Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The Hicks Are At It Again


Its hard not to laugh (or cry?) when politicians and businessmen start using the words "football stadium" and "revitalization" in the same sentance.

A giant building surrounded by vacant parking lots, used a mere 11 days a year? This dead-zone for 355 days a year sounds like a deathknell for any neighbourhood trying to get back on its feet.

While other cities have learnt from their mistakes and now understand land use patterns and their affect on neighbourhoods and liveability, Winnipeg continues to try the same old 'solutions', somehow expecting different results? [ed: This sentance ripped off from The Rise & Sprawl.]

High crime and decreasing inner city property values? Lets sprawl out further! Revitalize the neighbourhoods we abandoned 50 years ago? Give them a football stadium!

Though they wish it weren't so, our leaders continue to ignore the only way this city's core will ever truly see renewed vitality: by filling in our gap-toothed downtown with multi-use developments (residential with streetfront retail), actively encouraging pedestrian life, and investing in an effective and efficient rapid transit system.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Silver Starling - Fuck, These Cats Are Good


Silver Starling

I'm going to perilously tip-toe out onto the ledge of being a music blog. Count your blessings, I'm not going to post an mp3 -- their record isn't out yet anyways. But do remember me when they're huge in 2 years. I'm firing the first warning shot.

Marcus Paquin is building a wonderful empire out yonder in Montreal. These songs are drilling holes into my head and burrowing deep. Stoic. Profound. Simply elegant.

Local Politics

It seems like a scary proposition. A mine field, even.

The left populated largely by out-of-touch, self-important idealists. The right, by play-it-again-Sammers singing the same old tune and dooming this city to eternal suburban despair. Some good people on both sides, but you gotta wade through a tonne of BS to find the happy heart.

Its hard to trust anyone.
Seems like everyone in this town (hell, myself included) always thinks they have the answers. Yet nothing works properly, change is glacial, and creative ideas remain anathema.

Ack. Gasp. Sputter.