news
Newsstand: May 24, 2010
lllustration by Clayton Hanmer/Torontoist.
We think it’s someone’s birthday today! …Queen who? Don’t be silly. We hope you remembered to send YouTube a nice card, or Hitler/a piano-playing cat could be very upset.
Anyway, let’s say that the main difference between May 24 and the Lost finale is that, today, you can expect closures. While the TTC and GO are on reduced, holiday schedules, the federal government is closed completely—wait, when was it open? Also, for Royal reasons, there shall be no Canada Post, no libraries, no groceries, and no malls. The Beer Store and LCBO are closed too, but who wants booze at a time like this, anyway? Oh, and don’t fight City Hall. Not until Tuesday, when they get back to work.
If you were planning on spending today getting drunk and mailing city councillors and MPs, we don’t have a support group for that. But maybe an outdoor craft show at the Distillery would set you right. Or how about stopping by the Royal York’s gin-fueled Queen Victoria Look-A-Like contest? You win a whole bottle if you can guess which Victoria is really her. Go ahead and have a look here for more ideas.
Hang on, though…city councillors have the day off? Meaning Rob Ford is enjoying a quiet day with the eighty-seven high school football teams he coaches? Giorgio Mammoliti is off with someone special, looking up at the clouds and pointing out the ones he thinks look like tax exemptions for seniors (all of them). Perfect. BAM! Pedestrian zones: announced! Toronto Star Architecture awesome columnist Christopher Hume is right to be especially thrilled at the conversion of Gould and Victoria Streets into foot-friendly, car-free areas. Willcocks between St. George and Huron will also become a pedestrian preserve, though this will dull the deer-like reflexes of downtown U of T students.
Chris Doucette’s article in the Sun about rappers recording an anti–street-crime PSA doesn’t have a byline at the top. The PSAs are part of TAVIS, a highly successful program aimed at building relationships between police and crime-ridden communities. The Sun explains this after exhausting their trove of warmed-over, racially-tinged clichés about thugs and the rap music (which could have been inserted by the reporter, an editor, errant news elves, half a dog, whatever). Shame on whoever is responsible, though—that’s like saying everyone who appreciates Verdi is a predictable, obnoxious windbag, except in rap’s case it’s not even true!
Think about this. Somewhere in a Toronto police station, hopefully in a cold, sealed storeroom, is a body stuck inside an oil barrel and encased in concrete that was pulled from the harbour yesterday. A police detective, and master of sly restraint, told the Globe he suspected that an “organized effort” was behind the homicide, and confirmed that previously, in the line of duty, he had come across “no people in barrels in concrete in Lake Ontario, no.” Maybe the mob mistook us for New York.
Here’s an interesting question. If The People must rise up to defend soft drink businesses’ rights when the government (hypothetically) meddles with them, must they also defend the right of municipal government to legally determine what can and cannot be sold in city rec centres? How about if the regulation were characterized as a “fat tax?” Would that piss you off? Come on, people, be unreasonable, here!