Book collecting: snobbery or reading passion?

Books & Reviews / Culture / Daily life / Learning & Education / Literature / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / Social Order & Disorder / Writing & FictionLeave a comment

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The book has always been a sign of status and refinement; a declaration of self-worth – even for those who hate to read. That’s the lead into a recent piece on Aeon Magazine about book collecting and collectors. It’s also about reading and the snobbery of readers. Fascinating piece. For me, anyway. Pretty much everything about books and reading fascinates me, from the art to the industry to the neuroscience. I am and always have been a book buyer, proudly taking my place among those “Bookish Fools” referenced in the article’s title. But perhaps from a different part of the ……… click below for more ↓

Shoulda, coulda, woulda

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

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Two and a half years of calamitous mismanagement. Council motivated by wild conspiracy theories, maliciousness and personal vendettas. A rudderless, ruthless administration flailing and fumbling its way from one catastrophe to another. The town’s reputation ruined. Our municipal partners and neighbours alienated. Secret discussions determine the fate of our assets while the public is excluded from the process. Taxes and costs rising and sole-sourced contracts handed out like party favours. Ethics tossed out the window and the municipal air redolent with the stench of entitlement. And the term is barely half-way through. What a disaster. Any commentary or discussion on ……… click below for more ↓

WiFi hysteria again

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & QuackeryLeave a comment

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Every so often, old crackpot ideas, hoaxes, cons and plainly silly pseudoscience resurface online under the guise of Trump-like alternate fact. Scary stories about chemicals in your food, fake health tips, and Facebook-stealing-your-photos nonsense compete for attention with actual news and factual stories. The old bromide about wireless signals (WiFi) killing things is just one to come back to life this week on Facebook. (You already know Facebook isn’t a reliable source of anything factual, even though factual content does get shared now and then. More common are the wingnut conspiracies, hoaxes and codswallop, along with cute kitten videos. Facebook ……… click below for more ↓

Why is this man still working for Collingwood? – part 2

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

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Almost a year ago, I posed the question: why is the interim CAO still working for Collingwood? After his behaviour and aggressive, disrespectful grilling of the hospital board chair and foundation head, March 27, 2017, that question has even more significance. And, you might ask, why hasn’t council dealt with it? After all, his behaviour reflects on them – and poorly. The interim CAO’s relationship with the mayor is at best strained, at worst abrasive and unproductive. In a recent email she accused him of bullying and suggested he resign. Councillor Lloyd has made similar comments and recently blocked his ……… click below for more ↓

The hospital, the trolley and political ethics

Books & Reviews / Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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In its decision about the redevelopment of the Collingwood General & Marine Hospital, Collingwood Council is evidently taking the track less travelled, trolleyology-wise. Seen as an ethical issue, our council has chosen to act against the greater good. Trolleyology is the somewhat humourous name given to philosophical intellectual exercises or thought problems about our ethics and ethical choices. As Wikipedia describes it, the basic problem (and there are many, many variants) is simple: There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is ……… click below for more ↓

Council continues to attack the hospital

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital6 Comments

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If I had the choice between spending eight hours in a dentist’s chair having oral surgery without anaesthetic and spending two hours in a council meeting listening to the bureaucratic bullshit, the administration’s unfocused mumbling and meandering, the councillors’ self-justifying, self-aggrandizing, self-righteous grandstanding, boasting, empty platitudes, and argumentative whining palaver, after last night, I’ll choose the dentist’s chair any time. It’s less painful. That’s because Monday night I spent two hours in an audience of more than 325 people listening to council trying to justify its war on our hospital, simply to support The Block’s shrunken base of supporters, all ……… click below for more ↓

Antarctica’s icy hoaxes return

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / New Age Codswallop / Pseudoscience & QuackeryLeave a comment

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Under the thick ice of Antarctica lies buried the remains of an advanced civilization, dating back 55,000-65,000 years. So startling was this discovery that world leaders were flown in to the perennially frozen continent to witness for themselves the proof of alien presence on our planet. Or not. Well, really not. Not at all. You don’t really believe that claptrap about Antarctica, do you? I tried to warn you about this malarky in 2013. It’s a hoax that just won’t die. Or rather a series of hoaxes. No, there’s no buried civilization on the southern continent. Humans can barely survive ……… click below for more ↓

