The other day, Rob Ford, who people have tried to convince me is the democratically-elected mayor of Toronto, was confronted outside his house by Mary Walsh, who people have tried to convince me is an actual professional comedian. Rob Ford, concerned that an aggressive, plastic bustier-wearing lady was lurching toward him with a microphone, rushed back into his house and called the police.When I first heard about this, I felt a certain sympathy for Ford and so endured an uncomfortable few hours. It's probably unpleasant to have someone ambush you when you're in your driveway. It's not his fault that so many Canadian comedians could so easy pass for totally unfunny crazy people. There's no reason that Rob Ford, or anyone else for that matter, should be expected to recognize a Canadian comedian from a television show I was convinced had been cancelled in the late '90s.Thankfully, Rob Ford proceeded to behave in a way that allowed me to whole-heartedly dislike him again. He called the police not once, but three times, demanding to know why a patrol car had not arrived. While speaking to the 911 operator, he said either:a) “You … bitches! Don’t you f---ing know? I’m Rob f---ing Ford, the mayor of this city!”; or,
b) "This is f---ing ridiculous.:Obviously, everyone's hoping it was "a", because that's way more exciting and offensive and in line with the kind of person I suspect he is. Even if he didn't say it, I say we continue to believe he did, because it's so much more plausible. And if he didn't say it, and someone leaks the tape and he's found to have used an expletive in a less exciting manner (option "b"), it shouldn't be all that difficult to put him in a cussing mood again in the future. I'm sure the CBC is preparing to deploy Luba Goy as we speak.
It's not so long ago that left-leaning Americans thought of Canada as a paradise of pot-smoking, honeymooning gay people. I know that because I once read an article about it in The New York Times. Then, the Americans forgot all about our frozen tundra of progressiveness when their political Rapture arrived in the form of a new president (who's since managed to disappoint, but is still widely acknowledged to not suck nearly as much as the last one).Canadians seem to have succeeded in embracing the neo-Conservative movement of the '90s a little late. That is by no means an original observation (although if you have never heard it before, trust me: it is a totally original observation). We have a right-wing prime minister who will probably continue to be prime minister largely because his sweater vests are more appealing to voters than the entirety of his opponent, who in every photo strongly resembles Satan. Don't remember his name? Just read the most recent government news releases, which no longer refer to "the Government of Canada" and instead mention something called "the Harper Government."Stephen Harper is trying to campaign through every mention of Canada's national government; Rob Ford, the new right-wing mayor of Toronto, is branding himself by creating his own imaginary country inspired by the name given to fans of the city's perennially not-playoff-making hockey team. Leaf fans live in an imaginary place called "Leaf Nation." Recently, Ford referred to his supporters as "Ford Nation" and spoke of setting this nation loose on the provincial government if it didn't pony up some cash for Toronto. The name is unintentionally apt, as citizens of Leaf Nation are certainly defined by a constant and crushing sense of disappointment. As an inadvertent and bitter citizen of Ford Nation, I can relate.So I've gone from basking in the glow of American left-wing envy to living under "the Harper Government" in "Ford Nation". I'm so despondent, it's like I'm practicing to become a Leafs fan.Click here to sign a petition demanding that Stephen Harper stop naming the Government of Canada after himself.
Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
I am worse than Rush Limbaugh. I don't mock people with Parkinson's from some underground lair via ham radio, but I have managed to be worse than Rush Limbaugh nonetheless.Rush's most recent attack on the Obamas (that I'm aware of - a whole day has passed since I heard about this one) involves Michelle's weight and dining preferences. Michelle Obama has made reducing obesity in America her First Lady platform, and Rush finds her activities to that end meddlesome and hypocritical. He claims they are hypocritical because "...our first lady does not project the image of women that you might see on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, or of a woman Alex Rodriguez might date ever six months or what have you." He's not alone. A conservative cartoonist has produced an uproariously funny and artistically distinguished depiction of Michelle Obama eating a giant plate of hamburgers. By all means look at it, but be warned: you'll have to read a hell of a lot of Doonesbury to feel clean again afterwards.So why am I worse than Rush Limbaugh? Rush is criticizing Michelle Obama not for being fat, but for being a hypocrite. He's wrong, and he's insulting, and he's paranoid, but he's not just making fun of someone's figure for the sake of it. I, however, have made fun of someone's figure just for the sake of it.When Rob Ford was elected mayor of Toronto, my post was graced by the following image:  Someone's Been Eating the Gravy Train Rob Ford is undeniably full-figured, and he does talk a lot about a sinister gravy train, but that doesn't mean I should have made a joke about how he's been eating said train. I knew it was cheap and unfair at the time, but I did it anyway.
