Author: Ian Chadwick

Retired writer, editor, reviewer, media relations & communications consultant, municipal politician. Ukulele player. Aficionado of Shakespeare, Horace, Machiavelli, Chaucer, Cicero, Homer, socialism, science, Godzilla, ERB, & tequila. Curmudgeon, skeptic & cynic. Lay historian. Community volunteer. PC gamer. Avid reader. Woke socialist. Loving husband. Companion to one dog & three cats. Passionate about my small town. Perennially curious about everything. My writing is copyright © protected.

Blue bin blues

2018-01-15 2018-01-15 CollingwoodLeave a comment

Every Monday it’s the same thing. I walk my dog along local streets, past the blue bins put out on the curb by residents, bins stuffed with content meant for recycling. Two bins are provided to every household: one for recyclable plastics and glass, the other for paper and cardboard. And to remind people which is which, one is clearly marked on the outside, and the county sends around an annual calendar, with reminders on how to sort your materials. Plus, the county advertises in local media about recycling and has a website all about it. And yet every Monday, ……… click below for more ↓

Who ya gonna call?

This song keeps running through my head: If there’s something strange in you neighborhood Who you gonna call? (your councillor) If there’s something weird And it don’t look good Who you gonna call? (your councillor) With apologies to Ray Parker, composer of the Ghostbusters theme song. More than three years after I left council, I still get calls from residents, still get stopped in grocery stores or when I’m walking my dog, dragged into conversations with residents unhappy with local politics and how they’ve been treated by this council. Specifically by members of The Block Seven. I get asked about ……… click below for more ↓

Raw water: the New Age death wish

2018-01-05 2018-01-07 Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Diet Fads / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & Quackery3 Comments

Would you willingly expose yourself to cholera? While treatable, this highly infectious disease causes great physical distress and suffering to its victims, and is even fatal to some. Most readers have never experienced it because it’s rather a rarity in developed nations, those that have the benefit of modern water and wastewater treatment systems. That’s thanks to decades of stringent and effective health and safety standards and constantly improving treatment systems. But for some, it seems, those systems are a terrible burden; a worrisome threat to their natural state. The very notion of clean, hygienic water bereft of bacteria and ……… click below for more ↓

The House on the Borderland

2018-01-04 2018-01-04 Books & Reviews / Daily life / Family history / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / Scifi and fantasyLeave a comment

“But for a few touches of commonplace sentimentality [it] would be a classic of the first water.” So said H. P. Lovecraft of the 1908 novel, The House on the Borderland, by William Hope Hodgson. But, Lovecraft admitted, the book was also a major influence on his own, later work. And for good reason: it created the ‘unknown horror’ effect that Lovecraft (and later writers) exploited so well. House on the Borderland is a seminal work in its genre and, despite its age, deserves not to be forgotten by modern readers. Here’s a passage from the book: And then, as ……… click below for more ↓

The report The Block don’t want you to see

2018-01-03 2018-01-05 Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & CommunicationsOne Comment

Late last year, BMA Management Consulting produced a hefty 517-page report called Municipal Study 2017* that examines a wide variety of socio-economic indicators in more than 100 Ontario municipalities: taxes, user fees, population, average home value, water/sewer, economic development programs and more. As Owen Sound notes on its website: The study identifies both key quantifiable indicators and selective environmental factors that should be considered part of a comprehensive evaluation of a local municipality’s financial condition. Use of the study over a number of years provides trends to allow decision-makers to monitor selected indicators over time. Trend analysis helps to provide ……… click below for more ↓

A farewell to 2017

2017-12-31 2018-01-04 Blog & Blogging / Musings / My Writing / Personal ReminiscencesOne Comment

Twenty seventeen has a special significance for me, beyond merely another year in the ever-lengthening calendar of my life. I find it difficult, sometimes, to believe I am as old as I am – who, after all, lives this long? I used to think that. Back then, back in my salad days of my misspent youth, fifty was impossibly old. Sixty? Ancient. Beyond that? Methuselah old. Or perhaps I simply don’t act my age. I still listen to the Beatles and the music of my youth, and play computer games. I still watch Godzilla movies and play tag with my ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood’s culture of secrecy

2017-12-27 2017-12-27 Collingwood / Council / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

For the past fifteen months, I have been trying to get a copy of the Request For Proposals (RFP) sent out to potential buyers for the purchase of our public utility. For the past fifteen months, the town has fought me, has refused to hand it over, has challenged my appeals to the Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC). The public is not allowed to see it, even though it affects us and our once-public utility. Even though it is in the public’s interest to know what has been going on. Why not? After all, the RFP was released in August, ……… click below for more ↓

What became of Better Together Collingwood?

