It’s already 2013 down under — and it’s summer!

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North Korea welcomed 2013 with reportedly the first ever New Year’s fireworks display the country has held. Meanwhile, Tokyo reverberated to the sound of the Watch-Night Bell which is struck 108 times at temples all over Japan to symbolise the beginning of a prosperous new year. The simultaneous celebrations follow one of the most impressive New Year fireworks displays which took place in Sydney, Australia, as it became the second major city to welcome 2013. Some 1.5 million people are estimated to have turned out to watch the event centred on the Sydney Harbour Bridge with more than 100,000 firework patterns, costing 6.5m  Australian dollars (£4.2m). The countdown to 2013 began with a spectacular fireworks display in Auckland, New Zealand. — Sky News

Notable Canadians appointed to Order of Canada

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More than 70 notable Canadians have been honoured with appointments to and elevation within the Order of Canada as the annual naming takes place in Ottawa. A few well known nominees are (upper, l to r)  former CBC radio morning host Andy Barrie, former cabinet minister Sheila Copps, Paul Henderson, legendary scorer of the winning goal in the 1972 Canada Russian hockey tournament. (lower, l to r) Danielle Savageau, former head coach of the Canadian Women’s Hockey Team, Ken Dryden, politician and former NHL goalie and Stevie Cameron, author and philanthropist.  Full list

First Nation blocks Montreal-Toronto VIA line

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The Via Rail train from Montreal will be late arriving at Union Station tonight.  Sunday night the train was stopped at Kingston because the aboriginal Idle No More campaign was blocking the main line near Belleville. Train 647, which has been stopped there since shortly after 6 pm and the length of the delay seems uncertain. The blockade is part of the Idle No More movement. Similar protests and gatherings were held across Canada Sunday, in support of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, who is on a hunger strike. One demonstration (inset) was at the Eaton Centre. Via Rail officials are asking passengers to check their website or call the hotline at 1-888-842-7245 before heading to the station.  Late Sunday evening it was said the train was  “moving again” although it was not clear just what that meant. 

Oddjects at 1643 South Bayview closes

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Decor and oddities store Oddjects has closed. It’s location was at  1643 Bayview north of Fleming Crescent. It  is now locked and there are few pieces remaining after clearance.  The closing comes less than two years after the store opened.. Oddjects described itself as a company which was located in Singapore and Halifax. Today, however, the website with that information is down indicating that all stores have closed. 

Fear? disgust? disbelief? Feel the fiscal fiasco

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What should Canadians feel about our American friends? Fear, disgust, disbelief? There’s probably a little of all those things in the rather bitter look we see in the eyes of Finance Minister Flaherty (left). Some people are saying that the handful of Senators who are now working furiously to find a compromise and avoid that tax-wrenching dive over the fiscal cliff are already mathematically out of time. Is there a retro fix available? We think so. But if they don’t find it, the U.S. is expected to slide into another recession by June. And you know what that means for us.

Woman with flu-like symptoms dies on Via train

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An elderly  woman has been found dead on the transcontinental  Via Rail passenger train. Her body was discovered Saturday morning when the Vancouver-to-Toronto train stopped near Parry Sound because four passengers were showing flu-like symptoms. Emergency crews boarded the train and confirmed that a woman who Via Rail described in a news release as elderly had died. The other three passengers were taken to hospital for treatment, according to the news release.

