Rob Ford! That’s who!

TORONTO - Mayor Rob Ford came out swinging at left-leaning councillors Tuesday.

“These people are all two steps left of Joe Stalin,” Ford told AM 640 host John Oakley in a radio interview.

Ford specifically referred to Councillors Adam Vaughan, Gord Perks, Janet Davis, Paula Fletcher and Josh Matlow when making the comment.

The good Mayor should research what Josef Stalin did during his reign and honestly assess whether these Councillors are comparable.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

… anti bullying legislation has brought out of the woodwork some prime examples of how narrow-minded self-interest can trump common sense and compassion.

Essenatially, the proposed legislation puts into place mechanisms that will mandate schools to act aggressively against those who bully. It also lays out some ground rules for those Boards who have students who wish to set up a club or organisation that supports alternative lifestyles. For the record, this is what the Bill – The Accepting Schools Act says to this:

   303.1  Every board shall support pupils who want to establish and lead,

  (a)  activities or organizations that promote gender equity;

  (b)  activities or organizations that promote anti-racism;

   (c)  activities or organizations that promote the awareness and understanding of, and respect for, people with disabilities; or

  (d)  activities or organizations that promote the awareness and understanding of, and respect for, people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, including organizations with the name gay-straight alliance or another name.

And that last clause is what has certain (though not all) religious folks all in a slather.

The religious leaders say that agenda is driven by gay activists (snicker suppressed). Yup. The gays are behind everything evil, I guess.

“When you are forcing teachers, Christian teachers, Jewish teachers, Muslim teachers, to teach things that are contrary to the values that they hold, to teach that there are six genders and that you are not attached to the gender of your anatomy, do you not find that that may be an offence to a lot of Ontarians?” asked McVety.

Rabbi Mendel Kaplan of Chabad Flamingo Synagogue in Toronto said he also believes that parts of the anti-bullying bill aimed at making schools inclusive and tolerant of gay lifestyles are offensive to many families.

“This legislation proposes that children be indoctrinated to reject their parents’ faith and their parents’ family values, and that’s an affront,” said Kaplan.

“What nobody here in good conscience can support is a law that calls on people of faith to abandon the beliefs that we consider sacred, all in the name of political correctness.”

Other religious activists say there will be a mass exodus of kids from public and separate schools if the anti-bullying bill with its sexual accommodation provisions is not amended.

But there is nothing in the text whatsoever about Boards and schools being “forced” to set up these groups which scare them so… only that they shall not get in the way of a student or students who do want to set up and lead such an organisation. This will prevent backwards Boards like the Halton Catholic Board from banning such groups in the name that such groups run counter to their philosophies. There are some vague words in the Bill like requiring boards to develop and implement an equity and inclusive education policy, but I don’t see how this can be twisted to mean that all Boards will be required to teach about alternative lifestyles.

Of course, these so-called “religious leaders” will jump at any opportunity to frame progressive legislation as anti-tradition, anti-family and anti-freedom. What is really a set of strict rules intended to deter bullying targeted at any individual regardless of the motivation for the act is twisted into an “example” of how the government is infringing upon the religious rights of certain groups. Clearly, there is no such thing happening in this instance.

And yes, Charles McVetty, of the Institute for “Canadian Values” is the same guy who led a “successful” campaign against the reworking of Ontario’s sex-ed curriculum (successful is in quotes because I wonder how a positive slant can be given to a result that will inevitably result in more teen pregnancies, STDs, etc.).

Look – I guess the bottom line is that if you want to bury your head in the sand and seek education programs that reflect your values – that’s your business. And if you want to somehow twist this much-needed anti-bullying Bill to support your narrow-minded beliefs, well that’s your business too.

But it is my business when I, as a taxpayer of Ontario, have to indirectly support these values that I do not at all support. There are private faith-based schools out there who are waiting with open arms for people like you! Go for it! Please! Let the mass exodus of kids from public and separate schools begin!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

… snowy December day edition…

Good article in the Citizen{yes, I used good and Citizen in the same phrase} yesterday about the ridiculousness of our quad education system in Ontario.

The issue of the wastefulness of our quadruplicated system of education seems to pop its head above the water twice a year or so. An article is written, get’s picked up on Twitter, arguments are made for and against the current system, then it fades back into the background.

But with the news that the provincial deficit is poised to be ONE BILLION smackeroos higher than anticipated due to slow economic growth, I think that the time is ripe to take a serious and sober look at our current model of 4 systems.

Education and health are the two giants in the provincial budget, consuming a large majority of all spending. This year, roughly $20 billion flowed from Queen’s Park to the province’s school boards.

That money was divided among 72 school boards. They don’t duplicate services. They quadruplicate them. Everywhere you go, from Windsor to Wawa, four separate education administrations oversee four separate school systems.

