Daniel Klein is a Minnesotan filmmaker and chef who has been traversing the US, documenting his culinary, agricultural and hunting adventures on film in a series called The Perennial Plate, featuring long winters, urban gardens, ice fishing, slaughterhouses, foraging for wild edibles, and more. These documentaries have something for the food-justice Winnipegger to chew on.
The latest episode, 90, is on a refugee garden.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Friday, September 16, 2011
Recommended reading:
Reinhold & Tom Mitchell. 2011. When the State Trembled: How AJ Andrews and the Citizens' Committee Broke the Winnipeg General Strike. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
On sale now ($35) at Mondragon Cafe.
The authors discuss the rightwing Astroturf strategies a small group of lawyers pursued to capture the judicial system, to manipulate the federal government and to promote anti-labor leaders to positions of direct control over labor leaders, in order to smash the working class advocacy movement in Winnipeg (1919). Great insight into how conservative capitalist hegemony is achieved (in the hinterlands), including the role of promoting racist alienation in class warfare.
(Perhaps this book would make a good dialectical complement to Jennifer Dalton's Making Minnesota Liberal, Vallely's Radicalism in the States, Gieske's Minnesota's Farmer Labor Party, and Haynes's Dubious Alliance. These books describe the successful strategies of socialist, anti-racist political parties in the US in the early 20th century. They show the importance of these socialist parties as well: Without pressure from Minnesota's Farmer-Labor Party and other socialist groups, there would have been no New Deal. The Democratic Party leadership supported Roosevelt only very reluctantly.)
The title of the book is politely oblique-- too obscure and weak. The authors really didn't have to worry about scaring off readers with a more contentious, descriptive title because, as other reviewers have pointed out, the font is too small and gives the impression that this is a book that only specialists can penetrate anyway. Underfunded Canadian publishing.
Discussed in How The Citizens' Committee Broke the Winnipeg General Strike:
I) Conservative Strategies:
A) Conservatives worked to label active working class citizens "strikers" and to claim the title of "Citizens" for their small capitalist political group. This simple framing strategy portrays active working class citizenship as outside the boundaries of the community, while the corrupt, back room political machinations of a pro-capitalist minority are portrayed as representative of the will of a broad, stable, non-disruptive community.
In the face of working class advocacy responding to capitalist-origin socio-economic upheavals and disruption, the conservative labeling strategy also confers the ideological contention that capitalism is not disruptive, but rather orderly (as advertised by the grand buildings housing its institutions). Obviously, this contention had and has little face validity; but sneaking the dream of peace into pro-capitalist politics through the back door of framing (and sedition law, which permitted capitalist advocates to prosecute working class advocacy as a uniquely anti-societal form of politics) seems to work in hegemonic strategy in Anglo-American settler societies. (Peace as Manifest Destiny, eh? This is basically Nixon's "silent majority" political manipulation decades and a country away.)
Elsewhere I argue that working class advocates need to confront this traditional conservative hegemonic strategy by insisting repeatedly: Capitalism produces instability and disruption because 1) it destroys the environment with thoughtless growth, 2) it maldistributes wealth to the impoverishment of social relations and the destruction of human health, 3) it systematically cultivates people inclined toward predation and injustice, and 4) in its advanced form unleashes unchecked financial capital power secured by military policing, prison industrialism and slavery, and belligerent imperialism.
Peacefulness will never be stable or far-reaching in capitalism, and can never be secured by coercing and forcing the mute submission of the majority of the population. Peace is more reliably reached through disabling capitalism's four pillars of disruption, which is accomplished by promoting working class people's active participation and development--partly in capitalist-serving establishment institutions, partly in the streets and the workplaces--in politics, economics, policy, institutions and culture.
...
An interesting case in this regard, Canada's not bad at promoting cultural development within newcomer and aboriginal communities. But working class people not marked by race are unrecognized in Canada, and standing alone, cultural reclamation is closer to an ineffective silencing strategy than an effective opposition to racism-promulgating capitalist disruption.
