I'm also going to add that government communications with the public are also usually disingenuous and misleading if not outright dishonest. Those communications have gotten so shoddy in both quantity and accuracy that it's now to the point that government's hiding secrets will look citizens in the eye and tell them "Sorry we can't clarify this or explain why because we have been forced at gunpoint/torture or worse to sign NDA's (Non-Disclosure Agreements)". The "or worse" for politicians simply means that they are afraid that they might get kicked out of office at the next election if they honestly tell why they have taken an action such as say spending $55 million dollars assembling and removing from production 600 acres of prime farmland in Wilmot Township. 

One of the biggest political lies is that there are no negative health effects from environmental spills and accidents. With one hand behind their backs and two fingers crossed they can honestly (in their wee minds) state this because knowing that all of us are mortal anyways they can justify the lie by telling themselves that those folks were on their way out regardless and if not from mercury, nitrates, TCE, NDMA,  vinyl chloride, smoking or drinking they are going to die anyways either from time or something else. Examples abound including the train derailment in East Palestine U.S.A. two or three years ago, Grassy Narrows mercury poisoning for the first decade after it went public, Agent Orange damages in Viet Nam and to American servicemen, trichloroethylene (TCE) via vapour intrusion in the Bishop St. community in Cambridge causing cancers and death, and many premature deaths in Elmira, Ontario both from Varnicolor Chemical and Uniroyal Chemical including a foreman at Varnicolor already diagnosed from solvent poisoning prior to the shutdown at Varnicolor and then his subsequent employment at Uniroyal. 

The vast majority of cleanups promised are the Cadillac cleanups whereas the reality is simply Volkswagon Beetle cleanups. This most certainly includes the Varnicolor Chemical "cleanup" back in the mid 1990s which was supposed to then require ten years of shallow pump & treat (hydraulic containment) however by 2016 the pumping was still going strong and only in 2024 were we finally told that yes indeed Varnicolor Chemical had contributed half a dozen toxic chlorinated solvents to our deeper municipal drinking aquifers after thirty-five years of government lying (M.O.E.) and coverup. In fact M.O.E. lawyer Stanley Berger back in 1991 at the public Environmental Appeal Board  hearings in Elmira actually stated that Varnicolor's pollution compared to Uniroyal was like a water pistol in a thunderstorm. The same dishonesty has been going on with the Uniroyal "cleanup" from day one with all government tiers claiming success by the mandated 2028 cleanup for twenty-five years (1993-2018) and only admitting failure AFTER the 2011-2015 Citizens Public Advisory Committee (CPAC) publicly advised Woolwich Council and the M.O.E. that it absolutely wasn't going to happen on time or even close. Now even the most blatant truth challenged parties agree, and the excuses with help from a few misguided citizens, are in high gear.       

“The future really starts now in many ways, including how we prepare our farms and fields for times ahead, [...] I think we all see and expect changes ahead; this gives us a more exact look at what those changes might look like and the importance of grasslands and groundwater recharge to all of us in times right now.”

READ MORE.

The Manitoba Forage and Grassland Association (MFGA) has released findings from a recent study with Aquanty examining how climate change could affect water resources and agricultural landscapes in southern Manitoba through 2050 and 2100.

The study, supported through Manitoba Environment and Climate Change Climate Action Funding, used the MFGA Aquanty Model to examine future climate conditions across three previously modelled watersheds: Pembina Valley, Swan Lake, and Oak River. The results highlight the increasingly important role that healthy grasslands and groundwater recharge could play in helping agricultural landscapes build resilience to future climate conditions.

Led by Aquanty’s Dr. Steve Frey, the modelling projects significant impacts to water resources by mid- and end-century driven by warmer temperatures, alongside declining snowpack, shifts in runoff timing, and increasing water losses through evapotranspiration. These changes could have significant implications for forage and pasture systems. Increasing evapotranspiration is expected to place additional stress on soil moisture and watershed water balances, increasing the potential for pasture drying and reduced forage availability during the mid-to-late summer. The study also identifies a progressive decline in subsurface water storage over the course of the century, particularly under end-of-century climate conditions. Increasing evapotranspiration and reduced snowpack are identified as key drivers of this decline, reinforcing the importance of protecting areas that support groundwater recharge.

As Dr. Frey explains in the MFGA release, maintaining perennial grasslands and protecting groundwater recharge functions could therefore become increasingly important climate adaptation strategies. Forages and grasslands, along with wetlands, forests and healthy soils, can help promote groundwater recharge and reduce surface runoff in sensitive areas. For cattle producers, these findings have practical implications. Declining groundwater storage could affect the long-term reliability of dugouts, wetlands and groundwater-fed livestock watering sources. The research points to the value of planning now for conditions that may become increasingly challenging in the decades ahead, including through grazing and land management practices that support healthy, resilient landscapes.

Read the full report to explore the study and its findings in greater detail.

Building on more than a decade of collaboration

The study is the latest chapter in a long-running collaboration between MFGA and Aquanty. For more than a decade, the organizations have worked together to apply integrated hydrologic modelling to better understand water movement, flood and drought risk, land management, and the role of grasslands across the Assiniboine River Basin.

Through the MFGA Aquanty Model project, this work has helped explore how different land management practices can influence hydrologic conditions and how healthy agricultural landscapes can contribute to resilience during periods of flood and drought.

The collaboration has also moved beyond long-term scenario modelling into operational forecasting. Aquanty operates the MFGA-Aquanty Water Forecast Tool, a real-time hydrologic forecasting system covering the entire Assiniboine River Basin. The platform provides forward-looking information on water conditions across the basin, helping translate complex hydrologic modelling into information that can support land managers, watershed districts, agricultural producers, Indigenous communities and other decision-makers.

Together, the long-term climate projections highlighted in this latest study and the real-time forecasting capabilities of the broader MFGA-Aquanty project demonstrate how integrated hydrologic modelling can support decisions across very different timescales — from understanding current and near-term water conditions to planning for how Manitoba's landscapes and water resources may change decades into the future.

Click here to learn more about our ongoing collaboration with the MFGA.

You ask your AI coding assistant for a function, and what comes back looks completely reasonable. Clean formatting, sensible variable names, a comment explaining the tricky part. For a second, it feels finished.

Then you actually try to use it. The compiler rejects it over a borrow it doesn’t like. Or it compiles fine and segfaults on an input you hadn’t thought to test. Or it runs, passes every test you wrote, and turns out to be three times slower than it needed to be, because it’s using a data structure that made sense for the toy example but not for your actual dataset.

None of this means the model is bad at programming. It usually means something narrower and more interesting: the language you’re working in has exposed a gap between code that looks correct and code that actually is. And that gap isn’t the same size in every language.

It’s worth separating a few things that get lumped together under “AI can code.”

