All Fried Up In The Big Smoke

Less political. More fictional.

A Bid For What?

Posted on September 3, 2015 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

It’s impossible to see at this point of time just what Mayor John Tory’s angle is in his continued pursuit for entering Toronto into the 2024 Olympics sweepstakes. On Tuesday, Los Angeles city council voted unanimously to throw that city’s hat into the ring(s). Boston declined to go ahead back a month or so ago.

Both cities appear to have much more advanced, detailed plans in place, organizations ready to go than Toronto less than two weeks before the mid-September deadline to put your name forward for consideration as a host city to the International Olympic Committee. Never mind Paris, Rome and whatever other places – surely China must have a location in mind — have made their intentions known. In comparison, Toronto’s approach comes across as almost an after-thought. Basking in the late-summer heat, still sporting a PanAm Games glow, we’re like, Hey! Why not give it a whirl?

If that’s actually the case, of course. It’ll be interesting to watch over the next week and a half just how prepared the city the mayor is to proceed. Accusations of secrecy and backroom doings are popping up. The mayor’s “cagey” when asked questions about what’s happening. Mealy mouthed to others. Others being me. “I hope to be in a position…to have a reasonably complete summary of all that information at my disposal when it comes time to make a decision on whether to submit a letter or not,” he told the press on Tuesday.

A reasonably complete summary?!

“Extraordinarily secretive,” Janice Forsyth, director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at UWO, told Metro’s Jessica Smith Cross.

Normally we’d know the players at this point in time, because it’s one of the biggest decisions, economically, Toronto and Ontario will have to make, whether or not they commit themselves to this bid. They should be very concerned about their lack of transparency at this point in time, and if they want to gain back the public’s trust they should put out clear press saying exactly what is going to happen.

This is highly unusual for a democracy.

So either Toronto’s woefully underprepared for the September 15^th deadline or it’s good-to-go, put together on the lowdown, out of sight, out of mind. Neither situation is particularly palatable, eliciting more questions than answers. Why would Mayor Tory spend millions (somebody’s millions) to go down an almost certain doomed path? Or, what the fuck is going on back there?

Whose bidding is Mayor Tory doing if he insists on pushing ahead with a 2024 Olympic bid?

I’m not going to get into the whole merits/demerits of hosting the Olympics here. That’s being done much more thoroughly over at Dammit Janet! and NoTO2024. At this point, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of public support for a bid but that could simply be a result of the hesitant, should we-shouldn’t we, peek-a-boo approach the mayor is taking. Hard to catch the fever when the bug’s been quarantined.

And it’s hard to imagine exactly what’s changed in the 19 months since the city’s Economic Development Committee ‘deferred indefinitely’ the feasibility of Toronto hosting the 2024 Olympics. Aside from a new administration, that is, taking over the mayor’s office. An administration shy about overturning previous council decisions like the Scarborough subway. So, an Olympic bid must be very, very important to Mayor Tory.

Why would that be?

He tells us hosting the Olympics is a sure fire way to get big infrastructure projects like transit and affordable housing money from senior levels of government. Finance further waterfront development? A new athletes’ village or Olympic stadium would be just the ticket. Ottawa and Queen’s Park aren’t going to give Toronto money simply because the city needs it. They’ll want something in return, something big and shiny, a legacy.

Governance by spectacle. If you’re world class enough to host the Olympics, you’re world class enough for an entire transit network. If not, muddle along, as you were.

But what happens if the city doesn’t feel compelled to bid or does and loses out? Having thrown up their hail mary pass, what razzle dazzle play does Mayor Tory and his Olympic supporting colleagues like Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker call next in the huddle? They’ve established the framework that good public policy and basic common sense won’t deliver the kind of social and infrastructure upgrades Toronto needs, and can’t afford without assistance from the federal and provincial governments. Come September 15^th and there’s no submitted letter of intent to IOC from Toronto, say? An official shrug and a We Told You So? Enjoy your daily commute on that packed subway. Unless you have some other cockamamie scheme to fund things, get used to it.

— this or thatly submitted by Cityslikr

We Need To Have That Car Talk

Posted on June 30, 2015 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

Having arrived back in town yesterday after about 10 days away, the top 3 stories on the local news this morning were as follows: traffic accident causes a.m. traffic chaos, 2 car crash kills a cyclist (another one), 3 person HOV lanes in place for PanAm Games, grrrrrrrr.