The last walk

Daily life / Personal Reminiscences / Pets / Social Order & Disorder2 Comments

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“You have to go to the pound. They have a Sheltie there.” Susan called me from work, her voice urgent. One of her clients had told her a Sheltie – Shetland Sheepdog – had been picked up by Animal Control and was in the pound, on Stewart Road about to come up for adoption. She added, “I already have a name for her.” This was in the late spring of 2008. It had been a couple of years since we had a dog and she knew I missed having one. We had had some great dogs in the past, including ……… click below for more ↓

Dividends for dummies

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Utilities: electricity and water9 Comments

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A dividend, as defined by the Business Dictionary, is “A share of the after-tax profit of a company, distributed to its shareholders…” This is reiterated in the description from the Oxford Dictionary: “A sum of money paid regularly (typically annually) by a company to its shareholders out of its profits (or reserves).” So in order to pay a dividend, you need to make a profit. Otherwise, all your revenue goes to operating expenses, salaries and taxes. And a dividend isn’t paid to just one person or shareholder: if one shareholder gets one, then every shareholder gets one. Dividends are NOT ……… click below for more ↓

Volte-face on water

Collingwood / Council / Utilities: electricity and water4 Comments

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On Tuesday, Simcoe County Council voted to “… begin negotiations with the 16 municipalities regarding a “future role” for the upper tier in water and wastewater operations – a municipal domain.” The county wants to bring water and wastewater under its wing to standardize services and improve operating efficiencies much the same way it has done with housing and emergency services. Our deputy mayor voted in favour. The only story so far on this appears in the New Tecumseth Free Press.* Not a bad idea to explore, for public discussion and input, weigh the pros and cons. But the problem ……… click below for more ↓

The Blame Game

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Planning & Policies / Publicity & Communications / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

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Remember The Name Game – that song from the Sixties that had those crazy lyrics: Shirley! Shirley, Shirley/ Bo-ber-ley, bo-na-na fanna/ Fo-fer-ley. fee fi mo-mer-ley, Shirley! Not the most intellectual lyrics of the era, I admit, but not forgotten and clearly suitable for local tastes. In Collingwood town hall, for example, they even sing their own version, The Blame Game: Bloggers! Bloggers! Bloggers! Bo-ba-loggers, bo-na-na fanna Fo-fer-loggers fee fi mo-mer-loggers, Bloggers! And so on. It’s part of the “not my fault” mindset that infuses The Block and the administration this term: blame everyone else for the mess you made yourself. ……… click below for more ↓

Which do we need more?

Collingwood / Council / Critical Thinking / HospitalOne Comment

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Think about all the many and varied kinds of equipment a hospital relies on to provide modern, efficient patient care today. It’s the sort of equipment we want – we NEED – our own hospital to have to provide us and our visitors with the best treatment possible, so none of us have to leave the region to get that care. Try to imagine all the types of lifesaving and diagnosis equipment that we should have – not only new items, but replacement devices for when machines need service or repair. You can search online for information about hospital inventories ……… click below for more ↓

The OPP investigation after 48 months

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Municipal Politics2 Comments

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Forty-eight months ago a very small group of disgruntled, angry residents – some with burning ambition to take a seat on council themselves – complained to the OPP, allegedly about decisions made by the previous council. Decisions and people this group didn’t like. Decisions they thought – without any proof – were shady. People they thought – again without any proof – were corrupt. Both conspiracy theories have long since been proved wrong. But they damaged reputations and lives, while others used the fallout to further their own dark goals. All done without the slightest twinge of guilt.  From summer 2013 through the election, ……… click below for more ↓

GIS for CGMH

Collingwood / Council / Development & Growth / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital / Planning & PoliciesLeave a comment

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I wanted to give you a graphic comparison for your consideration. It’s one you can do for yourself with very little effort – so little in fact, that even The Block could do it. If, that is, they had any interest in doing something that might challenge their rigid ideology. Or take their attention away from their witch hunts for even a nanosecond. But you, dear reader, are smarter than they are, and I can sense you are already intrigued. So let’s get started. Open your web browser and go over to Simcoe County’s map site at maps.simcoe.ca/public and zoom ……… click below for more ↓

Council in panic mode

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Hospital3 Comments

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Collingwood Council has graduated from inept bumbling and stumbling to fully-fledged, sky-is-falling, Henny Penny panic mode, it seems. A special meeting has been called to try and do damage control over the Monday night fiasco about the hospital. The Block divided the community, alienated their supporters, and fostered division and acrimony. No bandage will heal those self-inflicted wounds. So they panic. The meeting was called today for tomorrow, Saturday, March 4. It is another in-camera meeting – this council LOVES to go behind closed doors to discuss everything and avoid public scrutiny. The agenda says: 4. IN-CAMERA THAT this Council ……… click below for more ↓

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