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www.oakvillebeaver.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, July 8, 2010 · 6 The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5571 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate.The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Commentary Letter to the editor NEIL OLIVER Vice-President and Group Publisher, Metroland West DAVID HARVEY Regional General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution SARAH MCSWEENEY Circ. Manager The Oakville Beaver is a division of Premier should apologize Dear Premier McGuinty, As a participant in some of the peaceful and democratic activities in Toronto recently I am dismayed by the actions of the police over a period of several days preceding, during and after the G20 summit. Some police harassment was visible during the Wednesday environmental protest. Friday afternoon began with much more harassment as people assembled at a park. Later, the march was prevented from proceeding along University Avenue by a wall of black-clad police in riot gear with helmet shields, hand shields and an array of weapons; many officers had removed the name tags from their shirts. A line of mounted officers closed in as protesters in the intersection milled about, chanted, and danced. A phalanx of police jogged into position pounding batons on their full-length riot shields. A woman near the front lines of police and protesters led a chorus of voices in the old folk song, We Shall not be Moved, that harkens to the Great Depression and is reminiscent of the anthem We Shall Overcome from the time of Martin Luther King. After this standoff the march moved along. The scene became more ominous as squadrons of police appeared in laneways and a vehicle equipped with sound cannon was sighted. The intimidation and related tension were palpable. Saturday's march was peaceful as people exercised their legal right to dissent, a right that lies near the very core of democracy. The march ended at Queen's Park where people milled about and slowly dispersed. It felt like a folk music festival as I left to go home. Soon many police arrived and began attacking the people near the doorsteps of the house of our provincial democracy in actions that contrasted sharply with the marchers' heartfelt hopes and values for a better world. Despite the volumes of testimonies, the media reports and the outcries of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, journalist associations, Amnesty International and others, you have refused to apologize for the violence of the police actions or the collective punishment of all who had the temerity or misfortune to be in harms way when the police unleashed their brute force. Dalton McGuinty, why do you turn a blind eye to the police intimidation, illegal searches, brute force and lies that came to characterize the face of the state over a period of days? Why do you stonewall calls for an independent investigation of police actions? Is your heart so hard and black that you will not tolerate hearing what the people may say? There was a time when it seemed that you cared about police behaving properly and you called the Dudley George inquiry. Why all the ballyhoo then and yet a wall of silence now? Do you think accountability should only apply when others are governing? Human rights and civil liberties do not really exist when partisanship determines when they should or should not be defended. Democracy does not function well in such a capricious environment. I am dismayed by the police actions, but I am disgusted by your inaction Dalton McGuinty. I urge you to call an open public inquiry. Let us recall the words of Reverend King who declared 40 some years ago that, "A time comes when silence is betrayal." BRIAN HOPKINS, OAKVILLE WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com Suburban Newspapers of America Media Group Ltd. RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville ATHENA Award NIKKI WESLEY / OAKVILLE BEAVER FUN BEGINS EARLY AT PALERMO: Future Palermo Grade 1 student Chiara Calitri, 6, races away from a fountain during the Palermo Public School Fun Day held on Friday night at Valleyridge Park splash pad. The new student, staff and parent community grew closer in anticipation of the new public elementary school Why a Russian math genius rejected both kudos and cash ccording to The New York Times, reclusive Russian mathematician Grigory Perelman has shocked the typically staid math world by rejecting the $1 million prize he was awarded for determining an age-old math problem. If Dick took a plane travelling 500 miles per hour from Toronto to Montreal and Jane rode her bike at two miles per hour from Toronto to Montreal, stopping in Cornwall for a coffee and bagel, would Jane actually arrive in Montreal before Air Canada managed to find Dick's luggage? Come on, people, I'm just goofing on you: Mr. Perelman won (and turned down) the million smackers for proving the century-old Poincare conjecture -- one of the world's most difficult math problems (granted it's a snap compared to balancing the Juniper family books on a month when Mrs. Juniper -- a.k.a. Spendy Spenderson -- takes the family credit card out for a joyride, much to the delight of local shopkeepers). Now, for those of you who do not know the math world like I know the math world (a major mathlete from way back, I know this universe like I know the genomic code for nucleosome positioning, oh, and the back of my hand), the A Poincare conjecture is a conjecture by, ah, Poincare? Pepi Poincare? One of the Poincare boys? Actually, I have no idea what it is. Although I read that it deals with shapes that exist in four or more dimensions, and the Times calls Poincare "a landmark not just of mathematics, but of human thought." Andy Juniper Why it's a landmark, no one truly knows, least of all the Times, but let's just work with the analogy that proving Poincare is the mathematical equivalent of signing NBA free-agent LeBron James, finding Waldo without your reading glasses, or staying awake for a full episode of The Bachelorette (wherein Ali "risks it all for love"). Further to my Poincare-ian conjecture that I indeed know the math world, let me assert that it's a world that advances slowly, glacially. Like a snail. On valium. Fuelled by molasses. You see, although Perleman solved the problem back in 2003, he was awarded the prize in March of 2010 and then took more than three months to call the Clay Mathematics Institute in Cambridge, Mass., and reject it because, we assume, he was busy trying to find (a) Waldo (b) his luggage in Montreal? So, why did he really turn down the kudos and cash? Well, he cited disagreements with the "organized mathematical community." Man, if I had a dollar for every time I heard that old chestnut. Also, Perelman believes his contribution to solving the problem was no greater than that of another mathematician, American Richard Hamilton who initially suggested a program for the problem. While I laud Mr. Perelman for his honesty and scruples and all, I think he would have better served the old organized math community if he'd simply passed on the million smackers to another deserving mathlete. Such as, say, me. I mean I could have taken that million, divided it equally amongst my 100 top creditors -- about $722 each, by my calculations -- and kept the remaining $950,000 for myself. Ah, as Jack Black once sang, math is a wonderful thing. Andy Juniper can be visited at www.strangledeggs.com, contacted at ajjuniper@gmail.com, or followed at www.twitter.com/thesportjesters.