OPP have re-opened the Burlington Skyway bridge on the QEW. The vital road link to Niagara and the US was closed most of Wednesday because of “extreme winds.” “Nothing was allowed up, down or across the because of the wind. @OPP_HSD Burlington Skyway cameras
Burlington Skyway closed in both directions due to high winds and a rolled over transport truck pic.twitter.com/mmapeKmWDx
— OPP Highway Safety Division (@OPP_HSD) March 8, 2017
Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau no doubt thought it was inclusive and becoming of a mature woman to write that on International Women’s Day ladies might like to celebrate “boys and men in our lives who encourage us to be who we truly are, who treat girls & women with respect, and who aren’t afraid to speak up in front of others.” The Facebook post won 100,000 likes nut there were numerous churlish remarks as well according to Hina Alam of the Hamilton Spectator Trudeau marks Women’s Day with $650 million for reproductive rights
This is #IWD2017 we honour all the women from whom we have learned, who've worked, supported & created tirelessly. We honour all women today
— Leaside United Church (@LeasideUnited) March 8, 2017
Any parent has got to love Sarah Moniz and Jarred Boivin. “When you apply to a post-secondary institution, they go to your social media sites and anything inappropriate there could prevent you from getting into the school of your choice,” says Moniz. The two spoke at an event called DontBFooled.
The makers of Filth City — a definitively sordid little movie — defend their work as honest. It certainly rubs the public nose in Rob Ford’s mess. His brother says it’s garbage and so does his nephew. But his wife says he wouldn’t care. Still, she won’t let the kids see it, according to family friend Joe Warmington of the Sun. To the right, US Marine Corps Commandant General Robert Neller has a few words for the troops about using your phone to take pictures of other members (naked) and posting them on Facebook. This is not the way to get ready for a battle, he says. The Commandant does not venture a comment on the 2017 practice of women marines posing naked.
UNCONSCIOUS BIAS AT THE CROSSWALK
Moving on, in Melbourne the City Fathers (can we say that?) have decided to install Walk signals which depict women. The Premier might like this one as a way to get a handle on unconscious bias. That’s what one woman calls the previously all-panted figures who popped up on green. Finally, there is nothing unconscious (or biased, so far as we can tell) about the scholastic costumes Rihanna has shown at her latest fashion gala. Wear those clothes!
City News says the Premier Wynne will wade into the murky waters of “unconscious bias” as she tries to put to bed systemic racism. The plan will create an “assessment framework” to remove this phenomenon in programs relating to child welfare, justice and education. Unconscious bias has gained acceptance in some circles in recent years as scientists conclude that our poor primordial brains can’t deal with all the information necessary to avoid being biased. There’s no word on whether the job will require police to ask people if they know what they’re doing. City News
SUBWAY COMPARED TO TITANIC
Executive Committee has approved the one-stop Scarborough subway following the input of about 25 speakers. Some opponents called the subway, estimated to cost $3.35 billion, Toronto’s Titanic. City Council gets another chance to kill off the transit sop to Scarborough but it is expected to pass there as well. CBC
THEY LIKE SAM
And Sam Oosterhoff, 19, has won the PC nomination in the new riding of Niagara West by defeating the same slate of party executives he beat last fall when he went on to win a byelection. Canadian Press
The third Toronto public school reporting a case of the mumps is confirmed as Hodgson Senior Public School at 282 Davisville Ave. Earlier report
The cut-and-cover phase of construction of the Leaside LRT Station at Bayview and Eglinton Aves. is about to begin. It is a period that will try drivers and pedestrians alike as the entire intersection is dug up, covered with planks and maintained that way for two years or more. Single lane travel will be the order of the day. They were explaining this at the Metrolinx Leaside Station Open House in the William Lea Room Tuesday night. The large footprint for the track level station and concourse above it stretches from past the crosswalks on Egljnton to the curbs on both sides. It will go down a dizzying 30 metres to the tracks. There is a lot of earth to be moved. Metrolinx was showing a diagram (above) of the first stage of traffic diversions complete with two no-right-turns and three no-left-turns. This configuration will last four to six months and will be replaced with a different set of restrictions. In total, Metrolinx expects four different such sets of restrictions.
