news
Newsstand: July 4, 2011
Oh good, Monday’s back. So glad you’re always right on time, Monday! In the news: the Pride Parade goes off with all the expected hitches, Blue Jays slugger sets an all-star record, a warm welcome for Halladay, Colombian family deported days after Canada Day, and impending danger at the Zoo.
The Pride Parade snaked through downtown streets on Sunday, and it was a big one. Ordinarily clocking in around 90 minutes, the crowd of one million–proud revelers faced the longest Parade they’d ever seen, with organizers guesstimating the time at more than four hours. But despite its claims to length, the Parade was a bit lacking in girth as Rob Ford did the expected and didn’t show. Despite the mayor’s decision to buck the now-tradition of the mayor marching in the Parade, other Pride stalwarts were in attendance including Brian Burke and creepy dudes with video cameras trying to get footage of lesbians “for work.”
Toronto Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista is going to the all-star game and becoming cooler than Ken Griffey Jr. all in one swing. It’s tough to be a cooler than a guy who guest-starred in such classic television series as The Simpsons and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air but Bautista is on his way after smashing Griffey’s record-setting all-star game vote totals. The Jay got more than seven-million votes to put him atop the all-star voting, a first in franchise history.
Speaking of the boys of summer, Roy Halladay was back on the mound in the Rogers Centre for the first time since being traded away to the Philadelphia Phillies and the fans greeted him with cheers and standing ovations in thanks for all he did for the Jays. But not everyone was glad to see him.
Just days after celebrating our own Dominion, and on the day before the United States’ day of independence, a family of four was asked to kindly hand back their Canadian flag pins, puke up their red and white angel food cake, and go back where they came from. Supporters and friends gathered at the airport on Sunday to say goodbye ahead of the family’s deportation. Claudia Londono and her family are being sent back to Colombia where they’ve allegedly received death threats from the FARC because of Londono’s former work counselling its members to quit.
The walls that hold in the Toronto Zoo’s menagerie of giant-toothed and heavy-husked animals may be weakening as Zoo board members meet this week to discuss looming budget cuts. Actually, there’s no factual basis for the statement about the walls and/or cages being compromised by the possible $1.1-million cut from the zoo’s $11.3-million budget. But imagine there was! What would escape first? Would the penguins and pygmy hippos forge a unity of cuteness and find homes elsewhere? And what of the tigers?