Pie Palace

City Council will apparently be voting on the Lansdowne Live proposal on Monday. As time has gone on, my out-and-out opposition to the OSEG proposal has tempered from “the proposed plan is terrible, and should be stopped” to “the proposed plan is mediocre, lacking any kind of vision.” Perhaps it was the public consultations that didn’t consult the public. Or maybe it’s the reports that most of Council supports the OSEG proposal.

In any case, here’s hoping that our municipal government puts the Lansdowne Live proposal on ice and runs an open design competition. If OSEG is the best the world has to offer, let’s do it. Otherwise, let’s go with a plan that involves some public space, and perhaps even a few sports fields for Ottawans.

On the off chance our councilors are still listening to what their constituents have to say, I sent the following with letsgetitright.ca.

Please vote against the Lansdowne Live proposal.

The OSEG proposal is unimaginative and would add little to Ottawa’s public life. The plan shown during consultations provides no public space, nothing to attract residents outside of shopping, fewer sports facilities than are at Lansdowne presently, and is financially predicated on the success of a CFL team. Lansdowne must be redeveloped, but the new facility should be something that all Ottawans can enjoy, not just CFL fans and up-market shoppers.

Instead of taking the first proposal to come along, Council should reopen the design competition and choose the best proposal on offer. Please vote against the Lansdowne Live proposal.

Update: One of the Councillors actually responded. Alex Cullen (or one of his minions) wrote back:

Thank you for this – I share your views.
[...]
No matter what corporate confidentiality disclaimer may appear below please feel free to share this message as you wish.

Nice. I dig both the sentiment and the signature.

On Monday I went to the City’s open house on the Lansdowne Live plan. It was a zoo. Concerned Glebe-ites singing protest songs; people asking passersby to sign petitions against the “sole-sourcing” of the plan; and people handing out leaflets telling the truth about the deal.

Inside, it didn’t get much better. Tiny posters in small font, replicating the text of the City’s Lansdowne Live website. Each poster was surrounded by a crowd three or four people deep trying to read what was on display. There were officials from the city and/or the developer, but they were too inundated with people for me to get close to them.

It was insanity.

I went there to find out what was proposed, and ended up with more questions than answers:

What happens if the CFL team folds? The Ottawa Renegades lasted only four seasons. Aside from the $300k in annual rent[1], where would the team’s failure leave the city? According to the business plan, the CFL team is supposed to contribute $42 million dollars back to the city and developers.[2] That seems like an awfully large risk in a $200 million plan.

How will people get there? The transit portion of the slides seems optimistic. Lansdowne is far from the transit way, far from the planned LRT, and far from the nearest highway on-ramp. During peak use, the plan suggests that people will park and ride from the burbs to get to Lansdowne. That seems optimistic. Bank street becomes terribly congested for anything larger than a 67s game (eg, the Ex). Without a change in infrastructure, that seems unlikely to improve.

What about public use? The City of Ottawa is short on centrally located sports fields. There doesn’t appear to be an allocation of land for amateur sports such as soccer and ultimate. The plan would see a “front yard” that would serve as parking for large events. There’s no mention of use for amateur sports.[3] It sounds like they’d keep the winter bubble over the field at Frank Clair stadium, but that’s about it. Even though the pictures show fountains and a plaza, but I couldn’t find any mention of those in the posters or business plans.

What about the extras? The first phase of the plan is replacing the stadium and asphalt parking lot with something a little nicer and adding retail to the site. Phase 2 is the development of hotel, residential, and office components. The plan doesn’t describe what those developments will be. How large will each retail space be? What is the 41,000 square foot “unique food store“? Since the site is far from major arteries, it seems unlikely that a big box store would move in there. What will happen if the space can’t be rented out?

Aside from these questions, I have to say that the event didn’t feel like a consultation. It felt like something verging on a coronation, or perhaps a revolt. The vocal members of the crowd clearly didn’t like what they saw. The city and the promoters did little to answer visitor’s questions – although there was a Q&A session at Wednesday night’s consultation.

After reading the City/promoter’s docs I’m left with the simple conclusion: even though the Lansdowne Live proposal is no worse than what’s currently at the site, it doesn’t have much going for it. The proposal envisions Lansdowne as an attraction, but without the necessary transit to get visitors to the site. It lacks public space: no statuary, no gardens, no playing fields, no plazas, no skate parks, no amphitheater. Nothing.

