Pie Palace

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that Second Cup started sporting a Fair Trade logo on their signage. Being the kind of person that thinks people should be paid a reasonable wage, and knowing that coffee workers can be treated like serfs, I started stopping by Second Cup to grab the occasional cup of java. Then I started wondering. When I order myself a caramel corretto®, is it really fairly traded?

So I sent an email to Second Cup’s customer care. Their response was a little disappointing:

Thank you for your email and your interest in the Second Cup. I have included below our Fair Trade Coffee available through Second Cup. Currently this is the only coffee in our series that is certified. Please do refer to our website at www.secondcup.com to review our selection and how we are making a difference environmentally and socially.

So, even though Second Cup says “24 fairly traded coffees available every day”, they really mean they have one fairly traded coffee.

It’s back to Bridgehead, and their fully fair trade menu for me.

Boo! After hours of hard work, I managed to get an AWN helper (nerdspeak for “a thing that shows stuff on my computer’s status bar”) for Workrave included in the official distribution (nerdspeak for “now everyone can use it”). I pinged OMG Ubuntu to say “hey! you like docks, and I wrote this thing! you should mention it,” and they did. They just left my name off the attribution. All that hard work and no cred to go along with it.

A post on Transit Ottawa reminded me of a recent poll on CFRA.

89.6% of respondents believed that Clive Doucet and Alex Cullen wanted to cancel road projects because “[they] aren’t interested in keeping taxes down; this is just a thinly veiled attack on car owners by a couple of public transit lovers.”

That’s the first time I’ve heard “transit lover” used as an epithet. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Even though Canada lost the race to join the UN Security Council, the government was able to break one notable record. They succeeded in making a statement so bizarre and self-serving, it actually parodied itself. According to Harper’s communications director:

A big deciding factor was the fact that Canada’s bid did not have unity because we had Mr. Ignatieff questioning and opposing Canada’s bid.

And according to our Foreign Minister, Lawrence Cannon:

Not being able to speak with one voice as a country had a negative impact on Canada’s bid.

The Conservatives are actually saying that Canada lost its bid to sit on the Security Council because of the Liberals. They apparently think Canadians are stupid enough to believe that a guy less popular than Stephen Harper was able to convince fifty-some governments to vote for Portugal.

I accidentally let my New Scientist subscription lapse. They helpfully spammed saying that they’re having a subscription sale until October 10. The price for a year’s subscription? $75. Last time I checked it was over $300. I guess they’re feeling by the intertubes.

So far, I’ve gotten two comments saying that I’ve missed the point of GJ Hagenaars library policy. On the off chance there are other readers who feel that I’ve missed the boat, here’s my response:

Mr. Hagenaars made an unexpected proposal for the city’s libraries. He proposed replacing the existing OPL staff with 33 librarians (one at each branch) and a staff of volunteers:

In my opinion, what we truly need are small, local libraries, with one librarian [...] and volunteer staff from the community to keep them going. Let people vote with their feet if they want library services. If there are no volunteers [...], one full-time librarian is already too much.

His proposal didn’t explain who would maintain the OPL’s physical assets (lending materials, buildings, computer networks, website, bookmobile, and archives), nor did it explain the effect of cutting over 8,000 classes that have an annual enrollment of roughly 190,000. Perhaps worst of all, he proposes cuts without an indication of the savings they would provide.

This suggests that Mr. Hagenaars either:

1. knows about these services and didn’t bother to mention them in his proposal; or
   
2. made a policy proposal without understanding the issue.

My concern is that Mr. Hagenaars didn’t know what he was suggesting. My fear is supported by a question in his original letter “Where are the volunteers at the libraries, if people think they are that important?” Obvious answers aside: Ottawa has 555 library volunteers. It’s worrisome when a blogger with a couple of hours on his hands digs up more information about an election issue than a candidate.

Proposing a solution is easy. Proposing a useful solution is much harder.

In his response to my original post, Mr. Hagenaars seems more focused on the proposal for a new Main Branch rather than laying off 419.46 employees¹. This is good – Mr. Hagenaars doesn’t reiterate his call for a dismantling of the existing OPL and its programs.²

I hope that his original suggestion was nothing more than an overzealous cost-cutting proposal. If that’s the case, I would much rather that he said that, rather than continuing to avoid its mention.

Update: Cleaned up wording.

1. I can only assume that the .46 of an employee refers to .46 of a full time position, rather Eric the Half a Librarian. (back)
2. Ironically, I agree that delaying the construction of a new Main Branch is a reasonable way to save money, given that the existing Main Branch is still functional. (back)

If you had $27.44 burning a hole in your pocket, what would you buy?

An awesome pair of scuba fins? A smoking hot picture of Pamela Hannam (National Bodybuilder) with a sword? A bitchen’ pair of pliers?

Sadly, you can’t get any of those. Your $27.44 has already been spent on a riot:

The federal government spent $933 million on security for the G8/G20 talks in Toronto, which works out to a little over $27 per Canadian. The amount is seems excessive, especially given the amount spent on security for previous G8 meetings:

(Note that the graph above is a dramatic low-ball, as it assumes that half of the $933 million was spent on the G20 summit)

It’s too bad that vandals that showed up with the legitimate protesters. They’ve provided a post hoc justification for a mind-numbing waste of money.

Next time perhaps they could consider renting a cruise ship and buggering off to the middle of the Atlantic. Or maybe head to Kannanaskis again?

