Rob Ford's Toronto

[animatronic]

The death of a parent can certainly launch anyone into a mid-life crisis.

But most people can get past it without turning to crack. All RoFo did was trade one form of psychological dependence for another.

 

[animatronic]

I was thinking of the traditional server configuration where there is a room with racks of servers all containing 200-500 accounts each all with limited virtual space. The Unix Raq4 or Cpanel servers or similar which would have multiple accounts in virtual directories on one hard drive. If police asked for the hard drive from such a server, there would be a privacy issue with the other accounts not belonging to the defendant.

I'm not sure what police do when other accounts are present on the same machine. Cloud services boast that they are scalable which would suggest they are not limited to space on one server and do not have to move an account to a different server just to increase space.

They don't split up the physical hardware by user. The iCloud service is a series of massive relational databases with comingled user data linked to files stored all over the place.

 

[JWBF]

I'm not quite as resolute as Honest Ed has a posse and EagleEye in their condemnation of Ford the person. That doesn't mean that I, or anyone else who feels a smidge of sympathy for him is adopting a weak view of what Ford has become, but I do recognize that alcoholism is a terrible condition (I dislike the word "disease"). Ford is self-medicating big time and I have to ask myself why he does that? What pain is he trying to squash?

Feeling sympathy for someone as a broken person doesn't suggest that he should be treated lightly for all he does. For drinking and driving alone, he should be in prison. He's a danger to others. He makes horrible decisions and he deflects blame. These are not admirable qualities. But, I think he has spent a lifetime trying to measure up in a hyper-ambitious family. He's a normal dolt of a man with average intelligence (not to be confused with an "everyman") who, if he wasn't constantly trying to live up to the expectations of his over-achieving father and his hyper-competitive brothers; the closest of these being a belligerent bully, might have just lived out his life as a husband and father in suburbia without much fanfare. His passion is clearly football - not academics or politics but when he began to receive accolades from grateful constituents for helping them out, I believe it fired up his deep-rooted need to be accepted. Why does Ford think his job is to respond personally to public complaints? Anyone who aspires to be the top dog in a profession doesn't do it so they can handle the tasks which can be delegated to employees. They do it because they don't have to do those things. yet there he is, still calling constituents who complain about potholes and burned out street lights. He clearly craves adulation and he has convinced himself that people who stop him for selfies are friends, not foes. He hasn't enough self-awareness to know the difference. That too is very sad.

As for his dishonesty. I think that was years in the making. When someone you look up to does not approve of who you are, lying is the go-to response. Why tell the truth if it always met with scorn?

I don't think Ford is a big-time drug dealer. I think he's a customer who might deal a little to support his habit independent of his trust fund. The fact that he has gone to his office to drink alone is very telling. It's probable that his wife and children have had enough of his drunkenness and have told him not to drink at home. He becomes bold and agitated when the drinks and tends to act out the things he wishes were true about himself - propositioning women, pretending he's a tough guy, being the Mayor. He's living in the shadows which is a lonely place to be. The fact that he is a pudgy-pasty-white guy who knows jamaican slang is also indicative of someone who is trying to fit even if he has to pound a square peg in a round hole. Nobody finds that sad? He gets a receptive audience at city housing and at nightclubs that young people frequent so he shows up to these places as often as he can to maintain the fantasy. Again - very very sad.

Further I'm willing to bet that both Doug and Randy are the real criminals in that family. The Globe and mail story of Doug's hash dealing days and the multiple arrests for Randy and a family criminal lawyer on retainer certainly suggests a long history of trouble in that family. Sister Kathy seems to be most like Rob, both under-achievers, both drug addicts, attracted to and trusting of nefarious characters, but if his father is a traditional man of his generation, he did not expect much for the daughter beyond marriage and kids and instead concentrated his ambitions on his three sons. Kathy gets a pass, Rob must succeed.

