{"id":16387,"date":"2017-01-26T12:51:25","date_gmt":"2017-01-26T17:51:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=16387"},"modified":"2017-01-26T12:51:25","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T17:51:25","slug":"brocks-banter-ctrl-alt-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/brocks-banter-ctrl-alt-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"BROCK’S BANTER: Ctrl-Alt-Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

When local figures in the sports and athletics community launched their efforts to put Aurora on the road to becoming Canada\u2019s most active community by 2020 just a couple of years ago, they often waxed sentimental.
\nThey longed for the days when kids were encouraged to climb trees \u2013 and take a scraped knee or two like a champ \u2013 without helicopter parents hovering nearby.
\nThey spoke longingly for the years, which really don\u2019t seem all that long ago, when kids could grab a group of their neighbours or classmates, a ball, and a net and get into an all-day session of street hockey.
\nThey wanted kids to get out in the great outdoors by turning off their devices and tuning into the world around them.
\nIt\u2019s an ideal, and one I didn\u2019t realise I longed for until it was put right under my nose.
\nHad they not underscored the fact this simply doesn\u2019t happen as much compared to when I was growing or when my parents were growing up, I might not have noticed. But, it made me more aware.
\nIn fact, it made me so aware that just last year, while tackling a treadmill at a local gym facing out the window looking west, I smiled in spite of myself at a group of kids devising a seemingly complex game in the adjacent parkette out of little more than a garbage can and a park bench, with nary a phone in sight.
\nThat was just this past summer, and I was facing in the same direction this past Saturday night, this time with my neck craned upward from that infernal machine, my eyes darting between two TV screens suspended from the ceiling like a spectator in some sort of demented, absurd tennis game.
\nThe TV immediately to my left featured CNN and its bank of talking heads discussing and debating the significance of the newly minted U.S. President\u2019s activities on the first full day of public office.
\nThe one to the right showed CP24, which had broken away from coverage of the heartening scenes of Women\u2019s Marches around the world, including Toronto, to show the first press briefing of the new White House order.
\nIt was a sight to behold as the new Press Secretary berated the press for its accurate reporting of the less than overwhelming crowds who turned out to see the inauguration of #45, compared to shots taken at #44\u2019s first inauguration at the exact same time from nearly the exact same vantage point.
\nDespite the clear evidence to underscore the truth, the Press Secretary insisted it was the largest crowd ever to witness an inauguration.
\nAlmost as if he didn\u2019t believe the untruths he had to read out from his prepared statement, he emphasized the effort to which he was trying to sell this hogwash by ending his sentence with a forceful \u201cPERIOD\u201d punctuated by a verbal exclamation mark rather than a full stop.
\nThis was not carried live by CNN, rather clips were shown a few minutes allowing, allowing them to get their ducks in a row to puncture further holes in the very leaky boat the Oval Office sent out in a vain attempt to rescue its bluster.
\nNot content with the \u201cPERIOD!\u201d the next morning, Kellyanne Conway went on TV to defend the statement, telling journalists and the public at large that these were simply \u201calternative facts.\u201d
\nIn addition to the days were parents were content to let their kids climb trees, scrape their knees, and get a good game of shinny going, I now long for the days when \u201calternative facts\u201d were called what they are: outright \u201clies.\u201d (I also long for the days when people identifying as \u201calt-right\u201d, or called the same as others, were once again \u201cneo-Nazis\u201d and \u201cwhite nationalists\/supremacists\u201d but that is a column for another day).
\nNow, I\u2019m not one to want to stifle any sort of creativity and, I mean, embracing the retooling of outright lies to be \u201calternative facts\u201d more appealing to the fragile worldview of your base, is fertile creative ground, but a line must be drawn somewhere.
\nNevertheless, let\u2019s explore this concept a bit further.
\nDon\u2019t be too smug. Aurora is no stranger to \u201calternative facts\u201d and we have seen them presented from all angles from all sides on any variety of topics ranging from the formation, composition, and, in some cases, exoduses of all varieties of festivals, as well as the myriad municipally-involved (or municipally-inspired) lawsuits that were, until very recently, a true hallmark of Aurora.
\nStill, what a world we would be living in if Town Hall launched a marketing campaign to its citizens claiming that despite all evidence to the contrary, historic Yonge Street is still a bustling hub of activity\u2026it\u2019s just the demand for the empty storefronts is just so \u201cyuge\u201d that landlords simply can\u2019t pick which A-list retailer they will allow to grace their space.
\nOr, that chicanes were just so successful in the northeast quadrant of Yonge and Wellington that they were actually taken out to teach under-appreciative neighbours a lesson.
\nOr, that reducing Yonge Street to one lane in each direction fizzled because it would have been such a boon to Yonge Street shops that they simply couldn\u2019t handle the increase in foot traffic.
\nOr, one-way streets in the Downtown Core would significantly improve traffic flow.
\nOr, that internal polls showed that northwest residents actually adore the King cell tower looming over their properties as the lattice work reminds them of eating in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.
\nOr, that back in 2010 Mayor Dawe\u2019s message of \u201cPut the Aura Back in Aurora\u201d was almost as successful as \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d in making voter turnout skyrocket to bring about change.
\nOr, that the Municipal portion of your tax bill didn\u2019t actually go up by 3.1 per cent, rather a low, low 2.1 per cent plus a further one per cent to boost municipal reserves.
\nOr, that despite countless residents living and working in the area saying the contrary, numbers show there is actually no parking problem in the downtown core.
\nOkay, so some people actually tried to make the last two happen, but it didn\u2019t \u2013 and doesn\u2019t \u2013 fly.
\nAs this saga continues to unfold south of our border, I was initially concerned that this profession would be rendered obsolete as so many people gravitate towards sources (and I use the term loosely) tailored specifically towards their own worldview, their \u201calternative facts\u201d, branding everything else that might challenge said worldview or prompt them (egads!) to be critical thinkers as \u201cfake news,\u201d but Saturday\u2019s Women\u2019s Marches and outright outrage stemming from the White House trying to make \u201calternative facts\u201d a thing has given me hope that there is an appetite out there to be served the truth.
\nNews outlets serving Aurora might seem, in the grand scheme of things, to be a smaller fish in a larger media pond, but I for one am firm in my resolve to stand up in the face of \u201calternative facts.\u201d
\nIf we all do so, every little bit will help defend the democracy on all levels we hold so dear.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir When local figures in the sports and athletics community launched their efforts to put Aurora on the road to becoming Canada\u2019s most active community by 2020 just a couple of years ago, they often waxed sentimental. They longed for the days when kids were encouraged to climb trees \u2013 and take a […]<\/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-16387","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\/p3D2k4-4gj","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-17 09:11:45","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\/16387","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=16387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}