To a few irate viewers of WGR’s Dance Party, two Toronto teenagers had travelled down the QEW to commit an offensive act live on Buffalo television. The sight of a black boy and white girl dancing together on an early Saturday afternoon in May 1959 was too much to handle. Rather than ignore the complainants, host Pat Fagan alleviated their concerns. The kids from up north should have known better—as he later suggested, they should have followed the old adage “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”
It began with the best of intentions. Two members of Malvern Collegiate’s student council, Don Schrank and Margo Taylor, felt most of the school’s social events were geared toward the upper grades. With no help from the school’s administration, they organized a bus trip for 46 students, mostly juniors, to appear on Dance Party on May 23, 1959. Among the participants was 15-year-old Clayton Johnston, who played trumpet in the school band and had won several track trophies. According to the Globe and Mail, Clayton and his sister Carol were the only black students at Malvern at the time.
When the “spotlight dance” segment arrived, Clayton paired off with another 15-year-old, Patty Banks. Fagan estimated up to eight callers complained about the interracial pair. He approached Schrank’s mother Muriel, who was chaperoning the kids, to do something about Johnston and Banks. He suggested that it “would be a good idea” if Clayton wasn’t on camera.
Mrs. Schrank was flabbergasted.
Such calls reflected recent racial tensions in Buffalo. Black migration into the city grew following the Second World War, and was accompanied by white flight into the suburbs during the 1950s. Areas they settled into, such as the Ellicott District east of downtown, were subjected to urban renewal plans. An interracial riot among Buffalo teens at Crystal Beach amusement park near Fort Erie in 1956 provided plenty of fuel for the fears of anxious whites. “In the midst of a growing civil rights movement and rising rates of juvenile delinquency,” historian Virginia Wolcott notes in her book Race, Riots and Roller Coasters, “community elites deemed that interracial subculture subversive. To them the Crystal Beach riot suggested that integration was not merely subversive but potentially destructive.” Those fears weren’t alleviated by the rise of rock n’ roll—popular white WKBW DJ George “Hound Dog” Lorenz built a following promoting black acts to mixed audiences, and broadcast live from black clubs.
After receiving the news, Clayton left the studio. The Star noted that he walked for a mile in the rain to “cool off” before returning to WGR to watch the rest of the show in the lounge with a station employee. The other kids were stunned, though it took a while to realize what had happened. “Hardly anyone knew about it until the program was three-quarters over,” Valerie Taw told the Star. “If we had known earlier, drastic measures would have been taken.”
Clayton’s parents watched him and Banks dance back in Toronto, and noticed something was amiss. “Then we didn’t see him again and we thought something like this had happened,” his father Leonard told the Globe and Mail. “Over there they don’t seem to realize that they have a responsibility to allow mixed dancing even if a few of their listeners to call. Only a crackpot would complain.” Banks’s mother called it a “very unfortunate incident” and noted to the press how upset her daughter was.
When assembling a death of the gay Village story, the journalist should be sure to lament the growing acceptance of gays throughout the city and how we’re no longer forced to associate solely with each other. The journalist should take care to use the term “sky-high” to describe rent throughout the neighbourhood, and be sure to blame gentrification for bringing only wealthy gays to the neighbourhood . . . and blame the wealthy gays who move out. The journalist shouldn’t say this directly, but wealth, marriage and having children should be implied to be vices when related to gay people.
The journalist should note each closed or relocated business on Church Street as evidence that gay people don’t support the neighbourhood, whether that business catered to LGBT people or not, or if its business fundamentals made any sense in the first place. All new businesses should be ignored — unless they’re franchises, in which case they’re evidence of the malignant mainstreaming of gay.
[. . .]
Despite all evidence that the Village continues to function like just about any other neighbourhood in the city, the “Death of the Village” story persists as a semi-regular feature — and not just in Toronto — because it tends to reinforce ideas that certain straight audiences and editors already have about gays. “It’s ok to dislike gay people and their culture because they don’t even like each other,” and “the gay struggle is over so we can all go back to ignoring them.”
But all of that is bullshit.
The 519, Toronto’s LGBT community centre in the Village, remains the most important service provider for a diverse community of LGBT people from across the region. Last year alone, The 519 served more than 1,200 queer refugees who were finding their place in a new city, and its services for trans people are becoming a huge part of its programming. Buddies in Bad Times programs an incredibly diverse season of plays every year and still finds time and space for radical, queer, afterhours events. Queer sports and rec leagues are well over capacity. The clubs and bars on the strip are packed all the time — and during the day, so are the cafés. The baths aren’t hurting either.
For the very simplest of analyses, let us assume that the TTC (and by implication the rest of the GTHA) moves to a common distance-based structure. TTC accounts for by far the lion’s share of ridership and revenue, and so its stats are as good a starting point as any. Toronto also contains the largest number of riders who will benefit from or be hurt by changes in the existing fares, and so it is reasonable to use this biggest-slice-of-the-pie for a worked example.
