Chapter 17: Union Station

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In this chapter Joe Fiorito takes a look at the most influential people in an area of town. In this chapter Fiorito highlights how citizens of Kensington Market are going to honour the memory of the King of Kensington, Al Waxman. A statue in a park resulted.

The question, that came to my mind while reading this chapter, is there a citizen of my town who is revered or admired like Al Waxman is in Kensington?

In Aurora there is perhaps Lester B. Pearson who grew up in Aurora. His school, Church Street School, is now being transformed into the local heritage centre. His father, Edwin Pearson, was the Minister at the Aurora Methodist Church (now Aurora United Church). We all know how great Lester would become in world history in terms of eventually being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Are there others within Aurora? Perhaps, but not as big as Lester Pearson. Notable mentions could be Olympic downhill skier Brian Stemmle, CTV's Tom Clark, and others.

Take a look at your own community, who would be "The King" of your community?

Chapter 16: Union Station

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In Chapter 16 Joe Fiorito investigates the stories of transit. In other words the stories of the people and/or the events that happen while on pulblic of transit.

One of the books I picked up during my time in New York City was Subwayland by Randy Kennedy. The book takes a look at the stories that can be found within the New York City subway system. I learned some very interesting things about the New York City subway system like:

-Need a seat on any train line going through 14th Street-Union Square? Stand in front of someone with a backback, they will most likely be NYU students and will be leaving the train at this stop.

-Pigeons ride the subway out in the Rockaways. The pigeons board the subway cars looking for food while the trains wait to head in the opposite direction at the end of the line. Once the train is ready to start again, the doors close and the pigeons are still on the train!

-the broken sea shells seen on the bridge from the mainland to the Rockaways on the "A" line are from sea gulls and other sea faring birds scooping sea shelled creatures and then smashing them on the concrete bridge abutments in search of food.

Of course, some people blog about the subway like SUBWAYblogger and Steve Munro. These writers take a look at both what is going on the subway from their point of view as well as the politics that involve the governing transit agencies.

Others do blog about the subway as well. I just Googled the word "subway" and came up with 675,495 results in just a blog section only. Everything from transit delays to meeting someone on the subway came up.

Of course I have my own stories of public transit. Just search "York Region Transit" or "YRT" in the blog search above to see what terror I've been put through as well as my views of the current system of public transit in York Region.

Do I have funny stories and observations? Sure! Here are a few tidbits:

- You can buy almost anything on the New York City Subway system. Just don't expect any warranties!

- I've moved apartments accross Brooklyn on the subway during my time in New York.

- The subway is a great place to see what people are reading. People read everything from the Bible, the newspaper, maps, a wide variety of literature, etc. on the subway. Looking for a good book? Check out the interesting titles on the subway.

Sure these aren't that interesting stories, but there are several sources on the web (i.e. Google subway in the blog search section) and in print that provide good reading. Fiorito, sadly on provides one decent chapter.

Update!: The New York Sun takes a look at what people are posting about the New York City Subway system by way of popular Subway Blogs. Read the article here.

TTC Diversion Gives Riders Chance To See Station Hidden For 40 Years

TTC Diversion Gives Riders Chance To See Station Hidden For 40 Years

The TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) has rerouted its Bloor-Danforth Subway line in order to complete subway tunnel construction.

However, the detour takes the trains through a rarely seen piece of Toronto transit history, the lower Bay Station. For a full history click here and read and view the CityTv story.

For a video look at the lower Bay Station click here and here for Youtube videos from passing subway trains.

2007 International Car Show

The International Car Show came to Toronto's Rogers Centre and the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. I visited the show today and here is what me and my camera came across:

1902 Studabaker, the first gas powered Studabaker in the world!

2007 Corvette

2008 Camaro Model Car!

Another look at the 2008 Camaro model.

Lambourgini

Toyota Model Car of the future?

Another look at the Toyota car of the future.

2007 Porcshe

University of Toronto's solar powered car

A car show is never complete without a bug, in this case the 2007 VW Beetle!

Chapter 15: Union Station

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Fiorito takes a look at the stories of crime in a big city, most specifically Toronto. Fiorito tells us the stories of one courtroom as prisoners are sentenced one after another. He then tells us about three young girls who are murdered in Toronto.

This chapter got me thinking about what is a common denominator in the criminal's lives? There must be one thing that makes all criminals the same.

Well, there is no such common denominator (with the exception of the desire to commit a crime of course). But there are two common characteristics of most criminals that I've noticed over time: 1. Come from families who have a single parent and/or 2. were a victim of violence in their youth.

#2 is self explanatory (i.e. troubled youth who suffered a tramatic childhood just continues on down the wrong road).

In terms of #1, usually stories about young criminals have the single mother or father, who is struggling to make it life with their families, yelling that their son/daughter is headed to the slammer. Some of these parents blame society for letting them down. Society then turns around and casts their eyes down on these single parents and blame the parent for not raising their child properly resulting a crime being committed.