Generating syntactically plausible code just means the output resembles valid code in the target language: correct-looking brackets, correct-looking keywords. Generating compilable code means it actually survives the compiler or interpreter without errors.

Generating functionally correct code means it does what you asked.

Generating idiomatic code means it does it the way an experienced developer in that language actually would, using the right patterns and conventions instead of a technically valid but clumsy translation from some other language’s habits.

Generating maintainable, production-quality code means someone else, or you, six months later, can read it, extend it, and trust it under conditions the original prompt never mentioned.

A model can clear the first bar and completely miss the last one. “The code looks right” is a weak test precisely because it only checks the first, most superficial layer. It’s the layer easiest for a model to get right and the one that tells you the least about whether you should actually use what it gave you.

Programming languages aren’t interchangeable skins over the same underlying logic. They come with different type systems, memory models, compiler strictness, standard libraries, ecosystem conventions, and very different levels of representation in the data available to language models. All of that can shape performance, and no single factor explains the whole picture.

Python tends to be where AI coding assistants feel most fluent, and there’s a fairly obvious reason for that. It has an enormous public footprint, in tutorials, in open-source repositories, in competitive programming archives, in the kind of educational content that makes up a large share of what these models were trained on. Its syntax is comparatively forgiving, and its dynamic typing means there are fewer strict rules for a model to violate in the first place.

Benchmark evidence backs this up specifically on efficiency, not just correctness. EffiBench-X, a 2025 multi-language benchmark from researchers including King’s College London, measured not just whether generated code works but how efficiently it runs compared to expert human solutions. It found that current models consistently produce more efficient code in Python, Ruby, and JavaScript than in Java, C++, and Go.

One useful example comes from DeepSeek-R1: its Pass@1 correctness was actually very similar on C++ and Python — 75.12% versus 74.64% — while its execution-time efficiency was noticeably better on Python, at 67.30% of the human reference level versus 60.89% on C++.

That distinction matters: getting the answer right and producing an efficient implementation are not the same thing. That’s a useful reminder that “gets the right answer” and “gets it well” are separate questions, and a model can be better at one than the other depending on the language.

None of this means generated Python is automatically good. It just means the odds are better. Python code from an assistant still routinely assumes the wrong version of a library, misses an edge case around empty input or unusual encoding, reaches for a dependency that wasn’t necessary, or swallows an exception in a way that will make debugging painful three weeks from now. Comfort with a language isn’t the same as care.

C and C++ punish a specific kind of mistake that other languages simply don’t allow to happen in the first place: mistakes involving memory that the language trusts you to manage yourself.

Picture asking for a small function that copies a fixed-size buffer. A model might return something that looks completely standard, allocates a buffer, copies into it, and returns it, without accounting for what happens if the source is longer than expected, or forgetting who is responsible for freeing that memory once the caller is done with it. Nothing about that code look wrong on a read-through. It’s the kind of mistake that a compiler often won’t catch, that a casual test often won’t trigger, and that a sanitizer or a genuinely adversarial input eventually will.

A clean compilation is not a guarantee of correctness. In C and C++, code can compile, run normally on one machine, pass a handful of tests, and still contain undefined behavior that appears only under a different compiler, platform, optimization setting, or input.

Rust is one of the more interesting cases in this entire discussion, and the honest picture is more nuanced than “AI struggles with Rust.”

Rust’s defining features, ownership, borrowing, lifetimes, and a compiler that refuses to build code it considers unsafe, exist specifically to catch the exact category of mistake that quietly slips through in C and C++. Imagine a small example: a function that takes a vector, hands out a reference to one of its elements, and then tries to modify the vector while that reference is still alive.

In most languages, that’s completely normal and nobody blinks. In Rust, the borrow checker will refuse to compile it, because the compiler can’t guarantee the reference stays valid once the underlying data moves. A model unfamiliar with exactly how strict that guarantee is might generate code that looks completely reasonable and gets rejected outright.

That strictness is often mistaken for the language being “hard for AI.” Recent independent benchmarking complicates that story. A comparative analysis published on HackerNoon in early 2026, testing multiple current models on 100 recent problems published between October 2025 and February 2026, specifically chosen to avoid problems the models could have memorized, found that the performance gap between Python and Rust wasn’t statistically significant for the models tested, well within the same range as the Python-to-Java gap.

The much larger, clearly significant gap in that same study showed up with Elixir, a far less represented language, not Rust. That’s a useful corrective to the assumption that Rust is uniquely difficult. It may be more accurate to say Rust is unforgiving rather than poorly supported: the compiler exposes mistakes immediately and refuses to let weak reasoning slide through, which can make failures more visible even when the underlying error rate isn’t dramatically higher than in other mainstream languages.

But Rust exposes a different problem: keeping up with a changing ecosystem. RustEvo², a benchmark specifically designed around Rust API evolution, evaluated 588 API changes across the Rust standard library and third-party crates. The researchers found a substantial knowledge-cutoff effect: models averaged 56.1% success on APIs available before their training cutoff, compared with 32.5% on APIs introduced afterward. Retrieval of current documentation improved performance on those newer APIs by an average of 13.5%.

That matters because it changes the diagnosis. The problem isn’t simply that Rust is “too hard” for AI. Sometimes the model is reasoning incorrectly; sometimes it simply doesn’t have reliable knowledge of the API version you’re asking it to use.

The honest summary: Rust isn’t too hard for AI in some fundamental sense. It’s a language where the compiler acts as an immediate, unforgiving second reviewer, and where a model’s outdated knowledge of a fast-evolving ecosystem shows up faster and more visibly than it would in a language with looser rules.

Java sits in a comfortable middle ground for most models. Its verbosity, explicit types, predictable class structures, and well-worn API conventions are heavily represented in public code, and models tend to handle common patterns, standard class definitions, typical interface implementations, familiar boilerplate, quite reliably.

Where it gets shakier is exactly where human developers also find Java tricky: concurrency, where subtle timing assumptions are easy to get wrong; framework-specific behavior in ecosystems like Spring, where conventions matter as much as syntax; generics, where type bounds can get genuinely gnarly; and version drift across API changes, similar in spirit to what RustEvo² documented for Rust. None of this suggests Java ranks definitively below or above Rust or C++ in some universal ordering. Ranking languages on a single scale flattens differences that actually depend heavily on the specific task and model being tested.

There’s a subtler issue than raw error rate: models tend to default toward popular languages even when a different one would serve the task better, a pattern visible across the efficiency research already discussed, where scripting languages consistently receive more optimization-aware output than compiled ones.

Picture asking an assistant to design a high-throughput backend service. Python is heavily represented in the model’s training data, so a Python-based suggestion often arrives first and most confidently, complete with a plausible-sounding framework recommendation. But the right engineering call might actually hinge on latency requirements, memory constraints, the deployment environment, or the concurrency model the team already relies on, considerations a model can reason about if asked directly, but won’t automatically foreground on its own.

