Despite its excellent online coverage from 10:30 p.m. Friday and onwards, not all print editions of Saturday's National Post carried news of the TTC strike. All versions of its Toronto Magazine, however, included the presciently coincidental graphics shown above (Post illustrators' responses to the predictably utopian sentiments of the "My Toronto Is..." tourism ads proffered by OCAD advertising students for their annual let's-generate-PR-for-a-billboard-company contest). Graphics by Jonathon Rivait and Steve Murray, respectively.......

According to the Inside the CBC blog and the National Post, Toronto's favourite boyish-looking provocateur, Avi Lewis, is back on the airwaves with his newest show, Frontline: USA. The show promises to "strip away the spin and highlight real issues such as poverty, violence, race, health, and immigration" in America. Considering that Lewis is involved and that the show airs on Al Jazeera English, chances are that Frontline: USA won't be a Dobbsian exercise......

Premier Dalton McGuinty has fired off a whiny letter to the PM complaining about Finance Minister Jim Flaherty's public criticism of Ontario and its tax laws. Flaherty, who apparently counts all time lost when he's not psychologically bitch-slapping his governmental inferiors, responded by calling McGuinty a "big stupid crybaby." Time to start prying out grandma's fillings—the price of gold hit a record high of US$984.95 an ounce in London this morning, and experts predict......

Photo of d’bi.young.anitafrika and her son, Moon, courtesy of Women’s Press. Last week’s literary listings featured a number of events celebrating one man (Michael Redhill, who is likely exhausted and has since gone back to Narbonne, France) and One Book (Consolation). This week the obvious literary picks are two very talented, very different women. Recent winner of the Toronto Arts Council Foundation Emerging Artist award and one of Canada’s most celebrated young performers, d’bi.young.anitafrika......

When your own mother calls you "foolish" and "an idiot," you know you're in serious trouble. However, if your name is Salman Hossain, it's likely that your mom's assessment of your intellectual abilities is the least of your concerns right now. According to a (relatively) recent National Post story, Hossain, a student at the University of Toronto's Mississauga campus, is currently under investigation by RCMP national security investigators. What could young Salman have done......

Unless you're just coming off a three-day bender, you already know that Australian actor Heath Ledger died in New York yesterday, an event covered by the media with the familiar dead celebrity combination of prurience and gravitas. Still, he was good at what he did and he had a little girl and it's sad. Good news, everybody! Dalton McGuinty has announced that there will be no recession, in spite of deepening pessimism on the......

In case you were wondering, it's probably not a great idea to be hanging out in the entertainment district at 3:15 a.m. Especially if you're in a luxury SUV. And especially especially if you've got a ponytail. In February of 2006, Toronto police officers arrested Irshad Ahmed and Omar Betty for failure to stop, failure to comply, and obstructing police. Their trial is currently being conducted at Old City Hall, and some interesting evidence......

As the unofficial fansite of Roncesvalles' favourite success story (and one of the oldest operating movie theatres in this country), Torontoist is pleased to tell you about another exciting event being staged by the good folks at the Revue Film Society. This time, money will be going towards brand-new educational initiatives the theatre aims to have up and running in early 2008, including a film school for neighborhood kids. This particular event, starting at......

This just in: Conrad Black has been sentenced to six and a half years in prison for his role in "misappropriating" (which is Rich People for "stealing") millions of dollars from the Hollinger newspaper empire, and for obstructing justice by allowing certain documents, which would have determined whether or not he was guilty of the nine charges he managed to evade (including racketeering), to "disappear." Now, of course the National Post is all over this......

A large part of the downtown core from College to Queens Quay and York to Bayview, was blacked-out for about 2 ½ hours yesterday. In response, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said that Toronto has the ability to generate all the power it needs and certainly wasn't getting any more from the Province, while Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty agreed, adding that Torontonians should stop whining and being all dependent on electricity. Web search giant......

