“That’s actually a significant and commendable improvement. While I have no reason to visit the website, there’s...” 
“Tina do you know what it’s like to be killed for looking like someone else? Yea nor do I but it’s probably a whole lot...” 
“It turns out that the plugin broke with 2.8.1. in July which “tightens security for plugin administration pages.” The...” 
“This plugin is partially broken by the 2.8 update to Wordpress. The settings page no longer works. Attempts to modify result in the...” 
When OC Transpo tried to prevent atheist ads from appearing on buses, I started thinking a bit more about my philosophy. I’m an atheist. In general, I have no problem with religion, as long as people don’t use it as a weapon against others (that’s a shout-out to you al Qaeda! And you too, Jerry), or as an excuse to harm themselves (I’m looking at you, Jehovah’s Witnesses). So, as an atheist, I thought I’d start reading what other atheists had to say.
And I got bored.
There are plenty of atheist blogs out there, but they spend a lot of time talking about religion. Like 99.9% of their time. I don’t get it. Consider how far women’s magazines would have gotten if they spent all their time talking about how lame men are. Or where Sports Illustrated would be if every issue was “Chess sucks!” Or if Playboy was full of pictures of naked guys, just to show how ugly men are.
I’m an atheist. If you want me to read your blog, stop writing about religion.
I ended up emailing Ebon, who posts to Daylight Atheism. I asked him why there was so much religion on his blog. In response, he wrote back:
First is the trivial answer: [...] I keep a cache of posts that I wrote some time earlier and can release at my convenience, so the site doesn’t go dark for too long. Since these stored posts have to be timeless, many of them are about philosophical or theological topics rather than current events. [...] I think it helps to be a knowledgeable and well-equipped atheist, and I find human culture fascinating no matter how it manifests itself.
Second, and maybe more importantly: While I do write about positive atheism and humanism as often as possible, I want to maintain a balance. And one thing I’ve found is that posts which pick a fight, or disassemble an argument, often get more hits and more attention than posts which promote atheism as a positive worldview. [...] That’s not something I’m thrilled about, but that’s how it is. I don’t want my site to be all arguing all the time, but to keep things lively, it does help to stir the pot on occasion.
(I’ve abridged his response – I’ll post the whole thing in the comments)
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy reading his Contributions of Freethinkers series, and some of the other posts up there. But I just don’t care about the fiddly bits of Christianity, and how demonstrably wrong they are.
I hope this is a phase in the growth of atheism. Many posters to these blogs talk about “deconversion”1 or how they decided that religion wasn’t for them. My hope is that these are first generation atheists who are reacting against their upbringing, and that their kids will be able to be atheists who don’t care about religion, and are able to write blogs that can talk about atheism itself.
It’s too bad. I enjoy my atheism because it doesn’t force me into anything. I enjoy being able to construct my own morality. I enjoy being ethically responsible to myself. I’d like to see what my fellow atheists think about their newfound world view. I’d love to know what society would be like if atheism was the dominant philosophy. It’s a pity that I haven’t been able to find a blog that scratches that itch.
Against the recommendations of the Pie Palace legal staff, I am going to continue my habit of posting while tipsy. You have been warned.
Earlier this week, Public Transit in Ottawa ran a post about the proposed downtown tunnel in Ottawa’s new rail-based transit network, which implied that a downtown tunnel is both necessary and that there are no other options.1
We have many, many options for transit: we could put dedicated transit routes down Carling, under the Canal, or along Wellington, which would solve downtown congestion without having to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building and maintaining a tunnel. Similarly, we aren’t tied to the (diesel) rail solution that the city is proposing: we could use buses or electric streetcars. If we wanted to solve downtown congestion without spending hundreds of millions of dollars, we could close downtown (north of Laurier, say) to private vehicles during rush hour and set the traffic lights to a permanent east/west green.2
Simply put: we have options. But that is not how the transit debate is being framed. On the left, we have city councilor Clive Doucet saying that world class cities need rail transit. On the right, we have a mayor saying that Ottawa needs a tunnel. Neither of those things are true. I think it would be awesome if we had a rail network, and I think a downtown tunnel would be nifty, but we don’t need either of those things. We could solve our transit woes more cheaply, and maybe even more efficiently with other options.
I would argue that our quasi-debate is obscuring the larger issue: Ottawa’s burbs are built for cars, and no amount of dedicated transit will be useful to suburbanites. Until we increase suburban density to a point where it’s economical to lay track (or dig tunnels) out to Nepean, Orleans, and Barhaven, public transit will continue to be an expensive and unattractive way to move most of Ottawa’s population.
The four possibilities proposed by city staff in March of 2008 were essentially the same, differing only in where the train would leave off and pick up with buses. Now we’re being told that we can’t do without a downtown tunnel, again, without anything approaching the level of deliberation and consideration necessary before dropping hundreds of millions of dollars.
