Council’s First Year, Part 4
The final piece in the series in CollingwoodToday begins with an egregious error: “Collingwood’s Town Council, elected one year ago on Oct. 24, 2022, is celebrating their first year in…
Ian Chadwick
Council’s First Year Continued Part 3
The third part of the series in Collingwood Today asked members of council what “surprises they’ve experienced so far in their terms.” As a former councillor, I appreciate how stepping…
Council’s First Year, Part Two
Part two of the series in Collingwood Today about our council’s first year asked “how councillors felt this council has set itself apart from previous Collingwood councils.” As with the…
Council’s First Year Considered
I did a few facepalms while reading CollingwoodToday’s four-part piece on Collingwood Council’s first year in office. CwoodToday approached each of them with questions “about their accomplishments so far, to…
4.25% Tax Increase! WTF Is Council Thinking?
A story in CollingwoodToday says the latest draft of the town budget puts a 4.25% increase on property taxes for 2024! WTF is council thinking, adding more costs to residents…
The Subservience of Council
Late last month, council was presented with a revised, six-page council-staff relations policy, which, according to the story in CollingwoodToday, “seeks to formalize how council and staff should interact with…
The Affordable Housing Myth
Let me start with a few basic, uncomfortable truths about housing. It’s a myth that municipal politicians can, without a coordinated and regional approach that includes private developers and upper-tier…
Homer’s Odyssey Revisited
Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Thus begins the 1897 translation by Samuel Butler…
Let Them Eat Cake
The Continued Arrogance of Brian Saunderson Our gormless backbencher CONservative MPP, Brian Saunderson, recently exposed his egregious arrogance in a comment to CollingwoodToday about the province again burdening municipalities by…
The Social Contract
How shall we be governed? Philosophers have debated that issue since Plato and the question is more important today than ever, given the rise of right-wing extremism everywhere, especially in…
Review 9: Son of Godzilla
I‘ve hesitated to write this review because, of all the films in the Godzilla franchise, I dislike the campy-cute, family-friendly Minilla, the so-called “son” of Godzilla. Minilla appears in three…
Review 8: Ebirah, Horror of the Deep – 1966
In 1966, the original director of the Godzilla series, Ishiro Honda, left to do other projects and left the next film — Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, aka Godzilla vs…
65: A Catalogue of Disappointments
Can a movie featuring aliens, dinosaurs, spaceships, one of the main actors from Star Wars, and a giant asteroid about to crash into the planet be bad? Sadly, yes. The…
Musings on Sourdough Starters
For many, many years, I owned and maintained my own, private zoo.* I fed and watered the creatures in it, occasionally neglected them, moved them from place to place, and…
Seven Faces of Marcus Aurelius
I am going to assume that you, dear reader, already know who Marcus Aurelius Antonius was. I have respect for both the intelligence and education of my readers, enough to…
Review 7: Invasion of Astro Monster – 1965
Godzilla films had already begun to move into the cultural camp mode from the second film, Godzilla Raids Again, and away from the monster-threat-to-Earth and Atomic-bomb-symbol of the first film.…
Review 6: Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster – 1964
Toho didn’t waste any time cashing in on the popularity of the latest Godzilla movie, and released two G films in quick succession that same year (the only year to…
Review 5: Mothra vs Godzilla – 1964
Toho was not about to let another seven years slip by without a sequel to a successful Godzilla film, but what to do now? The last two films had all…
Review 4: King Kong vs Godzilla – 1962
What was to prove the most successful of Toho’s Godzilla films is, to me, at times one of the hardest to watch in the edited, Americanized edition, even though it…