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For many years, I've complained about being music-starved. We have an abundance of music in our home, but I felt I had no solid time to listen. I can't have music on while I write, even while I write an email. The only decent music time I could find was if and when I cooked dinner - and that is not a regular occurrence. Between baseball and movies, gone are the days when we used to just listen to music all evening. Living in the suburbs has helped this problem. In New York (or walking around any city), I don't like to use a Walkman, or iPod once they existed. But in the car, it's essential. Recently I've been doing errands with Michael Doucet and BeauSoleil , one of my favourites. Now on my current weekend job, the problem has been eradicated. I'm in a small, shared space, with a group of non-stop talkers. It would be unbearable, except that the non-chatterers all put on headphones. I've been listening to music all day Saturday and all day Sunday, every week...

Another important New Yorker has died. The New York Times reports: Hilly Kristal, who founded CBGB, the Bowery bar that became the cradle of punk and art-rock in New York in the 1970s and served as the inspiration for musician-friendly rock dives throughout the world, died in Manhattan on Tuesday. He was 75. His son, Mark Dana Kristal, told The Associated Press that the cause was complications from lung cancer. From its opening in late 1973, when Mr. Kristal, a lover of acoustic music, gave the club its name, an abbreviation of the kinds of music he originally intended to feature there — country, bluegrass and blues — until a dispute with its landlord forced the club to close last October, CBGB presented thousands of bands within its eternally crumbling, flyer-encrusted walls. Most famously, it served as the incubator for the diverse underground scene of New York in the 1970s and early ’80s, with acts like the Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, Television, Talking Heads and Sonic Youth p...

As I mentioned , we went to The Ex yesterday, the Canadian National Exposition , which has been running annually for for 128 years. That's a long time, and indeed, the most impressive thing about it. It's a fair. As Ferdzy said yesterday, a county fair on steroids. Mister Anchovy mentioned that the crowds are not what they used to be, and it's no wonder. Once upon a time, expositions - World's Fairs, National Exhibitions, call them whatever you will - were people's only glimpse of the larger - and presumably exotic - world. (I've read a lot about this, and blogged about it here .) Now it's just one entry on a long menu of entertainment options. Yesterday was very warm, and we were all kind of tired. We did the usual: ate some junk food, unloaded some of our money on silly games, wandered through a few exhibits, and C&C went on some rides. The highlight of the day was definitely Superdogs , which course I've wanted to see since I first heard of it ye...

Two years ago today, we moved to Canada. I looked back to see what I wrote on our first anniversary . I'm not surprised to see that post was tinged with sadness , as we moved to Canada as a family of four, and celebrated that anniversary as three. That's definitely the biggest difference as we celebrate this year: we are four again . We love Tala so much, and we are so happy she's in our lives. We had to move, which sucked, and we love our new place , which doesn't. We went to the Ice Hotel , something we had dreamed about for so many years. I lost my job, found another, hated it and quit, and since then have gone through what feels like a hundred permutations and possibilities as I try to straighten out my working life. It has sometimes been tedious and tiring, and sometimes exciting and interesting. It certainly has not been boring. I met lots of people, and made some good friends. And towards the end of this second year, I added activism back to my life. For me, tha...

As I mentioned, one of my nieces (C1) and her boyfriend (C2) are spending a week here before C1 begins university next month. C2 lived in Canada for 7 months last year, playing hockey in one of the higher-level junior leagues. He has hockey friends throughout Ontario and was hoping to get together with some. I was skeptical. C&C don't have a car here, and I was assuming hockey buddies wouldn't be driving great distances to see each other. Shows you what I know, as our home has become reunion central for guys from Barrie, Newmarket, Orangeville and wherever else. This also means C&C can go enjoy themselves while we are glued to the Red Sox-Yankees series. Very nice. [Hockey fans may be interested in knowing that Ron Ellis 's nephew had dinner with us last night. Just a random factoid for anyone who cares.] While Allan and C1 went to the beer store and the LCBO for reinforcements, C2 and I had a very interesting chat. Smart guy, this C2. We had a wide ranging conversa...

We're going to the Canadian National Exhibition - The Ex - today with C&C. We already have (discounted) tickets, and we're planning on leaving our car at the Port Credit GO station and taking the train, as I've heard parking and traffic can be nightmarish. The kids might stay later while we have to get back for our game tonight. It's our first time at the Ex. Tips, tricks, advice? Favourites not to miss?

