Category: Social Order & Disorder

How should a municipality deal with cigarette litter?

Canadian Politics / Collingwood / Municipal Politics / Science & Technology / Social Order & DisorderOne Comment

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I was sitting on a decorative rock on the landscaping west of Loblaws, this weekend, waiting while Susan was inside and amusing myself at the bad driving habits of our city visitors in the parking lot. I happened to look down and saw what little, rough grass there was, was almost totally buried in cigarette butts. Toxic, non-decaying, environmentally hazardous and socially hostile cigarette butts. Ugh. It’s not just there, it’s everywhere. Look along the streets, sidewalks, in the park grass. Thousands of cigarette butts, dozens, maybe hundreds of wrappers and packages every kilometer you walk. An estimated two million ……… click below for more ↓

Not All Words Are Equal, or Used Equally

Internet & Social Media / Language & Grammar / Municipal Politics / Social Order & DisorderOne Comment

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There’s an economic principle known as the rule of fungibility that states a commodity is equivalent to other units of the same commodity. For example, a litre of gasoline is the same commodity regardless of the brand or source. A bushel of wheat is the same regardless of the country. Ten dollars is ten dollars whether presented as a single bill or in smaller denominations. These are fungible items. But fungibility doesn’t apply to language. Words do not have an absolute base value, but are rather weighed in their context, and their source. A street thug telling his pack followers ……… click below for more ↓

More’s Speech to the Mob

Arts / Books & Reviews / Politics / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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The scene is a riot, on the first day of May, 1517. It would later be known as Evil May Day,or Ill May Day. An angry mob, mostly comprised of apprentices, marched through the streets of London, their passion inflamed by a xenophobic speech made the past Easter by Dr. Bell (or Beal) at St. Paul’s Cross. Bell railed against the foreigners living in London, especially the wealthy foreign merchants and bankers. He called on all “Englishmen to cherish and defend themselves, and to hurt and grieve aliens for the common weal.” His words spread and festered, as racism is ……… click below for more ↓

What the Future Holds

Books & Reviews / Internet & Social Media / Science & Technology / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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In researching my latest book, I’ve been reading about predictions for the future: what will happen in technology, science, politics, government and medicine. It’s pretty fascinating what some see coming at us for the next 10 to 100 years. There are some ideas that had never occurred to me. And many predictions which never came true. (The image at the left is from the BBC Future website. Click the image to go to the site or here for a larger version.) I’ve always been fascinated by “futurology.” Especially what our past thought of the future, and whether or not any ……… click below for more ↓

Notes for a Spring Evening

Books & Reviews / Collingwood / Personal Reminiscences / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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Late spring, Saturday night, sitting here surrounded by the trees and garden in full bloom, everything lush and full of life, my view from the front porch of verdant trees and garden, everything so very green. Peaceful. Relaxing. Would that this evening could go on forever. Glass of Sledgehammer Zinfandel to round off the evening, a couple of books to read on the table beside me, the dog and two cats outside with us. Doesn’t get much better than this. Well maybe if we had opened a bottle of Cardinal Zin… which we both think is a better wine. But ……… click below for more ↓

But is it news?

Canadian Politics / Media Issues / Municipal Politics / Social Order & DisorderOne Comment

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Toronto Mayor Rob Ford seems to get more than his fair share of headlines these days, most of them negative. The stories that follow are full of allegation, innuendo and “unnamed sources.” Gripping tabloid stuff. Real time soap opera. But is it news? Most of these stories seem based on a simplistic media prejudgment of the man. Ford: bad. Stories that belittle, humiliate, denigrate and ultimately crucify Ford: good. And in this heated, increasingly toxic environment, allegations, gossip and rumour get given the same status as fact and build on themselves. Everything is sensationalized to such an extreme that it ……… click below for more ↓

Religion, Logic, and Tornadoes

Atheism & Spirituality / Religion / Social Order & Disorder / US PoliticsOne Comment

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What has a tornado in common with prayer in schools and US President Barack Obama? Rhonda Crosswhite. Yes, the Oklahoma teacher praised as a hero for saving several children when a massive tornado ripped through her town of Moore, earlier this week. And no doubt she was. But there were many other teachers who were heroes that day,  none of whom have become a rallying point for the religious right, as far as I can tell. Crosswhite was, from all accounts I’ve read, the only one to mention praying during the tornado. That comment made her a different sort of hero ……… click below for more ↓

Collingwood and our Comparators

Collingwood / Municipal Politics / Social Order & Disorder / Urban Design & GrowthLeave a comment

