Echo II

I saw you

Across the narrow gravel road

I saw you

Remember that? Of course you don't.


You can't remember anything anymore

I am standing and the ferry is pulling away I am standing and yet I want to lie down I am standing and yet I know that you are I am standing and yet the factories are gone I am standing and yet there is nothing to stand for anymore

I am standing

Seeing you, Cynthia, seeing you there you are wearing that dress that I say I bought you but you say no get the fuck outta here you didn't buy shit it was your aunt Cecile who bought it and I say fuck no that is not true and we are laughing as John says he wants to buy you a castle John says he loves you John says too much but we don't care anymore or at least you don't or I don't or something like

It is all coming down now

Around us

It is all coming down

We have lost you know you know you have lost when we have lost and you are at the meeting and the brothers and sisters are saying maybe we gotta take those concessions but you know those concessions won't change anything we have been making them for thirty fucking years since I was a kid but I really didn't get it then I don't get it now but I am running out of breath I am running out of time I am

You are laughing presents at Christmas you clapped with joy when I bought that and Chris is playing by the window snow and turkey and mashed potatoes and wine and whiskey with your dad and we are throwing snowballs at each other and you are laughing remember that remember laughing I don't but we are in the back yard in the snow and your brother is throwing the football and we are young and we are happy

Cynthia

What do we say to each other now

What can we say

The slipstream of memory carries away everything that was good and just leaves us here I see that sign at the end of Seventh St. and it says that we are building but we are not really are we and the layoff notices came and my locker felt like an angry wormhole with them saying we had to take all of those decades and get the fuck out and I don't want to get the fuck out I know all these people but that doesn't matter why would it matter

I am getting old I tell Cynthia and she knows that because we are all getting old getting old together getting old lying down getting old as it all just washes over us getting old but I never expected to get old like this thrown out are you throwing me out too or is it just the company

Standing at the wall the food truck there ham and cheese and coffee and the bowling nights and the drinks at the Goose and the burgers at Mike's and the trucks heading down Birmingham and the bosses saying they are taking it all away

Cynthia I can never forget us at city hall and the rings I can never forget the jacket I can never forget

Cynthia I

Cynthia I

The playground is empty now stale with memories that reverberate that are hollow that are nothing but specters that haunt my sleep

We were there

I know we were

Cynthia were we there?

Chris is running up the stairs and he is smiling and then he is crying and he is five years old and he is reaching out taking my hand and he is wondering daddy are we really going to die I will miss you if you die and I am trying to tell him that the dead can't miss anyone but maybe they can maybe he is right maybe he understands

Maybe the dead can miss things

Maybe the dead

I don't really want to be dead but I am not sure I care that much I am not sure I am not already dead I am not sure of any of that I laugh and he knows

Cynthia brings the bottle to the pool

Adam is sitting legs in the water but that can't be right that can't be right because Adam

Cynthia puts the bottle down and smiles

Watching the flag flying in the wind at the front of the garage I got up there and put that flag up holiday 2006 I put that flag up so proud I never wanted to take the flag down our country

How many times standing for that anthem how many days passing how many baseball games track meets football tackles that mark the years how many championships and who cares now

I will see you there Cynthia

I know I will find you

Somewhere out across that narrow gravel road

Echo

Stove-top Caribbean Style Braised Oxtail

As any regular reader of this blog knows, I am a very big fan of Caribbean style oxtail.

Oxtail is a delicious meat that, when properly cooked, is wonderfully moist and full of flavour. While there are many ways to make oxtail, the spices and seasonings of the West Indies are among my very favourite.


Today we are going to look at how to braise oxtail stove-top in a Dutch Oven.

To begin, you want to heat some olive oil in the bottom of your Dutch Oven on the burner over medium-high heat. Season the oxtail liberally with black pepper and with salt to taste. Add your oxtail pieces when the oil is heated and brown the oxtail, stirring it regularly to make sure you achieve a consistent browning.

As you are browning the oxtail add the following seasonings to the meat. The portions used were for around 3 pounds of oxtail:

2 1/2 tablespoons curry powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon jerk seasoning
1 tablespoon mustard powder
3-4 cloves of minced garlic

Make sure to stir it all very well so that the seasonings are well distributed among the oxtail pieces.

