Priority None: Mel Lastman's looking smarter every day

I was living in Toronto during the storm of 1999, and I remember it well - buses sliding backwards down hills, switches on the subway freezing, and the hoots and catcalls from the rest of the country after Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman called in the army to help with snow removal. As someone who grew up in Ottawa, it was a little hard to understand why Toronto was so ill-equipped to handle the snow, and word at the time was that Mel and the rest of Toronto City Council hadn't yet signed the contract for snow plowing and removal and that's why the city was brought to its knees by this early-season storm. Oops. Ottawa used to get at least two blizzards a year - nowhere near as many as Montreal. But I remember snow piles that were at least five feet high.

Little did I think, however, that I'd end up living in a place where it snows (a lot) and yet the city's snow removal strategy was 'wait till it melts.' [Update November 15, 2012: from the minutes of the Lethbridge City Council meeting held November 13, 2012. When the Deputy Mayor and another member of Council (who had read my blog post) raised the issue of snow removal and snow plowing at this meeting (thank you!), the City's Director of Infrastructure Services indicated 'Priority 4 roads. (local streets) are not plowed or sanded even in an extreme event.  Intersections may get sanded when icy conditions are identified as a hazard.' [emphasis added] So despite the fact Lethbridge's public transit system is inadequate and you may not be able to get to a bus, that's pretty much it - you're on your own.]

Welcome to Lethbridge, AB, and chinook country.

Being good without faith: review of The Young Atheist's Handbook

This review appeared on Goodreads in July 2012 while this blog was in limbo, but I had always intended to review it here, so here you are - with some additional content:



In his foreword to Alom Shaha's Young Atheist's Handbook, A.C. Grayling talks about the importance of developing a questioning mind. Shaha quotes Ani DiFranco when she asks, 'What if God is just an idea/Someone put in your head?' In The Young Atheist's Handbook, Alom Shaha asks – and answers for himself – the question, 'What if God is just an outmoded concept we no longer require now that we have generated more data about our universe than any one of us can ever hope to successfully process?' And, by implication, he is also asking, 'What will it take for us as a species to accept that no life will be filled with unalloyed joy and good luck, and how can we learn to cope with misfortune without the crutch of religion while remaining good people?' His handbook is an attempt to answer that question on a supremely personal level, although, as he admits freely, it is not precisely a handbook.

Alom takes us on his journey of loss, inconsolable grief, defiance, and ultimately the acceptance of his lack – rather than his loss – of faith. Part of that journey includes an examination of the familial and socio-cultural pressures put on children to accept and observe a faith they are not permitted to question.   Islam may be the most difficult of the world's major religions in this sense, as the form in which it is exported throughout the world often amounts to the prophet's words being repeated and  obeyed without translation, study or debate. (I should hasten to add that I am not an expert on Islam – or on any other religion, although my own defiant and questioning attitude made me, shall we say, an unsuitable candidate for Sunday School).

Louis meets daisy

Louis meets daisy, originally uploaded by The River Thief.

The blog has been rescued from the limbo in which it's been suspended for oh, I don't know, a year now.

It's been a year of changes and technological and reno challenges, not least of which is my decision to adopt a kittoon. Technically Louis was already an adult by the time I got him. But don't tell him that.

I now spend my mornings drinking coffee while burbling at the cat. This morning I decided to tell him how much I love him (really, I am truly, madly, deeply in love with this animal) as a 10-pound cat attempted to drag a 10-kilo bag of cat food from its hiding place on a low shelf in the kitchen into the living room. Because I might forget it was breakfast time. Hang on, Louis, it's not 8AM yet - we're on a schedule here. Oh - and mwah. Mwah mwah mwah.

Pemberton Springtime

Pemberton Springtime, originally uploaded by dbsteers.

I will have my ashes
scattered here
so you can visit, love.