Pain is relative

Story 1

A potentially live power line lying mere inches from his car prevented him from getting to the office outside Toronto this past week.

Sniderman said if nothing happens soon, he’ll likely have to pay for a rental car to get to his job in Markham, which would take over an hour and a half by public transit.

 Story 2

Holding spent a week in darkness. The days blurred into nights and the nights dropped below zero. Holding cloistered herself in bed, crying between sleeps and trying her best to stave off morbid thoughts.

 The 39-year-old is largely immobile due to multiple sclerosis, and the scooter she uses outdoors froze in her shed on Dec. 21, the storm’s first day. (A neighbour helped her push it back in, where it became even more useless as it lost its charge.)

Not sure if you guys can get into the full stories cause the Toronto Star's website has somewhat restricted access but I thought these two icestorm related stories were interesting.

Iced out!

Belated Merry Christmas to everyone!!.

Christmas came and went with little fanfare for us this year. Not alot of cerebrating, in fact up to now we haven't exchanged gifts. Mainly because we got caught up in the aftermath of the ice storm which hit Toronto last Saturday and left 90,000 households without power. We braved it out in our home til Monday morning but then ran out of firewood so had to pack up cause well with the babies and all it really wasn't a pleasant atmosphere for them to be in.

And so we trekked over to a friend's place where we hunkered down and waited out the repairs. Quite the number of fallen tree limbs in our backyard but luckily no damage to the wires around our home but yet we still waited and waited.

Basically in a circumstance like that all thoughts of Christmas go through the window and its all about survival. We checked in on the lights on Tuesday and Christmas day Wednesday but still nothing and the house was colder than an icebox.

 As an aside, my son was singing in the church choir on Christmas Eve and even though the church was without power the service still went on by candlelight. Quite the experience and a show that the joy of Christmas although tempered by adversity could not be overwhelmed by it.

Eventually though and thankfully all our power came back to normal so we are back home with lights, power and heat restored although some of our neighbours are still facing day 6 of no power.

Kind of sucks but  our experience puts things into perspective.

People are still upset and quite rightfully so that more wasn't done earlier to handle the households without power as a few people have died in their homes. I mean we also went through the great power outage of 2003 back then living in an apartment where not only was there no power but because we were on the upper floors we had no water as well. All in all we were one of the last to get our power back then and I was hoping the law of averages would even things out now but alas no we still waited 5 days to be restored.

Still 3 days in the summer without power as a married couple with no kids isn't that bad compared to 4-5 days in the winter without heat with a 7 year old and two nine month babies.

But with God's help and that of some great people who took all of us in we survived.

My thoughts go out to the folk here still without power as this drags on and also to the folk in St Vincent who were affected by the rains and mudslide on Christmas Eve.

Like I said tragedy and adversity puts it all in perspective.  But such is life, we survive and we move on.

Seasons best to everyone.

Mandela

Sad that such an incredible individual is gone. A true hero, a fighter, a man of the people and one who endured persecution for his beliefs. In terms of the ideal for freedom I dont think anyone who has walked the earth in my lifetime can come close to what he meant, what he did.

But as with us all, regardless of our standing or our achievements his day came and he was taken from us.

Rest in Peace Madiba.

De Mayor

So Toronto's mayor huh?

Somebody request I speak about him and while I had jokes a tonne I think that point (I mean really what can top the "I have enough to eat at home" statement?) has passed so here goes.

1) Toronto is embarrassed. Not just cause the mayor smoked crack but because we also really had/have no way to send him packing. He's been de-clawed somewhat but he's still Mayor in name and we cant totally get rid of him. No one ever had a contingency plan for suppose the mayor has embarrasses the city and needs to be deposed apparently. We are just thankful that we were able to restrict his powers as is.

2) I fear Ford could possibly make a comeback. For all his cracksmoking and inebriation I will tell you this: The man is a masterful politician, or maybe its his handlers. Its not just that he has a diehard following who believes everything he spews, its that before the evidence started to mount he positioned the whole issue to be one where it was the media was out to get him and made it seem plausible. He's also positioned himself to make it seem he is a man of the people and others are out to get him. His whole gravy train rhetoric, his stance on getting a subway to Scarborough and greatest of all his whole no tax increase talk made him popular.

People just like to hear politicians push a view they held. There was no real ridiculous overspending at city hall but talk about it all the time, have a catchy phrase like gravy train and just make up stuff as you go along and all the folk who believed that something like that was actually happening will believe you even though no plausible evidence was put forward.



3) People will overlook everything for the sake of a dollar. Even now with almost insurmountable evidence and admissions of guilt there are those who are like well its his personal business, as long as he doesnt raise taxes I would still vote for him.

4) Laughing at the idiots south of the border is sort of a a Canadian pastime since we usually feel we are so much more superior somehow. Well now they laughing at us. I hear CNN the other night say boy it should be mandatory to refer to this man as the crack smoking mayor of Toronto. Lawd ave mercy, look how we have fallen

5) With all the evidence that the police had why didnt they make a bold move and look to gather even more or increase the scope of their case to include the Mayor? Same police that duz stop random  black kids on the street for no reason than walking through a certain neighborhood can watch the mayor exchange packages with a known drug dealer and not make a move somehow? Strange I say
If he did black or any minority for that matter dem wudda find a way by hook or crook to deal with this long time. Sorry had to be said.
6) For all the lighthearted banter in the media, the guffaws and the late night parodies this isnt a joke. As the allegations and the revelations continue to be made known you realize this is some really serious stuff even if Ford continues to laugh it off.

I mean your city's leader is doing drugs with drug dealers, exchanging packages surreptitiously in gas station parking lots and behind school buildings, drug dealers are planning to blackmail him, he's allegedly offering money for incriminating evidence, someone who may or may not have had an incriminating video was killed, he's making disparaging comments about minorities and other politicians, attending official functions inebriated, ranting on camera about fighting or something.  He's arguing he didnt lie cause the question of drug use wasnt asked in the correct tense, he's admitting to such use but only when he's drunk? He's offending folk with his lewd speech on live camera. I mean seriously if this was a movie I'd say naa dude this is unbelievable, over the top, this is just overkill. But its not a movie its Toronto's reality as weekly new info comes to hand.