[PHOTO] Me and the lion Patience, Main Branch, New York Public Library

I began yesterday's photo post with a picture of one of the Lego lions guarding the interior of the main branch of the New York Public Library, by Bryant Park. This is a picture of me posing next to one of the Lego lion's models, on the steps of Fifth Avenue. As the library's website notes, I was next to Patience.

According to Henry Hope Reed in his book, The New York Public Library, about the architecture of the Fifth Avenue building, the sculptor Edward Clark Potter obtained the commission for the lions on the recommendation of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, one of America's foremost sculptors. Potter was paid $8,000 for the modeling, and the Piccirilli Brothers executed the carving for $5,000, using pink Tennessee marble. After enduring almost a century of weather and pollution, in 2004 the lions were professionally cleaned and restored. Unfortunately, the popular tradition of decorating the lions also endangered them, so the practice has been discontinued on the recommendation of the conservators.

Their nicknames have changed over the decades. First they were called Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, after The New York Public Library founders John Jacob Astor and James Lenox. Later, they were known as Lady Astor and Lord Lenox (even though they are both male lions). During the 1930s, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia named them Patience and Fortitude, for the qualities he felt New Yorkers would need to survive the economic depression. These names have stood the test of time: Patience still guards the south side of the Library's steps and Fortitude sits unwaveringly to the north.

As a tribute to the Lions' popularity and all that they stand for, the Library adopted these figures as its mascots. They are trademarked by the Library, represented in its logo, and featured at major occasions.

[LINK] "The FDA has approved the first drug to prevent HIV Infection"

This io9 article detailing the FDA's approval of Truvada as a preventative drug is about time. This antiretroviral drug had already been been prescribed on an off-label basis for some time by doctors in San Francisco to try to prevent HIV infection among HIV-negative men. It's good to see that the science holds up, and that additional options are available.

For the first time ever, the US Food and Drug Administration has approved a drug proven to reduce the risk of HIV infection. Called Truvada, the drug's approval marks a watershed in the fight to stem the continued spread of AIDS.

"It really marks a new era in HIV prevention because in adding Truvada as a prevention strategy, what comes with it is expanded access to HIV testing, condoms and prevention counseling and support," said James Deluca, vice president of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, in an interview with the Associated Press.

It's worth pointing out that Truvada is not a new drug. First approved in 2004, it's been used for years to treat people already infected with HIV, and is actually a combination of two other drugs commonly prescribed to slow the replication of the virus.

It wasn't until clinical trials, beginning in 2010, that scientists had the evidence they needed to show the treatment could work as a prevention tool, as well. In one study, daily doses of Truvada were shown to reduce the risk of HIV infection by 42 percent among HIV-negative individuals who regularly engaged in unprotected sex with more than one partner. A second trial involving heterosexual couples with one infected parter showed that daily treatment reduced risk of HIV infection by 75 percent when combined with condom use.

Not surprisingly, the FDA has made it clear that Truvada will be prescribed as part of a prevention plan that includes risk reduction counseling, HIV testing every three months, and regular condom use.

"It is exciting to consider the potential impact of this new HIV prevention tool, which could contribute to significantly reducing new HIV infections as part of a combination HIV prevention strategy," said Dr. Connie Celum, who led the trial involving heterosexual couples, in a statement.

But HIV prevention doesn't come cheap. At its current price, a year's worth of pills will set you back at least $13,900 — that's close to 40 dollars a pill. At that price, it's no wonder Truvada has become a blockbuster drug for pharmaceutical company Gilead, which markets the treatment.

Experts say 40 bucks a pill may be steep — but it's still likely cheaper than the alternative, especially for people whose regular sexual partners are HIV-positive:

"It is expensive," notes John's Hopkins University's Joel Gallant, "but on the other hand it's far cheaper than a lifetime of HIV treatment."

"If there are people who will not use condoms but are willing to use this, then for those people it's cost effective."

[URBAN NOTE] On the Danzig Street shooting in Toronto last night

News of this shooting in last night eastern Toronto is blanketing the media today. Rightly so, too; not only do the numbers involved--two dead, 21 injured, at a neighbourhood party hosting hundreds of people--make this a very significant gun crime by Canadian standards, but this follows a string of high-profile shootings e4nding in fatalities that include one last month in the food court of the Eaton Centre downtown and another on a Little Italy patio.

Toronto police are engaged in a “relentless” pursuit for the people responsible for a shooting in the city’s east end that left two people dead and 21 others with gunshot injuries, Chief Bill Blair told reporters this morning.

During a Tuesday morning news conference at police headquarters, Blair said police would put as many resources on the street as necessary to apprehend those responsible for the gun violence that occurred on Danzig Street late Monday night.

"The crime that occurred in Scarborough yesterday was unprecedented for the City of Toronto," Blair said.

"It is a crime that is shocking to all of our citizens and it is a crime that demands the relentless pursuit of the individuals responsible for this violence."