Do we live in a city so eye-splittingly uninteresting that our headline grabbing news consists largely of traffic? Whatever your opinion may be, we do have the aforementioned PanAm Games coming up in a couple of weeks, the biggest sporting event ever on Canadian soil, or something. Toronto just finished up with another successful Pride celebration, re-integrating the mayor’s office into the proceedings after 4 years in the homophobic wilderness. A Poverty Reduction Strategy is under consideration by the Executive Committee.

And yet, here we are, talking traffic, specifically car traffic, private automobile traffic.

Yeah. This fucking city.

Nothing says ‘car obsessed’ more than always obsessing about cars, and the problems drivers face driving their cars around town.

If you’re a driver and your commute times have increased because, I don’t know, reason X, change up how you get around. You can’t because it still takes longer than public transit would? Well, good for you. Imagine the poor bastards who don’t have the choice to drive, putting in that extra time to get where they’re going. Think about that for just a second before having a tantrum about your diminished quality of life and seeing less of your family.

Blah, blah, blah, Wah, wah, wah.

Of all the things to be outraged about around here, of all the things to be touting the merits of civil disobedience over, being inconvenienced while driving in your car is hardly a worthy cause. It’s petulantly selfish, as a matter of fact. Amazingly self-absorbed and anti-social.

We’ve been hearing recently about ‘frustrated’ drivers having to deal with lower speed limits on downtown local roads or new High Occupancy Vehicle lanes to encourage carpooling. A ‘frustrated’ driver may become a dangerous driver, is the inference. Incidents of road rage increase. Risky behaviour leads to more accidents, injuries and fatalities. Don’t make drivers angry. You won’t like drivers when they’re angry.

Rather than stare that kind of bullshit down, we indulge it. We operate as if deciding to get behind the wheel of a car absolves us of adhering to any sort of societal norm. Rules of the road are simply helpful suggestions. Enforcement is the first step to totalitarianism.

You can’t take a lane of highway from me! I pay my taxes! I have a right to—ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

I do not think it too extreme a statement to suggest that fighting to rebalance our transportation system, to rein in the terror of private automobile use inflicted on this city and region, is a fight for the soul of the GTA. We are where we are in terms of congestion, mobility, lost productivity for two simple reasons, one inevitably following the other. A lack of vigorous investment in public transit for almost a generation now and a continued over-investment in our car-centric infrastructure.

Think I’m exaggerating?

Outside of the downtown core, how many times have we heard the reason for driving is because it’s faster than public transit? As has been said many, many times by many, many people, you don’t change that by making it easier to drive. You don’t change anything by attempting to make it easier to drive except maybe changing it for the worse, for drivers and non-drivers alike.

Toronto and the GTA is at a crucial juncture where it is impossible to try and make it easier to drive without exacting long term and, quite possibly, irreversible damage on almost every other aspect of living and doing business here. It is not 1965. There are no more open roads to ride to freedom on. Believing that is what’s brought us to this point now. Denying that reality is willfully short-sighted, a delusional folly.

— auto-immunely submitted by Cityslikr

Olympic Ideals?

Posted on February 24, 2014 by "Brother" of Cityslikr

Can we move along now?

After more than 2 weeks I have tried, Lord knows I have tried, to keep quiet out here in public with my disinterest and disdain of the 2014 Winter Olympics. It’s only 17 days, I said. (Not counting the year long media blitz leading up to it). Head down, eyes averted. It’ll all be over quicker than a polar vortex cold snap.

I don’t remember always being this Grinch-like when it comes to the Olympics although, over dinner a couple nights ago, I was reminded otherwise. Maybe that’s true. All the chest-thumping nationalism makes me a little queasy. It’s something Americans did.

Of course, perhaps that had more to do with sour grapes. Americans always had something to thump their chests about. 1980. Lake Placid. A ragtag bunch of U.S. college level hockey players and NHL rejects stunned the mighty U.S.S.R. Red Army team. The team Canada stewed over since it was obvious they were clearly made up of professional players. And it was the Americans who beat them.

Canada, well. It always felt like moral victories, pride in unexpected 2^nd place finishes. Greg Joy. Elizabeth Manley. Ben Johnson. Kudos for just showing up and doing your best. That was the Olympic spirit, right?

