Personally, I don’t buy the argument that the prison farm program needs to be cut to help ease our budget.  I think that the benefits including training inmates as well as the added green space, far outweigh our need for condos, super-prisons, or even an Ikea.  If you agree, perhaps you’ll consider attending an evening of music and words on March 20th, to save Canada’s prison farms.  Special thanks to NapaneeGal for today’s photo, which is magical.  However it’s not the Magic Kingdom.

On that same note, the City has proposed some substantial upgrades to other ageing aquatic facilities, specifically Artillery Park and Richardson Beach.  While taking a leisurely dip in Lake Ontario may not sound healthy nor safe, the proposed changes to Richardson Beach are sort of appealing, while they include a more accessible point of entering the water, bike racks, a lookout point, and much needed renovations to the existing bath house.  Construction is set to start soon, and I’ve heard that the work will be completed by the end of May 2010.  Even if this project is completed on time and within budget, I can’t see myself taking a dip at a beach that’s located less than 1km away from a water purification plant.

Onto Artillery Park, where they’re investigating possible enhancements to the well loved, well used, downtown pool and recreation centre.  This is the same watering hole where I earned my lifeguarding qualification back in the day, so it has a special place in my heart. Highlights from the preliminary concept drawing include:

• A tots pool
• Hot tub
• Water slide
• Ramp entry into pool
• Re-configured and expanded change rooms
• Family change rooms
• Strength & Cardio room
• Aerobics room
• Steam room
• Elevator

In addition to the proposed and planned work mentioned above, the City is also moving ahead with an ambitious aquatic add-on to the Invista Centre.  According to the concept drawing, Kingston’s new 4 pad ice rink could eventually become home to:

• A 25 metre competition pool with spectator seating
• A leisure pool with beach entry, leisure lanes and lazy river
• A water slide
• Tots pool
• A flow rider (a wave pool)
• Gymnasium
• Running track
• Five multi-purpose rooms
• Additional change rooms, storage and administrative space
• New lease-able and/or program space

While I’m certainly not opposed to the idea of providing Kingstonians with additional leisure and recreation space, I’m a bit concerned about which projects will be given priority. I would hate to see the City choose to proceed with plans to put in a modern aquatic centre at the invista centre, and forget about Artillery Park altogether. In my mind, so long as it is financially feasible to renovate, Kingston needs to update existing infrastructure, before we go building a crystal palace out in middle of nowhere. Whether you agree or not, please drop a few comments off beloe.  Moreover, please let the City know how you feel about these prospective aquatic projects.

My personal favourite is Samatva, at 397 Princess Street (they also have a West End location at 1724 Bath Road).  Their downtown location has both hot and room temperature studios, and offers over thirty classes a week, with something for everyone. I’m a huge fan of their hot classes, and I have yet to practice with a teacher I don’t love.  Samatva is a small space, so be prepared to get cozy with your fellow students.  There are no showers (although the washrooms are lovely and always have plenty of cloth hand towels and yummy natural soap for your enjoyment), so it’s best to plan on sneaking home between your hot class and your next engagement. Samatva also offers a wide range of body work, from Thai yoga massage (heavenly!) to a sauna space.  Studio owner Jaime Wood recently returned from a trip to Haiti and continues to raise funds for aid work in Port Au Prince.  She also leads occasional 30- and 40-Day Challenges, where participants practice yoga daily and work to integrate yoga into their lives in a more meaningful way. I have yet to do a challenge myself, but am hoping to step it up this April. Check their website for more details.

Studio 330, at 330 Princess, prides itself on being a community-driven yoga space. Their class offerings are more traditional than Samatva’s, and again, the teachers are all stellar.   I recommend the Gentle Yoga classes for a truly relaxing experience.  330 also has a great commitment to local and global activism, and participates in the Off The Mat, Into the World challenge, a growing global movement to use yoga to inspire change and action through good works and charity. Check their website for information on upcoming challenge events, including an Earth Hour candlelight class on March 27th.