For the year ended December 31, 2015, the total fare revenue collected by the TTC is expected to be $1,107-million for ridership of 534-million, or an average fare per rider of $2.073. [Source: January 2016 CEO’s Report pp 38 & 41]
From the Metrolinx Fare Integration background study, which in turn cites data from the 2011 Transportation Tomorrow Survey, we know that the average trip length is roughly 7.5km including trips that are captive to one mode or transfer between surface and subway, and trips that are local to downtown, to the rest of Toronto, or cross between these areas.
(Methodology: This number can be estimated from the average trip length charts by service type, or by estimating the trip type and length distributions from the chart below. I will spare readers the mechanics of doing this. What comes out of the process is that the average length of a “local” trip is about 4.2km, while a “rapid transit” trip is 8.9km. Averaging all trips gives a value of 7.3km. What does not make sense, however, is that the 7.5km average includes linked trips, journeys that use both modes, while Metrolinx segregates them. This is not the only problem with the Metrolinx data as we will see later.)
This number is in the same ballpark as one I calculated many years ago when the TTC was attempting to allocate revenue to its routes based on distance travelled, and average trip lengths could be worked out from the overall data. (Total passenger miles divided by total passengers gave average trip length.)
If the average trip is 7.5km, then the revenue per kilometre is $0.276. This number would move up or down depending on the value of average trip length we use.
On a purely distance basis, and with no reallocation for special fare classes, passes or other considerations, a 10km trip would cost $2.76, a 20km trip would cost $5.52. and a 30km trip $8.28.
Travelling in the winter can be a pain, it’s also just part of being Canadian. While we complain about winter driving and delayed flights, in most of Canada, year round travel and freedom of movement are givens. If Pearson or Trudeau Airports close because of weather it’s national news.
In northern Canada, the reality can be quite different. In Nunatsiavut, a self-governed area extending across northern Labrador, all travel is by plane. There are no roads connecting communities and, once the ocean freezes, no boats. From November 15th to July 15th, the only way in and out of Nunatsiavut is on 19 passenger Twin Otters. The planes are the local buses, mail delivery, couriers, ambulances and, in the winter, the only sources of fresh produce.
Twin Otters are hardy planes; they can fly in weather and land on rough ground. But there are limits. Many of the communities in Nunatsiavut have rudimentary runways. In Nain, the administrative capital, the runway is 2,000 feet of gravel, not enough for a big plane or bad weather. The runways also lack the signalling technology that guides planes during landing in southern Canada. In Nunatsiavut, pilots must be able to see the runway. In Nain, the local mountain serves as a benchmark: if you can’t see the top of Mount Sophie, no one will be landing or leaving. Without runway lights, the landing window is limited to the short winter day.
From a combination of challenging weather and limited technology, days-long stretches without flights are common. About once a year these stretches extend to a week or more. This means no mail, no fresh food and no travel. The winter of 2014 saw eighteen days without travel. This year has been sunny, but there was no service between Christmas and New Years because of high winds.
For the people of Nunatsiavut, dealing with plane-free periods is part of life, but it affects everything from food shopping to how babies are born. I spoke with Sophie Tremblay-Morissette, who has lived in Nain since 2014. Every summer Tremblay-Morissette takes three days to travel south and buy provisions for the winter. This involves stuffing a truck with non-perishable food, driving to the end of the road system and putting it on the summer ferry, a trip that can cost thousands of dollars.
An Ontario aboriginal community on an island in the southeastern portion of Georgian Bay is in danger of losing its only link to the outside world — an aging ferry the chief of the Beausoleil First Nation says is on the verge of sinking.
Beausoleil, about 5,400 hectares of Ojibwa territory, is located primarily on Christian Island.
The picturesque First Nation, widely considered to be one of the real-life backdrops in The Orenda, the critically acclaimed novel by author Joseph Boyden, is dependent on the ferry, which makes its hour-long round trip to the island and back 14 times a day, seven days a week.
The service is the community’s lifeline, according to Chief Roland Monague, because it’s the only way to access the mainland.
“Our people have to cross day to day to get access to all the goods and services, as well as hospitals, medical appointments,” he said.
Beausoleil First Nation is not alone in its accessibility struggle. The federal government is facing great pressure from a number of First Nations, many of them in remote locations, that are struggling to address crumbling infrastructure.
From the fifth floor of El Alto's tallest building, the city looks like a flat red carpet, with thousands of low brick houses lining up towards the horizon.
Originally an indigenous slum built at 4,000 metres above sea level on the outskirts of La Paz, the country's administrative capital, El Alto has swollen over recent years as people have migrated from rural areas. The change is evident in its panorama, as unusual buildings have started to pierce the otherwise even red expanse.
