TEA & TWO SLICES: On Letting Grandpa Use The Computer And The Horrors Of Farmland

by Sean Orr | Is Canada Ignoring Signs of a Coming Economic Collapse? I feel like I’ve been yelling at a brick wall for the past 7 years…

Funny/not funny: Muslim man: My workplace quip made me a terror suspect. “What’s wrong with saying ‘Bomb’ on an airplane?”

Something stinks: Delta councillor ‘horrified’ with port’s view on farmland. They hate it. They hate the smell. And they hate that it’s not a parking lot filled with shipping containers from China.

Y is for Yawn: Open letter to the Baby Boomers from Generation Y. I thought we were called Generation Next. Anyways, whatever. I mean, who cares?

Ho vs. Hooker: Vancouver billionaire guilty of confining woman. Oh I see, it’s just a “bad date” for an otherwise decent gentleman. Meanwhile, bad dates for dozens of women in the DTES and up north remain unsolved or could have been solved earlier. Shame.

Police tactics making Victoria unsafe for homeless people. Good to see Jamie Graham using the skills he picked up here in Vancouver.

Who let grandpa on the computer again? Editorial: Anti-sugar crusaders should just butt out. The mixed metaphor in the headline just adds to the article’s sense of angry dementia.

Yes, they were from Surrey: “Intoxicated” bus riders arrested after alcohol stolen from North Vancouver restaurant. I guess that’s one thing chain restaurants are good for.

Bonus: The Man who Lived on his Bike

Tea & Two Slices: On Headlines For Harper And New Restaurants Dashing Our Dreams

by Sean Orr | Stephen Harper is ‘starving the beast’. God damn, why does every headline about the Prime Minister read like sexual innuendo?

Harpernomics: Attawapiskat third-party manager “sitting on” funds for new houses. Yeah, I got something he can sit on. See what i mean?

Give them enough rope… Tory senator’s idea: Give each murderer a rope inside their prison cell. That’s funny, that’s also how you kill a senator’s career.

Ferry Commissioners recommendations will take time and money. That’s OK, ferry passengers are used to waiting. Zing.

We want all the amenities the area has to offer, just not that one. Restaurant plan dashes homeowner’s neighbourhood dream. The site of an old brewery, eventually redeveloped so that people like Brenda Racanelli could move in and complain about a proposed brewery. Now that is Vancouverism.

Council seeks new direction in ousting of Vancouver’s chief planner. I can just hear the foam collecting in Klassen‘s pasty mouth. Ooooh, ‘what does it all mean? Let’s speculate’. Let’s not.

Truth dig: Income gap widened when Campbell was premier: economist. Which is why he was rewarded with a trip to the Bilderberg Conference.

Not sure why I find this hilarious: Longboarders object to increased fines, confiscation in proposed North Van bylaw. They just look so bummed!

Riot victim calls for accountability. OK, let’s be clear. This was a personal choice, albeit an incredibly brave one. The Riot Act had long been read. I found myself in a similar situation after trying to protect some Cars2Go. The crowd behind me yelled, “he’s a good guy” and the cop raised his baton and said “I don’t know who’s good and who’s bad – just get out of here”. So I did. I went home.

This is relevant to my interests: Sedins meet Drake.

Bonus: Urban Planet: Urban Highway Removal.

TEA & TWO SLICES: On Crazy Young People Talk And The Waldorf Jumping The Shark

by Sean Orr | The Age of Agenda: Prime Minister Harper unveils grand plan to reshape Canada. Declare war on Denmark; use remaining polar bears as drones; start using seal meat to feed aging seniors; all retirees get two votes; free hip replacements if you volunteer for the campaign.

Canada’s demographics, he warned, pose “a threat to the social programs and services that Canadians cherish.” Preserving those social programs will likely mean cuts elsewhere.

In other words? Students, artists, small businesses, and single moms – y’all are fucked. Because to retrofit energy-inefficient buildings and invest in public transit is just crazy young-people talk.