[1] – Business plan, page 20.
[2] – Business plan, page 23.
[3] – Take a look at the stadium page and search for “winter”.

I saw Food, Inc at the Bytowne over the weekend. For those who don’t travel in hippie circles, it’s this summer’s blockbuster lefty documentary, brimming with the such granola celebs as the author of Omnivore’s Dilemma Michael Pollan¹ and Eric Schlosser (author of the excellent Fast Food Nation).

The gist of the documentary is pretty straight forward: our food supply has gone industrial, with almost all forms of food production being done in vast factories. The industrial process creates cheap unhealthy food, pushes small producers out of business, and has potentially fatal side effects (notably e. coli and salmonella poisoning for consumers). On top of that, the companies that do the processing act like bullies: litigating against farmers who attempt to save part of their crop to plant the following year, suing anyone who openly speaks against their products, and lobbying various legislatures to pass consumer-unfriendly legislation. Special attention is paid to Monsanto, everyone’s favourite corporate Big Brother.

Ironically enough, Food Inc also paints large corporations as our potential saviors from this economic and health nightmare: they talk to the entrepreneur that started Stonyfield Farm² who gives a wonderfully cogent explanation of why companies can actually produce good food, and why companies aren’t necessarily bad. They even end up painting Wal-Mart as part of the solution. (I hope that the NDP listen to their new golden boy, Darrell Dexter and integrate this idea into their world view – but that’s a topic for another post)

Do I recommend it? Yes. But with a caveat.

If you haven’t read Fast Food Nation, the Omnivores Dilemma, or any of the other books on modern food production, then I highly recommend this documentary. It’s informative and engaging without being overly depressing. Perhaps most importantly, it ends on a fairly positive note: we aren’t as screwed as all this sounds – as consumers, we have the corporations who have built this system under our control. We can vote with our dollars, and vote with our feet. Industrial production methods can be reformed to produce healthy, tasty, and safe food.

Now, if you have read one or more of those books, and are up on the vague shape of the American (and Canadian) food production systems, then I still recommend this movie, but not as glowingly. It doesn’t bring a great deal of new information to the table, but it does give a succinct reminder for why you’re doing what you do. I’ve been falling off the conscientious objector train recently – I’ve stopped going to the farmer’s market, I’ve stopped trying to buy locally grown stuff, and I’ve been buying more and more junk food. The end of this doc was a not so subtle hint that I really should be paying an extra dollar or two for my grub, so long as it goes to the right people and supports a production system that has to get back to the main stream.

Overall? go see it. Seriously.

Images from Food, Inc website and wikipedia, respectively. Used without permission.

1. Okay, I don’t know if Michael Pollan is a real hippie celebrity, since I haven’t read his book. He may be a seal clubber in his spare time, for all I know. (back)
2. Makers of fantastic yoghurt, and with some legitimately green cred. (back)

My fiancé’s mp3 player died last month, and mine is on its last legs¹. Since my lady love is a bit of a technophobe, I started looking into iPods. One of the first stories I ran across when I was looking into them was about the suicide of Sun Danyong – an employee of one of Apple’s suppliers. The guy had apparently lost an iPhone prototype and then been subjected to a week of abuse at the hands of his employer, Foxconn. He then committed suicide.

When I buy stuff, I try to keep to the ethically made goods. I buy fair trade when possible, and I avoid products that don’t have a fair trade option. But because iPods have a reputation for usability and my sweetie deserves the best, I crafted this letter to Apple’s PR contacts.

Dear Ms. Cotton and Mr. Atkins,

I’m in the market for a new MP3 player. Before I buy an Apple gadget, I’d like to know what Apple is doing to ensure that its suppliers are treating their workers well. The ongoing coverage of Sun Danyong’s abuse and subsequent suicide has me reconsidering Apple products.

e

I don’t expect Apple to get a TransFair certification any time soon, but I can at least ask if they’re doing anything.

1. I don’t recommend Creative Labs Zens. When shifting off of “Lock” mine occasionally cranks the volume to 100% or 0% percent and locks up. Alternately painful or annoying. (back)

Today is the day that Ottawa city council votes on whether atheist bus ads should be allowed on OC Transpo’s property. For those who haven’t been following this tempest in a teapot, the ads feature the sacrelicious message “There probably is no god, so relax and enjoy life,” and the alleged controversy comes from OC Transpo staff disallowing the ads. Ironically, the religious leaders interviewed on CBC and in the Citizen don’t seem to care about the ads.