The Canadian case shows well how addressing racism simply as an unfortunate issue of working class culture + elite colonial history (of course race is an historical cultural construct, but it is more), rather than an alienation-for-exploitation tool in the capitalist toolkit of accumulation, is certainly a polite, elite-flattering, consensus approach to social conflict; but such narrow cultural reclamation cannot do anything but maintain racism because of its failure to recognize working class whites as anything other than autonomous cultural agents of racism and its failure to recognize modern capitalists as anything other than civilized purveyors of anti-racist culture. The working class and the larger society's need for working class intellectual and cultural (not just isolated moral) development remains neglected, and so fuels racism that has not stopped benefitting political-economic elites' divide-and-conquer interests.
II) Structure of capitalist politics:
A) The capitalist class warriors in Winnipeg were affluent lawyers (Andrews, Pitblado, Crossin, and Sweatman) who earned their living representing the interests of the propertied capitalist class. They came from religious backgrounds--usually had a minister father who was not paid as well as they were. Essentially, these were people who came from families that maintained cultural capital in service of controlling the working class for the capitalist class. The extension of their family cultural capital from managing working populations with networks (churches) cemented in religious spirituality to managing property relations through the law had permitted them to augment their family wealth, confirming in their minds the capitalist political claim that capitalism bestows affluence on the elect. These capitalist class lawyer-warriors had inherited the know-how and disposition to do this large-scale population management work, and obtained their income and wealth from variants of this kind of work. Combining their strategic know-how to crush a working class advocacy movement was both a logical extension of their cultural capital and occupational work, and a strategy for preserving the economic, social and political relations that provided them a relatively-privileged and ego-affirming management-status berth in the community.
Backgrounder to the Winnipeg General Strikes, adapted from a review by professor emeritus William Bruneau of British Columbia:
The main facts are these: between 1896 and 1912, the prairie provinces received a huge flow of immigrants under Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier’s settlement policy, but without ending Anglo-Canadian dominance in the region. Just before the conclusion of World War I, the Bolshevik-led revolution of 1917 had begun in Russia, a convulsion that was deeply worrisome to any who feared labour activism of any sort.
Then Canada’s soldiers returned from war, pressing for employment and opportunity. Economic uncertainty, racism, the rapid movement of entire populations, and finally the unsettling effects of a pandemic (the 1918–1920 flu) all added to an atmosphere of uncertainty.
As in 1945 and 1955, the end of war brought high unemployment, an industrial turndown and inflation, which combined in Winnipeg with the fact that workers from both the private and public sectors had been underpaid for years. The authors also show how the legal system, mainly by making picketing difficult or impossible, helped to lead working people to organize themselves, in hopes of decent wages and working conditions.
The Winnipeg strike began as a municipal labour action, but rapidly intensified as city council voted compulsory arbitration of disputes with its workers, and as federal mediation failed. Building and metal trades workers quickly grouped in union federations. By early May 1919, the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council had joined the cause and unionists from more than 50 locals voted to support the strike call. On May 15 the largest strike in Canadian history began.
The media claimed the working class citizen advocates were Bolsheviks. In indignation, 30,000 workers walked off the job, closing the city’s factories, crippling its retail trade and stopping the trains. But the causes for the strike lay deeper than the media's slavish insults.
The response of Winnipeg’s business and political élite was the creation of a capitalist political organization known as the “Citizens’ Committee of 1000.” The organization, actually numbering about 50 members, was modeled on similar political organizations in the United States. The authors amusingly show how A.J. Andrews, a prominent member of the Winnipeg legal community and founding member of the Citizens’ Committee, along with other leaders in the campaign against Winnipeg’s working-class revolt, used their influence to convince governments at all three levels that the Central Strike Committee and the Trades and Labour Council had taken over Winnipeg by late May. It was a short distance to the claim that strike leaders were guilty of sedition.
By June 9, the capitalist Citizens’ Committee had persuaded the federal government to bring in the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (the RCMP’s predecessor) and special constables. The arrest of strike leaders in early morning raids on June 17 triggered a demonstration and violent police response four days later on “Bloody Saturday” that ended with two dead, dozens of casualties and federal troops occupying city streets.
An inquiry under Mr. Justice R.A. Robson, launched by the provincial government in July 1919, recognized, backhandedly, the justice of the workers’ cause. But by then the strike was long over and the preliminary hearing and trial of those accused of inciting a riot — an illegal act under sedition law — was over. One labour leader had been deported, and several found themselves behind bars for many months.
