BOYCOTT THE NATIONAL POST

 

I will never buy another copy of The National Post again. Ever. It isn’t shameful enough that we have Rob Ford as Toronto’s mayor, but now this? And if this ad isn’t tantamount to a hate crime, what is?

From Section Two of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

• A law will be found to violate the freedom of expression where the law either has the purpose or effect of violating the right.
• A law's purpose can limit the right either through limiting the content or form of expression. Limits on content are where the meaning of the expression is specifically forbidden by the law, such as hate-speech law, and is the most easily identifiable form of limitation. Limiting the form of the expression can often invoke section 2(b) as it will often have the effect of limiting the content as well.
• Where a law does not intend to limit the freedom of expression it may still infringe section 2(b) through its effects. A law will be found to restrict expression if it has the effect of frustrating "the pursuit of truth, participation in the community, or individual self-fulfillment and human flourishing.”

Furthermore, in Canada, advocating genocide or inciting hatred against any identifiable group is an indictable offence under the Criminal Code of Canada with maximum prison terms of two to fourteen years. An identifiable group is defined as any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.

If this ad isn’t inciting hatred against any identifiable group, what is it doing? And why is the (self-labelled Christian) perpetrator of this garbage allowed to spew this hatred without suffering legal repercussion? And why is the National Post not being held legally culpable for printing the ad?

Perhaps the newspaper editor is hedging bets, counting on the current climate of ultra-Conservatism to win some votes in next week’s election.

If the responses I have received today (to quote: disgusting, reprehensible, sad, hateful, regressive, depressing) are any indication, I feel safe in saying that the National Post is very, very short-sighted.

Remembering When

Do you remember when...

 

• politicians intended to keep at least 6% of their campaign promises ✔
• talk show guests came on to chat and not merely to promote their projects ✔
• grocery stores weren’t open 24 hours a day, including holidays ✔
• drivers signalled before changing lanes ✔
• marriages lasted longer than seven minutes ✔
• people said excuse me when they banged into you, cut in front of you, and stepped on your toes ✔
• doctors worked on Fridays ✔
• children acknowledged their parents ✔
• getting ahead wasn’t dependent on who/m, but rather what, you knew ✔
• a cup of coffee didn’t cost $9.95 ✔

 

• buying new shoes meant getting your feet x-rayed ✔
• sunbathing lotion consisted of butter and baby oil ✔
• it wasn’t safe to say that you were, let alone be, homosexual ✔
• your grandmother kept a can of bacon drippings next to the sink ✔
• breastfeeding mothers smoked cigarettes ✔
• a person was ostracized for not going to church ✔
• mixed neighbourhoods didn’t exist ✔
• unhappy couples stayed together at any cost ✔
• parents ignored their children ✔
• there were no such things as C-T scans, MRIs or angioplasty ✔

It is a world of checks and balances. Or as Bart Simpson would say, ‘A little from column A....”

Still, I don’t know how I feel about these monumental changes.

On the one hand, I am relieved that I live in a (part of the) world where it is generally safe to be one or more letters of lgbt; where I am able to say pretty much what I want, anywhere I want; where I have access to modern medical equipment and 2000 television channels (that include TCM); where I can contact anyone anywhere in the world within seconds; where I am able to find any type of food (colour, texture, culture) at my grocer’s; where I can have my teeth straightened with a liner, and where I live in a mixed neighbourhood.

On the other hand, I miss the days when children—even if they didn’t—at least pretended to be interested in their parents (mind you, I was terrifically spoiled by Sarah); when I could buy a week’s worth of groceries for under $100.00; when the scent of a wooden pew lingered all day in my nose and in my heart; when a can of bacon fat (it was my mum who kept one, not my grandmother; I didn’t know her in those ways) meant baked stuff pork chops, pan-fried potatoes and apple fritters; when a good job could be had because someone thought I was smart and industrious, and when streetcar riders stood up to let a pregnant woman sit down.

In the ways of the world out there, I think we are currently more fortunate. But when it comes to the inward ways—the ways of home and hearth and family—I think we are more often disconnected and lonely.

It could be me, as I said. It could be the upcoming holiday, Thanksgiving perhaps the hardest one of all. It could be the number of people who don’t sit down to Sunday dinner at all any more, or call home once a week to say they’re okay. It could be any number of things...my age, my condition, my outlook, my losses, my regrets. It could be the mugginess of the evening or the fact that I’ve put on three pounds.

But when I look around me I wonder...this or that? in or out? now or then? And ultimately I come back to the same old conclusions, which is maybe why I spend so much of my time remembering when.

Potato, Potahto?

I don’t know.

I have (at least three) friends who not only disdain chronic television-viewing, they don’t own a TV. (I guess the italics express the degree of my surprise.) When I am with any of these people, I feel more than a little bit guilty, especially because I spend so much time glued to the screen.

For example, right now I am watching Anderson Cooper, who is discussing eating choices: what they are; why we make the ones we do, and how we can change our eating patterns. Anderson, for example, is a “selective disordered eater” (attached to being thin and losing weight, sometimes leading to death through anorexia). Anderson’s father died young of a heart attack, and Anderson is afraid that he, too, will succumb to a cardio-vascular accident. His dad died when Anderson was ten, and his (Anderson’s) eating patterns began when he (Anderson...sigh) was eleven.

This explains my love of mashed potatoes, boiled potatoes, hickory sticks, pan-fried potatoes, potato chips, roasted potatoes and French fries. Hello mother!

Oh – coincidence, as Anderson tells us we are about to meet a woman who has spent fifty years subsisting on nothing but French fries and hash browns. I can’t wait to hear what we’re going to learn about her, this woman who never eats vegetables and has never (ever?) tasted meat. Apparently, she has been this way all of her life.

