A professor at Laurentian University in Sudbury says he has been stopped from teaching a first-year psychology class after asking students to sign off on his use of vulgar language.  Dr. Michael Persinger says he has taught the course this way for years and employs the impact of words not normally used in polite society to show how emotion created by them “affects the brain’s rational processes”. Dr. Persinger is a neuroscientist. He says he has used the “Statement of Understanding” to begin the course for years. The statement lists a sample of words that might be used during class and includes the F-word, homophobic slurs and offensive slang for genitalia. He says he was called to the university provost’s office after the first class this year and told he was no longer permitted to teach the course.

DR. PERSINGER’S HISTORY

Readers recall that Dr.Persinger has been a contentious figure for many years. He was, it is said, a proponent of the “God brain” based on neuro-physiology and a US military backed effort to “remote view” things over time and space. He has been a CBC source for some time and it is said that he once got a journalist to believe that he was having a machine-induced religious moment.

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As many as 40 racehorses from across Ontario have died in a stable fire at the Classy Lane Stables Training Centre at Puslinch. Stable owner Barbara Miller is in Florida and is making urgent plans to return. The horses were standardbreds owned by trainers who race them at Mohawk, Woodbine and Flamboro racetracks.

Toronto Police Operations has tweeted word of a two-car collision at Overlea Blvd and Thorncliffe Park Drive. There are minor injuries. This intersection occurs twice (east and west) and TPS Ops does not say which one.

The Berlin Zoo’s New Year’s Eve baby elephant has made her first appearance Monday (January 4, 2016). The little (100 kg.) female remains un-named for the time being. Her mother, Kiwa, has given birth to six calves at the zoo. Everything seems to be fine.

Well over 1,200,000 have watched the video below since it was posted five days ago by Jeff Cote who caught nature’s incoming missile on his dashcam. He was on Interstate 495 in Haverhill, Massachusetts as he saw the ominous chunk of ice coming at him from a car ahead. Cote reacted calmly as he pulled to the right and stopped. The radio newscast with its routine report about planned terrorism sets an eery tone for Cote’s experience with a bit of weather-related terror.

You can get it all by rummaging through the news leads from hundreds of places at the link. China is going to  evaporate and so are we. Or, maybe not. All Google leads

Toronto public health say that a raccoon that bit a Toronto officer was not rabid. The policeman was bitten last Monday when he tried to deal with a raccoon which “appeared to be in distress and possibly blind” outside a downtown store. It was a small injury and now there’s no cause to fear that the condition has been communicated.

A story on the sentencing of Miguel Oliveira in the cycling death of a much-loved school teacher Tom Samson in November of 2012 contained a suggestion that Mr. Samson “scooted” through a red light. Mr. Samson was riding his bicycle on Lansdowne Ave when he was struck by cars crossing Lansdowne on what was apparently a green light. A complaint to the South Bayview Bulldog took issue with the suggestion that Mr. Samson tried to “scoot” across Davenport while the light was red. Albert Koehl pointed to an agreed statement of facts at the sentencing of Miguel Oliveira on his conviction for leaving the scene. The Crown conceded that Mr. Samson was “at zero or very slow velocity, within the westbound centre lane ” at the time of the accident. Mr Koehl adds that this would be consistent “with the rider making a proper left hand turn.” His complaint does not deal with the state of the traffic signals at the time of the accident. The other driver was Manuel Martin. He was not charged. It was his testimony that the cars were travelling through a green light in opposite directions on Davenport. Rd.  The issue of responsibility for the accident was never the subject of any charge only Mr. Oliveira’s decision to flee the scene. The South Bayview Bulldog apologizes for any incorrect suggestion of how Mr. Samson entered or was in the intersection. The story as first published made the point that there is frequently a rush to judgement. in the case of bicycle fatalities.

MT @City18Jeff: Crews have been battling the fire on Jarvis, near Carlton, for over two hours. pic.twitter.com/PluRRerRqx

— CityNews 680 (Inactive) (@680NEWS) January 4, 2016

Jarvis Street is closed at Carlton Street by a two-alarm fire in an old mansion which for many decades was a rooming house.  Firefighters say it appears the fire started shortly after 5 a.m. on the second floor of a home on Jarvis Street, near Carlton Street and was bumped to three alarms before 7 a.m. Reports say the mansion is now vacant. The CBC says it was at one time by Dr. Charles Sheard, the city’s first chief medical officer. A 2012 city staff report described the house as “a good example of Beaux Arts classicism” and a rare survivor from a time when Jarvis Street was home to many mansions owned by the city’s elite families.  The property is the subject of a re-zoning application that calls for a 43-storey condo building on the property.

Canada has seen a rash of fatal and near-fatal snowmobile accidents over New Year’s. The mishaps occurred in suburban Toronto, Halifax and at Blackcomb Mountain, British Colmbia. They have seen two people die and one admitted to Sunnybrook Hospital in grave condition. Locally, a man died in King Township when the snow machine slammed into a parked boat at what appears to have been a party in the early hours of Sunday, January 3, 2015. York Regional Police say they were called to a home on Keele St. east of Hwy. 400 just after 5 a.m. to find a 34-year-old man in the backyard suffering serious head and other injuries. Insp. Duncan MacIntyre said a “social event” had been going on at the home and that police were speaking with people who witnessed the incident. Police are treating it as a criminal investigation, he added, noting investigators are looking into the possibility of drugs or alcohol being involved.

NOVA SCOTIA

In Nova Scotia police say a 29-year-old Halifax woman is dead after her snowmobile hit a tree in Armstrong Lake in King’s County. A preliminary investigation indicates the woman, who was wearing a helmet, was operating the snow machine on a groomed trail when she crashed into a tree. She was pronounced dead at the scene, while a male passenger received minor injuries.

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