Saw this and felt I should post. Interesting stuff – I sincerely hope the STM continues to do these kinds of PSAs, as they shed a lot of light on the inner workings of our favourite mode of mass transportation. Plus, unlike fiscal transparency, I think people in general really just want to see how shit works. The STM would be wise to offer ‘behind-the-scenes’ tours to the public on a more frequent basis. I think they’d be surprised by just how many average citizens really do want to know oddball details. Plus, it’s a good thing the STM is reminding people of the more natural approach taken to tunnel and station ventilation.
Not sure if you’ve ever enjoyed an early Sunday morning Métro ride on the Green or Yellow lines in the Summer, but the fresh air inside the tunnels is intoxicating. Maybe that’s because the St. Lawrence is legitimately toxic, but it seems to smell quite nice once you get inside.
Also, this is interesting too:Keron Thomas was so fascinated with the NYC Subway system he successfully managed to operate the A Train for several hours without being detected back in 1993. Then you have the strange case of Darius McCollum, a man who has spent nearly a third of his life behind bars for, get this, trying to work and then doing the work of NYCTA employees. He’s widely recognized as the most knowledgeable NYCTA employee there ever was. That he’s been outright rejected by NYCTA for employment on several occasions and has a lengthy arrest record for, among others, taking out trains to perform track maintenance, doesn’t seem to bother him too much.
I wonder how much a second hand STM uniform goes for these days…
Anyways, I’ll keep my eyes open for more STM and related videos for y’all to peruse.
Something I found on Reddit. I’m a big fan of peer-to-peer financing of creative projects, and I found this video to be particularly inspiring and powerful. It looks like the working title is ‘Second Class Citizens’, and it’s a story that must be told. It’s okay to be gay in Montréal, but we need to stop lauding ourselves for our local ‘culture of openness’ when vicious homophobic discrimination elsewhere (particularly South of 49 and in far too many nations around the World) is so lethal. Sometimes I feel we’re congratulating ourselves for doing little to nothing of any real consequence. The City benefits on the whole what with our status as an internationally recognized ‘gay-tourism’ destination, yet the City seems to take a somewhat hands-off approach when it comes to tackling straightforward, general community issues in the Village, such as intravenous drug use, prostitution, homelessness, addiction etc. That gentrification is largely responsible for squeezing certain illicit activities into a small urban area between Berri-UQAM and the Jacques-Cartier Bridge is only part of the problem; it is general knowledge these activities have been ‘pushed’ into this region by law-enforcement. Whoever thinks we’ve lost our Red Light District need only walk a few blocks further East.
Montréal is a gay city, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But we can’t simply use ‘gay’ as a marketing tool, and the residents of the Village, Latin Quarter and Centre-Sud districts are lacking in social services, shelters, and solutions to unrelated social pathologies which have been focused there after years of various ‘urban renewal’ projects. Residents of the Village, and in particular the head of the local business association, have been pleading for additional assistance for years, though their calls have largely been ignored. Our society deserves better and thus we must demand more of our elected officials. If we can make things right here, perhaps others will follow our method.
Local satirist and vlogger Abdul Butt went down to cover the Movement Québec français demonstration last Saturday night in front of the Bell Centre. As one might expect, he uncovers that the group is composed of old people fighting a linguistic battle from over forty years ago. Plus there was some chanting that seemed to indicate the crowd was interested in the NHL conducting more of its affairs in French, and further that it would be nice if the Habs hired more Québecois players, something made rather difficult by the way players are selected, salary caps, individual free agency, the NHL draft etc. I took this as another sign those demonstrating were out of touch with reality. It’s almost as if they have no knowledge professional ice hockey has become an internationally lucrative entertainment industry spanning a good chunk of the Northern Hemisphere and that Québec is not the sole provider of hockey talent.
I’ve seen a common sentiment repeated often in various comment forums online; could you imagine if a bunch of English-speaking Canadians in Calgary showed up in front of the Saddledome to protest the number of Russians or Francophones in the NHL, and that individual teams would perform better if they were unilingual, perhaps even monocultural?
