The cozy game of Banksy’s secret identity

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By Banksy but not him
Tim Alaminciak has written about the secretive British graffiti artist known as Banksy. He apparently made a visit to Toronto in 2010 during which it is said he painted seven wall pieces, two of which survive. Banksy has an enormous Wikipedia entry and his work has fetched millions of dollars. Or at least it is said to have been Banksy’s work. It seems that it would be impossible to know if these valuable renderings are by some artist who is nick-named Banksy, or the output of a legion of people who have assumed the identity for business purposes. In all the circumstances, it is reasonable to ask if such a person really exists. The media everywhere seems to enjoy the intrigue so much it hardly wants to know. Mr. Alaminciak has zero curiosity. “Banksy is an international artist based in England whose true identity is unknown,” he says with a straight face. But can anyone believe that? Mr. Alaminciak may not know his name but it defies belief that this talented artist is not known to many members of the arts media.  We say that  Banksy no longer has any business demanding this type of secrecy. He is too important and there is too much riding on what he does for it to continue. He deserves his privacy but he should no longer be permitted to do business like a phantom. Which is what any journalist might tell you.  Toronto Star  Wikipedia

Amazon founder Bezos buys Washington Post

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U.S. newspaper artistocracy is to be sold to a kid from New Mexico who made it big on the web. Jeff Bezos, controlling owner of Amazon will purchase the Washington Post. The paper’s controlling owners, the Graham family, has agreed to sell its flagship newspaper for $250 million in cash. Bezos gets the The Post and affiliated publications to the Washington Post Co., which owns the newspaper and other businesses. Publisher Katharine Weymouth and chief executive Donald Graham released letters to staff late today. Seattle-based Amazon will have no role in the purchase; Bezos himself will buy the news organization and become its sole owner when the sale is completed, probably within 60 days. The Post Co. will change to a new, still-undecided name and continue as a publicly traded company without The Post thereafter. Jeffrey Preston “Jeff” Bezos (pronounced beɪzəs was born on January 12, 1964.

“At home” on Mt Pleasant north of Moore

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This homeless man was “at home” on Mt Pleasant Rd just north of Moore Ave. on the Monday holiday. He was sleeping on public grass just outside the cemetery fence. His belongings were piled on a wheeled dolly of some type indicating he is normally on the move in the nice weather. The presence of homeless persons in or near a cemetery is not very common in South Bayview but not unknown by any means. The report of  the Shelter, Support and Housing Administration released in July indicated the total homeless was 5,219. The information released last week was an interim statement. A full report is expected in September. Many homeless people say they prefer to be outside during the good weather. But 93% told city workers that they would like to have a home. Lifestyle can subvert that desire it seems. One woman said her shelter home was too far away from downtown streets where she prefers to drink wine with her friends. One index to look for in the full report will be that of seniors, defined as those over 61. The current preliminary data indicates that seniors make up 10 percent of the total which means there might be something in excess of 500 such seniors. This is said to be a doubling (from about 250) since 2009.

Mom dons burka to return daughter from Egypt

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Mona and mother

Good holiday Monday, South Bayview. A story that is both harrowing and heart-warming is breaking this lovely mid-summer day. It tells of a British mother who ventured all the way to Egypt to seize and return her three year old daughter Mona. The child had been abducted and taken to Egypt by her arab father. The mother, Alex Abou-El-Ella, 29, of Slough, Berkshire, enlisted the aid of a Scottish woman, now known as Dony al-Nahi, who has made a career of helping mothers of children who have been similarly spirited back to Arabia by their fathers. Ms al-Nahi is an author and is known in the media as “Jane Bond” for her exploits. The perilous rescue effort saw Ms. Abou-El-Ella dressing in full Muslim garb. She ignored warnings from the U-K Foreign Office that her attempts might go very wrong. The child had already been gone two years. With the help of Jane Bond and her trusted Egyptian contacts the mother found and laid in wait at a nursery in Cairo where Mona was enrolled. Early one morning, Mona appeared with an aunt and a boy just before 9 a.m. The desperate mother acted, leaping out the car and holding the long black dress so she could move, Ms. Abou-El-Ella felt herself  walking faster and faster. “I saw Mona’s hand a few metres away from me,’ she said. ‘So I grabbed her, pulled her into my arms and the lady looked at my face but all she could see were my eyes.”  Embracing her child tightly, she turned and fled as the other woman began to scream. Stumbling in her burka, the mother had only seconds to bundle the astonished child into the back seat of her car. There was further panic when she found the door locked. Jane Bond clambered over the seat to let her in. The confused child cried and referred to her aunt as “mother”. But after a few minutes of explanation she asked Alex Abou-El-Ella: “Are you my mum?”  It was necessary to bribe officials at the airport but the mother and child are now back safe in the United Kingdom. As of this morning,  it is 12 days since the pair arrived in their hometown of Slough.  Mona has not seen her mother for two years so they have had much catching up to do. But as the picture shows, their natural relationship is healing well.   Mailonline

Montreal mom fined $219 over exact-change rule

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Pauline Tantost and Xavier
A Montreal area woman has been given a $219 fine because she was unable to pay the fare for herself and her 2-year-old son with exact change. Pauline Tantost, 24, had been at Montreal Children’s Hospital with the toddler, who was suffering an infection. It was 10 p.m. She offered the bus driver a $5 bill for the $3 fare but he refused it. Ms Tantost sat down on the bus but within a few minutes two inspectors from the transit company, Société de transport de Montreal (STM) boarded the bus and in what other passengers call a targeting of the young mother gave her a ticket for $219.  Montreal media were pointing out this weekend that more than a week after the incident the STM had not interviewed the bus driver involved in the matter. Now they have promised to look into the case.

