A Block of a Street Named after a Band

Kingston city council is incredible. Last night, in a 7-6 vote, they decided to rename one block of Barrack Street after The Tragically Hip. This is not just any city block but one that is probably one of the oldest street names west of Quebec City. It was named because the street connected the armories on what is now Montreal Street, to the soldiers' barracks near the waterfront. A long time ago.

Several interesting remarks were made by councillors last night.

1. One councillor spoke passionately about what a great tourist attraction it would be to name one block of a street after TTH. It begs the queston: why would ANYONE go to this block to look at the front of the entertainment centre, where TTH did NOT get their start? This would attract tourists? He must think tourists are stupider than bricks.



2. A councillor spoke about the recognition of local citizens in a concrete way, including musicians, writers, etc. The city does not regognize its own now. It's high time it did. Good on you, Councillor Schell.



3. The Mayor made one of the most impassioned speeches in favour of this notion. Interestingly, he has university degree(s?) and cited some numbers to bolster his agreement. Unfortunately, he must have missed the stats class in which the prof discussed the use of numbers. He made two very serious, and persuasive, errors. First, he said that the majority of attendees at a public meeting supported this change. That may be true. The stats prof would ask: how many attended the meeting? how many citizens are there in the municipality and what percentage of them attended the meeting? was it a cross section of citizens? did people attend with their minds already made up (either way) ? Second...he cited the city's on-line poll which asked people's opinion. The obvious errors in thie extremely unscientific tool are, most importantly, that the only ones who vote are those with access to a computer. How many citizens within the city limits have a computer, and how many of those even bothered to vote? [as an aside, I know of one well-known, highly regarded local who does not even own a computer, to say nothing of his online voting] The remarks of voters are not taken into account.

My Canada

I look back at my country, Canada, and wish we still had it.
Changes in structure and institutions to make them more responsive to the changing needs of citizens are important to do.
But, what is sad for our country, it that the current government strives to change the core values of Canada: respect, caring for its citizens, honour, support for allies....

Now, we have Mr Toews not only getting rid of the long gun registry, but now he wants permission to hack into my priviate info, and who knows what he will do with that!

One of the reponses to this decision, is that someone has hacked his divorce docs, and flooded the internet with not only those docs, but his apparent affairs and a recently-born child.

This response demonstrates the anger that many people feel about the government's high handed, "we'll do it if we want" attitude.

None of his sadly-lacking-moral behaviour is any of the public's business, but the hacker has demonstrated how easy it is to get any and all info about people off the internet.

How low can out country go?

How Time Flies!

Time to get back to this!