Does anyone remember Kenny Finkleman?

“CBC failed to provide its staff a workplace “free from disrespectful and abusive behaviour,” says the report of an independent investigator hired to examine the corporation’s handling of the behaviour of former radio and television host Jian Ghomeshi,” CBC reported on its website Thursday afternoon. Does anyone remember the name Ken Finkleman? He was also popular with CBC staffers. Here’s a Q […]

Welcome to your 2015 F1 Season: Your armchair guide to the good stuff

(March 13, 2015) We’re off to the races again! Thank goodness. While the temperatures are still freezing in Eastern Canada, in our imaginations we can bake in the sun at the Australian Grand Prix on the weekend. For those of you who haven’t been paying too much attention since I wrote my F1 season wrap-up […]

MISSING: Jesse Brown’s disclosure page

Yesterday, I wrote a blog about Jesse Brown, the Batman journalist flying all over Gotham demanding we listen to him about the state of Canadian media.  Fine.  I’ll listen to anyone for a few minutes and I think the points he’s making about needing better media critique in this country are good ones.  But the problem […]

Who in the world is Jesse Brown?

In the 1989 movie, Blaze, starring Paul Newman as Earl Long, the “finest governor of the great state of Louisiana” and introducing the incredible Lolita Davidovitch as the burlesque-dancing love of his life, Blaze Starr (not her real name), there’s a scene in which Blaze’s mother imparted a few words of wisdom to her daughter just […]

The difference between Jian Ghomeshi, Bill Cosby and Woody Allen

On Thursday, January 8th, a woman waited on a cold Toronto street for former CBC host, Jian Ghomeshi, to emerge from a court room and, amid people making catcalls, she shouted “castrate him,” according to the Globe and Mail. On Wednesday, two “Muslim extremists” barged into an editorial meeting of the French satirical weekly, Charlie Hebdo […]

The Most Bone-headed Campaign Stunt Award of 2014 goes to …

… Greenpeace In an effort to bring attention to climate change at a U.N. conference on that topic held in Lima, Peru from December 1st to the 14th, a contingent of Greenpeace campaigners trampled through the Nazca Lines, a United Nations World Heritage Site, causing potentially irreparable damage to the ancient and vulnerable archeological location. […]

Why food drives are a terrible idea

I was at Loblaws in Toronto today—the massive Loblaws in the former Maple Leaf Gardens which has a red dot commemorating centre ice in aisle 25—and saw the biggest food bank food drop-off bin I’d ever seen it my life. The bin was there so people could throw food bank food, presumably food bank food […]

The CBC shows us exactly how it’s done—workplace bullying, I mean

When comedian and CBC host, Rick Mercer, stepped out onto the stage of the Giller Awards Gala on November 10th, having replaced Jian Ghomeshi as host, everyone wondered if, and how, he would bring up the Ghomeshi scandal. The hotel ballroom was a beautifully decorated CBC set. The tables were laid with jaunty CBC-themed red […]

No experience necessary: Your Working Girl’s Guide to the 2014 F1 Racing Season

(Lewis Hamilton hugging his girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix) (November 27, 2014) I am one of the first people to get it. I understand completely. Being a Formula 1 race fan is a nerdy-slash-incomprehensible pastime with a dash of “trying too hard” if you’re a woman, which, in this case, applies—the […]

What happens to your mind when baseball season is over?

Since the World Series ended one week ago yesterday, things haven’t been the same. The Republicans just won a majority in the U.S. Senate, guaranteeing, at the very least, political paralysis in the world’s biggest economy. On Sunday, our Armed Forces dropped two laser-guided GBU-12, 500-pound bombs “in the vicinity of Fallujah.” The time change means it’s […]