From Spannerbook: Carte Blanche

Spannerbook

hat-and-mug The first headline to finally cut through the President Trump news tsunami on my feeds was “Mosul battle: IS hangs bodies of 40 civilians from poles in Iraqi city, UN says” on November 11th. The Daesh are feeling the heat and are reacting as classic fascists do; killing civilians, getting teenagers and children to suit up and do their dirty work, sending out the suicide bombers into the markets of the unarmed and defenceless as only cowards can do. Are they finished? It’s very difficult to wipe out an ideology. You can beat it back but the latent period will end eventually. An entrenched idea will inevitably regain traction in the greater consciousness. Sometimes it’s a slow burn and other times it’s as if a switch has been flicked. Trump is insistent he is going to take care of ISIS but he seems to have unleashed a taste of an…

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From Spannerbook: The Best Deal in Town

Spannerbook

It’s a constant, valiant and mostly thankless struggle to keep a city’s infrastructure working properly. The only time people notice it is when it fails or is getting replaced. York Road looks like a war zone these days but when it’s finished, it will be a showpiece. In about a month, everyone will marvel at the freshly paved tree lined street with a bike lane that will score a perfect 10 on the Guelph Factor scale. What they won’t see are the tons of new water pipes for both supply and waste below the surface. The only visible change for the sewers will be that each cast iron drain lid has a fish stamped into it. This will hopefully prevent those who are tempted to dump liquid waste down a street grate from doing so, keeping it out of our various bodies of water. If caught, you will immediately be…

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The Weekender: Tytler Library – You’ve Already Built It, They Will Come

Spannerbook

I’ve been convinced for at least a decade that Tytler School was going to be swept up in the outbreak of condo mania we’ve seen in the past few years in The Ward. It’s in an ideal location and ripe for conversion, possessing the correct combination of retro hip cred, a sizable potential parking lot and location x3. Currently, it’s officially known as the Couling Crescent Holding School, where French Immersion kids are patiently waiting for the construction of said school, a purpose built quasi-private institute for the FI Movement. Tytler somehow went from “expensive to maintain” to “well maintained” overnight, needing only “cosmetic touch ups” to enable it to be used as a holding pen for a school that did not physically exist. Couling is well off the beaten path; as of writing it’s an array of cinderblocks and mud, so Tytler will be occupied for a while yet…

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From SpannerBook: Scotty Hertz and the Tunnel of Secrets

It’s probably due to the ancient coding buried deep within our makeup that stories of secret tunnels and hidden chambers continue to thrill. Two thousand years ago, loads of humans on the planet lived short rough lives in houses that would qualify as earth bunkers. Ever wonder why some people call their living quarters “digs”?