TEA & TWO SLICES: On Riotous Judges And Hey, That Is Not Even The Real Santa Claus

by Sean Orr | Hockey: Quest for raises by ‘one-per-center’ judges backdrop to riot trials. Hey, check it out! The Vancouver Sun used the phrase ‘one-per-center’ and riot in the same headline!

Ale not Jail: Tory crime bill is too tough on the provinces. Tuff Sean agrees.

The only time 24 Hours will ever publish a news story about someone dying from a heroin overdose: Man overdoses in Occupy Vancouver tent city. Everything is political.

But still, the populist, posturing media doesn’t get it: Occupy forces new route for Santa. The entire idea of the protest is to disrupt business as usual all around the world! Also, it’s not even the real Santa.

Vancouver artists target Mayor Robertson online. Despite the paranoid, leftist hyperbole, We Don’t Back the Juiceman is actually a pretty good site. I pretty much said the same thing at Pecha Kucha, but was pretty satisfied by the mayor’s response. That being said, would it be gauche of me to launch a website called wedontbackwedontbackthejuicemannordowebackwebackthejuiceman? How about I just make a song about it instead?

Andrea Reimer, “NPA platform: No plan to address affordable housing, renters left out in the cold”. Build platforms not platforms!

Losing my religion: As ‘Public Eye’ Shuts, Hopes for Online Reporting Take Hit. Gee, I hope online reporting about online reporting is safe. (ed note: we’re OK, Sean)

Five charged in forged TransLink pass scam with links to China. Man, I’m so sick of good jobs like this being out-sourced to China. I mean, each American Apparel store has one of those little PDF printers that you can easily…I’ve said too much.

Bonus thing to be happy about: Dodson Neighbourhood House opens new all-ages live venue.

Bonus thing to be upset about: Disgrace befalls hero’s memorial.

TEA & TWO SLICES: On Cheating BC Businesses, Blackface And Breaking People

by Sean Orr | Former Canuck Raffi Torres faces criticism after dressing as Jay-Z for Halloween. Because if Wayne Simmonds went as the Pope everyone would be super offended. Pfft.

In any event, it couldn’t possibly be as offensive as when a Top US foreclosure law firm threw Halloween party where staff dressed as foreclosed-upon Americans.

Some B.C. employers cheating on minimum wage.The irony is that they can’t police it because of “a massive cut in staff”.

It’s confusing when local corporate media seem to only really care about issues when there’s a special needs child involved, as though they’re somehow more deserving of our pity than others. Let me explain. The piece is called Breaking People, and it details how BC’s drastic cuts to the social safety net is breaking people (a typical neo-conservative reaction while the government is simultaneously cutting corporate taxes). The truth is that Donny and Marlene could just as easily be one of the many marginalised people that The Sun-Province-Post so often dismiss with both thin and broad strokes of the pen.

And when that fails, they just make shit up: Occupy Vancouver activists say no rat problem at tent city despite media reports. Oh, don’t get us wrong. They’re all over the place! It’s just that they’re not a problem. In fact, they make great companions and are surprisingly warm.

Way to perpetuate the stereotype guys: Of the first 60 charged in riot 21 are from Surrey. Does anyone still think that the Stanley Cup riots had nothing to do with class (or more specifically the decline of the middle class, suburbanization, and the politics of boredom)?

Geoff Meggs: “New VAG show challenges voters to embrace gallery expansion alongside vision of new creative space”. I’d like this better if it read, ‘Voters challenge Vision to embrace creative spaces’. Read more

TEA & TWO SLICES: On The Aversion Theory And The Blaring Of Drum-Heavy Music

by Sean Orr | If it wasn’t already so glaringly apparent, Harperization of Canada in full swing with majority.

New vision for BC education. If memory serves Mr Abbott, one needs teachers to implement an education plan. Even…um, Mr. Abbott agrees.

Overstated Claims for Positive 2010 ‘Games Effect’. I have a slight aversion for these kind of audits.

The Tweet of the Day is by Christian Flores: ”Hey genius if u put ur wet umbrella on a seat the seat gets wet.”

A close second is from CKNW: ”Occupy Vancouver protesters have moved into Georgia Street, blaring drum-heavy music.”

Handy guide to this weekend’s insurrections by the VPD: Vancouver Police are expecting a busy weekend. I so rarely say it, but I really love Vancouver.

