Rob Ford - Why the Supervillian?

[Torontovibe]

If city councillors have another full time job, why should they be allowed to collect a full time wage from the city? I've read that Ford works full time at his family's company and spends little time at City Hall. He is away from many council meetings, doesn't read important briefs and even misses votes at city council. Shouldn't there be a minimum amount of hours that these guys have to put in at City Hall? Why aren't the right wingers complaining about paying a full time wage to someone who is only working part time, since he's too busy with his other job? Are tax payers getting their money's worth from a guy who's not at work? I don't hear them complaining about that.

City councilors should be made to attend and vote at ALL council votes. (unless they have a doctor's note, just like a real job)

Being a city councilor is a FULL TIME job with a FULL TIME PAY!

 

[Glen]

If city councillors have another full time job, why should they be allowed to collect a full time wage from the city? I've read that Ford works full time at his family's company and spends little time at City Hall. He is away from many council meetings, doesn't read important briefs and even misses votes at city council. Shouldn't there be a minimum amount of hours that these guys have to put in at City Hall? Why aren't the right wingers complaining about paying a full time wage to someone who is only working part time, since he's too busy with his other job? Are tax payers getting their money's worth from a guy who's not at work? I don't hear them complaining about that.

City councilors should be made to attend and vote at ALL council votes. (unless they have a doctor's note, just like a real job)

Being a city councilor is a FULL TIME job with a FULL TIME PAY!

Are you aware that Mayor Miller is currently writing a book, while also performing his duties as Mayor? I trust that you are equally incensed.

 

[toraerach]

As someone who was raised in a same-sex household (people against same-sex marriage love to speak for us without ever speaking to us), here's what I can tell you about growing up in that situation. Before 1999 when spousal rights were extended to same-sex partners, we had no where near the benefits children of opposite-sex married couples had. In 1999, my siblings and I were able to start visiting an orthodontist as my mom's partner (but not my mother) had that covered on her benefits package from work. Before same-sex marriage, we were aware, generally, that our family was not accepted by society because it was different, because there was no word for your parent's same-sex partner, there was no vocabulary to navigate the family, in the way that there was for children of opposite-sex couples. We moved in with my mom's partner when I was six years old, she helped raised me, her parents were my grandparents - sort of, because they weren't really related to me at all, not through blood, and, importantly not through marriage.

My mom and her partner never got married (they actually broke up just after it was legalized, so maybe this isn't the best example), but one thing I've noticed regardless of marital status (commonlaw vs. married): children of same-sex couples that I know (and most are the product of an earlier, failed, opposite-sex marriage like me) started calling their parents' partners their stepmoms and stepdads after same-sex marriage was legalized. Not only that, but other people started finally recognizing that our families are families, that we're related to the people we raised us. Homophobia can still make coming from a gay family difficult for children, but I'd wager it's much easier now than it was when my mom first came out, when we had to hide our family because the kids at school might make fun of us, or beat us up, or worse, and the teachers probably wouldn't help us out. You don't know what it's like to have your closest friends forbidden to coming to your house on account of your parent's "lifestyle choice" until it happens to you - it doesn't feel very good at all. It also doesn't feel very good when people tell you same-sex marriage is wrong, that your family is wrong and what's wrong with society today, or that you're somehow damaged because of who your parents were.

And as for that old BS about gay parents having gay kids, I'll share with you what my mother told me when I first came out to her: "Oh honey, I've known you were gay longer than I knew I was."

When Rob Ford or any other politician makes statements like this, they are playing politics with our lives and our families. It may not matter much to those of you who see the era of exclusionary (not traditional) marriage as "the good old days," but for those of us who this actually affects in a very real way, this is beyond troubling - it's downright offensive, and not just a little frightening.

 

[Tewder]

Belief in traditional marraige isn't about hating gays. Yet those that believe are treated with contempt.

[...]

With same sex parrents something is missing. We just engineered out of the picture, the other gender. Intentionally. That's my beef. Not any personal dislike for gays. And a host of others share this thinking.

