KIDS DECIVILIZE ON JAMES STREET

SideRoads Magazine is a supplement to Northumberland News. Below is the story they recently published for their winter edition. Enjoy!

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A great January whitemess stealthed over Cobourg at the speed of fog.

Things began getting flakey when children, bearing bellies of hot cereal, galloshed and gallumped, gimbled and gabbled, and jabberwalked to Central School on George Street.

It was as windless as the interior of a coffin. Each snowflake loitered in the air, rocking on molecular nanowaves. Moist warm helipads emerged from the mouths of children as flakes floated like ghostly punctuation marks, commas, colons, periods. The game was to lick out of airy nothing, the few fat flakes that would impact on the tongue like an exclamation point! Drunken trails in the snow along the streets followed their vocational pursuit of devouring weather in a single gulp.

There was the fascination of a bare naked hand, palm-up being held out for the white stuff; watching three flakes clinging to each other as they hand-landed and dissolved into a flat teardrop. One after another, singly and in small groups, the flakes hand-landed and instantly morphed into tears, draining down the length of a life line and dripping onto its fallen brethren at ground level. Faces full of smile and roseblush dripped with the debris of martyred flakes.

It was magic and guilt-free. Once upon a moment it was a flake all intricate with organic symmetry, then poof, it’s a teardrop in hand. No flake has ever been known to wail out in agony or thrash about as it immigrated from one state of being to another state of being. They assimilated from white to clear without protest. It was the kind of thing that inspires children to trace their routes back to the poem age, which invariably leads to the Imagine Nation. (The Imagine Nation is compelling and exhilarating because it is lawless)

Life is so Normal Rockwell at times. The school bell (((RANG))). Scampering leads to elbowing through the clogging on the school doorsteps, the thresholds where wild spirits of imaginationism are “civilized”; then the anxious soft-shoe shuffle begins as children distribute themselves to their homeroom holding cells governed by cranky teachers venting in the blackboard bungle.

The flakey fog continued outside the windows. At the very moment when fidgeting was about to become a disturbance issue, the bell rang for regress. Children tumbled down the wide stairs, white water rapids, hootin’, hollerin’ gallumphin’ and bumphin’ through the doors and into a schoolyard filled with white-sized imagination.

Off in the far corner of the schoolyard there was a spot of turbulence. The cry echoed across the yard. “Fight!” “FIGHT!” “FIGHT!” Children hurried and scurried to bear witness, uploading the dramatic seen into their biocomputers.

The bell (((RANG))).

Regress is over.

“I’ll see you on James Street after lunch, you dipschtick!”

“That’ll be your last date dorkhead.”

The exhaustless children returned to their holding cells to endure the remnants of the morning agenda, becoming more and more civilized. Yawn. They bloated on the excessive government-approved lore of history and geography. As the lessons wore on, breakfast became, like, so hrs&hrs ago. Noon stretched over ten hungry ten excruciating ten unbearable moments away. The bell (((RANG))). Children fled the building carelessly cocooned in muffler, mitts and misaligned buttoning of winter jackets.

It was a lickety-split lunch. Many moms were blind-sided by the wolfing at the kitchen table. “What’s the rush?” “Chew your food.” “Why so fast?” Dash to door. Mad scramble. Golly Galosh. Tangle of coat, muffler, toque, mitts, mitts, where’s the mitts? Hibernating in jacket pockets. “Bye mom, gotta go!” SwOOsh, galumph glosh.

Grievzi, Fig, Whopper, Rupe, were ploughing down the middle of Chapel Street leaving drunken furrows in the snow. The usual route to Central School for the Chapel Streeters is Buck Street, but not today, not when there is an unmellow drama expected to go down on James Street. Dorkhead vs Dipschtick.

