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w w w .i n si d eH A LT O N .c o m O A K V IL LE B EA V ER Th ur sd ay , S ep te m be r 8, 2 01 1 6 THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5566 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate. The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. United Way of Oakville Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America NEIL OLIVER Vice-President and Group Publisher, Metroland West DAVID HARVEY Regional General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director SANDY PARE Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution SARAH MCSWEENEY Circ. Manager WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com ERIC RIEHL / OAKVILLE BEAVER ARTHRITIS MONTH: Mayor Rob Burton raised The Arthritis Society's flag at the Oakville Town Hall in recognition of September as Arthritis Awareness Month, Here, the mayor is pictured with Lorna Catrambone of The Arthritis Society and volunteers Tina MacPhait and Nancy Kneubuhler. Letter to the Editor I am what I like to call a 'professional pedestrian', which means I take public tran-sit about 75 per cent of the time, walk about 15 per cent of the time, and ride ina car (which someone else is driving) the rest of the time. There are a few reasons for this, but at the top of that list is my physical dis- ability. In 2001, I suffered a severe brain hemorrhage, which caused a stroke on my right side. Now, 10 years later, I have regained a fair bit of mobility, but will definitely never be able to drive. While this isn't an area I feel I am really missing out on in any way, it does mean I am subject to use public transit wherever I go, and as of the beginning of July this year, that became a huge problem. On July 1 this year, the entire portion of the GTA covered by the 905 area code switched their bus transfer system. Previously, when you changed buses at any city limits (i.e. Oakville to Mississauga or Oakville to Burlington) and boarded the bus for a new city or town, you would show them your still-valid transfer and would then receive a new transfer for the appropriate city. But now what they say you are to do is to hold onto your existing transfer and then when it expires, they say that you can simply pay again. Now I would have fewer problems with this new system if the price of a bus ride was still set at $2 like Oakville used to have it years ago. But now at $3 per ride, it was already getting to be too pricey to ride the bus even without this new system. With this new transfer system in place, it is quickly becoming physically impossible to travel the distance that I used to go (and absolutely require to go on many occasions). Therein lays the bigger problem... I require the bus system to get me to my (many) medical appointments and follow-ups, most of which are either in Toronto or Hamilton. I attempted on six separate occasions now to travel to Hamilton using the "new and improved system," but it is not working. The Oakville transfer, even if you are to pick it up at Hopedale Mall when head- ing west, expires while you are still on board the Burlington #1 bus, which heads in to Hamilton to the corner of King and James. I have tried different transfer locations, taking different routes, ensuring that I do not miss any buses and make every one that I am aiming for on time... but no luck. Forget about making a return trip on that same transfer too. Travelling to Toronto is also a hassle now, as the Mississauga transfer that I would receive with the old system would sometimes still be valid upon returning from Toronto, but no more. This leads me to believe other people must be having similar problems. As I am on the Ontario Disability Support Program, my monthly income is substan- tially below what is required to successfully live independently to begin with. Now, with having to shell out $9 (or even sometimes $12 for a single bus trip) just to get to an appointment, it is quickly becoming cheaper to just cave and take the The Oakville Beaver is a division of Lately Ive been spending my days scouring the clas-sifieds for pertinent job postings, and my nights counting my pennies. Because apparently, Im soon to be unemployed. You see, with about as much foresight as the telegraph opera- tor or milkman of yesteryear, I witlessly chose a profession that is destined to go the way of the dodo. Idiot that I am, I chose an inevitably obsolete occupation, that of a professional writer. Of course, there have always been writers and there will always be writers, people expressing themselves through the written word. Alas, apparently there will not always be professional writers; that is, writers who actually get paid for what they produce. Why? Because of technology and this relentless bulldozer some people call progress. Allow me to explain. For starters, Im a newspaper guy. And we all know that news- papers are dead. Everybody says so (granted, people have been predicting the ultimate demise of this industry since May 1845, when experts exhorted that with the birth of the electric tele- graph, newspapers had become yesterdays news). As if being a guy with newsprint in my veins isnt doomed enough, I also do this side thing wherein I write novels and get giddy when people buy them. Its the riches of royalties that allow me to buy the big-ticket items in my life, like gum and goobers. And while I jest about the cash I rake in, the bottom line is that I do indeed make money: If someone buys one of my books, I get compensated. Well, according to an article in The Globe & Mail, all that is about to change as the technological revolution that flipped the music business onto its head is now poised to drive a stake through the heart of the publishing industry. The article is based on an essay by Ewan Morrison in which the Scottish novelist answered the questions: Are books dead, and can authors survive? Yes, he said (books are dead). And, no (authors cannot survive). E-books and e-publishing, he predicted, will mean the end of the writer as a profession. According to the Globe: (Morrison) argues that every infor- mation stream that has become digitalized has inexorably slid toward no-charge access: Weve seen it happen with music, were seeing it happen with movies and even with long-distance tele- phone calls. The public now expects and demands its media to be free. Digital books will easily be pirated and shared. Doomed, you see. Like the dodo. Like librarians and executive assistants. Done in by technology. Its a sorry state and, sadly, its an inevitable state (unless some genius invents a way to turn off progress). And while the music industry flounders, many musicians have found a way to remain profitable. Bands like Wilco long ago quit worrying whether their music leaks and their fans pirate their tunes. They concern themselves with hooking fans with their music, then making money off those fans via touring and merchandise sales. Unfortunately, professional writers do not typically have these secondary streams of revenue. If their books are free, and royal- ties non-existent, then their ability to make a living dries up. And theyre reduced to scouring the classifieds, and counting their pennies. Andy Juniper can be contacted at ajjuniper@gmail.com, found on Facebook http://www.facebook.com, or followed at www.twitter. com/thesportjesters. What to do when you have chosen an obsolete occupation Andy Juniper Bus isn't viable option See Don't page 11