Her diagnosis?

Potatoes are often comforting, sedating foods. Serotonin in the brain is mostly carbohydrate, and helps us distract from those things that make us nervous. We feel soothed and calmed when we eat these foods. There is also a physiological part to this woman’s eating patterns, which the specialist knows because of early pattern origins.

Fortunately, the diagnostician says, the body is adaptive. It can take a little and make it go a long way. But ultimately, the body will break down if we do not introduce new foods.

Anyway, I am digressing, but I do think the above illustrates what I can get from watching television. (Paranoid and guilty.) (I’m so funny.)

Speaking of humour, I once read that the best disease preventative is laughter, and that a person who laughs one hundred times a day is far healthier than the person who doesn’t. I tune into The Big Bang Theory every day for this express purpose, a sitcom that is good for at least 25 laughs per episode. And I watch other programs (Modern Family; Ellen; South Park; French and Saunders; Little Britain; Newhart; Jon Stewart; Raymond) for the same reason. They make me happy. They make me laugh.

And yes, I know I could be reading instead. And I do read. I volunteer at the CNIB, in part so that I have to keep reading. I am in a book club for a similar purpose. But when I pick up a great book, I cannot seem to put it down. I spend the entire day, and night, turning page after page after page. The cats don’t get fed, the chores don’t get done, and even the time I typically take to dash to the potato chip store at the corner is cut into. (Bad grammar, but I blame that on angst.)

As for writing that book that I have been chipping away at forever, yes, I could be doing that instead of scribbling (okay, typing) another blog entry. But let’s face it: if it’s readers I’m after, I have plenty right here (thank you so much). And if it’s about messages and meanings that I ought to be sharing, I have had generous feedback that reminds me I am not wasting my time here today.

Novel-writing (not to be confused with novel writing, which is not the sort of novel-writer I am), when based on what we know (and what novel-writing isn’t based on what we know?) takes time. I simply cannot bring my thoughts and heart to the page in those ways every day because I find it too emotionally difficult. More, I tend to do a lot of my writing in my head...which is why (coupled with genetics) my head is gigantic.

Anyway, you see where I am headed (no pun intended). One man’s feast is another man’s famine. While you are out climbing Mount Kilimanjaro—getting healthy, seeing the world, experiencing life— I am here laughing, learning and lounging. Who is to say which life is better than another?

You like potato and I like potahto,
You like tomato and I like tomahto;
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto!
Let's call the whole thing off!

George and Ira Gershwin, from Shall We Dance (1937)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7sYNptYjsE&feature=related

On The Nature Of Friendship

Peggy asked us at lunch on Saturday about friendship/s, a topic that always gives me long pause.

First, we had to explain about the couple down the street – one of them never looking at or acknowledging me in any polite way throughout the three years we knew them, the other looking at and acknowledging me a little too often (which had to have been fairly prominent in order for me not only to have noticed but to say). (Granted, everyone noticed.)

Next, we felt compelled to talk about another couple – one-half of the pair a longstanding friend of Mary’s from high school days – whose hypervigilant partner made it abundantly clear that there were ample issues that prohibited close friendship (the word jealousy springs to mind, but there was a hierarchy there, too, a social order to which we did not quite conform and one that therefore kept us off their primary invitation lists). They moved to California, in fact, and we never heard from them again, not even after they learned about Sarah’s death (which is a bit of a gob-smacker, I confess).

Then we recounted to Peggy the story of a woman we knew – an aggressively staunch lesbian (her students would tell you this, too, and I say this with some fondness and only a little irritation/frustration) – who recently enough married a lovely man to whom she claimed to be offering refugee status (not true: she really loves him...anyone can see this, but no one knew in the beginning) and who lopped us off lickety-split for not taking a $3000.00 plane ride – I have not been on a plane since 1989, and wouldn’t get on one for Jesus’ sake – to celebrate an afternoon event she claimed – she kept insisting – would be undone as soon as legally possible.

Anyway, I went on to say on Saturday, at lunch, that in spite of these kinds of small and not so small disasters, I have kept friends from (all of the) various points and ports of my life...some friends more deeply engaged than others, perhaps, but there just the same. Early in the Christmas season, for example, when I look through my address book, I find plenty of names of people I can’t wait to send cards to, and in this last year alone, I have made three – Peggy among them – quite remarkable new friends, two on account of Sarah’s illness, and one as a result of my interest in writing...three people with whom I am in regular contact.

So what is it that makes some friendships last and others fall apart? And can anyway ever give any or all the reasons, or know exactly why?

Three of the five women I spoke of in the first four paragraphs are individuals I would have bet my life on, swearing up one side of the street and back down the other that I would know them forever. In fact, if you were to ask any one of them today, I would even hazard a guess that they would say the same thing about me. And yet here we are...miles and memories apart. Alternately, I have other friends I couldn’t beat off with a stick (thank God).

A man I once (once once) knew spoke of relationships as organic, stating that, like all living things, they have their own way of thriving, peaking and dying. I didn’t want to hear that at the time, and stood beside him staring sombrely at the impatiens and hostas that were flourishing in our shaded garden, knowing that soon they would wither away. Despite the clear-cut evidence laid bare in my own history, I shrugged his assertions off, determined that he should be wrong. I wanted to believe that all good relationships were set in stone, bound to last forever. I wanted also to believe that I would never be the one to end them, but that has proved equally untrue.