But I have to tell you, since we went and joined the elite, at least in terms of winter athletics, with the whole Own the Podium and We Are Winter, the nationalism is just as creepy. CA-NA-DA! CA-NA-DA! doesn’t sound a whole lot sweeter than U.S.A! U.S.A! A tribal chant is a tribal chant is a tribal chant.

National identity defined by the prowess of a select few athletes. Hey world. Bow down before us. We Are Winter, don’t you know.

Sure. But then again, we aren’t Sparta. And the outcome of the Peloponnesian War does not depend on the fitness of our warriors.

Perspective, people.

It’s a bunch of games played in the snow and ice. Fun to watch for a bit but hardly worth pinning our national pride on.

Wouldn’t it be great if we showed such enthusiasm, if governments and corporations showered the same kind of attention and cash on solving our looming environmental crisis, our homeless crisis or growing income inequality crisis. Infrastructure. African debt. Worldwide poverty.

Etc., etc.

I know. I know. I find it trite to even be writing this. Apples to oranges. Can’t something just exist, free from politics? Let us just enjoy this for what it is. Uncomplicated, easy-to-follow and pick sides, us-versus-them, root, root, root for the home team. Just for two weeks, every other year.

But…But…None of this is free from politics, is it. Nationalism never is. Especially this time around. If the Sochi Olympics weren’t driven by politics, then the word politics is meaningless.

We all know this by now.

The growing authoritarian regime in Russia. Their anti-gay legislation and detaining of activist protesting against it. The suppression of dissent in general there.

And, of course, the Ukraine, and Russia’s indirect involvement in the chaos and killing going on there. While we are celebrating golden days at the Olympics, people are getting gunned down in the streets in Kiev. So shocking that it even managed to push Olympic news from the headlines or at the top of the TV news hour. For a couple minutes or paragraphs. Then it’s Back to Sochi for the ice dancing competition!

We have somehow miraculously separated one type of nationalism from another. You can root for Canada. You can root against Russia when they compete against Canada. But do not meddle in the politics between the two. Do not impose your non-sports opinion into this particular arena.

We’ve arrived at a point where people, influential people will state with a straight face that politics has no place in an international sporting event like the Olympics. With a straight face. It’s all about the athletes. It’s not about politics.

The Olympics have rarely been devoid of politics. Twenty-two African countries boycotted the 1976 summer Olympics in Montreal to protest the inclusion of New Zealand in the games after their rugby team had toured apartheid-era South Africa earlier in the year. An apartheid-era South Africa that had been banned from participating in the Olympics because, well, apartheid. The U.S. led boycott of the 1980 summer games in Moscow to protest Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. The so-called Black Power salute by American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the podium in Mexico City, 1968. Jesse Owens in Munich, 1936.

Exactly, right! Jesse Owens goes over to Germany, wins a bunch of medals, giving the finger to the Nazis’ Aryan ideals of some master race. Up yours, Herr Hitler!

Yeah well, what the fuck did we just show Vladimir Putin by showing up in Sochi? (Check out Andrew Wheeler’s Hitler Had A Circus and You Bought A Balloon for a much more thorough analysis of that point.) By giving him an international stage to smooth out the jagged edges of his growing totalitarianism and return to Soviet-style repression. What notice did we just finish giving the world? Hey everybody! There are absolutely no repercussions to any of the actions you take, no matter how brutal or anti-democratic. At least as far as the IOC and medal loving people everywhere are concerned.

The Games must go on!

What about the athletes, often goes the argument. What of their tireless efforts and determination in becoming the best that they can be, and their desire to compete with the world? Why should they be punished because of our political differences?

That’s like attempts to paint critics of a war as somehow being against the troops. Direct the focus to only one aspect of a much bigger issue in order to shut down that larger, more divisive discussion.

We’re told the Olympics encompass more than just sports, aren’t we? Our drive to amass medals and stand atop the podium to hear our national anthem played stands for something greater and higher than simply being the best at hockey or going fastest down a hill, doesn’t it? Otherwise, it hardly seems worth the rah-rah we put into it. The glory fleeting and limited, the need to defend it the only lasting thing four years hence.

I thought Olympic athletes were supposed to represent all aspects of a country’s ideals and aspirations not just the fun, sports side. What’s that say about us that we simply shrug off any political implication of sending our delegates, our sports ambassadors to perform for tyrants, despots and thugs without so much as a word of dissent? Core values? What core values?

Owning the podium doesn’t mean much if you can’t even claim to own a conscience.

— self-righteously submitted by Cityslikr