So Rush Limbaugh unfairly makes fun of people for being fat hypocrites, while I apparently, make fun of people I don't like simply for being fat. I shouldn't have to resort to making cheap and unfair cracks about Rob Ford's appearance when there are so many substantive and justifiable cracks I could be making about his policies.
This week, Rush Limbaugh acted as my moral compass. Perhaps next week, Glenn Beck will teach me an important lesson about intellectual integrity.
Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
 Side effects may include: corncob pipe, eyes of coal, and the thumpetty thump thump (I made no cracks about 'snow balls' because I am classy). I do not have any particular problem with The Toronto Star - I just happen to be a nasty-minded, self-appointed critic of the honest work that other people do and get paid for. And because they're often paid for honest work that happens to be insensitive or ill-advised, my mind stays nasty.
This time, it's Karen von Hahn, a fashion columnist for The Star, who's wowed me with an inspired turn of phrase. Of Canadians in winter-time, she writes:"...because we are all as overdressed as toddlers going out to play in the snow at recess, we lose the spring in our step, shuffling along like overmedicated mental patients and slouching in our many dull-coloured layers like sulky teenagers."While I admire her attempt to pack as many similes into one sentence as possible, and I admit that teenagers can indeed be sulky, the mental patients angle seems a bit off. How off? As off as under-medicated mental patients, of course. And what's almost as disquieting as the fact that von Hahn thinks things that might be insensitive (and I'm thinking more of the feelings of the mental patients than of scarf-wearing Canadians) is the fact that she then proceeds to share them. Which brings me to my new acronym: INSTALS. INSTALS stands for "if not sensitive, then at least sensible." How often have you watched the news and thought: "if you're dishonest enough that you're going to cheat on your wife, at least don't do it by sending shirtless photos of yourself to a stranger on Craiglist and using your own name, making it easy for her to google you and find out you're a two-term Republican congressman"?
If you're not going to be sensitive enough to refrain from committing adultery, at least be sensible enough to use an alias and hire a professional. If you're not able to be sensitive enough to refrain from thinking that bundled-up Canadians look a lot like sedated mental patients, at least be sensible enough to refrain from saying so. Although I admit I'm looking forward to summer, when no doubt van Hahn will write something about spirited, under-dressed, warm-weather Canadians capering about as though they're jumpy, crack-addled whores. Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
It's easy, when you live in a place like Toronto, to feel intimidated by other places, like, for example, New York and Indianapolis - places bursting with culture and atmosphere and exploitative journalistic practices. When I saw this clip of an Indianapolis reporter roaming the streets making homeless people sing on The Daily Show, I couldn't help thinking: "Why not here? Why not in Toronto? Why can't Toronto's news outlets callously capitalize on the public interest generated by certain current events, too?"Well, proof that Higher Powers grant my wishes as long as they don't bring anyone any certitude, or peace, or help for pain was not long in coming. Behold the following story teaser from February 8th's Toronto Star: Recent events in Tahrir Square, where Egyptians have been ushering in a revolution, have got us thinking: if the revolution were to happen in Toronto, where would it unfold? The Star's Christopher Hume takes a look.Magnificent! We're really proving that we've got a media scene the equal of any in the United States. I don't want this kind of cheeky journalistic ingenuity to wither on the vine, though, so I'm offering the following suggestions for future Star articles:- The recent to-do over Egypt's unpopular despot has got us thinking: which of our local politicians could be considered the "Mubarak" of Toronto City Council?
- The recent violent crackdown on peaceful protesters in Egypt's Tahrir Square has got us thinking: if Toronto residents were going to rise up and then be viciously repressed, which animals would those viciously repressing them ride in on? The Egyptian thugs used horses and camels: keep reading to discover our suggestions for a distinctly Canadian battle beast.
And it doesn't just have to be about Egypt. Any topic of considerable contemporary interest will do. Here's an example of a non-Egyptian attention grabber: - The creation of Southern Sudan, the world's newest country, got us thinking: what's changed in the day-to-life of Torontonians since East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, York and the former city of Toronto were amalgamated into a single municipality in 1998?
See? Easy, effective, and fun! Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
Finally, some good news for Toronto, Ontario, Canada! For too long, Toronto has been putting all its energy into becoming Copenhagen. Or, at the very least, Helsinki. It's been prioritizing (or trying to prioritize) bicycle-riding hooliganism, green energy-related propaganda, and giving everyone welfare without any strings.
Now, thankfully, the times they have a-changed. Left-wing blood has been spilled on the tracks. And whatever else you think of that could be done to a Bob Dylan lyric/album title.
