The Royal Ontario Museum shop

  The museum shop at the Royal Ontario Museum is a great place to purchase unusual historical or regional items which are hard to find other places. It’s open from 10 am to 6:30 pm every day except Sundays. You can also purchase items online at the museum store's website.

  Reproductions of some of the museum’s artefact collections as well as home accessories, clothing, kids toys and jewellery are available for purchase through the store.

Toronto Subway system

  A plebiscite on January 1, 1946 committed the City of Toronto to building a subway system and construction began on September 8, 1949. The Premier of Ontario, Leslie Frost, and Toronto Mayor Allan Lamport officially opened the Yonge street subway line on March 30, 1954. The University-Bloor-Danforth line as well as the Spadina line was started in 1959 and completed in 1966.

  As you can see from the pictures, the subway stations have been upgraded and designed to complement the local attractions where they are sited. Thus the station beside the Royal Ontario Museum reflects some of the components of the museum. This is the station from which I left the subway train when I went to the museum today.

Arizona Crazy

  The Pima County GOP is raffling a Glock pistol, the same brand that Jared Lee Loughter used to shoot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the head and kill six others including a six year old child, to raise money for the 2012 elections. Considering that Tuscon, the town where the shooting event took place is the center of Pima County, I find this highly inappropriate but then I’m just a Canadian who doesn’t understand American sensibilities. Maybe someone could explain this to me?

  According to the document, the gun comes with three magazines, adjustable grips and a case. If you think that I’m making this up then check the article in the Arizona Daily Star which had the following quote:

"Now it's an opportunity to remind people it's not the gun that kills people. It's the person with the intent," Shaw said. "The Glock has as little to do with what happened that day as a No. 2 pencil has when someone cheats on a test. Jared Loughner is responsible for what happened."

 

 

The farm at the back of beyond

My uncle with two of his geese

  One of the blogs that I read from time to time is called Gentle Otter.  The author is a 51 year old farmer’s wife, the mother of three children aged 28, 15 and 4 who lives and works on her husband’s remote farm in rural Perthshire, Scotland where they have a sheep herd as well as ducks and chickens. You might wonder why this particular blog interests me. My parents had a classic World War 2 story where she was in the British Air force and my father from this side of the pond was serving in the air force in England.  They met during the Battle of Britain.  I lived on my uncle’s farm in the Yorkshire Dales not far from Haworth where the Bronte parsonage is located when I was a boy. He had a goat herd, geese and chickens so I have a pretty good idea of her (the farm at the back of beyond) lifestyle. I remember that I had fresh goat cheese, milk and butter for part of my meals. Also my great grandmother was a Ferguson and two weeks ago I went to my cousin’s daughter’s wedding reception which was very Scottish as you can see from my post on the event.

Me (long hair version) and one of the goats

   Like most farmers in rural Scotland they are tenant farmers who rent the land from a landowner or laird. Her husband’s family have been tenants for 120 years and it may seem strange to North Americans but Scotland is still a feudal land in many ways. The roof of the 1800 house is in disrepair and needs replacing but the landowner after years of requests has always refused to fix it. On Monday of this week a member of the local county council informed them that a demolition order for the house had been given.

Once the demolition noticed was served, we would have 28 days to get out. After the 28 days, we would be put into a B&B, probably in Perth. The children may be removed to 'a place of safety', if we were to inhabit our farmhouse. Our farmhouse which we pay rent and full council tax for. Our farmhouse with the polluted water supply which we cannot purify due to the landowner demand that our electricity supply be disconnected.  Our farmhouse and our home.

   This is a modern day form of the Scottish Clearances. Like the Afro-Americans in the ninth ward of New Orleans, they are the forgotten ones. The best comment is in her words:

We are the people who you never hear about and we are merely a drop in the ocean. We are many.  Others will hopefully learn about our way of life and the culture we contribute to. I hope that it can provide other tenant farmers a platform to stand on and voice how they feel, how they live and how they are treated.  I don't want people to feel scared. Not in 21st Century Scotland.

 I want to hold my hand out to them and say "It's ok, you are not alone. Others care deeply for you even although you cannot see them. Take my hand because I am not scared'.