So why should they be allowed?

First, this is a freedom of speech issue. Bus ads promoting various philosophies have appeared on OC Transpo property for as long as I’ve been in Ottawa. In 2004 we had the Alpha Campaign, trying to convince wayward christians to return to the fold (while offering backhanded insults to athiests). More recently there have been ads for SupremeMaster.net, a weirdly amorphous (if seemingly harmless) eastern-inspired cryptoreligion. Our bus company must not be allowed to prevent specific philosophies from entering public discourse.¹

Second, the ads are not offensive. The ads have seemingly been disallowed because the statement “there probably is no god” is offensive to some group. We’re never told who that group is. Nor has anyone publicly grieved. It’s as if OC Transpo is holding a protest, but forgot to tell anyone to show up.

Third, the ads are affirming. Atheists don’t have much of a support group – we don’t have an annual athiest party; we don’t get together to talk about how important our values are; nor do we hijack political parties. As such, atheists don’t get to see each other very much. It’s pretty easy to feel like the only one of your kind. Add to that the overt religious references in our society², and it’s pretty easy to start feeling like you’re all alone. Just hearing about the atheist bus ads in London made me feel good – not because I really like the ads, but because I’m reminded that other people share my philosophy, and that I’m not alone.

Here’s hoping that City Council does the right thing.

1. Do you really want an organization that can’t manage to negotiate with its own employees to act as an arbiter on the marketplace of ideas? (back)
2. • semi-mandatory prayer in schools,
   • religion on TV,
   • pervading evangelical Christianity since 9/11,
   • occasional attempts at conversion
   (back)

Years ago, I contributed policy to the Green Party of Canada on media. In it, I stated (words to the effect of) “media is a business like no other, it has a responsibility to be profitable, but more importantly, it has the responsibility to hold our public offices to account.” The policy items were my rough attempt to discourage the rise of large media conglomerates, and to support regional media outlets.

Yesterday, one of CTV shut down evening newscasts in Ottawa, and did similar things in Barrie, London, and Victoria. In doing so, they have cost Ottawa yet another media outlet, and yet another avenue for paid journalists to keep our politicians, bureaucrats, and corporations honest. Coincidentally, kottke.org has linked to a story describing how the cuts to Baltimore’s daily newspaper has made the police force less accountable:

Half-truths, obfuscations and apparent deceit — these are the wages of a world in which newspapers, their staffs eviscerated, no longer battle at the frontiers of public information. And in a city where officials routinely plead with citizens to trust the police, where witnesses have for years been vulnerable to retaliatory violence, we now have a once-proud department’s officers hiding behind anonymity that is not only arguably illegal under existing public information laws, but hypocritical as well.

And this isn’t just an American problem. As the Dziekanski enquiry is proving, Canadian police reports can sometimes differ dramatically from reality. Without an engaged, and well funded press, there will be no one to hold these officers to account.

What solutions do we have? A CRTC-mandated carriage fee for cable broadcasters? Preferential tax treatment for smaller news organization? Increased funding to public broadcasters? There are solutions, but we, as an electorate have to wake up to the fact these cuts don’t just cost jobs, they are a danger to our public institutions.

Four hours, dear reader. Four hours. That’s how much time is devoted to policy discussion at the upcoming Green Party convention. Doesn’t seem worth the effort of dragging myself 1400(ish) kilometers to Pictou.

Sent to Paul Dewar, MP for Ottawa Centre.:

Dear Mr. Dewar,

As a constituent of your ward, I ask you to vote tonight to end the bus strike. It has cost my financially (over $400 in taxi fare and car rental), it has lowered my productivity (I now work 1-2 hours a day less, because I must car pool), and it has cost me emotionally (it is difficult to visit my elderly grandmother). As unpleasant as these problems are, I can afford to spend my way around them. I feel very, very sorry for those who can’t. This strike is hitting the least privileged in our society hardest.

The strike has an ongoing emotional and economic cost to Ottawa’s citizens. Please vote to end it.

e

As much as I support the union’s right to strike, and the members’ right to fair compensation, I have to say that this strike is hitting the city too hard. If the union wants to put pressure on the city, work to rule, park buses around city hall, stop collecting bus fair, just leave the poor out of it.

Alright, dear reader, I finally did it. I broke down and started reading Barack Obama’s “Dreams from My Father – A Story of Race and Inheritance”. I can sum the first five chapters up in a word: awesome. The introduction is kinda… well… not awesome, but hey, that’s fair. I didn’t buy the book to read the introduction.

