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Billy Bishop Goes to War – Again
With ten years remaining on its lease, privately-held Nieuport Aviation, the owner of the terminal at Billy Bishop Airport (BBA), has launched a major public relations campaign. The objective is to convince the City of Toronto, its primary landlord, to renew the lease. Nieuport’s consultant and advocate is the U. of T. urbanist Richard Florida.…
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Doug Ford’s Political Gymnastics
The flip-flop is a well-known move in political acrobatics, involving the reversal of a policy position, with the politician sometimes trying to claim that both the initial policy and its reversal are consistent with one another (which would illustrate Orwell’s concept of doublethink). In gymnastics, the similarly named flick-flack is a back handspring, a move…
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Doug Ford: The Worse, the Better
“The worse, the better” was an aphorism among Russian revolutionaries who meant that the worse conditions in Tsarist Russia became for workers and peasants, the more likely they would support the revolution. The aphorism can be considered somewhat cynical because the leaders of revolutionary movements were all in exile and not sharing the people’s misery.…
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Beverley Ludwig Borins: A Proper Eulogy
The death notice I posted was a first draft of my mother’s life story, set in the context of essential information about family relationships, funeral and shivah arrangements, and suggested charities for donations in her memory. I gave a eulogy at her funeral, which is a second and more complete draft of her life story.…
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Beverley Ludwig Borins z”l
My mother, Beverley Ludwig Borins, died yesterday at age 100. Here is a link to the posting on the funeral director’s website, which provides a short biography, discusses funeral and Shivah arrangements, discusses the care arrangements that enabled her to stay in her home to the end, and mentions three charities for those who want…
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Op-Ed in Toronto Star
I have just published an op-ed in the Toronto Star about taxing parking to pay for public transit. Here is a link to it.
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Greening Railroads in Toronto
Though my previous post was political and this one is personal, they share a common perspective about enhancing greenspace in the Toronto area. I support preserving the Greenbelt by preventing the construction of housing and highways in it. Railroads have long been a major part of the urban landscape – one not far from my…
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Explaining Greenbeltgate
Let’s dub the growing scandal surrounding the Ford Government’s decision to favour certain developers’ proposals to build housing in the greenbelt surrounding Toronto Greenbeltgate. For those not familiar with the story, the Ontario Auditor-General – an official responsible to the Legislature, not to the Government – last week released a report that concluded that the…
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Felix Mendelssohn’s Highest Note
I’m a devoted classical music listener. Despite the efforts of programmers and hosts to expand the repertoire and educate listeners like me, I confess to a preference for war-horses, especially violin and piano concerti. The latter includes the big four: Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Mendelssohn. In Mendelssohn’s (Op. 64 in E minor), the third movement…
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Oppenheimer: Scientific Genius, Paranoid Politics
Reading a handful of top critics’ reviews of Oppenheimer, I realized that, unlike me, they are familiar with director Christopher Nolan’s entire corpus. However, many admitted that they hadn’t read Bird and Sherwin’s 1100-page American Prometheus, its 2005 source text. So after seeing the movie, I read the book, learned a lot, and satisfied myself…
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Art and Architecture in Buffalo
This title is no oxymoron. My wife and I took a short trip to Buffalo, prompted by the scheduled mid-June opening of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum’s (formerly Albright-Knox Gallery) new building. It turns out that the building is slightly behind schedule; we could see a curving bridge leading to the building and its glass…
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What Kind of Waterfront do we Want?
When I take the Toronto Island ferry the directional difference in perspectives is stark. Going to the Island, a green line of trees floats between the water and the sky. Returning to the city, a high wall of concrete disrupts the horizon and becomes dominant as the ferry pulls up the shore. These perspectives make…
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Ontario Place: A Hill to Die On?
Two of Mayor-elect Olivia Chow’s major platform commitments are to save the Science Centre and to keep Ontario Place public. Premier Doug Ford, while congratulating Chow and looking forward to working with her, in his next breath re-affirmed his commitment to developing the Therme Spa and relocating the Science Centre to Ontario Place. Reinforcing the…
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Doug Ford’s High-Water Mark?
Doug Ford was the luncheon speaker at the Empire Club this week. The Empire Club is always a friendly audience, with the speaker choosing a supportive introducer and interlocutor, and with no audience questions permitted. The tables at the live event are bought by the speaker’s pals. Since the onset of the pandemic, you can…
- I am Professor of Public Management Emeritus at the University of Toronto, having retired in July 2020 after a 45-year academic career.
- I continue to be engaged in research, writing, and giving professional presentations. With my co-author and spouse Beth Herst, I am completing a book on narrative and politics.
- On this website I post blogs about politics, narrative, and my life experiences.
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