Category Archives: Culture

When rabble rule

Posted on April 23, 2005 by Other News Sources

(April 23, 2005) ‘She wanted to say something but she was afraid her house might get torched,” one neighbour told me, referring to a friend who was afraid to speak up at a neighborhood meeting over a proposed addition to a local private school. Continue reading →

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Hardly world-class

Posted on April 16, 2005 by Other News Sources

(April 16, 2005) Great industrial cities have historically hosted world’s fairs and world’s fairs have augmented these cities’ greatness. The first true world’s fair, London’s Great Exposition of 1851, created the Crystal Palace and attracted six million visitors. Continue reading →

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Drab city

Posted on April 9, 2005 by Other News Sources

(April 9, 2005) Toronto is a drab city. Its residents make it so. Frank Gehry is among the world’s best architects, certainly he is the world’s most celebrated, following his soaring success in building Spain’s Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. But he’s not good enough for many at the Grange, the Toronto neighbourhood in which he grew up and site of a $200-million Art Gallery of Ontario renovation. Continue reading →

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Schoolyard bullies

Posted on April 2, 2005 by Other News Sources

(April 2, 2005) The church may have never before been host to three hours of almost uninterrupted jeers, sneers, and self-righteous invective, much of it directed at people unwelcomed in the neighbourhood. This was not a Christian fundamentalist gathering of homophobes and racists. This was not Alabama or some northern Canadian backwater from some pre-enlightened era. Continue reading →

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Dead space

Posted on March 26, 2005 by Other News Sources

(March 26, 2005) City cemeteries are picturesque and emotionally evocative. They reflect our traditions and embed history. They draw tourists as well as loved ones. Continue reading →

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