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The recent KPMG presentation to council, May 13, included some interesting data about where Collingwood sits in several areas among its peers. These included staffing, parks, recreational facilities, taxes, debt ratios and operating costs. These figures were taken from data reported annually to the province. KPMG selected six other Ontario municipalities as comparators: Owen Sound, Wasaga Beach, Midland, Bradford-West Gwillimbury, Orangeville and Port Hope. This represents a range of population from 16,214 (Port Hope) to 29,561 (Orangeville), and households from 6,750 (Port Hope) to 12,029 (Wasaga Beach). Data is current to 2011, but not 2012-13. Collingwood (population 19,241, households 10,695) sits ……… click below for more ↓

Little Dorrit: BBC Drama

Arts / Books & Reviews / Music & Reviews / Social Order & Disorder / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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We just finished watching the 14-part BBC series of Little Dorrit. As usual with most BBC series, it was superbly cast, acted, paced and filmed. Each episode was a mere 30 minutes, and almost every one of them ended in a cliffhanger fashion that made you want to watch just one more. You might not think of Charles Dickens that way, but much of what he wrote was for serial publication: in weekly or monthly magazines. To keep his audience hooked – and buying the magazines – he wrote cliffhangers. Not perhaps as gripping as, say, episodes of TV’s show ……… click below for more ↓

10,000 or 20,000 hours?

Arts / Books & Reviews / Critical Thinking / Social Order & Disorder / What I'm Reading Now2 Comments

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Malcolm Gladwell introduced the concept of the “10,000-hour rule” in his 2008 book, Outliers. As Wikipedia describes it, “…the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours.”* Gladwell does not specifically say that 10,000 hours of practice or apprenticeship will make you an expert. Like most things on the internet, it has been altered in the transmission; dumbed down for the simplistic misquotes we love to pair with pictures of kittens or puppies on Facebook. Rather what he said was that it will ……… click below for more ↓

Mastery: Self Help or Just Opinion?

Books & Reviews / Critical Thinking / Culture / Social Order & Disorder / What I'm Reading Now2 Comments

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Robert Greene’s new book has me somewhat flummoxed. It’s not at all like his previous books. The other books of his I have were all ‘meta’ books – books about what others thought on various subjects: power, leadership, war, seduction, politics.* Mastery combines biography with exhortations to raise one’s self up to the level of mastery. We are all potential geniuses. It strikes me as an overly-intellectualized self-help book. So far, anyway. I’m still only mid-book. But the little editorial conceit of capitalizing “Life’s Task” throughout the book already annoys me. That and it’s preachy, moralizing and somewhat condescending tone. ……… click below for more ↓

Understanding the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act

Canadian Politics / Collingwood / Municipal Politics / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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Another of the Acts that direct municipal governance is the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. While considerably shorter than the previously-discussed Municipal Act – eight pages, 15 sections and less than 3,500 words – it is of perhaps equal importance. While it may seem vague to outsiders, it was written to clearly identify the nature of a conflict in black and white. The Act allows no grey areas: there are no “perceived” conflicts in law, only clearly defined legal ones. This is obviously intended by the stringent wording that lays out what construes a conflict of interest. This clarity absolves everyone ……… click below for more ↓

Waterloo, 200 years later

Books & Reviews / Politics / Social Order & Disorder / War & Military / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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This June we will be a short two years from the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo*. It is expected to be a large event, especially since the 100th anniversary was not celebrated because it fell in the middle of WWI. That gives us enough time to reconsider the battle and to read the histories and reports about it. Wouldn’t it be grand to stand on the field that day, 200 years later? I have been reading about Napoleon’s campaigns and the events of his reign for many decades, since the early 1970s when I first read David Chandler’s ……… click below for more ↓

Rasputin: Two Perspectives

Books & Reviews / History & Biography / Politics / Social Order & Disorder / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Perhaps no character stands out in pre-Revolution Russia as much as that of Grigory Rasputin. He was influential, enigmatic, charismatic, secretive, held no office, yet had enormous influence on the events and people of the era. How could a barely literate peasant affect the destiny of an empire? In many ways, Rasputin was the icon of the changing times, in others he represents the end of the old era, the last gasp of the autocratic, superstitious Russia. Mythologies grew up about and around him during his life, and even more so in death. No matter how you view him, he ……… click below for more ↓

Plato, Music and Misquotes

Arts / Books & Reviews / Culture / Memes; Internet & Social / Quotes & Mis-quotes11 Comments

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I spent a pleasant morning, Saturday, browsing through the works of Plato, hunting for the source of a quotation I saw on Facebook, today.* I did several textual searches for words, phrases and quotes on sites that offer his collected works, along with other works by classical authors. Now I must admit that in my reading, I have not read everything Plato wrote. I’ve read several dialogues, and then mostly pieces from his works. Reading the entire Republic has, sadly, defeated me, but I have it available for another try when I retire. Despite my unfamiliarity with his full canon, ……… click below for more ↓

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