With rising interest in food, there has been a growing trend in the willingness to try new foods and use foreign ingredients. While there has been a large success in producing high-quality products normally found in other parts of the world, some of the same products of lower grade have been accepted into the mainstream North American culinary world. Shiitake mushrooms are one of these products.

Shiitake Mushrooms are one of the popular and most used mushroom in East Asia and good quality shiitakes have a beautiful perfume-like smell. One of the problems today in the North American culinary world is that hardly anyone, including many top and master chefs, truly knows what a good quality shiitake mushrooms look, smell, and taste like. In many non-asian supermarkets in North America today, poor quality shiitake mushrooms pass off as good quality. Pictured in the left above are what can been considered as poor quality shiitake mushrooms. In many Canadian supermarkets, these poor quality shiitakes could be priced at about $14.99/lb. For the same price or less, many Asian supermarkets and herbal shops sell high quality shiitakes (which are pictured on the right).

If one compares the two samples above, the difference in quality can been seen immediately. The ones on the left are thin and seem to have no character. It would safe to assume that it does not have that perfume-like smell. On the other hand, the ones of the right are quite meaty, have that starburst pattern, and would most likely have that perfume-like smell and flavour.

In a way, the North American idea of what is a good quality shiitake mushroom is speaks of the state-of-mind of the average North American, in terms of the world of international issues, politics, culture, and even food. There needs to be a change in the North American way of thinking and to end the ignorance that so defines the North American mind. Until then, we’ll be stuck with overpriced, poor quality shiitake mushrooms.

While the Internet and all its perks are to blame for the lacklustre bunch of students Ontario is now producing, it is impossible to remove it from society or dismantle it completely and it is now an integral part of our daily lives and essential for communication with the world. What Ontario needs to do is find new, solid, and sustainable solutions to this growing academic epidemic.

For the past decade or so, successive Provincial governments under Premiers Harris, Eves, and McGuinty have all seemingly placed literacy as a priority in secondary school through the introduction, implementation, and endorsement of the Education Quality and Accountability Office’s (EQAO) Ontario Secondary School Literacy Test (OSSLT). The OSSLT is a compulsory standardized test written by Ontario Grade 10 students. EQAO’s OSSLT 2004-2005 Report states that the OSSLT “is a quality assurance measure that shows the extent to which Ontario students are meeting the minimum literacy standard expected by the end of Grade 9. The test assesses the reading and writing skills students are expected to have learned across all subjects as outlined in The Ontario Curriculum”. While examination and tests, including standardized testing, are  good tools in determining where students are academically, it is dangerous to say that these standardized tests actually reflect the skill level of most of these students, especially in the areas of literacy, critical thinking and critical analysis of information. The trouble with standardized testing is that schools and teachers, with varying degrees, begin to teach what is needed to pass the test while not necessarily teaching students proper literacy skills and the skill to critically analyze information. Many critics of standardized testing, especially those against the OSSLT, have stated that the OSSLT is only a band-aid solution and is meant only to stir up public confidence in Ontario’s educational system. As standardized testing is clearly a band-aid solution, the Ontario Secondary School Exit Exam proposed by Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak also goes out the window.

What needs to happen is the implementation of real solutions:

• Scrap the OSSLT and replace it with a compulsory literacy and critical analysis of information course.
• Bar students enrolled full-time in public secondary schools from enrolling in private educational institutions for the sole purpose of gaining credits for compulsory course available in the public system (essentially this scheme is a “pay-and-get-your-grades”, popular with a certain group of students), unless they wish to leave the public system completely.

A sign posted by an angry resident on tree near the Victoria Park transfer station in North York. (The second sign on the bottom says: FIRE THE UNION! HIRE HONEST WORKERS WITH OUR TAX $$$)

As the Toronto Civic Worker strike continues past the one month mark, Toronto residents are passed fed up. Not only are they angry with the striking union workers but with the Mayor and the Premier as well. The cause for such anger is due to the fact that the Mayor and the Premier have so far been seen to be twiddling their thumbs while life in the City has been disrupted especially in relation to garbage or city-run child care services and programs. In addition to that is the fact that temporary dump sites are quite close to residential property, some as little as 40 meters from residents’ properties. While the Mayor and the Waste Management manager claims that these sites aren’t a public health risk, the chemicals that they are spraying to reduce the amount of odor, the rotting garbage, and God knows what else is in those bags of trash, in addition to the heavy rain in the last few days, are increasing the risk of each of these sites becoming both public health risks and a danger to the local environment.

What anger the large majority of residents the most, other than the temporary dump sites, is the fact that the City continues to collect property taxes and the quasi-tax that is the garbage fees, even though the large majority of services have been disrupted and are currently not operational. The City and the Mayor have been reluctant to say whether or nor a portion or all of this month’s property taxes and/or the garbage fees will be refunded. Seeing how the Mayor has dealt with the situation so far and how he has mismanaged the city since 2003, the mostly likely outcome will be no refund.

As for the children who are off from school for the summer holidays, their summer could be described as partially ruined as many of the parks sink due to the trash, city-run programs are closed, community centres and city-run swimming pools are closed, and there are no ferries to the Islands: therefore no access to Centreville. (Centreville stated that they were planning to charter private ferries, but the move was blocked by the Union. As well, there wouldn’t be an access problem if the Island Airport bridge had been built)

If this strike continues, the economic situation of this City will worsen. Both the Mayor and the Union need to make concessions (i.e. A pay deduction for the Mayor and the Councillors in exchange for a change to the sick day policy) or the Premier needs to stop twiddling his thumbs and legislate the civic workers back to work. If this doesn’t happen, Toronto will just sink lower than it already is.