He's everywhere, he's everywhere! LOL

From Charles Flaherty's letter 'LRT decision demands plebiscite'.

From Margaret Shkimba's column, 'We can do better for our Children'. 

A Great Effort

As I'm still out of the area, I doubt I'll be able to attend. But good luck to all those involved, and I'll look forward to hearing all about how it unfolded. 

A wonderful initiative that will hopefully add to the growing discourse in this city. 

M Adrian Brassington

Regarding 'splitting a community in two'...

For the record, this is an issue that 'splits a community in two'.


As also noted here.

And here.

And here.

As opposed to this...

...as noted here. 

Please; if we're going to be serious (and not histrionic) about addressing a fundamental issue in Hamilton, could we please at least have some accuracy, some clarity going on? 


The HWDSB headquarters and school closings discussion deserves our full respect as well as our full attention.


I have a personal credo about roles in any given situation. About 'owning' it. About 'being the adult in the conversation'. And I believe that this holds true in this case. How the dialogue is framed is entirely up to us. This is a powerful role, and we need to see things clearly and proceed accordingly. Be passionate, yes. Be angry, yes. Demand answers, push for solid -if dismaying- discourse, yes. 


But at some point, we have to accept our role as 'adult' in the conversation. Because clearly, there are many in the city who do not see the HWDSB as having played that part. 


What are we waiting for?

M Adrian Brassington

Meanwhile, across the pond...

(Click on image to enlarge.)

So this post is about London, 2012 UK mayoral candidate Siobhan Benita. 

Here's some background info on her. 

Here's an article from the New York Times Style Magazine. 

And here's a SkyNews interview: 

Honestly, I don't post op-eds because I crave (silent) excoriation...

S.O.S. HAMILTON: PROTEST THIS TUESDAY #HamOnt from Matt Jelly on Vimeo.

This past winter, I wrote an op-ed for The Spec originally entitled 'The 8-Ball and The Curve: Why Are We Always Behind One or The Other?' I followed it up with a five-part series on this blog starting here. It dealt with how we might move to prevent this kind of situation, one currently being seen in the above protest on June 19th. As a final offering here, I should note this post, 'Elements at Play at 100 Main Street West', dealing with aspects of the discussion or those informing it.

For the record: I believe Tuesday's protest is necessary. It has the potential to loudly declare the residents of Hamilton's dissatisfaction, disapproval and frustration with both the HWDSB's relocation from downtown to the Upper City to the closings of schools across The Greater Amalgamated City of Hamilton. To have gone quietly into the night, grumbling and kicking at the dirt would have been entirely inappropriate, showing either heightened apathy, or a complete detachment from the realities we're moving through...and sizeable denial. So I'm glad for this event, I'm glad for the Facebook group, I'm glad that there's grassroots activism going on...

However, I had a hard time watching the video. In fact, I had to break it up into several segments to get through it. Yes, it made me sad. Yes, I was affected. But not because the visuals or message elicited a desire to join the protest and add to the (expected) clamour. I felt what I felt because of everything I mentioned at the beginning of this post: the sadness of seeing yet another example of we, the people, being behind the curve and then reacting in a way that actually reinforces our passive role in our own governance. 

There's no question that Hamiltonians, that Ontarians should be protesting school closings. I agree with the sentiments about schools being fundamental elements of 'community', that they determine the very livability of our neighbourhoods. I've been heartened by the 'We Need 3' movement to protect one community's elementary schools. What we're seeing is precisely what I have been musing about in the background for almost a year now. (I never claimed to be a wizened veteran.)

But as much as I'm on board with the protesting, I'm equally feeling that a) we/those-who-are-energized are seemingly waaaay too caught up in hyperbole, in messages that stir the emotions, accomplish a visceral reaction by way of sympathetic jingoism, b) we seem more attached to wanting to feel enraged at the situation than actually developing understanding of the contributing factors (I know this from some pretty extensive observations combined as well as personal experiences) and then using this to promote positive dialogue, and c) that by making this noise (no matter how loud it ends up being) at this phase of the game (please refer to the originally-cited op-ed), we're actually continuing the tradition of an ineffective role at the governance table. It's admirable, it's noble, it speaks a little about community activism, but it's not really where the game must be played in order for genuine progress to be made. 

Yes, this is a start. Yes, this could well lead to another level of engagement and participation, one that might just shift the paradigm so that instead of protesting right before staff are being moved to temporary locations, right before a building's going to be demolished, right before a new development's construction is begun, right before school properties are being mothballed leading up to presumed off-loading, that we're actual partners in the stewardship of our own ongoing welfare. I want that to be the case, I want that change to happen, I want us to get from behind both the 8-ball and the curve and feel what the obverse is. 