It is a signal contribution of the book’s authors to show, using previously unknown letters exchanged between Andrews, directing the operations of the Citizens’ Committee, and acting Minister of Justice Arthur Meighen, how far the business community had co-opted the apparatus of state in 1919–1920. Equally valuable is the authors’ carefully evidenced and well-written discussion of the ethnic and race (racist) views of the elite Committee of 1000, and the administrative and judicial implementation of those views.
Reinhold & Tom Mitchell. 2011. When the State Trembled: How AJ Andrews and the Citizens' Committee Broke the Winnipeg General Strike. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
On sale now ($35) at Mondragon Cafe.
The authors discuss the rightwing Astroturf strategies a small group of lawyers pursued to capture the judicial system, to manipulate the federal government and to promote anti-labor leaders to positions of direct control over labor leaders, in order to smash the working class advocacy movement in Winnipeg (1919). Great insight into how conservative capitalist hegemony is achieved (in the hinterlands), including the role of promoting racist alienation in class warfare.
(Perhaps this book would make a good dialectical complement to Jennifer Dalton's Making Minnesota Liberal, Vallely's Radicalism in the States, Gieske's Minnesota's Farmer Labor Party, and Haynes's Dubious Alliance. These books describe the successful strategies of socialist, anti-racist political parties in the US in the early 20th century. They show the importance of these socialist parties as well: Without pressure from Minnesota's Farmer-Labor Party and other socialist groups, there would have been no New Deal. The Democratic Party leadership supported Roosevelt only very reluctantly.)
The title of the book is politely oblique-- too obscure and weak. The authors really didn't have to worry about scaring off readers with a more contentious, descriptive title because, as other reviewers have pointed out, the font is too small and gives the impression that this is a book that only specialists can penetrate anyway. Underfunded Canadian publishing.
Discussed in How The Citizens' Committee Broke the Winnipeg General Strike:
I) Conservative Strategies:
A) Conservatives worked to label active working class citizens "strikers" and to claim the title of "Citizens" for their small capitalist political group. This simple framing strategy portrays active working class citizenship as outside the boundaries of the community, while the corrupt, back room political machinations of a pro-capitalist minority are portrayed as representative of the will of a broad, stable, non-disruptive community.
In the face of working class advocacy responding to capitalist-origin socio-economic upheavals and disruption, the conservative labeling strategy also confers the ideological contention that capitalism is not disruptive, but rather orderly (as advertised by the grand buildings housing its institutions). Obviously, this contention had and has little face validity; but sneaking the dream of peace into pro-capitalist politics through the back door of framing (and sedition law, which permitted capitalist advocates to prosecute working class advocacy as a uniquely anti-societal form of politics) seems to work in hegemonic strategy in Anglo-American settler societies. (Peace as Manifest Destiny, eh? This is basically Nixon's "silent majority" political manipulation decades and a country away.)
Elsewhere I argue that working class advocates need to confront this traditional conservative hegemonic strategy by insisting repeatedly: Capitalism produces instability and disruption because 1) it destroys the environment with thoughtless growth, 2) it maldistributes wealth to the impoverishment of social relations and the destruction of human health, 3) it systematically cultivates people inclined toward predation and injustice, and 4) in its advanced form unleashes unchecked financial capital power secured by military policing, prison industrialism and slavery, and belligerent imperialism.
Peacefulness will never be stable or far-reaching in capitalism, and can never be secured by coercing and forcing the mute submission of the majority of the population. Peace is more reliably reached through disabling capitalism's four pillars of disruption, which is accomplished by promoting working class people's active participation and development--partly in capitalist-serving establishment institutions, partly in the streets and the workplaces--in politics, economics, policy, institutions and culture.
...
An interesting case in this regard, Canada's not bad at promoting cultural development within newcomer and aboriginal communities. But working class people not marked by race are unrecognized in Canada, and standing alone, cultural reclamation is closer to an ineffective silencing strategy than an effective opposition to racism-promulgating capitalist disruption.