Feel Yoga, at 80 Princess, is Kingston’s hot spot for Bikrams yoga, the original hot yoga practice. Bikrams classes are vigorous and hot, and will leave you feeling like your body has been wrung out like a washcloth–it’s an amazing feeling, trust me.  Feel also offers more traditional classes and often hosts meditation and chant workshops, as well as other events.

There are numerous other studios I haven’t had time to visit yet: I hear great things about Path Yoga at 336 Barrie and would love to check out one of their Ashtanga classes.  The Lululemon store on Princess hosts workshops and classes to deepen your yoga practice, and their Facebook page is a great spot to visit for updates on the latest events. The YMCA also offers yoga classes among their many fitness programs. I’d love to hear about any of your favourite yoga haunts around town!

Thanks a credit to timsamoff for today’s photo.

I’m happy to let the camera and Luke do the talking, but I should offer a bit of a warning: squeamish folks may not enjoy watching him prepare one of his signature dishes, which begins around the 5 minute mark of the first video.

Canadian politicians have their knickers in a twist over Israeli Apartheid Week.

Ontario MPPs of all parties voted to condemn the international campus event, decrying its organizers for their so-called “hate speech”.  Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff released an official statement of condemnation in which he claimed that “the activities planned for the week will single out Jewish and Israeli students. They will be made to feel ostracized and even physically threatened in the very place where freedom should be paramount — on a university campus.”

Disingenously, he added that “criticism of Israeli government policy is legitimate,” while “wholesale condemnation of the State of Israel and the Jewish people is not legitimate. Not now, not ever.”

Iggy’s argument would surely surprise many of the Jewish students who attended IAW events at Queen’s this week.  Now in its sixth year, Israeli Apartheid Week is an annual series of events held in cities and campuses around the globe to educate people on the nature of Israeli apartheid and the brutal military occupation of Palestine.  The use of the word “apartheid” draws deliberate parallels to the racist 20^th century South African regime, and the minds behind IAW aim to put similar pressure on the Israeli government by launching Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns worldwide.

The 2010 Israeli Apartheid Week in Kingston was organized by the group Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights.  Events from Monday to Wednesday at Queen’s included lectures on “Transnational Popular Resistance for Palestine”, “Israeli Apartheid: What’s in a Name”, “The Politics of Divestment: Darfur vs. Israel”, and “The Politics of Local and International Solidarity in Palestine”.  On Friday, the Artel hosted the film Slingshot Hip-Hop, a documentary about Palestinian rap music.

On Thursday night, Canadian freelance journalist Jon Elmer spoke at Macintosh-Corry Hall to a diverse audience and put the spotlight on Canada’s support for Israeli apartheid with his presentation “Ghetto Palestine: Canadian Foreign Policy and the Future of the Israel/Palestine conflict.”

Elmer is a veteran reporter who has long focused on the Middle East, reporting from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the al-Aqsa Intifada (2003), after Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip (2005), and during the sanctions period and resultant internal strife (2007).  His work has appeared on Al-Jazeera, and he has covered globalization summits and accompanying protests throughout North America.

Elmer held the audience’s attention well past the two and a half hour time limit.  He had the refreshing veneer of an unrepentant leftist, willing to go beyond the “safe zone” of conventional wisdom in his denunciation of Canada’s imperialist foreign policy.  He challenged NDP candidate Daniel Beals on his party’s lukewarm support for the Palestinian cause and its acquiescence to the Queen’s Park motion condemning Israeli Apartheid Week, as well as chastising the federal NDP for failing on more than three occasions to end Canadian military involvement in Afghanistan.

Beals, for his part, acknowledged a gulf between regional NDP supporters and party leaders, who tend to be more conservative than grassroots activists.  He also said there was a constant intra-party debate on the issue of Israel-Palestine among Jewish NDP members.

Elmer’s presentation was densely-packed with information that could be divided into two broad sections.  In the first part, he described the nature of Israeli apartheid and the worldwide movement against it through the BDS strategy.  In the second part, he explained Canada’s role supporting Israel in what the Goldstone Report described as possible “crimes against humanity”.

