Food with a purpose
Chef Rocco Agostino from Pizzeria Libretto/Enoteca Sociale flips over FoodShare’s Recipe For Change fundraiser at the St. Lawrence Market on February 28. More tasty pics.
Council Notebook
Sure to be the hottest new spot in the Entertainment District (wink), the What A Bagel at Spadina and Richmond has requested a liquor licence for a 70-seat patio. The interior is already a licensed space with a capacity of 65. Later this month, council will ask city lawyers to advocate for the usual set of licence conditions to keep the raging all-night twister parties under control.
At the same meeting, council will also advise the Alcohol and Gaming Commission that it’s cool with a whole whack of bars staying open until 4 am during Toronto Beer Week (September 13-21), including the suburban outposts of the Bier Markt on the Queensway and in Don Mills.
Dachshund UN
WHAT A meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights gone to the dogs, aka Dachshund UN, by Bennett Miller
WHERE Harbourfront Centre, Saturday March 2
WHY Questions humankind’s ability to imagine and achieve a universal system of justice
Weird scene
Venezuela’s hugely popular president, Hugo Chavez, dies, and our PM, still fighting the Cold War, can’t bring himself to offer condolences. “I hope the people of Venezuela can now build for themselves a better, brighter future based on the principles of freedom, democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights,” the PM’s three-sentence statement concludes. By which he really means “Thank god another communist is dead.” Can’t wait for Harp’s Castro sympathy card.
Casino watch
MGM Resorts International and Cadillac Fairview called the city’s media to the Sheraton Hotel on Wednesday, March 6, to unveil a model of its “hotly anticipated” plans for an “integrated resort” at the Ex. But photographers were asked not to take pictures of the model because it was “not ready for public consumption.” Here’s one of several artists’ renderings the casino operator distributed through Canada Newswire.
2,791,140
Toronto’s total population, according to Statistics Canada’s estimate, making T.O. the fourth-largest city in North America, behind Mexico City, New York City and Los Angeles. Immigration numbers are declining, however, from an annual influx of 60,000 people 10 years ago to just over 46,000 people today.
Flanagan Flap
3 most surprising revelations from the Tom Flanagan child pornography fallout:
1. That more wasn’t made of Flanagan’s confession that he was on the mailing list of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) for two years. The group advocates sex between men and boys “in mutually consensual relationships.”
2. How quickly Flanagan’s political friends in conservative circles, including people he mentored – like PM Stephen Harper and Wildrose leader Danielle Smith – distanced themselves not only from his comments but from Flanagan himself, seemingly forever.
3. How completely the controversy eclipsed what should have been a good-news day for the HarperCons: NDP MP Claude Patry’s defection to the Bloc.
Sounding off
Suddenly the Keystone pipeline feels like a magical fun-tube filled with bean sprouts and pixie dust.
CBC funnyman Rick Mercer on the HarperCons’ plan to truck high-level nuclear waste along the Trans-Canada to a U.S. reprocessing site.
