Our mayor

[Peter McKillop]

Re: Our mayor

Francis, Steve, and Aris, Frank is entitled to his opinions and to express them publicly. Ford was a public figure and not a particularly nice one at that. I haven't tried to follow all of the of the media coverage of his death but what I have seen (CBC, CTV, Globe and Mail, etc.) has covered the whole man, including his bad points. Why should Frank not be allowed to comment on Ford's bad side? It does not mean that Frank is trying to portray himself as being "white as the driven snow" or that he's trying to "dance on [Ford's] grave." And Francis, you said that Ford was "warm and generous, and superb company." Seriously? Maybe you need to look a little deeper at Ford. Are you talking about the same man who reportedly physically abused his wife? The same man who verbally abused colleagues and subordinates at work? The same man who fired at least one (or was it two) subordinate who tried to help him with his substance abuse problems? I don't hear any concern coming from you for the family(ies) of that(those) fired subordinate(s). Why not? How about his frequent public lies? Etc., etc. Francis, if Rob Ford was your idea of someone who was warm and generous, and superb company, then you won't need to remind me to stay out of your way!

Bottom line: Frank is just as entitled to his opinions on Ford as you people are to yours. If you think there is some magical time period following the death of a public figure when the deceased can't be discussed honestly then you'll have to do a better job of proving it to me if you expect me to accept it.

[Francis Rodriguez]

Re: Our mayor

I'm sorry, do I know you??

[Peter McKillop]

Re: Our mayor

I'm sorry, do I know you??

I don't think so, Francis. Do you know Frank Dixon? Does that explain why you thought it would be ok to dredge up a post from six years ago and call Frank a serial disrespecter of the dead?

To the best of my recollection I've never met Frank Dixon but I still think he's allowed to express his opinion on a public figure without being harrassed by others.

[Francis Rodriguez]

Re: Our mayor

I don't think so, Francis. Do you know Frank Dixon? Does that explain why you thought it would be ok to dredge up a post from six years ago and call Frank a serial disrespecter of the dead?
.

I'm sorry to disappoint you but I do know Dixie Frank. He came up to me
at a tournament a couple of years ago, and made a bombastic introduction.

The dredged-up post you refer to was linked here by another poster.
Get your facts straight Precious Pete. I prefer to see the good in others
rather than wallow in the salacious nonsense of someone's private life.

Your contempt for Mr. Ford's doings are belied by the massive outpouring
of sympathy in public and private, as we speak. But no doubt Frank and you
were privy to the man personally to confirm public stuff being bandied about him.

I just took great exception to Mr. Dixon's incredible conclusion that Mr. Ford's
numbing tragedy was an inevitable consequence of his lifestyle. I always will.

[Steve Douglas]

Re: Our mayor

Francis, Steve, and Aris, Frank is entitled to his opinions and to express them publicly. Ford was a public figure and not a particularly nice one at that. I haven't tried to follow all of the of the media coverage of his death but what I have seen (CBC, CTV, Globe and Mail, etc.) has covered the whole man, including his bad points. Why should Frank not be allowed to comment on Ford's bad side? It does not mean that Frank is trying to portray himself as being "white as the driven snow" or that he's trying to "dance on [Ford's] grave." And Francis, you said that Ford was "warm and generous, and superb company." Seriously? Maybe you need to look a little deeper at Ford. Are you talking about the same man who reportedly physically abused his wife? The same man who verbally abused colleagues and subordinates at work? The same man who fired at least one (or was it two) subordinate who tried to help him with his substance abuse problems? I don't hear any concern coming from you for the family(ies) of that(those) fired subordinate(s). Why not? How about his frequent public lies? Etc., etc. Francis, if Rob Ford was your idea of someone who was warm and generous, and superb company, then you won't need to remind me to stay out of your way!

Bottom line: Frank is just as entitled to his opinions on Ford as you people are to yours. If you think there is some magical time period following the death of a public figure when the deceased can't be discussed honestly then you'll have to do a better job of proving it to me if you expect me to accept it.

