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Newsstand: June 25, 2011
Look alive, Saturday! You’ve got all this great stuff happening: BikeFest, roller derby finals, Bolllywood magic… Time to shake off the woeful cloak of yesterday, the stuff of G20 lawsuits, rude Torontonians, and questionable journalism ethics. Get it together, guy!
In the latest news on the little summit that could (destroy our civic happiness), yet another Toronto citizen is saying he was unfairly arrested in the lead-up to the G20. Sean Salvati was pulled out of a taxi and arrested for public drunkenness three days before the G20, after wishing some police officers good luck with their big weekend ahead. He says he was beaten, denied his rights, and humiliated during his stay with the police, which lasted 11 hours. In a video obtained by his lawyers and posted on the Toronto Star’s website, three male cops can be seen escorting a naked Salvati past a female officer. After that, he says he was left naked in a cell for nearly an hour. Prior to his arrest, Salvati had been at a Jays game with his friends, and had stopped to chat with several officers about their preparations for the weekend. Now he’s hopefully learned to keep his mouth shut and let the overlords do their overseeing in peace and quiet. (People could even take a cue from City Hall, which has stayed mum on an internal TPS report that said they weren’t prepared for what went down that weekend.)
A Parkdale activist and freelance writer is raising some ethical questions after representing himself as a journalist to gather information for a personal crusade against Councillor Ana Bailao (Ward 18, Davenport). Roger Brook, who worked on a rival campaign during the municipal election, interviewed several taxi drivers who donated to Bailao’s campaign, gathering information for a request for a compliance audit he filed to the City this week. He told the cab drivers he wouldn’t be identifying them in the story, but submitted their names and addresses in his audit request, which will be posted on the City’s website. Brook occasionally writes for NOW, and the magazine hasn’t given a firm answer on whether they see a conflict of interest. Meanwhile, his compliance audit request is one of an unprecedented 14 submitted over the past few days. We smell a shitstorm.
The Queen of Soul rocked David Pecaut Square as part of the Toronto Jazz Festival on Friday night, drawing 18,000 people—including about 1,000 who could actually see the show. She didn’t sing “Respect,” but she did have a man whose job was to bring her purse to the stage. Are those two things connected? You decide.
And, some “expert” thinks Torontonians are getting ruder. While we tend not to buy into her unscientific study, the Star does have a few reasonable suggestions about how to be nicer to people. Douches, take notice.
We originally cited Aretha Franklin’s Friday night performance as being part of Luminato, when it was actually part of the Toronto Jazz Festival. The story has been amended to reflect this.