The Legislature Raids

Not to worry, BCMary . . . looks like the Sun is killing a lot of current stories these days; the paper was so thin today on the newsstand, albeit they raised their price recently (for what???). . . you could barely see it - no kidding.

I think you are right - someone rapped him on the knuckles & poof -the story disappeared. Wouldn't be the first time.

I'm not sure how long Mr. LaPointe is going to be leading this excuse for a news publication or for that matter how long CanWest retains it in their stall. They cannot be making a profit with all that sanitizing, especially with the internet breaking stories now. People want hard, investigative reporting not pablum. It must be very hard on their morales.

Watch for the good journalists to start leaping from the decks & we will all know the game is up.

Mr. Lapointe simply sounds silly, so please don't lose any sleep over his outburst.
 

I've sometimes seen companies and organizations that end each email with a warning about passing along email to a third party. I don't think CanWest does this though. Kirk is out of order. Tiem to run CanWest out of the province.
 

earseyeswideopen mentioned:

"Watch for the good journalists to start leaping from the decks & we will all know the game is up."

Could you name any of these potential deck leapers, maybe I'm kinda dumb, but I can't really think of any, right off hand. I can mainly think of whores who use keyboards instead of sexual techniques, in other words second rate whores who don't come up with the real goods. Sounds just like Canned West in relation to "real" news.............

As far as Mr. Pointy Head's basic and pathetic response to Mary goes: I would say it is a pretty good illustration of what happens when ignorance and arrogance perfectly converge in the hollow space where some one once could have had a soul. The whole sorry excuse for rationality from him is virtually irrelevant to me as I had given up on the Vancouver Stunned as a source of anything but sports scores and theatre listings long ago. Oh yeah and lot's of fluffy B.S., not that I have any use for that.

Indeed one of the few features they carry that can be depended on for quality is the Sunday Crossword from that other increasingly compromised newspaper (in name) the New York Times (or the Grey Lady that used to publish the lying lady, Judith Miller). Well they published other liars as well, like that Blair guy, but rarely lies that led to so much pain and destruction for so many people as old "kneepads" Judy's - how are the Aspens, are they quaking?
 

For too long the government has been run by O/C ! With the Campbell/Coleman administration sitting pretty, I say it's time to call in the International police!
 

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To my lovely Anons, many thanks! It's an intriguing situation, isn't it?

For me, it's all about NEWS.

And that's what surprised me about Kirk Lapointe. First, he sympathized with my demand for news of Basi Virk; very admirable, I thought. But then, his sharp turnabout because his affirmative news went beyond my desk. At first, it appeared that he objected to the wider distribution of NEWS. But there's more to it ... which I'll try to explain later.

Compare the LaPlante incident with another almost identical incident. Following the recent CN train wreck in Prince George, I contacted Peter Ewart of 250NEWS in P.G. asking him what he could tell me about that CN "re-designation" mystery.

Peter replied with so much important detail, I didn't hesitate for 10 seconds to cut, paste, and post his remarks onto my web-site knowing how important the information was, knowing you'd want to read it, and confident that a real newsman would welcome the wider distribution of his findings. Peter's letter was providing real, hard-to-get data from a region we rarely hear about. And the msm reports were changing hour by hour.

I certainly knew I was taking a chance to use so much of his work but I felt confident that a real newsman would approve.

Nevertheless, I immediately wrote to Peter again with sincere thanks, asking him to check out my web-site and offering to remove the post if he disapproved.

Far from disapproving, Peter (a veteran newsman) responded exactly as I'd imagined. And more. He not only warmly approved but gave permission to use any of his previous columns (which I did), then complimented BC Mary's work. They've had a tough time in the north since losing BC Rail, etc., and he said "Let's keep in touch."

Now, I ask you: who got hurt in this incident? Anybody? If Peter had said "How dare you? etc" who would have benefited? Anybody?

Kirk LaPointe's reaction to a much smaller, much less significant posting of HIS words, begins to show up as ludicrous. Kirk occupies a virtual throne in the tough media world. What could Kirk fear from the minor web-site of BC Mary?

Well, I'll try to explain by means of an imaginary comparison.

Imagine Elizabeth writing to Robin and saying "Hi Robin, Yes, I know. But we've been awfully busy with holidays etc. However, I'm working to find a way of allowing you to have copies of all court proceedings. Bear with me, my ruling should be ready in 2 or 3 days. Kind regards etc., Elizabeth."

No, it couldn't happen. But just suppose ... suppose Robin posted somewhere (anywhere) her response verbatim.

It wouldn't be the information at issue -- no, it would be the fact that she'd been outed speaking to the enemy. And for key people, being found out for speaking collegially (or at all) with the enemy has consequences.

As Managing Editor of Vancouver Sun he has been seen publicly promising to fulfill an obligation to inform the citizens of British Columbia about the BC Rail - Basi Virk Basi case. In his own words. Horrors.

It's this revelation which scares the living daylights out of me. And which should scare every Canadian.

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I think I kinda get you, Mary, regarding the scariness factor. I mean, all you did was publish a short quote of Mr. Pointy saying he was going to "actually" publish some actual news, nothing to be ashamed of for a bigwig supposedly in the "news" business.

I mean it isn't like, say:

"Paper Publishes Larry Craig's Voicemail to his Lawyer" or Mark Foley's e-mails and text messages to young pageboys.