Housing bubble is really a balloon: BMO’s Sherry Cooper . And we all know balloons don’t pop. They just sail off into the atmosphere until you can’t see them anymore.

And introducing micro-populism: Mayor takes issue with parking meter bylaw. If we’re getting that specific, can we make it illegal to walk under awnings with an open umbrella?

Why The Waldorf Hotel is the hippest place in town. And with that, The Waldorf Hotel is no longer the hippest place in town.

The Behind-the-Scenes Campaign To Bring SOPA To Canada. And why it will more easily pass into law than in The States.

If we’re going to mimic our neighbour to the south, can we at least follow their lead on this?

Confession: Landmark is a Cult.

Bonus: Bear 71.

TEA & TWO SLICES: On Police Priorities, The East Van Rent Hike And Holy Saint Leonardo

by Sean Orr | Vancouver cops send innocent man to the hospital. Because most bank robbers stop to take out the trash in the middle of a police chase. Morons.

Take a bite out of crime: Police dog attack sparks Vancouver lawsuit. Meanwhile, organized crime controls the ports, where drugs and weapons flow in and out, and targeted hits in fancy restaurants continue without let up. But a skateboarder breaks a window? Yeah, fuck that guy up!

I won’t tase you bro: Transit cop says using Taser against drunk man ‘sickened him’. “I don’t think they are quite as safe and useful as I once believed.” That is exactly how I feel about cops, transit or otherwise.

Will young homebuyers say goodbye to Vancouver for good? Disguised in this is a weird truism: what Rennie and Co. were selling this whole time was a lifestyle. Lured in by granite countertops and chrome fixtures, all these couples bought condos downtown. But now, all of a sudden, they have a family, and nobody wants to live next to one of those (they smell like farts and influenza).

Lapdog Land: Editorial: Vancouver’s ‘unattended’ dog bylaw should be scrapped. Wherein we have abandoned the idea of raising families (having replaced them with pets).

Location is everything: 45% rent hike ‘unbelievable,’ East Van tenants say. So, no matter how shitty the building, if you live in a ‘nice’ area where other buildings are charging way more, you get dinged by proxy. Does that mean if you live in an area where rents were low, but your building was super nice and the rents were high, you could get them to match the market geography? Nope.

I guess we’re all just going to have to start stealing more bikes: New VPD property office: home to hundreds of stolen bicycles. A rotating rack of 400 bikes? That sounds like it could also be in the MOV.

Nevergreen Line: $1.4B Evergreen Line to open by 2016. Coincidentally, that is also the year Hell will start hosting hockey games.

Last resort: DiCaprio thanked for putting dead ski resort on road to rebirth. Is there anything he can’t do?

TEA & TWO SLICES: On More Boots On The Ground And The Reek Of Cheap Politics

by Sean Orr | Fear as foreign policy: Iran ‘frightens me,’ Harper says. “It’s beyond dispute Iran is developing nuclear weapons and lying about it”. But we’re not scared that Israel is doing the exact same thing.

Chinese ownership helps drive Vancouver’s dysfunctional housing market. “B.C. should follow Australia’s lead and target foreign buyers”. And we all remember what happened the last time Australia targeted foreigners.

What the Keystone Rejection Really Reveals:

In particular, the rousing debate revealed the corrosive power of the oil patch; the centrist character of the Obama presidency; Canada’s wacky oil sand politics; the naivety of the environmental movement; the poverty of energy thinking and the unpredictability of life during the Great Stagnation.

Thanks Andrew Nikiforuk. The Great Stagnation is probably going to be the name of my band‘s first record.

I don’t why it pisses me off so much when The Province gets it right: Cameras in Stanley Cup riot trials reek of cheap politics. Unless, wait…they’re merely sticking up for the spoiled, bored, bourgeoisie, middle class, bridge-and-tunnel suburbanites. That would make way more sense.

Vancouver top cop wants more boots on the ground. But I thought Vancouver crime rates were dropping? It would appear we have exactly the right number of boots on the ground.