Named after UN Human Rights Council president Richard Goldstone – an internationally respected South African jurist and ardent Zionist – the report unequivocally stated that Israel committed war crimes during its 2008-9 attack on the Gaza Strip through collective punishment of Palestinian civilians and the use of white phosphorus in densely-populated areas (the report also accused Palestinian militants of war crimes for their deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians via rockets and mortars).

The Herzliya Conference, sponsored by Israeli think tank the Institute for Policy and Strategy, is the most prominent stage for the articulation of national policy by Israel’s political leaders.  Its most recent report talked about the “delegitimization” of Israel on the world stage following the publication of the Goldstone Report.  Israel also believes that the BDS campaign represents a “strategic threat that could become an existential threat” to the Jewish state.

The term “apartheid”, Elmer stressed, was central to simplifying the terms of the debate.  The BDS tactic helped end South African apartheid after 40 years, even as many Western countries continued to support the racist government there.  The terms of the debate were similar; Nelson Mandela, like Palestinians who resist the Israeli occupation, was also called a “terrorist”.

Ironically, given the controversy surrounding the term “apartheid”, the term was recently used by none other than Israel’s hawkish defence minister Ehud Barak in arguing that Israel’s security would be better served by a peace agreement with the Palestinians.  “As long as in this territory west of the Jordan River there is only one political entity called Israel,” said Barak, “it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic.

“If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.”

Explaining the pro-Israel consensus of the Canadian political establishment, Elmer suggested that, as with Canada’s war in Afghanistan, foreign policy towards Israel was based less on tangible material resources or imperial conquest and more on the abstract idea of gaining “a seat at the table” in international discussions.

“You can’t really underestimate a seat at the table,” said Elmer.  “When important world decisions are made, if you lay your blood and treasure on the line, particularly in service of American political objectives, you’re going to have a seat at that table and you’re going to be able to participate when contracts are given out or political influence is given out.  And sometimes you don’t get direct political influence over the territory upon which you are intervening.

“I think the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the most visible, longest-running, most politically-significant conflicts in the world.  Whether that’s just or not is a different story, but it’s a reality, and for Canada to participate in that is seen as strategically important to Canadian interests.”

Canada currently has expeditionary forces deployed in 18 different countries.  As Elmer pointed out, these are not all declared combat missions, but often include military “advisors” or attempts to influence elections – traditionally the preserve of CIA-style covert operations, but now openly funded by Western think tanks such as the National Endowment for Democracy, which aim to set up economically compliant pro-Western governments.

The Canadian foreign policy establishment’s cynical attitude towards “democracy” in Palestine was put on display for the world to see after U.S. President George W. Bush pushed for an election there in 2006.  When the results handed a resounding victory to Hamas, rather than the pro-Western Fatah, Canada became the first country not to recognize the new government.  As Defence Minister Peter MacKay said in a revealing statement, “We can’t be said to be following the Americans if we pre-empt them.”

Following the election, members of Fatah, with American and Israeli support, attempted to stage a coup by ousting members of Hamas from the government (detailed in David Rose’s Vanity Fair article “The Gaza Bombshell”).  Hamas regained control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, yet this defence of a democratically-elected government was itself referred to in mainstream Western media as a “coup”.

Canada has since supported prospective Palestinian strongman Salam Fayyad as the head of an “independent” government backed by Israel and the West.  With an American education in economics and a tenure at the International Monetary Fund, Fayyad is the preferred vehicle for a neoliberal transformation of Palestine.  Elmer compared him unfavourably to Afghan president Hamid Karzai, in that while both are Western puppets, Karzai at least has an Afghan constituency.  Fayyad receives $2 billion in funding annually from Canada, the United States and Europe, and the Canadian International Development Agency has lavishly funded a security force that may have been complicit in vast human rights abuses.

Israeli Foreign Minister and protofascist Avigdor Lieberman, who has suggested requiring Israeli Arabs to take a loyalty oath, has declared that Israel “needs more allies” like Canada.  Indeed, this country’s unquestioning support of Israel may now even exceed that of the United States.  Elmer posited three recent political decisions that help explain Israel’s embrace of the Great White North.

