Enterprises, as great as Eastern Airlines or as lowly as a corner store, will often die pathetically, with no ceremony or celebration of their achievements. Dupont Street in Toronto at the close of the twentieth century is an open graveyard of such industries, most of which collapsed without so much as a pauper’s funeral. Their skeletons lie exposed. They are the parking lots, warehouse loft condos, and retail joints of the post-industrial age: the soulless and struggling Galleria Mall at Dufferin Street, on the site where Dominion Radiator Company once made the pipes that warmed peoples homes; the more meritously recycled McMurtry Furniture factory at Bartlett Avenue, which churned out sturdy pressed-back chairs by the gross but where developers lately spotted a new beauty (and perhaps dollar signs) in rough brick walls and thick wood beams2; the empty hulk of Mono Lino Typesetting, a victim of publishing’s shift from industrial plant to desktop; the Blockbuster Video at 672 Dupont at Christie, where you may rent copies of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times in the very showroom where the Ford Motor Company of Canada sold Model T automobiles that it built upstairs and tested on a track on the roof.3
Indeed, the twentieth was supposed to be Canada’s century, and you’d be hard-pressed to find another street in the Dominion where people worked as industriously to make it so. At scales minute and massive, Dupont created: “Davenport Works, Toronto, builds power, distribution, welding, furnace, instrument, control and street-lighting transformers,” declared General Electric, describing, in a nineteen-thirties-era booklet, the sprawling factories between what is now Dupont Street and Davenport Road, along Lansdowne Avenue. In the illustrations, which include a bird’s-eye view reminiscent of nineteenth-century line drawings which greatly exaggerated the size of factories, smokestacks and even clouds of smoke, G.E. showed eight railroad tracks servicing its smoke-belching complex of buildings and yards next to the Canadian Pacific Railway’s North Toronto line, paralleling Royce Avenue, today’s Dupont Street.
Electrical transformers weighing up to two hundred and thirty tons, whose cores and coils could be hung like mere meat on hooks and jigs from the factory’s beams, were manufactured here. One publicity picture showed a “thirty-six-thousand kilovolt-ampere three-phase transformer” emerging from the Davenport Works on C.P.R. flatcar No. 309926 which, due to its cargo’s height and weight, “had to be routed over more than one thousand additional miles to reach its destination.”4 Such freight may have had something to do with the P.C.B.s whose toxic presence later held up the site’s redevelopment—one price ultimately paid for the utility derived.
Not noted by G.E. was the Davenport Works’s previous lifetime as Canada Foundry Company, whose metal products were poured, hammered and molded under earlier, more Dickensian circumstances, but had more delicate, aesthetic applications. Two fanciful dragons (or “grotesque animals” as the inch-thick, cloth-bound Canada Foundry catalogue called them) once guarded the grand stairway in Old City Hall’s lobby. Part horse, part fish, and dressed in flowing vegetation, they were designed by Toronto’s foremost architect of the Victorian age, E. J. Lennox, and “executed in hammered iron,” here. Lost, then found by a city bureaucrat in an antique store, they are now back near Dupont Street, at the Toronto Archives on Spadina Road, presiding over the entrance to the reading room.
Baboons, both in the wild and at zoos, have societies that are run by females — and that dominance runs through family lines. So the oldest daughter of the matriarch is the rightful heir to become queen.
That’s what happened to Betty, the longtime queen of the 12-member troop who took the reins when her mother, Boss Lady, died.
But troubles began a year ago when keepers noticed differences in Betty’s behaviour, Franke and Dutton said.
[. . .] So Dutton and his staff anesthetized her to figure out what was going on. An exploratory surgery revealed a tumour in her uterus that had spread to the abdominal wall. It was terminal, Dutton said, so they euthanized her on the operating room table on Dec. 5, 2014. She was 16 years old.
That’s when the brawling began.
Molly is Betty’s oldest daughter and baboon society dictates the throne was hers. But she was young at six years old, and not fully mature.
So Putsie, who at 18 years old is the enclosure’s oldest female, saw an opportunity.
