{"id":4111,"date":"2013-10-02T14:01:53","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T18:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=4111"},"modified":"2013-10-09T15:09:53","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T19:09:53","slug":"politics-as-usual-first-world-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/politics-as-usual-first-world-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"POLITICS AS USUAL: First World Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Pain, they say, is relative.
\nEveryone feels it differently. What one person might experience as a minor annoyance, another will find excruciating agony.
\nMyself for example, I have little or no trouble with my quarterly blood tests, this despite the fact that they take many, many vials each time. Most find this horrifying. I am used to it, so it doesn\u2019t bother me. On the other hand, anything dental \u2013 and I mean anything \u2013 and my pain receptors go off like crazy.
\nEverything seems to hurt from basic cleaning to taking x-rays, I need to be scraped off the ceiling (thank goodness I have a fantastic dentist, Dr. Goodlin, or my teeth would fall out as I\u2019d never be able to get them cleaned).
\nIt is the same with \u201cproblems.\u201d Some see day-to-day problems for what they are \u2013 minor hiccups in the rhythm of our lives and are unperturbed as a result. Others, well, they conflate the day-to-day issues into national tragedies requiring a Royal Commission.
\nWatch a grocery store lineup \u2013 or worse, a Starbucks lineup \u2013 and you will see what I mean.
\nSome will use the time to answer emails on the crackberry, others will just stand patiently looking off into the distance, but others will huff and puff, shifting back and forth on their feet, theatrically checking their watch every few seconds as if to say, \u201cI have somewhere important to be and you are wasting my time\u201d.
\nThey are the ones that angrily demand the manager \u201cDO something about this situation\u2026\u201d as if waiting an extra three minutes for your mocha, choca, no foam, skinny latte is a tragedy of epic proportions. (Full disclosure here \u2013 I am an ordinary coffee drinker and find the crazy complicated coffee orders of others to be eye-roll inducing ridiculousness.)
\nNewspapers are crowded with reports on horrific events such as the train crash in Lac-Megantic, or the siege of the shopping mall in Kenya where over a hundred people lost their lives. Pain and problems may indeed be context specific, but real tragedies are universal.
\nThe papers are also chock full of other \u201cserious issues\u201d that are not so universal. Take the city of Toronto\u2019s Golden Chairs fiasco. The City spent $75,000 on a few replacement chairs in the councillors lounge \u2013 this in the same week that Ontarians were faced with a report indicating that with youth employment hovering at near 20 per cent, economic recovery had passed them by.
\nSo, whoever signed off on that crazy purchase should have his or her head examined. Is it a \u201cbig issue\u201d? It is for Torontonians.
\nBut what about locally? At the regional or municipal level, local papers dutifully report on the activities of Council and the \u201cburning\u201d issues for their communities. If one is to measure relative importance by time spent in council debate, then one is faced with a rather curious list of matters of \u201cimportance\u201d in municipal politics.
\nAnd just what are our important issues? Accessibility of Social Services? Affordable housing? Equal play opportunities for all our youth regardless of economic circumstances? Traffic and gridlock?
\nWell, apparently, in Aurora, it\u2019s the disposition of three unremarkable trees. Thus far, these trees have warranted the full attention of multiple staff at senior levels, multiple hours of Council debate (replete with the requisite hand wringing and accompanying hyperbole) at two separate meetings of Council \u2013 with more to come.
\nYes, folks, despite all that, Council deferred their decision (!) to wait for yet another staff report and then decide. For three trees. One has to ask, what important issues are gathering dust in the dark while Council wrangles this \u201cimportant issue\u201d? What community initiatives remain trapped in the doldrums, while the Council\u2019s agenda is hijacked by non-issues? Perspective has been lost, I\u2019m afraid.
\nIt\u2019s as if they have lost sight of the forest for the trees (oh come on\u2026you knew I had to say it\u2026).
\nUntil next week, stay informed, stay involved because, this is after all, Our Town.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alison Collins-Mrakas Pain, they say, is relative. Everyone feels it differently. What one person might experience as a minor annoyance, another will find excruciating agony. Myself for example, I have little or no trouble with my quarterly blood tests, this despite the fact that they take many, many vials each time. Most find this […]<\/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_feature_clip_id":0,"_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":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-14j","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 23:03:36","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\/4111","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=4111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}