Here it comes.

Four execrable things:

1. Anonymous-ish hate mail.

Starting a couple of months ago with my pleas for folks to climb off the crapper and to help Neto, I’ve been getting comments that are, to put it mildly, aggressive from a reader who took offense at my efforts to help a haplessly blinded young man.

Since all come from the same IP it was easy, thanks to the nice blacklisting tools here at WordPress, to remand these to my spam collection, but I still like to inspect that queue from time to time to make sure legitimate comments aren’t being removed as well. And in the last 24 hours or so, I get these:

Yesterday (Friday), 9:06AM:

You are such a monumental blowhard. My God, have you no shame, pontificating of what you know not of? Your certifications qualifying you teach have got to be well crafted forgeries. Please stop! Please, I and the rest of society beseech you, implore you to stop suffocating us with the despicably dull details of your inane existence. Jesus Fuck, I would pay you to shut up you hirsute self-aggrandizing bore. And so we’re clear, Manzo, in a very short while – weeks – you and you fraudulent life as an academic and homosexual will be known to the world, exposed for the fakery it all is, so please, coward that you are, keep rejecting my comments, which I’m sure you doing for fear that since I speak the truth my posting may inspire the kind of mass public reaction that had you run out of Toronto. And again, shut the fuck up!

Last night, 12:48AM:

Shut the Fuck Up! Stop Writing! You and Your Life Are Meaningless MotherFucker! Oh, Your Hate and Rants Oh Dear, We Have To Wait While Your Heart Melts – Jesus Fuck You are Such An Hairy Idiot. Are You Even Breathing? Connected In Some Way to the Reality Around You? A Fund Should Be Started To Get That Poor Man You Hold Captive as Your “Husband” Rescued From the Clutches Of A Pompous Aging Fake! Free Brian! Free Brian! Fuck, Free Brian!

Today- and this is a SATURDAY- 6:54AM:

Oh My God You Are The Fucking Worst. Jesus Fuck, Are You Being Bribed To Write This Shit About The World’s Worst Pretend City? On The Fucking Take From City Hall Or Is This Garbage A Way To Justify Your Hapless Life? You Fucking Need To Placed In A Public Square On Display For The Pompous Idiot Fuck You Are, Where Citizens Can Hurl Insults And Spoiled Food At Your Dough-like, Hirsute Head! Jesus Fuck Shut Up!

This freak sent me an earlier bit of vitriol in which he claimed that he was writing from the US (”our gain is Canada’s loss”). But as should be expected from somebody who is mentally… distracted… he doesn’t realise that his IP is searchable and as it happens it emanates from right here in Calgary (and yes, I’ve sent an abuse complaint to Shaw, his ISP).

So, Brian/Bernard/peytonmaning [sic], you’re run up the flagpole, now let’s see who salutes.

Unfortunately, comments are now turned off. I hope everybody understands why. I’m not going to stop blogging. If anybody wants to contact me, I’m easy enough to find.

And yes, I see the hypocrisy in somebody posting anonymously and accusing me of cowardice, especially when I am 100%, transparently identifiable and contact-able on here. I have pictures of my HOUSE on here, for the love of Christ. A person not insane would see this too. So I’m not convinced that this isn’t somebody dangerous here. Stay tuned.

2. People smoking crack outside my bedroom window.

Our house is next to, not in front of, and alleyway. This is the alley for 14 St, the west side of it. There’s a five-unit, characterful old apartment building next to ours with a tiny little parking area, only enough for one car, behind it, and for the third time in about six months, I saw people smoking crack (yes, it’s crack) there. I had the presence of mind to take some pictures from our bedroom, and if anybody doesn’t appreciate my posting them here, I really could not possibly care less.

I saw more than one of these scumbags talking on their cells while they were socializing (and for a good hour- how in the hell long does it take to smoke a rock?), so these aren’t the hapless homeless and, damn, that guy in red could not be older than 20.

This scene is recurring here and mirrors the crackdown on this sort of thing in the core and parts of, say, Victoria Park. I have no idea what to do about it, but huddling together on private property (including my own- I’ve found pen barrels that they use to smoke crack and even a discarded needle in our parking pad) like this just demolishes my limits of tolerance.

3. NIMBYs and NIMBYism.

The city is trying to right some planning wrongs (and MAN did city planners of the ’60s and ’70s leave a mess to clean up here) by increasing residential densities around LRT stations, and one such proposal is around the Brentwood LRT, which happens to be the stop north of University, so I’m very familiar with it and the area.

It’s a planning horror. It’s surrounded by mall parking lots and defines “soul destroying” and “anti-urban.” It is a perfect location for a high-density transit-oriented node but aside from two high-rise apartment towers serves nothing except car commuters and the decidedly low-density communities nearby. And naturally, that nightmare called “public consultation” has brought the bottom feeders out, complaining about the prospect of responsible planning and fearing–get this–increased traffic.

“Public consultations,” as they’re now run as sort of community open houses, should be eliminated, full stop. All these do is to give voice to those that scream the loudest, and those are ALWAYS the most conservative, entitled, OLD people in any setting. I’d never go to one of these because I know I’d be outnumbered by the NIMBY busy-bodies who think they own this town. Instead, a TRUE analysis of the community’s opinions should be conducted in a scientific, accountable manner- via, say, a proper survey- and IF planner and city council wish to act on community sentiment (I say IF because this is not always or even usually the best, never mind the bravest or most principled, approach to policy) then at least KNOW what the community feels.

A democracy should not mean that those with the time and inclination to SCREAM get their way, but sadly, and especially in Calgary and Alberta, that’s how democracy plays out. City planning isn’t about “democracy.” It’s not a popularity contest. And these selfish, deluded, reactionary, bigoted NIMBY morons need to be ignored.

4. Tax “revolts.”

You know what? I want my property taxes increased. I want them increased a lot. I pay criminally, absurdly low property taxes here- on a house with a property tax valuation of almost $700,000, our taxes are barely $3000 a year. That’s ridiculous. With those funds we endure in a city that does not have curbside recycling, that does not (in many communities, including ours) have paved laneways, that does not have adequate snow removal, that charges users for library cards, that has no 24-hour transit service (even a skeletal one), and that has to charge user fees for virtually everything because property taxes are too damn low.

RAISE MY TAXES. I am HAPPY to pay more if better services- the sorts of thing that any CITY dweller should expect- are forthcoming. RAISE MY TAXES. The recycling model we use is the same as they use in small towns in Saskatchewan. RAISE MY TAXES. I am not a selfish old crone who has paid off the bungalow she paid $50,000 for in 1968 and who–get this–gets to ride transit for an annual fee of THIRTY-FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS even if she’s an oil widow who lives in Mt Royal because old people scream the loudest (and vote!) and their interests are always, always, always primary for politicians.

RAISE MY TAXES. I’m not selfish. And I’m proud to declare that.