Just look at the sweep of these bike lanes and the size of the bike box. This is enlightened living on Ocean Park Boulevard in SANTA MONICA, California. TORONTO – wake up!
Category Archives: Other cities
Learning from other cities
Topeka’s AARON JACKSON: make this guy an Honourary Canadian Citizen!
Westboro Baptist Church in TOPEKA, Kansas, is internationally known for its non-stop spewing of hatred against gays. 31-year-old AARON JACKSON spotted a for sale sign on a bungalow across the street from the church, and with help from a charity – Planting Peace, http://www.plantingpeace.org – purchased it for $81,000. . . and painted it . . . in the rainbow colours of the gay flag.
Says AARON: “Thousands of people stop by, take our picture and give us the high-five. There are traffic jams.”
CHICAGO to TORONTO: “If you got it, flaunt it . . . like we do!”
<PHOTO – Victorgrigas/wikipedia>
NEIL STEINBERG, a columnist in the Chicago Sun-Times, thinks Canadians are much too reticent about blowing their own horns. Commenting on TORONTO becoming North America’s 4th largest city, nudging out CHICAGO – and being too polite to brag about it – he writes:
“Chicago doesn’t have a third the population of New York City, yet that has never stopped us from standing on tip-toe, jutting our jaws out, pinwheeling our fists and snarling, ‘Oh yeah? You and what army?’”
Neil continues: “The ‘Windy City’ moniker isn’t a reference to our gale-scoured lakefront, but to the hurricane of boostery braggadocio that accompanied our quest for the 1893 World’s Fair.” (I didn’t know that.)
“There are things that can’t be measured in numbers, and judging a city by its population might seem significant, but that’s like judging a book by its weight, or a song by the number of musical notes. So congratulations on the extra people. Let us know when you can make a decent pizza, or build a building that bears a second glance. Or when somebody writes a song about Toronto. Or shoots a movie in Toronto that actually takes place in Toronto. We’ll be here, waiting, humming ‘Chicago.’”
Neil is too polite to mention that the 2003 Academy Award for Best Picture went to “CHICAGO”, which was – naturally – shot entirely in TORONTO.
Male nudists visit VIENNA’s Leopold Museum to see ‘The Male Nude’ exhibit . . .
LIVERPOOL puts 20 derelict houses up for sale @ $1.55 CAD each!
LIVERPOOL, an admirable city in every respect, plans to sell off 20 derelict houses, in a bid to regenerate a downtrodden inner city neighbourhood. Buyers must demonstrate that they’re willing and able to renovate the properties. Demolition is a no-go. “Coronation Street” anybody?
<PHOTO – Mercury Press and Media>
A valentine to Canada from the Chicago Tribune . . . je t’adore!
Canadians aren’t so certain, but whoever wrote a recent editorial for the Chicago Tribune seems to think we’re the ‘cat’s pyjamas’.
Top 10 reasons why CHICAGO loves CANADA:
# Canada’s banks are regulated and stable.
# Canada’s housing market never collapsed like it did in the U.S.
# Canada’s health-care system is the envy of the U.S.
# Canada is experiencing a gold-rush energy boom.
# The loonie trades at an equal value to the U.S. dollar.
# Canadian PM Stephen Harper is expected to ink a free-trade agreement with the European Union that will put pressure on the U.S. to do the same.
# While Chicago roots for its Blackhawks, half the team hails from Canada.
# Low rates of gun crime.
# Our sesame seed bagels, smoked meat and Tim Hortons double doubles.
# On a per-capita basis, Canada is one of the world’s most prosperous countries.
ED KOCH (1924-2013) – he took Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island too.
Former New York City mayor, ED KOCH, 88, had his funeral yesterday. As an organist played “New York, New York”, his coffin passed by thousands of mourners. It was taken to Trinity Church Cemetery in Washington Heights, conveniently close to a subway stop – so New Yorkers can visit his grave.
A documentary film about Mayor Koch opened on the day he died.
17 square foot apartment rented for $440/month – only in PARIS . . .
And you think we have it bad in TORONTO?
PARIS, a city noted for teeny, tiny hotel rooms has topped itself. An “apartment” measuring less than 17 square feet has been rented for over 15 years to a 50-year-old man, identified only as “Dominique”, at 330 euros, or about $442 per month.
The story was highlighted by Fondation Abbe Pierre, a housing advocacy group, after the man asked for help dealing with his landlord. “I come home, I go to bed,” Dominique told the French website and radio station RTL, describing how he coped with living in the space.
The “apartment” has a skylight and a slanted roof, but “a person doesn’t stand correctly” in the space, the Fondation said on its Twitter feed. It added that the photo might make the place seem larger than it actually is.
This is highway robbery under the guise of an overheated real estate market.
Honest Ed and Tecumseh are off to Washington DC for Inauguration Day . . .
The pride of Toronto Police Service’s Mounted Unit, HONEST ED (left) and TECUMSEH, are being fed by United States Consul-General JIM DICKMEYER outside the US Consulate on University Avenue. Sergeant JIM PATTERSON and Staff Inspector BILL WARDLE look on.
The duo were about to head south to Washington DC, where they’ll join the bands and military units celebrating the inauguration of President Barack Obama on Monday, January 21. The horses were invited by the Michigan Multi-Jurisdictional Mounted Police Drill Team and Colour Guard. Do us proud guys!
For all the doings in Washington DC: http://www.inaugural.senate.gov/
Semi-isolated MOOSE FACTORY, 850 kilometres north of TORONTO . . .
<Map of the Province of Ontario, Natural Resources Canada>
TORONTO is the capital city of a vast land mass known as the Province of Ontario. Second largest province in Canada, ONTARIO covers an area of 415,000 square miles (or 1 million square kilometres), population 12 million. By comparison, TEXAS (area 269,000 square miles or 696,000 square kilometres), population 27 milion. To drive from east to west in the province takes the better part of 2 days.
At the top end of Ontario, just below the Arctic tundra line, on James Bay, you’ll come to MOOSE FACTORY, 850 kilometres north of TORONTO. There’s no road access to Moose Factory. To get there you must travel to COCHRANE, then take a five hour train ride to MOOSONEE, and from there board a boat, helicopter or water taxi.
CHRISTOPHER MANSON (Documentary Media MFA/2011), winner of Ryerson University Magazine’s photo competition, visited Moose Factory last summer. He was working on a project documenting the rise of Type 2 Diabetes in the area. <PHOTOS BELOW – 1) overhead utility pipes provide steam heat – cannot be buried because of permafrost; 2) Moose Cree Complex houses pharmacy, general store and post office; 3) George and Mary tend to 3 Canada Geese from last spring’s goose hunt; 4) Teepees are sometimes used as garages and storage facilities for aboriginal families.
<Wendy Innis inspects her grocery bill; food prices are high in Moose Factory, 3 times that in Toronto>
For more of Christopher’s photos of Moose Factory, visit http://www.ryerson.ca/alumni/magazine
