Obama

Well there is no short of commentary on the election results. All I can say is thank-you America for coming out in such force. The first decade of the 21st century has been nothing but hell with Bush. We can now breath a collective sigh of relief now that Obama has ben elected. I say this as a Canadian. Thank-you America for finally doing the right thing. Best of luck Obama. I've had close ties to the states for most of my life, but during the last eight years, I've been left with nothing but dread every time I 've crossed the US/Canada border. I finally feel that I can travel to the states with the freedom that I experienced as a teenager. I hope my euphoria is not in vain.

Frankie Venom d. Oct 2008

This is how I remember Teenage Head and Frankie Venom. Got to party with the band once in North York.

Frankie and the band lived the dream. They were a big part of my T.O. experience in the 80's. Sigh.

How ordinary people become monsters ... or heroes ( Philip Zimbardo )

Truly an amazing talk by a great thinker. Zimbardo explores how ordinary people can become bad.

Gay Bashing In Vancouver

Every once and a while the CBC releases a story on gay bashing in Vancouver. I am always surprised when I read something like this, as not only do I see Vancouver as extremely gay friendly, but the gay and lesbian community is in fact a vibrant and key part of this city's social make-up and flavour.

The CBC's most recent story, concerning Jordon Smith is disheartening, especially considering the violence and damage that Jordon experienced - this should not happen here, or anywhere.

But after reading this story it helped me understand, at least in part, some of the anger that was directed at me recently in a gay bar.

I will relate - after being rejected a particularly attractive girl I was interested in, turns out she has a girlfriend ( no shit, this is totally true and didn't see it coming), I looked up an old friend for drinks. He and I are both straight, but a good friend of his is gay, someone we went to school with but I had lost touch with. The three of us met for drinks at a gay bar on Davie Street. It is a new place, can't remember the name. The gay friend was not actually expecting to see me, and when he did, yelled out "Oh My God, Its Seven in a gay bar, you must be a homosexual!" Later, when his his partner arrived, he actually did the same. I was being outed as being straight.

I just brushed off their comments and went on with usual pleasantries and tried to catch up with him, enjoying being out with people I haven't seen for a while, and meeting some new ones. Nevertheless, myself and my straight friend experienced a fairly hostile atmosphere in this bar. I am fine with that, those who know me comment on my easy going nature in social situations. My friend however was not so at ease and needed to leave.

I was, nevertheless, a little surprised at our treatment, but after reading Jordon Smith's story, I can perhaps intuitively at least understand our reception at this bar.
It's not that we were a threat, but perhaps they were saying, 'look, this is how we are treated'. I'm sorry about that and wish it wasn't so.

I am saddened that we still live in an us-and-them society. I find it really unfortunate that we separate or are separated from each other based on social orientations. Personally I see no reason for this separation nor do I truly understand it, but obviously others disagree with me.

O Canada

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts^TM we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

VANOC, F.A.

Prejudice in Vancouver

I'm hanging outside the Starbucks at Granville and Broadway in Vancouver waiting for a bus. I see an older gentleman, white, perhaps early seventies, take a seat on one of the benches near the bus-stop. He is wearing a baseball cap and a dark jacket with a hood. He sits for a while, then casually gets up an walks towards the collection of newspaper boxes on the corner. I'm mildly concerned because he is leaving his bag unattended on the bench. This is a fairly busy, public area. So I keep an eye out. He returns with an armload of free weekly papers (today is Thursday which means new editions are out), walks past the bench and dumps the papers into a garbage can, only then returning to his seat-- all in the world is well.

After a few minutes I can't stand it anymore and walk over the the garbage can to see what paper he dumped. I see about twenty or so copies of Xtra West, the local edition of a Canadian free paper of gay and lesbian news.

So I approached the man and asked, 'I'm curious, why did you dump those papers in the garbage?” He opens his reply: "Do you know about the Bible?" I am now regretting my decision. He continues on for a bit about God, Satan, and Sodom & Gomorrah. Many of his teeth are crowned with gold. I suggest that although he is entitled to his opinion, what he did may be considered an act of vandalism, and perhaps the police might not view his actions as appropriate. He said something about me being in league with the devil. I said that was fine and left him.

A few minutes pass and we hear sirens, not surprising, being close to a fire station. He pulls his hood over his head. The trucks pass and he pulls his hood down again.

My bus arrives, bound for the ferry terminal and a small farming community to the south of Vancouver. I get on first and find a seat near the back. The man gets on afterwards and sits near the front. I don't know if he is aware or cares that I am there, doubtful.

