{"id":21599,"date":"2018-09-13T12:12:55","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T16:12:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=21599"},"modified":"2018-09-13T12:12:55","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T16:12:55","slug":"front-porch-perspective-2018-summer-musings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/front-porch-perspective-2018-summer-musings\/","title":{"rendered":"FRONT PORCH PERSPECTIVE: 2018 Summer Musings"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Stephen Somerville<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before this column returns to the local themes of people, politics and public affairs, below are some unconnected, stream-of-conscious and (most likely) incoherent musings and observations regarding the end of the summer season in Aurora.
\nFirst, the race for the Aurora Mayors\u2019 chain of office should be an interesting one and will begin in earnest after Labour Day.
\nWith election-day slated for October 22, the four candidates, including incumbent Mayor Geoff Dawe, Councillor John Abel, Councillor Tom Mrakas, and former councillor and provincial cabinet minister Chris Ballard, have all been on the barbeque circuit this summer in search of votes.
\nEach of the candidates is of high profile, and has sufficient depth, experience and knowledge of the issues to mount an effective campaign.
\nI expect a close election and I look forward to writing upcoming columns about the mayoralty race. I will also be participating as a panelist at one of the debates this fall. Please send through any questions that you might like me to ask the mayoralty aspirants.
\nSecond, I am not really a big fan of social media.
\nOur society is very fortunate that the communications industry has made such great leaps that we today have individual cell phones and devices that let us keep contact with one another virtually where ever we are in the world.
\nYou would think that this communication would draw us together but it seems to only drive us apart; hiding behind our electronic devices.
\nAnd I have not really found anything much good or productive to come from social media. To me, for the most part it is just an outlet for mean spirited rants from usually anonymous individuals and crazies.
\nI also expected the President of the United States to tame his use of Twitter once he was inaugurated!
\nMy third point is about litter in the park after Aurora minor house league soccer games. As I leave the field I continually find plastic water bottles and wrappings from chocolate bars\/fruit rollups that have been discarded. Please pick up your trash and at least one piece of other trash as you leave the park. Our community has many beautiful parks and fields; let\u2019s keep \u2018em that way!
\nFourth, dismantling statues or trying to erase\/alter history has been in the North American news quite a bit lately. Whether it is removing a statute of Robert E. Lee in the American south or teachers unions wanting to remove the name of Canada\u2019s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald from schools in Ontario, or the elected Council in Victoria BC actually removing a statute of our first PM.
\nCBC news reported back in July that \u201cVictoria (BC) city council voted to remove the statue as a gesture of reconciliation last week. It noted the role of Canada\u2019s first prime minister in establishing the residential school system, which tore some 150,000 First Nation, Inuit and M\u00e9tis children away from their communities and families.\u201d
\n\u201cDays later, the statue was removed, wrapped in foam and carted off on a flatbed truck to a storage facility.\u201d
\nAn editorial in Maclean\u2019s magazine a while back summed my feelings up quite well on the subject:
\n\u201cBy contrast, Macdonald\u2019s towering reputation is about so much more that reducing his legacy to a racist taint\u2014serious as it is\u2014isn\u2019t reasonable. His name still stands for a sweeping vision of Canada that he largely brought about, although his stature is seriously debated these days by historians\u2026
\n\u201cThere is no simple way to draft up an acceptable pantheon of historical heroes. Each biography calls up a unique response. We should start by relying on judicious historians to sift what a man or woman who lived long ago said and did, which is no easy undertaking. Then we should ask why they were deemed worthy of recognition, and whether that motivation still feels right to us. And if that\u2019s the test, there will be no need to start dreaming up new names quite yet for schools named after Sir John A. Macdonald.\u201d
\nFrom another news story:
\n\u201cNot everyone is on board. A survey conducted last year by the Angus Reid Institute found that most people \u2014 albeit by a slim margin \u2014 oppose renaming school buildings that bear Macdonald\u2019s name. John Baird, the former Conservative minister, also dismissed the motion as an attempt \u2018to erase Canadian history in the guise of an extreme and radical political correctness \u2018at the time.\u2019\u201d
\nMy recommendation is to keep any statues of the former PM in place and instead affix an adjoining plaque that states Sir John A\u2019s deplorable role in the development of the residential school system.
\nTo end this column on a sunnier note, you won\u2019t hear me complain about the tremendous weather that we have had this summer. I like all this heat and sunshine.
\nAlthough, as someone employed in the hydro-electric business, some more rain in northern Ontario would be good for business!
\nI know that soon enough, the October and November chilly winds will be here and that the snow will soon follow.
\nEnjoy this weather while you can!<\/p>\n

Stephen can be contacted at stephengsomerville@yahoo.com<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Stephen Somerville Before this column returns to the local themes of people, politics and public affairs, below are some unconnected, stream-of-conscious and (most likely) incoherent musings and observations regarding the end of the summer season in Aurora. First, the race for the Aurora Mayors\u2019 chain of office should be an interesting one and will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21599","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\/p3D2k4-5Cn","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-02 07:14:54","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\/21599","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=21599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}