July 9, 2010
comment 1

Relief

This morning’s rain was a welcome relief, breaking a few days of intense heat. The rain felt good. The dogs seemed to respond too with more energy and appetite too. This evening Ellie Mae barked with joy as Tuffy P  served up her dinner.

I noticed some LBMs (little boring mushrooms) popped up this afternoon after the rain. I’m hoping that the rain will trigger some more chanterelles and maybe some lobster mushrooms and boletes too. Sunday morning I’ll be taking the dogs with me to check out a couple forests. My brother tells me lobsters should have started by now. Last year it was August before I found any, but then part of the problem may have been simply not seeing them. Once I got it through my thick skull that they are often buried almost completely in the leaf litter with only a bit of red-orange poking out, I started finding them regularly.

July 8, 2010
comments 2

Toronto Councillor Spending

There’s been a lot of noise lately around outgoing Councillor Kyle Rae throwing a going away party funded by his office budget to the tune of $12k. Blowhard Councillor Rob Ford introduced a motion in Council to make him pay it back, and Council Speaker Sandra Bussin ruled that the spending was OK.

If Mr. Rae had spent the money on some other kind of community event, I doubt anyone would have questioned it. The problem is the perception that he’s wasting scads of taxpayers money, thumbing his nose at you and me on his way out, funding an event marking his own departure.

On the other hand Rob Ford is famous for hardly spending a dime from his office budget, and there’s got to be something wrong there too. I don’t think most people expect our municipal politicians to spend no money. I think the expectation is that they a spend a reasonable amount of coin and spend it well and thoughtfully to enhance their communities.

On a functional council, this stuff should be self-policing and there really should rarely be cause for it to be newsworthy. Mr. Rae ought to know better. With a stronger and balanced Council, there wouldn’t be a need for characters like Ford to keep them in check.

I maintain my position that the more new blood on Council after the Toronto municipal elections in the fall, the better off we all are. Vote for your local underdog.

July 7, 2010
comments 8

Lake Charles

Every now and then, I’ll crank up the stereo in the car and listen to this song 20 times in a row. It may be perfect.

Lucinda Williams always reminds me of a pet peeve. What the hell is “alt country”? How could we have allowed that name to stick anyway? It bugs me almost as much as “Indy Rock”. Is that rock from Indiana or something?

July 5, 2010
comment 0

One Down

Giorgio Mammoliti withdrew from the Toronto mayoralty race today. It was not a surprise. He wasn’t going to be the next mayor, but along the way he got an opportunity to showcase a host of ideas. Good ones, bad ones, wacky ones – Mammoliti had no shortage of ideas, perhaps more than the rest of the candidates combined.

So where does that leave us. This early in the race (the election isn’t until fall), I’m not convinced that Mammoliti’s supposed 5% of the vote is going to make or break anyone. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a couple more withdrawals in the coming days as well. But where are the stand-out candidates? Is there anyone on the slate about whom you can say, that’s going to be our next mayor and these are going to be exciting times. We’ll see what happens in early September when the campaign begins in earnest, but for right now, I remain unconvinced.