Margin Notes: Arts, Argonotes, Polls, Isom

A pair of artists carried their works toward their booths at the Queen West Art Crawl inside Trinity-Bellwoods Park in Toronto, Ontario on 19-September-2010

TORONTO, ONTARIO - The last weekend of summer led to quite a few events along my routine walk downtown this morning. I passed through the Ukrainian Festival before it woke up for the day, through the heart of the Queen West Art Crawl (shown above) as set up was going on, and past the rush lines for the Toronto International Film Festival--quite an eventful walk.

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Argonotes performed on the rotating turntable of the John Street Roundhouse in Toronto, Ontario, before crossing the street to the Toronto Argonauts game on 19-September-2010

I was heading downtown to the Toronto Railway Heritage Centre, where there's no telling who will visit the exhibits on any given day. Today, the highlight was a visit from Argnotes, the band of the Toronto Argonauts, who decided to take a spin on the centre's 1929-era turntable before heading in to the Rogers Centre for the game.

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I missed the end of the Ukrainian Festival today (well, technically it's still going on a few blocks from here), but I have one more note to offer from yesterday. Of all the local politicians, the unseated Peggy Nash seemed to get louder applause than even current Member of Parliament Gerard Kennedy, and I wasn't standing anywhere near the people dressed in orange. This is a phenomenon I've noted before, but it didn't translate into votes in the last election.

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No Federal election has been called in Canada, but there's a mayoral race in Toronto and quite a lot of controversy about the Long Gun Registry. Probably as a result, I have been asked to participate in three Internet political polls in the last week, which has to be a record in my experience. I haven't seen the results released from any of them yet.

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I wasn't polled about Islam, yet I think the quote of the week has to go to activist Jacob Isom. After grabbing the liquid-soaked Qur'an off a barbecue in Texas where a radical Christian preacher was going to burn it, he reportedly told the preacher: "Dude, you have no Qur'an!"

Margin Notes: Snow, Soldiers, and Sweeteners

The first snow accumulation of the season was noted at Bâby Point Road in Toronto on 20-November-2008

TORONTO, ONTARIO - I've never been a big fan of early winter. Frankly, I find forests denuded of leaves and a fundamentally brown landscape to be ugly. I'll never forget the first time I took a trip at this time of year outside of Boston, Massachusetts toward Providence, Rhode Island and wondered how people could stand it. So, for me, the early snow accumulation this week in Toronto was a rather pleasant white dusting that remarkably improved the landscape. The scene above in the nearby Bâby Point neighborhood certainly wouldn't have been worth presenting had everything still remained brown like it was last Sunday.

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Just last Sunday I was listening former Member of Parliament Peggy Nash talking about social justice and getting Omar Khadr out of the Guantanamo Bay prison. She made a point of saying that she wasn't certain what she was going to do next and wasn't in a hurry to decide. It didn't take long. By Tuesday, it became public that she will be returning to a $135,000-a-year position as assistant to the president of the Canadian Auto Workers. While I was surprised, it only took me about fifteen seconds to come to the realization that even at that salary, the CAW is getting a bargain--if Nash works as hard for the CAW as she did as MP, they will get more than their money's worth. I really don't understand the anti-NDP outrage that followed--if someone can provide value to an organization, why shouldn't they be paid for it? And, for the record, the first I heard about Nash's new job was from the local NDP Riding Association. They didn't see any need to hide the news.

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Nash probably would have liked an idea put forward by Seattle talk show host Dave Ross. The KIRO-FM commentator stated that the election of Barack Obama should mean that the era of "human labor as a commodity" like soybeans or razor blades would come to an end. Unfortunately, the debate over the fate of the three major North American vehicle manufacturers this week didn't show much sign of such a change.

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A different kind of change was on my mind this week. Many times over the years, I would be going through a roll of quarters from the bank, trying to do my laundry, when I would discover that the reason the machine wouldn't take my coin was that it was a Canadian quarter. For the first time this week, I had the opposite experience--finding a US quarter in a roll of Canadian quarters. Of course, this time I was happy--I had C$0.32 before me at present exchange rates.

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The Monument to the War of 1812 by Douglas Coupland was observed on 22-November-2008

Douglas Coupland, of course, would like to remind everyone why there are two kinds of quarters. I finally found the Monument to the War of 1812 mentioned here two weeks ago at Bathurst and Fleet streets near Fort York yesterday. Interestingly, I saw no way to immediately intuit that the standing soldier was British and the fallen soldier was American, which was supposed to be the controversial nature of the piece. Instead, the use of board game-like soldiers seemed to be sending the message of troops as helpless pawns in a political game.