When the oxtail is browned and the all the seasonings have been added, scrape any bits of meat or seasoning off the bottom so that they are loose and pour enough beef broth into the oven to just cover the meat. To this add 2-3 large pieces of crushed ginger, 2 bay leaves, 1-2 teaspoons of a Caribbean style hot sauce (I used El Yucateco's Caribbean hot sauce) and 1 tablespoon of soy sauce.

Bring the broth to a boil, reduce heat and simmer on the stove-top for 3 1/2 to 4 hours. You want to put the lid on, but leave it slightly askew so that it is a little bit open.

Stir the meat and broth up every 45 minutes or so while maintaining the simmer. While this should not happen if properly simmered, if you feel the liquid has reduced too much you can add a little more broth as necessary.

When finished the meat will literally fall off the bone when pulled with a fork. The slightly spicy, rich broth will serve as a nice gravy to pour over the meat when served as well as any rice on the side. If you wish you can thicken in with a bit of flour after cooking.

This oxtail dish is best if served with rice or rice and peas and goes very well with coleslaw, ice cold beer or red wine.

Enjoy.

See also: 12-Hour Slow Cooked Caribbean-Style Oxtail

See also: Caribbean Style Goat with Potatoes in a Dutch Oven

See also: Michael's West Indian Flavor: Perfect Oxtail in New Toronto

Death of the Sun & other installations at Nathan Phillips Square

After every Nuit Blanche (the night long art festival held in Toronto and many other cities annually) there are often a few of the installations or pieces that are left up for an extended period of time.

This year three large-scale installations were left up at Toronto's City Hall. One is inside the building and two are in Nathan Phillips Square.

All three are are powerful and well worth visiting.

Death of the Sun by Director X is a breathtaking and awe-inspiring look at the life-cycle of the sun and I think it has a very broad appeal due to its combination of scale, science and art.

Pneuma by director Floria Sigismondi is an amazing piece that projects images in motion onto a wall of water spray that is jetting up from the square's pool/rink. It is a technical and artistic wonder.

Ocean by Philip Beesley is inside City Hall and consists of lights dangling from fabric that rustle and move with sounds that whisper at you.

Ocean can be seen today and tomorrow between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.

The other two are night pieces. They can be seen Sunday, October 9:  10:30 pm to 2 am and
Monday, October 10:  7 pm to midnight.

If you can make it out to catch them, they are well worth the trip!

Nuit Blanche Extended Project website.

Ocean

Ocean is hard to capture with a camera and really needs to be experienced. It has a hypnotic and slightly unnerving quality. 

Pneuma

Again, difficult to capture with a camera, Pneuma is large in scale and ambition and the images played off a wall of water spray are very powerful.

Death of the Sun

I cannot speak highly enough of this truly epic and almost overpowering experience. A wild and wonderful representation of the life and death of the sun that forces one to think about our place and meaning in the universe.

Look forward to what next year's extended projects bring.

Visiting Degrassi Junior High in Etobicoke -- Soon to be another casualty of reckless development

Easily one of the most influential, groundbreaking and iconic shows in Canadian history, Degrassi Junior High ran on CBC television from 1987 to 1989. It was a sequel of sorts to the kid's show The Kids of Degrassi Street and was, of course, followed by Degrassi High.

It was way ahead of its time (and even is to an extent today) for a show aimed at young adults and tackled issues like abortion, alcoholism, abuse and other topics that most shows would not go near.

Recently my partner came across this production schedule notice in the back of a drawer in the house we rent part of in the Toronto west end neighbourhood of Long Branch, Etobicoke. It is for the filming of Degrassi Junior High which was at the historic old school house, Vincent Massey Public School.

Vincent Massey was originally Daisy Avenue Public School when it opened in 1929. It is a beautiful, classic early North American style public school with a surrounding green space that has a soccer field and two smaller baseball areas, as well as a small playground.

The school closed in the early 80's (which is why the production company was able to use it) and eventually reopened as a daycare.

Unfortunately the owner of the property, the Toronto District School Board, as part of the ongoing austerity agenda in this city and province, decided to sell this important piece of local history and park area to developers.

