Toronto Rant: Rosie DiManno is off her rocker

As the 2-5 people know who read this blog, the stated purpose of Torontonian/Bostonian is to enlighten elements odd, kooky or strange on both sides of the border. This blog entry will take a break from that by instead focusing on a homegrown problem: Rosie DiManno.

Rosie DiManno is a columnist for the Toronto Star newspaper in Toronto. To my estimation she covers nothing specifically, just everything generally. Her columns range from reportage on the Academy Awards ceremonies, to the war in Afghanistan. Seriously - the woman puts a finger in the air everyday writes about whichever way the wind is blowing. If she was a good writer, I'd say "no problem let the woman's mind run free." Unfortunately however her writing sucks large.

Without a stance (conservative, business, etc) or a beat (parliament, the city, healthcare, etc) the woman lacks complete conviction about anything in her writing. She has no perspective, except her own, and therefore her writing suffers and often seems unorganized, unthoughtful and just ludicrous.

That does not stop people from across Toronto from loving her. Including my mother. Why, I do not know.

This all came to a head for me recently with a piece she wrote on the trial of Jane Creba's accused killers. Creba was an innocent bystander shot dead in broad daylight while shopping with her family during the busy post-Christmas sales in 2005. It is undoubtedly a horrible event. One that deserves investigation, and conviction of those responsible.

Rosie DiManno wrote this column this week in the Toronto Star. As per usual it is a horrible piece of writing.

To begin it lacks anything - organization, theme, style, etc. It does have voice - I'll give her that. But to my mind it is otherwise horribly pointless. It basically can be summed up as "Bad stuff happens to good people." That to my mind is not a new idea. In fact, that has been the vernacular with which the Creba incident has been discussed since the crime took place. As a reader there is absolutely no revelation, moment of enlightenment or unique perspective DiManno brings to this piece. It sucks.

Moreover however, I MUST disagree with a number of ill-made points she brings to light in the piece:

People taking cellphone pictures of the incident's aftermath showed a lack of "decency." I think the better word would be that the picture taking was showed conflicting morals. Think about it - taking the pictures in and of itself isn't about decency. In fact how many times have pictures or video of a crime or crime scene actually helped convict people or provided evidence for criminal investigations? Lots. And, as DiManno later alludes to, most of the photo-takers were young ("kids" in the piece), who may not have known to do otherwise without parental guidance. DiManno makes the horrid assumption that photo takers were doing this for some personal gain - financial, or personal. She even goes so far as to assume that Creba's death on that Toronto street might have served as a screensaver for someone. Yeah it MIGHT have, but I'm pretty doubtful that the majority did this. What Ms. DiManno fails to recognize is that MOST of modern society has been trained to gawk at these sorts of incidents and, yes, even record them. It's not a decency thing anymore. It's about conditioning and what are presumed natural reactions.

Rosie's rant on the marksmanship of the shooters. OK, this to me shows a total lack of decency. How dare DiManno suggest that had the bullets hit its intended victim that the shooting would have been far more legitimate. Only by hitting an Innocent bystander does this shooting become a crime, implies the author. Yeah - no. Actually if we really wanted to get to the heart of what happened to Ms. Creba one might instead consider the cause of the shooting among the offending parties to begin with. What was the cause of the dispute that led to violence? Is this unique to a particular cultural group? How did a handgun become available to the offender? And the hardest question of all to resolve - what was in the shooters background (poverty, abuse, etc) that ultimately led him to gang involvement and this crime? These are REAL questions that get us to real, often hard to deal with, answers.

The ethnicity of the shooter "Its not a black thing." Rosie you racist bitch. The fact that you even felt it relevant to mention the stance of the shooter, associate his actions with "bad boy cool,"and associate the scene as something "out of a gangsta rap video" pretty much damn well implies that you DO see this as a black thing. And here is the real problem I have with this article, and the whole story.

It's a well known fact that Creba was Caucasian. Her shooter black. Unfortunately the story as a whole as been therefore portrayed as poor innocent white girl, in the wrong place at the wrong time, gets violently gunned down by a black man in the middle of a gangland dispute. And you know what - that's a problem. Beyond the ethnicity of the parties its a very bad portrayal. The fact is we know little about Creba - probably not enough to play her up as the innocent and abashed young female that the media often cites her as. We know less of the shooter - he was black and in a gang. These are horrible stereotypes on both sides that actually do nothing to resolve the crime or provide solutions to prevent such an occurrence from happening again.

In a perfect world we wouldn't have the Rosie DiManno types who fall victim to media stereotypes and so easily point fingers. In fact, it's highly disappointing that as a member of the media that is all she can do. I personally like my journalists a little more thoughtful and well rounded in their work. The struggle that the media should be investigating is how to stop these acts of violence. I understand that isn't an easy job. It's hard. But why on earth do we have a media (much less a columnist) unless they are adding perspective, thought or idea to the 'regular' reporting of news.

We deserve better - especially in Toronto. So Rosie stop writing to pay the rent, because clearly that is the only reason you write. Start saying something. Please.