Heading up Division Street, the exuberant spawn of post-war celebration, finally took notice of the abundant debris dropping from The Perfect Stealth Storm. Packing snow! The generosity of the snow gods was total. Snowballs that packed in moments. Never mind the 23,738 words for snow that the Inuit have – packing well in five seconds is all and exclusive. Packing snow. Impacting snow. High calibre custom fits for every mittened hand

Turning onto James Street, the boys were stunned to see, not a fight, but chaos, utter chaos. Twenty children or so were lobbing snowballs back and forth across the street. That stretch of street was an ammo dump. In fact, ammunition continued to float from the sky.

The Chapel Boys crouched down behind a 1958 Plymouth because its excessive fins provided a shield for incoming snowballs. It didn’t matter who was on the other side of the street. It wasn’t personal. They were targets because they were there. They were targets because they were children. Yes. Restricted to twelve and under. The street was an adult-free zone. It was also civilization-free.

It wasn’t long before the street was swarming with winter warriors. Children flowing down George Street to return to school suddenly took a left turn onto James to join the fracas and frolic.

Thod Wooosh! The snowball hits the windshield, shattering itself into shrapnel that hits two. Thod, thod, thud, thod, thish thod. The Plymouth took a pounding. Fig was a lousy shot so he was assigned to built the stockpile that fed us sharpshooters. Thwack! “Got him” Thwack thwack thwosh, “Gotcha back!”

“There’s girls over there.” “Girls?” “And they’re throwing snowballs.” “But they’re girls!” The boys arm themselves each with three snowballs. CHARGE!!!! This is immediately followed by squeals, screams, screeches, and flailing arms softened with fluffy pink mitts. Took seconds to unload, then return to positions behind the Plymouth.

Snowballs were largely thrown willynelsony, every which way. Now and then a victory whoop went up when a rosey-cheeked face became intimate friends with a snowball. It was a special treat to hit someone on the back of the neck. The collateral pain came from the cold trickle down the spine.

The battle moved down James Street and onto the unblemished front lawn of Central School. It was a tossed salad of full frontal fun and frolic, wild abandonment of civilization, Lord of the Flies, meanwhile, the forces of civilization were uploading the scene from the window between the power grey pillars. Adults. Przt!

The bell (((RANG))).

The action stopped. Just like that. Scampering took hold, elbowing through the clogging on the school doorsteps, the thresholds where wild spirits of imaginationism are “civilized”; then the anxious soft-shoe shuffle begins …

What were once referred to as elementary school students were now relegated to waddling duck status. The warden of the school, and other back-up authorities, were picking out ducks from the incoming lines. Easy pickin’s. The culprits were a mess. The innocent largely neat and dry.

Twenty miscreants soaking in meltdown stood shloppy in the school foyer. They received a loud lesson supplemented with a passing reference to The Strap. This civilizing influence was seriously absorbed by the shloppy shloaking children whose jelly-bean tootsies marinated inside water-sogged boots.

A wet whispered voice from behind says, “Twenty of us, eight strap slaps each, the old fogie ain’t got it in him to swing his arm 160 times.”

And so it was. We were all left to marinate in the collateral damage of our frolic, and eventually grew up to become the best educated, most prosperous and free generation the world has ever know. Peace babe!

Wind, Waves & a Woman (Ode to the West Wind)

Jill Battson reads Courage by Anne Sexton

Cobourg Poet Laureate, Jill Battson, reads Courage, written by Anne Sexton, at the Inauguration of Cobourg Town Council in the Concert Hall of Victoria Hall, Cobourg, Ontario.

It is in the small things we see it.
The child's first step,
as awesome as an earthquake
- - Anne Sexton

rest of poem here

FARE - FETCHED DUMPS ON PORT HOPE

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Here it is folks, the moist steaming debris dumped outside the Coliseum on the Exhibition grounds whilst the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair was in full show.

Flights of Fancy Free to the Imagine Nation

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Departure Lounge to the Imagine Nation

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YOUR IMAGINE NATION OR YOUR LIFE

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MY NEMESIS from METROLAND PUBLISHING

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MULTICOLOURFULISM FALLS TO THE ONE COLOUR REGIME

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."

