[URBAN NOTE] How everyone in Toronto distrusts the city in different ways

In an editorial published today, the Toronto Star pointed out that mayor Ford's numerous statements, as city councillor and as mayor, that the bureaucracy of the City of Toronto is overrun by wasteful spending simply isn't correct. 94 to 98% of city spending has been classified as necessary, and the only way to reduce spending without violating provincial laws would be to do things like stop supporting the charming Riverdale Farm, a pleasant little zood downtown specializing in farm environments, and cutting snowplow coverage.

Truth matters in politics, but as Stephen Colbert famously pointed out some time ago, so does truthiness.

In a radio interview on the John Oakley Show last week Ford made the astonishing claim that salaries and benefits represent 80 per cent of the city’s operating budget. In fact, they represent about 48 per cent. One would think the chief executive of the $9.4 billion enterprise that is the City of Toronto would have at least a basic grasp of the city’s key numbers. In Ford’s case, one would be wrong.

Again and again, Ford’s thinking has been at odds with reality. Unable to find the buckets of bureaucratic “gravy” that he had expected, Ford budgeted $3 million to have outside consultants pore over the city’s books and find easy savings. Few observers, at this point, would deem that a success.

Many of the city’s operations — including 96 per cent of its public works — can’t be cut because they’re deemed mandatory under provincial law, or otherwise essential. Some of the remaining services could be eliminated, but their loss would trigger a public backlash, leaving such options politically impractical. Reduced snow plowing on residential streets? Few councillors want their name attached to that.

Other suggestions, like having Toronto residents bring unwanted pets to a local animal shelter rather than have a city employee collect them, would result in picayune savings — a far cry from the $100 million Ford expects from this review process.

The consultant KPMG has even identified programs that are earning money for Toronto as possible targets for elimination, by way of reducing “red tape.” Cancelling dog and cat licensing, and eliminating certain business licenses, are examples. Dog and cat licences net the city about $600,000 yearly, while the relevant business licensing generates about $6 million. Cutting such services looks more like downsizing government, than plugging holes in the budget.

The reality may be that the bureaucracy of the City of Toronto is fairly efficient, that its spending priorities are correct, and that Ford's depiction of Toronto is destructive. The perception, however, is of a city run by people who are only accountable to the electorate--or, as Ford says, customers--by mortal threats. A lack of trust exists, is corrosive, and exists far outside the suburban/right-wing demographic so often demonized now by opponents of Mayor Ford.

Take the example of the Toronto Police Service, mysteriously unable to provide evidence identifying which Toronto policemen beat bystanders at last year's misbegotten G20 summit.

Three officers investigated in a high-profile case of alleged police brutality at last year's G20 summit will not be charged after several peers, including supervisors, did not or could not say whether the officers had been involved in beating Adam Nobody, the province's police watchdog said Monday.

The officers were suspected of being part of a group that arrested Mr. Nobody at Queen's Park during a protest. Another officer, Constable Babak Andalib-Goortani, was charged nearly seven months ago with assault for allegedly hitting Mr. Nobody with his baton while other officers held him down.

After Constable Andalib-Goortani was charged, Toronto police turned over the names of the three other officers suspected of involvement to the Special Investigations Unit. The SIU interviewed several witnesses, including 17 officers believed to have been in the area during Mr. Nobody's arrest and four supervisors of one of the suspect officers, but none could identify any of the officers as having taken part in the alleged assault.

Furthermore, the SIU ruled that evidence amassed by the Toronto Police Service's own professional standards investigators and which the TPS used to identify the three officers for the SIU was not enough to use in a court case.

“While they both provided some circumstantial evidence of identity of the subject officers in question, I am of the view that it is so weak that it fails to meet the test of probable grounds to believe an identified officer committed a criminal offence,” said SIU director Ian Scott in a statement.

The inability or unwillingness of police officers to identify their peers or confirm whether they had been involved in G20 assaults has been a common theme in SIU probes in the wake of the June 2010 summit. While protesters and human rights advocates accuse officers of deliberately thwarting the SIU by protecting each other from scrutiny, Toronto police have maintained that they are co-operating fully with the civilian watchdog.

