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Weekend Report
Sep. 9th, 2018 06:11 pm Two anti-Muslim demos this weekend, and two counter-demos. On Saturday PEGIDA Canada met on their usual streetcorner on University and yelled about 9-11, with their usual detail of police guarding them. We helped Antifa with trying to drown them out with chants and block their view with banners for about an hour, hour-and-a-half; then Andrew needed to sit down so we went to get lunch, and came back to find out they’d moved to Nathan Philips Square, and apparently then managed to march along Bay. I’m starting to wonder if we ought to show up later — if Andrew only has enough energy for half the demo, it might be more strategically useful to attend the latter half. Then again, he probably couldn’t have managed the marching anyway.
Today Faith Goldy and the Northern Guard had announced a “memorial” to the Danforth shooting from last month. They were met by an interfaith coalition holding a preemptive memorial, with the local Antifa forming a wall between them and the Northern Guard. I think this counter-demo was probably more successful, because the Guard were trying to intrude on a residential neighbourhood full of people who didn’t want their local tragedy used to bash Muslims. There were a bunch of people there from a Jewish social-justice organization, and what seemed like most of the local United Church of Canada congregation, who’d heard from their minister that morning that this was going to happen and had come with her. All that said, when I went across the street to get a coffee at one point, there were several people in the Tim Hortons talking loudly about how we were all “in denial” about the evils of Islam, so I fear the bubble of safety across the way may have been more embattled than it felt.
In cheerier news — Nana got her check-up and rabies shot and is doing fine.
I am about 1/3 through an SF novel called Pym, by Mat Johnson, which I suspect is *really* grimly funny if one is Black, but which is also pretty funny if one is familiar with Edgar Allan Poe and/or academia, or if one hates the paintings of Thomas “The Painter of Light (TM)” Kinkade.
Also, yesterday I posted another chapter/vignette for (People Will Talk, 1951).
The weather has taken a hard turn into Fall this weekend, though I don’t know if we won’t have a few more swings back to summer heat before it’s settled.
Happy New Year to those who celebrate it at this time.
Today Faith Goldy and the Northern Guard had announced a “memorial” to the Danforth shooting from last month. They were met by an interfaith coalition holding a preemptive memorial, with the local Antifa forming a wall between them and the Northern Guard. I think this counter-demo was probably more successful, because the Guard were trying to intrude on a residential neighbourhood full of people who didn’t want their local tragedy used to bash Muslims. There were a bunch of people there from a Jewish social-justice organization, and what seemed like most of the local United Church of Canada congregation, who’d heard from their minister that morning that this was going to happen and had come with her. All that said, when I went across the street to get a coffee at one point, there were several people in the Tim Hortons talking loudly about how we were all “in denial” about the evils of Islam, so I fear the bubble of safety across the way may have been more embattled than it felt.
In cheerier news — Nana got her check-up and rabies shot and is doing fine.
I am about 1/3 through an SF novel called Pym, by Mat Johnson, which I suspect is *really* grimly funny if one is Black, but which is also pretty funny if one is familiar with Edgar Allan Poe and/or academia, or if one hates the paintings of Thomas “The Painter of Light (TM)” Kinkade.
Also, yesterday I posted another chapter/vignette for (People Will Talk, 1951).
The weather has taken a hard turn into Fall this weekend, though I don’t know if we won’t have a few more swings back to summer heat before it’s settled.
Happy New Year to those who celebrate it at this time.
