BY ROB SALERNO – A new initiative to carry on the spirit and work of recently deceased NDP leader Jack Layton is taking shape in Toronto.
Toronto activist Donny Day is trying to keep the “love, hope and optimism” message of Jack Layton’s final letter to Canadians alive by encouraging people to wear name tags to help break down social barriers.
The name tags serve a double purpose by encouraging people to visit Day’s website, which has a list of great causes where you can donate money to help change the world. All the charities that the website promotes deal with Layton’s key issues: queer youth, HIV/AIDS, the environment, homelessness, indigenous peoples, education and women’s rights.
For now, the stickers are available only in Toronto. More than 30,000 of them have been distributed in shops, bars and cafés along Church, Bloor, Danforth, College, Queen, King, Dundas, Front, College and Ossington streets, where you can pick them up for free. There are also some to be found in subway stations throughout the city, and you can order them from Day’s website, lovehopeoptimism.org. Day says he’s already fielded calls from people in Calgary, Winnipeg and Halifax to arrange distribution there. He hopes that nationwide distribution will follow at some point.
It’s a simple message, elegantly communicated, and a wonderful way to remember Layton’s final words to Canadians: “So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”
Speaking of changing the world, here are a couple of really great PSAs that caught my eye this morning. The first, from Ireland, is a marriage equality PSA that beautifully and movingly explains why civil unions are no equivalent to equal marriage:
And because this web post has become entirely too mushy and serious, here’s a more frivolous and thoroughly entertaining PSA, calling on Justin Timberlake to please start making music again:
I don’t know how to pleasure myself to Bruno Mars, either.
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