Pyat is outraged! Or something.

[pyat]

So, when I was in high school, I'd go to Model Parliament in Toronto, at Queen's Park. This is the gloriously Victorian tract of land that houses the Ontario Legislature, the provincial parliament. At that time, the legislature building was entirely open, and indeed entire rooms were dedicated to public edification.

There were leather wingback chairs in the main lobby, and you could sit amongst all that dark carved wood, under the towering potrait of Sir Isaac Brock, Yankee-Smasher-in-Chief and Friend to Children. You could use the same urinal as the premier. You could strut about the hushed and carpeted halls under the painted gaze of dead monarchs, premiers, and vice-regents. Heck, you could pretend to be the Assistant Undersecretary to the Minister of Information, or even MPP for the riding of Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington. I know I did.

My first year there, we were received at a formal reception by no less a person than Her Majesty's own representative in Ontario, Lieutenant-Governor Lincoln M. Alexander. Announced upon entrance, even, by a middle-aged army officer in full dress uniform and white gloves, and escorted into the (vice)regal presence, who expressed interest in the fact that I lived in Hamilton, and wished that I would please enjoy the hors d'oeuvres. They had cheesy pastries, if I recall correctly.

Today, ol' Linc has a freeway named after him, and about ten million elementary schools.

Later, in university, I'd be sent to Queen's Park on journalistic errands, generally to get sound-bites or talk to protesters. The buildings were still largely free and open, though anyone carrying a placard had trouble getting inside without an escort. I recall one protest I covered, wherein a gang of folks protesting the closure of "TCAT," "The Creative Centre for Art Therapy," actually got violent.

So, today it was a gloriously sunny day, and several degrees warmer than it has been. So commanderteddog and I directed ourselves to Queen's Park, in the hopes of getting to explore. However, it seems post 9/11 security concerns have made the legislature all but inaccessible to anyone save guided tour groups. Even the public cafeteria requires sign-ins and ID and a rather pushy guard kept wanting to know our reason for wanting to eat there, particularly. So we left.

I'm actually mildly angered by this. While I would not expect to be allowed to tromp around in offices and look through filing cabinets, the legislature building was designed as a public space. I sort of resent the idea that I would not be allowed to visit on my own recognizance.


Happily, the area around the building offered us some other amusements. The cannon she's sticking her arm in was taken from a burned French warship in the 1760s.


We also saw some cannons captured from the Tsar's army during the Siege of Sevastopol.


Plus, I was able to demonstrate to Teddog that the front steps of the legislature building were used for the cover of Rush's "Moving Pictures" album.


And that was my day.


Also, I worked.

Comments

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

Some of the most fun times I've had were hangin' out in the Capitol building, posing on the Supreme Court steps and picking up girls in the cafeteria of the Library of Congress. All pre 2001.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Hey, Queen's Park is right next to the U of T campus. Probably lots of smart girls with glasses go by there!

[bodhifox.livejournal.com]

I'm so there!

[waiwode.livejournal.com]

Fun fact: Lincoln Alexander has never owned a Driver's License. He will never drive down the highway named after him.

(That being said, he still boots around downtown Hamilton in his little "mobility scooter."

Doug.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

That is rather cool. Also, I dig your "down under" icon.

[waiwode.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of something unique for my oz-trip icon, but then I copped out and just flipped "Jungle Doug" ... I think it is better than anything I could have come up with.

Doug.

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, "post 911", which has become an abbreviation for "this is where a person or an organization simply stopped thinking". My father used to work for the NRC and I'd go wandering around the departmental campus, drifting in and out of buildings where lasers, high electricity, and probably trade secrets lurked. Nothing happened to me and I didn't stick random expensive shinies into my pockets. All that is unimaginable now, but I wait hopefully for a future time when the wind of public sentiment blows in a saner direction.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was a reporter in a small town post 9/11, and was sort of impressed at how quickly even the tiny town and county councils jumped on the idea of locking all the doors and hiring full time security.

You never know when Al-Queda might choose to bomb the Dunnville municipal office!

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the total cost of all that pointless security is. I don't cheer for disaster, but in a few ways the economic crisis may ultimately be useful, in that it forces us to reexamine our priorities and spend more of our energy on what's actually important.

Maybe it was Georgia...

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

...or Alabama?

Some such legislative backwater decided that the way to respond to 9/11 was to lock... wait for it... the handicapped-accessible entry to their Capitol building. The one and only way people with mobility impairments could get in the building.

Cuz, you know, them thar A-rabs there, they probably don't know how to use stairs and would prefer the ramps.

They were getting sued about it, last I heard. I can understand someone having a passing urge to bomb these morons into oblivion, but I can't imagine anyone thinking they were important enough to really go to all that bother.

[lonita.livejournal.com]

A freeway, many schools, and a bad attitude — though the latter is likely caused by his being outrageously old.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

I imagine if people starting naming schools after me, I'd show up to querulously shake my cane at people and ask them if I looked like I was dead.

And then I'd hit them if they said "yes."

[lonita.livejournal.com]

The Linc can be a bit of a jerk, arrogant, unfortunate in his treatment of others, and completely unapologetic.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Well, he WAS a PC, after all.

[lonita.livejournal.com]

That does explain an awful lot.

[girlydoll.livejournal.com]

Im glad you added the little bit at the bottom, as I was starting to wonder.. LOL

Post 9/11...

[ankhorite.livejournal.com]

...I don't even TRY to get into our major national monuments any more, because the hassle for a disabled-reserved parking space is unspeakable.

So I just don't go. I don't fly any more either, for the same reason.

I am a member of the bar of our Supreme Court, and because of my crutches, I get treated like a terrorist every time I try to get in the building. Something about a novel in which a crutch was really a rifle? Thirty years ago? Don't know. But I don't go. It's not just the degradation and inconvenience. It's just too physically painful to try to remain upright in one place while they dicker around.

But YOU should stomp over to YOUR capitol and have lunch OFTEN, and write a snippy note to your representative any time you get harangued.
You paid for that building. Go eat in it.