Who can resist clicking through a photo gallery dedicated to the polar bear cub the Toronto Zoo unveiled last week? Nobody, that’s who. Check out five sweet, cuddly (and downright shameless) pics right now »
The discerning mediavore’s take on the news of the day, from city hall to Power Ball
Bilaal Rajan, Jeff Melanson and David Miller are some of the speakers at TEDxToronto today
Look, it’s Friday. You’re probably not going to be that productive anyway, so you might as well waste your time on something enlightening. Toronto’s TEDxTalks are being broadcast online today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and there are some big names and big ideas that are worth a listen. Up first was wunderkind Bilaal Rajan, who we profiled saving the world two years ago. National Ballet School CEO Jeff Melanson, whom you may remember from his brief stint as arts and culture advisor to Rob Ford, talks at 4:50 p.m. And if you’re feeling a touch nostalgic, David Miller is the last speaker on the schedule. Of course, there are plenty of other talks from plenty of other influential Torontonians throughout the day. Watch online [TEDxToronto] »
Is Josh Matlow the overlord of the provincial Liberals? Probably not—but the Grits did announce an environmental assessment for his controversial quarry
Councillor Josh Matlow (Image: Toronto.ca)
One of the issues that Josh Matlow has been following is decidedly outside of his ward: the proposed quarry in Melancthon (about 100 kilometres north of Toronto) that could become one of the largest in North America. Matlow previously asked the executive committee at city hall, in turn, to ask the province to force an environmental assessment of the proposed “mega-quarry” project, but before the committee could even meet, the Ontario government beat them to the punch.
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Man accused of dragging police officer behind car misplaces his shoe, leaving reporters baffled
A bloody but supposedly uninjured man appeared in court yesterday in a wheelchair and with only one shoe after allegedly dragging a police officer behind his car for 75 metres. As the story goes, Stephan Cummings reversed while an officer was leaning into his open driver’s-side door and dragged the officer behind him (the incident sounds surprisingly similar incident to a fatal one in June, so we’re relieved to learn the officer’s injuries, although serious, are not life threatening). According to a police statement, Cummings escaped uninjured, but the blood, the wheelchair and the missing shoe seem to suggest otherwise. That said, with the basic details of this case confirmed and a man in custody, we request that the Star turn its reportorial attention to the fate of that missing footwear in hopes that it contains some crucial evidence and fodder for excellent headlines. Until then, we’ll be waiting for, uh, the other shoe to drop. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »
National Geographic names Muskoka “Best Trip of Summer 2011”
As if these weren’t ubiquitous already (Image: Matthew Ingram)
Here’s a feather in cottage country’s cap: National Geographic has put out its list of top summer getaways for the year, and Muskoka made the number one spot. While there is no doubt this will be great for tourism, we can’t help but feel bad for those urbanite weekend cottagers whose roads will now be choked with Wasaga-level highway traffic.
Check out the coolest thing to come from Tourism Toronto, well, ever
For your Friday afternoon stalking viewing pleasure, take a look at this cool website, dreamed up by the folks at, er, Tourism Toronto (we were surprised too). With features like the Streetcam and CityView, Trending Toronto logs Toronto-related tweets in real time.
The Streetcam offers a street-level account of what Torontonians are tweeting about, while the City View provides a detailed bird’s-eye map of Toronto, allowing viewers to navigate the city and see where people are going. It almost makes up for last summer’s Toronto ad campaign in the New Yorker featuring the city’s most recognizable fixtures, drunk-kids-in-a-limo.
Groundhog Day forecast: almost all pivotal groundhogs agree that it will be a short winter
Wiarton Willie saw a winter this big (Image: Explore the Bruce)
The groundhogs have weighed in, and it’s nearly unanimous: Punxsutawney Phil, Wiarton Willie and Nova Scotia’s Shubenacadie Sam all failed to see their shadows today, declaring that Canada and the U.S. would see an early spring. With arbitrary, superstitious consensus like that, it’s a sure thing, right?
Not so much. Check out this quote from the website of Alberta’s Balzac Billy.