But my gut reaction to the video was 'Oh, no; not again...' And with just 18 'Likes' and 10 'Talking about this' on the Facebook group mere days from the event, it's pretty hard not to feel cynical in a city long mired in a state of cynicism-saturation. 

M Adrian Brassington

One part this, one part that, one part another...

Poster by Graham Crawford, 'Dissident' Primoris

(Yes, used without permission.)

On the one hand, I get where this comes from.

But on the other hand...I don't quite get the unquenched thirst, the unabated need to mollify.

On yet another, I do...but expect more from all concerned.

Regardless, I guess it's the inaccuracy of the lead-point that rankles, the sloppiness in messaging.

So I get that something like this comes from the anger and frustration and ire and rage that so many of the energized residents preparing to gather have been feeling. I get that this fomenting is felt to be necessary in order to keep the momentum up until the S.O.S. rally...even if the audience is much smaller than anyone involved would want to concede. (I'm not saying there's 'nobody' ready to rally; I'm sure there'll be a nice turnout for the protest. But out of a city or more than half-a-million...)

But on the other hand, there's this blood-lust, this...well, rage. I'd pay to get the more vocal of 'the energized' in the same room with the HWDSB trustees. Just to see what would result. (Better yet, I'd pay blood to actually have 'The Overseers', the race of aliens who published that revelatory tome 'The Truth' do the same in this instance. Oh, wait; that book didn't end up getting published, did it? My bad.)  I've been a little gobsmacked by the fervour of some of the online comments; I'd bet they wouldn't unleash in-person the way they have via their keyboard. (But, maybe they would.) Not because I don't feel that passion is called for, but more that a) we've created yet another 'Us vs Them' situation, and b) we're suddenly out to hector, to vilify, if not pillory, rather than actually generate dialogue. The countdown to 2014's election has already begun. Not sure how many of these brave souls will be as committed to 'cleaning house' at that point as they are right now.

As for 'expecting more'... I know, I shouldn't. I tend to ascribe too many concomitant abiliies to the intelligent; it's a horrible bias, and admittedly one of my biggest flaws. LOL I think that I can cut myself some slack by conceding that they're not actually engaging (publicly, anyway) with anyone who might challenge them on their interpretations...and when they do, the person making even the most sincere, objective comment gets sprayed with so much high dudgeon bile that it pretty much ends the conversation then and there.

And the final point, 'splitting a community in two'... Puhlease. This situation stinks. No argument from these quarters. But what's transpired hasn't been a case of anything being 'split in two'. That phrase connotes that an issue has been contentious enough that a community has been polarized. Such as, for instance, a security guard/neighbourhood patrol member killing a youth, one of these being from one community, the other being from another, and people take sides, investing in the situation all manner of seemingly unrelated issues, creating a conflagration, one that tears the place apart...'splitting a community in two'. Or, a stadium being proposed for one part of town, while the current location wants the new development too, and factions are formed and things get all 'territorial' and messy, resulting in a 'community split in two'. In the case of the HWDSB destruction of Singer building/relocation to an Upper Hamilton location, I don't sense that here. At all.

Yes, I sense outrage. I sense the rising clamour of protest.

But I also sense disinterest. A distinct lack of investment, of engagement with a profound issue. (Ironically...although not really...the same can be said about the 'walkable streets' issue. Hmm...)

Unless Graham is seeing on the one hand (or split-half) the objective, cogent editorials from The Spec, etc, and the articles written by his co-horts in combination with his endless stream of posters on the other side of the division. But it's a stretch to say that Hamilton has been 'split in two'. 

Oh! Wait! Unless he's talking about Ward 2, or Durand and Central neighbourhoods being torn in half because the School Board is leaving for Upper Hamilton environs...but even that is a tenuous stance, given that a lovely Mac facility will be constructed on the former HWDSB headquarters site, and surely to God in the world of 2012, we no longer have to have physical immediacy to make things happen on just about any level. Methinks there's some sizeable conflation going on here, utilizing the points found in this post back in February, 'Elements at Play at 100 Main Street West'. (Surely to God he can't be talking about the proposal to use the Cannon Knitting Mills location being torpedoed pre-emptively 'splitting a community', namely Beasley... Can he?!?)

Therefore, I'm wondering if maybe the first priority of 'the engaged' should be...aside from giving Scott London's articles a read...to stop mainlining Hyperbole™.

M Adrian Brassington

Speaking of Charlton Hall...

As I've written about my take on the Charlton Hall/121 Augusta Street/Radial Separation Bylaw situation, it's only right to feature this 'Hamilton Talks' episode with Alex Thompson of the Lynwood Charlton Centre.

The good stuff begins at about the 13:30 mark.