Fears of weird new federal voter suppression
At a time when China is diplomatically blamed for hacking, the Communications Security Establishment has reason to believe that foreign interference will likely occur in the next vote—although Elections Canada is praised for sticking to paper. But the chief electoral officer would prefer a longer campaign to accommodate more mail-ins.
Jabbing at the ugly Americans
Canada outpacing the fully vaccinated percentage of Americans bodes well for a reopened border, but it also might’ve prodded the White House to blame Facebook for misinformation that discourages inoculation. Vaccine hesitancy is nonetheless still a hot topic in this country, with growing blame laid on Gen Z.
“Blue Jays’ return home offers long absent normalcy, sense of possibility.” The federal approval arrived for Major League Baseball to resume on July 30 in Toronto with precautions that include allowing up to 15,000 fans into Rogers Centre. It means winding down the Blue Jays run in Buffalo, probably involving no additional home game rainouts at the dome.
Move over Mike and Goldie
A rebranding to Buffalo Toronto Public Media last year was a way for the Western New York affiliates of PBS and NPR to acknowledge their donor base across the border. The association is now headed by someone with commercial experience, as Tom Calderone oversaw the Total Request Live era of MTV before running VH1:
George Higton dead at 70. The guitarist and vocalist for Toronto punk band the Existers released solo albums from My Life with Einstein in 1983 to Merrylands in 2019. He was also the founding editor of Shades, a Toronto magazine focused on the new music scene. Higton uploaded four of the first five issues online as a 1979 time capsule.
Finally, song for a summer place
Dolores Claman, who recently died at age 94 in Spain, was primarily known for writing the Hockey Night in Canada opening anthem, which the CBC lost to CTV 40 years later due to a bidding war. Her second-best-known work was “A Place to Stand,” Ontario’s Expo 67 song, followed up in 1971 with the provincial theme park theme: