680News - Lisa Brandt

Safety is something we Torontonians absolutely have to think about. Probably everybody should. But I know people in other areas of Ontario who still don’t lock their doors when they go out because, “nothing ever happens here in ______ !”

I elicit titters from smaller-town friends when I put my purchases in the back of my vehicle and pull the cargo cover over them, something I learned to do here in the Big Smoke after my Jeep was broken into three times in six months. The last time, was because I left only a lunch bag with dry Cheerios in it on the passenger seat. Some optimistic thief must have thought it was a bag full of loose diamonds or cash.

Statistics Canada reports that Toronto is the safest large metro area in the country. We reported fewer crimes than residents in other urban centres with Ottawa, Winnipeg and Edmonton at the top. We used to be the country’s murder leader, but that distinction now goes to Winnipeg. We have one of the lowest rates of violent offences overall.

So why is this happening and why do we still have a perception that this city is unsafe? Well, gun crimes get a lot of attention, even though, in most cases, the public at large hasn’t been at risk. There have been notable exceptions of course, in fact four such incidents so far this year. But they are by and large the exceptions.

Analysts say the aging population base in this city is the reason behind the drop. It seems crime is a younger person’s game. Can we not give a little credit to police as well the community groups that work so hard to keep young people busy and on the straight path? And I think you and I have a responsibility too, to stay vigilant, to report legitimately suspicious activity and to protect ourselves and our property. Even if that means making sure the brown bag with the Cheerios in it is hidden in the glove box.

Canadian musicians - and one who wants to be - are in the news this week. For good, bad, and weird reasons.

Feist’s (irritatingly!) hooky song, 1 2 3 4, is going to be part of the start of Sesame Street’s new season. She will appear on the show’s August 11th season premiere, performing a modified version of her ubiquitous hit song. Feist gets to stroll down Sesame Street accompanied by muppets, sharing her love of counting to four. Feist says shooting the episode was “the best day of her life.” I hope someone teaches the little ones how to count from five and beyond!

Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies has been arrested in New York on drug possession charges. His manager says Page will be cleared once the facts are known. He’s out on $10,000 bail and has a court appearance scheduled for tomorrow. The arrest occurred at about 2 a.m. last Friday after patrolling police noticed a suspicious car with its driver’s side door left open and found a man and woman in a nearby apartment, with a white capsule in front of them.

The man was apparently identified by the woman as Page and he admitted it. It’s alleged the drug was cocaine. Ladies bassist Jim Creeggan told the Toronto Star Page was in New York state visiting some friends, while the rest of the band was back at home in Canada.

And the fake David Lee Roth has been found. Police near Brantford earlier reported they pulled over a man who said he was the Van Halen lead singer and helped him through an allergy attack. The guy is really, reportedly, David Kuntz. The real Roth says he wasn’t in Canada at the time. If you see a picture of Kuntz you can see how he could fool someone who wasn’t a superfan that he was Roth - if that’s in fact what happened. It’s what police say happened. But I have to say “allegedly” until I hear, personally, from the man himself.

Political affiliations and issues aside, how in the world can Americans possibly elect John McCain as their next president this October, when he openly admits he doesn’t “do computers?” How can a potential leader of the free world possibly be so archaic, seemingly with little or no embarrassment, about something so crucial to modern communication?

McCain is 72. If he’s elected, he’ll be the oldest man to take over the White House. But millions of seniors have already proven that age is not a barrier to learning about computers. We’re not talking about a man who avoids upgrading to the latest software, or just not being a gadget guy - we’re talking about avoiding computers altogether! McCain is either being stubborn, or a dinosaur, or a bit of both.

Imagine all of the terms that are part of the common vernacular with which McCain is unfamiliar. Blogging, e-mail, file attachment…so many, they can’t even be counted! How would he, as president, send an urgent, personal message to another international leader? By carrier pigeon?

I’m not American and I can’t vote in November - and McCain wouldn’t have been my choice anyway, but this latest admission is nothing short of startling. The Oval Office doesn’t need an technological ostrich in it for four years.

If you were listening to the 680News morning show around 7:10 a.m. this morning, you already know that I have decided to leave 680News. This decision didn’t come lightly! In fact, I’ve spent a very long time thinking about it, and weighing my options and values.

