{"id":19741,"date":"2018-02-01T13:09:18","date_gmt":"2018-02-01T18:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=19741"},"modified":"2018-02-01T13:09:18","modified_gmt":"2018-02-01T18:09:18","slug":"politics-as-usual-the-magic-of-snow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-the-magic-of-snow\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: The Magic of Snow"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas<\/strong><\/p>\n

This week, my column was originally written about the current existential angst in the tech and social media industry about what their technology has wrought; namely, the wholesale attack on democracy and foundational tenets of civilized society (truth, justice etc) that unfettered access to any and all manners of discourse \u2013 informed, ill-informed, un-informed and just plain bat poop crazy \u2013 that it affords anyone and everyone.
\nAlarm bells have finally gone off in Silicon Valley and they are scrambling to respond.
\nHowever, that column can hold for a week or two as it is not likely that an issue which evolved over years will be solved in mere days. There\u2019s time to talk about that.
\nMoving from the global to the local, I would like instead to talk \u2013 rant really \u2013 about a more pedestrian topic and one that I have touched on before; that is the lack of respect for fellow residents by some users of our public spaces and in particular our trail system.
\nJust like teenagers throwing stuff under their beds and jamming stuff in their closets may give the appearance that their room is \u201cclean\u201d, everyone knows that with one opening of the closet door, the mess will once again come tumbling out. The place is a pigsty, just hidden.
\nThe January thaw has the same effect.
\nSnow, to some folks, seems to be a somewhat wondrous substance that can magically make any manner of debris disappear into its lovely \u201cclean\u201d whiteness. Just toss your coffee cup into the snowbank, don\u2019t worry! It will sink down and be hidden by another layer of fluffy whiteness.
\nCigarette butts, candy wrappers and dog poop, lots and lots of dog poop can be rendered completely invisible by the wonder of snow.
\nThat must be what folks think. How else to explain the fact that when we get any kind of thaw, as we are right now, it becomes pretty darn evident that there are delusional or deliberately disrespectful people that use our public spaces as one giant garbage bin.
\nWithin a 20 foot radius of any public building doorway you will find mini mountains of cigarette butts. It\u2019s disgusting! Honestly, where do these people think their butts are going? Most buildings have specific receptacles for cigarettes. There\u2019s really no excuse to throw them on the ground.
\nBut what really crunches my cornflakes? The folks that let their dogs poop in the middle of the trail\u2026and then just leave it there! On Tuesday, as I was walking through the trail system to get to Yonge and catch my bus, I had to gingerly navigate a veritable minefield of poop. I am not exaggerating. Pile after pile of poop.
\nCome on, people. That\u2019s just disgusting. There are trash receptacles at the entrance and exit of every trail system link. There\u2019s simply no excuse for not picking up the waste and putting it in the bin. If your dog pooped in the middle of the sidewalk, would you just leave it there? (I hope not!) Well, why would you leave it in the middle of the pathway in the trail system?
\nGood grief! Don\u2019t be a litterbug (or whatever you\u2019d call someone who leaves dog poop everywhere). Pick up after your pets, put your butts in the bin, and have some respect for your fellow residents! Rant over\u2026<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas This week, my column was originally written about the current existential angst in the tech and social media industry about what their technology has wrought; namely, the wholesale attack on democracy and foundational tenets of civilized society (truth, justice etc) that unfettered access to any and all manners of discourse \u2013 informed, […]<\/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-19741","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\/p3D2k4-58p","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 18:02:59","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\/19741","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=19741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}