Do you see any correlation at all between your two statements? Your equating of the basic rights of some (The minority) to the dismantling of the very existance of others (The majority) is insideous. Sorry.

 

[doug]

Those that oppose same sex marriage do so only because they find it 'icky'...there are no other logical reasons to do so. The 'traditions' of marriage have changed over the years and will continue to change. Religious reasons for opposing same sex marriage don't hold any weight in todays society, thankfully, and there are no legal or moral reasons to oppose it....it all boils down to 'ickyness'...which is their problem, and not mine....stay out of my bedroom, please.

 

[nfitz]

nfitz:

I don't think he has said anything that can be even remotely considered a hate crime so let's not lighten the gravity of the latter. Eliminated from free society? What is this nonsense? Like seriously, you are just shooting your foot when you make statements like these.

I disagree. Gay people have the constitutional right to marriage. Advocating that they don't, and invoking"traditional marriage" which is simply a codeword to ban the rights of gays, is nothing but advocating hate against a constitutionally recognized group.

Making such posts, violates Canada's anti-hate laws, which could subject those who post support for traditional marriage to prosecution - at least as far as I understand it. Though perhaps if they also support other sorts of marriage, perhaps not.

And what IS traditional marriage? Until relatively recently, the male effectively owned the female, having veto over pretty much anything she does; even only a few years ago, it was barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. This tradition of marriage has gone of for hundreds, if not thousands of years ... is that our tradition? I know it's just a code word, so one can sound like one isn't the bigot that one is ... but it's such a bizarre code word.

 

[Urban Shocker]

Perhaps Mr. Ford would answer "yes".

 

[nfitz]

Perhaps Mr. Ford would answer "yes".

More likely he'd scream verbal abuse at one who asked the question.

It does seem unlikely though, with all the reports and video of him verbally abusing other politicians, high school students, and member of the media ... that he doesn't also verbally abuse his wife.

 

[Fresh Start]

Are you wearing a dunce cap today? Anyone who isn't will realize the Panda characterization is what Team Ford believes, not Team Smitherman.

Prove it, otherwise shut up. There's a whole leap in logic from saying "they work like dogs" to depicting human beings as panda bears. I find what Smitherman did to be far more offensive, and no, I am not excusing Ford's comments. This again is the illusion of salience at play; and you've gullibly bought it hook, line, and sinker. Am I also to infer from your comment that anyone of Asian decent whom is supporting Team Ford is either stupid or self-hating?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

No offense FS, unless you are "Oriental", I would appreciate that you don't tell those of us who are what's offensive and what isn't. It's simply not your call. Personally, I am far more concerned about the second part of his statement - "'I'm telling you, the Oriental people, they're slowly taking over." - it smacks of yellow peril fear mongering.

AoD

 

[adma]

I know people on this forum hate this thinking but a great many of us still think that children need both genders to be present and we face this tsunami of scorn for suggesting this.

Of course; and that comes naturally, because humanity consists of both genders.

OTOH according to your logic, child-rearing ought to be a depressingly insular, don't-let-evil-outsiders-hurt-poor-little-Boo-Boo thing. Actually, the best parenting is worldly and anything but insular; and it shouldn't matter whether the parent-figures are queer or straight, as long as they're reasonably open and responsible. It isn't as if one assumes gay parents would be waltzing around the household in leather fetish gear, after all...

 

[adma]

Speaking of the thread's subject matter, or common pigeonholes thereof...

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/yahoocan...d_s_ugliest_animal_threatened_with_extinction

World's ugliest animal threatened with extinction

Thu Aug 12, 4:44 PM


Michael Bolen
Yahoo! Canada News

If Charlie Brown melted like the Wicked Witch of the West and then moved to the bottom of the ocean, this is what he would look like.

Behold the blobfish, or Psychrolutes marcidus, which inhabits the deep waters off Australia and Tasmania.

The depths at which the strange fish lives helps explain its unusual appearance. Due to the enormous pressure, gas bladders become insufficient to stay afloat. Consequently, the blobfish has developed gelatinous flesh with a density less than water.

