Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 8, 2009, Winnipeg, Manitoba C m y k Page a11 Winnipeg free press thursday january 8, 2009 View from the West and beyond comment editor Gerald flood 697 7269 Gerald. Flood free press. M. Ca Winnipeg repress. Com a 11 t his is one of those times when the phrase Happy new year has a sardonic ring. I cant remember a period when the year ahead looked More Uncertain or More gloomy. Nor can i remember a time when personal interest and the collective Good were so opposed. The financial meltdown of 2008 took nearly everyone expert and Layperson alike by Surprise. What seemed a relatively Small contain Able problem of unwise mortgage lending in the United states mushroomed into a worldwide bailout of Banks emergency packages to restart the global Economy and a growing list of lost jobs. The scale of the reversal from Prosperity is almost unfathomable. One minute the Economy was booming the next it was approaching disaster. How can it be that general motors is on the verge of bankruptcy Are we seeing the end of the Industrial might of North America academics and forecasters have been writing for years about the relative decline of the United states As an economic Power and the passing of the Mantle to China India and what we used to Call the developing world. We have become used to talking about the Post Industrial Era and the knowledge Economy. Ism not sure most of us had any idea what that might mean. We May be seeing it. Its a world where the digital revolution of phones and wireless technology is taking the place of the old Industrial behemoths. When i was growing up the United states and the United kingdom were both major producers of steel ships and textiles. No longer. Economic change is surreptitious. Its like background noise. Sure we have All known for years the North american car makers were not the powerhouses they used to be but How Many truly recognized that a recession would come that would threaten their very existence what is now certain is that the economic world that will emerge from the crises of 2008 is going to be quite different from the regime that preceded it. Throughout last year i wrote in this space about How Central Bankers and finance ministers knew How to prevent a financial crash from turning a recession into a depression. It is hard now to repeat that with any Confidence. Perhaps the biggest hurdle to overcome is the one i mentioned at the beginning of this piece. Personal interest and collective Good Are at Odds in a Way they rarely Are. The Economy needs you and me to keep spending yet our personal affairs Are Best managed by saving against the Rainy Day that is surely coming. Who knows whether their Job is secure whether their pay this year will equal their pay last Canadian Consumers now appear More cautious than their american counterparts. The Boston consulting group in a Survey of 1,000 Canadian households found 62 per cent planned to Cut spending this year. The comparable u. S. Figure is 58 per cent. A recession is already Here because manufacturers and service industries have Cut Back. A drop in consumer spending will deepen it. You dont need me to explain How this can become a vicious spiral of decline. In the United states president elect Barack Obama is planning a massive $ 750 billion Rescue plan to add to the similar amount already propping up its Banks. Some of the Money is going to infrastructure spending some to health care some to big tax cuts for the Middle class. Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper is working on a similar package. European governments Are doing the same and authorities around the world Are pumping As much liquidity into the system As it will Bear. No one knows whether these packages will work. Government infrastructure spending has been notoriously unreliable As a Way of escaping recessions. The projects tend to be getting started after the worst is Over. That May not be the Case this time. Tax Breaks May work better but they May also go to pay Down debt or into Long term savings neither of which will have the desired effect. For this recession not to become a slump or worse investors and Consumers need Confidence that it will end sooner rather than later. Bargains will abound in goods services and the Stock Market but its going to need Confidence to take advantage of them. For investors its also going to take patience. Governments determination to get us out of the mess May help Confidence but it May also serve to underline the depth of the problem. President Franklin d. Roosevelt told americans in his first inaugural address during the depression the Only thing we have to fear is fear itself. They Are Good words for today. Nicholas Hirst is ceo of Winnipeg based television and film producer original pictures inc. Nicholas Hirst a new economic regime a s Many As two billion Birds die in North America every year As a result of smashing into windows according to a recent reanalysis of window kill Avian losses. Much of the mortality goes unnoticed because Many of the victims carcasses Are rapidly removed by crows cats raccoons rats gulls and other scavengers before they