OK, I did it. I forced myself to watch Michael Ignatieff for 10 minutes, 52 seconds. Aye-yai-yai. Or should I say, I-I-I. Lot’s of the first person singular. For example: “When I listen to the Canadian middle class”. Or a two-fer: “I’m dealing with a situation I’m faced with.” And a three-fer: “I’m saying that, and I’m also saying that I need to see from this government a credible plan…” Good one.

The interview was very instructive. For one thing, he resurrects the term “Reform-Conservative”. Given that the entire life of the federal Reform movement took up only a fraction of his time overseas, maybe he got a briefing on that. He also floated the trial balloon of a national cap and trade system, so all you prospective carbon traders sharpen your pencils. There might just be greenbacks to be made in the new green economy.

Another old Liberal/NDP chestnut was revived, the “made-in-Canada” solution. On one level this is warm, fuzzy and axiomatic - a solution proposed and implemented in Canada would, by definition, be “made in Canada”. To borrow yet another left-liberal term though, made-in-Canada is simply “code” for economically arbitrary policies imposed by the federal government; think “made-in Canada energy price”.

He also honed his obfuscatory skills in answering a question about Gerard Kennedy’s musing about increasing the GST. Apparently Mr. Kennedy was merely quoting a survey that showed a percentage of the public open to increasing the tax, if it translated into targeted infrastructure spending (the Federation of Canadian Municipalities poll showed “70 per cent of Canadians would support a one per cent GST increase dedicated to local infrastructure repairs and upgrades”). I wonder how many Canadians would favour a GST increase knowing it would, as one awful wag described it to me, be p*ssed down the bottomless rathole”. One thing’s for certain, score of opposition members are already getting misty-eyed just thinking about the sunny days of increased “fiscal room” ahead, if the tax could only be increased.

Mr. I continued today by saying, in reference to Liberal intentions of ramping-up social spending, “I’m not going to allow the deficit discussion to shut down discussion in this country about social justice.” All in all these statements represent a big-L liberal tour de force. Amongst all this was a strange interlude when he referred to Prime Minister Harper, saying, “I don’t think he respects our institutions”. He went on to say that the Liberal-dominated senate had been “doing its job”. Fair point. No doubt the Conservative plurality there will now do the same thing and the Liberal leader will respect them in the morning.

Then in a moment of astonishing open-mindedness he stated that putting 12 -year term limits on senate appointments might be “doable”. This will surely strike supporters of senate reform like a lightning bolt. After 25 years of activism, protest, campaigning and three Alberta senate elections, term limits are now “doable”. This is a big step. Only a few years ago, Paul Martin was saying that the senate couldn’t be reformed “piecemeal”.

Mr. I added that he favours a “public service appointments commission” to oversee senate appointments. OK, here’s an idea. What about that “appointments commission” known as the electorate? Ignatieff said in the same interview that the Liberals need to “earn the respect of Canadians” and had “a lot of hard work to do”. Alright then. How about earning the respect of Albertans by committing any future Liberal government to appointing our senators-in-waiting? Or would that not be “doable”?

Take a hard look folks, particularly if you’re from western Canada. Mr Ignatieff has outlined Liberal policy then, now and yet-to-come, and it all looks frighteningly familiar. Cap-and-trade, nationalized child-care and “fiscal room” to spare. On the other hand, there is a bit of electoral reform every 25 years or so. What more could we want?

   

Young women are avoiding computer science because of geeks. These are described as men with “masculine geeky” traits like addiction to computer games, science fiction memorabilia, and junk food. The women also apparently resent the geeks’ propensity for memorizing Star Trek lines and “never leaving the lab”. So says a recent study from the University of Washington.

The study suggests that women are missing out on “the best career opportunities” while the field is missing out on “female perspectives”. In hard numbers, only 22% of computer science students are women who, when last we checked, make up more than 50% of the population. This is a concern.

