No, Brian: Elvis isn’t in the CBSP

Collingwood / Council / Culture / Ethics and behaviour / Festivals & Events / Planning & Policies / Publicity & CommunicationsLeave a comment

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At the Nov. 28 Council meeting (seen here on Rogers TV), Deputy Mayor Brian Saunderson blathered on in cliché-rich, lawerly manner (starting 1:14:05) about how much the Elvis Festival means to his “Community-Based Strategic Plan” (1:16:18) – that committee-based wishlist which was neither strategic nor a plan. What does he mean when he claims that a report has “galvanized the question quite nicely”? Galvanized? Does he know what that word means? It’s not what he appears to think it does… it means to “shock or excite (someone), typically into taking action.” A staff report is seldom shocking or exciting, and ……… click below for more ↓

Muzzling the airport board

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & PoliciesOne Comment

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The Collingwood Airport Board wants to get its own legal opinion about the Clearview Aviation Business Park request for a non-binding letter of intent to negotiate access to the airport. Seems reasonable for the board charged with oversight of the airport to want to make sure that any decisions made best represent their mandate and the viability of the airport itself. The Block and Collingwood’s administration are opposed to them getting one. Are they afraid of what that opinion would say? That it wouldn’t come from a lawyer already instructed as to what to say? That they couldn’t control the ……… click below for more ↓

I used to like him; not so much now…

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Municipal Politics / Politics3 Comments

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Back in the ’70s when he ran for mayor and we both lived in Toronto, I voted for John Sewell. And when he won, I was a big supporter of his human-scale policies and planning, and enjoyed his youthful vigour and vision. Now, not so much. Sure, he’s a smart, well-spoken, erudite man with a long list of credentials. But he’s also wrong. At least about one issue: our hospital. Sewell and Collingwood resident Karina Dahlin (former Editor, executive communications, the Hospital for Sick Children, according to LinkedIn) wrote an opinion piece for TVO’s online magazine titled, “Health care gaps: ……… click below for more ↓

Corruption and conflict of interest

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Publicity & Communications7 Comments

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Ever get that uneasy sense of deja vu? That some ugly, undemocratic event you’re watching at council, some autocratic, conniving, secret and self-serving act is something you’ve experienced in the past? That those nasty breaches of ethics, those conflicts of interest, those ignored bylaws and broken trust are things you’ve already seen at the table? That you’re going through another round of corruption and conflict in Collingwood? By this very council? Well, my dear readers, you aren’t alone. On November 14, Collingwood Council once again went in camera and came out with this resolution: BE RESOLVED THAT Council hereby agrees ……… click below for more ↓

Kellie Leitch’s politics of division

Canadian Politics / Critical Thinking / Politics / Uncategorized / US Politics5 Comments

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They’re not like us. They’re not our religion. They’re not our colour. They don’t speak our language. They don’t dress like us. They don’t eat like us. They don’t drive like us, shop like us, read like us, walk like us. We need to control them. Deport them. Jail them. Make them convert. Make them speak English. Make them dress like us. Screen them before we let them in. Them versus us. The politics of division, of polarization and separation. Dog whistle politics that appeal to the most vulnerable: the poor, the poorly educated, the illiterate, the disenfranchised, the unemployed, the ……… click below for more ↓

Dear USA: I’m sorry for your loss.

Canadian Politics / Politics / US Politics5 Comments

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Dear United States of America and my American friends: While I am sorry for your loss on election night, I’m afraid, however, I cannot agree to open the border and let you flood in. Canada is a country, not a convenience for Americans trying escape a self-made disaster. You made your own bed, now you must sleep in it. I don’t want to sound unsympathetic. It was devastating to see decency, integrity, honesty, fairness, equality and compassion all die in the same wreck. I cannot imagine the pain you are feeling. It must seem as if all the good has ……… click below for more ↓

The subtle art of Mark Manson

Books & Reviews / Critical Thinking / Culture / Ethics & morality / Philosophy / Stoicism & classical philosophy / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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I have a healthy skepticism towards anything labelled a “self-help” book – especially those that aim at making your life happier or more fulfilled through some fad, superstition or pseudoscience. I am, as you know from this blog, cynical towards the unending volume of New Age woo hoo, fads and pseudoscience that pollutes bookstore shelves and the internet. I’m more of the “life’s a bitch and then you die” outlook kind-of-person than someone in search of a happy-platitude guru. I don’t post pictures of kittens, puppies or angels on my Facebook timeline. I’ve never been into that cosmic happiness-bucket list ……… click below for more ↓

