Rating: NNNNN
Pundit prejudice poisons post-debate prattle
Forget conservative pundits on the debate. Here’s the score: bewildered PM Paul Martin looked like a helpless senior harassed by nasty teens, right-wing extremist Stephen Harper tried to keep his crazy mouth shut, Bloc head Gilles Duceppe was a sympathetic separatist, and feisty Jack Layton actually got some policy out.
Raising Rochester’s spirits
Now we get it: Henry Pankratz and the rest of the despised Toronto Port Authority aren’t total jerks. Their pathetic botching of the terminal for the Rochester-Toronto ferry, opening this week, was a hands-across-the-water kind of thing meant to help relieve Rochester’s clinical inferiority complex. Imagine feeling second-rate compared to Buffalo. When Americans escaping the rusting upstate rat trap enter Toronto through this city’s asshole, even Rochester will look good by comparison.
Heisey’s hop leaves hope behind
The bad guys win and progressive police board chair Alan Heisey will flee his post this fall. The cops have always kicked the asses of board members who won’t rubber-stamp police-approved policy, and Heisey’s was kicked hard. With gun-lovin’ goof Norm Gardner making a joke of this essential board, we need prog pols like Heisey to not buckle to the boys in blue. If Heisey high-tails it, will the next progressive have the guts to make a stand?
C’est, that sucks
Sad to see the squeeze being put on well-loved live music venue Nia @ C’est What. Building owners Tippin Corp are jacking the rent on the 16-year tenant at Church and Front. Nia helped give the neighbourhood some life – and real-estate value. So why be so aggressive on a reliable long-time renter? The club will shut at the end of August unless the landlords find a heart, while the resto stays on in half the space.
Blinkered Reagan rhapsodies
Ronald Reagan might have had the good sense to make movies with monkeys, but he was also responsible for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Central Americans. He smiled his way through waging covert war across the planet, had illegal money-laundering deals hatched with drug dealers to buy guns and, like so many right-wingers, was actually a horrible money manager who racked up billions of dollars of American taxpayer debt.