Furthermore, it appears that the aesthetics (such as they are) of a stereotypical geekified computer science lab are enough to send young women running. Turn-offs in the repulsive environment included “Star Trek posters, video game boxes and Coke cans”. It’s worth noting that many men also avoided the geekish setting, it’s just that more women were turned off by it than men. Remarkably a “sub-set” of women didn’t get icked-out by the stereotypical lab. Whether they could recite lines from “Wrath of Khan” is unknown. Regardless, this suggests to the researchers that we’re dealing with a “cultural phenomenon” that can be modified, rather than something that is immutably set. That’s a relief.

The upshot of this for the researchers is that they feel the image of computer science should be “broadened”, so that “other people feel a connection to the field”. This presumes that, all else being equal, there should be a roughly equal proportion of men and women in most professions. We won’t try to analyze what fundamental view of sex (gender) roles and characteristics this represents, but the objective is clearly to create that equality if for some reason it doesn’t just happen to happen. Oh yes, and there’s also the additional argument that professions where there are such imbalances require “female perspectives”.

The easiest counter-argument to all these assertions would be an essentially Libertarian one, which would eschew any pre-determined, “optimal” gender proportion for any profession, other than that which the market causes by selecting the most successful enterprises. In other words if the “female perspective” created a better computer science, more attractive to consumers, then employers would presumably hire women to address that need. Remember, we’re not talking about discrimination here, it’s just that women apparently choose not to enter the field because of the ick, or geek factor. Over the last forty years, numbers women enrolled have caught up with men in many professions so that, in medicine for example, female enrolment is almost 50%, in individual schools much higher.

What is unspoken in most reports is that the way of judging these trends has not changed over those forty years. Briefly, as long as the trends favour groups perceived to be oppressed or disadvantaged, it’s OK. If the trends favour the “advantaged”, or perceived oppressors - those folks that a movie once said “can’t jump” - then it’s bad. Similarly, if the agility-deprived guys are losing in some area then so be it, so much the better.

So it is that when the percentage of men enrolled in teachers’ colleges reaches as low as 25 % in some colleges and, as this article relates, as few as one out of 27 teachers in a given school are male, the call for affirmative action (or would that be “negative action”?) is palpably absent. Similarly, when female overtakes male university enrollment, and 66% of 2005 graduates in a given state are women, there is barely a ripple of concern.

Ted Byfield of the late, lamented Alberta Report, warned of this trend almost 20 years ago, and the negative effect a generation of under-educated, de-motivated men might have on society. But it is clear by now that what was sold as egalitarianism was simply a promotion of some groups over others. Seeing as gender separation in sports and activities like scouting was assailed to break boy’s/men’s only rules while generally preserving all-female institutions, it should not be a surprise when gender “imbalances” favouring women are met with indifference or affirmation. In fact, attention is often still focussed on the few areas where inequalities seem to harm women.

So it is that if 22% of computer scientists are women, researchers maintain that one must make every effort, right down to dictating the aesthetics of the study environment, to be more female-friendly. On the other hand, while there may be just a little concern that only 34% of California’s college graduates are men, nobody seems too curious as to what is icking them out about academia. Telling boys they can’t be boys likely has nothing to do with it.

   

Well, Calgary’s snow removal plan kicked in late last week - as mild Chinook wind blew in to melt the messy blanket snarling local traffic. Thanks to one talk-radio wag for summing up the situation so succinctly.

For readers outside the “Heart of the New West”, let’s just say that the city’s efforts to keep up with precipitation of the solid variety has been less than stellar. Adding insult to injury is that what Calgary lacks in ploughs on pavement, it makes up for in city spokesmen explaining the city’s snow removal policy. The aforementioned radio station itself spends a lot of time shilling for the city, with news reports talking about the city crews “doing their best” and having been “at it since last night”, etc.

I wrote last year about complaining to an alderman regarding the poor roads and having one of his staff send me a link to the city’s snow policy. Well, a snow removal policy is about as useful as the old Soviet constitution (that we were told was the world’s most democratic back-in-the-day) if it’s not actually implemented. In fact, Calgary’s situation is worse, given that the city insisted it doesn’t have a “bare pavement” policy. In practice, what this means is Calgary has an ice-lipped rut policy for most roads, supplemented by an incipient glacier policy for residential streets.

