Results tagged “barackobama”

Now that the Obama Cafe is co-existing peacefully alongside the newly minted Bana Cybernet Ltd on the Danforth at Greenwood, Torontoist decided to stop by to see how Obama is faring in our fair city.

Obama Cybernet is no more, in name at least. Owner Amveson Fitsumbrahn made good on his promise to change the name of his Internet café on the Danforth to avoid confusion with the Obama Café just a few steps away. The "O" and one stroke of the "M" have been scratched off the original sign with surgical precision, neatly morphing Obama Cybernet into Bana Cybernet.

Businesses along Dundas Street West are channelling the visual language of the American president for a local protest poster campaign.

The battle of the Baracks on the Danforth is over.

There's trouble on a desolate stretch of the Danforth, and, like everything else that has ever gone wrong in the entire universe, it's all Barack Obama's fault.

...and nary an "I Get on the TTC" in sight. [Torontonians breathe sigh of relief.] As reported on CBC.ca, our nation has spoken, and we've chosen 49 Can-con classics to "give" to the newly inaugurated President Barack Obama. While we think Stompin' Tom Connors's "Bud the Spud" (and a Tegan and Sara tune or two) should have made CBC Radio 2's final list, we're too busy Googling photos of Aretha Franklin's bedazzled hat (and, uh, basking in the glory of America's undeniably brighter future) to really be disappointed. [via CanCult.]

According to our highly unscientific, entirely unreliable survey, about 87% of us would have voted for Obama given the chance. In fact, we love him so much that we've taking to dancing in the streets. Even our animals are getting in on the action. January 20 is inauguration day; to accompany this epic moment is an epic amount of coverage and an epic round of parties. Share the joy, the happy tears, the drunkenness, and the sheer unmitigated relief by checking out one or all of Toronto's inauguration events. Our guide to everything Obama is after the fold.

First, hipsters were going to spell the end of western civilization. And, now, western civilization is going to spell the end of hipsters. In the latest edition of NOW, Joshua Errett (Torontoist's co-founder, for what it's worth) argues that hipsters are so totally over, thanks in no small part to a certain Barack Obama. Maybe Errett's just being ironic (or post-ironic?). Or maybe Sarah Nicole Prickett—justifiably cited as something of an expert on hipsterdom in NOW's article—was sorta right.

Original graphic by Dave Meslin for Who Runs This Town? recoloured by Jonathan Goldsbie.

Supporters wait for Barack Obama to speak at a rally in Cleveland, Ohio, on November 2, 2008. Photo by Jauretsi.

                 

As the announcement of Barack Obama's victory neared last night, a group of about forty revellers gathered at Yonge and Dundas Square to celebrate and Welcome Back America. Public art group Newmindspace was also in attendance and provided music and encouragement to the crowd.

It's election day down south, and you all have a right to be jealous. Except for those lucky Torontonians with American citizenships, most of us are forced to be spectators to what seems to be nothing less than a defining moment in history. (We'd say more about that, but the importance of this campaign has become an untranscendible cliché.) And though Obama will almost certainly win tonight, and though we're already pretty sure where this city's—and the world's—loyalties lie, we're still curious: if you could vote today, who would it be for? Consider this your absentee ballot.

Graffiti by Gerik Asher. Photo by socraticgrant.

Fauxreel's pairing with Vespa to produce street art ads has always been contentious; as Carl Wilson pointed out in last month's Toronto Life, the intersection of street art and money-making is messy as hell. While one Toronto tagger took matters into their own hands to protest the corporate backing, and one Toronto book store threw their ad on top of Vespa's, others have participated in the discussion by literally changing the subject: a Montreal artist changed one ad to comment on Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz's relationship, and, near the corner of Peter and Richmond here in Toronto, someone got Barack Obama in on the action. (Reader Kat A captured it in May and sent it to us this week.) Good thing, too: street art—ad or not—isn't supposed to be static, and while the transformation may not be the perfect example of change we can believe in, it sure is change you can Xerox.

Toronto gave scramble intersections their first shot on city streets in more than fifty years, as one launched yesterday at Yonge and Dundas. NOW had a video of it yesterday, Spacing's Wire will have a timelapse video shot by Sam Javanrouh later today (here's a preview), and we might have something extra-special on Torontoist this weekend. Never has legally crossing a street been so exciting.

The Democratic party officially nominated Barack Obama as their candidate last night, which is news in the way that New Year's Day is news, except that at the Democratic National Convention nobody was visibly hung over or wondering what, exactly, they did with their underwear and where it went. Well, actually Bill Clinton was there, so maybe that's not entirely true.

The Maple Leaf Foods meat recall has been extended to encompass more than 200 products made by the Toronto facility, and is expected to cost upwards of $20 million. In completely unrelated news, millions of Canadians have decided that maybe they're just going to have a salad for lunch today.

Environmental groups including Ecojustice and Earthroots are decrying that golf courses on the Oak Ridges Moraine use billions of litres of water a year. The report they issued points out that groundwater levels in the area are declining sharply. Not in their report but should have been: the fact that golf sucks.

At right is the cover of The New Yorker's July 21 edition. It depicts, as Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar summarized, Barack and Michelle Obama enacting "every smeary right-wing stereotype imaginable: ...[Barack] Obama in a turban and robes fist-bumping his be-afro'd wife, dressed in the military fatigues of a revolutionary and packing a machine gun and some serious ammo. Oh yes, this quaint little scene takes place in the Oval Office, under a picture of Osama bin Laden above a roaring fireplace, in which burns an American flag." The image has caused considerable uproar in the States—to take one example of many, CNN's Wolf Blitzer today suggested that it was something a neo-Nazi or Ku Klux Klan publication would create—and Obama's campaign immediately called it "tasteless and offensive."

Federal Industry Minister Jim Prentice has demanded a meeting with the honchos from Bell and Telus so they can explain to him exactly why they decided to charge their pay-per-use users 15¢ per received text message, calling the decision "ill thought-out." Canadian technology users are consequently planning to demand a meeting with Minister Prentice to ask him to explain ACTA and Bill C-61, calling them "ill thought-out."

Stephen Harper's Conservatives are running ads on the radio and at some gas pumps asserting that a proposed Liberal carbon tax is a "trick" and a tax grab. Firing back, Liberal Environment critic David McGuinty said that the Tories are in the pocket of the oil industry. No need to to fight, people; no doubt you're both right.

Dalton McGuinty wants Fiat to build its new North American factory here in Ontario. McGuinty emphasized Ontario's history of auto manufacturing, and also the province's sheer desperation to replace thousands of lost jobs from the American Big Three automakers gradually collapsing. McGuinty then said, "No, seriously, we'll do anything to get the plant. AN-Y-THING." Then he winked.

The federal government's defence plan will cost $20 billion more than the federal government said it would cost, at least according to the Vice Chief of Defence Staff. Stephen Harper responded to the criticism by explaining that the country would be purchasing its planes and tanks through Canadian Tire, and that the Canadian Tire money generated by the purchases would be applied directly to the national debt, thus equalizing out costs.

Barack Obama inched closer to the Democratic Presidential nomination last night, winning North Carolina pretty decisively and holding Hillary Clinton's victory in Indiana to a near-tie. Pundits and prognosticators alike agreed that at long last, Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the nomination were almost totally nonexistent, now that America has finally come to terms with the fact that Barack Obama is black, y'all, he's black, y'all, he's blackety-blackety-black, y'all.

Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative, and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.