Condos are not housing.
They are investments. Housing is affordable; investments are designed to make the maximum profit for a corporation. Houses are built to live in; condos are built to make a profit. Statistics Canada tells us that more than 16% of Toronto’s condominiums are owned by people who have several other residences. (I expect the percentage is higher!). Macleans tells us that “most condominiums have been turned into corporations with their own shareholders and boards of directors responsible for multi-million-dollar budgets.” So even if you own your own condo and live in it, your living space has now become a business. Is this a good thing? No.
It’s inhuman.
2. Donald Trump’s candidacy has nothing to do with economics.
The only reason people are devoted to Donald Trump is because they are racist and sexist. That’s what ‘Let’s Make America Great Again’ means. Trump and his followers like to pretend that it’s all about raising the standard of living for the working classes. It’s not. Not only do Trumps economic plans not make sense, but like Adolph Hitler and Rob Ford, Trump’s appeal to the ‘old days’ is an appeal to a gut affection for racism and misogyny. And please stop thinking it’s a contradiction that people of colour and women support Trump. Many learn to love their oppressors; it’s called the Stokholm Syndrome.
3. There are no plays with intermissions anymore.
Yes I’m going to go on about this again. I had to sit through a play recently where they announced beforehand ‘The play is two hours without an intermission.’ What are they, some sort of sadists? The human body and mind are not equipped to sit for more than hour and a half in a play without an intermission. Sure, we can sit thought a two or three hour movie — because movies do not require our participation — the actors don’t know we are there. Our laughter and clapping and listening and crying, our getting up and leaving — is all noticed by the actors in a play. This saps the audience. At the hour and a half mark of the two-hour-with-no-intermission play my friend and I simultaneously looked at our cellphones, because the body knows that an hour and a half is all it can take. You can’t do this to people. Stop doing it. It hurts the work.
4. GO doesn’t get you there faster than a car.
I have a four hour round trip commute to work. This is unacceptable. Coach Canada and Greyhound are for-profit corporations that only now run routes to make money so GO is the only choice for most of us. If you complain to GO about your four hour commute they will say ‘We are not an express bus service, we are a commuter service.’ Right. Then why don’t you have washrooms on your buses for my 2 hour commute? We are paying for GO with are taxes and it’s criminal. Period.
5. You think gay is over? That’s just pretend.
You think Gay men are just like straight men, same rights, privileges and lifestyle? Well let me ask you a couple of questions. Do straight men have GRINDR? Do straight men like watching porn about guys fisting other guys in bars? Do straight men spend a lot of time trying to figure out when to start their AIDs drugs? Is it likely straight men will be arrested for spreading HIV if they are not black? Are straight men worried they are too fat or too feminine to get laid? No? I didn’t think so. We are not anything like straight guys. Gay men would like you to think we are. But take it from me; we’re not.
6. All those movies that say they are based on a true story are trying to convince you that what you are watching is more important because it’s true but take my word for it: just because something is based on a true story (like all movies seem to be these days) does not mean that it’s more relevant, meaningful, honest— because it’s all just the same lie which is the lie that is all entertainment and art, okay, so stop fooling yourself, okay?
&. And finally…
Your Facebook friends are not your friends. Friends are people who you meet with, hold and touch. You have to be able to look in their eyes and see their faces. You have to hug them when it’s cold and feel their tears on your shoulder when they cry. You have to be nervous about
their disapproval in real time (you can’t wait to deal with their emotions at another time; they are sitting right in front of you). It’s called love.
I’m just telling you cuz I think you should know….