Don't get me wrong. I think Ford is a pathetic human being who has not cared much about what he's done to others. I despise the fact that he does not learn the job he is paid to do. He's whiny, spoiled, dishonest, arrogant and entitled but I don't think he started out in life that way and I don't think he likes himself. Unlike Doug who seems quite proud of who he is, Rob carries a glint of shame in his eyes. There are still hints of his little Robbie Ford personality under that boorish surface and the people who like him are able to see it. They see a kinder man than the one his detractors do. They see a man who's loyal to his friends, not a rat. They recognise in him something that's familiar and they all say the same thing "I can't help it but I kind of like the guy". He's broken. He's near rock bottom. And he appeals to people who feel like life is one big struggle. People are more intuitive than we would like to believe and they see something good in Rob and will ignore the rest so long as they are convinced he is redeemable.

I would hate to be a fly on the wall in the Ford home when he was growing up. I'll betcha dollars to donuts he was one lonely, bullied and mistreated kid and most of his bravado today is nothing more than a protection mechanism. And despite the fact that I want this man and his goon squad out of office, I will feel a little sympathy when he loses the election. His reaction could be heartbreaking and I worry that it might be the end of him.

Nice speech, but I will be brief, he is an adult surrounded by adults, and makes decisions as an adult.

 

[tiffer24]

And he needs to be held accountable for his adult decisions...

 

[euler]

I was thinking of the traditional server configuration where there is a room with racks of servers all containing 200-500 accounts each all with limited virtual space. The Unix Raq4 or Cpanel servers or similar which would have multiple accounts in virtual directories on one hard drive. If police asked for the hard drive from such a server, there would be a privacy issue with the other accounts not belonging to the defendant.

I'm not sure what police do when other accounts are present on the same machine. Cloud services boast that they are scalable which would suggest they are not limited to space on one server and do not have to move an account to a different server just to increase space.

Oh, the industry has moved *way* past things like that. That is seriously 90s stuff. Even with that technology, they wouldn't need to pull the entire drive, just copy the relevant directory.

Regardless - as animatronic mentioned - the file system is distributed and no one server has all of the data, and indeed there are replicas of the data both at the local (server) level to support hotswapping failed drives and at the network level to support operations through widespread failures. Distributed file systems are one of the technologies that enable "cloud" services. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_File_System

 

[anne]

But most people can get past it without turning to crack. All RoFo did was trade one form of psychological dependence for another.

All true. People process pain in different ways. Affairs, buying expensive toys, getting divorced, excessive self-medication. I guess that's why it's called a mid-life crisis. My point was that his self-medicating is not normal. It's extreme and it should be of great concern to anyone who cares about him.

What I see is a bunch of overly ambitious, selfish family members who would risk his health to keep him on this path of destruction. They should have begged him to step down to get into rehab. That too tells me something about why his problems are so ingrained.

 

[Honest Ed has a posse]

I'm not quite as resolute as Honest Ed has a posse and EagleEye in their condemnation of Ford the person. That doesn't mean that I, or anyone else who feels a smidge of sympathy for him is adopting a weak view of what Ford has become, but I do recognize that alcoholism is a terrible condition (I dislike the word "disease"). Ford is self-medicating big time and I have to ask myself why he does that? What pain is he trying to squash?

Feeling sympathy for someone as a broken person doesn't suggest that he should be treated lightly for all he does. For drinking and driving alone, he should be in prison. He's a danger to others. He makes horrible decisions and he deflects blame. These are not admirable qualities. But, I think he has spent a lifetime trying to measure up in a hyper-ambitious family. He's a normal dolt of a man with average intelligence (not to be confused with an "everyman") who, if he wasn't constantly trying to live up to the expectations of his over-achieving father and his hyper-competitive brothers; the closest of these being a belligerent bully, might have just lived out his life as a husband and father in suburbia without much fanfare. His passion is clearly football - not academics or politics but when he began to receive accolades from grateful constituents for helping them out, I believe it fired up his deep-rooted need to be accepted. Why does Ford think his job is to respond personally to public complaints? Anyone who aspires to be the top dog in a profession doesn't do it so they can handle the tasks which can be delegated to employees. They do it because they don't have to do those things. yet there he is, still calling constituents who complain about potholes and burned out street lights. He clearly craves adulation and he has convinced himself that people who stop him for selfies are friends, not foes. He hasn't enough self-awareness to know the difference. That too is very sad.