I’m not going to another radio station. I’m not leaving FOR anything professional, but for a major change in my personal life. I will continue to write my column for The Sun and to appear on the TV show, Whatever Happened To. And I hope to continue my relationship with Rogers Broadcasting in some form. I’ve been here at 680News for more than nine years; three-and-a-half of them as morning anchor on CHFI, and the past six with Paul Cook as co-anchors on the 680News morning show.

I will miss the people! My work husband, Paulie, Elizabeth “The Empress” Harrison, Jennifer “J-Mac” Macdonald, Rudy Blair, Leslie James, Mike Eppel and everyone else I’ve worked with for so many years. This truly has been the best and most challenging job of my career.

But, keep in mind that I’m going to be here until Halloween! And the search for Paul’s next co-anchor is on. Thank you for being here, and we’re all doing our part to make it a smooth transition into the next era of the 680News morning show.

My recent motorcycle adventure to Cape Breton and back taught me a thing or two about people.

I’ve been to the East Coast many times before, but never in this fashion, on a bike, with a group and a couple of maps and there to enjoy the journey as much as arriving at the destination.

Cape Bretoners practically clamour to offer their assistance. Whether it’s directions or advice about the best views of the ocean or where to eat, each and every person we talked to was friendly and chatty and more than happy to help. Take into account that to the unaware, leather clad and rumbling in, we may have seemed like a small but potentially fierce gang! (A hilarious concept, if you know us - two radio announcers, two factory workers and an engineer, all mild-mannered and kind to all living creatures!) But we found nothing but universal eagerness to make sure we got the most out of our visit.

And we did! We ate fresh lobster, prepared in a home-style, traditional way at the tackiest (and I mean that as a compliment!) little restaurant/souvenir shop you’ve ever seen, near the Cape Breton causeway. We had scads of wonderful adventures you can only have on a motorcycle.

The people make the difference, and I don’t know what it is about Cape Bretoners but they display no irritation with the continuing tourism invasion of their little piece of paradise. They get the big picture view, that tourism brings dollars and word of mouth is a powerful form of advertising. If we have a good time we’ll share that news and so on. And they also seem to genuinely enjoy meeting someone new and taking a few minutes to visit.

Torontonians could stand to learn a little from the Capers. Think about that the next time you see an obviously confused tourist, nose into a map, at a downtown corner. Would it really take very much out of your day to ask if you could help?

It’s time once again for some vacation so before I take off on the Harley for a road trip, let’s tidy up a few items.

The mayor of the New Hampshire town where 17 high school girls reportedly had a pregnancy pact, was lying! We were all horrified that so many girls had apparently made an agreement to get pregnant around the same time and raise their babies together. One even went so far as to sleep with a homeless man so she wouldn’t be left out! Turns out it was made up by a possibly panicked mayor, trying to explain why the pregnancy rate at his town’s high school was so high.

Someone somewhere knows who put out poison in High Park. Someone complained about rodents in the garden and likely mused aloud to someone else about getting rid of them for good. So far, two dogs have died and others were sickened. And frankly, you have to wonder about someone who would take it upon themselves to kill animals anyway. I have no trouble squishing a spider or slapping a mosquito but that’s about as far as it goes. We share real estate with the critters and if they’re that bothersome there are humane ways to relocate them. The death of the dogs just proves that putting out poison is an uncontrollable and reckless way to rid an area of vermin.

So now a city councillor wants the city to experience what it would be like without the Gardiner by shutting down the portion that’s under threat of tear-down, for one week. The mayor is in favour of an assessment instead. We should go for the trial run! What better way to see how this city would cope, than with a practical, trial run? No one wants to be inconvenienced, of course. But that’s what 680News’ traffic reports are for!

I hope you have a wonderful week and a half and I’ll catch you back here on July 8th.

I have dumb drivers on the brain this week. Perhaps because my vehicle was in the shop for two weeks and my insurance company gave me a very nice but extremely large SUV to negotiate around the city and I became the target for the impatience of many of my fellow motorists.

But there are a lot of problems with pedestrians too! It continues to astound me that so many do not understand the concept of an advanced green to allow traffic to turn left. They continue to wander out into the street, baffled, like a squirrel panicking over where to bury a nut. They hold up traffic and act as if it’s the drivers trying to squeeze into that brief left turn opportunity who are doing the wrong thing. After all, pedestrians have the right of way, even when they’re wrong.

This week police issued a warning to walkers to stay off the headphones or at least keep the music down low enough so they can still hear what’s going on around them. This comes after a young woman was struck by a streetcar because she had an iPod on and didn’t see what was coming.

