Morning Brew: Taser Policy Change, Evolution of The Village, Student Report Card Shortcomings, Dollar Nears Parity

Photo: "Escalator anticipation" by PJMixer, member of the blogTO Flickr pool.

What's happening in the GTA (and sometimes beyond):

Thanksgiving weekend is often all about good times shared with the family, but with the fun also comes the potential for drinking and driving. While this past holiday weekend was one of the safest in recent years (with respect to road fatalities, which were limited to just one), OPP still laid several impaired driving charges. Some people will never learn.

Toronto Police (as well as the OPP and RCMP) have changed their policies on Taser use, following a bulletin sent by the manufacturer. Going forward, when deploying the stun gun, officers will attempt to avoid hitting the upper chest. This seems like more of a PR move than an honest revision of operating instructions. I mean, if the thing is safe to use, and doesn't cause cardiac arrest on the rare occasion, then why not aim for the chest? Is the shock to the heart really any different if the charge makes impact on the stomach rather than the chest?

As increasing housing and rental costs push residents and businesses out of Toronto's gay community in The Village on Church Street, many other questions are arising as the village's identity is called into question. Has the area lost its allure? Some argue that it has become too much a haven for middle-aged, middle-class, gay white men, and lost its multi-ethnic and female-centric qualities.

I remember when my school report cards had personal, hand-written comments from my teachers, detailing my progresses and shortcomings as a student. Then I remember these comments being reduced to short quips that were clearly chosen from a limited, standard list. Now, there's a push at the TDSB to make these comments more meaningful, in light of many of them being "incomprehensible" to parents and students.

Here we go again. The Canadian dollar is nearing parity with the US dollar, which means that we'll be shopping on the dotCOMs rather than the dotCAs, our exporting industries will be hurting and attempting to provide competitive pricing once again, and we'll all be wishing that having a strong dollar was something to be proud of.

And while we were all stuffing ourselves with stuffed turkeys, we managed to fit in some blogging after loosening our belts by a hole or two:

• Rick explored the home of a pair of architects in the city.
• Chandra gave us the scoop on the 10th annual ImagineNATIVE Film Festival.
• Matthew reviewed the Sea Wolf show at Sneaky Dee's, and caught us up on lots of Toronto music news.
• Jonathan Loek stopped some street style fashionistas in their tracks.
• Tim shared with us a cool, newish arts podcast called Late Night in the Bedroom, and also filled us in on some recent restaurant closings.
• Roger got some awesome photos of the one and only (and smokin' hot!) Kylie Minogue, at her Canadian debut at ACC.
• And a building at Queen's Park had a rooftop fire, and was quickly saved by Toronto Fire Services.

Oh, and we've added several more Google Street View oddities to our expansive collection.