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A great way to start Christmas week

Pulling into the Canadian Tire near my office this morning, and a guy slams into my rear bumper and quarter panel. Interestingly, he doesn’t have his insurance information on him. I am now at one of the three “Accident Support Service” offices in the City of Toronto.

Three. For a city of five million people.

Whatever Christmas spirit I possessed is now fully gone.


Just now at the Monarch Tavern

So there we were at Charlie and Tenio’s annual Gentlemen’s Lunch, having a festive time, and all of a sudden – what to our astonished eyes should appear, etc. – a nasty political scrap over by the bar!

I am reliably informed the fellow from Northern Ontario was not victorious.

photo © WK


Maclean’s does it again

The magazine says Canadian universities are “Too Asian.” Previously, it called all of Quebec “corrupt.”

This is turning into a pattern.

In both cases, politicians called for the magazine to apologize. (In respect of the Quebec mess, its parent company did apologize; in respect of the “Too Asian” headline, it has deleted that intolerant headline, and expressed hope that it caused “no offence.”)

Are you convinced?  (See that?  That’s a Maclean’s trick.  Say something really offensive, but follow it with a question mark.  That way, you get to say it, still, but you can hide behind the question mark if things get too hot.  To wit: IS MACLEAN’S RUN BY TOTAL IDIOTS?)

Anyway, getting politicians involved just turns it into a big free press thing, with predictable results.  Much shrieking and braying, etc. etc., nothing really achieved.

But if average citizens and community groups are upset – and with the “Too Asian” edition, they truly are – that’s something Maclean’s can’t so easily dismiss.  They need to carefully consider what is being said to and about them.  If nothing else, they need to think about what they are doing to their credibility.

Will they change course?  Who knows.  Rush Limbaugh is quite popular, I suppose, but I doubt there’s a soul alive who still considers him a journalist.


Operation Alienation continues apace

Someone in the offices at 131 Queen Street seems to think it’s good strategy, I guess, to keep blaming the very popular former Liberal MP – you know, the guy who is now the very popular mayor, and who also won the riding for more than twenty years with huge pluralities – for the Vaughan by-election loss.  When the authors of that particular misfortune are to be seen, as they say, in the bathroom mirror.

It’s not accurate, it’s not fair to Maurizio, and it’s short-sighted.  But what do I know?