The South Bayview Bulldog

The widely anticipated lifting of the 140 character limit on tweets appears to be imminent. Twitter president Jack Dorsey says the company will not be shy (odd word to use) about giving its users more power. The current restriction was introduced in Twitter’s early days, in a similar way to short text messages, and while Mr Dorsey praised it as a “beautiful constraint” he noted that users already find ways to cram more into a tweet by posting images with more words.  Dorsey sent a tweet after a report on technology website Re/Code suggested Twitter is currently considering upping the limit to 10,000, although he did not refer directly to the report in his message.

MORE COHERENT

Longer messages might make Twitter generally more coherent but it seems likely to generate tweets that are longer versions of sarcastic  and self-involved hecklers. One might think that advertising would weigh on Dorsey’s mind.  Twitter needs to make money. There is no hint that he will. do anything to let users make money.

Councillor Josh Matlow says in his newsletter released today that a deal has been reached for the City to buy a large portion of the Glebe Manor Lawn Bowling Club property. The builder who bought the land through transactions that seemed doubtful to many people has now been given permission to build a single townhouse on the site at 196 Manor Road. The size of the remaining parkland will by 1,138 sq. metres which Mr. Matlow says represents 4/5 of the property. He does not discuss the negotiations nor the price paid. The City however has always held an ace in the form of its power to grant or deny a building permit.

MANY MEMBERS NOT CONSULTED

It is a community drama which has played out largely in the shadows with many questions remaining unanswered. In July of 2014 eight shareholders of the Glebe Manor Road Lawn Bowling Club led by Manor Rd. resident and former member Derek Tilley sent a letter to the president of the club, Phillip Foubert, demanding that he convene a meeting to discuss alleged shareholder rights violations. The demand was made in the wake of the move by Mr. Foubert and members of the board of directors of the club to sell the property to a developer. But according to Tilley, there were as many 872 outstanding shares in the club representing potentially hundreds of members who were never consulted on such a sale. Ultimately, a closed meeting was held at the Lea Room at which no one who objected to the sale, including Matlow, the media and former members, was allowed to enter. Not surprisingly, Mr. Matlow himself called the circumstances “fishy.”

IS THIS THE END?

Many people hoped that former bowling club president Wally Rayner was correct when he said that the 1923 articles of incorporation of the club required the property to be returned either to Glebe Presbyterian Church (from which the land had been given as a gift) or to the City for a nominal sum if the company ceased to exist as a lawn bowling club. Rayner was president in 1999.  But his assertions were apparently not easily certified at City Hall. By the summer of 2014, Glebe Presbyterian Church itself was but a memory. Whether there is yet another chapter to the story of the Glebe Manor Lawn Bowling Club remains an open question. What was said and done between the City and the developer seems to be done with, to use a term.

Ashley Rowe

Many viewers wondered why Ashley Rowe didn’t ascend naturally like cream to the top woman’s anchor chair at Bell Media (CTV) Toronto. Her fill-in jobs were a must-watch for many. But such guessing has been idle especially since her move to WKBW in Buffalo announced in November. Now local outlets report that starting Monday, January 18 Rowe will appear on all three of WKBW’s main news programs, 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. Monday to Friday.  For the time being at least, Rowe will share anchoring of the 6 p.m. program with 65-year-old Keith Radford, another CTV Toronto alumnus.

It’s not clear whether there is really anything behind this announcement by Ontario Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca but we won’t have long to wait to find out. The Detroit Auto Show opens next week. Detroit Auto Show 2016: Ontario expect ‘major’ driverless car news

Aish Jewellery at 1559 Bayview has closed. It’s future or new premises if any is not known  The business was located here for more than a decade by memory of merchants who knew Aish.

The little hard-luck house on the northeast corner of Mt. Pleasant Rd. and Moore Ave has been repaired twice in a year after cars bounced over the sidewalk and smashed into it. Now three large garden stones sit on the lawn a couple of feet away from vehicles hurtling by on Mt. Pleasant. Are they big enough to stop a KIA? (inset of July, 2015). Let’s hope so. Across Moore on the southeast corner a metal bollard, designed to keep pedestrians safe has been nearly flattened by what looks like several hits from the afternoon rush hour traffic turning east.

It seems there is no point in arguing with a homeless man or woman, nor much point in ordering them into the warm when it is killingly cold outside. The New York State special edict ordering homeless into shelters is being ignored by street people. Their reasons — getting robbed, too dirty — sound a bit like a description of what it must be like to live on the street. The  main reason however seems to be that they just don’t want to go.

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.

..

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.