The South Bayview Bulldog

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.

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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.