Trump and the world after November 8th

Well, it's been a wild ride !
Time to dust off the crystal ball, if I can manage to wash all the crap from it.
Now I warn you reception on the crystal ball is spotty right now, not all of the stuff predicted to come may work out.
Here are a few predictions about Donald Trump during and after the election.

1. Trump will lose. Not just the White House, but the Senate, and quite possibly the house ( though that one may be close).

2. He WILL conceed defeat, but not gracefully. It will all have been "rigged". He will say there is still lots of things that are "Wrong" ( his favourite word) with the country that need to be fixed, and only he can fix them, he has much work to do, and needs your help.

3. There will be cases of civil unrest, including some shootings. These will only serve to advance his agenda, and he will fan the flames.

4. There will be creation of "Trump TV ", but it will be done on the cheap. The chump really does not have much money of his own. It is likely to be an internet effort. He does not have enough money for the infrastucture for a real station, and it's doubtful cable companies would give him carraige.
Sarah Palin will be a guest personality.
The show will rely upon donors ( see "the chump" as noted above).
It will all be bankrupt within 18 months, and generate a hell of a tax credit, but not for the donors---for Donald!

5. Trump will not sue the women who accuse him of sexual assault. Suing would force him to testify in court under oath with the risk of perjury, etc.
Suing would also open up the avenue to counter suits which if he lost-- the cases would have him paying THEM, not going to happen

6. The Republican party will sever all ties to Trump ( about a year too late).

7. Trump will form his own political party, funded entirely by donors, donors fleeced through Trump TV. This party will contest the mid term elections, and have some wins.

8. A cultural  and societal divison will grow in America. Elites versus the uneducated. The South versus the rest. Redneck whites against people of colour. Warped men versus women in positions of power. Trump will constantly enable divisions.

9. The Republican party will become largely unoticed, wandering in the dessert, finding themselves.

10. Hillary Clinton will not seek re-election. Donald Trump will not run again. By the end of the election cycle in 2020 the country will have found some normalcy and balance, reflecting what the country generally is.

11. A Latina will be elected President.

12. Donald Trump will be offered a " summer house", in Russia.

Four Boys, a Drunk, and a Train

Welcome to the way back machine, step right in.

Here is a story promised to not be told. But, enough time has passed, and now it can be.

And, so we go back to visit 1967.

A student, I was working mornings carrying and delivering The Province newspaper in Vancouver. The newspaper had a contest, selling new subscriptions door to door. The prize was a paid trip to Expo 67, the worlds’ fair in Montreal, followed by a trip to the Pan American Games in Winnipeg, on the way back home.

Myself and three other boys won. We were 15 and 16 years old, and were chaperoned by a manager from The Province circulation department.

Just how this man was selected was never really clear, he had a reputation of being a rabble rouser. I’m not going to use his real name here, though I’m pretty sure he’s gone on to his great reward in the afterlife by now. 

I’ll call him Mark.

The worlds’ fair part of the trip went smoothly, Expo was fantastic--so we flew out of Montreal to Winnipeg. The Pan Am games were great, the four boys had a wonderful time, the newspaper paid for everything  all was well, until the last night.

We were in a stadium watching a baseball game, the United States vs Cuba, a real rivalry.

Sitting next to us were two guys from the Barbados, with big pearly grins, and carrying a huge bottle of rum. Now our man Mark, could have closed out this tour without a scratch---except for that rum.

The men drank, and drank, and drank. There was a rain delay—so more drink. Then a second rain delay. Well , you can imagine these men were by then wetter on the inside than the outside, and it was well past midnight.

Mark just couldn’t get enough, so then we were off to find another bottle of rum and head over to the apartment of the Barbados guys to continue, four boys along for the ride, wondering how we were going to get out of this and board the train home.

Around 4:30 in the morning all of the men were pretty much incapacitated. Our train was to leave at 6:30.   So what to do?

It was time for a teenage revolution, so we took over this sorry looking slobbery mess of a man.

We picked his pockets, took his wallet, his cash, and the train tickets, called a taxi, bid goodbye to our hosts, and headed off to the train station.

The train station in Winnipeg was a big cavern of a place, with thick wooden benches. We deposited Mark on a bench. He slowly slid off it. We perched him back onto the bench, and this time we jammed something underneath him to keep him there.

Watching all of this was an elderly train porter who switched between laughing and shaking his head. He came over and asked what was going on. He really broke into laughter then and asked, “ So you boys are talking care of this full grown man and you need to get him back to Vancouver? Well that’s something”

He helped us get onto the train, and we stuffed Mark into bed in one of those private compartments where you get your own pull down bed. We each had compartments of our own nearby.

I think we were a couple of hours out of Winnipeg heading west when Mark showed the slightest hint of life. We’d been checking on him to make sure he was still alive. But at this point four boys have just about had enough, so we agreed upon two things. We would scare the hell out of Mark, and then we wouldn’t tell about it

So it was a badly hung over man awoke to the clattering sound of a train, a pounding head, and no sign of the four boys he was assigned to protect. 

We’d gone to hide. Mark was running up and down the train, out of his mind from worry, and couldn’t find us. We let this go on for about a half an hour, and then popped out and surprised him.

He begged us to not tell about this, he would have been fired instantly, no doubt about it.

But since he’s likely made the last train stop of life long before now, we’ll just blow the whistle, laugh, and shake our heads.

The Troubles Facing Journalism

These are observations, I don't claim to be smart enough to figure out all the answers.

