A Montreal artist died last week in Brooklyn when his bicycle was flattened by a truck. Openfile has some background about him.
Updates from October, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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CTV has a report on the proliferation of massage parlours offering sex acts. The journalist should have had a look at the salon/spa/fitness jobs section of Craigslist:
BUSY MASSAGE PARLOR NEEDS MORE GIRLS!
NEW UPSCALE SPA IS LOOKING FOR NEW GIRLS!
JOLIES MASSEUSES DEMANDÉES …!!!
Ladies Only* We Are Presently HIRING: Average 3 to 5 clients a day!
STUDENTS/LADIES REQUIRED FOR TOP CLASS INCALL STUDIO
$$* Seeking TOP Quality Students/Ladies * Part Time CASH Grab *$$They’re not exactly subtle about it, are they?
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As presaged last week, various construction crews have walked off their worksites in protest against Bill 33. Quebec’s labour minister also received a threat to break her legs although it doesn’t sound like the speaker linked the threat explicitly with the government’s plans to disempower the construction unions.
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Doobious
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The Snowdon Committee mourns the lost diversity as a new condo development with two chain stores prepares to rise where eight varied businesses used to thrive.
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Tux
This stretch of Queen Mary is slowly but surely losing its charm. I grew up there. Once upon a time it was full of thriving small businesses (anybody else remember that awesome science/toy store Ideahs?) and was safe enough that my parents let me roam the streets and back alleys indiscriminately. Nowadays, the small businesses are not as varied and are slowly being replaced with chain stores, and for some reason Snowdon metro seems to be a mecca of some kind for the mentally disturbed. In the day it’s a little sketchy, at night, I don’t like my wife walking home from the metro by herself. I’ll be doing the stereotypically anglo thing and heading for the west island in a few years…
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Shawn
Yes, the Snowdon Metro is a little dodgy. The more I read about this, the sadder it seems. I would have thought they could have made more effort to include more of the old businesses in the new complex, but clearly the big new Pharmaprix is their priority.
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Tux
And there are already 2 Jean Coutus in the area. We don’t need another drug store.
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Jon Evans
Umm, if you don’t want those stores in your neighbourhood then don’t shop there. Basic economics will quickly put stores out of business that no one wants.
Oh wait, that already happened. Sometimes people need to get over this ‘I am the world’ logical fallacy and realize that just because you don’t want something doesn’t mean that there aren’t people that want it and possibly even a majority that do.
Those that don’t like the way things are are always louder than those who do, but that doesn’t mean that there are more of them.
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Kate
Arguably, diversity in a city is objectively better than a monoculture. I feel sad that the city is losing a whole strip of interesting, individual businesses purely as a cultural loss. I don’t live in Snowdon but why would I go there now if they have faceless clones of the same businesses that exist everywhere else?
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Jon Evans
Arguably, monoculture in a city is objectively better than diversity. A feeling of unity, a simplification of day to day life and minimization of confusion are all aspects that generic aspects of our culture and lives provide. I’m not saying that one is necessarily better than the other, but stating something as ‘arguable’ and then following it up with sentiment rather than argument shows a lack of objectivity and really just smacks of pining for the ‘good old days’.
I don’t mean to be too harsh about this, but often our feelings towards new developments and loss of the things we view as our heritage really only stem from vague feelings of loss rather than a true understanding of why things are changing and how they have changed in the past. Things change and sometimes it’s sad that we have to get rid of old things, but the alternative is much worse.
Finally, I’m not sure that Snowdow needs to accommodate people who may occasionally shop there over people who actually live there, and when a ‘faceless clone’ store goes up in someone else’s neighbourhood maybe you should realize it is because they want it and they aren’t that concerned with what people who don’t live there want.
Oh, and I know there are a lot of people who do live there who will shout me down saying that, ‘they most certainly don’t want this store there, rabble, rabble, rabble’, but please note my previous comment before saying that.