--- Albert Camus

The Imagine Nation of the Peoples Republic of Poetry has received numerous reports from poets throughout the northern hemisphere who have been making out with their muses. Everywhere the poem is the same.

Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all,
Flowers in the summer
Fires in the fall!
--- Robert Louis Stevenson

The Organization of Oxygen Producing Services, Deciduous Division, has been putting on a dazzling display of unbridled multicolourfulism. Throughout Northumberland, sugardaddy maples dominate the catwalk hills with inflammatory, amatory, scarlet skirts.

Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat,
Then rose, girded himself, and o'er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.

--- William Blake

The scientific community provides the botanical boilerplate explanation for this deciduous decadence, "It is the outcome of sap deprivation." It is the ‘golden load’ that spices the blonde fields and lawns once freckled with spring petal debris.

Though the same wind now blows around,
You would its blast recall;
For every breath that stirs the trees,
Doth cause a leaf to fall.
--- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

The fields have been shaved of grain, trees unburdened of fruit. Nature greened excessive overtime plumping and juicing up our 100-mile diets. All this autumn extravagance disguises an ugly reality -- the massive layoff of leaves by oxygen producers. "A portion of the earth’s lung has collapsed," announced the Concerned Utopians for Sustainable Verdancy, renown to have a lengthy record of sounding alarms without an exclamation point.

There is silence: the dead leaves
Fall and rustle and are still;
Beats no flail upon the sheaves,
Comes no murmur from the mill

--- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Children fling their exuberant bodies into the crispy clutter of backyard piles; strolling lovers permit a moment of childhoodlum, kicking leaves gathered along gutters. There is no empathy for the sensitivities of the newly unemployed leaves.

They gather on sidewalks outside newspaper offices, yet no editor or columnist abandons their daily dance with mediacrity to acknowledge the unemployed masses being swept down the street in the shape of breezes and whirlwinds.

Cobourg has no tolerance for the diversity of leaves that have lost their sustenance. Everywhere they are mulched and bagged and shipped off to concentration composts without so much as a da svidanya as we head into the cold governance of the One-Colour Regime.

Only poets have the words to describe this mass ingratitude of fall freckles from last week’s resplendent redheads.

The warm sun is falling, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
And the Year
On the earth is her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.
Come, Months, come away,
From November to May,
In your saddest array;
Follow the bier
Of the dead cold Year,
And make her grave green with tear on tear.

--- Percy Bysshe Shelley

A STARTLING STORY OF STARLINGS

SIDEROADS Magazine for Northumberland is an insert to Northumberland News. They recently published the story below. The magazine deleted the quotes of poetry from other poets, and also the READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED warning.

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And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks…

--- Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill

It was dusk, 1957. They came in from the north, the sky black and blue with them. In great drifts of dark turbulence they settled among the trees along Chapel, Henry, and Walton Streets depositing their day’s dinner on sidewalks, lawns and verandas. Starlings. Thousands of starlings. Tens of thousands of starlings. Night after night. All summer long. Year in and year out.

Incredibly, a poet played a part in their introduction to North America. Shakespeare referenced the mimicking abilities of starlings in Henry IV, Part 1 wherein Hotspur desired to drive King Henry delirious with a trained starling. “The king forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer. But I will find him when he is asleep, and in his ear I'll holler 'Mortimer!' Nay I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but Mortimer, and give it to him to keep his anger still in motion”

The American Acclimatization Society in New York thought it a wonderful tribute to introduce North America with every bird mentioned in Shakespeare’s scripts. The Bard’s birds included more than 600 avian species. The hundred starlings released in 1890 are 200 million today. Moral: Poetic Licence should never be invoked by non-poets due to the danger of karmalized poetic injustice.

In 1957, neighbourhood children huddled around their black and whites to watch the debut of the picket fence serenity of Leave It To Beaver. Outside, the starlings were in full chatter. Inside, the residents were in full batter and bruised mode. As Sputnik 1 drifted across the heavens, no one knew that one of the most bizarre episodes in Cobourg’s history was about to unfold.

