The answer is simple: our curriculum is shamefully outdated, and the Liberals are too scared to fix it
By Jan Wong | Illustration by Jesse Lefkowitz

Adam and Eve nibble an apple from the Tree of Knowledge and suddenly realize they’re both naked. Unfortunately, sex ed isn’t part of God’s plan, and He evicts them from the Garden of Eden. These days, some folks in Toronto are acting quite God-like themselves, insisting that the next generation live in innocence and ignorance. Heaven forbid our youth get to know themselves in the Biblical sense.

Our public schools are under attack by an evangelical Christian organization called the Institute for Canadian Values, whose leaders believe, as a basic ideological tenet, that teaching up-to-date sex education in schools will corrupt and confuse our children. The institute is run by a man named Charles McVety, who is quite skilled at getting media attention. Shamefully, most journalists have checked their brains at the door, blandly covering the institute’s actions and claims without questioning their legitimacy or standing up against the influence of the church on the state.

While some parents feel it is solely their responsibility to educate their kids about sex, most of us—more than 85 per cent, according to the educational organization SIECCAN (the Sex Information and Education Council of Canada)—want schools to play a supporting role. This silent majority notwithstanding, our leaders are caving to splinter groups. In 2010, Premier Dalton McGuinty nervously shelved a newly revised sex ed curriculum after McVety launched an attack campaign in which he claimed to be speaking on behalf of Ontario parents.

The proposed new sex ed curriculum, three years in the making, was created by a team of health experts and educators. At 219 pages, it was meant to replace a 40-page curriculum from the 1990s—when Mike Harris was premier and a ninth-grader named Mark Zuckerberg had not yet imagined a gold mine called Facebook. Under the revised curriculum, Grade 1 students would learn the names of male and female genitalia, compared with previously learning only “the major parts of the body.” The old curriculum presumed heterosexuality. In the new one, Grade 3 students would learn about gender identity and sexual orientation through class discussion. The teaching guide mentions a scenario in which kids might say: “Some students live with two parents. Some live with one parent. Some have two mothers or two fathers. Some live with grandparents or with caregivers.” Pretty innocuous stuff, so far.

The old Grade 5 curriculum focused mainly on the physical changes at puberty. The new one focuses on emotional and social changes, too. “You can show that you like someone by being extra nice to them.…[Ways] that are inappropriate include touching them without their permission [or] spreading rumours about them to others or online.” Under the old curriculum, Grade 6 students studied “the changes at puberty to the reproductive organs and their functions.” The new one would inform them they weren’t the only ones masturbating, or having wet dreams, or experiencing vaginal lubrication. By Grade 7, students would learn about the importance of emotional readiness before having sex and the risks of contracting sexually transmitted infections through oral sex, anal sex or vaginal intercourse. You think age 13 is too young for such graphic stuff? A 2006–2007 Statistics Canada study of 13-year-olds with a girlfriend or boyfriend found that 6.5 per cent had already had sex. By age 14 and 15, the number jumps to 16.5 per cent.

(Image: Christopher Drost)

Rob Ford is wrapping up his year-end interview circuit, having spoken to (most of) the city’s major dailies, along with a few local broadcasters. The media bits are mostly predictable affairs, with Ford repeating things he’s been saying since he ran for office. But there are a few gems hidden among all the talking points. In the Globe, for instance, Ford professes his love for quarterback Tim Tebow. While the interviews are disappointing, it’s worth noting that it’s Ford, not the reporters, who deserves much of the blame here (although not always). Ford’s the one who seems unable to stray from a small smattering of talking points. A roundup of the mayor’s media blitz after the jump.

1. The National Post nails it
Somewhat surprisingly, it’s the National Post that offered arguably the strongest year-end interview with the mayor. Sure, there’s the usual material—the vehicle registration tax, talk about graffiti, various unsubstantiated claims—but there’s lots of good stuff, too. The Post may have endorsed Ford for mayor, but that doesn’t stop its reporter from challenging Ford to explain what he means when he says he’s created jobs or pointing out that his definition of “service cut” is a tad warped. Oh, and the story notes that his math on Sheppard subway extension is way off.

