Is the blond hegemony crumbling?

As Toronto has grown, the share of Toronto-born-and-bred residents of the city is ever smaller. As part of that diminishing minority, I’ve noticed that many people who move to the city later in life are blissfully ignorant of the significance of being from one part of the city or another. Overall, this is a goodcontinue reading

Bland still works

Election 2007: It seems like a lot of trouble to go to to have what is in effect a cabinet shuffle, doesn’t it? Some high, or low, lights: – The Tory campaign couldn’t change the channel, as we all know. One of the big problems, it seems, is that they didn’t have anything to changecontinue reading

Happy (derivative) Thanksgiving

As a first-generation American Canadian, nothing makes me prouder than seeing Canadians embrace an American holiday in their own unique way. (What specifically Canadian tweaks have been made to the holiday here, besides the October date, is still unclear to me. But I’m sure that there are some extremely important, if for all practical purposescontinue reading

The brave bloggers of Burma

In 1989, I was glued to the television for weeks watching the pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square make their peaceful case for democracy. The entire world could watch because of the footage that was broadcast. In Burma, foreign journalists are banned. In 1988 information about the junta’s crackdown was limited, and verbal. But thanks tocontinue reading

Fight the Power

Would-be car buyers launch a class action suit claiming sticker prices on Canadian cars are illegal. One analyst points out that when the C$ was at US$0.65 — not so very long ago — prices here were actually lower and no one was complaining. What the plaintiffs ignore is that Canada is a different countrycontinue reading

Dollar daze*

Woo-hoo! Parity at last! Where were you in 1976? Etc. Except: we live in Ontario consumer prices aren’t budging plus, don’t know if you’d noticed, but housing and food prices, which represent a sizeable part of the average household budget, are rising. Core inflation is actually a bit softer — you know, the type that doesn’t includecontinue reading