Sun burst

Ian Davey is my friend, and I have tons of friends at the Sun.

Ian was obviously – and I mean, front-page, 72-point font obviously – making a joke. He, and his remarkable Dad before him, have been long-time Sun readers.  In fact, Red Leaf founder Keith Davey placed more advertising in the Sun, over the years, than practically any ad exec you can name.

I know Ian well enough to know that he meant no offence. I also know a few Sun editorialists know that, too.

The universe balances out, with the Sun at the centre of it.


The friends of Rob Ford

Two of Rob Ford’s most eager activists/campaign workers are Arnie Lemaire and Kathy Shaidle.  Lemaire runs a Muslim-hating web site called “Blazing Cat Fur” that, most recently, ran a contest encouraging people to send in cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, inter alia, as a pig – and regularly calls for an end to Muslim immigration. Shaidle – who happens to be Lemaire’s wife, and oversees a white supremacist web site called “Five Feet of Fury” – has called Muslim children “parasites,” Islam “fucking retarded…[for] ungrateful beligerent foreign savages…a sick, sick religion,” and said this about Muslim Pakistani immigrants: “most of them can’t even read…What we really need to do is stop immigration from Pakistan and other crazy Muslim countries filled with illiterate, violent tribal peasants…”

For weeks, Shaidle and Lemaire have been agitating for Rob Ford, and have even been at the forefront of his online campaign strategy (as here).  Their association with him and his campaign cannot be denied.  And nor have I found any evidence that the Ford campaign has in any way denounced Lemaire or Shaidle.  Instead – and as in the “investigation” of the Toronto Star, which Ford loathes – they are clearly working in lockstep.

Which brings us to us one of the biggest stories in the world this week, “Reverend” Terry Jones plans to burn copies of the Qu’ran on September 11.

That vile act has been condemned by our Prime Minister, the President of the United States, the Pentagon, the Vatican, Glenn Beck, and pretty much everyone else.  Everyone recognizes that Jones’ plans will cause an extraordinary amount of trouble – and quite literally put allied troops in danger in Afghanistan.

But has Rob Ford?  Why hasn’t he condemned Shaidle and Lemaire, instead of permitting them to sell Ford campaign swag?

Why won’t he condemn Lemaire’s most-recent posting, wherein “Blazing Cat Fur” shows the Qu’ran being burned – and in which he says the opposition to Jones’ plans are “sickening,” quote unquote.

Reading this, and the implications of it, I expect Rob Ford will now scramble to denounce the Qu’ran-burning – and frantically distance himself from the likes of Lemaire and Shaidle.

But the question remains: why hasn’t he done so before now?