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Schwarzenegger’s Toronto event leads to comparisons with Henry Kissinger and Rob Ford
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Aside from the boilerplate nature of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s speech last night in Toronto—it was filled with his usual catchphrases, such as “girly men” and “I’ll be back”—the former chief executive of California bragged about his unique status among politicians. The National Post was there to hear it: “I know that this is a place where so many speakers come through. I’m very much aware of the Henry Kissingers and the George Bushes and the Bill Clintons… But I am somewhat unique… George Bush didn’t dance with Danny DeVito. Or, for instance, how many of them were naked in Terminator 3? … How many have been pregnant, like I was in the movie Junior?”
Holiday Miracle: Parents let Internet name their daughter, disaster doesn’t ensue
Here’s a surprisingly effective PR campaign. (Let’s be honest, right?) A GTA couple signed up to let a Facebook group vote on what their unborn daughter’s name would be. The winner, as of the child’s birthday? The surprisingly pleasant “Melania.” The Toronto Star reports:
The vote was organized by FabFind, a four-month-old daily deals website. CEO Bill Heilmann said more than 22,000 people — some from as far away as South Africa, China and Brazil — voted to name little Melania.
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City of Toronto ad goes viral, hits CNN
“Cellphones? We want it! Computers from the pre-Internet age? We want it! TVs encased in mahogany? We want it!” It’s rare that a municipal ad campaign gets it right, but when it does, the world sits up and takes notice. That’s the case with Toronto’s “We Want It” Web ads, in which a burly pair of guys named Chuck and Vince implore viewers to recycle their used electronics.
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A modest proposal for Toronto politics: more Bolivia-style junk shots
It’s video like this (at left) that makes us want to learn more about Latin American politics. In a soccer match designed to show that Bolivian president Evo Morales and his main political rival could play hard but still keep it clean, things went a bit awry when Morales kneed Luis Revilla hard, and where it counts. It might be a big fail when it comes to keeping it clean on the pitch, but it’s a big win in terms of YouTube hits right now (10,129, and it’s been posted less than a day).
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283 University of Toronto students’ diplomas recalled due to typo
This will cause a lot of gloating around the offices of such institutions as Carleton, Ryerson and York, we imagine. A typo on the diplomas issued by the University of Toronto in July has led to them being recalled like wonky Toyotas.
According to the Toronto Star:
The mistake, which incorrectly identifies the title of a signatory, has resulted in a diploma recall for nearly 1,350 recent graduates from U of T Mississauga.
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When cats go missing at Pearson, the Star is there
Don't fence me in (Image: Quinn Dombrowski)
There are days when reporters never stop running after a story. There are days when they battle with sources to get the information a well-informed public needs. There are days where Paris Hilton or Britney Spears does something. And then there are days like yesterday, when little of note happens, and we get this story from the Toronto Star:
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Five reasons why Malcolm Gladwell is a super-genius with world domination ambitions
And he's popular with ladies (Image: Lindsay Smith)
By now, everyone—yes, everyone—is familiar with either Malcolm Gladwell or his well-marketed ways of connecting disparate dots to create zany, counterintuitive conclusions. He’s received some press recently to coincide with an upcoming F5 Expo speech in Vancouver (Canadian media tends to go gaga when our high-profilers come back). Combing through it, we came to a counterintuitive conclusion of our own. Once we connected the seemingly random factors embedded in his interviews with the Globe and Mail and Canadian Business, we realized that Gladwell is a super-genius, albeit it a patriotic one, bent on world domination.
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Toronto has a wealth of lame loos, but a dearth of story ideas
(Image: Eric Schmuttenmaer)
In a story remarkably similar to one done by Citytv two weeks ago, the Toronto Sun spent 741 words last weekend discussing the fact that public toilets are—wait for it—gross. Both pieces start with reader submissions on where the city’s worst bathrooms are (apparently subway stations; Kennedy and Kipling are the worst offenders), followed by a list of where the cleanest washrooms are. Here is how each media outlet described Kipling station:
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