The horror, a Canned West bigwig "threatening" to publish "NEWS" that, I'm just speculating here, might offend or damage the questionable interests of others in positions of even more power that the Emir of Canned BS of the West.

More Britney, more missing blonds and there's never enough coverage of crimes of passion....

Sing to the tune of "Silver Bells"

shiney objects,
distract the idjuts,
and we can do what we want.

It's beginning to look like it's our world.

Children Starving,
Fat Cats gorging,
Its the Neo-Con Way,
But we still let them have Christmas Day.
 

BC Mary wrote:

"It wouldn't be the information at issue -- no, it would be the fact that she'd been outed speaking to the enemy. And for key people, being found out for speaking collegially (or at all) with the enemy has consequences.

As Managing Editor of Vancouver Sun he has been seen publicly promising to fulfill an obligation to inform the citizens of British Columbia about the BC Rail - Basi Virk Basi case. In his own words. Horrors. "

hmmmm....let's see:

1)A brave blog that champions the public's right to information seems to be perceived as "the enemy" in some quarters.

2)Reporting the news appears to have become a subversive, almost traitorous act. The question is: Traitorous to who?

Ohhhh, the subversity of it all.

As kootcoot writes:

"I think I kinda get you, Mary, regarding the scariness factor. I mean, all you did was publish a short quote of Mr. Pointy saying he was going to "actually" publish some actual news, nothing to be ashamed of for a bigwig supposedly in the "news" business. "

Ohhhh, the horror, indeed, "of actualing publishing "The Actual News".

Swirling around in my head, (along with the music and lyrics of kootcoot's most creatively apt version of Silver Bells) is a quote by Oscar Wilde, I don't know quite why:

"Private information is practically the source of every modern fortune."
 

I must confess that I have no idea what the real story is regarding the phantom story that was promised but never materialized.

Regardless, perhaps we should hold a seance and/or try using a Quiji board to try and bring it back to life.

And/or take bets on when it will finally be resurrected.

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...or flood the (so-called)editors e-mail withe questions about this matter and why they outright refuse to cover this story.

Mary. It seems to me that the only reason you got the original e-mail is because this guy didn't do his DD. I think he thought he was just answering one of the many regular questions that are posed to him. Now of course he finds out differently and has to back peddle to save his sorry ass. Others have stated and I concur, "the MSM is controlled by big business and the campbell gov't". This treachery to the people of this country is nothing short of the same propaganda machine that happened in Nazi Germany prior to and during the Second Worl War. And if we can't put a stop to it VERY soon we (the masses) are going to be in big trouble. Much bigger trouble than we are now. Keep flooding the ministers and the MSM. Drive them crazy. Ask all the questions you can think of.
 

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Gary E ... Kirk didn't need to do his due diligence.

On the contrary, I signed my messages to him as follows:

BC Mary
The Legislature Raids
http://bctrialofbasi-virk.blogspot.com/

and Kirk is a newsman. He is also a blogger himself. So he would have immediately known that any information he gave, would be of wider interest than just one person asking a question.

And even if he did think he was replying to just one person, is it OK to ... um, er ... obfuscate with the truth? No, it isn't.

So I believe we may have seen the real Kirk LaPoint in message #1: a decent man who would answer a simple question about general news. As in "We're working on a piece ... ready in a day or two ... bear with us."

It's message #2 which comes across like a Leopard tank with hatches closed, turret guns swiveling ... and it's this sudden change which reveals so much.

It's obviously no longer about letting people know that Vancouver Sun is preparing a story about Basi Virk and B.C. Rail.

It's about whether the public had a right to know that. Or more specifically: whether BC Mary had a right to tell people that.

So I think you're absolutely correct in seeing that the public needs to build the connection to the media.

I've always thought people were mistaken when they say they won't look at CanWest media, won't write or phone them. In my opinion, it leaves CanWest entirely free to continue what they're doing. (Same with M.L.A.s)

I hope you do ask those questions, Gary E. And that others will too.

My motto has been: Be polite. Be persistent. But keep asking the questions.

There's also the Dead Dog Cafe motto but it needs an action term:

Be brave. Stay calm. Watch for the signs.



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Buried fairly deep in this mornings Sun in the section called Westcoast News is a report of another incident involving CN rail. Although this time it is the passenger train to Whistler. This train hit a vehicle on the tracks at Belleview and 14th in West Van and it apparently was the second incident in as many weeks. A CN spokesperson said that the train was going about 22 kms/hr in that area. Given the past releases by CN spokespeople it would sure be nice to have evidence of this. Do these trains have Tac-o-graphs in them? If so would the railway release this evidence? Also: why is the person who owned the truck not named here? Did he request that he not be named? If he did, why did the paper not report this fact? They usually do.
 

gary e, you know I heard about this this morning on the radio (CBC). Ironically (or not) I didn't even think of CN as they didn't mention that the "Mountaineer" was now part of their vast empire of trains that can't stay on the track and/or not hit stuff. I wonder if the CN angle was left off accidentally!

I've ridden the old BC Rail from Lilloet to North Van in the past, it was a neat trip and I was amazed at how much of a commuter train it was for the First Nation folks who lived along the line. Can they still use that as transportation or is it just rich YourUpPeons now?
 

all we can hope for is harper and campbell's opening the door to foreign investment will be to get some left wing or wingless person from wherever'sville to buy the rag and run it properly.

either that or some baby boomer's richer then rich parents die and this anonymous radical purchases the paper.

nice work, mary.