2. The Globe and Mail reveals who Ford’s besties are
The Globe’s rapid-fire Q and A with the mayor makes for a healthy serving of absurdity divvied up in bite-sized morsels. The mayor says he wants to axe 7,000 jobs—“give or take”—and at one point, uses a football analogy to explain transit funding. Then, of course, there’s the mayor’s answer to a question about whether or not he eats his meals at home: “Tim Hortons and McDonald’s have become like best friends.”

3. CP24 lobs the mayor softballs
Stephen LeDrew and his fantastic eyebrows spoke to Ford last week in what looked more like a chummy Christmas chat than, you know, journalism. If Ford’s refusal to budge from his talking points weren’t so illustrative of his careful handling of his message, watching this clip would be completely pointless. Ford also said he gets “30 or 40” invitations to local events each night and expressed his surprise that that many events take place in Toronto.

4. Wait, Ford still talks to the CBC?
The CBC’s interview with Ford was more of the same. We’re just surprised, given that Ford froze out the Star for this, that he’s still talking to the CBC after the whole Marg Delahunty thing.

5. The mayor’s daily newsletter offers exactly what we would expect
The Sun spread their year-end coverage of Ford out over a couple of equally sympathetic articles and videos. Naturally, Ford says what he always says (and even dusts off a tried-and-true line about Kyle Rae’s $12,000 retirement party). Of course, Ford is losing support on council, hoping to pass an impossible budget, and watching his Sheppard fantasies slowly die, but the Sun doesn’t see it that way. According to the paper, he’s not in serious political trouble; he’s “defiant under fire.”

6. The Toronto Star finally lands an interview with Ford
Just kidding. Star reporter Daniel Dale, however, recommends the Post’s interview.

A tale of death threats, tarnished reputations and literary jealousy
By Leah McLaren

(Image: Daniel Ehrenworth)

The streets near Scarborough’s Confederation Park curve and loop in a vertiginous web. The neighbourhood was built in the 1970s—several blocks of low-lying split-levels and bungalows divided by neatly trimmed hedges and 20-foot pines. The 401 is just a few blocks away, but these houses are quiet and isolated, even prim. Ling Zhang lives here in a large mock Tudor. She answers the door on the first ring, a diminutive woman with full moon cheeks and a bashful smile. At 54, she wears her hair in a wispy, youthful updo and is dressed in a peacock-blue sundress, a simple cardigan and slippers. The house is immaculate. We pass through a large front hall with a formal dining and living room off either side. Matching white leather sofas sprawl across polished cherry floors. Everywhere I look, there are vases filled with flowers in pastel pink and white. They’re all fake, but the effect is cheerful.

In the kitchen, Zhang makes me a cup of tea. Her husband, Ken He, a slight man in a short-sleeved plaid shirt, pops in to say hello—but not much else. Zhang explains his English isn’t great. “Moving to Toronto was a big sacrifice for him,” she says. The couple met in Vancouver, at the church where Zhang, a born-again Christian, was baptized as an adult. They came to Toronto so Zhang could take a job at Scarborough General Hospital as an audiologist. Her husband, who was an ophthalmologist in China, now sells real estate to the GTA’s Chinese immigrant community.

(Image: Carlo Mendoza)

Until recently, Zhang made her living treating patients for hearing loss, but in 2010 she quit to concentrate full-time on her writing. She is the author of nine Chinese language books, including the bestseller Aftershock, about the 1976 earthquake in Tangshan. A government-sponsored film adaptation of the book brought in $100 million at the box office in China, becoming the highest-grossing Chinese movie ever. This fall, Penguin Canada released an English translation of her sprawling historical epic Gold Mountain Blues. The book is her first novel to be translated. It spans from 1872 to the present and tells the story of five generations of a Chinese family who came to work, live and eventually settle in Canada. At over 500 pages, it’s an ambitious book, both in subject matter and in heft.