Firstly, Canada backed the postponement of a ceasefire during the 2006 war in Lebanon, allowing Israel to complete its devastation of the country.  Secondly, the country has blockaded Hamas and refuses to accept the legitimacy of the 2006 Palestinian elections that swept the Islamist party to power.  Finally, Canada has been “at the vanguard” in the isolation of Iran – a country which has not attacked any of its neighbours for centuries and has no nuclear weapons, while Israel regularly utilizes military force internally and externally and has an undeclared stockpile of hundreds of nuclear weapons.

Elmer warned about the consequences of Canada’s blind support for a militaristic Israel that flouts international law.

“The political implications of Canada being allied with Israel this closely are legally clear,” said Elmer.  “If Canada is bragging about supporting a security force that’s carrying out widespread human rights abuses, legally in international law before the International Criminal Court, Canada is participating in war crimes.

“If people fund African rebels, the whole world thinks it’s obvious that that’s a war crime,” he continued.  “But when we support Palestinian security forces or Afghan security forces carrying out human rights abuses, or Iraqi forces carrying out human rights abuses, or we’re building prisons in Haiti for a corrupt government to have thousands of political prisoners, or whether we’re arresting suspected Taliban insurgents and bagging their heads and sending them off to Bagram Air Base to be raped and tortured, or off to Guantanamo, these are crimes under international law.

“So when [Junior Foreign Affairs minister] Peter Kent says…an attack on Israel is an attack on Canada, we can throw up our arms and say that’s appalling, or we can actually say that’s pretty useful political fodder for resisting these programs, because the vast majority of people don’t agree with Peter Kent’s statement.  And that gives you an avenue into saying, well, where do we draw the line on our support, and where do Israel’s crimes become our crimes?  Where did the Afghan government’s crimes become our crimes?

“International law is crystal clear on this.”

This weekend I am extremely excited to check out a few films at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival (KCFF).  Blue Rodeo will be riding into the K-Rock Centre on Saturday to play for their faithful followers, while the Fronts will take to the ice on Sunday in their second last home game of the season.  Otherwise, if this gorgeous weather continues, this may be your last weekend to go for a skate on Springer Market Square.  My mittens have already been put away for the season.

Pico de Gallo is about to celebrate its 13th year as a band.  Over the years over thirty different musicians have played with them.  Last Friday’s line up included Kyle Cameron on congas and percussion, Andy Love on kit and vocals, Spencer Evans on keys, vocals and clarinet, Jonathan “Bunny” Stewart on tenor and soprano sax, James Wannamaker on alto sax, Luz Del Alba Marques on vocals and Paul Muller on bass and percussion.

Although all of these talented, local musicians have other projects on the go, they always come back to Pico every few months to put on a great party.  Some of the band’s highlights include playing the late night slot at the 25th anniversary of the Blue Skies Music Festival in Clarendon, ON, playing in front of city hall for the very first “day of action” protesting Mike Harris’ “common sense revolution” and playing to packed, sweaty houses at the Wellington/Scherzo (now The Iron Duke).

Keep your eyes and ears open for more Pico de Gallo fun in the future.  They’re fun and talented and full of energy.  I dare you to stand still.  For a taste of what to expect, check out the video below.

Now that the results are tallied, we are proud to to crown Laurel Emmons (@handwashcold) as the grand champion.  She’ll be enjoying a $50 gift certificate (on us) to the downtown business of her choice. A bit of advice Laurel, you might want to stay away from lower Princess Street at the moment.

For those of you who requested the answers, they are as follows:

1. 35 Centre Street
2. Princess & Gardiners
3. Division & Barbara
4. Division & Stanley
5. Montreal & Belle Park Drive
6. four
7. portico
8. Hatter’s Bay
9. maximum 2m
10. replica of the square puck
11. 168 Johnson
12. 176 Main
13. 401 and Sydenham
14. 18 Auld
15. 836 Fortune Cres

Thanks to all who played. I hope it was as fun for you to attempt as it was for us to create. Otherwise, thanks again for all the birthday wishes yesterday.

