Victimology 101

Sam Sidlofsky used to toodle around town in his Mercedes 450SL, sporting the licence plate "IAMSAM."

Sam wasn't shy about being a Jew driving a German car.

I'm thinking about Sam because I went to witness the burial of my dear Tante Gisela this afternoon. Sam passed away a few years ago, but his wife Shirley shares a page with my aunt at the McIntyre and Wilkie Funeral Home's website.

Condolences to Shirley's (and Sam's) family.

And to Steve and Inge and Tom and Linda. And especially to my uncle Horst.

But this is not about them. And it's not really about Sam either.

Sam was a Sociology prof I encountered in my journey through higher education. I liked him, and even though I was a student who completely failed to internalize the prevailing certitudes of the time, I got great marks in Professor Sidlofsky's classes, so at some level he must have liked me too.


Page A13 of today's Globe and Mail, the national newspaper of record, offers up two divergent takes on the findings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I would love to hear Sam's take on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

As a Jew, he'd be well acquainted with the legacy of victimization.

As a Jew who drove an up-market German car, he was obviously a guy who wasn't going to let that legacy get between him and driving that Mercedes.

In my newspaper I've got Ry Morgan, Director of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, spelling out why Indians can't "get over" the injustices inflicted on them by the invaders, the conquerors... the White folks.

On the same page, we've got Jeffrey Simpson, a Globe and Mail bigshot, warning of the dangers of wallowing in the legacy of victimhood.

Morgan and Simpson are both right. And they're both wrong.


First of all, the European conquest of North America is long done. It's over. That's not to say that an inferior culture was displaced by a superior one. Far from it. In fact, the more we know about native collectivism the more we can learn from it. But it does mean that the interlopers had the guns, germs, and steel on their side, and they triumphed.

That's a fact.

It's also a fact that many native Canadians are prospering today. Unfortunately, it's only "news" when they don't. That's why we hear lots and lots of sad stories about substance abuse and poverty and failure. That's the nature of the news business.

We don't hear much about the many Indians who are successfully integrated throughout the social spectrum, nor do we hear about the many successful native communities that prosper without wholesale integration. They're out there; we just don't hear about them because it's not part of the news business to report good news.

The news business is based on maximizing the disaster stories. That's why missing aboriginal women and gas-sniffing ten year olds are such big items in the news.

To be sure, the stats on poverty, suicide, homelessness, unemployment and so forth should snap every Canadian, native and non-native, to attention. There is certainly much to be done.

But that's not the whole story.

Reading shoddy journalism is like eating cardboard

You feel full but you're still hungry.

Dong Choo at the corner store is charging me $4.50 for the weekend edition of the national newspaper of record these days. That's quite a jump from the twenty five cents I used to shell out for the Saturday Globe and Mail when they first got me hooked fifty years ago.

Like all addictions, the addiction to newsprint leaves you at the mercy of the pushers. I'm not blaming the Donger for this 1700% increase in the price of my fix - he's just the low man on the totem pole, trying to break even and put away enough to send Dong Jr. to business school.

Concerned friends and family often ask why I don't just give up the habit. After all, there's pretty much nothing in that $4.50 newspaper that I can't find on the Globe and Mail website for free.

These people don't understand the addiction. There's a quality-of-life distinction between sitting in your favourite chair, with a cup of coffee at hand, staring at a laptop screen vs. turning the pages of a newspaper.
The two or three hours spent lost in those pages is easily worth the $4.50 price of admission.

At least so long as I don't stumble over too much crap like this.

Jeffrey Simpson has some serious schlep at Canada's newspaper of record. As such he is what's known as an opinion maker. He's one of the guys (and they're mostly guys; sorry gals) who determine what's on the national agenda; what literate people will be talking about.

I've had a soft spot for all things Mexican since my old pal Jim drove down to Tijuana in his Econoline van back in '70 and came back with ten kilos of very nice Mexican bud. Mexico has been on my radar ever since.

Since those innocent days of Jim's Tijuana adventure, we've witnessed the rise and the further rise of ruthless drug cartels in Mexico. Any free-lancing schmuck who heads to Mexico today looking for a deal on weed is going to end up dead or in jail. Drugs have become a multi-billion dollar business in Mexico. The cartels move more money than any single bank can launder. They've beheaded more innocents than Islamic State. They have corrupted banks and politicians not only in Mexico but throughout the region.

That's why former Mexican president Vincente Fox has called for the legalization of drugs.

That's why seven former world leaders and dozens of other A-list worthies have called for the decriminalization of drugs world-wide.

That's why five Nobel-winning economists have declared the global war on drugs a "catastrophic failure."

That's why I find it incomprehensible that Jeffrey Simpson can spin 800 words of fluff about what ails Mexico without once mentioning drugs, cartels, the war on drugs, etc.

It's enough to make me want to take my paper back to Mr. Choo and ask for a refund.

But it's not his fault.

He's just a lowly minion in the Korean corner store cartel.