The 10th Annual Thorncliffe Park Neighbours Night Out is today at R.V.Burgess Park beginning at 2 p.m. This popular event always attracts thousands of local residents well as community leaders and politicians. This year will be no different. There are many enjoyable musical acts scheduled: steel pan bands, a performance by Eid Ismail and an Afghan Band. Of course there’s lot of food offered by local vendors. The stage show begins at 4 and runs until 8 p.m. Neighbours Night Out relies upon business and community generosity and there seems to be plenty of it. The Insurance Bureau of Canada has been headlined as the sole Platinum Sponsor but there are many others including the East York Town Centre and its owner Morguard Investments. The image below shows sponsors listed by the organizers. Thanks to all of them.

 

 

As students across Toronto continued their modest little gatherings to complain that they are being short-changed, the head of the elementary teachers union was explaining why it’s all the school board’s fault there will be no report cards. “There is no clear explanation as to why school boards like Toronto, Peel and York Region can’t issue report cards as other boards are doing,” says a straight-faced Professor Hammond. “These boards may be larger but they have proportionately as many administrators within their system to handle the task of issuing report cards,” he added in a written statement Friday. Actually there is a reason. It’s money. The school boards, including the huge Toronto and District School Board, say it would cost millions to bring in the trained staff to curate all the information necessary for a proper report card. That’s the work that the teachers are paid to do. They also get paid for not doing it at Sam Hammond’s nutty job-action university. Says the prof: “All school boards have known for more than a month that (the union’s) work-to-rule action would affect the formal report card process. They have had ample time to prepare.” Right, that’s why the union decided not to supply report cards. It would have so little impact. After all, the teacher’s aren’t working to rule to disrupt anything. Welcome to Sam Hammond University

Rachel Dolezal’s parents have outed their daughter, in a sense, by making it public that she is white, not black. Ms. Dolezal is the head of the Spokane NAACP.  It an absolutely absorbing tale as told by CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux

Dozens of pictures at #Honda Indy 

In July, Twitter is set to permit 10,000 character “direct messages”. The old 140 character limit will still apply to regular tweets. This word comes as the company’s much maligned president Dick Costello steps down and a former Twitter boss Jack Dorsey moves in temporarily. The problem? Twitter can’t seem to make money even though it is enormously popular. It must be said that Twitter for all its appeal is a rather quirky concept that tends to attract users who are more tech than Facebook users. Over its seven or eight year history, some investors have said the service is too complicated. A re-make of the its format in April did not seem to help much.

SEARCHES FOR SEASIDE INSTEAD OF LEASIDE

It does things like search  for “Seaside” instead of “Leaside” and then asks in small type: “Search for Leaside instead” The new categories of “Top” and “Live” tweets are a mystery to most people. “Why?” is a common reaction.

And yet for those who use it, Twitter is a superb tool permitting direct access to all sorts of people unknown or pals. Twitter handles are public on  Google unlike other information. The whole “Trend” phenomenon was created by Twitter and continues to be a source of rapid entertainment and information. Many news stories appear on Twitter in searchable detail before the media writes a word. Just how the 10,000 character move will change the Twitter application remains an unknown.

Hydro One continues the extensive replacement of concrete hydro poles in residential areas. Here the work goes on at the corner of Hudson Drive and Rose Park Drive where the 35-foot Cedars are going in beside concrete poles that have 40 or more years of cracks and salt damage on them. The new poles are buried five feet deep leaving a 30-foot height, as much as six-feet over the concrete units.

Sharon Lee Thomas will discuss and autograph her new novel Watchdogz at Sleuth of Baker Street this Saturday (June 13, 2015) She will be at Sleuth between 2 and 4 p.m. This interesting Torontonian is a retired lawyer who has worked as both an advocate for refugees in a poverty law clinic and as a prosecutor for Canada Border Services. At Canada Border Services she intervened in hearings for asylum where individuals had identity or criminality issues. About Watchdogz, Ms Thomas says “This book is a fictional story about a claim for asylum in British Columbia, Canada, border security and a horrific terrorist plot against the United States.” Sounds good. Sleuth of Baker Street is at 907 Millwood Road at Sutherland Drive.