Ford’s plan is more expensive, and serves fewer riders.  Now who is riding a gravy train, Mr. Ford?

Sign up at TTCriders.ca to help save Transit City.

Best new thing

That would have to be my first niece, baby H., being born in July, and subsequent time spent with the little bug.  She is awesome, and her parents are amazing.

This Christmas was definitely most special because she was there.  I can’t wait to get to know her as she grows up.

Best Movie

I’ve seen quite a few new movies this year.  While I loved Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I, The Social Network, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Maos Last Dancer, and Nowhere Boy, and have yet to see some others I’m sure to enjoy, such as Toy Story 3, I do have a clear current favourite.  For me, this year’s best movie is The King’s Speech.  One might argue that this is simply because I’ve been in love with Colin

Firth for half my life, and let’s face it, half in love with Helena Bonham Carter too (which overly romantic teenager wouldn’t idolize Ophelia, Helen Schlegel, or Lucy Honeychurch?).  However, this movie is so much more than that.  It tells the story of King GeorgeVI, or rather, of Prince Albert leading up to his crowning.  As a Monarch in the time of emerging radio, he must be able to speak to his people.  There is huge pressure to do so.  Yet, he suffers from a devastating speech impediment.  After seeing every reputable speech therapist in the country to no avail, he finally begins to work with Lionel Logue, a failed actor turned elocution teacher with highly unorthodox methods.  The story doesn’t sound particularly exciting, but the interactions of the characters, and the huge personal struggle make it completely engrossing.  I’ve seen it in theatre once, and all I need to convince me to go again is someone looking for a date to the movies.  It is brilliant.

Best Books

Since I haven’t done a good job of reviewing new Canadian YA this year, here are a couple of my favourites:

Folly, by Marthe Jocelyn

Mary Finn is a poor girl from the country, sent away from caring for her younger siblings when her father remarries. In 1876, she finds herself in service in a home in London.  In 1884, six year-old James Nelligan’s world is shattered when he is taken from his loving foster home to live in a Foundling Hospital.  Each of these characters tells their own story, and the narrative shifts back and forth between time and place, as their stories unfold.  This is beautifully told, and completely out of the ordinary.  One of the year’s best for sure.

Plain Kate, by Erin Bow

Kate, called Plain Kate, is a carver.  She is accepted in town while her father lives, but when plague strikes, and her father is gone, the people start to blame her.  Kate finds herself making a deal for her life with a witch who could be using her to cause even greater trouble.  She must flee the town, but in fleeing, she also finds herself caught up in a greater adventure, and a greater danger.  The narrative has the feel of a classic folk tale with a great poetry to the telling.  The characters are unique and intricate.  I’m looking forward to reading this again and again in years to come.

Worst political moment

The election of Rob Ford as Mayor of Toronto.  This is going to be a rocky four years, and I’m not looking forward to it.  Here’s to hoping that Council and the Province will stand up to him on some of his more drastically wrong choices.

I’m not sure why so many Torontonians thought it would be a good idea to elect a guy as Mayor who, when a member of Council was known to not show up for debates, and who, when he did, would arrive late, make ill-informed and boorish arguments, out of context with the discussion taking place, and then leave early.  I’m not sure why people think that being a Councillor whose sole claim to praise is that he returned phone calls from constituents would prepare a person for the role of Mayor in a city this size.  I’m not sure why anyone thought his platform of cuts, and saying NO to things, without any concrete plans for forward movement was in any way plausible.  Yet, here we are, and here we’ll be for the next few years.  Joy.

A few other tidbits

• My grandfather (93) moved into a seniors facility, and the family home was beautifully renovated and then sold by a dynamic cousin and his wife duo of real estate agent and designer.
• I actually stayed in the same job title and same work location for the entire calendar year, which is a first for me.
• I learned how to play the guitar (kind of, and very badly indeed).  I’ll be working on improving on this in the coming year.
• I paid of my car. Early.
• In September I ran my first 5km race.

I’m sure many other fantastic things happened, but that’s all I’ve got for now.  Happy New Year.

Here is the thing, though.  Ever since these maps started popping up, there are facebook statuses, tweets, comments on news stories, commentary in blogs, you name it, making really snide comments about how downtown Toronto would have been much better off without amalgamation.  The Toronto Star ran the story with the subtitle “It’s a tale of two cities — within a city.”  People on Twitter, BlogTo, and other places are saying things like this (and I’m quoting the ones that don’t use crass language): “I knew it. All the smart people live downtown.”  and “This is why megacity was a mistake”.

That’s fine.  People are upset.  They have a right to be upset.  The prospect of Rob Ford as the mayor of anything, let alone the 5th largest city in North America and the 3rd largest economy in Canada, is truly terrifying.

