Civic pride

An article about one of the curious features of my neighbourhood.



That's *my* neighbourhood they're talking about. *smiles with silly pride*. And yes, I do have a particular favourite Internet cafe - the quality of their paper is wonderful and they burned me a customized CD with my logo :) Photo below taken by me, maybe 7 years ago.  .





EDIT: Funny how coicidences work. Last week someone felt compelled to set fire to our local fruit and veggie stand - one of the tiny ones that sprung up, like a flower, in between 2 restaurants - along with an attempt on a local restaurant. Luckily the restaurant made it - the fruit stand was not so lucky. There is now no longer a fruit stand, but there is over $20,000 dollars damage and a family now unable to support itself. Both have been long-standing fixtures - the fruit stand goes back at least 15 years, the restaurant a bit longer than that.



At best it's a bad prank gone horribly wrong - a 'youthful indescretion' that somehow caught fire; at worst, it's a hate crime directed against the Arab family who operated the fruit stand. Either way I don't like what it says about human nature, although there was one silver lining in the whole story: a news clip on the weekend showed a contractor volunteering his time and energy to help the family level the site so that they can rebuild. "They seem like nice people", he said to the camera man. A bank account has also been set up to help the family. If I hear something more about the story behind this story, I'll post. Here's hoping some part of this story has a happy ending.