Vimeo of the Day: Seattle and the Pacific Northwest

By Michael J.W. Stickings

With winter descending with a vengeance on the Toronto area, and on so much of eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S., one thing is clear to me: I hate winter. Maybe that makes me something less of a Canadian than I ought to be, but, honestly, I'd prefer to live in a more temperate climate.

I'm not saying I don't like eastern Canada, or Toronto in particular, and, also honestly, I have nothing if not a deep and abiding connection to this place, to parts of Canada that get quite cold, whether it's Toronto or Prince Edward Island, which I love so much, or Montreal, where I spent most of my childhood, or to the northeastern U.S., to New Jersey and New York and Massachusetts, where I spent most of my teenaged and college years, but at this time of year, with another long winter ahead of us, that connection becomes a tad tenuous.

So, then, why not the Pacific Northwest? Seattle and Portland seem like wonderful cities, it's a lovely and beautiful part of the world, I really like wine (and especially Pinot Noir) from Washington and Oregon, there's a great micro-beer culture, it's a fantastic place for unpretentious foodies, and well, the climate generally appeals to me. A bit too much rain, perhaps, but whatever. I can deal with that.

And yet I've never been there. Alas. But this nice video reminds me that it's high on my list, and that even if I never live there I really must spend some quality time there. So from a frigid, snow-draped Toronto, I offer this, described as such:

They say it's gloomy, it's cloudy, it's wet, I say it's paradise. I've been in The Pacific Northwest about three years now and have fallen head over heels for the place.

Maybe so, Larry, maybe so.

Seattle and the Pacific Northwest from Larry Gorlin on Vimeo.

Tower of Power at the Toronto Jazz Festival -- July 1, 2012

By Richard K. Barry

The keyboard player in our band, a very knowledgeable guy, just let me know that Tower of Power will be playing at the Toronto Jazz Festival this year. They're at Nathan Phillips Square, which means they'll be in a tent set up at City Hall on Sunday, July 1, 8:00 p.m. Hey, you might be near Toronto on that day. Who knows?

They are one of the top horn bands in the world, and I love horn bands, being in one myself.

Well, I'm excited.

Here's a clip of a song called "Only So Much Oil in the Ground."

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Toronto's CN Tower

By Richard K. Barry

I have lived in Toronto for most of the past 32 years. It's my adopted home, after having been born and raised just north of New York City. While I consider myself, culturally, an American, I carry dual citizenship and feel a great deal of affection for Canada and my city.

Many cities have a clear landmark with which they are identified. Toronto has the CN Tower, this massive urban phallic symbol. I see it every day, so I thought I might do a little research.

Having arrived in the country five years after it was completed, I only know Toronto with this huge structure as a part of the landscape.

It is 1,815.4 feet high (553.33 metres). They used to say it was the world's tallest free-standing structure. I don't know is that is still true. I seem to recall that there are controversies about this.

Once upon a time, not recently, I walked up the beast as part of a United Way fundraiser. I will never do that again.

Just to get a couple of facts straight: construction on the tower was completed on February 22, 1974. The antenna was completed on April 2, 1975. It was opened to the public on June 26, 1976. The official opening was on October 1, 1976. It took approximately 40 months to finish. At the time, it cost $63 million to build.

Why was the CN Tower built, you may ask? According to this helpful website:

In the 1960s, Toronto's growing skyline created problems for radio and television transmission because the pre-skyscraper transmission towers were simply not high enough to broadcast over the buildings. The prime function of the Tower is a telecommunications hub and several Canadian radio and television channels broadcast from there.

There. I just learned something about my hometown. Oh, and the "CN" in the name stands for Canadian National, the railway company that built the tower. That I already knew.

If you ever find yourself in Toronto, just remember that the CN Tower is on Lake Ontario, therefore, south of the downtown. That fact might help you if you get lost.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Terrifying Canadians

By Mustang Bobby

Here's another entry in the Not From The Onion files:

TORONTO — Former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney has cancelled an April appearance in Toronto citing concerns Canada is too dangerous.

"He felt that in Canada the risk of violent protest was simply too high," said Ryan Ruppert, president of promotions company Spectre Live Corp., which had booked Mr. Cheney for an April 24 appearance at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

"They specifically referenced what happened in Vancouver," Mr, Ruppert added.

