Dec
24
This is an interesting conversation on AJE about the growing militarization of the police. Of interest to people in Toronto because the G20 is part of the conversation. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has granted $34 billion over the last 10 years to state and local police departments to combat terrorist threats and drug trafficking. But critics …
Oct
02
I never turn down an opportunity to travel to the suburbs. While quite a few of my urban cohorts view the regions outside Toronto with disdain, I see them as exotic foreign climes. Perhaps because, unlike a lot of people in Toronto, I’ve never been native to one. I grew up in a village and moved to …
Sep
01
Oct
25
Aug
19
Rob Ford squints at the world through little swine eyes while wearing novelty ties. In a panicked, squealing falsetto, he says things like: ”I can’t support bike lanes. Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.” He …
Jul
02
As I take people like Oscar Wilde, Cicero and Friedrich Reck-Malleczenwen as my models of political dissent, I think it’s important to remember that even in horrible times, especially then, beauty, dignity and basic human decency are of paramount importance. Although they are the first things to become improbable, you must never allow your better parts to …
Jul
01
It’s Canada Day and I usually like to mark the occasion with some flag vandalism, a rant against the nation state in general and this one in particular, and then spend the next six months sifting through a selection of insults, threats and various other comments. I’m not in the mood this year. Usually, my …
Jun
28
On the twitter, I’ve recently heard many people declare that “Toronto has become a police state.” If you’ve said something along those lines, you need to take a deep breath. You are only experiencing clarity. It will pass. Canada has been a police state for years. Over the weekend, we just saw how a police …
Jun
28
Jun
28
Peaceful G20 protest at Queen & Spadina from Meghann Millard on Vimeo. Peaceful protesters sing Canada’s national anthem, riot police respond with force.
Jun
27
In all the hub-bub about burning police cars and smashed up Tim Hortons, we’ve missed something rather important: Our police officers are impolite. Forget enforcing the rule of law, many of these “gentlemen” do not even subscribe to the rules of manners. Just today, I was in Queen’s Park with the wife and there was …
Jun
26
G20 T-Dot from Ryan Oakley on Vimeo. A short video about the G20 Summit (Copstock) in Toronto featuring never before seen footage of my sock.
Jun
25
Jun
23
Jun
21
g20-fortress-new.jpg (1000×1663).
Jun
09
Recipes For Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook: Download as PDF Not sure if I’m breaking any laws by distributing this book, but if I am, it’s probably a good idea to say I don’t condone any of the practises in it. Not even the nice ones or the stuff about turning a bike into a record …
Jun
08
Compare the security cost of Canada’s G8 and G20 summits to those in other countries. Almost a billion dollars to protect the leaders from the people they lead. There is a problem here.
Feb
08
Thank you Toronto Transit Commission. There’s few things I enjoy more than basking in the warm glow of ambient hatred. I don’t know how you did it but you’ve now managed to create an utterly adversarial relationship between yourself and the people of Toronto. (I know exactly how you did it to me.) Even though …
Jan
28
Toronto has recently been panicked by a mathematical anomaly. In the month of January, fourteen pedestrians in the GTA (seven in Toronto) were killed by cars. Proving that the state will always do the exact wrong thing, the police have now cracked down on jaywalking. I spend a lot of time walking in this …
Nov
28
pic nicked from here. A cat was trapped at The Humane Society then no one checked the trap. So the cat died. Its mummified remains were discovered the other day. That happened to me once with a mouse and a live trap. I set the thing then forgot all about it. But that mouse made …
Oct
06
Scotiabank hardly knows how to bank. It should come as no surprise that they can’t throw an artshow. I tried to attend this year’s Nuit Blanche. I put on a black suit, towed along my infernal device and a couple of infernal friends, thinking that there might be something to do or, at least, something …
Aug
16
Parkrotica on Vimeo on Vimeo via Parkrotica on Vimeo. Parkrotica from Ryan Oakley on Vimeo.
Aug
16
This city is as humid and reeking as a hooker’s quiff. And I could certainly do without ever being asked again: “Aren’t you hot in that?” Obviously I am. Everyone is hot. Even naked, they are hot. You know why? Because the weather is hot. That’s why. And I can’t take the weather off any …
Aug
07
YouTube – Smurfy Brown does Michael Jackson. Vid by The Chairman Many of my fellow Torontonians may have seen this fellow. He’s been a fixture on Queen West for years. What the casual observer may not know is that he has a thousand and one names and, if you recite them, he will appear in …
Jul
22
pic nicked from here Our mayor, our unions and our whole government is a fraud. It’s a simple system: The people pay taxes to the government. The government provides services. This is a basic social contract. And yet something has gone drastically wrong. Man was born in a clean room but is now everywhere in …
Although Ryan Oakley began his career as a simple rake (drunk) he has since become Toronto’s most renowned flaneur (no car) and notorious dandy (overdresses). A misanthropic composer of psycho-geographical fictions (sci-fi), he is also a server of food, a tender of bar and a washer of dishes. While performing all these functions with efficiency and elegance (disdain and malice), he somehow finds the time to publicly criticize friends, strangers and cultural crap.