The Canadian case shows well how addressing racism simply as an unfortunate issue of working class culture + elite colonial history (of course race is an historical cultural construct, but it is more), rather than an alienation-for-exploitation tool in the capitalist toolkit of accumulation, is certainly a polite, elite-flattering, consensus approach to social conflict; but such narrow cultural reclamation cannot do anything but maintain racism because of its failure to recognize working class whites as anything other than autonomous cultural agents of racism and its failure to recognize modern capitalists as anything other than civilized purveyors of anti-racist culture. The working class and the larger society's need for working class intellectual and cultural (not just isolated moral) development remains neglected, and so fuels racism that has not stopped benefitting political-economic elites' divide-and-conquer interests.
II) Structure of capitalist politics:
A) The capitalist class warriors in Winnipeg were affluent lawyers (Andrews, Pitblado, Crossin, and Sweatman) who earned their living representing the interests of the propertied capitalist class. They came from religious backgrounds--usually had a minister father who was not paid as well as they were. Essentially, these were people who came from families that maintained cultural capital in service of controlling the working class for the capitalist class. The extension of their family cultural capital from managing working populations with networks (churches) cemented in religious spirituality to managing property relations through the law had permitted them to augment their family wealth, confirming in their minds the capitalist political claim that capitalism bestows affluence on the elect. These capitalist class lawyer-warriors had inherited the know-how and disposition to do this large-scale population management work, and obtained their income and wealth from variants of this kind of work. Combining their strategic know-how to crush a working class advocacy movement was both a logical extension of their cultural capital and occupational work, and a strategy for preserving the economic, social and political relations that provided them a relatively-privileged and ego-affirming management-status berth in the community.
Backgrounder to the Winnipeg General Strikes, adapted from a review by professor emeritus William Bruneau of British Columbia:
The main facts are these: between 1896 and 1912, the prairie provinces received a huge flow of immigrants under Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier’s settlement policy, but without ending Anglo-Canadian dominance in the region. Just before the conclusion of World War I, the Bolshevik-led revolution of 1917 had begun in Russia, a convulsion that was deeply worrisome to any who feared labour activism of any sort.
Then Canada’s soldiers returned from war, pressing for employment and opportunity. Economic uncertainty, racism, the rapid movement of entire populations, and finally the unsettling effects of a pandemic (the 1918–1920 flu) all added to an atmosphere of uncertainty.
As in 1945 and 1955, the end of war brought high unemployment, an industrial turndown and inflation, which combined in Winnipeg with the fact that workers from both the private and public sectors had been underpaid for years. The authors also show how the legal system, mainly by making picketing difficult or impossible, helped to lead working people to organize themselves, in hopes of decent wages and working conditions.
The Winnipeg strike began as a municipal labour action, but rapidly intensified as city council voted compulsory arbitration of disputes with its workers, and as federal mediation failed. Building and metal trades workers quickly grouped in union federations. By early May 1919, the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council had joined the cause and unionists from more than 50 locals voted to support the strike call. On May 15 the largest strike in Canadian history began.
The media claimed the working class citizen advocates were Bolsheviks. In indignation, 30,000 workers walked off the job, closing the city’s factories, crippling its retail trade and stopping the trains. But the causes for the strike lay deeper than the media's slavish insults.
The response of Winnipeg’s business and political élite was the creation of a capitalist political organization known as the “Citizens’ Committee of 1000.” The organization, actually numbering about 50 members, was modeled on similar political organizations in the United States. The authors amusingly show how A.J. Andrews, a prominent member of the Winnipeg legal community and founding member of the Citizens’ Committee, along with other leaders in the campaign against Winnipeg’s working-class revolt, used their influence to convince governments at all three levels that the Central Strike Committee and the Trades and Labour Council had taken over Winnipeg by late May. It was a short distance to the claim that strike leaders were guilty of sedition.
By June 9, the capitalist Citizens’ Committee had persuaded the federal government to bring in the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (the RCMP’s predecessor) and special constables. The arrest of strike leaders in early morning raids on June 17 triggered a demonstration and violent police response four days later on “Bloody Saturday” that ended with two dead, dozens of casualties and federal troops occupying city streets.
