Each year at this time Iwe open the local car advertiser and news reporter (aka the Toronto Star, “Canada’s largest newspaper”) to be reminded of how little things change at Canada’s largest car advertiser. Oh, they talk a fine talk about fighting climate change, decrying air pollution, defeating the scourge of obesity and related health problems, etc, but when it comes to the car advertisers who pay their salaries, they cave in every time.
Every year at this time, as long as we have been paying attention, the Star has published a feature called “Your First Car.” We have previously likened this to a pusher advocating “your first cigarette” or a gang offering “Your First Murder Weapon.†We have famously [in your own mind at least.–ed.] linked the disappearance of Star geniuses-at-large “Giles Gherson†and “Michael Goldbloom†(not their real names) from the newspaper masthead to our analysis of their “news coverage” in the “Your First Car” advertorial.
This year, bowing to pressure from the ALLDERBLOB, the Star has wisely eliminated the section.
Unfortunately, they rehashed the old bumf, with the same collection of shouted full-page car ads, under the new section, now called “Your New Car.”
Hey, Toronto Star: haven’t you heard? There’s a fine line between clever and stupid. You can’t be singing the praises of Earth day on Tuesday and then Thursday go back to selling cars like it really doesn’t matter. People notice this stuff. Wake up!
Nice one (this weeks letter in NOW) [Mr. Hughes is referring to yet another egregious example of Jacob Allderdice stealing our material and posting it to the local alternative car advertiser under his own name. Read it here if you have the stomach for it. --ed.]
Their editorial board has explained away their "adult" ads in the back. It'd be interesting to hear their rationalizations for the car porn.
Haven't tapped w/you for a while.
A few weeks ago a couple of my clients came fwd. offering to back a little enterprise of mine...
So I have a gang of engineers and shop machinists to make my next little scooter as a prototype maybe for production...
Can't recall if we got into this before, but I am a fan of human-electric hybrid bikes, especially the kick bike with power-assist. Travels like a pedal bike but leaves off the pedals and seat and chain and sprockets and gears...
We'd also like Toronto to try this tech... think BikeShare on steroids.
Think $40 a month to borrow a TTC scooter anytime or all the time. Preventative maintenance included, w/fast roadside assistance too. Training and supervision.
This is really a push to get the move to bike lanes and paths accelerated. Better snowclearing of sidewalks and lanes etc. And to take back the streets for small public vehicles rather than being clogged with large private vehicles...
Get more folks out of four wheels and on to two wheels.
If ppl in Toronto say "Lets Try This" then the TTC could try a pilot program with 100 little scooters. So we hope Toronto will try this, and started uploading info about the idea to Facebook a few weeks ago as a way to gauge interest.
We've called it the "Personal Electrics Project" (PEP)...
There is a public Facebook page for the project here:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Toronto-ON/Personal-Electrics-Project/10496899607
and from that page if you have a Facebook account you can get to the PEP group site in Facebook...
Lock Hughes