Full cooperation, right. Would I feel inclined toward a highly stringent purge of the police? Did I use a question mark in the previous sentence?

Am I being fair, though? Is there a reasonable possibility that, in a very confused time, heavily uniformed policemen might not be able to identify each other? How wrong is it to reject the possibility?

Going outside the left/right paradigm, and into the downtown/suburb paradigm, just look at what the Toronto Star recently reported (and further described by the Globe and Mail, too ). Fairly large fights at the Bathurst TTC station between workers and commuters are unprecedented.

It started with a simple question: “Why are you late?”

It ended with a standoff between passengers and TTC officials on a crowded streetcar at Bathurst station at the height of rush hour that was only resolved by police intervention.

The melee started around 5 p.m. Monday when a middle-aged woman, who didn’t want to be named on advice from her lawyer, was waiting for streetcar at Bathurst station. One finally arrived 40 minutes later.

“Why are you late?” she recalls asking the operator. “We’ve been waiting for almost 40 minutes now.”

“I don’t like your attitude and you are not getting into my car,” she remembers the operator saying, before he left the streetcar for a short break.

Having none of it, the woman hopped on and sat near the front. When the operator returned five minutes later, he spotted her and yelled at her to “get out of his car,” she said.

“I said no, I have a subway pass and paid my fare.”

The driver told her to get off and take the next one, but the woman refused to budge.

[. . .]

“The driver was so angry and out of his mind,” said Julio Erhart, who sat at the front.

Other passengers piped up, telling the operator everyone has a right to free speech.

The operator then called his supervisor, following TTC protocol, because he apparently felt threatened.

Then it got ugly. One woman, known only as Shari, filmed part of the fracas, which Citytv obtained.

“We can all sit here forever, or you can come out, let the streetcar go and then I’ll get you on another streetcar,” a supervisor who arrived on scene told the woman. She refused.

Nearby passengers argued back. Then the supervisor noticed Shari’s camera, marched up the stairs and placed his hand over it.

It isn’t clear what happened next. TTC spokesman Brad Ross said the supervisor didn’t take the camera, but pushed it down “in an attempt to defuse the situation.”

[. . .]

That’s when the standoff began. Many of the passengers refused to disembark, but TTC officials weren’t moving the streetcar, which created a convoy of other streetcars behind it. About 50 passengers waited another 30 minutes while TTC officials stood on the platform awaiting police. They arrived and the situation was resolved without any charges being laid.

Downtown Torontonians, like left-wingers, constitute one of the core demographics opposed to Ford, and to Ford's demonizing of city services. But as I've often blogged before, there's an increasing amount of frustration with TTC workers and TTC service generally. Would I have taken out my camera and started photographing and videoing everything for broader propagation? (Rhetorical question, this.)

The downtowners and left-wingers aren't so different from the suburbanites and right-wingers in Toronto, it seems. Both sides distrust one group of city agencies or another, both feel entirely justified in doing so, and both--I think--tend to distrust the other side's problems. (I don't think that my anti-police sentiments would necessarily work well in Etobicoke, for instance.)

With such polarization, will it be possible to form coalitions transcending this cleavage? Or will Toronto be stuck alternating between one side's mayor and another, without any enjoying the sort of city-wide popularity one would ideally want?

[BRIEF NOTE] On the import of the collapse of Borders

The collapse of the American Borders bookstore chain is sad indeed for booklovers like me.

Gone, beginning in less than a week, will be the 399 stores left over after its Chapter 11 filing in February. They include six in the Bay Area - in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Santa Rosa (two stores) and Vacaville. Approximately 10,700 employees nationwide will be let go.

"It doesn't surprise me," said a clerk at the Stonestown Galleria store in San Francisco, who did not wish to be named. "In some ways, I'm surprised it took this long."

The final straw for the Ann Arbor, Mich., company came Sunday night when the bidding deadline closed with no offers besides the one "stalking horse" bid from a group of liquidators led by Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Retail Partners.

Earlier in the day, the one interested buyer - Najafi Companies, a Phoenix investment firm that owns the Book of the Month Club - declared it was pulling out, having failed to arouse much enthusiasm from Borders' creditors, including book publishers and landlords.

