On a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 being granola-popping tie-dyed hippies, and 3 being black bloc anarchists, the OCAP (Ontario Coalition Against Poverty) protesters on Friday would probably rate at 2. Not outright violent instigation, but prepared to throw a few punches.
You may have already seen the video in which John Clarke bluntly states, “they have given us war, we’re looking to give them war back”, and “things are not gonna to be peaceful”. This speech was given prior to the march and these quotes weren’t taken out of context. Mr. Clarke further urged protesters not to be afraid of the police which, during this protest march, made their presence clear.
Yes, the G20 protests are in full swing and there are photos and stories. However, I have another full day tomorrow and I somehow got myself involved with a Tweet20 meeting (you may be able to guess what’s that’s about).
So, until I get a chance to sit down and do it up properly, here’s the OCAP-led (Ontario Coalition Against Poverty), protest in hastily slapped-together videos.
My favourite was when the riot police came out in formation. :D
After reading yesterday’s post about the harrowing zombie situation in Toronto, you’re probably eager to discover how I escaped completely unscathed. After all, researchers have used zombie scenarios to predict the spread of H1N1, so I believe this information will be quite relevant even after the zombies have retired.
So where did I leave off yesterday? Oh yes, the zombies had me surrounded and I’d run out of people to toss in their path. The situation was getting really ugly:
The great discovery happened when I pulled out my camera and started to take photos. I figured I could record my final few moments for TCL; become the first post-mortem blogger — I believe that would make for interesting content. But it wasn’t to be.
You see, it seems that zombies actually like to have their photos taken. Anyone in the crowd who happened to be brandishing a camera was given a wide berth and, often, cooperative smiles (or menacing grimaces – whatever the scene called for):
And I feel that branding them all as brain-hungry murderers really isn’t representative of the zombie population. Being undead, apparently, isn’t enough to stave off the requirements of the workaday world, but the zombies seemed to take it all in stride. If it wasn’t for the homicidal tendency of ingesting live human brains, they’d probably make decent citizens.
Haha! *insert social commentary here*
Speaking of commentary, who’s tailing the wag here?
A lot of people don’t know this, but Toronto has a terrible zombie problem. Most of the year they’re not really a nuisance; they pick through trash looking for brains and whatnot, but they mostly keep to themselves. But for the past seven years they’ve taken to the streets in an organized march.
Every year they keep demanding brains (like that’s gonna happen!) and better severance.
One of the things that shocked me about the whole thing was how punctual the zombies were. These days I’ve come to expect events starting thirty minutes to an hour late. But on Saturday, the undead were off and moving at 3:30 sharp.
Also shocking is the size of the demonstration, not to mention the aggressiveness of the group:
I only escaped unharmed because of one amazing fact. That I will share with you tomorrow. You see, the march was so prolific, I simply have no choice but to milk it for two whole posts. Besides, some of the zombies put so much effort into the event, I feel it’s only fair to give them a little air time:
One guess as to what this fellow was demonstrating for. Yup, brains. I don’t get it, are they that tasty?
I ran into the coffee shop for my breakfast of last resort, the over-soda’d muffin.
The shop owner (Japanese, I think) registered my order, a “BAH-nana MUPPIN!”, with the cashier. She was young, maybe fourteen, and visibly burdened with an awkwardness that was probably compounded by her own mangled English.
There was something unsettling about her presence in the coffee shop during school hours. That was, until I realized that this is the first week of March break. Then came the super (and much worse), realization that this girl would probably be spending her March break working in her dad’s coffee shop.
To all of you flying south for alcohol-fueled hijinks, allow me to express my disdain. Mostly because I never got to go.
To all of you valiant teenage soldiers holding down the home front this year, and anyone else who doesn’t get a break when, let’s face it, we should all be relaxing, let me raise a muppin top in salute. You do me proud. And breakfast.
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