With Good Reason

The Chinese government declared 2006, The “Year of Russia”; and in turn, Russia celebrated 2007 as “The Year of China.” These mutual pronouncements were part of a decade long rapprochement between the two states. After many years of mutual acrimony and suspicion the barriers that divide the two nations have abated, replaced by a bridge of pragmatism. This new relationship, based on mutual resentment of global Western dominance and a shared interest in Central Asian security; has an unintended consequence, both nations are seeing increased economic interaction on their border. Conversely, this contact has fed lingering paranoia and insecurity in Russia, a former great power that is seeing itself eclipsed economically and politically by China, a state it once considered a “little brother”. Less then a decade ago, this was reflected in an ominous warning gave by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, ‘‘If we don’t make concrete efforts…the future local population will speak Japanese, Chinese or Korean” (Wines 2001). Currently, the Russian political elite are not publically expressing fear of territorial encroachment and potential colonization, but these attitudes are increasing in the general population. This xenophobic sentiment is an outgrowth of reawakened Russian nationalism, which has served as a swathe for the disillusionment that came from loss of empire. However, to have a truly constructive engagement with China, Russia must move beyond its historic tendency to loath any nation along its periphery it cannot dominate.

Eastward Russian expansion at the expense of China began hundreds of years of suspicion and animosity between the two nations. In August of 1689, Imperial Russia and the Chinese Qing Dynasty signed their first treaty over land disputes in the modern Russian Far East, which was formerly part of China. Almost three-hundred years later, under the new political incarnations of the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, conflict along the 4,300km (2,700 mile) border renewed due to ideological clashes between the two communist states. At the height of tensions, the Soviet Union had as many as 700,000 troops on the border, adjacent to a million Chinese soldiers (Blagov 2005). A few years before, during the reign of Joseph Stalin, the Soviets repatriated many Chinese still living in the border area or deported them to Central Asia Republics. Chinese leaders, including Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, openly bemoaned the amount of territory China had lost to Russia historically; land the Chinese believe was unfairly stolen. Nonetheless, in 1989 the Soviet Union and China normalized relations and reduced the militarization on the border by 1991.
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Filed under: Politics by Collin Spears
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Several years ago I was casually dating a man from Colombia named Carlos*. On our second date, he raised the topic of matrimony. I was a bit surprised; barely two weeks of knowing one another seemed a bit early for him to basically propose to me. Many other girls might be flattered or even elated if they received a proposal so soon in the relationship. However, while I was attracted to Carlos and was indeed considering a future with him, I suspected he might have ulterior motives for bringing up marriage on our second meeting. Carlos was in Canada on a visitor’s visa. As he explained it, there were three ways he could stay in this country: by obtaining refugee status (which he ultimately did), staying here illegally and working under the table, or marrying a Canadian. Needless to say, I did not marry him.

Though I did not become an example of it, my experience with Carlos got me interested in the subject of marriage fraud. Marriage fraud is defined as the act of marrying an individual with the sole purpose of immigrating to or obtaining permanent status in his or her country of residence and lying about the true purpose of the marriage (i.e. pretending to be in love with him or her). Marriage fraud should be distinguished from marriage of convenience, where both parties agree to get married in order to help one of them immigrate but where there is no intent to deceive the other (a la Andie MacDowell and Gerard Depardieu in the film Green Card).
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Filed under: Law & Order, Society by Emilia Liz
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Attitudes towards women and marriage have changed in Russia – but how far?

There is no doubt that marriage is one of the most significant events of human life. There is a Russian proverb: if you have no brains when you are twenty, you are never going to have any; if you have no wife when you are thirty, you are never going to have a wife. What does it mean to have a wife in Russia?

Once an American friend of mine who was living in Moscow for a while asked my advice. He was going to make more close acquaintance of a girl, and he wanted to know what to do if she invited him to her dacha (cottage) for a weekend and told him that only the two of them would be there. A girl from the office where he worked had made such a proposition. He wished to ensure that a Russian girl meant the same thing as one in any other country would in a similar situation. I asked him if he liked the girl. He said yes, she was quite attractive. My advice was to accept the invitation - if he liked her, of course.

