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Newsstand: November 24, 2009
A lot of us marked the death of Jane Creba, a fifteen-year-old innocent bystander who was fatally caught in the crossfire of a gang shooting near Yonge and Dundas on Boxing Day in 2005, as a turning point in the rise of gun crime in Toronto. Nearly four years have passed since then, and yesterday the Crown chose not to call any evidence against four of the men charged with the killing, who were acquitted. Three others—the ones who allegedly fired the guns—still face charges and one man, Jorrell Simpson-Rowe, a seventeen-year-old at the time of the shooting, was already handed an adult life sentence.
And police swarmed Marc Garneau High School after some clever boy decided to phone in a death threat naming a fifteen-year-old girl at the school as his target. The caller, who apparently has not yet been arrested, said he was in the building and had a gun, leading to a lockdown of the building by police.
Remember how the ROM Crystal was the eighth-ugliest building in the world? Well, according to the latest, indisputably objective ultrafacts, it’s also one of only six buildings on Earth as cool as the Sydney Opera House. What, you’re surprised that not everyone sees eye-to-eye with Crystal-bashing Virtualtourist.com? We’ve always been on your side, Crystal, so remember us when you’re famous, you big, jaggedy, alumino-glass hedghog, you.
Kick a Ginger? Really? That’s your thing? If you were going to pick a South Park bit to idiotically act out (and, according to at least one friend of ours, “misinterpret”) why not choose the part where Tom Cruise and R. Kelly lock themselves in the closet with John Travolta? Or, really, any shitty episode. Just don’t act out some dumbass Facebook-driven reenactment about beating the shit out of someone because of their hair color. It’s not that easy to tar the good name of Burlington, but…really, now.
Oh, by the way, if you’re one of those people who likes them some communion wine, here’s a reminder from Our Buddy the Vatican: Jesus Really Hates Twilight. And even though He might not have grossed $260 million last week, just remember: the Son of Man can kill you with his brain (John 3:Awesome).
Are you an adoring fan of Famous BBQ Express, at Queen and Peter? Well, there’s no nice way to say this, so…they’ve got rats. One rat, at least, that the highly trained Some Guy With a Camera snapped a photo of and showed to the Sun (we’re a little hurt he didn’t come here first, by the way). At any rate, this photo clearly shows the rodent—see, it’s the brown thing next to the green thing above the black thing—that was responsible for bringing the holy wrath of another Public Health inspection down upon the eatery. The restaurant’s owners probably can’t respond to phone calls, or even sharp pokings, at the moment, because they’re too busy quaking in their boots. No doubt. Not that we’re cynical or nothin’.
Listen, Torontoist tried—God knows, we really tried—to find something absolutely scream-and-dance wonderful to tell you about Toronto this morning, but all we found was this. On the incredibly pressing issue of climate change, the National Post is almost singlehandedly making Canada one of the most embarrassingly backward nations in the world. The most prominent world leader who sees things their way is Czech president Václav Klaus, who concurs that global warming is probably a plot to “stop economic development and return mankind several centuries back.” And we are talking here about the one newspaper out of all of Canada’s majors whose world view most closely approaches that of our country’s leaders. So listen, the Post, we know your politics, and they’re fine with us. After all, pretty much by definition, a democracy needs to speak with more than one voice. But regardless of whether you think market regulation and progressive taxes are a good thing, and no matter how far you jam your fingers up your ears, when global warming starts posing obvious problems it will already be far too late to stop it, and that will be very bad, both for the economy and for everything else. The “case” you’ve been peddling against it amounts to nothing more than cherry-picking opportunities to attack scientists working on the problem, but no amount of spin is going to change reality, unless it’s powering a ceiling fan of truly momentous proportions. So grow up or pipe down, already.
And also, what gives? With the one hand you publish these scathing screeds, while with the other you skewer the Republican Party with their own material and poke fun at vintage ads for looking clueless in the era of global warming. Which message are you trying to send, honestly? Come on, now, make a stand. Just sayin’.
Our official tribute went up yesterday, but here’s a refrain for someone who deserves it. Haydain Neale, rest in peace [audio]. That’s all for this morning. Have a good wake-up, do something you love before it gets dark, and for god’s sake eat a decent lunch today. That’s all for now.