Pie Palace

Have you heard about the folks out in Constance Bay who want to turn their lawn into a wildflower garden?

It looks like improving biodiversity may slow the spread of animal-borne diseases. According to New Scientist researchers in Oregon have discovered that there’s an inverse correlation between the number of species of mammals in an area and the incidence of hantavirus¹. Similarly, the more species of mammals there are in an area, the lower the likelihood that they will be carrying Lyme disease. The paper suggests that an increase in biodiversity limits how wild our little mousy friends run, limiting the spread of disease.

As these diseases are spreading in Canada, perhaps the City should be encouraging people to replace their lawns with something a little more diverse.

Blogawa welcomes TheatreGirl to its fold. TheatreGirl is writing reviews of Ottawa’s theatre shows. She promises to be keeping an eye on the Fringe - which I’m looking forward to. I refuse to have any experience unless I’m told beforehand that it will be good.

Against the recommendations of the Pie Palace legal staff, I am going to continue my habit of posting while tipsy. You have been warned.

Earlier this week, Public Transit in Ottawa ran a post about the proposed downtown tunnel in Ottawa’s new rail-based transit network, which implied that a downtown tunnel is both necessary and that there are no other options.¹

We have many, many options for transit: we could put dedicated transit routes down Carling, under the Canal, or along Wellington, which would solve downtown congestion without having to spend hundreds of millions of dollars building and maintaining a tunnel. Similarly, we aren’t tied to the (diesel) rail solution that the city is proposing: we could use buses or electric streetcars. If we wanted to solve downtown congestion without spending hundreds of millions of dollars, we could close downtown (north of Laurier, say) to private vehicles during rush hour and set the traffic lights to a permanent east/west green.²

Simply put: we have options. But that is not how the transit debate is being framed. On the left, we have city councilor Clive Doucet saying that world class cities need rail transit. On the right, we have a mayor saying that Ottawa needs a tunnel. Neither of those things are true. I think it would be awesome if we had a rail network, and I think a downtown tunnel would be nifty, but we don’t need either of those things. We could solve our transit woes more cheaply, and maybe even more efficiently with other options.

I would argue that our quasi-debate is obscuring the larger issue: Ottawa’s burbs are built for cars, and no amount of dedicated transit will be useful to suburbanites. Until we increase suburban density to a point where it’s economical to lay track (or dig tunnels) out to Nepean, Orleans, and Barhaven, public transit will continue to be an expensive and unattractive way to move most of Ottawa’s population.

The four possibilities proposed by city staff in March of 2008 were essentially the same, differing only in where the train would leave off and pick up with buses. Now we’re being told that we can’t do without a downtown tunnel, again, without anything approaching the level of deliberation and consideration necessary before dropping hundreds of millions of dollars.

Happily, the City of Ottawa is revisiting the Comprehensive Five Year Plan that decides how our city should grow during the next half decade (and will be having public consultations at Ben Franklin place later this month). It remains to be seen whether city councilors and staff will use this opportunity to address the root cause of our problems, or will continue addressing the symptoms.

Observent readers of Blogawa will notice that I’ve added El Maks (of swapbox fame) to Blogawa. El Maks, (no relation to the awesomeness of Maki), is, well, awesome.

As always, suggestions for new blogs can be made to erigami@piepalace.ca.

I have to say that I don’t fully understand the charges against Ottawa mayor Larry O’Brien. If we’re to believe Terry Kilrea, Larry O’Brien offered him a job with the National Parole Board if he give up his mayoral candidacy. Now O’Brien is being charged with influence peddling, but hasn’t been charged with an offense under the elections act.

Doesn’t that seem a little backward? Shouldn’t the (alleged) attempt to throw a municipal election be part of the charges? As an elections weenie, I would argue that any attempt to buy off a candidate is at least as serious as influence peddling. Does this mean that if Terry Kilrea had been offered a plum job with Calian, no crime would have been committed?

The Ontario Municipal Elections Act does specifically say:

That does kind of sound like the the first half of what O’Brien is alleged to have done, n’est pas?

I’m back. My wrists aren’t 100%, but they’re much better than they were. To prove it, I’ve squeezed another feature into Blogawa: events. Our friendly events robot reads OttawaEvents.org daily, randomly picks some upcoming events, and posts them to Blogawa.

The events are currently jumbled together, regardless of category, but that may change with time.