Unlike many other cities, Calgary does not plough residential streets. My in-laws for instance, who live in a high-tax northwest neighbourhood, have not had a city plough near their cul-de-sac in the almost 40 years they’ve lived there. Fortunately, in most years, Superintendent Chinook kicks in now and then to reduce the ice thickness on side streets and make them almost passable.

The situation became unbearable for me after my 19 months in Ottawa, where they actually REMOVE snow from ALL the streets AND SIDEWALKS and cart it off somewhere. When I wrote about this earlier, an alert reader pointed to the higher taxes paid in Ottawa and elsewhere. This is a common excuse used by the city of Calgary, so let’s look at that. Here’s a table of budget vs. snowfall for several Canadian cities (and Chicago as a comparison) that should shed some light on the matter.

**********Budget    Snow Budget   Ave. Annual Snowfall   Metro Area

Calgary     $2.5B      $24M                135 cm                     5100Sq. Km

Ottawa      $2.2B      $62M                221 cm                     5300Sq. Km

Montreal   $3.9B      $128M             214 cm                      4300Sq. Km

Winnipeg  $0.5B      $27M               114 cm                       5300Sq. Km

Chicago     $5.2B      $17M                97 cm                      28,000Sq. Km

This data can be analyzed in different ways. In terms of data quality, area is the most to deal with. The numbers are from Wikipedia (a bane to some readers). Calgary city officials and apologists of course commonly fall back on the sprawling size of the city to explain their difficulties with snow. Without actually measuring the length of roads in each, it’s worth noting that Calgary’s area is on the order of the other Canadian cities. As it is, Ottawa spends 65% more per centimetre of fallen snow than Calgary. Montrealers (surprise!) look like they’re getting ripped off, paying twice as much as Ottawa for less snow. Winnipeg looks like a poor sister, with a tiny city budget, but spending more than Calgary on less snow (no Chinooks).

Perhaps more important is that snow removal is a tiny fraction of the total budget of each city - 1% in Calgary, about 3% in Ottawa. It is symptomatic of the, let’s say “challenged” nature of city budgeting, that Calgary couldn’t simply double the snow removal dollars and eliminate a lot of the idiotic things the city does. Those who’ve followed the city’s Byzantine budget process will not bet on any such changes, as it seems pathologically unable to prioritize programs or cut anything.

The other side of the ledger is the cost to the public, to motorists, of bad road conditions. One recent snow storm caused an estimated 200+ accidents which, if the average cost per accident were a few thousand dollars, would amount to hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars damage. This would be a big negative, unless the city is actually engaged in the vicarious subsidy of towing companies and body shops by way of people’s pocketbooks.

One more thing. One of the city of Calgary’s quixotic obsessions over the last few years is “traffic calming”. This involves spending millions of dollars to obstruct or narrow roads with concrete barriers, lay out gargantuan speed bumps, etc., all with the aim of slowing traffic and discouraging people from going anywhere. Oops, sorry, of course we know it’s really all done for safety.

Interestingly, the city’s unwillingness to clear snow actually achieves the same “calming” effect as all that concrete - grinding traffic to a standstill. There’s the added bonus that unlike the unwanted barrier construction, snow if free! Rather than throwing bad money after good on more concrete barriers perhaps, in the few months where it doesn’t snow here, they could merely spread artificial snow on the roads. It’s likely cheaper than laying out hand-crafted speed bumps and, as we’ve seen, bolsters the auto repair industry. Despite raising blood pressure, snow calms traffic.

   

Some readers, like me, may once have listened to CBC Radio. Specifically, I listened extensively to Radio Two when they still had predominantly Classical programming prior to September 2008. BTW,  latest stats show that, while radio listenership has gone up by about 3% since 2007, CBC Radio Two listenership is down over 13%. Big success there.

Anyway, as MrsDrJ and I are in the process of building our own Remote Rural Compound (RRC) in the Best Place on Earth , dubbed by some bitter eastern wags the  People’s Republic of British Columbia or the “Left Coast”, we sometimes seek news of the outside world. Unfortunately, as a counterpoint to this most beautiful of places, the media penetration through the mountain barriers is a little thin. The simple taxpayer must often turn the dial to FM relays of CBC Radio One for the elusive weather report.

