Taxi

Emma Teitel on what happens when a business rates its customers

Canadian cities and the taxi industry are fighting to keep Uber out, even as passengers clamour for the ride-on-demand service. It’s a losing battle.

Zahida Kazmi has survived deadly roads, a fatwa and family abandonment

The Citizen‘s Dan Gardner is impatient with the columnists cawing against Justice Susan Himel’s prostitution ruling. This morning he exasperatedly tweeted at them that “You don’t have to agree. You do have to read”—that is, read what Himel wrote. I’m on Dan’s side in this debate, but, hey, isn’t he being a little unfair and obnoxious? Surely respectable writers like Daphne Bramham wouldn’t denounce the Himel decision in such strong terms without examining the evidence:

Montreal taxis would all be the same colour—like in New York

Two completely unrelated things that, on their own, wouldn’t really be full-scale posts:

I love William Shatner’s “musical” performances. I was happy to see him devote some pages in his autobiography to his famous “Rocket Man” rendition. He’s very coy about whether or not he seriously thought this was a good performance, but he accurately sums up the audience’s reaction: they were stunned, wondering if he’d lost his mind. Shatner is a complete ham, and the good side of being a ham is that he gives his all, no matter what he’s doing. That’s why his insane talk-singing is so mesmerizing: like the audience for “Rocket Man,” we’re constantly wondering if he’s serious, if he will at any point betray any knowledge that this is ridiculous. He never does. Not for a second.

Earl Pomerantz has two recent posts about his experiences writing for Taxi (he contributed episodes for four of the shows five seasons) the latest post in his “story of a writer” series, and also his experience of the infamous Andy Kaufman/Tony Clifton incident.