City
Morning Brew: November 7th, 2008
Photo: "In flight..." by chewie2008~, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.
What's happening in the GTA:
Out of respect for the mourning family of recently deceased video game addict Brandon Crisp, Future Shop canceled its planned promotional efforts for the release of (violence-heavy) video game "Gears of War 2" last night, instead electing to get all kinds of free press for being sensitive enough to cancel its promotional efforts. Here's a review of the game on Ohmpage.
The family members of a recently deceased girl in Woodstock are in shock and angered after learning that they buried her without her brain. Permission to perform an autopsy was granted, but it wasn't until after she was buried that they learned that the body was missing the organ - a horrible situation gone worse. Do we need to make changes in our medical procedure definitions to avoid these kinds of conflicts from happening, or were the doctors not being forthcoming in this case?
Is the proposed 24-page, City of Toronto newsletter called "Our Toronto" a necessary channel of communication to city residents, or is this Mayor Miller's way of using city resources to start his campaign for re-election in 2010? Councillor John Parker had his mic cut off during council session for making such an accusation. I think the media should be focusing more on that part of the story.
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After being left abandoned in an apartment, a Mississauga cat is believed to have been so saddened that it jumped out of the 17th-storey window, broke a few teeth and got a few bruises... and survived.
A man driving a Rogers cable TV van has allegedly been picking up prostitutes in Peel region, and sexually assaulting them and beating them before booting them out of the van. I'm going to go out on a limb and surmise that future Grand Theft Auto V promotional efforts will not be halted as a result.
The "Pixels for Pistols" campaign has resulted in over 350 guns being traded for cameras and photography lessons. That's a lot more than I would have guessed be turned in, but I also think that in addition to speaking to the success of the program, it suggests that there must be a helluva lot of guns still out there.
Discussion
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(a) advertise in local media which will be taking a hammering from other advertisers tightening their belts, and which residents will be getting delivered anyway or
(b) create a new publication (technically replacing two others but with more pages) which many residents will immediately fling in their blue bins, possibly before it even crosses the house's threshold
(a) spend a ton of money on an agency to provide translated TTC information and having all your publications translated into various languages, some of whom are barely a blip on the city census numbers.
(b) publish your publications for residents in English and Braille, provide minimal translations focused on the needs of transient visitors and recent arrivals and put the savings into expanded and subsidised English language programmes.
Something like this: http://www.creativemag.com/images2006%5Calpaksonyyellow..jpg or about half that size.
a PRINT newsletter that ignores the green shift, using the excuse that not everyone has access to a computer, but wasting our tax funds on a self-indulgent bulletin to rope in voters instead of funding computers for our underprivileged...
seriously????? F - - K Y O U, whoever approved this. You and your backasswards thinking makes me sick.
Mark, advertising in some or all community newspapers is less efficient than sending a mailer to every door if the goal is to update residents on the work of their government (which is entirely valid). I can't remember the last time I actually picked one of those things up in hardcopy and I think I am equally deserving of receiving this information.
Though I think maintaining the smae budget as was used for the other newsletters combined would be smarter than seeking a $400,000 budget increase, even if that means sending out the newsletter only twice instead of four times per year or cutting the number of pages in half.
I would rather see a complete erradication of print mailers in Toronto, and a focus on making electronic information accessible. How obscene is it that our city feels it can't connect to citizens via the internet, and has to rely on very expensive print options.
@ Laurie, I didnt think I suggested anyone was stupid - rather that I am absolutely enraged by this idea. Sorry if you don't agree, but I feel entirely entitled to emotional outbursts in the comments section :P
Feel free to add negative feedback to my articles that you don't like though :)
Anyway, I'm going see if I can get a word in with a few councillors so we have more info to go on...whatever personal distaste i might have for wasting money and creating more paper mail, I really refuse to believe that 'Our Toronto' is the best solution for keeping Toronto connected.
Further, your suggestion that this information is useless is astounding. If you see value in democracy and the existence of a municipal government (regardless of political leadership of the day) then you should see a value in that government providing information to the people who fund it.
Hmm. "Agism" leaps to mind but I'm not entirely sure it's a valid word. Also "elitism". Many people don't have access to computers and the internet - yes, I know they're publicly available at libraries etc. but for the elderly for example, it might not be likely for them to receive the news any other way. I much prefer to receive info like this in hard copy - the garbage/recycling calendar gets posted in the kitchen and we never miss a day...
It's valid to provide this as an alternative for people who can't access computers or a website, but by doing so it seems to make it 'ok' that our city can't provide computers/training for the elderly/impoverished.
@ o_O: It's not an elitism that's driving my sentiment, it's a concern for complacency towards the substandard conditions in Toronto, and the city's tendency to fall back on expensive/quick options that really don't move us forward. But I do see what you mean in terms of funding... let's transition out of print and put efforts towards using 'earning power' of the internet for our city.
Seems to me your cart is way, way before the horse. Reality is, there are a lot of people in this city who can barely pay the rent. If I were in that situation and someone handed me a free computer, I'd sell it to pay for the actually vital things in life like food and shelter.
I think you need to acknowledge that going to 100% online while a significant number of residents, generally the most vulnerable residents, don't have the ability to access online information would be completely irresponsible.
The extra 400k could easily be spent bringing more people online... although when I was broke, I simply used the public library's computer. I don't expect the city to go online immediately, but to increase spending on print vs. growing access to information online is backwards.
Anyway, clearly the commenters disagree with this idea - I can take it ;)
As well, people here seem to assume that poor people can not afford computers and internet connections. I've actually worked with actual poor families, and guess what? Many (if not most) of them have computers and internet connections. Old computers and slow connections most of the time, but they have them nonetheless. Don't assume that just because a family is poor they don't have the brains or resources to get a 5 year old computer and a cheap dial-up connection.
The newsletter's just gonna be more watered-down, lowest-common-denominator crap with pictures of smiley-faced recycling boxes anyway.
Ironically, this decision by Future Shop is targeted towards those who don't play games, the same who would continue to take the Crisp situation at face value and think that video games was really the cause of the problem.
No Computer.
No TV.
Mailbox YES.
I don't see why they can't just make the newsletter available in pdf format online for people to read or print at their leisure and also provide a SMALL number of print copies for those who don't have access to internet.
Do you use the printed version, or the online .pdf version? Do you know that there is even an online version...
Thats what I thought!