"Cowardice asks the question...is it safe? Expediency asks the question...is it politic? Vanity asks the question...is it popular? But conscience asks the question...is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because it is right." ~Dr. Martin Luther King

Sunday 6 May 2012

Thoughts While Driving

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "It Is What It Is":

It would have been helpful at that mob-meeting if the town had seen fit to hand out those figures in your post to those attending. Maybe it would have filtered through to some of them that they were involved in a giant rip-off. Or not

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I  doubt it would have made a difference. At least two thirds of  the  deluge of  format e-mails that came through  admonishing Councillors for their philistine attitude towards the arts were not from Aurora. Do not pay taxes in our town and  in effect are virtual free-loaders..

I was driving yesterday. I do my best thinking when I'm driving. Sometimes ,after I've organised my thoughts sufficiently to answer a questio in full ,  something strikes me I never thought of before.

Writing is a powerful exercise for the mind.

On Bathurst Street, the thought passed through my head how unlikely such a situation as the piracy of Church School would be in a country like Sweden where people have a powerful social and moral conscience.

Hard on its heels came another thought

I.t could not  have happened in Aurora  a few years  ago either.

The seniors  never  asked the town  to build them a  new facility.. Every time  a building  vacated  they put  dibs in for more space for more programs.. They ran their own programs. too.

They  were  survivors of a depression and a war and bringing  families away from everything they knew  to find something better for their children.

They knew  too well the connection between demands and tax rates.

 Homes for many were the only asset they had  after a lifetime of hard work, modest wages and committing to their children. No registered retirement savings for them to escape paying taxes.

 They remain committed. They ask for little. They continue to give when need arises.

Tthe Historical Society of a few yeasr ago. Committed to raising funds to pay for the Church Street School renovations  and  managing the program. t.

The Lion's Club raised  funds for a new building at the McMahon Park for the tennis club and the  lawn bowling club Theypaid the whole shot..

The  Optimist Club  presented a cheque derived from their work  to build a gazebo in the Optimists Park, which currently has no shade.or shelter.

The Rotary Club  last year with an installment of funds for needed improvements to the Rotary Park.

The business that sponsors junior sports team and concerts in the parl and many other events enjoyed by the community. 

All these  Aurorans commit  hours of  labour to contribute to their community. where they see the need.

Then we have the governance board of the Church Street school who shouldered out the museum and the Historical  Society and tightened  their greedy grasp around everything they can reach  and  put up a fight to continue to do so in the face of all the evidence of untenable circumstances. .

I think the emerald ash borer is not the only  destructive  species  to iinvade  our community to no good purpose.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why are we determined to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to try and destroy the ash borer, an exercise that will apparently fail?

Why have we gotten into an exercise with a group of people determined to turn a simple concept into one of convoluted complexity?

The answer to both is easy - don't pay.

Anonymous said...

" think the emerald ash borer is not the only destructive species to iinvade our community to no good purpose."

True... the Scots too (some of them anyways).

KA-NON said...

Really 8:18? Really? Are we going there?

Anonymous said...

What's wrong Ka-Non? Trip on your Sporran?

Anonymous said...

Sorry, KA-NON, It's pissed at having lost a few earlier rounds. Note the fine attention to detail, the erudition and ability to contribute to a discussion. Only one so it must try harder.