building

Saturday January 14, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Saturday January 14, 2012

Federal Liberals endorse marijuana legalization

Last May’s federal election marked the first in history in which the Liberals failed to become Canada’s government or its official opposition. The hodge-podge of dubious policy resolutions up for debate at next weekend’s national Liberal convention suggests that, eight months later, Liberals still aren’t sure how to rehabilitate a party that, some say, has no real reason to continue existing as an independent entity.

Rather than moving on to new challenges, the Liberals seem intent on refighting old wars. One resolution urges the party to support the Canadian Wheat Board and to reinstate the board’s monopoly over Prairie wheat and barley sales, when and if the Liberals return to power. But that is a genie that cannot be returned to its lamp. Whatever one thinks of the Tories’ recent decision to remove the board’s control over Western grain farming, once tens of thousands of farmers begin marketing their crops independently, it would require years of police action and scores of high-profile criminal trials to force anti-monopoly farmers back under the purview of the board.

Another policy motion asks the party to reaffirm its commitment to a national daycare program. That’s a notion that has been circulating at Liberal conventions since the 1970s. Not even the majority governments under Jean Chrétien in the economically robust 1990s and 2000s were able to pull it off. The provinces – which have jurisdiction over daycare – resisted the federal intrusion. Most parents were indifferent to the idea. And taxpayers balked at the price tag, which is conservatively estimated at more than $5-billion a year. What makes the current generation of Liberals believe Canadians and the provinces have changed their minds?  (Source: National Post)

 

Saturday March 28, 2009

March 28, 2009

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday March 28, 2009

City Hall’s marble: A short history

* There are 3,000 marble slabs totalling 30,000 square feet covering City Hall. They measure approximately 60 centimetres by 120 cm.

* The gold-veined Cherokee marble used at City Hall was quarried in Pickens County, Georgia, the same county that produced the marble for the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial.

* In 1958, architect Stanley Roscoe caused an uproar when he chose Georgia marble instead of stone from Ontario or Quebec. He said the design at City Hall was predicated on the use of the white marble. After much debate about whether local stone should be used, city council approved the use of Georgia marble by a 13-6 vote.

* The first shipment of the Georgia marble was deemed “unsatisfactory” because it was the wrong colour. Roscoe paid a visit to the quarry in late 1958 to ensure the rest of the marble was up to standard.

* On May 16, 1960, the day City Hall opened to the public, two marble slabs fell from the building. One, which weighed 275 kilograms, crashed onto the roof of the second floor. The other landed on the second-floor canopy. The problem was blamed on “faulty craftsmanship.”

* On Feb. 6, 1963, two more slabs fell after water seeped behind the marble and rusted the metal hooks supporting the slabs.

* In 1969, when council allotted $136,000 for repairs to the marble, city architect Alex German suggested taking down each marble slab, “making them into coffee tables and selling them.  (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

Letters to the editor: 

I’ve said in past blog entries that often the only feedback I ever get on any of my cartoons is whenever somebody has taken great offense to whatever I’ve drawn and feel the need to convey their anger to me.

My most recent cartoon focusing on the sad saga of Hamilton’s City Hall reno drew the ire of a close relative to the architect of the building, Stanley Roscoe, who phoned to ask what gives me “the nerve to be an architectural critique”.

What gives anyone the right to be an architectual critic? Are only learned experts of the field entitled to pass judgement on architecture in high brow periodicals? Can’t the unwashed masses who can’t tell a cupola from a corbel air their own feelings about the concrete monsters they have to share this planet with?

Anyway, I’ve posted the original sketch I was going to go with and tempered the farting base ass imagery with a giant toilet. My apologies for the loooong gap between blog entries. I’ll keep trying to keep this thing up to date.