May 5, 2008
Lemonade Girl Makes Everyone Else Feel Inadequate; RIP Charles Caccia; and Take That, Latvia!
A ten-year-old Toronto girl with a lemonade stand is more than three-quarters of the way to raising $100,000 for heart and stroke research. For purposes of comparison, when I was ten years old, I really liked riding my bike.
Former Liberal MP Charles Caccia died of a heart attack on Saturday. The highly respected MP represented Davenport for approximately seven thousand years and was both a former Minister of Labour and Minister of the Environment.
A Salvation Army warehouse burned down over the weekend, destroying toys, clothing and food intended for poor families. Luckily, however, the Salvation Army has announced that they have found a ten-year-old girl to regain all their lost charitable donations.
Canada's making Aung San Suu Kyi an honorary citizen! The Burmese dissident leader joins Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama and Raoul Wallenberg, who rescued thousands of Jews during the Holocaust and had a truly awesome name. Go ahead, say it out loud. "Raoul Wallenberg." It's like poetry.
The federal government's charity regulator has proposed watchdog rules for charities, which stipulate that fundraising costs for charities should be kept to 35 cents on the dollar. Also, they want extra oversight to prevent the overwork of ten-year-old girls.
Finally, Team Canada pounded the crap out of Latvia at the world hockey championships. But come on; we're Canada, and they're Latvia. There are more people in Vancouver than there are in Latvia. We should not get cocky as a result of this, is Torontoist's point.
Photo by bstoch from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.
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Just a quick question - Amanda is 10 and her lemonade stand opened 10 years ago? I think what she's doing is amazing and wonderful but maybe the Star should have re-read the article before printing?
When will Christopher Bird realize that it's neither useful nor funny nor interesting to write sarcastic death announcements?
redleaf: Actually, if you go to the website (A HREF="http://lemonade4heart.org/">http://lemonade4heart.org), she has been doing it for ten years. Admittedly, the first few years probably consisted of her parents propping her up in front of a sign.
David Newland: Agreed 100%.
I'm all for kids getting into good causes early and often, and I think kids can have much more informed opinions on politics and the world than most adults give credit for but I'm just not buying that an infant expressed a desire to help the Heart and Stroke Foundation. This just seems over-the-top and the publicity generated around this kid makes me a little sceptical in a je ne sais quoi sort of way.
But the fact that so many words are being typed about this indicates we might be in the middle of the slowest news day of the year.
It's not really a slow news day.
David, you're missing the 'fact' that Christopher is "The Explosively Talented Christopher Bird." If someone says they are wonderful and talented, then we must assume that they are wonderful -- and, er, talented. It is not enough nowadays for OTHERS to praise your abilities -- Heaven forbid! -- we must praise ourselves, to make certain we get the point across, with the subtelty of a sledgehammer striking us on the forehead.
I laugh every time I read "Explosively Talented"! It reminds me of Borat wanting to make a "Romance explosion on Pamela Anderson's stomach."
Explosive talent of a different calibre, indeed.
As someone who enthusiastically voted for Charles Caccia twice, I cordially invite the hand-fluttering brigade to blow me.
"How Dare You Make Hand Party Over Pamela?"
Another way to respond to legitimate criticism is to acknowledge its merits, then dismiss it by rational means.
We'll still be here when you grow up.
oh c'mon. this was funny.
i laughed. maybe i too need to grow up.
Good lord if Christopher Bird starting writing without sarcasm every dang article on Torontoist would sound exactly the same.
Cheers for some variation in writing style! If you don't like his articles you don't have to read them.
Making jokes about people who just died seems to be a fine Canadian tradition. Witness for example Mary Walsh on This Hour Has 22 Minutes.. always a joke to crack about the recently departed :P
In this case at least though, I think its reasonably respectable. The only vaguely farcial part of it is the "approximately 7000 years" and really, whats wrong with that?
Another way to respond to legitimate criticism is to acknowledge its merits
This unfortunately first requires believing that the criticism in question is meritious. I, on the other hand, think your argument is simply self-important priggishness.
At least give Latvia its due by the way - a little smaller than Toronto and about 4 times the size of Vancouver.
Meritious? Even Google hasn't heard of that one.
To the Explosion 'O Talent --
Did you mean 'meritorious,' as in deserving of merit? Do you also say 'with regards to' and 'centered around,' and 'irreverent' instead of 'irrelevant'?
Oh common!?! Not one person was offended by the comment about Latvia? I am not impressed by how Latvia was depicted - I guess the satire hidden in belittling someone was lost on me. Nevertheless, when it comes to hockey, Latvians surely got their a**es handed to them this time around. "This time around" because there was a time when team Latvia beat team Russia. I think that should say something to those who follow hockey. Good day everyone!