Propaganda

Back again, after a long hiatus. So much transpired over the dam and under the bridge. Oh well, gosh, gee and all that. But there are moments when one sees everything clearly. Such as the grab by the extremely wealthy (read Koch) to hijack, yes hijack the American political system. The Tea Party is a front, nothing more or less, for some really nasty wealthy Americans. The Party is as populist as my baby toes. Not at all. A stalking horse to keep Obama from being able to levy the kind of taxes necessary to bring the US of A back to some sort of real world……Obama is a good Negro. Make no mistake. He is a good boy, much like Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens, and others who forever turned the other cheek to make certain to succeed in life. BAD negroes, such as Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali, and Serena Williams, are of course violating the code that has existed since slavery. Lots here to discuss, but for now, Obama MUST get off his nice guy status and beat the living daylights out of the opposition. If he can.

Closer to home, why in the world cannot Queen’s students clean up their front yards, Or am I just an old phogey? Fogey? Whatever? Goodness, one might even line up with landlords on this one. Even Daphne Dean, whose whereabouts are clearly marked by spilled white paint on William and other throroughfares in this fare city. But we forgive her, so strong is he on controlling her apt. charges.

Other comments? Many. Perhaps the one closest to home concerns Queen’s and its changing character. Somewhere along the line, Queen’s went big. And lost its soul heart. What importance the undergraduate education experience, save for learning or not learning how to drink. A long history that. God, people, ask the Principal–what in heaven’s name is the academic mission of this place? To bring in enough Chinese and Indian students to balance the books. Does the Principal know, as he should, that he is presiding over the decline and fall of liberal arts? Pity, given that Queen’s reputation has been built on that fulcrum.

Oh yes, the football team. ZZZZ

Comments welcome and yes, more to come…..not any of it pleasing anyone…..

We’re in the midst of the freeze now, with bits and pieces of snow falling all the time. Only a few major storms, the next heading this way on Saturday. Around Sydenham Ward, the buzz concerns the intended sale of two of the most valuable properties in the venue, both b & b’s, both owned by the same gentlemen. The Abbey Manor on William, a stone’s throw from The Secret Garden on Sydenham (formerly Qns Math Prof Peter Taylor’s abode–he has since built his own fine dwelling next door) are up for purchase. The selling price is, well, nearly California-like.  Try on $1.375 mil for the Manor, and $1,575 mil for the Garden.  That’s nearly a cool $3 million for a daily double worth noting.  The taxes will push the total over that number.  Good news here is that both properties are in fine shape, well managed, and located in Kingston’s own version of Beverly Hills (if there is one).  The Secret Garden also has a fish pond, featuring koi in the good weather.  The raccoons have tried, but have not made meals of those fish, and we did see some shadowy figures casting lines over the fence on William.  Interested?  Call the Cookes — mom and daughter–that’s Diane and Marjorie of Royal LePage.  The Cookes are the apparent big hitters now in Sydenham Ward land deals, though long-time big hitter Rod White and  John and Jim Hinton might argue with the designation.  The latter have been trying to unload a huge historic home on Earl, formerly occupied by David and Sandra Rutenberg before a sale to an absentee Irishman who used the property as a summer resort and then left it fallow for most of the rest of the year.   Ah, dollars.  And sense.

In this winter of discontent, with American voters wondering how to deal with tragedy and with each other, we Canadians merely stoke the wood stove and try to keep warm, and hope that the U.S. economy is able to hold its own in the coming months.  We’ve got the NHL, of course, and a lousy entry in the NBA that’s best described as a dinosaur.  Baseball is not too far off, and the Blue Jays will at least have some pitching.  That, of course, in abundance, carried the SF Giants to victory in the World Series.  Around these parts, lots of rooters for the Leafs and Senators, all of these people grumpy.  If you want to warm up, go see “The King’s Speech,” which is bound to make you feel good about diction, good acting, and good writing.  I’ve stayed warm over the last month with “The Social Network,” also enjoyed greatly, with the ironic point that the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, had very few friends, indeed.  Now that he is worth fifty billion smackers, one suspects that he is more popular.  The film is good, very good in places, and has a fine sense of the weaknesses of the human persona.  As does the HBO production of “Mad Men,” now through its fourth year and still going strong.  Nothing but a soap opera borrowing themes from the late 1950s and 1960s, but sensitive and clear in its brutal portrayal of Madison Avenue and its denizens–especially the men.  All of the male characters are  emotionally challenged in various ways, primarily in terms of identity and relationships.  Ambition is the the complicating catalyst, as all these guys, from Don Draper to Pete, to Sterling Cooper write large, are found lacking in empathy.  Indeed, watching “Mad Men” is a ticket to understanding why a woman’s movement and a civil rights movement broke out in mid-decade.

