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Toronto Life - The Wire

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

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How bullying became the crisis of a generation

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

The Bully Mob

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.

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The Informer

From the Print Edition

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Rob Granatstein: why the city should sell off its assets—slowly but surely

Selling For Dummies

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

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.

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The Informer

Sun Spots

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Toronto media get very, very excited about an intoxicated couple making whoopee on the TTC 

The Toronto Star dropped a cheeky “Ride the Rocket” joke; BlogTO played on the “mile-high club; Newstalk 1010 spoke of “bunnies” and “knickers;” OpenFile succinctly stated “What? How? For the love God, why?” And the Toronto Sun did this—on its front page. Bless.

The Informer

Black Watch

1 Comment

Conrad Black Book Club: A Matter of Principle, Chapter 11 (wherein Black compares himself to Job)

CONRAD BLACK BOOK CLUB Chapter 11

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.

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The Informer

My Name Is Lucre

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Reaction roundup: What the city’s sports (and business) writers are saying about the MLSE deal

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.

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The Informer

Mediaocracy

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Sun columnist calls city hall deputants “whiners,” then creates silly nicknames for council’s left 

Sue-Ann Levy broke out a remarkably uncreative list of nicknames for her favourite lefty councillors in the Toronto Sun today. There’s Gord Guards-His-Perks, AdamI Take Myself Very Seriously” Vaughan, Shelley “I Need a Nutrition Break” Carroll and Janet “I’m the Queen of Daycare” Davis. With Rob Ford’s former press secretary Adrienne Batra joining the paper, perhaps Levy is making her pitch to fill that freshly vacant spot. We can’t deny her this: it sure would be a nice fit. Read the entire story [Toronto Sun] »

The Informer

Ford Focus

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Rob Ford’s old website is hacked—but sadly, not by the Toronto Star

(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 Informer

Mediaocracy

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Ryerson journalism professor to the Star: Fight the power (quietly)

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] »

The Informer

A Message from Toronto Life

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Weekend Reading List: top stories from our sister sites, from roller skaters to deep-fried taters

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

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The Informer

Mediaocracy

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The National Post lands another elite-level columnist, scooping up Andrew Coyne from Maclean’s

(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] »

The Informer

From the Print Edition

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Nicholas Hune-Brown: How to die on Facebook

When you’re dead, your Facebook page becomes a permanent digital gravestone, and your family and friends (and quite possibly some strangers) will indulge in a free-for-all of trivializing hagiography. The perils of online legacies

How to Die on Facebook

It was 11 in the morning on a warm Friday in September when a 16-year-old boy named Akash Wadhwa plunged from the Mavis Road overpass onto the busy 401. Shortly afterward, Peel police found the slain body of his classmate Kiranjit Nijjar in a nearby ravine.

At Mississauga Secondary School, what had begun as a series of horrific rumours solidified, piece by piece, into a single, devastating murder-suicide story. According to reports, Wadhwa, a depressed and troubled Grade 12 student, had strangled his 17-year-old friend Nijjar and then jumped onto the highway. Before he leapt, Wadhwa had left a last message on Facebook: “SUICIDE/MURDER NOTE: Three things I learned in life. What goes around comes around. KARMA is the biggest bitch. You should NEVER CHANGE on people who love and care for you… My one main reason I did this is that life let me down way too much.”

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The Informer

Ford Focus

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The Toronto Star versus Rob Ford: the paper returns fire with a call to the commish

The Toronto Star is going to the city’s integrity commissioner to settle its long-standing grudge match with Mayor Rob Ford. Ever since the Star published a story claiming Ford roughed up one of his players while coaching at Newtonbrook Secondary School, Ford has refused to speak to the paper (except for the time a “groggy-sounding Ford” commented on his kidney stone). Apparently, Ford even took the spat a step further recently, asking the paper’s competitors not to tell the communists at One Yonge (we assume Mammoliti can smell them) about a brief on arts funding. The Star’s return message to Ford: don’t mess. Read the entire story [Toronto Star] »

(Image: Rob Ford, Christopher Drost)

The Informer

Black Watch

3 Comments

Conrad Black Book Club: A Matter of Principle, Chapter 9 (wherein Black falls and bruises his knee)

CONRAD BLACK BOOK CLUB Chapter 9

Only in the distorted world of Conrad Black does moving become an ordeal on par with the Hundred Years War or the Rwandan genocide. He admires Barbara Amiel’s “sad and heroic efforts” as they pack up their 800 boxes to ship them to Toronto. Who knew renting a U-Haul truck could be so poetic?

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The Informer

Mediaocracy

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Rob Ford’s press secretary, Adrienne Batra, joins (and towers over) the Sun

Adrienne Batra joins the Sun

Screenshot of Torontosun.com

Readers who alighted on the Toronto Sun website during their lunch break today were greeted with the unexpected yet benevolent visage of Adrienne Batra, Rob Ford’s press secretary, gazing down upon them. According to the mash note announcement posted there, Batra has been appointed the editor of the paper’s comment pages and website. Publisher Mike Power describes Batra as “a highly effective and skilled communicator with a deep knowledge of and affection for this city,” while editor-in-chief James Wallace points out that “she’s spent her career sticking up for the little guy.” Batra is most famous for her yeoman attempts at reining in the free-wheeling Brothers Ford (including one memorable attempt at spiking a CTV clip), and with this new position, she joins Kory Teneycke in the proud tradition of conservative flacks moving over to a Sun Media property. Her last (official) day with Ford Nation is apparently Friday. We at The Informer wish her the best of luck.

The Hype

Prime Time

11 Comments

Do you want to see the “evil, left-wing CBC” privatized? There’s a bumper sticker for that

This speaks for itself (and your car) (Image: manybones12)

EBay is filled with many hidden treasures, and today Twitter uncovered something political: a call from one bumper sticker maker to put an end to the public financing of the CBC (or, as the Sun puts it, the state broadcaster) with the sale of a pro-privatization bumper sticker ($8.99 + $2.45 shipping). It’s being touted as a “great stocking stuffer,” so if you know any capitalist motorists who hate Being Erica, Heather Hiscox and Nancy Wilson that much, this would make the perfect present.

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