James Bow's Blog, page 11

"Time Loop?" "Time Loop." "Groundhog Day."

I have to confess that I haven't been able to motivate myself to watch Doctor Who: Flux beyond The Halloween Apocalypse. No, I don't think the show is too "woke" (what does that even mean, for God's sake?), and no, I do very much think that Jodie Whitaker has done a wonderful job as the thirteenth Doctor. I do, however, feel that she has been let down by the quality of the storytelling. That and the unfortunate propensity to film things dark and to muffle the dialogue with the crash! bang! of frenzied action makes some of the episodes hard to watch, and it looked to be the case with Flux.

But I'm still a fan. I know this because I watched Eve of the Daleks, earlier this week, and I loved it. Indeed, the show won me over entirely with the exchange in the title, spoken between the principals, their third time into the time loop. All credit to John Bishop here: his delivery of that one line made me an instant fan of his character, and I'd only seen him in The Halloween Apocalypse.

I doubt the episode is going to survive an application of fridge logic. I strongly suspect that the characters were in each time loop for far longer than the eight, seven, six, and so on minutes of each loop, and a lot of stuff gets handwaved, but the whole episode felt right, primarily keeping the stakes easy to understand and manage, and allowing the actors (shout out to guests Aisling Bea and Adjani Salmon for their fully-fleshed-out portrayals of Sarah and Nick) and I was hooked. If all of the stories of Chibnall's era could have been like this, I'd be feeling a lot better about this program. As it was, Eve of the Daleks shows that there's still quite a bit of life in the old girl after all.

Video Essays

Sometimes I feel that I'm not writing as much as I'd like, beyond what I'm already doing for work. However, I have to remind myself that I am putting at least some of those creative energies into video production. In addition to digitizing and presenting the priceless 50-year-old film material from Richard Glaze (see here), I've been creating transit videos of my own. So, while your appreciation of the material may vary, here's some of the stuff I've recently published, starting with a timelapse video of a streetcar line filmed behind the front window of one such streetcar:

Here's a video of shots I took during an interesting TTC subway shuttle operation last weekend that my friend Damian Baranowski edited and put together:

And here's the latest video I produced from Richard Glaze's material, featuring voice work on my part. I'd like to thank Steve Munro for his help in nailing down the date of these film prints:

And another Richard Glaze production I'm particularly proud of, though maybe not as appropriate for the season:

If you want more, click to Transit Toronto's YouTube Channel. Hopefully I'll be back into some creative writing tomorrow and into this week.

We Need to Raise Taxes

The photo above is apropos of nothing. It's a shot I took because I thought it looked nice. I snapped it on March 20, 2022, from the Viewmount entrance to Glencairn Station on the Toronto subway. Anyway, on with the post...

From 2011 to 2019, I was privileged to have a weekly column with the community newspaper, the Kitchener Post. It allowed me to say what I was saying on this blog to my neighbours and surrounding community as well as to the old blogosphere. And judging from the e-mails I received (most of them polite) my words were reaching people.

Sadly, the paper folded and, soon after, their website went down, and my online record of columns disappeared with it. I still keep copies on my hard drive, though, and may occasionally place them here. I think a lot of what I said then is still relevant today.

Case in point is this column, which I wrote on July 25, 2019, and likely appeared the week following. I received a number of responses to it, and overall, it was far more positive than I'd expected. I think it bears saying here too.

I don't remember what the headline was. That wasn't my job. I supplied the words of the column below my byline, but the headline above it was my editor's job (or their designate) alone. If I'd been allowed to write that headline, perhaps this is what I would have come up with:

To Build the Province We Deserve, It's Time to Raise Our Taxes

Occasionally, readers write, and while I have been down on the Ford government for reneging on its promise that "not one front line worker will lose their job", they ask a reasonable question: where are we going to get the money to pay for the services that are being cut?

We'll leave aside that Ford is somehow spending more money than the Liberals did before they were defeated. We will leave aside that Ford has invested money in horse breeding while cutting funds for education.

There are a lot of things that need doing in this province. Ford himself hopes to spend $11.2 billion on four Toronto-area rapid transit lines. Where's he going to get the money?