“Being a man”  also lies at the root of our big games with which we identify, and things haven’t changed all that much in the last half century, if not longer.  Reading the sports pages is an exercise similar to walking my dog, in that the latter sniffs out all the dog piss and feces within at least five hectares.  As with “Mad Men,” no less the real estate market in Kingston, it’s all about winning.  A recent recounting of the scandals that beset the University of Washington football program earlier in the decade (ranging from rape, to assault, to robbery, to cheating, to fraud, etc.–you get the picture) is titled, “Scoreboard, Baby,” which means merely that nothing matters except the final score.  The book is quite a read, it’s paperback, and absolutely disheartening.  But it places in context the sort of transgressions that dominate most U.S. division I football and basketball programs.

Jumping forward to the present, we reflect on Auburn’s national championship, a 22-19 cliffhanger over Oregon last Monday night in the so-called Tostitos Bowl (a force in itself for obesity in North America).  My mouth fell open upon reading a story in the NY Times on Auburn’s rank as #1 in football, and 85th in the small matter of academic completion.  The story is rich….with examples that should make us in Canada feel very good that we lack the kind of money and market that would enable the sort of cheating that goes on down there.  Point here–nota bene, as they say in the margins of good books–is that Auburn at one time a few years ago ranked first (2006)  academically as well as in football.  WAIT!!   The point now clear is that “numerous football players padded their grade-point averages and remained eligible through independent-study-style courses that required little or no work.”

Well, there you are…..in short, several profs in the sociology department, including the head, gave one-on-one courses to players in which the latter merely breathed.  And one supposes that is something.  Auburn was not alone, although the drop from 5 to 85 is remarkable, no less than Florida State’s 17 to 105 and Mississippi’s 18 to 113.  One does not have to be Werner von Braun or even Stephen Harper to smell the rat.  Now, the “loopholes” have been closed, and none of the principals are bragging anymore about their academic marvels.  Indeed, NCAA investigations revealed that one prof at Auburn, Thomas Petee, supervised no less than 252 independent studies students in one year.  Now, fans, I invite you to try that.  I’ve supervised up to seven undergrad independent students in one year and I have felt swamped……get it?

This jeremiad could and perhaps should go on, but sharp readers get the point.  Corruption is widespread south of the 49th parallel, and seeping here as well.  Waterloo’s football program was cancelled this year because of drug violations, and just yesterday, Laurier’s football team faced a wholesale drug testing.  The jury is interested and we shall see.

Tomorrow night, Queen’s basketball plays No. 1 Carleton, and quite clearly, none of the participants on either squad has a reason to be hopped up on steroids.  But the message now, quite clearly, is–if that guy across the line of scrimmage form you is drooling,  you better drool too.  It’s cold here, in Kingston, and yet, we still have a handle (I think) on athletic decency and fair play.  Hope that I am right.  See you at the game tomorrow and the Ottawa contest on Saturday.

THIS  corner has been silent for a while, too much so according to some, too little according to others.  But given recent developments at home and abroad, in this city and surrounding venues, and as Winchell used to say, with things that affect “Mr. and Mrs. America” (and “Mr. and Mrs. Canada” of course!), time to dip in and comment, perhaps with that old abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison’s admonition “to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.”  We are all afflicted these days, one way or another.

Let’s start in Tucson, Arizona, where citizens reel this morning from yesterday’s shootings in Tucson.  We can rail all we want–and most of us are railing at the moment–at the easy availability of handguns, the  power of the NRA, the lack of civility in  American politics, rhetoric off the Richter Scale on FOX News and other screaming media, the Tea Party extremists who have yet to realize that words not only injure, but do much more.   Recent events–and the multiple multiple shootings since the Virginia Tech massacre  in April 2007 make this clear–and undercut “Sticks and stones can break my bones,” the old nursery rhyme goes, “but words will never hurt me.”  Think again, and rethink the kind of discourse that passes for politics today in the U.S.   Words hurt, and they even kill.   And in the long run guns and bullets know no politics — available too all, sadly, as the most virulent form of direct democracy, to anyone who wants to use them.

So now we wait for the fallout–as one observer put it, the beginning of the end of a particular era of politics, or the end of a new beginning.  If the latter, protect us all.  We hope that the awful event will usher in a new civility.

Closer to home, a gorgeous Kingston morning to balance the sadness from the American Southwest.  Stepped out with the dog this morning, watching flurries coming down in clear skies, wondering how can that happen.  Then realizing that clear skies are not necessarily clear of the wispy clouds that can produce a bit of Martha Stewart fluff.  That’s 1/4 inch or less–just like the frosting on a good cake, she says.   Learned how to do that in prison I am told.

And the sidewalks, clear for the most part, the city’s task now, it seems, as most of us do not shovel more than we have to shovel.  So far, under the new mayor, things have gone smoothly, though at times the sidewalk snowplow seems to take out adjacent grass and garden strips.  And the other thing, there is a marvelous metaphor for the sidewalk plow–and that is the zamboni that one sees at the wonderful ice rink at Market Square–for at times, in cleaning sidewalks, the plows leave a residue of glare ice.  I recommend metallic add-ons to shoes called YAK TRAX — they are very good at preventing tumbles, especially when a dog with a hyperactive nose is leading the way.  Only two bits of detritus last night, a full McDonald’s bag dumped on William between Barrie and Clergy–everything out–and a Tim Horton’s paper coffee cup.  Not at all a bad Sunday morning coming down, as Kris Kristofferson used to sing.

Say, do we have the right (duty?) to pick these things up (and Clergy is perhaps the main thoroughfare for fast food detritus from Princess St establishments) and deliver them back to their places of origin?  I remember the children’s story of “The Wizard of Wartville”–a wizard able to make every bit of crap tossed on the ground–from cigarette butts to burger wrappers, etc.) jump back up and stick to the perpetrator’s face….would that we could do the same……and make the crud stick to the originator’s place of business as well.   Am I being too harsh here?  I think not….

Missed–former Queen’s quarterback Bob Wright, who passed last month at the early age of  fifty years.    Funerals are never happy occasions, and this one was more difficult than usual.  Bob will be remembered for his quiet courage, humility, and ability to get the most from his teammates.  He took the Gaels to a Vanier Cup appearance in 1983.  The reception was an epiphany of sorts, the realization for many that the iceman can come sooner, as well as later.   Then, too, goodbye to perhaps the greatest philanthropist in recent Kingston history–Larry Grant Gibson, who battled cancer so well and so long before leaving us a few weeks ago.  His name, and his purpose, are stamped on so much that is good in Kingston.

That’s it for tonight, a Sunday, supposedly a day of rest.  Tomorrow is Monday, and Auburn and Oregon will battle for the NCAA football championship.   Both schools have blemishes, and Auburn’s is really awful.  More on this for those of you who return, tomorrow.  Good night, and good luck.

Dedicated to the NIMBYs of Barriefield Village and to CIty Hall, both needing constructive ways to engage with the need for reasonably priced housing.

ON THE BRINK OF POVERTY
BY GEOFF SMITH

ON THE BRINK OF POVERTY, WERE IT NOT
FOR FORTUNE FOR YOU AND FOR ME,
WE’D FIND OURSELVES, DELIVERED AND
SEALED, TO A LONELY POTTER’S FIELD
THAT ONCE HOUSED THE POOR AND ASPIRING,
PEOPLE WHO WORKED AND, THOUGH PERSPIRING.
CALLED KINGSTON HOME AT THE EDGE OF CAMP,
BARRIEFIELD, AN ENTRY RAMP.

FOR SOLDIERS AND WIVES, AFTER THE WAR,
MIGRANTS IN H-HUTS IN NUMBERS GALORE
WITH HOPES AFTER PATRIOTIC DUTY DONE,
RUEING MUD AFTER VANQUISHING THE HUN
FOR THE SECOND TIME IN THIRTY YEARS
THEY CAME HOME TO RAUCOUS CHEERS, AND
SOUGHT THEIR FORTUNES CLOSE TO BE
IN A BURGEONING POSTWAR ECONOMY.

IN THE OLD VILLAGE TOO, NOT ALL THAT WEALTHY
STILL DENIZENS FOUND WAYS TO BE HEALTHY
AND HAPPY TOO. WITH SUCH A GRAND VIEW
OF THE CAT, CITY, & A LOW SKYLINE, THANK YOU.

