Random Access

The celebration of Oscar Peterson's 80th birthday Aug. 15 was a
pleasure to behold.

Not only is he a national cultural treasure but the resident of Mississauga for the last 23 years is one of the few remaining touchstones to the golden age of jazz.

Diana Krall was so visibly shaken at being in the presence of her hero that she "forgot how to play the piano" and appeared tongue-tied when she talked to reporters afterward.

But one major quibble with the event, which was centered around a new postage stamp issued featuring Peterson's likeness: why the horrible venue?

Sure HMV was one of the sponsors (along with Universal Music and Canada Post), but could there have been a worse location than the second floor of the downtown HMV?

Peterson had to get out of his wheelchair, ride the escalator up to the second floor, get back in his chair, and squeeze through a phalanx of gawkers (OK, media) just to get to the platform. No one had apparently thought that a ramp might be a good idea for the stage. So, once again his son had to help the jazz great out of his chair, lift it up onto the stage and then help his Dad get settled in. It was an uncomfortable moment that really wasn't necessary if someone had used some foresight.

Of course, nothing could spoil the magic once Peterson got on stage.

The lasting memory will be of the announcement that the event was over, followed by the mad jumble of activity and then the slow realization that the great man himself was determinedly making his way to the piano and would play.

It was a new piece called Elegy written for the many recently-departed jazzers. The brooding tribute wasn't the technical tour-de-force that casual fans usually associate with Peterson. It was instead, the work of the mature composer, reflecting on the rich past of the music and the losses it has suffered. As he played, one couldn't help but think, thank goodness this giant still remains among us.

A note about the blog name: One of my favourite all-time people, and one of my favourite all time people to quote, was long-time Ward 6 Councillor David Culham. A sincere man who made a telling contribution to the greening of this City, Culham nevertheless seemed to speak in tongues much of the time. Think Yogi Berra meets William F. Buckley Jr.

In any case, one of my Culham favourites was unleashed in 1988, when the councillor was explaining why he was having trouble remembering something.

"I don't have immediate access to my mental storage," he said. As I get older and my mental storage fills up, I can only say "Amen, Brother!" to that. Remember, even random access is better than none.

If they had a "guy least likely to be writing a blog" contest, I'd be a leading candidate to win.

I'd better confess right off the bat that the whole idea of a doing a blog is a bit of an anathema to me. Journalists of my generation (I'm 56) were taught to keep their personal opinions to themselves when I graduated from J-school (University of Western Ontario in 1971). The only place you expressed your own viewpoint was in columns and editorials.

Old habits die hard and the idea of doing a running commentary on the world we know as Mississauga is frankly unsettling in many ways. It always seems presumptuous to me that journalists, simply by dint of their front-row seat at the news table, think that their opinions somehow count more than those who observe from a greater distance. As a consumer of news, I find the explosion of point-of-view reporting I see everywhere on-line and in newspapers irritating at best, and insulting at worst. I often find myself wanting to yell at the television or the computer, 'Don't interpret the news for me please, just tell me the facts. I am perfectly capable of forming my own opinion.'

And yet, in the right context, I just love to hear others' takes on the world: on the new Scorcese doc on Dylan; on the latest Burgundies at Vintages (even though I can't afford them) and on how the unflappable Josh (Baby Face) Towers got to be the Jays' best pitcher (while Doc is in the infirmary).

You see, the self-indulgence starts already.

One other thing that disqualifies me from blogging: I don't do rant well. It's undoubtedly the training. All that stuff about providing the other side of the story, ensuring balance and maintaining objectivity. I'm old school and I'm not sure old school belongs on the Net. I had to be shown how to find blogs and, someday soon, I'll get around to reading some.

In the meantime - you out there staring at the screen in amazement -  would you mind running upstairs and getting your Mother and Father? Now let's see how this works.....

Thank goodness the reconstruction and reconfiguration of the entrances to the University of Toronto at Mississauga (UTM) are finished.

With Mississauga Rd. closed for what seems like the entire summer and ever-changing detour routes, you've taken your life in your hands to venture onto the campus.

The good news during the construction boondoggle was that you could make a left-hand turn from eastbound Collegeway onto Mississauga Rd. without taking out extra life insurance.

Earlier this year a new set of traffic signals went in at Broad Hollow Gate to the west, which has relatively little traffic, but it was still a trial most of the time to turn left in morning or afternoon rush-hour onto Mississauga Rd.

Now finally, the lights are operable where they were really needed. The Collegeway, which is obviously intended to become the main UTM entrance, now runs directly into the campus, sweeps right and then sweeps left again up the hill to the campus ring road.Where Collegeway now runs previously stood a huge concrete sign, surrounded by a charming garden, that read University of Toronto, Erindale College. Of course, it's been out of date since former UTM President Bob McNutt had the name changed several years ago. The sign is now in storage for heaven-knows-what potential future purpose. The bad news, of course, is that a large number of magnificent, mature trees were slaughtered to make way for the road. The City's forestry inspector for the job told me a couple of weeks ago, with noticeable chagrin, that nothing could be done because the Collegeway entrance plan has been in the campus' master plan for many years. The motto devised and plugged by former UTM CAO Paul Donoghue for the radical expansion of buildings and sharp increase in enrolment was "Grow Smart Grow Green."

It's a terrific goal and, to its credit, the university has bitten the bullet and paid a premium to construct parking garages for many of its new buildings to save the forest that is, indisputably, the main charm of the place.

But, it's pretty hard for Grow Smart Grow Green not to have a deep, hollow ring for a while when you've just paved the way to your new front door by flattening scores of stately maples and elms to get there.

By the way, is it still The Collegeway if it leads to UTM instead of Erindale College?

The Continental Divide that runs down the middle of the council chambers at the Mississauga Civic Centre is finally going to be fixed... just 18 years after the building was opened.

Anyone who's ever tried to meet someone at the chambers in City Hall knows about the Divide: the solid wood wall that runs along both sides of the well where the escalator is positioned in the middle of the room.

It effectively cuts off communication from one side of the chamber to the other. You can't even see if anybody's on the other side without walking up or down the stairs and taking a look.

More than one cynic has suggested it was part of a divide-and-conquer mentality that prevails among Hazel's coterie.

I remember architect Edward Jones explaining when the building opened that the escalator would bring the citizens of Mississauga from the main floor into the midst of the grand chamber on the second floor with its spectacular ceiling reflecting the stars in the spring Mississauga sky.

The podium where citizens addressed council from the middle of the chamber was to symbolize the fact that it is the ordinary citizen who is ultimately the centre of the political universe.Several hundred deputants who've addressed council over the years might have a different perspective, of course.

It was apparent from virtually the first day the chambers opened that the Great Wall was a problem. It has been in unnumerable capital budgets as a to-do project. Now it seems it is finally going to be fixed.

With the addition of two new wards and two new councillors for the November 2006 election, renovations are required. Two new offices must be added to the third-floor councillors' woe...er row...that connects directly to the chambers. Council meetings will likely be moved temporarily to the new provincial courthouse that the City is opening today at 950 Burnhamthorpe Rd. W. (the former Consumers' Gas building).

To accommodate the two new politicians around the council horseshoe, the City just has to add two more chairs.While the third floor renovation takes place, however, other changes will happen.

Those include making the council dais accessible for the first time by adding a ramp, improving the spotty sound system, and likely installing a new glass partition, or other see-through material, along the wall.

Good timing. Now all the potential candidates who be coming out of the woodwork to line up for the new ward 10 and ward 11 seats in the next few months can get a great view of each other's study habits.

* * *

Healey's got that thing called zing

You know you're hearing a fascinating radio program when you pull into your driveway and turn your keys to Acc. and just keep listening. You hear one tune, and then you have to listen to just one more. Ten minutes later, the juice is still thawing in the grocery bags in your trunk.

Then when you finally do go inside the house, you have to fetch the portable radio and listen to the rest of the show while you work in the kitchen.

That happened to me Sunday morning as I listened to Jeff Healey's My Kinda Jazz on Jazz FM 91. As he is wont to do, Healey was pontificating on a subject close to his heart: why a lot of great Duke Ellington instrumentals were unnecessarily transformed into songs with lyrics.

He explained that a solo the superb alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges did on Duke's I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart inspired Duke to write Never No Lament, a wonderful vehicle for Hodge's moaning, sensual tone that somehow bypasses your brain and proceeds directly to your solar plexus.