A few stops down the road a young Asian boy, perhaps fourteen or fifteen, gets on the bus, carrying a guitar and wearing sunglasses -- an Elvis in the making. The old man quickly offers the boy a seat and strikes up a conversation.

No More Vancouver Sushi

Today I learned of a completely reprehensible and probably illegal practice of a particular Denman Sushi restaurant in Vancouver, British Columbia. Unfortunately I suspect that this kind of practice may be common in these types of restaurants.

The practice involves hiring servers on the condition that the server will pay a 6% cash premium on all food bills. The owners justify this premium as a sort of tip sharing program. The problem of course is that the server pays the premium whether they receive a tip or not from the customer. The restaurant owner further justifies this practice by explaining to the server that if they do a good job, the patron will give the server a good tip, presumably better than the 6% the owners are charging. They also hire only Japanese and Chinese new immigrants and students with poor English skills, people that generally would not report the owners, and that have difficulty finding jobs that aren't with AWs.

The owners of this particular restaurant themselves speak Cantonese, Mandarin and English fluently. The workers are told up front before being hired about the premium, and told that they will not be hired if they do not agree, and of course will be fired if they tell anyone about it.

Now this practice of 'tip sharing' has to be illegal from at least two perspectives.

The server is in essence paying to work at the restaurant. They have no guarantee of receiving tips and are expected to pay the hosts and bussers a percentage of their tips, as well as the enforced premium. Their wage is set at minimum wage for restaurant staff and a bad shift may effectively result in the server having to make a payback to the employer.

From the Government of B.C. Restaurant Employees Fact Sheet

The only lawful deductions that can be taken from pay cheques are those for Canada Pension Plan, Employment Insurance, Income Tax and any other deductions authorized by the employee in writing to pay on their behalf money to a union, charity, social fund, insurance company (medical, dental, insurance plan) or to meet a credit obligation.

In addition, through this practice of 'tip sharing,' the restaurant owners have also set up a very simple but effective way of under-reporting 6% of their gross revenue. This tip-sharing program is purely on a cash basis, and is done verbally at the end of the shift. The server's total food bill is added up, the 6% is calculated and the server pays this amount on the spot in cash. No record, no report.

I will never eat in this Denman Sushi restaurant again. And although I cannot name the restaurant here, I will be telling everyone I know about this disgusting practice and the name of the restaurant without hesitation.

I will also be filing a complaint against this particular restaurant with the Employment Standards Branch of the Government of British Columbia, and Revenue Canada.

It disgusts me to no end how these restaurateurs can take advantage of these young people simply because they don't understand their rights, the laws of Canada, and have difficulty with the language . May you rot in the hell you've created.


Restaurant Employees Fact Sheet

Employment Standards Act

RCMP Hides Taser Use

More than 2,800 Tasers are in use across Canada. The RCMP are supposed to report each incident of use or threatened use of Tasers. Records recently released to the CBC and the Canadian Press have been stripped of information of Taser use. This information was previously disclosed during 2002-2005 under the Access to Information Act.

The information that the RCMP did release shows that Taser use is up dramatically: over 1400 incidents in 2006, compared with about 600 incidents in 2005.

Liberal public safety critic comments that "The RCMP is a public police force" and that "they have to be transparent, they have to be accountable."

Not surprisingly, spokes-person Insp. Troy Lightfoot declined comment.

There have been at least nineteen Taser related deaths in Canada since 2001. An analysis by the Canadian Press of about 500 Taser incidents during 2002-2005 found that about 75% of these incidents involved unarmed suspects.

The now famous video of the death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver International Airport last October clearly shows how the Mounties are quick-to-draw the weapon on unarmed people.

More Hidden Costs for 2010 B.C. Olympics

The B.C. government is offering partially paid leave to its 30,000 public servants if they volunteer for the 2010 Olympics.

B.C. government employees who volunteer for the Olympics will be able to claim part of that time as paid leave, said Colin Hansen, the minister responsible for the Olympics.

Hansen confirmed that in some cases the government will be hiring replacements for the paid volunteers.

Civil servants who do volunteer will also get vacation time bonus — for every two days they volunteer, they will only be deducted one day of vacation time, said Hansen. The rest will be made up as paid leave.

It is of course, inappropriate to pay people who choose to volunteer, because the volunteers would be using up their own vacation time while working for the Games.

Not surprising, VANOC is praising the proposal, saying it will bring workers with valuable skills to the so-called volunteer pool.

NDP Olympics critic Harry Bains, among others, criticize the plan, saying it could cost taxpayers millions of dollars and is another example of the hidden costs of the Games.


The program was also criticized by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which said Olympic spending is already out of control.