Is that a Red Rocket in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Yes, as usual, Toronto Transit has a cash flow problem. This has been true since I sold my car and moved downtown in 1989. Back then I was proud to get around town on public transit. I loved my TTC identification card, not only because it featured one of the few photos of me that wasn’t embarrassing, but also because it made me a part of a club that was doing something good for the city: getting cars off the streets.

I have no moral objection to cars, although I’m looking forward to the day when they no longer pollute. I currently own a car, in fact, because I now live in the suburbs, and am required to commute, when I work. And here we find the crux of the problem with public transit: it is simply too expensive for the user.

Transit supporters like blogger Steve Munro think it’s a good idea to raise fares on a regular basis—which happens, with or without Mr. Munro’s encouragement—but it does two things. First, the higher the fare, the larger the number of poor people who are suddenly excluded from the benefits of public transit. Second, for those of us who aren’t so desperately poor that an extra ten cents per ride means giving up that minimum-wage job, it still makes us wonder why we would bother taking transit at all?

My neighbour, Ted, commutes from our friendly Oshawa community to his downtown job at Yonge & Eg. He took the GO train for a while, but returned to his car because it was cheaper to drive. Yes, cheaper. And faster. Twice as fast.

When I lived in the Beaches, I had a similar experience. The boss offered me free parking, and I suddenly had a choice. An hour and fifteen minutes on a crowded, smelly streetcars (two, actually, since I had to transfer), at roughly 6 bucks a day, or drive my little car to work in 12 minutes, using approximately 3 bucks in gas. For reasons I can’t fully explain, I chose to stick with transit, probably because I still carried around my now-obsolete TTC ID card, as if the club still met every month at Sherbourne station.

If politicians and urban planners and TTC want people to get out of their cars, they should make the cost of public transit too cheap to ignore. This is called a subsidy, and it happens in plenty of government-controlled sectors. As long as the TTC feels it must earn a profit, rather than perform a public service, it will fail to encourage anything except public ire. Road tolls and carbon taxes will not get people out of their cars. Cheap transit will. With cheaper fares, ridership will increase, road maintenance costs will go down, pollution will go down (reducing healthcare costs, in the long term), road congestion with go down, insurance will go down, unemployment will go down, &c.

This isn’t (red) rocket science.

 

“I Did Not Have Sexual Relations with that Hoagie”

Now that Toronto voters have awoken from their dream and realized the horror of their well-meaning if misguided actions, there is only one solution:

Impeach Rob Ford.

There must be a way. If there is a legal process to do so, it should be enacted without delay, before the “swirl” turns into “glug, glug, glug,” before the Ford administration takes Toronto to lows not enjoyed since 1970’s Detroit. I’m pretty sure there are more lawyers in Toronto than libraries, so perhaps two or three of them can take up the challenge and save this city before it’s too late.

If there is no legal precedent to impeach a mayor, make one. There has to be a first time for everything. If enough voices shout, they will be heard.

Never mind “Margaret Atwood for Mayor.” She’s busy showing the world that art means something to many people, current mayor & family notwithstanding. She’d be wasted on local politics. But perhaps we could introduce a standardized test for future mayoral candidates, something akin to provincial EQAO tests. (Here is a link; as you read, simply change the phrase “education quality” to “leadership quality.” http://www.eqao.com/AboutEQAO/AboutEQAO.aspx?Lang=E) Any potential mayor should at least know who Ms. Atwood is, and be able to pick her out of a police line-up.

And just a quick note to Mr. Ford: It should have occurred to you by now that the reason you are finding it so hard to balance the budget is because it is simply not possible to do it in one fell swoop. 800 mill is a lot. And it just might take two, or even three years to balance the budget. It serves no purpose to amputate the leg to save the little toe. Better you do nothing, like David Miller, than perform this unnecessary and dangerous surgery.

Mayor Ford does not care about Torontonians. How do I know? A little “birdie” told me so.

 

A Ford To Lose

Atwood vs. Ford

It is abundantly clear that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, his brother, Doug, and his other brother, Doug, failed to reap the innumerable benefits of the library during their formative years. No doubt too busy loitering in front of the Slurpee machine, giving passing shoppers the finger.

By the way, dear Fords, even if you cannot read, you should be embarrassed that you don’t know who Margaret Atwood is. This void in your cultural knowledge surely disqualifies you as true Canadians—fancy cottage notwithstanding.