Several days later I asked him whether he had visited the girl in question. He replied that he had been busy that weekend and was unable to go to her dacha. When he retuned to the office, she informed him that she had gotten married and, alas, they couldn’t meet each other anymore. So my American friend asked me to explain why the girl had wanted him to keep her company at a remote dacha if she was going to marry another man. It was unlikely that she had found a fiancé within a week after his refusal to drive there with her.
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Filed under: Society by Alexey Bayukov
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Another violent episode at C.W. Jeffreys Collegiate in north Toronto yesterday. A young student was stabbed. Thankfully, as reported on last night’s Global news, he is going to be okay — but was not cooperating with police — meaning he is scared that whoever did this to him will try again.

Yet, the only thing we ever see or hear from school and Toronto District School Board (TDSB) officials is don’t worry, we have everything under control. Well, they clearly don’t and denial that there is a gang problem is only endangering more students and teachers.

Why doesn’t the TDSB and the parents involved, admit there is a gang problem? Because such an admission would mean that some in our society would have to take responsibility for the behaviour of their children — a politically incorrect topic if there ever was one. Yet, it doesn’t need to be. If it is a social problem, we need to deal with it. If it is a cultural problem, then those communities need to deal with it.

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Filed under: Education, Law & Order, Society by Sandy
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Questions that needs to be asked and answered are: (1) How do teachers’ union collective agreements and the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) policy impact how efficiently a principal can do his or her job? (2) Does that impact affect the safety and well being of Ontario’s children?

Yesterday, Moira MacDonald wrote an interesting column in the Toronto Sun. It was about how the current trend towards “total handgun bans” was actually going to make our schools and our society less safe — because the only people that will have access to guns will be those who have illegal guns that they are not afraid to use, no matter what their age.

But, as I read the column, something else more subtle jumped off the page — the hint that the Ontario Principals Council (OPC) somehow wanted less time for supervision and that the teachers’ unions weren’t happy with the idea that teachers would have to pick up the slack.

So, I went to the council’s website and this PDF file is what I found. Check out items 3 and 4 in particular. For non-educators it is going to sound like a lot of edu-babble but read the points carefully because what this is all about is NOT less supervision for principals but a way for them to do their jobs effectively and efficiently.

Why would collective agreements and OCT policies be a problem? Well, if I am reading this principal’s council leadership strategy correctly, it is because all too often they are stymied by aspects of decisions coming from both. In short, it seems the principals are having problems doing their jobs.

For example, can a principal freely question or reprimand a teacher’s behaviour? Are they able to ask a teacher’s to do something to improve safety? Or, would such a request mean a teacher would have to make a grievance or get the school’s union steward involved?

However, if they can’t, which is what I suspect is happening given the OPC leadership strategy, how on earth are principals supposed to do their job?

Remember, principals and teachers are supposed to be in the place of the parents — “in loco parentis.” And, principals are supposed to be the school’s CEO, director, leader and boss, right?

Yet, if that is no longer the case, because principals are trying to be all things to all people, while simulteously being stymied by the professions official body and collective agreements, who is protecting the welfare of our children?

C/P at Crux-of-the-Matter.

Filed under: Education by Sandy
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In the shadow of the US Government’s massive subprime lending bailout, the House of Representatives passed legislation HR 5244, better known as the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2008. Designed to curb the growing torrent of credit card consolidation and bankruptcy filings, the bill bans or limits several lending practices, including:

• Increasing the annual percentage interest rate (APR) on the outstanding balance without the customer acting delinquently on the account in question.
  Example: John’s FICO credit score drops by 70 points over several months. Although he has never missed a payment on his credit card, the lender sees him as a default risk and raises his APR from 19% to 34%
• Using APR increases as penalties without a 45-day written notice
  Example: Suzy has missed several payments over the past year. On September 3, the bank decides to raise the APR on her card. The increase effects all purchases starting September 10. Suzy does not become aware of these changes until she receives her bill later in the month
• Double Cycle Billing – using the previous month’s balance to calculate interest due on an outstanding balance
  Example: Jim owes $1000, payable by September 30. He pays $550, ensuring he is not delinquent but leaving $450 due. Most lenders calculate interest due based on the average daily balance and interest for the billing cycle (e.g. $1000* 19.5% * 25 / 365 = $13.36 interest) , but lenders who use double cycle billing take the average of the current month’s balance and the previous month’s balance. Thus, if Jim spent $2000 the previous month, the interest would be calculated on $1500 rather than $1000 (interest = $20.03).