After protest meetings and the partial intervention of the city, a deal was worked out that will save the school house and daycare wing, but the green space will be destroyed and filled in with more paint-by-number, bland, cookie-cutter townhouses.

In addition to representing the loss of vital green space, much of the charming character of the place will be lost.

This is a real shame, but par for the course in a city that does so little to preserve its history.

However, construction is still some way off, so you have a chance to come and take a look at Degrassi/Vincent Massey and maybe take a few photos and play some afternoon soccer with friends or your kids before that happens.

And it is just up the street from a terrific Austrian bistro, Sugar For My Honey, nearby what I think are the best chicken wings in Toronto at Sloppy Joe's, and close to lovely waterfront parks like Marie Curtis Park and Sam Smith Park. The 501 Queen streetcar line has a stop at 29th St. just two blocks away from the site.

You can also find Degrassi episodes on You Tube. We have included one at the end.

The iconic front steps! 

What a shame.

The back of Degrassi/Vincent Massey

See also: Marie Curtis Park & Beach -- The Lakeside Parks of South Etobicoke IV

See also: Amos Waites Park -- The Lakeside Parks of South Etobicoke III

The beer can toss was bad. The racism at the Blue Jays game was much worse.

Image from a public tweet by Frank Gunn

By now I doubt there is a person in North America who has not heard about the great Beer Can Toss Toronto Blue Jays scandal of 2016 after some (likely inebriated) twit launched an overpriced beverage at Baltimore outfielder Hyun Soo Kim during the Wild Card playoff game Tuesday night.


It was an ugly incident that could have resulted in Kim's serious injury.


The beer can toss caused much outrage and rightly so. It also caused the city collectively a great deal of embarrassment, especially given that Toronto baseball fans have a fairly bad reputation to begin with.

One group of baseball fans pitched in to buy an ad on Facebook apologizing to the people of Baltimore. Mayor John Tory managed to find a moment to divert from his quest for fictional "efficiencies" in driving down city department budgets to, with his usual clarity and eloquence, denounce the evildoer as a "loon ball". He further noted that it was "just the behavior that was exhibited by one person".

Major League Baseball itself called for the beer can hooligan to be "prosecuted to the extent available" while Toronto police released a photo of the alleged offender and called for him to come forward. He subsequently did, while denying all wrongdoing, and now a section of the internet is consumed by watching blurry video over-and-over again claiming they have identified the "real shooter" as if this is some sad version of JFK or the X-Files.

There is no denying that, while hardly unprecedented in any ballpark, throwing anything onto the field of play or in the area of players during a sports game is serious, stupid, dangerous and boorish and that any louts caught doing it should face some consequence. In almost all cases, given it will usually prove the alcohol fueled momentary bad impulse of someone, this will and should end up being dealt with by a stadium ban and possibly anger management classes or community service, especially as it is unlikely that the person who did it will turn out to have been a hardened criminal.

But seemingly overshadowed by all of this is the fact that several sources reported that multiple fans hurled racist slurs at both Kim and his teammate Adam Jones who rushed to Kim's side and defense after the incident with the beer can.

CBC Radio's sports commentator reported hearing racist calls at the game and you can see fans yelling at Jones in videos of the night.



It is not so easy to try to claim this as simply a stupid or ignorant act by a single fan as, by all accounts, this involved many fans.

Canadians have long liked to believe that we do not have the kind of problems with racism that exist in the United States, and yet racist incidents like the one that happened Tuesday are all too common and institutionalized racism on the part of Canadian police and the Canadian state have a long and ongoing violent and oppressive history.

Press Progress detailed many recent and disturbing racist incidents in July in an article ""Meanwhile in Canada," Canadians are forgetting Canada has its own problems with racism". 

A poll released on the day of the playoff game showed that Canadians were, in fact, significantly less embracing of cultural diversity as opposed to assimilation than Americans. 68% of Canadians said immigrants needed to do more to "fit in" while only 53% of Americans felt the same way. While 47% of Americans said that our society "should encourage cultural diversity", only 32% of Canadians think that.