Of course, we also talked at lunch on Saturday about some of the friendships we made when we were younger and how they didn’t carry (the same) weight because we didn’t bring the same weight to them. And when I look back and add up the people I got about with when I was in my twenties and thirties – some of whom were not good for me, and maybe...likely...for whom I was also not good – it is a blessing that we have moved on and apart.

Sometimes, though, I am envious of those lively, lovely women who seem to have held on to everyone they have ever crossed paths with, Dawn French springing to mind, the photos of her lifelong friends beaming back at me from the pages of Dear Fatty.

But for people like me who grew up in so many houses and homes, without the stability of constantly loving parents (and worse), I don’t know if that sort of outcome is possible. I imagine that people like Dawn French grow in special gardens with long-living like-minded flowers, but that the rest of us are relegated to communal plots of land where the variables and the stakes (no pun intended) are higher.

Other individuals, of course, thrive in symbiotic gardens where they are dependent upon one another’s weaknesses and foibles. Stunted and weed-ridden, they are unable and unwilling to change, resistant to fertilizer or any new seeds. While they often look pretty from a distance, when you move in closer you can see that these are not welcoming gardens and should be avoided at all costs.

On top of that, a person must not forget about climate, allergies, thorns, visiting wasps and soil conditions.

Still, when I look around at the friends that I love, I hang onto the hope that we shall be friendly forever. While the facts of my life don’t support this (and given all that I continue to learn, and unlearn, and relearn…), I nevertheless hold onto a faint glimmer of hope that should we all live for another thirty or so years, I will find no new lines drawn through the names of the people in my address book – those kind-hearted people I love deeply and think of as my friends.

 

Toronto City Councillors Beware: One More Cut, Amalgamation or Compromise and You Are Doomed

I swear to God, if City Hall votes for one more ridiculous Ford proposition, even if, or when, it comes under pressure from the upper echelon of Toronto’s elite, city councillors are going to pay with their jobs.

I have talked to so (so so) many people who are saying this isn’t just irresponsible – it’s nuts! Cut this, chop that, close this, you say? Well, we can all play at that game.

Here is the latest article I have nabbed from a growing series of articles naming Ford and his brother for what they are: lying, tendentious bullies who have no business in the front offices or back rooms of Toronto government.

While he may have saved the “liberries” for the moment, be prepared to reel in the aftershock of more diabolical proposals whose ramifications he is either too stupid to understand or proposals he is hoping to sweep past the councillors for whom, obviously, he has no respect. (Depending on how these employees are swayed, however, in this instance he might be right.)

Disgusting!

Toronto city councillors be warned: you too, can – and will be – replaced.

~

By Enzo Di Matteo

Recognize any of these 14 lies Rob Ford has told since taking office?

1. The promise during the election that there’d be no service cuts has followed a familiar trajectory for the pathological exaggerator. First he said there’d be no cuts, “guaranteed.” Then that there’d be no cuts in 2011. Then no “major” service cuts. Of course these were all lies. The city manager has identified 50 for council’s consideration September 26.

2. Ford said on election night that he would work hard to earn the trust of those who didn’t vote for him. Instead, he’s completely shut them out of the decision-making process – and hasn’t stopped the knuckle-dragging gorillas on his executive from demonizing his political opponents as “communists.”

3. He invoked William Lyon Mackenzie in his inaugural address, promising to fight against privilege and for the “little guy.” Guess that big social housing sell-off he’s orchestrating is for the “little guy” and not his development friends. The horrible truth: the Ford administration is the Family Compact all over again.

4. Ford promised “respect for taxpayers.” Made it his campaign slogan. Yet he’s abolished dozens of citizen advisory groups, and his single-minded obsession with cutting the size of government is leaving tens of thousands of Torontonians behind. On that “respect” thing, the mayor’s giving us the finger.

5. Ford promised to stop the “gravy train” at City Hall, but it turns out there is no gravy unless you happen to be his friend. In which case, you might be in line for a six-figure gig like the ones handed buddies Case Ootes and Gordon Chong, members of his transition team.

6. He promised transparency in government and no more backroom deals but put locks on his office doors and has spent most of the first year of his tenure hiding from the press. Has there been a more secretive and paranoid administration? As we learned recently, he’s been backroom-scheming with brother Doug, the councillor from Ward 2, to sell off publicly owned port land to his developer buddies.

7. He made much of his business background during the campaign, saying the city would be run like a business. Barely 24 hours into his term, Ford announced Transit City was dead, thereby throwing away some $4 billion in public transit improvements. He’s traded in shortsighted retail politics from the start, opting for symbolic one-time savings (see councillors’ office budgets and the vehicle registration tax) over the city’s long-term financial health. Simple math: he entered office with a $300-million-plus surplus, and now we’re supposedly facing a $774 million deficit.

8. Ford followed up that Transit City doozy by promising that not a cent of public money would be spent on building his Sheppard subway extension. Now he admits there’s a funding problem. There he was a few weeks back doing what he’d pledged never to do – go cap in hand to the province for money for his Sheppard subway.

9. During the campaign, Ford was fond of trotting out the old Tea Party line that the city doesn’t have a revenue problem – it has a spending problem. That doesn’t explain why he jacked up user fees in his first budget. But back to the point at hand. The city now has a revenue problem thanks to Ford’s ditching of the vehicle registration tax and the zero property tax increase delivered in 2011.The $100 million from those two sources alone would have made many of the massive cuts now being contemplated unnecessary.

10. Ford pledged to achieve staff reductions through attrition, but it’s now clear the plan all along was layoffs and buying out hundreds of city employees.

11. He promised to hire 100 more cops, but the police services are now contemplating a hiring freeze and buyouts for several hundred officers. We mention this not because we necessarily agree that we need more cops, but to illustrate the fact that Ford was prepared to say anything to get elected, even to BS the law-and-order vote.

