Fans of WPBS can breath a sigh of relief. According to the WPBS-TV website earlier today, Rogers is not going to be pulling WPBS from its Ottawa lineup afterall.

“We are pleased to be able to share this news with our viewers”, said Tom Hanley, President and General Manager of WPBS-TV.  “Together with Rogers, we have found a solution to continue to deliver programming to our friends in Ottawa through a reliable fibre connection.”

Clearly the backlash was greater than Rogers had anticipated because just a couple of days ago they were saying they were still committed to their plan.

Frankly, this is the best thing Rogers could have done from a public relations point of view because it lets them say “See? You spoke and we listened”, which huge companies like them rarely get to do. I noticed last night that channel 66, which was their Your World This Week promotional channel, is now carrying the Detroit PBS station, which is something I suggested to Rogers when I called them a few days ago. (I don’t know whether this is a permanent change because the cable lineup on the Rogers website still show YWTW as being on 66, but when they’ve promo’d other channels on 66 in the past they didn’t change the tag from YWTW.)

Congratulations to WPBS-TV on remaining part of the Ottawa community! And a tip o’ the hat to Rogers for showing that they still do listen to their customers. And a special tip o’ the hat to everyone who showed their support and complained to Rogers. 🙂

Update: CBC’s coverage of this.

Randall Deneley’s Memo to Rogers: PBS fans are right in today’s Ottawa Citizen is worth reading.

I’m a long-time Rogers customer, having had a Rogers cellphone since September 1991 when they were Cantel and Rogers cable service everwhere I’ve lived and I’m upset. My parents have had Rogers cable since the dawn of time and they’re really upset. Over the years, they’ve been loyal supporters of WPBS and the decision by Rogers to remove WPBS is causing them to start looking at alternative television providers. Sadly, it doesn’t appear that any of the other providers carry WPBS, though a clever company, like StarChoice, should be looking at adding WPBS to its lineup because there’s a chance to pick up a fair number of new customers.

I’m not sure why David Purdy, vice-president of Rogers, seems intent on ignoring his customers, but he is. Perhaps we should be focusing our attention on the members of Rogers’ Board of Directors to get their attention.

About a year ago, I wrote a couple of entries about taxi drivers who were whining complaining about having to pay to have cameras installed in their cabs despite the fact that they’ve been allowed to keep the difference between 7% and the current GST rate plus 5¢/fare to help offset the cost. This quickly adds up to the cost of installing one of the systems.

Since then, there have been a number of incidents in which these cameras have helped in the investigation of violence against cab drivers.

The most recent is a cabbie who was attacked by two guys who started arguing with the driver and attacked him when he was dropping them off at the corner of Elgin and Gladstone. According to the CBC, the taxi cab camera helped police identify the two men who subsequently surrendered to police 4 days after the attack took place.

They’re both charged with aggravated assault and one guy is also charged with two counts of breaching probation.

As for the taxi driver, he’s still in the hospital, though he’s in stable condition.

Sounds like the cameras weren’t such a bad idea after all, eh?

Legendary anchorman Walter Cronkite passed away earlier this evening  at the age of 92.

Walter Cronkite was known as “the most trusted man in America”. He reported on major news events like the assassination of President Kennedy, the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, the Vietnam War, Civil Rights and Watergate with a level of professionalism that most reporters today still aspire to (or they should).

He probably said it the best at the end of his final broadcast on March 6, 1981:

"Old anchormen, you see, don’t fade away, they just keep coming back for more. And that’s the way it is."

Ski jump, that is.

The 2010 Olympics being held in Vancouver next year will have three ski jumping events for men, but none for women.

Canadian women ski jumpers launched a challenge of this under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on the basis that this is discriminatory. Ski jumping is the only event in the Olympics that is mens-only, a situation that has existed since 1924.

The International Olympic Committee says that their decision not to include a women’s offering is “based on technical issues, without regard for gender,” according to a story in the Globe and Mail.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled that women ski jumpers are being discriminated against by the IOC’s decision, but that there’s nothing that can be done because the IOC is based in Switzerland and thus beyond the reach of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And the Vancouver Organizing Committee must abide by the IOC’s decisions, even though it’s in based in Canada. Not unsurprisingly, the IOC has issued a statement in which they say “we strongly disagree with the court’s analysis that the IOC acted in a discriminatory manner.”

I understand that the schedule of events at the Olympics is tight, but how difficult would it really be to fit a women’s ski jumping event into it?

The IOC claims there aren’t enough countries and top-flight women to make it worth it, but if they don’t offer the event at the Olympic Games what do they expect? It’s the classic chicken-and-egg scenario.

Interestingly, the judge noted that male ski jumpers don’t meet this criteria either, but that they were “grandfathered” into the Winter Games in 1924 when new qualification rules were introduced.

"Men can participate … even though they do not meet the current standard for inclusion. Women cannot," [Judge Lauri Ann Fenlon] said. "In my view, the exclusion of women’s ski jumping from the 2010 Games is discriminatory."

Shame on the Vancouver Organizing Committee for not having the integrity to stand up to the IOC, declare that the 2010 Olympic Games must be non-discriminatory and include a women’s ski jumping event. And shame on the International Olympic Committee for perpetuating this discriminatory practice.

By now you’ve probably heard about United Airlines throwing the Sons of Maxwell’s guitars around as they were loading them on the plane. Predictably, one of the guitars was damaged, so Dave Carroll asked United to fix it. United basically said “no”, to which Dave Carroll said “well then I’m going to write three songs about my experience and post them to YouTube”. I’m betting that Ms. Irlweg thought “yeah yeah… posting rant to YouTube… heard it before”. According to his website, he was hoping to get 1 million hits in the first year.

Well, over 1.3 million hits later  in 3 days and United has blinked. They’ve apparently seen the error of their ways. Of course, this probably isn’t going to stop the release of United: Songs 2 and 3. 🙂

The Globe and Mail has a story about a driver  on the QEW near Toronto who was killed by a piece of scrap metal that flew up off the road and went through his windshield. The car scraped up against a guard rail before it stopped, but by the time the police showed up just a few moments later he was dead. Investigators later determined that the piece of metal hit him in the forehead, killing him instantly.

This is eerily similar to something that happened to my uncle a couple of years ago. He was driving along the QEW when a piece of rebar ripped through the bottom of his car and tore through the passenger’s seat. Fortunately, my uncle wasn’t hurt and there wasn’t anyone else in the car, though his car was quite damaged.

I regularly see junk that’s fallen off someone’s car or truck lying at the side of the highway. Usually, the junk is well out of the way, sometimes it’s being picked up by the driver it belongs to. But every now and then I come across a piece that’s a bit too close to the lanes. In those cases, I call *OPP (*677), a free call from cell phones in Ontario, and report it to the police so that someone can clean it up. If you see junk on the highway, please let the police know so that it can be cleaned up. Who knows – maybe your call will prevent someone else getting hurt or killed.