Why I'm a Math Junkie

I love math. It was my strongest subject all throughout school and I love it to this day. Recently I saw a brain teaser in the daily paper which reads as follows:

The product of two numbers is 161. The difference between them is 16. What are the two numbers?

Alright, the game is on! You can express the situation like this -
let the 2 numbers be x and y and here are the relations

  x y = 161

    also

x - y = 16

As long as you have 2 equations with 2 variables, you're cool. You just use substitution.

x - y = 16

-y = 16 -x

-(-y) = -(16 - x)

y = x - 16

So,

x y  = 161

x (x - 16) = 161

x**2 - 16x = 161      ( x**2 is computer-ese for x squared, since you can't show the little raised 2 with plain text)

Okay, now I was stuck. Usually these contain just a plain x with no squares. I wracked my brain until I came up with - quadratic equation!! I barely remembered these from school, let alone how to solve them. Time to call in the cheats. Hello Web! One simple search on quadratic equations yielded the answer.

The formula for a quadratic equation is a x**2 + b x + c = 0

So re-arranging the above, you get

x**2 - 16x -161 = 0

where a =1  b = -16 and c = -161

There is a formula for calculating this which I have long forgotten but you can find it on the Web. But just to prove that today's students have it made in the shade, there is a tool that prompts you to just fill in the values of a, b and c and it provides the values of the first x and the second x. I filled in the values a =1 , b = -16 and c= -161 and the two numbers came up as 23 and 7. Here is the sight where I found the answer

http://www.arachnoid.com/quadsolver/index.html

QED

Like the First Time, Only Better

I can't remember the last time I was so excited about something. Way back when I was in grade 10 at high school, I found a guitar in the attic of the house. It was my mother's and it was a little beaten up and missing most of the strings. My Mom said I could have it; she tried learning it as a youngster but couldn't get the hang of it.

I put new strings on it and bought a 50-cent booklet called "EZ Method for the Guitar." Before too long I was strumming chords and learning Bob Dylan songs. In those days, part of the daily opening exercises at school was to stand and sing God Save the Queen. (The other was to recite the Lord's Prayer). A girl named Diane had the desk to the right of me and I noticed what a lovely voice she had. I thought it would be neat if we got together as a group and sang. It took me two years to get up the nerve to ask, but when I finally did run it by her she said yes.

We put together a repertoire and did a circuit of concerts at various schools. The pinnacle of our career was during the summer of 1969 when we we hired by a coffee shop in Bala, Ontario. It was right next door to the famous Kee to Bala. It was a large two-storey house made into a restaurant with a small stage. The operator, in a fit of creativity, had named it The Iron Tadpole.

We were asked to give our group a name, something we hadn't even thought about. We were always just Denis & Diane. We tried toying with names, but they were either taken or just didn't sound right. (The Soul Seekers was particularly lame). So it stayed as Denis & Diane.

There were two songs that we'd rehearsed, both taken from Peter Paul and Mary Albums. One was "And When I Die" by Laura Nyro, the other "Leaving on a Jet Plane" whose composer was listed as H.J Deutschendorf, Jr. (Better known as John Denver). Neither of the songs had been released on the charts, so nobody knew them. We would be asked to sing both songs over and over, sometimes as much as five times in a row. After our gig ended, the songs were released in the fall - Leaving on a Jet Plane by Peter, Paul and Mary followed by And When I Die by David Clayton-Thomas and Blood Sweat & Tears.

Soon after I got phone calls from people who had heard us in Bala saying "you guys' songs made it on radio - aren't you excited?" Apparently many of the audience members thought those songs were written by us. If Diane and I really had written them, both of us would be in different spaces today.

In 1970, we both went to different schools and lost touch with one another. But every so often when I would pick up a guitar or perform a solo gig I would think of Diane and picture us back together again. As the years went by I kept telling myself that I must try to contact Diane but I kept putting it off. When 2008 rolled in I said to myself I'm not going to put it off any longer, I am GOING to try to contact Diane. It was easier than I thought. I got hold of her mother on the first try, and her Mom remembered me.