For those of you who don’t seek your news there, here’s a little update. The average mid-day news broadcast last week consisted of (in no particular order):

1/ A story on the environment, climate change, or both;

2/ one on the (%*%^!) provincial government cutting funding to a social agency somewhere in the province;

3/ an expose of something the (&%^&^$!) Prime Minister, typically referred to as “Harper”, was doing;

4/ an interview with a local union leader;

5/ a report on the B.C. NDP leader, Carol James, on how she intends to spend 2010.

The last was very helpful to me because, news shunner that I am, I might not have known who Ms James was had they not told me in some detail, and made a gripping human interest story out of it. Thanks to Radio One I got to hear about her plans for the new year, and how she’ll be “better than ever”. Way to go Carol!

Given the broad, balanced and fair spectrum of stories covered by Radio One, it’s heartening to see the national network also pursuing that same goal. To that end, the commissioning of a poll on a story they themselves have industriously pushing - the hundreth-odd proroguing of parliament in Canadian history - is to be commended. Lord knows they must have been right on top of Mr. Chretien’s prorogation in 2003. Their pollster, Frank Graves, bravely echoed Peter Mansbridge by stating that ” the obvious narrative” is that the Afghan detainee issue motivated the Prime Minister (”Harper”). That must be right because the opposition parties are saying exactly the same thing. So many of these guys can’t be wrong.

Having the opportunity to listen to CBC on holidays is a rare treat, and I’m almost tempted to tune in to CBC Radio Two’s new format again. Almost. If only they could find more Canadian singer-songwriters, maybe then. On the other hand, I recall there used to be a line near the end of federal tax returns, where you could write in a gift to the federal government. Maybe I could designate MORE of my money to CBC there? Tax season is coming up. If you agree with me, check it out.

   

Say it ain’t so. The mafia is in Montreal. Who could believe it? Even after reports some months ago of corruption in the contracting of the city’s construction jobs, there must have been a few Pollyanna’s who still assumed the best.

Well, if you’ll pardon the macabre allusion, perhaps the cold-blooded murder, on a Montreal street, of the senior (active) member of the Rizzuto family this week will underscore the unfortunate reality of the city’s entanglement in organized crime.

If we look back more than a few years, back to the early 1950’s – when my parents arrived there – the picture was of a city perhaps more corrupt, if more quaint in its corruption. Montreal was a kind of sin-city north, known for its stylish jazz clubs and various diversions of the flesh, absent from the rest of Canada, and contrasting sharply with dourly Presbyterian Toronto. Despite his later reputation, new mayor Jean Drapeau was the new broom who was to sweep the city clean of the corrupt patina of his predecessor Camillien Houde.

That Drapeau succeeded, at least in providing the city with modern infrastructure (now crumbling 50 years later) and over-reached in his penchant for bread and circuses  - from the massive success of Expo 67 to the disastrous 1976 Olympics – cannot be disputed. Beneath the superficial changes, the underworld undercurrent remained.

I recall an instance when, as a child of perhaps seven or eight, I was with my parents at a Portuguese bakery near St. Lawrence Blvd. While we stood in line, a non-descript gentleman barged to the counter and had a short conversation with the owner. Visibly uncomfortable, the baker reached into the till and handed the man a wad of cash. Asking what had gone on, my father explained to me (in German) that the baker was giving protection money to the interloper.

Compared to the sophistication of today’s criminals, what I witnessed was an almost quaint anachronism. Now that, particularly the drug trade, has spread organized crime across Canada, no city can claim innocence. But, just as Montreal has a certain je ne sais quoi in other areas, the recent mafia-related stories suggest that the more things change there, the more they remain the same.

These stories make it hard to deny a culture of corruption that has existed for as long as anyone can remember, and simply re-surfaces from time to time. If you don’t believe it, ask Mr. Rizutto.

P.S. Look for the awful Stupidism in the Toronto Star headline to the Rizutto story. Hint: Mr. Rizutto is not “reportedly dead”.