The Yorkshire Dales Farm

Another view of the farm

My Aunt and Uncle in the Farmhouse

Bronte parsonage in Haworth

Restaurant review: Port

View Larger Map

Front of restaurant

  I should name this series of restaurant reviews a sailor’s guide to shoreline restaurants after having previously reviewed the Marina Grill and Bluffer’s. This set of summer reviews has started in downtown Toronto and moved east along the shore of Lake Ontario to Scarborough in the post about Bluffer’s and now further east along the shore to the Port restaurant in the port of Frenchman’s Bay, Pickering. I’ve eaten in this establishment for many years both inside and on the bay side patio. I took my mother on Thursday for my birthday and we got the best table which is in the corner of the patio. The weather was a bit overcast but the temperature was perfect for outside dining.

Restaurant patio from distance

Mother in corner table

View from table facing west towards Frenchman's Bay

Broiled calamari appetizer with peanut sauce

  For the appetizer, we shared a dish of calamari which was sautéed with chilli rub and a side dish of sauce romesco.

Arctic char with couscous

Cashew chicken breast with couscous

  For the main course, my mother had the Ontario Organic Arctic Char with couscous, cucumber slaw and tempura pea tendrils while I had cashew encrusted roasted free-range chicken breast with Dijon honey, couscous salad, tomato chow, cucumber slaw and tempura pea tendrils.

White cheesecake

  For dessert my mother had a white cheesecake and I had a red velvet cake with whipped cream.

Red velvet cake with whipped cream

  The service was slow but friendly. I think that the patio filled up after we sat and there wasn`t enough staff to handle all of the customers. The price of the various items was $13 for the Calamari, $23 for the Chicken, $28 for the Char, $8 for the cake, $8 for the cheesecake with a 9 oz. glass of Chardonnay``08 Camelot, California for $16, Cappuccino for $4 and English breakfast tea for $3. The total cost for two was $103 including drinks plus tax and gratuities. An excellent meal and experience for those who aren’t in a hurry.

Blues on the Beach concert

  After the meal, we went down to the beach at the end of the street to listen to a free jazz concert called “Blues on the Beach”- a nice ending to a beautiful evening and my birthday.

Concert close up - Frenchman`s bay on Lake Ontario

Hurricane Katrina + 6

  On August 29th, 2005, Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans and a few days later the dikes burst which flooded a good part of the city. Although many stories have been told about the reconstruction effort, little has been known about the Canadian participation in the recovery so I thought that coming up on the sixth anniversary of the storm I would have a few things to say with respect to the event.

  This current hurricane Irene is giving me flashbacks to my honeymoon many years ago when my Ex and I were camping with a tent on the side of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia near Richmond and a hurricane (I forget the name) came up the coast. The tent was in a slight depression on the mountain side which was dry at the time it was pitched but within an hour had three feet of water. I drove through a previously dry gully which was flooded with water to get out of the area.



View Larger Map
The first story is about Magnaville or Canadaville as it is called in Louisiana. Frank Stronach, founder and CEO of the $20 billion dollar Magna auto parts empire, was watching the 2005 hurricane situation in New Orleans on TV and decided to do something. While Bush was congratulating the ineffectual FEMA head with “You’re doing a great job, Brownie!``, Frank swung into action and sheltered 280 storm victims in his horse racing facility in Palm Springs. Next he decided to build a permanent housing location for displaced survivors using the 2% of pre tax net earnings which the Magna constitution requires to be spent on charitable works (twice the Canadian center for Philanthropy benchmark) as well as reaching out to other Canadian groups. Like Paul in the Bible he became all things to all men.

1 Corinthians 9:19: “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law;  to those who are without law, as without law, that I might win those who are without law;  to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men that I might by all means save some.”

  For the captains of industry, he might say, “All the good trailer parks in Ontario are full. We must create lebensraum to the south with a new Louisiana Purchase.” To the socialist New Democratic Party and unions,” Comrades! We must infiltrate cracker America with a series of Cuban style communes. `` And so it came to past that Frank stood on the shores of the Atchafalaya River, looked over all of the land and saw that it was good.

Of course the good folks of neighbouring Simmsport did not take kindly to this Grundrisse totting Moses leading his flock of the dispossessed in an exodus from the sin tainted N.O. – destroyed like Sodom and Gomorra by the wrathful hand of God. Fifty homes were quickly built by Canadian carpenters on a thousand acres of land and the settlers could live rent free if they contributed eight hours a week to the communal needs - definitely against God and all the tenants of capitalism. Each unit had verandas and decks plus TVs, computers, furniture, appliances, cable, electricity and water supplied by Frank’s fellow travellers. The community also had a basketball court, paved roads, swimming pool and tennis courts. Simmsport’s median family income was just over fifteen thousand dollars so they didn’t appreciate these new arrivals having possessions about which they couldn’t even dream. The mayor “Boo” Fontenot didn’t want them but cooled down after Frank built a four million dollar community center for the town. According to Canadian Business magazine, the local good old boys cut down the Canadian flag after it was raised to the same level as the Stars and Stripes.

