I saw a monarch butterfly along Erb Street last week.

Liz wrote an article in The Rec about visible minorities in the municipal election. It features Raj Gill who is running in Ward 6 (Victoria Park-West).

Gill said immigrant issues such as housing, employment and race relations are her passion, but other issues are important as well, including the environment and neighbourhood concerns such as recreation, traffic calming and bike trails.

“I don’t put on my diversity hat,” she said of her campaign. “I bring it to everything.”

As a first-generation Canadian, she said she understands immigrant issues and wants council to address them.

But Gill [...] said immigrant issues should not be compartmentalized into “silos,” since they affect everyone, regardless of race. If ethnicity affects decisions by voters, it’s just one of many factors. “Hopefully, they will vote for me because I can bring their issues to the table.”

On occasion, while knocking on doors, some potential voters have spoken to Gill in Hindi or Punjab. She understands some of the language but can’t speak it well. French, her second language, came in handy when she spoke to a Congolese voter at the door recently.

[...]

But Bob Williams, a political scientist at the University of Waterloo with a specialty in municipal affairs, said turnout in municipal elections is low in general. Income and education levels, along with home ownership, play heavily on whether constituents become informed voters, he said.

Visible minorities and the election The Rec 26 Oct 2006

Jason Hammond is running in Kitchener for regional council.

From Campaign Blog Introduction jasonhammond.ca:

Ideally, democracy is practiced as a conversation. In my campaign, as a candidate to represent the citizens of Kitchener to the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, I plan to keep that conversation open. Welcome to our blog, a shared space for the ideas that shape our vision for Waterloo Region.

[...]

By bringing together the bright ideas from our own community and beyond, we can forge a new movement towards a truly sustainable community. What I’ve learned from my work across our country and around the world, is that Canada needs a community to set an example. We in Waterloo Region are uniquely positioned to take on that leadership role.

[...]

So, I ask you to stay tuned to this website, participate fully in this election and the council term that follows it, and elect me as a Regional Councillor for Kitchener. I thank you, and look forward to working with you.

Barb wrote a story on sexy hallowe’en costumes in the weekend Rec.

Nelson is the author of a study called The Pink Dragon Is Female: Halloween Costumes and Gender Markers, published in The Psychology of Women Quarterly in 2000.

She was quoted recently in a New York Times article discussing what’s behind increasingly sexual women’s Halloween costumes.

[...]

Bunce said there’s cause for optimism, however. Left to their own devices, many young girls will choose to wear scary outfits — costumes that make them ugly, green-faced witches or skeletons or ghosts.

They’re saying: “I don’t want to be cute or sexy,” Bunce said. “Young girls are putting their foot down and saying ‘We want to intimidate people too.’ “

Princess is one thing, French maid quite another | UW prof questions trend toward turning girls into sex objects The Rec 28 Oct 2006

My LeadershipWR class had its first community learning day last week. The theme was poverty. I think many people in the class had a lot to learn and I think they did. I thought I knew things pretty well, but I gained from the experience too.

Paul picked me up at about quarter after seven. It had rained in the night and the wind blew water down off the leaves in the trees. Most of our day would be at the Cambridge Self-Help FoodBank so I had packed a non-perishable food item to donate. We got caught in traffic on the freeway, but made it into Galt okay and parked on Ainslie around the corner from the CSHFoodBank.

Near the beginning we had group discussion over our assignments. We were to use our “leadership lens” — a term that came from our retreat in September — to observe poverty in our community and express what we saw. It seems everyone had taken notes and written their thoughts down. I had made a drawing and written a poem and was the only one, at least in my group, to do so.

(more…)

I stopped by the opening of the new LCBO at Waterloo Town Square this morning before working. The store used to be located at Erb East about 600m from where it is now and much closer to where I live.

When they started giving speeches there were about 100 people in the store, most of them appeared to be white.

It was interesting to see the people there and what they said. Two city councillors were there. One councillor glad handed me and introduced himself. I already knew him not the least because he is on council, but we served on a committee together. I’m not sure whether he remembered me.

Here are some other things:

• The communications dude from the board MCed.
• The first LCBO in Waterloo opened in August 1928
• The LCBO started in June 1927
• This store is supposed to be the largest in southwestern Ontario
• Epp joked that he saw some friends and acquaintances. Now he knows what they do during the day.
• Roy Ecker SrVP Retail Operations mentioned that he was a university student in town, but he won’t say when. A fellow of his name took geography at Waterloo a while ago.
• Four of the dudes opened Ontario sparkling wine and staff handed out glasses of it. It was Jackson Triggs.

David Wellhauser is going to attempt a 24-hour danceathon:

David Wellhauser, Waterlooians.ca spokesperson, and the Waterloo Moraine Dance Troop (WMDT) will be attempting a 24 dance-athon at the Starlight Social Club in uptown Waterloo on Sunday October 29, 2006. Several local bands will be performing including MACRO FIESTA, FACTOR FICTION, and James Lanbro of Canary Mine. The danceathon is being held to raise awareness and money to protect local groundwater.

There’s an interesting story in the NYTimes about over-sexualized hallowe’en costumes for girls. The article quotes professor Nelson from Waterloo.

Good Girls Go Bad, for a Day 19 Oct 2006 By Stephanie R

Dr. Nelson, a professor of sociology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said the trend toward overtly sexualized costumes actually begins with little girls. “Heroic figures for women or considered icons of femininity are very much anchored in the femme fatale imagery,� she said, adding that those include an assortment of Disney heroines, witches, cocktail waitresses, French maids and an “interchangeable variety of beauty queens.�While researching “Pink Dragon,� Dr. Nelson found that even costumes for little girls were gendered. Boys got to be computers while the girls were cupcakes. Today, there are bride costumes for little girls but one is hard pressed to find groom costumes for little boys. Additionally, Dr. Nelson said, the girls’ costumes are designed in ways that create the semblance of a bust where there is none. “Once they’re older women it’s just a continuation of that same gender trend,� she said.

Men’s costumes are generally goofy or grotesque ensembles with “Animal House�-inspired names like Atomic Wedgie and Chug-A-Lug Beer Can. And when they dress up as police officers, firefighters and soldiers, they actually look like people in those professions. The same costumes for women are so tight and low-cut they are better suited for popping out of a cake than outlasting an emergency.

Obviously, however, many women see nothing wrong with making Halloween less about Snickers bars and SweeTarts and more about eye candy.

Waterlooians released a educational pamphlet on development on the Waterloo Moraine today.

The logo they used is a modified official plan review logo from the city.

The files are here:
http://www.waterlooians.ca/files/
but they are very large. I’ll see about posting the text.