A Big Yellow Taxi moment

This past weekend, the (almost former) mayor piled more, ummm, vision, into his "vision for Ottawa": (yet) another suburb, to be serviced by a ring road plowed through the city's green belt. It was at one and the same time a Big Yellow Taxi moment and a heartfelt cry for help. Involving emergency laser eye surgery.

Us coyotes can't help noticing that most of the mayor's recent vente speculative fictions involve the thoughtless trashing of the city's public open spaces: running electric rail along the Ottawa River Parkway; a Lansdowne Park deal that bobbled lands in the public trust into private developers' waiting hands, with a nifty side deal to carve big a new exhibition space out of the southern greenbelt; and now the ring road idea.

Now, the green belt has been eyed with avarice and intent by developer types for most of its five-decade run. To them, it is 20,350 hectares of prime open space ideally situated for plunking down any old building they care to name. If only they could get their frustrated mitts on it.

A lot has changed since a rather well-regarded city planner guy named Jacques Gréber suggested the idea in 1950, and it may well be in the public interest to revisit its whithers and wherefores. But I'm unconvinced that Mayor Larry is the guy to shepherd the process. He has already amply demonstrated a really unfortunate bias toward what us coyotes call "inappropriate development", along with a serious disregard for the niceties of due process, and an utter lack of intelligent consideration of consequences.

We coyotes, of course, are biased in an entirely other direction. You might say hizzoner's purported big picture schemes hit us where we live. Because, well, they do.

But the public open spaces that the city under this mayor has already dealt away - or wants to - are treasures. If citizens decide to give 'em up after proper debate, fine. But it should only be for the right reasons, and for a fair payback. Even, one might hazard, and I am aware of the irony of my using this word, as a part of a vision. If possible, one grander, more inspiring and more cohesive than badly focused pipe dreams.

At the very least, you'd better damn good and sure before you throw away something as scarce as green space in a city. Because if there's one thing us coyotes know, it's that once you pave paradise, it's lost. And as Joni sang back in her chirpier, more soprano-y days, ya don't know what ya got 'til it's gone.

ESI caption contest!

The prize? Not being thrown to the lions.

Emergency Meeting Minutes: 2010-10-08

Venue: The Usual Spot

Present: The Chair, Conch Shell, Independent Observer (late with reasonable excuse) Coyote (late with no excuse)
Absent (with regrets, no excuse): 4th Dwarf, Woodsy
Absent (no regrets, reasonable excuse): Agatha
Guests: Harmony, Painted Stick

1. Oh, the irony

The Chair notes that this is the first ESI emergency meeting that both he and Conch Shell have attended in a long time and muses as to the coincidental absence of all of the other ESI members at this point. Given both the Chair and Conchie no longer corner the market on the whole “passive-aggressive” thing, the meeting moves on to other matters.

2. Whither the Usual Spot

Those ESI’s present and accounted for (ahem) note that the Usual Spot is less busy than usual and speculate whether the it has lost its hipness with the local denizens after more than a decade of holding top spot on the drag.

Harmony: It’s about time this place got bounced from its status. You can’t ride on your laurels forever. Much like certain blogs, ahem, this place is getting stale and dated.

Conch Shell: Where are the hipsters going, then?

Harmony: [redacted] seems to have the edge these days, though I think it smells like pee.

Chair: Has Coyote been marking other spots around town, again?

Discussion ensues about finding a new Usual Spot without much consensus.

3. Whither the [redacted]

Conch: Did you see where [redacted] is looking at wedding rings again?

Chair: I hope she knows what she’s doing? The last time didn’t turn out so well.

Harmony: Three-times the charm, I say.

Chair: Which means she has to go through all this for another full turn before she gets it right.

Conch: And she hasn’t even finished all the messiness with [redacted].

Debate ensues about whether one needs to race to the “three-times the charm” spot or does one pretend to make a go of it with all the interim relationships.

Chair: Some have managed to make it “two-times the charm”. Look at [redacted] and [redacted].

After a momentary pause followed by a chorus of laughter, it is agreed that we wish [redacted] all the best with [redacted] and move on to the next agenda item.

4. Whither the blog

Picking up on Harmony’s passing reference to “stale and dated”, discussion moves to the Ottawa blog scene.

Conch: I see Megan has decided to stop blogging.

Chair: I liked her analogy to breaking up. It’s so true. You have to know when to pull the plug. I also see that some anonymous commenter made a swipe at us along the same line.

Conch: Have blogs become passez in Ottawa?

Harmony: In Ottawa, more like passez-composer. Everyone tweets now. Even Zoom. If you can’t express it in 140 characters or less, it’s not worth saying.

Chair: Maybe CB radio will make a come-back. I think social networking needs to return to its roots. Plus it has a better lingo to work with.

Harmony: That’s a big 10-4.

Chair: Have you seen this blog? My question is, how come none of us are profiled in it? It claims to be a feature about strangers.

Harmony: Well, no one is stranger than you lot.

Conch: Someone should do an outreach. Maybe it’ll help re-brand us.

Chair: [in a CB drawl] The others may tell us to pull the hammer back on this one. May have to wait for the big 10-4 before we get to beat the bushes.

Chair breaks into the song “Convoy”, Conch Shell gets up and leaves. Shortly thereafter, the IO, Coyote, and Painted Stick join the group.

5. Whither the mayoralty race

Discussion ensues regarding the 20 fielded candidates to run the O-town’s city hall for next four years.

IO: Do we need adopt an ESI position?

Chair: I think Coyote has already. Or at least we know who he’s not likely endorsing.

Harmony: Me thinks Coyote doth protest too much.

Coyote: Doth you?

Harmony: Yeth

Chair: The bigger question to me is: who’s Coyote going to kick around come November? Things aren’t looking good for Lex Luthor.

IO: Jimmy Olsen better watch it. Coyote doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

Coyote: I hang out with you lot.

Chair: We can only hope Andy Hayden makes a comeback.

IO: Duly noted.

Several motions get bantered back and forth on an official ESI position. In the end, we decide to defer any endorsements and order another round of drinks plus a shot of distemper for Coyote.

6. Other matters

The issue of PETA comes up in relation to Woodsy’s recent post. By unanimous vote, all ESI’s present support our intrepid photographer’s work and encourage her to continue to find similar subject matter for future blogging.

Having dispensed with the formalities, the meeting was adjourned.

Smells like diss-spirit

Like all canines, we coyotes are connoisseurs of the aromatic. And the strong whiff we whiffed in the environs of Hizzoner-the-mayor yesterday was the reek of sweaty failure.

The mayor had lurched off the high road he claimed he would stick to when he started campaigning, to diss 77-year-old opponent Andrew Haydon with the jibe that he was "past his best-before date".

Them darned gotcha media picked up on it, and by the evening news, His Nibs was making like a Maytag, trying to respin that infelicitous turn of phrase to mean only Haydon's ideas, not the man himself.

That the mayor was pissed about looking like a jerk (again) was self-evident. Whether he accepted that he authored his own misfortune was less so. He tried to force a smile as he twisted in the wind - but the TV interviews betrayed a flat, clipped voice, a hard glare and gritted teeth behind perfunctorily-curved lips.

With about two weeks left to campaign, he's transitioned from his usual baseless confidence into a muted desperation hallmarked, in about equal parts, by abortive Hail Mary passes and highly defensive-sounding damage control.

He still struggles to project a self-confident visual, but the invisible bouquet that cascades from him belies it. Somebody else, I might feel sorry for. Since it's Larry 0'Brien, I'm snappin' a clothes peg over my snout to block the growing odour of flop sweat. And as has been my habit for four years, rolling my eyes heavenward until election day and trusting in the, ummm, wisdom of crowds.

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend!

I chatted briefly with these three friendly turkey lovers before taking their picture.


I found it rather odd that the girls were promoting PETA in such tiny sexy outfits, but then I googled PETA images...