12. Ford made a big production during the election about not being homophobic, complete with photo-op apologizing to one person with AIDS for his past ill-considered remarks about gays. But then he refused to attend any Pride events while threatening to cut funding to the organization. He was also the only one to vote against accepting AIDS education funding from the province.

13. He said that when he was mayor the city would be a fun place to live where everyone is happy. Remember that? Now it’s just a place where grass isn’t cut in parks, kids don’t get gifts for Christmas and libraries are shuttered.

14. He promised to make customer service priority number one at City Hall. Reality check: just how is laying off thousands of workers going to improve customer service? Ever tried to get hold of your local councillor only to get that automatic email reply?

NOW | September 15-22, 2011 | VOL 31 NO 3

loco parentis

 

A million million hours I’ve spent with you

Whose eyes I do not know

Or heart to keep,

Unburdened by a complicated view,

Somnambulance recoiling into sleep.

 

And who are we, as half-to-face we glance

Reflecting what, alone, I’m bound to do?

The mirrored light, the meteoric chance,

The distance marked in separateness of two.

 

And so we raise ourselves

essentially

In tenderness and hatred thrust apart,

And set our hands upon the glass to free

The sorrow of the undivided heart.

 

~ Jennifer Coffey

Purgatory

It’s 1:30 AM, and I was just cleaning the bathroom sink with Comet, plugging my nose with two fingers and trying to avoid inhaling. I don’t know why I continue to use it...old habits die hard, I guess.

Takes me back a long way to my stepmother, and trust me: this is not a place any of you would want to go. She was a harpy if ever there was one, minus the wings. “That which snatches” says the dictionary. (More like, “that witch snatches.”) Harpies: noted for their ugliness, which in the Maritimes means soulless.

Truly, if you knew her you would think I was being too kind. She makes Gloria Vanderbilt’s childhood look easy breezy. Joan Crawford was a saint, in fact, standing next to her (speaking of Comet)...even with a set of wire coat hangers in her (Crawford’s) hand.

And speaking of cleaning bathrooms, oh the stories I could tell about the rooming houses I lived in when I was young; the hours I spent scrubbing the bathtub for Jesus. I don’t know where that tenant came from, or what made him so wildly unwell, but everyone fell in line when it came to polishing taps and tiles and tub, because to do any less was to incur his wrath and a detailed description of the hell to which we were all emphatically going.

Had Paul not changed his mind and decided it was me he wanted to marry and not Kim (she was far prettier than I was, and, as coincidence would have it, came from Ajax) (you know—as in the cleanser), I might still be there on my hands and knees, retrieving bobby pins and small earrings from the drain.

Alas, I exchanged that sunny room on Howland for another on Brunswick Avenue, where Paul and I lived in dewy matrimonial bliss for about three or four weeks before hitchhiking to Fredericton in a heat wave. We made one stop only—at the Royal York Hotel—where in those days only little people (we called them dwarves and midgets) were hired as Royal York porters, and where beer was still relatively cheap.

But as usual, I digress.

I have cleaned many bathrooms in my day—the worst being the men’s washrooms in those PEI bars (The Dispensary and Hogan’s hold a tie record, although the only thing that makes them outstanding is the degree) (you don’t want to know), although this is truly not a complaint but, rather, a light-hearted memory. It was all part of a job and a somewhat lucrative career that, in the main, I loved.

In fact, I have an affinity for water sports, so anything to do with H2O is fine by me: tending to houseplants, washing dishes, cleaning windows, rinsing out a sink...it’s really all okay. There is something cathartic about it...cleansing, which makes its own obvious sense. And with the exception of toilets, I have never much found need for rubber gloves (the kind my mum used and left draping over the kitchen faucet after a hard day’s work).

Anyway, it is now 2:12 AM, and I have spent a good forty minutes ruminating on the subject of cleaning. And frankly, as much as I love writing, I don’t know which I prefer—scouring out a sink and making it shine, or putting the polishing touches on a paragraph.

But should you decide to ask anyone which I do better—well, please don’t, because I might then be relegated to swabbing sinks for the rest of my life, and a person grows tired of scrubbing the bathroom…even for Jesus.

On, Comet! On Cupid! On Donder and Blitzen!

OPI Spells OPI

I painted my toenails with OPI nail polish close to one month ago, and you won’t believe me when I tell you, unless you are a converted OPI user, that the polish is still intact...no scratches, chips, picks or pockets (or pickpockets). It’s stayed on so long and so well, as I was just saying to my friend Sheila (whose also-purple toenails inspired this entry), it’s darn right creepy.

Sitting here, I am trying to think what other polish products I know that hold up to their promise as well. In my experience, Essie, Sally Hansen and Revlon don’t even come a close second, third and fourth and, memory serving, I don’t recall any product that has pleased me the way OPI has.

Certainly, no mascara has ever held up to its longer, fuller, non-clumping, waterproof promise/s, and there is no lipstick save Mac that has been true to its no-bleed, long-lasting assertion.

I shouldn’t gripe, though, especially when I think back to my teen years of training brassieres (my mother called them brazz, rhymes with has) whose stuffing morphed into off-putting crunchy-tight crumbs within weeks; panty hose (we called them nylons) hoisted on garters and snagging within seconds of wearing, and sanitary napkin contraptions that would baffle an architectural engineer.

I felt an odd wash of relief the other day sitting on the streetcar admiring the style solutions of one, then two, then three young women who separately boarded the car, bra straps deliberately in view. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what they would do suffering garters and girdles and such. (Mind you, I suppose they spend their time worrying about injections and peels and weight loss solutions. Can a woman win?)