Rumors of a last-minute deal with a smaller bookstore chain, Books-A-Million, for a few dozen Borders stores appeared to be just that, and on Monday afternoon, we got the news.

Those of you who know me will know why I'm very glad that Borders' collapse doesn't necessarily say bad things about bookselling as a whole, especially not in Canada where the local megabookstore chain is nimbler.

"We were all working hard toward a different outcome, but the headwinds we have been facing for quite some time, including the rapidly changing book industry, eReader revolution, and turbulent economy, have brought us to where we are now," said Borders Group President Mike Edwards.

It was Borders' failure to anticipate and tack into the winds that brought about its demise, book industry insiders and analysts have said.

"We had years of stupid management," said the Borders clerk, who has worked at the Stonestown Galleria store for the past 10 years. "Mostly, they were investors and merchandisers, with little knowledge of the book business."

Neither were there any saviors with the requisite expertise willing to step forward "to operate it as a viable company," said Michael Tucker, past president of the American Booksellers Association, who is also CEO of the Bay Area independent book chain Books Inc.

What of, the article concludes, of all those communities which saw the collapse of their local booksellers in the face of Borders only to be left without bookstores altogether now? Niche bookstores may still exist, even thrive, with sufficiently devoted customers and well-designed plans, but they are niche bookstores by definition. They cater to highly-specific demographics in communities with sufficient population to support a niche interest. Even in Toronto, places like This Ain't the Rosedale Library have collapsed utterly. For market reasons alone, you are not going to find a thriving queer bookstore deep in rural Canada.

Successful niche bookstores need committed customers. Can these now Borders-less communities return adopt the strategy of these viable small bookstores? Or, lacking sufficiently devoted customers, will they be left with online shopping and few to no bookstores at all?

(The second sentence in the paragraph above was, mostly, a rhetorical question.)

I'm a fan of public libraries. I'm also a fan of bookstores for the same reason. It's a shame some communities will be left without the second, especially if--as seems possible in this time of austerity--many of these communities lack the first. Meat-space reading communities matter.

[LINK] "Internet Archive Canada Laying Off Most Staff"

There's something terrible with an archive being forced to fear for its survival.

Last week, while the rest of Toronto was focused on Pride, a free Arkells concert, and the Hot Docs acquisition of Bloor Cinema, the Internet Archive Canada was laying off 75 per cent of its employees. On Wednesday July 6, all employees participated in an organization-wide conference call where they were told that due to drastic funding cuts, the layoffs were unavoidable. On Thursday, the company sent out the list of affected staff: out of the 47 employees working, 33 will be laid off effective August 12.

While the layoff is huge, it isn't entirely unprecedented in the current economic climate. What makes the IAC cutbacks unique is the dedication of the departing employees, several of whom independently reached out to Torontoist with a similar message: losing their job was sad, but the prospect of the IAC stopping production is devastating.

The Internet Archive Canada is a wing of the larger, San Francisco–based non-profit established in 1996 that is working on building an open source, completely unrestricted internet library. Currently the Internet Archive has over 150 employees in six countries worldwide: the United States, Canada, Guatemala, China, England, and Scotland. The Toronto office opened in 2004 and has rapidly expanded since then.

Kate Farnworth, an IAC employee who has been with the project for over three years and is one of those laid off, explains that the IAC is an “open source digital library so that people can access information wherever they are… Free access to information is a wonderful thing to work towards.” In discussing the Toronto downsizing, Brewster Kahle, founder of the project, argues that, “At the end of the day [employees] are building a library for the Wikipedia generation and to that generation—if its not online it’s as if it doesn’t exist. The real value is the loving care in terms of building the collections of books that are now being put online.”

[. . .]