When I spoke to Diane, it was as if we had never left off. We weren't then, nor are now, romantically linked but it's one of those special friendships that are so few and far between you just have to preserve them. Diane agreed to put our act back together, and we've had a few practice sessions during which I just couldn't contain the smile on my face. And we have a gig! Next June will be the 40th year reunion of Denis & Diane. And you can bet that "Leaving on a Jet Plane" will be one of the featured numbers!

Don't Ask Me Why, Why I'm a Hairy Guy

Actually, you can ask all you want. I just noticed it's 4 months to the day since my last blog entry so I figured I should write something even if it's not earth shattering. I've been growing my hair for a little over a year and a half, but it's still not long enough. And just how long is long enough? Well, to donate it to charity, it has to be at least a 10-inch ponytail.

There are a number of charitable organizations that accept donations of human hair and use it to make wigs for people who lose their hair for medical reasons. The biggie is cancer treatment, but hair loss can also result from burns and a disease called alopecia.The charity I am leaning to is Angel Hair for Kids. They provide wigs free of charge for youth 19 and under who lose their hair for any of the above reasons.

When my hair is long enough, my barber will make it into a ponytail, tie off the other end and snip away. Many of his clients do this as well and he has pre-addressed envelopes to send the hair off in the mail. I think this is one of the neatest things a person can do for charity. Besides, in the meantime I feel like I'm getting away with something.

All together now: "Gimmee a head with hair, long beautiful hair!"

Crocuses and Chambers

When the crocuses finally poke up you can usually breathe a sigh of relief that winter has finally loosened its grip. It's been a little late this year and I even had to shovel some 3 feet of snow off the ground to help them along but here they are. The sad part is that they don't last very long. They're the first spring flowers to bloom and just beautiful to behold.

So what do chambers have to do with anything? In 2004 I was studying full time at the University of Toronto and I took a sociolinguistics course taught by renowned linguist Professor Jack Chambers. The course started in January and it was a very cold and snowy start to the year. The classroom was at University College in an old drafty room poorly heated and it was a fair hike to get to because there was no nearby parking.

The professor was a fabulous lecturer and I would spend each 2 hour class on the edge of my seat taking copious notes. During the first class when we all were shivering, he promised that by the end of the course we would be seeing the crocuses in full bloom and it would be "wonderful." At the last class in early April he told us of the crocuses he'd seen during his walk to the college and how "wonderful" it was. I mentioned the crocuses that had always grown in front of my Mom's house but I had never really noticed or appreciated them.

Later that year a new walkway was put in my Mom's house that plowed over the old crocus bed. I was determined that we'd continue to have crocuses the next spring so that fall I bought some bulbs and planted them on the edge of the front lawn. In the spring of 2005 they bloomed even better that I'd hoped. Alternate blue and yellow ones. The next year I planted white ones, and just last year ones I thought were multi-coloured but they're light yellow and smaller; still they blend in just great.

To this day I am thankful to Professor Chambers for a fabulous course (which I'm proud to say I aced) and for renewing my interest in spring flowers.

Crocuses at their peak on April 10, 2008

Buck Up Conrad, It Happens to the Best of Us

Canadian businessman Conrad Black, who was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in jail for convictions of fraud and obstruction of justice, reported to the Coleman minimum seucrity prison in Florida to serve his sentence.

I can relate. I thought I had a sure money-making venture at my cottage a few years ago, but it didn't pan out.

Getting De-Rogerized

It's something I should have done a long time ago. But I have finally had it with Rogers Communications and I'm severing all business connections with them. That includes phone, TV and Internet. I had some trouble with phone service a couple of years ago. I had switched long distance service from Bell to Sprint, to take advantage of some good deals. That meant paying separate phone bills - Sprint for long distance and Bell for local calls. Than at one point Sprint said they could also take on local service and I said, "why not?"

I was happy with Sprint for years until I got an ominous letter saying that Rogers had bought out Sprint and would now be the phone service provider. Soon after, I started having trouble with the phone line. Getting through to repair was an exercise in futility, and when I finally did get someone to look at the line, they charged some $90 because it was "not their problem" even though the guy had to re-install wires in the box outside the house.

My Internet service has always been dial-up with a small Montreal-based company. But now that I plan to help build a business web site, dial-up won't cut it anymore. I didn't want to have any more cables installed in the house, so I asked Rogers for their ADSL service. I had to wait 10 days for them to deliver a modem and was assured that DSL would be on the line as of the delivery date. When I still didn't have DSL on the line the next day, I went through the frustrating exercise of contacting tech support. Every time I got a person on the line I had to repeat my phone number, password, address, postal code, etc. I was constantly told "not my department" and shunted around to someone else. The 5th or so person I got had a voice like Tattoo from Fantasy Island. It was extremely annoying, especially when I was told that my DSL wouldn't be in place for yet another week.

That tore it. I was hoping I wouldn't have to keep my current ISP for another month, but I have no choice. I contacted Bell and I am transferring all services over to them. Bye-bye Rogers!

I've been wondering why Rogers is so incompetent when it comes to service. Then it dawned on me. The place used to be run by one Mr. John Tory, whose reputation as a bumbler in the political arena is a matter of record. Even though he's no longer at Rogers, the damage caused by a guy in charge can last a long time. Just look at the province of Ontario.

I found I'm not the only one cheesed off at Rogers. On quite a few blogs, I've read about Rogers reps asking hapless customers how they can be satisfied. The answer is that Rogers customer satisfaction is an oxymoron. The only way to be a satisfied Rogers customer is not to be a Rogers customer at all.

I May Yet Become Afflicted With Triskaidekaphobia

This is too weird. After looking at today's date for my Conrad Black sentencing spoof, I checked my first blog in this series. All those references to the number 13. And today is the 13th. A coincidence, or stranger than fiction?

Where's a sound clip from the Twilight Zone theme when you need one?

It's just this spooky.

Less Than a Sentence But More Than a Word

Well, I won the Conrad Black sentencing bet with my ultra-conservative friend but I doubt I will ever collect my fifty bucks seeing as how the guy can't even pay his rent. Black was given 6 1/2 years jail time and if he's not successful at appeal, he'll have to serve at least 5 years and six months of that. His judge ordered him to report to jail next March 3rd and many experts think that he'll be incarcerated at that time regardless of his appeal status.

In all likelihood, it will be easy time for the British noble, but it will no doubt be starkly different from the lifestyle he's accustomed to. Now, I've been wondering if Conrad will agonize over what his final dinner before jail should consist of given that he won't be sampling haute cuisine for quite some time.

Never fear, Your Lordship, I've put it all together for you. All you have to do is place your order (I'd do it soon) and have your personal chef assemble it at your Palm Beach mansion. And, since your daughter Alana has been by your side throughout your ordeal, you should invite her to partake along with your wife.

Conrad's Before-Jail Dinner

We start off with a fine champagne. But not the pedestrian ones. Dom Perignon is such a cliche and Cristal is so Red Lobster. Only James Bond drinks Bollinger. I suggest Perrier-Jouêt at $1800 a bottle (all prices in US$).

This is accompanied by Iranian Beluga caviar, which is $45,000 a kilogram but that's a lots of fish eggs for a single sitting. A 250 gram tin ought to suffice.

My favourite appetizer has always been escargots, but I no longer fancy them in the shells. Try to get them served in timbales with puff pastry, truffles and a splash of Pernod.

I selected a Poully-Fuissé for the snails but don't be put off by the cheap-sounding price of $200 a bottle. It's a really nice white wine.

For the main course, what could be more memorable than Canard à la Presse (pressed duck) from the celebrated Tour d'Argent in Paris. When the dish was invented, the maitre d'hotel started a tradition. Each duck has been assigned a number and a certificate presented to the diner. In the visitors' book of famous ducks, number 328 was served to King Edward VII in 1890, number 40,312 to King Alfonso XIII in 1914, number 53,211 to the Emperor Hiro Hito in 1921 and number 938,451 to President Mikhail Gorbachev. What will be yours I wonder?

I chose a full-bodied red wine for this course, a 1987 Romanée-Conti. Here is its description:

This French red Burgundy smells of berries, spices and leather. Dark in color, it hints at flavors of soy sauce, flowers and licorice. The aroma is rich and penetrating without being too profound. The Romanée-Conti is a rare wine that has carved a niche for itself along the years. At $1750 a bottle, it no longer has anything to prove.

For dessert let's go with a chocolate mousse by the Knipschildt Chocolatier of Connecticut. Their chocolate is $2600 a pound and you have to order in advance.

To cap everything off, how about a snifter of Hennessey Timeless cognac which wine connaiseur Tony Aspler describes as "wonderful." A 750 ml bottle is $5000.

Sure hope you enjoy this meal, Your Lordship. I look forward to seeing your comments posted here next March. But do it before you surrender - I don't think they'll let you take your computer.

Birthdays and Memories

Today I observe another birthday but it's not one marked by the usual frivolity and light-hearted merriment. Instead, my thoughts are filled with the memory of someone who will never celebrate another birthday.

A week ago today, the wife of a good friend and fraternity brother was killed in a car accident during a winter storm. I waited a couple of days to phone my friend and I couldn't come up with any words that seemed appropriate. So we both cried. And this was difficult because my friend has always been one to crack unending jokes, heavy on the sarcasm and loath to take anything seriously.

The funeral was yesterday, and I fully intended to make the 1 1/2 hour drive but the weather reports of snow squalls and whiteouts gave me pause and in the end I decided not to venture out. It was an agonizing decision, and I hope my friend understands.

I can only hope that time is the great healer it is touted to be.

Wanted: Another Mike Harris (Or Maybe a Real One)

Fresh from a stinging rebuke at the polls, Ontario Conservative leader John Tory insists he will stay on, even though he himself failed to win a seat in the provincial parliament. This is much easier said than done. It's awkward to lead a party without a seat in the legislature, and Conservative stalwarts are laying the blame for their rout squarely on Tory. Knife sharpeners have seen a marked increase in business since last Wednesday night.

Hard-liners are probably thinking that it's time to steer the party sharply back to the right after two leaders who are perceived as social moderates have failed miserably to improve their fortunes. Pining for the days of Mike Harris, they may well opt to choose a leader with similar ideals or even mount a campaign to draft back Harris himself.

So over the next four years look for extreme right-wing policies to be championed by the Conservative party and its new right-wing leader such as:

1. Eliminating government-sponsored universal health care completely.
   
2. Eliminating the public school system and replacing it with a system of charter schools and vouchers.

I predict that it won't resonate with the public. The Harris years were an aberration. Ontarians are just not a bunch of rabid right-wingers. In the final years of the NDP government led by Bob Rae, the public was angry and mean. The economy was in a huge slump. People were paying high taxes and not seeing any improvement in their living standard. They were looking for someone to blame and take it out on. Harris gave them just that: poor people collecting welfare, labour unions and teachers. Add the carrot stick of lowering taxes and presto - you're the Premier.

However, as I expressed in a satirical piece posted on Usenet, Harris eventually lost favour with the public. By the time he jumped ship in 2002 Ontarians had come to realize what a malicious, spiteful and mean-spirited individual he is. I don't think Mike Harris will ever darken our doors again as a public official.

It will also be a long, long time before the Ontario Conservative party again swaggers through the halls of power.

John Tory - The Biggest Political Stumbler and Bumbler of All Time?

If the pollsters and pundits are to be believed - and they almost always are - one of the most inept political campaigns ever mounted will come to a humiliating end tomorrow evening. John Tory - the much-touted saviour, the deliverer of the Ontario Conservatives will not only lose the provincial election for his party, but will himself fail to win a seat in the legislature.

The blame for this unprecedented implosion falls squarely at Tory's feet. There are no advisors or bag men to use as scapegoats. All on his own he chose an issue based on principle (so he says - I think it was a blatant attempt at vote-grabbing) that blew up in his face. He proposed to extend public funding to private religious schools.

That sole plank in the Conservative platform became the defining issue of the entire election campaign, overshadowing all others including really important ones. John Tory found himself constantly defending his position against a mounting swell of irate voters. All the Liberals had to do was pull up some ringside seats and watch the pounding.

With 9 days to go before the election, Tory backed away from his proposal, saying it would be put to a "free vote," essentially guaranteeing that the measure would never pass. It was too little, too late. The subsequent polls showed that not only did Tory fail to make up any lost ground, the gap between his party and the Liberals either stayed the same or widened.

Tory's motto, repeated over and over again, was "leadership matters." I guess it does, but Tory has shown himself to be anything but an effective leader. Premier Dalton McGuinty has been assailed for breaking a key promise not to raise taxes, however he admitted he did it, knew it would be unpopular, explained his position, took a stand and did not back away. Sounds more like leadership to me. Tory, after realizing that his key promise was wildly unpopular, dropped it like a hot potato. Leadership? I think not.

Another point that can be argued is that a party leader has a duty and an obligation to get elected and represent the party's principles in the legislative assembly. Tory could have stayed in his former riding and been guaranteed a chance to return to Queen's Park. Instead, he chose a riding where he would be up against a popular opponent, Liberal Kathleen Wynne. He clearly underestimated how tough the fight would be. Once again, he failed to protect his party's interests.

There have been all sorts of other gaffes in Tory's joke of a campaign. He referred to the University of Ottawa as "U of Zero" and the comment was caught on YouTube. Yikes! In a televised ad, there is a graph behind him showing Conservative support faltering. Uh oh! When canvassing in his riding he couldn't wait to show reporters the house where he grew up. There was a Liberal sign on the front lawn. Yeesh!

If Tory does fail to win a seat, he would have to lead from the visitors' gallery in the house. His only hope to stay on as leader would be for an obedient party member from a safe riding to resign his/her seat and for Tory to run in a by-election. It's been done before, but usually only when a new leader without a seat is chosen. Not for one who was expected to deliver his party out of the political wilderness.

Election Fever (or John Tory's Theme Song "Flip, Flop, Fly")

Nine days to go before an Ontario provincial election. The two main parties duking it out for power are the Liberals and the Conservatives. (Although the word is included in the full party name, there is nothing "progressive" about the Ontario Conservative party. Ever since it was shanghaied by Mike Harris in 1990 it has been a far-right mob akin to the former federal Reform Party. The current leader of the Conservatives, John Tory, passes himself off as a moderate, but I'm skeptical. I never heard him denouncing the divisive policies Harris implemenmted during the 1990s. If fact, I'd never heard of him, period.)

With a last name like Tory, you can bet that John is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. Many of his political ilk have seen him as a saviour who would lead the Conservative party to certain victory in the upcoming election. But even his most ardent supporters must now be questioning his political judgement. Before the election call Tory had a decided advantage over Liberal leader and Premier Dalton McGuinty. During the 2003 campaign McGuinty promised not to raise taxes. (Taxes are a touchy point with Ontario voters. They once bought into the Mike Harris con job that they can have low taxes, but still enjoy top-level universal health care and a quality educational system. Harrris lowered taxes all right, but left health care and education in a shambles.)

But soon after being voted into power, McGuinty levied a health care premium, claiming that the previous Conservative government left a huge deficit, and the money was needed to fix the health system. This became the most visible of what McGuinty's opponents would call an endless string of "broken promises." It resonated with the voters, and all John Tory had to do was repeat it over and over like a broken record.

