news
Newsstand: November 1, 2010
Illustration by Matt Daley/Torontoist.
Monday: new week, new month, but Gitmo stays the same; fake tweets get even worse; moms rally against violent crime while Americans rally for sanity; and a city councillor saves somebody’s life.
In what’s being labeled a symbolic gesture, a U.S. military panel handed down a forty-year sentence recommendation for Toronto-born terrorist/child soldier, Omar Khadr. But, in accordance with his plea deal, Khadr can only serve eight more years, and will be allowed to apply for transfer to Canada after one more year in a Guantanamo Bay prison. In the typical Gitmo fashion of secrets and lies, the panel didn’t know about the sentence restriction in Khadr’s plea bargain. So they actually meant to sentence the twenty-four-year-old to forty more years in jail, in addition to the nine he’s already served. So if by “symbolic” they mean “vindictive,” then sure. Really, the whole Khadr trial is an appropriate symbol for operations at that U.S. military base.
Councillor Mark Grimes (Ward 6, Etobicoke-Lakeshore) saved a woman’s life! Grimes was on his way to the Argos game on Friday evening when his daughter spotted a twenty-year-old woman dangling over rush hour traffic on the Gardiner Expressway. Vashti King and Arwen Atkinson had seen the woman crawling over the barrier on the Islington Avenue bridge, and they grabbed her before she went all the way over. The woman was slipping from their grip when Grimes swooped in and pulled her back. “It was like a Superman move,” said an observer from the Gardiner below. But Grimes is calling King and Arwen the true heroes, and he’ll recommend them to the police for public citations. But wait, there’s more! The dramatic rescue took place in Grimes’ constituency. Good thing he was re-elected last week, or a lot of people might have felt super stupid if they hadn’t voted in the superhero.
Speaking of not feeling super stupid, Team Rob Ford’s fake Twitter account saga got weirder. Ford’s deputy communications director, Fraser Macdonald, tweeted that he was enjoying all the attention Team Ford is getting for “outsmarting” the competition. According to @QueensQuayKaren’s cached tweets, outsmarting includes calling mayoral candidate and then–George Smitherman ally Sarah Thomson “George’s attack whore” and a “bitch.” Smart move, guys.
Police have identified two of the three victims of a house fire in Scarborough as Centennial College students from China. One of the students, twenty-year-old Ying Tang, was killed and twenty-two-year-old Yuanjie Guan was seriously injured when the blaze tore through the house on Saturday morning. A third victim, a woman, was also killed. Police are looking for the public’s help to identify her.
Mothers of violent crime victims held a march and rally this weekend, and they have a message for the mayor-elect: “This city needs to have a heart and not watch every nickel and dime.” Audette Shephard co-founded UMOVE: United Mothers Opposing Violence Everywhere when her son, Justin, was killed. The mothers, who aim to reduce gun violence in the city, had a warm relationship with outgoing mayor David Miller. We assume Rob Ford is also a human being with a beating heart, and will continue Miller’s legacy of support for the moms of UMOVE.
Another rally went down this weekend: the eagerly anticipated Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. And we were there to capture all the witty signs. Stay tuned for a full recap later today.
