Those of us who grew up in the Washington DC area are just pleased that we are no longer the only people to have our mayor smoking crack on tape.
That guy is much larger, physically, than my mental image of somebody who uses cocaine and isn't on SNL.
Too bad he's Canadian; that'll make it harder* for Republicans to characterize this as an Obama scandal.
* (but not impossible)
This guy looks exactly like a high school football coach.
Wait, he IS a high school football coach.
He was also caught on film drunkenly hassling some tourists at a Maple Leafs game, then lied about being at the game. I think that's the first time he came to my attention.
Aw, fuck. I hate catching myself being racist. I just clicked through and was surprised he was white.
The combination of crack-smoking mayor suggesting Marion Berry and politician named Ford suggesting Harold Ford was part of it, but still, I did more of a double-take than I'm happy with.
Robs Fords is the worst. Speaking as a bicycle enthusiast. I mean, and as a rational human, but anyhow.
I first heard of him about the bicycle thing, probably here.
Maybe he should go be Chris Farley.
His brother (who apparently succeeded him on the City Council when he became mayor) seems like a piece of work himself.
Councillor Doug Ford is warning Torontonians that a shower-equipped bicycle station to go under Nathan Phillips Square will turn into a "bathhouse."
Speaking to his brother on their weekly talk radio show...
"They're so many great teams, I wouldn't want to pick one over the other. I guess (in the) Euro, you go back to the ancestors -- boy, we go back quite a ways, but I'm not too sure -- is there any WASPy teams on there? We're just Canadian," he said with a laugh. "Anyways -- well, you're married to the Polack, so you gotta cheer for the Polish team."
I'M MAYOR ROCKZO, THE ROCK 'N' ROLL MAYOR! I DO COCAINE! C-C-C-C-YEAH!!!!
Rob Ford is insane.
My first real understanding of his persona was when he gave this interview on CBC's national public events show: I have never heard so rude an interview. Insane. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHJGR4i7fhw
He has also called 911 when surprised - on his driveway in broad daylight - by a well-known satirical interviewer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5t6986Wtzc
He's quite a piece of work. ... and I don't even live in Toronto. These are the things I've heard about from here!
So why did the famously polite and reasonable Canadian public elect this man?
It turns out that there's a lot of cocaine around.
15 - Canadian Impostor Syndrome. Once their dollar reached parity, they felt it was important to prove that they were a really-truly first world country like America by electing a mayor in their largest city who melded the corruption of Chicago, the incompetence of the New York city council, the buffoonery of Louis Gohmert, and the physical comedy of William Taft.
Toronto is the largest city in Canada? I figured it would be somewhere interesting like Montreal or Vancouver.
Oh wait I guess not? He was almost thrown out of office, and I had thought he actually was thrown out and then reëlected, but he might have just won on appeal.
15: He promised lower taxes (his line was that he would "get rid of the gravy train").
He was elected by the Toronto suburbs. Maps of the voting are pretty impressive - the downtown core overwhelmingly voted against him, but the suburbs voted for him and that's what happens when you have a big amalgamated city. He's anti- all the normally popular urban things (bike lanes, light rail transit, etc) and in favour of cars. Hence his popularity in the 'burbs (as I understand it, at least). There was a huge transit investment planned which he scrapped, and promised to extend the subway - which hasn't happened. As for the "gravy train", it turns out that his opponents were right - there wasn't much to cut that wasn't for pretty essential services.
Thankfully, it seems that mayors have limited powers.
Oh! Has it come up that he was expelled from office by a judge for blatantly violating conflict of interest rules, but has managed to get back in somehow?
Watching Toronto's politics has become a bit of a fascinating sideshow.
Anyhow, he won because they rolled all the weirdo conservative suburbs into the actual city of Toronto in 1998 so a lot of exurban low tax types overwhelmed the actual urban population and elected somebody motivated to destroy the city, is my sense of things. Canadians might have a more nuanced or informed viewpoint.
Or maybe a Canadian will impolitely pwn me.
Destroying Canadian stereotypes, one tentative comment at a time! Booyah.
I have a theory about Canada, which is that the bad behavior is bottled up, and no one is really expecting it, so when it's allowed to get out it goes EXTREME. Like how the old Vancouver stock exchange was about 150x more corrupt and crazy than any American financial market.