Yesterday was quite a day. The three-hour orientation for the notetaking program was absolutely packed with information, but I had no time to let it settle in, as C&C (niece and boyfriend) arrived immediately afterwards. On the job front, I feel frustrated and a bit confused. It seems that every time I get more information about this work, it changes, and not in minor ways. When I first heard about the notetaking work , I was so excited. Then I spoke to someone - not just someone, the manager of the entire Deaf Services program - and I became extremely disappointed . She told me there were large breaks where notetakers aren't used - so that the work, while well-paid, is sporadic. On the other hand, she indicated that the potential for higher earning was fairly quick. I decided to try it anyway. I was willing to see if I could make notetaking work by combining it with other freelance work, such as ESL tutoring and copyediting. So I went through a very lengthy (grueling!) applic...

This morning I have a three-hour orientation for the notetaking program, then I'm off to the airport. Our niece C and her boyfriend, also C, are coming in for the week. C1, my sister's daughter, is very dear to me (as are all my nieces and nephews) and I hardly ever see her. I haven't met C2 yet, but I hear he's great. We're all really looking forward to the visit. They are teenagers, so I'll have plenty of time to blog in the morning before they get up. See you later!

As I'm sure you know, the checkout line - that's "cash" in Canada, because Canadians like to use as many monosyllabic words as possible - in your grocery store just got a little duller. The venerable Weekly World News , always good for a chuckle as you wait, is no longer publishing a print edition. (Final issue on sale now!) When Allan and I were a long-distance relationship, he often sent me his favourite WWN headlines. This was around the time of Talking Heads' True Stories , which we had a thing for. My favourite headline, which adorned my bulletin board for years, was "Head Transplants Now Possible - How Do You Know You're Really You?" (It's a tough question!) I also had a great "photo" of Hillary Clinton and her space-alien lover. You should've seen the tongue on that thing. In all those years, though, I never thought much about who wrote those terrific stories. Truth be told, I never actually read any of the stories, I just en...

You may have heard that the Resident has been comparing the US occupation of Iraq to the war in Vietnam - as a reason to stay . Yes, it's true. In other news, up is down, black is white, and hell has frozen over, here in Bizarro World . For a more complete explanation, see the always-excellent uggabugga , who tells us: Bush is right on the principle, but wrong on the history. The U.S. lost credibility in 1846: Expansionists after the 1844 election shouted "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!" This slogan [was] the position of [those] who wanted Polk to be as uncompromising in acquiring the Oregon territory as he had been in annexing Texas. Polk ... compromised with the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 divided the Oregon Country along the 49th parallel ... The rest, as they say, is history. According to Bush-logic, Polk's compromising of U.S. credibility directly led to 9/11. Who can disagree with that? Only traitors and evil radical Islamo...

If you are an American who has chosen to move to Canada, MSEH would like to hear your story. MSEH, of Two Moms To Canada and a stalwart of our moving-to-Canada blog community, is collecting our stories for her project Magnetic North. She says: As both a sociologist and the proud recipient of a my own new Canadian PR card, I've begun a book project documenting the experiences of those in the US who have recently moved, or are in the process of moving, to Canada. I am looking for people who are willing to be interviewed - ideally in person, but phone is also possible - about their decision, process, etc. If you don't want to be interviewed, but you'd be willing to share your story via email, blog, etc., that's fine, too. If you want to know more, please visit Magnetic North More information is available there. Feel free to contact me at us2canada@gmail.com with any questions! If you know someone who fits this bill who doesn't read wmtc ( oh, the horror! ), please se...

The lead article in the new issue of Harper's is "Cold Rush: The Coming Fight for the Melting North," by McKenzie Funk. I haven't read it yet, but I will. You might want to pick it up. As I skim it, it appears that every third word is Canada.