Please return to Tralfamador as soon as possible.

Patient, Heal Thyself

I’m sad to report, it’s a familiar story: Nursing home patient with fractured leg ignored by caregivers, despite pleas from family members. The elderly woman in question died earlier this year. Perhaps not due directly to her leg injury, but there is no question she was in agony until the end; so, perhaps a contributing factor. Rather than get an x-ray, as the family requested, the caregiver gave the woman Tylenol. After the elderly woman’s death, a facility spokesperson admitted there was in fact a fracture in the patient’s leg. “No home is perfect,” said the spokesperson. “They made a mistake in this case, but it was not through a lack of effort.”

Ahem…actually, it was due entirely to a lack of effort. The only effort required was to have the woman’s leg x-rayed. That small effort would have achieved several things: 1) the x-ray would have shown there was a fracture, which then could have been treated, thus reducing the patient’s pain; 2) perhaps, only perhaps, may have extended this woman’s life, because it’s hard to go on when there is so much pain; 3) the woman’s family would have stopped harassing the staff, which would surely have pleased both sides.

Having had my own medical issues, recently, I’ve experienced the field of “caregiving” firsthand. I won’t specifically pick on nurses, because the full medical experience includes doctors and support staff, right down to the gurney-wallahs (who, incidentally, are the kindest, most cheerful people, as a group, you will ever meet). Here are my observations:

On the whole, elderly patients are treated with less respect than younger or middle-aged ones, especially if they show any signs of dementia. During one of my brief hospital stays, I was lodged two cubicles down from an old woman who, apart from whatever physical failure brought her to hospital, suffered from Alzheimer’s. She was convinced her son was about to arrive for a visit, even though it was 3am. Her male nurse explained to her, in the most terse tone, that no one was coming, it was the middle of the bloody night, and would she please cooperate, as he was attempting to roll her onto her side. After twenty minutes of this, he became angry with her, raising his voice, castigating her as if she were five, instead of eighty-five. Her cubicle was directly across from the bathroom, and my own condition required multiple visits throughout the night. Toward the end of this exchange, I glanced into the woman’s cubicle only to bear witness to her exposed behind. Yes, the nurse had finally got her to roll over, but did not have the decency to close the curtain before he changed her robe.

I was not offended to witness this woman’s ancient behind. I have one of those, myself. But I was offended by this caregiver’s utter lack of sensitivity, discretion and kindness toward another human being. It made me think about the health industry in general, and the workers on the ground who fight the day-to-day battle with these broken-down machines, our bodies.

It must be a defense mechanism, this immunity that caregivers develop from pain, hopelessness, death. They see so much of it, they can’t afford to let it affect them in a normal, human way. My own nurses, the ones forced to perform daily duties on my wound, were rough, heavy-handed, and seemed either surprised or cynical when I reacted with a yelp (or worse!). Although I wasn’t happy about it, I understood where they were coming from. And, to be fair, my homecare nurses were universally sensitive to my pain, were as gentle as kittens; they worked in a much different environment to the hospital folks.

In my hospital experience, there were communication problems, scheduling problems, either too much or not enough attention paid to the things that really mattered, &c. But, due largely to the vigilance of my loving wife, I got through it.

Which brings us back to our poor nursing home patient, whose fractured leg went untreated until her death. Yes, mistakes happen, especially in large, busy facilities. But this was no mistake. This was an extreme, cynical reaction by someone in the healthcare system who needs a bit of time off to reset the defaults, realign the priorities, recover a bit of humanity. Since the old woman had fallen several times, recently, and had a dent in her forehead to prove it, there was no reason to doubt the complaint was justified. Was it really that hard to schedule an x-ray? Does the cost of the x-ray get deducted from the caregiver’s salary if it comes back negative? Does the administration discourage medical treatment in order to keep costs down? These are questions for a more qualified investigator. My interest is only in the mental process in that caregiver’s brain. Did he dislike that old woman on a more personal note? Perhaps she was an abusive patient, which is not uncommon, and so he was disinclined to be sympathetic to her pain. I don’t know. But the caregiving field seems to breed this sort of contempt, or at least indifference, toward the people being cared for.

