News   Jan 06, 2025
Concord Sky Rises Skyward Above Its Heritage Walls
 712     0 
News   Jan 06, 2025
QuadReal Revises Plans for 45-Storey Rental Tower in Midtown Toronto
 1.4K     1 
News   Jan 06, 2025
News Roundup for January 6, 2025
 521     0 

Poppies

Hockey's boring....the NHL especially....it's a crass overcommercialised American-ruined bore.


Anyway, I didn't at all have a hard time finding a poppy this year. Do you guys not frequent supermarkets? Every supermarket I've been to in the last three weeks had a collection box at the cash. LCBO? Same.
I got my poppy this year at IKEA Etobicoke. They had two wee ones (like legit 8 years old) cadets (one navy, one air) guarding the escalator from the lower car park. Couldn't not escape getting one unless one had no cash or was a soul-less monster.

But yeah.....where do you guys get your food?
 
SunriseChampion said:
Anyway, I didn't at all have a hard time finding a poppy this year. Do you guys not frequent supermarkets? Every supermarket I've been to in the last three weeks had a collection box at the cash. LCBO? Same.
I got my poppy this year at IKEA Etobicoke. They had two wee ones (like legit 8 years old) cadets (one navy, one air) guarding the escalator from the lower car park. Couldn't not escape getting one unless one had no cash or was a soul-less monster.

But yeah.....where do you guys get your food?
Click to expand...

Not a drinker, so not sure about LCBO. I use the self-checkout at the supermarket (Metro and No Frills) - didn't see any.

AoD
 
Don Cherry is a non-avian dinosaur. I don't miss him at all. He belongs in the Albertan wilderness.

The NHL has among the most socially conservative fanbases in North American non-motorized professional team sports.

I saw a few vets selling poppies in Yorkdale by the entrance (where DavidsTea and Scotiabank are).
 
Last edited:
SunriseChampion said:
Hockey's boring....the NHL especially....it's a crass overcommercialised American-ruined bore.


Anyway, I didn't at all have a hard time finding a poppy this year. Do you guys not frequent supermarkets? Every supermarket I've been to in the last three weeks had a collection box at the cash. LCBO? Same.
I got my poppy this year at IKEA Etobicoke. They had two wee ones (like legit 8 years old) cadets (one navy, one air) guarding the escalator from the lower car park. Couldn't not escape getting one unless one had no cash or was a soul-less monster.

But yeah.....where do you guys get your food?
Click to expand...

Maybe Good Eats, Skip the Dishes and all the other gig enterprises that people seem to love to keep them from interacting with society should start flogging them.

Re Don Cherry - if he had just said he doesn't see as many people wearing poppies and left it at that he probably would have been good, but he had to get into the whole immigrant and 'you people' thing. I think he has sorely tested his bosses in the past but this one was a bridge too far. If nothing else, he is unvarnished; what you see and hear is pure Cherry (my brother used to have a business relationship with him). No back-down. He is a strong supporter of the CAF and vets. I found listening to him painful - Chretien mangled the English language less.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Not a drinker, so not sure about LCBO. I use the self-checkout at the supermarket (Metro and No Frills) - didn't see any.

AoD
Click to expand...

Good on ya. Ethanol is acutely toxic. Metabolises into acetaldehyde, among other things. Every sip of booze is toxic. True story, don't tell the buck-a-beer posse.

++
That's why....self-checkout doesn't have them. Only regular checkout.

Ok, glad to hear you buy food. I was genuinely curious to know why those were missed. I never use self-checkout so I hadn't thought of that.


Re Cherry: I honestly thought he should have been sacked a decade ago. The guy's been senile since I watched hockey (which I stopped doing in 2004).
 
im a Muslim immigrant and my great grandfather was in Royal British India army and died while librating a concentration camp somewhere in a Russian territory captured by Nazis. i think their was nothing wrong with his point but he could have said it a bit differently. instead of saying "you" he could have used the word Canadians or we.

i dont wear a poppy myself because i lose them all the time and i dont like the way poppies are lying on the ground and end up in garbage. its kinda disrespectful . instead i donate $1 to every place that carries a donation box- mostly gas stations, coffee shops, grocery stores etc.
 
ushahid said:
im a Muslim immigrant and my great grandfather was in Royal British India army and died while librating a concentration camp somewhere in a Russian territory captured by Nazis. i think their was nothing wrong with his point but he could have said it a bit differently. instead of saying "you" he could have used the word Canadians or we.

i dont wear a poppy myself because i lose them all the time and i dont like the way poppies are lying on the ground and end up in garbage. its kinda disrespectful . instead i donate $1 to every place that carries a donation box- mostly gas stations, coffee shops, grocery stores etc.
Click to expand...

