Toronto's Loss Is Hamilton's Gain

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Collaged images courtesy of miaminewtimes.com, treehugger,com, hamiltonwaterfront.com, and raisethehammer.org

   That was quite an election Ontario municipalities had on Monday night, eh?  

   Strangely enough, both of the candidates I voted for won, my Hamilton mayoral candidate, Bob Bratina, and my ward 11 councillor candidate, Brenda Johnson, won.   

   I was elated about that.

   But then the bad news about Toronto came, Rob Ford is Toronto's new mayor.   

   If I was still living in Toronto, I don't know if I would have voted for George Smitherman or Joe Pantalone.   Joe was the candidate I truly believed in.  He was an excellent team player for the most recent Toronto mayor, David Miller (a man I like).  Joe believes in Transit City, the public transit plan approved by the city of Toronto and the province of Ontario to add a lot of LRT (light rail transit) to busy Toronto routes.  I have a lot of friends in Toronto, and I'm in Toronto, especially downtown, very frequently.  My friends and I will really benefit from Transit City, a plan Rob Ford opposes.  

    And Rob Ford's the man who is being referred to in that 'wife-beating, racist drunk' sign in the photo montage above.  Is Rob Ford a 'wife-beating, racist drunk'?  I'm not 100% sure, but he certainly seems that way.  There was a publicised 'domestic issue' at Ford's house a bit over a year ago that the cops got involved in.  And, when Ford toured China in 2008, he was quoted as saying, "Those Orientals, they work like dogs!  They sleep by their machines, they work so hard!"   Maybe he's not racist, but he definitely can be culturally insensitive.

   On the topic of racism, cultural insensitivity and xenophobia, there's something I've got to get off of my chest.

   Someone I know gave me a phone call last night.  She sounded excited.

   "I sent an e-mail to our new mayor!"  She isn't from Hamilton, or Toronto, but for her sake, I won't reveal her Ontario city or town.

    "Okay, good for you," I replied.

    "I told him I don't want my city/town to go all multicultural-like, like Mississauga.  I said, keep the brown people and the turbans out!"

    "Oh, my gosh!  What you did was so racist!"  I was outraged.

     "No, no.  I didn't use language like that..."

     "I feel very uncomfortable with you, right now,"

     "Fine! See you later!" she yelled, and hung up.

     I was really, truly horrified.  Racism and xenophobia from a mere acquaintance is disturbing enough.   But, hearing it come from someone I've known for many, many years made me sink into a bit of a depression.  I chain-smoked and drunk voraciously last night, my way of coping.  

    My liberal, tolerant, progressive values should be glaringly obvious, especially to someone who knows me well.   That she thought she could tell me that and I would approve, well, that infuriated me.

     Racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, those are some of the ugliest facets of humanity.   Yes, there's Islamophobia, too.  A lot of these Islamophobics don't realize that Islam and Sikhism are two COMPLETELY UNRELATED RELIGIONS, and that it's Sikh men who wear turbans.  But, hatred toward Muslims and hatred toward Sikhs is equally horrible.  These hateful Islamophobes don't even know who they're hating!

    This particular racist person will probably end up reading this.  They may accuse me of violating their privacy.

    Well, my message for you is this- you sent that e-mail to the new mayor's office.  That e-mail had your FULL NAME on it, and your identifying e-mail address.   Twenty or so people from the new mayor's office could have seen it.  With your proper full name, and knowing what city/town you live in, you can easily be identified.

    According to my Google Analytics, a typical post on my blog now gets a couple of hundred hits.  

     But, the vast majority of my readers don't know you.   I went out of my way to not offer identifying information, not your name, not your relationship to me, and not even which municipality you live in.   

     You violated your privacy, by choice, by sending that e-mail, without a proxy server or hiding your full name.   Whereas, by the details in my blog, you're just some random person from Ontario, one of millions.

     I want you to apologize to me, privately, for sending that e-mail.  Your action made me deeply depressed.

     Dear readers, how would you deal with a situation like this?

