crazed monkey

This is just a short note to let you know that I am still alive. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to craft a decent weblog entry and have let things fall to the wayside.

Here are a few items that I haven’t written about:

• Paul Martin. (I had an idea for a story a couple of weeks ago, but I’m sure everything which can be said has been said since then.)
• Jean Chrétien. (See above.)
• The Ontario Liberals. (They’re off to a bad start, to the surprise of no one.)
• David Miller. (Including a wish list of minor items I’d like to see him push during his term as mayor.)
• This site. (Major redesign in the works.)
• Java. (I hates it.)

These and other stories will appear in this weblog as soon as I am able to sit in front of a computer without having to resist the urge to kill.

Posted on November 26th, 2003 in meta, site - No Comments »

An online poll recently appeared on The Globe And Mail website asking the question “Do you vote in on-line polls?”. The best part is that some people chose the “no” option.

Posted on November 14th, 2003 in computers, internet - No Comments »

If the Toronto election was so exciting, why did less than 40% of eligible voters show up at the polls? Andrew Spicer cites lousy voting hours and poor distribution of voting cards. I tend to agree on Andrew’s latter point, but I’d have to disagree with the former. The hours for voting in this year’s municipal election were largely the same as those for the provincial election.

Poor voter turnout in municipal elections can be largely attributed to voter perception, or rather misperception, of their importance. Ask most people to order the three levels of government in order of importance from highest to lowest and most will probably cite the federal level as the most important, followed by provincial and finally municipal. The perception is that municipal politics is boring, doesn’t matter and that the larger issues are at the provincial and federal levels. That could not be more wrong.

Our municipal government is the level of government which affects us the most. If the federal government were somehow wiped out tomorrow, how long would its absence go unnoticed? Those receiving EI payments would notice within two weeks, but most of us probably wouldn’t miss the federal level of government for months. The same goes for provincial. The absence of a municipal government, however, would be noted almost immediately: there would be no garbage collection, no building permits, or no parking permits, among other things.

Because of the low level of interest in local politics, municipal government lends itself more easily to corruption. It is much easier to broker shady deals when nobody is looking. (No doubt the lack of a scrutinising opposition party also increases the likelihood of corruption.) We need voters to pay more attention to local politics so that corruption may be avoided. However, people often cite government corruption as a cause of voter apathy.

It’s a catch-22. How do we get people interested in local politics so that corruption is avoided, when the corruption is what repels them? I don’t have the answers, but I hope that it starts with an election like the one we saw in Toronto earlier this week. David Miller’s promise to clean up City Hall seemed to attract a lot of attention. If he is successful, it could rekindle interest in participation at the local level and, hopefully, increase voter turnout to non-abysmal levels.

Posted on November 13th, 2003 in canada, politics - No Comments »

One year ago yesterday crazedmonkey.com went live. Since then this site has seen just under 150,000 hits, 35,000 visits and over 15,000 unique visitors. (This site existed before November 12, 2002, but not at its current address. My weblog also existed before then, but as a Radio Userland account.)

I don’t write nearly as many entries as I did a year ago, but I’d like to think that I have successfully replaced quantity with quality.

Posted on November 13th, 2003 in meta, site - No Comments »

After almost a year, the Toronto election is finally over. And what an election it was! We were blessed with five leading candidates who had it all: experience, notoriety, charisma, strong (and oftentimes differing) political platforms, intelligence, and a passion for the city. Hell, if we could have somehow fused the best parts of each candidate together, the resulting entity would have been an unstoppable über-mayor. Instead, we chose David Miller which, some might say, is the next best thing.

Not only were the candidates the best Toronto has seen for many a year, but we couldn’t have asked for a more exciting run-up to the mayoral vote: Tom Jakobek deciding to run in the wake of the MFP leasing inquiry, allegations that Barbara Hall started raising funds before announcing her candidacy, John Nunziata’s bribe claims, the issue of the airport expansion, John Tory attacking David Miller on highway tolls, not to mention the dozens of debates!

I’d like to take a few minutes to congratulate a few people for helping to make this election a great and interesting one. Congratulations go out to:

• David Miller, of course, for running a strong and winning campaign.
• The top five mayoral candidates for giving Torontonians the most exciting election in decades.
• The remaining 40-odd mayoral candidates for taking the incentive to run for public office.
• The following people for running informative and interesting weblogs either focusing on the Toronto election or containing numerous insightful posts about election issues:
  • Andrew Spicer both for his poignant weblog and for assisting the winning Miller team.
  • Rick McGinnis for his last chance city which featured a special series on fringe candidates.
  • James Bow.
  • David Janes.

I also want to thank everyone who tuned into my weblog during the election. Thanks to you, my web statistics have grown tremendously, peaking on Monday to levels not seen since the days of Operation Iraqi Freedom. October was a banner month, bringing in 50% more visitors than the previous record, and November looks to follow suit. I only hope that I can maintain interest without an election to feed off of.

Posted on November 13th, 2003 in ontario, politics - No Comments »