2017-12-23 2017-12-23 Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Publicity & Communications2 Comments

Rather amusingly, the Better Together Collingwood website is still online. The latest event noted on the site is a rally for Monday March 25, 2013. Its Facebook page also remains intact, although the most recent post there is dated Jan. 15, 2015. But what are stale-dated entries about non-existent activities of a fake association among friends, eh? Well, it seems the only friends left for BTC are at the council table. It’s amusing because as a group it ceased to be a functional entity the moment the last municipal election was held and Brian Saunderson won his seat as deputy ……… click below for more ↓

Brian suddenly realizes there’s a budget process.

2017-12-21 2017-12-21 Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications / TaxesLeave a comment

Over on BBFFWS (Brian’s BFF’s Web Site) is a sort-of-a story about Collingwood’s 2018 budget. It’s really just some comments about a document this council won’t even get a peek at until sometime in late January, and won’t get through the approval stage until late spring or even early summer. Even though all of our municipal neighbours, the county and indeed most of Ontario, have already approved their 2018 budgets, Collingwood continues to slog along, months behind the process curve. And nary a word of complaint from The Block. Well, to be fair, nary a word they even noticed was ……… click below for more ↓

The Block do it to themselves. Again.

2017-12-17 2017-12-17 Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour2 Comments

Some readers may be tired of me pointing out how dim-witted The Block on our council are, how little they understand, how little they know, how they dislike reading and learning, how they don’t understand even simple consequences of their actions and how they always blame others for their mistakes and their destructive acts. So this post, let’s let a couple of them do it themselves. In this piece it will be Deputy Mayor Brian Saunderson and his lickspittle Councillor Bob Madigan. The headline on the Collingwood Connection piece reads, “Collingwood council wants reason for Clearview’s exit from airport board.” Well like ……… click below for more ↓

Oumuamua: just a piece of rock

2017-12-14 2017-12-16 Astronomy & Cosmology / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & Quackery4 Comments

If you can watch the whole bit of this piece of New Age woo hoo without flinching or giving up, you will likely shake your head at the utter, mindless gullibility of humankind. And it’s not even political. But by now you know the Net is crammed full of conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, food fads, creationism, homeopathy and other claptrap. And you already have seen how the wingnuts can easily bend and twist everything, taking stuff out of context or simply making it up to suit their wacky beliefs. The latest codswallop is that scientists claim a tumbling cigar- shaped (or ……… click below for more ↓

Shin Godzilla: the reboot

2017-12-13 2023-04-28 Culture / Fables / Film & Reviews / Godzilla / Legends & Myths / Personal Reminiscences / Philosophy3 Comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk7KaxjTz-0 I’m almost embarrassed to admit that, of all the Godzilla films I’ve watched, I can recall the exact details of few. I cannot remember, just by looking at the title, which monsters were battling which. I need to look at the slipcase cover to see a picture to remind me which foe Godzilla was battling this time. Or foes, because there’s often more than one. In many ways, I prefer the original premise: a single Godzilla versus the world rather than Godzilla versus other monsters. Easier to keep track of the players that way. But that hasn’t happened in ……… click below for more ↓

War for the Planet of the Apes considered

2017-12-11 2018-02-04 Culture / Faith / Film & ReviewsLeave a comment

Pierre Boulle never imagined War for the Planet of the Apes, the latest film in the remade franchise. In fact, it would be fair to say the author of the original book never imagined any of the series, from the first in 1968 to the latest, released in 2017. They were far, far from what he had envisioned in the early 1960s. Warning: spoilers ahead. Boulle’s 1963 novel, Monkey Planet, was basically a satire and a social commentary. And it wasn’t based in America: the astronauts came from France (and their last view on landing was of the Eiffel Tower ……… click below for more ↓

Gojira, the original kaiju

2017-12-06 2023-04-20 Culture / Film & Reviews / Godzilla / Legends & Myths / Personal Reminiscences4 Comments

At the end of most Godzilla films, the audience is led to believe the giant reptile has finally been killed off. Blown up, defeated by another monster, killed by technology, sunk to the bottom of the ocean or suffered some similar fate. And yet there he*** is, hale and hearty in the next film, rampaging through Japan once again, and facing yet another kaiju (giant monster) – or often several. After 32 films, Godzilla still comes back. And so do I.* I was thinking about Godzilla this week, today in particular. This is the 100th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion. ……… click below for more ↓

The death of community newspapers

2017-11-29 2017-11-29 Collingwood / Local history / Media2 Comments

In 1857 – a year before Collingwood was incorporated as a town – John Hogg launched the Enterprise. The first local newspaper started its presses. In 1870, David Robson launched its first competitor: the Bulletin. In 1881, the Bulletin was sold to William Williams and J.G. Hand. William’s 17-year-old son, David (later a town mayor), joined the paper in 1886. After the Great Depression, citing financial reasons, the two papers merged: The Enterprise-Bulletin was born. It printed its own paper, as well as being a printer for community events, flyers, brochures and even personal publications. In the 1960s, owner Jack ……… click below for more ↓