As she twirls around a stage belting out Doris Day lyrics, you’d never think Michelle DuBarry is 84.
But along with her birthday this week came the title of World’s Oldest Performing Drag Queen.
Russell Alldread — Michelle is his alter ego — dressed in drag before he knew what the word meant, before RuPaul and before Toronto’s gay community could surface.
“It was all underground,” said Alldread, who moved to Toronto in the 1950s to perform in theatre and ballet, mostly dressing as a woman and in defiance of police.
The news that Michelle is the Guinness World Record holder of that title was announced to DuBarry last Tuesday in an underground bar by Max MacDonald, a friend and the one who nominated her.
“Michelle represents an era that I grew up, the Dynasty era, because she’s all furs, gowns and diamonds,” he told the Star at DuBarry’s local hangout on Church St., Statlers. “That’s what set her apart.”
A young, upstart candidate for prime minister was rousing the support of a new generation of voters. A day before Canadians made their final decisions that eventually saw Justin Trudeau become this country’s leader, another election, in which a new candidate was challenging the old guard, enthralled a thousand-plus voters in Toronto’s Tibetan community. They cast their ballots for representatives of a parliamentary body much closer to their hearts: that of a new Tibetan government in exile.
The distance from Toronto to Lhasa may be 11,800 kilometres, or a 33-hour flight, but Tibet is a constant state of mind for its diaspora. More than 80,000 Tibetans across the world participated in a preliminary round of voting to choose candidates for the positions of sikyong (prime minister) and chitue (members of parliament) that make up the 44-person parliament in exile. The final list of candidates will be announced on Dec. 2, with the ultimate election taking place next March to decide the new leadership based out of Dharamsala, India. It is only the second such election since the Dalai Lama stepped down as head of what’s known as the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA).
Toronto is home to the largest Tibetan community in Canada, and second largest in North America after New York. At the Tibetan Canadian Cultural Centre in Etobicoke, the lineup grew quickly after the doors to the main hall opened, past the colourful prayer flags and giant dharma wheels. A group of older women in dark chuba robes and striped pangden aprons offered Tibetan sweet tea to people waiting patiently to fill out the two forms.
“White is for sikyong, green is for chitue,” volunteer clerk Kalsang Dholker explained to a voter after checking his green book, an official document issued by the CTA, and crossing his name off the list. It’s been nearly two years since Ms. Dholker, 39, arrived in Canada as a refugee, leaving her husband and children in India as it’s difficult for Tibetans living there to obtain family visas.
“We don’t have recognition as a nation. It’s important to feel Tibetan,” she said with a grim smile. “For us, this day to vote, it’s very important.”
To see China’s evolving foreign policy, look to Africa, where a desire to protect economic investment is leading to a revision of the country’s hands-off approach to the internal affairs of other nations.
Chinese President Xi Jinping begins a five-day African visit on Tuesday that he’ll use to showcase China’s expanding role as a protector of regional security, as well as a provider of infrastructure and consumer of resources. China has pledged $100 million of military aid for the African Union, sent an infantry battalion to support peacekeeping efforts in South Sudan and deployed frigates to fight piracy off the Somali coast, leading the country to consider building its first overseas naval resupply station in Djibouti.
“Such initiatives are a clear departure from Beijing’s aversion to military or security intervention in Africa,” Lyle Morris, a project associate at the RAND Corp., said, citing in particular the military assistance Xi pledged in September. “The announcement suggests a rethinking of Chinese priorities on the continent, and marks a recognition that China’s participation in conflict resolution will be an unavoidable byproduct of increased Chinese engagement.”
The moves are part of broader policy shift, as Xi works to build geopolitical influence for the world’s second-largest economy without abandoning a decades-old vow against interfering in other countries. The new approach to Africa -- a major hot spot for Chinese investment -- could illustrate how China tries to strike that balance globally as its business interests expand.
When a globally successful fashion-store chain opens up for the first time in a big city’s most prominent shopping district, it might reasonably expect a rush of excited consumers. But when Uniqlo of Japan opened its first midwestern outlet last month, on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, the reaction was restrained. In its first week of trading, “Some days were busy, others not so much,” says a saleswoman. Many who did turn up were from out of town, she reckons.
