[PHOTO] Yorkville and the Village Rock

Yorkville and the Village Rock
Originally uploaded by rfmcdpei

The downtown district of Yorkville is known as much as the bohemian 1960s home of musicians like Joni Mitchell and Neil Young as it is for its current status as an upscale shopping and dining district. What isn't as well-known is the existence of its Village Rock, a huge stone a billion years old and massing 650 metric tons that was taken from the Canadian Shield in Ontario's cottage country district of Muskoka in 135 pieces and reassembled in situ. This picture, taken on a balmy late summer evening, gives a size as to the Village Rock`s heft. In afternoon, it`s a perfect place to enjoy the sun, all stretched out.

[MUSIC] Annie Lennox, "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye"

Annie Lennox's cover of the Cole Porter song "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye", taken from the 1990 AIDS fundraising album Red Hot and Blue, is perhaps her most beautiful song.

"Annie Lennox - Downtown Lights" (Watch on YouTube)

The sound of her full voice against the sparse piano and Paris cafe accordion sends chills down my spine.

The music video is also interesting, filmed by Ed Lachman. Iconic British director Derek Jarman was originally slated to direct, but his HIV/AIDS-related illness forced him to withdraw, but not before contributing the home movies shown in the music video, old movies of him and his family, taken by his father. Lennox later performed the song in a cameo in Jarman's 1991 movie Edward II.

[LINK] "Are the Tamil Tigers being declawed in Toronto?"

That's what Anthony Reinhart wonders in The Globe and Mail today.

The question now, as the rebels sit cornered and facing military defeat by the Sri Lankan army, is whether Canadian Tamils will keep supporting a diminished Tiger insurgency, or abandon the rebels for a more peaceable approach to a government many deeply mistrust at best, and accuse of anti-Tamil genocide at worst.

"They are in a panic over what to do," Mr. [Lenin] Benedict said, estimating that "99.9 per cent" of Toronto's Tamils support the Tigers' goals, if not always their methods. Many are "in a state of shock" over the Tigers' rapid loss of power after 25 years as the Tamils' self-proclaimed representatives, he said, and are awaiting instructions from a rebel leadership that is, to say the least, preoccupied.

If the notion of an entire expatriate community in Toronto taking its cues from a militant force overseas sounds like an exaggeration, Mr. Benedict insists it is not and he's not alone. Elusive though it's been, the promise of a Tamil homeland has been exploited so effectively by the Tigers that they enjoy "total control of the community," he said.

[. . .]

Comments like these echo findings of a joint police operation in 2006 in which Tiger documents were seized from World Tamil Movement [WTM] offices in Toronto and Montreal. The raids closely followed the federal government's ban on Tiger fundraising in Canada, which the WTM - also now banned - had allegedly conducted for the Tigers. A Human Rights Watch report at the time also documented the Tigers' use of coercion to secure donations from Tamils in Toronto.

The seized documents suggest the Tigers view the entire Tamil diaspora as an extension of the rebel group, and Toronto as its "Canada branch." A manual from the rebel group's "international secretariat" spells out how to operate foreign branches, and includes a directive to "make all necessary steps to receive monthly financial donations from each one of the Tamils of those who are living in every country."

It urges diaspora officials to enlist the support of all Tamil community groups - students' federations, women's groups, arts and cultural clubs, sports groups, educational centres and "general associations of Tamils" - and hold each to account for contributions.

[. . .]

"It's cracking," John Thompson, head of the Mackenzie Institute, a Toronto-based public-policy think tank, said of Tiger support. "And I think if the war in Sri Lanka ends or the [Tigers are] broken, it'll crack a lot further, but it hasn't disintegrated yet."

Mr. Thompson, who has spent nearly 15 years studying the rebel insurgency, said Tiger collectors have been running into more closed doors in Toronto as a result of the federal ban. While many still give willingly, "some of these families have been paying war taxes for decades, and they're tired of it," he said. There are other signs, he said. Moderate Tamil politicians have been visiting from Sri Lanka "to speak to Tamils and say, 'Look, there are other options besides the Tigers,' " while police, emboldened by the ban and growing co-operation from disaffected Tamils, have stepped up efforts to soften Tiger sympathies.

Most recently, members of a joint federal, provincial and local anti-terrorism force targeted Heroes' Day, the Tigers' annual Nov. 27 commemoration of war dead. Normally, the Tigers press Tamil shopkeepers to close for the day, and oblige people to attend. This time, police leaned on the Tigers, photographing licence plates at participating banquet halls. They even mounted the official platform and started "flipping the caps off the [heads of] uniformed Tigers onstage," Mr. Thompson said.

Authorities would not be so audacious, Mr. Thompson said, without high-level political support and backing from within the Tamil community.

For his part, Mr. Benedict moved last year to carve out space for moderate Tamil voices. His fledgling group, the Canadian Democratic Tamil Cultural Association, aims "to foster friendship and understanding with other Sri Lankan communities and the Canadian mainstream."

[LINK] "Toronto church leader denounces atheist 'attack ads'"

Atheist bus ads are finally making it to Toronto.

The Toronto-based Freethought Association of Canada won approval yesterday from the Toronto Transit Commission to place ads on buses and inside subway cars that read: "There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition, which fought against the legalization of same-sex marriages, said his group has not decided whether it will formally complain about the ads once they appear.

"On the surface, I'm all for free speech. ... However, though, these are attack ads," Dr. McVety, president of Canada Christian College in Toronto, said in an interview yesterday.

[. . .]

The ads coming to the Toronto transit system are identical to those used in a recent campaign in Britain. After raising more than $26,500 in donations in just a week using a website called atheistbus.ca, the Freethought Association now plans to use the funds to place the ads on buses in Calgary and Halifax.

Katie Kish, the Freethought Association's vice-president, denied the ads are an attack on religion. She argued that they are meant to inspire dialogue.

"It's not meant to be any sort of rude or inflammatory thing toward people," said Ms. Kish, a York University student with a radio program heard on campus stations. "It's meant to grab attention, and then, from that attention, comes discussion. And that's what we want out of it."

[. . .]

Brad Ross, a spokesman for the Toronto Transit Commission, confirmed yesterday that staff have decided the ads do not violate any of the TTC's rules. But that decision could be reviewed if complaints arise.

"Disallowing the ad may be a violation of the Ontario Human Rights Code and potentially a violation of the Charter ... so we have to look at it from a legal basis," Mr. Ross said. "We don't feel that there's any grounds to disallow the ad."

I've seen evangelical churches' advertisements on buses, quoting the Bible and promising salvation conditional on this belief. If the TTC's buses carry this sort of ads, they may as well carry all the ads of this sort if the money's in it.