$20 billion. Surely hundreds of millions could be saved by amalgamating the public and separate Boards. There would be millions saved in bussing alone, one would think. Overcrowding issues might not go away, but there would be more flexibility because there would be more schools run by one Board!  I can see a case for a French language public Board, where numbers warrant it. But faith-based education is costly and discriminatory.

Publicly-funded sectarian school systems were terminated in Manitoba in 1890, Newfoundland in 1997 and Quebec in 1998. Why not Ontario? The Ontario Legislature could send a request to the federal Parliament in Ottawa to end this at any time. No other province would stand in the way of a Constitutional amendment allowing Ontario to move forward.

Yeah, I know that in reality that it is unlikely that any politician will take the risk of alienating a good segment of the voting population by championing this. But I can hope…

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Picture of  hot air balloon trying to kill itself after realising that it had a giant Sun logo splashed across it. I would do likewise.

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Gee. What a surprise. Another Con Minister caught in a lie.

Of course, it won’t matter. The Minister won’t answer any questions posed to him in the House. Excuses will be given. The media will get blamed. Blah, blah, blah… same old…

And oh yeah… the Cons are playing dirty pool in Montréal too…

OTTAWA — The Conservatives have confirmed they are behind a rash of phone calls to Liberal MP Irwin Cotler’s Montreal-riding over the past couple of weeks in which constituents allegedly were told of Cotler’s resignation and a pending byelection.

But while the party says it was not breaking any rules, political analysts say the tactic crosses a line and will harm not only voters’ trust in the system, but perhaps even the Conservatives themselves.

“It’s disgusting,” said Queen’s University professor Ned Franks. “Politics is a blood sport but that doesn’t mean you have to resort to dirty blows.”

Numerous constituents in Cotler’s Mount Royal riding have complained of receiving calls in recent weeks from a marketing research company insinuating he has resigned and asking them to support the Conservatives in an upcoming byelection.

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So maybe we Canadians aren’t as stupid as I thought re: the “love affair” with Don “Blowhard Mouth Breather” Cherry.

The Brioux Report, a blog on Toronto.com, trumpeted: “Cherry continues to be ratings gold at CBC, with Hockey Night in Canada storming back to 2.4 million viewers last Saturday night.” One of the voices promulgating the idea of Cherry as must-see TV has occasionally been Mr. Cherry himself.

But recent TV numbers don’t seem to support the notion that Cherry is leading HNIC’s ratings anywhere. There is a considerable drop in viewers the instant game action ends and the theme music for Coach’s Corner begins. For example, ratings during the first period of last Saturday’s HNIC peaked at about 2.2 million viewers at 7:45 p.m. ET. But ratings show that by 7:58, that figure had plummeted by almost 800,000 to about 1.4 million during the first intermission of the show, precisely when Cherry is in mid-jeremiad.

The week before, first-period numbers peaked around 2.5 million viewers. By the time Cherry was on, almost a million people had found something else to do, as the number dipped to around 1.5 million. The numbers from this season have consistently shown such peaks during the action to more modest figures during the first intermission.

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The snow is on its way, sooner or later. If fact, it’s snowing right now. And O-dot will once again claim its throne as the world’s second coldest Capital city in the world. But this wonderfully unseasonably warm and dry weather has me giddy! Every day without snow and minus 20 temps is one day less that I have to bundle up.

And skiers? Quit complaining and fly out to B.C. or something! I’m a-talking to YOU, Hai!

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Speaking of giddy, Ottawa is primed for the opening of the new IKEA store out in the west end… Canada’s largest! And man, it IS huge! From the Queensway, it looks the size of the Oakville GM plant!

I think I’ll avoid it until after the holidays (and Barbados). And, as the O-dot reports, this IKEA has some new features:

Ottawa- When the nation’s largest Ikea store opens next Wednesday December 7th, customers will have the unique option to assemble their furniture while they wait in the massive check-out line ups. With the usual wait times in a typical Ikea check out line being approximately 38 minutes, shoppers can now use that lengthy time to assemble the furniture they have in their carts.

Good thinking! THAT is why the stores are so popular! Innovative thinking, man. Innovative thinking.

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It has been a week of bans!

First - bullying has been banned by the Ontario government – good thing.

Second - Lululemon pants have been banned by an Ottawa Catholic school – stupid thing.

Third – Christmas has been banned by an Ottawa area school. – WTF were they thinking thing.

Fourth – I have been banned from eating hot peppers and pickled eggs before bed – patently UNFAIR thing!

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Finally… in honour of Harper’s pledge to dump Kyoto…

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Gee, these so-called debates are becoming more and more irrelevant with each passing election.