Let’s make Laird Drive Midtown’s new auto alley

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Service five minutes away

You only have to ask most car owners in and around South Bayview to learn how much they resent the lack of automobile sales and service in our area.  The collapse of 2008 caused a near blood bath among local dealers — Yonge Toyota, Brennan’s on Bayview, Roy Foss at Eglinton and Brentcliffe — all gone. The promising new auto sales centre on the site of the railway lands vanished with the bankruptcy of General Motors.  But still we have the old standby, Gyro Mazda, on Laird Drive and this company is also wisely expanding to create a Hyundai dealership at Laird and Industrial St. across the road from the Mazda outlet. This is excellent news for all South Bayview and leads the way for business, municipal and federal leaders to bring more car dealerships to the dormant industrial lands on the east side of Laird Drive. And the wisest course, in our view, would be to forget about the cash-strapped and top-heavy American-based firms like GM and Ford. Emphasis should be on manufacturers with less developed systems. Hyundai and its Korean cousin KIA come to mind. But there are car makers in China, India and Europe who should be encouraged to take a look at Laird Drive. Those who settle here will be able to tap a rich market of households whose car owners are fed up with driving to Front Street or Steeles Ave for service. It is frequently said that Hyundai is determined to break into the North American market by building better and more stylish cars. In the case of Gyro Hyundai on Laird, it will also be going where the business is located. May it prosper.     

Woman, 21, gets court order against parents

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Music/drama student Aubrey Ireland
A 21-year-old woman in Cincinnati has obtained a court order which prevents her parents from more or less trying to run her life, the wire services report. Aubrey Ireland told an Ohio court she was treated “like I was a dog with a collar on,” the Cincinnati Enquirer has written. The court ordered that David and Julie Ireland have no contact with their young  honours student daughter until at least Sept. 23, 2013. The young woman had filed a Sept. 24 stalking order against her parents as a last resort, she said. “They basically thought that they were paying for my college tuition and living expenses that they could tell me what to do who to hang out with … basically control all of my daily life,” Ireland told ABC News.

Outrage at Russian ban on adoptions to the U.S.

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The decision by the Russian Duma (or parliament) supported by President Putin to ban the adoption of Russian orphans by American parents has incited outrage around the world. This legislation  is a kind of tit-for-tat action by Moscow, a political snake-pit which is set out in the accompanying Euronews video on the right. The decision seems particularly inhumane for more than 40 American couples who are currently in the process of the long and expensive task of choosing a child and getting approvals. On the left, is a picture of the Thomas family of Minnesota. Their son is 7-year-old Jack, who was adopted as an infant from a Russian orphanage. He and is mother and father were expecting to bring Jack’s brother, Nikoly, to join him. Now, their hopes are thrown into chaos and uncertainty. It is said that some 750,000 children are living in Russian orphanages and that U.S. families alone have adopted more than 60,000 in recent years. As you will see in the video, there is also strong objection to this ban on the streets of Russia.

Moms outnumber dads 4:1 on parental dating site

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Knowing people, the discovery that there may be more moms seeking a new mate than dads doesn’t seem too surprising. But the new online dating site MyLovelyParent has to deal with this four to one imbalance. The owner is starting a site focused primarily on men in the hope of moving them over to the MyLovelyParent site. Worth a read.  Postmedia

Can newspapers ever recover lost revenue?

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Can this sign save the Globe?

The Globe and Mail has a lot at stake in its recent effort to get people to pay for reading the newspaper online. The desperate measure of showing readers an image asking them to pay, rather than showing the story, has become known in the industry as the paywall.  Today the Globe is thumping the paywall  tub again starting off with a brave little conceit that Apocalyptic Mayans didn’t see the end of the world, but they are seeing the end of news for free online. Then there ‘s U.S. commentator Dana Blankenhorn who says investors should short the New York  Times because its paywall — and paywalls everywhere — haven’t got a chance. Blankenhorn says paywalls are only a temporary fix. He quotes Matt Ingram of GigaOm as saying that the Times is only maintaining with its paywalls, not prospering. “The paywall acts like sandbags against the flood. They keep the floodwaters out but they don’t stop the rising water. In the case of newspapers, this flood is an unsustainable business model. As Clay Shirky noted, in the debate over the Washington Post adding a paywall, sites like Homicide Watch cover every killing in the area, with a staff of two, while the Post newsroom has dozens of reporters but just covers a handful of cases a year. As Shirky wrote at his own blog last year a newspaper is a bundle, but the nature of the online world is to tear such bundles apart. The easy part of a paywall is getting money from 2% of your audience, he adds. The harder part is replacing 98% of your advertising business.”