Traffic Calming or Soul Killing?

The GTA is often ranked low in Canada on livability. Even when ranked somewhat high it is continually dragged down by one major factor of urban life – getting around. GTA residents suffer not only have the longest commute in Canada but their metropolitan area is also dead last among 19 major cities surveyed - worse than New York or Los Angeles.

They say it’s due to under funding of the transit infrastructure but I have another theory.

It’s policy. “The man’s” way of daily reminding us of his boot heel firmly entrenched on the back of our necks. I'll use my commute for an example, much improved over my former job but still hardly the 15 minute promised by google maps. Not that it couldn't be but “the man” can’t handle that. “The man” needs to assert his power.

I work shifts so I drive at off peak hours. Often on near deserted roads late at night so I know my drive could easily and safely be completed in 15 minutes. Instead, my drive consists of  28 minutes of stopping at a red light. Getting released from this red light just in time to watch the next light turn yellow then red. Over and Over. And Over and Over. Soul killing. Needless.

I could get home in 12 minutes if I was a rebel. If I was one of those carefree souls I sometimes see zooming along at 1.42 times the legally posted speed (thats what it takes to hit a steady stream of green lights). But instead I sit at an empty intersection and ask myself why does "the man" hate me so that he times the lights this way.

Sometimes I muse it's for the corporate interests that bought him his job - the needless wear and tear on the car, the brakes, the extra gas consumed by the constant acceleration - deceleration, sometimes I think it' just sadism. But in the end I just need to go no further than my car to know for a fact that the powers that be hate the little guy.

Spring into action

Spring is a busy time of year. Especially this year. The old truck is no longer fit for the road so we've been looking for a new to us one and we've finally found it. We'll be upgrading a whole decade, from a '95 Ranger to a '05 Ranger.

Next up is a new chainsaw. My chainsaw died. Seized up. Not worth fixing says the guy I the store. Cheaper to replace it but better to replace it with an upgrade for the kind of work I've got planned. So 'm looking into what I'm going to need.

The god news is we found a good deal on some bee hives and colonies so at least there has been some progress this spring. As soon as we get the new truck we'll get to work relocating the hives. That will be the start of an ambitious summer. Fenced garden, bunkie and cutting and drying wood for the house.

Rags and bones

I pity that man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth shall starve in the process.
– Benjamin Harrison

We live in a strange society. Most of us are pitied by Benjamin Harrison because this is exactly what we want when it comes to the things we need - the lowest price possible.

What really makes it crazy though is why we want ultra low prices on the basics - to increase our discretionary income so that we can do things like pay exorbitant prices to make movie stars and professional athletes extremely wealthy.

What is it that makes us miserly on the basics but so extravagant in luxury? The old joke is what do you call 10,000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

A good start.

I sometimes wonder if it isn’t time to change from lawyers to marketers? Awe heck, it’s a big ocean, I’m sure there would be room for both even if we had to stop dumping toxic waste in there :)

It’s a long one

I like to search out and read alternative news sites on the interweb from time to time and I’ve noticed that there is a credibility problem. Basically there are two viewpoints on the English interweb the mainstream media (MSM) and the alternative media (AM).

My problem with the official news is that it seems very one sided and agenda driven whenever I do take enough interest to dig deeper into a subject. Add in the influence of the corporations that buy the advertising and it makes it hard to take any of it seriously. Even meaningless celebrity scandals are apparently often just publicity ploys.

The problem with the alternative news sites is also myriad. They have a tendency to reference themselves as sources; quote people I’ve been told my whole life are crazy evil despots and too often an article trying to present an alternate viewpoint to some mainstream story might be found on the same page as a link to some ridiculous (and often anti-Semitic) conspiracy story. This makes it harder to give the alternate viewpoint story much truck no matter how plausible it seems.

I’m not going to count the almost omnipresent poor grammar because 1. a lot of MSM has bad English too and 2. the polish of a well written story could also imply a polished subject? And I’m not going to count the absence of credentials in the by-line because I’ve been to post-secondary school and I don’t suffer the illusion that a B.Com. grants integrity or honesty. Or even competency.

The MSM gets some credibility because they don’t seem to make much stuff up of make too many ludicrous claims. Their culpability is in their copious and selective omissions of fact that they justify with time and space constraints but that usually ensure the story follows the official line or at least doesn’t upset potential advertisers. Recently I’ve been bothered by how much new time is dedicated to the African protests and how little to the Wisconsin protests. As a Canadian I’m pretty confident that the events in Wisconsin will have more of an impact on my life than what happens in Libya.

Then I see a story about Raymond Davis and I come back to the AM. Specifically their tendency to quote evil despots like Fidel, Momar and Hugo in their ranting about CIA interference and assassination attempts and I’m left to wonder if they really are so crazy as I’ve been led to believe. Raymond Davis is a good case to look at. This is a U.S. diplomat arrested for murder in Pakistan who the U.S. secretary of State said should have diplomatic immunity but somehow this story is on CNN but can’t even make the front page of the World section. And now that the Pakistani government has refused to release him Mr. Davis has been downgraded to a CIA contractor.

The Raymond Davis story is easy to look up though as Pakistan has a good English language newspaper on-line that often presents a different view from the official Western media version. Sadly a lot of places and issues don’t have that voice. I guess there’s Al Jazeera but are they really any different than CNN?

So I guess that’s it. I’m left reading the good guy’s propaganda, the bad guy’s propaganda and sometimes the wing nuts in the peanut gallery to make up my own mind out of all the lies and half truths. Maybe that’s why my favourite on-line topic is the cut and dry NFL?

C’mon just split the billions and go back to wearing man-sized pads already!