List of contributors to Raise the Hammer, with a brief bio for each author and links to that author's articles.
Dr. Ted Mitchell is a Hamilton resident juggling life as a physician, parent, and mechanical engineering student at McMaster University. He previously wrote an op-ed for the McMaster Silhouette on Red Hill economics.
Not My Problem: Taking Responsibility for Air Quality - How long can we say "Not my problem"? Published Jun. 5, 2008
Air Quality: Catching the Turkeys - Broad improvements produce underwhelming results, while replacing the really bad polluters is mandatory if we are serious about improving air quality. Published Mar. 24, 2008
HHS Restructuring: Trading Medicine for Administration - Physicians need to deal with complex issues that encompass the whole of human experience, but business people live in a more narrowly defined world. Published Feb. 14, 2008
Architecture of Isolation - Can social architecture find an optimal balance between privacy and community? Published Jan. 18, 2008
A Shovel in Hand - Maybe the real battle is not to be found in this newsworthy stuff. Maybe real change comes from right there inside you. Published Dec. 20, 2007
Measuring Progress on the Red Hill Parkway - Improvements in net economic development, municipal taxes, road congestion, and air quality helped sell this project and need to be verified or refuted. Published Nov. 27, 2007
The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein - Powerful elites leverage "shock" events to catch people off guard and then implement unpopular economic policies to their benefit and the detriment of local communities. Published Nov. 8, 2007
Washout - Does the Radial Trail closing represent a legitimate threat or some CYA by the city? Published Oct. 22, 2007
Bad Intensification Hurts Good Intensification - The Chedoke development proposal amounts to more residential development within a uniformly residential area. Published Sep. 28, 2007
The West Hamilton Rail Trail - A journey through the Hamilton part of the Brantford - Hamilton rail trail, the one that follows the old TH&B line, but does not officially exist. Published Jun. 27, 2007
Stay In Your Lane - On plucking the low-lying fruit of safe driving. Published Jun. 27, 2007
Harm and Offense - Every contentious issue can be constructively approached only if the concept of harm is acknowledged and acted upon. Published May. 18, 2007
Alternative Power: Making Sense of New Technologies - The internal combustion engine's days are numbered. What will take its place? Published Apr. 10, 2007
Why Trucks Suck - Far too many people make irrational choices of vehicle, and manufacturers continue to use obsolete engineering in their trucks. Published Feb. 26, 2007
The Trouble With Diversity - America is currently obsessed with promoting diversity at the expense of, and as a diversion to, the fact of massive and growing economic inequality. Published Jan. 24, 2007
The Decision Matrix: Buying a Car - Use a decision matrix to compare criteria and identify the choice that best meets your neds. Published Jan. 10, 2007
It's a MADD World - MADD Canada compromises its integrity by endorsing an automobile company focused on building unsafe SUVS. Published Dec. 13, 2006
The No Feedback Culture - In this state of denial, you are not responsible for the consequences of your actions as long as no one exposes the real you. Published Nov. 23, 2006
Science, We Need You Back - People have lost the ability to think now that they are firmly in the grip of the cult of technology. Published Nov. 8, 2006
Straight Talk About Clean Air - The federal Conservatives want to change the environmental focus from a climate change strategy to a clean air strategy. I'm with Mr. Harper on this one, if he really means it. Published Oct. 20, 2006
Crimes Against Vanity - Ted Mitchell is guilty as charged, and here's the evidence to prove it. Published Jul. 5, 2006
Take a Walk on the Glenside - The single use fetish of city planners has all the maturity of children who freak out at dinner time when the potatoes touch the corn on the same plate. Published May. 26, 2006
GRIDS and Lost Opportunity - Outer greenfield development takes people and money out of the core. It is a zero sum game or worse, and the empirical proof is in your taxes. Published May. 26, 2006
Wheel of Misfortune: Religion, Conflict, and Cooperation - Religions exist on a continuum from deep contemplation and thoughtfulness on one end to superficiality and vanity on the other. Published Mar. 1, 2006
Dictating Democracy - Canadian voters are poised to offer up another minority government. That just might mean we are fed up with dictators. Published Dec. 14, 2005