And from the realms
Of the shadowy elms
A tide-like darkness overwhelms

But the night is fair,
And everywhere
A warm, soft vapor fills the air,

And above, in the light
Of the star-lit night,
Swift birds of passage wing their flight
--- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Cobourg finally had it up to the ankles with birdboo. How bad was it? Early mornings saw town trucks hosing down the streets and sidewalks. Fire trucks were brought in occasionally to rinse/repeat/rinse the trees.

Residents of the day commented:

“You can’t look up with your mouth open.”

“People can’t sleep because they have to keep their windows shut.”

An elderly woman resident of Chapel Street said, “I would like to get up into the tree after them myself. They have wakened me up at 4:30am for the past 16 years. They fly off during the day but the terrible things come back in the evening. You can see by the sidewalk the mess they make. We have had to scrub it and scrub it. The odour is something terrific.”

Housewives, if they had to walk the street in the early evening, did so with open umbrellas.

THE TREES ALL SAG, STREETS TURN WHITE, read the headline.

“The starlings are back in town and Chapel Street near Walton and Henry resembles a white-washed fence. If there is one thing to be said about starlings, it is that they are well-talented in pursuit of painting the trees white. They are also heavy and noisy. There are trees sagging under their numbers, and the air rings with their twittering. Fortunately it rains frequently and the streets have a temporary return to asphalt blackness then water runs fast and grey in the gutters.”

Neighbourhood children, well, boys actually, exploited the mess of manure. After tv dinner, oven doors closed, screen doors slammed and Davey Crockett kids ran rocket, then slip, slide and surf the sidewalks glistening with the freshmess of yuckmuck. Heedless glee, cheers and chatter, as Fig did a bumburn, while Whopper ‘faced’ the consequence of a major oops! Laundry bills in the neighbourhood rose higher than the flight of a frightened herd of birds.

I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.

--- Robert Frost

Hurricane Hazel downed Chapel Street’s only chestnut tree the previous year, so a handy supply of brown nuts for bird bashing was no longer available. Marbles, especially bonkers, were too precious to squander on any bird. Sticks never make it through the branches to the teasing targets. But slapping slats made a slambam birdbang sharp as a .22 causing maple trees to explode in a flurry of wings, leaves and feces of fear.

Parents demanded a poop-free zone. Cobourg Council responded.

Councillor J. J. Fullerton, chair of the Health, Sanitation and Sewage Disposal Committee declared that starlings were “responsible for the spread of certain diseases of the skin and respiratory system… they attract parasitic insects, their dropping nurture germs. The clean-up of bird droppings on sidewalks around schools and public buildings is a definite menace to workmen.”

Councillor Fullerton presented Roost No More, a substance to be spread on trees that gave a “hot foot” to the birds coming in to roost. Picture it, roughly shaved men dressed in red plaid flannel Kenora formal wear sprinkling fairy dust onto the tip top of trees to scorch the tender tootsies of the demon starlings.

If the avian swarmers had been yellow Finches, little nuggets of sunshine flitting about, or red Cardinals, or orange Baltimore Orioles, or Scarlet Tanagers, or Red Wing Blackbirds, resident rage roaming the streets in lynch mob mode would remain an Alabama phenom. Birds of colour wouldn’t behave this way – only black birds full of white excrementality got the hot foot massage message. Pirouette on this, you %#$@&^% birds!

The local newspaper reassured the town that there was no “question of cruelty in ridding a community of birds with such a compound. The birds are not killed by the preparation they are merely encouraged to move.” Chemical warfare was on. Or was it?

Later that summer Councillor Jones nagged: “Have they had their hot foot?”

Councillor Fullerton: “The stuff’s here but we can’t go ahead until we take the tops off some of the trees.”

Jones: “Well if you wait long enough the birds will be gone.”

Fullerton: “Well then, we’ll do it in the spring.”

Jones: “Sure.”