The novel became a bestseller and critical hit in China and won a number of awards. The TV and film rights were optioned, and foreign rights sold in 12 countries. Its Canadian publishers are hoping it will become the first East-West crossover bestseller. Last year, a panel discussion devoted to Zhang’s books was held at an international symposium on Chinese-Canadian literature at York University. Xueqing Xu, one of the organizing professors, described Gold Mountain Blues to me as “a milestone in Chinese-Canadian literature in its scope, depth and characterization.”

Thus far, the novel has proven Ling Zhang’s personal gold mountain—a financial and reputational game changer in a literary career that had been restricted to China and Taiwan. But as the old Chinese proverb goes, if you go up the mountain too often, you will eventually encounter the tiger. In Zhang’s case, the metaphorical beast is a wave of allegations, which started in the Chinese blogosphere and made its way across the globe, that Gold Mountain Blues plagiarizes Denise Chong, Sky Lee, Wayson Choy and Paul Yee—four of this country’s most established Chinese-Canadian writers. In October, Lee, Choy and Yee launched a civil claim for almost $10 million in damages against Penguin Canada, Zhang and the book’s translator, Nicky Harman, which also demands that the book be pulled from the shelves and pulped.

Whatever happens, it’s difficult to imagine a positive outcome for Zhang. Plagiarism is the most serious professional allegation a writer can face, an accusation that produces an instant and lingering stain on even the most sterling literary reputation.

As his trial approaches, Conrad Black is wringing his hands. While his lawyer, Eddie Greenspan, is the finest legal mind in Canada, Black is concerned that Greenspan lacks the requisite knowledge of the American justice system.

Black, Barbara and his daughter Alana (who Black weirdly describes as “beguiling”) trek to Chicago for the trial. Their ties to hotelier Izzy Sharp land them a suite in the Ritz-Carlton (yes, Sharp owns the Four Seasons, but he hooks Black up with his peeps at the Ritz nonetheless—anything for the dear Baron). But they’re still poor—the hotel room has “no special grandeur,” only a galley kitchen and rooms in which Conrad and Barbara can each do their work. Because there’s plenty to do: Conrad finishes his Nixon biography, and Barbara purchases a Hungarian puli that she names George Black, after Conrad’s father. Aw.

The action gets into sitcom territory when Black attends jury selection, where he’s flabbergasted by the pedestrian intellect of his potential peers, including a “gigantic, moustachioed woman” who claims to believe that everyone accused is guilty. Black is aghast: if he weren’t so preoccupied with his trial, he would totally go Henry Higgins and transform the riff raff into the bon ton.

The trial commences and is predictably boring—we admit that our eyes glazed over. Black watches as the prosecutor, Eric Sussman, manages to foil every motion Greenspan tries to make (seeing as the latter is so green when it comes to American law and all).

Despite Greenspan, however, everything is coming up Conrad. Those involved with the community newspaper sales admit that they only dealt with David Radler and that Black wasn’t involved, and the non-competition payments are repeatedly classified by the witnesses as “conditions of closing,” which suggests that they were all above board. Even Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente tells Black that she doesn’t think he’s going to go to prison (even though she hoped that he would).

In the words of the Lord:

• On the potential jurors: “I was unprepared for such a procession of mainly monosyllabic and listless people.”

• On the hobbies and interests of the potential jurors: “Most were low-brow magazines, soap operas, bowling, bingo, gardening, and attending to dogs. There did not appear to be as many as half of them who had ever read a book, played a game of chess, or watched a serious newscast.”

• On his true-blue fan club “Friends gave me several parting dinners and an avalanche of messages arrived, many accompanied by prayers and uplifting poems. There was a Conrad Black Fan Club website and a sequence of supportive T-shirts: ‘Conrad Will Win,’ ‘Go Conrad,’ ‘Free Conrad,’ and so forth.”