"In 30 years, La Paz will become a suburb of El Alto," Freddy Mamani, 43, tells Al Jazeera as he observes the city's skyline.
Mamani is the architect behind many of these new "chalets", which with their irregular forms and playful windows stand out from their earth-coloured surroundings. "I want to give this city an identity," he says, "like an eternal exposition."
He quotes the local Aymara indigenous culture as his main source of inspiration: the circles, the Andean cross and the designs reminiscent of butterflies, snakes and frogs featured on the facades are taken from the ponchos usually worn in the High Andean plateau region.
"The Aymara culture has finally reclaimed its role in this country," he says.
Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro moved to increase the military’s involvement in the country’s oil and mining industries with the creation of a new state company that will report to the Defense Ministry.
The military company was authorized to participate in a range of oil services and mining activities including the maintenance of wells and drilling rigs, transport and the commercialization of chemicals, according the official gazette dated Feb. 10 and distributed Friday. It didn’t specify how it would work with state driller Petroleos de Venezuela SA. The Oil Ministry declined to comment.
The decree fueled speculation that the armed forces are increasing their activity in the economy as Maduro battles an opposition-controlled Congress and the oil-dependent country heads closer to defaulting on its foreign debt amid near 12-year-low crude prices. Venezuela’s benchmark dollar bond fell to a record low on Friday, even as oil surged the most in three weeks.
“In 2016, one of the scenarios we’re expecting is the increased militarization of the country,” Rocio San Miguel, director of Caracas-based, non-profit security researcher Citizens’ Control said. “It’s a means to satisfy the military sector. Without doubt, it’s a gesture of loyalty to the revolution.”
[. . .]
“I think that they are setting up a vehicle in case they have to strip PDVSA of its assets in a default or bankruptcy,” he said in an e-mailed response to questions. “The state can take away the rights to the oil, gas and resources of PDVSA at any time, leaving it largely worthless to creditors and protecting Venezuela’s ongoing cash generation from oil sales from PDVSA creditors.”
Although the subject of half a dozen books, including chapters of Australia’s detailed official history of the war, Fromelles has become the subject of misunderstanding and myth in Australia. It is supposed to have been “forgotten” (though it was long remembered as Fleurbaix – the name of the village from which Australian and British troops attacked – rather than Fromelles, which the Germans defended). It has become seen popularly as “the worst night in Australian military history” – a notorious instance in which callous and incompetent British generals sent Australians to their deaths for no purpose.
Fromelles was mounted as a feint to draw German troops away from the Somme and was the first major engagement on the Western Front involving the recently arrived Australian forces. While modern research has questioned the established view of the battle as a complete military failure, historian Gary Sheffield has argued that it nonetheless “further damaged Australian faith in British generalship, already shaken after Gallipoli”.
[. . .]
The reason for the high profile of Fromelles in Australia’s commemoration is that a mass grave, which had been overlooked in the post-war clean-up, was discovered in 2008 at Pheasant Wood near Fromelles where the Germans had buried 250 Australian and British dead in 1916. The discovery resulted in their remains being interred in the first new Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery opened on the Western Front in decades. Pheasant Wood cemetery soon became a place of pilgrimage for Australians visiting northern France in search of Australia’s Great War.
Awareness of the historical context of the battle has clearly informed some British coverage of the decision by the Australian Department for Veterans Affairs to invite only the families of Australians to the memorial ceremony this year. Coverage in the UK has suggested that “banning” the relatives of the 1,547 British casualties of Fromelles, exclusively focuses on the Australian soldiers lost in light of the smaller, but still significant, British casualties.
In response, an Australian spokesman noted in The Times (paywall) that Britain’s own Somme commemoration of July 1 2016 will only be open to British citizens. It’s clear the war’s centenary is being shaped by modern national and state agendas.
But there is an anachronism at the very heart of this spat because – as the military historian Andrew Robertshaw said: “A surprisingly high proportion of the Australian Imperial Force were not actually born in Australia.”
Reclining in the chair of his home office in Farnham, England, Keith Betton says he'd be happy to look out and see one — and only one — ringed-neck parakeet feeding from his backyard birdfeeder.
"I don't particularly wish to have non-native species in Britain," says the 55-year-old, an avid bird-watcher since childhood and vice-president of the British Trust for Ornithology. "If I could choose to never have them arrive, that would be my choice, but they are here."
In London, parakeets are everywhere and their populations are spreading throughout the U.K. and Europe, prompting concerns the invasive species could harm native ecosystems.
Betton, who lives about 40 kilometres southwest of London, says he wouldn't feel dismayed if the invasive birds were to settle near his country home, but he wishes the birds had never been introduced to the U.K. in the first place.
"It's a big stage entrance when they arrive," says Betton. "They are like the person who walks in the room, makes too much noise and then leaves."
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