The company you keep keeps you
It’s hard being a company these days. But harder being a corporate cause or reporting on it. Two letters this week showed why:
The first was about fair-weather friends. It seems lots of big supporters of Pride and the LGBTQ movement are turning tail because some of their stakeholders view this as “wokism gone mad.” So Phil Haid, the CEO of social marketing agency Public Inc. wrote to his clients and friends: “The discomfort that many brands and businesses are experiencing right now is because for a time Pride felt like a party that everyone wanted to be a part of. But please remember that Pride is a protest and has always been. It stands as a constant reminder of the work society needs to continue to do to become equal, equitable, and just.”
The second example was about money. The Logic reports in-depth on Canada’s innovation economy. It does this independently and very well. Each June, the gigantic Collision Conference comes to Toronto (helped along by millions in public subsidies), and this year its date follows a conference The Logic is organizing. When The Logic applied for media credentials to cover Collision, it was denied: Why? “Running other events that piggyback on our own is not something we support.” Now Collision is a Goliath; The Logic is a David, as is its editor-in-chief David Skok. So David wrote about it. After his column appeared, Collision caved and let The Logic in.
Meanwhile……
1. Airlines as banks. Years ago, some expert said that General Motors wasn’t an auto company. Because of its huge pension and benefits obligations for retirees and employees, it was a health-care organization that made cars on the side. Now, it seems airlines aren’t really in the flying business; they’re in the banking business.
2. This Trump outrage is different. As Susan Glasser, the revered New Yorker staff writer put it: “The indictment of Donald J. Trump, in the first-ever federal criminal case against a former President, is a holy-shit document.” Here’s that document.
3. A holocaust museum opens. The largest museum outside of Israel’s Yad Vashem commemorating the Nazi’s killing of 6 million jews opened in Washington DC in 1993. Today, there are many dozens of holocaust museums, including Toronto’s which opened last week. Now is a good time to visit.
4. The evolution of human skin color. Melatonin meets racism.
5. “I can afford it and they need the money.” How former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave $130 million to bail out the Perelman Performing Arts Center in Lower Manhattan and The Shed in Hudson Yards.
6.70% of Canadians live south of Seattle. In fact, Canada extends as far south as California, Barcelona, and Rome.
7. Make the rich pay! Some online sites charge you more if they know you can afford it. This is “individually-targeted pricing.” They do not boast about this. But the Finns do; it’s part of their social policy. “Progressive speeding fines” mean you pay a lot more for speeding if you’re rich than if you’re poor. Just ask Finnish multi-millionaire Anders Wiklof who was sanguine about paying a fine of $173,600 for doing 82 in a 50-kilometre zone.
Meanwhile, if you are rich and not speeding, but buying, here’s a site for you.
8. An app for revolution. Billed as “the investing app that puts the power of conscious investing in your hands, Fennel lets you compare a company’s ESG performance to its claims and also, how to become a shareholder activist.
Speaking of activism, The Globe and Mail launched its campaign to get governments to open public records rather than hide them. Secret Canada is led by investigative reporter Robyn Doolittle who’s flooded the corridors of power with blinding light.
9. What’s the world’s biggest economic sector? Not tech. Not oil. Not finance. But travel. Here are three new things happening in it: sober tourism, Hyper-trains from Edmonton to Calgary, and Blum, a thriller-podcast by Swiss Tourism.
10. On Dancer, On Prancer & Vixen. I’m following the fate of Dancer, the musical in 10 furlongs about the horse nobody wanted. It debuts at the Toronto Fringe Festival, July 5 to 16. The next Come From Away? Bet on it.
11. What I’m liking. I like long-watching. These are streaming series of 5 seasons or more. Like A French Village (7), or Line of Duty (6) or The Wire (5), or the series that spawned streaming, The Sopranos (6). I’m mid-series now in the wonderful Netflix family drama, This Is Us (6). It’s worth spending 100 hours of my life.