{"id":15916,"date":"2016-11-24T12:28:50","date_gmt":"2016-11-24T17:28:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15916"},"modified":"2016-11-24T12:28:50","modified_gmt":"2016-11-24T17:28:50","slug":"brocks-banter-buffering-buffering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/brocks-banter-buffering-buffering\/","title":{"rendered":"BROCK’S BANTER: Buffering… Buffering…"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Thursday night, local Progressive Conservatives gathered at Aw, Shucks\u2019 Pearl Room, the popular restaurant\u2019s reception facility, to acclaim Richmond Hill businessman Michael Parsa as the Ontario PC candidate for Aurora\u2019s south riding, Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill.
\nAttendance was healthy, but with speeches set to begin nearly an hour after the slated start time, there was plenty of time for conversation.
\nWe\u2019re in the throes of fall so, of course, by the time 6 p.m. rolled around, darkness had already descended. Standing near the bank of second floor windows looking across and down onto the east side of Yonge Street in Aurora\u2019s Downtown Core, the darkness was pricked by the light emanating from bustling storefronts.
\nYes, bustling storefronts in Aurora\u2019s Downtown Core.
\nI know, I could hardly believe it myself.
\nBut, of course, not all store fronts were illuminated with customers beating down their doors just to avail themselves of their products and services. Plenty of them were dark, closed up after a full day of business, or shuttered and festooned with \u201cFor Sale\u201d and \u201cFor Rent\u201d signs after being opened in anticipation of business that never came.
\nFurniture and home d\u00e9cor stores on the east side of the street seem to be a thing of the past. Flashy fashion stores flogging designer togs to the suburban crowds have gone the way of shoulder pads and parachute pants. And art stores? Well, just about everyone is a critic until you get just south of the old Post Office.
\nThere was one common denominator among the store fronts that had regular traffic coming in and out of their stores: they were the barbershops, hair and beauty salons, and nail joints.
\nWhile the other establishments slept soundly waiting for another day, or a new tenant to breathe new life into their 100-odd-year-old walls, these were veritable hives of activity, particularly with teens going in and out, chatting on the window-front couches and waiting for their turns in the chair (and yes, I was surprised as you are to see, from the other side of the street, actual conversations appearing to unfold with just two or three pairs of thumbs pressed up against smart phones. God, I sound like an old \u2013 and pardon me, Elizabeth May, fart.)
\nSo, as politicians, community activists, and armchair pundits continually ponder the apparent slow death of our main drag, diagnosing various symptoms and prescribing no end of cure, there seems to be at least one industry that is working the area to their advantage.
\nYet we seem to be in an unending cycle of what to actually do in this area for companies conducting business with nary a tube of gel on hand.
\nNewmarket is continually lauded for the redevelopment of its Main Street, a thoroughfare which got a high profile fanfare last week with yet another laurel to rest upon. But Aurora seems to be stuck in a holding pattern. All the elements are there, the dry ingredients are mixed off and set to one side and the wet is thoroughly blended, but nobody seems to have the guts to combine them.
\nI chuckled to myself at this situation over the weekend while watching Saturday Night Live.
\nThe show, which is always on-point during the election season \u2013 or, in this case, the aftermath of what the electorate hath wrought \u2013 had a particularly biting sketch involving the regular weeknight show hosted by Anderson Cooper. It was a typical setup, with the host standing in between two banks of pundits, surrogates and talking heads, all with varying degrees of experience and political leanings.
\nThe talking heads were convened to discuss the \u201cbreaking news\u201d of Trump trying to obtain security clearance for his family.
\n\u201cThis is not normal!\u201d exclaimed one.
\n\u201cThis is crazy!\u201d said another.
\n\u201cThis is where we, as the media, have to draw the line,\u201d said the third.
\n\u201cThis is not like when Trump called women fat,\u201d said the fourth. \u201cThat was like, \u2018Fine, whatever, who cares?\u2019 But this is different!\u201d
\n\u201cWe cannot let him off the hook this time,\u201d the fifth.
\n\u201cCan we not remember most Americans voted for Trump,\u201d ventures the sixth.
\n\u201cActually, they didn\u2019t!\u201d countered one of the ones who had interjected earlier in the exchange.
\nAt this, they all laughed, just in time for another \u201cBreaking News\u201d alert, the next being the KKK\u2019s planned parade celebrating the win of the President-Elect. With this new tidbit, the talking heads cycled through the above script almost verbatim with the dialogue of Talking Head #4 switched up to reflect the the most up-to-date controversy.
\nFollowing the laugh, another alert: \u201cTrump may force all Muslims to register in the United States.\u201d Another cycle, another laugh, another alert: this time on the appointment of Steve Bannon into the White House.
\nAnother cycle but just before the laugh, a realization from the host: \u201cI just had this weird memory like we keep doing the same \u2013\u201c
\nFreeze. Time for him to be reprogramed. And Cooper was flipped out for a newly activated Jake Tapper.
\nLather again, rinse, repeat.
\nThis week could bring a final decision on whether or not to actually bite the bullet and once again try left hand turn restrictions at Yonge and Wellington, just north of Aurora\u2019s new apparent new beauty corridor. If last week\u2019s discussion was any indication, we will have to wait until the tried and true cycle of \u201cThere hasn\u2019t been enough public consultation!\u201d and \u201cWhat about the infiltration?\u201d to play itself out before a decision is rendered. That is, if a decision is rendered at all.
\nNext Thursday, December 1, Councillors Tom Mrakas and Michael Thompson are teaming up to host a roundtable discussion at Town Hall entitled \u201cLibrary Square: From Concept to Reality\u201d to hear from \u201cyou, the residents and business owners of Aurora, on the next steps towards realizing the future of Library Square.\u201d
\nAt this stage in the game, it seems the \u201cnext steps\u201d have been the same \u201cnext steps\u201d that have been on the table for nearly 20 years. The only factors that seem to change are the players and the vision for the end product rather than the \u201cnext step.\u201d
\nThe \u201cnext steps\u201d always sound good on paper, but when it inches closer to reality and it becomes clear upon realizing the \u201cnext steps\u201d might actually require a change of some sort, the powers that be \u2013 lawmakers and electors alike \u2013 shy away, with a call for more consultation and more input to stave off something with precedent everywhere else but Aurora in case there is any negative impact.
\nLike the android Anderson Cooper at the end of the SNL sketch, it seems that Aurora is in a constant state of buffering while the world continues to whirl spin around us.
\nIt\u2019s time to unplug the modem, wait a few seconds and plug it back in to move forward.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir On Thursday night, local Progressive Conservatives gathered at Aw, Shucks\u2019 Pearl Room, the popular restaurant\u2019s reception facility, to acclaim Richmond Hill businessman Michael Parsa as the Ontario PC candidate for Aurora\u2019s south riding, Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill. Attendance was healthy, but with speeches set to begin nearly an hour after the slated start […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-48I","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 00:32:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15916\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}