This should be a truly worrying statistic for those who think a racist demagogue like Trump is impossible north of the border.

So while the focus has been on the search for one hooligan, it really should be on the reality that a number of Toronto baseball fans were quick to use racist taunts against the players on an opposing baseball team, something I think most Canadians want to pretend only happens at European soccer matches.

A person tossing a projectile at a player is very bad, but easy to explain away and relatively socially inconsequential. Many people tossing hateful racist terms at players, however, is ultimately more dangerous, much less easy for those so inclined to try to write off, and a symptom of something far, far worse.

See also: Black Lives Matter is right -- The police are the oppressor

Right Sector, Liberalism, Colin Kaepernick, Pamela Anderson & more -- August & September on The Left Chapter in review

August and September saw 33 posts published on The Left Chapter. Though that is the lowest number for any two month period, again the same period saw the highest number of hits for any two month period in our history!



Our top post for the month was one of the most widely read and shared in our history.

Thanks again to all our readers and contributors.

Without any further ado the top six posts from the two months, in terms of hits, are:

1)  What is far-right organization Right Sector doing marching in Toronto's Ukrainian Festival Parade?

Toronto's Ukrainian Festival is an annual celebration of Ukrainian culture and food that takes place on Bloor St. W. and that draws large crowds looking to enjoy some traditional song and dance, perogies and all the other things that get people out to festivals. The organizers say it is the world's largest such festival.

Read More! 

2) Viral photo of North Dakota Pipeline Protest is 100% FAKE. Stop sharing it.

A photo is going viral on Facebook that purports to show the Standing Rock Pipeline protest in North Dakota.

It was posted by someone named Tyler Eldridge and is getting thousands of shares every few minutes, standing at near 200,000 shares at the time of this post.

Read More! 

3) Obama, Trudeau & Clinton -- Feeling good about the lies of liberalism

Do you remember this moment?

That time when newly minted President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for absolutely nothing other than having won an election in the wake of the George Bush apparent catastrophe and for having given nice speeches about "hope", closing down Guantanamo and supposedly taking the US in a new direction that would be a departure from the death dealing of the past.

Read More!

4) It was not the American military that fought for democracy and justice. The people -- and people like Kaepernick -- did that.

No American soldier in decades has died for anyone's rights or for "democracy".

Period.

This is a total crock and an American fantasy.

Read More!

5) Is May about to repudiate member democracy and tank her own Green Party?

Something very troubling, it seems, is afoot in the Canadian Green Party.

Read More!

6) Pamela Anderson is not the porn 'hypocrite', so-called leftist and progressive porn supporters are

By now you have likely heard that Pamela Anderson -- so often derided as some kind of joke -- has taken a, supposedly, surprising and strong stand against pornography.

For this she has been attacked with the usual ridicule of the "freedom" wing of liberalism's useful idiots as some kind of "hypocrite".

Read More!

Although published originally in June, Canada Post's 'problems' are driven by the neo-liberal assault on public services was widely shared again when a lockout appeared to be imminent and would have been third on this list had it been from the period.

The top food post was Sugar For My Honey - An Exceptional Austrian/German Bistro-Cafe in South Etobicoke (in fact it was one of the most widely read food posts we have ever published).

Do you have a left point-of-view or opinion, a recipe or a story you want to share?

Send them to The Left Chapter via theleftchapter@outlook.com!

See also: Black Lives Matter, Canada Post, Tory Austerity & more -- June and July on The Left Chapter in review

See also: NDP "Democracy", Ontario Liberal Injustices, Etobicoke Thrift Shops & more -- April and May on The Left Chapter in review

Is 'strategic voting' for Clinton actually strategic?

Electoral map as of Sept.29th via The Economist

Is strategic voting for Hillary Clinton actually strategic?

I have written before about why I feel that leftists should "not buy into mainstream narratives about voting" and should reject "lesser of evil" narratives in all cases. (And this article did also, in part, touch on the question above).

But, as the election in the United States nears, more-and-more commentators and activists faced by the possibility of a Trump presidency are calling, yet again, for voting for a Democrat, Hillary Clinton, "strategically" in order to allegedly stop him. This includes commentators that I greatly respect like Shaun King, who has penned what is perhaps the best article calling for voting to stop Trump I have read to date, even though he is a columnist for a New York newspaper in a state where doing so is totally unnecessary, a point to which I will return.

