Jacob Richler driven from National Post

According to insider reports, Jacob Richler is no longer restaurant critic for the National Post [shurely you mean “Nazional?” –ed]. He has been replaced by “Yorkville Blonde” (as Zerbisias puts it) Sara Waxman.

Readers of the ALLDERBLOB will no doubt wish to recall some of Jacob Richler’s anti-urban screeds from his stint at the Post. We all wish him well in Houston or Las Vegas, or whichever insterstate highway he has decamped to.

As a reminder of some of his past transgressions against taste and decency, here is a letter to the editor of the Naz. Post that I wrote last fall:

To the Editor:

re: “We’re on the wrong track,” by Jacob Richler Nov. 24 04

Jacob Richler, you made a promise, and we’re going to hold you to it.

You write: “I cannot imagine local traffic getting any worse, and if it does, I’m out of here.”

And we’re holding you to it because what you call “Worse” is what we who oppose the Californication of Toronto call “Better:” more bike lanes that create “meandering two lane affairs” out of four-lane commuter runs; more tramline mainstreet development; more of the wonderful congestion that says “Let’s slow down, let’s really live on this street.”

And if you don’t like it, then you can have your Los Angeles, your Houston, your freeway utopia.

Please. Get out of here. You and the folks who think like you are part of the problem. There are some nice restaurants in San Diego, and you can get to them by freeway. Go there.

The rest of us will stay in Toronto, where we will work to build a slower city, not a faster one. A place where juices simmer and flavours mingle, and folks on bikes don’t have to hear disingenuous lip-service from daddy’s coattail-riding hacks who hate that which gets “in the way” without wondering if what’s in the way is perhaps really just the place to be, now, in the moment.

Jacob Richler, wasn’t it you who once said on these pages that the car is the best invention of the 20th century? I’m sorry if I got that wrong–I’m a sporadic National Post reader–but I do recall another piece of yours where you whine “It’s cyclists’ hatred of cars that’s so troubling.” Yet here you are today, bashing the streetcar. You’re really in the wrong city, old man. Take your fogeyism somewhere the battle’s already been won.

Go, go, go I tells you. Life on the off-ramp beckons!

One Response to “Jacob Richler driven from National Post”

  1.  

    we at the allderblob are proud of many things, but fairly high on the list is the fact that if you google "jacob Richler" the second hit is this entry.

    However, times change, and the allderblob must change with them. In the spirit of accuracy we are passing on the news that Richler is back at the Past, and back writing his dark thoughts about bicycles and food.

    In our research on Mr Richler we turned up the sad possibility that he has brain damage due to his ingestion of lead paint as a child. This is no laughing matter, yet we at the Allderblob cannot carry the sadness of the world on our thin shoulders: so we offer the following piece of lightness for our noble readers: (Transcript of a family gathering).

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