Diagnosing our Health Care Woes - Health care privatization misses the real cause of Canada's health care funding problem: Big Pharma. Published Nov. 28, 2005
Reclaiming Reality - Every time you go for a walk and get more enjoyment from it than by buying into the latest fad, you vote against economics defining your life. Published Nov. 10, 2005
The Death of Imagination and Debate - The real enemy of progress and democracy is not the "other guy", the one on the right or left, but decisions to stifle discussion, sling mud, and reduce argument to ad-hominem attacks. Published Sep. 15, 2005
How to be a Scientist - Anyone can think like a scientist, and I urge you to try it because there is precious little good scientific thinking around. Published Jun. 16, 2005
Truth, Lies and Marketing - Since we are generally lazy, we don't bother to go looking for the truth. Automobile marketers take full advantage. Published May. 31, 2005
Giving Up Our Independence - Losing one's driver's licence is only devastating because we've become so completely dependent on our cars. Published May. 16, 2005
True and False Freedoms - To most of us, true freedoms are exceedingly boring. That is, until you are held up at the border based on your surname or skin colour, or falsely accused of a crime. The stakes are suddenly very high. Published Jan. 14, 2005
In Defence of Generalists - The science of organized complexity is interdisciplinary and best integrated by generalists, but its problems are often oversimplified by mistakenly - or deliberately - applying the wrong tools to understand those problems. Published Dec. 14, 2004
Get Outside, Published Jan. 24, 2008 under Health
Frontline Physicians' Concerns Absent in HHS Plan, Published Jan. 21, 2008 under Policy
Proposed Trinity Development: Smallish Box Hell?, Published Jan. 11, 2008 under Revitalization
Spec Letter: Parkway Study Needed, Published Nov. 20, 2007 under Transportation
Fear Passes the Post, Published Oct. 11, 2007 under Ontario Election 2007
Faith-Based Segregation, Published Sep. 11, 2007 under Provincial Election 2007
Health Care Strike-Outs, Published Aug. 2, 2007 under Health
'Mob' Hit Piece, Published Jun. 6, 2007 under Media
School Bus Defender Misses the Point, Published Apr. 25, 2007 under Transportation
Traffic Calming is also Social Engineering, Published Apr. 17, 2007 under Transportation
Fuel Tax/Rebate About Politics, Not Performance, Published Mar. 29, 2007 under Energy
Waterdown: Quaint Small Town or Car-Dependent, Soul-Sucking Suburb?, Published Mar. 20, 2007 under Transportation
Andrew Dreschel Doesn't Get It, Published Feb. 23, 2007 under Revitalization
Dream Team Wake-Up Call, Published Jan. 12, 2007 under Sprawl
The Road to Ruin, Published Jan. 10, 2007 under Transportation
Vehicle Use Growing Faster than Population, Published Nov. 29, 2006 under Transportation
Caledonia, Your Silence is Deafening, Published Nov. 2, 2006 under Politics
(return to Contributors)
Proponents do not have to rationalize the need for transit or look at alternatives (only alternative construction methods) since the need for transit and the benefits to communities, the environment and the economy are clear." -- From the Government of Ontario's New Transit Environmental Assessment Process
NewsfeedsISSN: 1715-1554
Transit IS Pedestrian-Friendly (Aug. 25, 2008) - I really hope McMaster University will reconsider its decision to move the B-Line express buses off-campus, particularly given that the justification is to make the campus more pedestrian-friendly
Hamilton Lost 20% of Farmland since 1991 (Aug. 25, 2008) -
The Toronto Star has published an interactive map of lost farmland across southern Ontario.
Hamilton alone lost 20 percent of its farms in the 15 years between 1991 and 2006. Click on a high
Fringe Festival Review: I Am Not Neil Young (Aug. 22, 2008) -
What does it mean to live in the shadow of greatness? How can a talent made famous for his ability to impersonate demonstrate or even discover his own true self?
Frank Wilks is not Neil Y
Fringe Festival Review: New Talent (Aug. 22, 2008) -
The emotionally harrowing tale of a young woman driven by circumstance into the escort business, New Talent is simply a tremendous performance.
Interweaving a personal tragedy with a public
Fringe Festival Review: Lear's Shadow (Aug. 22, 2008) - The tragic Lear's Shadow boils Shakespeare's King Lear down to its essence: not the conflict between an insecure father and his treacherous daughters but rather the interplay between a foo
Fringe Festival Review: Because I Can (Aug. 21, 2008) -
Written by Allison McWood and directed by James Henderson, Because I Can is a screwball comedy that parlays a simple premise into a lively hour of very funny entertainment.
Karina Berschteyn
PRINT EDITION