Results tagged “johnbarber”

John Barber has been observing and commenting on City Hall for the Globe and Mail for thirteen years. Those with an interest in our municipal government will have noticed his recent absence from the paper's political pages, most acutely during the rather juicy, comment-worthy last few weeks.

                    

Last week, Adam Vaughan held a party. Its full title, according to the now-deleted Facebook event, was "SORRY! A fundraiser to celebrate Adam's apology from Rob." Rob, you see, is Rob Ford, who on the morning of Thursday, September 25, of last year, used his weekly spot on AM640's The John Oakley Show to accuse Vaughan of a rather serious conflict of interest.

The above video—not safe for work unless you're using headphones—was shot by the late Peter Walker and is a clip from Min Sook Lee's documentary Hogtown: The Politics of Policing (winner of the best Canadian feature prize at Hot Docs 2005). Uploaded to YouTube fewer than three weeks ago, it's been passed around online over the last few days, since being linked to by Toronto Life's Philip Preville in a Friday blog post.

The CBC reports that the Toronto Port Authority, that lovely little federal body responsible for trying to build a bridge to the island airport and complicating waterfront development, has sued community advocacy group Community Air. The $3 million lawsuit alleges that the non-profit group has defamed the TPA.

The city's right-wing councillors are trying to gang up on Mayor Miller and his budget. The Star reports that councillors Ootes, Minnan-Wong, Stintz, Shiner and Feldman strategized and decided that an item-by-item debate was not necessary. Instead council will be voting on the broad principles of the budget. The move is seen as a way to "sharpen" the debate perhaps adding fuel to the barely smouldering Pitfield vs. Miller flame.

, to trick car drivers who would otherwise feel shame riding in the common people’s chariot.

In a neat parallel of the recent outing of Deep Throat, John Barber goes all investigative on us and unearths the actual designer of the city's bike posts. And rather like the dismay we felt upon learning DT was just a Hooverite FBI cog, and not, say, Elizabeth Taylor, we're kind of bummed that, despite insider sources to the contrary, Jack L. had no hand in the design of these rather matter of fact city structures. The real designer was a CCM employee, and bike designer. How predictable.

It's good to know that when bureaucracy and municipal inefficiency cause things to go pear-shaped, a columnist can just slap on a farce sticker and be done with the whole thing. How nice then, that John Barber provides such a classic example of the farce treatment in today's Globe. It's the old 'what a world we live in where others battle tyrants and we have enough time to frivolously fret about posters?' routine. But Barber, by reducing it all to an object of his idle satire, makes everyone look bad, and mixes issues like he's a bartender concocting some sort of public space shake. At the end of the day, dumbly bureaucratic or no, it's silly to forbid artists and promoters from postering. But who knows what Council will do with the mess dropped on their plates this week? Don't ask John Barber - He's adapting this whole imbroglio into a light operetta...Okay, no he's not.