Rating: NNNNN
Hockey, not hucksters, at the Gardens
The rush to sell broccoli where Bill Barilko once played continues as the Toronto Preservation Board meets today (Thursday, May 6) at 2 pm to consider a city staff recommendation to turn Maple Leaf Gardens into a faceless Loblaws. A public-money-free plan that would see the Gardens continue as an ice rink has received little public discussion and almost no review, so the race to retail is appalling. Show up today at committee room 2, second floor, City Hall, and let them know you want ice, not Minute Rice, at MLG.
This tent OK with Home Depot
Home Depot booted the homeless from Tent City, keeping the waterfront safe for blowing garbage, rats and refuse. Now it’s the “naming sponsor” of the new ShakespeareWorks theatre on Ashbridge’s Bay, a waterfront space already doing fine. And the outfit that chased tents off the shore will have its name on – you guessed it – a giant tent where the Bard will hit the beach.
No ideas please, we’re York U
A mental “no-go zone” in a university makes no sense, but York U bizarrely bans political debate in the campus’s most central structure. No politicking is allowed in the most obvious place on campus for it, Vari Hall. Third-year student Daniel Freeman-Maloy, a Jewish supporter of the Palestinian cause, has been barred from the school for three years for speaking his mind in Vari Hall. You’d think, with such an extreme sentence, he’d attacked a person instead of an idea.
Medical weed unwanted
Canada’s powerful weed gives the U.S. drug czar paranoia attacks, but the stuff shipped to legal medicinal marijuana users is so lame they’re sending it back. Of the 93 people entitled to palliative pot, 29 have returned it because they couldn’t get a buzz. The feds’ve spent $5.5 million to produce only 290 ounces sent to smokers – that’s $15,000 a ounce for the crappiest weed in the country. Hey, we know a guy if the government is serious about chronic for chronic care.
CBC’s Cherry bomb
If Don Cherry were on a private network instead of the CBC he’d be getting a raise, not run out of town. Even Cherry doesn’t agree with everything he says – he’s compelling, hockey-wise, diversity-weak and often funny as hell. With Ron McLean to keep him honest, CBC should suck it up and surrender to great ratings and a spicy segment that even lefties can’t resist.