Are seen by human passersby. A preliminary 1990 analysis of the number of Birds killed by flying into window panes by Daniel Klem of Muhlenberg College suggested the North american toll probably tops one billion Birds. That figure was based on per building Avian deaths of up to 10 per year. But recent studies indicate actual per building Avian losses Are four to six times greater than that. Klem who has studied Bird window mishaps for almost four decades concludes his earlier estimated Bird loss figure was highly conservative. Birds do not perceive Clear Glass As a solid object confirms Toronto is official Bird Friendly development guideline which were developed by ornithologists and municipal officials. Scientists agree that Birds Are not capable of perceiving images reflected in Glass As reflections of the natural world and they Fly toward windows that they think Are gardens Trees or sky. Dozens of recent studies suggest the per building Avian toll is 29 to 60 per year. Although there Are no concise figures for the Prairies data from the fatal Light awareness program suggests up to 10 million Birds strike buildings in the metropolitan Toronto area every year. Some 10,000 Are known to die in the Toronto downtown Core annually. Flap estimates that 50 per cent of strikes Are fatal which would mean about five million Birds die of strikes in Toronto annually. Current mortality statistics Are based on the actual number of Birds found dead but researchers suggest that the death toll could be much higher because at least 50 per cent of the Birds that strike windows sustain serious brain injuries that Are fatal soon afterwards. Even so published Bird loss figures confirm the enormous magnitude of mortality. The new York City project Safe flight confirms some downtown buildings kill More than 250 Birds each year. In one year 650 Birds died after flying into Toronto is con ilium place. According to ecologist Leslie Ogden 16 Toronto buildings kill on average 30 Birds per building per year. One study estimates one million of the eight million Birds that Migrate annually across the Chicago area Are killed As a result of smashing into buildings in that City. Urban buildings Are not the Only culprits. A 20 year study confirms that on average 393 Birds die each year by striking a single Lake Erie Lighthouse under foggy conditions up to 2,000 die per night. Klemus research indicates a significant window kill loss occurs at private residences especially those with Bird feeders located close to deadly window panes. A new analysis indicated that feeders located More than two feet but less than 30 feet from windows Are extraordinarily deadly to Birds. Most Avian window strikes occur during the Day. But additional losses take place at night because migrating Birds Are attracted to lighted buildings. Disorientation occurs if they encounter Light pollution in the form of artificial sky glow Light trespass or Glare according to Flap. Migrating Birds Are attracted to sources of artificial Light confirms a recent Flap report. Once inside a beam of Light they Are reluctant to Fly out and consequently smash into buildings or other structures 2008 study by researchers at Max Planck Institute for ornithology concluded that artificial White Light sources interfere with Avian visual orientation. Birds mistake lights for celestial cues such As stars by which they navigate. Prairie Canada is an Avian Hotshot 137 official important Bird areas occur there according to Birdlike International. There Are 379 Bird species in Manitoba. In 1979, 21 of them were involved in an incident at st. Agathe in which 220 Birds fatally crashed into a to Tower. A 1990 study shows a four month Avian death toll of 29 Birds that died As a result of flying into windows and Walls at a single House september to december. The most common Avian victims of window or building strikes Are Robins dark eyed Juncos Cedar waxwings ovenbird Swain songs thrusts Northern flickers Hermit thrushes yellow jumped warblers Northern cardinals evening grosbeaks and White throated sparrows. Of the 150 Bird species most commonly killed by striking buildings 64 Are in decline continent ally. Remedial strategies have had mixed Success. Several Canadian municipalities including Richmond Hill ont., and Stanich b. A have species bylaws limiting night Light pollution. Since 2006, Toronto has had a lights out Toronto program. Private citizens can play a major role in preventing Birds from striking windows by taking Steps to help Birds recognize windows As barriers. Tests show an effective approach is to place narrow cloth strips either horizontally or vertically across window panes about three inches apart. Screens or netting Over windows entirely eliminate Bird strikes. On the other hand Klemus research shows that silhouettes of Falcons or owls placed on window panes Are not a deterrent nor Are objects dangled on strings in windows. Robert Alison is a Victoria wildlife biologist and writer with a pad in zoology. On panes of death window strikes kill billions of Birds in North America Robert Alison Aaron Harris / the Canadian press archives about 2,000 dead Birds on display in Toronto