Who is correct in this situation? The parent or society?

I mainly blame the parent. Last time I checked it takes two to have a child, or at least in the conception of a child. The question is where did the second participant in the conception of the child go over time? Both participants in the conception, i.e. parents, should be involved in the raising of a child.

Without the second parent, their is only one person left to raise a child. This results in the leftover parent to work longer hours in order to raise the child all by themselves. The situation is worse if there is more than one child involved and/or if the parent has a low income job. This leaves the child all by themselves to their own devices. This could result in the child getting into criminal activity without the single parent even knowing it. Before long the child is arrested and thrown in jail and the parent blames society for not helping them raise the child.

The big question from in this situation is: "Did you have a relationship with the person you decided to have child with before you 'did the deed?'" Usually the answer is, "No". Case closed, if you don't invest in a relationship before considering children, problems may result down the road....

Footnote: Not all single parent families result in leading to crime. The above is just an observations over time of the backgrounds of those charged or convicted of crimes from various newspaper articles from Toronto, Ottawa and New York City. The above is not viewed from successful single parent families, which there are many, but at possibilities of how criminals might have found a life of crime.

Caught Red Handed!

The York University student newspaper The Excalibur broke the story in this weeks newspaper that at least two student union presidents sucessfully attended a press conference by posing as journalists.

Chris Bently, the Minister for Training, Colleges & Universities, was holding a press conference about financial aid and scholarships for university and college students. But before he approached the podium to begin his speech, he was interupted by student government members from accross the province. Bently was forced to cancel the press conference.

The student union president York University, Corrie Sakaluk, and the University of Toronto's Vice-President External, Emily Shelton were allowed into the press conference because they claimed they were journalists from either the University of Toronto's The Varsity and York University's The Excalibur.

However, neither of these student politicians were even affiliated with the newspapers. In Sakaluk's case, she is not allowed to be a journalist for The Excalibur because under the newspapers' constitution this would create a conflict of interest between the newspaper and the student union in terms of press coverage.

Of course the optics of this look very bad on these student leaders. But what is worse is Corrie Sakalak refuses to admit she did anything wrong by telling The Excalibur:

"...I don't feel like I did anything wrong. I think that I made a strategic decision, and I think that it was an important way of ensuring that the voice that the students I represent come to the people and receive the media coverage that they deserve to receive..."-- found in this article.

Sakuluk apparently has no problem committing fraud by passing herself off as something she is obviously not, a journalist. Even worse she was caught by the organization who she claimed to be a member of, The Excalibur. The question in this case is: will Excalibur take Sakaluk to court over this?

An even bigger question is what is Sakaluk, as president of York's student union, is: can she be trusted with the spending of the thousands of dollars in student union money? Obviously if she cannot express regret in lying to a provincial official, Chris Bently, then why should the students of York trust her with one red cent of their money?

Further, if Sakaluk is going to get into politics in the future at either the municipal, provincial, federal or international level, how can she be trusted? Sakaluk has been caught red handed in this case and should immediately resign her position as President of the York Federation of Students. Failure of her resignation to occur, the council of the Federation of Students should remover her in office (which it can legally due under section 5.5 of the York Federation of Students' Bylaws). It would be a great disservice to both the interest of democracy and the students of York University if either of these options of removing Sakaluk doesn't occur.

What is even more disturbing is that Corrie Sakaluk isn't the only one caught red handed in the case of this press conference. This is disturbing because if the student leaders are going onto run in future elections in government, how are the voters supposed to trust these guys with their hard earned taxpayer's dollar? If this is the future of Canadian politics, Canada is in deep trouble.

Chapter 14: Union Station

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In Chapter 14 Joe Fiorito takes a look at what brought him to "The Big Smoke," "Hogtown," "T Dot" or, in other words, "Toronto". Joe came looking for employment and a brighter future.

Joe's reasoning was just like why I was headed to New York City. I headed to New York City after trying to get my teaching in Ontario. Ontario simply had too many English and History teachers for High School and too few students needing teachers. This was because the year I finished teacher's college, the provincial government eliminated OAC (grade 13) which meant a whole set of teachers across Ontario were thrown out of work. The increasing growth in the number of students didn't offset the loss of a full grade of students.

I put in applications with Toronto, Durham, York and Peel region school boards, and had a few nibbles (read: interviews) from York, but didn't get a job offer. So I took a job as a part time church caretaker for a year. Then came my job interview with New York City and off I went to the big city of New York to hopefully have a brighter future. But this didn't happen as this post will show.

Now I'm working for a growing merchandising company back in Toronto. I wouldn't never give this job up because I feel like I'm part of a team that is pulling for each other through no matter what! It's nice to be part of a team!

So just like Fiorito, I left Toronto and came back (read this chapter to see what I mean) for a good career.