An inquiry under Mr. Justice R.A. Robson, launched by the provincial government in July 1919, recognized, backhandedly, the justice of the workers’ cause. But by then the strike was long over and the preliminary hearing and trial of those accused of inciting a riot — an illegal act under sedition law — was over. One labour leader had been deported, and several found themselves behind bars for many months.
It is a signal contribution of the book’s authors to show, using previously unknown letters exchanged between Andrews, directing the operations of the Citizens’ Committee, and acting Minister of Justice Arthur Meighen, how far the business community had co-opted the apparatus of state in 1919–1920. Equally valuable is the authors’ carefully evidenced and well-written discussion of the ethnic and race (racist) views of the elite Committee of 1000, and the administrative and judicial implementation of those views.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Elevating Water to Amenity
Considering Water As Amenity Rather Than Problem
Winnipeg's streams, where they exist, could be unburied as shown above in the view of Seoul's delightful Cheonggyecheon urban renewal, at least here and there--to provide people the stress-reduction benefits of water features, and to allow for riparian benefits: filtration, riparian animals and plants, irrigation of gardens supporting food security.
Below: A stream-side cafe in California displays one of the relaxing pleasures of unburied streams. In colder Stockholm, Sweden, moored barges serve up civilization as spring-to-fall outdoor cafe-pubs. Stockholmare, eager for the lengthening days, heap pub-provided wool blankets upon their laps while they sip beers and chat over water sparkling in the sun. You know it's true: life on water is really better.
Commerical-ag flatlands (romantically: prairies) are notoriously poor in amenities for people. It's very unfortunate that Winnipeg was not sited 2 hours east, where the geography is beautiful and engaging; but as the city is where it is, it needs to claim and build up something natural as a fundamental public amenity to bring some reliable, ambient cheer to residents. (The Jets are not natural and they are not enough.) The rivers are pretty much what we've got to work with.
Winnipeg needs a campaign to build attractive pedestrian/bike bridges (The one in La Barriere Park is a good, basic example.), and a big, bold plan for water quality, access, and navigability remediation for residents' leisure and transport. The rivers should be navigable for small, non-motorized boats (as are Stockholm's and Minneapolis' waterways).
Winnipeg needs public water access--more river bank public land, and realistic, above-water bank-side pedestrian and bicycling trails. The City of Winnipeg should conduct a Legacy public-good will-bequeathing campaign (carrots) with the assistance of the Winnipeg Foundation, as well as use eminent domain (sticks), to launch a long-term program to reclaim riverbank land in the city limits for public walkways, bike paths and gardens, and for recreational swimming and nonmotorized boat access. Public-spirited benefactors can be commemorated on riverside public park benches. Minneapolis is a model here. Wealthy residents' homes and commercial buildings are situated across public parks and their big front lawns from the water. They still have the best views and access that they feel their wealth entitles them to, but they don't have a petty-spirited private monopoly on nature.
As well, Winnipeg needs continuing emphasis on facilitating ice skating on the rivers (a la Ottawa) and sledding on the river banks (a la Whittier Park in St. Boniface).
Winnipeg needs public water access--more river bank public land, and realistic, above-water bank-side pedestrian and bicycling trails. The City of Winnipeg should conduct a Legacy public-good will-bequeathing campaign (carrots) with the assistance of the Winnipeg Foundation, as well as use eminent domain (sticks), to launch a long-term program to reclaim riverbank land in the city limits for public walkways, bike paths and gardens, and for recreational swimming and nonmotorized boat access. Public-spirited benefactors can be commemorated on riverside public park benches. Minneapolis is a model here. Wealthy residents' homes and commercial buildings are situated across public parks and their big front lawns from the water. They still have the best views and access that they feel their wealth entitles them to, but they don't have a petty-spirited private monopoly on nature.
As well, Winnipeg needs continuing emphasis on facilitating ice skating on the rivers (a la Ottawa) and sledding on the river banks (a la Whittier Park in St. Boniface).
Urban water systems, mosquito control, and insectivores
Wherever there's water (everywhere), mosquitoes and other bugs are a problem in the flat, wintery, inland north. (Let's face it, in the spring and even summer, you can see from the air that Manitoba is one gigantic swamp.) How can we have the ambient water we need to grow food, increase security, and improve quality of life? Consider that the ecological steps taken through the Winnipeg dragonfly program (so far combined with other, more-toxic measures) are fairly successful and can be improved.