While a great deal has changed over the past two years, Kingstonist is still a community-driven site that provides unique perspectives and stories concerning Kingston, Ontario.  Kingstonist is a labour of love for me, however it was never meant to reflect only one person’s point of view.  Even so, in order to ensure that Kingstonist remained relevant and attractive to prospective readers, from time to time I’ve had to jump in and write something at the last minute.  Lately though, I’ve been able to take a step back and attend to other aspects of Kingstonist.  This is thanks to an increased amount of participation from our core group of contributors, specifically:  Isabel, Caitlin, Matt, Danielle, Tyffanie, Jordan, Duke and Tommy.  Additionally, the creation of our Flickr group has allowed us to work more efficiently when it comes to showcasing the efforts of local photographers.

In early January, Kingstonist adopted the Intense Debate commenting system, which has drastically increased the quality and quantity of comments from new and regular readers alike.  I also believe that we’ve been doing a better job producing interesting and engaging content.  But before I go patting the writers on their backs, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for reading, commenting, tweeting, linking and otherwise spreading the good word about what Kingstonist has to offer.  Without you, this site would have never made it this far, nor would we be considering what the next year has in store for us.

In celebration of Kingstonist’s 2nd Birthday, I am happy to announce that we’re finally able to provide proper biographical information on all of our current contributors.  You can find links to everyone’s respective bios, as well as a complete list of our past contributors on our developing masthead.  Last but not least, I should also point out that there only a few hours left to enter in our biggest, most challenging contest to date.

In closing, from all of us to all of you, I offer my sincere thanks for your continued support.  Here’s to another great year for Kingstonist!  Props to bluenettle for today’s photo.

While the reconstruction of the bottom two blocks of Princess Street gets a lot of attention for its intrusion into our lives, what gets lost in the talk is how a little bit of Kingston history is going to give way to modernity.

The reconstruction, which begins March 1, will cost about $4 million and replace the oldest infrastructure in the city.

Underneath Lower Princess Street are stone box sewers that are more than 150 years old. Workers built them out of the bedrock and laid each stone by hand, including the stone archways that make up the roof. The stone box sewers run for about one kilometre under Princess Street, from about Division Street down to the waterfront.

“You can’t maintain these things, but they’re operational,” said Mark Campbell, the city engineer who is overseeing the Princess Street project.

Many of the sewers in the old city were originally built and installed in the 1800s and early part of the 20^th century. Workers built each sewer as a combined sewer, meaning that they handled stormwater and sewage. That really didn’t matter though — sewers ran directly into the harbour and waterfront, meaning there was no sewage treatment.

They were eventually attached to the city’s sewage treatment system, but never replaced.

The city and Utilities Kingston have spent millions over the past several years replacing old combined sewers with separated pipes.

When a storm sends a sudden rush of water into the system, combined sewers flow stormwater into the sewage treatment and overwhelm the system’s capacity. To avoid backups into homes and business, untreated wastewater is released into the Cataraqui River. Separating sewers allows for stormwater to flow out to the river while sewage can still be treated without the threat of backups.

The work on Princess Street will take about four months to complete. Work will cover a two-and-a-half block stretch from the Holiday Inn up to King Street, and King Street from Brock Street to just north of Princess Street. The city maintains that the area will be open to pedestrians and businesses will remain open during construction.

Crews will start work almost in front of Pan Chancho and move west. At the same time, work will begin on King Street by Brock Street and move north until the crews meet at the intersection of King and Princess streets. Once work is completed in that area, the focus will shift to the southern portion of the project.

Campbell said at no time will the intersections of Princess and King streets and Princess and Ontario streets be closed at the same time. He added that timelines will be followed.

“It will be done on June 30 one way or another. We will be out of there,” Campbell said.

But that won’t be the end of work on Princess Street. The Downtown Action Plan called for replacing more of what’s taking place this spring. Eventually, the stone box sewers will be replaced and the roadway reconstructed right up to Division Street.