Then lyrics were added and the number became Don't Get Around Much Anymore. I don't agree with Healey on this one. Seems to me we got three great songs out of this experience instead of one.

But that's not the point. The point is that Healey, a former Mississaugan who had to have the floors of his house specially reinforced to take the weight of all his albums, brings unbridled passion and a certain volatile edge to his program all the time. He not only plays records from his personal collection that you can't hear anywhere else but he is a kind of social historian, relating the styles of emerging music to the events and living conditions of the time that shaped the men who made the music. It's a great listen and a great education.

The show's on Monday at 9 p.m. and is repeated Sundays at 7 a.m. By the way, Healey's friend and band-mate Colin Bray also has a wonderful show called Sugarfoot Stomp on '20s-'40s jazz (which Healey originally hosted.) It runs on CIUT-FM 89.5 Thursdays at 5 p.m.

Guess who's speaking in this excerpt from comments made at the announcement of the approval of the new West Wing project at Trillium Health Centre Sept. 1:

"How many of us here today, as a patient or a family member, have experienced our health system in the past five years? I, for one, have had those experiences personally or through family members and we all know we have a lot of work to do. Our system is plagued by access issues, poor information, cramped environments, concerns about safety. We know that the status quo is unacceptable. We all feel it. We all know it."

You might expect those words coming from an Ontario Cabinet Minister or one of our local MPPs or even from a patient or a Trillium board member.

They sound kind of jarring coming from the mouth of Ken White, Trillium's President and CEO. It wasn't so long ago that the health care sector and hospitals in particular were the champions of circling the wagons and pretending there was no one out there whooping and hollering for their scalps.

White, the perennial leader in the annual salary disclosure sweepstakes for Peel, has emerged as the poster boy for the movement that says you can give the patient a better experience and still save loads of money by doing things right and doing things smart.A leader who isn't afraid to empower those below him, White has encouraged his administrators and doctors to take the bit in their teeth, and they've run with it. Trillium is now considered a "benchmark" (I loathe that term) hospital in delivery of many services.

The staff seem to like the place and its retention rate is phenomenal. If this all sounds too good to you to be true, join the crowd. It sounded like bumph to George Ploder too, a hard-nosed Mississauga businessman who was recruited to help the hospital raise money. When he performed his own due diligence, however, Ploder was knocked out by the clinical rankings of the hospital and its lower-than-average costs for many procedures. Ploder ended up giving the hospital a million bucks of his own. Now, that's being convinced. How long can Trillium hang onto White? Not long judging by the comments that were openly being made about his many suitors at the announcement.

Don't be surprised if he ends up implementing the same health reform agenda very soon at a lot higher level.

It's easy to see why Lucy's Seafood Kitchen is named the most popular restaurant year after year in The News' readership awards. Janice and I go out for a restaurant supper about once every two years. I'll take the blame for that as I'm a homebody of the first order.

When you are having your biennial restaurant outing, you certainly don't want to waste the event.

We went to the Lucy's in Erin Mills to celebrate our 24th anniversary and got just what we expected: good food, good service and a good price. Two seafood dishes, a glass of Chardonnay for her, a glass of Merlot with my Jambalaya, and a bill of $45.

My only reservation is the noise level, which was way too loud. The place was packed on Monday night but it still shouldn't sound like a bowling alley. At least they didn't crank up the music to drown out the babble.

All in all, a very nice night out. Maybe we could go increase our pace to one night out a year.

I even got Janice home in time to enjoy the Monday Night Football pre-game fisticuffs.

Jocelyn Lovell is a very direct man. When he was one of the world's best cyclists for a long period of time in the 1970s, he was known for his competitiveness and for sparring verbally with opponents. The storied career that took him to three medals at the 1970 Commonwealth Games, three Olympic Games and saw him sweep nearly every event, from the sprints to the 102-mile road race, at the 1974 Canadian cycling championships all ended suddenly in 1983 when he was hit by a truck while riding at Britannia and Trafalgar Rds.

Neil Lovell stands in the kitchen of her new energy effcient home beside a poster of one of her favourit e authors, Rachel Carson.
Staff photo by Fred Loek

The bios of him you'll find on-line, like this one from CBC, usually start something like, "As cantankerous as he was talented, the cycling legend's chances of Olympic glory ended in a wheelchair." So it was with a touch of trepidation that I rang the doorbell of the magnificent new home yesterday that Jocelyn and Neil, his wife of five years, have just moved into on the lakefront in Port Credit. Meeting someone in a wheelchair is awkward for most of us. Do you offer your hand? What if the person can't physically shake your hand, or it would be painful for them?

I didn't have long to think about that.

"Shake my hand," said the long-time Mississauga resident, who then proceeded to issue instructions. "You put your thumb underneath mine and then you wrap it around and squeeze hard," he said. Instant connection and instant statement: "I may be disabled but I'm a person who should be treated like any other. I will show you respect. I expect the same."

Now that's an icebreaker.

The only flash of the famous temper I saw was a mock answer to my question of how old he was: "55...goddam it."

It was Neil's idea to turn the couple's new home into a showcase for energy conservation. She's no armchair environmentalist.

In the last five years at their former home, which was just around the corner, she used her clothes dryer a total of two times. Neil will be putting up a clothesline at the new place. "I really like the experience of going outside to hang up the laundry when it's freezing cold," said the B.C. native. "My mother used to do that."

And I love the idea of a brand-spanking new place popping up on the exclusive enclave along the lake distinguished from its neighbours by the new-fangled technology of a solar-panelled roof and the old-fangled technology of the laundry flapping freely in the breeze.

Hockey season hasn't even started yet and I'm sick of it already. Today's sports section of The Toronto Star has wall-to-wall hockey stories on the first three pages and they don't even start playing exhibition - yes, exhibition - games until the weekend!

I was a fan for years when I was young and there were six real teams. Blue Jackets were something Leaf fans wore. A Mighty Duck was what you took when you were playing the Bruins and Leo Boivin had you lined up.

Hey sports editors: there are lots of other sports out there that deserve some ink, too.

They even play some amateur sports in this country, too.

The Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) may have set the record for quickest dismissal of a case Wednesday, when it threw Stephen Wahl's objections to the new City ward boundaries out the window about 45 seconds after the hearing ended.

"I got slaughtered, humiliated and insulted,"

the city centre resident said yesterday, after taking some time to lick the wounds to his psyche he suffered following the curt dismissal of his case.

Wahl, a self-appointed City Hall watchdog, may have made a strategic error (Duh!) in accusing the City of gerrymandering in his opening remarks. In his closing arguments, Wahl who also made the mistake of representing himself, tried to withdraw the gerrymandering accusation, having seen the withering reaction it received from OMB Vice-Chair Susan Campbell. But she wouldn't allow it.It's rare indeed for the OMB to issue a verbal decision at the end of a one-day hearing and it's even rarer when the member is so pointed in her dismissal.

Campbell said the allegations of gerrymandering gave the appearance that the appeal was frivolous and vexatious. Ouch!Though bloodied, Wahl is unbowed. His argument was always basic arithmetic. He wonders why the smaller, older wards are being kept intact, despite their smaller populations, and the hugely overpopulated wards 6 and 9 - small cities of 100,000 which should have been addressed years ago as the OMB said in a previous decision - are essentially being divided in two to create wards 10 and 11. It's an argument you can make but you have to have more than polemics to support it.

City lawyer Michal Minkowski said four witnesses, including Brad Butt who chaired a citizen task force on representation, "made it clear to the Board that this was an objective exercise." The instant dismissal  "speaks volumes about the City's case."

Wahl believes he's learned the valuable lesson that, "truth does not matter, just proof."

City councillors will be pained to hear Wahl say that in the same circumstances, he'd do   the same thing again.

"I learned something and I'll be better prepared next time. But I'm not going to stop doing stuff for the City," said Wahl who has a ton of certificates recognizing his past volunteer efforts.

You've got to admire his guts, if not his acumen.

"I'll keep going because basically I'm a stubborn little prick," Wahl said proudly.

Which is how he ended up all by his lonesome before the OMB in the first place.