One thing that's instantly noticeable to a new Winnipeg resident is that there's an obvious dearth of bats in the summer evening sky. Can insectivore bats be bred for colder weather? Can government invest in insulated hibernation enclaves that would permit bats to live this far north in more significant numbers? Bats are fun to watch in the evening, and it's comforting to know they're gobbling up bazillions of mosquitoes overhead. They could be part of a better, more ecological approach to insect control. If so, perhaps the city and province could provide winter hibernation enclaves for bats, swallow houses along waterways, and education and incentives encouraging people to hang up summer bat houses to combat the mosquito and fly populations.
Wherever there's water (everywhere), mosquitoes and other bugs are a problem in the flat, wintery, inland north. (Let's face it, in the spring and even summer, you can see from the air that Manitoba is one gigantic swamp.) How can we have the ambient water we need to grow food, increase security, and improve quality of life? Consider that the ecological steps taken through the Winnipeg dragonfly program (so far combined with other, more-toxic measures) are fairly successful and can be improved.
One thing that's instantly noticeable to a new Winnipeg resident is that there's an obvious dearth of bats in the summer evening sky. Can insectivore bats be bred for colder weather? Can government invest in insulated hibernation enclaves that would permit bats to live this far north in more significant numbers? Bats are fun to watch in the evening, and it's comforting to know they're gobbling up bazillions of mosquitoes overhead. They could be part of a better, more ecological approach to insect control. If so, perhaps the city and province could provide winter hibernation enclaves for bats, swallow houses along waterways, and education and incentives encouraging people to hang up summer bat houses to combat the mosquito and fly populations.
Winnipeg is at the northern boundary of bats' ranges; perhaps insectivore bats cannot be a significant part of the Winnipeg ecology. But since we are biotic, it's important to investigate modifications that would allow us to build up more robust (risk reducing), less toxic, higher carrying capacity ecosystems in the urban and suburban landscape.
Dam the Assiniboine
A major engineering and construction project to enhance water-based quality of life would be to build filtering dam on the Assiniboine at the entry/west side of Winnipeg (west of the Perimeter). The dam would control the mud-fest flooding, clean the river of its poisonous agricultural effluent, create a recreational lake out past the Perimeter, and turn the Assiniboine River east of the dam into a clean, pretty, recreational waterway, thereby vastly improving quality of life in Winnipeg.
Southwest Manitoba has always flooded in the spring, traditionally carrying prairie mud eastward to Lake Winnipeg, and in the modern era spreading industrial ag effluent with it. But now in the Global Warming era, Southwest Manitoba is one big welling, weeping sore (And perhaps there too flood prone for the profitable continuance of 20th century commercial export agriculture). A west-of-Winnipeg dam would block that toxic ag runoff, and, along with programs to reduce cottager lake pollution, ease the woes of the pollution-devastated east side of Lake Winnipeg, restoring fishing and improving recreation. The feds, the province and the city should thus fund this.
For a model of clean urban water, refer to the expertise of Stockholm, Sweden.
There are some places where dams are environmentally destructive, such as in the North American Pacific Northwest, where dams destroy wild salmon ecology. By contrast, what is destructive to rivers and lakes in Manitoba is commercial agriculture and the runoff of its poisons. Waterways in monocrop export ag country, such as in the central North American flatlands, need chemical clean up.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Salvage Home
I visited the charming Ray Chan and Mandy at Woodanchor, a mile past the perimeter south on Waverley, next to the landfill. Woodanchor's reclaimed wood flooring and furniture is a little dear; but the flooring they mill out of local-salvaged elms is lovely, and they have some spruce beams that would be impressive in a house or porch.
Sometimes they have Salvage Yard offerings, but their website isn't always kept up to date on that.
I recommend putting on some sturdy shoes and visiting Ray and Mandy at Woodanchor. The story behind the business is cool. The owner is a local woodworker who went to the city landfill on a dare and told them he could recycle the city's Dutch Elm-disease-ridden and felled elms, and market the products as green. The city let him; he milled the elms into value-added, saleable flooring; and now he's got the contract with the city.