     Anyway, I'm very happy a good man, Bob Bratina, is my new mayor, and a good woman, Brenda Johnson, is my new councillor.  And of course, the mayor of my old hometown of Mississauga, Hazel McCallion, was re-elected, marking now over thirty years of being Mississauga's mayor.  She is an international record breaker, and a true legend.  

     And, there's some good news about my professional blogging career!  The popular technology and entertainment news source, DragonBlogger.com, has taken me on as their newest writer.  I wrote my first article for them yesterday, Why Newbies Should Use Linux.  You can read it here: http://www.dragonblogger.com/newbies-linux/.

     So, now, if you want to read ALL of my articles, you've got to:

1. Keep checking out my personal blog, KimCrawley.com- Bright Ideas, http://kimcrawley.blogspot.com.
2. Keep visiting Blogcritics.org.   My author page is here, http://www.blogcritics.org/writers/kim-crawley.
3. Don't forget about Dragon Blogger, http://www.dragonblogger.com!

   And now, I might be paid good money, per article, to write for Demand Media, visit Demand Media's Wikipedia page to read more about them.  My articles would be syndicated, in an objective tone unlike the strongly subjective tone of my other online writing, and anonymous, non-attributed.   So, if you read one of those articles, you won't even know it's me.  But I've got to make a living, tokidoki merchandise doesn't buy itself!

   

     Part seven of my 'A Brief History of the Web' series hits tomorrow.






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Judge does good for gay rights, stops DADT

  As many of my readers know, I've been following the DADT (Don't Ask, Don't Tell) issue in the United States with great interest.  I'm a strong supporter of gay rights, and transexual rights.  Many brave men and women have been wrongfully dismissed from the American military due to this policy.

  Lady Gaga and the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network have done much to bring attention to this matter.  Here's some of the coverage I've done so far:

• Lady Gaga Doesn't BS about DADT
• Transcript of Lady Gaga's DADT Rally
• Reaction to Lady Gaga's DADT Speech
• Bad news about DADT

  Well, there was some excellent news yesterday.  It turns out a judge could do what President Obama, Lady Gaga, and the SLDN couldn't.  Or perhaps, Lady Gaga and the SLDN's activism helped convince the judge?  Either way, a judge has decided that DADT is unconstitutional and shouldn't be enforced.  Right-wingers in both the US and Canada often talk shit about 'activist judges', but the truth is, a lot of the best laws and policies come from a fair court ruling.  At the tender age of 26, I've already been harmed by a court ruling about me, but I still know that courts often do a lot of good.  One such ruling recently happened in my great nation of Canada.  Ontario (my province) courts decided to repeal most of Canada's anti-prostitution laws.  Of course, our 'Bush-light' Prime Minister Stephen Harper is appealing the decision, but I think the rights of sex workers will prevail in the end.  See my article about that here: The Best Little Whorehouse in Toronto.

  Anyway, back to yesterday's anti-DADT ruling.  From Gawker:

The federal judge who deemed "don't ask don't tell" unconstitutionalruled today that the military "immediately suspend and discontinue any investigation, discharge, [or] separation" of gay soldiers. See, it took just one judge to do whatObama couldn't.

  From the Servicemember's Legal Defense Network:

 Statement by SLDN Legal Director Aaron Tax:

“We applaud Judge Phillips for putting an immediate stop to all investigations and discharges under this unconstitutional law. As explained by the judge, this order applies across the military. This order bars the Department of Defense from enforcing or applying the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law against any person under its command. We have clients under investigation and facing discharge right now. We’ll be monitoring each case over the coming days. This order will likely be appealed by the Justice Department and brought to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit where her decision may well be reversed. The law still has a chance of being repealed in the lame duck session of Congress. Service members must proceed safely and should not come out at this time. Anyone in the armed forces with questions or concerns should call our hotline.”

  From Associated Press:

 SAN DIEGO (AP) — A federal judge issued a worldwide injunction Tuesday immediately stopping enforcement of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, suspending the 17-year-old ban on openly gay U.S. troops.

 U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips' landmark ruling also ordered the government to suspend and discontinue all pending discharge proceedings and investigations under the policy.