Obstructionism killing 1,600+ jobs & growth

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies3 Comments

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Just when you thought Collingwood Council couldn’t set the bar any lower, they go and move it down another notch. On Monday, Oct. 31, The Block had a chance to save face, rectify their blatant mismanagement of the Collingwood Regional Airport development and save the proposed, $300 million, 260-acre, industrial park that could bring 400 full-time and 1,300 part-time or temporary jobs to the area. They didn’t. No surprises, of course. Barry Burton, the deputy mayor of Clearview Township, made a presentation to our council, Monday*, reiterating his community’s commitment to the development and growth at the airport and asking ……… click below for more ↓

I missed my calling in quackery

Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & QuackeryLeave a comment

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I missed my calling. I realize that, now I am semi-retired and counting my pennies. But I could have been like Deepak Chopra: rolling in dough, had I been astute enough to see the trends. Too late, I suppose, for me, but maybe not for you. All my life I have criticized and lampooned New Age notions as fuzzy-headed, pseudoscience codswallop. But I should have embraced them because, it seems, there’s money to be had in conning and conniving. Lots of it. Instead of debunking and deconstructing the diaphanous piffle that gets spewed from these folk, I should have been plagiarizing ……… click below for more ↓

Politically correct pronoun madness

Critical Thinking / Culture / Education & Learning / Language & Grammar / Media Issues / Politics / Social Order & Disorder / Style & usage7 Comments

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Ze, zim, zer, zher, zis, mer, hus, shkle, hum, herm, hann, ey, hu, je, xe, per, thon, yo, ghaH, co, e. Know what these words are? They are artificial constructs: neologisms cobbled together for abstruse political correctness to replace traditional pronouns that expose or define a gender in the subject or object of a sentence: the traditional he, him, she, her and so on. They’re sometimes called Spivak pronouns after an American mathematician who coined some of them, but there are many more than he coined. Gender-neutral pronouns (GNP) are today’s newspeak. Wiktionary has a long list of them. A ……… click below for more ↓

The meaning of dreams

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Behaviour & Psychology / Critical Thinking / New Age CodswallopLeave a comment

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Jack Kerouac woke up most mornings in the 1950s and scribbled into a bedside notebook what he could remember of his dreams. Characters from his novels interacted with fantasies and real life events. The result was eventually published in 1961 as his Book of Dreams; 184 pages of mostly spontaneous or stream-of-consciousness writing, as this excerpt shows: WALKING THROUGH SLUM SUBURBS of Mexico City I’m stopped by smiling threesome of cats who’ve disengaged themselves from the general fairly crowded evening street of brown lights, coke stands, tortillas-Unmistakably going to steal my bag-I struggled a little, gave up-Begin communicating with them ……… click below for more ↓

Does anyone still read books?

Books & Reviews / Critical Thinking / Culture / Reading & LiteracyLeave a comment

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I came across an early version of this infographic on Facebook and it shook me to my core. You can see it here. The updated and corrected infographic is shown to the right. It is only marginally less distressing than the earlier one. Unfortunately, the early one, although inaccurate and misleading, is still being shared. That early graphic is based on some disputed statistics and unfounded claims, but it’s worth examining to understand my reaction. Reading is so central to my life that the notion that anyone would stop reading books simply gobsmacks me. I can barely go eight hours ……… click below for more ↓

Fulfilling a role? Who are you kidding?

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Planning & Policies / Publicity & CommunicationsLeave a comment

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The bite of irony is in the air when a flimsy piece of blatant Block propaganda masquerading as an official media release is published by the town. It has the misleading headline, “Town fulfilling role in hospital redevelopment process,” but only delusional sycophants won’t read it as a Block screed. When did town media releases shill for a group at the table, not represent the will of council as a whole? Did the mayor approve this dreck before it went out? I suspect not. * It’s ironic that last term’s council was criticized by some of the very people who ……… click below for more ↓

Tough Times for Print Media

Culture / Media / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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It’s not like the halcyon days when I first started writing for newspapers, back in late 1969. Today, print media is struggling to survive in a world dominated by digital media and mega-corps owners (although not so hard it can’t pay its CEOs and executives several million dollars while they slash real jobs).* Print media has long been losing its advertising share, a trend exacerbated by the internet. Newspapers now have about 11% share, compared to about 35% for the internet, according to a Globe and Mail story. A Pew Research study in 2015 showed newspaper advertising in the USA dropped 4% ……… click below for more ↓

Back to black

Fonts & Layout / Theme & Coding / TypographyLeave a comment

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I had noticed of late that several websites are more difficult to read, that they opted to use a lighter grey text instead of a more robust black. But it didn’t dawn on me that it wasn’t my aging eyes: this was a trend. That is, until I read an article on Backchannel called “How the Web Became Unreadable.” It’s a good read for anyone interested in typography, design and layout – and not just the Web, but print as well. It makes several good points about contrast including providing some important technical details about how contrast is measured. I’ve ……… click below for more ↓

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