Originally Posted by cyasoon

Terence McKenna on Culture:
"What civilization is, is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other's shoulders and kicking each other's teeth in. It's not a pleasant situation.
And yet, you can stand back and look at this planet and see that we have the money, the power, the medical understanding, the scientific know-how, the love and the community to produce a kind of human paradise. But we are led by the least among us - the least intelligent, the least noble, the least visionary. We are led by the least among us and we do not fight back against the dehumanizing values that are handed down as control icons.
This is something, culture is not your friend. Culture is for other people's convenience and the convenience of various institutions, churches, companies, tax collection schemes, what have you. It is not your friend. It insults you. It disempowers you. It uses and abuses you. None of us are well treated by culture.
Yet we glorify the creative potential of the individual, the rights of the individual. We understand the felt-presence of experience is what is most important. But the culture is a perversion. It fetishizes objects, creates consumer mania, it preaches endless forms of false happiness, endless forms of false understanding in the form of squirrelly religions and silly cults. It invites people to diminish themselves and dehumanize themselves by behaving like machines - meme processors of memes passed down from Madison Avenue and Hollywood..."

Originally Posted by JonboyE

I sort of agree, but there is an inbuilt bias amongst immigrants that what we know and care about is important, and what we don't know or care about isn't.

Originally Posted by stuabroad

I couldn't be bothered researching you, have you ever lived in Canada or spent any time in North America?

This point is endlessly debated on BE. I'm married to a home-grown Canadian teacher who has two degrees and she's not even allowed to teach her kids about anything on WW2 (read Holocaust etc) unless she gets prior approval from her Principal. The school's focus here are all on North America, with passing reference to European history. U

Originally Posted by Oink

I don't agree. The topics are usually inane and then their accents gets so on your tits that's hard to listen.

Originally Posted by JamesM

Some one was just explaining to me that you don't get fat crack smokers.

Originally Posted by Novocastrian

I formed that theory 2 days after the Star story. I think it's credible. Moreover given his connections in both the Toronto Police Service and the drug community, it's rather likely we'll never know.

He's still dead meat though.

Originally Posted by Alan2005

I don't really care overly as its the other end of the country. But when he's been in the telly he isn't saying that he's never been a crack addict or that he's never taken crack. Its always 'I am not doing those things now.' You'd think he'd be bombastic enough to carry off a junkie past.

Originally Posted by Almost Canadian

I really don't care either. I am just amazed at the time the media is spending on this when, it would appear, the actual evidence is somewhat wanting.

Originally Posted by Jingsamichty

Countries have gone to war on evidence of similar quality...

Originally Posted by Almost Canadian

I thought he had said that he "had never been".

I really don't care either. I am just amazed at the time the media is spending on this when, it would appear, the actual evidence is somewhat wanting.

Originally Posted by Oakvillian

You're being too much of a lawyer. Journalists, particularly investigative journalists, have relied on unnamed "sources" to run big stories for years. I heard the publisher of the Star and the editor-in-chief of the Globe interviewed on CBC Radio 1 the other day (despite the fact that that radio station apparently isn't worth listening to - my car radio is more or less permanently tuned to it...), and they were both very clear that, in their respective stories about the current crack video and the previous hash-dealing antics of the Fords, they had ensured sources were re-interviewed in the presence of the newspapers' lawyers and senior editorial staff, who all appeared satisfied that the stories were genuine.

I don't think anybody expects them to have all the evidence in hand before publishing a story: that's what the police and the courts are for, news media have a very different burden of proof and need only to satisfy themselves they're not going to be sued. Mayor Ford, tellingly, has taken no action, nor threatened any action, against the papers for making such strong allegations against him.

Originally Posted by Almost Canadian

I appreciate that and I also appreciate that Ford's lack of action (in a defamation sense) is telling.

I guess I just find the whole "trial by media" that appears to pervade the entire western world somewhat distasteful particularly when, if the matter does get to trial and the trial doesn't go the way the media had portrayed the "facts", everyone then screams "injustice".

Originally Posted by Oakvillian

It's a somewhat uncomfortable reality of our world, I grant you. But there are memorable occasions on which such a bold journalistic approach has borne fruit in the face of opposition from the judicial system. The one outstanding example that springs to mind is the Stephen Lawrence murder, that led to the McPherson Inquiry, an IPCC investigation into corruption, and ultimately the conviction (following the changes to double jeaopardy laws) of two or the original five accused.

The Daily Mail is the butt of many jokes on this forum, but in this instance it was their campaign - up to and including a public, front-page accusation of murder and inviting the perpetrators to sue for libel (they didn't...) - that maintained public awareness and dragged a reluctant "establishment" into properly investigating not only the case itself, but the broader implications of the inability of the police and CPS to do it properly in the first place.

Originally Posted by Almost Canadian

Imagine for a minute that the media decided to go after you, destroyed your reputation and invited you to sue them to right the wrong.

Originally Posted by stuabroad

As for CBC Radio1, never listened to it as i'm not much interested in anything they've said the few times i've listened, for the reasons already stated. May have been bad timing.

Point is you can get anything you want from the UK if you want it: