Toronto the Good: Toronto in Autumn 2k11, by photographer Bukharov

A brilliant photographer has captured the dizzying variety of colorations now inflaming our autumnal tree-foliage in Toronto the Good.  Photographer Bukharov has been selected in a competition along with 6 others for the photo of the week on locations in the city.  Posterjack sponsors the competition, and the post is by Tom Ryaboi.  Post of all seven of the selected photos may be found on the blogTO website.  There are some other dandy photo-images among them.

— Photographikos

Toronto the Good: Native Peoples: $1.5 million for new clinic, traditional healing, modern medicine

Toronto Star (Aug30,2k11)
article by Mary Armsby, photo by Rick Eglinton / Toronto Star

Anishnawbe Health Toronto gets $1.5 million grant

The Toronto aboriginal health-care group that forfeited a prized downtown site for a new clinic over concerns the land may be a Roman Catholic graveyard is now one step closer to building its dream facility.

Anishnawbe Health Toronto received approval Tuesday for a $1,485,000 provincial planning and design grant to consolidate its three GTA clinics into a single, iconic aboriginal structure.

The funds came from the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.

“We look forward to creating a legacy for our people,’’ said AHT’s executive director, Joe Hester, who’s desperate to replace two cramped clinics off Sherbourne St. and another on Vaughan Rd. with a facility where traditional healing and modern medicine will be practised in tandem.

“For us, it will have to be a home, and home has to be a place of beauty. Home has to be inviting. It’s a place for rest, respite, and it represents you as a person.”

Once a new downtown site has been selected — negotiations for locations are underway — and design bids have been tendered, it’s expected construction capital will be quickly forthcoming from the province.

The project will get input from aboriginal elders before a final design bid is chosen.

Hester said the grant announcement, made at AHT’s clinic across from the Moss Park Arena, was one of the few bright moments in a decade-long quest to better serve the 85,000 aboriginal men, women and children living in the GTA. It’s a group whose overall health is two to three times lower than that of the general Canadian population.

“It’s been like a long battle and now, we’re starting to realize victory,” said Hester.

Hat Tip to Flannery Fielding

— refWrite recommended, read the entire article.  Reposted here by Owlb

Toronto the Good: Province: Ontario's new photo ID for non-drivers

Toronto Star (Jun9,2k11)
by Rob Ferguson

— posted here by Owlb




Ontario to launch 

new photo identification card

Ontarians without a driver’s licence to use as a quick and easy piece of identification can soon apply for a government-issue photo ID card.

The new cards, to become available in late July, cost $35 and are valid for five years but are not suitable as a passport substitute on international trips, Transportation Minister Kathleen Wynne said Thursday.

The wallet-sized cards are aimed at the estimated 1.5 million Ontarians over the age of 16 — including the blind and those with partial sight — who don’t have driver’s licences.

“The driver’s licence has been the stand-in for photo ID but some people don’t have one,” Wynne said as she announced the cards at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind in Toronto.

“It’s an acknowledgement we live in a world where people need to be able to identify themselves,” Wynne added, noting her 55-year-old sister doesn’t drive and could use such a card.

“We want to make life a little bit easier for those people.”

The move was applauded by the CNIB as long overdue, with Wynne noting Quebec will now be the only Canadian province that does not have a simple photo ID card.

“If you don’t drive, like CNIB clients, you struggle with a lot of business transactions that require photo ID, like taking out a loan or opening an account or booking hotel accommodation or voting,” said Paul Ting, executive director of the CNIB.

Wynne said the card has been in development for three years and was first intended as a hi-tech passport substitute, but that track was abandoned as too costly and cumbersome when there was more urgent need for a basic photo ID.

“We can get to that later,” she said of a passport substitute, adding the government is waiting to see how much demand there would be for such a card. “We need to see that materialize.”

The photo ID card does not have Braille but features include raised lettering for the card number and date of birth.

Applications for the card will be taken starting next month at 20 Service Ontario centres throughout the province before the offer is expanded to every centre throughout the province next year.

Summer in the City: Monster boring machines: New northern extension of subway launched

---------------------------------------
Toronto Star (June16,2k11)

More about Toronto Transit Corporation »

by Tess Kalinowski

Super-sized tunneling machines 

ready to launch

This momentous subway moment has been in the making for about 20 years.

The TTC is about to launch the first of four giant tunnel-boring machines that will dig the route for tracks and trains on the Spadina subway extension to York Region.

“It’s really exciting. After 25 years we’re finally building the subway line. It’s going to connect York to rapid transit, it’s going to open up an entire new area of the city. It’s going to link us to our regional neighbours,” TTC chair Karen Stintz said Thursday.

Stintz will join Mayor Rob Ford and federal, provincial and regional politicians on Friday to announce the launch at the site of the future Sheppard West subway station.

“What I’d like to do is just keep the borers, so when we finish on Spadina-York we just keep on going. It’s a long time in coming, it’s so needed,” said Stintz, citing the 2,000 buses a day that serve York University and the city’s planned development of Downsview Park, which will also feed the subway.

The $2.4 billion extension, which will extend 6.7 kilometres from Downsview station to the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Vaughn [Municipality], is scheduled to open by 2015. So far, construction is on time and on budget, she said.

The first of the machines has already been lowered into the ground at Sheppard West to begin the dig by the end of the month.

There are three shafts along the six-stop route into which the machines will be lowered and extracted at various phases.

The first machine will dig northwest, parallel to Keele St. to just south of Finch Ave. About a month later, its twin will begin boring a parallel tunnel. The time gap is necessary to let the ground settle.
Once they reach Finch, the machines will be pulled out through an extraction shaft and returned to Sheppard, where they will begin boring south to Downsview station.

That completes their task.

The second set of tunneling machines will be launched in fall atnSteeles West Station, from which they will travel south to Finch West. There they will be extracted and taken up to Highway 407 to dig southward to Steeles West. Finally, those machines will be used to tunnel north to Vaughan.
Custom-built by Lovat in Toronto, the machines are assembled at the subway site.

The Spadina tunnel will be 5.4 metres in diameter, compared with 5.2 metres on the Sheppard line, because of different curves on Spadina and to accommodate new fire rules requiring wider walkways.

The tunnels won’t be as wide, however, as the underground Eglinton light rail, which requires a 6.5-metre diameter to accommodate the overhead catenary.

As well as boring tunnels, the machines are equipped with arms that will be used to lift and install the segmented tunnel liners.

The stations will cost $100 million to $200 million each, including tail track at the north end, where trains will be stored.
--------------------------
-- Star / Kalinowski materials posted here by Owlb

Toronto the Good: Racoons still a minority in Torono *--)

Christian Science Monitor (June18,2k11)

A family of young raccoons perches on a garage in Toronto in 2009. The Canadian city has become known as the raccoon capital of the world, much to the chagrin of its human residents. One man was arrested for allegedly hitting a baby raccoon with a shovel.  [Another for attempting to drown a nuissance raccoon still in its cage, by dropping the closed cage into Lake Ontario, only to be videod while doing so.]   Zuma Press/Newscom/File

-- CSM / ZumaPress/Newscom'File materials re-posted here by Animal Lover

Toronto the Good: Satire: Publisher responds to verbal dogfite in Toronto btwn bike suppliers and repair shops

blogTO (found Apr 3,2k11)

Social satire comes of age in Toronto, Ontario (TO) around the battle of the bike shops, engaging an alleged for-profit against an alleged charity.  I took the other view in my comment elsewhere online at Reddit (an alleged cyber-smear site):

Excellent satire!  But also terribly banal.  I don't quite believe now that either of the two entities who are principals in this cosmic tragedy actually exist outside cyberspace in the otherwise real world.  Yet, we are Aristotelians all, and the really real (Francis Schaeffer) casts a long shadow on our sense of existence and true truth (ibidem).

The whole non-event has left me dishevelled among the attacks and disclaimers and apologies by the accusers.  It turns out that everyone involved is actually a goody-goody (except one feller, apparently, but even that is too full of dubiosity to account for the sound and fury .... spelling check -- Shoud that be "furry"?  Sound and furry, the new phrase triggers our re-interpretation of 'sound' so that now there is no decibelic sound nor emotive fury, only sound and furry, conjuring up a furry who is sound in body and mind, perhaps.  Sasquatch, undoubtedly.

-- Satirikos

Toronto the Good: Interfaith Dialogue: Toronto Muslim publishes 2nd book, destined to become a bestseller in Canada

Don’t miss this outstanding event as Oraynu presents prominent author/ commentator TAREK FATAH who will speak on his provocative new book:

THE JEW IS NOT MY ENEMY: 

Unveiling The Myths That Fuel Muslim Anti-Semitism

Tarek Fatah, a liberal Muslim and critically acclaimed author, explores the historical, political, and theological basis for centuries of Muslim animosity towards Jews, debunks long-held myths while tracing a history of hate and its impact today. He takes apart the Arab supremacist doctrines and argues that hating Jews is against the essence of the Islamic spirit.

About the Author

Journalist and political advocate TAREK FATAH is the founder of the liberal Muslim organization Muslim Canadian Congress. He is a regular contributor and guest host on the morning show on Newstalk 1010. His first book, Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State was a finalist for the Donner Prize.

JEWISH BOOK FAIR

Sunday, Oct. 31 at 8 pm 

Beth David B’nai Israel Beth Am Synagogue, 

55 Yeomans Road 

(in Toronto's Bathurst/Sheppard area)

Toronto the Good: Bedbugs Plague: Wall Street Journal's latest video

The News Hub, videos from Wall Street Journal (vimeo)

-- Owlie Scowlie

Toronto the Good: After the G20 riots, Toronto blacksout from transformer fire

A strange summer, with the financial crisis to crawl-out from under, only to be followed by a threatening  re-recession.  With the reversal of the pendulum in Europe -- Germany under the helm of Angelika Merkel, and the nu coalition govt in Britain (Tories and LibDems), and the Dutch dumping the centrist Christian Democrats while giving the lead to free-enterise and anti-immigrant upswing parties (yet, no majority there either), and the pressure of both countries, Britain and Germany, at the G8 Summit to assure passage of a document committing to austerity.  UK is the first to adopt some key concepts of the document "across the board," as is said.  The tide has turned in Europe, and many of these countries are trying to wrestle down their deficits and sovereign debts.  After the payout to Greece.  And Spains looks as tho it's held together by cellophane and bandages.  Who can see Greece as anything but a basket case, bailed out by a hub of German banks in concert with the German govt.  So Greece has bilked and milked the German cow dry.

Greece squandered its stewardship harmoniously bringing Turkey into Europe.  Now, Greece is the hinterland on the European continent.  And Turkey is turning east, to take leadership of the Muslim Mideast, breaking its alliance with Israel, yet claiming a role of Muslim Mideast international good neiborliness for Arabic-speaking / -writing populations.

-- Owlbie Scowlbie

Toronto hit by blackout after transformer fire

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By Cameron French – Mon Jul 5, 6:19 pm ET

TORONTO (Reuters) – A fire at a Toronto transformer station knocked out power to much of the city on Monday, snarling traffic in the midst of a blistering heatwave, but appearing to have little impact on financial markets.

Hydro One, the provincial power company, said the blackout was due to a fire at a transformer station in west Toronto. The company said firefighters were still battling the fire and said it was working to restore power.

Just after 6:00 p.m. (2200 GMT), power was beginning to be restored on parts of the system.

The outage, which brought back memories of the 2003 blackout that hit Toronto and much of the U.S. eastern seaboard, also affected power at the Fairmont Royal York hotel in downtown Toronto, where Queen Elizabethis due to have dinner later on Monday.

The outage hit around 4:45 p.m. on the hottest day of the year so far in Toronto. By late afternoon, temperatures were still well above 30 degrees Celsius in high humidity, prompting heavy use of air conditioners.

A power outage map on the website of Toronto Hydro showed much of the western half of Toronto affected by the power outage.

The blackout darkened screens on some trading floors of downtown banks and knocked out traffic lights, prompting some people to exit their cars and direct traffic.

Transit service was disrupted on both subway and surface bus and streetcar lines, the Toronto Transit Commission said.

Shaun Osborne, chief currency strategist at TD Securities, a unit of Toronto-Dominion Bank, said the outage had little impact on markets, due to the late hour. It was also a light trading day in Canada because of the U.S. Independence Day holiday.

"It's not the entire floor. Some people have lost power and other people haven't. We're probably pretty lucky in that it's a quiet afternoon," he said.

The Toronto Stock Exchange did not return calls seeking comment on the potential impact on settlements of late trades.

The power outage follows widespread disruption in the downtown core last week when rioting broke out during the G20 meeting of leaders of wealthy and developing countries.

(Reporting by Cameron French, additional reporting by Pav Jordan, Solarina Ho and Ka Yan Ng; Editing by Frank McGurty)

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