Dumb Meters: B.C. Hydro’s smart meters rile the skeptics. You done rile the wrong skeptics mang. No, but seriously, if this is a problem then I think I’m fine since Telus can barely get their wi-fi signal a foot away into my laptop. Perhaps it’s all the bricks in my fancy brick loft.

Speaking of bricks…

Nashville, Tenn. okays residential chicken coops. “What next for Music City? Pot cafes, bike lanes and a hockey riot? http://ow.ly/8yJI9”

Agitprop: The Ironing Is Delicious.

TEA & TWO SLICES: On Doug’s Dreams, The Land of Destiny, And The Future Is So Bright

by Sean Orr | The Future is Friendly Bright: Vancouver city council wants giant digital signs outside BC Place dimmed down. It couldn’t be because we nixed their little casino, could it? Maybe we could use the light from the signs to illuminate this very fact. I can see it now: a huge staging of ropes and scaffolding holding up a giant banner 10 feet away from the stadium that just reads “U Mad?”

Wall to Wall Action: Anatomy of a gang hit. Who needs shows like CSI or Criminal Minds when you have it in our own backyard! Thanks for the photos, Province! Can I request, like, some detailed schematics and maybe some video re-enactments?

Not so Tiny Tim: Tim’s size shift enables greater consumption with clear conscience. That’s assuming you have a clear conscience while drinking Tim Horton’s in the first place.

Oh Canada: Vancouver police searching for bronze beaver. It is not yet known if this is in fact a publicity stunt by Douglas Coupland for Souvenir of Canada 7.

Head of the Class: B.C. teachers seeking 15 per cent pay hike over three years. Cue the chorus of whining talking heads…

…who are almost always wrong: Tough drug law has led ecstasy cooks to use more toxic ingredients. In a way, this is probably fine with Harper. His god tells him to hate people who use drugs, like, if they are going to die “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population”. -Dickens

I’m not an Eskimo, but I do eat a lot of fish: 12th & Cambie: Chu chuckles. If you read the whole column, you’d find that Douglas Coupland will be the keynote speaker at the first inaugural Cities Summit hosted by Mayor Gregor Robertson. He’ll be speaking in front of his 8-bit Orca, constantly reminding everyone that he is a genius. “Dreams don’t come true. Dreams die. Dreams get compromised. Dreams end up dealing meth in a booth at the back of the Olive Garden. Dreams choke to death on bay leaves. Dreams get spleen cancer.”

Because, after all, Vancouver is a Land of Destiny. We built this city on boosterism.

SOPA, so good. News for Youse: the Great Internet Blackout of 2012 leaves students stymied over Wikipedia’s soap-hating ways.

TEA & TWO SLICES: On Occupying The Sun And Regular People Who Drink Tim Hortons

by Sean Orr | Hockey game helps Clark punctuate a right-wing shift. Man, this article was really promising at the start. It mentioned Boessenkool, the surging BC Conservative Party, and even took a jab at their populist choice of coffe – Tim Hortons. But then it just kind of fizzles into nothing:

So far she’s up to 7,313 followers on Facebook. On Thursday night, those 7,313 all had a four-image photo gallery to remind them that Clark wasn’t just a Liberal’s B.C. Liberal.

It’s like the last line of that terrible Cusack movie, 2012. “No more pull-ups”.

British Columbians least able to afford prescription drugs. That might explain why it’s cheaper to go to Carnegie for some dillies instead of to a pharmacist (not that I’ve done that or anything).

In what’s believed to be a first for B.C., a judge has ordered a condominium owner to sell her suite because of an avalanche of complaints from other owners. Let the Condo Wars begin!