Anyway, I only meant to say that I have been won over by OPI, and I am excited to try a selection of colours. The only thing I worry about and wonder is how am I going to get the stuff off? I mean, given its resistance to abrasions, is there a polish remover that can do the job, or am I going to have to resort to something quite frighteningly caustic?

Thus, ladies...the small price of beauty.

Slow Cooker Sunday

Sarah bought me a slow cooker a couple of years ago, which is the best sort of gift for a mother who is not a great cook to begin with. (How did that happen, I ask myself, given that my own mother was fit to make meals for the angels.

I used to come to the dinner table and find radishes cut in the shapes of roses; succulent pork chops stuffed and strung together with spiced rope; home-made apple pie that peaked (and peeked) higher than eye level. Had my mother been in good health, she might have become a world famous chef years before television made fine cooking ultra popular.)

But as time and dinner wait for no wo/man, and because autumn brings with it seasonal flu and prohibitive mould allergies, here is my slow cooker Sunday recipe, the creation costing me today no more than seven minutes of preparation time in the (still half-finished) kitchen.

· two cans of Stag Vegetarian Chile (high in sodium and fibre, low in fat)

· one 16 ounce jar of Portobello mushroom spaghetti sauce

· four washed, sliced white potatoes

· one large washed, sliced carrot

· one really large (or several small) washed, sliced mushroom/s

· one teaspoon of minced garlic

· ½ diced onion (which I forgot to put in today)

Set the temperature on low and let simmer for five hours.

You might not believe me, but this is one of the more delicious meals my cooking endeavours have realized. (Mind you...)

In fact, one of the last times I concocted this dish was a year ago this very weekend when Sarah was here…the last time Sarah was here…with us, to enjoy it. You would think I had prepared a feast, but that’s the sort of person she was. I could have offered up a cardboard sandwich, and she would have said, “Oh mum, this is delicious.”

Food is, inescapably, much less palatable these days, but every time I see that slow cooker I think of my daughter and of the wonderful gift – of all the wonderful gifts – she gave me...of the wonderful gift she was.

Suzanne Gardinier: Ghazal # 9

From Today: 101 Ghazals

I've lost my shoes Have you seen them
The winged ones that used to carry me

I've heard that when people die they remember
their mothers and call in the night Carry me

When my son used to say I can do it myself
He was whispering Could you carry me

When the quick rain soaks the shoulders of my shirt
it's saying Just for now Carry me

There's a tenderness around your eyes
Have enough tears said Carry me

All day in this new dream I walk on gravel
And the words you didn't whisper carry me

When my mother arrives at the end of something
It's to faint in my arms and say Carry me

I've known how to walk since before I was born
It's useless to try to carry me

What the dazzle of light says as it touches
the wave swelling Cresting Breaking Carry me

What the secrets say as they line the edges
of my eyes Your eyes Carry me

What the shoeless stammerer doesn't say
as she doesn't step into your arms Carry me

Suzanne Gardinier

Rob Ford Is A Disaster: Why Is Anyone Surprised?

Robyn Doolittle Urban Affairs Reporter

One of the biggest polls ever conducted in Toronto shows residents from every corner of the city are overwhelmingly against Mayor Rob Ford’s cuts.

From Doug Ford’s ward in Etobicoke to budget chief Mike Del Grande’s in Scarborough, the results will serve as a sobering warning to councillors within the Ford voting bloc.

A Forum Research telephone survey of nearly 13,000 people reveals that more than three-quarters of Torontonians want their local councillor to protect services rather than comply with the mayor’s wishes. And only 27 per cent of residents say they would vote for Rob Ford if an election was held tomorrow.

More significantly, because of the poll’s size, Forum was able to provide the first authoritative assessment of support on a ward-by-ward level.

Forum’s poll, which was paid for by CUPE Local 79, one of two major unions at city hall, questioned 12,848 Toronto residents on Tuesday using a random dial, push-button response, phoning system. The margin of error is plus or minus 0.9 per cent, 19 out 20 times.

Some of the strongest opposition to the current direction at city hall is in the wards of executive committee members.

For example, in Cesar Palacio’s Davenport region, 81.2 per cent of residents want him to fight Ford on cuts. In Willowdale, 82.9 per cent of David Shiner’s constituents are against cutting services.

With a “mushy middle” of councillors emboldened by Ford’s sinking approval, losing even a handful of those previously locked-down votes could tip the scales at council against Ford.

“He’s asking these councillors to put their careers on the line,” said Forum president Lorne Bozinoff. “These councillors are potentially exposing themselves and their careers to challenge in three years from someone who comes along and says: ‘Vote for me, I’ll restore those cutbacks.’”

As for Ford’s low approval rating, Bozinoff said one theory is that the mayor is embarking on typical political strategy: get the controversial stuff out of the way fast, allowing enough time for the numbers to rebound by the next election.

“But in this case, his numbers are already low and we’re just talking about cutting services,” he said. “This is not likely to improve for him when he actually carries out some of this stuff. . . I think if the cutbacks are really of the magnitude (being discussed) it could hit him even harder.”

Ford was elected by a landslide last October and — bolstered by the popularity of his “Stop the Gravy Train” message — the mayor has enjoyed a slim but solid majority on council.

A number of councillors within the Ford fold, most of who have been rewarded with high-profile positions on committees or boards, have quietly grumbled over the administration’s constant vote-whipping, intimidation tactics and procedural trickery.

Despite the unrest, Ford’s uncompromising leadership style had been able to keep his supporters in check. Even mushy middle councillors have so far sided with Ford on controversial votes.