There may not be a practical solution to this phenomenon, except to recognize it exists. It’s a hard, and often thankless, job, caregiving. It requires a special personality to be able to cope. But from the patient’s side, we and our family are forced to cope involuntarily, and often in a vortex of panic and confusion. All I can say is, family members must be vigilant, and noisy noisy noisy, if they think there is a problem. My wife demonstrated to me that you can never be too noisy in that environment. You can go right to the top of the organization, if you have to. Do not make an appointment. You just might save a life.

Quiet Please…Meeting in Progress

Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday thinks city councillors talk too much. Rather than the usual two-day sitting, the latest session stretched to three, due in part to the debate over removal of the Jarvis Street bicycle lanes, and was purposely dragged out by his “political opponents.” This “extra talk” cost taxpayers as much as $60K, according to his own sources. “These are the kinds of things that taxpayers should be concerned about,” says Mr. Holyday.

Well, I think it’s safe to say taxpayers are concerned, one way or the other, about bike lanes on Jarvis. Everyone has an opinion on the matter, and I believe everyone hoped there was significant discussion about it before the vote was taken.

More to the point, it is city council’s job to discuss municipal issues before taking action. That’s how the system works. Councillor Joe Mihevc nailed it: “This isn’t a waste of money, this is our job. This is the fundamental nature of what it means to be in this forum, in this circle: to discuss, to debate.” Municipal decisions should not be passed over lightly just because council was scheduled to break for lunch ten minutes ago, and there are still 72 items remaining on the agenda. To suggest that, as the Deputy Mayor has done, is foolishness on an Orwellian scale.

What DM Holyday is really saying is this: He made his decisions on these issues long before the meeting began, and it irks him that any other member of council might disagree with him. No amount of “talking” will change his mind or his vote, so it is therefore a waste of his time to do so.

He calls these “talkers” his political opponents, as if there were a partisanship component to municipal politics. There is not. Every councillor is there to represent a specific sector of the city, not toe a political or ideological line.

Still, the bottom line is, you’ve made your decision, and you can’t believe these monkeys want to talk about it until the sun goes down, when all they have to do is agree with you, and everyone can go home. Of course, if they don’t vote your way, you call them “irresponsible,” costing the city overages, by requiring more time in chamber to debate debate debate. Sixty grand a day, baby. That’s what all your useless talking is costing the people.

Well, even though his numbers are questionable, that is the cost of doing the city’s business. They’ve reduced the number of days council sits from three to two, thinking they’d save money. But it clearly takes the original three days to debate. So be it.

More unfortunate is Mr. Holyday’s dirty tactics. He is telling citizens that if any councillor elects to make a “discussion” out of important city issues, they are taking money out of taxpayers’ pockets needlessly. All the councillor needs to do, according to the Deputy Mayor, is agree with the DM on all issues, and meeting adjourned. This is a tactic also favoured by the federal Conservatives—who likewise resent any interference in their decision-making process, especially by the legitimate opposition.

Instead of attempting to undermine the proper execution of city politics through media manipulation and scare tactics, perhaps Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday should consider listening to what the “opposition” has to say. He might learn something new. He might even change his mind, now and then. It clearly hasn’t worked for him, getting all his facts and opinions from his boss, the Mayor.

 

I’m a Big, Fat Anarchist

This sudden, unbidden realization came to me as I was reading a National Post report with the heading: Parents should lose custody of obese kids. For reasons that I had to mine deeply for, my automatic response was, No, they shouldn’t.

Maybe I’m wrong. Protect the little children. That’s what everyone says. At least, that’s what the media says that everyone says. Well, the media says it. So it must be true…

In any case, this assertion was made by esteemed Harvard man, Dr. David Ludwig, an obesity specialist. “Put ’em in foster care,” he shouts, from the steps of the Capitol Building, arms aloft piously. (Okay, I made up the “steps” bit, but still…) “Improper feeding practices” and failing to provide a “physically active lifestyle” amount to neglect and child abuse, says he.

And he’s right, to a point. By the codified standards of our society, these things could be judged as abuse. But abuse comes in many forms. What do you call it when a parent exceeds the speed limit in the Caravan while little Johnny is strapped in the back seat? Attempted abuse? I mean, it’s a fiery accident waiting to happen, man. What do you call it when a parent won’t permit a child to play in the yard because the media tells him the child will probably be abducted by some bearded deviant in a trench coat if he does? Abuse? What do you call it when a parent takes no interest whatsoever in his child’s life, at school, in the playground, behind the arena? Abuse? Neglect? Does doing nothing constitute abuse? When my grandmother babysat my sisters and me, we were forced to watch Lawrence Welk on the only television set in our house. Definitely abuse. Brussels sprouts on the plate? Might as well give me the strap. Oh yeah, in grade four, I got the strap because another boy beat me up in the hallway. I should have sued someone. If they’re still alive, maybe I’ll Google them, sick my lawyer on them. Or just slag them on Facebook.

