blew up in the bathroom

What is going on? I hear from someone at my office that an explosion went off at a Tim Hortins in Toronto. From the news acquired thus far, a man went into a Tim Hortins strapped with explosives and blew up in the bathroom. Only one person confirmed dead and all the stores continued business as usual. No real panic, just curiosity. And very strange.

"Investigators have ruled out terrorism as a cause for a "very intense, very hot flash fire" in a downtown Tim Hortons Sunday that brought the intersection of Yonge and Bloor Sts. to a halt. The incident, shortly after 1 p.m., sent dozens of patrons scrambling out of the coffee shop after a "wall of flames" erupted from the men's washroom. Police found the burned body of a man in one of the washroom cubicles and, according to one report, a gas can nearby. Attempts to revive the man were not successful. Coroner Dr. Jim Edwards ruled out terrorism." -read more

I’m a little late on this but I thought I would follow up with my weekend for those interested. Dirty jokes and one-liners were on tap at Yuk Yuk’s this last Saturday. Everyone gathered to enjoy a lineup of comedians that included host Sabrina Jalees, opening act Matt Billon, and headliner Terry McGurrin.

A comedian I find of interest is Matt Billon, a mid-twenties Vancouver native. He got the crowd in the mood with draws of humour from his own life, no matter how embarrassing or incriminating. After being in the business for nearly four years he got his big break with a solid performance at last year’s annual Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal. He wasn’t afraid of bringing his own shortcomings into his act, revealing he was born two months premature and doctors had so much trouble discerning his sex that his parents originally named him Tracy. He included a story of him and his brother taking turns shooting each other in the backside with a pellet gun given to them by their uncle.

His calm appearance and deadpan delivery had the place in hysterics for the duration of his set until there was this one moment where he established his unrelenting opinion about the war on the Middle-East and how self-deprecating we Americans are with draws to 9/11 being an entire sham. It’s particularly galling when a voice (whether or not coming from a comedian or anyone else with any other occupation for that matter) has to strip oneself of their own full-time thought mechanics and are towered over by a scowl, in this case a majority of government employed audience members. I made sure to sincerely thank him in person after the show. It certainly felt good to laugh and to know some people aren't afraid to be absolute with themselves and their beliefs.

Of the thousands of North Americans in Iraq, half of them are members of the National Guard and Reserves. Of course, compared to US casualties, the number of Iraqi dead and injured is extreme. If, by way of grizzly math, one were to compare civilian losses endured during the US led war on terror, Iraqi civilian deaths dwarf those of the US, who lost just under 3,000 people on September 11th of 2001; the crucial aspect of the comparison being that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. If the most extreme calculations are to be heeded, that being the figures produced, Iraqi civilians have been violently affected by the policies adopted to fight the war on terror more than any other civilian population on earth, despite the fact that no direct link existed between Iraq and the impetus for the unilateralist and preemptive doctrine adopted by the United States after 9/11.