Rob Ford: Mr. Law and Order

“Hurry up! Hurry up! Man oh man, do I ever have the munchies.”

Mayoral frontrunner Rob Ford told reporters Thursday, about a guilty plea for failing to provide a breath sample in Florida 11 years ago.

The Etobicoke councillor said he did 50 hours of community service and paid a fine.

Mr. Ford revealed the Valentine’s Day, 1999, incident at a news conference after a local newspaper reported that he had been caught with a marijuana joint in his back pocket the same night.

And:

He has been charged four times in three separate incidents: Once when he was 18, after a hockey fight, once when in 2008 for assault against his wife Renata, and two charges in the Florida incident.

And:

“Ford initially denied knowing about the drug charge when confronted by a reporter on Wednesday, then admitted to it without mentioning the driving under the influence charge, for which he was convicted.”

No one is saying he’s a drunk-driving, drug-using hypocrite who beats up on people who are smaller than him.  No one.

But, sooner or later, someone will, I suspect.

Rob Ford Arrest Report


Green Day

I’m at their Toronto concert with my daughter. Based upon what I have observed tonight, I can now say that punk rock is dead.

You’re welcome.


Small shovels

The census decision reminds me of the national anthem decision, which reminds me of the prorogation decision, which reminds me of…I could go on. Others have.

None of those mistakes, in and of themselves, are things that I can realistically picture Joe and Jane Frontporch angrily debating around the kitchen tables of the nation.  Perhaps you can picture Joe sitting up at night, bathed in sweat, and angrily remarking to a worried Jane: “Goddamn! I can’t sleep anymore, because I’m too upset about the fate of the long-form census!” But me, I just don’t see it.  I didn’t even know how to spell “prorogation” at the start of 2010.

That’s not to say that the Harper Reformatories didn’t make mistakes with the communication of their census decision, or the anthem one, or prorogation, or whatever.  They did. Even Conservatives say so.

So if I’m right, and none of those mistakes was, say, as significant of turning a structural surplus into a massive structural deficit, then why did the census decision get so many people so ticked off?

Because of small shovels, that’s why.

Voters are sophisticated enough to know that as much, or more, can be revealed about someone’s character by the little things as with the big things.  They believe that individual governments have virtually no long-term impact on the big files – the stability of economies, markets, regions, and so on.  They also believe that the policy differences between the mainstream political parties are largely negligible.  (They’re wrong about that, but that’s what they think.)

That’s why they attach importance to the smaller issues, the so-called watercooler stuff.  If your neighbour goes to work and makes super-important decisions that affects a company’s bottom line, say, you rarely ever hear about that.  But if he empties out his chlorinated pool into your rose bushes, and kills them off, you’ll be muttering about that for a long, long time over the back fences.  In the same vein, nobody remembers, particularly, what Nixon and Kennedy debated in that crucial presidential debate in 1960.  They do, however, remember how sweaty and swarthy Nixon looked.  It suggested to them that he wasn’t trustworthy.  It wasn’t fair, or even a big deal, but it was enough to affect the outcome.

The Harper regime, ipso facto, is doing what governments always end up doing: it is busily working away at defeating itself.  And, as with the census decision, it’s doing so with the smaller stuff.  To wit, Joe Frontporch: “You know, I don’t really care about the census or whatever, but these Harper guys sure are screwing up a lot, these days.  I think they need to be taught a lesson.”

Political graves are dug by small shovels.  It was ever thus.


Toronto is cool

Saw Scott Pilgrim Takes On The World with two of my boys last night.  Going in, it had pretty much everything against it: my guys insisted we sit in the second row, so my vision was blurry and my neck was hurting before the trailers had concluded; the place was insanely packed with unfortunate tattoo/piercing decisions, due it being that half-price Tuesday night scam, and my well-documented misanthropy was therfore in fullest bloom; and I didn’t know diddley-squat about the movie, or what to expect.  Zero, zippo, zilch.

But it was awesome. Awesome, Canada!

Martial arts, punk rock, quirky dialogue and a bizarro plot line: I mean, seriously, what more could you want? Well, how about it being proudly in, around and about Toronto? Now, that takes serious balls.

Anyway, I recommend it highly.  It achieves the near-impossible, and makes Toronto cool.  For that, it deserves the Order of Canada.


Little Timmy Hudak’s revolving door

Received from a reader:

“Hudak’s director of communications David Tarrant and Marissa Steiner have just quit the OLO. That brings the number of people who have bailed out to 12 since he became leader. This does not include people who were purged when he took over. It includes only people he kept after becoming leader or brought in himself.

  • Jen Reid*
  • Ari Laskin*
  • Claudia Paolini
  • Pina Martino
  • Debbie Oskie
  • Tom Simpson*
  • Frank Iusi
  • Allan Williams
  • Laryssa Wailer
  • Greg Medulun*

* Hudak leadership campaign

Add to that Shaun Francis who recently resigned as PC Ontario Fund chair and something is clearly wrong in Hudakland.”


D@AL: Dragonfly At Arm’s Length

It was an average week at the cottage: I nearly broke a finger, there was a sensational thunder storm that washed away the pathway, the new puppy drank lake water and got totally sick, we tubed over the speed limit, my sons beat each other senseless with regularity, my daughter read a telephone book-sized vampire novel daily, and so on.  The usual.

And then, one afternoon, this Mutual of Omaha’s Reviled Kingdom moment: two dragonflies in a battle to the death. With an ending that will make you lose your head.  Or your lunch.

This one is going viral on the Interweeb, I predict.  Someone is going to write a thesis about it.


In Belleville

Got to Chapters/Starbucks with one mother, one daughter, three sons, two Labs, and lots of stuff. Driving rain, Hellish, etc.

Guy at counter, checking through the stack of snowboarding/dirtbiking/punk/vampire magazines/books, and apparently knowing who I am: “You on Iggy’s tour this Summer?”

Me: “I wish.”

Pause.

Me: “Oh. You meant Ignatieff. I meant Iggy Pop.”