Calgary passes public behaviour bylaw

Calgary City Council voted Monday night to pass a public behaviour bylaw despite the protestations of dozens who gathered outside City Hall.

The bylaw, which takes effect immediately, makes it illegal to spit, fight, carry a sheath knife, urinate or defecate in public or put one's feet up on public property.

Fines would range from $50 to $300.

The protesters, mostly from Calgary's anti-poverty community, said the bylaw is discriminatory and unfair. They believe the bylaw targets the homeless while ignoring the root cause of the problems — a lack of affordable housing in Calgary.

"First, before passing a bylaw, is to ensure that people have a choice — that they have shelters or housing so that they wouldn't have to [go to] the bathroom outside," said Laurie Fuhr, one of the protest organizers.

Calgary high school student Blaine Kingcott told CBC News the bylaw should be scrapped because it violates everyone's rights.

"I think its forced people into an unfair social justice situation where they can't even sleep on a bench," he said. "That's unfair even to [people like] myself — that I can't sleep on my public bench."

At least two aldermen had favoured a delay until next year so that implications of the bylaw could be considered.

Although I can understand the desire to have clean streets and am in full agreement with outlawing public urination and defecation, or at least defecation anyway, this law also can be used to outlaw one of the great pleasures of a Canadian summer, falling asleep in a park. The other problem this law does not address is access to public washrooms, business owners do not take kindly to letting non-patrons use their facilities and as for the public toilets, at least in places such as Bankers Hall and Eaton Centre "societal refuse" can be harassed by security and refused access.

Being poor should not be a crime and nor should needing to heed nature's call be, however increasingly both of these things are becoming crimes and that is something that should be outlawed.

Easy-Bake Oven, Lionel train earn place in Toy Hall of Fame

The Associated Press

The U.S. Toy Hall of Fame is paying homage to the electric age.

The Easy-Bake Oven and Lionel model trains have joined Mr. Potato Head, the Frisbee and 32 other classic, but watt-free toys, in the Strong-National Museum of Play's eight-year-old hall of fame in Rochester, N.Y.

Longevity is a key criterion for getting into the all-star lineup. Each toy must not only be widely recognized and foster learning, creativity or discovery through play, but endure in popularity over several generations.

"This is the year of the plug-in toy and a sign of things to come," said Christopher Bensch, the museum's chief curator, noting that the 12 nominees in 2006 included the iconic Atari video game system.

"Will it be time someday for the GameBoy or the PlayStation or the Xbox? I think so. Those are the toys people are going to have nostalgia for and maybe pass on in their latest forms to their kids and grandkids."

The latest, still pre-computer child favourites to be honoured have been around for awhile: The first Easy-Bake Oven showed up in stores in 1964, and Lionel trains have been chugging along for more than a century.
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Engineer Joshua Lionel Cowen built his first electric toy train as a store-window attraction around 1900. When a customer bought the train instead of other advertised toys, he launched the Lionel Manufacturing Co. Its sales peaked at $32.9 million US in 1953.

Pretzel vendors in New York City gave toymakers at Kenner the idea of a child-suitable gizmo that actually heated food in a small working oven. Kenner, now a division of Hasbro Inc., has since sold 23 million Easy-Bake Ovens and more than 140 million mixes.

"It's safe, it works and the best part is that the play makes its own reward," said museum curator Patricia Hogan. "Fifteen minutes in the oven and a slurpy, gooey, doughy concoction becomes a delicious — OK, edible — confection."

The museum, which boasts the world's largest collection of toys and dolls, acquired the hall in 2002 from A.C. Gilbert's Discovery Village in Salem, Ore. So far, 36 classic toys have been enshrined, from Barbie to Jack-in-the-Box, Legos to Lincoln Logs, Slinky to Play-Doh, and Crayola crayons to marbles.

The corrugated cardboard box — a universal plaything or recreational backdrop since the 1890s — was inducted into the hall last November.