U.S. Department of Justice attorneys have 60 days to appeal. Pentagon and Department of Justice officials said they are reviewing the case and had no immediate comment.

The injunction goes into effect immediately, said Dan Woods, the attorney who represented the Log Cabin Republicans, the gay rights group that filed the lawsuit in 2004 to stop the ban's enforcement.

"Don't ask, don't tell, as of today at least, is done, and the government is going to have to do something now to resurrect it," Woods said. "This is an extremely significant, historic decision. Once and for all, this failed policy is stopped. Fortunately now we hope all Americans who wish to serve their country can."

Legal experts say the Obama administration is under no legal obligation to appeal and could let Phillips' ruling stand.

Phillips' decision was widely cheered by gay rights organizations that credited her with getting accomplished what President Obama and Washington politics could not.

"This order from Judge Phillips is another historic and courageous step in the right direction, a step that Congress has been noticeably slow in taking," said Alexander Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, the nation's largest organization of gay and lesbian troops and veterans.

  Let's hope that, as with Canada's prostitution ruling, the appeal of this decision fails.


  In the Canadian military, I'm sure there are plenty of homophobes and transphobes.  But, if anyone in the military was caught behaving homophobicly  or transphobicly, the bigot would be reprimanded, at the very least.


  Gay soldiers and gay marriage are both legal here.  Our neighbor to the south is now playing catch up.


  Now, onto another issue that has garnered a lot of interest, the Chilean miner rescue.


  Those guys in Chile have been through a living hell.  It's remarkable how they've survived for 69 days.  As of this writing, they are being rescued.


  From Gawker:

The BBC is live-streaming video from the site of the rescue operations—and apparently, the Chilean embassy in Washington, D.C. is broadcasting the rescue on screens set up outside. Here's the order of they'll come up in:

Florencio Avalos, Mario Sepulveda, Juan Illanes, Carlos Mamani, Jimmy Sanchez, Osman Araya, Jose Ojeda, Claudio Yanez, Mario Gomez, Alex Vega, Jorge Galleguillos, Edison Pena, Carlos Barrios, Victor Zamora, Víctor Segovia, Daniel Herrera, Omar Reygadas, Esteban Rojas, Pablo Rojas, Dario Segovia, Yonni Barrios, Samuel Avalos, Carlos Bugueno, Jose Henriquez, Renan Avalos, Claudio Acuna, Franklin Lobos, Richard Villarroel, Juan Aguilar, Raul Bustos, Pedro Cortez, Ariel Ticona, Luis Urzua.

   From Associated Press:

  SAN JOSE MINE, Chile — One by one, the miners trapped for 69 days in a dungeon that could have been their tomb climbed into a rescue capsule and made a smooth ascent to the surface Wednesday, greeted by the embraces of loved ones, cheered by joyous Chileans and watched by a captivated world.

 The anxiety that had accompanied the careful final days of preparation broke at 12:11 a.m., when the stoutest of the men, Florencio Avalos, emerged from the missile-like chamber and smiled broadly after his half-mile journey to fresh air.

 By late morning, 14 men had been pulled from the mine in roughly 11 hours, including the oldest and youngest among the trapped. The effort was methodical and free of any significant problems, and on track to finish before sunrise Thursday.

  Amid an explosion of cheers, Avalos hugged his sobbing 7-year-old son and wife and then President Sebastian Pinera, who has been deeply involved in an effort that had become a matter of national pride.

 Avalos was followed an hour later by the most ebullient of the group, Mario Sepulveda, whose shouts were heard even before the capsule peeked above the surface. He hugged his wife, handed out souvenir rocks from the mine to laughing rescuers, bounded out and thrust a fist upward like a prizefighter.

 "I think I had extraordinary luck. I was with God and with the devil. And I reached out for God," Sepulveda said as he awaited the air force helicopter ride to a nearby hospital where all the miners were to spend 48 hours under medical observation.

 No one in recorded history has survived as long trapped underground as the 33 men. For the first 17 days after 700,000 tons of rock collapsed around them Aug. 5, no one even knew whether they were alive. In the weeks that followed, the world was transfixed by their endurance and unity.