NOW A HALF-CENTURY LATER, AND ANOTHER SCORE,
BARRIEFIELD BOASTS GENTRIFIED DOORS
AND RESIDENTS WORRY ABOUT THE LOUD SNORES
OF POORER FOLK IN A PUBLIC HOUSING CORE
PROPOSED BY THE CITY WHICH IN ARCANE LORE
THREATENS PROPERTY VALUES, AND EVEN MORE,

AS ALL THOSE PROGRESSIVE QUEEN’S PROFS
AGREE, NOT IN MY BACKYARD, NOT AT ALL FOR ME,
THE CITY’S CRAZY, THEY ARGUE AND SNORT,
THINK OF THE PROPERTY VALUES AND ALL THE TORTS
COMMITTED BY NEWCOMERS LESS ABLE THAN WE,
NO MARKETS, ARENAS, OR RINKS, YOU SEE.

SO BARRIEFIELD WITH ITS COTTAGES PLEASANT
CITY-HALL MENACED, WITH RESOLVE SO REGNANT,
WILL NEVER, AGAIN, GET THE CHANCE TO SHINE
IF THIS PLAN PASSES WITH ITS PRINT SO FINE.
INDEED, LET US HOIST OUR HYPOCRITE’S PETARD,
(THROUGH JANE JACOBS AND MARX’S CANARD)
AND REPEAT THRICE MORE, CON MUCHO BRIO…
NOT, NOT, NOT, NEVER IN OUR BACKYARD.

RETURNING FROM CALIFORNIA a few weeks ago, I’ve been remiss in failing to get back on line with the usual views and shrews. Much to relate about the Golden State, most of it baleful reflections on huge failures in state politics and economics, and the political system itself in a shambles. It will take a moderate-sized miracle to pull out of this one before 2020, and even Terminator (Arnie) Schwarzenegger seems not up to the job. A surfeit of democracy, selfish claims to individual liberty and a dearth of good will and civility in Sacramento seem to have sealed the devilish deal. Perhaps Californians deserve it, so long have they nurtured a collective self-image of superiority over the rest of the Republic (let alone this benighted socialist nation–that, according to one of my right-wing relatives…..But on the other side, those of you who visit California recognize well the glorious natural beauty of the place, ranging from seashore to Sierra mountain-top. And yes, your scribe enjoyed himself immensely, staying away from most watering holes and fleshpots, focusing on the aforementioned Sierra Nevada, near Pinecrest, up to Sonora Pass, and environs. Try it one day. At night, if you can stomach the road over the Pass, you can get out of your car and (literally) take your choice of the (at least) thousand stars in the sky….On the road to Dodge Ridge, off Highway 108, there is also one of the great views anywhere in creation. Walk west about forty yards, look over the cliff, and you are at “Therapy”. The name is apt, as the sun dips in the (much farther) west, creating an exceptional kaleidoscope of colour. When the sun is about gone–and on a clear dusk you can see all the way to Mt. Diablo, on the Bay, a good 150 miles across about five ridges and the valley, someone shouts, “QUIET!” No noise, please, as the pantheist, deist, taoist impulses in us take over and we look at, well, something beyond description. Yellow, purple, green, pink, ochre, go for it…….And then it is darker, and the wine and beer come out again, and the party resumes……

IF THERAPY stands as one highlight of the trip, a jaunt with an old friend down the coast on Highway 1 also allows for superlatives. On a beautiful Saturday Jill and I drove from her home in Redwood City, up to La Honda (site of much of Ken Kesey’s counterculture excitement during the 1960s) and thence down snaky roads to Big Basin and lunch in Boulder Creek. That’s walking back fifty years (yes, Johnny’s Supermarket still there), and driving through roads made tunnels by huge redwoods, pines, and oh, the wonderful smell of the mountains. From thence through Santa Cruz and down to Point Lobos Reserve. Point Lobos is unparalleled as a hiking site, with three good trails that will keep you busy all day, and draw you back (like Therapy) again and again. The ocean breeze, the trees, cliffs, beach, animals — deer, dolphins, sea otters viewed this fine afternoon — make it clear that religion that claims to mouth truth from within any man-made edifice connected with religion cannot compare with nature…..thence after, as the sun set on the Pacific, dinner at the Nepenthe Restaurant overlooking Big Sur–you cannot do better than this for ambience, which makes the mundane menu more than palatable. A good California wine makes it even better.

