Historicist: Life in Wartime
Elsewhere in the Ist-a-Verse
Toronto had eight shootings over the weekend. Eight. Two of them were fatal. The Star focuses in on the night-time shooting outside a 7-11 at College and Spadina. The Sun gives a rundown of the gun violence in the GTA this weekend.
A tree grows on Adelaide. The City's tree planters are falling apart. The urban forestry department said they're getting some new ones but they probably won't be enough.
Little Portugal lives to cheer another day. Portugal managed to fend off an agressive Dutch squad and move on to the quarterfinals. They'll be facing England who squeaked by Ecuador 1-0.
The Post goes on at some length on the renovation of Palais Royale. While all the history is nice, the reporter misses the fact that local community groups are peeved over the renovation because the club requires an expanded parking lot.
The City released the results from its homelessness survey and found that there were some 5000 people on Toronto's streets.
The OPP will be cracking down on those sneaking into HOV lanes in a two-day blitz. Go get 'em.
The Star and the Post may have uncovered a new crime trend in the GTA. The Star reports that truckers all over the GTA have been experiencing a lot of cargo theft. The Ontario Trucking Association estimates that about $300-$500 million is lost in Ontario each year. The Post writes about the bloody side of these thefts. A trucker was found dead Friday night in his tractor trailer. Police believe thieves were after his cargo.
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HAHA Portugal are involved in one of the dirtiest games in World Cup history, head butt and dived their way to the next round, but England "Squeaked" in?
Yeah... one sentence couldn't do justice to that Holland Portugal game. It was like rugby out there. I'm also scared of rabid Portugal fans finding me and headbutting me to a bloody pulp.
The shootings business is terrible, but provides an interesting look at media and perception. I can't figure out whether Toronto is a disaster or not because it is almost impossible in US cities to find comparable newspaper reports on shootings. In New York, which is now ridiculously clean and safe, there are still thousands of shootings during the year but they really are not reported. (Murders are still in the 600 range, which is equivalent to 150+ for Toronto's population) In Toronto you have front-page articles on non-fatal shootings, which gives a strong perception that the city is going to hell. The only difference that I can see is that in New York the shootings are usually confined to "bad" neighbourhoods, whereas in Toronto they tend to happen in the living rooms of the city, downtown, entertainment district, shopping malls, etc.
I would love to tell Toronto politicians that between the shootings, the tolerance of the homeless and the lack of litter cleanup the city is utterly destroying itself (Americans really don't think highly of it anymore), but then again, maybe things are just fine? New York may be "clean" now, but you still see a lot of trash on the streets and homeless living in the subway. As I said, this is all very confusing...
When I was biking home from celebrations, I passed by the 7/11 shooting.. right nextdoor to my school... It was so CSI... mini pylons.. q-tipped tools.. ex-strippers.... it was something...