But as anger continues to swell over the Pride snub, KPMG consultants, Margaret Atwood fiasco, waterfront power grab and most recently, proposed cuts to libraries, daycares and Riverdale Farm, some councillors have felt emboldened to speak out.

Most recently, Councillor Jaye Robinson (Ward 25 Don Valley West), a member of Ford’s executive, publicly announced she would not support the administration’s waterfront plan.

TTC chair Karen Stintz has been distancing herself from the administration in the past few months and was one of the first to speak out against library cuts. On Thursday, she revealed she would also vote against the mayor on his waterfront plans.

The show of defiance has had many at city hall questioning Stintz’s political future. But if the Forum poll is any indication, Stintz had already sensed the changing political winds.

George Smitherman edged out Ford in Stinz’s Eglinton-Lawrence ward last October. Today, 52.4 per cent of residents say their opinion of the mayor has worsened since the election, 76.6 per cent want Stintz to fight service cuts and 65.4 per cent said they would not elect Ford for a second term.

The Questions

Respondents were asked the following questions:

How has your opinion of Mayor Ford changed since the election? Improved: 17%; Hasn’t changed: 29%; Grown worse: 54%.

If an election was held tomorrow, would you vote for Rob Ford for mayor? Yes: 27%; No: 60%; Don’t know: 13%.

How much do you agree that your councillor should vote in the interests of protecting city services in your community, even if it conflicts with the wishes of Mayor Ford? Overall agree: 77% (59% say they “strongly agree” and 18% say they “agree”. Overall disagree: 14% (“strongly disagree, 5%; disagree 9%). Don’t know: 9%.

Note: the Star combined “agree” and “strongly agree” answers for the purposes of this article.

[end of article]

The Sound of the Trees

I woke up today to the sound of chainsaws. The massive, lush, gorgeous tree on the corner, the one occupied by hundreds and hundreds of ants, is being cut down today, it’s full life finally over.

I crept into the bathroom with my camera for one last shot, regretting the candle wax that stains the window and blocks my clear view. (I had a secondary regret – as I am sure he had, too – when the man in the bucket caught me in my underwear.)

I threw on some clothes and ran down to the street in semi-disbelief despite the chained sign that has, these past few weeks, marked the tree like Hester Prynne.

“Nooooooooooooooooooooooooo!” I cried to myself. “Don’t cut it down!” I screamed inwardly, trying to hold back tears as a friendly neighbourhood woman stood next to me on the corner in quiet lament.

Apparently, she too has a doomed tree, and has begged for a year’s mercy and an arborist. The city complied. But we also commented on the similar (century-old) age of a number of these massive trees, three of them gone in the past month.

When we first saw this house in its B-pocket neighbourhood the first thing I noticed – that anyone would probably notice – were the trees, tall and broad, reaching out to one another across the tops of so many tattered roofs.

Even as I sit here and type I can see them through my bedroom window, bowing and waving, shaking hands and nodding gaily to one another. In fact, at this very minute and despite the wind, they seem to be calmer than usual, their heads bent down in mournful posture, a few end leaves flickering like sad little fingers saying goodbye.

Oh, I hate this. I wish I could make the tree cutters stop. And I can’t help but wonder what the tree is feeling...and what it won’t be feeling soon.

While it is impossible to ignore the obvious metaphor, for as long as I can remember I have had this lively, lovely relationship with trees. I see in them faith and hope and sustenance, loyal bystanders in a world too often filled with menace and betrayal. They whisper to me at night and hum with me as I meander down the street. They are my friends.

Our house will never be the same without the shadow of this tree, and I will never feel the same about this street...the hot sun blazing down on me, my fair skin unprotected.

The Sound of the Trees

I wonder about the trees.
Why do we wish to bear
Forever the noise of these
More than another noise
So close to our dwelling place?
We suffer them by the day
Till we lose all measure of pace,
And fixity in our joys,
And acquire a listening air.
They are that that talks of going
But never gets away;
And that talks no less for knowing,
As it grows wiser and older,
That now it means to stay.
My feet tug at the floor
And my head sways to my shoulder
Sometimes when I watch trees sway,
From the window or the door.
I shall set forth for somewhere,
I shall make the reckless choice
Some day when they are in voice
And tossing so as to scare
The white clouds over them on.
I shall have less to say,
But I shall be gone.

Robert Frost

Midnight Sail

I feel odd not having posted an entry for September 11, but thought I would wait closer to midnight and the actual time of my parent’s deaths, although my mother’s death was harder to place exactly. I still find it remarkable that my mother and father died so close to the same hour all those years apart. And I don’t know why I can’t get away from the anniversary girl part of me, but thus I seem to be made.

It’s hard to fathom all that has happened in the past ten years – Don’s death; Lainey’s birth; Blue’s birth; Sarah’s death – and I am surprised this week to be finding my way out of the house to attend the film festival...that I dare make my way into the world where it is easier to, even momentarily, forget.

Yesterday, then, as I leaned against a railing while waiting in an upstairs line at Paramount, Roger Ebert walked by with his wife, the two of them strolling through the crowd as if they were out for a mere Saturday matinee. I have been so moved by Roger Ebert’s courage in the face of his gruelling both with cancer, and, in light of my valiant daughter who so loved hearing all of my TIFF tales, seeing him felt a little magical, reminding me yet again that life is an odd and confounding expedition.

In fact, a person hardly knows what to expect around any given corner (which is also part of the magic), but the crescendo of coincidences and confluences that have been occurring these past months astound me. (Later, if mood and time permit, I can expand on this, although I am not sure anyone but my friends and family would be interested.)