In September, Mr. Cheney was speaking at a private club in Vancouver when protesters massed outside the front door harassing ticket holders and in one instance, choking a security guard.

The former vice-president was reportedly held inside the building for more than seven hours as Vancouver Police in riot gear dispersed the demonstrators.

Cheney, who along with former President George W. Bush remains unpopular in Canada, had been slated to talk about his time in office and the current U.S. political landscape.

"God forbid there was ever an emergency," said Ruppert, noting Cheney's history of heart problems.

Yeah, some hoser might sneak up on him and yell "Boo!"

Do I really have to defend our friends in the True North? I know it's a stereotype that the Canadian people are the nicest people on the planet, but that's because it's basically true. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that while they are a strong and free people with a national pride second to none -- and a lot to be proud of -- they don't go around like a big bully presuming to know best how to run everyone else's business.

The only reason Mr. Cheney is afraid to go to Toronto is that he won't be treated with the sycophantic slobbering that he's used to from his toadies here in the U.S.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Photo of the day: Winter in Toronto (not this year)

By Richard K. Barry

We're not having much of a winter in Toronto this year, not that this bothers me that much, but maybe a little. I've been here over 30 years and can't remember a season with so little snow.

Anyway, just as a reminder, I found this shot of one of the city's iconic streetcars from a winter past. 

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

The Big Trouble Band at the El Mocambo, just like the Stones and Marilyn Monroe

By Richard K. Barry

A couple of weeks ago, our band, The Big Trouble Band,  got to be a part of a benefit concert at the El Mocambo in Toronto. (Watch the video below.)

In addition to being around forever, the "Elmo," as it's called locally, is probably best known for hosting two Rolling Stones shows on March 4 and 5, 1977, that were recorded for release on the band's Love You Live album.

The website for the bar lists a number of acts that appeared there over the years, including Marilyn Monroe in 1958. I have no idea what that would have been all about. Other acts listed include April Wine (1977), Elvis Costello (1978), DEVO (1978), Lou Reed (1979), U2 (1980), Duran Duran (1981), Stevie Ray Vaughan (1983), and The Guess Who (1984). A few jazz greats are also on the list, like Grover Washington Jr. and Charles Mingus.

You won't be surprised that a club that's been around since the 19th century has had its ups and down, but it's not every band that gets to say they played the same bar as The Rolling Stones.

The benefit was a fun thing to do and for a worthwhile cause, United Way. For what it's worth, and it's not worth much, we won the "Battle of the Bands" that night, which was a "battle" among bands who have members employed by the Ontario Public Service, as I am. I'm in the middle of the horn section above on tenor sax.

Hey, we're all a bunch of people with day jobs, but you've got to take these moments when they come. So we did, and it was fun. This is the whole group taking a bow after our set. Rock and roll!

The Big Trouble Band
Dave de Launay, Frank Rooney, Jonathan Ison, Chris Watson,
Wayne Smith, Richard Barry, Rosemary Bennett

And here's a clip from that night's performance, an original called "Homeless Man":

 
(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Downchild Blues Band

Music on Sunday @ The Reaction

By Richard K. Barry 

I saw a documentary last week about the Toronto-based Downchild Blues Band. It was, appropriately enough, called Flip, Flop and Fly: 40 Years of the Downchild Blues Band.

What may make this fact more interesting for Americans is that Dan Ackroyd, of Saturday Night Live fame, and movies and other television programs, narrated the film in part because he has been a friend of the group for a long time but also because he patterned the Blues Brothers act that he John Belushi perfected on Downchild. The nucleus of the group had for many years been brothers Donny and Hock Walsh, and it would be easy to see that Belushi borrowed from Hock, who died on New Year's Eve, 1999, not that that's particularly significant.

Ackroyd is quite clear that he and Belushi conceived the Blues Brothers after listening to Downchild. And I'm sure it didn't hurt Downchild's bank account that Ackroyd and Belushi recorded some of their tunes. Sure, the Saturday Night Live alumni were a stage act and not primarily a blues band, but anything that gets the music out there to a wider audience and helps other musicians get work is usually fine with me.

So here's a clip of Downchild doing "Sleep Alone" at Albert's Hall, which used to be upstairs at the Brunswick House in Toronto. Hock is singing. Donny is on guitar. The makeup of the band has changed a lot over the years, but they have always been, and continue to be, what you would call a "working blues band," constantly gigging.

