It was ugly to watch. Punch. Kick. Slap. Ouch. The date: May 10. The victim: Stefano Grande. The crime: an Internet mugging. It seemed like half of Winnipeg was piling on the guy. And why? Because he, the voice of Downtown BIZ (business improvement zone), was defending a survey that showed Winnipegers believed downtown was cleaner and safer than the standard image. "People who come downtown--- those who shop, work and live here, know this, " he told a reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. "We know that people who don't come downtown don't share that opinion and we have to get that message out to them." Without warning, he was swarmed in cyberspace. The comments flooded in, followed by letters to the editor and brickbats on talk radio. And the message was the same: are you nuts? Nobody believes this survey. Lemme tell you my experience on the dirty and dangerous streets of downtown Winnipeg. It's time for confession. We didn...
The origin of the Usher of the Black Rod goes back to early fourteenth century England . Today, with no royal duties to perform, the Usher knocks on the doors of the House of Commons with the Black Rod at the start of Parliament to summon the members. The rod is a symbol for the authority of debate in the upper house. We of The Black Rod adopted the symbol to knock some sense and the right questions into the heads of Legislators, pundits, and other opinion makers.