{"id":1401,"date":"2010-06-23T16:48:49","date_gmt":"2010-06-24T00:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=1401"},"modified":"2010-06-29T07:34:00","modified_gmt":"2010-06-29T15:34:00","slug":"and-so-it-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/?p=1401","title":{"rendered":"And So It Begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

They could have held the whole damn G20 summit in Huntsville, like the G8 immediately before it; the infrastructure was already in place, after all. But they didn\u2019t. They decided to stick it in the heart of downtown Toronto, and then build an indoor wading pool<\/a> with fake plastic trees and wall-sized pictures of the Muskokas so that visiting dignitaries and journalists could get a feel for Canada\u2019s Great Outdoors.<\/p>\n

Or, if they had<\/em> to do in Toronto, they could have used the brand new facilities at Exhibition place. Right on the lake, state of the art, much easier for security. Designed explicitly for just this kind of thing. But no: too unobtrusive.<\/p>\n

Instead, they\u2019ve walled off a huge section of the downtown. Nobody gets in or out without ID and security screening. Trains and streetcar routes have been chopped in half like worms. UK-level camera networks have been installed throughout the core, and the fuckers aren\u2019t even bothering to pretend<\/em> that those will be coming down when the festivities are over; we\u2019ve jumped into a whole new surveillance-state bracket over the course of a single extended photo-op. Half the city (including the Ministry of the Attorney General) has been told to just stay home for the rest of the week. Bay Street execs have been warned not to wear suits and ties to work: such attire constitutes \u201cposing as a dignitary\u201d, you see, makes you suspicious by virtue of the fact that you\u2019re dressing to blend in<\/em> with all those world-class entourages deep in the Forbidden Zone. (Of course, if you don\u2019t<\/em> wear a suit and tie in the heart of TO\u2019s business section you look like a protester, and I don\u2019t have to tell you what’s in store for those <\/em>poor bastards.) [Update:<\/strong> haven’t been able to confirm this; all official sources say the warning is meant to protect Bay Street types from being targetted by protesters<\/em>, not badges.]<\/p>\n

A lot of the local journos have been outfitted with gas masks and body armour, courtesy of their employers. None of them expect to be shot or gassed by protestors; the Fourth Estate is protecting its own against the gentle protections of local law enforcement, who\u00a0have been out in force for some time now. The core is infested, the police are literally moving in packs; we encountered two separate gangs of them just walking home the few blocks from dinner last night. Tourists caught taking snapshots of the Great Wall are forced to delete their files or be arrested. The sound of helicopters outside my building has been incessant and deafening; I barely noticed the earthquake this afternoon.<\/p>\n

Way back on Monday night I was coming home from dinner with a fellow whose acquaintance I recently made via Squidgate; he\u2019s in town running satellite feeds for the network coverage. (Some of you may know him as uplinktruck<\/a>; interesting guy, good dinnertime companion, and one of those folks you want to keep around to remind yourself that not everyone thinks the way you do. I hope we get to do it again.) I live blocks away from the Forbidden Zone, and at the time it was almost a week before the summit actually started; but this is what I encountered parked across the street from my apartment:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I took out my camera. At which point I was immediately accosted by these two gentlemen:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m taking a picture.\u201d I even smiled. \u00a0And kept smiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re taking a picture of these vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are you taking pictures of these vehicles?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI live here. It\u2019s unusual to come home and find four paddy-wagons parked outside your bedroom window. I take it this is for the summit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nod.<\/p>\n

\u201cSay, can I take your<\/em> picture?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow about yours<\/em>, then?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I guess we\u2019re done here.\u201d<\/p>\n

And we were, too. Except for the picture I took from the laundry-room balcony on the fourth floor, once I was safely home (I\u2019ve arrowed the vantage point on the pic above). Night setting, no flash, digital zoom, taken by someone who doesn\u2019t know Aperture Science from an F-Stop, and it still turned out pretty well; you gotta love the Canon Powershot.<\/p>\n

This nasty, belligerent thing my city is turning into? This place where wearing a suit has suddenly become a suspicious act, and unsmiling dead-eyed orcs emerge from the darkness to try and intimidate you for the act of taking a snapshot on a public street?<\/p>\n

That, you don\u2019t gotta love so much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They could have held the whole damn G20 summit in Huntsville, like the G8 immediately before it; the infrastructure was already in place, after all. But they didn\u2019t. They decided to stick it in the heart of downtown Toronto, and then build an indoor wading pool with fake plastic trees and wall-sized pictures of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1401"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1417,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1401\/revisions\/1417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rifters.com\/crawl\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}