Bill C-61 Blues. BC Civil Liberties Association and Vancouver Fair Copyright have written a short summary of the problems inherent with Bill C-61. The link to the pdf of this position paper is available on Michael Geist’s blog.

Iterminable. Our drive back and forth from Burnaby to the UBC hospital yesterday was at least a half-hour longer than it should have been, thanks to the Canada Line construction foul ups at 41st and Oak. It wasn’t even rush hour.

How long have we all been putting up with this cut and uncovered mess? And how much longer will it scar the city and string out our schedules? A whole lot longer, according to David Eby.

Vandulgence. Condohype on life in Vancouver.

Lemonade Stand Leadership. Gordo might be a two-faced autocrat, but at least he’s good at it? Carole James is a mistress of mushiness? Alex Tsakumis opines on the sad political facts.

A Pol We Can Believe In. Making It–New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza’s lengthy account of Barrack Obama’s Chicago years, pragmatic decisions, and poker games with lobbyists. via Keefer.

Oh, and Happy BC Day.

Dump the New Garbage Plans, from the Tyee.

Save Vancouver’s Heatley Block, from Viaduct.

Olympic Drug Lab Largesse from David Eby.

Dickson Despommier, a professor of public health at Columbia University, is a passionate advocate of “vertical farms” in skyscrapers that provide food for the surrounding urban population.

Thirty stories, he thinks, would be sufficient to feed 50,000. though in a city centre where real estate is as expensive as it is in Manhattan, it’s likely an investment banker would outbid a tomato.

Use of industrial and human waste as a soil amendment component, once it has been processed into sludge or biosolids, is becoming an increasingly acceptable agribusiness practice.

Last September, the BC Government approved a new Soil Amendment Code of Practice. Permitting use of biosolids on agricultural and forest lands, says the government, has many benefits, not least diverting sludge from landfill sites and incineration facilities. It seems our government is so keen on agricultural use of industrial and bio waste, that the only requirement for its use is the filling out of a simple form.

There are doubts about the benefits of spreading sludge over agricultural and forest lands. According to this article in the Toronto Star, large food processors including DelMonte, Campbell’s Soups, and Gerber Baby Foods won’t use produce grown on sludge-treated soil. This is because of their concerns about toxic metals, particularly cadmium, which can hurt kidney function, and mercury, which harms the brain and nervous system.

BC’s Soil Amendment Code includes standards for permissible levels of heavy metals including cadmium and mercury. It also requires a 30 meter buffer between sludge and a water source. Once the sludge has been spread, signage must be posted for 38 months to warn life forms who can read to stay off the fields. Hopefully the vomitous stench would be disgusting enough to dissuade small children and wildlife from hanging around.

Sludge-amended soil cannot be used to grow food crops for 18 months if the edible portion is above-ground, or 38 months if below-ground. Domestic grazing, strangely, is permitted after 60 days. Murray McBride, from Cornell’s Waste Management Institute is just one soil scientist who was concerns about the impact this practice could have on our dairy and meat supplies.

Last September, a letter was sent to Barry Penner, BC’s then-minister of agriculture and lands, from a group of environmental and labour organizations, urging him to consider wiser approaches to managing biosolids, instead of spreading it “by the truckload throughout the province.”

For now, there is no way of knowing whether conventinal food has been grown or raised on sludge-amended soil. COABC standards do not permit the use of sludge or biosolids. “Organic” food sold in big box stores is grown in parts unknown, and under less rigourous standards that might permit the use of sludge.

Treasure found beneath carpets and in closets. Story via Viaduct East blog.

The Lido, an unassuming storefront on the south side of Broadway, between Fraser and Main, seems to have taken on a new life.

Back in the 70s, the Lido was a sketchy grocery store with irregular opening hours. Those in the know would arrive at the right time in order to buy slightly moldy packets of cheese, bashed cans of food from exotic or unknown origins, aging bread and pastries, and other semi-attractive comestibles, all at drastically reduced prices, from the Lido’s proprietor, Chris.

Chris was never known to be kind to his wife, at least in public, when she helped him with the store, but she must have been devoted. After he died, the store became a sort of museum to Chris’ memory. Aging packets of dried goods remained on the shelves, slowly draining of colour. For a long time, those packets remained on view to passersby, though the Lido never opened again.

A few years back, the windows were papered over. The Lido museum had become a private matter, unobtrusive and forgettable, lodged up against an auto body shop on an unremarkable stretch of Broadway.

Last week I noticed something had changed. The newspaper lining had been removed from the windows, which themselves had been replaced with smart sand-blasted panes. The exterior, and particularly the Lido sign itself, all looked as if they had been spruced up.

Back in the 70s my mother, a woman in straightened circumstances always looking for a way to stretch a buck, would shop at the Lido. Sometimes she would take me with her. My clearest memory was of the old wooden floors, well worn, dark, ancient.

I loved those floors. Whatever becomes of the Lido, I really hope they keep those floors.