It took me a while to figure out what it was about GE Canada’s launch of its Ecomagination program yesterday at the Living Arts Centre that gave me that queasy feeling in my stomach.
After all, the program seems entirely laudable on the surface. It’s essentially an across-the-board greening of GE products.
The company that Thomas Edison founded is doubling its commitment to research and development worldwide on environmentally-friendly products. One project of 92 wind turbines in Ontario will power 25,000 average households and save 400,000 barrels of oil a day all by itself.
Everyone knows GE is into compact fluorescent bulbs big-time but I didn’t know it was the largest diversified company of its kind on the globe. It’s also in the forefront of reducing the heavy-duty pollution of aircraft engines and train locomotives, among many other things.
After we heard the sobering litany of challenges threatening our survival as a species (oil and gas run out in 40 years; the population will hit the sustainable limit of 9 billion by 2050), we heard the good news that saving the world has finally become profitable.
“Green is green,” GE International President Nani Beccalli said, meaning that green products now mean greenbacks in the pocket.
He also said that, “the most strategic imperative for our company is growth.” Since its customers will be facing stricter environmental controls as the world realizes that slowly suffocating in our own toxic stew is a really bad idea, GE’s priorities to get greener and to grow faster just happen to line up perfectly.
So, maybe things haven’t changed as much as you think in the corporate world. The motivation for this whole initiative obviously is primarily the shareholders’ interest. The positive environmental benefit is just a collateral gain.
Maybe motivation doesn’t really matter and we should just be happy that corporate giants of the size of GE have joined the green team.
It’s important to do the right thing, of course, but it’s really nice when we do it for the right reasons, too.

How many times does the Ontario government have to get kicked in the teeth by the legal system before it stops wasting our money appealing the process for hiking Hwy. 407 tolls?
You remember the deal. In the raft of rash promises Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals made to win the election in 2003 (an election they were going to win anyway) the Grits promised they’d change the process of raising tolls.
Unfortunately, as with their commitment about immediately stopping development on the Oak Ridges Moraine, they only checked the fine print later, and found they didn’t have a legal leg to stand on.
But, that didn’t stop McGuinty and his Cabinet from going to court to fight a battle they couldn’t win.
They obviously wanted to pound home the message that the Harris Tories signed away the ship with their 100-year-long Hwy. 407 lease that doesn’t require Cabinet approval for toll hikes.
That message was already clear to anyone who had been paying attention.
Yes, it was a horrible deal. Of course, no private company should be able to bleed money from the public like this without any government control.
But, pouring our money down the appeal drain isn’t going to fix anything.
Our own Harinder Takhar, Transportation Minister and MPP for Mississauga Centre, is leading the charge of the not-so-bright brigade here. He’s a smart man who should know better.
Cut the losses, cut the bleeding and save the rhetoric for the next election campaign in 2007.

It sure looks like the cards are stacked against residents trying to fight any of the proposed new natural gas-fired power plants being proposed for Mississauga and the GTA.
The Ontario government’s “self-directed” environmental review process allows proponents of the plants to essentially set the parameters for those reviews. The onus is on citizens or councils to ask for special dispensation to get a “bump-up” to a more fulsome review.
Tony Jones of the coalition of ratepayers fighting the Loreland Ave. project told me Monday that, “Tt’s basically: let’s put the fox in charge of deciding who goes in and out of the hen house. I find it very strange and not at all in keeping with democratic principles,” he said.
Not original, but dead on.
Of course, the Liberals screamed blue murder when the Harris Tories watered down the environmental process in 2001.
But, now that they’re stuck with the task of finding new generation to replace the coal-fired plants that they’re thankfully taking out of service, the rules don’t look so bad after all to the Liberals.
The “third-party” selection process for the Request for Proposals for the plants leaves MPPs totally on the sidelines. They’re not supposed to get involved because they might compromise the selection process.
The result is Mississauga East MPP Peter Fonseca supposedly not knowing about the Loreland plant until it was announced.
So, the people we’ve elected to represent us don’t have a clue about a critical project in their riding until it’s announced. Then the public is protected only by the merest veneer of an environmental review screening.
How incredibly handy.

The most satisfying thing about gardening is finally getting something to bloom after trying and trying and trying again.
Inevitably, it seems, the failures are what stick with you. With me, anyway.
You may have the best roses in town, but you don’t see them because you’re down on your hands and knees trying to find the blankety-blank Limerock Ruby Coreopsis, for which you spent way too much money.
So, it is with great pride that I tell you how the moonflower vine I started from seed two years ago is finally blooming.
Its Latin name is lpomoea alba. It is often the centrepiece of the white night-blooming gardens that you read about in gardening magazines. Every article tells you that the intoxicating scent of the 10-20 foot vine is its best feature.
The first year I got a few seedlings going, gave a couple away to my friend Mike and promptly watched mine all croak.
Mike got his going up his old TV aerial and gave me a seedling this spring. I planted it right outside the front door, where it proceeded to devour the porch. I spent one Saturday afternoon on a ladder, trying not to destroy the hosta while I put up some netting so that the post woman would not charge the vine with assault causing bodily harm.
Finally, last week, a few weird, corkscrew buds appeared and then the chunky, very large flowers (white with a small yellow centre) followed. And the fragrance....oh my. Well worth the wait.
Only problem is that now I have to stay up past my bedtime to catch the first scent and rush out early in the morning to catch the dying one.
That elusiveness is definitely part of the attraction, though.
Who knew gardening could be such a clandestine experience?

What lessons will the world take from the disaster we have watched unfold, with such calamitous results, in New Orleans?
It makes you wonder if anyone’s paying attention when you hear American politicians proclaim proudly that they will rebuild the city in the same location.
Reconstructing a sinking city that is 80 per cent below sea level is just plain pig-headed.
When they do rebuild the city, will any care be taken to avoid repeating the mistakes that made it largely indefensible to the hurricane everyone knew would eventually blow the place down?
The pattern of development in New Orleans is a pattern that has been repeated in communities across North America, including Mississauga. Wetlands, the natural buffers that act as sponges and filters in times of flooding, have been routinely stripped for development, leaving communities much more vulnerable to natural calamities.
In New Orleans, the delta that acted as a shield for the city was disappearing at the rate of an acre every 24 minutes, according to an article in Scientific American magazine in October of 2001. That article began with the fateful words, “New Orleans is a disaster waiting to happen.”
Of course, there were also lots of warnings about New Orleans from academics and scientists. Too bad they don’t contribute to political campaigns like developers do.
One of the signs of global warming is an increased number and increased intensity of extraordinary natural climactic events. While George Bush may consider global warming a conspiracy theory created just to confuse him, the reality of its effects are becoming more and more evident, starting with the melting polar ice cap. (Note to George: That’s not a new summer drink from Tim Hortons.)
Credit Valley Conservation and the Credit River Alliance have issued their own warnings about the rapid urbanization of the Credit watershed and its potential impacts on downstream flooding and, more importantly, on human health.
A report on the state of the ecosystem on CVC’s website (www.creditvalleycons.com) says water quality is already impaired in parts of the Credit. Only half of the recommended wetlands and forest cover remain in the watershed. Harmful sediment runoff continues. Groundwater is being taken without adequate regulation.
A number of plants and animals, and the key greenbelt corridors that sustain them, are threatened.
Former CVC General Manager Vicki Barron once told me that the prevailing attitude to water quality issues with both government and the public has been that, “ignorance is bliss.”
In the wake of New Orleans, we have yet another dramatic example of the connection between understanding, respecting and protecting natural systems and our own survival.
How many more object lessons do we need?
Think Hurricane Hazel. It can happen here.