If you are a person who actually thinks Clinton winning would be a good thing for the world and the United States, or if you are delusional enough to believe that, somehow, this time electing an avowed neo-liberal and imperialist Democrat to the highest office in the land will bring a better result than all the other times, then you really need read no further.

The dismal, reactionary and violent records of the Democrats, Obama and Clinton are there for all to see and we have looked at them in articles on this blog like There is no socialist case for supporting Hillary Clinton, An American Horror Story -- Clinton vs Trump and Obama, Trudeau & Clinton -- Feeling good about the lies of liberalism. Those who try to claim she will be a force fighting for human rights and women's rights internationally might want to read Michael Howard's Whitewashing Hillary: When Lena Dunham and Her Celebrity Ilk Become Dangerous which very effectively demolishes any such inane assertions.

But if you are a leftist or radical who knows that Clinton is terrible but feel that there are, ultimately, 'only two choices' for President and that Trump must be defeated -- even setting aside for the moment whether this is the correct approach morally -- you need to examine whether this is the best approach tactically from a left-wing POV instead of advocating voting for Stein, Gloria La Riva, or others, for building a new party or for simply not voting at all and conscientiously rejecting the whole sham.

For, if you are advocating a 'strategic vote' for Clinton across-the-board without reservation as to where the voter lives, it means that you are advocating for voting for her when in most cases it will make no difference at all.

Having been bombarded by decades of liberal and Democratic Party propaganda to the contrary -- as well as the falsehood that Nader's voters were responsible for George Bush getting elected in 2000 -- it is hard for many to wrap their minds around this as it is assumed that the choice really is Clinton vs. Trump everywhere. But the US President is not directly elected by the popular vote, they are elected by how people vote on a state-by-state basis.

This makes a very, very large difference to where and when 'strategic' 'lesser-of-evil' voting for Clinton actually matters at all and whether the arguments of its advocates make any sense at all.

According to the latest polls and the electoral map put together by The Economist for example, there are only 12 states that are seriously "in play" and a closer examination shows that some of these are more "in play" than others. Meanwhile, the polling website FiveThirtyEight has fewer states being "in play".

But, let us be conservative and go with former breakdown. That means that while in 12 states voting for Clinton and against Trump might actually matter, in 38 states it will not.

This includes New York, home of the Daily News that Shaun King writes for, for example, which both websites list as basically certain to vote for and deliver its 29 electoral college votes to Clinton. According to the FiveThirtyEight her chances of winning New York are 99.2%. She is 99.6% likely to carry the biggest prize of all, California.

On the flip-side, Trump is basically certain to win states like Texas and Oklahoma.

In none of these states, or any of the others currently not seriously in play, does the 'strategic voting' position hold up at all. In these states, to be clear, advocating voting for Hillary Clinton is simply that, advocating voting for Hillary Clinton. It will have no impact on the presidential race's outcome and simply means voting for a candidate you apparently don't really support or believe in.

To date I have yet to hear a coherent argument as to the efficacy of getting behind the Democratic candidate or a reactionary imperialist like Clinton to "stop Trump" in states like these where voting for her will do nothing to accomplish this!

Even if you sincerely believe that Trump is an existential threat, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that you cannot call for 'strategic voting' in the handful of states where it will matter while calling for rejecting both candidates and their politics in the 38 plus states where it won't.

I think we need to stop pretending. When activists and commentators make blanket calls to vote for politicians like Clinton as the 'lesser-of-evils' even when such votes will not have an impact on the outcome, they enable and empower a narrative that has directly inhibited and prevented the emergence of a left-wing alternative to the Democrats.

They play into the false dichotomy the Democrats depend on to browbeat and terrify people into voting for their terrible candidates election cycle after election cycle.

This helps with nothing other than maintaining the status quo.

See also: Rejecting the lesser evil -- Why you should not buy into mainstream narratives about voting

See also: Obama, Trudeau & Clinton -- Feeling good about the lies of liberalism