The Twelve Stories of Christmas

Brandon Ferguson, News Editor

n the first day of Christmas
() break, the news gods gave to
thee: an end to the RAV line
travesty. The much-maligned and often-
overhauled RAV line from the airport to
downtown Vancouver finally passed the
final hurdle in an 8-4 vote by the RAVCo
committee. In the end, Premier Campbell
got-his wish, as a pricey above- and
below-ground line will cut right down the
Cambie corridor to the tune of $1.72 bil-
lion. The contract was eventually awarded
to SNC-Lavalin/Serco after reducing the

scope of the 19-kilometer track. Now we
just need rapid transit in the Tri-Cities,

cM

Langley,
Mission....
One the second day of Christmas
break, the news gods gave to thee: a
transit-fare hike done covertly. Nice fuck-
os, real nice. As was reported in an earlier
OP, TransLink had no intention of raising
fares at all. None. Zip. Zero. Nada.
Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell’s party

Abbotsford, Maple Ridge,

promised prior to the 2002 election that
they would not seek an increase in transit
fares. In one of those unintentionally
sneaky policy moves (I’m sure), TransLink
voted to increase rates by 25 cents for
one- and two-zone passes, and 50 cents
for three zones on December 8th, right as
finals were rubbing students raw in the
rim. Thanks.

On the third day of Christmas break,
the news gods gave to thee: a huge drunk-
en Irish robbery. In a heist that can only
be called brazen—because how often do
you get to say “brazen” anyway?—armed
Irish thugs took two prominent bankers’

families hostage and used them to steal
£22 million (or roughly $5.86 kajillionbil-
liontrillion Canadian). The two bankers
helped the robbers into the vaults of
Belfast’s Northern Bank. The IRA is sus-
pected to be responsible, due to the
complex and coordinated nature of the
theft. Because, presumably, only terrorists
can understand the deep emotional ties

between a man and his family and the
lengths to which he’ll go to save them.
On the fourth day of Christmas break,
the news gods gave to thee: a plea bargain
by Todd Bertuzzi. To the outrage, shock,
dismay, and disbelief of Toronto pundits,
prognosticators, commentators, and runty
Hah-vard graduates who average three
minutes of ice time over their careers—to
the outrage of everyone but Canuck
fans—Big Bert pled guilty to assault caus-
ing bodily harm and received a
conditional sentence of nothing. Steve
Moore cried foul because he wasn’t given
the opportunity to speak before the court.

 

His lawyer called it a travesty. They held a
press conference before one of those
Sears photo backdrops of important legal
texts and the whiny winger, who never
wanted to see Todd again, griped and
bitched about not getting the chance to
face the burly Nuck. Call me crazy, but I
think there’s a bit of a secret crush going
on there.

 

On the fifth day of Christmas break,
the news gods gave to thee: frozen
Eastern provinces. Vancouver enjoyed
balmy 8-degree weather. It’s gotta hurt, T
dot.

On the sixth day of Christmas break,
the news gods gave to thee: a Ukrainian
president finally. After the Orange
Revolution took to the streets of Kiev to
protest the shady election results that put
Kremlin friend Viktor Yanukovych into
office, and after the results were over-
turned by the Ukrainian Supreme Court,
and after West-leaning challenger Viktor
Yushchenko was poisoned and became
prune-faced, and after a moment of con-
fusion that saw Weird Al Yankovic briefly
elected president, a second election was
held on Boxing Day and challenger
Yushchenko finally won. Orange power.

On the seventh day of Christmas
break, the news gods gave to thee: the
worst earthquake in half a century. Boxing
Day saw the worst that both man and
Mother Nature have to offer—feeding
frenzies at A&B Sound and a 9.0 earth-
quake in the Indian Ocean that sent a
tsunami hurtling into Southeast Asia and
East Africa. The death toll is approaching
200,000, and the enormity of the devasta-
tion is impossible to comprehend. One of
the hardest hit was Sri Lanka, where it
would have taken the hand of God to
stop their civil war. The hand reached out
and took over 30,000 lives from the tiny
island off the eastern coast of India. As
aid and able-bodied politicians clamber
overt each other to get to the region, dis-
ease has now become a problem with so
many makeshift mass graves being made.
It is the largest natural disaster since the
Alaskan earthquake in 1964, where 12,000
Atomic bombs’ worth of energy was
released, with tsunami waves even reach-
ing Port Alberni.

On the eighth day of Christmas break,
the news gods gave to thee: the mauling
death of a kid named Cody. In Maple
Ridge, three-year-old Cody Fontaine was
tragically mauled to death on December
27 by three Rottweilers and a Border
Collie while his mother and two men slept
in. Two of the Rotties were being looked
after for friends and had been trained as
guard dogs. All four dogs had been locked
downstairs for hours, presumably awaiting
breakfast, until they managed to escape
and find little Cody. Though news reports
have chosen to focus on the Ministry of
Children and its lack of psychic powers, I
think the real message is that this tragedy
could have been avoided if Mom had got-
ten up and fed her fucking dogs. Now a

Januar = 18/2008