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Rob Ford's Toronto

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OSS 117 said:
I really don't think Rob would put up much of a fight for custody, except maybe out of spite.
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In fairness, Rob Ford's entire raison d'être is spite.

zang said:
As someone who grew up in small town ontario, this is totally the mindset I'd often see. You've gotta fight for your kids, no matter what (but completely ignore any semblance of rational parenting in the meantime)!

I've learned to expect that if something would fly in my hometown, the Ford's are for it, 100%, zing!
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It's not just a small-town thing.

One of my wife's relatives, who grew up mostly in Toronto and then moved out to Oakville, was married and had a kid, but is an absurdly chronic alcoholic. His list of alcohol-based transgressions is numerous but most pertinently, he had several impaired driving charges, to the point that he spent two weeks in prison (weekends only) at Mimico. His wife left him after exhausting her patience and after the separation, he has bounced around from room to room, staying with people until he outstays his welcome and moves on.

He was a journeyman but drinks so much that his nerves are shot and he has vicious shakes whenever he's not drinking. No company will hire him so he does odd jobs for cash, his "friends" are all very unsavory types like biker gang folks and low-level mob thugs, and he rents a room in a rooming house full of questionable characters. His family has done everything to help him and he's just thrown it all away. Yet despite his absolute train-wreck of a life, he still talks non-stop about how he's getting legal aid to get better visitation rights with his daughter. His daughter is the only thing he can point to in his life that he hasn't ruined (to be clear, his daughter is well-adjusted despite him, not because of him), so he shoots for better visitation rights because he thinks that's the most important thing in his life.

In reality, he's not a bad person - certainly not a malicious bone in his body - but he is about as unfit a parent as one can be given the circumstances. And yet he keeps talking about "fighting for his daughter", when it's not even clear he'll have a roof over his head in a month's time, let alone a job (which he doesn't have) or a car (which he doesn't, and probably shouldn't have). He has zero instincts for self-preservation, zero pride, but he's gotta see his daughter more because he thinks it's the one thing he can point to and say "I'm not a complete fuck-up" (never mind the fact that he doesn't have good visitation rights precisely because he's a complete fuck-up).

Kids are and should be the most important thing in a parent's life, so when all else fails, you fight for them because that's what a good parent would do (not to suggest that people in that situation are good parents; just that they want to emulate what they believe people think is good parenting).
 
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@jlancasterCBC
It's gonna be a busy afternoon if things play out...#TOpoli

@jlancasterCBC
Also, seems like Provincial Crown waiting till the 11th hour to reveal whether public will get access to more info in #ProjectTraveller.
 
Gavin said:
@jlancasterCBC
It's gonna be a busy afternoon if things play out...#TOpoli

@jlancasterCBC
Also, seems like Provincial Crown waiting till the 11th hour to reveal whether public will get access to more info in #ProjectTraveller.
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You beat me to this.
Hmm... Wonder how this will play out?
 
voxpopulicosmicum said:
I'm being very serious when I say that the above is insulting to the average muttering homeless guy (who has almost assuredly done less offense and damage to Toronto and its inhabitants than RoFo).
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I meant one step above as in that's how little he has to fall socially to be amongst them, not that RoFo's one step above them morally or ethically or anything. I've known quite a few homeless people over the years, and none of them deserve to be where they are.
 
penelope_sch said:
You beat me to this.
Hmm... Wonder how this will play out?
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I just wonder what he's talking about. "Busy afternoon" could simply mean the job of following up on whatever Doug eventually says. Reaction, commentary, verification etc. Or it could mean something else.The tease is cruel.
 
Franks2000inchTV said:
Choosing an elected representative by what they had for dinner is INSANE.

There's a myth that the person who spends the least on their office budget is somehow the most fiscally responsible. These people are managing budgets of hundreds of millions of dollars. That's a very different task than managing your pocketbook.

Look at their track record of managing large organizations and achieving goals with the available resources.

Whether she had chicken or steak for dinner couldn't possibly mean less.
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This is such a common belief with voters and we can blame not just Ford, but all of the other attack-ad loving right wing politicians of the recent past. It is a MYTH that left wing politicians waste more money that right wing politicians. This is a lie repeated over and over again, debunked a hundred times. It exists to create fear in voters so that they will reject - without examination, any candidate who might change the odds so that the rich might do with less and the poor make a fair wage.

Historically speaking, right wing parties leave taxpayers in more debt, not less. How they ever spun that into the widespread belief that they are more fiscally responsible than everyone else is beyond me. It speaks to how confusing the topic really is. Few people can read the stats (which are widely available) and come away with a clear understanding of who did better. You can't just look at the numbers and accuse a government of overspending if you see a sudden rise in debt because that money may have been injected into necessary infrastructure projects or as stimulus to keep the country out of a depression during tougher economic times. It's like pointing to your savings account when you have a good, steady job and telling people you are better with money than some single mother who's stretching every penny so she doesn't have to be on welfare. The field is not level and it never ever is.

http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2012/03/canadas-debt-and-deficit-history.html
If you backtrack on this guy's blog, you'll find some interesting articles on Rob Ford's politics and the Deco company:
http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2013/11/the-ford-family-business.html

It is insulting to those of us who are ideological "lefties" that we are any less responsible with money than everyone else. So far all I've heard from people who reject Chow as a candidate is that she lacks crack-fueled energy and she's fond of steak. I am yet to hear any credible arguments about her political choices that are not riddled with talking points of the far right.

fyi, I am not advocating Chow as Mayor. I haven't yet made up my mind yet as we have not heard all of their arguments and ideas yet. The best mayor in my memory was David Crombie, a compassionate conservative, and if someone like him were to come forward today the race might get interesting. So far what we have is a superficial conservative who pretends to understand the plight of working class, the wife of a well-loved ndp politician, a lying crack-head and a slew of unknowns - any of whom could be fit for the job if we only knew more about them. We do have to choose from this pool and since our elections are first-past-the-post we will likely be stuck choosing from the 4 top contenders, none of whom have presented us much info yet.
 
GavinTheAlmighty said:
Actually, nobody seems to know much about her at all.

http://www.torontolife.com/informer...he-woman-behind-the-mayor-who-is-renata-ford/

It's a pretty good article - have a read!
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Doolittle dug up a bit more - Renata was previously married (his name's in Crazytown) and I think it was implied that her drinking helped end the marriage. So, while I think the Fords met in high school, they didn't get together until some time later. Makes me wonder if he re-met her in a local bar...
 
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