He said their families had been notified of their deaths, but police were still waiting formal identification of the victims before releasing their names.

The surviving victims ranged in age from a 22-month-old infant, who received a “grazing injury,” to a 33-year-old man, Blair said.

While most of these victims are expected to recover, one man remains in critical condition in hospital as of Tuesday morning.

Blair said the homicide squad, the guns and gangs unit, the intelligence services urban gang unit and divisional policing are all involved in the investigation.

It is still not clear if gangs are involved in the Monday night shooting, but Blair said police are investigating that possibility.

Cover in The Globe and Mail suggest that the shooting may have had its origins in a dispute between two attendees and wasn't gang-related. Some radio reports have stated one person is already in custody.

The National Post's Matt Gurney argues that this latest crime should be seen as something readily dealt with, that concerted effort by any number of groups and individuals will be necessary to push the volume of gun crime down. I agree with this.

[LINK] "Tory MP calls Bethune memorial a 'bow' to China"

Going back to the controversy over anti-Communist Canadian Conservatives praising pro-Communist doctor Norman Bethune, Conservative MP Rob Anders came out as hostile to Canada's memorialization of Bethune, putting it down to attempts to placate China. (Back in 2001, he was the only parliamentarian who voted agaisnt giving Nelson Mandela honorary citizenship on the grounds that Mandela was a Communist and a terrorist, so you know where he comes from.)

A Calgary MP says members of his own party have tried to hush him up over his criticism of federal funding for a memorial to Norman Bethune, the Canadian doctor considered a communist hero in China.

"I've probably had dozens of calls," MP Rob Anders said Friday on CBC Radio's As It Happens.

He wouldn't specify whether any had been from the Prime Minister's Office. "I'm not going to go into the details," the outspoken member of Parliament for Calgary West said.

MP Rob Anders has been a vocal critic of China, and thinks the federal government doesn't need to appease Beijing for economic reasons. (CBC)Anders says Bethune "was a fan" of Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, whom Anders called "the biggest mass-murderer in human history."

And that's why the MP has been in the media over the last couple of days arguing Ottawa shouldn't have furnished $2.5 million for the new visitor centre at Bethune Memorial House in Gravenhurst, Ont., which was officially opened Wednesday by Treasury Board President Tony Clement.

"I think there's a lot of people out there that think it's pretty questionable and spurious that taxpayer money is being used to support something like this," Anders said.

"I don't think that you need to spend millions of dollars to lionize somebody who was a supporter of Mao."

[URBAN NOTE] More on the Danzig Street shooting

Well, great. "Police suspect gangs behind Toronto BBQ shooting that killed 2, injured 24" is the headliner of the latest Canadian Press article on the shooting on Danzig Street.

Reacting to the shooting, mayor Rob Ford said that Toronto was still safe, that it was far from becoming a second Detroit. That is almost certainly the case--Toronto would have a long, long way to fall before approaching the stereotype, at least, of that Michigan city--but that is also setting the bar low. If Toronto is going to become a city where even low levels of indiscriminate gang violence becomes common--or, as the so far too-accurate "Three Torontos" paradigm would suggest, a city where low levels of indiscriminate gang violence become common in certain neighbourhoods, perhaps the same neighbourhoods evidencing high levels of poverty and socioeconomic exclusion--this will represent a terrible failing.

The threat of revenge-fuelled violence weighed heavily on an east-end Toronto neighbourhood Tuesday as residents mourned the victims of a deadly shooting rampage at a bustling block party and police vowed to bring the gunmen to justice.

Officers pleaded for witnesses to come forward while promising to stand guard over those left shaken and fearful by the attack that killed two people and wounded two dozen Monday night.

About 200 people were at the barbecue held outside a community housing complex when two gunmen opened fire after an altercation in what police are calling the worst incident of gun violence in the city's recent history.

Police said they suspect gangs were involved in the shooting that killed 14-year-old Shyanne Charles of Toronto and 23-year-old Joshua Yasay of Ajax.

[. . .]

Messages of grief quickly appeared on social media even as some hinted the deaths could spur more violence.

"The hood gained another angel to look over us, RIP," one person wrote on Twitter.

Police Chief Bill Blair said police have received "some co-operation" from witnesses at the scene and called on all community members who attended the party to help with the investigation.

Police also asked for anyone with video or photos of the incident to send them in, a strategy they have used in similar investigations in the past.

"I'm here today to make an appeal through you all, to the many hundreds of people who were present at the event yesterday who may have some information relevant to this investigation to come forward," Blair said.

"We are very concerned not only with the quick resolution and solving of this crime but the potential for retaliatory violence, which we often see in this type of event," Blair said.