Hi Peter:

Frank has every right to post his opinion on Ford. I was objecting to both his timing and his mean-spiritedness. Frank seemed to be saying something along the lines of "serves you right" or "good riddance" in judgment of a man who had just died. To me that is unseemly and crass. Frank then doubled-down to justify his view of Ford. To the best of my knowledge Frank never knew the man or was ever directly affected by his "mayorship". He says that Ford never accomplished anything in life despite being born into a position of privilege. Ford served as a Toronto city councilor for 10 years and then was elected mayor of the largest city in Canada. I think most people would consider that to be an accomplishment.

Frank is entitled to his opinion, and has every right to express it. But his post was ill-timed, poor-mannered, mean-spirited, one-sided, factually, err, incomplete, and pompous.

Steve

P.S. I am not a member of "Ford Nation". For the last two years of his term I referred to him as "Sideshow Rob".

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Austerity, says the MSM, is Moses and all the prophets!

With the current Trudeau budget, deficit hysteria has broken out among the conservative right and their bought-and-paid-for MSM. Actually, what Trudeau needs is a bigger deficit. Compared to the Mulroney era - when the deficit was as high as 50% of government revenue, the current 2016 budget is only 10% of gov revenue. But Mulroney was a Conservative, so that's OK...

As noted by CCPA economists, Ottawa deficit spending is not big enough to stimulate an economy lagging since the oil price collapse. The Canadian economy has suffered a major external shock, with Alberta taking a big hit.

The rise of precarious work indicates serious disguised unemployment.

A slack economy with many people wanting full-time work calls out for additional spending. Governments need to boost their own contribution to general well-being.

Of course the Liberals enacted a tax cut (in 2015) for the upper middle class of wealthy Canadians, but there isn't a peep about that. I guess Rob Ford would have been happy about that.

The austerity mantra is taking a pummeling. Aw shucks.

[Steve Douglas]

Re: Austerity, says the MSM, is Moses and all the prophets!

With the current Trudeau budget, deficit hysteria has broken out among the conservative right and their bought-and-paid-for MSM. Actually, what Trudeau needs is a bigger deficit. Compared to the Mulroney era - when the deficit was as high as 50% of government revenue, the current 2016 budget is only 10% of gov revenue. But Mulroney was a Conservative, so that's OK...




Of course the Liberals enacted a tax cut (in 2015) for the upper middle class of wealthy Canadians, but there isn't a peep about that. I guess Rob Ford would have been happy about that.

The austerity mantra is taking a pummeling. Aw shucks.

I seem to be old enough to recall that the deficits in the Mulroney years were inherited from somebody named Trudeau. Prior to people named Trudeau, Canada generally didn't run deficit budgets. Trudeau senior really liked Keynes. Keynsian economics works fine if you run it for the full cycle. The problem is that politicians only care about the next election. Marx didn't worry about this crap because he had Daddy pay for it all.

Steve

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Not the sharpest pencil in the drawer? But I learned something new anyway!

I seem to be old enough to recall that the deficits in the Mulroney years were inherited from somebody named Trudeau...

Bwa ha ha ha. Maybe you should look up the difference between a deficit (expenditures that are greater than its revenues during a fiscal year) and debt (total amount of money that the government owes to its creditors). You really love those austerity-imposing Conservatives, huh?

Edited to add: 7 consecutive deficits from Stephen Harper, adding over 160 Billion to Canada's debt (which is more than every Liberal government in the last 50 years combined), but he, of course, gets a free pass.

Marx didn't worry about this crap because he had Daddy pay for it all.

Wow. Full points for a clumsy derailment. Did you know that this device/thought disorder is sometimes called "knight's move thinking"? That's a new one on me.

Thanks!

[Steve Douglas]

Re: Not the sharpest pencil in the drawer? But I learned something new anyway!

Bwa ha ha ha. Maybe you should look up the difference between a deficit (expenditures that are greater than its revenues during a fiscal year) and debt (total amount of money that the government owes to its creditors). You really love those austerity-imposing Conservatives, huh?

My previous reply seems to have gone into the ether, however...

I know the difference between a deficit and a debt. I can also spell "doofus". The current trend for "borrow for/from the future" came into vogue with Trudeau Sr.

Steve

[Peter McKillop]

Re: Our mayor

I'm sorry to disappoint you but I do know Dixie Frank. He came up to me
at a tournament a couple of years ago, and made a bombastic introduction.