What Would Allen Garr Say? Vancouver Art Gallery may not be best place for civic showdown. Lululemon, Bentall, and Vancouver Club are all good ideas, but may I add City Hall, Granville Square, empty condos, Pantages and…

…The Palace Hotel: 71 tenants on Downtown Eastside facing eviction

Forget the Riot Squad – Send in the Taxman. One need only read the headline to know what Don Cayo is on about (and roll up a copy of the Vancouver Sun to flog the dead horse he rode in on). His inability to even recognize the debate amazes. It’s as if – in his mind – no taxpayer has ever been subject to the brutal whims of the abstraction known as the economy, and nevermind that it’s the 1%, who are themselves under-taxed. I mean, it was only the entire point of yesterday’s Robin Hood march. It’s absurd; absurdist; the tyranny of structurelessness.

TEA & TWO SLICES: On the Parlance Of Our Times And Never Getting A Free Lunch

by Sean Orr | Tory MP who appeared in anti-bullying video once called homosexuality a sin. If only he had used the parlance of our times: “Hate the game, not the playa.”

The Fraser Institute-influenced flag-bearers of the ‘Nobody Gets a Free Lunch’ mantra write: Urban foraging: There’s a free lunch if you are willing to look for it. I’m willing to look for it. And I’m willing to bet there are some awesome meals in the office fridge at Granville Square.

And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead: Cleanup underway at former U.S. air base in B.C.. Oh, Ozymandias! “Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.”

House values skyrocket in Vancouver’s Cambie corridor. Or, ‘From Bakeries to Burger Joints: A Study on Why Nobody Cares about the Gentrification of Cambie Street’.

Occupy 12th and Cambie? That’s actually not a bad idea. There’s lots of green space and even an organic garden!

Meanwhile, 24 Hours gives editorial space to a blog that was started by a NPA council candidate. No conflict of interest there.

The Province, predictably, is even more partisan: Mayor must stand up for regular citizens. Because taxpayers, mortgage holders, teachers, students, artists, conservatives, postal workers, nurses, servers, environmentalists, journalists, catholics, Arabs, immigrants, celebrities, and billionaires, are all not regular.

If you can’t smell Post Media’s pungent perfume of fear from that editorial, just look at what they’d rather occupy your time with: Sexy, funny costumes make Halloween good time for romance. “Picture by Value Village”.

Dubgee raps on the Vancouver mayoral campaign trail. And that’s no Bullworth.

Bonus: Last Candidate Standing.Not your typical all candidates debate!

TEA & TWO SLICES: On Accidents Waiting To Happen And The Party Being Over

by Sean Orr | Liberals launch ‘Can’t Afford Dix’ website aimed at NDP leader. I guess the “Chicks Not Dix” url was taken.

So now the Province hates rich people? Some sort of faux-conservative, backhanded reaction to global financial protests? Those beautiful lottery-win couples just make me sick. Well, me too, son. Me too.

Love the pseudo outrage here: Vancouver rooming house in which three men died was ‘an accident waiting to happen’. It’s like halfway through getting mad they realize it’s the same thing we’ve all been saying for fucking decades.

Chatelaine invites us to Guess which province is the hardest place in Canada to raise a young family. I invite you to
guess where a movement was formed to address the exact thing?

Occupy Movement buoyed by David Suzuki appearance.He had this to say to the 1%: “The party is over, bitches.”*

Meanwhile, Stephen Hui spends a night at the Freedom Zone: Occupy Vancouver: A cold, noisy night in the tent city. That is exactly why you don’t want me camping there. I’d constantly be fighting dudes.

Tweet of the Day: Quinn Omori: “The dude from City Caucus is running for council. Maybe all those years of internet based hackery will pay off, buddy”.

A return to protectionism: Canadian travellers slapped with border-crossing surcharge. So, if you want to see the danse macabre that is an empire collapsing you’re gonna have to fork out some dough (I heard it’s even better than Cirque du Soleil).

*the word “bitches” added for effect.

TEA & TWO SLICES: On The Laziness Of The Poor And The Cost Of #OccupyVancouver

by Sean Orr | “Dianne Watts, Christy Clark, and everyone else hosting these war criminals, shame on you”. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

B.C. Hydro will screw working families. Man, what is with all these headlines just doing the work for me?

Aha! Here’s one: Legalizing drugs isn’t the answer. Maybe not, but it is an answer. Don’t get me wrong, I can get drugs super easy and if the government controlled it they would just fuck that up like they did with alcohol. But yeah…

It’s like the mainstream media can finally get on with their eugenics coverage: Our genes do not predetermine destiny. In other words, poor people are poor because they are lazy.