Pictures from across our midtown home

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Random pictures from our resources: Upper left, it’s an awful way to treat a perfectly good Toyota. But this is what happens when big bruising trees come down on Roxborough St. W. Upper right, a happy quintet brings some life to the corner of Bay and Bloor Streets. Lower left, Calgary-based Husky Petroleum pumps similar to those just installed at the station on Laird Drive tout “Mother Nature’s Fuel”. Those Albertans are cheeky! And high above Eglinton Ave. four tethered fellows try to figure how to safely bring down those heavy metal panels at sign-changing time. Top pictures and more may be seen at our sister blog Yonge and Roxborough News.   

Man’s leg severed by shrapnel at demolition

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A 44-year-old man has had his leg severed by shrapnel flying more than 1,000 feet from an implosion site in Bakersfield, California Saturday morning. Some sources say the man may lose both legs. Four other spectators were also injured as a happy crowd gathered at 6 a.m. to watch the demolition of two towers of an old steam power plant belonging to Pacific Gas and Electric Company. Those injuries seem be relatively minor, such as cuts and scrapes to the legs. The demolition workers had established the perimeter using what seemed like accepted margins of safety but in fact the spectators, who were standing where they were permitted, were all in danger of injury. It was luck that there was not more shrapnel like the nasty piece of metal-like junk held in the picture at the right

LHS kids “to study” chips and gravy next month

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The New York Fries Poutinerie now being installed at the east end of the Sunnybrook Plaza is about 300 feet from the doors of Leaside High School across Eglinton Ave. E. Let there be chips, gravy and cheese curds for Grade 9, we say. It is their right. And Grades 10 and 11.  Oh all right, Grade 12 and (Principal) Jeannette Plonka too. And vice principals Andrea Parise and Paul Wragget.  Eat hearty, gang. NYF owners South Burger Co. are counting on you. 

Lucky break for all in Sunnybook Plaza crash

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There was a certain fretfulness among shoppers at Sunnybrook Plaza Saturday morning as they talked about the accident yesterday afternoon that sent a car through the glass front of the Rexall Pharma Plus pharmacy. “This has happened before,” said one woman outside the drugstore with her husband. “Ï wonder what they can do to make it safer?” And that was the sentiment of a number of people in the more than 60 year old strip mall. The plaza is said to be the earliest of such commercial centres in Toronto. It is owned by RioCan, the giant real estate investment trust (REIT). They have a record of responsibility and concern for their properties. In yesterday’s incident, a woman was at the wheel of a Toyota which was apparently in the permit parking spot shown in the photo, inset. For whatever reason, the car shot forward and knocked down a number of people. Only two were taken to hospital and then released. Toronto EMS say their injuries are minor.  All in all a lucky break for those concerned.  Yesterday’s post.

Star second quarter profits plummet 44 percent

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Torstar Corp. reported a sharp decline in profit in the second quarter as its media division continued to struggle with plunging print advertising revenues and even its book publishing business hit an unexpected lull. Torstar, which publishes the Toronto Star and the fre papers Metro and the Grid. It also owns Metrospan, the chain of  suburuban and city weeklies such as the Mirror. It also owns the Hamilton Specator and a number of other southern Ontario papers. Net income for the quarter was $18-million or $0.23 per share, down 44% from $0.41 per share in the same period last year. Its romance novel publishing division Harlequin posted a surprising drop, said David Holland, president and chief executive of the Toronto-based company. “We had anticipated lower earnings at Harlequin but not to this extent,” Mr. Holland said during a conference call with analysts. “Lower volumes, including a deterioration in overseas volumes, which we were concerned about in the last quarter, were responsible for the shortfall to expectations.”  It is unclear how the Kindle and Kobo phenomenon have impacted Harlequin. 

Only one of these election winners won a majority

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Only one of the five winners of Thursday night’s byelections won a true majority. It was Percy Hatfield the union stalwart who seized the riding of Windsor-Tecumseh for the NDP. Hatfield racked up 15,693 votes or 61.1% of the vote. The six other candidates combined didn’t match half his mandate. But elsewhere the election night winners prevailed by gaining a plurality of the ballots cast and automatically invoking the “first past the post” rule of Canadian elections. When people talk of a democratic deficit it’s usually some twaddle about why an obscure interest group can’t get elected.  The real democratic deficit occurs it would seem when a multiplicity of candidates makes it impossible for a voter to act strategically to express his/her will. That’s where the so-called ranked ballots concept applies. It permits voters to pick a first choice and second choice. If the first choice of voters doesn’t produce a majority winner, there is an instant runoff to choose one. Of course there is no way of knowing where second place votes will go and such runoffs will frequently strengthen the position of the plurality winner. The current byelection that jumps out in this context is Scarborough-Guildwood where Ms. Hunter finished 1246 votes ahead of the PC candidate Ken Kirupa. But Kirupa and the third-place NDP candidate Adam Giambone had an aggregate of more than 14,600 votes compared to Ms. Hunter’s 8852. Similarly in Ottawa South, the PC and NDP candidates out-polled the Liberal John Fraser by 3726 votes. All of this is fun to contemplate as the government finds comfort in its two retained seats.  The link takes you to a post about the prospect of ranked ballots being in place for the 2018 Toronto general election   Previous posts