Uniqlo did its best to arrive in Chicago with a splash. It took over an “El” (elevated light-rail) train, decorated it with Japanese lanterns and brought over a DJ to pump out Japanese pop as the train travelled round the Loop, the central business district. Chicagoan chefs, cheerleaders, rappers and other “tastemakers” were hired to model Uniqlo’s clothes on its website.
The retailer is performing well at home in Japan, thriving in China, South Korea and Taiwan, and doing not so badly in Europe (though it did close some of its British branches). But America, where it has more than 40 shops, is a different story. Uniqlo has been in the country for ten years, but its presence is still much smaller than that of its main global rivals, Zara and H&M, respectively a Spanish and a Swedish retailer of fast fashion. It is also smaller than two local casual-clothing chains, Gap and Forever 21, and than “off-price” sellers of designer labels such as Ross and T.J. Maxx. Last month Fast Retailing, Uniqlo’s owner, reported losses for the fourth fiscal quarter, mainly because of the dismal performance of its outlets in America and of J Brand, its ailing American denim chain.
Succeeding in America’s fiercely competitive retail market is never easy, for local and foreign firms alike. American Apparel declared bankruptcy in October. Gap is closing a quarter of its 675 shops in the country. J. Crew, an American brand that Fast Retailing considered buying last year, is reporting slumping sales. Abercrombie & Fitch, until recently a rising star, has been struggling. Among the foreign retailers, Mango, of Spain, is shutting all its 450 concession outlets in J.C. Penney department stores in America. United Colours of Benetton, an Italian retailer, shut its last American shop in September. (In the same month Primark, a super-cheap Irish retailer, opened its first American shop in Boston: if it proves as successful as it has elsewhere, it could make life even more brutal for the established chains.)
Japan is the only developed country without anti-discrimination laws. Although the government has long maintained that racism and discrimination don’t exist in Japan, the reality has gotten harder to deny. The rise of Zaitokukai has led to the spread of anti-Korean rallies across Japan, which draw dozens to hundreds of supporters from a radical fringe. They have marched with imperialist Japanese flags, described Koreans as parasites and criminals and called for their death. At one of its gatherings two years ago in Osaka, a 14-year-old Japanese girl told a small group of demonstrators, “I hate the Koreans so much, I can’t stand it. I just want to kill them all now.” She then proposed a massacre like the Rape of Nanking, prompting cheers of approval.
In the last few years, however, Zaitokukai has encountered a backlash. Japanese people have confronted members at their rallies with larger counterdemonstrations, a few of which turned violent. And in an unprecedented decision, the Japanese Supreme Court upheld a groundbreaking ruling forcing Zaitokukai to pay about $100,000 to a Kyoto elementary school for harassing ethnic Korean students after members stood outside the school shouting through bullhorns that children were cockroaches and children of spies. This summer, a Zainichi woman in Osaka filed suit against her company and its chairman for distributing discriminatory materials about Japanese-Koreans at work. And there is Lee’s case: After the online attacks, she filed suit in the Osaka District Court against the Zaitokukai and its then-leader, Makoto Sakurai, for $45,000.
“When I realized that criminal charges were difficult,” she said in a recent interview, “I felt that I had no choice but to take civil action.” In response, Sakurai, whose real surname is Takata, told the Japanese press, “She should take a good look herself at what she said. We plan to countersue her for groundless articles she wrote online.”
Lee is also suing the website Hoshu Sokuho for about $183,000 for compiling what she said are hateful anonymous messages about her and highlighting them on the Web message board 2channel. The case still has a long way to go, and the stress of it wears on her. She is often fearful in public and makes sure no one follows her from the courthouse. Though the harassment hasn’t let up, she and other Zainichi have noticed that anti-Korean rhetoric has become tempered lately. It’s now more common to call Koreans guests than to be explicitly racist and, in lieu of death threats, to complain about the special privileges they supposedly receive.
