I&I on crime

by zAyla weedz

zAyla weedz is a poet & percussionist who recently founded P.M.S.-- Poor Mother's Society of Toronto.

Well, I don't get out much. Perhaps that's why I compassionate with prisoners so much. It really be on my mind to do something about the crime situation here in Canada. I wrote some poems about how I felt about it. That's my calling in life, that's what I'll do about it, I thought. Some people make movies about crime. I write poems. And sing them at clubs, in people�s homes, on the street. Somehow I think I make a difference. That's the original reason not to commit suicide, right? When you realize how connected the evils of our world are. If you know you matter. If you know you are changing it. There is reason to live. Belief is what we live on. What if you lived in a place where dying for your cause made you matter? Ok, enough on that tangent.

What I really want to tell you about is my day today. I�m surprised today that no one mentioned the "threat of terrorism" as a reason to justify the cool million a year on a helicopter. It seems to me that 2001 did that so well, everyone is so threatened right the hell out we are eating each other up for lunch. ("Bring in the fresh babies will you?" I overheard them at the next table.) Lately, I've been getting a free lunch on this couple I got to know while at my annual outing out of the urban squalor I call my scene, the OM festival. I came upon them sitting around the fire at sometime close to sunrise. The woman, who I soon came to believe was a mirror for me in life, was beaming at me. I couldn't believe it when I realized who she was. Anyway, more on her later. As it turns out she is married to this completely crazy guy � the sort that ends up being a kind of guru, in this case an anarchist�s dreamboat, who sailed up the politician's river to become an activist clown. He called me up this morning just as I&I was rolling up the morning papers.

"Had breakfast yet?" he asked, the usual ploy, the only one that always works with me. How quickly he's learned, I&I thought. "Of course not, I'll be right over." I replied.

After a smoke, a stretch and a shower, I spent a few minutes looking for some of their belongings he'd asked for. There is no free lunch. Finally I cycled down the street to their bit of indoor sanctuary. I could smell the breakfast from a block away. It smelled like pancakes. When I got in their apartment the smell changed. They were making rice in the new pressure cooker and a mixed vegetable stirfry that was a bit bland. That's what Ang said anyway. So we put soy sauce on it. I remembered it well as it was the first meal I'd eaten in a few days. The restaurants here are so bad.

Before they�d even given me my own cup of coffee they were on about issues. Tooker was calling it Activism 101. As I stretched on my therapy ball ($15 from me saves you the hassle of going to mallwart yourself to get it and assuages your guilt by giving me a poor mother a tax.) "Helena wants someone to read a deposition at the Police Services Board meeting today," he said. "Well what's the issue?" I asked, having enjoyed the plate of food enough to humour them a bit. "Helicopters. The police want them."

I was to go and read a prepared speech in front of the board. The major issues were noise and money. I thought about how I'd been watching all the children in Duffrin Grove Park, where I hang out frequently with my kid, respond with irritation and panic at the noise of a police siren on a car speeding up Duffrin. Yes I think the helicopter would bother me. But what if they needed it for important police work? The question nagged at me. I just wasn't sure about this activism. Shouldn't I save my activism for an issue I really care about? Sure, I do live near Parkdale though. I suppose if they're hovering over Parkdale, I will hear it. Still I'm more concerned about the Front St. expressway, the Gardiner extension. But heck that meeting was yesterday and I missed it. The smog is already pretty bad here. Let's face it. I guess it's time to leave the city.

I headed home to drop off some shit. Then down Hepbourne to Harbord and through the yoni shaped park behind the Ontario parliament buildings. I thought about Ang who couldn't even cycle through that park for a while since she was arrested without warning at an anti-smog demo against what turned out to be her "at arms length" private sector funder, OPG, and consequently led to her being fired and gaged with restrictions on her movement around the city. I noticed the young students drawing and talking in the park. Life seemed idyllic for them. I thought, you are the new work crew.

A few streets over a nice wide alley brought me just paces from the police headquarters but I turned east instead of west and ended up chatting with a young couple sitting on the steps of a building feeding their young son Harley. The boy looked like he was having trouble focusing but cute nonetheless. His father informed me, as our conversation progressed quickly that a friend of his had gotten six months in the joint for one joint. I couldn't believe it. They also fined his friend $150. What kind of cost/benefit is that? No wonder the police can�t buy their own helicopter.

I locked up my bike at the building and headed in the door. Larger than life, police mannequins dressed in uniforms from days gone by rotated in plastic boxes. I realized looking at the wardrobe that each outfit represented a decade of oppression, and that police really haven't been around that long. I walked up to the information counter and asked where the helicopter meeting was. The towering fatherly male behind the counter leaned toward me giving my bloodshot eyes a piercing look. "Um, I mean the police services board meeting," I said. He directed me upstairs to the right. After a few rotations and some help from the very reassuring ocifers, I found it.

Inside the meeting they were discussing the new facility. Land to be donated by the city. The reasons for the new facility with land from the city were all "smoke and mirrors" said one councillor, a sort of Lucy Loo bipitty bop kinda gal, poster girl. I don't really know what she meant by that.

The next item, a helicopter purchase by the toronto police, was called and the public were invited to speak first. Citizen Tony pointed out that privately raised funds could lead to some kind of corruption. poLL-ice honcho Fanzino later joked the "two tier policing" could be lead by his important corporately-placed citizens who would sit "at an arms length", in reach of his gun that is. And definitely in reach of their chequebooks. Drugs was mentioned several times by the councillors around the table. When you think about it the whole war on drugs is really a war on our rights and freedoms.

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