   

We wish all of you, your families, friends and colleagues, a joyous and wonderful Christmas.

   

There is such a thing as a consensus, at least in some realms of debate. So I’m not going out on a limb in suggesting that Rocket Richard was one of the greatest hockey players of all time, perhaps the best right winger to ever play the game. Again, the “consensus” is that he was perhaps the most dangerous player from the blue-line in; fiery, and fixed on one thing and one thing alone, lodging the rubber in the back of the net.

With the recent the centennial celebrations for the Montreal Canadiens, all the great old stories – the early crippling injuries, the fifty goals in fifty games, skating in to score with a defenseman riding piggyback, and (of course) the riot. Unfortunately, the old socio-political baggage was all dragged out too.

What I’m talking about is this. Firstly, it’s the vaunted synonymy of the Rocket with the French Canadian nation. Every triumph but, more importantly, every indignity that he faced as a player was somehow symbolic of the “struggle” of “his people”. Every bit of on-ice trash talk was somehow a slight, every laying on of the lumber a blow against the dignity of the nation.

Lets face it, the NHL of the 40’s was not for the faint of heart. Every indication is that the Rocket could give it as well as take it. But there lingers to this day the view that the ownership, and by extension Les Anglais in general, did not accord the Rocket the respect due him as a superstar in the league. Forget that other stars of the era weren’t particularly shown respect as a matter of course. Then there’s the fact that players, and the whole league, in general were in the tight grip of a small group of owners, managers and executives. So there wasn’t a lot of respect being thrown around particularly in the direction of the players. One need only think about those like Doug Harvey and Ted Lindsay who, when they tried forming a players association in the 1950’s, were black-balled and traded to the B-teams before they could say Jackie Robinson.

Which brings me to the more serious point. This huge exercise in mass psychological transference has an added dimension, layered on top of mere collective indignation. During the Canadiens’ centenary several commentators, including actor Roy Dupuis who played Richard in the well-known bio-pic, compared the Rocket to Jackie Robinson, the courageous player who broke  the colour barrier in baseball. Robinson famously endured years of abuse and humiliation with tremendous dignity and forbearance.

What’s wrong with this comparison? Well, for one thing, there was no language barrier in hockey as there was a race barrier in baseball. Since the earliest days of the game there had not only been French Canadian players, but great French stars in the game. One need only think of Newsy Lalonde, who began playing in the early days of the last century, Jack Laviolette, Didier Pitre, Georges Vezina (all Hall-of-Famers) and many others. The Canadiens themselves were of course formed as a vehicle for French Canadians, to be an object of adoration for French Montrealers - natural rivals to Montreal’s “English”  (and Irish) teams, the Wanderers and Shamrocks. Perhaps these men are considered Uncle Tom’s in the eyes of Quebecois nationalists? At a minimum, they don’t fit the narrative of Richard as symbolic vanguard of national liberation.

Looking at the facts, the comparison to Robinson is a stretch at best, insulting at worst. Unfortunately, it fits into a meme derived from an ultranationalist worldview a la Pierre Vallières that has percolated down to become one of the pernicious myths of Quebec and Canadian politics. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Richard himself was uncomfortable having the nationalist mantle thrust upon him. His portrayal as representative victim of English oppression is merely another of the popular misconceptions cultivated to ennoble Quebec nationalism and separatism. Others, like the concept of the “Two Founding Peoples” are similarly pernicious, and there are few (William Johnson is one) who have the cojones to actually talk about them.

The Habs centenary was a great time for reveling in the team’s many amazing exploits. Too bad that, even after more than 50 years, myths propagated for political purposes are still too readily believed.

   

There are different ways you can react to the great void that is the thousand channel universe. Broadly put, you can either be indignant, indifferent, or go along for the ride. Admittedly, I guess you could also be a booster of the expansive banality that is modern TV, but let’s put that aside for the moment.