This is worth sitting with, because it’s not really a language-specific bug. It’s closer to a general pattern: a model tends to predict what’s common in its training data before it evaluates what’s actually optimal for your specific constraints. That’s not a reason to distrust AI-suggested languages outright. It’s a reason to state your actual constraints up front rather than letting the model guess at them from a bare problem description.

Underneath all of this, the hardest parts of AI-assisted programming usually aren’t syntactic at all. They’re the same things that separate a junior developer from a senior one: choosing the right abstraction for the problem, understanding constraints that were never explicitly stated, picking an algorithm that scales the way the real data will, managing resources correctly over the program’s whole lifetime, anticipating edge cases nobody mentioned, and writing something that still makes sense after requirements inevitably change.

Passing a test suite proves a program behaves correctly on the inputs you thought to test. It says very little about whether the underlying design will hold up as the codebase grows, or whether the next person to touch it will understand why it was written that way.

It’s worth being honest about what coding benchmarks actually measure, because headline numbers travel further than their caveats do.

Most function-level benchmarks, the kind that produce the widely quoted pass rates, test short, self-contained problems that look more like interview questions than production work. Real repository-level benchmarks like SWE-bench, which test whether a model can resolve an actual GitHub issue inside an existing codebase, tell a noticeably different story.

SWE-bench Verified scores have climbed into the 70–80% range for top models by early 2026, but a harder variant called SWE-bench Pro, designed specifically to resist the kind of memorization and pattern-matching that inflates scores on well-known benchmarks, shows even frontier models scoring closer to 23%. That’s not a contradiction. It’s a reminder that a benchmark’s difficulty and realism matter enormously, and a single headline percentage rarely tells you which kind of problem it actually measured.

The same caution applies to language comparisons. A benchmark built from competitive programming problems, like EffiBench-X, will surface different strengths and weaknesses than one built from real GitHub issues, like SWE-bench, or one built specifically around a single language’s evolving API surface, like RustEvo². None of these benchmarks is wrong. Each one is measuring a narrower slice of “can this model program” than its headline number implies.

A workflow that treats the model as a fast first draft, not a final answer, tends to hold up better across all of this. Specify the exact language version, compiler, or runtime up front. State your real constraints, performance targets, memory limits, concurrency needs, before asking for an implementation, not after. For anything non-trivial, ask for an approach and reasoning before asking for code. Compile immediately. Run the actual tests, not just the ones the model wrote for itself. Read the code you’re about to use, and ask the model to explain any part you don’t fully follow. Check performance and resource usage where it matters, not just functional output. And don’t merge anything you can’t explain to someone else.

A few things are worth doing differently by language. In Python, check dependency versions and edge cases explicitly, since the model’s fluency there can create false confidence. In C and C++, compile with warnings turned all the way up and run sanitizers where you can; assume memory-related mistakes are possible even when the code looks clean. In Rust, read the compiler’s own error messages carefully before asking the assistant to “just fix it,” since the compiler is often diagnosing the actual problem more precisely than a quick re-prompt will. In Java, double-check framework and API versions and think specifically about concurrency, since that’s where subtle correctness issues tend to hide behind code that otherwise looks fine.

The strongest pattern that emerges across all of this is treating the model as a collaborator you can push back on, not an oracle you simply accept.

Instead of “write this Rust function,” something closer to “I think this ownership model is correct because of X, here’s my code, tell me where my reasoning is wrong” gets you a genuinely different kind of answer, one that surfaces your own misunderstanding instead of just papering over it. Instead of “fix this C++ bug,” describing the crash, your working theory of what’s happening, and the relevant code, then asking the model to challenge that diagnosis before proposing a fix, keeps you in the loop on why the bug existed in the first place, not just what patch made it go away.

That distinction matters because it’s the difference between using AI to skip understanding a problem and using it to arrive at understanding faster.

None of this adds up to “AI is bad at programming.” Current models are, by most available evidence, genuinely strong across a wide range of languages and tasks, and the gap between top models and mainstream languages has been narrowing steadily. What the research does show is that a model’s fluency correlates strongly with how heavily represented a language is in its training data, and that language-specific rules, memory safety, ownership, strict typing, fast-moving APIs, can expose weaknesses that are completely invisible if you’re only judging code by whether it looks right on a first read.

The more a language depends on precise semantics, strict compiler guarantees, careful resource management, or fast-changing ecosystem knowledge, the more dangerous it becomes to mistake plausible code for correct code.

The developer’s job here isn’t disappearing. It’s moving up a level: less about typing out the implementation, more about understanding whether the code, in this language, under these constraints, actually deserves to exist the way it was written.

The Programming Languages AI Still Gets Surprisingly Wrong was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How can one look at a map of the Uniroyal Chemical property (plus pits & ponds) and not be appalled? It is absolutely shocking how much of the site was taken up with toxic waste disposal. There were approximately twelve different pits and ponds of various sizes on the west side of the Canagagigue Creek and another twelve to fourteen on the east side of the Creek. The west side waste pits/ponds included RPW-1, RPW-2, P1, P2, RPW-3, RPW-4, RPW-5, RPW-6, RPW-7, RPW-8, M2, TPW-1, TPW-2. The east side had  IR-1, IR-2, RPE-1, RPE-2, RPE-3, RPE-4, RPE-5, TPE-1, TPE-2, BAE-1, RB-1, RB-2 and allegedly GP-1 & GP-2. At least these are the ones that I know of and that have documentation as to their size, location and contents. 

Uniroyal's intent was obvious with Pits and Ponds on both sides of the Creek through their property. None of these pits were covered from the elements so especially during rainstorms any pits that weren't already full and overflowing from the known 165,000 gallons of liquid wastes per day transported just to the east side alone, quickly would be. Surface drainage from the site ran into the Canagagigue Creek. This was not an accident. The Creek's water quality plummeted and many species in and around the Creek disappeared.  Where was the Ontario Ministry of Environment? How about the Ministry of Natural Resources? Maybe just like at Varnicolor Chemical down the road (Union St.) they were sitting in the office enjoying a licensed refreshment. 

What may have been an accident was the gross contamination of the multiple aquifers beneath the Uniroyal site.  Afterall the company knew that the shallow aquifer (UA) discharged directly into the Canagagigue Creek so likely they hoped/expected that the bulk of their liquid wastes simply would flow into the Creek just as the surface flows did. Also it is possible that the environmental savages did not know about the "windows" allowing direct flow into deeper aquifers that were between the UA (Upper Aquifer) and the Municipal Aquifer (MU) .  Or maybe they did and they just didn't care.