I've been trying to write about this for days, for weeks, forever. But where to begin? How can I articulate something that permeates my brain so completely, that is always with me, that hounds me so constantly in my daily life? It's not the US occupation of Iraq. It's not restrictive abortion laws. It's not even the Red Sox. It's advertising. It's corporate advertising's near-total takeover of our world. Many people appear to be inured to it. Some people are adept at blocking it out. But I feel advertising closing in around me, crowding out the world. I am choked by it, suffocated by it. It's a constant, loud buzzing that drowns out even my own thoughts. On the bus on the way to work this morning, when I looked up from my book, the view was a steady stream of corporate logos and taglines. As I walked from the bus to work, the entire floor of the Union Station subway stop, and all adjacent walls, were covered in gigantic ads. That is, the main plaza of a ...

If you want to register your disapproval of - or demand an inquiry into - what happened at the Montebello protests last week, Right On, Canada is here to help. Click and write.

Many wmtc readers may not realize how much time and energy I spend thinking about baseball. Or maybe you do. As we head into the final month of the baseball season - and on the eve of a huge series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees - I want to repeat something I've been saying nearly as long as I've been blogging. Ever since my religious conversion (some would say exorcism) in the summer of 2003, I have wanted only two things. One, for the Red Sox to win the division. The Yankees have ended their season on top of the American League East for the past 9 years (and 10 of the last 11 years). Even in 2004, when the Red Sox made the greatest comeback in baseball history - and the Yankees the greatest collapse - and the Red Sox went on to win their first World Series championship in 86 years , the Red Sox got to the playoffs through the wild card. That's fine with me, and with all of us. (Except one ancient New York sportswriter, but never mind him.) But every ...

One of the things about Canada that I've had trouble understanding is why Catholic schools receive government funding. People have explained it to me, but I didn't really grasp the idea until I read this op-ed in the Globe and Mail last week. The writer draws an constitutional analogy to slavery, and he makes a good point. (Please read before condemning!) In the present, the analogy I would make is to the US's Second Amendment, a once-necessary, but now anachronistic vestige that needs to be retired, or at least severely restricted. Why seven wrongs don't make a right A liberal society casts religion as a private matter rather than a public one Clifford Orwin Politics doesn't just make strange bedfellows; it drives obvious ones apart. So I'll be sleeping alone tonight, estranged from Ontario Conservative leader John Tory, whom I admire, and the Canadian Jewish community, to which I belong. They both think that liberal democratic principles permit or even requi...

Several years ago, I read and fell in love with Pat Barker 's "Regeneration Trilogy": Regeneration , The Eye in The Door , and The Ghost Road . Set in England during The Great War (WWI), the three books explore the horrors of war, both immediate and lasting, physical and psychological. The books also reveal a piece of queer history, as gay people were persecuted in WWI England, homosexuality linked to the supposedly baby-eating, nun-raping Huns. I had finished all three novels before learning that the first book was based on memoirs, or at least slightly fictionalized memoirs. Barker's jumping off point for Regeneration was the novel-memoirs of Siegfried Sassoon , best known for his World War I poetry. I had never heard of Sassoon, but I was very interested in learning more. So as part of a birthday present, in his typically and amazingly thoughtful way, Allan presented me with a boxed, hardcover edition of the Sassoon trilogy, an edition reprinted in 1971. (They wer...

Following up on our recent discussion of the police attempting to incite violence among the peaceful demonstrations at Montebello, here's a CBC story, and some in-game commentary. All emphasis mine. Quebec provincial police are standing behind three officers who went undercover during protests at the recent Montebello summit, saying the men weren't there to provoke demonstrators. "At no time did the officers in question engage in provocation or incite anyone to commit violent acts," Insp. Marcel Savard told a news conference in Montreal on Friday. The police admitted Thursday afternoon that three masked men caught on video Monday afternoon pushing toward a line of riot police, despite protesters' efforts to stop them, were the force's officers. The protesters were demonstrating against an agreement called the Security and Prosperity Partnership that was being discussed by U.S. President George Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Prime Minister Stephe...

I got the job! Yay!

The inimitable Grace Paley has died. She was 84. I saw Paley read and speak many times. She was a wonderful thinker, writer and activist, and from all accounts, a wonderful person. Her New York Times obit is here, and here's an interview with her in Salon from about ten years ago.

Thanks to James, Allan, and anyone else who sent me this.

