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27 Comments

news

Teens Can Still Drink, More Kids Not Learning, No Confidence In Non-Confidence

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2008_04_02_beer.jpg
Dalton McGuinty has said no to calls from health officials in London Ontario to raise the legal drinking age in Ontario to 21. Drinking at 19 has become a rite of passage for young people, like acquiring a driver’s licence or genital warts.
Three months after the Toronto District School Board voted to open an Afrocentric school, a board trustee is expressing concern over unusually high dropout rates among Portuguese, Hispanic, Somali, Persian, and Vietnamese students, and suggesting that these communities may need special help as well. The board is leaning towards an innovative plan that would see kids of all different backgrounds learning together in the same school.
The NDP will introduce a non-confidence motion in Parliament today, which will not be supported by the other parties and will fail. “We think what the Canadian people want from their leaders is more meaningless grandstanding,” said NDP leader Jack Layton.
Following elections in Zimbabwe last Saturday, there are rumours that 84-year-old President Robert Mugabe may be preparing to leave the country and turn power over to the opposition. The former national hero turned batshit-crazy dictator is presumably content with his legacy of creating ethnic and political chaos, forcing a million or more people into exile, and turning the breadbasket of southern Africa into an economic basket case.
And the Blue Jays lost their season opener 3–2 to the Yankees in New York.
Photo by Patrick M2 from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

Comments

  • davedave

    It’s entirely unsurprising that the most boring city on earth has called for the drinking age to be raised to 21.

  • friend68

    Isn’t Jack Layton perfecting meaningless grandstanding?

  • dowlingm

    the funny thing about all the NDP clamouring for an election is that it doesn’t seem to be helping the NDP as it hurts the Libs. Mostly the Greens seem to be getting the uptick.

  • rek

    At least Layton’s saying what we’re all thinking, even if the Liberals don’t have the balls to act on it.

  • paigesix

    London… on one hand, has the most liberal-insane university (are examples even necessary??!)
    On the other hand, drive down Richmond on a Sunday morning and you’ll be greeted by a parade of people holding pictures of unborn children.
    21 for drinking is just stupid. Then again, drinking should be like a drivers license–take a class on responsible drinking, pass a test, and then be able to consume whatever you want. Age is too arbitrary.

  • tripper

    I think if you’re old enough to vote, you’re old enough to drink.
    Hopefully you don’t do both at the same time.

  • greg_smith

    I know you guys may not consider yourselves ‘real’ journalists subject to ‘journalistic ethics’ or anything so passé, but does that make it acceptable to go ahead and fabricate quotes?
    Seriously, I love Torontoist and its generally sarcastic tone (as well as the April 1st A. Puppy post), but I’d also like to know that when you put something between double quotation marks and attribute it to an actual person that it’s something they actually said?
    How about:

    Jack Layton might as well have said, ‘We think what the Canadian people want from their leaders is more meaningless grandstanding’.

  • Skippy the Magical Racegoat

    greg,
    I think that would utterly defeat the purpose. It’s parody. It’s the policy of Torontoist (and the other ists, if I’m not mistaken) do to a news roundup and include a fictional and satirical postscript to each item (except for the sports update, which would just be overkill given our teams these days).
    Just like acquiring genital warts is not an actual “rite of passage,” it’s understood that they’re being ironic. Adding “might as well have said,” sounds more like a whiny editorial and would be clunky to read. Even though there is a quotation involved, it’s so obviously satirical that nobody would think it’s a real attempt at fabrication. Or at least, I would have thought so.
    tl;dr version: See theonion.com.

  • spacejack

    It’s like everyone wants to do Jon Stewart’s routine. Which is weird because Jon Stewart isn’t even funny.

  • n0wak

    I’d also like to know that when you put something between double quotation marks and attribute it to an actual person that it’s something they actually said?
    It’s not a quote because they used double primes rather than proper quote marks, so it’s ALL OK.

  • Skippy the Magical Racegoat

    spacejack,
    I just did a Google search for “Jon Stewart is funny.” Three thousand hits — and that’s without any modifying adverbs.
    Could it be that different individuals might have a differing opinion towards the nature of humour? I’m going to continue researching this fascinating phenomenon.

  • davedave

    Jon Stewart isn’t funny to conservatives, republicans and fundamentalists.

  • spacejack

    Or people who enjoy humour.

  • Jonathan Goldsbie

    Your comments shock me, spacejack, and I think this is why:
    “The Daily Show/Colbert makes up a duo that is held in such high regard by white people that to criticize it would be the equivalent of setting the pope on fire in Italy in 1822. It just isn’t done, in fact it isn’t even considered!”