In a statement that anticipated Donald Trump’s infamous diatribe about Mexican immigrants, Sakurai expressed his concerns about the Zainichi at a 2013 rally near Tokyo. “Many Japanese are losing their lives because of crimes committed by Korean residents. Murder. Robbery. Arson. We are just saying that people who don’t like Japan should go back to their own country. What part of that is hate speech?” he said. More recently, a Zaitokukai spokesman claimed to be unaware of the extreme tactics often employed by the group, saying, “That Zainichi are discriminated against is a delusion.”
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is temporarily suspending comments on its online stories about indigenous people, after its editors determined that too many comments were being posted that it deemed “off the mark” or “racist.”
In an online note to readers, the CBC’s acting director of digital news said that comments on those stories will be barred until editors can review moderation procedures.
“While there are a number of subjects and groups of people who seem to bring out higher-than-average numbers of worrisome comments, we find ourselves with a unique situation when it comes to indigenous-related stories,” wrote Brodie Fenlon.
“We’ve noticed over many months that these stories draw a disproportionate number of comments that cross the line and violate our guidelines. Some of the violations are obvious, some not so obvious; some comments are clearly hateful and vitriolic, some are simply ignorant. And some appear to be hate disguised as ignorance (i.e., racist sentiments expressed in benign language).”
CBC uses third-party moderators to monitor comments. Still, Mr. Fenlon said in an interview, “We do see people who use language that, on the surface, if you’re a moderator and you’re not familiar with the story, it might not stand out to you as a racist comment, but in the context of the story it becomes obvious what it is, even though it’s almost disguised.”
One of the most prominent stains on the reputation of the much-mythologized Reagan administration was its response, or lack of response, to the AIDS crisis as it began to ravage American cities in the early and mid-1980s. President Reagan famously (though, not famously enough) didn’t himself publicly mention AIDS until 1985, when more than 5,000 people, most of them gay men, had already been killed by the disease. Filmmaker Scott Calonico’s new documentary short, When AIDS Was Funny, exclusively debuting on VF.com, shows how the Reagan administration reacted to the mounting problem in chilling fashion. Not even Reagan’s appointed mouthpiece, notorious press secretary Larry Speakes, had much to say about the crisis beyond derisive laughter.
Using never-before-heard audio tapes from three separate press conferences, in 1982, 1983, and 1984, When AIDS Was Funny illustrates how the reporter Lester Kinsolving, a conservative (and not at all gay-friendly) fixture in the White House press corps, was consistently scoffed at when he posed urgent questions about the AIDS epidemic. With snickering, homophobic jokes and a disturbing air of uninterest, Speakes dismisses Kinsolving’s concerns about the escalating problem. “Lester was known as somewhat of a kook and a crank (many people still feel the same way),” says Calonico. “But, at the time, he was just a journalist asking questions only to be mocked by both the White House and his peers.”
What Calonico has compiled, juxtaposing the deeply troubling audio with images of AIDS patients at Seattle’s Bailey-Boushay House in the 1980s, is an infuriating summation of the Reagan administration’s fatal inaction in confronting a generation-defining tragedy. Watch the concise, damning short above, but be warned: it will make you angry.
Lester Kinsolving: Does the president have any reaction to the announcement by the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta that AIDS is now an epidemic in over 600 cases?
Larry Speakes: AIDS? I haven't got anything on it.
Lester Kinsolving: Over a third of them have died. It's known as "gay plague." [Press pool laughter.] No, it is. It's a pretty serious thing. One in every three people that get this have died. And I wonder if the president was aware of this.
Larry Speakes: I don't have it. [Press pool laughter.] Do you?
Lester Kinsolving: You don't have it? Well, I'm relieved to hear that, Larry! [Press pool laughter.]
Larry Speakes: Do you?
Lester Kinsolving: No, I don't.
Larry Speakes: You didn't answer my question. How do you know? [Press pool laughter.]
Lester Kinsolving: Does the president — in other words, the White House — look on this as a great joke?
Larry Speakes: No, I don't know anything about it, Lester.
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