Kids are committing suicide, parents are in a panic, and schools that neglect to protect students are lawsuit targets
By Denise Balkissoon

Mitchell Wilson had a short life. He was born in March 2000 at Markham-Stouffville Hospital to Craig and Shelley Wilson. From the age of three, he had trouble running and jumping. He climbed stairs slowly, putting both feet on each step before moving up. He fell often, and sometimes he couldn’t get up on his own. His doctors thought he had hypermobility syndrome—joints that extend and bend more than normal.

When Mitchell was seven, his mother was diagnosed with an aggressive melanoma. Her treatments left her distant, sometimes testy and mean, and in so much pain that she rarely left her bedroom. “I sort of kept Mitchell away,” Craig Wilson told me.

“He basically didn’t talk to his mother during the last four months of her life.” Wilson often left his son to his own devices while he took care of his dying wife and ran his family’s industrial knife business. Mitchell spent most of his time in his bedroom, playing video games. He comforted himself with food, and by the time he was four feet tall he weighed 167 pounds. Once, in a Walmart, he fell to the ground and his grandmother had to ask store employees to help her lift him.

In 2010, Craig Wilson remarried, to a woman named Tiffany Usher. After a campy Las Vegas ceremony during which they both wore flip-flops, the couple moved with Mitchell and Usher’s two preteen daughters into a four-bedroom house just east of Rouge Park. Usher had worked as a special education teacher, and she suspected that Mitchell’s hypermobility syndrome diagnosis wasn’t right. She took him to SickKids, where doctors determined he had a type of muscular dystrophy called limb girdle, a genetic disease that eats away at the muscle tissue in the shoulders and hips. Mitchell’s parents didn’t tell him that he’d probably die in his mid-20s, and that he’d spend his last couple of years in bed, breathing with the help of a respirator.

Muscular dystrophy usually brings with it cognitive limitations. Mitchell was labelled gifted in math but severely learning disabled in languages. This, along with his weight and his bright red hair, made him a target for teasing at Pickering’s William Dunbar P.S. Mitchell was ridiculed when he fell, and he was sometimes knocked down to be laughed at as he struggled to his feet. Other students would step on him, then give each other high-fives.

The Wilsons transferred Mitchell to Westcreek P.S. for Grade 5, and he seemed happier. He became known as a goof, even a ­troublemaker—he was regularly kicked out of French class for encouraging other students to tease the teacher by making silly sounds and faces. He found a group of friends, including a skateboarder named Max, who was in Grade 8. Having an older friend gave him confidence. Once, Max taught Mitchell how to jam the school elevator so that he’d have an excuse to skip his second-floor classes.

To close the budget gap, Rob Ford wants to sell city assets. Good idea, bad timing. Even a novice real estate investor knows to fix up the house before putting it on the market
By Rob Granatstein | Illustration by Jack Fylan

Cities acquire assets for many reasons. Sometimes a wealthy citizen donates a property, as in the case of High Park; sometimes assets, such as Henry Pellatt’s Casa Loma, are seized when tax bills go unpaid. A city grows to meet the needs of its citizens, adding public housing and office buildings, a zoo (or three), convention centres, highways, police and fire stations, parks, arenas, garbage trucks, landfill sites and libraries.

Over its 180-year history, Toronto has amassed an impressive array of land, utilities, subways and buildings—we’re sitting on $18 billion in real estate holdings alone. However, what seems like an enviable and diversified portfolio that should pay massive dividends is actually a money-sucking liability. The taxes, rents and fees the city collects aren’t enough to cover its ownership costs—contributing to the operating budget hole Rob Ford is currently trying to plug.