Sure as shootin’ it didn`t happen. The starlings proliferated, causing one Chapel Street resident to lose it. He climbed to the gables of his house and fired his shotgun into the trees. The local paper reported no dead birds, no complaints made, no charges laid, things became normal. If you, dear reader, thought this wild west mess couldn’t get worse, read on.

We had fed the heart on fantasies

The heart’s grown brutal from the fare;

More substance in our enmities

Than in our love; O honey-bees,

Come build in the empty house of the stare

--- William Butler Yeats

(THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS VIOLENCE AND HATRED. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.)

The Cobourg Sentinel Star, September 11, 1958, reported, “It was National ‘Hate Starlings’ Night … when angered residents armed with 12-guage shotguns” prowled “about the streets in the most heavily populated areas. For several hours the town reverberated to the noise of guns. It sounded like the Gunfight at the OK Corral was being rerun for the benefit of Cobourg.”

The report went on to describe that “children ran about excitedly in the waning light carrying bushel baskets into which they threw fallen birds.” Yes, it’s true. The paper did not report that the neighbourhood boys had been armed with firecrackers, especially ‘cannon crackers’ for shoving down the throats of wounded birds. The stuffed birds were thrown into the trees the moment the sizzling fuse reached the beak. It was Lord of the Flies as grenades of gore-gob detonated in a furious flurry of feathers hither and yon gone. Without pumping irony, the paper reported, “Police cruised about the area keeping things under control.”

The next morning, while town trucks washed the blood, feathers and gore from the sidewalks and street, Police Chief, Hod Pearse, announced that an estimated 1200 starlings had been massacred that warm autumn night. Later that week, nearby churches chirped:

“Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?”

--- Matthew 6:26

The birds returned to Ground Zero with a vengeance the following year. The battle was engaged. Town council easily approved $50 for ammo. Deputy Reeve Erskine described the congestion of so many starlings that they now roosted on verandas; “The mess was unbearable,” he said. The newspaper reported that “Mr Erskine’s expression indicated the state in which this particular veranda could be found.”

Town Council formed an ad hoc ‘Extermination Committee’ to formulate a lasting solution. This year the starling shoot was to be supplemented with sound effects; the agony of defeat and despair. Residents came out from all over town to witness the spectacle of sharp-shooters with instructions to wound a bird or two. For what you ask? Well, it gets worse.

(THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS VIOLENCE, TORTURE AND HATRED. READER DISCRETION IS WELL-ADVISED.)

It’s not easy to wound a starling. A bullet to the beak or body is instant death for such a small creature. So it took a couple dozen deaths before a wounded starling fell and flopped inappropriately on the ground. Recording equipment was rushed to the bird; a microphone was shoved to its beak as it wailed out in agony. Break a leg, break a wing, prolong the moment, get it on tape. Hurry before it dies.

The following week, summer simmernoons brought the cling clang of the ice cream truck. The Beav Boys and Eddie Hassle fled their homes with a dime in hand worth two scoops in the cone. At dusk a new truck appeared on the street to disrupt the usual shinny games. It was outfitted with three speakers. For the next two hours every weekday evening, (union rules) it roamed the neighbourhood streets blasting out the death cries.

The trees exploded with starlings bombarding the streets with birdboo. As it passed they settled back to roost. Over and over again it went. Children watched boring re-runs of Father Knows Best, looking forward to the next gunfight outside.

So luminous with living wings,
So musical with feathered joy . . .
Not for all pleasure fortune brings,
Would I such ecstasy destroy.
Robert Service

The slaughter became more problematic by 1961. Mayor Jack Heenan declared that “No one wants to dispose of the dead starlings because everyone is such a good shot.” The police chief upped the budget to $80 for ammo. Councillor R J Cooper preferred a shootout over loudspeakers because “It’s a little more severe and the starlings fall down dead.” By the thousands.

Councillor Thomas revealed just how desperate the situation had become, declaring, “The citizens say we can remove every tree if it will get rid of them.” The discussion turned to water proof loudspeakers and amplifier mounted in the trees at Chapel and College. The Public Utilities Commission came under fire for inexplicably removing the wires to the speakers.