And speaking of war: ”In May, the minimum wage in B.C. will climb from $9.50 to $10.25, the highest in the nation, sparking debate about its impact on individuals, businesses and the economy at large”. Well, when you’ve hinged your economy to the ability of the consumer to spend more money at Christmas, what do you expect? “The Fraser Institute said that employers will respond to higher labour costs by cutting hours and hiring fewer people.” It’s The Revolt of the Salaried Bourgeoisie. It’s the Leviathan in reverse! It’s the Tragedy of the Commons! “The second question is the potential trickle-up effect of the minimum wage raise on the entire workforce”. That’s rich. I thought it was the other way around. The massive and disproportionate bonuses doled out to CEOs was supposed to trickle down to the hoi polloi. Alas:

This new bourgeoisie still appropriates surplus value, but in the (mystified) form of what has been called ‘surplus wage’: they are paid rather more than the proletarian ‘minimum wage’ (an often mythic point of reference whose only real example in today’s global economy is the wage of a sweatshop worker in China or Indonesia), and it is this distinction from common proletarians which determines their status. The bourgeoisie in the classic sense thus tends to disappear: capitalists reappear as a subset of salaried workers, as managers who are qualified to earn more by virtue of their competence (which is why pseudo-scientific ‘evaluation’ is crucial: it legitimises disparities in earnings). Far from being limited to managers, the category of workers earning a surplus wage extends to all sorts of experts, administrators, public servants, doctors, lawyers, journalists, intellectuals and artists. The surplus they get takes two forms: more money (for managers etc), but also less work and more free time (for – some – intellectuals, but also for state administrators etc).

The G-word: Paint store sale heralds major East Hastings redevelopment. Key words: “downtrodden strip”, “artist studio rental spaces”, “industrial, gritty, edgy”, and the kicker; “I think the area will benefit by just having regular people move in and living there, and also regular shops of one sort or another opening up there”. Wow. Regular people. What a breath of fresh air. Is it just me, or is it staying white out later and later?

Everything in Flux: Is Vancouver a Friendly City? Short answer: no. It’s the transience – a fishing village blown all out of proportion. It’s the end of the line – Terminal City – and yet the “gateway” to the Pacific Rim. It’s why it’s almost novel when you meet someone who is actually from here. So it takes a little longer for us to open up. We may not be laid back like everyone thinks we are, but we are definitely chill. I used to think it was vanity, but then I realized that everyone was just really shy.

Bonus: The (Occupied) Vancouver Sun.

TEA & TWO SLICES: On Affirmative Stupidity And Douglas Coupland’s Forgotten Secrets…

by Sean Orr | Hey look! We’ve finally made the switch to quasi-fascist, knee-jerk reactionary, xenophobic, pseudo-hard line conservative, neo-American fucktards! White straight male? No thanks. Just listen to this stuttering, blow-hard, mouth-breather. He can barely force out the slurred hatred between wheezes. “I’m not making fun of alternative lifestyles,” I’m just totally threatened by them. Enough that I’m going to wear a ceremonial head-dress and a sequinned blue cocktail dress on television. Also, since when is Toronto pronounced “Chonto”?

And why complain about affirmative action when your boy is in the house doing real damage? Stephen Harper won’t impose a social agenda on Canada, but he will export it.

Thus, we apologize. Sorry World. It’s because we’re so damn polite.

All in the Family: Christy Clark names former lobbyist chief of staff. “Boessenkool was a policy adviser and strategist for Harper and, in a separate job, lobbied for a long list of clients including Suncor Energy, GlaxoSmithKline, Enbridge, and Taser International”. Any doubt that the pipeline is going through no matter what anybody thinks has been officially erased. Might as well take some Zoloft™ otherwise you’re gonna get Tasered™.

Anti-social networking: Breastfeeding pics pulled from B.C. woman’s Facebook. Because a naked woman equals porn!

Usually it does? The government’s sleight of hand doesn’t fool charities. Is it just me or does Christy Clark look like Lisa Simpson?

Douglas Coupland hides secret messages in QR codes for Canada Line passengers. Oh cool! Do they mention that it was built by a company that manufactured bullets used in the Iraq War? Or maybe the mention the foreign labourers who were intimidated out of forming unions! No? Expect to the codes to reveal “photographs of various sites like Grouse Mountain and the Olympic Cauldren (sic), public artworks including Coupland’s own Digital Orca, and even written messages like ‘everything beautiful is true’” instead. Oh…

Welcome to Alberta, no ins and outs: B.C. senior snared by draconian drunk driving law. “I’m not drunk. I’m just incredibly old”.