Really now, because of the long period of time that Ontarians have had to cast their ballots (great idea, BTW… it’ll be interesting to see if the turnout is bumped up) and the lateness of the debate AND that these things are so incredibly tightly scripted… Well, c’mon, what’s the point?

And let’s face it, the only folks who tune into these charades – or attend the local versions – are those who have pretty much already made up their minds (if they haven’t yet voted).

Yet the pundits are out there this morning declaring that one side won or the other side won. And of course they will. They are either paid to do so or are fiercely partisan.

In reality, after watching the puppets rail against each other, no one “won”. McGuinty simply had to show up and look and sound somewhat “leaderlike” : which he did. And Hudak just had to pretend to be smarter than really is, and not drool too much: mission accomplished there too.  I guess Randy stayed home. And the Dipper CEO had to come across as someone less loony than the conservative pundits and media have claimed. And she was successful too.

So yup, ask yourself if that orchestrated sideshow last night made any difference whatsoever.

Didn’t think so. The Leaders’ time would have been better spent on doorsteps.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

... than to vote for three buffoons in a row.

They’ll be more sensible in the Fall….

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

This is great news!

When I quit 7 years ago, I used Zyban, the patch, nico-gum… everything I could get my hands on! And they worked!

Fortunately, the costs were covered under my drug plan… but most folks aren’t so lucky.

Lower future health care costs will many times over pay for the costs of this forward thinking initiative!

Now how is Hudak and his merry band of nay-sayers going to react to this? I mean, how can you argue against it? Win-win, right?

Naw, they’ll come up with some kind of distorted view of this… par for the course.

Kudos to the Ontario Grits for the timing of this announcement. Ol’ Tim is kinda being bounced around because of his sloppy handing of the abortion funding issue. Strike while the iron is hot, eh?

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

The Ontario government announced the other day that 4 new schools will be built in Ottawa and a 6 room addition will be tacked onto an existing school.

On Wednesday morning, Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky visited Ecole Laurier-Carrière, a French Catholic elementary school in Nepean, to announce it will receive a six-classroom addition under a program that will also see four new schools built in Ottawa over the next three years. They are among 43 new schools and 30 additions to be built across the province under the $650-million program, which was approved as part of the Ontario Liberals’ most recent budget.

The French Catholic school board will get a new secondary school in Kanata’s Fernbank neighbourhood and a new elementary school in Barrhaven’s Chapman Mills neighbourhood. The French public school board will add a new secondary school in Kanata and the OCDSB will get a new elementary school in Barrhaven.

Of course, other schools in the public system are bursting at the seams and their communities are crying foul! North Kanata in particular is in desperate need of a new school. In the east end too are schools that have seen rapid population influxes but not extra school capacity.

And I won’t even start on the number of portables that have become a permanent fixture at many schools.

Hmmm… I do note that Catholic Boards are getting 2 new schools and the addition… hmmm…

Here’s a radical thought that I may have mentioned once or twice before:

Abolish Ontario’s Catholic school system and there would be enough $ to fund all of the schools that are needed!

Schools that do NOT discriminate based on religion!

Of course, I am not expecting any pol from any party to make this a rallying cry in the fall election. Which is too bad.

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A last word (at least for now) on the post-game violence in Vancouver the other day.

Stupidest comment award goes to… ta-da!

Don “I’m a moron” Cherry for blaming the riots on left wing pinkos and the left wing pinkos in government who apparently restricted police from beating the shit out of the rioters in the streets.

Cherry has to share some of the blame for these riots. He advocates violence, glorifies war and ridicules anyone who dares to oppose him

C’mon CBC – show some guts and ditch this dinosaur!

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The Rolling Stone magazine recently did a feature on the 10 best album covers of all time. Album covers used to be something whose meanings were debated over beers, hotly anticipated in advance of a band’s new release and were in fact a unique art form.

RS picked as Number 2 what I would have chosen as Number 1.

Sargeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was picked as #1 and I can see why, but I would still put Dark Side of the Moon ahead of anything. I really don’t think there is a cover that is immediately so recognizable to so many.

But I was disappointed that this one – Led Zeppelin IV – didn’t make it on the list:

I guess an argument can be made for several Zep covers - Physical Graffiti and The Houses of the Holy come immediately to mind.

However, in this age of downloadable music, album covers are a relic – but one to be appreciated.

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Finally, I want to wish my baby sister a Happy Birthday! I can’t believe it has been XX years since she was born! I can remember it like it was yesterday. Had a big beach party in her honour on the night of her birth!

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Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Good article in the Glob and Spew this morning described play-based learning and its benefits for young children.