But what does Tory do? Unveils an election pledge to extend public funding to all private religious schools. It's only fair, he said, because Catholic schools get government funding (according to a provision in the 1867 Canadian constitution). How Tory failed to see that this would overshadow all other issues in the campaign is hard to comprehend. It turned into a very controversial proposal, with some two-thirds of the electorate against it. You can say what you like about the Liberal party, but they're not ones to look a gift horse in the mouth. By vocally defending the status quo of public schools, and they were off the hook for broken promises.

Tory's scheme blew up in his face. Voter opposition swelled, and even his own party members started to abandon him, vowing to vote against the measure. To make matters worse, polls suggest Tory might lose in his own riding where he is running against the current education minister Kathleen Wynne. (Another bad judgment call on Tory's part. Why didn't he stay in his former riding which is the safest Conservative seat in the entire province? The people there will always vote Conservative even if the candiadate is the embodiment of the Frankenstein monster.)

Yesterday, in a policy speech, Tory reversed himself on the religious school issue, hoping to turn the campaign around. In doing so, Tory has handed the election to the Liberals on a silver platter. The advantage over broken promises has been wasted, and his mantra "leadership matters" now has a hollow ring. The Conservatives had better stop using spin doctors from the private clinics Tory proposes to implement into the health care system.

Car Scratch Fever

Things were starting to look up. After just one day of banishment to the "bad cat box" my cat started to behave himself. Before that, he was prancing around, meowing and waking up the entire household at 3:00 am. He'd jump up on any surface available and knock stuff on the floor. He seemed to react to the gentle chastisement. Ever since, he's been a perfect angel (perhaps not surprising since his name is Angel). And my impatiens finally seem to have spurts of life in them.

Elated, I drove to the local drug mart to take advantage of bargains in mundane household items like paper towels, toilet tissue and soap. It's a small parking lot and usually quite busy, but on this Friday afternoon I found a spot with empty places on both sides. Perfectly safe, or so I thought.




When I came back to the car a lady approached me and said that the driver on my left had scratched my car upon parking. Sure enough; not a huge mark but very visible and flecked with blue paint. The car beside me was a blue Toyota. I thanked the lady and she provided her name and number and offered to be a witness. She described the driver as an "old lady." I was half expecting the poor woman to be in her 80s with an accent like Mrs Doubtfire and I would be heartbroken to approach her about the incident.

I wrote down the licence number of the offending car and waited for the driver. When she appeared, she wasn't that old - around 60 - but she turned out to be most vile, rude and obnoxious person I've had the misfortune to deal with. She denied up and down that she ever hit may car. When I showed her the blue paint scuffs on my side panel and the scratch on her car, she shouted "I've had that mark for 5 years! You're scamming me! You weren't even here when I parked! There was nobody!"

There was yet more ranting when I mentioned my witness. "She didn't see anything! It's a frame up! She's a friend of yours!" Then the car to her right changed from being non-existent to a black sedan to a Jeep. " Some other blue car hit you! It wasn't me!"

I requested her information as required by the Highway Traffic Act. She repeatedly and obstinately refused. This is an infraction that calls for quite severe penalties:

The penalty for failing to report a collision and/or failing to provide the necessary information is a fine of $200 to $1,000, three demerit points, a possible jail term and driver's licence suspension.The penalty for leaving the scene of a collision includes seven demerit points.

Normally the police don't come to an accident scene but when I called and described the situation they did send an officer. He demanded that she give me her information, and when he viewed both cars, he told the woman that it didn't look good for her. He ordered her to report to a Collision Reporting Centre within 24 hours. I needed to go as well, something I needed like a hole in the head.

Still, the damage was easily worth $1000 and I was determined that the guilty party pay. It's a pretty slick operation at the CRC. They take down the information, look at the vehicles and make a determination of fault.

This is how I expect it to play out: I will have my car fixed at the place of my choosing. I will be able to rent another car during the repair period. My insurance company will handle the claim and pay the whole shot under Direct Compensation with zero deductible. The other driver's insurance company will accept 100 per cent responsibility, and her rates will go up.