And for no apparent reason, here's a clip of the Blues Brothers doing "Hey Bartender." It's a 1978 live performance. Nice. They always had a great band with them.

(Cross-posted to Music Across the 49th.)

Vandalism, violence, and deficit reduction: Thoughts on the G20 Summit in Toronto

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I spent the past several days well away from Toronto's downtown core, well away from the G20 protest areas, well away from the security net that effectively divided the city into two. I used to live downtown, near the University of Toronto, and I still work downtown, in a high-security area, but I now live in the suburbs east of the city. I didn't ignore what went on, though. I couldn't. It was all over the news, scenes of a police car on fire, of protesters crowding the streets, of police in riot gear, of the security fences, of vandalism and violence, of tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets, of mayhem much unlike what we are used to here in Canada.

And, in general, my feelings are mixed.

While I do not approve of the vandalism and violence, and while I think that the confrontational methods used by some of the more extreme protesters are counter-productive, I tend to sympathize at least somewhat with some of the prevailing views among the protesters. It's not that I'm anti-capitalist, it's that I object to decisions affecting the very fate of our planet being made inside a security fortress. There is security on Capitol Hill, yes, as well as on our Parliament Hill in Ottawa, but those bodies are democratic. The G20 isn't. The leaders were elected democratically, for the most part, but their deliberations were anything but democratic.

Write the protesters off as "thugs," like Prime Minister Harper did, or anarchists, which some of them are, but their anger and frustration are reflections of something much deeper than anti-government opportunism. Look past the vandalism and violence and what you find is an understandable hostility towards the status quo, along with serious objections to the policies imposed on the world's billions by the leaders of the wealthiest nations.

What did this summit accomplish, after all? Did these leaders agree to do something about poverty, genocide, or climate change? No. They basically just agreed to a set of neo-liberal (a label I dislike but will use for lack of anything better) principles centered around balanced budgets. You can read the G20 statement here if you like. The primary goal is "a full return to growth with quality jobs, to reform and strengthen financial systems, and to create strong, sustainable and balanced global growth," and the most significant agreement was to cut deficits, with government debt "at least stabilized or on a downward trend by 2016," according to Harper. The commitment is voluntary, with an exemption for Japan, which faces serious fiscal problems, and concerns from the U.S., which, under Obama, is (rightly) focused more on economic stimulus than on deficit reduction.

But how to cut deficits? Some countries will do so through tough austerity measures, as the new government in the U.K. has already initiated. Given that raising taxes is often not a viable political option (and it should be noted that many of those in attendance at the summit the leaders of conservative governments, and hence not so inclined towards tax increases: Harper, Cameron, Merkel, Berlusconi, Sarkozy, etc.), the likeliest way to reduce deficits is to cut spending on social programs. And that means disproportionately harming those who need those programs the most, the poorest and neediest citizens of the G20 nations, those without a voice in Toronto, inside the security fortress, those for whom many of the protesters were speaking.

To be fair, the G20 statement does make reference to "providing social protection to our citizens, particularly our most vulnerable," as well as to "supporting the poorest countries during the crisis," but the focus is clear, and I think C&L's Ian Welsh got it right:

It's really, really simple. The rich crashed the world economy. They were bailed out, with their wealth having almost entirely recovered and corporate profits likewise have pretty much recovered. Now, at the G20, the world's leaders are discussing how to make regular people pay for the rich's follies.

The world's developed countries have built extensive public health systems, promised citizens a paycheck for life and erected a welter of protections around some industries and types of jobs. Now their leaders are conferring over a singular dilemma: how to take some of it back without undermining the economies they are trying to sustain.

You notice that somehow, no one is talking about going back to 1950's levels of progressive taxation, with a top rate around 90%. No, what they're talking about is making the middle class and the poor pay for the sins of the rich.

The key thing here to understand is this: there is no crisis for the rich or corporations anymore, therefore as far as they are concerned, there is no crisis.

*****

At the G20, today, what is being discussed is how to take away what's left of your economic future. Ordinary Americans didn't see a pay raise in the last decade. Not only won't they see one this decade, they'll take a loss, and now even the European experiment in taking care of the population is on the chopping board.

This is your future being decided, and no, they don't think you have a say in it.