Ford likes to say Toronto has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. In fact, Toronto has a non-spending problem—that is, a chronic failure to regularly upgrade and replace its assets. It’s time to operate Toronto with an eBay expert’s mentality: shine up the stuff we don’t need, then sell it to pay for the goods we do need. The important thing is to do it on our terms, not in a fire sale. Ford is pushing city council toward a historic liquidation sale, but with no strategy to maximize the value of the assets. Just about everything except the TTC, Toronto Water and city hall could go on the block, and mistakes are irrevocable.

Asset sales have worked for us in the past. In 2005, facing a sudden deficit, the city sold its streetlight poles to Toronto Hydro for $60 million. Toronto Hydro Telecom (a Hydro subsidiary) then used the tops of the poles to build a Wi-Fi network downtown, which it in turn sold to Cogeco for $200 million in 2008. The city used part of its proceeds from the deal—$75 million—to fix up ramshackle Community Housing buildings. Smart move.

Not all municipal asset sales go swimmingly, however. Chicago offers a case study in the perils of selling potential income generators for one-time cash infusions. In 2009, then-mayor Richard M. Daley made a privatization blunder that sent a chill through cities across North America. He sold the investment bank Morgan Stanley a 75-year lease on Chicago’s 36,000 parking meters in return for $1.16 billion in cash. Parking rates immediately quadrupled, and the city burned through most of its windfall in two years. The loss in revenue contributed to a drop in Chicago’s credit rating, and interest payments rose. Meanwhile, the parking business—recently sold to investors in Abu Dhabi and Luxembourg—can expect to earn $9 billion in profits over the course of its lease.

Since the Chicago debacle, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Memphis and New Haven have all nixed plans to sell or lease parking assets. Indianapolis, on the other hand, went for it, but learned from Chicago’s mistakes. Last November, the city entered into a 50-year deal that included a big lump sum payment, an exit clause and, most significantly, a revenue-sharing arrangement. Already, the private partner has modernized the parking system and is generating greater profits for both itself and Indianapolis taxpayers.

After what seems like a million pages (it’s actually 310), Conrad Black has finally been indicted. Boosted by testimony from David Radler (whom Black calls “the nasty gnome from Chicago”), the U.S. government is seeking a 95-year prison sentence. Plot-wise, we expected things to pick up around now—but instead Black just returns to his favourite topics: being poor, being persecuted by the media, and being friends with Elton John.

Believe it or not, Conrad is even more impoverished in this chapter than he was in the last. Liens are being taken out on all his homes (weren’t those sold already?), and the ever-noble Barbara goes behind Conrad’s back to sell her jewellery to “various oily gem dealers.” Black seems to be going slightly mad: at one point he even sets up a cardboard shelter in his garden room for lost ladybugs.

Seriously, Black’s basically a member of the 99 per cent now. Yet he’s still grateful the Man hasn’t taken everything away from him: at least he still has that sprawling, ostentatious Bridle Path mansion.

Also, did you know he’s friends with famous people? This time, he gives up trying to be casual about it, rattling off an actual list of celebrity friends. No surprise, it’s a collection of daffy eccentrics, including Dame Edna, Anna Wintour, Rush Limbaugh, Joan Collins, Ann Coulter and, of course, Sir Elton and David Furnish. (We’d totally go to that dinner party.)

Meanwhile, Black’s civil trial continues with a couple of small victories: the tax evasion charges and non-competition payment allegations are thrown out. Of course, prosecutor Eric Sussman then sticks him with the new charge of laundering money from Hollinger Inc. to finance Hollinger International. Zzzzzzzzz.

Oh, and somehow amid all the trials and hobnobbing and entomology, Black finds the time to write a 400,000-word biography of Richard Nixon.

In the words of the Lord:

• On his suffering: “On Christmas day, I read the book of Job. I discovered that while Job had endured more severe oppression than I had, he had been much less patient.”

• On Richard Nixon: “I’m not a bit like Richard Nixon, though in most respects he was an admirable person with whom comparisons would be flattering.”

