Tamil mania

When Toronto's Tamil community shut down Toronto's University Avenue to protest at the American consulate, I thought, oh please, you silly people. Not only were the Americans unlikely to do anything but waving the flag of the Tamil Tigers, considered to be terrorists by the Americans, seemed to be an invitation for them to view their pleases in a negative light. Then they marched on the Gardiner Expressway and I thought, now the commuters will hold them in contempt, too.

I forgot the cardinal rule: Any publicity is good publicity. Through their peaceful yet annoying protests, the Tamils have everybody in Toronto talking about them. Some of it's negative, sure, but that doesn't affect the long game: getting people who didn't even know where Sri Lanka was to have a sense of the violence that's going on there. It may not translate into immediate political action--I'm not really sure what Canada or the U.S. could do anyway--but it has planted seeds that may bloom at a time when we might want to be more involved in the country. Smart!

Feed from the world

Contemporary Toronto continues to sustain itself in two realities at once, hanging unquestioningly onto its whitebread WASP past until it can't be sustained anymore, then proceeding by committee and consultation into its multicult mode. If the default here is an accident of history, then change is going to be as calculated as possible. After years of hot dogs as our only legal street food, the city has finally varied the available menu.

You can totally hear the debates they must have had: Are all the continents fairly represented? Are two Asian choices okay, considering we have no South American representation (and what a missed opportunity! Empanadas! Papousas!)? Is Greek European or is it more Middle Eastern? Do we offend upper middle class sensibilities with jerk chicken on St. Clair? I say, open it up to anybody with a recipe and a food safety certificate and then close down the losers.