A no messing around guide to the coolest things to eat, drink and do in Vancouver and beyond. Community. Not clickbait.

On Avocado Toast And Boomers Plotting Riots Outside The U2 Show

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by Sean Orr | The election that just keeps on giving: If Weaver Chooses to Ally with BC Liberals, Here’s Why. Odd that, ‘because Weaver is a power-hungry egoist’ is not the first point, but ok:

Many Greens understandably see theirs as a moral crusade. Their ultimate goal, therefore, is not to agitate from the fringes but to enter the camp of the adversary and convert their hearts and minds to the proper path. We see this narrative of capitalism reformed in accounts of CEOs who convert to social and environmental responsibility. Made to see the light, they adopt greener principles and are rewarded with profitable success.

In that lies the failure of the NDP to seize those pangs of morality. To shake off their demons of the past and speak to the heart of British Columbians. Sure, they’re not the party of 2009 as Beers notes, partly because of the Greens, but they are still seen as an establishment party: BC Politics on a Knife’s Edge.

People have no faith that the NDP would carry out its minor reforms—even if they sounded good on paper. Any policy wonk can sift through the NDP’s platform and find what they want to see, good or bad. But what the workers and youth of BC will be inspired by is not a 300-page white book in which every dime is accounted for, nor campaign focus group talking points. What inspires, what has always inspired people, are clear principles and strong links to the community. So long as the BC NDP continues to act entitled to our votes and myopically focused on electioneering, fewer and fewer will trust them to really care about British Columbians and the Green Party will continue to be seen as an other plausible gamble for change.

Indeed, there were tons of disaffected Liberal voters who just couldn’t stomach voting for Horgan: Did the Greens split the vote with the NDP? Or did they cost the Liberals a majority?

That being asked: Two New Green MLAs Speak: ‘We’re Very Serious about Doing What’s Right for our Province’. It’s probably wishful thinking, but what if absentee votes give Burke Mountain to the NDP and they form government with these two, sans Weaver?

Why couldn’t they be more like the British Greens? Greens stand aside in 31 seats to stop Tory landslide.

Related tweet, c/o me:

Bonus: The invented Chinese names of the BC 2017 political campaign — ranked.

Welcome to the douchebag olympics: High-profile Canadian journalists pledge to raise money for ‘appropriation prize’. “Apparently the winner gets a new fedora”- Brady Cranfield

More: On Glibness And Diversity In Canadian Media.

Promoting the work of white writers who use another culture for profit isn’t trying. It’s meeting the laziest kind of diversity metric, one that doesn’t actually shift power balances or change the status quo. Abstaining from cultural appropriation wouldn’t stop you from writing thoughtfully about people who aren’t white. It does, however, stop you from ripping off people of colour, or pretending like you understand their stories intimately.

Nathan Redekop expands: “freedom of speech means the state doesn’t prosecute you for what you say. It doesn’t mean there aren’t real consequences for acting like an asshole in the public sphere. You might get criticized and you might lose a job that you never deserved in the first place, for example.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Kay’s mother comes to his defence on Mother’s Day, asking why there were no positive stories in the Truth and Reconciliation hearings (there was) and then evokes Jewish suffering to argue that people should move on from Residential Schools:

The final word: An emotional Jesse Wente on the ‘remarkable arrogance’ of an appropriation prize. Wow.

Related: A short description of cultural appropriation for non-believers.

Slightly click baitish but still important: A beer by any other name: sexism in craft beer labels. Red Racer is one of my favourite beers but the label is problematic.

But what if it was free? For a year: Housing Is So Fucked That Developers Are Offering Free Avocado Toast as a Sweetener.

Avocado toast is our generation’s addiction, and the sooner we stop frittering all our money away on it, the sooner we can all grow up and do what our parents tell us to do, which is buy a property in our twenties, fucking somehow.

The only thing worse than a NIMBY: YIMBYs: The “Alt-Right” Darlings of the Real Estate Industry.

YIMBYs [Yes in My Back Yard] accuse anti-gentrification activists — those calling for affordable units instead of luxury ones — of preventing the construction of new housing development, thus reducing the new housing supply and driving up rents. But while YIMBYism is championed as progressive urban policy, critics like activist Tory Becker of the anti-gentrification direct action group LAGAI, believe it’s actually rooted in the same classist, racist ideologies it supposedly seeks to disrupt.

The far left and far right converge on transgender rights in Canada: Neil Macdonald. Um, I’m pretty new to this but TERFs are not far left. They are conservatives. They want to protect the status quo definition of women. Saying trans women choose to be women is the same as saying people chose to be gay.

So while our parliament is hung and we await the absentee ballots and the eventual political maneuvering, another foster teen has died: Teen who aged out of B.C.’s care found dead in tent. Disgraceful. Another reminder to sign the petition.

This guy criticizes the four pillar approach by talking about only one of them: Tristin Hopper: Vancouver’s drug strategy has been a disaster. Be very wary of emulating it. “No, you fuckhead from Ontario: Canada’s drug strategy has been a disaster. Vancouver is the place you’re least likely to die as a result of it” – Nicholas Ellan.

Related:

How long, how long must we be in line? Mayhem surrounding BC Place as thousands left outside U2 concert. How fun would it have been to see all these aging boomers riot like it was 2002?

This: All of the Awful People You Meet Working in a Luxury Car Dealership.

Bonus: Why Have So Many People Never Heard Of The MOVE Bombing?

On Ken Sim’s So-Called “Swagger” and ABC’S Class War

Sean Orr is back from his hiatus with a rundown of the local headlines that have been running on a ticker tape through his mind over the past six months...

On Post-Election Recuperation, Platform Paradoxes and Refund Communities

In his latest read of the local news headlines, Sean Orr finds irony in "safety, affordability, and sustainability", and shouts out a bunch of amazing local organizations working on the frontlines.

On Running for City Council, Playing Whack-a-Mole with Homelessness, and the Public Washroom Deficit

In his latest read of the local news headlines, Sean Orr finds a park ranger with a grudge, a gross misuse of air quotes and Tripadvisor slander.

On Living in a City Preoccupied with Street Cleaning, Chandeliers, and Campaigns Against the Homeless

In his latest read of the local news headlines, Sean Orr hones in on the recent Langley shootings, and the ongoing criminalizing and dehumanizing of the homeless population.