Quality, maintenance and those Deuce models
Deuce Days celebrates the 1932 Ford Model 18. The original cars are now 90 years old, almost a century.
In today’s disposable world they offer a glimpse of what quality and maintenance can achieve. The original owners were likely adults who lived through the Depression, and a couple of wars, they knew how to work, save, they stayed out of debt while still affording themselves the odd scheduled pleasure.
They likely had complaints, but they seldom shared them, it was what it was. More often than not, they were great parents and role models.
Bill Carere
Victoria
Thank you to all, for being so kind
A TikToker’s video goes viral. Yes, American visitor Corinn Carlson discovered Victoria.
She posted her video to TikTok to show others her experience in a common bus ride while on vacation in Victoria. Taking a local transit bus through the city filming her video, she noticed that passengers were saying “thank you” routinely to the driver while exiting their ride.
“Thank you, thank you driver,” and on and on … just about everyone. It made her day and thought it “very sweet” that they took the time to do this.
Politeness at this level is routine to us, and it’s nice to know that she noticed and now its gone viral.
We say “thank you” as a matter of course. If anything draws visitors to this city, it is the kindness of its citizens.
But it doesn’t stop there. Saying “thank you” to others who grant you service like cashiers who sell you groceries, delivery persons at your door, greeters at store entrances, someone who opens the door for you and holds it open while you enter, or any kind of courtesy extended to you displays positive attitude.
Thank you all!
People are naturally appreciative when kindness is extended to them. So keep it up, Victoria, as now you are famous for all the right reasons.
Thank you American and all visitors for coming here, welcome!
E.C. Jewsbury
Saanich
Cell service got action, but what about air travel?
The federal government and the minister responsible have responded quickly and with appropriate outrage in addressing the outage caused by the Rogers network.
This was indeed disastrous and required a timely response by our government, which they did.
Why there hasn’t been a similar reaction from our government and the transport minister to the equally disastrous problems regarding our air travel and the airlines involved?
Paul Longtin
Victoria
Fix health care with a dual private system
For sure our Canadian health system requires basic updating and repair and replacing. We are in serious trouble.
The long outdated “universal” health-care system no longer serves Canadians well. We must update to resemble the system in most of the advanced countries of the world.
A universal health-care system that allows a dual private-care system is overdue. This will allow doctors to serve any patients who choose to pay over the “universal” fee if they choose to do so.
The doctors are required to serve so many days per week, universal patients as well. This will make medical lines shorter, allow doctors to earn more, give people who choose to pay directly (rather than buy a box of beer) good service, and bring sa国际传媒 up to medical date.
We need change.
Clint Forster
Victoria
sa国际传媒 should not pay for Pope’s expenses
Why can’t the Pope and Vatican come up with the $35 million? They are the ones historically responsible for this entire tragedy and debacle in the first place.
It would only require the sale of a couple of minor artifacts from the Holy See’s vast collection.
John Stevenson
Victoria
Spend the money where it will help the most
The money being spent on the visit of Pope Francis could be well-spent on critical Indigenous issues, on condition no visit by Pope Francis.
My understanding is the Pope has already made apologies to Indigenous Peoples. The question that needs answering: Is it better for Indigenous Peoples to have a personal visit by Pope Francis where he apologizes — again — on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church for acknowledged transgressions, or take the monies generated for his visit to be used for Indigenous issues?
It’s one or the other. Not both.
Donald Lang
Langford
Financial values are not the only ones
Re: “Those deep-space photos are a distraction,” letter, July 14.
The letter complains that the James Webb Telescope is “just another colossal waste of money.”
I suppose King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain also wasted a colossal amount of money when they invested in Christopher Columbus’s trans-Atlantic voyage of discovery.
Just think: had Ferdinand and Isabella chosen to save the money, many of us might still be labouring on other continents. We must remember that civilization holds many important values beyond financial ones.
Harold (Hal) Kalman
Victoria
Trudeau is showing great hypocrisy
The July 14 story “Health spending needs to deliver ‘tangible results,’ Trudeau says” is hypocrisy at its very finest.