The Region of Waterloo didn't start using the Grand River for drinking water until the 1990s. I thought that that was pretty dumb at the time and still do. This most likely was because they had been told that on-site direct discharge to the Canagagigue Creek had ended around 1970. What a shocker later on after Cryptosporidium deaths made it clear that local farmers were still grazing their cattle in both the Grand River as well as its' tributaries such as the "Gig", the Conestogo and others. Then of course there were little problems such as multiple landfills without leachate controls, both legal and otherwise, along the Canagagigue that had accepted Uniroyal and Varnicolor Chemical wastes. 

We now know that there were multiple other potential industrial sources of chlorobenzene in Elmira located close to the corner of First and Union St.. I expect that we will eventually learn that the same occurred with NDMA but it's more politic not to reveal that for a little while longer. This is embarrassing information to the former M.O.E. (now MECP) who cut a sweetheart deal with Uniroyal Chemical. That deal had Uniroyal (falsely) admit to be the sole source of NDMA, chlorobenzene and ammonia in exchange for not having to properly clean up DNAPLS both on and off their site as well as for not ratting out the M.O.E.'s cooperation/incompetence in stopping their grotesque pollution sooner. One other recent admission from Lanxess Canada and consultants was that Varnicolor Chemical contributed half a dozen chlorinated solvents to Elmira's Municipal Aquifers albeit allegedly not chlorobenzene. Do you think this decades late admission is related to the Ontario Ministry of Environment's reneging on a public promise made to APTE, the Varnicolor Liason Committee (Rich Clausi, Ted Oldfield & myself) to fully examine Varnicolor horizontally and vertically back in the mid 1990s? They did neither as the still non public cleanup done at Motiveair Inc. behind Varnicolor would indicate along with the belated deep Municpal Upper Aquifer contamination admission.

Corruption stinks and the stench from the MECP is still overpowering! 

A Linux native mod manager for a variety of games

Python 907 Updated Aug 26

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This time of the year, I dive into Concord grapes … but wait! There’s a variety called the Coronation grape that, to my taste, rivals the native-Ontario Concord. Sovereign Coronation grapes have the same crispness, the same amazing colour, and much the same sweet-tartness as the traditional Concord.

The difference is … Coronation grapes don’t have seeds.

Conceived and originally produced in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley in the 1970s, the Coronation began appearing more regularly in Niagara a decade or so ago. I’ve eaten them regularly each year, and they are fabulous.

Today, Ontario harvests nearly 3,000 tons of these intensely flavoured grapes.

A cross between native North American varieties Patricia and Himrod (two improbable but memorable names), we can take advantage of the Coronation grape now because it just happens to ripen in late August and bit earlier than other more traditional varieties.

It has a fairly thick skin and a headier taste than most grapes, and the fact that it is seedless makes it a great grape for eating and for making jams, jellies, pies, and sauces.

The Coronation grape is indeed regal … but get some soon because they won’t be around once September is gone. We don’t need yankee grapes!

Check out my latest post No to ‘Murrica: delicious Ontario Coronation grapes from AndrewCoppolino.com.

A simple and easy to use mod manager for several games using Thunderstore

TypeScript 2.2k 2 issues need help Updated Aug 25

Everyone was hissy with everyone else at least in private. Blame was cast back and forth between Uniroyal and the Min. of Environment and the other two political tiers piled on. Then Uniroyal and the Ontario M.O.E. basically told the Region and Township to bugger off. And they did. No running to the courts. No running to the media to badmouth Uniroyal or the M.O.E.. The biggest bullies are also usually the biggest cowards and neither the Region nor the Township wanted to be on the bad side of the province and their variety of infrastructure grants and more. Even the realization of poisoned tap water in Elmira was more acceptable than losing out on millions of dollars of infrastructure grants (roads, sewers, water pipes, bridges, etc.) which eventually would have cost both regional and municipal councillors their jobs as councillors.

So once the polluter and their regulator had flexed their muscles and told the Region and Township to take a hike and they had; the die was cast. Two years later the M.O.E. and Uniroyal announced a bilateral agreement between themselves that totally bypassed the Township, the Region and local citizens who had organized and gotten  party status at the Environmental Appeal Board. The October agreement ended up as a November 1991 Control Order laid on Uniroyal Chemical.  The other parties both political and citizens were left in the dust. Now with admirable cowardice and a wish to ingratiate, the two political groups complained only mildly and begged to be let back in to the fold and Uniroyal file. The citizens group leadership knew where they wanted to go and how to do it. They too made commitments that got them invited to the pending January 1992 initial UPAC (Uniroyal Public Advisory Committee) meeting. 

Woolwich Township offered to organize regular public meetings (i.e. UPAC). They offered to present a united front to the public. A united front that the Ontario M.O.E., in negotiations with Uniroyal Chemical, was happy with. Similarly Waterloo Region also wanted to be part of the initial UPAC public meetings. Their support for the M.O.E.'s and Uniroyal's direction might be less enthusiastic than the Township's as they pressed for a somewhat better cleanup. Both the Township and the Region also received money from Uniroyal Chemical towards their increased environmental and legal costs incurred during the first two to three years of the water crisis. 

It was business as usual especially with local citizens getting scr*wed the most, including by their own.    

High performance, multi-platform VNC client and server

C++ 7.4k 14 issues need help Updated Aug 21

• good banter
• building sexual tension
• Lucy's work BFF was a total delight (everyone needs a work BFF!)
• the sex positivity theme
• 90's references
• fake dating 

As soon as I saw the phrase Conestoga Lands Inc. in reference to the proposed zoning change and breach of the country side line on Bridge St. in Waterloo, Ontario I smelled something rotten in the air. Was it possible that a (in my opinion) rotten company, long ago merged with a bigger maybe less rotten firm, could still be spreading their anti social, anti environmental actions upon unsuspecting citizens? Well now that is a tricky question. I did a little bit of research trying to find out if the developers behind this proposed industrial site located beside Martin Grove Village in north Waterloo were indeed the former Conestoga Rovers & Associates (CRA) who made their initial claim to fame with the Love Canal disaster in the United States.

Well things get a little murky here. First of all CRA merged with GHD an Australian engineering firm around 2015 or so and carried on in name as GHD. CRA employees and shareholders were given shares in GHD and many (most ?) carried on with the new group. That being said the reference to CRA Lands Limited does refer to my least favourite engineering firm who are multiple winners of the MACHO Award.  They were presented with this award for their work with Uniroyal Chemical in Elmira and the award name stands for Memorial Award for Creative HydrogeOlogy. 

Now here's the rub. According to Google/AI,  CRA Lands Limited while referring to lands formerly owned by Conestoga Rovers & Assoc. are actually owned by a group of land developers. Maybe they thought that CRA had a good reputation environmentally or perhaps a good reputation as engineering consultants. I think it would be fair to suggest that dirty, rotten, polluting industries just love companies like CRA who give them the veneer of scientific oversight in their environmental decision making. Of course my harsh comments concerning dirty, rotten, polluting industries are a result of my working with/against CRA in Elmira for a couple of decades at least as they psuedo scientifically and drastically reduced  Uniroyal Chemical's cleanup costs.  