  • spacejack

    Well you know me, I just loathe conforming to the status quo. But as I admitted earlier, I sometimes enjoy musical comedy, like the Buffy musical episode or the original Barenaked Ladies cassette, for example.
    If Stewart performed his routines by singing them rather than using that weird smarmy voice (a friend of mine does that a lot when he talks… why do people do that anyway?) then maybe I’d acquire a taste for it.
    On second thought, nah, it’s got to contain at least some small amount of wit. Jimmy Kimmel on the other hand – that guy cracks me up.

  • Patrick Metzger

    Coincidentally, all my news updates are actually written to be sung. The first item above, for example, is intended to be set to the tune of Eleanor Rigby.
    Buffy = best show ever.

  • David Topping

    To quickly butt in in response to Greg (who was briefly a staff member and left amicably). [Update: err, wrong Greg Smith.—Ed.]
    I think it’s entirely possible to be funny and still believe in, ya know, ethics (which we do—we’re not the Times but we’re also not Perez). Something like today’s quote from Layton in the daily news roundups—itself a form here that is consistently sarcastic/satiric/parodic—is, I think, in and of itself clearly demarcated as satire or parody. And I also don’t think it’s the same thing as “fabricating quotes” in the sense it seems you mean it, Greg. (That is, a writer making a story that is wholly true and factual and supposed to be accepted as true and wholly factual simply makes one up.) Our news roundups are snarky, perhaps, but I don’t think they’re ever supposed to be deceitful.

  • greg_smith

    Ok, ‘fabricated’ is too-serious a word… in hindsight, I was mostly reacting to the comment from tyrannosaurus_rek, who seemed (and still seems, on a second reading) to have taken the quote at face value, as well as the fruitless labour of actually having checked the linked news article in the same paragraph that didn’t have any quotes at all from Layton in it. And the cynicism in reflexively writing off the opposition for, well, opposing the government… but that’s pretty unfashionable in the House of Commons these days.
    I do loves me some satire, from Swift to Stewart & Colbert. If I re-read the non-quote in a falsetto (and end it with “go oonnnnnn?”) it doesn’t seem so objectionable. Maybe April fools temporarily wore out my B.S. appreciation meter?
    Dave – I think that I would have (fondly?) remembered being a staff member… had I been one. However, you did interview me by email once regarding a silly ttc-related project of mine a year or two ago. Perhaps that’s why you (mis)remember me?

  • greg_smith

    Holy crap, the Greg who did contribute to Torontoist even has the same middle initial as me?? Strangeness.

  • Carly Beath

    Greg Smith, are you the Greg Smith that I know? Because I think one time I said, “Oh you got hired by Torontoist!” but it was in fact a whole other Greg Smith.

  • greg_smith

    Yes Carly, I’m that Greg Smith. No, not that Greg Smith… that Greg Smith! Geez!

  • David Topping

    Hey Greg, you’re absolutely right—I had you confused with the Greg Smith who wrote for us and commented relatively often (and I got doubly confused because I searched in my e-mail inbox for messages from “Greg Smith” and saw some from you, which reassured me that I was thinking of the same person). Sorry about that, and apologies as well to the other Greg Smith.

  • Svend

    We should all post as greg smith, but with different panda poses.

  • rek

    I didn’t believe the quote for a moment, greg, but I did assume Layton had something to do with the no-confidence motion.

  • jeeves

    yes but take a walk down Richmond Street on the weekend and see how many street fights there based on kids whose tuition is paid by their parents’ gold card out drinking like it’s going out of style. London may be boring in other aspects but there’s no shortage of idiots out clubbing. i hate to sound like a Prohibitionist but if there was a town that they should ban alcohol in it’s London, that’s for damn sure! too many damn hicks and idiot frat boys destroying private property.

  • Patrick Metzger

    Greg – if that is indeed your real name – I take issue with your assertion that I’m being unduly cynical or “reflexively writing off the opposition for, well, opposing the government.”
    I applaud appropriate oppositioning, but that’s not what’s going on here. The NDP know full well that the Liberals don’t want an election right now, when all the polls indicate the outcome would likely see them losing seats or at best maintaining the status quo. The NDP don’t want an election either, or shouldn’t after their dismal showing in the St Paddy’s Day by-elections, but they can afford to agitate for one, secure in the knowledge that it won’t happen.
    To me, that’s just cheap posturing without any useful outcome except press for the NDP.

  • greg_smith

    When an opposition day rolls around, opposition parties bring forth motions criticizing the government, regardless of whether they are certain to pass or fail. This is what opposition days are for, and this is how they have operated for ages. As far as I can tell, the only difference in the current parliament is that a large chunk of the opposition has decided to stop opposing the government. Does that mean that the remaining opposition must follow suit because doing otherwise is therefore meaningless grandstanding?
    If your beef is that there’s no point (but self-aggrandizement) to introduction a motion that you know won’t pass, would you insist than no such motions are every introduced when parliament is structured such than no opposition motions will ever succeed (i.e. when there is a majority government)? Should no private members bills (which also virtually never pass) ever be introduced?
    That’s the kind of cynicism I’m talking about.