FOI Ruling in Niagara With an Interesting Twist
The Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake fought against releasing the “minutes of a particular meeting between four named individuals” which involved the town’s chief administrative officer and mayor meeting with two undisclosed individuals. The Town tried to claim solicitor client privilege. The IPC ruled against the town’s claim of privilege…
Humour and COVID: Not Sure How They Mix
Today I intent was to be light-hearted, but it definitely did not work. A person I like walks into a small shop, I joke that he is one too many people, the person in front of him in his group tries to leave. I quickly explained I was…
Coleman's Notes: Public Transit Capacity, Ridership, and Costs during Social Distancing
Public transit will be an ongoing cost pressure for municipalities, even when fare box collection resumes. Transit costs are now driven by the public health objective of physical distancing. This is a quick post of some of the factors to be considered, and when I fully resume my…
Apollo 13: 50th Anniversary
I listened intently to the National Geographic vinyl record of the Apollo 11 as a child in the late 1980s; space was a frontier humanity was going to colonize by 2020. I was memorized by the story of Apollo 11, only to later learn of Apollo 13; the…
Is Hamilton's Physical Distancing By-law Ultra Vires?
Do something, anything is an understandable sentiment in the middle of this COVID-19 State of Emergency. It is entirely reasonable for us to seek action which will shorten the stay at home orders, action which will enable us to resume our previous lives as soon as possible, and…
Delivering a Five Minute Lecture on Zoom
Spoiler (or maybe not if you know me), it only went okay because I ran over the five minutes. Tonight, I delivered a significantly shortened version of a civil engineering guest lecture I delivered in mid-January. The talk, “The Lower Great Lakes Climate, Water, Flooding, and Political Implications”…
Updating my Flickr Photos
I’m making use of podcast listening time to process, edit, and upload my photo collection to my Flickr account. Take a visit over at https://www.flickr.com/photos/joeycoleman_ca/ Setup working on the counter at The Seedworks during Summer 2017…
Advertising Drop on Radio
There were basically no ads, no discussion from the host, and nobody making celebratory requests during today’s Classic Country Saturday Night radio show. I listen to KMDL out of Louisiana most Saturday nights, it’s a ritual. Usually, the show contains a sufficient amount of advertising from the entertainment…
COVID-19: The Day We'll Never Forget, as a UofT Fellow-at-Large
Obviously, this represents my own thoughts and is in no way a communication representative of either Massey College or the University of Toronto. The University of Toronto’s official Coronavirus information page is here: https://www.utoronto.ca/message-from-the-university-regarding-the-coronavirus I experience life at the University of Toronto with an interesting perspective as a…
From Populism to Principlism
The wave of populism, a response to the failings and corruption of politics in our society, may shift to what I will term principlism – the election of new leaders known for their principled stances and willingness to make difficult decisions in favour of the wider society. Instead…