Yellow Journalism

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

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Here’s an interesting approach to developing good relations with your print media advertisers: take their money, publish their full-colour advertisement, then challenge their content, their integrity and their claims in a story that doesn’t present all the facts. Then wonder why your other advertisers may be nervous about this tactic… and wonder why print media is in trouble. That’s just what the Collingwood Connection did recently. They accepted and ran an ad last week from Collus/Powerstream – an innocuous, non-political, full-colour ad that modestly promoted the utility and its partnership with the town – then challenged it in an piece this week (the original, online piece ……… click below for more ↓

Dear Amazon…

Books & Reviews / Humour & Satire / Personal ReminiscencesOne Comment

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Dear Amazon: Hello, it’s me, Ian. Yes, that’s right, the crazy guy who orders all those books. Yeah, the history books, the science books, the philosophy books, the ones on leadership and politics… you know, the guy who spends at least $100 a month buying books from you. Plus don’t forget the pasta maker, the PC games, the laptop battery, the kitchenware, the ukulele tuners, the gaming mice, drawing tablet, Kindle and other stuff, I’ve bought from you… 26 orders from you in the last six months alone. Yeah, that Ian. Well, I’m at it again. I just can’t get enough. ……… click below for more ↓

The 50% Solution

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

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Imagine you want to go out for dinner with a friend. Get some wings and beer. You like mild dry rub wings, and a nice, crisp lager. Your friend likes sticky and spicy, with a dark stout. The restaurant will bring out the food and drinks split according to your wishes. And your bill. That means whoever pays for the meal gets to decide what you both get on the table. You can’t afford to pay for the whole meal yourself, and you don’t want your friend to pay for it because you don’t want to share a basket of hot ……… click below for more ↓

The gems of Salomé

Books & Reviews / Language & Grammar / Personal Reminiscences / Poetry & LyricsLeave a comment

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I was perhaps 11 or 12 when I first encountered Oscar Wilde’s play, Salomé. Some of it, at least. At the time, I knew nothing of Wilde, his writing, or even much about theatre in general. After all, I was in grade seven or eight. It would be a few years before I encountered (and developed a passion for) Shakespeare and other playwrights. But Wilde I actually discovered first. Faced with the dramatic challenges of their own – my mother was either still in hospital or had only recently been released and was struggling with the paralyzing results of her stroke – my parents ……… click below for more ↓

The Leadership Crisis

Books & Reviews / Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Municipal Politics / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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In his latest book, The Leadership Crisis, Gord Hume defines seven characteristics – the Seven Cs – of great political leadership*. See how many you can recognize as attributes within our own council: Competencies, including people, organizational, business and strategic. Character, and its traits, values and virtues; integrity. Commitment, including aspiration, engagement, perseverance and sacrifice. Charisma, that unquantifiable attribute that political leaders either have or don’t. Communication, through effective messaging that inspires, informs and influences. Context, an understanding of what’s going on around them. Culture, and how to develop, create, change and advance that culture I think you can see ……… click below for more ↓

The Purple Thread

Critical Thinking / Philosophy / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Roman men wore togas for formal occasions. The basic toga – toga alba or toga pura – was a simple garment of plain white wool. It was undyed and unadorned. White was the colour required by Roman sumptuary law for citizens’ togas. This basic toga was also the garment draped on a boy when he went through his ceremony to manhood – called the toga virilis during that ceremony. A dark brown or grey toga pulla or toga sordida was reserved for periods of mourning. A fancier, bleached toga was worn by candidates for political office – the toga candida. ……… click below for more ↓

The Myth of Persecution

Books & Reviews / Christianity / Critical Thinking / Faith / Religious intolerance / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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I just finished reading The Myth of Persecution by theology professor Candida Moss (Harper One, New York, 2013). I picked it up because of my general interest in theology, but also my more specific interest in early church history. I didn’t realize when I started to read it that this book was at the centre of a huge kerfuffle in the Christian community over its message and its accuracy. In short, Ms. Moss argues that while the early Christians in the first four centuries were often the victims of violence, and even some persecution, they were not the targets of ……… click below for more ↓

The CAO’s expenses

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / User fees and costsOne Comment

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Earlier this year, I filed a Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request to see the expense records of Collingwood’s Interim CAO for 2015 and 2016 to the end of March. You can read these records by clicking on the links above. Let me start by saying a few things: first, the interim CAO is paid $225,000 a year – roughly $50,000-$75,000 more than his peers in similar and local municipalities – PLUS, as I understand it, he gets a car allowance paid by taxpayers. This council has twice extended his contract, after secretive backroom discussion among themselves. Second, the town ……… click below for more ↓

Stoic or Epicurean?