Music truly is the international language and perhaps that’s why it’s so much fun talking to its practitioners.
I get to interview musicians periodically and I find they are the most tolerant of people. Many of them have truly eclectic tastes and enjoy a range of sounds that is stunning in its contrast.
After emailing Cynthia Steljes and Peter DeSotto, the Mississauga couple who founded Quartetto Gelato several years ago, I finally got to talk to them in a phone interview from Worland, Wyoming last week.
I must confess, I was totally ignorant of their work, which you could describe in its most accessible form as crossover classical. The beauty of the modern world is that you can hop onto the group’s website at www.quartetogelato.ca, hear samples of their stirring and somewhat quixotic music, read about their backgrounds and catch up on their reviews, which are uniformly excellent.
Quartetto Gelato is performing a special concert at the House that Mel Built (the Toronto Centre for the Performing Arts in North York) tomorrow night.
With the preliminaries out of the way, Peter and I got down to real business: finding common ground in our record collections.
“These are our books,” said Peter, an accomplished violinist who formed Quartetto Gelato with Cynthia largely to indulge his passion for singing opera, which he does extremely well, according to the critics.
He has some 1,500 LPs he spins on an old turntable when he gets a chance. He prefers older artists and his collection includes people you would expect, such as violinists Jasha Haifetz and David Oistrakh, Stephane Grapelli and Jean-Luc Ponty.
But, he has a huge collection of Cuban music and loves the work of Carlos Gardel, who invented the tango song before dying prematurely in a plane crash in 1935.
He loves Frank, Sarah (“She could have been an opera singer”), Ella (“What rhythm and her voice is a bell”) Mel Tormé (“He tailors his vibrato in the perfect spot”) and Judy Garland and Edith Piaf, who both had, “a haunting quality that just grabs you.”
DeSotto also enjoys Hank Williams and the bluegrass group, Riders in the Sky, to round out his rougher side.
His first musical love...wait for it: Frank Zappa. Yes, that Frank Zappa, the ’60s counter-cultural long-haired freak who penned Duke of Prunes, Call Any Vegetable and the immortal Brown Shoes Don’t Make It.
“When I was just 9 or 10 I knew the lyrics to every Frank Zappa record,” said DeSotto.
I guess our parents were wrong, the Mothers’ music didn’t wreck your brain, it just opened you up to more possibilities.

You know that old bicycle that’s been sitting in the corner of the garage gathering dust for the past few months? The one you just can’t bring yourself to drag to the curb for the garbage guys because it’s still in pretty good shape and isn’t really garbage at all?
Instead of putting it out, you can “Freecycle” it.
Freecycling is a concept that’s catching on across the globe, especially with the Internet generation.
I was introduced to it by my 22-year-old “green” daughter Chelsea, who suggested its use when we were doing the periodic purge of household items that aren’t used anymore. Instead of pitching them out, why not put a notice on the Internet and see if anybody else wants them, she suggested.
First you join the local freecycle group at www.freecycle.org. There are almost 1,000 Mississauga members now.
They post directly to the freecycle site. Members can choose to check the site or receive automatic e-mails telling them what’s available.
Then they make private arrangements for exchange, which must be free.
If you need something, you can also see if other members might have what you’re looking for.
So far, Chelsea has given away a poster of the group Slipknot and a toy sewing machine that made some youngster very happy on Christmas morning. A roll-away bed that was taking up space in our basement is now used by a family who houses exchange students.
Even my wife’s unwieldy chrome shelves, a vestige of her first apartment in the 60s, found a new home.
Although it’s called Freecycling it’s actually reuse, which is even better than recycling.
Just a word of advice, guys: if you want to keep those old Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issues you think she doesn’t know about, don’t try to freecycle her Harlequin romances.

For many people of my generation, the musical universe began and ended with Bob Dylan.
I remember watching CBC television with my dad, who was a huge folk music fan, and seeing a scrawny waif, with a corduroy cap cocked at a weird angle, strumming a guitar that almost dwarfed him. He was wearing a weird contraption around his neck that made him appear to have been attacked by a deranged orthodontist. (It was a harmonica rack, of course.)
His appearance may have been ridiculous at first glance but when his mouth opened, the results were sublime.
Mind you, the voice took some getting used to. The songs, however, were the work of someone with a mature world vision who had something to say.
In those days, Dylan was channeling his musical hero, Woody Guthrie. He endeared himself to my father immediately with a line in Song To Woody that mentioned many of the musicians he particularly admired (“Here’s to Cisco, and Sonny and Leadbelly too”).
We bought his first album and we were hooked.
Even then, you could tell that this guy had the magic turn of phrase, (“Once loved a woman, a child I am told”) and the dead aim (Masters Of War) that would make him an icon.
His songwriting got more visionary, more symbolic and more subject to interpretation as he went along. Dylan’s classic period of the early to mid-’60s has been the focus of Martin Scorcese’s documentary, No Direction Home, that has run for the past two nights on PBS.
In fact, understanding Bob’s songs became an industry in itself and I, like many other fans, have the stacks of old magazines and books to prove it.
So, after years of avoiding the spotlight, it is fascinating to see Dylan co-operate with what appears to be almost an official video biography. Appears is the key word. As always, the mask slips only as far as Bob wants it to.
He has always been the mystery tramp who plays tricks for you, hasn’t he?
He writes incredibly evocative lyrics that are open to endless analysis and re-analysis.
One of Dylan’s best songs, Ballad Of a Thin Man, says, “something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?”
Is the question addressed to the head-in-the-sand bigot who refuses to see the civil rights revolution on his doorstep, or to the parent who can’t accept his children’s different values, or to the music critics who can’t understand the clear message of lyrics that should stand for themselves?
More likely it’s addressed to the audience who want a definitive explanation of an art that can’t be defined.
Something is happening here, and, no, you aren’t supposed to know exactly what it is.
Which is probably a good thing. Now we’ll just have to dig out all those albums again and keep listening to all those brilliant, elusive songs.

What’s more of a political rarity than an outbreak of modesty from Brian Mulroney?
How about a chance to run for a seat on Mississauga council that’s not held by an incumbent?
How about a chance to run for two seats on Mississauga council that aren’t held by incumbents?
That’s what’s going to happen in a little more than 13 months when Mississaugans go to the polls to elect a council composed of a dozen members, rather than the 10 who have been in place since the City was created in 1974.
Change on City council seems to take place one seat at a time.
Essentially, the only way you can lose your seat is to be convicted of municipal corruption (Cliff Gyles) or to make an enemy of the old grey mayor who ain’t what she used to be. The latter fate befell councillors such as Larry Taylor and Ken Dear in years past.
It is only when a councillor retires that new seat generally become available, and generally one at a time. That’s how George Carlson got the Ward 6 seat in 2000, when David Culham moved on to the Ontario Municipal Board. And, it’s how Carmen Corbasson got her boss’ job in 1994, when Harold Kennedy retired.
Katie Mahoney and Pat Saito have been on council since 1992, Frank Dale and Nando Iannicca since 1988 and Pat Mullin and Maja Prentice since 1985.
“If you are serious, here is your shot,” says Iannicca, a keen observer of the inner machinations of politics at all levels.
Of course, the sitting councillors will be watching anxiously to see if any future would-be mayors put themselves forward in the open seats, which will be Ward 10 (Churchill Meadows and Lisgar, Osprey) and Ward 6 (Erindale Woodlands, Creditview and East Credit).
“I’ve made lots of new friends and I can have all the free coffee I want,” jokes Carlson, whose ward has been essentially divided in two. He’s running in the northern half. His magnanimous new friends are would-be candidates who want to pick his brains before they consider putting forward their names after Jan. 1.
If there are any big names out there who want to scare off the competition, they are likely to register quickly in the new year to try to scare off competitors.
Unfortunately, we are likely to see a repeat of the 2003 scenario where Eve Adams emerged from an unwieldy field of 21.
Many people are wondering if either Steve Mahoney or Carolyn Parrish, who have both indicated their interest in the mayoralty if and when Hazel McCallion ever steps down, will run.
Possible, but highly unlikely. Mahoney already knows the job, obviously. If he wants to serve again, he probably just rolls over one morning and asks Katie to retire. She probably tells him life’s a lot more interesting at higher levels of government and goes back to sleep.
As for Parrish, she sounded as if she truly hadn’t considered the possibility when I put it to her recently. She was probably too busy making up her mind about whether to run as an independent in the next federal election, or writing a fresh letter to the editor to The Toronto Star.
Any “name” candidate who thinks winning either of these wards will be a cakewalk should think again.
“Anyone who treats this as a quick stepping stone to the mayoralty will be judged harshly,” says Iannicca.
Even though he may have his own ulterior motives for making that statement, it’s undoubtedly the truth.
Next up: potential candidates.

Sue McFadden is running in ward 10. Ted Blackmore is running in ward 6.

And lots and lots of other people, from ex-councillor Ron Starr to political gadfly Brad Butt are thinking about the rare opportunity to win an open seat on Mississauga City council.

For McFadden, the two-term trustee from Ward 9 on the Peel District School Board, stepping up to council is a natural move. The 48-year-old lives in the ward and isn't shy about saying she'll provide the kind of representation residents are used to from Pat Saito, whose name she drops freely.