I’ve never been on the music-while-walking bandwagon except when I’m on a treadmill. Generally, there’s no traffic to worry about there! I don’t get why so many people want to check out of what’s going on around them, but it looks like I’m in the minority. I see bike riders wearing headphones and car drivers as well.

Maybe I just like people watching and hearing birds…and sirens… not to mention being aware of any senses that tell me there’s something strange afoot. I know I’m a worse driver when I’m on a cellphone. I can admit it! It can’t be any different when someone is singing in my ear while I walk.

George Carlin was brilliant. Carlin died in a Santa Monica hospital last night from heart failure. He was 71.

He could have been a philosopher and I suppose he really was, and through comedy he gained a much bigger audience. His routines about “stuff” and “the seven words you can’t say on TV” are legendary and still hilarious and awe inspiring today.

When Carlin’s recording of those seven words was aired on a New York radio station in 1978, it sparked a Supreme Court ruling upholding the U.S. government’s authority to sanction radio stations for broadcasting offensive language.

Carlin’s mellifluous and friendly voice made his strong and potentially polarizing political opinions easier to take. Some might have said he played God. And he came close! He played a Cardinal in the movie Dogma. He appeared in many movies and became a hero to millions of children as the narrator in the Thomas The Tank Engine series. He played Rufus, the wise advisor in the Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure movies. He was also a best-selling author. His Brain Droppings book, for one, offered a collection of little nuggets that revealed the mind of a truly thoughtful and bent individual! He was loved by comics and audiences alike.

Carlin was also a living example of loyalty and a stable personal life. He didn’t “go Hollywood.” He and his late wife, Brenda, were wed for decades until she became ill, and he tended her until her death in 1997. He remarried and is survived by his second wife, Sally. He also had a daughter.

Some classic Carlin-isms:

“You have to stay in shape. My mother started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She’s 97 now and we have no idea where she is.”

“Where do forest rangers go, to ‘get away from it all’?”

“Recent polls reveal that some people have never been polled. Until recently.”

RIP George.

There are scams and then there are scams. Some aim high and try to rake in big bucks. Others are truly nickel-and-dime operations.

Please keep in mind that the gentleman in question, who is now charged with selling license plate covers to confound the 407 ETR cameras and avoid charges for using the higway, is innocent until proven guilty.

If you don’t want to pay the price, don’t use the highway. It’s that simple. The charges are legal and they’re going to be imposed one way or another. But the 401 is free!

But I’ve often wondered about some of these laws involving driving and other vehicular matters. For example, you can legally buy a license plate cover that has a tint to it, but you can be charged if you use it to hide your plate number.

You have to have an emission test on your vehicle, but you can fool the system by using a product available at any store that sells auto products, and running it through with a tank of gas. It’s legal and it works, so I’m told. The loser is the environment which is supposed to be protected by the removal of vehicles that are spewing too many toxins into the air.

So if this one man did, indeed, sell the covers - and that has yet to be proven in court - it’s a little disturbing but it seems to be just the tip of what some people will do to get out of paying the piper. Police say all sorts of people have tried all sorts of things to evade detection.

I can’t afford to eat at North 44 or Bymark every week, but I don’t go in and dine and dash. I just don’t go! The same should apply to those who don’t want to pay the tolls for the 407.

Jerry Seinfeld did a stand-up bit quite a while ago concerning the confusion over deciding what to eat. He claimed to routinely wander through the grocery store, with his brain consumed by ingredients lists and calorie counts, and having no idea what he should buy.

Times have not changed much, apparently! A new Harris/Decima survey finds nearly three-quarters of Canadians are unsure of what to eat for good health.

With good fats, bad fats and trans fats, not to mention an alphabet’s worth of vitamins, omega-3’s and everything else nutritional experts say we should and should not consume, you need a degree in chemistry and biology to wade through all of the information.

For example, remember Olestra? It was the goop put into low-fat or no-fat potato chips until its, um, side effects became apparent and people started complaining.

Now health experts are saying no or low fat isn’t necessarily the way to go with many items, like yogurts and some treats, adding extra salt or sugar in place of the fat. I happen to love a certain brand of organic popcorn, but I was shocked to learn that 80 calories out of a 100 calorie serving, come from fat. Everything in moderation!

And if you’re trying to lose or put on weight, that adds even more layers to the confusion of the grocery store aisles. I suppose it helps to know we’re not alone, but it doesn’t really help make the decisions any easier!