As well they should. The innocent motoring public needs to be protected from unconscionable drivers like this who think nothing of trying to pull off a hit-and-run.

Banter With the Right and the Conrad Black Sentencing Pool

I enjoy engaging right-wingers every now and then. I find their "me-first" attitude unfortunate and their sense of moral superiority amusing. But I try to refrain from the name-calling and insults that seem to characterize right-wing discourse. During the 2003 Ontario Provincial election, Liberal leader (and now Premier) Dalton McGuinty was called "Dalton McSquinty" and "Dalton McGimpy" by supporters of then-Conservative leader and Premier Ernie Eves (who, despite initially passing himself off as a moderate, saw the light just before the campaign and embraced a far-right platform).

I sign my name "Denny" in most on-line discussion groups and when I weighed in on the reaction to Conrad Black's convictions, one of Black's hard-line backers called me "Denny Lane." If the poster was referring to lead singer Denny Laine of the Moody Blues, then the attempt at an insult probably backfired. Anyway, that person's bluster was so devoid of logic that I felt quite confident this time leaving a right-winger with the last word.

Last night I was talking to an old friend who is also an avid right-winger, and like most of his ilk, said that Black was "railroaded" and didn't do anything wrong. Where we got into it was the sentence that Black will be handed down on November 30th. He said it will be 2 years or less, which had me gasping with disbelief. The obstruction charge alone carries a maximum 20 year penalty, then there are 3 fraud charges, each with a 5-year maximum. While I certainly don't think Black will get the maximum on each and receive consecutive terms, I believe it will be more than 10 years and most likely 12. Anyway, we placed a bet for 50 bucks - he says 2 years or less and I say 5 years or more. I guess if it's anywhere greater that 2 and less than 5, nobody wins.

Enough, already. I'm not going to write a single thing more about Conrad Black until sentencing day, and maybe not even then (especially if I lose the bet). I've got more pressing things to concern myself with.

First, trying to get my cat to behave.

Second, trying to get my impatiens to grow.

Is the Green-Eyed Monster Responsible for Conrad Black's Demise?

The conviction of Conrad Black on charges of fraud and obstruction of justice is the biggest news to hit Canada in quite some time. Black has been both a Canadian icon and pariah, both revered and loathed. Still, I believe that even his greatest detractors cannot help but be fascinated by him. I have always dismissed the man as a pompous blowhard. When he renounced his Canadian citizenship to become a British Lord, I just shook my head and considered him one of the most eccentric oddballs around. But then, as Kramer observed of the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld, "most geniuses are."

There have been myriad reactions to Black's convictions and most opine that the jury was conscientious and methodical and their verdicts fair. Some responses have been vigorous in defending Black, saying that he was railroaded, the prosecution was like a hunting safari obsessed with bagging a Lord, and that Black was "wrongfully convicted." The commonality in just about every one of these posters is that they share Black's ultra-right wing political ideology.

But by far the most over the top remark was this one: "It's human nature to want what other people have, and if you can't get it, then you destroy what that other person has. This is called JEALOUSY with a huge dose of ENVY."

I've never read such hogwash. Black is not the wealthiest man on the planet; there are people with far more riches to induce even more jealousy. To follow this logic, they'd all be dogged by prosecutors - Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Ted Turner. No. Black's trial followed lengthy investigations by the US Justice Department and the SEC. And just how does a person get investigated in the first place? Let's see - there are suspicions that said person did something untoward? There we go; no suspicions, no investigation. It's as simple as that.

The government produced evidence of wrongdoing, and a jury with no preconceived notions of guilt or innocence concurred with some if not all of the accusations.

With his attitude, Black literally triple-dog-dared the authorities to come after him. He's had his day in court and now Black is headed off - not to the British House of Lords - but to the Big House.