•  On being the most overachieving client Eddie Greenspan ever had: “I wrote a 72-page dissection of the contradictory remarks and testimony of Breeden, Thompson, Kravis, Burt, Heath and Kissinger, as well as an outline of a response to all the counts.”

• On the depths of evil: “The posturing of seedy journalists, suddenly made over as Victorian dowagers, bandying about censorious descriptions of totally innocent people, was especially odious. Being removed from Christmas card lists was particularly irritating.”

Sure, the fact that Bell Canada and Rogers have teamed up to purchase Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment is old news now, but the full implications of the deal remain to be seen. For our part, we’re wondering if the Toronto Maple Leafs will be slapped with absurd roaming charges on the road, or whether fans will have to purchase beer by following a series of annoying prompts on their cellphones. Of course, there’s also the tricky matter of whether or not the $1.32-billion purchase will turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing for Toronto sports teams—and, by extension, their fans—when it comes to the business of winning and losing. We round up what the city’s sportswriter corps is saying on the matter, after the jump.

1. What will happen to Hockey Night in Canada?
The Grid’s Rob Duffy highlights the impact of the deal on you and your smart phone, writing that fans should expect more MLSE content delivered to their mobile devices. Oh, and apparently the Leafs’ new owners will eventually try to steal NHL broadcasting rights away from the CBC, “which will, of course, kill Hockey Night in Canada and dramatically reshape Canadian media as we know it.” So there’s that.

2. The largest purchase in Canadian sports history had a cool code name
Four Globe and Mail reporters went full-Woodstein on the story, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the deal. According to the paper, MLSE chairman and billionaire Larry Tanenbaum played kingmaker, granting competitors Bell and Rogers the chance for joint ownership—as long as they gave him a 25 per cent share of the company. The deal even had a code name. The folks at Bell called it Midnight: “a dark reference to two rivals coming together.”

3. What’s winning got to do, got to do with it?
The Sun’s Steve Simmons writes that Rogers’ and Bell’s primary interest is delivering as much content as possible on as many different platforms as possible (the Star’s Damien Cox echoed a similar concern). Simmons points out the telecom giants likely aren’t overly concerned with the Leafs’ penalty killing or the Raptors defence. The Globe’s Eric Duhatschek, on the other hand, begs to differ: he counters that winning is, and always will be, good business.

4. Another reason to hate Bell: they own part of the Habs
In addition to now owning part of the Leafs, Bell already has a minority stake in the Montreal Canadiens. (Bell president and CEO George Cope already stated that the company will maintain that stake.)

5. At this rate, Rogers and Bell will soon own your child’s little league team
The Globe and Mail’s Bruce Dowbiggin thinks the deal, which saw two competing corporations reach a compromise, is quintessentially Canadian. (There’s some truth to that, but a more fitting resolution given the circumstances might have been for the companies to drop the gloves and wail on each other.) Dowbiggin’s main concern, though, is journalistic. With Rogers and Bell owning both the city’s sports teams and the reporters that cover them, can we really expect untainted journalism?

6. The Competition Bureau is on the case
Always looking to rain on a billionaire’s parade, the federal competition watchdog is set to investigate the MLSE deal, the Canadian Press reports. The Competition Bureau, which stays on the lookout for anti-competitive behaviour by large corporations, hasn’t released the specifics of its investigation. Still, the purchase seems like an obvious target for at least a little scrutiny.

