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Lorna Mills and Sally McKay
Digital Media Tree this blog's archive OVVLvverk Lorna Mills: Artworks / Persona Volare / contact Sally McKay: GIFS / cv and contact |
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Ontario is in danger of passing a mandatory helmet law for cyclists. This sucks. Helmet legislation decreases bicycle use, thereby cause big time health and safety problems. Besides that, it's parochial and insulting and sends a strong message that the government doesn't like bikes. Cyclists need better street design, side-guards on trucks, reduction in speed, bike lanes, and a political environment that welcomes the bicycle as a beneficial and progressive transportation mode. If you truly want to create a culture of safety, foster a culture of cyclists--- people who get excercise, don't pollute, and, compared to cars, hardly ever kill or injure anybody else.
From the National Post:
"At its core, I think this bill is really about creating a culture of safety in this province," [John] Milloy told a news conference.From The Hammer:
"If we can create a culture where you wouldn't think of going bicycling or skateboarding or in-line skating without wearing a helmet, I think we would have achieved success."
"We have to keep the people of Ontario safe. This is what we have to do to ensure compliance and institute a culture of safety in our province," said an unrepentant Irving Halitosis, Minister for Screwing You Over , the provincial ministry responsible for the bill's enforcement. "I mean, you can't have people running around and eating dinner without helmets on. What if a fish stick jumped up off your plate and whacked you in the forehead? It happened to me, and it's not pretty. I was off work for three months."People to contact:
Jeff Leal, M.P.P., jleal.mpp.co@liberal.ola.orgmore info at ARC
Khalil Ramal, M.P.P., kramal.mpp@liberal.ola.org
Ted Arnott, M.P.P., ted_arnott@ontla.ola.org
Ted Chudleigh, M.P.P., ted_chudleigh@ontla.ola.org
Kim Craitor, M.P.P., kcraitor.mpp@liberal.ola.org
Peter Fonseca, M.P.P., pfonseca.mpp@liberal.ola.org
Rosario Marchese, M.P.P., rmarchese@ndp.on.ca
Hon. Dalton McGuinty, Premier, dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org
Ted McMeekin, M.P.P., tmcmeekin.mpp@liberal.ola.org
John Milloy, M.P.P., jmilloy.mpp@liberal.ola.org
Michael Prue, M.P.P., mprue-qp@ndp.on.ca
Kathleen Wynne, M.P.P., kwynne.mpp@liberal.ola.org
Ann Stokes, Clerk, anne_stokes@ontla.ola.org
ARC (Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists), arc@respect.to
Velo Ontario, info@VeloOntario.ca
"In ordinary Newtonian fluids (those that do not exhibit shear thickening or shear thinning) the wave patterns include ones with 1-fold symmetry (stripes), 2-fold symmetry (squares), 3-fold symmetry (hexagons) as well as higher orders of symmetry."
Above quote and image are taken from the nonlinear physics pages at University of Toronto. I'm going to a workshop this weekend for artists on physics and patterns, organised by Subtle Technologies. This stuff above with patterns in liquids is the realm of Wayne Tokaruk. Michael Rogers works with patterns in chemical reactions and Zeina Khan (see image below) is the master of segregation patterns in sand. These three are all studying with Stephen Morris, who will conduct the workshop. I'll no doubt have more to report later. Cool pictures, n'est-ce pas?
When we arrived this morning, the sister, a gregarious little spitfire of a woman, was already there with her bicycle. There were about eight neighbours as well, everyone with flowers and tears. Normally we would take the street and block a lane of traffic for a minute of silence, but the sister was calling the shots and asked us to put all our bikes together on the sidewalk. I understand this impulse. Streets full of moving cars often seem inviolable, even when they have recently interrupted your life by taking away a loved one. It takes experience to know and remember that breaking into traffic flow is surprisingly easy, and claiming street space, even temporarily, is empowering.
We stood together on the corner with our sad banner ("a cyclist was killed here last week"), and held a minute of silence, watching the cars whizz by. Then the sister asked me if I would put my flowers on the fence, across the two lanes of speeding traffic. Of course I agreed, eager to violate that damned street. A few of us crossed and stood in the far traffic lane, tying up flowers to the fence. Once we had broken the seal, the sister and neighbours struck out into the road as well! We held up the banner to block the lane and diverted traffic around the scene. The mourners took their time, standing on the road to pin up flowers. The sister, crying openly now, put out candles and lit a little shrine. I felt very glad to be there, helping provide a little pocket of temporary safety, on this otherwise fatally fast street, so that a woman could mourn her sister on the spot where she died.
Afterwards we were all invited back to the apartment where the sisters lived nearby, and were served wheat cookies in the shape of tiny pigs that the cyclist had baked before she was killed by cars.
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One week following the death of a 69-year-old cyclist, Toronto cyclists
will ride to the site of the fatality to pay their respects to a fellow
cyclist. Flowers will be left at the site to mark the death and a period
of silent reflection will be observed. When: Thursday, November 04 at 8:00 a.m. Where: The Queensway and Southport Meet: Cyclists will gather at the south entrance to Trinity Bellwoods Park (Queen and Strachan) at 7:30 and ride to the site together. A second rendezvous point will be the corner of Queen and Roncesvalles at 7:50 a.m. There will be a brief ceremony of solidarity and respect at the Queensway and Southport at 8:00 a.m. www.respect.to |
Excerpt from Ken Wiwa's "Look Out: There's a Flu Under Every Bush," from Saturday's Globe and Mail:
... [T]here is a school of thought that hopes Mr. Bush gets a second term, and I've already enrolled in that program.
I don't know whether it is my immune system's defensive reaction to Bush flu -- the shiver one feels at the thought of opening the papers to front-page pictures of a smiling George W. on Wednesday morning -- but I have already rationalized a Bush second term as serving my global interests. I've always subscribed to the notion that an empire is at its most vulnerable at the height of its power.
It is an immutable law of nature that condemns the powerful to overweening ambition: Think of the Roman Empire, Napoleon, Conrad Black and the New York Yankees. What with that monstrous budget deficit midwifing the economic miracle of a jobless recovery, the loud commitment to policing the world at any cost, and a seemingly implacable addiction to market forces in every public sector from education to health care -- another four years of Bush flu may be tough medicine. But it might, just might, weaken his country and make the rest of us stronger.
On the other hand, John Kerry might, just might, pull America from the brink of self-destruction -- that is, if he succeeds in balancing the budget at the same time as extending the reach of social programs. He just might succeed in getting the rest of the world to help America police the world, to continue to float America's trillion-dollar debt, to pull us all out of our irrational anti-American senses and persuade us that if America sneezes, we might all catch a cold.
Whatever the outcome, I'm going to get myself a flu jab.