Now I don't claim to be any kind of land expert but it appears as if CRA Lands Limited and CRA Lands II Limited are controlled by Cook Lands Group. This company, again according to AI, is owned and operated by "...local Waterloo developer Ian Cook, founder of Cook Homes Limited,...". So here we appear to have once again the tail wagging the dog as home builders and developers are attempting to expand the hard country side line in order to obtain more lands to build profitable for them homes. 

I guess that I am less appalled because it isn't CRA directly behind this attempt to crack the countryside line; but only slightly less appalled. With Woolwich Township's penchant for sleeping with polluters and their fellow travellors, I expect smooth sailing for anybody riding on CRA's coattails.   

Bethany Galbraith has a long history with House of Friendship.

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Her entire family does.

“My brother, Matt, was a student at House of Friendship in 2006, so that introduced me to the Emergency Food Hamper program,” said Bethany.

That initial connection led to Bethany’s college placement at House of Friendship. It wasn’t long before the entire family started volunteering.

Even now, Bethany’s parents, John and Betty, volunteer weekly at the food program. And her niece, Binny, has worked on class projects that focus on House of Friendship, inspiring her fellow Grade 6 students to support the organization.

“It’s been a family affair. I would say we all believe quite strongly in the vision, mission and values of House of Friendship,” said Bethany. “It’s become the organization of choice for my family.”

In addition to volunteering, Bethany and her husband Jon have chosen to support House of Friendship financially throughout the year, including during the holiday season.

“We donate at Christmas in honour of our sons’ teachers,” said Bethany. “It shares the message to our children about the importance of giving and helping those in need in our community.”

And over the many years of support that Bethany and her family have provided, she’s been pleased to see how much House of Friendship has continued to adapt to meet the needs of the community.

“It’s been exciting to see the growth over the years,” said Bethany. “And how many people are now supported through House of Friendship.”

And since House of Friendship aligns so well with her family’s values, it was only natural for Bethany and Jon to consider leaving a gift for future generations, through a gift in their will.

“It was a simple choice for us,” said Bethany. “That was eight years ago, and still to this day, we would absolutely make the same decision.

“What I like about leaving a gift in our will is that it is sharing what our wishes are. It tells the story of what has been important to us, long after we are gone – and making sure this work will continue into the future.”

If you are interested in learning more about leaving a gift in your will to House of Friendship, contact Development Director Natalie Schill, at natalies@houseoffriendship.org.

The post A Family Affair appeared first on House Of Friendship.

Over the weekend, I read about the death of Jason Arday, PhD, a Black professor at Cambridge University, who had been subjected to weeks of intense public scrutiny of his academic work and credentials, misinformation, and harassment. Reuters

What started with questions about plagiarism expanded into questioning Arday’s entire background. The Guardian

I don’t want to diminish what happened to Arday in any way. But his story made me think about a pattern that can show up in much smaller ways at work: marginalized employees can face more scrutiny after a mistake, with that one incident becoming evidence for a broader judgment about their competence.

For example,

• A marginalized employee makes a small mistake, and their manager starts looking for additional “proof” that they aren’t qualified.
• A mistake that might be treated as an isolated incident for one employee becomes “evidence” of a larger pattern when made by someone from an underrepresented group.

Have you ever seen someone make one mistake, and then watched everyone start looking for the next one?

While we should hold people accountable for their mistakes and give them feedback, we need to apply the same standards to everyone.

Here’s one quick way to check yourself: Ask, “Would I apply the same level of scrutiny to someone of a different identity or background?” I learned about this “flip it to test it” approach from Kristen Pressner, a global HR executive, in her TEDx talk on bias.

If the answer is “No” or “I’m not sure,” let’s pause before looking for more evidence.

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Here’s another example of extra scrutiny, from my archives.

In ‘It was stolen from me’: Black doctors are forced out of training programs at far higher rates than white residents, Usha Lee McFarling sheds light on the inequity facing many Black residents. One example is that they were written up for transgressions that went unpunished for white residents.

In any workplace, increased surveillance brings increased employee nervousness. Small mistakes are more likely to be caught, leading to negative feedback and, over time, job loss.

Let’s define “the bar” for acceptable and unacceptable work. And then apply that bar consistently.

“Don’t want to see someone with 20–30 years experience.”

That was a hiring manager’s raw note that accidentally made its way into a job description, according to a viral LinkedIn post by Emily Worden.

The irony? The job requires 5+ years of experience.

So why doesn’t the hiring manager want someone with 20+ years under their belt?

Is it ageism? Maybe. But Worden suggests asking a more useful question: What are you really looking for? For example,

• I need someone to be hands-on.
• I need someone who’ll be satisfied with $45/hour.
• I need someone who won’t get bored with the job.
• I need someone who is comfortable taking direction instead of running the department.

Those are legitimate hiring criteria.

So the next time you hear someone say they don’t want someone who’s “overqualified” or has “too much experience,” ask what they actually mean.

Then encourage them to list that in the job description and interview for it.

Last week, a newsletter subscriber asked me an interesting question about how to respond to a racist joke.

Her husband, who I’ll call John, was giving a tour of their new home to his relatives when someone asked about his office.

“It’s up by the front door,” John said.

His uncle then quipped, “We’re white. We came in the front door, so we saw it.”

John was stunned. He wanted to remain respectful to his family, so he asked, “What do you mean?” His uncle explained that there was a time when only white people could come in the front door.

John, realizing his uncle was making a joke, just said, “I don’t get it,” and continued the tour.

Later, John wished he had said more. He felt he missed an opportunity to call out the racism.

But I think John did something important: he introduced a speed bump. By asking “What do you mean?” and then saying “I don’t get it,” he slowed the conversation down. He made his uncle explain the joke instead of laughing along. And he signaled that he wasn’t okay with it.

And for a stronger stance, John could have added: “We don’t joke about things like that here.” Or, “Please don’t make fun of terrible parts of our history.”

Subscriber Billy W. told me he recently worked to make a team event more inclusive for a blind coworker. He wrote,

“Wanting to be thoughtful, I initially tried to solve potential accessibility challenges on my own rather than putting them on the spot with questions. When I discussed my approach with someone experienced in accessibility and inclusion, they shared a phrase that has stayed with me: ‘Nothing about us without us.’”

For Billy, it was an important reminder not to make assumptions, even well-intentioned ones, as an ally. Instead, we need to invite the people we’re trying to support into the conversation and listen to their perspective.

When Billy asked his blind coworker what would be most helpful, they provided valuable guidance. They also told him they appreciated that he was being proactive.

Something for all of us to keep in mind. ❤️

If you’ve taken a step towards being a better ally, please reply to this email and tell me about it. And mention if I can quote you by name or credit you anonymously in an upcoming newsletter.

