Sometimes wading into the online debate and trying to make
common sense of the issues is like yelling at chestnuts for being lazy. If
you’re interested in sampling some of the Whitmanesque wit that makes up the Guelph
political discourse, one needn’t look any further than the comment section on
the latest blog post at 59 Carden St.
The topic du jour was last week’s unveiling of a new logo
for Guelph Transit, a mitigating nugget of public relations to help cover for
the fact that we won’t actually get our new routes and schedule till the late
fall, and won’t step foot in the inter-module transit hub till next spring.
Many of the comments were about the wasteful cost of an obviously aesthetic
manoeuvre, but never underestimate the anonymity of the internet to allow for
the most puerile and base comments to be made in the name of “debate.”
Let’s scroll down, as it were, to a couple of comments in
particular. “Waiting for a slow, roundabout ride that almost gets you there,
accompanied by the smelly freak show, is for people who can't afford better,”
said a regular poster named Grumpy Old Corporal. Adds Doug, of no fixed last
name, “If you think that a new logo and slogan will get me out of my car, so I
can ride with drooling, mumbling staggering, rude, loud, profane, sloppy and
the freak show of Guelph. You're
crazy!”
First of all, you know your day’s gone topsy turvy when
Grumpy Old Corporal is the voice of reason, and regulars on 59
Carden Street know what I’m talking about. Second
of all, would these guys say any of this aloud if not for the anonymity of the
internet? I’d bet my bus fare that if Doug or Grumpy ever come into direct
contact with the Hills Have Eyes mob from central casting that is
apparently the transit using population of Guelph, they’d be too busy trying to
not lose control of their bowels.
But this isn’t about the not-so-startling lack of civility
on the internet. This piece is about a tonal shift I’ve been sensing in Guelph
for some time now. (Hence the above name of the piece.) Now granted, the
internet is a terrible place to gauge the temperament of people on average
since it typically attracts extremists from both ends, but I’m thinking of
something more basic. A gut feeling. This isn’t the city that fought Wal-mart
tooth and nail for 10 years. This isn’t the town that revels in, as my friend
Oliver from CFRU observes, being the Berkley of Canada. Heck, this isn’t even
the place they took Mondex for test drive in back in the 90s.
Remember Mondex? It was to the debit card what HD-DVD was to
Blu-Ray. Never mind.
I guess what I’m trying to say, simplistically, is Guelph
used to be cooler. Don’t get me wrong, Guelph can still be cool, and is
infinitely more cooler than, say, Burlington, but I do feel, what I will call a
“Stepford Effect,” creeping into the works. The Stepford Effect, of course
referring to Bryan Forbes’ subversive cult classic, where in people start
imposing a set of characteristics on a city for what it should be, not what it
can be or what it is. A city should have low taxes, lots of shopping, malleable
borders, a quiet downtown, and no roustabouts with a cause ready to disrupt.
The assumption now is that Guelph,
as it was, is wrong. Being known as the place that held out for so long against
Wal-Mart is bad for business. Being known as a place where conscientious
objectors occupied green space to try and stymie urban sprawl is bad for
business. Despite the fact that our downtown is a centre of arts of culture,
you better not put up posters to promote and celebrate that culture because the
city will slam you with fees. Then, when its time for a budget crunch, we’ll
always make sure to cut transit first, because no one worthy of being pandered
to takes public transit. Oh, and by the way, in the one area of the city where
we know the highest concentration of low-income people live, we’ll support the
closing of the area’s only discount store and replace it with a mid-priced
furniture outlet, because there’s one thing our city’s poor needs it’s not
paying a cent on a new living room set till 2013.
As with any editorial piece, I don’t mean to say that my way
is the right way, but the intent, like with all my editorials this summer, is
to try and get people to think and promote dialogue. This is the complete
opposite of the intent of the above comments discussed, but it seems like this
the only kind of conversation that counts anymore. As we head into a new
election cycle, let’s try and reverse that trend together.
And now, on with the news…
Posts
