Happy 40th Anniversary...

We of the Elgin Street Irregulars wish to take a moment to thank some of our spiritual forefathers and wish them an extremely happy 40th anniversary. Sure, they're kind of a boomer phenom, and all geezers now, but the partners in this firm find it positively inspirational that the Pythons managed to produce their entire TV series on a budget of about $2.98, or £1 13s 2d, if you remain fluent in the original pounds sterling.

They still cross arbitrary cohort labels to remind the world of a fresher, simpler time, when absurdists could actually make up shit faster than it happened in real life.

It's much harder now. Especially in Ottawa, where reality may never have been much of a prerequisite. Not that we're complaining. The mayor and the PM alone each have contributed enough material to our "for-comment" file to keep us skirting the other side of the outer edges of sanity for years. Possibly longer. And we haven't even begun to harvest the (over)ripe possibilities hidden in John Baird's hair... I, for one, am pretty sure that there's lethal fruit in there somewhere, and I intend to do what it takes to find it.

Happy Ruby Anniversary, Pythons!

The mathematics of Larryness

Hi, class! I'm Prof. Coyote. My image consultant tells me this mortarboard crampin' my ears makes me look erudite. These charts 'n graphs, too. I was gonna round it all off with some really thick rose-coloured glasses I found in the waste can behind City Hall, too, but an odd little bald dude yelling, "Preciousssss!" came running up and snatched 'em away from me at the last second. Hope ya appreciate the effort.

I see from our last pop quiz that some of you are baffled as to what the hell informs the mental processes of certain mayors. Today's lecture may enlighten you regarding hiz, uh, honor's, public relations strategy last week, during which first the Ontario Provincial Police charged him, and then his famed "zero means zero" tax-increase promise became, oh, FIVE PER CENT. Whether anything similar could enlighten the mental processes of Mayor Lex to hisself is a whole 'nother kettle of kryptonite. I digress, in an absent-minded professor kinda way. Okay, movin' on...

Taxes: After nailing down that long-expected tax increase, Lex declared it was at least as good as zero because the rose-coloured glasses are off, he's learned lessons, become a better person. Exactly how is unclear, not for the first time - nor likely the last. (Council said four-point-nine, but we statistical coyotes always round up wild guesses, 'specially ones based on imaginary fat cashflow from provinces that have already said they ain't payin'.) All it cost the citizens of Ottawa for a new, self-improved Larry was a few hundred thousand bucks. Bargoon! We should be grateful. And as the bar graph below shows, on Planet Larry we so are!
Criminal Code Charges: Stay or go? Hizzoner says he believes with every fibre of his being that he's innocent and eventually can prove it in court. Well then. It must be so, because he's proven himself so astute-like already. But then he promised to consult with citizens as to whether he should stay on while dealing with this (strictly personal) matter, blah, blah, blah. After spending a nanosecond polling family, good friends and close supporters, he announced he'd stay. Those people form a statistically-significant proportion of the city's population, do they not?

Well, really, lately, any politician who utters the ol' 'public consultation' gag in this city is telegraphing in technicolor that it's all about pretend. But geez. Does the guy not have the decency or attention span to properly pretend to pretend? Meantime, more exacting polls place 'go' and 'stay' in a statistical dead heat. Even with all of hizzoner's family, friends and supporters bulking up that latter category. Not quite a clear endorsement, but hey: the pie chart down there proves that family, friends and supporters are any well-grounded politician's most important constituents, outweighing all others. That's what democracy is all about.

Swagger: Ooh! Remember when he promised to make Ottawa 'a city with swagger?' Like it's a good thing? Never understood that myself, though other lecturers at Irregular University gave it a shot. Despite Marlen Cowpland's wardrobe, Ottawa remains pretty much a gray-flannel, button-down kinda place. Okay, possibly it actually dresses more eclectically than that these days, but it's still discretely self-effacing. Yet my Oxford Big Word Thingy, Canine Edition, defines 'swagger' as 'behaving with an air of superiority, in a blustering, insolent or defiant manner; now esp to walk or carry oneself as if among inferiors, with an obtrusively superior or insolent air...' I don't get it. That's not an image anyone 'cept maybe some kinda outta-touch narcissist would want. Uh, oh, wait...!
Now class: remember all of this. It's on the final exam, possibly in three years. But maybe sooner.

If dogs run free...

Speaking of Ottawa and silly walks, I have a beef with park planners. City, National Capital Commission, doesn't matter -- they all like to draw designs that they think look pretty in aerial photos, insteada planning functional spaces. Take Confederation Park, at the corner of Elgin and Laurier, f'rinstance. Please. Nice space (we coyotes always approve of open green space dotted with lotsa hiding places), dumb pedestrian plan.

Contrary to what some might say, we coyotes walk and think in fairly straight lines. But here, some well-papered plannerly type thought long and hard, then drew a long, carefully arced sidewalk from the entrance just across the street from city hall, to the stairs that take you up to the Mackenzie King Bridge. Then them pesky pedestrians ignored this pretty sidewalk and walked on the grass, bee-lining straight from entrance to stairs, because they could see their destination, and the un-curved distance was shorter. Imagine that.

What the NCC's control freaks did next, rather than admit its planners are less than demigods, was plant a buncha unsightly shrubs across either end of this straight line, to try to passively force people back onto the sidewalk. Didn't work. Bipeds continued to wear a long, straight path through the shrubs, across the grass. Imagine that. Since that proved unsatisfactory, the NCC planted even more unsightly snow fences in the middle of the two shrub beds to make 'em harder to traverse. From my lurking lair I still see people stomp down snow fences on occasion. Imagine that.

One of the smartest park planners I ever ran across had no fancy planning degree, but a lotta horse sense. Entrusted with a big new park, he seeded it to grass, and left it that way for a summer. In fall, he looked at where walkers had worn the heaviest paths in the grass, and had all his sidewalks put right there, along the lines that people were walking anyway! Then they all pretty much stayed on the sidewalks, unless they were playing pick-up frisbee. With coyotes they thought were just plain ol' domestic dogs. Imagine that...!

Keep on Struttin'

Mayor Lex Luthor thinks Ottawa needs to become more swagger worthy. Seems we don’t have enough pride about our town and we need to express it via some kind of new strut. In fact, our mayor is so confident about its impact he thinks citizens may even add a gratuity payment on our tax bill once the swagger takes hold.

I think Lex is on to something. Seeing that the ESIs are now promoting contests, I suggest we put out the call for a new Ottawa swagger.

So get out your video cams and send us a demonstration of what you think Ottawa’s new swagger should be. My nomination is a perennial Ottawa favourite called the bureaucratic two-step: one step forward, two steps backward. Get your ideas to us pronto. We’ll need to rehearse it in time for the Senators Stanley Cup victory parade.

For inspiration in designing a swagger you may want to consult this web-based utility