And that's part of the problem. You don't. Which is not to say that governments shouldn't pursue fiscal sanity, or to suggest that the G20 leaders don't care at all about "ordinary" citizens, but the fact is, there's a massive disconnect between the priorities of the G20 nations and the priorities of the vast majority of their citizens -- and the priorities of the vast majority of people in the world's wealthiest countries weren't under discussion in Toronto, not in any meaningful way.

Even here, even in the biggest city in one of the world's richest and most privileged countries, a city of massive wealth, you find people living in cardboard boxes or sleeping on heating grates. Go just a few blocks from the security fortress and you find poverty, misery, despair. As anywhere else, you find people struggling to make ends meet, to pay the bills, to put food on the table, to take care of their children. You find people just trying to get by, people trying to deal with an economic crisis that they still feel even while their elected leaders talk about slashing social programs and multi-national corporations rack up profits in the billions. You find people for whom the G20 Summit meant nothing, even if, in the long run, and even if the economy improves in macro terms, it may bring them more pain.

And, again, what of climate change, of oppression and genocide, of human rights, of any other issue that may resonate with the "ordinary" citizens who were shut out of the summit? Nothing. Deficit reduction was the name of the game, that and protecting the interests of the global oligarchy that pulls the strings while the rest of us are silenced.

Really, is it any wonder there was such rage on the streets of Toronto over the weekend? Is it any wonder that those who are shut out, even in a supposed democracy, want to have their voices heard?

And it is any wonder the police cracked down to prevent those voices from being heard? As The New York Times reported:

An escalation of aggressive police tactics toward even apparently peaceful protests at the Group of 20 summit meeting led to calls for a review of security activities.

After allowing a small group of people to burn police cars and smash windows unimpeded on Saturday afternoon, many of the 20,000 police officers deployed in Toronto changed tactics that evening and during the last day of the gathering.

There was a notable increase in both the numbers of police officers who surrounded demonstrations as well as more use of tear gas and rubber or plastic bullets. At the same time, there was a visible drop in the number of demonstrators in the city streets.

As a result, the violence by some demonstrators that marred the opening of the Group of 20 meeting did not reappear on Sunday, and more than 600 people were arrested Saturday and Sunday.


"Civil liberties are in rough shape today," said Nathalie Des Rosiers, the general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which had two of its observers arrested and detained. "We will have to have some accountability for what is going on."

In a statement, the Canadian branch of Amnesty International called on governments to review the security measures made for the meeting, including a temporary suspension of various civil liberties in the portion of this city's downtown near the meeting site. 

It's all well and good that there's free speech, and that's essential, but the real issue here, and it explains much of the rage and outrage, is that too many voices are simply shut out of the conversation entirely. After all, you can protest all you like, but they won't hear you and don't care to hear you. It's like banging your head against some mad bugger's wall, as Roger Waters put it in a different context.

And so what can you do? Thankfully, most of the protesters behaved peacefully. Again, I won't go so far as to condone vandalism and violence. And perhaps some consideration will be given to alternative views once democratic parliaments, as opposed to a summit of world leaders, take up the issues at hand. But when you see that you've been shut out, that your leaders have erected security fences to keep you back and brought in scores of police to keep you down, maybe, just maybe, you want to lash out. To me, the story is not just that so many protesters demonstrated peacefully but that so few expressed their rage openly. "Ordinary" citizens, after all, those without a seat at the table, are justified to feel disenfranchised and disconnected, as well as to be discontented with the conditions under whey they are governed.

Much of the focus in the media will continue to be on the vandalism and violence, and on the clashes between police and protesters, but there is much more to what happened than that, and it was all about so much more than that. Sometimes people just want to be heard, after all, and sometimes, even in a democracy, especially with their leaders ignoring them and seemingly taking their very democracy from them, people have to take to the streets.

Out and about, with thoughts on the NFL in Toronto

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Alas, it's been a quiet day here at The Reaction. I was out pretty much the entire day and then came home and watched some of the Bills-Jets game from... Toronto?

Yup, the game was right here in T.O., at the Rogers Centre, and it was both a miserable game and, from what I could tell, a miserable atmosphere, and I feel sorry for Bills fans, and for the Bills themselves, that they have to put up with one regular-season home game a year away home as part of this stupid "Bills in Toronto" series, all so that Ralph Wilson can pocket some extra cash. Toronto would probably make a decent NFL city, for its own team, but these Bills games are just trendy events for some and a forgettable shows for others. It was sellout, I think, but I heard that tickets were on sale on the secondary market for less than face value, and the whole thing just smacked of corporate phoniness, just like last year. Most people I know either didn't know the game was in Toronto or didn't care, and I think it's fair to say that most people in the city just ignored it. (The Leafs played tonight, after all, and that's of much greater interest than a heavily marketed and overhyped game with Buffalo as the "home" team.)