In case anyone is reading along, I’ll break this into a chapter-by-chapter review.

Words Looked Up

Apocryphal (p. 8 ) – Not canonical. Hence: Of doubtful authority; equivocal; mythic; fictitious; spurious; false.
Divestment Campaign (p. 105) – Campaign to convince an institution to sell off investments in a given region or company (definition via wiseGeek. The divestment campaign that Obama refers to seems to be the divestment from South Africa campaign, that children of the 70s may be vaguely aware of.

Now lets get to the chapter-by-chapter goodness.

Preface to the 2004 Edition

Overall: This is the most boring piece of writing I’ve seen since I wrote my thesis. In this, Obama rambles on about his achievements, how “some friends persuaded me to run for office” (really? honestly? it was their idea? riiiiiiight)¹, blah, blah, blah. Although I commend Obama for not mentioning September 11 for a sum total of three pages. That must have been tough.

Moral: Skip the introduction to the introduction. There’s a stirring bit on page x (around paragraph 3, for the lazy). But really, the intro-to-the-intro is terrible.

Original Introduction

page xiv – Come on! Nobody should use an ellipsis in a published book. This is a bad sign.

page xvii – This feels like I’m reading Frodo’s diary at the start of Lord of the Rings. Obama says how little he’s done, that he hasn’t really been involved in the important bits of history, but he’s still written 400 pages about himself. He’s either being disingenuous, or I’m in for a long 400 pages.

Chapter 1 – 5

Forget the page-by-page thing.

The first five chapters cover Obama from age 0-18ish, and the family history of his mom’s side of the family. Now, I’d expect that to be boring, but it comes across like some kind of epic documentary about the USA from the Depression to the 80s. Not just any epic, a good epic, that hits all the right notes (American Gothic in the Depression, whites experiencing second-hand racism for befriending blacks in Texas, the idyllic land of Hawaii, the hopefulness of the 60s), and has a pretty impressive cast of characters.

The important bit isn’t the Boy’s Own Adventure in Indonesia (noseless beggars! pet crocodiles! mud surfing!), but Obama’s weird relationship with race. You see, he’s enrolled in a prestigious school in Hawaii, and he’s pretty much a social outcast because he’s black. As he grows up, gains a bit of freedom, and other black kids are enrolled in the school, he finds that he has a hard time identifying with them. Why? Because their thing is that they’re being oppressed by whitey. Meanwhile, Obama has a wonderfully supportive (white) mother, grandmother, and grandfather, and it’s hard to feel oppressed when you’re chief cheerleaders are supposed to be wearing the jackboots. So, not surprisingly, Obama doesn’t feel like he fits in: whites treat him differently, but he has a hard time relating to his black peers.

Just at the end of Chapter 5, Obama is rudely awakened out of existential angst. He goes through a laundry list of grandmothers (yes, it’s weird, but it works) – his white grandmother who has hit the glass ceiling at her job, and spent the past 20 years going nowhere; his Indonesian step-grandmother who was smacked down by the colonizing Dutch; his black paternal grandmother who would have spent her life as a maid, if she’d moved to the States. Obama realizes that his race doesn’t define his identity, instead he realizes that it’s just a starting point, and that he can choose his own destiny.

This is going to sound lame, but I am really, really enjoying this book. Obama’s one helluva writer, and, on top of that, it feels like he captures the spirit of the US between the Depression and the 80s. This project stopped feeling like homework around page 15.

PS: Barack Obama’s dad sounds like a bit of a dick.

PPS: The whole Spider-Man/Obama thing sucked.

1. Of course, I haven’t actually gotten to that bit in the book, so they may have actually done that. (back)

Update: I spent most of the week being sick as hell. This is delayed one week.

Like most of the world, I think Barack Obama is awesome (viz: this video). But I don’t know much about him. So I picked up his autobiography and I’m intending to read it in January. If you’re interested in reading Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, here’s my blogging/reading schedule:

• January 11 – Introduction and Chapter 1 to 4.
  
• January 18 – Chapter 5 to 10.
  
• January 25 – Chapter 11 to 15.
  
• February 1 – Chapter 16 to, uh, the epilogue.

Which is a pretty easy schedule: a mere 110 pages a week. If you feel like it, grab a copy of the book and read along with me. If you don’t, just crib my comments and pretend you’ve read it yourself!