Tweet of the Day, c/o Greg Eh: “A robed cult has started camping in Stanley Park around the Aquarium, chanting that the dead otter is a sign of the end times”.

Shit Vancouverites Say. Hey look. I made a list.

TEA & TWO SLICES: On Free Pipes, Pipelines And The Illusion Of The Democratic Process

by Sean Orr | I’ve been saying this for years: Surely Harper Doesn’t Want More Poor People. Or Does He? For the answer, just read any of the old Western Standard op-eds, any report from the Fraser Institute, or any book or essay written by Ayn Rand. It’s the neo-conservative’s noble lie; Reaganomics; free-market fundamentalism; moral relativism; pseudo-pragmatism (here, why don’t you try balancing the budget); and the dictatorship of reason.

It’s also labelling your opponents as radicals; Ezra Levant’s fake grassroots group, Ethical Oil; and the illusion of the democratic process…

Lone speaker praises Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline plans. Hey look! We found one dude that fits our editorial stance on the issue so let’s run his entire life story! We don’t even have to pay him!

It’s that tough-guy rhetoric from pundits like Mark Hasiuk: “Crack pipe giveaway drapes Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside”. Wherein some intrepid investigative journalist shows how easy it is to get crack pipes. And we’re all so horrified! And we can’t believe those people just go and sell their crack pipes on Hastings! And we’re all just shocked that we’re spending public tax dollars on such a miscarriage of justice!

Don’t feed the trolls: Fantino tirade targets ‘slanderous’ Twitter users. In fact, it’s probably best if you stop pretending to engage the public. The public is full of assholes.

The Ice Man Cometh: Social housing tenant without heat for two years. He’s been given the cold shoulder.

One just Marvels: Superman stars hit Vancouver during filming of Man of Steel. Why are they hitting us? Stop hitting us!

Because they’re totally going to listen: TransLink looks to increase fares, public asked to weigh in. Gas levy. Gas levy. Gas levy. #TAXTHESUBURBS

TEA & TWO SLICES: On Propaganda Waffles, Laptop Hobos, And Canuck Games For All…

by Sean Orr | Sorry we burnt down your White House: The 1812 overture. “That wraps the maple syrup of truth in the waffle of propaganda.” Now I don’t know if I’m hungry, angry, or hangry.

‘Laptop hobos’ face crackdown. Sooo…it appears as if we’re all stuck in some sort of post-modern Mobius Strip written and coded entirely by Douglas Fucking Coupland…

…wherein our magazines publish articles like Do Vancouver Men Suck? Yup, Van Mag tells of local ladies who “hike the Chief, do the Grouse Grind, ski, bike the seawall, and kayak. This evening, they’re participating in another favourite local pastime—dissing Vancouver men.” And they do Bikrams, make a point to “hang out on the Drive” at least once a month, loved The Help, have a bread-maker that they’ve used once, go on green-tea cleanses, are feminists ‘up to a point’, own a pink Canucks Jersey, and don’t go anywhere without their Bichon Frise named Pedro (after the guy from Napolean Dynamite). But yeah, it’s the men that suck.

Mount Mole-hill: Christy Clark’s $3,300 Excellent Hockey Adventure. I wanna get so mad at this, but if I was mayor, I would make it so that all Canucks games were free for all government employees (except for the library workers, of course).

Rad not radical: ‘Environmentalists, other radical groups,’ threaten pipeline: Joe Oliver. And don’t forget them damn, meddling injuns!

Although noted poverty activist Ivan Drury might not agree with me, OpenFile does: “In 2012, it’s political will, not awareness, that’s in short supply”. That’s a bingo.

What capitalism giveth, it can taketh away: Burnaby baker lays off 50 after Starbucks dunks contract. There’s something cruel about the use of the word dunk in that headline.

Everyone who uses public transit on the North Shore should watch out for this guy. Hey look, sometimes Reddit is actually useful!

Other useful things: More than 200 city parks mapped for mobile app.

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