Yes, the world is full of dangers for a child, and thanks to a set of arbitrary (or media-driven) rules and laws and ideas, set down by a hodgepodge of mildly retarded bureaucrats, politicians and celebrity doctors, everyone snitches on everyone.

Little known fact: The German organization called Gestapo was, in terms of numbers, a relatively small group that relied mostly on the public to do its dirty work; which is to say, neighbours snitching on neighbours, friends against friends, that guy you work alongside, the one who never says much but always looks a little shifty, well…next thing you know, the paddy wagon pulls up and someone gets taken for a ride.

Remember the mom who got arrested for smacking her child’s behind in the K-Mart parking lot? Probably not, unless you’re old, like me. But it happened, and someone snitched, and the cops came and arrested her, and took her child away, at least temporarily. Gestapo tactics, clear as day.

Anarchists seek to diminish or abolish authority in the conduct of human relations. If you read it twice, it starts to sound less like a threat and more like good common sense. Go ahead, read it again.

Parents are imperfect beings, and, like snowflakes, are utterly unique. Which means, every other parent, plus all those annoying people who have not procreated successfully yet, thinks you are doing it wrong. And the problems arise when a specific law picks on a specific flaw in the parenting technique. Where are the lines drawn, and should there be lines anyway? That’s where anarchy comes into it.

Don’t tell me how to raise my child. I’m doing the best I can, with what I’ve got, so please just leave me alone.

I don’t want bedlam in the streets. (I leave that to hockey fans.) The same fundamental rules should apply to any person, man or child. No child should be physically assaulted or molested. No human should be physically assaulted or molested. The wrongness in that is clear, by any civilized standards. But when they (and, by they I mean, the mildly retarded bureaucrats, politicians and celebrity doctors) start plucking random threads out of the fabric, and then call it justice, the whole thing starts to fall apart and look tatty.

Fat kids are fat for more reasons than the parents who give them junk food. Public schools no longer require gym class in the elementary years. They’ve reduced extra-curricular sports to a watered down goo. They don’t even let the punters run in the hallways, which at least would have been good for them. Public recreation centers are shutting down, due to lack of funds. Pools have closed. Rinks have closed. Parks have been corrupted by “concerned” groups who fear little Johnny might crack his skull if he climbs something, so it’s all rubberized and roped off, and boring boring boring. Little league sports are for the rich, these days. Hundred bucks for a hockey stick? Fohgettaboudit. Doctors cram kids with pills because it’s easier than giving them something to do with all that energy. And, yes, there are all those screens to distract them from the real world. No argument there.

Taking a child out of the family home because he’s fat, and putting him in foster care until his parents graduate some parent-training classes, is wrong. As a witness to the horrors perpetrated by the Children’s Aid Society, I can safely say you will be merely dumping little Johnny out of the proverbial frying pan. Might as well lock him in a closet with a Catholic priest. (sorry…currently ducking bolts of lightning—ed.)

Why single out the fat kids? Because obesity is the most current “issue” in the media. And we have a right to be concerned, for all the reasons the media repeats ad nauseam. But the parents, for all their perceived faults, are too far down the chain to take sole blame for Johnny’s condition. They’re probably fat, too, because of all the outside societal factors that contribute to and encourage obesity.

As a newly minted anarchist, I believe that humans and families have a right to be left alone to succeed or fail on their own merits—physical assault and molestation notwithstanding. That’s the way of the natural world. Some fish swim faster than others. Too much plankton for lunch, Charlie? Shark is gonna get ya.

I grew up in a world where I could ride a bicycle without a helmet and climb a tree and make the merry-go-round spin so fast that we all went flying off, willy-nilly. I survived that hazardous childhood relatively unscathed; a few didn’t. That’s the natural order of things. And there were fewer fat kids in my school, which is why we picked on them. As far as I know, none of them got placed in foster care because of their size. I’m sure their parents were doing the best they could, with what they had.