I typically hate these kinds of comparisons, because they are all too often used inappropriately or out of context to such a degree that the comparison is absurd to begin with. The French language must be preserved and promoted, inasmuch as French, Aboriginal and Commonwealth culture should be preserved and promoted as elements of our shared cultural experience. This has absolutely nothing to do with the Habs or the NHL.
And if you find the analogy above distasteful, perhaps racist, then you’re probably right. And therefore, Québecois have to put their collective foot down, and tell these old fools they’re no longer welcome in our integrationist, cosmopolitan city. We don’t need to tolerate intolerance.
I’d probably have been upset if I had been there, so big time kudos to Mr. Butt for seeing this for what it ultimately was and poking a lot of fun at it. For what it’s worth, it seems as though some of these old fogeys got a kick just by getting out of the house. At least one seems to have caught on that their complaint maybe isn’t as serious as they were initially hoping.
Final point – true to form, several people interviewed didn’t seem offended in the least with Mr. Butt’s slightly exaggerated Anglophone accent, and were keen enough to speak in English too. We’ve come a long way from the drive-by arguments and insults of the 1980s and 1990s.
Above is yet another great recent viral video coming out of my favourite goddam city. It features a municipal worker diligently clearing snow from a Villeray sidewalk. Except there’s no snow. Clearly our city’s efforts cut back on waste are getting off on the right foot.
Maisonneuve Magazine has popped the lid off a scandal we all assumed was going on, but dared not speak of. Perhaps people are fed-up, but it seems as though the snow-clearance operations of our already corrupt construction industry has been involved in significant bid-rigging for some time. Moreover, contractors and companies that don’t play ball face significant penalties, including intimidation, physical violence, fire-bombings and deliberate acts of sabotage. Click here for more; it’s an excellent if somewhat depressing read.
Another fantastic local viral video I’ve seen recently features local twit Jonathan Montalvo drunkenly trying to convince a gaggle of kids outside a bar how rich his dad is. He’s apparently getting into the club promotion scene, has t-shirts being printed and the like (he’s also got an agent, in case you’re interested in having this snot parade in front of your establishment accosting patrons and telling them how much better he is than them, a surefire way to attract the very finest locals). Unfortunately Mr. Popularity must have gotten cold feet of late, since just about video of the incident has been pulled from YouTube. I always find it adorable when memes get bashful.
Is this all it takes to secure $1,500 club appearance fees? Act like a gigantic dick?
Sometimes I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.
And the shame parade continues. I know I’m not ordinarily pessimistic, and on the whole I think I’m still optimistic in general for the New Year. I can’t expect to ever live a year without dealing with some kind of malaise, so it may as well coincide with this so-called seasonal affective disorder we’ve conveniently dreamed up to account for being miserable. How quaint – the disorder’s acronym is sad.
Above is footage from a massive fist-fight and dish/bottle/table/chair tossing mele at the New Dynasty Restaurant in Old Chinatown on New Year’s Eve. After watching this video a few times I can only say it’s doesn’t look to be so cut and dry Black vs. Chinese, and the SPVM has no idea what provoked the incident; no one’s talking, so it was probably some really dumb-as-shit argument between a small number of people that degenerated into a free-for-all. People don’t talk much when they’re ashamed of themselves – not much intervening going on as you can see.
Yesterday a 34 year-old man, homeless, possibly mentally-ill and apparently incapable of speaking French was shot and killed by the SPVM as he had apparently failed to stop and identify himself at the officer’s request. What his initial offense was is unclear, but the man, identified as Farshad Mohammadi did attack one of the intervening constables with a ‘sharp-edged weapon’ leaving superficial wounds on one officer. Mohammadi was fatally shot at the station but died later in hospital. I’m not saying the constable acted irresponsibly, but I wonder what drew their suspicions and why the SPVM isn’t encouraged to use ‘non-lethal’ suppression devices first and foremost. Unfortunately, the incident is being investigated by the Sureté du Québec, as is our foolish custom.