Or fights in hockey, I guess. That too.
27 - Was Bre X a Vancouver stock exchange thing? That was some good old fashioned 19th-century scamming.
29 -- No, but that's another great example.
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My cow-orker just sent me a file of test data we'd been discussing as 'faux data' but apparently he believes we were talking about 'pho data.'
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New Yorkers right now are glad New Jersey isn't legally part of the city like they all think it is. HashtagChris HashtagChristie
Toronto mayors are notoriously incompetent (of course, the mayor of Montreal recently resigned due to allegations of corruption, and mayors of various Montreal suburbs have been arrested for the same) but Ford really takes the cake.
Then again, what makes Ford stand out is that he is brash and rude in a way that most Canadians associate with Americans (a stereotype mostly based on tv shows, I suppose).
21 and promised to extend the subway - which hasn't happened
But is is happening, in the sense that there is a subway extension under construction. Unless you mean a different subway extension, or I'm confused.
See also "we will rape the fuck out of these tar sands."
Canadians associate with Americans (a stereotype mostly based on tv shows, I suppose).
No, we really are quite rude. Fat, too.
No, we really are quite rude.
Speak for your own fucking self, asshole.
This is, I believe, everything everyone ever feared about the abuse of Kickstarter style crowdfunding.
that he is brash and rude in a way that most Canadians associate with Americans
Most Canadians outside of Toronto associate brash and rude with Toronto*. (And America. And America with Toronto.)
36: Don't get me started. I've listened to more than one argument from my ostensibly left-wing enviro in-law equivs that goes along the lines of: "Americans absolutely must take everything we yank from the tar sands*. Yes, they have to -- or they are MORE EVIL THAN WE HAVE EVER IMAGINED."
*See also US and EU and seal pelts.
How much are they asking for the pelts?
I think that he may be committing domestic violence too.
44 or 45/ yeah, the police have been called a bunch if times. If it's not the mayor, it's his brother the city councillor.
7: The fact that he's Canadian wasn't enough of a clue for you that he's white?
I've heard of this Rob Ford guy now and then at mightygodking.com. Fun blog. About three-quarters geeky stuff, the rest a mix of politics and pop culture with a non-geeky focus. (E.g. a contributor there writes a column for an alt weekly about the kind of TV Canadians have to put up with.)
48.1: I'm picturing a whole lot of politely pissed-off Canadians explaining to you how diverse Canada is and then repeating it in French.
49: I don't know how to tell you this, but the French are considered white now. Yes, even if they're Catholic.
I wonder what Terrance and Philip think aboot this.
50: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy on the throttle, Captain Egalitarianism.
50: They're still all 4'9" and live primarily on a diet of frogs and snails, though, right?
OT: Just got out of a job interview. Always fatiguing, especially insofar as one has to be alive to the minutest aspects of the interviewers' tone, body language, etc., in order to know when to shut up, when to add detail, etc., etc.
55 At my last one I finally realized that I really suck at knowing when to shut up.
55: And then you had a good answer when they asked you about your greatest weakness!
The whole time I kept reliving, for easily-guessed reasons, my astonishment at TWYRCL's ignorance of Willie Sutton's greatest wisdom.*
* Why rob banks? "That's where the money is."
55 http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_12437.html#1494563
(I can't seem to find the original comment referred to)
Good luck getting a job even if it is robbing banks.
Thank you, reprobates. Fingers crossed.
By the way, the root canal was surprisingly un-horrific. I feel a bit like someone punched me in the jaw two or three days ago but haven't had to resort to the [checks label] holy crap that quack prescribed Vicodin?! What the hell am I supposed to do with this stuff, compose my long-delayed mashup of "Kublai Khan" to the tune of "Strawberry Fields"?
I enjoyed this (over)analysis of Ford's behaviour as playing up white trash/blue collar tropes, which would go hand in hand with the crack allegations: http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/blog/crack-ultimate-gesture-rob-ford%E2%80%99s-history-irony
Did anyone link this article about Ford leaving in the middle of a meeting to run around the parking lot slapping magnets on cars yet?
