{"id":55830,"date":"2020-03-26T03:00:21","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T07:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=55830"},"modified":"2020-03-25T09:52:55","modified_gmt":"2020-03-25T13:52:55","slug":"david-warren-on-the-situation-in-parkdale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2020\/03\/26\/david-warren-on-the-situation-in-parkdale\/","title":{"rendered":"David Warren on the situation in Parkdale"},"content":{"rendered":"

David Warren<\/a> provides a glimpse of what life is like in the Toronto neighbourhood of Parkdale during the Wuhan Coronavirus epidemic:<\/p>\n

Is gentle reader bored with pathogens yet? At some point in the proximate future, death will lose its sting. While there are plausible economic reasons for people to return to work, there is also a dark secret. The most restless society since the invention of restlessness cannot cope with “downtime.” This is what gives me my monopoly on Idleness. Without the “events” which help to distinguish one day from another, we will need to start a war.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Parkdale neighbourhood of Toronto.
Map by Alaney2k via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

Had we books, and to have developed the habit of using them, we might read<\/em> history instead; and even a bit of poetry on the side. But now, at loose ends, we are inspired to do<\/em> something. Also, please note, the doctrine of original sin. I’m a big fan.<\/p>\n

My political dogma has surely been established by now. I am against “doing<\/em>” anything. Fight for a world in which nothing exciting happens, other than the pursuit of beauty, goodness, and truth. Fight relentlessly \u2014 by example.<\/p>\n

Here in Parkdale, Toronto’s go-to centre for the criminally insane, there is always entertainment. From my balconata I can spy several half-way houses, and for variety, a Tibetan temple. The streets get quieter every day, especially the throb of the superhighways. It has been softening, as the economy bleeds away; and there are clear days with no contrails in the sky.<\/p>\n

The “Green Nude Eel” is being accomplished. Superficially, this might seem like a good thing.<\/p>\n

But because Parkdale has been unable to start a war with our bourgeois neighbour \u2014 Liberty Village, where the childless young professionals live in sterilized apartment blocks \u2014 we have had to look for excitement elsewhere. By calling 9-1-1 frequently, the Vallishortensians (demonym for “Parkdale”) are able to keep the sirens blaring, and little knots of emergency vehicles collecting, to no definable purpose here and there. Due to my Scottish genetic endowment, I follow these skits as I would a taxi-meter: How much have we cost the taxpayers today?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Warren provides a glimpse of what life is like in the Toronto neighbourhood of Parkdale during the Wuhan Coronavirus epidemic: Is gentle reader bored with pathogens yet? At some point in the proximate future, death will lose its sting. While there are plausible economic reasons for people to return to work, there is also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[262,1202,91,207,1363],"class_list":["post-55830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","tag-culture","tag-epidemic","tag-poverty","tag-toronto","tag-wuhancoronavirus"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-ewu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55830"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55833,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55830\/revisions\/55833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}