SO there are two highlights in a fabulous trip, which also included a visit with my high school basketball coach, whom I had not seen for fifty years, a surreal moment where the first thing we both did was to laugh. Back in the days, ’57-’59 I had trouble gaining weight. Was a 6-3, 140 lb varsity forward in grade 11, so when the old coach saw me now, he admitted that it was hard to remember the days when I could turn sideways and disappear. He and his wife BettyRae live in Stockton, in a very fine retirement village, and follow their eldest son Pat’s golf career, as he is one of the top two or three amateurs
in the state….Overall, the visit left me with a feeling of closure of one page, kind of a Tuesdays with Morrie kind of thing.

CALIFORNIA IS A WONDERFUL PLACE TO VISIT, but I wouldn’t want to live there…Too much populations density in the urban sprawls, too many cars, too much inequality, and a whole host of other problems……so wonderful to get back to Kingston and painting, gardening, and rudimentary knitting (yes), along with a few other pursuits that shall not be mentioned here….Queen’s University is struggling mightily to turn around some red ink and bad karma, what with the installation last night of Daniel Woolf as its latest Principal and Vice Chancellor. He gave a thoughtfull and — yes — hopeful speech during the ceremony, even underlining the importance of “imagination” in the context of developing Queen’s mission over the next quarter century. Together with “knowledge” and “wisdom,’ the idea of imagination needs hearing. Especially in first year courses. Here is a challenge to the new Principal and the new vice principals to do something radical in reorganizing the way knowledge is imparted, to introduce something different and more exciting and engaging than the large lecture hall, and as Woolf noted, the ability to take teaching as seriously as we do research. We’ve paid lip service to that idea for a number of years….but……only lip service.

The ceremony involved three honorary degrees, greetings from most other Cdn universities and several colleges, and the appearance of the Queen’s bands, cheerleaders, and BooHoo the bear, who tammed the new principal at the end of the ceremony. Most interesting from this scribe’s viewpoint was the juxtaposition of the singing of “God Save the Queen” at the outset with the moving aboriginal chant that immediately followed as the invocation. God knows how much we have taken from the aboriginal nations, without much in return.

And, of course, with the cheerleaders there were gymnastics, with the men throwing around the women, making me wonder why we can’t have women throwing around men. Not kidding on this one people, the time is coming…..

AND THE BANQUET, with signs of hope and good will and optimism, Queen’s people gathering at Ban Righ to sup and toast and toast and toast. Woolf is smart, well-read, cares about teaching, and insightful. Will he be tough enough to do the things he has to do? Will he choose good people to gather round him for the transition period while search committees seek to name everything from the VP Academic to dog catcher…..

VERY LITTLE of the Queen’s story made the local paper, which featured a fine shot of the principal and chancellor David Dodge doing the Oil Thigh; it’s too bad we don’t have someone writing education at the Whig. But, sadly, like an Agatha Christie novel, fewer and fewer live writers remain active at what was once — not too long ago — the Whig Building. And the material the paper prints? Increasingly tabloid junk, stale crime news, names of transgressors. Guess that one reads the paper these days only for the obits…said that before, can say it again.

More to come on Kingston and Queen’s in the near future….

Here’s Sonora Pass!

Here’s Therapy Just After Sunset!

enjoy…..

ANOTHER GORGEOUS MORNING in K-Town, with mere gossamer wisps sullying blue pastel, and the promise of another run of summer days in the week before autumn begins. You gotta love it, and wonder, with Huw Davies, why we did not have this weather in July.

LATE SUMMER is often hot, hot, hot in K-Town, we sometimes forget, with some classrooms at Queen’s like your neigbourhood sauna, a possible petri dish, we are warned by Peggy Watkin at the U, that swine flu may be lurking around here somewhere. The experts say it won’t hit until November, about the time students get sick anyway from burning their candles at both ends, but given evidence from U.S. colleges and universities, that time frame may be a bit off.

Indeed, for those scratching their collective noggins on what to do about the BIG street party planned for the 26th, come hell or high water, Homecoming or none, swine flu might be an ally. Who knows?