Becky Simmons, who began working at the IAC in 2007, clarifies that it’s not the work itself that is enjoyable—indeed, she says that the act of scanning, flipping a page and scanning is often boring and monotonous. The major job requirements are “tolerance for repetitive motion and a good eye for detail.” Despite the tedium, the employees at the project love working there. Patrick Stitt, an employee who has been with the IAC for over three years, sees the people who work there as “craftsmen and women, mining books with our hands and cameras, shaping that information into artifacts that would long outlive us.” He remembers scanning a Bloor bus transfer from 50 years ago and medical prescription pads from the 1930s. By digitizing historical works, the books themselves can be browsed without being subject to physical handling and ruin. The IAC employees we spoke with believe that they are preserving and helping to disseminate pieces of Canada’s history.

As, indeed, the IAC employees are.

[BRIEF NOTE] On the uncanny valley

Have we come up with a new explanation behind homo sapiens sapiens' singular existence and the fear of robots? Wired UK's Mark Brown has reported on a recent study that provides non-anecdotal evidence of the existence of the "uncanny valley". Wikipedia, below.

The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of robotics and 3D computer animation, which holds that when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The "valley" in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robot's human likeness.

The term was coined by the robotics professor Masahiro Mori as Bukimi no Tani Genshō (不気味の谷現象) in 1970, and has been linked to Ernst Jentsch's concept of "the uncanny" identified in a 1906 essay, "On the Psychology of the Uncanny." Jentsch's conception was elaborated by Sigmund Freud in a 1919 essay entitled "The Uncanny" ("Das Unheimliche").

[. . .]

Mori's original hypothesis states that as the appearance of a robot is made more human, a human observer's emotional response to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong revulsion. However, as the appearance continues to become less distinguishable from a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-to-human empathy levels.

This area of repulsive response aroused by a robot with appearance and motion between a "barely human" and "fully human" entity is called the uncanny valley. The name captures the idea that an almost human-looking robot will seem overly "strange" to a human being and thus will fail to evoke the empathic response required for productive human-robot interaction.

Says Brown,

Saygin also recruited the help of Repliee Q2, an especially human-like robot from Intelligent Robotics Laboratory at Osaka University. Q2 has 13 degrees of freedom on her face alone, and uses her posable eyes, brows, cheeks, lids, lips and neck to make facial expressions and mouth shapes.

The team made videos of Repliee Q2 performing actions like waving, nodding, taking a drink of water and picking up a piece of paper from a table. Then, the same actions were performed by the Japanese woman whom Q2 is based on. Finally, the researchers stripped the robot of its synthetic skin and hair to reveal a Terminator-style metal robot with dangling wires and visible circuits.

The subjects were shown each of the videos and were informed about which was a robot and which human. Then, the subjects’ brains were scanned in an fMRI machine.

When viewing the real human and the metallic robot, the brains showed very typical reactions. But when presented with the uncanny android, the brain “lit up” like a Christmas tree.

When viewing the android, the parietal cortex — and specifically in the areas that connect the part of the brain’s visual cortex that processes bodily movements with the section of the motor cortex thought to contain mirror (or empathy) neurons — saw high levels of activity.

It suggests that the brain couldn’t compute the incongruity between the android’s human-like appearance and its robotic motion. In the other experiments — when the onscreen perfomer looks human and moves likes a human, or looks like a robot and moves like a robot — our brains are fine. But when the two states are in conflict, trouble arises.

“The brain doesn’t seem tuned to care about either biological appearance or biological motion per se,” said Saygin, assistant professor of cognitive science at UC San Diego. “What it seems to be doing is looking for its expectations to be met — for appearance and motion to be congruent.”

Over at the article, there are two comments of particular interest.

• Might the existence of the uncanny valley help explain why homo sapiens sapiens is the only hominid species still around? If "nearly-but-not-quite" human beings were around, the commenter suggested, might the reaction have been to kill them off? Maybe, I suppose--certainly there's enough evidence of racism motivated by anger that different population groups don't behave the way that normal people should--but then the latest genetic researches have demonstrated that Neanderthals and the like did interbreed, maybe even that they didn't go extinct so much as get assimilated.


• The second commenter refers to the works of Isaac Asimov, famed science-fiction pioneer of robotics, and his suggestion in his future history that people eventually rejected the "humaniform" robot because it was too uncannily human-like. Did Asimov make a successful prediction about the future?

And, of course, don't forget the Cylons!