As for his dishonesty. I think that was years in the making. When someone you look up to does not approve of who you are, lying is the go-to response. Why tell the truth if it always met with scorn?

I don't think Ford is a big-time drug dealer. I think he's a customer who might deal a little to support his habit independent of his trust fund. The fact that he has gone to his office to drink alone is very telling. It's probable that his wife and children have had enough of his drunkenness and have told him not to drink at home. He becomes bold and agitated when the drinks and tends to act out the things he wishes were true about himself - propositioning women, pretending he's a tough guy, being the Mayor. He's living in the shadows which is a lonely place to be. The fact that he is a pudgy-pasty-white guy who knows jamaican slang is also indicative of someone who is trying to fit even if he has to pound a square peg in a round hole. Nobody finds that sad? He gets a receptive audience at city housing and at nightclubs that young people frequent so he shows up to these places as often as he can to maintain the fantasy. Again - very very sad.

Further I'm willing to bet that both Doug and Randy are the real criminals in that family. The Globe and mail story of Doug's hash dealing days and the multiple arrests for Randy and a family criminal lawyer on retainer certainly suggests a long history of trouble in that family. Sister Kathy seems to be most like Rob, both under-achievers, both drug addicts, attracted to and trusting of nefarious characters, but if his father is a traditional man of his generation, he did not expect much for the daughter beyond marriage and kids and instead concentrated his ambitions on his three sons. Kathy gets a pass, Rob must succeed.

Don't get me wrong. I think Ford is a pathetic human being who has not cared much about what he's done to others. I despise the fact that he does not learn the job he is paid to do. He's whiny, spoiled, dishonest, arrogant and entitled but I don't think he started out in life that way and I don't think he likes himself. Unlike Doug who seems quite proud of who he is, Rob carries a glint of shame in his eyes. There are still hints of his little Robbie Ford personality under that boorish surface and the people who like him are able to see it. They see a kinder man than the one his detractors do. They see a man who's loyal to his friends, not a rat. They recognise in him something that's familiar and they all say the same thing "I can't help it but I kind of like the guy". He's broken. He's near rock bottom. And he appeals to people who feel like life is one big struggle. People are more intuitive than we would like to believe and they see something good in Rob and will ignore the rest so long as they are convinced he is redeemable.

I would hate to be a fly on the wall in the Ford home when he was growing up. I'll betcha dollars to donuts he was one lonely, bullied and mistreated kid and most of his bravado today is nothing more than a protection mechanism. And despite the fact that I want this man and his goon squad out of office, I will feel a little sympathy when he loses the election. His reaction could be heartbreaking and I worry that it might be the end of him.

Wow

That was really well written. You obviously spent a bit of time on it but that's war correspondent stuff, just elegant.

I agree with about a hundred things there, disagree with some but you essentially nailed the whole story.

Bravo

 

[Honest Ed has a posse]

The death of a parent can certainly launch anyone into a mid-life crisis.

It certainly will tip the balance. Precarious times for everyone.

I wonder if Rob and Renata were ever in love. Maybe they just came to each other like people drowning clinging to a chunk of wood.

Regardless, it hasn't worked out for either of them.

 

[905region]

I'm not quite as resolute as Honest Ed has a posse and EagleEye in their condemnation of Ford the person. That doesn't mean that I, or anyone else who feels a smidge of sympathy for him is adopting a weak view of what Ford has become, but I do recognize that alcoholism is a terrible condition (I dislike the word "disease"). Ford is self-medicating big time and I have to ask myself why he does that? What pain is he trying to squash?

