March 24, 2008
Man Narrowly Avoids Hari-Kiri, Protestors Protest For Tibet, And There's Drugs In Our Water
Man stabs himself with katana. People may wonder how such a ridiculous accident came to occur, and our response is "he lived in Scarborough, what else is there to do?"
Torontonians rally for a free Tibet. In response, the government of China immediately said it was very, very sorry and immediately began withdrawing troops and establishing Tibetan self-government while declaring May 17th to be "The Dalai Lama Is Awesome Day" in China.
Painkillers and other drugs found in Ontario drinking water. But don't worry, it's only trace amounts, and what harm could that possibly do to us, or for that matter to our newly sprouted third arms?
Canadians lobby for federal intervention in Saudi Arabian execution of a Canadian citizen. They allege that the trial was unfair and the beating was coerced. Of course, Stephen Harper has made his position on not interfering with other countries' legal processes quite clear, so the guy's probably going to get beheaded. (Extra fun time: read the comments in the linked article, full of sage advice like "well other countries aren't as preciously liberal as Canada" and "tough noogies, that's what you get for going to Saudi Arabia, dumbass.")
American death toll in Iraq hits 4,000. Official numbers for Iraqi dead in Iraq since the war started are not available, but a spokesman for the Pentagon explained how they would have been much higher if the United States had never invaded in the first place.
And the Raptors got pounded by the Denver Nuggets.
Photo by Amin Tabrizi.
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Where in the article about the sword fight does it say the man lives in Scarborough? I really hope you weren't referring to Queen and Woodbine as Scarborough...
Thank you edanscimestokell! Do not ruin Scarborough's good name!
I'm kidding, I live in Scarborough and I love it, but yeah, the Beaches, unfortunately do not belong to Scarborough.
Fixed, sorta.
Why would drugs being found in water come as a surprise to anyone? The urinary dregs of birth control pills, cholesterol medication, and anti-depressants have been floating in Lake Ontario for years!
Getting pounded by a Denver nugget sounds dirty.
Unfixed, because part of the point of the joke was to tweak Beaches dwellers, never a one of which I have met who did not get huffy when you called them Scarberians.
Re: "East End" anything -- As a resident of The Beaches, I get HUGELY pissed whenever the stupid media (CFTO, anyone?) tells us in breathless tones about a shooting, stabbing, fire or other unfortunate event in Toronto's "east end," only to have it taken place in the depths of Scarberia. The east end (Queen and Coxwell, Queen and Logan, etc.) is NOT the same as Scarborough, and God willing, never will be.
"Torontonians rally for a free Tibet. In response, the government of China immediately said it was very, very sorry and immediately began withdrawing troops and establishing Tibetan self-government while declaring May 17th to be "The Dalai Lama Is Awesome Day" in China."
The sarcasm here is meant to mean what, that people shouldn't protest the actions of foreign governments? Maybe we Torontonians (over half of us having been born outside of Canada) should just forget about all those people getting brutalized "over there" and enjoy our Newmindspace events. Pillow fight, anyone?
No, the sarcasm is meant to imply that protests with an attendance numbering less than A Fuck Of A Lot are completely meaningless, and that people wanting political change in an area where they can't mobilize honest-to-god mass support are wasting their time putting on facepaint and making signs.
They'll get more traction for their ideas with letter-writing campaigns to MPs (not emails, old-fashioned snail mail), because MPs consider letters to be representative of wider swaths of popular support, using the old "if one person cares enough to write a letter, then there's probably a hundred who won't write, but whose vote might be influenced by my position on this issue, one way or the other." Whatever you might think about protests, this logic doesn't translate to them.
Protests in anything less than massive numbers are stupid, because they marginalize causes and define them as tiny, niche interests. What's happening in Tibet isn't a tiny niche interest. It should be taken seriously. Protests, by and large, are not serious.
Keeping Tibet on the front page of the Toronto Star is marginalizing the issue? Okay.
So what counts as a fuck of a lot of people? Should I only do to a protest if I know that half the city will be there? Is it actually better to sit on your ass at home? Don't you think people who were at the protest are also writing letters?
I get your point. Politicians do pay more attention to letters. But it's hard to say that if your home country was getting torn up by China that you'd feel satisfied just writing letters. Just saying. I don't see how it hurts.
I can see your reasoning leading to the conclusion that it's not worth going to a protest unless the attendance in going to exceed a certain threshold.
What if for every one person who went to a protest there were 10 or more who felt that way and stayed home? The massive numbers would be possible if only the prejudice was absent.
I think your arguing against attending protests is antidemocratic.
I'm not bashing Scarborough or anything, but why would you provide false information just for kicks? Sure there are quite a few arrogant assholes who live in my neighbourhood (the Beaches); but it certainly isn't Scarborough.
I understand the joke though, but all I'm saying is that it is not very clear at all, and just makes you sound misinformed as to what counts as Scarborough, and may misinform others.
Doggiez- I completely agree with the 'East End' thing, but when you think of it, since there's so much more thats east of Leslieville, the Beaches, etc, calling Scarborough the east end does make sense. Just like Etobicoke is called the west end, rather than Ossington and Dundas being called the west end; in comparison, it's not very west.
How many is massive? 5 years latter and the million people who've marched against the illegal occupation of Iraq haven't managed to achieve anything, so a million must not be massive enough.
Toronto's a very stabby city sometimes.
I hope this news item will do something to alleviate the misconceptions about gun violence in the east end and Scarborough proper. I mean, how many katanas take out an innocent bystander?
"He had it coming - he was making fun of Bushido".