Musings —11.15.2013 08:28 AM
—Toronto needs a mayor: my Mom renders judgment
My Mom lives alone in Kingston. She is an artist, and she is very proper. I’ve never seen her in sweatpants, or go out in public looking even remotely informal. She goes to church on Sundays, she does charity work, and she dislikes boorish people. With the exception of Kinsella family full-contact Scrabble games – and after a glass of wine – my Mom doesn’t tolerate bad language, ever.
I call her every single day, sometimes twice a day. Yesterday afternoon, after the crackhead mayor of Canada’s largest city used some of the most disgusting language anyone has ever heard an elected official use, I called my Mom. Without pause, she commenced condemning the piece of human garbage who occupies the mayor’s chair. She said, inter alia, that he has embarrassed Canada around the world, that he should have been arrested by the police long ago, and that she fears for his children.
And then she said: “He’s just, just, a [expletive deleted] asshole.”
I was in shock. I could not believe my mother had said that. She was mad.
I told her I was astounded she had said such a thing.
“Well,” she said, “I mean it. Now, dear, you go and get him out of there, do you hear me? Do it what it takes.”
Told her I was on it. I’m a son who does what his mother tells him to do.
Go Mrs. K!
Ioved you before I had to reset my account. love your mom’s got bigger cajones than most of ford nation, which until not too long ago was most of toronto.
Ditch
Your Mom’s the best! Please do exactly what your Mom is asking you to do.
Mrs K has a ver good point, if this was another family; say one of colour, with less money would children’s aid society not have intervened by now?
My wife, who never swears, said, exactly the same thing. The exasperation just overwhelmed her.
Haven’t checked with my mother yet. But even at 5’3″ she would still drag his sorry ass to church to make good.
I think we’re being played. The Fords are pulling a Palin. They know it’s over. They’ll quit soon and ride that gravy train to fame. Books, TV, highly paid speeches or even Republican conventions. They are Joe the Plumber writ large. What gets me is why. If it isn’t for the money then it must be a desire to be Canada’s Honey boo boobs. The ultimate ego trip to nowhere. Any else see a reason why they go on?
My wife is floating the conspiracy theory (partly in jest….) that the big winner out of all this is the Conservative Party of Canada. Its shifted all the attention away from the Senate Scandal and the role of the PM and PMO. Is it totally impossible that, with the full knowledge that they are going down in flames, that they are taking one for Stevie and Jimbo? I mean, it seems totally crazy I know….but deep down inside…I don’t know, there are questions.
I was thinking that too…esp with his latest press conference and his reference to that all he can eat buffet at home:P I mean could ROFO be that inept…even in a drunken stupor?
You Mom is the standard by which all politicians should be judged, and the standard they must use as a model for behaviour. Mrs. K for Mayor!
+1 for your mom. No… +1000!
Looked at the little vid of Ford stumbling…until three years ago I helped with the local high school team…I was working our receivers on their patterns…I did the snap bit and stepped back and tumbled, exactly the way RF does in this vid…kids came over to make sure I was ok…looking after their ancient mentor… I guess I should focus on your mayor and city and political stains but the vid flashes me back to that moment…an old fart reliving the circa 1960…
I am far away…but this sure looks to me like a guy who is trapped in denial…and a guy in denial will hang on grimly a long time and against all the evidence. I am not sure how you break through it…the guy has to be brought to it himself. Sometimes the external criticisms just make the guy hang on even more determinedly. It’s like hanging on to your one and only identity.
Hah!…always cross step in front of the plant, not behind..
Everybody’s entitled to swear at least once a year, and if they can keep it down to that, when they do use that word, they really put every ounce of power into it. You know it is something to behold.
I used that word when Ford refused to resign last week. Twice. By my estimate, it’s another eighteen to twenty-four months before I can use it again.
The beauty of people like your mother is that when they swear IT MEANS SOMETHING. People turn around. Birds stop in mid-flight.
That said, what we REALLY need is someone to capture a video of the Queen watching the news and saying, “I wonder what that putz has done now.”
My dearly departed mother, who was not adverse to using profanity now and then (especially after a few rye and waters), would have said, “That [expletive deleted] shouldn’t be running a lawn mower.”
Go Mrs. K..
The wisdom of years. My mother, who sadly is in the early stages of dementia (terrible family history), does not do much anymore but watch news, sports (she has followed the leafs and jays for years) and likes scratch tickets. My father and I die laughing (one must have some humour in these circumstances despite the sad outcomes) because as the illness progresses she is getting more and more forgetful, but when that SOB John Baird is on the screen, she will perk up and tell us how much she despises him and proceeds to make nasty comments about him. Every time. My father and I laugh, she still can call an SOB when she sees one.
Go Ladies of a “certain age”!!!!
For Rob Ford and members of Ford Nation, rustling the jimmies of Ontario’s great and good remains a feature and not a bug.
You might have to wait until October to get him out, but a lot of people probably agree with your mom right now.
While the brothers Kalashnikov shoot each other in the foot in Toronto Ms Paquette from Quebec rowed across the Atlantic Ocean. Rowed. Fuck the Fords.
Warren
1. I agree with almost everything you write, but please don’t call any person “garbage”. Your mother’s language is better.
2. Re “playing us”, I have wondered if the Fords might also be plea bargaining. The mayor of San Diego, I understand, refused to leave until one day some deal was made re his criminal charges. I know Mr. Ford has not been charged [yet?] but he no doubt knows more than we do what’s possible down the road. On the other hand their supreme stubborness might be sufficient to explain their “strategy”.
jk