It didn't take long for Doug Ford to show his total lack of class, and what kind of Premier he will be. For only minutes after he was declared the winner, he burst onto the stage to soak up the sweaty cheers of his fanatical supporters, stick his orange face into the TV cameras. And in the manner of some kind of Deep South Baptist preacher proclaim that the Cons had taken Ontario back.
The Team Harper gang that is running Doug's Ford's campaign, gave him the tinny slogan "For The People," to try to make him look like he really is a man of the people. But sadly for them he's a millionaire, and you know, Dougie will be Dougie. A few years ago he came up with the garish idea of building the world's largest Ferris wheel, a megamall, a monorail, and a sail-in hotel on the city's waterfront.
Which as you can imagine had Toronto's big developers howling and slobbering. And although that "Big Idea" went nowhere, now that he could become Ontario's Premier, he's been caught on video offering to let developers take a big bite out of the city's so-called Greenbelt.
I'm always glad to get back to Canada, even after the shortest trips abroad. Especially at this time of the year, when if you bundle up it almost feels like Spring in The Great White North. And at Sugar Beach in my neighbourhood, if you've got a good imagination, you can almost dream of summer. But this time it seems different, there's a chill in the air, and I can't help thinking I must be crazy to be living in Ontario. Where, as I'm sure you know, a scary ape is running wild.
Well it was closer than I thought it would be, the bestial Fordzilla put up a desperate struggle. But at last he could hold on no longer. And after four long nightmarish years the Ford Nation has finally been defeated.
He is in addition to all his other flaws, a ghastly anti-gay bigot. And so it seems are many members of the Ford Nation. For when six gay activists turned up at the so-called Ford Fest to protest against his vicious homophobia. This is what happened...
Well I suppose it was inevitable. But it sure took long enough. And the damage he did to Toronto and Canada's reputation was incalculable. He's a bully, a bigot, a beast. But he's finally going down.
I'm sure you remember the last time Rob and Doug Ford got their own Ford Nation TV show. And how it had to be cancelled after just ONE episode. Because the Ford brothers stank out the joint. And crappy low budget Fox News North ran out of tape...
Well brace yourself, they're BAAAAACK !!!! With their even lower budget YouTube show...
The man himself is bad enough. A bully, an anti-gay bigot, a crass Con buffoon. The most famous Canadian in the world, to our everlasting shame, and the worst mayor Toronto or any other city has ever known. So the last thing I really needed to hear was more about his family's scary problems.
I have to admit I have been doing my best to ignore Rob Ford. I find keeping up with the criminal activities of Boss Harper and his Con gang hard enough. And I fear too much exposure to that monstrous dumb as a spoon Con buffoon might drive me over the edge eh? But how can you ignore this state of denial or delusion? Mayor Rob Ford called the events of Monday night a “minor setback” and offered no apology in a Wednesday evening press conference. Or the damage he is doing.
It's hard to decide which Con clown is more pathetic. The one on his way to the funeral of Nelson Mandela. The man he once called a terrorist who should be kept in prison, or hanged. Or the one waddling down the street at a Santa Claus parade throwing candy canes to children. As their parents tried to shield some of them from his ghastly sight. But what is only too obvious is the damage both are doing to Canada's reputation.
Well at least on Sun TV. Less than 24 hours after its debut on Monday night, the conservative cable news channel axed Ford Nation, its highly touted TV talk show starring Rob and Doug Ford, despite record ratings for the network.
Now its beyond denial, now it's psychosis. Now he's no longer satisfied with being the Crack Mayor of Toronto. Now he's telling Fox News he wants to be Prime Minister.
Imagine you're in the back of an ambulance in Toronto. You're desperately trying to keep a person alive until you can get him or her to a hospital. The lights are flashing, the siren is screaming, but you're not going anywhere because the streets are clogged with traffic. And then the patient dies, ten minutes from salvation. How would you feel, or what would you say? How about damn you Rob Ford ? You BASTARD. For this is also his criminal legacy....
He was so sure he was going to lose, they had to hire a squeegee kid to mop the sweat off his ample brow. And when he found out he had got off on a technicality, he was so relieved he sounded like the new and improved Rob Ford. He stood at the podium, grey faced. With a choking voice, he read from a script.
“This has been a very, very humbling experience,” Ford said. For about ten seconds.
I suppose it was inevitable. He was born to be a comedian. First it was Rob Ford the Mayor, then it was Rob Ford the Cannon Doll, now it's Rob Ford:The Opera.
Described as a “surrealist fantasy based loosely upon the personality of Toronto’s current and much discussed mayor,” Rob Ford: The Opera is a tragicomic tale about a man who is by turns bumbling, petulant, obtuse, delusional, lonely and ultimately doomed by those he has wronged.
I must say the synopsis sounds excellent. And I'm sure I would have loved the ending.
And then, seizing Atwood’s wings, Ford vanishes, never to be seen again.
The only explanation given is that, like Icarus, he has flown too close to the sun. And a Brechtian moral is provided by Ford’s sadder-but-wiser parents: “A thief is a thief until he’s caught.”
But I don't know if I would have been able to laugh as loudly as the audience apparently did. Not when a buffoon is a buffoon, but he's still the Mayor of Toronto.
As I watched a storm sweeping in over Toronto this evening, I couldn't help thinking about how Rob Ford is planning to turn the city I have come to love into a dirtier, uglier, place.
It turns out that municipal fat includes new affordable housing initiatives, subsidized child-care spaces, a hardship fund helping low-income people with crushing medical needs, Community Environment Days, current levels of street cleaning, current levels of snow plowing, and a Christmas Bureau that partners with donors (including the Star’s Santa Claus Fund) to distribute holiday gifts to poor children.
I couldn't help thinking how this crass, vulgar, millionaire is going after the most vulnerable.
Every resident is likely feel some impact, but the heaviest blow is poised to fall on those who depend on city services the most: children, the sick, the destitute, those in need of shelter, and the working poor.
In a city full of poor and homeless people...
And of course how he lied about EVERYTHING.
And then I couldn't help thinking about how easily he fooled the mouth breathing cretins of the so-called Ford Nation. Because if this city is turned into an urban jungle, they must be held accountable for voting for the porky teabagger.
How I wondered could anyone with an I.Q. higher than a house plant believe his ridiculous promises? But sadly the answer is obvious. They're ignorant. They're greedy. Like a lot of Canadians they want good services, but they don't want to pay for them.
So Ford, like all Cons, promised them what they wanted. Because Cons will say anything to get elected, he's so ignorant he doesn't know what he's doing. And they believed him because they're too dumb to know better.
And he played what they wanted to hear...
And now we're ALL screwed. MOOOOOOOOOO.
The administration has already signaled that Torontonians will also confront soaring user fees for 2012, and likely a significant tax hike. In other words, residents can expect to shell out more money to get a lot less service. That’s the price of Ford’s mismanagement. That’s the cost of believing in non-existent gravy.
Oh boy. That's enough to depress even me eh? And make me regret the dark day I decided to move to this city, the place my friends in Montreal called Hogtown.
But then something awesome happened.
The storm clouds suddenly cleared.
And the sky turned orange...
You know...the colour of hope. And Toronto never looked more beautiful, or more worth fighting for.
Now is not the time to despair or give up. Now is the time to take to the streets by the thousands, let Ford know what we think of him, and do all we can to derail his reactionary agenda. First we'll take him on, and then we'll take on the Harper Cons. Because we need the practice, and enough is ENOUGH.
The depressed left can stop feeling sorry for itself and actually do something about it. The Moron Nation can go screw themselves chew their cuds.
