Some people can handle electronic communication. Most people can’t even handle reality. I notice, among those blogs I read, that some folks are connected just about every way there is to be connected. Besides the blog, there is Facebook, and Pinterest, and Stumbledupon, and, and….you know who you are, and all the ways you have for others to feed your egos.
Every day there are more videos of inattentive fools walking into fountains, and light poles and each other. I watched one walk off the edge of a train platform yesterday. He really smashed his left knee on the edge of the platform, and then banged his shoulder and head on the steel rail. Ontario has passed a law prohibiting the use of handheld electronic devices by the driver of a vehicle.
The Mayor of Toronto was photographed reading a document while driving to work. A newspaper columnist asked if it was not illegal to take a picture of him while driving, but it could well have been a passenger who did so. There was a small plane crash in British Columbia, which killed the pilot who was thankfully, the sole occupant. The best guess for a cause was that he was texting while flying. “Hey, Bob, do clouds have lumps in them? IMHO LMFAO LOL WTF?” Splat!
The Region of Waterloo and the twin cities of Kitchener and Waterloo are proceeding with light-rail transit. This was started a few years ago, when both the local and world economies were in much better shape. Despite the economic down-turn, they are determined to forge ahead.
We will get our own tax money back from the Provincial and Federal governments to cover about two-thirds of the projected cost, and be responsible for the balance ourselves directly. We are told that it will cost nine hundred thousand dollars, so the local taxpayers will have to pay three hundred grand, but what government project ever came in, even close to budget? My bet is that it will run a billion and a quarter, and taxes will rise.
We were also told at the beginning, that this was to provide needed transportation upgrades, but independent studies have proved that to be a lie. Politicians lying to us??! I’m appalled!! They have finally admitted that this is a scheme to improve the city cores. Old stores have been converted to condos downtown. We convinced two departments of the big community college to build near the city hall, and an old tannery building has been converted to high-tech offices, including a local Google branch. All very nice, but it’s going to cost!
The city has been busy trying to expropriate bits of land for right-of-ways, and stations. They wanted to hack the front off one property for road widening, and found that the city already owned the strip in question. Further to the south, they took bits off several properties, until they came to one particular piece. They only needed an inches-wide strip, just over a square yard off this narrow property. Found, one un-claimed piece of land! Lost, the legal owner!
A century ago, a business-man and his wife established and owned a well-known local soft-drink company. At that time, it was way out past the edge of the city. Now, of course, it’s well within city boundaries, and right where they want to run the street-railroad. The plant is long since torn down and the property sold. This narrow lot may have been part of the land their home sat on, but it was never sold. The newspaper article says, “It doesn’t even have an address. It sits between 530 and 534.” Then, wouldn’t it be number 532? What it doesn’t have, is a building with a visible number on it.
The plant was sold in 1944, and the newspaper says there has been no commercial activity for that location for 68 years, no sales, no purchases, no leases, no building permits. Does anybody notice what I noticed? No tax notices mailed, no taxes paid and nobody asking why not. The longer it lasts, the deeper it gets buried. Did no-one, in sixty-eight years, think to ask about it?
The only son and his wife are both long dead, and childless. The city is asking the public’s help in locating any possible heirs. The two adjoining properties don’t accrue ownership, but may have acquired easement rights. Oh! This one is going to be a long, complicated and expensive problem, all for a couple of inches off the front. Why not just seize it for unpaid back taxes?
The city is receiving assistance from a local historian named rych mills. That’s pronounced Rich and, like k. d. lang, he doesn’t capitalize his artsy name. The paper has told us in previous articles where he was involved, that he doesn’t capitalize his name….and then they capitalize it in the articles.
The section of town where this property is, is our skid row, populated by hookers, drug dealers and users, three tattoo parlors and a methadone clinic. I can understand the city hoping to improve it, but, will it just move the problem somewhere else? Is anyone else old enough to have seen the Jack Lemmon movie, Days of Wine and Roses? His girlfriend lives in a terrible New York tenement apartment, infested with cockroaches. He bug-bombs the apartment, to drive them out, and almost gets attacked by the residents of neighboring apartments where he drives the bugs.
Archon's Den 