Category: In the News

From the Toronto Star:

Here’s my favourite line:

Charged with break and enter, possession of stolen property under

$5,000, assault

causing bodily harm, theft under $5,000 and possession of break and

enter tools is one Douglas Halversen, 28, of Newmarket. He also will

have to live with the shame of (allegedly) robbing a senior citizen and

being beaten up by one and his wife.

“We’re restricting choice,” said Calla Farn, a spokeswoman for the industry group, Refreshments Canada, after Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. announced that they will stock Toronto school cafeterias and vending

carbonated drinks.

Interesting way to say “we’re capitulating to demands by parents,

teachers and nutritionists” while getting a backhand “Dammit, I have a

right to make my money” shot in.

There are those who say that the vending machines are a form of

advertising and that advertising has no place in schools. I agree with

the principle — especially when the advertiser starts affecting school policy

— but I also have to be pragmatic. In an economic atmosphere where

people think they’re already overtaxed, how does a public school get

the money it needs?

(Full disclosure: I work in software, and they will take my Diet Coke from me when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.)

In this earlier posting, I mentioned a series of National Post articles on what they called “the

eternal struggle within all of us: the choice between the monster

suburban home with plentiful parking or the modest plot in the city

with the coffee shop around the corner.”

Today’s offering is titled Never the commuter twain shall meet,

and contains a lot of reader reponses to earlier articles. Interesting

stuff, and I’ll need to carve out some time to throw in my two cents.

There’s also an article called It’s what’s inside that counts,

which asserts that yes, in the ‘burbs, the houses are often of the

cookie-cutter variety; it’s the spaces that people create within that

makes all the difference.