Rating: NNNNN
People’s private lives are none of your business.
Billboard bungle
The proliferation of illegal billboards is continuing non-stop, but the city doesn’t seem interested in fighting companies intent on cluttering our visual space with these monstrosities. Last week, Strategic Media became the second outdoor ad outfit to challenge the billboard bylaws in court. If history is any indication, the city may do for Strategic what it has already done for Titan Outdoor. That is, let the company pay a $1,000 fine but not require it to actually remove previously erected illegal signs. But if City Hall backs down now, what’s to stop every ad company out there from suing to get its own sweetheart deal? The answer: nothing.
Warming warning
How on earth anti-nuke pioneers Energy Probe became global warming deniers is beyond us. Yes, EP executive director Lawrence Solomon’s The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, And Fraud is the hottest-selling “environmental” book in Canada and the U.S. Blaming the Third World for the planet’s eco problems, as Solomon does here, may make us energy hogs in the West feel better. But we’re the ones in real denial.
Just wait for the next smog day for that to become crystal-clear.
Big wheel says bye
Whiz kid Dave Meslin, the big head behind so many cool public space ideas, caught us by surprise this week when he quietly stepped down from his latest gig – as big wheel of the Toronto Cyclists Union. Mez tells us he needs a little time away. No doubt the TCU, which has its official launch this week, has been a humongous undertaking. Mez assured us, before riding off into the sunset (he’ll be back soon, we’re sure) that TCU’s been left in good hands. Better to burn out, we say, than fade away.
Cluster truck
Transport Minister Jim Bradley did his best Pontius Pilate routine last week, washing his hands of the dispute overworked and underpaid dump truck drivers have been having with their employers. The truckers, who staged a rolling protest on the 401, say that to make ends meet they’re being forced to carry loads way above what’s safe. “Anything that would have anything to do with traffic safety, I am very sympathetic with,” says Bradley. Just not sympathetic enough to do anything about it, it seems.