Maybe it’s time to leave parents alone, and perhaps target the real culprits of this obesity epidemic. For the sake of arbitrariness, lets start with Denny’s restaurant. Can anyone say Super Grand Slamwich (calorie count: 3050 per serving)? Not that hungry? Settle for the Hashbrowns with onions, cheese & gravy (3820 per). Go ahead. Abuse yourself. But leave little Johnny at home. Remember, the people are watching you.

Our Blackest Hour

It was one of those JFK/John Lennon moments, I recall. I’m speaking, of course, of my vivid and painful recollection of the moment I learned Conrad Black had been convicted for defrauding investors—of whom he was largest, and therefore most entitled, if I can put in my two cents. I was in line at the Starbuck’s on King St. West, waiting to order my third Venti Columbia Narĩno Supremo®, when I saw the headline screaming at me from the News Borrowing Stand®:

Guilty!

How could this be? I was so upset, I almost forgot to order my Reduced Fat Banana Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake®. Fortunately, the barista’s snarky reproach snapped me out of my coma, but afterword I failed utterly to enjoy my cinnamon dust.

As we all expected, the trial was nothing short of a kangaroo court, populated by a sordid media-starved horde, hell-bent on railroading the Great Man solely because he was more successful, more powerful and more intelligent than themselves, not to mention the scurrilous finks who ratted him out in the first place. Well, what can you expect from a country that did the same thing to Martha Stewart, that elegant Doyenne of Doilies, just because she allegedly pinched the boney arm of her au pair for spilling tomato juice on a new gingham table swatch—so attests my ever-trustworthy “inside source.” The au pair snitched to her boyfriend—which just goes to show you why the best help is always the illegal alien, who knows how to keep her trap shut. And now you see how these things gain momentum, like a boulder pushed down a steep hill, gathering speed, as well as all manner of sticky stuff, dirt, garbage, shit, lies…

Well, what’s done is done. Lord Connie took his lumps with all the grace and dignity you’d expect from one of the Queen’s chosen few. Into the dank pit of prison went he, filling that orange jump suit with his martyr’s flesh. For two-and-a-half years, he conducted himself splendidly, was a model prisoner, educated his incarcerated brothers who, one and all, were in want of what LCB had to offer, many gaining their GED, thanks to his unswerving devotion, unimpeachable diction and a vocabulary to daunt Webster. And his reward for this stalwart effort: bail.

One wells up at the thought.

But his enemies, who have lain in wait these past years, are amassing on the hillock, preparing to launch another attack, like the slavering Visigoths flanking poor, defenseless Rome.

Conrad Black Treated Inmates Like Slaves

, read the headline.

Let’s be clear: Connie did not treat those men like slaves. They gave of themselves freely, as Saul of Taurus gave himself freely to Jesus after being blinded (temporarily) by his brilliant light. Were these hard, stupid men Black’s slaves? Hell, no! They were his disciples! Apostles! Devotees! Fans! They simply couldn’t resist his monumental charisma—a failing for many of us. Sure, they cooked and cleaned for him, mopped his floor, trimmed his bangs. Jiminy, I do those tasks all the time in my house. Am I my wife’s slave? Of course not. I do it for love, and because the floor’s getting a bit crusty around the fringes. Someone’s got to take on the dirty jobs in life, so why shouldn’t Conrad be surrounded by people willing to do his?

But the insult added to his already significant injury, was when his parole officer claimed he demanded to be called Lord Black, upon his release. Well, Elton John demands the same thing from the staff a the Four Seasons Hotel, in Yorkville, and you don’t hear them complaining about the tips. In fact, one of my reliable sources tell me Sir Elton has been known to gather up a troop of bellhops and frog march them up and down the fortieth-floor corridor, singing “Porch Swing in Tupelo” a cappella.

It’s just a lot of sour grapes, as far as I can tell. If my name was Lord, I’d use it. If I had a Rolls Royce, I’d drive it. If I ever met Connie on the dusty road to Damascus, I’d bend down and anoint his feet. Why, because in this world, some people are just better than others. And don’t you forget it.

Satanic Verse

Pop star Rihanna is the latest target of censorship by the Parents Television Council (PTA), an arguably legitimate “watchdog” group, aiming to protect children and families from violence and pornography in the media, but which are in reality a band of ultra-conservative activists, whose chief objective is to bowdlerize the media into fundamental Christian submission.

