I was extremely hopeful for the student protests in Quebec which makes it very hard for me to accept that the protests have degenerated to the point where they can provoke nothing but annoyance. The protesters forgot that the only kind of political activism that has any hope of being successful is the one that can maintain the same very concrete, very practical demands over a sustained period of time. Protesting “against injustice” and “for world peace” is a waste of time because these are not the goals you can reach by marching and chanting.

Now the protesters seem to have abandoned the very important issue of the proposed unfair tuition hikes. The protests in Montreal this weekend have been aimed against the Grand Prix. Yes, you heard right. Somehow we have gotten from tuition hikes to the Grand Prix.

Crowds of undressed people march in downtown Montreal harassing peaceful citizens and tourists with the unseemly sight of their ugly naked bodies because they have something against the Grand Prix race. Once again, the protesters have not chosen to disturb the governmental buildings. They are targeting regular folks instead:

The Grand Prix race usually attracts 300,000 people to Montreal. CLAC, an anti-capitalist group, has promised that over the weekend it will repeatedly target Crescent Street, which is traditionally the most active bar and restaurant strip during race week.

“Nightly protests will disrupt this crass elite at play in [the west part of] downtown every night,” the CLAC group said on its website.

Marc-André Cyr, a historian of social movements and columnist for Montreal’s Voir weekly, said CLAC’s targeting of the Grand Prix is part of its campaign to disturb society’s wealthy classes.

Anybody who lived in Montreal for any amount of time understands how stupid the plan to target “the wealthy classes” on Crescent Street is. I lived around the corner from Crescent for years and I can tell you that there aren’t any wealthy classes there. All of the buildings in that area are occupied by cheap apartments rented by the students of nearby universities (I was one of those students) and bars. The only people with at least some money who go there are tourists. Who obviously cannot be blamed for any of Quebec’s problems.

I still remember going out to Crescent on weekends when I was a student at McGill University. I only wish I knew back then that visiting the bars on Crescent with $10 in my pocket and not a dime more to my name in the entire world made me a member of a “crass elite.”

Mind you, we have some pretty wealthy areas in Montreal. For some reason, however, the protesters are not heading there. Might that be because there aren’t any streets filled with bars there? One has got to wonder.

On Sunday, the protesters are planning to disrupt the subway system in Montreal. Because, apparently, all those filthy rich people take the metro to go on their crassly elitist jaunts.

This was such a wonderful opportunity for the people of Quebec to make an actual political statement and achieve something important. This was the perfect chance to say to the government, “We pay the taxes and you will do what we say.” Instead, this has all degenerated into a series stupid tantrums by a bunch of stupid idiots who are searching for wealthy classes in the subway. What a shame.

A famous Russian poet once asked literary critic D., “Do you really like A.’s novel? Why did you write such a glowing review for such a horrible piece of writing?”

“No, I don’t really like it,” critic D. responded. “A friend asked me to do this as a favor to him.”

“Oh, thank God!” the poet exclaimed. “It’s such a relief to know that this was simply an act of dishonesty and corruption! I was afraid you actually liked the novel.”

I now think that Bloomberg’s crusade against extra-large soda receptacles is nothing but a ploy he used to get himself talked about everywhere. And the ploy succeeded.

This is actually a relief. I’d rather people did such things for self-promotional purposes. There is nothing scarier than an earnest do-gooder who thinks it is up to him to improve people even though they never asked to be improved.

If you ever encounter this product in a store, don’t buy it. It isn’t real caviar. It’s some nasty fake thing filled with artificial coloring and all kinds of vile chemical stuff.

Go to your neighborhood Russian store for real caviar.

I’d never been to a golf club store before. The golf clubs look so pretty! If there was ever one sport that I might be interested in practicing, it’s golf. We have two huge golf courses right where we live, too.

I’m still trying to figure out how the capitalist economy works, so please excuse my ignorance. Hopefully, my readers will help me out.

As we all know, there is nowhere one could invest right now because interest rates are non-existent.

Now, the way this was explained to me yesterday is that interest rates are being kept so low on purpose in order artificially to restart the economy. The idea supposedly is that if people have nowhere to invest, they will spend all they have, consume more, and that will restart this economy.

This sounds like a very Soviet idea (central planning and all that). Is this what’s really happening or was the person who told me this misinformed?

The whole thing sounds horribly unfair and wrong.

I got it here.

How many of these cities have you been to? Bold or underline them and pass it on.

1 San Pedro Sula Honduras 1.143 719.447 158.87
2 Juárez Mexico 1.974 1,335,890 147.77
3 Maceió Brazil 1.564 1,156,278 135.26
4 Acapulco Mexico 1.029 804.412 127.92
5 Central District Honduras 1.123 1,126,534 99.69
6 Caracas Venezuela 3.164 3,205,463 98.71
7 Torreón (metropolitan) Mexico 990 1,128,152 87.75
8 Chihuahua Mexico 690 831.693 82.96
9 Durango Mexico 474 593.389 79.88
10 Belém Brazil 1.639 2,100,319 78.04
11 Cali Colombia 1.720 2,207,994 77.90
12 Guatemala Guatemala 2.248 3,014,060 74.58
13 Culiacán Mexico 649 871.620 74.46
14 Medellín Colombia 1.624 2,309,446 70.32
15 Mazatlán Mexico 307 445.343 68.94
16 Tepic (metropolitan area) Mexico 299 439.362 68.05
17 Vitória Brazil 1.143 1,685,384 67.82
18 Veracruz Mexico 418 697.414 59.94
19 Ciudad Guayana Venezuela 554 940.477 58.91
20 San Salvador El Salvador 1.343 2,290,790 58.63
21 New Orleans United States 199 343.829 57.88
22 Salvador (and RMS) Brazil 2.037 3,574,804 56.98
23 Cucuta Colombia 335 597.385 56.08
24 Barquisimeto Venezuela 621 1,120,718 55.41
25 San Juan Puerto Rico 225 427.789 52.60
26 Manaus Brazil 1.079 2,106,866 51.21
27 São Luís Brazil 516 1,014,837 50.85
28 Nuevo Laredo Mexico 191 389.674 49.02
29 João Pessoa Brazil 583 1,198,675 48.64
30 Detroit United States 346 713.777 48.47
31 Cuiabá Brazil 403 834.060 48.32
32 Recife Brazil 1.793 3,717,640 48.23
33 Kingston (metropolitan) Jamaica 550 1,169,808 47.02
34 Cape Town South Africa 1.614 3,497,097 46.15
35 Pereira Colombia 177 383.623 46.14
36 Macapá Brazil 225 499.116 45.08
37 Fortaleza Brazil 1.514 3,529,138 42.90
38 Monterrey (metropolitan area) Mexico 1.680 4,160,339 40.38
39 Curitiba Brazil 720 1,890,272 38.09
40 Goiânia Brazil 484 1,302,001 37.17
41 Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality (Port Elizabeth) South Africa 381 1,050,930 36.25
42 Barranquilla Colombia 424 1,182,493 35.86
43 St. Louis United States 113 319.294 35.39
44 Mosul Iraq 636 1,800,000 35.33
45 Belo Horizonte Brazil 1.680 4,883,721 34.40
46 Panama Panama 543 1,713,070 31.70
47 Cuernavaca (metropolitan area) Mexico 198 630.174 31.42
48 Baltimore United States 195 620.961 31.40
49 Durban South Africa 1.059 3,468,087 30.54
50 City of Johannesburg South Africa 1.186 3,888,180 30.50