I have a repetitive strain injury caused by typing. It scared the hell out of me in the late 90s, but thanks to a lone competent doctor, I got it under control for about nine years. Then, a month back, I got a G1, whose touch screen seems to have kicked my wrists out of their stable state into a moderately painful, but still manageable state.

Now, after following the advice of my health care peeps, I have succeeded in turning “uncomfortable” into downright painful. First, as instructed, I iced my wrists. One long session last weekend did something to the nerve, and led to three days of much more pain. Second, as instructed, I started wearing wrist braces when I wasn’t typing. 24 hours later, I have shooting pains up and down my arms, and throughout my hands.¹

It’s hard to describe the existential fear this causes me. Just talking to my doctor about it yesterday made me want to simultaneously cry and vomit. It was a feeling that stuck with me for the rest of the day. Now, with things worse than they were before following the advice, I’m feeling a kind of fear that I haven’t experienced in ten years. It’s an awful feeling. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

That’s a roundabout way of saying: don’t expect too much new content on PiePalace for a few weeks, and don’t hold your breath waiting for the next round of features on Blogawa.

Today is the day that Ottawa city council votes on whether atheist bus ads should be allowed on OC Transpo’s property. For those who haven’t been following this tempest in a teapot, the ads feature the sacrelicious message “There probably is no god, so relax and enjoy life,” and the alleged controversy comes from OC Transpo staff disallowing the ads. Ironically, the religious leaders interviewed on CBC and in the Citizen don’t seem to care about the ads.

So why should they be allowed?

First, this is a freedom of speech issue. Bus ads promoting various philosophies have appeared on OC Transpo property for as long as I’ve been in Ottawa. In 2004 we had the Alpha Campaign, trying to convince wayward christians to return to the fold (while offering backhanded insults to athiests). More recently there have been ads for SupremeMaster.net, a weirdly amorphous (if seemingly harmless) eastern-inspired cryptoreligion. Our bus company must not be allowed to prevent specific philosophies from entering public discourse.¹

Second, the ads are not offensive. The ads have seemingly been disallowed because the statement “there probably is no god” is offensive to some group. We’re never told who that group is. Nor has anyone publicly grieved. It’s as if OC Transpo is holding a protest, but forgot to tell anyone to show up.

Third, the ads are affirming. Atheists don’t have much of a support group - we don’t have an annual athiest party; we don’t get together to talk about how important our values are; nor do we hijack political parties. As such, atheists don’t get to see each other very much. It’s pretty easy to feel like the only one of your kind. Add to that the overt religious references in our society², and it’s pretty easy to start feeling like you’re all alone. Just hearing about the atheist bus ads in London made me feel good - not because I really like the ads, but because I’m reminded that other people share my philosophy, and that I’m not alone.

Here’s hoping that City Council does the right thing.

Years ago, I contributed policy to the Green Party of Canada on media. In it, I stated (words to the effect of) “media is a business like no other, it has a responsibility to be profitable, but more importantly, it has the responsibility to hold our public offices to account.” The policy items were my rough attempt to discourage the rise of large media conglomerates, and to support regional media outlets.

Yesterday, one of CTV shut down evening newscasts in Ottawa, and did similar things in Barrie, London, and Victoria. In doing so, they have cost Ottawa yet another media outlet, and yet another avenue for paid journalists to keep our politicians, bureaucrats, and corporations honest. Coincidentally, kottke.org has linked to a story describing how the cuts to Baltimore’s daily newspaper has made the police force less accountable:

And this isn’t just an American problem. As the Dziekanski enquiry is proving, Canadian police reports can sometimes differ dramatically from reality. Without an engaged, and well funded press, there will be no one to hold these officers to account.

What solutions do we have? A CRTC-mandated carriage fee for cable broadcasters? Preferential tax treatment for smaller news organization? Increased funding to public broadcasters? There are solutions, but we, as an electorate have to wake up to the fact these cuts don’t just cost jobs, they are a danger to our public institutions.

Telephone poles know the truth. This one, seen on Bank street, provides the 411 on who Jesus hates. The list is pretty long, but here are a few of the highlights:

- Christian rock, rap, techno (then again, who doesn’t?)
- catholics
- yoga and martial arts
- lotteries
- tolerence
- “dirty human rights commissions/tribunals”
- Canwest Media
- buddhists, scientologists, hindus, muslims, wiccans, etc.

(There’s the usual rants as well. We hear those often enough that I won’t bother repeating them)

It sounds like heaven is a pretty lonely place.