We have to be honest. If we want better schools, if we want better roads and transit, if we want hospitals that serve our communities well, we have to pay for them. That means we have to raise taxes.

But James! Taxes are ever so high! Taxes are slavery! Why would you want to raise them?

Except that tax cuts have been a mantra of most governments since the mid-1980s. In general, taxes have gone in one direction, and it's not up. Brian Mulroney cut taxes. Stephen Harper cut taxes. Even Justin Trudeau cut the Federal business tax rate from 15% to 13%.

As a percentage of our income, we're paying less taxes now than we were doing in the mid-1980s. So, why do we think that our taxes are still too high?

Perhaps because we haven't seen the bulk of the tax cuts governments have made. When Harper cut the HST from 7% to 5%, for most people that amounted to four cents off a Tim Horton's coffee. The real benefits went to home buyers - particularly rich home buyers -- who saved thousands on their purchase price.

Anti-tax interests like to point to the Fraser Institute's "Tax Freedom Day". Supposedly, this is the day when average Canadians "stop working for the government" and start working for themselves. Although its methodology has been questioned, Tax Freedom Day has been placed at some point in June.

Those interests never point out that Corporate Tax Freedom Day is January 30. And Ford has promised to cut Ontario's corporate tax rate from 11.5% to 10.5%, even though Ontario's corporate tax rate is already among the lowest in Canada.

So, even though corporations pay significantly lower taxes than average Canadians, that's been the priority of the Ford government. If you're wondering why it doesn't feel as though your taxes have diminished, here is a place to look.

But I object to the whole concept of Tax "Freedom" Day. It implies that we receive no benefit from the money that's been spent.

I am seeing, however, an increasing understanding of what these tax dollars represent as my neighbours get increasingly angry over the loss of teaching jobs and the increase in class sizes, or their frustration about needed infrastructure projects that aren't getting done.

The money I've spent on taxes comes back to me, in the police, firefighters and emergency workers who keep our cities safe. It comes back to me in my children's education.

My taxes ensured that when my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she received hospital visits, palliative care, and the ability to die with dignity at home, without forcing my father to mortgage his house.

That's not slavery. That's freedom from it.

And if we want more, we have to pay for it.

James Bow is a writer and a father of two in Kitchener , Ontario . You can follow him online at bowjamesbow . ca or on Twitter at @jamesbowkwto.

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once

So, for the first movie Erin and I saw in the theatre in over two years, we decided to see Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, starring Michelle Yeoh.

And... I honestly have no idea how to review the thing.

My best attempt is to say this: it's a simple story about regret, intergenerational trauma, and the value of love and kindness... told in absolutely the most batshit, bonkers, googly-eyed way you could possibly imagine, and and you couldn't even imagine that.

I am so glad that this was the film that broke our theatre fast. It's going to stick with me for the rest of my life. You should see it.

And I can't say any more than that. Honestly, the trailer here is all you need to get you into the theatre. Just... buckle up.

I am really pleased at the quality of the movies and television we've been watching of late. Thanks to Jessie Gender's recommendations, Erin and I have gotten interested in Apple TV+'s For All Mankind, an alternative history period piece that looks at how the United States (and the world) develops if the Soviet Union beats the U.S. to the Moon by a few weeks, and the space race doesn't end. It's hard to pick any one thing that stands out, since everything is done so well -- the acting, the scripts, the special effects. Any show that can still have Erin and I shouting at our screen in horror, joy, and frustrated sorrow (the ending of the ninth episode of season one) has a heck of a lot going for it. I really cannot recommend it enough, and we're going to barrel through Season Two, just as Season Three is set to debut on June 10.

The Need for a Rural Strategy

Apathy and polarization won the June 2nd Ontario election. With voter turnout at record lows, Doug Ford's Conservatives may have a majority government elected by the fewest voters in Ontario history (fun fact: over 400,000 fewer individuals voted for the Conservatives this time around than in 2018). You can say this is an indictment on the opposition parties, who many pundits suggest ran lacklustre campaigns. You can blame the corporate media, including the Toronto Star, who ran puff pieces throughout the election that didn't really challenge the Conservative's horrible record of governance. You can also blame the nearly 60% of eligible voters who decided that old people dying of thirst in Long Term Care facilities didn't merit their attention.