Well, one thing is that taxes are really high in Toronto. Even Canadians get fed up with that. His campaign slogan was "stop the gravy train," which was a reference to gay members of the city council throwing big parties with taxpayer money. He also got lots of support from new immigrants such as Sikhs. And he reminded some people of Don Cherry, which never hurts, eh?
Mr. Cherry is apparently the seventh greatest Canadian, just ahead of Sir John Macdonald and behind the guy who invented Doonesbury.
Don Cherry to me is the late colleague of Ornette Coleman and father of Neneh and Eagle-eye. Pretty sure he wasn't Canadian. Is this another one?
Ned appreciates Canada on a deeper level.
Reposting this. We Are All Canadians Now
the root canal was surprisingly un-horrific.
Mine wasn't remotely painful, aside from the soreness of holding my mouth open for that long.
Vicodin?! What the hell am I supposed to do with this stuff
You could mail it to me. I know exactly what to do with it.
In all seriousness, it should be remembered that we Americans had our own Ford, and while he may not have smoked crack on video, he ... LIVE! FROM NEW YORK! IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT!
Ummm vicodin. A little vicodin and I was like, "Yeah, there's no way I would ever get off these. Good thing my prescription just ran out."
I'm not sure if this glorious round-up was posted on this thread but it almost makes me wish he were American. I could easily see him as a Republican mayor from some place in Florida or some other dysfunctional state.
I still have my Vicodin left over from having a couple of teeth yanked years ago. The pain relief at getting the (aching) teeth out was so much that ibuprofen was enough to make me happy. I'm not sure what I'm keeping them in reserve for, exactly, but something that hurts a lot.
There are functional states? I mean, I know the Upper Midwest states used to be functional, but that was a pretty long time ago.
74. That list is OK, but they don't mention that he shot Jesse James.
Maybe API should get some of that oxy the Robs Fords was offering.
apo, iPad. Not API.
(Man it sucks having my laptop in the shop. What am I supposed to do all day?)
48. first doesn't make a lot of sense, Toronto is the most ethnically diverse city in North America.
The main problem with Toronto mayors is that it's a terrible job, all the headaches and almost no power to do anything about it (much more decision making is kept with the province than would happen in a comparable US city.)... As a result nobody who would be really good at the job is likely to be crazy enough to take it.
As a result nobody who would be really good at the job is likely to be crazy enough to take it.
I don't see how that differs from politics in general.
81: fair point, but this is an extreme. Mayor of toronto has to be one of the most frustrating jobs in politics. It is perfectly set up for failure.
Other cities in Canada have the same problem, of course, but mostly they aren't big enough for it to become the sort of mess that Toronto has. I can't think of a parallel in the US.
Don't mind me. I just enjoy mocking Canada because of smug backpackers I met in Europe more than twenty years ago.
84: With all the Canada-talk lately I was wondering when someone was going to mention that.
So was I, which is why I finally mentioneded it.
Why the surprise at Canadian perfidy and malfeasance?! Just imagine it's Battlestar Galactica, and the Cylons turn out to be ... Canadians, naturally enough! (well, except for Lucy Lawless, of course).
Lots of Vancouver scenery in that show. Well, in the part I watched before giving up on it. Also, I'm not surprised.
80
48. first doesn't make a lot of sense, Toronto is the most ethnically diverse city in North America.
1. I was trying to make a funny. See also the part where I felt the need to clarify that French people count as white.
2. I realize that nonwhite Canadians exist, I'm just saying that knowing that someone is Canadian makes it much less likely that I'll assume they're black.
3. "Most ethnically diverse city in North America" seems to be based on immigration. That is a measure of diversity, true, but I wouldn't call it the most important one in this particular context.
82
Other cities in Canada have the same problem, of course, but mostly they aren't big enough for it to become the sort of mess that Toronto has. I can't think of a parallel in the US.
How about DC? Some local authority, but not much, and nothing between it and the federal level.
Also, the various states give different powers to different parts of their government. I remember reading that the governorship of Texas is nearly a figurehead, for example. But that's a factoid I picked up during a presidential election, probably in the context of disparaging Bush's and/or Perry's experience, so I'll admit I never looked into it beyond seeing that it conforms with my prejudices.