Since midnight, I have been hit up for directions on four separate occasions. I think that's a lot, considering I have been either sleeping or otherwise in my apartment for just under 12 of those 14 hours.

I was able to help the guy walking away from his destination of Bathurst Street, the couple looking for the Taste of Little Italy festival and the two teenage girls looking for the vintage shops in Kensington Market.

I failed the 20-somethings looking for the Duke of York pub in the Annex (for future ref, it's on Prince Arthur Ave. just east of the St. George subway).

The oddest directions experience lately came late one night when I was walking down Queens Park to College St. A car drives right beside me for several seconds on this otherwise deserted thoroughfare, mildly freaking me out (drive-by!! :) ). Then it stops just ahead of me.

Two South Asian women -- one middle-aged, one older -- are inside. They want to know how to get to York Mills (Hint: It was far to the north of where they were talking to me).

I tell them to take the Wellesley exit off Queen's Park just about 15 metres in front of them to the left, left back onto QP, go north to Bloor Street and ...

"That's too complicated," they told me.

Oh dear. :)

The Globe and Mail's Matthew Ingram rounds up some of the main lawsuits against Canadian bloggers. However, the risk isn't just in what the blogger says, but in what is said in comments on the blog itself.

The "father knows best" adage often breaks down completely when put to the test. Fathers are shown to not know very much, perhaps less than their kids, in the narrow instance of providing answers during visits to museums.

From the Washington Post:

Private security companies, funded by billions of dollars in U.S. military and State Department contracts, are fighting insurgents on a widening scale in Iraq, enduring daily attacks, returning fire and taking hundreds of casualties that have been underreported and sometimes concealed, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials and company representatives.

While the military has built up troops in an ongoing campaign to secure Baghdad, the security companies, out of public view, have been engaged in a parallel surge, boosting manpower, adding expensive armor and stepping up evasive action as attacks increase, the officials and company representatives said. One in seven supply convoys protected by private forces has come under attack this year, according to previously unreleased statistics; one security company reported nearly 300 "hostile actions" in the first four months.

The majority of the more than 100 security companies operate outside of Iraqi law, in part because of bureaucratic delays and corruption in the Iraqi government licensing process, according to U.S. officials. Blackwater USA, a prominent North Carolina firm that protects U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, and several other companies have not applied, U.S. and Iraqi officials said. Blackwater said that it obtained a one-year license in 2005 but that shifting Iraqi government policy has impeded its attempts to renew.

The security industry's enormous growth has been facilitated by the U.S. military, which uses the 20,000 to 30,000 contractors to offset chronic troop shortages. Armed contractors protect all convoys transporting reconstruction materiel, including vehicles, weapons and ammunition for the Iraqi army and police. They guard key U.S. military installations and provide personal security for at least three commanding generals, including Air Force Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Scott, who oversees U.S. military contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

From the BBC, published June 14:

Zakia Zaki was one of Afghanistan's most active campaigners

The husband of the murdered Afghan journalist Zakia Zaki has said his wife received death threats in the week before her shooting, but she did not tell him about them in order not to alarm him.

Zakia Zaki was shot in her bed in the early hours of 6 June at her house near the capital, Kabul. Two of her sons, a seven-year-old and a baby, were in the room at the time but survived. ...

Zakia Zaki's husband Abdul Ahad Ranjbar told the BBC's Outlook programme that, while his wife "had not told me anything about being threatened this week, but she had said something about being threatened to her sister, Nazifa Zaki, a military general."

"Nazifa said there was a threat, but they did not tell me before because they didn't want me to be worried about it," he added.

"I am still not fully certain about the nature of the threat, and Nazifa told me that they are going to explain and talk about it more when the funeral services are finished."

Shocking

Zakia Zaki owned a private radio station in Parvan province, and was one of the few female journalists in the country to speak out during the Taleban's rule.  ...

(Ranjbar) added that he had been worried about her safety simply because of the nature of her work, as she was a political, cultural and social figure in the country, an MP and human rights campaigner.

"She always faced challenges, and problems from different groups," he said.

"For example, they were trying to close down the radio four months ago. The same people are still free, and no-one touches them."

But he said his wife had never felt she should cave in to the attitude of her opposition, and was "never afraid" of threats.

"Because I was more conservative than her, she sometimes did not talk about the threats with me," he added.

Shortly before Afghan journalist Zakia Zaki was shot to death, the lower house of Afghanistan's parliament passed a new media law. Here were the closing words of the BBC story, published June 5:

This achievement of Afghan journalists has come at a crucial time.

One of the most successful stories of post-conflict reconstruction, Afghanistan's media are now facing one of their most challenging periods.

Increasing curbs on information have been accompanied by greater violence and increasing intolerance from all sides, even as a sharp cut in donor funding has forced many media organisations to close down, downsize or worry about their survival.

Afghan journalists hope that the new media law, once passed, will give them more rights, rather than making their jobs more difficult.

Antonia Zerbisias, (former?) media critic for the Toronto Star, will be holding forth on the topic of "Take Back The Media" this Sunday at Bloor United Church (300 Bloor St. West). I believe the start time is 10:30 a.m.