What the PTA likes about television: American Idol, Extreme Makeover—Home Edition, Dancing With the Stars, 7^th Heaven…well, you get the idea. What they don’t like: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Grey’s Anatomy, Two and a Half Men, Will and Grace. In other words, what they like is sentimental reality tv and any show that is overtly Christian in content.

What PTA doesn’t like is a show that depicts criminal behavior, which by its nature is frequently violent; CSI would not exist as a show if not for criminals committing crimes. That’s what crime shows do, some more successfully than others. Without crime and violence, CSI would be pretty uninteresting. It would lack drama, which is what engages viewers.

PTA doesn’t like shows that involve romance and sex; nobody would watch a show about a hospital staff without romance and sex. Period. Without sex and romance, hospitals are filled with death and boredom. Sex and romance are so integral to the entertainment media, it could not support itself without them. The revenue earned from sex and romance paid for all twelve seasons of 7^th Heaven.

PTA doesn’t like angry, corrosive characters who have nothing positive to say to those around them, which is the basis for every sit-com ever aired. Charlie Sheen notwithstanding, his show is just another in a long list of sit-coms with this format, beginning with All in the Family, which television historians the world over look upon with nothing short of veneration. So there, PTA.

And, as you might expect, PTA cannot abide any show that contains homosexuals, talks about homosexuality, or in any way, shape or manner refers to said condition. Let me be clear: PTA is the cornerstone of anti-homosexual sentiment in North America. They don’t want to see it, hear it, read about it. Like Hamas and its inability to accept Israel’s existence, PTA does not believe homosexuals have a right to exist, especially on television, where their little Johnnys and Suzies might pick up a dose, which they understand is contagious.

As for poor besieged Rihanna, well, the video in question, rather obviously entitled Man Down, is a weak and somewhat confused story of rape and vengeance. Poorly crafted as a musical story, its content can do nothing but entertain its target audience of tweenage girls. And even if the message isn’t lost in the mire of Rihanna’s confustication, it’s not engaging enough to drive innocent girls to violence, as the PTA would have us believe. The message is no more diabolical than any episode of Law & Order: Special Victim’s Unit.

Perhaps it’s time the news media stop giving voice to this group as if they represent the mainstream population. Appearances can be deceiving, and unless we want Pat Buchanan to determine what we watch on television, this group must be recognized for what it is: a small, vocal minority of radical fundamentalists whose definition of “tolerance” is acceptance of anyone who agrees completely with their own crackpot ideology.

The PTA, like Israel and CSI, has a right to exist; I just think it should have an influence on the censorship of broadcasters commensurate with its numbers, which are small. Its membership certainly has the right to change the channel, if they find offense, but they should grant the rest of us Freedom of Choice.

Amen, brother.

Toll Troll

The Toronto Star is taking credit for “causing a stir” at City Hall about road tolls. These tolls, they say, will be essential if the city is to extend the subway system from Downsview to Scarborough. Mayor Ford has said in no uncertain terms that he will get private sector funds to pay for the job. Good for him for at least thinking that is an option, regardless of whether or not it’s realistic.

Like the Star, the city’s previous mayor was also a nut for road tolls, and no doubt would have introduced them, had he remained in power. But here’s the thing: applying a toll to the DVP, or the 427, or the Gardiner is essentially putting the financial burden for this subway extension on commuters, not on Toronto residents. City council and the Star talk as though Torontonians will be paying. In the Star’s own poll, they admit that “the opposition is less fierce among residents within the city of Toronto.” Sure it is. Some dude from Mississauga is going to fund Joe Toronto’s subway ride to Scarborough Town Centre. Why should he object to that? After all, the alternatives could include raising Joe Toronto’s property taxes, or charging him more for public transit. Or they could raise the money from the private sector, as Mr. Ford wishes. Or all of the above, plus a few other things.

According to ex-councilor Gordon Chong, now chair of Toronto Transit Infrastructure Ltd., “Everybody in the world is paying tolls, what’s so special about us?”

Come on, Gordie, just because everybody else is doing it, doesn’t make it right. Besides, most road tolls, like the one on our local Hwy. 407, are designed to pay for that road’s maintenance and improvements, not some unrelated project. For years we had a toll on the Skyway bridge, until the bridge was paid for; and then the toll booths were removed.

Yes, London, England, has a congestion toll, a once-daily fee for drivers entering the core of the city. But someone has to say it: Toronto is not London. Not by a long-shot.