I heard the Montebello protests were very good - well-attended, high-spirited and, of course, peaceful. Peaceful, that is, despite the police's bungled efforts at inciting violence . Here's what I heard at the War Resisters Support Campaign meeting, from people who were there. Union leader Dave Coles, of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, saw three men wearing bandanas over their faces, carrying rocks, shouting things like, "Stone the cops! Let's get the cops!" He confronted them, telling them to put down the stones, that this was a peaceful protest. They refused, and started pushing and shoving Coles. Coles told the crowd that the three were cops, and tried to unmask them. As peaceful protesters shouted at them, the three "protesters" retreated into a line of riot police, where they were "arrested". (There were no arrests at the protests, and no record of these supposed arrests in any released information.) When the faux protes...

Iraq War resister Phil McDowell addresses demonstrators at Montebello. Other resisters applying for status in Canada are on the stage behind him.

Some terrific satire from Barbara Ehrenreich, on her blog, and in today's Globe and Mail . Smashing Capitalism Somewhere in the Hamptons a high-roller is cursing his cleaning lady and shaking his fists at the lawn guys. The American poor, who are usually tactful enough to remain invisible to the multi-millionaire class, suddenly leaped onto the scene and started smashing the global financial system. Incredibly enough, this may be the first case in history in which the downtrodden manage to bring down an unfair economic system without going to the trouble of a revolution. First they stopped paying their mortgages, a move in which they were joined by many financially stretched middle class folks, though the poor definitely led the way. All right, these were trick mortgages, many of them designed to be unaffordable within two years of signing the contract. There were "NINJA" loans, for example, awarded to people with "no income, no job or assets." Conservative col...

As I'm reading a book by a cross-gendered person , about her experience crossing from manhood to womanhood, this column by an L.A. Times sportswriter makes the news. Old Mike, new Christine By Mike Penner, Times Staff Writer During my 23 years with The Times' sports department, I have held a wide variety of roles and titles. Tennis writer. Angels beat reporter. Olympics writer. Essayist. Sports media critic. NFL columnist. Recent keeper of the Morning Briefing flame. Today I leave for a few weeks' vacation, and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation. As Christine. I am a transsexual sportswriter. It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words. I realize many readers and colleagues and friends will be shocked to read them. That's OK. I understand that I am not the only one in transition as I move from Mike to Christine. Everyone who knows me and my wo...

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Whew. I just took a lengthy, challenging interview and test for the college notetaking program. I was not the most nervous person there, by far, and that helped me relax. (Is that awful?) I felt pretty good, but I won't know if I passed until Friday. This work, if I get it, will be well paid, but extremely challenging. It will be certainly be more stimulating and demanding than my usual day-job work, and for some reason that appeals to me right now. After 17 years in the legal doc-pro biz, I could do with a change. Both the interviewer and the tester impressed upon us candidates how important this work is to deaf students. Deaf services are provided through a government grant, and students don't get a second chance. If they fail classes, their services are cut off. They shouldn't fail because their services failed them. I'm not sure we'll be able to go to a cottage after all. I really shouldn't (although we might anyway). We're not feeling burned out and ...

I'm still reading Crossing , the memoir of Deirdre McCloskey , who started out in life as Donald McCloskey. In addition to the personal journey of a person who has lived as both male and female, it is a meditation on the concept of gender, and what makes us the gender we are. (Hint: it's not what's hidden in our pants.) At first, I found myself uncomfortable with some of McCloskey's observations about female-ness, because many of them don't apply to me, and about male-ness, because many of them don't apply to the men who have been important in my life. But once I understood that she views these generalizations as culturally based, and mostly learned, I felt better. And I can't deny her experience as both a man and a woman in this divided world. I'm sure the gender gulf would seem infinitely more vast to me if I had ever tried to cross it. From Crossing I've also learned something about Dutch society, and the differences between it and US society, mo...

After posting the obits of four great New Yorkers , I'll post one of a not-so-great. Leona Helmsely is dead at age 87. Helmsely, the self-described queen of her hotel empire, was dubbed The Queen of Mean by the New York tabloids, and for a time was the New Yorker we most loved to hate. She was the perfect target: rich, arrogant, corrupt and female. Although I was no fan of Leona Helmsely's, I have no doubt that the special venom she drew was at least partially fueled by sexism. Her most celebrated moment, which I'm sure you'll read about everywhere, came during her 1989 tabloid-rich trial for tax fraud: a former employee testified that Helmsely said, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes." Much like the "Ford to City: Drop Dead," it may never have been said (Helmsely always denied it), but it came to define the would-be speaker. Boy does her death bring back memories. New York in the 80s, a crazy city in a crazy time. New Yor...