Essentially, this is a progressive approach to learning that posits that children will learn life tools and skills more happily and readily if presented to them as a part of their “play”, and they will be retained longer and integrated deeper. It also argues that these types of tools and skills are very bit as important as numeracy and literacy. One of these skills is called self-regulation – the ability to control your instinctive reaction to a situation, contemplate your next action and then act in a manner that is socially acceptable and beneficial to you in the long run.

About 40 years ago, researchers at Stanford University developed of way of testing aspects of self-regulation through something called the Marshmallow Test. A group of 4-year-olds were left alone in a room with a marshmallow, and instructed that if they managed not too eat the fluffy treat they’d be given a second one at the end of their wait. About 30 per cent of the kids were able to resist 15 or more minutes of temptation, and held out for a second marshmallow. The researchers followed up with the children as teenagers and adults, and found that those who were able to control their impulses were better adjusted as high school students, scored hundreds of points higher on their SATs, were less likely to be overweight or have drug problems.

These adaptive skills are critical, and as a parent of three children – all of whom attended an institutional daycare at one time of another – I have seen this for myself. By and large, through the approaches taken by their daycares – as well as at home – they have all learned valuable adaptive social skills that have or are paying dividends. And they learned them eagerly because it was fun! I have never been a “flash card” kind of parent and hold that it is more important to discover those hidden social and self-learning skills through playing and exploring as it is to be able to count to 20 by the time they are 18 months old.

Some parents will strongly disagree with this approach.

Even we as adults will absorb knowledge and acquire skills more readily if it is an enjoyable experience. Who among us didn’t have at least one course in our scholastic or professional lives where, after the conclusion of the course, we scratched our head while thinking “good topic, but I would have gotten much more from it if it was presented in a better way…”

“There is a long history of understanding that children learn through play, but one of the things that has tended to happen, it comes particularly from the United States … is this push to do things sooner, harder, to shove academics down to younger and younger children,” said Marilyn Chapman, an early learning expert at the University of British Columbia and lead writer of B.C.’s new kindergarten program.

The reason the American approach doesn’t work? If children are pushed to read, for example, they might learn at an earlier age but research suggests they’re also more likely to become disinterested in reading by the age of eight.

“At the end of the day they don’t like reading and writing and then they don’t want to do it unless they’re forced to; what’s the point?” asked Prof. Chapman.

Exactly. Sure, learning can be forced down their proverbial throats, but are they going to retain it?

Play-based learning is a central pillar of Ontario’s new full day kindergarten program. Good daycares have been doing this for years and now that Boards of Education are assuming the functions of the 3.8 years and older educators, they would do well to speak to these daycares to find out what works and does not work. They will learn much.

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

This is getting insane!

The Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board has effectively banned the use of rainbows at school functions because, get this, of the association of rainbows with gays!

I read this for a while thinking it was satire! Why would or could something this silly happen in the 21st century!

I am not making this up!

Leanne Iskander, 16, tells Xtra that the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board prevented her group from displaying any rainbows at their information booth during an anti-homophobia event last week.

Iskander is the founder of the unofficial gay-straight alliance at St. Joseph Catholic School in Mississauga.

“We brought signs and posters with rainbows, and we were told we can’t put them up,” says Iskander to Xtra. “They said rainbows are associated with Pride. There’s so many other things that a rainbow could be. It’s ridiculous.”

But this did not stop the group from showing a rainbow. They baked cupcakes with different colour icing and displayed them on the table so it resembled a rainbow. Better yet, when people bit into the cupcake, there was a rainbow of colours inside.

By selling the cupcakes at 50 cents each, the group raised $200 for charity. However the school would not allow the group to donate the money to the charity of their choice, which was the LGBT Youth Line.

Seriously? C’mon.

So, given the limited knowledge of Christianity that this sinnin’ ol’ atheist has, lemme get this straight (hee- get it?). Noah. The flood dude. Saw a rainbow in the sky at the end of that whole Mother of all storms thing. This was interpreted as a covenant from God that the big all-mighty wouldn’t pull that shit again. The rainbow – big Christian symbol.

But. Because gay folks use it as a symbol as well, dogma trumps common sense – and their own tradition – and pictures of rainbows – or cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles – are from now on taboo.

Remind me again: why am I as a taxpayer in this fair province forced to support this asinine crap. Why is this “school” system publicly funded? if Catholics want to support this kind of nonsense – go for it – but not on my dime!!!!

BANNED!!!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Ontario may relax their antiquated liquor laws a wee bit this summer, but they are sure not going to do CRAZY things like allow the sale of beer and wine in convenience stores! Oh no! Anarchy would reign!!!!

Just look at what happened in la belle province!

Look at them! Buncha drunks, I tell ya!

Best comment on the MotherCorp article:

The 1920s called. They want their laws back.

LOL!

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario