An Indoor Year-Round Rec Facility for Seniors and More

Collingwood / Municipal Politics / Social Order & DisorderOne Comment

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Monday night, I asked for a staff report on covering our lawn bowling rinks, and making it into a year-round facility for Collingwood. This facility would provide recreational opportunities for seniors and older adults. It could include other sports like horseshoes, shuffleboard and croquet. Perhaps badminton and a walking area (since we will lose our mall and its opportunities for indoor walking). The pitch would use an artificial turf developed for the sport. I believe this was developed in Australia, where, as I understand it, indoor lawn bowling on artificial turf was pioneered. Wherever it was developed, it has spread ……… click below for more ↓

Reflecting on our successes this term

Collingwood / Municipal Politics / Personal Reminiscences / Provincial PoliticsOne Comment

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With just over a year left to go in this term, I’d like to take a few minutes to consider all the accomplishments of this council over the past three years. They are not inconsiderable, and worth celebrating, I think you’ll agree. Most recent are the two new state-of-the-art recreational facilities; jewels in our community. Centennial Pool Aquatic Centre is now open, to the public’s delight and great excitement. If you haven’t seen it, stop by and look inside. Everyone who does is impressed. It certainly exceeded expectations. Bring your bathing suit and come for a swim. It proved to ……… click below for more ↓

Three Archy poems by Don Marquis

Arts / Books & Reviews / Humour & Satire / My Writing / What I'm Reading Now2 Comments

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pete the parrot and shakespeare i got acquainted with a parrot named pete recently who is an interesting bird pete says he used to belong to the fellow that ran the mermaid tavern in london then i said you must have known shakespeare know him said pete poor mutt i knew him well he called me pete and i called him bill but why do you say poor mutt well said pete bill was a disappointed man and was always boring his friends about what he might have been and done if he only had a fair break two or ……… click below for more ↓

What is a councillor’s role?

Collingwood / Municipal Politics / Provincial Politics / Social Order & Disorder2 Comments

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A question was asked of me recently about the appropriateness of the Deputy Mayor being at a meeting last summer to discuss the possible purchase of the new recreational facility structures. From the question I inferred that the asker did not approve of a politician being there. I disagree, and made my point that it was appropriate. It was hardly a secret meeting – it included numerous staff, plus the acting CAO. And the DM was invited to attend by staff, not the other way around. First,  the DM is both chair of the budget process and council’s liaison with the ……… click below for more ↓

What’s it all about, Alfie?

Atheism & Spirituality / Canadian Politics / Critical Thinking / Faith / UncategorizedOne Comment

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“What’s it all about, Alfie?” sings Cilla Black in the title song for the eponymous 1966 movie. But it could be the anthem for the human race, or at least those with a philosophical bent. “What’s it all about?” is certainly a question that springs to my mind daily as I listen to the news, read a paper or surf the internet.* What “it” is all about was raised this week when the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal granted that atheism is a “creed” that deserves the same protections in law and public policy as any faith, equal under the Human ……… click below for more ↓

Archy and Mehitabel

Books & Reviews / Humour & Satire / Language & Grammar / Personal Reminiscences / What I'm Reading Now3 Comments

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I can’t recall exactly how old I was when I first cracked open Don Marquis’s book, archy and mehitabel, sitting there among the other books in the basement, black spined, stiff, yellowing pages.  That old book smell. Perhaps I was 11 or 12, but not much older, because we moved from that house in the summer after my 12th birthday. But I still remember it well.* The book was one of those oddities on our basement family bookshelf. I ignored it, at first, then looked at the pictures – cartoons by George Herriman, the creator of Krazy Kat . Long ……… click below for more ↓

Why Quebec’s Proposed Headgear Law is Wrong

Balderdash & Hoaxes / Critical Thinking / Provincial Politics / Social Order & Disorder3 Comments

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The Province of Quebec is proposing to ban the wearing of any and all religious headgear (including hijabs, turbans and yarmulkes, as well as other religious symbols) from public facilities and public service – affecting teachers, hospital workers, daycare workers, nurses, civil servants and (we assume) politicians. The law would also cover “ostentatious” crucifixes, which has led to darkly humorous speculation about police stopping people to measure the size of their crucifix. What about a tattoo of a giant “Om” on someone’s back? Would the owner have to remove it? Cover it up? What about priests’ collars or nuns’ habits, ……… click below for more ↓

Creating an Age-Friendly Community

Collingwood / Municipal Politics / Provincial Politics / Social Order & DisorderOne Comment