That’s all for this week. I’m glad you’re on this journey with me,

Karen Catlin (she/her), Author of the Better Allies® book series

100% written by me. I use AI for researching a personal archive of my books and past newsletters, and for light editing.

Copyright © 2026 Karen Catlin. All rights reserved.

Together, we can make a difference with the Better Allies® approach.

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Look Out For Extra Scrutiny, and Other Actions for Allies was originally published in Code Like A Girl on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

KITCHENER – Back-to-back home runs with two outs in the bottom of the ninth proved to be too little, too late for the Kitchener Panthers.

A couple of early errors and trouble on the mound proved costly in a 12-7 defeat to the Welland Jackfish Thursday.

Kitchener’s late heroics included two successive home runs, while down to their last out.

Both Yosuke Fujie and Mateo Zeppieri made things interesting with no doubt shots to keep the game alive.

Alongside the three runs scored in the ninth, the Panthers had knocked two home runs earlier in the ballgame. Trent Lawson hit his ninth of the year, and Zeppieri hit the first of his two on the evening.

Panthers starter Evan Elliott was ran out the game in the second inning, after surrendering five earned runs on four hits. 

Three more Panthers would grace the mound through the ballgame - that of Ben Hewitt, Jake Liberta, and Brett Reid – who would combine for five strikeouts - and more critically – five walks.

Welland’s win was surmounted from an outing that Pedro De Los Santos – a nine-year veteran of the league – will never forget. 

Having not thrown for more than three innings in a game all season, the former Panther went seven in this one, striking out three – with 114 pitches to his name.

The Panthers are down to only two remaining home games at Jack Couch Park for the 2026 season, and after a duel with the Maple Leafs in Toronto on Saturday, they will return for a home clash on Sunday with the Chatham-Kent Barnstormers. First pitch is scheduled for 2:05 p.m.

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW and #PackTheJack!

And so inaccurate. I guess that's not too surprising. They took an educated guess and guessed wrong. They've backed the wrong horse and aren't going to admit it now. There was a large article in the Record last November with a number of pretty obvious errors in it. I contacted the Record in writing with specifics and details and basically got nowhere. They weren't interested in having to change any part of the narrative, accurate or inaccurate. I might add that there is a good comment published on yesterday's Blog posting regarding what appears to be Lanxess's intentional leakage and even pumping of contaminated groundwater pulling it off the Uniroyal/Lanxess site into the Elmira drinking water aquifers. 

Overall media coverage has been pathetic for years despite ongoing RAC & TAG meetings later followed by TRAC meetings. My initial name for TRAC was "Totally Rotten & Corrupt" but I have softened that to "Too Reticent and Compromising". Either one works for me although the second is politer and acknowledges that there are at least a couple of members whose intentions are good. The rest know what the game is and are fine with going through the motions and providing the Ministry (MECP), Lanxess and  Woolwich Township with the cover and credibility they require. Following is the verbatim Comment from yesterday's Blog posting:

 AnonymousAugust 19, 2026 at 9:08 PM

Yesterday's Analysis is SHOCKING!!! "By pumping less on-site and more off-site they are intentionally losing on-site hydraulic containment. This means that they are purposefully drawing contaminants off their site where they Lanxess only pay 50% of those cleanup costs versus 100% of all on-site treatment costs." so they drained the surface with ditches and swales and trenches into the river AND the parts of the Aquifer that were most contaminated they are attempting to just flush away downstream as well. Wow that is so environmentally mindboggling.

What's with the teapots in Ottawa?

The family is in the city while Erin attends a conference. While there, I take Eldest Child out for breakfast at Fathers and Sons restaurant near the UOttawa campus (excellent food), but Eldest Child was flummoxed by the teapot their tea was served in. The glass is uninsulated, and so quite hot, and the heat resistant banding on top was only mildly effective. There was also no spout, so the hot tea easily spilled. We thought it was a weird affectation of this college campus restaurant and moved on...

Until we went to the Downtown restaurant Eggspectations the next day, and was served the same pot.

Is this a weird Ottawa thing?

So, I wrote this a week ago on Facebook and got a number of answers. Apparently others have seen this style of teapot, in Vancouver and in Colorado. Apparently, they were more common in the 1980s and the 1990s, so maybe it's falling out of style and these two restaurants happen to be odd throwbacks.

I do know that, when we returned to Eggspectations on our final day in Ottawa, Eldest Child was served tea from a normal teapot (fully ceramic, with a handle and a spout). They were delighted by this and thanked the waiter for using it, explaining the whole weird thing we'd encountered on Saturday and Sunday. Her reply was (paraphrased), "Yeah, we have a couple of those teapots in the back. I hate them, and try to use the regular ones when possible."

So there you go!

We invite committed and enthusiastic individuals to join the Centre for Independent Living in Toronto’s (CILT) dynamic Board of Directors as we continue to empower people with disabilities to live independently and take control of their own lives.

• Support CILT’s operations and the hundreds of consumers we serve across a variety of programs geared toward opportunities for people with disabilities to learn skills necessary for successful inclusion into society, including social and economic opportunities.
• Have a say in the direction of the organization and ensure we are on track to meet the goals set by the strategic plan
• Make a meaningful difference in the lives of people with disabilities and help shape a more inclusive community
• Gain experience contributing with a diverse and dynamic CILT Board of Directors and establish professional connections

• Understands, supports and is committed to the Independent Living philosophy
• Familiar with the disability community in Toronto and the surrounding area
• Experience developing/delivering budgets and financial statements is an asset

• CILT’s Board of Directors meets approximately every 2 months for 1.5-2 hours
• Meetings take place virtually over Zoom. Directors are also welcome to join by phone

• Directors are responsible to Members of the organization. The Director acts as a trustee on behalf of all members of CILT and people with disabilities in Toronto and the surrounding area.
• Directors are expected to attend all board meetings, including the Annual General Meeting (AGM), and arrive on time. Meeting minutes and documents are provided prior to the meetings and should be reviewed in advance.
• Directors understand and oversee all CILT’s finances. They must participate in the decision-making process by expressing insights, thoughts, opinions, and concerns related to CILT, and when appropriate, volunteer to serve on Board sub-committees. Any potential conflicts of interest must be declared, and all matters of the organization must be treated with confidentiality and sensitivity.
• Accept all other duties as required and adhere to the organizational By-laws and policies.

If you are interested in applying to join CILT’s Board of Directors, please submit your resume and cover letter to cilt@cilt.ca by September 4, 2026. All applications will be reviewed by the Nominations Committee of the CILT Board of Directors.

We encourage applications from disabled people who are also Black, Indigenous, People of Colour, 2-Spirit, LGBTQ+, Immigrants and Refugees, people living in poverty, unhoused, under-housed people and anyone else from communities experiencing systemic barriers.