The National Post is reporting today that Coyote Ugly––the raunchy, almost-a-strip-club-bar that inspired a Jerry Bruckheimer movie that everyone, including Piper Perabo, forgot about five years ago––will open up its first Canadian "saloon" next year at 220 Adelaide Street West. Coyote Ugly is upfront about its intentions: on their website, the bar explains the "business plan" of its first owner, Lil' Lovell, was "beautiful girls + booze = money." The organization's slogan is "Don't Just......

Photo by Try Hank from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. The entries are in for our Posted Toronto/Torontoist Flags For All Neighbourhood Flags Contest, and the batch is pretty eclectic. Steven Murray from the National Post and Torontoist's Marc Lostracco offer their commentary, along with the artist statements. Read on to see the designs and to vote on a winner!......

Got an idea for a flag to represent Kensington? There's just one week left to submit designs for the Flags For All Neighbourhood Flags Contest, and you don't need to be a designer or even a particularly creative type to win—or a Kensington resident, for that matter! Submissions can be sent to torontoflags@gmail.com, and the winner will receive a handmade pennant of their design courtesy of The Flag Shop, some National Post swag, and......

Torontonians aren't known for pomp and circumstance, but if the Spacing buttons were any indication, we like to represent our 'hoods. Jane and Finch may want to rebrand itself as University Heights and Beach(es) residents can't agree on the name, but for Toronto, our neighbourhoods often define us. Other than demarcated street signs alluding to mysterious Discovery Districts and International Villages, there aren't many emblematic civic icons that Torontonians can use to show their......

There are a shitload of pedestrian- and public space-themed events going on Sunday afternoon: P.S. Kensington, Word on the Street, the below-mentioned Not Blanche, and the "Our Streets – inserting oneself into the municipal process" pre-Walk21 workshop. But for raw pedestrianism, nothing is going to beat the Great Queen Street Psychogeographic Walk, organized by Spacing and the Toronto Psychogeography Society. Essentially, it's a walk. A big walk. Along Queen Street. All of Queen Street.......

The debate between mixed-member representation and first-past-the-post representation has been a spirited one, assuming that you're one of the twelve percent of the public who knows what the hell that first half of the sentence just meant there. Friday night at the MaRS Centre, the Centre for the Study of Democracy held a debate, with Andrew Coyne of the National Post and former NDP cabinet member Marilyn Churley arguing for MMP, and Christina Blizzard......

You've probably heard by now that Ontarians will be asked to cast a second ballot on election day. That is, unless you're among the 47% of Ontarians who, according to a recent poll, are completely unaware of the upcoming referendum question on whether to replace the existing first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system with a proposed mixed-member proportional (MMP) system. Whether this is the first you've heard about it—which seems unlikely since Torontoist has mentioned it......

When competing newspapers get face lifts, they tend to do it all at once. Following a redesign of the Toronto Star and a significant revamp of The Globe And Mail, readers of the National Post will see a different-looking paper in their hands this morning.......

Warren Kinsella has a diatribe in today’s Post (that’s National, not Midtown) about trashy celeb magazines. Their circulation is up, Time’s circulation is down, more people care about P. Diddy than national politics, yada yada yada. At the end he encourages us to "pick up quite a few more copies of The Economist and U.S. News and World Report. And the National Post, naturally." Right. So since Kinsella seems to consider the Post totally......

If you've been around U of T for the past month, there's almost no way you've missed the filming for The Incredible Hulk. From having tanks and soldiers marching along College Street to invade the Koffler Centre to shoots––like yesterday's––that saw soldiers firing live ammunition inside Knox College's courtyard, it's been pretty difficult to ignore. The biggest spectacle, though, is apparently yet to come. According to a typo-heavy post on Comic Book Resources, Yonge......

