April 2, 2010
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Update

We’ve had our first afternoon and evening with Miss Ellie Mae in the house. She’s been living the life of a farm dog and she came to us in need of a thorough bath. For today, I washed her with soaked towels and brushed her out as best I could. Tomorrow, she visits the vets in the morning and goes to a groomer in the afternoon, where she’ll get well-shampooed and brushed. She’s shedding her winter coat, so she’ll need lots of regular brushing for a while. We decided to give her a head start with one appointment with a professional groomer.

I think Ellie Mae and Memphis will get on fine. Ellie is for sure to be the dominant one. Our challenge will be to assert ourselves as the leaders of our crazy little pack. We had her out to our local dog park today. She walks pretty well on the leash – better than I expected. We have a leash made for two big dogs and I had no trouble walking the two of them myself. As well, we didn’t have any trouble with her off leash. She got on well with the other dogs. On the other hand, she didn’t come with knowledge of the basic commands that Memphis has mastered. Hopefully we’ll be able to teach this old dog some new tricks.

Ellie has discovered the cats. They aren’t afraid of dogs at all because they’ve been living at peace with Memphis since she was a pup. Ellie has this idea that cats are meant to be chased though, and that is going to make for some interesting times until detente is declared. I suspect that will be when one of the cats shows Ellie how much his razor sharp little claws can really hurt.

March 31, 2010
comments 5

Who says…

Who says Mister Anchovy doesn’t like music from the 80s? Wrong I say, wrong….

Here’s Scrubby and the Dynatones from Buffalo NY playing the Don’t Fight Girls Polka

And here’s The Helen Polka

Finally, let’s listen to the Dynatones year later, in 2007, playing Johnny’s Troubles

March 30, 2010
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Lawsuit over St. Clair?

I heard a lawyer on the radio the other day talking about trying to get a class action lawsuit certified, seeking $100 Million in damages from the City of Toronto as compensation for losses suffered by St. Clair Ave. businesses as a result of the never-ending St. Clair transit right-of-way project. The lawyer, when asked how many businesses were forced to close as a direct result of the St. Clair streetcar right-of-way project, said it was difficult to know exactly, but estimated the number as being around 200. If true, that is staggering, much worse than I thought.

For those who don’t know the history, the City came up with a two year project to run a transit right-of-way down the middle of St. Clair Ave. Unfortunately, the project has been ongoing for five years now and St. Clair has been the kind of mess nobody has wanted to around.

A Toronto Star article characterizes the suit as being about blockbusting:
In building the controversial St. Clair Ave. W. right-of-way, Toronto was secretly following a policy of “blockbusting,” or gentrification, that would harm existing businesses, claims a $100 million lawsuit against the City of Toronto.

Documents filed Thursday in Superior Court allege the city was “secretly expecting’’ that the new line, and the financial harm done to the neighbourhood while it was built, would lead to “stronger’’ businesses taking over the section of the street stretching from Bathurst St. to Old Weston Rd.

Now that is a very interesting and compelling argument. Could it be our City politicians have hatched a secret plan of this magnitude? Naw. I think it was just a really poorly considered project.

March 28, 2010
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Greenwashing

Check out this post over at Garden Rant about the successful campaign to have TruGreen (formerly Chemlawn) dropped as a sponsor of Earth Day.

I guess today even chemical companies want to be branded green, even if they aren’t. Green marketing is blossoming. It isn’t always so clear to me what makes a green product green, though.

We sometimes buy a so-called green dish-soap. I have to confess I’ve never taken a close look at the label. I’ll do that right now….

OK, the stuff is called natureclean. It says it’s 95% natural Lavender and Tea Tree dishwashing liquid (I like the smell). There’s a Canadian flag on the front and a picture of a child. Let’s look at the back. It says it’s alcohol ethoxylate free (whatever that is) and it’s biodegradable. In fact it says that all surfactants are readily biodegradable as per OECD test #310D. Well, that sounds pretty official, doesn’t it? And, it’s not tested on animals. Is it a good product? Who knows?  Maybe it is.

With enough green marketing, soon enough, everything will be green.

By the way, the term greenwashing was coined by NY environmentalist Jay Westerveld back in the 80s. The context was the practice in the hotel industry putting green cards in rooms promoting the reuse of towels to help the environment. Turns out it increased profits too by reducing the laundry bill.

March 27, 2010
comments 9

Meet Ellie-Mae

Ellie-Mae came to visit Memphis this morning. As we had hoped, it was a very relaxed visit. Ellie-Mae is going to come live with us here at Anchovy World Headquarters on Friday. She’s a mature black Newfoundland with a white star on her chest. Ellie-Mae is quite a bit heavier than Memphis even though they are around the same height. Looking at Ellie-Mae, you can get an idea of how Memphis will look when she stops growing.