Feeling sympathy for someone as a broken person doesn't suggest that he should be treated lightly for all he does. For drinking and driving alone, he should be in prison. He's a danger to others. He makes horrible decisions and he deflects blame. These are not admirable qualities. But, I think he has spent a lifetime trying to measure up in a hyper-ambitious family. He's a normal dolt of a man with average intelligence (not to be confused with an "everyman") who, if he wasn't constantly trying to live up to the expectations of his over-achieving father and his hyper-competitive brothers; the closest of these being a belligerent bully, might have just lived out his life as a husband and father in suburbia without much fanfare. His passion is clearly football - not academics or politics but when he began to receive accolades from grateful constituents for helping them out, I believe it fired up his deep-rooted need to be accepted. Why does Ford think his job is to respond personally to public complaints? Anyone who aspires to be the top dog in a profession doesn't do it so they can handle the tasks which can be delegated to employees. They do it because they don't have to do those things. yet there he is, still calling constituents who complain about potholes and burned out street lights. He clearly craves adulation and he has convinced himself that people who stop him for selfies are friends, not foes. He hasn't enough self-awareness to know the difference. That too is very sad.

As for his dishonesty. I think that was years in the making. When someone you look up to does not approve of who you are, lying is the go-to response. Why tell the truth if it always met with scorn?

I don't think Ford is a big-time drug dealer. I think he's a customer who might deal a little to support his habit independent of his trust fund. The fact that he has gone to his office to drink alone is very telling. It's probable that his wife and children have had enough of his drunkenness and have told him not to drink at home. He becomes bold and agitated when the drinks and tends to act out the things he wishes were true about himself - propositioning women, pretending he's a tough guy, being the Mayor. He's living in the shadows which is a lonely place to be. The fact that he is a pudgy-pasty-white guy who knows jamaican slang is also indicative of someone who is trying to fit even if he has to pound a square peg in a round hole. Nobody finds that sad? He gets a receptive audience at city housing and at nightclubs that young people frequent so he shows up to these places as often as he can to maintain the fantasy. Again - very very sad.

Further I'm willing to bet that both Doug and Randy are the real criminals in that family. The Globe and mail story of Doug's hash dealing days and the multiple arrests for Randy and a family criminal lawyer on retainer certainly suggests a long history of trouble in that family. Sister Kathy seems to be most like Rob, both under-achievers, both drug addicts, attracted to and trusting of nefarious characters, but if his father is a traditional man of his generation, he did not expect much for the daughter beyond marriage and kids and instead concentrated his ambitions on his three sons. Kathy gets a pass, Rob must succeed.

Don't get me wrong. I think Ford is a pathetic human being who has not cared much about what he's done to others. I despise the fact that he does not learn the job he is paid to do. He's whiny, spoiled, dishonest, arrogant and entitled but I don't think he started out in life that way and I don't think he likes himself. Unlike Doug who seems quite proud of who he is, Rob carries a glint of shame in his eyes. There are still hints of his little Robbie Ford personality under that boorish surface and the people who like him are able to see it. They see a kinder man than the one his detractors do. They see a man who's loyal to his friends, not a rat. They recognise in him something that's familiar and they all say the same thing "I can't help it but I kind of like the guy". He's broken. He's near rock bottom. And he appeals to people who feel like life is one big struggle. People are more intuitive than we would like to believe and they see something good in Rob and will ignore the rest so long as they are convinced he is redeemable.

I would hate to be a fly on the wall in the Ford home when he was growing up. I'll betcha dollars to donuts he was one lonely, bullied and mistreated kid and most of his bravado today is nothing more than a protection mechanism. And despite the fact that I want this man and his goon squad out of office, I will feel a little sympathy when he loses the election. His reaction could be heartbreaking and I worry that it might be the end of him.

Feel sorry for families at Toronto Sick Kids who pray to god their kids will survive. This guy has had more opportunities in a lifetime. He does not deserve any sympathy. He claims to be the best father, when 5 minutes a week.