And then, to wrap up our little shit storm, tonight’s boneheaded protest of the hiring of Randy Cunneyworth. The Movement Québec francais demonstration in front of the Bell Centre drew a crowd of 300 out-to-lunch locals who would like the NHL, somehow, to accord the Canadiens more Francophone, Québecois players, and further to insist the Canadiens fire Cunneyworth, replace him with x and further eliminate English language music and announcements. If there’s one place government doesn’t need to stick its nose, it has to be the internationally successful modern game of ice-hockey and it’s hands-down finest professional team. The Canadiens may be in a bad slump, but it has nothing to do with Cunneyworth’s linguistic short-comings. Language and culture has absolutely nothing to do with how the Canadiens play, nor how the modern game of hockey is played at the professional level. Yet the demonstrators would like you to believe that a predominantly Québecois team would in fact do better. How, or why that would be the case, was not an issue the demonstrators were capable of illustrating.
There is a broader issue here – we need a winning sports team to keep our morale up, and we’ve been lucky, the Habs have had some exciting seasons recently. Moreover, the Bell Centre is consistently sold-out for Habs games, even live broadcasts of games played elsewhere. So while it sucks that our playoff chances are extremely slim, we need to get real here, it has nothing to do with Randy Cunneyworth’s inability to speak French.
It would have been nice to see those three-hundred people show up at Place du Peuple and support something worthwhile, by the way. Just another indicator what remains of the Indépendentiste movement is old and out of sync with the real problems of our world.
A discouraging start to the year. Here’s to better days ahead.
Haven’t watched the whole episode but what the fuck, it features my favourite city and I’m generally a fan of the program, though I’ve admittedly only seen a few episodes.
Also, what the fuck kind of Expos t-shirt is Andy Nulman wearing at the beginning?
Anyways, enjoy – more content on the way ya heard?
I don’t know much about Kim Campbell. I know Brian Mulroney threw her under a bus (metaphorically speaking) prior to the 1993 federal election, which culminated in the near-total destruction of the Progressive Conservatives, but what I didn’t know is that an apparent Conservative could defend evolution so eloquently while simultaneously providing excellent arguments in favour of respecting facts, science and expert opinion with regards to climate change. The American representative she ‘debates’ with can’t do much more than repeat and re-phrase the same lame-ass soundbites. She is calm, masterfully precise and an effective communicator. She is also a former poll-sci professor at UBC and an admirer of Ralph Nader.
Canada needs leaders like this. What the fuck happened to conservatism in this country? I can’t imagine there would have been much room for any current Tories in the administration of Kim Campbell. Indeed, I think she’d be loathe to associate herself with them.
This country needs to find its elder statesmen (and stateswomen) and get them to help us set our country back on track. Ms. Campbell no longer resides in Canada. I don’t damn her for this, like other fools might, she’s a global citizen and the climate of Southern California is very palatable. She also had the deck stacked against her in a big way, and from what I know was never really given a chance as Prime Minister. I wouldn’t want to stick around either, especially not with people like Stephen Harper running this country. We used to choose between visionaries, academics, intellectuals. Today our choice is between autocracy and people labelled socialists.
So these two guys are walking from Denver to Washington DC to protest Christian support of American wars. All along the route they were harassed by so-called law enforcement, who demanded they identify themselves and that they stop filming. The two are defiant and refuse to comply, given that law-enforcement’s request is inherently illegal and unconstitutional, an affront to civil liberties. The fact is walking down a road holding a sign and a video-camera will likely bring out the worst kinds of police officers. This video shows the harassment they encountered along their voyage. Of all the police in this video, only one did the right thing.
It’s worth watching until the end, as a lone officer from Illinois acted appropriately. Every other cop acted like a fascist. I’m glad there are good cops still out there, people who deserve to be called sir for their authority is due to respect from the community. But as we can see, they are the minority.
One of my all-time favourite early-90s hip-hop tracks, from one of the brilliant minds in comedy, Mr. Barrel Roll himself Tom Green. This 2011 remix music video was shot right in my backyard, Downtown Montreal.
I’ll add this to a list of great Montreal music videos later. Enjoy!
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