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The most interesting and inspiring seminar I attended during the recent AMO (Association of Municipalities of Ontario) convention was “Synergies for Senior Friendly Communities.” It was about creating “age-friendly communities,” not simply for seniors, but heavily tilted in their direction.* Speakers included Mario Sergio, Minister responsible for seniors (Ontario Seniors’ Secretariat); Mayor Debbie Amaroso, of Sault Ste. Marie, Mayor Jim Watson, of Ottawa; and Dr. John Lewis, associate professor of planning for the University of Waterloo. I also benefitted by sitting beside Mayor Rick Hamilton, of Elliot Lake, who gave me commentary from his town’s perspective on many of the ……… click below for more ↓

Christmas Creep in August

Atheism & Spirituality / Canadian Politics / Critical Thinking / Humour & Satire / Social Order & DisorderOne Comment

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On August 22, we got the Sears “Christmas Wish” catalogue delivered to our home. It was a sunny, hot day that almost reached 30C. The sprinkler was watering the garden while we enjoyed a cold beer on the porch, sitting in shorts and T-shirts. The last thing I wanted on my mind was winter. But there it was, two pounds of wildly-inappropriate seasonal shopping choices, refusing to be ignored. As welcome as a fart in a crowded elevator. It seems every year “Christmas Creep” advances down the calendar, earlier and earlier. Last year I heard Xmas music in stores on ……… click below for more ↓

I’m Baaaaack….

Blog & Blogging / Personal Reminiscences2 Comments

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After a few days waiting while the site transferred, I’m back, live and active. Boy do I have a lot to say that I’ve been holding in while the admin stuff was churning away… but I won’t say it all now… 😉 If you encounter an “internal server error” while reading my posts, refresh the page please – the port seems to have been imperfect and needs some tech tweaking to figure out why that’s happening. Sorry about that… I got an interesting call this week from Hostpapa’s CEO, Jamie Opalchuck, after I posted my piece about moving from Hostpapa ……… click below for more ↓

The Thousand and One Nights

Arts / Books & Reviews / Culture / Language & Grammar / What I'm Reading Now2 Comments

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I had no idea it was this sexy. The Thousand Nights and One Nights, aka The Arabian Nights, aka The Thousand and One Nights – it’s really wonderful, steamy stuff. Every tale is a cliffhanger and you keep wanting to read just one more to see how it turns out. Of course, that was the point of the collection.* The backstory is rather complicated, but to simplify it: the Sultan beds a virgin one night, then kills her the next day. When  Scheherazade’s turn comes, she asks for her sister to be able to say good bye. Then she begins to ……… click below for more ↓

WP theme experiments ongoing

Blog & Blogging / Internet & Social MediaOne Comment

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With the latest update to WordPress (3.6) comes a new theme, Twenty Thirteen. I’ve activated it with the upgrade, and I like it so far, but I’m not 100% satisfied. I preferred the dimensions of the header image on the Twenty Eleven and Twenty Twelve themes. Proportionately they were more humanistic. The new header is 1600 x 230, which is rather thin and proportionately difficult. Using it means redoing a lot of photos and trying to find a slice that works as well as with the older themes, if I want my own headers. The abstract headers are the default ……… click below for more ↓

Hell 2.3

Atheism & Spirituality / Books & Reviews / Faith / Literary pretensions / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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Before I carry on with my exploration of Miriam Van Scott’s Encyclopedia of Hell, I wanted to note that I just got my copy of her other book – the Encyclopedia of Heaven, from Abebooks. It’s dated 1999, so it’s a year later than her book on Hell. Yet it has many related topics – like Goethe’s second Faust. And it has lots of pop culture – like movie references – but nothing post 1999. Miriam, why not consider a revised, updated “Encyclopedia of the Afterlife” to combine everything in one book? Lots has happened since the last editions. I’d ……… click below for more ↓

The Terrier Trials

Personal Reminiscences / Pets & Animal Behaviour3 Comments

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Dogs. I love dogs. I’d have a dozen of them, if I could. But dogs are as different in personality as we are. Not all dogs are a good fit with other dogs, or even with people. Or with cats. And I love cats as much, if not more, than dogs. Still, I tend to have more issues with dog owners than with their dogs.* That little mutt curled up on my leg is Bella, our newest rescue dog. She’s a 2-year-old Jack Russell-Chihuahua mix, which apparently is a recognized mix according to this dog breed site. Given the range of ……… click below for more ↓

Hell 2.2

Atheism & Spirituality / Books & Reviews / Critical Thinking / Culture / Faith / Literary pretensions / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Might be time to recap my reasons for writing this series. New readers could get confused about the content in the Hell posts, of which this is the fourth. They’re all the result of a convergence of several recent themes and activities in my life; a lot of which have to do with recent reading and research. I started reading several books, more or less simultaneously this summer, some of which I’ve blogged about. One of them is Dante’s Inferno (I’m currently reading Mark Musa’s translation in the Penguin edition, but also have Pinsky’s and a few others). Another is ……… click below for more ↓

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