Still, I have no words to properly commemorate all those who have died. I cannot find the poem or essay or song that feels right; that expresses exactly in tone and meaning what the deaths of my mother, my father, my husband, and daughter – three of them decades too young to die – mean to me or to anyone who loved them. And I am hardly in a place to claim to know what to say for those lost to September 11, 2001.

Instead, I will say this:

The other day, when I was scanning all the email sent to and received from Sarah – hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of letters (I have kept every one) – a thought occurred to me...an incidence I wanted to share...something that ties together my meandering thoughts.

We were out on the deck at the cottage: Mary, Noam, Crystal, Sean, Lesley and I, and it was very late...sometime after midnight. The children were long tucked in and asleep, and the air was clear and warm. In all the years we have been going to the cottage, I have never before sat out on the deck that late. A fear of bears, in fact, has always kept me indoors. (Besides, I spent so much time scaring Sarah with the possibility of Boo-Boo that we always locked ourselves in shortly after dark.)

So there we were, lying back gazing at the stars; talking, laughing, lamenting, when all of a sudden we noticed a light in the form and size of an elegantly shaped sail flashing from across the lake.

At first we blamed a faulty timer, figuring something or other had triggered the flash. But as we watched the flickering...on and off and on and off and on and off, its beautiful arrhythmic heartbeat...Mary and Sean confirmed that even an electrical timing glitch would have some metered rhythm to it. Even a tripped wire would take a few seconds before tripping itself up again (so to speak).

So I sat there and stared some more, reminded of all the peculiar electrical events that have taken place since Don died and that have escalated since Sarah’s death in April. And I wondered.

I don’t know who it was who said it first or whether I simply asked the question, “Do you think...?” but I know that I kept hearing through the night, “It’s Sarah. Yes, it’s Sarah. Of course, it’s Sarah.”

Mock us (gently) if you will, but if you had been there you would have seen it too. And like us, you would have wondered. We sat there hour after hour in the dark, the sail blinking and nodding, glowing at us in the pitch black from the other side of the small lake. I have looked across that water (indoors, blinds up, Yahtzee dice in hand) every night for six summer’s worth of cottage seasons and never once have I seen anything like this.

In fact, no one saw the light the previous night as they sat around the camp fire near the water’s edge, and although we all checked for the rest of our stay, the light never came on again.

I don’t know what happens to us when we die. I don’t think anyone knows. And for all my hocus pocus tarot/rune reading fun in life, I am as close to an atheist as any agnostic can be without falling over into the godless abyss entirely.

But there is something to it – to that light – to the confluences and coincidences and magical appearances – to all of the saved email – and I am as sure as a person like me can ever be that Sarah was signalling to us across the water, waving hello, sending her love, reminding us to be loving and faithful and mindful.

I can only hope that for everyone who grieves the loss of someone they love, there is a midnight sailing ship just there on the horizon, twinkling its radiating light. Sometimes we need not wait for a crack to let the light come in; sometimes all we have to do is believe.

In memory of my mother and father, of Don and Sarah, and of the 2,976 who died on September 11, 2001.

Eat, Prey, Love

*The following excerpts are taken from http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Gutemberg

Everyone has some idea about Anaconda snakes. Most will know that [this] reptile is a giant snake, lives in marshlands, and is a deadly hunter. However, most do not know how big or long an anaconda really is.

To the naked eye the Anaconda appears to be 20 feet, and the average [weight] is 550 pounds.

The body of a full-grown Anaconda is extremely muscular with smooth scales.

[E]yes and nostrils are on [the] top of their heads. This makes it easier for them to breathe [underwater].

Anaconda snakes stay under water for just over 10 minutes and usually they use the trick of staying under water to catch their prey. They hunt during the night mostly in swampy areas. Their skin acts as a camouflage and helps them to merge with the surrounding areas of the swamp.

The[ir] smooth scales help them to move through the waters with great agility and speed, like a shark [in] an ocean.

Because of the color of their skin, these reptiles are difficult to spot in the wild. Once in a while, when the cold wind blows one can see them out in the land basking in the warmth of the sun.

~

Of course it is true that snakes do not have to be large to be deadly.

“Death adders are very viper-like in appearance, having a short, robust body, triangular-shaped heads and small subocular scales. They also have vertical pupils and many small scales on the top of the head. Their fangs are also longer and more mobile than for most other elapids, although still far from the size seen in some of the true vipers. Despite their name and appearance, they are not vipers at all. This is a case of convergent evolution.

They normally take 2–3 years to reach adult size. Females are generally slightly larger than the males. They can also be easily distinguished from other Australian snakes because of a small, worm-like lure on the end of their tail, which is used to attract prey. Most have large bands around their bodies, though the color itself is variable, depending on their locality. Colors are usually black, grey or red and yellow, but also include brown and greenish-grey.

Unlike most snakes, death adders do not actively hunt, but rather lie in ambush and draw their prey to them.

When hungry, death adders bury themselves amongst the substrate. This may be leaf litter, soil or sand, depending on their environment. The only part of themselves they expose are their head and their tail, both generally very well camouflaged. The end of the tail is used for caudal luring and when wiggled is easily mistaken for a grub or worm. An unsuspecting bird or mammal will eventually notice the 'easy lunch' and attempt to seize it. Only then will the death adder move, lashing out with the quickest strike of any snake in the world. A death adder can go from a strike position, to strike and envenoming their prey, and back to strike position again, in as little as 0.13 of a second, about the duration of a blink of the eye.”

*Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acanthophis

I am not sure what led me to the subject of snakes today, except that Sarah (who I think of constantly) and I used to spend moments of our leisure time talking about the similarities between people and animals. In fact, we often labeled various friends and family members, trying to come up with the animal that matched the person exactly.