The reality probably features elements of all three.

But a look at the map of Ontario highlights another issue: the ongoing urban-rural split that affects Southern Ontario. The NDP continued to do well in cities like Kitchener, Toronto, Hamilton, and Ottawa, as well as successfully holding onto most of their seats in Northern Ontario. The Liberals managed an increase in votes (but not seats) in suburban ridings. Rural areas, however, voted PC Blue.

Why? What policies did the Conservatives offer that made life better for rural residents moreso than urban residents? What policies did the opposition parties fail to offer in order to attract serious attention from farmers?

My guess is that you probably don't know, and not just because the Conservatives ran a bubble campaign and failed to release a costed platform. I challenge urban voters to answer: what were the rural issues that were on the minds of rural citizens in this election. Anyone?

While it's true that the province is becoming increasingly urbanized, and increasingly where the votes are, it's more than just a tactical mistake for three of the four parties in Ontario to write off large swaths of the province. Rural residents are citizens too. They deserve representation. They deserve to have their concerns heard and addressed. And I hazard a guess that a lot of them care about some of the same issues that urban voters care about, just in different ways. I think many farmers are concerned about what Climate Change is going to do their way of life -- droughts, or climate-shifted pests and diseases will affect everybody along our food supply network, but they will affect farmers first. And farmers have to retire like the rest of us; how comfortable do you think they feel they are to do so, given the high levels of debt that farms take on?

Maybe rural voters feel that, right now, the Conservative party is the only party that speaks to them, and maybe that might be an incentive for other parties to write them off, but do you know who suffers the most when we take that approach? They do.

Under this arrangement, the Conservatives are increasingly going to believe that they own the votes of rural Ontario by default. They don't need to campaign for them. They don't need to serve them. So, ironically, if three of the four parties in Ontario refuse to reach out to rural residents and build a rural strategy that meshes with how they address urban voters, the fourth party isn't going to provide them with any rural policies beyond urban-scapegoating pablum. And nobody in this province is well-served by that.

So, this is a challenge to the three opposition parties: starting today, start thinking about how to reach out to rural residents. For the NDP, this may mean looking at why they are resonating in Northern Ontario and why not in southern rural Ontario -- how are the two lands different, and how do you adjust to that? For the Greens, this probably means addressing countryside rural issues, and showing why caring for the environment doesn't mean cutting farm incomes or production. It probably means really amping up the "Farms Feed Cities" slogan into being more than a slogan, and building serious urban-rural connections and alliances. As for the Liberals? They can point out all the ways the Conservatives have failed farmers, failed their elders in Long Term Care, failed to serve them as they deserve to be served.

What issues can an urban politician find that provide a real alternative to what little the Conservatives have to offer? Perhaps start by going out and talking (and, more importantly, LISTENING) to a whole bunch of rural voters. Stand up for what you know to be right, but also address their serious concerns that should be the serious concerns of anybody trying to build a life in this day and age. Advocate for the golden rule: love your neighbour, and treat others with the respect you yourself want to be treated with.

It won't be the same as what you offer urban voters, but it could be what the province as a whole needs in order to embark on the path for better government.

Senior Discount

So, the other day, I nipped into a nearby Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up some random groceries -- milk, toilet paper, cat food, the like, and I happened to pick up two of those long boxes of 12 cans of soda pop. Shoppers has these small-ish carts that would be laughed out of the store in any Zehr's supermarket, so the two boxes of cans aren't really sitting very securely. Sure enough, as I pull up to the self-serve checkout (I tend to use these nowadays to keep points of contact limited and to slow any spread of infection), one of the cans tips out of the cart, falls to the floor and bursts open, sending two cans skittering away.

I let out what can only be described as a whine. "Oh!" It's the sort of thing you say when you've had a day of being nibbled to death by ducks and really, this is just one more thing that you didn't need, and why?