ONE DAY AT A TIME
Taking it one day at a time, the current pedestrian detours are tricky. Northbound pedestrians on the east side of Bayview have already misunderstood the arrow which is intended to send them over to the west side. The crossing looks chancy (see photo) so some charge through the signs to the north side of Eglinton where they can cross Bayview with a greater sense of security. Be careful all.
A World Day of Prayer service was held Friday at Manor Road United Church with seven other area churches participating. This year’s guest speaker was M. Esquerra on behalf of the Filipino Women of Gabriela Ontario. It is a chapter of the Gabriela’s women’s movement in the Philippines. The Ontario body was formed in 2012 and seeks to extend the Filipino women’s mass movement to Canada. It campaigns on issues that will uphold womens’ rights and welfare. Their theme for the annual Day of Prayer gathering for 2017 was Am I Being Unfair to You? The day’s events were planned under the leadership of Susan Johnson of MRUC and supported by Reverend Debra Schneider. Churches participating at Manor Road United Church were Bedford Park United, Northlea United, Leaside United, St Cuthbert’s Anglican, St Monica’s RC, Leaside Presbyterian, and St Augustine’s Anglican. The history of the Day of Prayer is ecumenical and worldwide and dates to the latter years of the 19th Century. Each year a group of women from a different nation prepares the service which is translated into many languages and observed all over the world.
Canada has been awarded the ranking of second-best country in the world after Switzerland. It’s very nice but the idea that two places — one a land-locked postage stamp and the other an enormous, largely uninhabited chunk of North America on three oceans — should be compared this way is sort of amusing. The Bulldog adds that any Canadian who didn’t know the quality of first-world life he/she was living really has not been paying attention. This best country contest is in its second year and is run by U.S. News and World Report, Young and Rubicam and the Wharton School of Business. Stuff like this is good for their business too. All leads
Two more cases of mumps have been diagnosed among students at separate public schools in Toronto it was reported Tuesday. With the case reported late last week at Forest Hill Collegiate there are now three students with mumps at three different schools. One of the new outbreaks is identified as being at King Edward Junior and Senior Public School at 112 Lippincott Street northwest of College and Spadina. City-wide, the number of cases stands at 28, including the outbreaks that originated in west-central Toronto bars a recent weeks. Protocol in the case of infectious diseases like mumps has health authorities trying to trace and isolate those who might be positive. But it isn’t easy. “People are developing mumps and they don’t know exactly who gave it to them,” Toronto Public Health’s Dr. Vinita Dubey told CBC Toronto on Tuesday. “Now, it seems there must be a broader circulation of the mumps virus throughout the city,” Dubey said.
VACCINATION WEAK BETWEEN 1970 AND 1991
Still, Toronto Public Health remains optimistic that there is unlikely to be a major outbreak because vaccination among students is above 90 per cent in most Toronto schools. “However, if there are multiple cases in a school…we actually have the ability to exclude students who are not up-to-date with their immunizations from school,” Dubey said. TPH is asking the public to check their immunization records and said people born between 1970 and 1991 may have only received one dose as a child — rather than the now-standard two doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccines — and could be more vulnerable.
Diet causes half of all deaths due to heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes according to a study at Tufts University in Massachusetts released Tuesday. The capsule intelligence is that if you eat too much processed meat and too few fresh things, and especially not enough nuts, the odds are stacked against you.
Dr. San E Tizer and Officer Scrubs were talking to Kindergarten pupils at Davisville Public School about keeping clean this week. A supplemental tweet indicates that those “crunch” apples will be consumed Thursday making the old halls will shiver to the sound apple eating. Could be good.