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Idiot lights on the highway

Drove to Thornbury and back last night: a beautiful, clear fall night, dry and cool. A lot of traffic was on the road along Highway 26, many of them with their idiot lights* angrily blazing at oncoming traffic.

For those who might not be familiar with the changing nature of North American slang, or perhaps...



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What's wrong with Collingsaga?

This week, Collingwood Council unanimously approved the name "Beachwood" for a section of Highway 26 that runs through our town. The Ministry of Transport asked Collingwood and Wasaga Beach to come up with a name for the old highway that is being paralleled by the "realignment" currently under...



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Latest blog for Huff Post

I'm blogging sporadically for the Huffington Post these days. So far all about municipal issues. Roughly once a week. Here's my latest effort:
www.huffingtonpost.ca/ian-chadwick/municipal-bonusing_b_999666.html
You can link from there to my previous posts as...



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Human rights gone awry

A lot of news stories I read while in England used the term "human rights" to describe some failure of the powers to be to come to terms with the demands of the disputants - or their perceived "rights." But most of the stories weren't about human rights at all, but rather about personal choices, lifestyles and fashion....



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Jesse James, myth-making and pop culture

In the 2007 movie, The Assassination of Jesse James, we get to see a nascent American pop culture in a collision between its pop star (James) and a displaced fan (Ford), in an episode eerily similar to the fatal collision of John Lennon and Mark David Chapman. The difference, aside from the century between events, is that, for a while anyway, Ford...



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Election Raises Concerns for Ontario's Municipalities

Two questions about the aftermath of the upcoming provincial election are on the minds of councillors in most of Ontario’s municipalities: will there be downloading? And will there be another round of infrastructure funding?

Downloading provincial services onto municipalities was done under Conservative Premier Mike Harris in the late...



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Rising municipal insurance costs a concern

AMO - the Association of Municipalities of Ontario - just released the results of a comprehensive survey of municipal insurance costs across Ontario. Just like your personal insurance, the costs keep escalating, and it's you, the taxpayers, who pay these spiralling premiums. You're getting hit by a double whammy: home and town insurance.

Since...



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Not much change promised for Ontario's municipalities this election

Ontario’s provincial leaders are promising a lot this election. It’s what they’re not promising that is more troubling to me.

I listened to the leaders of the three parties speak at the AMO convention this week, and heard a lot of promises, a lot of justification, some blame, some excuses and some puffery. But for everything we're...



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Simcoe County to consider rail line acquisition

The Barrie-Collingwood Railway (BCRY) may have a little more life left in it. There's a motion on the agenda for the County of Simcoe's Planning and Economic Development committee for its August 10th meeting that reads:

RECOMMENDATION:
THAT staff be authorized to enter into discussions with the Town of Collingwood to acquire the Town’s...



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Myth, storytelling and modern writing

Back in 1949, Joseph Campbell, a follower of Carl Jung, wrote a book called The Hero With a Thousand Faces. It traced the story of the 'hero's journey' through the world's mythology, showing how every major tale, regardless of culture, shared common elements and archetypes. It detailled 17 quintessential steps along the mythic...




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