I got home from work tonight and turned on the Sunday night cartoons, as I always do. We missed a bunch of "Family Guy"s and "American Dad"s last season, so many of the re-runs are new to me. I just saw such a great clip, I had to run to Google to find the exact quote. I'll set the scene, which I'm sure most Family Guy aficionados will remember. Peter has gone back in time and somehow altered the past. Lois is married to Quagmire and Peter is married to Molly Ringwald. Peter is walking around with Brian, wondering how they can go back in time and put things back the way they were. For that, they need a visit from Death, a recurring character. Here's the dialogue: Peter: I don't care what it takes, Brian. I gotta get Lois back somehow. Brian: Well, the only one who can help us is Death, and he only shows up when somebody dies. Peter: Ah, that's gonna be tough. With President Gore's Universal Health Care, people are living much longer these day...

In the early days of this blog, and continuing through our move to Canada, the wmtc community included a guy named RobfromAlberta , who I called our "resident conservative". (Rob has since left the blogosphere, at least under that name.) Rob used to spar with a guy named Kyle_from_Ottawa (who may have been my first non-related reader), and later got into it big-time with Lone Primate , Wrye and G . I learned a lot from their debates, and I learned a lot from Rob, especially about what it means to be conservative in Canada, as opposed to the US. In many respects, RobfromAlberta was what I consider a "true conservative". He opposed censorship of any kind, opposed laws restricting abortion and supported same-sex marriage. Any real conservative should, in my opinion, hold those truths to be self-evident, as they all fall under the general category of government interference in citizen's lives, which they are supposedly against. He hated Fox News almost as much as he...

Following a link to wmtc, I found Mocking the Right Wing Fringe and Other Fun Things , where Mainecatwoman , a sometime citizen of Joy Nation , holds forth. MCW's bastion of progressive thought has a "Stop Puppy Mills" badge, and I realized I should have one, too. Perhaps you would like one? The Humane Society's Stop Puppy Mills website has a page full of blogads and banners to choose from. Check them out. I last blogged about puppy mills here . There are some other links in that earlier post, but I think the best resource for puppy mill facts and activism is Stop Puppy Mills .

Several people have emailed to ask if I regret moving to Canada. Potential reasons include the death of our beloved dog Buster ten weeks after arriving, having to move, and my place of employment closing. I'm so taken aback by the question, I hardly know where to begin. That is, apart from a resounding "NO" . The reasons we wanted to leave the US still exist there, and have only gotten worse, as all problems, unrepaired, will do over time. The reasons I strongly believed I'd be happier in Canada still exist. I'm happy to be here, and so grateful I had the option. I didn't move to Canada expecting my life to be perfect and trouble-free once I got here. We've had sadness, we've had loss. We've had challenges. We've had happiness, and joy, and growth, and adventure, and love. We're living our lives. This means there's good and bad. Buster would have died no matter where we were. I was grateful beyond measure that we pulled him through tho...

Dr Carolyn Goodman has died in New York City at age 91. Goodman was a strong woman of courage and determination, who channeled her own incalcuable loss into a lifelong cause, who sought justice, and never succumbed to revenge. Although I never met her, she was someone I admired and have tried to emulate in my own life. Carolyn Goodman, a Manhattan clinical psychologist who became a nationally prominent civil rights advocate after her son Andrew and two other civil rights workers were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi in 1964 , died yesterday at her home on the Upper West Side. She was 91. Dr. Goodman, who had suffered a series of strokes and seizures in recent weeks, died of natural causes, her son David said. At her death, she was assistant clinical professor emeritus of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in the Bronx. Politically active until she was 90, Dr. Goodman came to wide public attention again two years ago. Traveling to Philadel...

I have a monster week coming up, with highlights including a trip to the dentist to have some fillings replaced, and even worse, the final testing for the George Brown College notetaking program. (The office of Disability Services at George Brown runs the program, but it serves 20 colleges in the GTA.) I'm nervous about the test. I know I can do the work; in fact, I know I'd be very good at it. But I have to be able to show them that, and I'm not confident that I can. I often don't test well. I get nervous and freeze up. On typing tests in agencies, I routinely test 15-20 words per minute slower than I actually type. The final test is pretty rigorous, and I'm hoping I can do it. Also this week, I'm meeting with a woman who runs a private agency that provides all kinds of services to the deaf community. She has hired me as a notetaker on the strength of my resumes, a few email conversations and a phone call alone. We're meeting in person for the first time ...

