Media mavens and politicians around the globe are surely watching with fascination the groundbreaking approach to managing news coverage now being pioneered by the mayor of Canada's largest city.

We speak, of course, of the gambit by Toronto's slapstick neo-Con mayor, Rob Ford, to refuse public documents to the Toronto Star, thus depriving the country's historically most-aggressive daily newspaper of such important scoops as canned complaints by city officials about Occupy Toronto and a vital report on progress repairing potholes.

The Toronto Taxpayers Coalition is answering Toronto Public Library's "Why My Library Matters to Me" challenge, in which you can win lunch with one of several celebrated Canadian authors including Margaret Atwood, with their right-wing revision. Successful applicants can win lunch with Doug Ford with the best essay that begins with the phrase, "Lower taxes are good for Toronto because..."

Well, I like a free lunch as much as anyone, and the chance to talk literature with one of Toronto's finest politicians is too much to pass up. So I'd thought I'd venture my own contribution (just don't tell him I live in Vancouver):

Lighten up, Doug Ford! It's good to be given a sound public thrashing by Margaret Atwood. It's proof that your hitherto meaningless existence has been recognized!

After all, Atwood is an author of historical stature, the sort of person journalists describe as an icon without even bothering to look up the word. In other words, she's someone who, unlike you, history will remember as more than a footnote.

So you should treat the talking-to you've just received from her as a blessing, a gift from the Gods, proof that you are not merely a gnat, no matter what the rest of us may think.