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“It’s my job to protect Americans from dangerous threats, and right now Canada is a dangerous staging area for some of the most dangerous marijuana.”
John P. Walters, director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy (Dangerous? Because our wicked weed could lead to fatal overeating? Too much dumb TV? Fatal inertia?)
T.O. concert for whom?
The June 21 “Concerts for Toronto” are not charity shows or fundraisers. All the bands will pick up their regular paycheques, hundreds of thousands of dollars for some, while agents pocket their commissions. All the regulars will take home their usual cut, while Ticketmaster picks up an $11 service charge on every ticket. The provincial government can pretend to give a shit by throwing $5 million at a show that nurses can’t even get a free ticket to. Didn’t anybody even consider building in some benefit for the people hardest hit by this crisis – the hospitality industry and health care workers?
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Blackboard Jungle back
While the Tories get boners for flashy Super Build projects, school buildings, not just the education system, are literally falling apart. A new report from People for Education finds over half of Ontario’s public schools so severely rundown they cannot be repaired. We know of one Toronto high school that only got a concrete stairway fixed after the principal fell, gashing her face and being left permanently scarred. A 1950s-style blackboard jungle has become the norm in a school system that once made Ontario proud. Thanks, Ernie Eves. |
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Honderich heave-ho hums along
With the creation of the deputy publisher position, filled by ex-Montreal Gazette publisher Michael Goldbloom, ambitious eyes are peering over the shoulder of one-time Toronto Star top gun John Honderich. Goldbloom’s bookish background makes him a natural to be best buds with Honderich’s first usurper, Robert Pritchard, the ex-U of T chief who replaced Bow Tie Boy as Torstar prez. Scared staff are replacing their outdated neckwear with frat-boy beanies in anticipation of the imminent regime change. |
Health care workers real heroes
The University Health Network wanted to celebrate health care frontliners with a big “thank you” jazz-lite show Sunday (June 8) at Roy Thomson Hall. When the participating hospitals’ SARS team heard, the plan was nixed: too risky to have that many hospital workers in one place. You mean like every day when they go to work? These are the real heroes, not the politicians munching on dinners in Chinese restaurants – the same people attacked daily by Tory cutbacks and savage labour tactics. |