Picking on commuting drivers is an arbitrary choice. Some would argue that road tolls will encourage drivers to take public transit, but the dude from Mississauga will not be taking the subway to work, not unless Mr. Ford has plans to extend the Toronto subway system some distance westward. And GO Transit is almost as expensive as driving, takes twice as long, and is unreliable in bad weather. So no one is going to stop driving in from the suburbs; everyone in the suburbs knows it, so stop talking as though they will.

If the city is looking for someone pay, why not a bicycle toll? Or a pedestrian toll? Why pick on automobile drivers? If they’re hell-bent on sticking up visitors, add a special landing tax for people flying into GTA airports. At the very least, they (and by “they,” I mean City Hall and the Toronto Star) need to admit that road tolls and congestion tolls are mainly a tax upon non-residents of Toronto. They should stop pretending otherwise. And this way, they will know who to poll on the subject of road tolls, in order to make those polls germane.

Lastly, let’s not forget how government bureaucracy works: they introduce a road toll and/or a congestion toll, begin to collect all this money from visitors, reminding them (irrelevantly) that it’s going to pay for a subway extension…but before long, even the City forgets the singular reason they introduced the toll. All they know is, the toll money goes into their bank account, and somehow it gets “lost” in the mix. Some City Hall lackey needs to pay the electricity bill, and next thing you know there’s not enough cash in the bank to pay for the subway construction. More money, please! Increase the tolls! Double property taxes! Bicycle toll! Tourism tax! How about a poll tax (sorry, TorStar and Angus Reid)? Pole tax (sorry, strippers and people of Polish descent)! Breathing tax! No doubt the Star will break the story.

You heard it here, first.

Oh God, Where Art Thou?

I understand Harold Camping.

In case you’ve been away, he’s the gimcrack preacher who told us the world was going to end last week, that the Chosen Ones will experience Rapture, oneness with God, leaving the rest of us behind. For some reason, it got a lot of press outside the looney Christian community, and there was much debate about whether or not it would be worth it to mow the lawn, since the world was about to end…and so on. I myself continued to make plans beyond the weekend, being a non-believer, and as such not entitled to my Rapture. So be it.

Now that Camping has been proven wrong, he has come out to apologize, and to admit his calculations were off by five months. Apparently Jesus was just coming round on May 21^st to take a census, make his list, sort of like Santa, but without the elves to help; an administrative prelude to the Big Event, which Camping has now declared will actually take place on October 21^st of this year.

Go ahead. Mow the lawn. Enjoy it while you can. You won’t have to rake the autumn leaves, though. No point, really. You’ll either be going North or South, and there will only be the cockroaches (and a few Conservative Senators) left to scrounge through the ruins.

As I said: I understand Harold Camping. His ministry is worth over a hundred million dollars. In 2009 alone he raked in over 18 million smackers. A pretty good haul for someone with a track record of failure. Did I mention the world was going to end in 1994? According to Harold Camping, that is. But his math was off then, too. Still, he was forgiven by his followers, who continued to throw money at him. Of course, at 89, he can’t afford to wait another 17 years for Armageddon, so he’s set it up for this October. With any luck, he’ll live long enough to see it through.

What I fail to understand, though, is why there are people still willing to take anything this man has to say seriously. His motive is clearly monetary; one hundred mill is a respectable piece of fraud, even by churchly standards. And while most of us feel only shame for him, feel that he gives humanity and mainstream religion a bad name, there is a group who will open their ears, and their wallets, all in the futile hope that everyone is going to die. Are they crazy? (Well, they elected GW Bush twice, so perhaps the question is redundant.)

Anyway, the result of all this fervor is that I have just declared myself Dear Leader of the Cosmic Pinball Wizards. If you send me a donation, I will give you the winning numbers for next week’s lottery. Don’t worry if my numbers don’t come through for you, though. It happens. Even God isn’t perfect. My math is a little sketchy, I admit, but if you’re a true believer, you’ll win, sooner or later. Just keep those donations coming in. That will assure you a spot on the winners’ list. As a sign of good faith, here are Wednesday’s winning numbers: 3, 12, 26, 27, 33. Yeah, yeah, I know…that’s only five. I stared into that crystal ball for, like, twenty minutes, and all I got were five. Maybe if your donation was a bit bigger, I might be persuaded to “see” the sixth number a bit more clearly.

I await your envelope, dear reader. But please get it to me before October 21, 2011. Just in case.