In a few short decades Vancouver has gone from what journalist Sean Rossiter termed “a setting in search of a city” to the most livable darling of urban planners everywhere.

Vancouverism, which loosely refers to a dense grouping of tall, thin, glass towers anchored over townhouse pods and commercial developments, accessorized with well-planned public amenities, and (at least in Vancouver’s case) surrounded by natural beauty, is the subject this month of an exhibit at the London Festival of Architecture.

For the most part, Vancouverism is about Vancouver’s downtown peninsula, though “Yaletown-style” residential towers and commercial developments have also been sprouting at various suburban stops along the Skytrain routes.

Meanwhile, in the lower density neighbourhoods, a new taller and thinner housing form has been sprouting in a strange synchronicity. Dubbed the “Mohawk” this latest form of the Vancouver Special sports a half-width third level.

Architect Erick Villagomez, co-founder of re:place, thinks Mohawks are junk food architecture, more because they lack the internal flexibility of older style Vancouver Specials than because of their ungainly massing. The Mohawk is, however, the ugliest version of the Vancouver Special so far, all the more because of the rate at which it is being built in east side neighbourhoods—junk food architecture begetting junk food urbanism.

The ugliness and ubiquity of the ongoing permutations of the Vancouver Special are byproducts of Vancouver’s planning and development restrictions. Urban planning has been a recognized profession for less than a century, and during that time, says Villagomez, it has “made some of the most detrimental urban mistakes in the history of cities.”

Architectural critic, Trevor Boddy, who has never hesitated to pop Vancouver’s self-congratulatory balloon, is co-curating the London Festival of Architecture Vancouverism exhibit. This must mean even he sees some value in the development of our downtown peninsula, though perhaps not enough to deter him from believing our planners are drinking their own bathwater.

Living the glamorous condo life? Garth Turner’s Greater Fool blog features a New York Times article on luxury condo foreclosures.

Fat people are blamed for global warming.

Oliver Stone’s new movie, W, may be a greater source of embarrassment for Tony Blair, W’s most ardent admirer, than for W himself.

Suzuki backs Dion’s carbon tax, says mean things about the Tories and the NDP.

Hillary for VEEP? What a mess that would be, despite her smarts and intestinal fortitude. Nevertheless, lots of people seem to think an Obama-Clinton ticket in November would heal the Dems’ wounds. I think Barry’s going to go with Bill Richardson, though he’s not mentioned as a possibility in this article.

Two guys in Colorado got in a “bonehead” dustup over a parked van and tasered each other, and neither of them was a cop. At least they didn’t use bullets?

Homelessness in a Growth Economy: Canada’s 21st Century Paradox

October 15, 1 pm, SFU Surrey, Central City, 250-13450 102 Avenue, Surrey (Room 5240)
October 15, 7 pm, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 W.Hastings, Vancouver (Room 1700)
Admission is free, reservations required. Email cstudies@sfu.ca

Drawing on his recent report of the same name for the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, journalist Gordon Laird will discuss his findings on homelessness in Canada. Mr. Laird has observed that governments have focused more on short-term crisis management than long-term strategic investment. Inaction over the past decade on housing and homelessness has exacerbated efforts to reduce poverty in Canada. Mr. Laird’s writing and commentary have been featured in The Globe and Mail, CNN, CBC Radio, National Public Radio, MacLean’s and National Post. Laird is a Media Fellow emeritus at The Sheldon M. Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership.

Link to Mr. Laird’s website gordonlaird.com

Moderators:
Surrey: Michelle Ninow
Metro Vancouver Homelessness Secretariat Vancouver: Kathryn Gretsinger, journalist

Panelists will give the local context including Alice Sundberg, Chair, Regional Steering Committee on Homelessness (SFU Harbour Centre lecture).

Sponsored by the Metro Vancouver Homelessness Secretariat. Co-sponsored by the SFU City Program and Community Education Programs. With generous financial support from the Vancouver Foundation.

Vancouver Stop Gateway Rally

Saturday, September 29th, 2007

Rally: 3:30 - 5:30 pm
Followed by a local harvest ’stone soup’ community dinner (please bring your own mug)

Featuring:

Dr Bill Rees, University of BC, School of Community & Regional Planning

Joe Foy, Western Canada Wilderness Committee

Dr. Bob Woollard, University of BC, Department of Medicine

Jim Houlahan, Canadian Auto Workers, Local 111 (Bus Drivers Union)

Stephen Rees, transportation economist

Gordon Price, Livable Region Coalition

Harold Steeves, grandfather of the Agricultural Land Reserve

Derek Corrigan, Mayor of Burnaby

Adrianne Carr, Green Party of Canada

Donna Passmore, Gateway 40 Citizens Network

Entertainment by eRatica, the Raging Grannies, Ned Jacobs & more
Displays and exhibits by environmental and transportation Groups

The Unitarian Church
949 West 49th Ave.
Vancouver BC

www.stopgateway.ca
www.gatewaysucks.org