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THE BRIDGE

The river that runs through my city
is brown, it's banks strewn
with the refuse of men
living in home-made tents
beneath the viaduct.

For nearly ninety years it has stood,
this viaduct, this bridge;
it's concrete piers dig fifty feet into the river bed,
supporting overhead trains, cars
walkers and jumpers.

In it's eighty-five years of existence,
over three-hundred suicidal lives
have been lost here.
The municipal thinkers decided
enough was enough,

and spent millions to build
a barrier, a luminous veil,
intended to prevent the jumpers
from throwing themselves
into the mouth of the mud river.

A year or so ago,
I saw Michael Ondaatje,
waiting to buy tickets for Baraka
at the Danforth Music Hall.
I wish I had asked him,

I wish I had said,
"Hey, Caravaggio" -
what are your thoughts
on the proposed barrier.
(At that point, it had not been built)

I wish I had asked him what he,
and the rest of the bitumiers -
whose pores contain the odours
of tar and pitched cut wood
from building this bridge -

think of the proposed barrier.
Afterall, the jumpers will find a new place,
won't they?
Building a barrier doesn't quell the desire
to take your own life, does it?

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free"

Johann Wolfgang Goethe

MEL LASTMAN

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love the City of Toronto. I was born here, and I've lived here all my life. I have, buried in the annals of my mind, a multitude of useless information about this town, and those who know me well, have no doubt been made to suffer through "the tour of Jay's life" more than once.

Maybe this love of the city is the root of my hatred for Mel Lastman. This guy is a fucking idiot. Mel was Mayor of North York (a Toronto suburb) for something like a thousand years. One of his claims to fame is that during his tenure, there were no homeless people on the streets of North York. Impressive you say? Not really. All you have to do is go a few stops south on the subway and you'll have more homeless begging you for spare change than you could possibly ask for.
I don't know what Mel did to keep them away, maybe his "Bad Boy" son had something to do with it? I just don't know. My assumption is that the homeless had nothing to gain from being in North York. I mean, all the action is downtown. These people make their livings from foot traffic, so it's not surprising that their favourite places are Union Station, The Financial District, The Eaton Centre. (To name a few) The fact that the homeless penetration in North York is minimal, has nothing at all to do with Mel's effectiveness as a Mayor.

Prior to taking a trip to Kenya that he really didn't want to take, our brilliant Mayor had this to say:

"What the hell do I want to go to a place like Mombasa [Kenya]? ... I'm sort of scared about going there ... I just see myself in a pot of boiling water with all these natives dancing around me."

Obviously, the African-Canadian population was not pleased, and activists and media alike had a field-day!

More recently, Mel has put Toronto on the map with his comments on SARS and the World Health Organization:

" They don't know what they're talking about. I don't know who this group is. I've never heard of them before. I had never seen them before. Who did they talk to? They haven't even been to Toronto. They're located somewhere in Geneva. And they haven't talked to us all. They read the papers and sometimes the papers exaggerate. And that's what's happened right here. And I want -- I invite them. I want them to come to Toronto this weekend."

Note to Mel: The World Health Organization is a 55-year-old agency of the United Nations, and a highly regarded international health body. It has been at the forefront of public health issues around the world, including SARS. WHO officials issued the first worldwide advisory on SARS and have been in close touch with Health Canada since the outbreak was discovered in Canada. WHO officials received a steady stream of information about the SARS outbreak from Health Canada. The WHO is indeed located 'somewhere in Geneva' -- that would be the Geneva in Switzerland.

(Borrowed from The Globe and Mail, Saturday, April 26, 2003 - Page A8)

I could go on for days about this moron, suffice it to say none of us are safe until this guy is gone.

Have something to tell me?
I probably won't read it, but if it makes you feel better to send me an email, go right ahead.
Your thoughts here!

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