What an asshole.

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Hi Warren,

How are you?
i hope good.

* If posting to your blog would help get the phone numbers i need, please don’t include my or my parents names or address in your blog post.

My parents are still without power, in toronto. they are 85 years old.
They have been staying in different homes of their kids for the last week.

All of their children are concerned about the stress they are under.

A city tree had a limb come down on their hydro line.

Multiple tickets have been reported to hydro about this.

Hydro will give no information as to when their line will be fixed or where they are in the cue. Hydro said they DO NOT prioritize people based on any vulnerabilities they might have, and as well, the front line hydro person had no idea how hydro
chooses who’s line they will fix next.

This is horrible emergency planning. Hydro needs to fully assess their emergency planning to make sure a better emergency system is in place.

Warren, Do you know how i can find the cell phone numbers of Kathleen Wynne, Norm Kelly, Rob Ford, Hydro Ceo Anthony Haines, Hydro safety person – Ave Lethbridge, or
their assistants or media relations people?

Or a phone number for the right person at hydro to get this sorted out right away. the 416 542 8000 number and related dynamic is useless.

My brothers and sisters and I are very concerned about my parents health and well being, since they cannot go home and have no idea when they will be able to return.

I want to make sure Hydro sends out a truck as soon as possible to fix their line, and get at least a rough ETA as to when this is likely to happen.

thanks for your consideration about this, WK,

MUCH APPRECIATED!

josh X

416 922 XXXX

Comments (7)

Not quite. The headline on Stephen Maher’s column, here, bears little relation to what I think he’s saying.

There’s no “new amorality at the heart of public life.” That’s ridiculous. Any of the politicians I know have been shocked by Rob Ford’s crack-smoking, heroin-using, drunk-driving, wife-humiliating ways. They are all, to a one, angry and appalled by Crackhead Mayor. They’re not amoral.

It’s not our political culture that is amoral; if you read what he says, Maher lays the blame elsewhere. He says “our new online media culture is amoral.” He suggests that, now that people are their own news editors, they suddenly have started clicking stories about the Kardashians, not Kafka.

I don’t think he’s quite right about that. There’s nothing new about peoples’ enthusiasm for Rob Ford’s antecedents. They’ve been lining up to see horrible people, and horrible stuff, for a long time: in the Roman coliseum, in the circus freak show, in the old black-and-white National Enquirer – and in the TV reality shows, where bearded racists and homophobes are made into stars.

And, as is well-known, they line up at NFL games to get their picture taken with Rob Ford. They do it for the same reasons they always have: they can’t tear their eyes away from freaks and failures. It’s in their, our, nature.

Rob Ford is a circus freak, just like the bearded lady and the Siamese Twins and the three-legged man were freaks. They’re not necessarily buying tickets to approve of Ford and the other freaks. They’re buying tickets to get close, and even to get the opportunity to mock him.

Is that amoral? Maybe.

Mostly, it says more about the people in the line-up – that is to say, us – than it does about Rob Ford, doesn’t it?

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Lala and me are headed to NYC as I thumb this. Tasks:

• See Patti Smith
• Sleep
• Attend de Blasio swearing-in

In regard to that last one, watch this spot. It’s one of the reasons de Blasio won. It’s amazing.

If the plane goes down in a fiery ball, Daughter gets my biker jacket. Sons can divide up the guitars.

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And the great Christmas 2013 blackout continues.

As you guys know, I am kind of obsessed with the confluence of disasters and politics. Of such things are political careers made and unmade, I like to say.

Deputy Toronto Mayor Norm Kelly undid his when he decided to jet off to Florida, mid-calamity. Doesn’t matter what the reason was: he is now forever marked by that quick trip.

Mayor Crackhead hasn’t been hurt by any of it, conversely, because he’s stuck around. It’s the Giuliani Effect™, you might say: you can be saying and doing precisely nothing substantive, but if you’re on the news every day, offering soothing platitudes, it can’t hurt. Ford also benefits from rather low expectations: when you’re a crack-smoking, drunk-driving lying sack of garbage, you can only go up, you know?

Kathleen Wynne? Jury is still out. Nobody does emote better. But, as folks start to get angrier, will they get angry at her? Hard to say.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people have been in the cold and dark for a week, now. There’s going to be Hell to pay, by the time this thing is done.

What’s your take?

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Media folks are unimpressed, and rightly so, about Presto’s bizzaro column, here.

The whole thing hangs on Manning’s claim that Mike Duffy had been lobbying for a Senate appointment “for years.” Meanwhile, he conspicuously disregards the fact that we media folks have been kicking the living shit out of Duffy for months. With a vengeance.

Anyway – what caught my eye was this bit in Presto’s treatise:

“Section 10 of that constitution provides for the expulsion of a member by a majority vote of the members for only one reason: “… that such member uses his membership or the facilities of the Gallery to obtain a benefit other than by journalism …”

That rule sure is interesting.

I am aware of a Press Gallery member (and Frank magazine contributor) using House of Commons property – stationary and whatnot – to fire off myriad legal threats, recently. Got the evidence, even.

How would one go about pursuing such a complaint, Presto (or anyone)?

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There’s no column, in fact, from anyone. I think we are running a page of terrific editorial cartoons instead.

So, I just wanted to wish a Merry Christmas to all six of my regular readers. You are terrific, and you help make this website much more interesting than I could ever make it on my own.

I’ve talked to my kids, this morning, about the close to one million people in Toronto who are now on day three without power, without water, and potentially without food. If anyone can tell me who is coordinating efforts to help the elderly and the infirm in some of those cold high-rises in Scarborough, I would greatly appreciate it. My sons and daughter and I want to help them out if we can. Please leave whatever information you can in comments about who is coordinating help for those people.

In the meantime, here’s a snap daughter and I took while trying to get around yesterday. With most of the traffic lights down on this side of Toronto, it was hard to do. The trees are pretty but also sad. Christmas 2013 will be one to remember.

UPDATE: Son Two and Three help me deliver food and coffee and clothing to the warming center located at 2231 Lawrence Ave. If you are in the neighborhood, and want to help out, that’s one place where you can go.

Comments (20)

On Dec 23, 2013, at 9:48 PM, “Tim Reeves” treeves222@rogers.com wrote:

Allright Kinsella,

You are asshole of the year.My father has had this kind of mail delivery for 8 years is now 84 years old.No complaints from him you dickhead.Why don’t you even have the courage to respond to my emails you Liberal left leaning Communonist bastard?

**

Thanks, Tim! Merry Christmas to you and yours! W

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Kinsellabration First Nation Christmas vista thingie.

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Everyone okay? Leave your stories in comments.

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