It’s not hard to imagine where the Globe and Mail might fall on this spectrum. Take a recent incident like the Adam Lambert appearance on the American Music Awards. Even this culturally-ignorant writer has an idea of who Mr. Lambert is, known at least partly for following in the cosmetic lineage of the Ziggy Bowie and Boy George. The Globe’s television critic, John Doyle, describes the controversy revolved around Lambert “touching a dancer, leading some guy around on a leash and kissing a man.” Similarly, another dancer “briefly stuck his head in Lambert’s crotch area”.

Mr. Doyle, who clearly has to deal with backward boobs all the time, is barely able to muster some world-weary sarcasm about why this incident might offend people. He reports that, of the 15 million people who watched the American Music Awards, apparently 1500 complained. In a deft bit of mathematical legerdemain, Doyle alludes to this very small number of complaints compared to the number of viewers (0.01% to be exact); even smaller when one considers the  ~300 million people living in the United States.

Funny, but we used to ponder similar mathematics in politics. Out of say, 50,000 members, does three dozen complaint calls constitute a problem; or are they just 36 cranks? In that world, where you depend on volunteers and voluntary contributions, assuming the complainers are cranks carries some risk.

There is no such risk for Mr. Doyle. “Television is not for the easily insulted” he says. Or, as many others would say, if you’re annoyed just switch the channel. Fair enough.

Regarding the statistics, 1500 out of 15 million may actually be a lot. It just depends. Firstly, these are people who actually tuned in to watch this thing. They can’t have expected the Family Channel - those folks would have been self-selected out already. Most of them will have seen simulations of various acts and different malfunctions, wardrobe and otherwise, many times. So of this market segment, 1500 actually overcame inertia enough to complain about it. Let’s not take this too lightly.

You have to feel for Mr. Lambert though. In an industry, and culture for that matter, focussed on “expanding the boundaries”, “pushing the envelope” or simply just shocking for shock’s sake. - épater les couch-patates - he’s faced with the problem of doing something that will actually get people’s attention. If a little fraternal lip-locking, leash-bound servitude, or nodding in the “crotch area” will do the trick, so much the better. If reports are to be believed, that would in any case just be dramatizing the free time activities of Boy George.

Which brings us back to Mr. Doyle. Faced with what he admits is an entertainment wasteland, what is a reasonable reaction, ridiculing the complainers? Wouldn’t it be refreshing if someone, especially an opinion leader like Mr. Doyle, called trash what it is, trash? What a shock if it turned out he supported raising standards. Instead, we get a sigh, a wink and a nudge saying “boys will be boys”. That’s uplifting.

   

Some years ago something called deprivation therapy was popular. It involved getting into a pod-shaped tank where no light or sound could penetrate. Scantily clad, one would lie in a bath loaded with epsom salts to ease floatation and minimize drowning. I don’t know exactly what this therapy was for, but I gather the womb-like experience was meant to be psychologically cleansing in some way, stress relieving etc. Some descriptions suggest it even helps relieve fibromyalgia.

You can picture the experience. Now imagine a similar, yet opposite experience. A larger, dark chamber, somewhat less damp. Rather than being isolated, one is pretty much jammed limb to limb in a sea of restless humanity. Occasionally lights go on, giving you a glimpse of your surroundings.

Most noticeably, you are bathed in sound. Sound so loud you can imagine sitting between the relentlessly rhythmic turbines of the Titanic, or lying in the engine intake of a 747. It’s only after about 20 minutes, when you hear a re-mix of the Gypsy Kings at 120 decibels (a pneumatic drill is 125 decibels), that you realize this is music.

This was our experience on a warm autumn night in Tel Aviv, when were invited to an “underground” club. And underground it was, about six flights underground. Kids were lined out the door; our hosts had reserved, so we got right in. “Right” is a relative term, as it took us some time to get to our table near the front. After some not altogether unpleasant jostling with some curvaceous young people, we reached our seats.

It was there that some universal training in American sign language would have been very helpful. But if one were looking for an excuse for necessary intimacy, one could try screaming pleasantries into the ears of people nearby. We thanked our hosts for inviting us with a series of smiles, winks, nods and appreciative hand gestures.

Then the serious drinking began. Iced vodka flowed endlessly, with concentrated shots of fruit mixers to ease the passage. In case you were getting a little cloudy, despite the auditory assault, you could always have a Redbull chaser. The latter likely being of little benefit to middle-aged arteries.