 What an amazing story of human survival!


  Now, some news about me.  My first article for Blogcritics is now online.  It has been retweeted 29 times since it went up about ten hours ago.  Incredible!  See http://blogcritics.org/scitech/article/how-to-become-a-web-designer/.


  As I've said previously, I have three reviews on their way for Blogcritics, one for a book, one for a video game, and one for a DVD that kids will salivate over.   That's a lot of reading, playing, and watching for me to do!  You can look forward to them in the next couple of weeks.


  I've also made contact with a fascinating and notable person I'd love to interview for Blogcritics.  That's still up in the air, so I won't say any more about that for now.


  I may do another article or two for Blogcritics, in the meantime.  Bookmark my profile on Blogcritics: http://blogcritics.org/writers/kim-crawley/ to keep on top of all the exciting content that'll be published soon.


  As for this blog, I'll be continuing my A Brief History of the Web series with part three, either Thursday evening or Friday morning.  I'll keep this blog updated as frequently as I have been, so make sure to return here often, in addition to Blogcritics.


  To all my readers, I thank you for my recent success!









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Our seniors, discarded in neglect...

  Elder abuse is an issue that hits close to home for me.  My father is a senior citizen, and my mother will become one in a few years.  They both have spouses, careers, and live independently, but there are many their age who don't.  My father will turn eighty in 2017, and that forces me to admit that my childhood is long over, and my parents will soon need my help the way I needed theirs.

  Most nursing homes and retirement homes in Ontario are well run, with excellent, caring staff.  Working as a nurse or an aid in a nursing home is tough, demanding work, and a lot of people would refuse to do what they do for a living.  If you work caring for the elderly, and you try your best every day, my heart goes out to you.

  Sadly, though, the province of Ontario hasn't done everything possible to make sure all seniors get the care they deserve.  Most elder care facilities are excellent, but thanks to a Toronto Star investigation, we know that a few facilities slip through the cracks.  And, with an aging population, elder abuse is becoming a bigger and bigger issue.

  On Friday, the Star published a story about one facility, the In Touch retirement home, near Weston Road and Lawrence Avenue West in Toronto.  See http://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/article/869045--seniors-at-risk-in-retirement-home-investigation-reveals .

  Dale Brazao went undercover for a week, posing as a new 'resident'.  What he found was horrifying.  The place wasn't supposed to be a nursing home, and more than half of In Touch's 'residents' are in need of constant medical supervision.  

  The food 'residents' would be served would not just be lacking nutrition,  but eggs and beef stew were found being stored on top of, instead of inside of, the refrigerator in the big kitchen where residents' meals are made.

  'Residents' would go without toilet paper for months, and a typical toilet would be smeared in feces, seldom cleaned.

  'Residents' would be left sitting in urine soaked diapers for days.  

  Often, when a frail 'resident' would fall, it would take HOURS for them to get any help.

  The poor people who work there are paid well under Ontario's minimum wage of $10.50/hour.

  And, according to Dale's investigation, here's the woman behind all of this, In Touch retirement home's owner, Elaine Lindo.

    

 If you read more about Dale Brazao's investigation, it appears that Ms. Lindo has also been intimidating some of her 'residents', and collecting rent from them AFTER THEY'RE DEAD.  Here's all of the articles I could find about this in the Toronto Star:

• http://www.thestar.com/news/investigations/article/869045--seniors-at-risk-in-retirement-home-investigation-reveals
• http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/869681--critics-demand-retirement-home-probe
• http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/869047
• Slideshow of Elaine Lindo and In Touch: http://www.thestar.com/fplarge/photo/868868

 If you live around Weston and Lawrence Avenue West, you might see Ms. Lindo at the supermarket or walking down the street.


 If you see her, do me a favour and confront her.  Don't be violent or do anything else illegal.  But approach her, and demand answers to tough questions.  If you make it clear to Ms. Lindo that this kind of abuse and neglect in unacceptable, she'll know that she can't hide this shit any longer.


Ontario's Minister of Seniors, Minister Sophia Aggelonitis, was interviewed by the Star, and she said she was saddened and disturbed by what's going on at In Touch. 