  In the documentary Welcome to Canadaville, one Simmesport resident describes sitting out at night, armed with a gun, so he can "get me one" if any Canadaville resident touches his property. But community leaders insist racism wasn't the fatal problem. "It's always an issue in the South," says a local sawmill owner who declined to be named. "My industry still has a machine part that people call the nigger, because it does a job you wouldn't want to do. But racism didn't kill Canadaville. It was Boo."

  When Magna's people first arrived on the scene in the fall of 2005, they were under strict orders to find a suitable site as soon as possible. And Fontenot recognized an opportunity to milk what he called the "Magna cow." In return for his support, he demanded new police cars, a police substation, community and sporting facilities and US$250,000. Stronach's people agreed,

View Larger Map
  Magnaville is now eerily reminiscent of Henry Ford’s abandoned Fordlândia, a prefabricated industrial town in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon jungle on the banks of the Rio Tapajós near the city of Santarém which was intended to produce rubber for his automobile plants in America. Here is a link to pictures of the former town which is now empty.The greatest problem for the community was the inability to bridge the cultural divide. From Wikipedia:

The mostly indigenous workers on the plantations, given unfamiliar food such as hamburgers and forced to live in American-style housing, disliked the way they were treated — they had to wear ID badges, and work midday hours under the tropical sun — and would often refuse to work. In 1930, the native workers revolted against the managers, many of whom fled into the jungle for a few days until the Brazilian Army arrived and the revolt ended.

Ford forbade alcohol and tobacco within the town, including inside the workers' own homes. The inhabitants circumvented this prohibition by paddling out to merchant riverboats moored beyond town jurisdiction and a settlement was established five miles upstream on the "Island of Innocence" with bars, nightclubs and brothels.

 
    If you read the book Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin then you’ll notice a lot of similarities to Magnaville. Both projects had a wealthy Industrial leader in the auto business who tried to impose their dream of a utopian modern community on a culture that was totally at odds with their concept and used their money to bulldoze any local opposition but ultimately failed due their refusal to incorporate the local culture and customs into their vision. Today Fordlandia is overgrown by the jungle with the red fire hydrants covered by the vines while the town of Simmesport has refused to take over Magnaville which in response has been also been abandoned and trashed by the locals. Fordandia has long been upheld as an example of the inability of South America to enter the modern age due to cultural dysfunction with respect to work for the local populations. Will Magnaville be a case study in Harvard Business School for Lousiana's incapacity to economically develop? Below is a video about the book and a look at Fordlandia in 1944 by Walt Disney.



 The other story is about Mike Holmes and his ninth ward housing project. Mike is the producer and star of the Canadian TV show Holmes on Homes. To save time typing, I embedded an explanation of  his project to build a hurricane resistant home in the ninth ward of New Orleans for an elderly woman and her many grandchildren after they were made homeless by the storm.

Roman allusions

View Larger Map

   My oldest daughter just got back this week from her archaeological dig in a field about ten km. from the town of Gravina in Puglia, Italy which is south east of Naples and along the path of the former Appian Way, the main road in Roman times between the north and south of Italy. She’s working on her Master`s degree in Archaeology and decided to spent part of her summer getting some credits doing field work. It was very hot, 35 C. and she did get a touch of heat stroke. Fortunately she had the weekends off and travelled a few of the ancient sites in Italy such as the Roman forum and Pompeii.  The accommodation was a rental apartment in Gravina (pop. 40,000) which she shared with a girlfriend and where they ate their breakfast and lunch meals. They ate supper at the local restaurants such as Mamma Mia and Zia Rosa - lots of pasta. Each day they travelled by car along the narrow winding roads and through picturesque scenery to the dig site. No internet connections so I had to wait until she returned to hear the stories.

  The research group has been excavating an early Imperial Roman estate for the last couple of years and this year they found an old concrete floor as well as Roman coins. The project hopes to advance knowledge of settlement patterns over a long period of time in this part of Italy and also study the cultural exchange between the indigenous people and immigrants from other parts of Italy and the Roman Empire while correlating this data to environmental and demographic changes.

  I have always encouraged my children to follow their interests regardless of the current job market or future prospects and believe that this is the best expression of their talents during their life journey.

Myself in Capri, Italy beside the Emperor's garden