Dixie Frank, bombastic, Precious Pete? Francis, you seem to be doing just fine, all by yourself, with the name calling so, if you don't mind, I'll leave you to it.

The dredged-up post you refer to was linked here by another poster.
Get your facts straight Precious Pete.

And then you went to the linked post. You read it. Then you read at least two more posts in that old thread (maybe more, just to make sure you had the context right). And then you quoted parts of those two additional posts in this thread. I call that dredging up and I think I do have my facts straight. Thank you, sir.

I prefer to see the good in others rather than wallow in the salacious nonsense of someone's private life.

Well, that's good! I respect that in an individual. I know nothing about Rob Ford's private life. Everything I know about him is public information.

Your contempt for Mr. Ford's doings...

You got that one right!!

... are belied by the massive outpouring
of sympathy in public and private, as we speak.

No kidding??!! Massive, eh? I'll watch today's news to check this out. Wow! Massive!

But no doubt Frank and you
were privy to the man personally to confirm public stuff being bandied about him.

No, no. Better double check your sources. I can't speak for Frank but I did not know Rob Ford personally and never said that I did. But you said that you knew him personally, right Francis?

I just took great exception to Mr. Dixon's incredible conclusion that Mr. Ford's
numbing tragedy was an inevitable consequence of his lifestyle. I always will.

Damn! Ain't ChessTalk a heart breaker? Oh well. You're entitled to express your opinion without being harassed about it (and so is Frank). Have a nice day, Francis. :)

[Frank Dixon]

Re: Our mayor

I am actually sad for Rob Ford. It was clear to many people, including me, from early in his mayoralty, that he needed professional help on several fronts, to deal with his many serious issues, which were impacting his performance as Mayor of Toronto in negative ways. I had barely heard of him until he became Mayor in 2010. He didn't get that help, for reasons outsiders can only speculate upon, until far too late, when he did enter a rehab program in the summer of 2014. The result was a life cut far too short, in what should have been his prime, at age 46. The fact that his political strategies, combined with his 'bull-in-a-china-shop' people skills approach to critics, alienated many people, eventually served only to add to the wide array of difficulties he faced.

Several respectable media figures have suggested that parallels between Rob Ford as Mayor of Toronto and William Shakespeare's King Lear, tragic figure in the 400-year-old continuously popular play of the same name, are quite strong. King Lear fought madness, unsuccessfully, and it led to his eventual downfall.

Perhaps the lesson which can be learned from all of this is that many people, including those in the public sphere, suffer from pressures which can become too much to bear alone, so it becomes critical that they get the professional help they need at the right time. Those people who are closest to them have a responsibility to make this happen. Ford's family and close friends came up short with that task.

[Garland Best]

Re: Our mayor

Frank, the point still needs to be made that substance abuse is not the probable cause of his cancer that finally killed him. Your original post and this more recent post still implies this. This is an incorrect statement. There is no causal evidence that his behaviour in life was the cause of his death. Please look up the disease that killed him. http://sarcomahelp.org/liposarcoma.html

[Bob Armstrong]

Re: Our mayor

Frank, the point still needs to be made that substance abuse is not the probable cause of his cancer that finally killed him. Your original post and this more recent post still implies this. This is an incorrect statement. There is no causal evidence that his behaviour in life was the cause of his death. Please look up the disease that killed him. http://sarcomahelp.org/liposarcoma.html

Rene Preotu previously in this thread referred to an article about the cause/effect relationship between behaviour and cancer: http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/conte...10/djv213.full .

Although Rob's cancer was a rare form, does that negate the thesis of the article, and its possible application to the Rob Ford situation (I admit to only having made a quick, cursory review, and maybe it is more limited than I understood?)?

Bob A

[Peter McKillop]

Re: Our mayor

Hi Steve. Like a lot of people, my parents raised me with maxims like 'speak no ill of the dead' and 'if you can't say something nice, etc.', so I was initially quite shocked by Frank's first few posts. But when Frank revealed that he had been a victim of bullying it made me question why so many of us are uncomfortable with talking about the whole person when someone is newly deceased. I hear what you're saying though. Peace!