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In Toronto, bingeing on books
The Canadian Booksellers Association Web site lists more than 50 non-chain bookstores in the greater Toronto area alone, giving it more indie bookshops than most North American cities. It s a far cry from the city s literary glory days, when booksellers dominated entire blocks. But the sheer range of outlets makes Toronto one of the last places on the continent where an honest-to-goodness bookstore vacation unhurried browsing, languid leafing, cheerful chats with passionate proprietors still feels possible. Downtown at least, Torontonians seem resistant to corporate retailers. We don t have that many chain stores, said Alison Fryer between calls and customers at the Cookbook Store, her compact 30-year-old shop in tony Yorkville. The stores we do have are community-based. We re lucky to have a lot of readers and a lot of support. On Bloor Street West, near my home base in Toronto s low-key Annex neighborhood, even the chains are indie. I started a recent weekend browsing binge at BMV, a Toronto chainlet with rows of Canadian literature. My serendipitous first encounters with such criminally overlooked local writers as Norman Levine, Marian Engel and Crad Kilodney happened here. Out-of-print obscurities make this place a trove; I grabbed Fredelle Bruser Maynard s Jews-in-the-Prairies memoir Raisins and Almonds for $5. At Book City, another Toronto franchise a block west, killer remainders are the specialty. I scored Augusten Burroughs s lacerating A Wolf at the Table for $6.99, along with Toronto-based DIY fashion quarterly WORN ($12), nearly impossible to find outside Canada. A few doors down, I spotted a violet neon New and Used Books sign in a cluttered window beneath an Irish pub. It belonged to Seekers Books, a ragtag-looking shop that turned out to have a serious selection of occult and New Age volumes. Willow Books, several blocks east, felt even more under-the-radar, nearly hidden in a recessed storefront next to a convenience store. Amid messy stacks and racks of vintage clothing, I found entrancing poetry volumes and philosophy tomes too heavy to schlep around town. A 10-minute walk south,San Francisco Giants t shirts, at the University of Toronto s eastern edge, mellow Harbord Street houses two of the city s quirkiest booksellers. Sci-fi s not my thing, but I spent nearly an hour at Bakka Phoenix which bills itself as the world s oldest science-fiction/fantasy bookstore just to bask in contagious zeal for the form. If someone walks in and says, I read this book in 1992, and it had a unicorn on the cover,Here's Why It Takes So Long to Move From Concept to Com, we ll find it,Sidney Rice t shirts, manager Leah Bobet told me.

Rachel Jeantel proves that this July 4th, Jim Crow lives
If Justice Scalia’s words are not enough to convince you that a plague of racial injustice is imminent, then I would implore you to look at the George Zimmerman murder trial and defense attorney Don West’s dismissiveness and utter disdain for Rachel Jeantel,wholesale nfl t-shirts, a key prosecution witness.? In doing so,New York Jets t shirts, you will see the worrisome regression on racial attitudes that I speak of not only under the law, but in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

My complaint is not so much with West’s cross-examination of Jeantel.? As a lawyer,GALEX decommissioned- What happens to abandoned space probes, I am well aware that this is a murder trial and that the jury will decide whether Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin in self-defense.? Although Zimmerman is an individual I would never agree to represent, I understand that West is obligated to defend his client zealously.

It is the absolute disdain and disrespect with which West, and the public, seemed to treat Jeantel that I find indicative of an alarming problem when it comes to race in America.

Jeantel is 19 years old. The ebony colored, full-figured teenager met Trayvon Martin in second grade.? She was the last person to speak with Martin before George Zimmerman shot and killed him.

At times, West eyed the high school senior as if she were a creature he saw on an old episode of The X-Files ?or? Star Trek. ?His mannerisms and facial expressions in questioning and “sort of” listening to her responses gave an appearance of mockery and condescension.? He reeked of elitism when he asked her, “Are you claiming in any way that you don’t understand English?”

On day two of his cross-examination of her, Jeantel began referring to West as “Sir.” He showed delight at her supplication, remarking, ?“You seem a lot different today than you did yesterday.? Are you feeling okay?”?? He seemed to delight in the realization that Jeantel could not read cursive, as if that undermined the credibility of her testimony.

Social media was just as ruthless and was a sad indicator that racial attitudes today are not much different than they were prior to the passage of the Voting Rights Act 50 years ago.

Twitter contained the following posts:

In striking down the heart of the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court reasoned that “things have changed dramatically” over the last 50 years.? I would say the more things change, the more they stay the same.

What a July 4th.

Michelle D. Bernard is president and CEO of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics Public Policy is the author of Moving America Toward Justice, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law 1963-2013 .? Follow her on Twitter@michellebernard.