Torontonians have spoken and they have spoken loudly and with glorious senselessness. They have elected a man named Rob Ford. Allow Rob Ford to speak for himself, as he regularly and recklessly insists on doing:
If you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you wouldn’t get AIDS probably, that’s bottom line. These are the facts. – June 29, 2006
Every year we have dozens of people who get hit by cars or trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day. – March 7, 2007
And my personal favourite, because of its modern sensibility:
Those Oriental people work like dogs. I’m telling you, the Oriental people, they’re slowly taking over. – March 5, 2008
He's fearless and shameless. And by all rights, he should feel a great deal of both fear and shame, which just shows how fearless and shameless he really is.
The liberal elites are weeping and creating grant-funded performance art pieces; the right-wing Average Joes are driving their ATVs through protected wetlands in celebration.
I am personally excited and encouraged by Ford's win for two reasons.
1) Toronto is finally proving to the U.S. that it can play in the big leagues. Sure, we once had a discount furniture store owner for mayor, and he said the following: "What the hell do I want to go to a place like Mombasa?... I'm sort of scared about going out there, but the wife is really nervous. I just see myself in a pot of boiling water with all these natives dancing around me." But Rob Ford improves upon Mel Lastman because he manages to be equally offensive, but more of a bully. He may not have been a high-school warlock or hired a male escort to carry his baggage through Europe, but he did once drunkenly harass tourists at a hockey game (while a city councillor). Here's hoping he'll up the ante while in power.
2) 380,201 people voted for Rob Ford, which means there are still 380,201 people I haven't met in the City of Toronto!
Send the Catastrophizer your requests for advice and/or rationalizations using the form conveniently provided HERE. I will publish my responses on the THE CATASTROPHIZER page.
POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough. Also, I'm not very good at copy-editing, so if something looks wrong, it was put there by accident.
The examples of catastrophizing provided elsewhere tend towards the personal; they instruct one in the art of, say, drawing an imaginary line between the loss of one’s keys and the failure of one’s marriage. It should come as no surprise, though, that the same technique that can conjure catastrophic consequences from personal oversights can also be applied to the realm of the public, the global. Indeed, the environmental movement has largely depended on catastrophisms to make its case to the public: if we exterminate a sufficient number of tiny organisms, we imperil the world, etc... Environmentalists have the unenviable task of convincing people that something tiny, something seemingly totally irrelevant, can have an effect on every other living thing. While catastrophizing embraces no one creed or cause, the budding catastrophizer should in terms of process emulate the environmentalist: he or she should make a habit of selecting from the news what seems to be an innocuous fact and extrapolating from it a series of decidedly unfortunate events. The topic of environmental collapse, though, should be avoided if the catastrophizer is devoted to truly honing his or her craft as it is such a familiar source of catastrophizing. If you are concerned that your catastrophizing studies are impractical, if your hectoring parents are demanding to know how catastrophizing in your room for hours will lead to gainful employment, never fear. Or rather, don’t stop fearing. A study of history reveals that catastrophizers always have the last, mirthless, laugh. Do you know what started the First World War? I do, because I checked Wikipedia: The assassination on 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, is seen as the immediate trigger of the war, though long-term causes, such as imperialistic foreign policy, played a major role. Ferdinand's assassination at the hands of Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip resulted in demands against the Kingdom of Serbia.[6] Several alliances that had been formed over the past decades were invoked, so within weeks the major powers were at war; with all having colonies, the conflict soon spread around the world.
One man is assassinated and ultimately the world is plunged into a war unlike any that had ever been seen before. How many men or women could have predicted that one shot would lead to such widespread devastation? Only the proto-catastrophizers (I, of course, am the original, founding catastrophzier).
It’s important, though, not to focus on events that are clearly worrisome, however small. The real challenge is to concentrate on a detail that appears to be totally inconsequential and to use that as the springboard for your catastrophism. Consider, if you will, the following sample catastrophism:
On November 10, 1955, a boy was born in Stuttgart, Germany; He was drawn to the world of film, and began creating his own stories in that medium; He directed a dangerously subversive film starring only non-actors (Independence Day); After most likely being unable to sign Nicholas Cage because of a scheduling conflict, he convinces John Cusack to sign on to a new project; Promotion for the film 2012 is ubiquitous and unremitting; A young girl in Toronto, having watched Say Anything numerous times during an impressionable period, becomes obsessed with 2012; She destroys the world.
I became bored by this catastrophism, or else it would have seemed more complex and fluid. My point, however, should be clear: the birth of one future Hollywood film director can, in a totally unheralded fashion, herald the end of the world. Now, once a day select one apparently insignificant detail from the news and connect it to eventual global destruction. Catastrophizer’s orders.
POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough.
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