However, as a resident of Etobicoke, who most certainly did not vote for Ford, I feel the need to point out that Mr. Ford did not get 100% of the vote in the suburbs.  In fact, in my riding, Ward 4, Etobicoke Centre, 58.8% of the population voted, and of those, 32% of us voted for someone else, of which 22% of votes were for Smitherman.  Yes, 68% of the population did vote for Ford, but it wasn’t unanimous.  Looking at that 68%, it might also be interesting to look at some of the downtown wards.  For instance, in Ward 30, Toronto-Danforth, Mr. Smitherman was the winner, but he was the winner with only 53% of the vote.  Of those who voted for someone else, 25% of the people voted for Mr. Ford.  In Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina, Mr. Smitherman won by 55% of the vote, but Mr. Ford got 23% of the vote.  Looking at that, almost a quarter of the population in each of those two downtown ridings voted for Mr. Ford, while in my Etobicoke riding, almost a third of us did not.   Another very interesting place for those trying to play up this dichotomy to look is Ward 42, Scarborough-Rouge River.  Ward 42 is as far north, and as far east as Toronto gets.  It is the extreme outer edge of the City of Toronto suburbs.  In Ward 42, Mr. Ford won by only 49.2% of the vote.  Mr. Smitherman received a full 33% of the vote.  That is a full third of the people in this outer suburban ward who voted for the man who won in the downtown ridings, and more importantly, a full 50.8% of the voters – more than half – who did not vote for the supposed favourite of the suburbs.

Yes, this map of a city divided is stark and exciting, but it lacks nuance and subtlety.  There are Ford supporters everywhere in Toronto, and all of them helped to get him elected.  Those of us who do not like his politics may wish that they hadn’t, but we have no right to say that they did so because they were stupid, or because they live in a particular part of the city.  For those of us who live in Etobicoke, but also believe in public transit, bike lanes, running and cultural events that shut down city streets for a few hours, a vibrant arts community that receives public support, public services that will likely be cut under this Mayor, and all those other things that make a metropolitan city great, this is just as devastating an outcome to the election as it ever could be for those who live downtown.

Rather than settling into our geographic camps, beating our war drums, and talking about how the people further down the road are ruining life for the rest of us, let’s perhaps think about why 383,501 Torontonians voted for this guy, and about how those of us who disagree with his platform will work to ensure that the things we care about are protected for the next four years.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Again I have forsaken you.   Maybe this time it is a little bit my fault.  Okay, really it is all my fault.  You aren’t to blame.  Yes, you do demand a certain amount of time and effort.  Yes, you require thought, and a commitment to quality posting that I have not really felt up to this summer.  Yes, there were times that I thought of you, and thought about how something would make a delightful post, or that I’d really like to have you know what I was thinking.  There comes a time though, dear old blog, when you’ve been separated for so long that it becomes awkward to simply jump back in where you left off.  One feels that perhaps a grand gesture is called for.  A demonstration of love on the scale of holding a ghetto-blaster over one’s head in the driveway of your home.  You know how it is.  You get my point.

Alas, I have no such grand post to share with you today blog.  Though, that said, I do have some very cute news for you.  Yes, blog.  I have become an aunt this sumer.  Some pictures?  Why yes, I have taken a few.  A very few.   Baby H. is a very photogenic little girl.

Now that it is officially Autumn out there – I know because there is heat pumping out of my radiators right now – it feels like it is about time to get back to blogging.  I have a lot of reviews owing.  There have been a lot of great new books written this year.  Look for those soon.  I also have a lot of opinions about this crazy, almost unbelievable, some might say horroresque, Mayoral race we’ve got going on in Toronto.  So.  Blog.  If you’re willing, let’s get back to it.

The people posing as protesters in Toronto today should visit that exhibit, or should read the words of those great visionary leaders who found a way to make the world a better place, in the face of odds the idiots out there today can’t even imagine.

Non-violence does not mean inaction.  It is not pacifism, which would reject violence on the basis of the insupportability of violence.  Rather, non-violence rejects violence on the basis that the social and political change you seek can only be gained by espousing the ideal of non-violence in which you would seek to be successful.   Perhaps a clearer way of explaining it is in the words of Dr. Martin Luther king:  “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

On the streets of Toronto today, thousands of people worked to participate in one of the most common forms of non-violent protest: a protest march.  They had messages.  They came together to share those messages.  They had a noble purpose, and desire for the leaders of the world, and the people of their countries, to hear their thoughts, to learn of their beliefs and their goals, and maybe, just maybe to have their minds changed and their hearts opened so that those leaders might make better choices about how they use their vast powers in this world.  A march of this sort should be an exuberant, joyful occasion, because the ability to come together for a common belief and a common goal is a fantastically powerful thing.

Instead, what we saw today, was a small group of those who have chosen to work, not for positive change, but to bring about destruction.  As Dr. King said, “every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness”.  This small group of people, with their small withered hearts set on destruction and horror, tore down the good work of the thousands of others.

Before today, people in Toronto and around the world were wondering at $1billion price tag for security for the G20.  We all thought it was excessive.  In our hearts most of us probably still do wonder.  Public feeling seemed to be on the side of the people here to protest.  Previous marches (until yesterday) were peaceful and upbeat.  People one would never think of as particularly pro-social causes and pro-left wing political change, were speaking positively about the work the protesters were doing, and were openly questioning the paranoiac levels of security for this week.  The rioters today have destroyed all that through their shortsighted, cowardly acts of anonymous destruction.  Again, in the words of Dr. King “The limitation of riots, moral questions aside, is that they cannot win and their participants know it. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility.”