 

[tiffer24]

Rob has backed himself so far into a corner of his own making, that I wouldn't be surprised if he has a complete psychotic break over the next few weeks or months ahead.

 

[casita]

> "The death of a parent can certainly launch anyone into a mid-life crisis."

Doug Sr. was more than a parent to Rob. He was also his employer.

That's not meant to downplay anyone's feeling of bereavement. ( It's been almost eight years now. )

But, because the boys are all DECO employees, the power vacuum created by the old man's passing is not typical to most middle-age siblings and may account for a certain amount of rivalry.

 

[ROFOMOFO]

This guy has had more opportunities in a lifetime. He does not deserve any sympathy. He claims to be the best father, when 5 minutes a week.

I think Ford's family are immune from seeing how bad he is because Randy and Kathy were such epic trainwrecks so their goalposts are totally skewered. ie "He hasn't kidnapped anyone, got caught selling drugs, got shot in the face or been a junkie for years, it's just a little blip".

 

[anne]

Nice speech, but I will be brief, he is an adult surrounded by adults, and makes decisions as an adult.

Nice speech? Why bother responding at all if you just want to make a demeaning remark? I explained in detail why I believe Ford is not making decisions like an adult. And if you were paying attention, my post was in response to a similar dismissal of TJ O'Pootertoot's comments. It would appear some here would rather smack down anyone who isn't expressing unconditional hatred for the man.

It's explains nothing to say we are all adults and that none of our past life experiences make us irrational when we all know that they do.

I've met many an adult who has exhibited strange behaviour under stress. But rather than emulate the Fords who would have no sympathy for anyone in similar circumstances, I like to maintain a little of my humanity.

We can pretend that ford supporters are simply stupid or we can try to understand what causes people to like the guy. Failure to study the phenomenon of Rob Ford can only lead to repeated support for anti-social candidates from people who feel disconnected from our political system. They'd rather paralyze government than submit to what they think is a broken, corrupt system bleeding them dry.

 

[Honest Ed has a posse]

> "The death of a parent can certainly launch anyone into a mid-life crisis."

Doug Sr. was more than a parent to Rob. He was also his employer.

That's not meant to downplay anyone's feeling of bereavement. ( It's been almost eight years now. )

But, because the boys are all DECO employees, the power vacuum created by the old man's passing is not typical to most middle-age siblings and may account for a certain amount of rivalry.

I have some family that jibes with the Fords. Dad made a big business from nothing, on his own. After that it was all about respecting the fact. His eldest son was overwhelmed with the challenge of living up to Dad, tried to gamble and fucked his life up, because outstripping dad involves craps tables and MLM. Interesting guy that had it made in a middle class sense and threw it away. Last I heard he was homeless and still trying for the big score. The middle child was a girl, smart too, she got the hell away eventually, in her very late 20's met a pretty cool guy and is doing spectacularly well. The youngest was the second son. He ran the business like a champ for 20 years but it was dying through the simple fact of progress. He kept it running and many people employed long past when he should have bailed. He's lost a lot of time with his wife and kids in the process.

All of this because they were overwhelmingly influenced by the success of their Father, who by the way is a pretty nice guy. He's a universe away from Ford sr. anyway.

 

[freshcutgrass]

It would appear some here would rather smack down anyone who isn't expressing unconditional hatred for the man.

I don't know about that, but posting anything that even remotely smells of Ford apologetics is ripe for attack. Whatever is behind his malfunction is irrelevant, whether your "theories" behind it are correct or not.

We can pretend that ford supporters are simply stupid or we can try to understand what causes people to like the guy. Failure to study the phenomenon of Rob Ford can only lead to repeated support for anti-social candidates from people who feel disconnected from our political system. They'd rather paralyze government than submit to what they think is a broken, corrupt system bleeding them dry.

There's no special study to be had. The problem is an age-old one. For those who can't figure out at this point that the broken, corrupt player in this game are the Fords, then there's really nothing to be done about it (except maybe pray they don't procreate).