Oh, Crumbling City (Part 26)

When it isn't an alert to boil water because of a human error, it's Nature giving us the worst storm we've ever faced. When that's not it, it's politicians killing the city's soul by forcing it its centuries-old commerces and/or ''freak places'' to shut down.

But mostly, it's crumbling infrastructures. Tunnels. Or the fucking subway's roof. Or slabs of concrete falling on a woman quietly eating her lunch at a restaurant.

And lots of sinkholes, many of them smack-dab in the middle of downtown: Sherbrooke street (near McGill); at the corner of Ste-Catherine and McGill; St-Mathieu and Ste-Catherine; And today's newest one, at Guy and Ste-Catherine (one block East of St-Mathieu):

Yes, it swallowed a backhoe. It was hungry, give it a break.

Now that we've established that the ground cannot hold any weight, let's move on to another topic which is a whole lot sadder: three blocks East and one block South of there, at nearly the same time, a man was crushed to death by a three-tonne metal plate that fell on him. It was from a crane that hadn't been secured properly on the construction site of yet another condo tower, this one adjacent to the Bell Centre, where they plan on building over 100 storeys of condos (therefore roughly 300-400 dwellings) worth from half a million to $2.5M each, dispersed in two or three towers, I forget).

The thing is... there are two subway lines underneath that floor, and aqueducts. And they'll need to increase the water flow potential to supply these new dwellings, as they are pretty much just parking lots or pedestrian walkways for the moment. On ground that can barely handle regular vehicles right now.

And though theoretically, the sound of complete families of bourgeois millionaires crumbling to their deaths doesn't seem like the worst thing that can happen, any death is still tragic, and hundreds of them at a time, all of which could easily be pinned on a city's over-eagerness to make easy money and weed out the poor from its downtown core, would make us the laughingstock of the civilized world. Plus Dubai.

At times like these, I understand those who deny the existence of climate change: who cares about what'll kill us in 50 years since we'll do ourselves in with greed, corruption, seedy construction, poisonous foods, and wars in less than that anyway?

On Government Funding One Side Of The Bullshit

This is why they separated Church and fucking State in the first place: because of stupid partisan assholes who want freebies so much they can't see past their own schemes:

Rep. Valarie Hodges, R-Watson, says she had no idea that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s overhaul of the state’s educational system might mean taxpayer support of Muslim schools.

“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools,” the District 64 Representative said Monday.

The Friendly Atheist pretty much says everything I could write about this, especially in his conclusion:

Rep. Hodges made the mistake of saying out loud what most conservative Christians only say to themselves to private: When they say they want “religious freedom,” they’re only referring to their own faith. Everyone else can fend for themselves.

But I'd like to add this:

Separation of Church and State is but one of the fail-safe ideas protecting the modern democracy. It is made to ensure that those in power keep preserving the interests of The People above all else, whether the elected officials do it out of evilness or stupidity.

Every time one of them overreaches the boundaries for his side's personal gain, for lobbies or self, to favour one kind of folk over another, they will always open the door to abuse on the other side. ALWAYS. Just because you don't feel like others could doesn't mean a fresh set of eyes won't see opportunities.

That's why quickly-spun-together, half-assed emergency laws should never pass. We have an example here in Montréal, a law written just after 9/11 about ''making believe a terror act is happening'', that the ministers who passed it at the time said was subject to ''common sense'' in its application, is being used for the first time ever, on four teenagers who allegedly released ''smoke bombs'' in the subway that were dissipated in less than a minute.

It's also why the conspiracy theorists and fear freaks go out of their minds when the government starts acting ''like fascists'' and restrict free speech, or sustain the right to imprisonment without the right to a lawyer or trial and start their ''Hitler'' comparisons: because 30, 50, or 100 years ago, society decided even one step in that direction should never be allowed, and yet loking back, we're more than halfway there.

''But we would NEVER''.

Uh huh.

One way to ensure that, is to just... NEVER go in that direction. Keep our safeguards in place. Treat everyone equally. Protect the innocent, the majority. Take care of the poor and unlucky.

Wrap My Banana

As you can see in the above picture, no, it wasn't a euphemism for ''put a condom on my penis''. But nice try. At least that would have been smart.

Intelligence is not what prompted fruit company Del Monte to one-up Nature and add an extra layer of ''protection'' over bananas - this time in plastic. No, it was pure greed. They plan on selling these in gas stations and corner/convenience stores, thus not only extending the marketplace for their product, but also quadrupling its price tag.

My favourite quote of the article is the one that closes it:

‘It is a great product and consumer feedback shows a marked taste benefit too.’

The consumer has finally won - and by this I don't mean ''they'll finally get the product they want'', not by any stretch of the imagination. No, in this age of Big Business and Big Advertising running (ruining?) our lives, in a world where market research is so prevalent and common it has actually saturated its own market, People are standing up and telling these companies ''really? This is your New Idea? Yes, please, by all means, kill yourself with it.''

They did it with the music industry by not purchasing what the major labels (now reduced to 3, soon 2 conglomerates), they did it with the film industry by not attending theaters anymore, they did it to television advertisers by using TiVos, and to network TV in general by supporting cable networks and their original programming - and they're doing it now with the food companies, telling them to choke on their own, inevitable leftovers.

Now, they hope to do it to bankers, politicians and car salesmen next.