Oh dear. Folks at the British Medical Journal have released a report that slams the World Health Organization’s pandemic plan and the declaration of the H1N1 pandemic – the authors/experts appear to have conflicts of interest with vaccine manufacturers. At the same time, it questions the value of Tamiflu (oseltamivir) and Relenza (zanamivir) and notes that neither drug proved effective during FDA testing.

It’s worrisome that (a) it took a specialist journal like the BMJ to track down the conflicts of interest, (b) the WHO is circling the wagons in the face of this criticism, and (c) there’s no coverage of the story in Canadian media (as of the evening of Sunday, June 6).

Over the past couple of weeks the proposals for Lansdowne Park’s have dribbled out. First, we got an idea of what the park portion would look like and now the proposed layout of the stadium area has been released.

The proposal for the commercial areas includes of blocks of multi-story glass residential buildings perched on seven blocks of retail, a cinema, and an office tower. The Aberdeen Pavilion and Horticulture building are furthest from Bank Street, tucked behind the rest of the development.

It’s bland. It looks like an uninspired corner of Carleton University: cement, glass, featureless facades, and lots of right angles. The two dominant thoroughfares are designed for cars, with pedestrians relegated to sidewalks partially-obstructed by cement planters. The plazas are cement blocks. If there’s any theme it would be “cement”. Meanwhile, the new buildings are three to seven stories in height, obstructing views of the Aberdeen Pavilion.

The view of Aberdeen Pavilion from Holmwood Avenue

OSEG's proposal features wide roads with sidewalks partially blocked by planters

I’d like to say that it isn’t all bad – that there are some highlights that redeem the plan. But there aren’t. The two features that caught my eye were the medians on Bank Street, and the “Lord Grey’s” building. The medians proved to be lipstick on a pig: the Bank Street entrance still looks like the asphalt afterthought it is today. Similarly, even though the dramatic overhang of Lord Grey’s looks interesting in the rendering, the detailed image makes it look more like a walled off gas bar.

Does it have to be so boring?

I don’t think so. If commercial is included (which is fair – it’s a money maker and it would offset the cost of the park), then it should be built around public spaces. A good example of a public space can be seen in one of the old pictures of Lansdowne: a gently curving pedestrian-only street that leads past the Aberdeen Pavilion, with single-story commercial structures on either side. A modern take would be a curved pedestrian street with stepped buildings facing the Cattle Castle – they would provide retail space and somewhere interesting to walk.

Another alternative would be to go to the extreme: build an iconic structure that would dominate the commercial portion of the site and would contain all of the retail. Ottawa’s new convention centre is a striking example. Yes, it’s ugly, but it’s like a chihuahua – it’s so ugly that it goes beyond simple everyday ugliness to a weird kind of beauty.

It’s disappointing that OSEG didn’t use the commercial portion of the design to present something attractive. Instead, they’ve designed a boring streetscape that could be any poorly planned city centre in North America. City Council should send OSEG back to the drawing board or find another proposal.

For the past few days, Ontario conservatives have been all abluster about the government’s sex ed proposal. The new curriculum has been described as “unconscionable” and “bordering on criminal” by one set of wackos and “the biggest issue facing the Catholic Church in Ontario” by another. So, like any curious 12 year old, I set out to find the offensive bits:

Human Development and Sexual Health
C3.3 describe how visible differences (e.g., skin, hair, and eye colour, facial features, body size and shape, physical aids or different physical abilities, clothing, possessions) and invisible differences (e.g., learning abilities, skills and talents, personal or cultural values and beliefs, gender identity, sexual orientation, family background, personal preferences, allergies and sensitivities) make each person unique, and identify ways of showing respect for differences in others

Teacher prompt: “Sometimes we are different in ways you can see. Sometimes we are different in ways you cannot see – such as how we learn, what we think, and what we are able to do. Give me some examples of things that make each person unique.”

Student: “We all come from different families. Some students live with two parents. Some live with one parent. Some have two mothers or two fathers. Some live with grandparents or with caregivers. We may come from different cultures. We also have different talents and abilities and different things that we find difficult to do.”

Teacher: “How can you be a role model and show respect for differences in other people?”

Student: “I can include others in what I am doing, invite them to join a group, be willing to be a partner with anyone for an activity, and be willing to learn about others.”

(Excerpted from the original proposal on the Government of Ontario’s website and mirrored here)

That’s it? Saying that some kids have two moms is “bordering on criminal”? According to the nutbars cited above: “To cause confusion in a young child’s mind about being male or female is evil.” O rly?

This argument strikes me as thinly veiled homophobia.

Instead of overt queer-bashing, the “family values” crowd is now saying that they want to hide homosexuality from their kids. Their homophobia is suddenly a parental right. They don’t want to openly dis queers, they just want to pretend that gays don’t exist. One gentleman from the Sault is quoted as saying “a child is taught to comply, answer the right questions in school, and at home he’s taught this is not right behaviour, [...] Is that fair to the kids?” That’s right. Teaching kids that homosexuality exists is unfair to them. Presumably because they’ll have to rectify their parents’ bigotry with society’s openness.

I’d like to say that this issue does matter. But it does. Some of the “family values” types will have gay kids. And those kids are going to have a rough time growing up. I can’t help but think that a brief admission that homosexuality is okay in Grade 3 might save those kids a measure of hurt growing up.

(Edit: Changed the title)