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Weekend Newsstand: September 4, 2010
Illustration by Matt Daley/Torontoist.
Not just weekend news, but long weekend news: Smitherman’s not as rude as we thought, locked out fan expo-ers to get comped, and candidates’ signatures tell all.
So, the latest mayoral teapot tempest is even sillier than we thought, as we learn that all George Smitherman said to a Rossi campaign worker was “screw off.” No f-bomb or c-word, no creative multi-syllabic profanity, and for that we got a media frenzy and had to listen to Rocco Rossi waxing all pained and sanctimonious about his rival “verbally abusing” the young volunteer. Newsstand is definitely voting Black Bloc this year.
A poll has found that Torontonians would like to be able to pink-slip unpopular politicians. Of people surveyed, 73% favoured the idea broached by mayoral candidate Rocco Rossi last week that would see the mayor and councillors subject to a possible voter recall in between elections. In the future, everyone will get to be mayor for fifteen minutes!
In other slow news-day news, the Globe gave the signatures of the top five candidates to a hand-writing analyst (or “graphologist”) to see what new insights she could offer into their personalities. Key findings were that you shouldn’t push Joe Pantalone around, that Rob Ford has a love of culture, and that graphology is a load of hokum.
Some lawyers are questioning why, faced with two class action suits and a multitude of investigations into police actions at the G20 summit, Police Chief Bill Blair has decided to come clean and acknowledge that maybe things could have been handled a little more smoothly. Speculation is that by taking some responsibility now a more convincing case can be made in court that the cops have learned their lesson and will stop kettling people in the rain.
Organizers of last week’s Fan Expo are going to compensate angry ticket-holders who were temporarily stranded outside due to a surfeit of geeks crowding the venue. Hobby Star Marketing isn’t disclosing what the compensation looks like, except to say that they won’t be refunding the cost of tickets. No doubt it will be good, because when you’re dealing with the kind of people who think “I wonder what Supergirl would look like if she were a wookie?” and then go to the trouble of dressing up in a costume to find out, you really don’t want to get them too upset.