It's bad for the Bills, bad for the NFL, and bad for this great city, and, honestly, I'm embarrased by it.

Anyway...

We'll be back tomorrow with new posts. As always, stay tuned.

Smartest Conservative of the Day: David Brooks (for being against conservative anti-Olympic fever)

By Michael J.W. Stickings

For saying this about Obama's efforts to bring the Olympics to Chicago on Meet the Press yesterday:

I have to say, I’m with Obama on this. He took a risk, he comes away somewhat humiliated, but he took a risk for his town, he took a risk for his country, he put his country ahead of his own personal prestige, and he lost one. I actually don't mind it. I think he was all right on this.

I object to Brooks's suggestion that Obama "comes away somewhat humiliated" -- he tried and the effort failed, but not necessarily because of him, and there is no humiliation in losing when the Olympics are concerned (more on this below) -- but, overall, I praise Brooks for coming out in opposition on this issue to so many of his fellow conservatives, including his former Weekly Standard colleagues Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes. (He even agreed, more or less, with fellow MTP panelist Rachel Maddow, who said this: "For them to be cheering America's loss here on the right, I think is sort of disgusting." Because, as she rightly pointed out, other world leaders, including Blair and Putin, have campaigned for the Olympics. This time, "all four finalists sent their head of government or head of state to make the argument.")

Kristol, on Fox News yesterday, accused Obama of bullying the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and he was "amused" by his failure, but of course Obama did no such thing. At The Weekly Standard, meanwhile, where he and Kristol are editors, Barnes pointed to "Obama's embarrassing failure in Copenhagen":

[W]hen an American president voluntarily takes up a fight and loses badly, it's a big deal. Obama could have stayed out. Having the summer Olympics in Chicago doesn't involve the national interest. But he thought the matter important enough to fly to Denmark and make the pitch for his hometown in person. He put his prestige on the line, only to be slapped down.

This is also ridiculous. Obama didn't lose badly. Chicago's bid lost out to Rio de Janeiro's. It would be one thing if Obama had gone to the U.N. and, say, been refused support on a key matter. In this case, he just did what so many other world leaders have done, and do, and only one city, only one big, can win at a time. Did the Chicago bid "involve the national interest"? Maybe not, strictly speaking, but what it against the national interest? No, not at all. There have been financial disasters in Olympic history, like Montreal '76 (my hometown, originally), but for the most part having the Olympics is a matter of national pride, an opportunity for the home city, and country, to showcase its best while the world is watching. (We Canadians are certainly excited about the upcoming Winter Games in Vancouver.) Besides, it's not always about financial gain -- though, in the long run, it may well be that having the Olympics is a fantastic investment in a city's, and country's, future.

Getting back to Barnes, it is simply not true that Obama was "slapped down." He supported Chicago's bid, but the vote in Copenhagen wasn't a referendum on Obama. Furthermore, given the IOC's reputation for, and long history of, corruption and insider politics, is there anything wrong with losing such a vote? As much as a city, as well as a country, may want the Olympics, the IOC has its own priorities, and winning has to do with trade-offs and quid pro quos among IOC members at least as much as it does with the actual merits of a bid. Toronto, for example, lost out on the 2008 Summer Games to Beijing. Was that an embarrassment for Toronto, a great loss for Canada. Were we "slapped down"? No. Beijing won because the IOC wanted the Games to be in China, a huge market. Forget that Toronto is an open, diverse, cosmopolitan city. Forget that China is a brutal totalitarian dictatorship. The IOC got what it wanted, and China got its reward. So it's a bit rich and rather disingenuous for these conservatives to be suggesting that an IOC vote is somehow a significant indicator of world opinion -- and that Chicago's loss was Obama's great embarrassment.

Steve Benen (quoting Paul Krugman) is right: "[A]s a political matter, in light of [the] right-wing ecstasy over Chicago not getting the Olympics, Paul Krugman concluded, 'Middle-aged adolescents -- dumb middle-aged adolescents -- rule one of our nation's two great political parties.' Sad, but true."