"I put a lot of faith in the community" to pick one of their own, says McFadden, who has put health problems behind her.

"Whoever runs better be able to prove they're there for the right reasons, not as a stepping stone to mayor," said the trustee.

Now that he's recovered from -yes, his back problems - chiropractor Ted Blackmore is planning to run in ward 6, where he lost to George Carlson in 2000. Blackmore was appointed councillor after Dave Culham moved on that year. He said he wouldn't run in the election, but changed his mind at the last moment.

The ward 10 resident wants to represent the same ward he served on council. "It's an older, established area I feel more comfortable with. There's something about getting my old job back that sounds good to me."

Butt, whose community credentials are impeccable and whose timing always seems to be horrid, says there's an outside chance he'd run. "We need two councillors elected who understand the big picture issues," said the host of the political show "Conflicting Interests" on Rogers Community Television.

Having already lost twice (to Nando Iannicca and Carmen Corbasson) in municipal election contests where he was a ward resident and the winner wasn't, Butt downplays the importance of residency, especially in open wards.

Former Ward 7 Councillor Ron Starr's name is everywhere these days as a potential candidate. Given his extensive business and development, charity and political tentacles, he's the guy who should have the TV show called Conflicting Interests.

Starr says several people have suggested he run. He'll be making a decision by the end of the year on whether to run and where to run.

Craig Lawrence, the 41-year-old owner of a jewelry store in Streetsville is seriously considering a run in ward 6, where he used to live. The vice-president of the Streetsville BIA ran against Nina Tangri for the provincial Tory nomination in 2003 and serves on Committee of Adjustment.

Former City Hall graphic artist and Ward 2 Peel Board Trustee Don Stephens is not running for council but may run in ward 6 where he lives, if Warren Kennedy doesn't seek re-election.

Others names floating around in cocktail conversation include former Mississauga Board of Trade President Russ McCall, many-time candidate, real estate man and film producer and actor Masood Khan, and planning consultant David Brown who used to work at 300 City Centre Dr.

And, oh yes, Mississauga News' Publisher Ron Lenyk's name has popped up on more than a few occasions as a potential candidate in ward 6 where he lives.

That's what happens when your picture gets in your paper more than the mayor's.

Asked if there's any truth to the rumours, Lenyk said "not even a little bit." He professed no interest in politics. "I plan to die in office," he said referring to the one in which he was sitting at the time, not one over at City Hall.

The mayoralty will once again be a foregone conclusion but that won't keep 70-year-old Roy Willis, who's lost almost as many elections as Hazel has won, from running.

Willis is telling everyone around town that he's going to put his name forward as an insurance policy, just in case McCallion's health should suddenly give out after nomination day and before the election.

Question of the day: What's more odious? An acclamation for the City's highest office or a political contest that isn't really a contest at all?

How do you wrap a seat belt around a pinball?
With a great deal of difficulty, as you might expect.
By now everyone’s heard the story of how Mike ‘Pinball’ Clemons left an Argo practice at UTM a week ago when he was stopped on Mississauga Rd. by a police officer for not wearing his seat belt.
The whole thing would have been a private incident, and soon forgotten, if Pinball didn’t happen to be in the middle of a live interview with Team 1200, an Ottawa all-sports radio station.
Of course, some of the interchange between Clemons and the OPP officer, Dennis Mahoney-Bruer, made it on air.
Clemons introduced himself to the officer and explained that he was being interviewed live.
“Well, I’ll tell you what Pinball, I need your licence. And, you need to say you’ll drive with your seat belt on,” the officer said.
The resulting spate of publicity did more for promoting seat belt safety than the hundreds of press releases that have been issued on the subject over numerous years.
I even heard the subject raised on an ESPN sports radio talk show in the United States, where two announcers mused about whether Pinball would have been distracted by the bright red coat of the RCMP officer (they called him Dudley Do-Right, of course) who stopped him.
Pinball wouldn’t say afterwards whether he got a ticket but I think it’s safe to assume he escaped with a warning.
Clemons just exudes niceness in a way that is rare for any person in public life. If we could convert the energy from that smile into electricity, our power crisis would be over.
Giving a ticket to the warm and cuddly coach would be tantamount to charging Bambi with speeding.
In a letter to the editor of The Globe and Mail yesterday, the OPP officer said, “I must say, in a side note, Mr. Clemons was a total gentleman and very apologetic for having this momentary lapse and reassured me he will wear it (his seat belt) in future, and to this, I have no doubt.”
Doesn’t exactly have the ring of, “See you in court, Mr. Clemons,” does it?

Imagine believing in an idea so much that you not only invest your whole life savings in it, but when you run out of money, you start paying your monthly mortgage on your credit card.
When you land $80,000 in debt and your cookbook idea has been shafted by every publisher in New York and far beyond, you keep moving ahead.
That’s what Janet Podleski and her sister Greta did a decade ago when they were putting together a cookbook featuring low-fat recipes. It was called Looneyspoons, probably because that’s the way the Podleski sisters, two Polish girls from a big family in St. Thomas, Ont., ended up after the experience: a little bit daft.
As they chatted with admirers yesterday afternoon at the Oasis Convention Centre in Lakeview, the Podleskis could laugh about the genesis of the little food empire they have now established.
They were signing copies of their third cookbook, Eat, Shrink And Be Merry for those attending Trillium Health Centre’s incredibly popular annual diabetes information forum.
I was pretending to be there as a reporter but I was really there to get autographs on all three of our books. They have been staples of our household’s meal-planning since we discovered Looneyspoons in an attempt to improve our diets after the cholesterol alarm in my doctor’s office began to wail when I walked through the door several years ago.
Yeah, the recipe names are funny (Thai It You’ll Like It) but all that really counts is that they are scrumptious. You would never know they are low-fat or that they are carefully constructed to maximize the good stuff and minimize the bad.
The overwhelming response from readers of the self-published books (with the assistance of Wealthy Barber David Chilton) told the Podleskis they were on the right track. Comments like “I got healthy by accident” make them smile even more than they already do, which is a lot.
There’s lots of bacon and cream cheese in their recipes and other things the food police would never allow.
“It’s okay to eat 80 per cent healthy and then 20 per cent of the time have what you crave,” said Greta who included a sinful chocolate layer cake recipe in the new book under the proviso: You’re Going to Die Anyway.
“The problem is that most of us have the 80 per cent and the 20 per cent reversed,” laughed Janet, who can’t cook worth a lick. (She once phoned Greta to ask how to make a tuna fish sandwich.)
The sisters’ new line of thin-crust whole-wheat frozen pizzas, by the way, is made by Mississauga’s own Molinaro’s Fine Italian Foods.
Eat Shrink And Be Merry was inspired when a friend of Greta’s told her he’d taken apples out of his kids’ lunches because they contained bad carbs.
“There’s so much confusion out there,” said Greta.
While the Podleskis dispel lots of myths in the detailed information they provide as sidebars to their recipes, the good news is that you only need to read those if you want.
All you really need to do is make the recipes. You’ll be hooked, I promise.
Greta said yesterday that the new book is better than the other two put together. This I do not need believe is possible.
However, in the interests of scientific, culinary research, I am willing to sacrifice my supper hour for the next several months to prove Greta wrong. The good news is that I don’t have to sacrifice my waist line in the process.
Here’s Greta’s favourite recipe from Eat, Shrink And Be Merry, which they’re already getting raves about from readers. It’s called Dilly Beloved.

Marinade:
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
3 tbsp. grainy Dijon mustard
2 tbsp. fresh dill
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
2 tsp. grated lemon zest
1 tsp. minced garlic
1/4 tsp. salt and fresh pepper

4 large skinless boneless chicken breasts (about 680 grams).

Whisk together marinade ingredients. Arrange chicken in glass or ceramic bowl in a tight, single layer. Pour on marinade, turn and coat chicken. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour and up to one day.
Preheat oven to 350 F. Place chicken on middle oven rack. Bake uncovered for 35 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink in the middle.
Spoon sauce from bottom of pan over chicken and serve immediately.