We called up bears, turtles, dogs, housecats, otters, eagles, giraffes, monkeys, wolves, tigers, horses and so on.

Seldom, however, did we equate a human being with a snake.

Sitting here today and wondering about why this is so—how we overlooked the obvious—I am drawn to the conclusion that we generally missed the connection because snakes tend toward the subtle. Quick, unexpected, often devious, camouflaged, swamp-hidden and lethal, it is hard to imagine a person this suddenly vicious and venomous.

Perhaps we miss their intentions because, as so eloquently stated above, once in a while when the cold wind blows, one can see them out on the land basking in the warmth of the sun.

Who, then, could imagine anything so ostensibly laidback as something so deadly? Who would ever conjure that this S-curved beauty, glinting in the noon-day sun, could harbour such poisonous—in some cases, malevolent—harm?

In the end, maybe it is better to only look for the good. The problem with that is, however, bad things can happen when your back is turned, and snakes, as all the articles say, are able to hide right in front of you, blending casually into the sun-drenched carpet that tickles the bottoms of your feet.

Contact Lenses

Speaking of deleting email address (and of tangents), I was all set to write an entry today about problems of communication in the current world—a diatribe on the irony of a younger generation that prides itself on lickety-split texting, Facebook and Twitter response but who, generally, can neither respond to a phone call or email in a timely way (by timely, I mean ten or twelve months), if at all, or who, when they do respond, forget to spell- and grammar-check, and generally answer in coded, abbreviated language that requires a university prerequisite.

Okay, so that’s not entirely fair or true, and obviously (to me, I mean) does not include all of the people-under-forty that I know. There is the rare exception. In fact, I can name one as I sit here and type, but I don’t want to embarrass him or call him out as generationally odd. (And yes, I am as relieved as you are that I did not make comedy my career.)

I was also going to expound on the virtues of making oneself clear; the value of making one’s message meaningful (as in, full of meaning); the merits of meretriciousness. (I have no idea what that means, but it sounds nice.) Oh. I looked it up. That’s not what I mean at all.

I was even going to excuse myself for what might seem to you like needless repetition (for example, I have used the word making twice, and the root word mean three times, in a previous sentence/paragraph), but what I know as/is designed for clarity. And if my mood had slipped, I was then going to launch into a declaration against disingenuousness (not mine, in this case); a cry against correspondence that is calculated for selfish purposes and has nothing to do with the recipient (in this case, me).

But that was hours ago, before I got lost in letter-writing, and comical email exchanges with my neighbour and friend (and my contemporary) (that is, to you, young enough), and sending (okay, selecting/preparing) dozens and dozens of photos to forward to my handsome son, and basking in my Sheila epistles, and saying howdy to the people in my age group (as I said, young enough) who communicate regularly, and posting an article to my not-to-be embarrassed friend—and so on.

Indeed, at this very moment I am grateful that I have had no more to write or reply to than is on my current plate. (Also on my plate today have been oatmeal, rye toast and organic cheesies.) As it is, I have a blog entry to finish, a novel to complete, and a dozen-dozen photos to send off, and I can’t get to all that until I return those phone calls and answer my email in, say, February, 2012.

Coming Home

Every year after returning home from the cottage I reprint an entry about homecoming. But this year, of course, is different, and I have no desire or interest in making my way through previous years in these ways. (And for this, I am sure you are also grateful.)

It is enough for me to say, and to know and remember, what Lainey and Noam being there meant to us all and most especially to me, and almost enough to try and imagine what this would have meant for Sarah. But to say more would feel in some ways sacrosanct and in others superfluous.

I think, too, that Sarah’s friends who were with us shared something splendid in her memory, and will always look back on their 2011 holiday as a tribute to someone they deeply loved.

Today, back at home, I am lounging with Jeeves, who has not left my side since our return. I ought to be working but instead am catching up on Joy Behar’s marriage (after all these years, how lovely); sharing a morning of email, most especially with my friend Sheila; nursing a tired ankle; wondering every few minutes how Lainey’s first morning of senior kindergarten is going and whether she is sitting next to her boyfriend, and enjoying the wind and the clouds.

And as I do every so often, I went through my email contact list and deleted the names of those with whom I am seldom, if ever, in touch (or want to be) (kidding) (sort of), having decided a year or so ago to be ever-honourable to the like-attracts-like ethos. Otherwise, my friends know who they are and are as stuck with me as I am to them, and that is pretty much that.

More, a person learns as she ages that deleting, or being deleted, is not painful but, conversely, restorative and essential. Or as Leo Tolstoy said, “All – everything that I understand – I understand only because I love.” There are gifts that come with growing (slightly) older, although this is one gift I would not have believed possible when I was young: knowing that by taking courage we promote and prompt encouragement.

I also find that today, rather than the lingering backward glance, I prefer savouring the best and the blessings that came from my time away and am therefore looking forward. (I am just as surprised as you are that this is so.)

In fact, when I look into my crystal (who I also love, but with a capital C) ball, I see the following:

 

• the film festival and at least seven new movies, with copious opinions following
• Stratford with Peggy and Mary
• a completed novel...finally
• cable splicing and a date with a treadmill
• our next book club dinner
• fall travel
• Tafelmusik
• the Toronto Consort (happy birthday to mlm)
• a tarot evening with Michelle
• dinner/s and outings and correspondence with friends
• a completed anthology...finally
• Lainey and Noam and Blue (I always save the best for the last)

Maybe tomorrow I will find myself lost in the protracted past but, as it stands, this hour I am glad for cooler weather, greyer skies, the changing season, and unmitigated memories of those I love.