All this does not mean that the levels of security present this week seem in any way reasonable.  I think that the banks of riot gear wearing police ten rows deep at Friday’s protests probably got some of today’s hooligans’ backs up.  The show of violence readiness on that side of events had to be at least partially responsible for stirring up the seemingly mindless, reasonless, violence that went on today.

As someone who has been involved in non-violent direct actions in the past, but who was not on the ground today, I am saddened that these few small people have caused such devastation, not only to our city, but also to the work carried out by the people whose march and whose message they destroyed.

To you so-called Anarchists out there setting fire to cars, and bashing in the windows of shops that have absolutely nothing to do with today’s G20 meetings, think about this.  Mahatma Gandhi led a revolution that effectively brought about the end of the British Empire, and the dawn of India as a free and sovereign country.  He and those who worked with him did so entirely through non-violence.  As Gandhi said “Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man.”  At the core of positive change is the principal of love for all mankind.  Stop allowing hatred and fear to dictate your actions, and start to think about becoming the positive change you seek.

Mary Stewart is one of those authors for me.  I’ve been a devotee for much of my life.  Really, ever since I graduated from the junior section to stealing books off my parents’ piles of library books.  Her books fall into two real categories.  There are the modern mystery/adventure/romance stories, and the Merlin historical/fantasy stories.  Born in 1916, and publishing books from 1955 through 1997, she is prolific, enchanting, and, I think, still relevant today.

I am a fan of both Mary Stewart worlds, and, as it has now been almost 15 years since she last published, I feel like  it is time to bring her wonderful books to the attention of those who have yet to discover their glory.

The Merlin Trilogy and the two companion Arthurian books Wicked Day and The Prince and the Pilgrim, are fantastic.  The Merlin books follow the life of the famous enchanter and guide to King Arthur from his early childhood through his Arthur adventures, and to his end.  They are interesting, in that they seek to place the legends in the historical context of the times when they might have occurred.  In the first book, The Crystal Cave, we meet Merlin as a young boy.  He is the mistreated, born out of wedlock, grandson of a Welsh King, and trying desperately to find his place in the world.  By the time we reach the second book, The Hollow Hills, Merlin has reached the height of his powers, and has helped to ensure the birth of Arthur, the great King to be.  Here we see Merlin as he trains the young boy in secret and hiding for the trials that await him.  Finally, in the third book, The Last Enchantment, Arthur is on the throne in Camelot, and we follow Merlin through the end to all his great works that were his focus through the two previous books.  I am a fan of almost all things Arthurian, and these are some of my very favourite glimpses into the world of Camelot.

The modern adventure stories are something almost completely different.  She began writing novels in the 1950s, and published most of her adventure mysteries through the 50s and 60s.  The main characters tend to be independent, intelligent young women, traveling in some European country – often Greece.  They find themselves caught up in murder or a disappearance of some sort.  Inevitably there is an equally appealing male lead who finds himself working with the heroine.  This sounds like your standard mystery romance.  Something you could find in any old cheap paperback.  The glory of a Mary Stewart mystery is her telling of the story.  She is a master storyteller, weaving hints of potential myth and magic into the stories, and keeping her readers on the edge of their seats through to the end.  As well, though the stories now happen in the past, I find the independent, and for their time, very powerfully written young women who star in the stories to be completely appealing and engaging to read about.  As a female reader I find myself picturing how I would act, and the choices I would make, in their predicaments.  Usually the heroines in mysteries and romances drive me crazy because they make very stupid self endangering decisions that cause the male lead to have to rescue them.  In a Mary Stewart book, the heroine is as often rescuing the man, and her decisions never ring a false character note.  I really appreciate that in a story.

A number of Mary Stewart’s books are currently out of print, though the do come back into print on a semi-regular basis.  I always make sure I purchase her books when I see them, because they are definite reread material.

Finally, a brief word about one of my favourite Mary Stewart books.  It is called Thornyhold. This is one of her last books, published in 1988.  I love it.  I love almost everything about it.  The book tells the story of Geillis Ramsey.  Gilly has had a rather unhappy childhood as the only daughter of a mining town Minister.  Sometime shortly after the second world war, her Great Aunt, also called Geillis, dies, leaving her a home in the countryside of England, somewhere near Salisbury.  The mystery and suspense in this tale are very gentle, but keep the reader intrigued throughout.  Gilly has always known that her aunt was an herbalist and had some foreknowledge, but arriving in her home, she finds that among the locals she had the reputation for being a witch.  Odd things begin to happen, and Gilly is drawn into a search into the world as her aunt saw it in order to find her own place.  The house, Thornyhold, is truly a character in the story, and the descriptions of both the house and the countryside are vivid and beautiful.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read this book, and every time I finish, I find myself wishing that I too had a house in the countryside of England, with an herb garden, strange neighbours, and my own personal mystery.  It is a gentle story, but it is told fantastically.  Highly recommended!