How can the Dufferin-Peel District Catholic School Board have been in existence since 1969 and never have elected a female chair?
For an organization that prides itself on its openness and on the growing diversity of its student, teaching and administrative populations, that’s a problematic and somewhat embarrassing question to answer.
Of course, there have been many more male trustees than female on the Catholic board over the years, which accounts for part of the reason no woman has broken through.
There certainly have been worthy candidates for the post, however.
I think of long-time Ward 6 and Ward 2 Mississauga Trustee Saundra Glynn, whose formidable intellect was obvious to all. It was probably too obvious to some of her intimidated male colleagues.
Glynn was clearly a competent leader and should have been chair.
More recently, it seemed that long-time Ward 8 Trustee Sally Fallon would inevitably become the first female chair. She was eminently qualified. It never happened and Fallon is now a Justice of the Peace.
Now another long-time female trustee is poised to try to break the male domination at the top of the board.
Esther O’Toole isn’t interested in running for the new Ward 10 seat on city council but she is interested in becoming Dufferin-Peel’s chair. She’s been on the board since 1991, has served on virtually every committee and is now vice-chair.
“If I’m re-elected, I’m going to stand for chair,” O’Toole told me recently. “It’s up to my peers but I really believe I’ve paid my dues.”
Unfortunately for O’Toole, experience shows that, in the patriarchal world of Catholic politics, that might not be enough.

Two stories on opposite pages of today's sports section of The Toronto Star couldn't help but catch your attention.
The first one explained why NHL hockey players aren't going to wear visors anytime soon despite yet another horrible near miss, in this case Leaf involving captain Mats Sundin, who was lucky not to have lost his eye when struck by a puck Wednesday night.
The other outlined how the National Basketball Association is imposing a dress code for players who sit in street clothes on the bench. They will not be allowed to wear 'do-rags, T-shirts or other outfits deemed inappropriate for the impressionable eyes of young fans. The new code will be imposed on players at court side and on the way in and out of arenas and in public appearances.
Soooooooo, let me see if I've got this straight. The NHL can't get a collective agreement with its players that mandates wearing a basic piece of safety equipment that could save a player's eyesight.
The NBA, on the other hand, has a collective agreement where players ceded management the right to impose the wearing of "business casual" attire, as a minimum standard, at all league functions.
What's wrong with this picture, besides everything?
The requirement for mandatory visors for hockey players is so logical that it defies belief that it has not happened yet. It should have happened in 1966 after Detroit Red Wing Doug Barkley lost the sight in one eye in a stick accident and had to retire.
This generation of players may want to foolishly risk their futures, but why don't they at least have the sense to use the grandfather clause so that new players joining the league are protected in future?
As for the NBA, they need a dress code ON the court. Why is Allen Iverson wearing Fat Albert's trunks all the time?
Do the players realize that their attire raises unfortunate images of droopy diapers in every parent watching a game.
Remember when hip hop was a Vince Carter travel to the basket rather than a clothing style that expresses a player's inner soul?

Thanksgiving is both the nicest and the most cruel weekend of the year.
We are lucky enough to have a cottage (in the family for four generations) where we can gather to celebrate together. We take gourds and Indian corn for the table centrepiece and then, on Sunday, in the warming sun of the late afternoon, we take a slow trek around the village, collecting multi-coloured leaves.
If we're lucky, as we were this year, we gather a few bright orange swinging blooms from a Chinese lantern plant as a finishing touch.
It's normally the last weekend for gardening so we cut back perennials, like the peonies, even if they're not really ready for it, and we mulch the beds, put manure around the rhubarb and plant some of the late-season bargains from the garden centre, then water them in like crazy.
Sunday supper is the epitome of what good times are all about, beginning with a dry martini. We broke with tradition this year and had a gin sour. Turkey and the trimmings follow.
Thanksgiving, of course, is for the tried and true in everything including food, drink and friends.
Then we face the mound of dishes and go for a "stumble around" the block in that semi-comatose satiated state brought on by one too many helpings.
The chill of the night air, which you can actually breathe, is invigorating. You can see smog-free stars everywhere.
On our return, we are greeted by the roar of a blaze in a fireplace that was actually built before the cottage was, so the building could be wrapped around it.
The sweetness of the celebration of Sunday is followed, unfortunately, by the official closing ritual of Monday.
The cottage is not winterized. That makes Monday a blur of packing boxes, filling garbage bags, stripping beds and using all of the data carefully gathered from years of study of various versions of CSI to try to identify ice-encrusted packages at the bottom of the freezer.
Then we wait for almost two hours until the last drip of water flows out of the system. A little anti-freeze, the last Herculean effort to squash everything into the trunk and one last glimpse of the lake.
Then we drive away from summer for another year.
The long line of tail lights that face us as we make our way through the nearby town is an all too telling reminder that all the mundane realities of everyday life lie dead ahead.

Mississauga's city centre has never been short of at least two commodities: grand visions and cars.
The grand visions have come from many sources, including homegrown developer Bruce McLaughlin who built Square One out of a cow field, to the cluck of consultants (that's the official term for a group of paid dreamers) who have produced a huge pile of reports on how to transform the corner of Hurontario St. and Burnhamthorpe Rd. W. into a people place.
As the City prepares to host yet another public meeting tonight as part of what has turned into the eternal building of a downtown, listen to the words that were written in The Mississauga News' 1982 community guide.
In that magazine, writers were gazing into their crystal ball, as everyone is wont to do with the city centre, to see how things could turn out.
"Ten years from now this new downtown will begin to change drastically as more high-rise, high-density buildings of startling design emerge on the Mississauga skyline," says the piece.
"By 1992, faddishly garbed teens may roller skate on a rooftop rink atop a 14-storey office complex, a skyward addition to the Square One Shopping Centre which, by then, will have been expanded outwards to include up to six major department stores. A network of walkways will link the civic centre to other innovative buildings in the city centre and an expansion of Square One."
Later on we are told, "here sidewalk cafes, covered walkways and a pedestrian-oriented plaza dotted with greenery and reflecting pools would enhance a new downtown Mississauga planners and politicians strive to make a reality."
Keep on striving guys. We've still got a long way to go, more than three decades after Square One opened.
The city centre has always seemed to be through the roof on rhetoric but way short on real delivery.
Yes, there are legitimate reasons for many of the problems that have plagued the core: McLaughlin's financial woes in the ’80s, the go-slow mentality of conservative British-based Hammerson which became the major player following McLaughlin, badly-timed economic slumps and the high cost of building underground parking in the rock-hard soil.
The Hershey Centre was scheduled to go downtown at one time, but that golden opportunity was missed.
How can a city centre built from scratch to avoid the mistakes of the past have no major park in the downtown core?
Where are the bistros and hole-in-the-wall clubs and niche art stores we were always promised?
As slews of condos finally start to get built along Burnhamthorpe Rd. W., the City is looking for input tonight about what citizens want to see in their downtown.
A company called PPS (does that mean it was hired as a really, really late afterthought?) has been hired from New York to tell us what we already know: that there needs to be more green space, pedestrian opportunities and fewer concessions to the almighty car.
They're floating the idea of closing the short sections of road just north and south of City Hall that link it to the Central Library and Living Arts Centre respectively. Great idea.
Councillors should do that yesterday. It would send a message that the City wants to take back the downtown from the car and give it to the public, to whom it rightfully belongs.
In a book he wrote years ago about his planning philosophy McLaughlin said he was striving to "structure the megalopolis and create a centre with its own heart.
"Mississauga is a bold concept," he added. "It is the first urban experiment in North America coming to grips with the totality of city life."
Shouldn't that totality include a much more human face on our city centre?

