ago. It pertained to why we are part of a coalition that believes we actually will eliminate the ISIS threat by lobbing a few rockets and bombs at ground targets from the air. In two blog posts, I stated that we should be taking the threats very seriously and that we will need boots on the ground. I said that we, ultimately, WILL put boots on the ground. The only question now is what "ultimately" means. 

Here is an excerpt from my initial plea to take ISIS seriously...

"ISIS is a growing organization and it is made up of 'in-situ' Muslim fanatics PLUS tens of thousands of the disaffected and crazy from all over the world, Canadians included. They are trained to kill and to show no mercy in using techniques designed to shock and revolt normal human beings...I draw this distinction because it is my belief that our views of the world are completely at odds and are non-negotiable. We see equality and human rights as a basic concept and they do not. No god figure in the history of human religious practice has ever called for the eradication of every non-believer the world over and, by the way, that includes the God of Islam, Allah. To suggest otherwise is to misinterpret, twisting words in order to make them fit with one's own agenda.

These people are just plain out of their minds, however, they should never be dismissed. Rather, they need to be dispatched. I have never proposed violent behaviour as justifiable in dealing with any group or person anywhere. In this case, however, ISIS needs to be totally eradicated -- eliminated from the planet, never to be be heard from again. If we do nothing and just watch, this scourge will surely come to us."

Look at that last line and think about it. I hadn't thought, a few short weeks ago, that my words would become so rapidly prophetic. The incipient edge of a cancer is growing here and it must be eliminated now. I argued, and many disagreed, that the best method would be the direct one...go get them. It is understandable that political will has been less than enthusiastic on our part and on the parts of our coalition partners to date. Perhaps that will now change. More recently I wrote...

"...in many endeavours, the operative adage must be 'in for a penny, in for a pound'. In other words, if we have 100 advisors in Iraq and/or Syria on the ISIS project, they are all potential victims. And if we are there with potential victims (as are our partners), couldn't we put enough manpower and materiel on the line to ensure that we win the day and win for all time? That means that I believe in boots on the ground being essential. Could we suffer losses? Yes...indeed, we would. But here's another (and more populist) adage 'pay me now or pay me later'. I will say, without hesitation, that Canada will, at some point, put boots on the ground as will the United States and Great Britain."


In that old catch-phrase about paying now or paying later, I'd not have predicted that "later" would be a matter of weeks. I want my Canada, my safe haven, to remain just that way. In the past week, our security has been shaken and nowhere more so than our own Parliament. I believe we can spare no effort, spare no expense, and waste no time in taking this battle to where it must be fought. And we cannot allow Canadian-born malcontents to import hatred and violence because they hate their own birthplace and way of life so much that they would harm other Canadians. Note that I did not refer to them as "fellow Canadians"? Let them get out of Canada now and stay away forever. Fellow patriots, friends from other lands, can we please get on with this job? Canada Strong!

Peter

Panic Scares Me More Than Ebola

I am not terrified of Ebola. What does disturb me is the insanity of those who are! They are mysophobic, believing this is about preserving their very lives and the lives of their loved ones in what they view as a clear and present danger when it is nothing of the sort. It also concerns me that we now have some insight into what could actually happen if there were a situation where there might legitimately be a threat. Basically, it appears we might be facing something like neighbor-upon-neighbor...every man for himself. I do not like that exposed and unseemly edge of our otherwise polished veneer. Is this the reality of western refinement?

Mysophobia is, like anything ending in 'phobia', a word that deals with an irrational fear. Mysophobics are those terrified to the stage of panic about becoming infected with a disease. In my view, we are seeing that now and it comes as a result of both politics and the media. At the time of writing, there are precisely two cases of Ebola active in the United States, both of them in nurses who worked, under less than ideal conditions, with a man who had travelled from Liberia to Texas, was already infected, and died. There are no known cases in Canada as of today. And yet, leaders are carrying on as if North America were almost like West Africa. News media are leading their newscasts with Ebola and making it front page material 24/7. A helicopter video of a hazmat suit-wearing infected nurse walking to a special jet aircraft to carry her to an isolation unit is shown and shown again...but we get no decent coverage of the squalor and death of hundreds, indeed thousands, in Liberia or its near neighbours.

About 35 years ago, we began to hear about a (then) new plague that was  labelled Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS. Much like Ebola, it was a viral disease that had, apparently, made a species jump from animal to human somewhere in Africa. And, again, like Ebola, it was not something one could easily "catch". You had to actively engage in activities that might infect you...shared use of hypodermic needles and sexual contact were examples. AIDS never mutated into some dreaded airborne pandemic and, ultimately, treatment advances resulted in the lifting of a certain death sentence in a relatively short period and provided an extension of life covering very lengthy timeframes. But, in the early stages, many panicked and some developed irrational fears of particular subsets of society as the perpetrators and spreaders of some God-created scourge. Is something akin to that what we're experiencing again? 

With Ebola, the mechanics of how the disease is spread are also clearcut. It is not airborne with no expectation it could become so. It requires exposure to body fluids...excrement, vomit, saliva, just to name a few. That is why there is an absolute requirement for those treating this awful illness to wear special gear that totally isolates them from any such potential contact. Despite knowing this, we hear everyday of people behaving in a panic-stricken manner; keeping their kids out of schools; not venturing into public places; being fearful of flying; carrying around giant bottles of disinfectant. Frankly, it is appalling that men and women with strong credibility and loud voices are not screaming from the mountaintops that this irrational personal terror must stop immediately. But they aren't...and the intermediaries who bring their messages to us are doing a pitiful job.

Let me be clear when I say that it is indeed the the job of governments to ensure that the public enjoys safety and security in daily life. It is not their job to inspire terror. My view is that this "insurance" work should continue...it seems they were caught flat-footed, initially. But now that they understand the scope of the significant Ebola outbreak affecting several countries in West Africa, their decisions should be focussed on containment there, travel precautions, and ensuring the availability of good treatment facilities and protocols to deal with any cases that might turn up in North America. Their very serious responsibility is to calm people who are both unskilled and uneducated in what this is and how it works - the vast majority of us, in other words. Given what I am seeing and hearing, my conclusion is that they are failing miserably at this so far. 

There is now great haste to produce a vaccine...and there should be. Too bad it wasn't happening a year ago. Can our scientists do it? Of course they can. We know that it won't help those already stricken. We know that things African have always been subjects we westerners talk about and, with few exceptions, never  address. But when Africa's exports include a potentially lethal threat, we get busy. It's not about the Africans...it's about us. Be honest with yourself when you digest that last line. So, money and speed on vaccine development are suddenly abundant. Meanwhile, best for all of us that our leaders put aside  the politicking. At the same time, let them take steps to reassure all of us that containment is the first job in heavily affected countries; that travel controls are properly established; that reliable protocols are in place to deal with eventualities.