What's the plural of apocalypse?

What's next, locusts?

The street directly in front of my office was closed yesterday for much of the afternoon and all evening. Why, you ask? Because, dear reader, the CN Tower - which for many years has stood like a silent sentinel over Canada's largest city - went insane and decided to wreak havoc on its nutty citizens. The weapon of choice: killer ice cubes from outer space.

Okay, well, they're not really ice cubes. And although 1200 or 1500 feet is pretty high up, the ice isn't really coming from outer space either. Still, the chunks of ice that were falling for those few hours were definitely heavy artillery. At last word no humans have been hit, but a number of cars and buildings have taken significant damage. Take a look here and here.

Mercifully Torontonians are actually getting used to having to make adjustments for this sort of crazy event. I think that secretly, many long-time Toronto residents are still mightily embarrassed of the days when the then-mayor called in the Armed Forces to help the city shovel its way out of what was a marginally heavier than average snowfall. Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying that people are brighter now than they were eight or nine years ago. They're just taking things in a (slightly) more stoic manner. People in Toronto still don't know how to deal with snow or ice on their streets and sidewalks, but there's less panic.

Many businesses let their employees go home early on Thursday when the storm started. In retrospect that was a lousy idea, since the effect was that everyone was trying to get home at the same time as the storm was at its peak. I talked to a cabbie who told me that it had taken him three hours to get from downtown to Pearson airport (normally a 25-35 minute ride from Union Station).

Friday was a fairly normal, albeit snowy, commute to work. Then the temperatures got a little milder, and sheets of ice began to fall from many tall buildings, including the aforementioned tower. People in the downtown core went into full adaptation mode. In the past number of years we've had any number of real or imagined disasters, starting, I suppose, with September 2001. Over time we've become almost inured to the reality that from time to time our routines are going to be disrupted by life rearing its ugly head in some way. It's funny that we're now reacting to deadly blocks of ice, launched from great heights, with near equanimity; at the same time it's almost uplifting to see that people are refusing to let things get too much in the way of them living a more or less normal life.

On a related note, I should point out that I have not watched Global TV or read the National Pest for a few days now. I do, though, fully expect that another "in-depth investigation" by CanWest Global's crack journos will reveal that the CBC - yes, the CBC - is actually to blame for the falling ice. I can see the clippings now: "Heat from CBC's transmitters in the CN Tower caused the ice to detach in deadly sheets, falling faster than CBC television's ratings onto the poor citizens below. [...] CanWest Global is investigating reports that the Crown corporation had another of its extra-double-secret taxpayer-funded smoking lounges hidden in the aerie-like surroundings of the CN Tower [...] CBC president Robert Rabinovitch has refused to confirm or deny whether the MotherCorp is in fact responsible for global warming, as CanWest Global has alleged for many years."

To be honest I was almost speechless when I saw the Post's so-called investigative story. It's a prime example of slow-news-day "gotcha" journalism, i.e. a story that's not a story, stuck on the front page for want of anything else worthwhile. Although I have spent a fair bit of time in the Canadian Broadcasting Centre 0ver the years I was unaware that these smoking lounges were still operating. I do know there used to be more of them, but now most smokers just go outside where they stand in well-demarcated "paddocks" painted on the sidewalk.

In watching the TV version of the "story" it becomes clear that the original focus was the gap between provincial and federal anti-smoking legislation, i.e. that provincially-regulated workplaces have banned smoking for any number of years whereas federally-regulated industries (like broadcasting, banking and interprovincial transportation, among others) have not gone so far as to implement a full-on ban. This reminds me a bit of the day, not all that many years ago, when the Alberta legislature was declared a non-smoking building, with the little-known exception of the Premier's office. Guess who was still a smoker at the time. [not to reveal any secrets, but his initials were Ralph Klein.]

I'd love to know who the genius was at the editorial meeting who stuck up their hand and said "heyyy... the CBC has smoking rooms... we could really embarrass them and make ourselves look really smart!" Guys, you might want to stick to showing reruns of House if you want to keep your ratings up; your investigative journalism leaves a little to be desired.