Books & Reviews / Classics / Ethics & morality / Logic and reason / Philosophy / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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I’ve been listening to the History of Rome podcasts of late and was pondering on some of the comments about the emperor Marcus Aurelius. He was, before listening, one of my top three choices for best ruler of the empire. What better role model than the philosopher-king? Now, I’m not so sure that he managed both the empire and his own position as well as I had assumed. But that’s neither here nor there. What caught my attention was the narrator’s comments on the philosophical life of his times. Marcus Aurelius was, of course, the unwitting author of the now-famous, inspirational work Meditations, ……… click below for more ↓

Marketing Wow

Advertising / Culture / MarketingLeave a comment

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Advertising and marketing, design and public relations, influence and persuasion – they all fascinate me. I love to listen to Terry O’Reilly’s show on CBC (both Age of Persuasion and Under the Influence). I’m actually reading one of his books, The Age of Persuasion, right now. I’m also reading a book on the science of shopping: Paco Underhill’s Why We Buy. I like to read about the effect, styles, creators, the history, sociology, the science and craft behind them and their craft. I consume books on advertising design that illustrate the power of art, photography and word that can engage ……… click below for more ↓

Two conferences and a show

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour / Municipal Politics / Personal Reminiscences / Planning & Policies / Provincial Politics / WaterOne Comment

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I had the honour and the enjoyment of attending two municipal conferences last week. While no longer directly involved in politics, I am able to keep my finger in some of the political pies through my current work for an NGO. Plus, I like to remain informed and up-to-date about politics and governance, and am always looking for opportunities to increase my knowledge and understanding of pretty much any topic. The first event was the Ontario Water Conference, in Windsor. While predominantly a technical and operations event for facility managers and operators, it also has a good political component where utility board ……… click below for more ↓

Banning Phosphorus

Collingwood / Planning & Policies / Water3 Comments

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In 2014, Toledo experienced a water crisis that caused the city to issue a “do not use” warning for more than 500,000 residents. They had to rely on bottled water; boiling wasn’t safe because it further released toxins into the water. That crisis was caused by unsafe levels of the toxin Microcystin in the city’s treated water. The toxin came from the unprecedented algal bloom in Lake Erie; a huge swath of the west end of the lake blossomed with the algae. The algae were growing rapidly because of the increasingly high nutrient load in lakes and streams. In particular: ……… click below for more ↓

The stench of entitlement

Collingwood / Council / Ethics and behaviour3 Comments

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You’d think politicians would learn from the recent investigations into Senate spending and the Mike Duffy trial, that Canadians have no tolerance for the gimme, gimme, gimme of politicians. Canadians don’t like the smell of a sense of entitlement. A lesson lost, it seems, on our own Collingwood Council. The stench of entitlement is strong at the table these days. And much it emanates from Councillor “Senator” Jeffrey. Last year, Jeffrey cut the cheese when she decided to pursue personal political ambitions by getting onto the board of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Since the FCM board meets all over Canada – ……… click below for more ↓

Not quite seven signs of the apocalypse

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

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A 2014 story on Salon, titled 7 things Americans think are more plausible than man-made global warming made its way around Facebook again, recently. It lists seven statistics about things Americans believe in more than they believe that human activity has caused climate change. It got a lot of shares and likes. Climate change is, of course, fact, and as Peter Schickele once said, “Fact is fact. You can’t argue with fact…” If you accept those facts, it seems a scary read: seven signs of the apocalypse… But before you start calling for a wall across our border to keep the crazies from migrating north, ……… click below for more ↓

O tempora, o mores!

Classics / Culture / Literature / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum. Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote those words in the short book about a Roman court case, Pro Lucio Murena (For Lucius Murena). They mean, in English, Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.” * In 63 BCE, Cicero successfully defended Lucius Licinius Murena on the charge of bribery or in Latin, crimina ambitus as a means to garner votes. The wealthy Murena had won his election as consul and the charge was filed by the losing candidate, Servius ……… click below for more ↓

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