The prime minister handed out hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to Indigenous folks for ground-penetrating radar “hits,” not “unmarked graves” of children. These “hits” might be only voids such as tree roots.
Then, in the same edition of the sa国际传媒: “Ottawa to provide about $35 million for expenses during Pope Francis visit.” So the pope can apologize to the Indigenous folks for the sexual abuse of children at the residential schools?
He should pay for pay for his own security or do without the safety net.
And Justin Trudeau wants “tangible results” for any money he reluctantly gives out to provinces for Canadians struggling with medical emergencies across sa国际传媒?
I don’t believe it. Not only hypocritical, but callous at its best.
John Walker
Cobble Hill
Don’t blame the cats for raccoon damage
Every year, throughout the growing season, the local papers print letters from gardeners complaining about cats using their vegetable and flower beds as litter boxes. It is possible that this does occur, but I am always amazed that so many plant-intelligent people do not recognize the daily (or nightly) actions of raccoons.
I am the happy owner of the only remaining cat in our neighbourhood, and he is an indoor cat. But outside, anywhere from three to 12 raccoons visit my backyard each day from mid-afternoon through dawn. I have watched them obsessively examine and ruin every freshly turned area of soil and every new plant again and again.
Cats could care less about seeds and areas with plants. They prefer to relieve themselves in a nice, undisturbed spot, and afterward they will thoroughly bury their feces so as to ensure their deposits go unnoticed by predators.
Raccoon poop is frequently the same size and consistency, but they do not hide it. I find piles of it under shrubs, on rocks and around the disturbed soil. And raccoons are undeterred by any materials placed there to discourage felines.
Unlike cats, raccoons have strong and dexterous paws to dig out anything you care to plant, lift off any devices you care to put in their way, and are especially drawn to disturbed soil.
If gardeners want to stop the nightly destruction of their gardens, they first need to correctly identify the culprits.
Sandra Wiles
Saanich
Drivers, slow down and save some money
There is no such thing as a “car accident.” They are collisions. An accident by definition is something unexpected and without apparent cause, but all vehicle collisions have a cause, thus they can be expected.
It could be a driver not obeying the rules of the road or not driving for conditions, but the main causes are distractions and impatience. Impatience in my opinion is by far the No. 1 cause of collisions. The impatient driver takes more risks.
European studies in the 1990s had shown that with one more second to respond, a driver had an 80 per cent better chance of avoiding a collision. The higher the speed, the less time for the driver to react.
Also recent studies by traffic safety organizations have shown that the new so-called driver-assist features are just creating more distraction.
With about 2,000 traffic fatalities a year in sa国际传媒 causing grief, and 10,000 serious injuries, the medical costs are in the hundreds of millions, most of it avoidable.
When debating speed limits we have to remember that our culture of self-entitlement often interferes with making the best decisions. Yes, we need to slow down, and drivers need to plan their time behind the wheel better to avoid impatience and risky behaviour.
By creating a traffic safety force, which would more than pay for itself through ticketing, civic governments can avoid a strain on police forces and other budgets.
Also, driver education needs to be taken far more seriously. The whiners will continue to whine about lower speed limits, red-light cameras, radar, etc., and should not be allowed to dominate discourse as much as they do now.
Slower is healthier and saves money.
Ivan Olynyk
Victoria
sa国际传媒 should focus on renewable energy
It is the height of folly to think sa国际传媒 should tool up to provide LNG to Europe.
Sure, Germany is in a bind this year because of its unfortunate dependency on Russian gas, but installing new LNG infrastructure in sa国际传媒 will take years. In the meantime, the European Union’s thirst for gas will have changed.
A U.K.-based fossil fuel specialist consultant, Sarah Brown, points out that the European Union countries, in response to the climate crisis, are deliberately avoiding long-term gas supply contracts.
A better solution for the EU would be to increase its spending on the development of renewable energy: solar, wind, and geothermal generation of electricity.
A better solution for sa国际传媒 would be to do the same rather than squander new money after bad only to enlarge reliance on a fossil fuel that must urgently and globally be phased out.
Barrie Webster
Victoria
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