We realized the smarter young folk around us had devised better comm’s methods. Around us, scores of phone and Blackberry screens lit the darkness, as texts were dispatched through the ether. I’m sure witty, electronic bon mots were flitting (tweeting?) back and forth, a little flirting or slagging of the collision dancers all around.

After about an hour of this, the excitement got to be about too much for us. With regretful shrugs and sympathetic expressions we left our hosts in the maw of the machine. After more anonymous jostling and stair climbing we emerged into the balm of the city night.

It was after midnight. The sidewalks brimmed with merry makers, and - despite the reputation of risk - we never felt threatened or uncomfortable. Street-side cafes were full, lilting, non-industrial music wafted into the air. Remarkably, young people seemed to enjoying this too. Go figure. As we found our beds in the wee hours, our friends had apparently moved on to an “after party” which, according to second-hand reports was even louder (space shuttle engines?) and more crowded. This stretches the imagination.

Entrepreneurs take note. Forget sensory deprivation. Maybe what this generation wants is an industrial noise chamber. No, please, you try it first. You can text me from inside and let me know what it’s like.

   

You have to see it to believe it. Jerusalem, besides its thousands of years of history, is of course modern and striving for normal development. The latter is a challenge, given the overlapping claims on the city.

Seeing it now, it is difficult to imagine how this city could have been divided. Driving through the city, if one is brought along the “green-line”, the absurdity of its path is immediately clear. What one is told there, but is rarely reported in media stories, is that the 1948- 1967 border has absolutely no historical significance. It was simply the ceasefire line at the end of the 1948 war. Whatever quarter, block or house the combatants happened to be occupying, that’s what side the respective ground went to. One part of Israeli Jerusalem around Mt. Scobus and (including Hebrew University) was an isolated enclave surrounded by Jordanian territory.

Seeing the topography of the city, one realizes the impracticability of its division, with one hill in one state, the next in another. In a sense, the city is a microcosm of the country, where the pattern of settlement also makes the drawing of a “logical” border between Israel and Palestine problematic.

But it’s not the circuity of the border that is in and of itself the problem. Scott Reid, in his book about drawing a border with Quebec after a  lost referendum, pointed out that intricate borders are not a problem. There are in fact several borders that are not only circuitous, but have enclaves/exclaves of one country within another.

The problem, rather, is the relationship across borders. If relations are benign or amicable then circuitousness is no problem. One can have a border pass through the middle of buildings, as one does in the Eastern Townships of Quebec, or stand famously “undefended” along the 49th parallel.

Where there is conflict, that’s where one gets into the question of “defensible” or strategic borders. These have created tragic consequences in history, where populations have suffered occupation or expulsion due to a neighbour’s imperative for “natural” frontiers, access to the sea and what not.

In the case of Israel there is almost certainly an imperative for defensible borders, with all the problems that go with it. One finds it hard to believe that, for example, a Jewish state could live with a Syrian-militarized Golan heights - where artillery has a clear field of fire over much of northern Israel. Similarly, in Jerusalem itself, I visited one length of the security barrier that was positioned simply because snipers had a direct line of fire into Israeli apartment blocks and schools.

One concludes that a border settlement, if it ever comes, would be controlled by such realities. So the settlements, which have every appearance of being modern suburbs - not fortified camps - serve the function of not only furthering the territorial integrity of Jerusalem, but also positioning Israel in future negotiations with the Palestinians.

Agree with this or not, there is a basic logic to it. Conversely, when one visits Israel and thinks about the phrase “land for peace” (a past strategy advocating Israeli return of land to the Palestinians), one immediately realizes how little land there is and perhaps how little peace one might expect in future.

All this leads to the conclusion that a certain realpolitik, a reality of the terrain if you will, must govern the future status of Israel’s borders. The settlements and security barrier are only the current manifestations of that. As the Obama administration criticizes Israel’s policy regarding the settlements, little can change on the ground. Who commands which ground is just one of the obstacles on any peace roadmap.