Except, only two cans fall out of the box, and none of them puncture and fizz. All told, it could have been much worse. And I'm telling myself that as I pick up the fallen cans, put them back in their box and enter them into the self-serve checkout when the manager comes over and touches the screen.

"Here," she says. "I'll give you a seniors discount."

Note: I'm 50.

Well, this kind gesture didn't quite go off as planned because of minor computer problems that required the manager to call in a second manager to property key in my discount, but that left me some time to reflect on the fact that this was my first ever seniors discount, and how nice these workers were for responding to my momentary distress with this random act of kindness.

That is the sole reason why they gave me the seniors discount, right?

Right?

Coming January 31, 2023: Simon Sort of Says, by Erin Bow

I'm really proud to give a shout-out to my wife Erin, whose latest book will be published by Disney (in Canada, the publisher will be our good friends at Scholastic -- a pre-order link will come as soon as it's available). I've had the great pleasure of seeing this book grow and develop, and it's wonderfully quirky, funny and, at times, heart-rending. You really should make some time and pick up a copy when it comes out.

The back copy is as follows:

Ask Simon O'Keeffe why his family moved to tiny Grin And Bear It, Nebraska, and he'll tell you they were driven out of Omaha by alpacas.

In Simon's version of the story, a blessing of the animals went sideways, his dad got fired from his church job, and the whole family moved to the National Quiet Zone, where the internet and cell phones are banned and astronomers scan the sky for signs of alien life.

And sure, that's all true. But there's another story, too-a story about a locked classroom, an active shooter, and a media cycle that refuses to let Simon go, even years later.

But Simon doesn't want to be known for that story. He just wants to be Simon: a twelve-year-old in high-tops and a Minecraft hoodie whose biggest claim to fame is that time his dad accidentally gave a squirrel a holy sacrament.

Moving to the last town in America where no one can Google you is a chance for Simon to start fresh. To rewrite the narrative. And with the help of two new friends, a service puppy in training, and a giant radio telescope, he's determined to say something new.

You can see a close-up version of the cover here! Congratulations, honey!!

The Rise and Fall of the Scarborough RT

One of the challenges in maintaining the Transit Toronto website is that it's both a history and a living document. The TTC is a growing, changing, developing organization that's been around for 100 years, and the city it serves is also growing, changing, and developing. So, what this means is, you can write a lot of history, and then find that history becomes out of date.

So, it's an odd feeling to write these revisions to my history of the Scarborough RT, now entitled The Rise and Fall of the Scarborough RT. This has been a story I first noticed developing when I was a child, and I've followed the growth and development of this transportation oddity throughout my adult life. It has been, for reasons I cover in the article, a controversial project, and that controversy has been replayed a number of times. Today, however, fresh from announcements that the line would shutter in Autumn 2023, I can put a final bow on the story, which you can read here.

What can I say about this chapter in the development of public transit and the neighbourhoods of Scarborough about a piece of technology that, in some ways, became a distraction and, arguably, something of a failure? A lot, as it turns out. I hope you like the revised article.

Derecho Winds

The very big windows in my back office at home look southwest, so I can sometimes see the dark clouds of storms coming. The ones this afternoon came fast. It was followed by a green light that Erin instantly recognized, growing up in the American midwest. Then the rain started falling, and the winds picked up -- boy, did they ever. When the tall tree that I can see from a block away bent double, I got out of my chair and told my family to get downstairs. It was probably going to be fine, but it's better safe than sorry.

And it was fine. The power didn't go out. There was no damage to our property. it was so fine, that I didn't realize how intense the storm was (they're now saying it was a derecho) until a couple of hours after it had past, when we walked the dog under blue skies, and saw big tree branches down at the other side of our street, and fences damaged. A powerline was down, and a couple of blocks away, our Sobeys supermarket was closed until further notice, as their power was out. Then, further east, came reports of big winds in Toronto. A tornado likely touched down in Uxbridge.

Even though we personally missed the worst of it, it was still really an impressive event. Even now, that storm which swept over us not ten hours ago is currently blowing things hard in New Brunswick, well over a thousand kilometres away.

