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In 1959, Fidel Castro overthrew the US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.

So, what’s he done for Cuba lately?

Cubans traded one dictatorship for another. The island nation still lacks the political and economic freedoms shared by hundreds of millions of people throughout this hemisphere.

Nonetheless, Vancouver Communities in Solidarity with Cuba (VCSC) has organized a celebration of the dictator’s 80th birthday – Viva Fidel! 80 More Years! – for Saturday, Dec. 2, to take place at a local church. I didn’t know Canadian churches were in the habit of hosting birthday celebrations for repressive foreign dictators.

This is pretty much par for the course in a city where Che Guevara T-shirts are about as common as Lululemon yoga attire. Hopefully, few of the people sporting his image are aware of Che’s legacy as the greatest failed mass-murderer in human history (if he’d had the launch codes instead of the Russians during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Miami, New York and Washington would be dusty radioactive ruins).

I suspect, though, that just as the local antiwar coalition cannot find a single immigrant Afghan in support of their protest against Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, there are no Cuban refugees living in Vancouver who will attend this birthday party for a dictator. One can hope, anyway.

Welcome to Vancouver, where the weather is mild, the people are warm and the water is… drinkable.

Actually, those first two claims are losing their credibility to this unseasonable deep freeze and the last one is only valid since this morning’s cancellation of a week-long boil-water advisory. At least the cold weather has managed to do something about the turbidity of our water supply.

Power outages are leaving many local residents on the outskirts without the necessities of modern life. Public transit have ground to a slippery stagger. Airplanes are stuck on the ground. All the while, those bastards in Toronto who should be knee-deep in snow by now are expecting cool summer temperatures by Thursday.

It doesn’t take long for a little bad weather to really mess things up around here. Even with the best technology and infrastructure modern countries can get ahold of, we’re still at the mercy of our happily moody weather.

It really is an inconvenient truth.

So, the Quebecois are going to be recognized as a nation within Canada.

That’s nice. We were already doing that, but if French Canadians really need outside validation of their existence, here goes… you exist. Happy?

That’s odd. No response, aside from Gilles Duceppe, who changed his mind three times in three days about whether to even support Stephen Harper’s bill. Were they even listening?

The latest pronouncement regarding the people of Quebec are certainly drawing stares and nervous looks from the rest of Canada. Everyone is keeping their fingers crossed that this doesn’t mean another refferendum is waiting in the wings. Fortunately, Stephen Harper’s timely counter to a Bloc Quebecois political thrust seems to have, if anything, made such a refferendum less likely.

Nonetheless, it’s at times like these that I’m happy I live in a corner of the country that would be least affected by the odd volkish shenanigans back east. BC would still be in a good position as a North American gateway to the Pacific Rim. In contrast to the cod fishermen and seal clubbers of the other coast, we’ve actually got something to offer in the event of a massive political-economic shakeup.

Not only that, but we’ve got a pretty unique society ourselves out here. One could even call it “distinct”.

Another rally for peace, another chance missed.

Vancouver’s antiwar movement once more disgraced itself today, coming together under the ageis of Mobilization Against War and Occupation at its usual weekend spot in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Protesting against the UN mission in Afghanistan or injustice in the Middle East is one thing. But to do so again and again without also condemning the war machines and human-rights trampling regimes outside the West is perverse.

It would be one thing to say that since the Taliban, Sudanese and Syrian authorities, for example, wouldn’t be moved by protest anyway, since they aren’t democratic. The problem is that members of our local antiwar movement are so co-opted by apologists for dictators, thugs and religious extremists that they can’t be bothered to justify themselves with such philosophy.

Someone who wants to fight for peace shouldn’t have to share common cause with nihilists and cynics.

Canada must do something to stop the terrible violence.

This latest call from the United Nations isn’t a proposal for Canada to beef up its presence in Afghanistan or muster troops for Sudan. No, apparently, we need to stop spanking our kids.

The recommendation today comes out of a Vancouver forum focusing on child welfare.

I’m not advocating spanking as a routine fix for kids behaving badly. Most kids I’ve ever met would likely benefit from a time-out and a sit-down chat. But then there are the ones that play with lighters around the living room drapes or attempt to brain their siblings from behind with blunt objects…

UN special envoy Stephen Lewis tells it like this: “I think physical punishment is actually a kind of lazy way out. ‘I’m bigger than you. I can shout louder than you and I’m stronger than you. Therefore, unless you do what I tell you, I’ll whack you.’ I can’t see that that’s actually helping a child understand values and consequences.”

That’s the thing, though: small children don’t understand values and consequences in abstract terms. They are legally recognized as not being able to understand the consequences of their own actions or even recognizing the difference between fantasy and reality. Parents quite literally can’t reason with a small child. It seems to me that spanking should only be used as a last resort, but to completely take it off the table seems unrealistic (full disclosure: I don’t have kids).

I’m not suggesting that this means parents have complete freedom of action to discipline their kids as they see fit. We have child abuse laws in this country. When parents strike their children hard enough to injure, they go to jail.

Real violence against children is a terrible injustice. But does spanking really need to be discussed at a UN conference in the same context as honor killings, beatings and female genital mutilation?