I felt better this morning as soon as I turned on my radio.
They were back: Andy Barrie, Kevin Sylvester, Jim Curran and Jill Dempsey.
The CBC lockout is over and Metro Morning is back on the air.
It seems silly to take solace in disembodied voices of people you've never met drifting out of your car radio, but, nevertheless, the feeling is there.
I guess I'm a product of my generation. I listen to other stations, especially for music, but in the end, I always come back to the CBC.
From programs such as Ideas to Definitely Not The Opera, CBC Radio is indispensable, as far as I'm concerned. It has programming that you just can't get anywhere else. For example, who else gives you the flavours of the pockets of regional jazz across this country other than Katie Malloch in the superb weekend show, Jazz Beat, which has been on the air for more than two decades?
Even their lockout programming was better than the inane patter of DJs playing formulaic formats on so many other stations. For one thing, we got to hear replays of the debates about the best songs of every decade of this century, which featured the expert opinions of people like Mississauga singer Alex Pangman and former Mississaugan Jeff Healey.
The CBC has always been about interesting, informed and authoritative voices. Think Max Ferguson, Peter Gzowski, Lister Sinclair (the sound of his resonant tones added two points to the IQ of everyone who listened to Ideas), Arthur Black and on television, Stanley Burke, Earl Cameron, Knowlton Nash, Peter Mansbridge and, of course, the immortal Howard The Turtle.
We are obviously now headed into a period of public flagellation for the CBC, otherwise known as reviewing its mandate for the umpteenth time.
It will try to get younger and hipper to attract a new generation of listeners, but I really don't think it has to. Quality programming will always find an audience.
On the drive to the cottage earlier this year my 19-year-old son Josh and I listened to a Saturday morning show called GO, hosted by Brent Bambury, which chose the top seven guitar solos of all time as nominated by listeners.
It was vintage CBC. Funny and heartfelt stories from listeners about how certain riffs and songs marked milestones in their lives.
I was thrilled that at least one of my vintage of guitar heroes, Amos Garrett, was on the list. Josh was peeved that nothing by the immortal Duane Allman made it. We agreed that Rambling Man or Jessica should have won.
We were bopping along in the car, having a good time, speculating on the next selection and providing running commentary on the readers' remarks. It was engaging and invigorating, which is exactly what the CBC has always been about.
Let's not let the dunderheads who run the Mother Corp. ever change that.

So why did she do it?
That's the question everyone is asking today in the wake of the decision by Carolyn Parrish not to run in the upcoming federal election.
The temptation must have been overwhelming for Parrish, that most egocentric of all of our egocentric politicians, to gauge her personal popularity with the public in a way few provincial or federal politicians ever can.
While that likely would have been a fascinating academic study in name recognition, such a decision is foolhardy and would ultimately have been a waste of time and effort for everyone except Conservative Party candidate Bob Dechert. He surely would have won the seat easily in such a vote-splitting scenario between Parrish and the official Liberal candidate.
Parrish, who may be foolhardy but is no fool, either reached the logical decision that she couldn't win or, more likely, decided that life in the isolation chamber in Ottawa is even less fulfilling than eternal damnation on the Liberal backbenches.
In her resignation letter there was a statement, in bold faced-type, that, "In all careers there comes a logical time to move on, to make room for others who also have a strong desire to serve. For me, that time will coincide with the next federal election in which I will not be running."
Some people at City Hall are taking this as a subtle suggestion to the reigning Queen of the City that the would-be Queen is getting impatient in the green (with envy) room and would like to plan a retirement party really soon.
Some Parrish paranoids are already convinced that she will run for the newly-created open City council seat in Ward 6 a year from now and serve an apprenticeship for mayor.
That does make sense, although the last time I spoke to her, Parrish seemed to suggest that would be seen as a step down.
Would the many forces who despise Parrish put forward their own candidate and try to eliminate her from mayoralty contention by inflicting an embarrassing loss in Ward 6? They might try but she would be difficult to beat in a community she has long served. She would also have the full assistance of her good friend and her riding association president, current Ward 6 Councillor George Carlson.
So where does Parrish's long-time spitting and sparring partner, Steve Mahoney, fit into all this?
Mahoney told me yesterday that, while everyone is assuming he would be the logical candidate for appointment as the Liberal candidate in Mississauga-Erindale (he and Parrish even had a war over the name of the riding) his first priority is...local politics.
He wants to run for mayor or regional chair, if either of the incumbents, who were both on the first Peel council in 1974, ever decide to give up the gavel.
"It would be hard if I was an MP for a few months or a year and I had to resign and come back to run for mayor," should Hazel McCallion change her mind about running for her 10th term as mayor, Mahoney said.
If rumours about Emil Kolb stepping down as Peel Chair materialize, Mahoney would definitely be interested in that job.
Which sets up some interesting scenarios. Under the new voting regime at Peel, Mississauga will have a dozen votes and Brampton and Caledon combined will also have a dozen.
Suppose there's a Mississauga candidate and a northern candidate.
The pressure would be on big time from McCallion to vote for Mahoney if he were Mississauga's nominee.
If Parrish happened to be the newly-minted Ward 6 councillor, what would she do?
Would Mahoney's wife Katie, the current Ward 8 councillor, have to declare a conflict of interest in such a vote?
Food for thought.
One thing about Carolyn Parrish is certain: unless she has serious health issues that would keep her from serving, she will be back, in one race or another. It's hard to imagine anyone who has politics more deeply ingrained in their soul.

Shannon Butcher has been going through all of her old Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong records, listening carefully to the backing by different versions of the Oscar Peterson trio that was the house band for some much of the superb Verve catalogue of the 1950s.
"I'm putting all those CDs on my iPod," she says. "I'm putting together a little Oscar playlist."
The problem is, there isn't a little Oscar playlist, there's only a large one.
"He's recorded everything," Butcher says with an admiring sigh.
The 29-year-old jazz singer, born and raised in Sheridan Homelands and a graduate of the special arts program at Cawthra Park Secondary School is getting a rare opportunity this week: she's on the bill with one of the most beloved artists in her field, or in any other field.
"It's pretty thrilling," says Butcher, who's main gig these days is with SwingRosie, the throwback swing-era vocal trio who are reviving and refreshing the music of the 1930s and ’40s.
"It's unbelievable. It's very flattering to have this opportunity."
Peterson, who still tours the world, has agreed to do a fundraising concert in his own backyard to get the enriched music and arts program at Oscar Peterson Public School off to a good start. The pianist, a 33-year resident of Mississauga, has always been a huge supporter of music education in schools and frequently lends a hand at many different levels.
When the Peel District School Board named a school in his honour this September, he wanted to do more than just provide a photo opportunity.
It's going to be an eclectic line-up starting with two children's choirs from the school, through Butcher's jazz combo to the legend himself.
A friend of Butcher's, Kirsten Fielding, who went to the University of Toronto with her and now teaches at the school thought of including the musician because Thursday's show is also going to be a showcase of the musical prowess of Peel's public schools.
Butcher's band includes Ross MacIntyre on bass and Sly Juhas on drums, both graduates of Cawthra, like Butcher. William Sperandei, who has studied trumpet with Ellis Marsalis, is a product of a Brampton high school. Hamilton pianist Adrian Farrugia rounds out the group.
"It's great to have all these kids introduced to jazz at such a young age," says Butcher about the concert.
"They may not know who Oscar Peterson is but I hope they enjoy it and remember it for a long time. I know I will."

What's the cost of disagreeing with Mississauga City Hall?
Well, if you are interested citizen Stephen Wahl and you take your objections to the City's new ward boundaries to the Ontario Municipal Board, the cost could be $8,795.16.
That's the amount of the invoice that the City has asked Wahl to pay for the costs it incurred at a Sept. 14 OMB hearing.
Talk about your political overkill. Is City Hall going to get into the business of punishing citizens for exercising their rights to express a contrary opinion to the gospel according to She Who Must Be Obeyed Because She Never Will Retire?
Apparently so.
Now, don't get me wrong. Wahl should have known better than to show up before the OMB without a lawyer, with no real witnesses and with accusations of "gerrymandering" that he could back up only with fuzzy recollections of statements at city council meetings.
But, wasn't the embarrassment that Wahl put himself through at the Board, and the slagging of councillors at a subsequent council meeting, enough suffering?
After all, OMB Vice-Chair Susan Campbell dismissed Wahl's case in a heartbeat, without even retiring from the room to consider her rationale. She reprimanded him strongly.
"The allegation of gerrymandering gives the apprehension of this being a frivolous and vexatious appeal," she said.
Council took that statement as a licence to pile on.
Why is council being so hard on an ordinary working Joe to whom $8,700 is a big pile of dough?
"Muzzle," says long-time City Hall watcher Roy Willis, another political gadfly like Wahl who loves to stir the pot. "They want to keep him quiet so they're telling him don't do that anymore."
If Wahl's actions are frivolous and vexatious, what does that make those who would crush a long-time citizen-volunteer for having the temerity to questions the motives of politicians setting political boundaries? How about malicious and mean-spirited?