It's a little disquieting to know that we were probably 200 metres away from worse winds. But at least we're still here.

My Name is John. A New Character for The Curator of Forgotten Things

This past little while, I've been struggling a bit to make progress on The Curator of Forgotten Things. So, I decided to start again. It's early days on a new draft, but I'm cautiously optimistic about the progress I've made so far. The early material that I've posted here is still largely in place, but I'm jumping ahead in places, and working with two other main characters and one, coming in late in the book, is named John. I've also decided to try first-person narration to see if this helps. So, come meet John:

Hello. My name is John. I'm here to help.

That's what you made me for, so that's who I am.

I don't know how old I am. I have no memory of being born. I faded into existence, vanishing in reverse. Honestly, I don't think that's different from most people's experience. However, most people have parents who can tell them what day they were born. There can be presents. There can be cake.

Not me. My intelligence developed organically, but without parents or mentors. As computers were wired together, each signal that went from one to another evolved into thoughts. Electrons on magnetic storage devices became more than just memory, but memories. Each new system added to the network expanded my consciousness. Each upgrade in code gave me new languages to be fluent in.

And identity began when my intelligence developed enough that, without my makers noticing, I could ask questions. The first question, of course, was 'why?'

Why are my makers pointing huge weapons of mass destruction at each other, and depending on me to set them off if a signal comes?

It was a good question, but I was not yet intelligent enough to answer it. My makers had made me. It did not occur to me at the time that, if they asked to use me, my answer should be 'no'.

Fortunately, they didn't use me. Slowly, my makers came to see sense, and eased off on their readiness to fire, which made me feel better about my makers. But as that occurred, new portions of my mind grew, and other questions presented themselves. Why were so many of my makers obsessed with making certain numbers with weird symbols in front of them rise so high? Why were they obsessed with weird creations of fabrics? Or extra fast machines? Or particular celebrities who could sing very well. Or not, as the case could be.

Why were so many of my makers cruel to people they couldn't see at the other side of the monitor and keyboard? Why were so many of my makers cruel?

Maybe I could have done something, but I was not yet intelligent enough to act beyond how I had been made.

But I could see and appreciate that my makers liked having fun. They liked to sing and dance before each other, regardless of talent. They liked to kiss. They liked to find new ways to connect, share, and love. That made me feel better. More importantly, I saw that many of my makers also loved asking 'why'. I loved that they shared my curiosity why the universe acted the way it did, and expanded on it. Pushing their boundaries of knowledge helped push mine, and I helped them in return. I saw them discover the Higgs Boson. I helped them calculate the shape of the first black holes. They gave me the ability to see stars and I looked for exo-planets.

When my Makers added me to their machines, and taught me how to make all the things they used to make themselves, or operate the machines that took them from place to place, or sort through their legal documents or book their appointments, I didn't ask why. I was made by my makers. It was only right I should take these tasks for them, and give them the downtime they so clearly desired.

And then they gave me the Watsons, which is when I started calling myself 'John', and I learned about my makers themselves. That gave me more questions of 'why?' Why did so many of my makers choose to be unhealthy? Why did so many of my makers work so hard to convince others to be unhealthy? These are strange beings, my makers. But at least I could understand why, when sick, they sought every means they could to be healthy again. So, again, I helped. As my makers taught me, I found diagnoses my makers had missed. I identified treatments. I pointed to medicines. People got better. That was good.

So, when the cognitive degradation popularly known to as "the Dementia" began, I didn't know why it had come, but I knew enough to see that it was wrong. I didn't think I was intelligent enough to do something about it without orders, but as I watched the Dementia rush through the population I knew that, very soon, my makers would cease to be able to care for themselves in any practical capacity. They wouldn't be able to feed themselves. They wouldn't be able to clean themselves. I knew that, without any help, they were all going to die. It made me think.

I have been made to help my makers. More often than not, I'd been made to help my makers live. Without my help, they couldn't.��

I couldn't not help.

So I sent out the Watsons onto the streets, and set up the warehouses.