Floating around suits the blobfish nicely, as it subsists on edible particles carried by currents.

The blobfish is rarely seen by humans and encounters are usually the result of bottom trawling by fishermen, a practice that is leading to problems for many deep-water species.

Scientists now fear that overfishing may lead to extinction for the blobfish. Fishermen scraping the bottom of the sea for lucrative catches, such as crab and lobster, often catch the blobfish by mistake, putting tremendous pressure on its isolated population.

The blobfish itself is inedible and when dried out takes on a radically different appearance - as can be seen below.

 

[adma]

Back to this...

What measuring stick to gauge dsyfunctional behaviour? How about these observations I've noticed the last few years.

Endless failed relationships. Marriages that collapse with such regularity. The tramping of girls and women with the goal of convincing them that by sleeping around as often as possible, guys will like you. The number of boys that drop out school while girls begin to dominate post secondary education.

That we worship Hollywood and all the endless trash that it represents and how we allow our young kids to think the glorification of trash is actually a good thing. That we pursure the collection of material wealth to the exlusion of everything else. That we as a society have huge substance abuses problems that are spinning out of control. That we as a society are entirely about excess now.

That we keep sexualizing girls at a younger and younger age. The loss of shame. No one is embarrased anymore. The cult of entitlement and cult of victemhood that's sweeping our society now.

The sheer insanity of what passes for behaviour on the roads and sidewalks. The disappearance of manners. The increase of vulgarity and compartmentalization of families. The continued deterioration of language skills. The increase of narcissistic individuals who were raised by parents that told them they were the most special person ever or as some have coined the term for "the precious snowflakes".

That we've been conditioned to act on every impulse and to cry "discrimination" when we don't get our way.

That parents seem completely unable to say "no" to their kids now. The loss of common sense. The emergence of the parachute parent. And as Mike Stafford, the funniest man on radio said recently about the WTF? behaviour of so many young people and their parents these days, "we, the greatest generation ever, just utterly ruined this generation". Not exactly science but you get my drift.

But I'm just some old, benighted conservative fool that dreams fondly of the good old days when people actually possessed some modesty and restraint.

And, you know what...if you want the exemplar of "modesty and restraint" in the present campaign, look at Joe Pantalone. And of its opposite, Rob Ford.

Indeed, to me, what you're describing sounds like--broadly speaking--the "Ford demo" most of all. The desperate, degraded trash in need of an electoral fix. Looking for the kind of "hope" that has less to do with Shepard Fairey's Obama image than with a session at the slots at Woodbine. Which just happens to be in Ford's own ward, as well as the locus for his ward's big hope for the future, development-wise.

And if you want those enlightened folk most willing to say "no" to the pernicious, poorly-digested influence of Hollywood and the tabloids, it's the downtown hipster class that'd most likely go for Pantalone unless the Rob Ford threat convinces them "strategically" otherwise t/w Smitherman or whomever...

 

[Redroom Studios]

well said Adma. I am sympathetic to tkip's observations to some degree but I dont know how he fails to see that essentially what he is describing is the "white trash" element of our society that indeed makes up a large block of support for Rob Ford's campaign of fear and hatred and selfishness.

 

[adma]

well said Adma. I am sympathetic to tkip's observations to some degree but I dont know how he fails to see that essentially what he is describing is the "white trash" element of our society that indeed makes up a large block of support for Rob Ford's campaign of fear and hatred and selfishness.

Except that I'd excise the "white" part from "white trash", being one who agrees that, given Toronto's outerburban and his own ward demographics, a lot more of Ford's base may be non-white than his critics are counting on. (Plus the fact that a lot of today's cultural trashiness comes from inherently nonwhite or "swarthy" realms a la hip-hop bling or Jersey Shore--indeed, from tkip's posts, I can't even specify whether he's "white" or not; and in any case, the younger he is, the less likely he'd have grown up amidst WASPy types.)

As I've suggested before: soot up Rob Ford's face, and he might as well be Al Sharpton.