victims of window strikes during fall migration. M Ark Grimsley is a professor of history at Ohio state University today but in an earlier life he was a Soldier who underwent Basic training at fort Sill okla. According to his blog War historian. Org the recruits were taught a variety of Rowdy songs that were and Are unprintable. But not this one which was Sung to the tune of Jesus loves the Little children napalm loves the Little children All the children of the world red yellow Black and White napalm Sticks to them just right napalm loves the Little children of the world Grimsley and his fellow grunts were required to sing the napalm song on their Way to the mess Hall every Day. Back then he said he thought the song which celebrates the burning alive of children was essentially harmless but he has since concluded it was evidence of a modern military culture that often deliberately creates a divided moral world usually with the laudable intention of preparing Young soldiers for combat. He did not elaborate but the divided moral order of the military goes something like this on the one hand soldiers Are trained to be heartless killers to pull the trigger on command and according to training unrestrained by ethics parental upbringing or the injunctions of their god. Soldiers who freeze under fire or who Start listening to their conscience when they should be shooting to kill Are no Good on the Battlefield and in fact a danger to their comrades. On the other hand they Are also trained in the Laws of War the rules of engagement and the superiority of our culture. The Good Guys dont Hurt wounded or surrendered enemy soldiers and we dont Force them to talk if they dont want to. Only bad Guys the enemy do that. Its a Fine balance sort of like trying to create a Sociopath and a humanitarian in one uniform and sometimes it can go haywire. A few years ago in Iraq for example a group of u. S. Marines All Good boys no doubt killed 24 iraqi men women and children in apparent retaliation for the death of one of their comrades by an improvised explosive device. Most of the charges were subsequently dropped in a botched investigation. Canada has been mostly spared from these kinds of embarrassments with the notable exception of the Somalia incident but it was Only a matter of time before Afghanistan provided one. Capt. Robert Semrau has been charged with second degree murder in a Case that so far seems to defy rational explanation. Hers accused of deliberately shooting a wounded insurgent in the aftermath of a gun Battle but not much More is known except that everyone agrees its wrong for a Canadian Soldier to harm a wounded enemy combatant. Semrau May have been trying to kill the insurgent just moments earlier but having failed in that solemn duty his obligation was now to save his life. Thatus what the rules of War say and thatus How our soldiers Are trained. The Case seems to defy understanding but whats truly astonishing is that in six years of combat Canadas military hands Are still remarkably clean. More than 100 Canadian soldiers have been killed in the conflict the largest number of Allied soldiers killed As a percentage of their total contribution yet by All accounts they have conducted themselves with great professionalism and restraint. Popular myth to the contrary it a snot always like that. Harry Foster was a brigadier general who led Canadian troops in Italy and Northwest Europe. In his diary written after the War he spoke freely about How he had frequently issued orders not to take prisoners. In one Case one of his officers received a Call from a battalion commander asking what to do with a collection of German prisoners. The officer told him to shoot the buggers a Day earlier id said that we wanted no More prisoners. They were a nuisance to feed and look after. Other officers issued similar orders. Foster later headed the court that prosecuted is Gen. Kurt Meyer for killing Canadian soldiers including members of the Royal Winnipeg rifles taken prisoner in Normandy. Meyer was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in Dorchester Penitentiary but Foster never really believed in his guilt and even recommended that Canadas military find a role for him following his release from prison. Battlefield atrocities Are generally Only uncovered by advancing armies Foster who later became lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia said. At one time or another most front line troops lose their tempers and take it out on the enemy that they have Learned to hate. We Are All guilty. But the enemy appears More guilty than we because any evidence of our excesses remains buried safely behind our Advance. Canada can never tolerate illegal or immoral behaviour in times of War but we should not be too shocked if it happens. We can certainly be proud that the troops in Afghanistan have retained their Cool and their professionalism despite the inevitable temptations and the uncertainty that comes with trying to squeeze both a killer and a humanitarian into one uniform. Dave. Obrien free press. My. Ca David Obrien our soldiers hands Are pretty clean a 11_ Jan 08 09. Ind a11 1/ 7/ 09 7 26 26 pm ;