The South Bayview Bulldog

From New York City, where St. Patrick’s Day was invented and is celebrated in all its greenness, comes this story from the NY Post newspaper. We do not argue with the New York Irish.

The email letter that arrives Monday to Friday shortly after the clock strikes its name — 12:36 — has asked important questions about the French’s ketchup furore. All scribblers know that ketchup is a readership builder. The daily burst of gossip says:  “Nothing about the ketchup kerfuffle made any sense whatsoever. Why was Premier Kathleen Wynne touting Leamington as the place French’s ketchup is made when it’s bottled in Ohio? Why does Loblaws get to call President’s Choice ketchup “Canadian” when its tomatoes come from California? Who wrote the “leaked” memo that claimed French’s needed to be dumped from Loblaws supermarket shelves because it was taking sales from the PC brand? Why was Eglinton-Lawrence MPP Mike Colle threatening a boycott? It’s time to lay off the condiments.”  So say we all except that as a story ketchup is so appealing.  12:36 is published by St. Joseph Media.

Stories Thursday morning report declining ridership and a significant likely shortfall in cash in 2016 at the TTC. So far this year, the TTC has seen about four million fewer rides than expected. The total might be down 13 million from the 553 million projected.

WHO ENJOYS TRANSIT?

While public transit is a necessary service, it is hard to imagine most riders saying they prefer it to a ride that is faster, more reliable, more comfortable, more direct and probably more pleasant. Transit advocates and green warriors may howl, but too many Torontonians are, on average, too affluent and too focused on the use of their personal time to prefer transit over the use of a vehicle. That calculus will not apply to every trip, but is an enormous factor in the lives of many.

Video showing the helicopter escape of two inmates in 2013 from the detention centre in St-Jérôme, Que. was released Tuesday during the trial of Hells Angels sympathizer Benjamin Hudon-Barbeau. He is being tried on other charges but is seen here with fellow inmate Danny Provençal in a the successful and seemingly dangerous escape three years ago. The two were captured a couple of days later. .

Bryan Gaensler

The William Lea Room is often called Leaside’s Town Hall and next week it will really change things up with a lecture by Professor Bryan Gaensler on The World Records of the Universe.  As Director of the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Dr. Gaensler knows his stuff.  He notes that the records which come and go here on earth are puny compared to those set out there in our vast cosmos. What’s the coldest place in space? What’s the fastest object in the Universe? What’s the biggest object we’ve ever seen in space, and the smallest? How weak and how strong does gravity get?  Dr. Gaensler has the answers (we’re sure) and it should be an interesting evening. It is free and it happens Tuesday, March 22, 2016 at 6:30 p.m. with Registration and Refreshments followed at 6.50 p.m. by the Presentation and Q&A.  For information write to Lorraine Gillis dua.events@utoronto.ca

This fine gang of people from the Leaside Flames Select Red Atom team bounced into Sport Chek in the SmartCentre today and left a cheque behind in support of the Canadian Tire Jump Start charity. Well  done team.

The U.S. payday loan company MoneyTree, with offices in Vancouver, has been duped by a simple “CEO phishing” email which ordered an employee to send the CEO all the personal data of some 1,500 MoneyTree employees. Except, the email wasn’t from the CEO. Scammers counting on the instant obedience of employees when the boss barks were rewarded with information with which to steal employee identities galore. One favorite is to make up phony tax returns and claim a huge refund. The CEO email scam has worked with other firms in the U.S. and maybe in Canada. MoneyTree informed employees of the breach of security at the beginning of March.  The real CEO, Dennis Bassford said: “Moneytree was apparently targeted by a scam in which the scammer impersonated me and asked for an emailed copy of certain information about the company’s payroll including team member names, home addresses, Social Security numbers, birth dates and (tax) information.”

Butter Studio, the fashionable women’s accessories shop previously at 1653 Bayview, has moved into the south block at 1597 Bayview Ave. next door to the Second Cup. It is the former Bell Jewellers shop. In the merchant shorthand of South Bayview it is often written that the sweetest piece of the street sits between the two chain-operated coffee shops. As a general rule this notion about location is not wrong even through it slides over the reality that businesses frequently make their own sweet spots.

Ayanle Hassan Ali is a 27-year-old Canadian conundrum. He is accused of walking into the armed forces recruiting office on north Yonge Street and  stabbing two soldiers. He is said by his victims and others to have shouted that Allah made him do it. Conundrum?  Ali is Canadian born, has no criminal record, is well-liked by those who know him and who are stunned by the idea that he might do such a thing. It is a situation to give authorities pause. Now it is learned that Ali was employed for four months by an unnamed third-party employer at Pearson airport and that during the four-month period in 2008-9 he had a restricted area identification card. It is not said exactly what that means but presumably he was allowed to go where others were not for security reasons. .

Many South Bayview drivers have found themselves struggling to safely navigate westbound streets today as Daylight Road Glare Time impacts motoring. The scene here is west along Moore where because of today’s rain, the glare was physically dangerous on the eyes. In such situations it may be safest to pull over. Sunglasses are essential as late afternoon arrives.