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11 | 30 | 2013 VOLUME 18 | ISSUE 48
HOCKEY PLAYERS OFF TO JAPAN FOR EXHIBITION GAME SPORTS PAGE 10
COMMENT PAGE 6
MORE WARNINGS ABOUT THE HOUSING BUBBLE
Gladwell brings David and Goliath home
Special levy adds on extra 1% to Woolwich tax bills
Bestselling author discusses the ideas found in his latest book to a welcoming audience in Floradale ELENA MAYSTRUK
STEVE KANNON Reversing course from last week, Woolwich council will hit residents for a one per cent infrastructure levy in 2014, bringing the projected tax increase to 2.5 per cent. Meeting Tuesday night, councillors scrapped the idea of drawing the equivalent of a 1.5 per cent levy from an investment windfall. Instead, the township will continue a plan adopted last year to extract more money to upgrade crumbling roads and bridges. The motion put forward by Coun. Mark Bauman calls for the expected $320,000 windfall from the township’s stake in Waterloo North Hydro to be allocated during upcoming budget discussions He was quickly supported by Coun. Julie-Anne Herteis, who argued in favour of maintaining the levy rather than leaving a more difficult situation for the next council. TAXES | 2
www.OBSERVERXTRA.com
Author Malcolm Gladwell was at Floradale Mennonite Church on Wednesday night to discuss his latest book, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits: and the Art of Battling Giants. [ELENA MAYSTRUK / THE OBSERVER]
Citing lemons-tolemonade stories of how adversity can lead to triumph, author Malcolm Gladwell entertained a full house at Floradale Mennonite Church Wednesday night with excerpts from his latest book, David And Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art Of Battling Giants. More than 600 people attended the homecomingof-sorts for the former Elmira resident, a long-time staff writer at The New Yorker. He’s also the author of four New York Times bestsellers. As the slender biblical character fought and defeated his giant, so too is the new book meant to challenge our perceptions of real-life shortcomings and disadvantages, both in individuals and in businesses. Substantiated by numerous case studies such as Northern Ireland’s
“Troubles,” the book posits a new take on what it means to be disabled, experience the death of a parent or have educational setbacks, among other disadvantages. It’s precisely this example that he brought to audiences on Wednesday in explaining legitimacy, a concept prevalent in his book focusing on a congregation of women who unblinkingly marched on the police forces during the conflict in Belfast as sectarian violence flared up in 1969. “Women with children at home and husbands do not march on armed men, but they do when they’ve been denied legitimacy, because what happens to people when they are denied legitimacy? They get angry. And one of the mistakes that those in power make again and again in our world is that they forget what an extraordinary and unstoppable and incredible force that kind of anger can be,” said Gladwell GLADWELL | 2
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