Such a great business model for this town. Perhaps because it exists simply to manage the flow of wheat and hydroelectricity out into other cities, but Winnipeg is behind every place in the world, in terms of innovative, local-resources, Imperial Downslope technology development.
If they had any big-picture business sense, the local and regional governments should be paying the universities to systematically replicate German cold-weather green products and technologies, and then dispersing the technologies to community economic development co-ops to produce and market here.
For example, why not use UM materials scientists (at the Home Ec school) to develop street and sidewalk paving that can better adjust to the expansions and contractions attendant extreme temperatures and/or floodplain substrate--instead of keeping the local concrete companies on the constant teat of public pavement patching? (Concrete production is an environmental nightmare.)
If they had any big-picture business sense, the local and regional governments should be paying the universities to systematically replicate German cold-weather green products and technologies, and then dispersing the technologies to community economic development co-ops to produce and market here.
For example, why not use UM materials scientists (at the Home Ec school) to develop street and sidewalk paving that can better adjust to the expansions and contractions attendant extreme temperatures and/or floodplain substrate--instead of keeping the local concrete companies on the constant teat of public pavement patching? (Concrete production is an environmental nightmare.)
Ray Chan at Woodanchor is a photographer, designer and website developer for hire as well.
Other salvaged-home resources in Winnipeg include:
The Old House Revival Company, 324 Young St. N. Old lead-painted doors in various odd sizes, and antique furniture and household doo-dads. A bit dear.
The Salvage Supermarket at 1042 Oxford Street West.
Habitat for Humanity's ReStore at 60 Archibald Street. Big picture windows and a whole lotta slum-living junk.
and...at 305 McKay Ave., Northern Lights cedar hot tubs. Uh, they are also wood, they are also in Winnipeg, and I'd like a cedar hot tub. Because Winnipeg has some shitty, shitty weather. (But not the summer 2011 - winter 2012, when the weather was great, and the carnivorous bug biomass mysteriously and thankfully absent! ...Good weather, one out of every three years. Can humans recuperate on that?)
Saturday, November 20, 2010
The Stockholm Barge Bar
Finally! I found a photo of a Stockholm barge bar! I am so happy. These are sheer awesomeness. They open as soon as the water's open--They supply customers with warm blankets and those gas tower heaters to keep them warm in the fall and spring. They are always packed--especially after work and on weekends. People love them.
Barge Bar!
Winnipeg MUST IMPLEMENT THE BARGE BAR. Granted, Winnipeg's rivers are hideous during the day, unlike the beautiful, clean, blue Stockholm waterways. But people love water and sunshine anyway, and consider: night covers all ugliness crimes. This is the perfect way to allow Winnipeggers to get something out of living at the crossroads of two flood-prone rivers.
Just park a couple of decommissioned barges by the Leg, the Norwood Bridge Underpass Walkway in St. Boniface, the Maryland Bridge, etc., stick in some floating docks connecting high ground and the barges, hire waitstaff, and stock the barges with wine and Half Pints beer, good sandwiches, heaters and blankets, and voila! It is a delight, and the city (or the MLCC) could make some good income.
Downtown pubs: Yellow Dog & the LO
The Yellow Dog Tavern at 386 Donald Street (behind the Burton Cummings Theater & near Giant Tiger) is at the edge of downtown and the Exchange. It's intimate, it's got high ceilings and worn wooden floors--good atmosphere for Winnipeg. It's got good beer, including Half Pints, and is conveniently located. The Yellow Dog has a bar and a restaurant.
Closer to the University of Winnipeg downtown, at 330 Kennedy, on the corner of Ellice and Kennedy, the LO is a pub and a restaurant attached to an international hostel. The mostly veggie food at the LO is really good, and comes in huge portions. I recommend the mole' tofu. The beer selection includes good local brews, like Half Pints.
The LO pub has an older, local(-ish. I heard a lot of British expat accents inside the pub) clientele. It is popular, and it doesn't have enough tables or waitstaff. (I think the waitstaff are mostly just hostel employees.) So though it has a fireplace, which is nice, only a couple small tables can enjoy the cozy fire--though there's room for more. It has one cool feature--a 1970s ceiling over the bar/cleanup/pay area; and it has a few pieces of good local art on the walls.