City Caucus pretty much concedes that fellow blogger Mike Klassen and the NPA have no chance of winning. Ye olde poll numbers concur.

And speaking of City Caucus, it – like The Province - is concerned that Occupy Vancouver has cost the city more than $500,000 since it began last Saturday. While they conveniently don’t mention oh, say the cost of each Canucks Game/UFC fight/Fireworks, the real irony is that, as free-market fundamentalists they’re the ones who write off expenditures like social and environmental costs as externalities. If there was any sense to things, this protest would be marked in black ink and not red. Instead, because the Occupy campers aren’t “moving units” that contribute to the economy, they are an inefficiency. You know, like childbirth.

Fuck the G-ride, I want the machines that are makin’ them: Tom Morello speaks at #occupyvancouver. Invites entire crowd to The Vogue!

And then the very next night at the Vogue? OccupyPechaKucha! I even had my own bloody hashtag, even though it might be better suited for someone like Troy Barrie with Engineers Without Borders. Does this mean I get a raise? [ed. note: I'm afraid not]

TEA & TWO SLICES: On Business As Usual, Harper Cowboy And Granville Beat Downs

by Sean Orr | Please remember the following headline every time you see our Prime Minister in a cowboy hat: Texas conservatives reject Harper’s crime plan. ‘Been there; done that; didn’t work,’ say Texas crime-fighters. What are you gonna do Harps? You gonna mess with Texas?

A country of Dryden’s values shifts to Cherry’s. Really? If I remember the last election correctly and look at what’s happening on the streets right now, that should say “is trying to” or maybe even “has failed to”.

I AM NOT MOVING. That was really moving. Unless of course your heart has turned into coal bitumen like this guy’s has. The Occupy Movement is an on-going process, as this Letter To The Occupy Together Movement recognizes: “Beware not only of the enemies. But also of false friends who are already working to dilute this process. In the same way you get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice cream without fat, they will try to make this into a harmless moral protest”. It’s interesting, then, that the mayor’s ‘support’ comes with a caveat: Occupy Vancouver can continue if it remains peaceful. So the mega-rich like Warren Buffet can offer their support, but a guy that made a living from selling fresh, local, organic juice cannot? Politics as usual.

Why can’t we say that to the Granville Strip? You guys can stay if you remain peaceful: Shia LaBeouf reportedly gets beat up on Vancouver’s Granville Street. Politics as usual?

Allowing me to segue into the Tweet of the Day: “We’ve been sold to Glacer Media, effective Nov. 30. Work continues as usual”. The media landscape shifts again.

So which artistic collective will step up for Suzanne Anton and make a “WeBacktheMATHTEACHER.ca” website? Um, not any of them?

Bonus: This is just so zeitgeisty that I can hardly handle it: How I survived the BlackBerry Blackout – and you can, too. #OccupySilence!

TEA & TWO SLICES: On Power Brokers And Doing The Vancouver Sun’s Dirty Work

by Sean Orr | The Sun gives us B.C.’s top gov’t power brokers (AKA the people that you don’t elect that actually run the province).

And then this: Flavours of the Week: Rihanna, Julianne Hough, Emily VanCamp and more. I wonder why Christy Clark didn’t make the cut.

And finally they ask us to their own dirty work: Going to #occupyvancouver? Help us cover it.

Speaking of dirty work: Occupy Wall Street cleanup postponed. Interesting that the CBC fails to mention that Brookfield Properties is a Canadian company. Instead, they end with a quote from (the formerly evil) Ayatollah Khomeini, because thinking is hard work and not worth the energy.

The Province co-opts the same concerns as the Occupy movement, calling it BOOMERANGST, ”what the aging of the boomers means to you, your family and your community.” I’m pretty sure all it means is that the knee surgery dude is going to be super busy.

Vancouver rent bank will help save tenants down on their luck. Free market fundies will point to this as evidence of trickle down economics instead of allowing it to confirm that the government has abandoned it’s responsibilities.

Roundup on #OccupyVancouver blogs by The Hook. I wish I could have documented it more but I was too busy doing this.

And as usual, City Caucus manages to blame Gregor for either not shutting it down or not showing up. They also don’t like how broad and diverse the 99% is. But as my brother’s sign attested, “We don’t know why we are protesting IS why we are protesting”.