The Centre for Independent Living in Toronto (CILT) is a consumer-controlled, community-based resource organization dedicated to supporting people with disabilities to live independently and participate fully in their communities. Grounded in the principles of the Independent Living (IL) movement, CILT is “for persons with a disability… by persons with a disability.” A majority of CILT’s board and staff are people with disabilities, ensuring that the organization remains consumer-directed and reflective of lived experience.

CILT’s By-laws require that the majority of the board shall be made up of disabled consumers and that the positions of President and Vice-President shall at all times be a disabled consumer.

For more information about CILT, please visit www.cilt.ca 

The post CILT appeared first on Capacity Canada.

Position: Board Member (Volunteer, 4 positions available)
Deadline: September 15, 2026
Organization: Necessary Angel Theatre Company
Website: necessaryangel.com

Founded in 1978, Necessary Angel pioneered idea-based artist-driven theatre creation processes, influencing a generation of English-speaking companies and artists. The company has always taken a multi-year approach to development, exploring complex contemporary themes, in unique sites and with boundary-pushing scopes. Many of our projects have been widely acclaimed and toured. NA has been awarded the Governor General’s Awards for Drama, Chalmers Awards for Outstanding New Play and numerous Dora Mavor Moore Awards. The company was awarded the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for the Arts in 1998.

Necessary Angel has created over 60 productions, including over 30 world premieres and 11 North American premieres. To support these projects, Necessary Angel pioneers an artist-led, exceptionally open-ended development process. We have been privileged to work with outstanding literary figures such as Michael Ondaatje and Timothy Findley. A catalyst for groundbreaking original work, Necessary Angel has collaborated with some of Canada’s most acclaimed theatre artists: Jordan Tannahill, Dairine Ni Mheadra, Daniel MacIvor, Saidah Baba Talibah, John Mighton, Colleen Murphy, Teresa Przybylski, Jason Sherman, Colleen Wagner, David Young, Marie-Josee Chartier and Jonathon Young.

Richard Rose was Necessary Angel’s founder and Artistic Director from 1978 to 2008, Daniel Brooks from 2008 to 2012, and Jennifer Tarver from 2013 to 2018. Alan Dilworth was appointed as Necessary Angel’s fourth Artistic Director in June 2019.

Necessary Angel Theatre Company has always supported artistic voices, process, and innovation over institutional growth.

As of 2020, Necessary Angel has implemented a series of Artist Residencies that have centered Indigenous artists, artists of colour, new generation artists, and artists outside of Toronto. These residences are part of the NA LAB and have been central to our artistic programming both on the stage and off, and are at the heart of our vision of radical connection.

For nearly 50 years, Necessary Angel Theatre Company has been one of Canada’s leading creators of original theatre, producing bold, innovative, and socially relevant work.

Necessary Angel Theatre Company is seeking four new members to join its Board of Directors, with new terms beginning November 2026. As a volunteer board member, you will play an important role in the

governance, strategic direction, and long-term sustainability of Necessary Angel. Our highly professional and diverse board brings together leaders from a wide range of industries, offering an exceptional opportunity to build meaningful relationships while helping shape the future of one of Toronto’s and Canada’s leading independent theatre companies.

• Provide strategic oversight and contribute to the governance and growth of Necessary Angel
• Serve as an ambassador for the organization and help expand awareness of Necessary Angel’s mission and impact
• Serve as an active member of at least one board committee: Finance, Fundraising, or Governance
• Use your personal and professional network to identify and introduce prospective donors, sponsors, corporate partners, and community supporters
• Support donor cultivation, stewardship, and fundraising initiatives through relationship-building, outreach, and strategic introductions
• Collaborate with the Board of Directors and Artistic Director to advance organizational priorities and strengthen long-term financial sustainability
• Attend Board meetings and participate in Board discussions and initiatives. (Board meetings are held 5-6 times a year and are generally 90 minutes in length, via Zoom or in person.)
• Support Necessary Angel productions, events, and community engagement activities when possible

Necessary Angel is seeking board members who have a passion for the arts and a commitment to Necessary Angel’s mission, who have excellent communication and interpersonal skills, and who are strategic thinkers with a collaborative approach to leadership. Applicants with previous board or committee experience is an asset.

Necessary Angel strongly encourages applications from Indigenous, Black, racialized candidates, persons with disabilities, persons of all gender identities, artists, newcomers, members of the 2SLGBTQI+ communities and those identifying with other equity-deserving groups.

We are recruiting across three priority areas — candidates need not have experience in all three: Arts & Cultural Sector, Business & Finance, and Fundraising & Philanthropy.

Preferred qualifications and experience by priority area:

• Passion for arts and culture
• Familiarity with the non-profit cultural landscape and artist communities in Toronto and Ontario
• Working theatre artists, and young/emerging theatre artists

• Background in finance, or professional experience within a corporate environment or financial institution
• Financial literacy, with skills to read/analyze financial statements and manage budgets and with a willingness to join the board’s Finance Committee

• Experience in fundraising, philanthropy, donor cultivation, capital campaigns, or major gifts
• An established network of philanthropic, corporate, or community connections, with the ability and willingness to connect Necessary Angel with prospective donors, sponsors, and partners
• Comfort engaging in donor conversations, making introductions, and supporting fundraising initiatives

Please submit the following to info@necessaryangel.com with subject line ‘Board Member Application’ by September 15, 2026:

• A cover letter including a brief statement of interest (one page or less) describing your relevant experience and why you’d like to join the Necessary Angel Board of Directors
• A current resume or biography

Shortlisted candidates will be invited to a conversation with the Governance Committee in September 2026

• New members will be confirmed by the Board and welcomed onto the board in November 2026.

Necessary Angel Theatre Company is committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion and accessibility, and strongly encourages applications from Indigenous, Black, and racialized candidates, artists, newcomers, persons with disabilities, and members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities and persons who identify with other equity-deserving groups.

The post Necessary Angel Theatre Company appeared first on Capacity Canada.

♦“They Help Everybody!”

In 2019, Zineb and her family arrived in Canada after spending 10 years in the United States.

They had left Libya in 2008, so Zineb’s husband could study for a PhD in Chemistry, on a scholarship. When his studies ended, they could no longer stay in the U.S.

They decided to move to Canada. They wanted to give their children a chance to study here, seeing more opportunities than they had in the States.

While in the U.S, the family lived in university housing and had some money, but not a lot. Most of the social support available in the United States was restricted to U.S. citizens. Zineb’s family couldn’t access basic supports like food stamps.

And because they were there on a student visa, they couldn’t legally work in the United States, making it very difficult to make ends meet.

When they moved to Canada, a friend helped them find a house to rent in Waterloo, but it had no furniture. With very little money left after the move, they found bedding at Value Village so they could sleep on the floor. 

“We had nothing when we got here,” said Zineb. “We only had clothing.”

That Saturday, Zineb was walking near her home and met a neighbour.