The LO pub isn't my cup of tea, aesthetically. It's a typical drunks' bar--No windows, so you can hide your shameful, shameful drinking of beer (boo! hiss!) from the public. Low ceiling. Dark wood trim. Cheap, ugly chairs. Ugly, elderly, stained carpeting. For locals, however, the LO is a delightful improvement on the shady, super-addicts' bar that was there before.
Closer to the University of Winnipeg downtown, at 330 Kennedy, on the corner of Ellice and Kennedy, the LO is a pub and a restaurant attached to an international hostel. The mostly veggie food at the LO is really good, and comes in huge portions. I recommend the mole' tofu. The beer selection includes good local brews, like Half Pints.
The LO pub has an older, local(-ish. I heard a lot of British expat accents inside the pub) clientele. It is popular, and it doesn't have enough tables or waitstaff. (I think the waitstaff are mostly just hostel employees.) So though it has a fireplace, which is nice, only a couple small tables can enjoy the cozy fire--though there's room for more. It has one cool feature--a 1970s ceiling over the bar/cleanup/pay area; and it has a few pieces of good local art on the walls.
The LO pub isn't my cup of tea, aesthetically. It's a typical drunks' bar--No windows, so you can hide your shameful, shameful drinking of beer (boo! hiss!) from the public. Low ceiling. Dark wood trim. Cheap, ugly chairs. Ugly, elderly, stained carpeting. For locals, however, the LO is a delightful improvement on the shady, super-addicts' bar that was there before.
The LO pub
No one was in the LO restaurant while I was there. That's too bad because it has a very nice view of the downtown street, nice candle lighting (although just passable overhead electric lighting), a fireplace, comfortable bench seating, and good, minimalist, modern decor.
A problem with the LO restaurant is the horrible ceiling, which really detracts from what could be a good, sub-Stockholmesque atmosphere (that I would prefer to the pub). (I suspect that the lack of a "real" waitstaff may also undercut the restaurant's seductive power; but that's a chicken-or-egg issue.) The hostel should fix the crappy ceiling (get rid of the decaying 1970s "asbestos" ceiling panels--although I recognize they have to protect any sleeping hostel clients upstairs), invite in someone with a turntable and good musical taste (It shouldn't be a booming party. They can play electronica, etc. that won't drown out conversation or shake down hostel guests.), and hold a weekly artists-&-service industry night to attract a hipster base. With a little good music, hipsters, should they exist in the Peg, would find the LO restaurant attractive.
And I really like their idea of having one dark room (the pub) for older expats and office workers, and one airier, sleeker room (the restaurant) for a younger, hip crowd. If they both work out, it will be a cool, interesting combination, and perfect for a hostel.
The LO/hostel from the street (Ellice).
In the deepest, darkest of winter, the first-story corner windows allow you to watch over the downtown lights and traffic from within the cozy, modern LO restaurant.
Tip for us foreigners: The street "Ellice" is pronounced "Ellis" (not "Elise") in Winnipeg, as "Portage" is anglicized, with the accent on the first syllable.
Here are a couple swanky aspirational models for the restaurant portion of the LO, from affluent Portland, Oregon, The Doug Fir Lounge, and from affluent Minneapolis, MN, Stella's Fish Cafe.
The Doug Fir, Portland
Stella's Fish Cafe, Minneapolis
The Doug Fir targets and obtains a huge young hipster clientele. (It also has an attached basic motel, and an attached music venue.) Stella's Fish Cafe packs in a broader clientele, including on its 3-season outdoor rooftop. I know the Stella's Fish Cafe owners are very wealthy 50-year-old restaurant entrepreneurs. Obviously, the young Doug Fir owners are either steeped in wealth or debt or both. Winnipeg's the LO is not going to have access to investment money. But it looks like folks at the Winnipeg hostel have tried to create a very basic version of this cozy/casual-modern atmosphere. Good for them.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Winnipeg Cycling Hall of Shame
The Winnipeg Cycling Hall of Shame website features photographs of and commentary on anti-bicycling infrastructure in Winnipeg. Great website. Document a human-powered transportation travesty near you!
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