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Filed under: Society by Cynapse
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If parents and educators want to stress more of “the basics” in public schools, something is going to have to give because the school day and the school curriculum are just too crowded. It’s odd, really, how people will complain that the education system does not respond to public input and pressure when, in actual fact, it has responded to the point of its detriment.

For example, in September of 1972 when I started teaching elementary school, I had a homeroom Grade 6 and taught visual art to Grades 6 to 8. My morning consisted of two main blocks of time. From 9am until 10:30 it was language arts (reading, writing and spelling) and from 10:45 until noon it was math. That was it. Then, in the afternoon, there was phys. ed/health, music or art (on alternating days) from 1 until 2:00 and social studies or science from 2:15 until 3:30pm.

In many ways it was like “the balanced school day” now with the large blocks of time — but with fewer subjects. Clearly the emphasis was on what many call “the basics” — reading, writing and arithmetic, social studies and science.

Then, along came (in no particular order) daily classes of “sustained silent reading (SSR),” phys ed, health and French. Then, we were asked to include dental education and sex education in health. Now, I understand there are also curriculum units on diversity and equity (including gender equality), family education and drug education.

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Filed under: Education, Society by Sandy
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Thanks to the Internet, waiting for the latest news is a thing of the past. Most credible web news sites provide RSS feeds and are updated 24 hours per day, allowing important stories to propagate across the entire web in mere minutes. The resulting consumer desire for immediacy and the wide availability of internet connections has presented a challenge for traditional media like newspapers (which are forever condemned to slow periodic releases) and television (which precludes fast searches for specific content). Many major news services in Canada have attempted to bridge the gap between old and new media via podcasting, releasing creating just-in-time audio and/or video broadcasts of news content for download onto IPods and alternative MP3 Players. Apple’s Itunes contains one of the largest collections of free audio and video news content – perfect for making that daily trip to work just a little more pleasant.

CBC leads the way for Toronto and Canada with a comprehensive selection of weekly, daily and even hourly news podcasts. Provincial, national and international programs are available for download as well as specialty programs like Quirks & Quarks and The Hour (the latter provided in video format) Music fans will be happy to hear that several Classical, Jazz and Pop music programs from Radio 2 and Radio 3 are also available for download, though some require a modest fee (most likely to keep CIRA quiet).

CanWest Global provides a worthy alternative to CBC for more conservative listeners. Its Global TV news station provides a daily video podcast of the 6:00 news. The catch is that the news segments are posted the morning after the TV broadcast, so avid watchers may not gain from this content. For editorial content, CanWest’s National Post newspaper offers two podcasts - Full Comment and Posted Toronto. Full comment topics are usually political and patterned around editorials on the Full Comment section of the NP website. Posted Toronto deals strictly with GTA matters and uses an informal talk radio format. Both NP podcasts are approximately weekly.
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Filed under: Media by Cynapse
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There can be power in labels, both positive or negative because labels can predetermine beliefs and expectations about people, a phenomenon that is often referred to as the “pygmalion principle.” While this article is primarily about learning disabilities in a school context (no matter what th learning level), it can also relate to an employment situation and the point that people are much more than a label.

Unfortunately, most children and adults, no matter what type of educational program they are in, if they need accommodations they need to be formally assessed. And, being formally evaluated puts a label on that individual — often for life. Is that fair? Is that the only way we can get help for people? And, why does it matter? What those children and adults and their families are trying to avoid is the ”pygmalion principle” — how the expectations of others can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

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Filed under: Education, Society by Sandy
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I received an e-mail from a regular reader yesterday who explained that her daughter had just graduated from high school and was about to start university in September – without the English grammar and spelling abilities one might expect — and wondered how she would survive university without those skills.

It was also explained to me that she, the mother, had asked her daughter’s high school teachers over the years about why her daughter wasn’t being taught distinct grammar and spelling.  In response she was always told they, high school teachers, didn’t have to do that. That whatever spelling and grammar she learned as a distinct subject would have been done, or at least should have been done, at the elementary level. Since that didn’t seem to have happened, the mother asked for my recommendations.

First of all, you can’t start from scratch. You can’t go back to the junior grades once your son or daughter is eighteen.  So, once your children graduate from high school with the required marks and credits to get accepted into a Canadian university, it is best to deal with where they are at right now.

As such, my first recommendation was that her daughter make sure she take part in her university’s orientation “essay” writing and related courses because some grammar and spelling would be included, if only in a contextual way.

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Filed under: Education, Technology by Sandy
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