 I wish there was a criminal investigation into the matter.











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A 'Shout-Out' for Feminists for Choice

 Hey, I just want to give a 'shout-out' to Feminists For Choice.  I discovered, via Twitter yesterday, that they're looking for a logo designer.  See http://feministsforchoice.com/looking-for-pro-choice-graphic-designer.htm.  As I consider myself a feminist, I'm strongly pro-choice, and I'm good at graphic design, I thought I would give it a shot.  Below is the logo I designed and a sample 'web ad' for them:

 Serena Freewomyn, Feminists for Choice's founder, sent me a reply saying that she is considering me for the job.  I previously e-mailed her those samples.

 Although I'm a web designer, I love designing logos, and other graphics for professional purposes, too.  Below is the logo I designed for Buchalter Consulting, an investor relations firm I do all the webmastering, web design and social media for:

 I would love it if Serena would choose me.  I strongly support her organization, and it would be good promotion for my web design business, even though I would be creating a logo and ads for them, not doing web design.  

 Although I don't offer prices for logo and ad design on my website, people may gladly propose projects like that to me, possibly via e-mail, and I would be very inexpensive.

 If Serena and Feminists For Choice choose me, I would probably redo the ad by adding a graphic of a female, or a group of females, with their arms crossed, the body language suggesting 'MY body is MINE'.  The reason why I didn't simply do a Google image search for a photo is because I don't want a woman or womyn to come back to me saying 'hey, I don't permit this!'  But I would be okay with my photo being in the ad, and with having the photos of other adult females involved if they consent.

 Why don't you visit feminstsforchoice.com?

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The Great Glasses Controversy

 Above is an image of the Great Glasses location in Richmond Hill, Ontario, Canada.

  To visitors all over the world, and to those in Ontario who aren't aware of the issue, Great Glasses is an Ontario optical chain that is in serious legal trouble.

  

   What they provide is a very desirable service to Ontarians without private optical insurance coverage, a free eye test with only having to pay for the glasses or contact lenses a customer wants.  For customers who want glasses, they will usually sell three pairs for around $200 or so altogether.

  As of November 1st, 2004, in Ontario, OHIP stopped providing optical testing coverage for adults aged 20-64.  OHIP is the Ontario government's public health insurance plan.  See http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/providers/program/ohip/resources/fs_eyecare_110104.pdf for more on the optical care/OHIP issue.  

  My opinion of the matter is I'm outraged that OHIP no longer pays for optical testing for most Ontario adults.  But then, I'm also outraged that OHIP doesn't cover medically necessary dental care, either.  And untreated dental infections can actually become deadly.  OHIP covers all kinds of treatment for patients with non-lethal medical conditions.

  Anyway, in the wake of the coverage cuts made by OHIP in late 2004, Great Glasses started to thrive.  There are at least a couple of dozen locations across the province, with a few in Hamilton.  But ever since 2003, Great Glasses has faced legal trouble, too.  In order to provide free eye exams, Great Glasses can't hire optometrists.  Store clerks with just a little bit of store training use eye testing equipment to determine a customer's prescription.  But a non-optometrist with just a little bit of training about how to use eye testing equipment can determine a customer's correct prescription.  See this excerpt from Sam Blitz at Cracked.com about professions that may be disappearing:

 Those of you with glasses or contacts, think about the last time you went to the optometrist. What exactly did he or she actually do? They have a bunch of machines where an assistant checks you for cataracts or whatever, then the actual eye doctor has you look into a machine and you tell him whether or not you can see with various lenses. Then he writes down a number and they either feed it into a machine that spits out some lenses, or a lady at the counter grabs some contacts off the shelf. We're not looking to insult the eye doctors of the world but come on. These aren't exactly House-style medical mysteries here.

It doesn't take a million-dollar robot to do the job, either. Consider the smart phone app called NETRA, which stands for Near-Eye Tool for Refractive Assessment. It aims to replace your local optometrist with a plastic lens phone attachment. The device is quite similar to the normal optometrist tool, except that it lets the user adjust the focus of the image on his own without the need of a Ph.D.-laden middleman.