[BLOG-LIKE POSTING] The SlutWalk criticism of Atangana coverage at the Toronto Sun

Inasmuch as the Toronto Sun's coverage of the misogynistic statements borrowed heavily from the language of Toronto's own SlutWalk movement--women aren't to be blamed for their sexual assaults, the clothes they wear have little relationship if any to their likelihood of being attacked, I thought I'd reproduce the reply of SlutWalk founder Heather Jarvis--published in today's Sun--roundly criticizing the Sun for it hypocrisy.

"I wanted to get back to you to do you the courtesy of saying that obviously we're completely against this commentary, but we're taking a stand to actually not speak to Sun News because of the absolutely disgusting things that they published. The Toronto Sun published an article pretty much agreeing with the preacher, saying that women were like deer, men were like hunters, and as long as a man pretty much just knew it was a slut, that was fine."

That was a guy, Mike something. Right after our SlutWalk rally where he came to our afterparty, uninvited and probably triggered people where that was meant to be a safe space for. There was absolutely no accountability on that, so we really don't have any interest in speaking to a news media outlet that pretty much supports raping women who dress provocatively."

"We have strong opinions about this, but I guess one of my comments to the Sun is they seem to carry these same values. The Sun has not shown any accountability on issues like this in the past, so why bother hearing women's voices now?"

"Overall, when there's no accountability and a media outlet is still publishing that stuff, he (Strobel) probably blamed victims that nght in our safe space. Which is a huge issue for us and there was a lot of responses to that place and it was still published very willingly by the Sun, with no counter and accountability on that. We face that time and time again. That was one of the worst media pieces that was so blatant and terrible in saying women were asking for it."

"Overall, we're just saying, "F... you, Sun."

- Heather Jarvis, SlutWalk

The Mike Strobel column in question came from the Toronto Sun's issue of the 31st of May, 2012. For my readers' sake, the column is below.

I got back from my cabin in the nick of time for SlutWalk.

The event has become so chic, there’s even an after-party. It’s like the Oscars or a TIFF premiere or a Charlie Sheen show.

Some of my best friends are sluts, so I wandered up to the post-march soiree at The Vic, a popular club on Church St. in the Gay Village.

The theme was My Body Loves To Dance, a play on the protest’s slogan, My Body Is Not An Insult.

Organizers decided against the Club District because, as one told The Grid weekly, it “reeks of male entitlement.”

And I thought that was just the slaughterhouse on Wellington St.

At The Vic, we boogied surrounded by signs that read “Don’t blame the victim,” “Yes means f--- me. No means f--- you” and so forth.

I wore my sluttiest jeans and tried to fit in. Actually, it was a blast.

But after a couple of sluttiness-inducing songs, I got to thinking.

Was the cop who started all this really so terribly wrong?

Remember Toronto police Const. Michael Sanguinetti’s immortal words at an Osgoode Hall safety seminar 16 months ago?

“You know, I think we’re beating around the bush here,” he told a group of 10 students.

“I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this, however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.”

Const. Sanguinetti must wish he’d called in sick. Or brought an editor. I’d have changed a word or two.

He apologized, but his comment went global, with SlutWalks from Hong Kong to Trafalgar Square. In fact, this is now the height of SlutWalk season.

Brazil, that bastion of machismo, joined on the weekend, with rallies in eight cities.

Good for them all for decrying violence against women and for vilifying perps instead of victims.

But a flaw in the SlutWalk argument bugs me. Let me try to explain by analogy without having a SlutWalk show up outside my window.

There are no such marches on Manitoulin Island, where my cabin nestles. But there are lots of deer. And lots of hunters.

I am neither. But it is my right as any cabin-dweller to walk around in deer-coloured clothes if I wish.

I am not “asking for it.” I just have a closet full of deer-coloured clothes.

If a trigger-happy hunter then unloads his .303 at my ass, he will go to jail for manslaughter. And rightly so.

The fact I was dressed like Bambi is no excuse. That’s blaming the victim. A hunter is supposed to make sure before he shoots.

But this seems moot, since I’m still dead, my butt shot full of holes. I won’t be able to attend the BuckWalk.

Thus, my advice to travellers on Manitoulin is not to dress like a deer, despite your perfect right to do so.

So what’s the diff with advising women not to dress provocatively in certain iffy circumstances?

It’s not blaming the victim. It’s trying to keep her from being the victim in the first place.

I don’t mean at a nice, friendly rally with 1,000 other women. Or even at most places outside Saudi Arabia.

I mean, say, after midnight in the darker, boisterous corners of Toronto, where booze, hormones, and “male entitlement” often comingle, though every woman has the perfect right.

If the world were perfect, nothing bad would happen to her.

In reality, though, few rapists, molesters and pervs have read The Feminine Mystique or the Marquis of Queensbury Rules.

I’d tell my daughter the same thing.

“But you don’t have a daughter, you fool, you have a son,” a lady friend tells me at The Vic, before disowning me and my male chauvinism.

True, I don’t have a daughter. I’m not a woman. I’ve never even been ogled.

But I still think safety trumps feminism.