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Lest that leave a bitter taste in one's mouth, a new, zero-calorie sweetener may be on the way. Chemical and Engineering News has reported that Cargill intends to introduce a natural sweetener called Truvia. A purified form of the Stevia rebaudiana plant grown in Paraguay, it has been used as a sweetener in unpurified form there for hundreds of years, and it has been on the market in Japan for about thirty years. A naturally-derived zero-calorie sweetener? The FDA approval process is ongoing.

Margin Notes: Santa, Politics, Truth as a Drug

Near the peak of a snow shower, the Zellers Sled Float came down Bloor Street during the Santa Claus Parade in Toronto on 16-November-2008

TORONTO, ONTARIO - There was a certain appropriateness that a reasonably heavy snow shower passed through town during today's Santa Claus Parade, the unofficial start of the holiday season in the Greater Toronto Area. It was certainly preferable to the cold rain that blanketed the GTA yesterday. There will be much more about the Santa Claus Parade and the beginning of the holiday season on this blog tomorrow.

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The other event I attended today was a reception for the volunteers of the losing Peggy Nash campaign in the Toronto riding of Parkdale-High Park. In stark contrast to Sarah Palin and even Michelle Obama, who have gotten publicity for their fashion statements in recent weeks, both Nash and Member of Provincial Parliament Cheri DiNovo spoke about shopping at Value Village during the event. How refreshing is that?

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I claim this blog to be forward-looking, so how about looking ahead to the 2016 congressional campaign? It seems that a Caroline Gleich, no known relation, has mused about running for Congress in Utah, but not until 2016. In the first message of her 2016 congressional campaign, Gleich complains about two hypocritical Republican senators and speaks out against California's Proposition 8--views that certainly match those often seen on this blog. There's good skiing in Canada, Caroline, how about moving up here and running for the leadership of the Liberal Party?

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A large Michael Ignatieff campaign sign was noted on the Kingsway in Toronto on 24-September-2008

Lest that seem like carpet-bagging, recall that this was a major charge leveled at Michael Ignatieff in the 2006 Liberal leadership campaign after he spent 30 years outside of Canada. Now, after winning two elections to federal parliament from the Etobicoke-Lakeshore riding just across the Humber River from this computer and proving a forceful member of the body, Ignatieff believes that people trust him and most pundits believe he is the front-runner. So far, he has only two opponents, Bob Rae, another Toronto Member of Parliament who was the other front-runner with Ignatieff in the last contest, and Dominic LeBlanc, a New Brunswick Member of Parliament. The race earned publicity today when Rae refused to participate in an internal party debate in Toronto since the media was not invited. LeBlanc may have been the winner of this round, telling a group of reporters that both Rae and Ignatieff needed to grow up.

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One thing the Liberals could do to increase their chances of electoral success would be to utilize on-line resources the way the Barack Obama campaign did in the United States. Continuing the use of the Internet, CNET News reported this week that Obama's weekly radio address will also appear on YouTube.

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The internet is used for activism by all kinds of groups, including nudists. Despite growing up in one of its suburbs, I was not aware until this week that Seattle has no law against nudity in public parks. Indecent exposure is banned, but generic nudity is not, and hence the World Naked Bike Ride is presently legal. In an entire hour devoted to the subject on KUOW's The Conversation on Thursday, perhaps the most revealing moment was when an organizer noted that the event takes place in the summer months--"for most of the rest of the year, it's not so pleasant to ride naked."

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Chemical and Engineering News Editor-in-Chief Rudy Baum, who has become controversial for writing against climate change skeptics and the Bush administration for not listening to scientists, spoke out again recently. In a 20-October-2008 editorial, Baum noted that it seemed that the only reason Robert Gallo had not shared this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine was that he is a "brash, extremely self-confident American." Anyone who didn't think Nobel Prizes had become politicized wasn't paying attention when Al Gore shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Baum calls for criticism of the Nobel Prize Committees--I think this is old news. The prizes come from a fundamentally Swedish point of view, and sometimes that is political. It's their right to operate that way, and I don't see it changing. If you want to win a Nobel Prize, it behooves you to share a world view with the Swedes. If you don't like it, start your own prize.

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Philosophy can come from anywhere, but I was surprised to hear it on CBC Radio One's show on medicine, White Coat, Black Art, this week. Dr. Philip Hebert, author of "Doing Right" told host Dr. Brian Goldman that "truth is to be dispensed like any other drug." Does this mean George W. Bush was avoiding the truth since he might become addicted?