Read more:  http://www.cracked.com/article_18759_6-iconic-jobs-that-are-going-away-forever_p2.html#ixzz10qlAGUQC
 ______________________________


 I've read comments on articles on the Hamilton Spectator (TheSpec.com) saying that maybe non-medical professionals (or robots!) may be able to determine someone's glasses or contact lens prescription, but only a physician like an optometrist can diagnose eye diseases, which an optometrist may spot during an eye exam.   I have a father who's had cataract surgery in both eyes, a mother with glaucoma, and a legally blind paternal grandmother with macular degeneration, so I see the point.  But why don't we have store clerks or robots give glasses/contact lens prescriptions, and then have people visit a real optometrist once every few years to test for eye diseases?  Having store clerks make visual correction prescriptions would cut out a lot of an optometrists' workload, so that they can focus on glaucoma, etc.


  Ah, but then, we would need fewer optometrists.  I can certainly understand the College of Optometrists and College of Opticians pursuing legal action against Great Glasses founder Bruce Bergez.  See (http://www.thespec.com/news/local/article/251006--great-glasses-bergez-wife-to-be-sentenced-oct-1)  And I'm usually a supporter of worker's rights and labour unions.  For instance, I've permanently boycotted Walmart.  


  Then, why doesn't the Ontario government/OHIP restore eye exam funding for ALL Ontarians?  And then cover all necessary (non-cosmetic) dental care for ALL Ontarians?  The Ontario government could afford it if the federal government would give more money to Ontario.  And the federal government would have more money for the Ontario government if: 

• We cut funding to all three branches of the Canadian military, so that we have enough forces to protect Canada and her allies from International threats, but not so many troops and equipment to fight wars Canada shouldn't be involved in, such as Afghanistan.  I say this as a sister of a Canadian air force member who is currently stationed in Kabul, Afghanistan, Captain Winston Crawley.  We can lay off half of our troops, cancel the over BILLION dollar order of fighter jets, and sell half of the military equipment currently in possession.  I have a lot of respect for our brave men and women in the armed forces, and the ones who are made to return to civilian life should get all the financial help from the government needed for college, university, retraining, and finding civilian applications for the special skills the former soldiers may have.  The government must protect their military pensions, and give all the financial help needed to find a decent paying civilian career.  But even with the billions of dollars that may be needed, we would quickly save the federal government billions of dollars by having smaller armed forces only fighting when necessary to protect Canada and her allies.
• Marijuana was made legally available to Canadian adults (maybe take a cue from tobacco and alcohol laws and make the legal age 19), and taxed like tobacco.  Countless billions of dollars would be saved from freeing cops from pursuing people who are simply enjoying smoking weed, and billions saved from the criminal courts no longer dealing with marijuana possession/trafficking issues.  Marijuana taxes would fill the federal coffers with additonal billions.
• These two things will only be made possible when we no longer have a 'Dubya' light like Stephen Harper as prime minister.  As an NDP supporter, I say we should change our election system from FPTP (first past the post) to proportional representation, and the Liberal party should split up.  The farther right Liberals could make the Conservatives a more moderate party and the farther left Liberals could join the NDP.  I have no problems with naming that new party the Liberal Party.  The fact that 38% or so of voting Canadians chose their Conservative MP candidate should not burden the rest of us with the farthest right wing federal government Canada has ever had.  And contrary to what the conservative media says about us wacky lefties, Harper's Conservatives have spent a lot more money than any other federal government previously, even when adjusted for inflation.

 Ah!  That's my political rant for today.  Anyway, for disclosure, I must say that I'm a customer of Great Glasses, I'm currently wearing a pair I bought from their now closed Ikea Plaza Burlington location last spring.


  Anyway, amidst all of their legal troubles (see  http://www.thespec.com/news/local/article/251006--great-glasses-bergez-wife-to-be-sentenced-oct-1 and http://www.thespec.com/news/local/article/250730--great-glasses-sentencing-put-off-till-oct-1), I'm surprised they're still in business.  I wonder for how much longer?















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