Cobourg Councillor, Lenah Fisher’s debut appearance at council was an offer of free dinner at Marie Dressler House to the man who killed the most starlings. Not to be outdone, the pro-squawkbox councillors suggested the snuff tape be played over the radio station so residents could place their sets in the windows with the volume topped to torment the birds. I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TAKE IT ANY MORE!

So there it was, the summer of 61; Wally, Beav and the boys distracted by urgent turbulent hormones ignored the nightly howl of horror amid the occasional carnage of gunfire; seeking refuge on The Three Hills in Victoria Park the discussion was about emerging zits.

1962. What happened? Where were they? The tens of thousands of starlings? Few noticed their absence as they casually walked the streets in open toed shoes and sandals. The kids began twisting at the Pav and spawning to dawn under the simple stars over the parent-free wild West Beach.

Cobourg once again turned it’s super-dooper uber-sensitive attention to the perpetual whinefest concerning the use and abuse of Victoria Park.

Come, on wings of joy we'll fly
To where my bower hangs on high;
Come, and make thy calm retreat
Among green leaves and blossoms sweet.

--- William Blake

Reports trickled back to Cobourg that the starlings had chosen to roost in a New England sea-side community where they starred in a 1963 Alfred Hitchcock documentary drearily titled, The Birds.

Cobourg Candidates Don't Leave Home Without It

MORE TO COME:

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Brought to You by James & Bond

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Art Proposal for D'arcy Street Roundabout

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The Child is father of the man

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AUTUMN FRECKLES

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After Habitat For Humanity, grease spilled on the lawn

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King of Cobourg?????

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Raheel Raza extols FREEDOM to the UN

Famous human rights activist, Board member of the Muslim Canadian Congress and International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) Representative Raheel Raza confronts Tariq Ramadan and the Pakistani Ambassador representing the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).Video recorded by IHEU representative David Cornut, United Nations meeting, September 16, 2010.The IHEU delegation at this meeting included Roy W. Brown, David Cornut, Raheel Raza, Xavier Cornut and Magali Prince.

Gil the Brocodile Candy Date for Mayor

David Glover is Organic Manic

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Going For the Gold Guard

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Forrest Rowden Gives Good Green

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Forrest Rowden is running for Cobourg Councilor. He showed up to display his gang colours at the annual parTEA fund-raiser for the benefit of the Cobourg Ecology Garden/

Facing the Committee of the Whole

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Messy Leftovers In Victoria Park

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From a screenprint of the STAR 93.3 website.

FREE SPEECH WINS ELECTIONS

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Wally Keeler Answers Questions from Cobourg Council

Wally Keeler addresses Town Council

September 13, 2010, Wally Keeler addresses Cobourg Town Council as Committee of the Whole. The issue was damage done to the grounds of Victoria Park by Northumberland Ribfest and suggestions on how to prevent it.

Recommendations to prevent damage to the grounds of Victoria Park by Northumberland Ribfest.

If the event is to be staged in the same configuration as in 2010, then:
1. some form of ground cover must be placed under each cooking rig.
2. the grounds must be returned to the condition in which it was found

If the event is to be staged in Victoria Park, then:
1. park the cooking rigs along Queen St between McGill & Church, or
2. park the cooking rigs along McGill St south of Queen.
3. the grounds must be returned to the condition in which it was found

Ribfest attracted 30,000 visitors. This will grow in the coming near years. Do the people of Cobourg want Victoria Park to bear this burden at such expense? While other events leave a small foot print on the park, Ribfest leaves a bootprint. A large portion of the park is sealed off for six days, including the build & dismantling, thereby denying the full and free enjoyment of Victoria Park as a park.