"And so it begins..." Whatever you're writing about has already begun. Can we please add this to the list of phrases to be retired, along with "But I digress," "That said," "Wait for it," and "'Nuff said"? Thank you.

Massive protests are expected in Ottawa this weekend and early next week, as the Resident and Mexican president Felipe Calderon join Stephen Harper for the Security and Prosperity Partnership meeting at Château Montebello. When we attended our first meeting of the War Resisters Support Campaign , organizers were putting the final touches on the group's bus trip to Ottawa, to table, sell t-shirts and other do awareness-raising activities. For the support campaign, this is more an opportunity to reach a large group of potential supporters than to protest SPP itself (although I would imagine for many individual members, it is both). As you know, I don't worry about Deep Integration or North American Union. I'm not opposed to globalization, only to disregard for labour conditions, the environment and health and safety standards. I also don't worry about these three leaders turning Canada into the 51st state. This has supposedly been on the verge of happening for years, ev...

Jazz musician Max Roach - ground-breaker, master, visionary - has died at age 83. For many years, Roach lived quietly on New York's Upper West Side, the last of a generation of jazz innovators. He is thought to be one of the greatest drummers ever to have played. Mr. Roach's death closes a chapter in American musical history. He was the last surviving member of a small circle of adventurous musicians — among them Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk and a handful of others — whose innovations brought about wholesale changes in jazz during World War II and immediately afterward. Although Roach helped usher in an era that would change jazz music forever, he didn't live for, or rest on, those past achievements. He was always a working artist, and always an innovator. He led a "double quartet," consisting of his working group of trumpet, saxophone, bass and drums plus a string quartet. He led an ensemble consisting entirely of percussionists. He played du...

I asked about renting a cottage for a few days, where we could take the dogs, go for hikes, let them play in the water. I was only thinking of one night, not too far from home... but you know how these things grow. James posted a link to the Lake Edge Cottages , in the Kawarthas, which he heard about through Toronto's Urban Dog . The place looked terrific, and super dog-friendly, and then we saw - drum roll - "all cottages are equipped with free wireless internet". This means we could watch baseball at night! Which means we can go away for several days. We didn't want to miss a game in the final week of the season, and now we don't have to. The Red Umbrella - mentioned a few times in comments - looked fabulous. Check out the " For The Dogs link on their website: * Our spacious lawns are free from any fertilizers or insecticides. * We have a protected bay with warm shallow waters, where dogs enjoy there own "Doggie Beach" * There are lots of doggi...

When my mom was here in early July, we were supposed to see "Ancient Peru Unearthed" at the ROM, but she had (and still has) an injured ankle, and we couldn't go. I went by myself yesterday, which is actually my favourite way to take in a museum. As you know, I loved the design of the new addition to the ROM, and felt Torontonian attitudes towards it were closed-minded and provincial - although less so than I thought . It wasn't that people didn't like it. It's that they seemed unwilling to consider it on its own terms. All I was hearing was a kind of "ewwww... it's different," a rejection of anything unusual, only because it's unusual. At that time, I hadn't yet seen the completed work in person, only in photographs. So here's my take. I love the way new building explodes out of the old one. I love the way the old and new are completely different, and don't appear to "go together," which is apparently a source of disc...

It seems that every time something bad happens in Toronto - a shooting, a pedestrian killed by a speeding car, or now, a murder by a group of people labelled "panhandlers" - there's an outcry about how the city is "out of control" and demands that "something be done". It's good that any death is taken seriously, and not brushed off with a "these things happen". However... these things do happen. In a reasonably free society, it's not possible to eliminate every negative social behaviour. If you want Toronto to resemble Singapore or post-revolution Iran - I've never been to either of those places, I'm basing this on writings by people who've lived there - you can cut way down on all kinds of anti-social behaviour. But if you want to live in a city where adults are mostly left on their own and expected to follow the law, things are going to happen. The more people, the greater the odds that it will. Based on the published d...