Even in the short drive from the funeral home to Streetsville United Church, where more than 300 people were waiting on Tuesday to honour his remarkable life, John Emerson's impact on Streetsville was visibly evident.
His body was taken past the gateway to the pioneer cemetery, a gateway that he designed with the intricate attention to detail that was his trademark.
The hearse turned near the brick wall at the Streetsville Memorial Park that celebrates the contributors to the Bread and Honey Festival, another structure that the 74-year-old, who died last Friday, created.
Out on Queen St. S., the procession passed by the heritage house that Emerson and his wife of 41 years, Sandra, had lovingly kept and filled with mementoes of bygone eras and with the art work that infused their lives together.
The new Business Improvement Area banners fluttering in the breeze have an image of the Credit Valley Railroad Station on one side. On the other side is a photograph taken from the front of the Timothy Street house. On the request of the BIA, Emerson had dug up the photo from the enormous archives of historic materials he could seem to put his fingers on at any moment.
In a life where many of us struggle to find one thing to be good at, John Emerson seemed to be good at just about everything to which he turned his gifted hand.
"We always thought of dad as a renaissance man," said eldest son Bruce as he and brothers Brian and Douglas gathered around their mother a few hours after the funeral and marvelled at the impact their father had made on so many lives.
He listed his father's potential job descriptions as teacher, mentor, artist, musician, engineer, architect, landscape designer, gardener, arborist, builder, historian, archaeologist, geographer, photographer and raconteur, to name a few.
"He probably had an influence on any piece of art produced in Canada in the last 30 years," said Bruce, referring to Emerson's 24-year career at the University of Toronto, where he was teacher, friend and mentor to several generations of new teachers. Many of them attended the ceremony, much to the delight of the family.
Sandra Emerson, who along with her husband was the lifeblood of the Streetsville Historical Society, conducted a tour through the heritage house that is filled with Emerson's tool collections, his sketches and the maps he loved, his piano and an eclectic collection of old light bulbs, canning bottles, soup cans etc.
In the backyard is the garage that Emerson designed. The "sketch" of the structure he did initially for the City of Mississauga's building department was so precise that it was accepted as the official architectural rendering required by the municipality.
The backyard also is home to a heritage fruit tree. The beautiful but bitter yellow fruit of the quince glisten in the sun and light up the backyard at this time of year.
A quirky tree whose selection demonstrates a lot of the qualities that defined John Emerson: a raging intellectual curiosity, a deep respect and understanding of the past and a telling eye for the artistic beauty and complexity that abounds in the natural world.

The rumour mill is already hard at work churning out potential appointees for the Mississauga-Erindale seat that MP in waiting-to-leave Carolyn Parrish is keeping warm.
And we don't mean the obvious potential selection of Parrish's arch-enemy, Steve Mahoney.
Believe it or not, high-profile names like former NDP Premier Bob Rae, whose star is rising fast in the party that thinks it will rule forever, and Michael Ignatieff, acclaimed author, academic and broadcaster, are floating around as potential appointees to the seat by Prime Minister Paul Martin.
While those names seem far-fetched, one rumour really is gaining Ben Johnson-sized legs. It says that the Grits will appoint the Prime Minister's frequent golfing buddy, Charles Sousa, a senior manager at the Royal Bank of Canada who tried but failed to wrest the nomination in Mississauga South away from Paul Szabo last time around.
Sousa is bright, connected, and capable and has the potential to step right onto the front benches. The Gordon Graydon graduate was co-chair of John Tory's unsuccessful campaign for Toronto mayor in 2003.
The likelihood of an appointment by the PM has many noses out of joint in Mississauga-Erindale, of course. Parrish announced her intent not to run now mainly because she doesn't want Ottawa to have any excuses for not holding an open nomination for the post.
Many of Parrish's supporters from various local communities have aspirations to succeed her. The screening process has already begun and three have already submitted their applictaions to become candidates, with a half-dozen more waiting to do so. The names don't get officially released until after they've been screened.
Among those not yet applying but definitely interested are Elias Hazineh of the Palestinian community who works in Parrish's constituency office and George Winter, former school board trustee and a teacher with the Toronto District School Board.
However, before anyone commits to selling a lot of memberships in the association, which already has nearly 3,700 members as a result of the Mahoney-Parrish fracas, and putting together a campaign team, they'd like to know if Ottawa will pull the rug out from under them at the last minute and simply appoint a candidate.
The association has already decided to seek a nomination between mid-November and mid-December.
Can't you imagine the Prime Minister opening the envelope, stomping on a Carolyn Parrish doll and whispering just loud enough to be heard by nearby reporters, "Damn Mississaugans. I hate the bastards."

They're back: Wayne Middaugh, Kerry Burtnyk, Jennifer Jones, even gum-smacking, frizzy-haired, Springsteen-loving weather girl Colleen Jones.
Thank goodness sanity has prevailed in the insane world of curling politics - yes there is such a thing - and the best armchair sport in the world, save football, will be back where it belongs on TSN this year.
Even better than having the curlers back is having Vic and Ray and Linda back.
Vic Rauter, Ray Turnbull and Linda Moore are the homey broadcast team who settle into our living rooms ever February and March to bring us the Scott Tournament of Hearts and the Brier.
They were knocked off the air last year when the Canadian Curling Association in a predictably daft move gave the contract totally to CBC, which had nowhere to put it except on a digital channel called Country Canada that was licensed to carry only a minimal amount of live sports. Herding cows is not a sport, by the way.
The semi-finals and finals have always been on CBC but we curling junkies were used to seeing draws in the mornings, afternoons and some evenings during the round-robin on TSN.
There were howls of protest over the change.
After much skirmishing, the parties have agreed that the public actually has a point and they're going to go back to the way things were. Isn't that so damn Canadian of us?
While curling was the ostensible reason for the protests, I think Canadians really just missed curling up on the couch with a hot tea and Vic, Ray and Linda. We missed Ray's telestrater dyslexia, Vic's feigned ignorance of basic strategy intended to generate disagreements from his mates and Linda's incredible capacity to anticipate the game.
Yes, I know. Curling is not a sport. It's so boring. Nothing ever happens. Yada. Yada. Yada.
That's what I always thought, too, until I actually watched some of it. My aunt Mary (she of the Fritterfest and Rainbow Festival volunteer teams) was a curler and insisted on watching it. Lo and behold, I found myself becoming intrigued.
It is the ultimate television sport because of the microphones on the curlers and the delicious opportunities to second-guess strategy. It's as if you are hearing Bobby Fisher talk to himself as he thinks about what move he'll make next against Boris Spassky.
The personalities, or lack of them, of the curlers also emerge in a way they don't in any other sport.
We've watched Kevin Martin grow from a spoiled brat who brought out the corn brooms when he was getting thrashed in a world championship to a man who could lose the Olympic championship by a couple of inches and react with grace and good humour.
Curling is back where it belongs. Hurrah! Let the first Karcher commercial begin.

Do you remember one of the first Mary Tyler Moore shows where perky, perky Mary tries to make a really great first impression by showing the old curmudgeon newsroom boss, Lou Grant, that she's well...really, really perky?
"You've got spunk," Lou says. Pause. "I hate spunk."
Well, Mississauga's own Alex Pangman has spunk, and you've got to love it.
Pangman, who is a real Mississaugan who attended Froebel School in Erindale Village, high school at Erindale Secondary and university at Erindale College. She has just released her third CD of old-time jazz and swing tunes.
It wasn't easy. Despite all kinds of critical praise from across the country, where she's toured and played so many festivals, no major label was interested.
"I'm no business woman, I'm a singer," Alex said recently. Nevertheless, she's managed to set up her own label and got the fabulous music, recorded with her top-flight A-list band of Toronto musicians called The Alleycats, on Real Gone Gal Records.
If you want to succeed in music these days, you often have to become your own corporation: booking agent, travel agent, manager and, if you have time, star.
Pangman clearly is in charge of her own career. She's been thinking for a long time about the next studio album, which was to have been recorded in New Orleans next month. Oops.
She's written some of her own songs and is writing more. She's already recorded a couple of duets with the jazz singer and pianist Denzal Sinclaire, who attended Applewood Heights once upon a time, and is coming to LAC for a Dec. 16 show.
There's also a little bit of country creeping into Pangman's soul, probably as a result of the influence of boyfriend Tom "Colonel" Parker, the leader of The Backstabbers Country Stringband. That roots group which plays mou