1. The best location for Ribfest is the east pier.
2. More parking available around the entire harbour, than around Victoria Park.
3. hard surface for any spillage, expedites clean-up
4. speakers and amplifiers are turned south to the United States of America alleviating noise complaints from Cobourg residents north of Elgin.
5. continue the enriching legacy of the Rotary Club’s marvellous job along Cobourg’s harbourfront by utilizing an underused area of the harbour.
6. relieves Victoria Park of the burden of host.
7. an ‘exotic’ location where ribfesters are surrounded by water; the sense of a cruise ship. A cool breeze on a hot summer night.
8. spend funds enhancing the east pier, instead of paying for damage to Victoria Park.
9. it can handle the growth of popularity of Ribfest for years to come.

The Parks Board consider distributing the locus of various events into other parks in Cobourg; to ease the footprint made on Victoria Park. That the Parks Board develop a policy regarding MAJOR events that are likely to have an excessive impact on the park grounds.

The Town Council reaffirm that Victoria Park’s ‘constitutional’ legacy continues to be one of Free Access For All.

Brush Hour On the Boardwalk, Cobourg, Ontario, Canada

Go Green Together and Sustainable Cobourg teamed together to sponsor a 13 kilometer Bike For The Planet. Starting at the bandshell in Victoria Park, the bicyclistas rode along the waterfront bike path past the Cobourg Ecology Garden.

Coming soon to a harbour near you...

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The Town Council of Cobourg voted to name it's recently purchased harbour dredger after the Oscar winning actress, Marie Dressler. Councillor Dean McCaughey had given "some thought" to the name, and declared, "The Marie Dressler name means something in Cobourg, and I think it's an appropriate name."

Swooning for a dance partner, Councillor Bob Spooner was reported in Northumberland Today as saying that Councillor McCaughey, "...was looking for somebody old enough to remember Marie Dressler to second the motion, so that's how I ended up seconding the motion."

The mol flower power of the Council, Miriam Mutton, protested.

"The dredger is a workhorse of a vessel, a very large tool," she declared without irony.

"I really think it is almost inappropriate to attach Marie Dressler's name. I would like to see a much more elegant landmark to commemorate this woman"

And so the motion passed. The lesstosterone males voted in favour of Marie Dredger er, uh, Dressler, in hag-drag no less.

“I contend that every woman has the right to feel beautiful, no matter how scrambled her features, or how indifferent her features” -- Marie Dressler.

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Northumberland Today published Monday Sept. 7, 2010:

Marie ’Dredger’ Dressler is hoisted into dry dock and Cobourg Councillor Dean McCaughey, explains how the name came after “…some thought, being involved with boating.”

Really? Boating? Dredging? How dissimilar! Boats are curvaceous and sleek, whereas dredgers are notable for not sinking fast enough. Yep, that was “some thought.”

So Councillor McCoughey wrapped his “thought” in swaddling and brought it to Town Council, declaring, "The Marie Dressler name means something in Cobourg, and I think it's an appropriate name." This is indicative of an arrogance that insults participatory democracy.

Towns people should have been brought in on The Naming of Things.

Cobourg contains creative people. A call for names should have been put forth. A selection of ten or five names should have been presented for votes. Let Cobourg chose, rather than an I-can-do-it-all-by-my-important-self councillor. Thanks for consensus denial.

The lesstosterone males on town council appear to be gender-bent. They seem to see Dressler in drag. Look at the photo published in Northumberland Today; the dredger features a long nozzle between two round paddle wheels. Marie Dressler? How insultingly incongruous!

Furthermore, Marie Dressler, was some elegant dame, a Hollywood star, an Oscar winner, not a contender. Take a moment to think how Ms Dressler would reply to an invitation by the ‘Feel Good’ Town of Cobourg, all expenses paid, champagne bottle on a rope, to attend the official Launching Ceremony whereby they attach in perpetuity her honoured name to a bottom feeder that sucks.

Rob Ford for Mayor

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Meanwhile Across the Street

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Nine Days Later: A Scoop of Soil & Seed 'Cover-up'

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Fall Garden ParTEA Cobourg Ecology Garden

Eight Days Later; Dead ground expanding

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