“She showed me the Sunnydale community centre,” said Zineb. “I came on Monday and met Marwa and Fariba. I told them, ‘I am a newcomer here. And they helped me.’”

Marwa, a Community Development Worker at House of Friendship, spoke to Zineb in Arabic, helping her feel more at home. And Fariba, a Family Outreach Worker, sat down with her to help Zineb find the support she needed.

Fariba quickly helped Zineb get some furniture.

“I received beds for everybody, and a sofa, and a table, and stuff for the kitchen,” said Zineb. “I was crying.”

Since then, Zineb found part-time work as a lunchroom supervisor. Unfortunately, her husband has been unable to find work, despite his extensive education. Zineb has encouraged her children to be practical with their education, finding programs that will lead to good jobs.

Zineb has also made Sunnydale Community Centre a second home, going there for the support she needs, as well as regularly volunteering with the food program.

 “This area has many programs for families and children,” said Zineb. “House of Friendship is very good. I tell my friends, ‘The community centre will help you – they help everybody!’”

The post They Help Everybody appeared first on House Of Friendship.

Look it's one thing to be a cheerleader versus a watchdog but at some point you have to insist that Lanxess comply with their Control Orders, Environmental Compliance Agreements, MISA requirements and other mandated conditions affecting Elmira's groundwater cleanup as well as the cleanup of the Canagagigue Creek. Yesterday we discussed their failure to maintain the balance between on and off-site pumping necessary to ensure hydraulic containment in both areas. 

Again I have the data going back to 1997 at my fingertips showing the volume of pumping from the UACS (Upper Aquifer Containment & Treatment System). Each month I transfer the pumping results from the ongoing Progress Reports onto one individual page for the year thus reducing 12 monthly reports pumping information for all containment systems to a single page. Now if Lanxess Canada had made some sort of breakthrough several years ago that magically reduced the required amount of pumping and treating of groundwater, they certainly haven't publicly made a big deal of it. In fact for many years the Target pumping rates for each well along with the actual pumping that particular month were discussed in detail. Uniroyal, Crompton and Chemtura were occasionally balancing and adjusting based upon water level conditions ("Gig") and other factors which they openly and properly discussed with the UPAC and CPAC committees. We were often advised that short term reductions were not necessarily a problem however the Target pumping rates were carefully set in order to maintain the necessary hydraulic containment and avoid loss of contaminants from on-site either to off-site groundwater or for the leakage of contaminants from the on-site Upper Aquifer to the discharge point into the Canagagigue Creek.     

Above and beyond the committee members themselves is the fact that all actions and particularly changes from past practices are to be discussed at the public RAC/TAG and now TRAC meetings. When pump & treat is the primary remediation method it is of particular public interest to discuss rationales for any changes in pumping regimens, especially reductions. This has not been done either for on-site Municipal Upper Aquifer (MU) pumping or for on-site shallow groundwater (i.e. Upper Aquifer-UA) pumping. The pumping rates have simply been getting lower and lower over the last several years with no public discussion involved. Whether or not I have been able to stomach in person attendance at these alleged public meetings the fact is that I have watched and listened to them in their entirety via their on-line presence. I have also written critiques of each and every one afterwards. Perhaps there are implications to these Lanxess Canada, MECP and TRAC UA pumping failures somewhat similar to the implications I wrote about yesterday concerning the Municipal Upper Aquifer (MU) pumping failures.

♦

Coffee shops are everywhere, the good and the merely mediocre — McDonald’s coffee, among the latter, is still much, much better than Tim Hortons’, I have to say.

The most heartening aspect of the phenomenon is that the vast majority of local coffee shops are independents, each possessed of its own character and quality in a sea of java sameness. That means choice for consumers over and above the national chains.

This growth in a food culture when it comes to coffee continues a long tradition of the beverage as a popular recreational drug-of-choice, from accounts of Ethiopian goatherds chewing coffee as early as the 9th century to records of coffee being roasted and sipped by the 1550s.

London, England, for instance, got its first coffeehouse in 1652 and by the 18th century coffeehouses were firmly entrenched as hot houses for literary badinage and repartee about the latest fashion and gossip, and desultory kvetching about politics though some of that would have birthed its share of successfully hatched schemes, plots and subterfuges.

An added layer of shenanigans that took place at coffeehouses and chocolate houses—the latter having appeared as the perfect partner to the beverage in London by 1657—was gambling: at the Cocoa-tree Club in London in 1770, Lord Stavordale lost thousands of pounds in a card game.

Elsewhere, at Don Saltero’s Tavern in Chelsea (established in 1695, pictured above), you could have enjoyed a haircut and gotten some dental work done too.

Now, I haven’t seen any high stakes card games in area coffeehouses—nor have I seen periodontal work or prophylaxis being performed—but I have enjoyed a wide range of varying coffee cultures.

It is its cultural component that most interests me: coffee is a supremely contemplative drink conducive to conversation and social interaction, unlike any other foodservice sector perhaps.

Each shop in Kitchener and throughout Waterloo Region, for that matter, has something different to offer. There are a couple characterized by a faintly bohemian feel with couches, suffused light, vegan fare and an uber-laidback vibe. Some provide live entertainment, board games and small libraries with reading room-style seating.

As for fair trade and organic, it’s the right thing to do. There are many coffee aficionados and just casual sippers looking for responsible, sustainable brews and several outlets offering it. Coffee is a damn hard commodity to grow and farmers on the ground in coffee-growing regions too often take it on the chin.

Still other venues roast their own beans and are students of an artisan philosophy that moves beyond the coffea arabica and coffea robusta bean basics to a wide-world of esoteric coffees and the heady realm of the barista, the coffee expert who plies his or her trade from behind a glittering Italian espresso macchina worth as much as the addition I put on my house.

And while I enjoy the odd latte, espresso and cappuccino (and not because it sounds somewhat like my last name), I draw the line at the overly enthusiastic multi-syllabic orders—nonfat-mocha-frappa-misto-ventes—that take 10 seconds to blurt out. There are many of those around if that’s the exhilarating juice you desire, but I stick with Juan Valdez’s best flavours as simple and strong as I can get them, unadorned by sweeteners and cream.

The food in coffeehouses is of little concern for the die-hard java hound in search of a hot dose of the devil’s cup. There are sweets and savouries here and there—a biscotti, a muffin, a croissant—but the real, the traditional, draw is the cup of joe, the fix, the black liquid lightning.

Yet, all of this is a brew for a percolating discussion. Local coffeehouses jazz up a region’s food culture with a jolt of energy balanced with a relaxed atmosphere that’s perfect for casual conversation and friendly argument.

And maybe the odd kvetch about politicians.

banner image/By Bodleian Library, University of Oxford – Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Public Domain, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8343739

Check out my latest post Coffee culture is robust — and ancient from AndrewCoppolino.com.