TEA & TWO SLICES: On Deconstructing The Sun, Ur-Fascism & The Benefit Of Hindsight

by Sean Orr | From the Vancouver Sun: Activists set to occupy downtown streets. “Anti-corporate protest organizers plan to congregate at Vancouver Art Gallery and on Howe Street.” A couple of notes on that…

1. I have heard nothing about occupying any streets. A march maybe, but not an occupation.
2. “Anti-corporate” is terribly misleading. Perhaps “anti-corporate-personhood” doesn’t sound as cool.
3. You guys sound terrified.
4. “One of the young left-wing organizers behind Occupy Vancouver”. I see what you did there. Because she is left-wing, then that means so is the entire movement.
5. “It’s unclear whether members of Vancouver’s larger mainstream left – union and active NDP supporters – will join the Occupy Vancouver protest or whether it will be mainly a protest movement of younger activists on the political fringe”. Again, nice try. But the whole idea of the movement, indeed it’s most oft-repeated mantra, is that it is supposed to represent 99% of the population. I highly doubt that 99% of the population is left wing.
6. You’re using the Facebook group as a way of getting quotes? Really?
7. Glittering Vancouver is now the poverty capital of Canada.
8. Maybe it would help if we were Tea Partiers instead.
9. Perhaps we should #Occupy200GranvilleStreet

But then there are the pee jokes: Vancouver restaurant’s ‘ban’ on men peeing standing up creates a stir. Forget #OccupyVancouver. I think The Sun has found it’s true niche: “Within hours, the tale of eatery Edible Canada’s totalitarian and possibly feminist-inspired “no peeing standing up” edict had been splashed across websites around the globe and re-tweeted by thousands”. Wow! Thousands! You guys are so viral!

First the Jets logo, now this: Feds Launch War Of 1812 Anniversary Plans. Umberto Eco’s Ur-Facism seems more relevant by the day.

Are Vancouver Politics Getting Ford-ified?. Please ignore the awful headline. There is no such thing as Fordism. It is not a doctrine. It’s just another name for New Conservatism, which also doesn’t exist. The point is, the NPA hired the same communications firm as Rob Ford. That’s all.

Pickton inquiry has benefit of hindsight, Vancouver police lawyer warns. Think about that for a second. That is a lawyer speaking. Because, and correct me if I’m wrong, almost every single inquiry in the history of law also had “the benefit of hindsight”.

Otherwise why would we even bother? Frank Paul case leads to rule changes on investigations into police-involved deaths.

COPE Councillor against condo’s. All of them. Forever.

TEA & TWO SLICES: On Occupy Vancouver And Character Assassination On The CBC

by Sean Orr | This past weekend I attended the first General Assembly of Occupy Vancouver at the oh-so-appropo ‘People’s Atrium’. Despite the horrible acoustics, cheap lefty rhetoric, and pointless semantic debates about non-violence, it looks like they got some shit done. “Business owners have been warned”. Because no one protesting is a business owner…and because “remember the Stanley Cup riots”. We’re not saying, we’re just saying…

Meanwhile, the CBC turns not-so-subtly into the Sun News Network: Kevin O’Leary gets schooled by Chris Hedges. “Well you know I don’t usually go on shows where people descend to character assassination. If you want to discuss issues, that’s fine but this sounds like Fox News and I don’t go on Fox News”. Watch the video above. Oh dear, I might have myself a new hero.

Enter Divergence. “People used to have different opinions on the news; now they cannot even agree on the terms of debate.” And “…if it were ever subjected to the ruthless market principles for which it advocates, the National Post would fold tomorrow.”

And then there’s always the ‘give them enough rope and they’ll hang themselves’ theory. Sun News: The Little Terrorist. Ezra Levant seems to accidentally on purpose forget that we invaded a country that had nothing to with 9/11. He talks about moral blurriness, but tells us Khadr was living in luxury and even “leading his fellow terrorists in prayers”. Because apparently, the word terrorist is a synonym of muslim. Has Canada officially hockeyfied politics?

Because clearly hockey has become politicized: Ex-NHL tough guys ‘considering further recourse’ against Don Cherry. We Are All Ron Maclean.

Canucks considering new rink in False Creek, and they want to share. “The councillors discussed reconfiguring the proposed Creekside Park in Northeast False Creek — the last undeveloped piece of land upon which Expo 67 once stood”. Why don’t you Freudian slip into somntheitng more comfortable?

Hey look! It’s a cop digging the environmental movement a new grave! So the next time they arrest someone like Betty Krawczyk or Harriet Nahanee, they’ll be using biodegradable handcuffs! Read more

Next Page »