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Tea & Two Slices: On Liveability & Harper’s Love Of The “Vigorous Condemnation”

Portrait

by Sean Orr | Why Vancouver remains the most liveable city in the world. Hmm is it because you’re the Economist and you completely disregard class divisions, as stark as they are in Vancouver?

Post-Olympic Depression (P.O.D): Local economic growth will slow down in 2011. “There’s always money in the banana stand”.

Harper ‘vigorously condemns’ violence in Libya. I can just picture him squirming around with that shit eating grin of his; his beady eyes glinting rigourously through his white guy glasses; vigorously condemning things all day long from a top his copper perch in Ottawa, while fondly remembering his night on the casbah with Ghadaffi and his harem.

Budget 2011: False Deficit and Carbon Tax Smokescreen. “Bottom line with BC Liberals is their bottom line is easily manipulated”. And with a stroke of McMartin’s pen the Tyee is relevant again!

Premier’s Vancouver “throne”. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Confusing headline of the day: Pregnant Sasha Carter of B.C. to be handled with kid gloves at Scotties. The who did what to the who now?

Heritage Vancouver Society Top Ten Endangered Sites.

Past Tense: The Poetic Burglars hit again.

Whistling Smith. A cop on patrol in an eerily familiar DTES.

There are 16 comments

  3. Interesting, what the author sees an eerily familiar DTES I see as an eerily familiar simplification of the issues.

    I’ve often pointed youngsters to this film to illustrate just how things of have changed on Hastings in such a short while (the name DTES hadn’t yet been coined at the time of this film)

    Sure there’s always been drunks and junkies – but not nearly in the concentration we see today – and what’s most eerie about the film is the loss of diversity in people and business, the disappearance of the working class and the erosion of police powers to mitigate street disorder.

    Good post though, more people need to see this NFB classic.

  4. You suck at reading stuff. I said “as stark as they are in Vancouver”. Clearly I am not saying class is a Vancouver phenomenon, just that the divisions are markedly entrenched. But to take your attempt at sarcasm further, clearly the Economist doesn’t take it into account in ANY city, let alone one with the worst child poverty, soaring hep-c rates, lowest minimum wage, frozen tuition, while simultaneously being the most expensive city to live in.

  5. The above response was to Paul. @Pete: My point, as I try to show via a running narrative in my posts is that media like to point at say Woodwards closing, or crack cocaine (which was introduced after the former) to lay blame, or even tat he institutions that developed in an economic vacuum- the Poverty Industry I believe they call it- which belies the incredibly complex history of the neighbourhood. On the flip side, people like to say that the recent spate of restaurants into the area is gentrification, ignoring the fact that these are largely small, independent businesses often preserving the history of the area- and more importantly, ignoring the fact that Gastown itself is a buffer to gentrification in the form of Freeway development such as Project 200, wherein the Province and Sun are the anchor tenants of the only building that was actually built- insofar as that both were previously located in the heart of so-called Skid Row. My point is very similar to yours, but without the context of this narrative that I’ve attempted to set in place, I’m afraid it comes of as pithy hipster cynicism. In other words- keep reading!

  6. I guess your finely weighed and nuanced point was that the Economist is wrong to call any city–especially Vancouver!!–liveable until it accounts for Class Divisions and Income Inequality? Why don’t you yell me about other major cities you’ve been to which have happier, more egalitarian class structures?

    Then again, maybe it was just your usual reaction to name call at to every piece of news which contradicts or offends your narrative.

    Name calling, Sean, that’s one thing you don’t suck at!

  8. Well, I wouldn’t say it offends my narrative namely because I have no idea what that mean, but it does certainly contradict it. It’s a well laid out narrative with tons of historical evidence. The point is, how do we measure progress? Upper mobility, GDP, real estate speculation, sexualized housing vs. ecology, society, class, health, cultural productivity.

    I don’t need to talk about any other city because I don’t live there and I don’t know them. Moot point.

  9. Actually, the point is far from moot:

    You started by disparaging the outcome of a comparitive test. After some back and forth, your sign off is “I don’t need to talk about any other city because I don’t live there and I don’t know them.”

    Having no basis of research or experience upon which to challenge the comparison you mock is one thing, no interest another entirely . Solipsist much?

  12. “Having no basis of research or experience” I didn’t write the bloody article I’m commenting on it. I also don’t think you know what ‘moot’ means. It means open to discussion or debate; ergo exactly BECAUSE it’s a solipsism it could be debated forever.

  13. mo better nonsense, take your narrow point of view and marry it and raise a family.

    heard there was a paid comment drive for this blog that was on craiglist last week, what is the story with that?

  15. With all due respect, would ” Tea & Two Slices” not be more appropriately named “Bitch and Snipe”?

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