The Eerie Nature of Number 13

I never considered myself to be afflicted with triskaidekaphobia. I've stayed on the 13th floor of hotels (whenever they've had one) and I've flown in planes on Friday the 13th. I've never hesitated to buy a baker's dozen of bagels. But I'll just bet there's at least one person who may come down with the disorder - Conrad Black. The controversial Canadian business tycoon was found guilty of obstruction of justice and 3 counts of mail fraud following a four-month trial in a Chicago court.

When you look at the numbers involved in the proceedings, there's a spooky common factor. Black was charged with a total of 13 felony counts. The most serious conviction for obstruction relates to Black removing 13 boxes of documents from his Toronto office, contrary to a court order. Of 42 counts against Black and his 3 co-defendants there were 13 guilty verdicts returned. The jury's decision was returned on Friday the 13th.

The prosecution says it will ask for Black to serve between 15 and 20 years in prison. I will become a complete believer in the power of this mystical number should Black be sentenced to 13 years. Sentencing is set for November the 13th - I'm kidding - November 30, 2007.

PUMPKIN

1992 - 2007

One Picture Says it All

It's Greek To Me

Over the weekend I visited The Frat. The one I belonged to when I was an undergraduate at the University of Toronto. I never thought I would ever be considered frat material. To me, the quintessential frat member had Hollywood looks, was captain of the football team, and his girlfriend was the head cheerleader. In school I was clumsy at any and all athletics, only average-looking and extremely shy with the opposite sex. Nevertheless, I was "rushed" by my classmate John, accepted by the guys and endured an "initiation" during which I pretty much had to check my pride at the door.

The frat experience was mostly a positive one. I rose in ranks on the executive and served as chapter president in my final school year. I overcame my fear of speaking in public. But as the years went by, I felt it was time to put away the interests from my past and move on. Life in a student frat chapter has always been, and still is, based on partying until sun-up and chasing skirts.
Still, I felt compelled to accept an email invitation and meet the new members who had just been "initiated." There has been a renewal of interest in the frat recently. The house has been spruced up with an influx of donations of time and dollars from alumni. The student chapter has a good number of members who all seem quite keen. The new members are very nice, polite and intelligent. But they're so YOUNG looking. Either they keep getting younger or I'm getting older with every passing year. I'd like to think it's the former.

The Frat circa 1971. I am in the front row third from the right (wearing glasses).

John, the classmate who brough me in, is in the middle row 3rd from the left.

You Can't Fight City Hall

Nor, it seems, can you change the makeup of City Council. In the Toronto election it was, as usual, the incumbents who were mostly returned to their seats. It's next to impossible for a challenger to win against an incumbent at the municipal level. The field is opened up only when an incumbent retires, then the new elected official has that seat for as long as he or she wants. In one of the open races, the candidate who won is a television journalist. This, I think, is an unfair advantage over other hopefuls who don't have the same visibility.

The person I voted for as mayor came in second last. My choices for both councillor and school trustee ran a distant second. Once someone gets a municipal office, they can pretty well do anything they want and still get returned time after time. Like a councillor who showed up drunk at a hockey game, acting rude and obnoxious, swearing and insulting everyone around him. Later he lied and said he was never there, but confessed when pressured about it. Did he get voted off city council? You guessed it - he coasted back to victory.

But if I was disappointed at the Toronto results, journalist Christopher Hume was downright despondent. He called the Toronto voters "dangerously contented" and even though they seemed to want change, opted "for the same old, same old." He even goes as far as to question why we bother voting. There were however a few upsets in the municipalities surrounding Toronto. Jim Coyle of the Toronto Star viewed this as a "fine mix of the old and new."

Nothing has changed much since 1982 when I ran for school trustee myself. I ran against a lady who had been acclaimed several times and now was miffed because she had to get campaign literature printed. She needn't have bothered; she kicked my ass. People told me that you have to get your name in the news and it doesn't matter whether it's for something good or bad.

Maybe I'll resurrect my political career yet. I'll knock off a few banks, engage the police in a high-speed chase and consign my stolen car to a watery demise in Lake Ontario. Then run for Prime Minister.