This Week at City Hall

Monday, July 6
Municipal Heritage Advisory Committee (12:15 pm): Considered a proposed expansion to St Paul's Anglican Cathedral which could have been a travesty (such as with every church in Canada that received a cankerous concrete outbuilding in the 50s and 60s) but judging by what's written in the report and by the artist renderings that go along with it, it looks like the new part will be executed in the Gothic Revival style of the rest of the building. Looks like an attractive and respectful renovation. Yay! The committee also received and filed a report with regards to the restoration of the Albert Street Bridge which is underway right now.

Wednesday, July 8
Regina Planning Commission (4 pm): Considering a proposal for a funeral home and chapel on the 500-block of Victoria Avenue and also going over a list of street and park names recommended by the Civic Naming Committee. Okay... now I swore to myself that seeing as there isn't anything really contentious on the agenda this week that I wouldn't be all snarky. I'm worried that I might be getting a reputation as a crank. But, come on... fifteen street names starting with the word "Green"?! Three more ending with the same word! Seriously? This all comes at the request of the developer behind the Greens on Gardiner (get it?) development slated for Regina's east end. Have these people never gone down to Wascana View where every street starts with the word Wascana and tried to find their way to a dinner party with nothing but an address? It's disorienting and silly. Call me crazy, but you don't build community cohesion by giving streets cutesy names that all fit a theme or sound alike. You get that by naming them after people and things that are important to a community. Speaking of which, as reported on the CBC and subsequently aggregated by Whitworth in his Six in the Morning, the Civic Naming Committee also recommended names of prominent members of Regina's creative community. It's a good list which I'll cut from the CBC site and paste below:

• Joe Fafard, visual artist
• Connie Kaldor, folk musician
• Doris Knight, opera company founder
• Howard Leyton-Brown, former conductor for the Regina Symphony Orchestra
• Alison Lohans, writer
• Tim Lilburn, poet
• Jeannie Mah, ceramic artist
• Wilf Perrault, visual artist
• Dave Margoshes, writer
• Ken Mitchell, writer

Now that's how you name streets.

Anyway... as always you can download full meeting agendas and reports on the city's website.

Monday Night Eco-Rage

Just read a great June 28 article by economist Paul Krugman in the (online) New York Times on a climate change bill the United States House Of representatives passed last week.

It's a furious piece full of the kind of outrage usually monopolized by the Limbaughs, Coulters and O'Reillys--but unlike those bullies' nasty little efforts it has the full intellectual and moral authority of a Nobel Prize winner behind it.

Krugman acuses the climate-change-denying politicians who voted against the bill of treason. His exact words: "And as I watched the deniers make their arguments, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a form of treason — treason against the planet."

Oh, grrr! Grrr!

Read the whole thing here. You should check it out so the next time some outside-the-box thinker (or amateur oil-industry apologist) tells you they don't believe in global warming you can politely inform them that their views may amount to crimes against humanity. Which, though harsh, is probably a fair comment at this stage of the north-pole-melting game.

Plus it's a great line to use when a party's getting boring and you want to liven up the conversation. Bonus!

Six In The Morning

1 UNHAPPY ANNIVERSARY It's been five years since Tamera Keepness vanished on the night of July5, 2004. (Maclean's)

2 STAY OFFIN' THAR PROPERTY Regina police welcome the province's new trespassing law, which went into effect July 1. But this Regina indy magazine editor thinks the law--which seems basically good--would be better if it contained protectections for political protestors like similar legislation in Manitoba, like Greg reported last year. (Leader-Post, Planet S)

3 I GUESS IT'S A START The U.S. and Russia agree to cut their nuke arsenals down to 1675 apiece. Here's a better number to shoot for: zero. (Guardian)

4 TONIGHT SHOW: THE NEXT GENERATION Thanks to the wacky shenanigans of new host Conan O'Brien, it's out with the boomers, in with the X-ers. (New York Times)

5 EULOGY FOR BATTERS Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the late MP's life, death and struggle with depression. (Globe and Mail)

6 MARGOSHES AVE.? I love it. Love it! (CBC)

The power of the internet, Alaskan-style

Well, gee.

An Alaska blogger recently asked her friends to help pay to file a Freedom of Informaton Act on some of Governor Sarah Palin's acivities. The FOI is filed Thursday, July 3 (Celtic Diva). On the afternoon of July 4, Sarah Palin announces she's resigning as governor, and theatenes to sue the entire internet (Anchorage Daily News) for asking, WTF? (Wonkette).

More here at The Washington Monthly and Crooks and Liars

Hat tip to Unrepentant Old Hippie