Happily, the City of Ottawa is revisiting the Comprehensive Five Year Plan that decides how our city should grow during the next half decade (and will be having public consultations at Ben Franklin place later this month). It remains to be seen whether city councilors and staff will use this opportunity to address the root cause of our problems, or will continue addressing the symptoms.
There's probably no god, now stop worrying and enjoy your life
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.
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.
A comment on one of my older posts about OC Transpo got me thinking:
If OC transpo had to run as most businesses, without subsidies.. the fares would have to increase by 227% to cover their costs. Think about that as you move towards the workforce, and remember to say thanks to everybody else you meet who subsidizes your travel.
One of the joys of living in our quasi-socialist society is that everyone subsidizes everyone else. I’ve subsidized countless hospital/doctor trips of my fellow citizens. I’ve paid part of the costs of our military and EI systems. I’ve subsidized the construction and staffing of schools that neither I nor my children will ever set foot in. I’ve subsidized the construction of roads to parts of the country I will never see. I’ve even subsidized the maintenance of sewers and roads out in the ‘burbs, which is a painfully inefficient use of my tax dollar.
I don’t expect anyone to thank me for doing that. It’s part of being a Canadian. When I ride the bus, I’m thankful to the people immediately involved in the process (the bus driver, OC Transpo staffers, and my fellow riders) who make the trip enjoyable.
Similarly, I don’t expect other people on the road to be grateful to me for lessening the wear and tear on the roads by using an efficient vehicle. I don’t expect children and the elderly to be grateful to me for lowering rates of respiratory ailments by producing less pollution than the folks that drive to work. I don’t expect society to be grateful to me for lengthening the life of our oil reserves.
Image by planeta_roig.
Blogawa.ca has two new contributors: OCInfo, a website about OC Transpo and it’s forays into the online world; and Real Grouchy, a blog that makes my curmudgeonliness look like an affectation (and follows swap boxes).
On Friday I spent a couple of hours combing Ottawa blogs to invite new contributors to the Blogawa fold. Sadly, my response rate is abysmal. For every three invitations I send, I get one response.
Are there any blogs you would like to see added to Blogawa’s blogroll? If so, please leave a comment on this post.
The Citizen reported on Kitchissippi Councillor Christine Leadman’s new transit proposal yesterday. Ms. Leadman repeated Clive Doucet’s proposal: with the eastern train heading down Carling, instead of following the Parkway.
Interestingly, Nancy Schepers (city manager for planning, transit and the environment) says that her department didn’t seriously consider Carling as one of the potential routes the train could follow. Which isn’t surprisingly, considering that the four plans were essentially identical. Ms. Schepers also says that the Carling route would be “far more expensive
” than the parkway route – which is odd, given that we haven’t seen a detailed cost analysis of the parkway route yet.
It’s a pity that this proposal didn’t go anywhere, because Carling has many of the attributes that make mass transit work: it’s surrounded by housing, and it has existing “destinations” along the route (Carlingwood mall, various medical centres, and a mix of stores). The Parkway is an easy route to follow since there isn’t any development there, but that’s precisely why it makes a lousy transit corridor.
Update: I forgot to credit the photo author. The photograph was taken by paulshannon.
Blake Batson has said on his blog that he wants to “float ideas on how to improve our system that others will be free to vet or claim them as their own.” In that spirit, I’d like to present my first suggestion for our pals in the City of Ottawa: intensification.
Our city was supposed to be squeezed into the Greenbelt. But since this 60s, development has occurred outside the Greenbelt and our city has been surrounded by a fluffy pink tutu of sprawl. Looking at a Statistics Canada map of population density around Ottawa, we see that the population per square kilometre is mostly in the 500-2999 person range. Only in the core does the population rise beyond 5000 ppl/km2. Worryingly, looking at the population change map between 2001 and 2006, we see that the population outside the Greenbelt is growing quickly, while the population in the no man’s land between exurbia and downtown is shrinking.
Given the received wisdom that city services (water delivery, sewage disposal, transit) work best in dense urban areas, Ottawa should be looking to the orange areas on that map to lower their cost per taxpayer.
Happily, I’m not the only person suggesting this. The transit experts hired by the city to evaluate our transit plan said the same thing: our suburbs need higher densities to make rail transit a viable option. In a surprising moment of lucidity, the city’s own transportation committee endorsed the idea of improving density along the new light rail route.
Our current transportation plan isn’t very different from what we have today. Hopefully, if City council can keep focused on building a more urban city, we can look at a much better transit scenario in 2031.
Thanks to Blake Batson for the idea of this series.
“As a guest, the best part of the wedding was the giggling bride and groom. 
” 