As @lenaitch said - there is nothing wrong lamenting that not more people wear poppies (though better yet, have a deeper understanding of what Remembrance Day is all about) at all - the moment he brought immigrants into it it deserved to be challenged. Like - immigrants might be new and don't yet "get it" (and even if they do, the experiences and knowledge around the Second World War can be very, very different given the theatre they're in - I know what little conversation there was about that time with my grandparents always revolved around the travails of being war refugees; you wouldn't even know about the allied - much less Canadian war effort unless you are a history buff) - what's the excuse for locals (sic "old stock") who learned about it for years, probably have relatives - distant or otherwise - who had served and still did F-all? They got a pass from him. That's the offensive part of his rant - the double standards, that someone worth need to proven to the likes of him.

AoD
 
Last edited:
In the meantime:

CityNews

toronto.citynews.ca toronto.citynews.ca

:mad: I hope they catch the vandal(s) and exact justice (e.g. 100 hours community service at Sunnybrook) - though odd that the phrase "ye break faith...with us" is drawn from In Flanders Fields)

AoD
 
Last edited:
What's especially galling about Cherry is that much of his lucrative salary is paid for by the same people he is directly insulting. It's a national disgrace that the CBC kept feeding his yammering pie-hole...
(on edit--after being corrected)
...And that it took a private company to finally pull the plug on this shameless blowhard.
 
Last edited:
Irishmonk said:
What's especially galling about Cherry is that much of his lucrative salary is paid for by the same people he is directly insulting. It's a national disgrace that the CBC kept feeding his yammering pie-hole up until now.
Click to expand...

In fairness, its been Rogers (sportsnet) that's been paying for him the last several years, CBC has to wear the first few decades, not most of the last.
 
On the broader subject of poppies....

At the risk of an unpopular sentiment, I'm not crazy about them. I've worn one many times over the years.........but

I've grown to have a dislike of empty symbolism; and of fetishizing one form of death/sacrifice over another.

I fully expect those in the military (or retired therefrom) to pay tribute to their fallen colleagues.

But I'm a little more circumspect beyond that. That should not be construed as anti-military in any fashion; nor anti-history (an area of study for me).

Rather, when Iooking at those in society who die short of a long, full life; why should any one of those be honoured over another, by the population at large?

If the idea is that it was voluntary; its worth saying that a great many of the soldiers in both world wars were conscripts, and theoretically faced jail for not joining the war.......

That doesn't diminish any soldiers or family's sacrifice; but we don't spend the same effort honouring fallen miners who extract metals we all use; or fallen farm workers or constructions workers whose voluntary
efforts are in service of the rest of us eating and having buildings in which to live and work.

I'm not sure why one form of premature death out ranks the others.

Its sad, its tragic, yes we should remember the perils of war and appreciate the values of peace and freedom; though that really feels more tangential to me in Remembrance Day ceremonies than focal.

Regardless, the idea that if one wears a little plastic representation of a flower that was popularized by a 1915 poem one sincerely cares about such things; and if one does not partake of this tradition, they are indifferent strikes
me as juvenile.
 
Northern Light said:
Rather, when Iooking at those in society who die short of a long, full life; why should any one of those be honoured over another, by the population at large?

If the idea is that it was voluntary; its worth saying that a great many of the soldiers in both world wars were conscripts, and theoretically faced jail for not joining the war.......

That doesn't diminish any soldiers or family's sacrifice; but we don't spend the same effort honouring fallen miners who extract metals we all use; or fallen farm workers or constructions workers whose voluntary efforts are in service of the rest of us eating and having buildings in which to live and work.
Click to expand...

There is a good reason - they are put in harm's way directly by the state in order to achieve national policy goals in a conflict. It is very different from loss of life due to other economic or social settings.

Also - it's not just about remembering the war dead and honouring their sacrifice - it is also about renewing the commitment to avoid repeating the tragedies of the past (the latter is something the jingoists should keep in mind in this age of wilful forgetfulness).

AoD
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top