• What does the MLSE sales mean for TSN and Sportsnet [The Grid]
• How the MLSE deal was done [Globe and Mail]
• Nothing in MLSE deal for Toronto fans [Toronto Sun]
• Cox: What would Conn Smyth think of the Maple Leafs now [Toronto Star]
• Despite MLSE deal, on-ice fortunes of Leafs will remain the same [Globe and Mail]
• MLSE deal: What Rogers and Bell buyout means for fans [National Post]
• MLSE deal: A typical Canadian compromise [Globe and Mail]
• Toronto Maple Leafs sold, but Competition Bureau will investigate [Canadian Press]

(Image: screen grab from robford.ca)

When the mayor’s registration of RobFord.ca expired earlier this year, an opportunistic prankster seized the opportunity, registering the domain and redirecting traffic to the Toronto Star’s website. Since the prank made news yesterday, the page has also featured a “Robert Ford” beauty contest and directed visitors to a Wikipedia page for a certain cowardly killer. It now features the email address outlaw@robford.ca and is apparently “occupied”—but the content seems to be ever changing. Given the long-standing public feud between Ford and the Star, this might look like a dirty (read: clever) trick by the newspaper. But the Star maintains its innocence. Which, really, is too bad. This kind of playful scheming is a lot more fun than a front-page hissy fit. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »

The long-running spat between Mayor Rob Ford and the Toronto Star ramped up last week: first the Star filed a complaint with the city integrity commissioner, then Doug Ford responded, and then the Star ran a story on Ford’s response with the headline “Doug Ford to Star: Drop Dead.” Ryerson journalism professor John Miller says the Star is right to file a formal complaint—but that it should do so quietly. The paper’s dirty laundry isn’t front-page news. Read the entire story [J-Source] »

Every weekend we round up the highlights from the other websites in the St. Joseph Media family. Check them out, after the jump.

• Like the rest of the world, Fashion can’t seem to decide whether rising artist Lana Del Rey—who performed at Toronto’s Mod Club on Wednesday—is plastic or genuine, street or poetic, dramatic or earnest. At least on this much everyone can agree: the girl can dress herself. Read the entire story [Fashion] »

• Canadian Family examines the controversy over a $5 “baby tax” at a U.K. all-you-can-eat buffet. We’re pretty confused ourselves; there’s no way such a measly fee will keep those annoying scamps out. Read the entire story [Canadian Family] »

• Ottawa’s food editor Shawna Wagman presents her holiday wish list for those of an epicurean bent—if you can’t find these picks in Toronto, remember to check out our 19 fantastic finds for food and wine fanatics. See the list [Ottawa Magazine] »

• Last month we also showed off 19 perfect presents for the jet-setting cosmopolitan—meanwhile, the sneaks at Where were putting together a full 50 gifts for travel lovers. View the gallery [Where] »

• While stressed-out Torontonians are used to replacing time-consuming meals with potato chips, 20 Minute Supper Club offers two recipes that incorporate those crispy calories into actual food. See the recipes [20 Minute Supper Club] »

• As long as the bakeries of the world keep cranking out ludicrous and awe-inspiring cupcakes, we will never stop looking at cupcake galleries. WeddingBells has another 24 creations to admire, including replicas of popcorn buckets, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, pandas, cheeseburgers and black-eyed Susans. View the gallery [WeddingBells] »

• Every year Quill and Quire selects its favourite book covers. The picks from 2011 include a paint-by-numbers-inspired piece for Giller Prize winner Johanna Skibsrud’s latest and a supremely unsettling axe-toting woman for Alexi Zentner’s Touch. View the gallery [Quill and Quire] »

• The first ever Roller Derby World Cup is being held in Toronto this weekend, and Karen Aagaard makes an appeal in Torontoist for media coverage that looks past the players’ pseudonyms, appearances and amusingly banal day jobs and actually addresses, you know, the sport. Read the entire story [Torontoist] »

(Image: Arjun Singh)

Andrew Coyne is about as close to a celebrity political columnist as there is in this country, and news broke yesterday that he’s leaving Maclean’s to go back to the National Post. According to a statement on the Post’s website, Coyne will write three columns a week for the Postmedia chain’s newspapers and websites. First thoroughly public spectacle Christie Blatchford returned to the Post, and now Coyne. The paper sure is stacking its roster with (presumably pricy) heavy-hitters. Read the entire story [National Post] »