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Tea & Two Slices: On Driftwood Violence And The Semantics Of Western Democracy

by Sean Orr | The Tyee: Is Western Democracy Shattering? As if to say that it was once perfect and now breaking? I struggle with this, because democracy, as it was first practiced, was only for elite men. Slaves and women excluded. So, by definition, the inequality inherent within the democratic system is not incongruous but fully within the margins of what is normal. I suppose what we have come to know as “Western Democracy” is more of a tautological synthesis of market fundamentalism with Keynesian socialism, wherein the complete hijacking of said system by corporations and the ensuing political isolation of the masses might be known instead as kleptocracy. Sorry, I’m super drunk. I’ll stop talking now…

Apparently driftwood is something to beat the shit out of someone for. I had no idea. I’m going to go ahead and blame this one on the decay of Western Democracy…

Province editorial: We need a timeout just to catch our breath. “Racing along at an ever-increasing pace has put us in danger of meeting ourselves coming back”. This sounds like it was written in the 90’s by your condo-flipping uncle who just discovered yoga. Talk about First World Problems.

Breaking Bad: Jonathan Bacon dead, Hells Angel critical, following mass shooting outside Kelowna casino. I usually don’t care about such trivial and sensational crime stories, but man, seriously, HBO needs to do a special about the Bacon Brothers. It could be called Canadian Bacon (except for that name is already taken).

The normally mild-mannered Bob K. of Vancouver is Awesome:

Another story for the “how did this even make the news” pile. The dude in this piece questions helmet laws saying, “Imagine if the government told us we all had to wear helmets in cars?!”. They did, asshole: they’re called seatbelts. Deal with it.

Rypien was hopeful for future. Speaking as someone who has battled addiction and mental health issues, I feel a deep regret, mostly that his “personal battles” were kept such a secret and not openly discussed by the sports world. Not to worry. The Vancouver Sun publishes a handy list of other dead hockey players. Thanks guys!

Oh dear, the right wingers will be out in full force: Vancouver fruit stand too successful, forced to close. In America, first you get the fruit, then you get the power, then you get the women.

New reality: Microlofts. 200 sq. foot closets for the most livable city in the world!

There are 2 comments

  1. The thing about “microlofts” is that they are advertised as affordable accomodation, but my guess is they’ll mostly be bought up as “pied-a-terre” places by people with big house in Whistler, the Okanagan, or somewhere halfway around the world. After all, they’re basically hotel rooms that you can decorate to taste and leave your stuff there till you next pop through town.

    Interesting that they are asking about people’s current living situation on the application form: will they actually be screening for people who need affordable housing, or just using it to focus their ad campaign?

  2. […] outlets have been reluctant to call a suicide, Orr offers his usual succinct, snarky and bang-on commentary on the sports world’s failure to address mental illness openly. “Speaking as someone […]