I'm both angry at, and jealous of, the city of Toronto right now. If you know me you might recall my longstanding loathing of Toronto but continuing returns due to people I love living there. And I've also gotten quite good at developing selective memory skills to deal with the feelings of being there when I'm there.
Anyway. This morning I was all "Grr ANGRY" at Toronto because of a story my mum told me about the ongoing G20 prep. First of all, how stupid is this fake lake business? You're in Toronto, which is on a lake. You're in Ontario, which is full of many beautiful and famous lakes. You're in the goddamn Great Lakes region! So, instead of showcasing the region's natural beauty, the government wastes money on creating something fake. But it doesn't stop there. No no. How about this: hold the summit in a rural area like the G8 to a) showcase natural beauty and b) piss off the least number of people trying to live their daily lives, OR hold it in Canada's largest city, downtown, where you piss off the greatest number of average working people possible? Take the restaurants, for example. In "high security" areas these places that depend on the lunchtime worker crowd for survival have had to close because no one is allowed there, and customers couldn't get there anyway. So these restaurants have to close. Who's going to compensate them for several days' lost business? ...no one.
Or worse, the exponential rise in racial profiling I'm hearing about from my family. My mum works in downtown Toronto but her commute luckily bypasses the epicentre of chaos. Not so lucky for one of her employees, a visible minority, who lives in a "high security" zone and yesterday morning was stopped by cops thirteen fucking times trying to get to work. She is understandably working from home the rest of the week. I was utterly disgusted when I heard this.
And since fancy-pants international meetings have accomplished pretty much nothing in recent history, this is all going to be wasted on giving ego boosts to old men in suits who have private jets and drivers. Great.
...sometimes it's good to get angry and rant about something your believe is ridiculous, isn't it?
Still, when I got home from work today and read about the earthquake in southern Ontario and Quebec, I was pretty jealous. I love a good disaster and I'm still bitter about that supposed tsunami warning a few months ago that barely generated any waves at all. So yeah, I'm kinda jealous about friends who had far more excitement today than I did. (Must add that I'm glad it wasn't a serious quake and I'm glad there weren't many injuries at all!)
Don't panic when disaster strikes and always carry your towel.
Anyway. This morning I was all "Grr ANGRY" at Toronto because of a story my mum told me about the ongoing G20 prep. First of all, how stupid is this fake lake business? You're in Toronto, which is on a lake. You're in Ontario, which is full of many beautiful and famous lakes. You're in the goddamn Great Lakes region! So, instead of showcasing the region's natural beauty, the government wastes money on creating something fake. But it doesn't stop there. No no. How about this: hold the summit in a rural area like the G8 to a) showcase natural beauty and b) piss off the least number of people trying to live their daily lives, OR hold it in Canada's largest city, downtown, where you piss off the greatest number of average working people possible? Take the restaurants, for example. In "high security" areas these places that depend on the lunchtime worker crowd for survival have had to close because no one is allowed there, and customers couldn't get there anyway. So these restaurants have to close. Who's going to compensate them for several days' lost business? ...no one.
Or worse, the exponential rise in racial profiling I'm hearing about from my family. My mum works in downtown Toronto but her commute luckily bypasses the epicentre of chaos. Not so lucky for one of her employees, a visible minority, who lives in a "high security" zone and yesterday morning was stopped by cops thirteen fucking times trying to get to work. She is understandably working from home the rest of the week. I was utterly disgusted when I heard this.
And since fancy-pants international meetings have accomplished pretty much nothing in recent history, this is all going to be wasted on giving ego boosts to old men in suits who have private jets and drivers. Great.
...sometimes it's good to get angry and rant about something your believe is ridiculous, isn't it?
Still, when I got home from work today and read about the earthquake in southern Ontario and Quebec, I was pretty jealous. I love a good disaster and I'm still bitter about that supposed tsunami warning a few months ago that barely generated any waves at all. So yeah, I'm kinda jealous about friends who had far more excitement today than I did. (Must add that I'm glad it wasn't a serious quake and I'm glad there weren't many injuries at all!)
Don't panic when disaster strikes and always carry your towel.
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
stardust1:
Nice set!
iwishiwas:
a fake lake in a area full of lakes, a money hole,