So much for Brampton. Back in July, Zanta (a.k.a. David Zancai) told The National Post that he was done with Toronto, leaving for Brampton to be with two of his three sons. At the time, Zancai told the Post, "I can’t be me, I can’t be free, and the city of Toronto is to blame....I’m totally a prisoner in my own city. I have to get out of here." To teach the cops who he......

Hot on the heels of our review of the National Post's new Posted Toronto blog, they've reported that Toronto icon and terrifier-of-tourists Zanta, né David Zancai, is leaving. Zancai is well-known to downtown residents for doing pushups in his Santa hat, and his bizarre "Yes! Yes! Yes!" growl that causes alarm to unfamiliar pedestrians. Zanta has been banned from interacting with the sensitive suits on King Street from Church to Spadina, is prohibited from being......

We'd love to be flies on the walls of newspaper boardrooms these days. The democratization of information on the internet threw the media companies for a loop, resulting in years of failed attempts to protect that information from the non-paying public. Sites like CNN wanted web readers to pony-up to see video clips, while the Hamilton Spectator previously made their website only accessible to subscribers. Like The New York Times, the Globe and Mail......

Finally, the OPP got Facebook! Unfortunately, it's not what you think; they're not spending their time friending, poking, and tagging. No, they're up to serious business... they're "fighting parties" in Tillsonburg, Ontario (best known for hosting the 2007 Purina National Dog Show). In an "emerging investigative technique," the police are scouring the profiles of unsuspecting Tillsonburg youths, looking for parties to crash. But don't worry, they don't "object to parties" in general. They're only......

A museum of ceramics may not be everyone's cup of tea [rimshot], but the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art is one of Toronto's favourite buildings. Garnering an unprecedented positive rating of 81.5%, the structure took top honours in the third annual Pug Awards, which were announced today. The Pug Awards, despite their frustrating website, had Torontonians vote on 22 new buildings with a simple thumbs-up, thumbs-down rating. 40,000 votes later, the brilliant Gardiner came......

This was Toronto’s downtown at 10:30 a.m. yesterday, as seen from Lakeshore Boulevard near the Canadian Exhibition Grounds. Air Quality Ontario’s Air Quality Index measured a daytime high of 54, which put Toronto’s air well into the “Poor” category. The day before, the AQI hit 59. What to do? I ran errands on my bike yesterday, passing bumper-to-bumper car traffic everywhere I cycled. When I started cycling Toronto’s streets fifteen years ago, I didn’t......

Michael Ignatieff has one, Olivia Chow has one—what if Stephen Harper had a Facebook account? Kagan McLeod and Steve Murray of the National Post created a photoshopped speculation of such an occurrence for Posted this morning. Stephen is "just an ordinary dude that loves leading you!" He's a fan of Battlestar Galactica, Choclair, and petting awesome kittens. Check out the full version here.......

Photo by blainekendall.com in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. Earlier this afternoon, an anonymous tipster sent us a link to AM640 host John Oakley's rant on the National Post's blog. The article is about what Oakley calls "the bigger elephant in the room" when it comes to Toronto gun violence. You'll never guess what it is! (Here's a hint: it's women!) The entirety of Oakley's rant, and our beef with it, after the break.......

It was an ambitious experiment for a mainstream media company: create a free, five-city daily newspaper that felt more like a slim alt-weekly, with a little tabloid thrown in. Launched on April 4, 2005 and shuttered last May, Dose was known for its usually striking cover art, often created by local illustrators and photographers in conjunction with the in-house art department. Dose was started as a multimedia brand, combining print, mobile and online properties......

If you’d like weekly emails full of Toronto literary listings, sign up at Patchy Squirrel, a new offering from Stuart Ross and Dani Couture. Stuart launches a new collection of poetry, I Cut My Finger (Anvil Press) with Kate Sutherland's All In Together Girls (fiction from Thistledown Press) Sunday, April 22, 8 p.m. at Clintons Tavern (back room), 693 Bloor West. For a monthly overview of the Toronto scene and beyond, Word: Canada’s Magazine for......