Right On! Blog

How many of you driving down the roads these days have seen these swinging from pickup truck trailer hitches?

What will they think of next?

My Toronto Zoo pass expires this month.  I am not renewing it.  I have had one for four years.  The only good thing I can say about having one is that if we got to the Zoo and it was a madhouse, we could always turn around and come back another day without feeling the pressure to stay.

The Zoo is not cheap.  It costs $8 to park and then (if you’re unlucky enough not to get a close spot to the entrance), you haul yourself to the entrance to pay another $20 per adult (age 13+) and $12 per child.  You have to ask for a map if you want to know where you’re going once you’re in there (they are not offered to you nor are there any to pick up once you get in) and then you’re in with acres of land to trek to see (if you’re lucky) a few animals.  Oh, you also have to pay for anything “fun” once you’re in on top of what you paid to get in (the Zoomobile [$7/person], camel rides, pony rides, etc. [$6/person]).  And let’s not even talk about the price of food in there (many moons ago there used to be a McDonald’s which was affordable – apparently that was a bad idea).

You’d think with all the money it costs to get in a do things, the Zoo would be top notch.  Ha!!!  The place is as rundown as it can be.  According to the Zoomobile tour guide, this is called “letting nature take its course”.  Uh-huh.  This is called “let’s spend the money on anything but the Zoo”.  My eldest daughter’s class adopted a snow leopard last year (the Zoo is big on people “adopting” their animals – more money!).  The day after they adopted it, the Zoo sent an E-mail to their teacher, telling her that the 2 year old leopard had died.  Did they get their money back?  No.  Wonder what happened to it?  They certainly didn’t get a shot at another, more robust, animal.

Like I said, I’ve had a pass for four years.  I can count on one hand how many times I’ve seen certain animals in the Zoo during those four years (and we went fairly often – to get our moneys worth out of the pass, not for the love of the Zoo).  This year, we were invited (being Members) to a “sneak peek” of the stingray exhibit.  Guess what?  It cost money to get into!  No mention of that in the invitation.  Of course, being a Member, I paid a whopping dollar less per person than Joe Average, but still.  All we did was stand there and look at the rays (since the deaths of the rays in Alberta, no one’s allowed to touch them anymore).  I saw larger rays in Florida for free.  In their own habitat!  Imagine that.

The entire Americas section is under construction.  Does anyone know that?  Of course not.  There’s no mention of it anywhere in the Zoo.  Poor people are slogging around to the back of the Zoo (which takes quite a while to get to since it’s laid out so crazily) only to find that there are no animals.  Lots of machinery, though.  You’d think they could put up a sign at the entrance telling people not to bother going back there.  I suppose that would take some money which they don’t seem to like using (at least for Zoo purposes).

I am not renewing my pass.  Sorry Toronto Zoo.  You just don’t utilize yourself well enough to deserve my money anymore.  If we feel the need to see some animals, we’ll go to the Bowmanville Zoo.  It’s not large, but it makes up in size for the proximity and number of animals.  They deserve my hard earned money (plus they do a show that you don’t have to pay for!).  Gotta love that.

Mainly because countries like China aren’t part of it.

China is considering even more stringent measures to control pollution as Beijing continues to be shrouded in smog less than two weeks before the Olympics.

Apparently China has or is about to pass the US in total pollution output.  Hopefully the world will see this in the Olympic coverage.

Howard had a great story about Michael Pardue, who was apparently wrongfully convicted, released, and is now struggling to survive (and get some sort of compensation).

In 1973, just a few short years after Dylan’s beat generation anthem was a national hit, Pardue was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In 1997, all charges against him were dropped. This story should have a happy ending by now but on the Richter scale of justice, this one is off the charts. In a logic-defying decision, Pardue remains behind bars for another crime: escape.

Remind me not to get wrongfully convicted in Alabama.

This girl has the voice of an angel.  Who knew she was one of those actresses that didn’t actually think she could sing!

A powerful photo shoot of the Chernobyl disaster.

I didn’t remember that it was a deliberate act started by Moscow.

The low level drug industry is replacing the auto industry, not to mention the burgeoning prison industry.

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On 16 hectares once used by Chrysler to house automobiles sits Ryan Road’s best-kept property, more than a dozen buildings bordered by four-metre fences topped with coils of razor wire and five gun towers.

A new approach is needed.  Watching the show DEA/Detroit is one of the most depressing, yet boring shows.  Same old huge DEA officers busting low level black men drug users/distributors in abandoned houses around the city.  I guess they go away for 10-20 years unless they turn state evidence.  There must be a better way, but stopping the police/prison industry once it gets rolling is probably very hard to stop.

Let this be a warning to Canadians – Michigan and NY State treat drug offenses VERY seriously.  Don’t even think of crossing the border with even a whiff of a controlled substance.

Amazing pictures of the Chinese getting ready for the Olympics.

I will be watching just to see how a dictatorship can run a world-staged event.  It’s amazing what you can do when you control that many people. 

Even those of us that are pro-DP can hardly stomach this story.

False accusations and injustices happen everywhere, but the fact that her accuser was a full-grown man and she was a little girl meant, in Iran—given the general Islamic devaluation of women—that the court was more likely to accept the absurd proposition that she would have been able to kill an eight-year-old boy by slamming him against the wall than it was to accept the much more plausible story recounted below.

It’s important to know what Iran is capable of, since it looks like they make be next in the new MidEast War.

Imagine a building this big sitting empty for 10 years in Toronto.  Detroit is one of the saddest cities in one of the saddest states of America.  Let’s hope they can turn it around there.  How I do not know.

Who knew there was a whole website devoted to this and more buildings.

Forget these overpriced baseball players – here is a real hero.

It’s like this with Dr. DeBakey. Seventy-five years of firsts and foremosts, achievements and awards. His list of accomplishments is so utterly titanic, his resume requires an intermission, a bit of time for the reader to stretch his legs and refuel for the second half.

We’ve heard of enough people that have killed lots of people – how about someone who has saved, both directly and indirectly, whole cities worth, heck, maybe even whole countries worth!

I cannot believe that one of the world’s greatest heroes was subjected to an ethics committee to determine eligibility!

Then there’s Dr. Michael DeBakey, the pioneering heart surgeon who died July 11 at age 99. Two years ago, DeBakey underwent an aortic-dissection repair procedure that he himself had long before devised – but only after doctors convened an ethics committee to decide whether it was appropriate.

Couldn’t agree more with this article on the Bay and Zellers chains.

I can’t understand how they’ve made enough money to keep going for the past 10 years.

Once more, it’s clear from this article that it’s time for the TTC to abandon the streetcar.  I would love to see the cost savings of ridding the TTC of track, wire, and streetcar maintenance.  Not to mention all the massive service delays caused by the old trains.  They make no sense, are inflexible, and are clearly costing a fortune now and in the future.

How they are such an untouchable is testament to the amazing screaming engineer male wannabee activists that shout down every attempt to scrap the dinosaurs.  The Toronto Sun should get behind this fiasco, and give up on its stupid push to scrap the Gardiner.

The TTC has failed to attract a single qualified bidder for a historic $1.25-billion contract to replace its aging streetcar fleet.

This is why it’s so hard to let your kids be “free range kids”.

A Quebec man in his 50s has been arrested by police after a bizarre kidnapping involving a young boy who was found alive inside an old heating oil tank.

A cattle prod to the testicles for the pedophile is all I can think of…I hope to G*d he wasn’t molested.