ONE THING FOR SURE, yes, the students are back, those RMC, St. Lawrence, and Queen’s men and women who keep the cash flowing into K-Town coffers and often keep the neighbours up all night. This year, we hear, local police will issue “tickets” for drinking violations, such as underage imbibing, etc., and the etc. covers a lot of ground. Speaking of students, one wonders why they cannot keep the grounds in front and around their apartments free of detritus. Three minutes a day would do the trick. Too much trouble, one hears, and this scribe sees the problem as an offshoot of teenage refusal or inability to clean rooms at home. So be it, but perhaps each house could have a rotating responsibility to get the gradoux off the ground….

THAT detritus attracts all sorts of vermin, ranging from the little rats with tails that we all love (had one in the house the other day), to chipmunks, and larger rats without tails. Saw one of the latter the other day and said, hmmm, we are getting to be a big city…..

AND VERY MUCH LIKE STUDENTS milling about on TH FR and SAT nights, while the weather remains good, the wasps are also back, those little dart machines that love anything sweet, from the products at market square offered by Wolfe Island Bakery, to your favourite underarm deoderizer or hair gel. The little buggers are dangerous, when aroused, which is the main reason to try to leave them alone.

I AM TOLD THAT WASPS have lost their bite over the last few decades, what with Canada and the U.S. becoming increasingly examples of ethnic and racial pluralism. (The mythic U.S.
melting pot seems now a pressure cooker what with all the hoodoo over immigration). But the garden variety remain dangerous, especially in a can of coke or a beer, when one is not aware. A sting can be lethal, similar in allergy-producing outcome as peanuts, for the wrong person. So, best not to go over them, lest they go after you. They are quicker than we are, and often have friends. The best way to deal with WASPS beside ignoring them? Carry a couple of fabric softeners –the kind you put in your dryer — in your shirt pocket or nosegay.

NICE TO SEE THE DEFENCE come to the fore Saturday for the Golden Gael football team, which vaquished Mac 8-7. Quite a turnaround from the 52-49 win (lucky) over Guelph the previous week. The Gryphons are good this year, as are the Marauders, how good we do not know. Nor do we know how good the Gaels are. Next week’s game with Ottawa in Ottawa will tell some of the story, and one has to like Thomas Howes, the 3rd string qb who came off the bench in the 4th quarter to do some very polished things. But, again, the D was the thing for those of us in the know.

ONE BOTHERSOME ITEM about Queen’s athletics is its choice to “honour Kingston military families” at a football game each year. Given the history of Queen’s and RMC as interlocking academic and athletic entities, no problem. But given the historic role of the Canadian military as a peacekeeping establishment, not a warmaking organization, the Afghanistan War gets in the way of good feeling. This conflict, folks, is a bad war, an undertaking that has little chance to succeed on Western terms (what can “victory” in Afghanistan possibly mean?), a war that is far more an American than a Canadian battle. So, yes, we can honour the local military men and women, and their families, but we must question their civilian superiors — both Liberal and Conservative — who have us there. What might Queen’s athletics do to support these families? Certainly a tank rolling into Richardson Stadium seems absurd, although at least it left immediately this year after the national anthem.

Tanks, war, and Queen’s athletics are not coeval, and Queen’s should not honour militarism in this way. Athletics at the University are touted, hugely, as an extension of the academic experience. So, again, is war a Queen’s value? Should it be? Or, put a bit differently, the university might add a “DAY FOR PEACE” at one of its upcoming contests. Perhaps have Bruce Cockburn and Neil Young on hand. A couple of songs at the outset, a short comment on the futility of war and the sadness at the loss of so many fine soldiers and Afghan civilians, and a call to consider the terrible impact of our presence in the area….There, I’ve gotten that off my chest, I had to do so. Go Gaels!

People reacted to the interview in the Whig-Standard on Saturday morning on this question in several ways. Anger at the old, retired prof; criticism of government policy; name-calling on-line after Mike Norris’s story. A few people thanked me at the game for making the point that I did. Others yelled at me when I held up my “No War” Sign. But at least people around the u and around town are thinking about the issues.

Sitting here at home, gazing out the office window, musing a la blog on the glories of retirement, thinking of how lucky I am to be in this burg, rather than TO or Montreal. I must be strange, but there is something about K-town when the weather is good, no, very good, that makes me smug, happy, ready to go out and beat the day, or at least a couple of the students who have just moved in down the street….Ah, Kingston, the breezes swooping down Princess Street, surprisingly strong for a late, late summer day; the wonderment that after such a crummy summer (every weekend wet, it seemed), that we can have this. Clear air, cool nights, hot afternoons, and music dancing in my brain, yes, the Hip, Beatles (ah-hah), as a bowdlerized version of “Goodbye Columbus” might have it, a harbinger of autumn for the eye, and the nose….