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Kate
Oh yes, I see now that you’re right. Corporate chains on every corner, it’s so obvious! We can bulldoze Notre-Dame and put up a Wal-Mart, it will make us so much happier.
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Jon Evans
You see, that wasn’t so hard now, was it?
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James
Basic economics is really basic (useless). Even advanced economics is pretty useless. I’m not sure it’s fair to call us naive for holding anything dear.
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ant6n
Arguably, it’s much more naive to think that basic economics gives people a way to vote out big box stores, and vote former diversity back in – more naive than feeling ‘sentimental’ about diversity. Diversity, driven by people not heuristics, which is arguably not only better from an urban perspective, objectively (Jacobs and all…), but also from a market point of view. Free markets can not rid themselves of the local equilibrium that a monopoly represents.
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jeather
The shopping area on Queen Mary is about 6 blocks long and is mostly small stores (there are also some smaller restaurants on Decarie too). Half of one block is being switched from small stores to a (third) pharmacy (though I assume the closer pharmacy will close up shop, leaving room for something else to come back in), we’re not exactly going to all and only big stores.
Maybe this development is a bad one, but it’s not going to ruin the character of the area on its own. (My parents live near there, so I grew up walking there, and a close friend lives near there as well.)
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Robert H
Jon Evans, Kate’s comment beginning with “arguably” was in fact followed by an argument in favor of diversity in a city’s culture. That it was mixed with sentiment doesn’t discredit it in the least. The rosy glow of nostalgia might be untrustworthy, but you are rather too proud of being the cool logician. You won’t realize the value of all
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Robert H
…those independent businesses until your choices are limited to a few ubiquitous chains. By then it’ll be too late and you’ll be sentimental too.
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If you’re reading this post on the blog’s own site, on Twitter or on any other RSS reader, this probably won’t concern you.
This blog has had a Facebook page for some time, channeling the RSS feed onto a Facebook “notes” page, although I’ve never been happy with the sluggishness of the delivery (at the moment it seems to be stuck at September 19, not great for a news blog page).
Still, the page does have its followers – there are people who are happiest getting a lot of their web content funneled through Facebook – and it gets the very occasional comment. But last night I opened it to find this notification:
We’re Making Pages Better
RSS Importer for Notes: People are more likely to interact with your content if you add personal comments and respond to feedback left on your Wall. While you can still write individual notes, you’ll no longer be able to automatically import content from your website to your page. This feature will no longer be available as of October 31st.
I love the spin. It reminds me of the time my local bank branch was closed and they put up a sign saying “To better serve you, we’re closing this branch.” Uh, yeah right.
The page will go away at the end of the month, or if I leave it, it’ll just be a notice where to find the blog content elsewhere.
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qatzelok
Jon Evans explains why it’s actually a good thing that redundant chainstore franchises are replacing a string of quirky local businesses: “minimization of confusion”.
I have never seen anyone pass out from confusion on that block.
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The Canadiens have not had such a poor season start since 1941-1942 and have responded by making a couple of quick trades.
Incidentally, in that 1941-42 season they lost at the quarter finals against the Red Wings.
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A young man who escaped beheading in Saudi Arabia continues nonetheless to moulder in one of its jails, where his health is seriously deteriorating. Family and friends are pleading with Canada to act on his behalf because he’s a citizen, but this is not the kind of storyline to appeal to the Harper government.
“The brats of Mudbloods do not stir our sympathies.”
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Lucas
Kudos on the Harry Potter reference! I study political theory and I am just itching to teach a class and harness the vernacular accessibility of Harry Potter to delve into its rich philosophical subtext – I actually worked “Magic is Might” into a paper recently so I am glad to see someone else is up to the same tricks!
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Kate
: )
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I read this in a Gazoo article this morning, and I quote: “Labour organizations now determine which workers and how many are hired for specific jobs on work sites”.
What the fuck?