If there's anything embarrassing, and utterly repellent, it's the right-wing "glee," as Benen put it, over America's failure to win the 2016 Summer Games. Clearly, among conservatives, with one or two exceptions, party and ideology come before country. And they dare call themselves patriots?

Ecstasy bust

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Last Friday, Toronto police made a huge drug bust in the northeast part of the city. According to CityNews, a local media outlet: "at least 140,000 Ecstasy pills and 214 kilograms of MMDA, worth an estimated $21.4 million on the streets," as well as "a cutting agent, which allows the drug makers to turn out even more pills using a kind of filler. If that had been added, the entire haul could have been worth an unbelievable $40 million." Deputy Police Chief Tony Warr stated the obvious: "This would be a significant dent in the supply for Toronto."

And to make matters even worse: "Two children -- an eight-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy -- were both living inside the house. The lab was in the basement. They've been turned over to the Children's Aid Society and checked out in hospital as a precaution."

Now, I tend to think that drugs such as ecstasy should be legalized. People -- including young people -- are going to take them anyway, and although high-profile busts like this one arouse public attention and suggest that the good guys are winning the war against the bad guys, and reinforce the conventional notion that drugs are bad and must remain a prominent target of law enforcement, it seems to me that the war on drugs, an unwinnable endeavour, should be replaced by a regime of regulation and control -- and education. Ecstasy is bad for you -- and other drugs are far worse. (And it's even worse given the various cutting agents, the other drugs, unknown to users, that are often added to what is a relatively harmless foundational drug, MMDA or MDMA.) But so is alcohol -- and so is much of what we are free to do in a free society. It is education that allows us to make informed choices, including to take calculated risks. If after being educated you still want to do E, you should be free to do so.

Where to draw the line, though? Should cocaine be legalized? Heroin? Meth? I'll leave line-drawing for another time. Suffice it to say that drugs like ecstasy could be legalized and lines could be drawn. This would be easier in Canada than in the U.S. We are much more liberal up here, after all, and it likely won't be long before marijuana is legalized (or "decriminalized"). Other drugs could follow. The point is to recognize that the war on drugs, the enforcement of illiberal laws that don't work, cannot succeed. Once that line is crossed, it will be possible to discuss in concrete terms what drugs should be legalized and how best to do so -- and to begin to educate ourselves (and our children) honestly about the risks associated with drug use.

**********

But back for a moment to the CityNews article:

The oh-so-typical fearmongering is there, too: "[T]here was evidence that whoever was making the pills was designing them specifically to appeal to young teens. They found pill presses ready to imprint pictures of popular cartoon characters on the Ecstasy. 'These drugs are widely available at school dances,' reveals Det. Sgt. David Malcolm. 'They're widely available at raves.' Cops are warning parents to keep an eye out for anything suspicious."

Quite the amazing revelations: Ecstasy is available at dances and raves. (Obviously.) Pills are imprinted with cute pictures to lure in young people. (They all have "pictures" on them. But you think that's why teens take them?)

This isn't the sort of uneducated nonsense that often accompanies mainstream news stories about drugs, and especially the "party" drugs like ecstasy, but even here there is no effort to present any other side of the issue than the unequivocal anti-drug one. There is no attempt at all to educate.

Except this: The article ends with a lesson on "How to Spot An Ecstasy Lab In Your Neighbourhood". Seriously. Go read it. I admit that "[a] strong smell of chemicals coming from the premises or the garage" should arouse suspicion, but several of the other points are dangerously Orwellian:

-- "Tenants who appear to be overly secretive, keeping their distance from neighbours and frequently displaying paranoid or odd behaviour."

-- "Smokers who are always going outside to have a cigarette."

-- Occupants who "frequently pay their bills with cash".

-- "Be especially suspicious if they start to spread the garbage around on other people's lawns to make the contents less obvious."

Yes, by all means, let's all spy on one another and report any and all "suspicious" behaviour to the police. This is what happens when fearmongering trumps education and when a losing war on drugs loses control. If drugs and drug use were out in the open, if they were able to be discussed openly and intelligently, and if drugs like ecstasy were legal, this sort of culture of secrecy and paranoia wouldn't exist nearly to the extent that it does even in a relatively liberal place like Toronto.

Freedom demands much of the free and enlightenment does not come easily.

But the alternatives only keep us in darkness.