LOVE THE Kingston police department for getting that wonderfui equestrian patrol through Sydenham Ward. We don’t have to go to Farmer Jack for manure any more–it’s right there on the street. Let a few cars run over it, go out and pick it up with a shovel, and put it in the garden. Couldn’t do better at Quatrocchi’s….Speaking of Sydenham Ward, more particularly William Street, it has become the new Brock, what with the road work blocking the real Brock. Lots of traffic, need for caution, fewer rolling stops and such. Control people, control. Watch for pedestrians and bikers. Oh yes, and keep those bicycles off the sidewalks please.

READING THE WHIG-STANDARD over a cup of tea, an easy exercise these days because the paper is so light, one wonders whether we’ll ever see a newspaper worth its name again in these parts. Sad that so many good people have been laid off by Sun Media, while others have departed for other fields. Little is left. Indeed, the heft of the paper is such that it now usually sails over our three-storey home like a paper airplane. Little left upon which to chew…bad crime stories with little humour (why not a daily police blotter on youthful student antics under the influence–THAT would be entertaining), told after-the-fact and always from the point of view of the law….and “IN THE COURTS,” what is all that about, been there forever, I suspect like a latter-day dunking stool to correct behaviour by miscreants and to keep the real estate values up, south of Princess St.

KINGSTON and the law, and the big move-in, with the blue-jackets like so many wasps climbing over themselves to ticket cars, often the parents helping students move in, but yes, K-Town needs the money, as this administration has expended more than most predecessors. One cannot help but wonder where the local treasury would be without the parking tickets. And, again on William Street, why one side free between Barrie and Clergy (the south), and the north side posted, 11-12 and 2-3. Why not both sides?? Obviously, this is free parking for Hotel Dieu employees. This blogger calls for equal treatment for both sides, and especially equal treatment for homeowners who live along these streets…

AH KINGSTON, where small businesses emerge almost daily along Princess Street and disappear almost as quickly. One would love an accouting, say, over the last 25 years, to see which landlords raised which rents, how far. Who IS getting rich from Princess Street land development? And what about MIdtown Princess–goodness, that venue is beginning to look like Flint, Michigan. Is there hope here, or have recession and rents pushed too many enterprises over the brink…In trouble, we hear, White Mountain Ice Cream, down on Ontario, which raises the big question for Icescreamers……why is it so hard to keep good ice cream downtown, or anywhere, for that matter? Probably the November-March season, where ice is everywhere, especially on our sidewalks…..

CELEBRATING FIFTY YEARS OF WEDDED BLISS, we learn, Annabelle and Ross McCullough, two of the nicest people you could ever meet. Annabelle, an actress and singer of superior merit, Ross, one of the leaders of the Hometown Boys at Glen Supply…both good friends and good people.

ANOTHER GOOD PERSON, back in town, is Daniel Woolf, new principal at Queen’s. Dan is young and eager to get at what promises to be the biggest job to face a local principal since the Great Depression, rescuing the financial fortunes of the university, which the admin of Karen Hitchcock let slide. Hitchcock herself seems less culpable than some of her underlings in this story that is yet to be told in its entirety. Freelancer Alec Ross wrote a good piece “What’s happening at Queen’s?” (great question!) in a recent KINGSTON LIFE issue (yes there is life in Kingston, though the publication thoughtlessly did not mention OLIVEA in its restaurant section), and he directed light at some darker corners. But the darkest corners remain to be illuminated. Start with the name Andrew Simpson and go from there, I am told by an informer…..

Yes, another beautiful day, time to get out and weed, and will not have that chance for long. Autumn is nearly upon us, and with autumn, K-town becomes the urinal of the gods. Speaking of which, why not some useful public urinals downtown to take care of all that business at the watering holes that we love so much….

This column will appear (at least) twice weeky, to generate interest in Kingston, stimulate discussion of issues, and to fill a hole (yes another one, move over Henden) left by the demise of the Whig-Standard, which is now a mere shopping news. Oh, sorry, yes, that gives a bad name to K This Week, published by the same folks who bring you the toupee. Oh the monopoly!

If you have news, gossip, whatever, and wish to share, hit me at smithgs@queensu.ca
Yes, I have lawyers…..and am aware of the common law meaning of “fair use” HAVE A GREAT DAY!