Imagine- if I owned a sandwich shop, and gave away my sandwiches for free, why would anyone buy them from me?

If I owned a news outlet and put all my material online, tweeting key stories even before I printed or broadcast them,  posting whole stories before they get printed or broadcast, why would anyone watch or read material on my main outlet when and how I want them to?

That is the kind of dilemma facing journalism today.

Almost daily we see stories of downsizing and job cuts in journalism

This is the dark downside of the digital revolution.

Copyright, once jealously guarded barely exists now,  ownership of material reduced to smoke on the wind, belonging to no one.

Gone are the days when a publisher would go after an interloper for “stealing our stuff”

Instead they basically give it away, hoping some advertiser will come along and buy a piece of the swirling smoke in the internet air.

Then they wonder why they are losing money, so they amputate, they cut jobs, diversity of thought, and quality of content.

Left with a thinning product and no idea what to do about it, there is a downward spiral that produces more and more "easy news" or junk, and less and less content that sets outlets apart.

The concept of making internet users pay has been tried, and has mostly failed.

So the question is, what is the product worth?

Increasingly not enough, or not much, that’s where we are at.

It would seem to make sense that the answer should be a determination to make the product worth more, and not give it away.

There may be a relatively bright future for current events programs like the CBC’s Fifth Estate, and CTV’s W-5, where usually the program is heavily promoted and then airs before the real content material is posted online.

More of that kind of approach to content could be helpful, if publishers of material could back off the lure of trying first to be internet stars, and show people more of what they have done, and less of what they are doing.

Make more value in the product through quality of content, and don’t give it away.

But, if not---here’s a sandwich, take one, they’re free.

Tracking a killer.

During the early 1980’s BC’s lower mainland region was in the grip of fear.

Children were going missing, too many of them to be of coincidence.

Police forces in the area appeared first to make no connections, everyone was baffled.

More and more reports of missing kids came in, media interest grew, but answers to what was going on did not exist.

This went on for many months, another name being added to a list of the missing no longer seemed to be a surprise. Some bodies had been found, others were still missing.

If the police knew early what was really going on, they did not share that with the media. Reporters were left to try to figure this out on their own.

I have often commented to my police contacts that left in an information vacuum, media will find and chase sources other than the police. This can potentially harm a police investigation, so it’s better for the law to offer media some information (if they can) rather than leaving media out in the cold.

Media do owe a duty to inform the public, but we also owe a duty to society to not impede policing and justice. It’s a fine line to tread and has to be done with great care.

In the newsroom of CKVU TV in Vancouver we were as perplexed as other local media about what was going on. Bits of information came in, including where these kids had lived and where they were last seen. That is all we had to go on.

There did not seem to be a pattern, nothing the dead and missing seemed to have in common, they were male and female, and they had disappeared from several different areas and municipalities.

As the case went on as News Director I decided to assign a single reporter to the story, rather than sharing it around among other reporters. I thought it better that one person have this in all their head, it was less likely we would miss something or get something wrong.

I gave the assignment to reporter Wayne Williams. I had hired Wayne right after he completed his broadcast news training at BCIT. He was a bit green and inexperienced then, but he was also mature for his young age, and was great for grinding out detail and chasing leads.

We set up a white board in my office. On it we posted everything we knew about the victims, which at this stage, to the best of my recollection, had reached nine youngsters.

On the white board we posted everything we knew about each of the dead and missing. Every day we reviewed what was on the board, added new info, and removed stuff that did not seem to fit.

Weeks went by.  Wayne and I stared at that damn board for hours, and hours, and hours. After a while the whole thing blinds you, and you’re not seeing anything at all. Better to walk away for a while.

One morning I came in  to work with my coffee and was thinking it was probably time to pack the white board away and be done with it, but that would be giving up. When Wayne started his shift that day there we were staring at this slab of information, again. What were we missing?

Maybe we had to come at this from a totally different angle. How about not looking so much at the actual locations the kids disappeared from, and rather look at what was nearby. Bus stops, schools, recreation centers – anything?

One by one we eliminated possible connections until only one remained. In almost every case the locations were near what we called “garden apartment” complexes, walk up low rise apartment buildings surrounded by lawns and flower gardens. The kinds of places where families with children lived.

We called in the police.

They came to my office and listened while Wayne and I walked them through our findings. We told them we intended to broadcast a story that night that suggested the person taking the children probably had a connection to the apartment buildings. He could work for a property management company or have some other connection.

We shot our whole encounter with the police on video tape, asked them to comment, and to warn us if we were about to botch things up for them.

They had little to say, other than this was interesting and they had nothing to add. Importantly they did not indicate what we were about to publish might be harmful.

We ran the story that night. A few short days later police announced they had arrested Clifford Robert Olson, and charged him with the disappearance and murder of several of the children. Olson had worked part time for his father, cutting the lawns and tending the gardens of apartment buildings across the region. It’s believed that during that work he stalked his victims.

I am reasonably convinced the police had been on to him for a little while before our broadcast, we learned later he had been under surveillance, but was slippery, they may already have had him or were just grabbing him when we aired our story

Later a “cash for bodies” deal was revealed in which Olson’s wife would be paid by the government of BC for information about the locations of the missing bodies, one by one, as Clifford revealed where they were. That touched off a political storm, but the families got closure.

Serial killer Clifford Robert Olson was the gardener. Olson died in prison in 2011.

Reporter Wayne Williams went on to a very successful career with CBC Television News in Vancouver.

I still feel a bit strange every time I see a garden apartment complex.