I will be taking next week off (and accidentally took last week off) because I am preparing to move, and it's difficult to organize one's time properly when there is so much organizing and planning and cleaning and general despairing to do. A great deal of time, for example, went into creating the following:  The orange paper was all I had on hand—I am not planning a Halloween- or Netherlands-themed apartment. And the place is fully equipped with both a kitchen AND bathroom, but as I won't be putting furniture in either of those places, I didn't build small orange versions of either of them. I didn't realize until after I took this photo that I've somehow managed to misplace my tiny orange chest of drawers—it's probably somewhere in the depths of my couch. I am not going to go in after it right now, because yesterday I unexpectedly happened upon a wizened and distressing cashew under one of the cushions, and moving prep has demoralized me enough for the moment, thank you very much.
And this is the "Stabler" that will take up so much space:
 She is extremely demanding and full of hate. But I couldn't let this week go by without at least mentioning the people who've recently made feel grateful that at least I'm not moving in with them:1. Ann Coulter (she would be difficult to live with because she's really mean and also crazy)She tweeted after the debate that she approved of Romney's decision "to be kind and gentle to the retard."She later tweeted (the "he" is Obama): "If he's 'the smartest guy in the room' it must be one retarded room."Probably she tweeted these tweets because not enough people had been outraged by an earlier tweet she tweeted, about a video Obama made for the National Forum on Disability Issues: "Been busy, but is Obama STILL talking about that video? I had no idea how crucial the retarded vote is in this election."2. Sue-Ann Levy (she's Canada's answer to "she would be difficult to live with because she's really mean and also crazy")During Monday's debate, she tweeted: "Obama says he 'will stand' with Israel if attacked and they are a 'true friend.' His nose is growing again. #MuslimBS"3. A bunch of scientistsResearchers asked a bunch of scientists to share their thoughts about why there aren't so many women in science, and why when women do go into science, they tend to be more interested in biology than physics:“Physics is more difficult for girls and you need a lot of thinking, and the calculation, and the logic. So that’s maybe hard for girls.” — male grad student, physicsAwesome. And if you think women can also say some worrisome and essentialist things about women, but do so in a slightly less douche-y fashion, you're absolutely right:"Physics is more abstract and biology is more concrete. Women are less likely to like abstract things.” — female associate professor, physics POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you're not entertained, fair enough.
 Photo courtesy of subversive-about-town Alex Panther. My mother is quiet and dignified (at least in comparison to the slightly less quiet and dignified people who make up the rest of her family), but I've always known she was dangerously insubordinate. You, too, will appreciate the threat my mother poses to the fair, just, and totally-not-dangerously-imbecilic Powers That Be when you read the email she recently sent to the totally-not-dangerously-imbecilic Mayor Rob Ford.Subject: Comments from a taxpayerDear Rob Ford,
Your continued support for low property taxes and a proposed tax freeze in 2014 are sops to the constituency of voters who in my opinion are selfish, short-sighted and very much the opposite of responsible citizens. The latter know that payment of taxes contributes to the common good and future of their city. Tax increases are
to be expected. It is not for you to bow to the whims of your constituency but to offer well-thought-out plans. So far I haven't seen many of those.
Compare the tax increases recommended in Karen Stintz's OneCity proposal with what households spend annually on, for example, cable, internet and phone plans and even cases of beer. Much more than the proposed increases.
It is up to you and your council to work out plans for the future of Toronto's transportation system. The current situation is not acceptable.
Another thing. The media should not have to resort to freedom of information requests in order to find out what you are up to whilst carrying out the duties of your office. There are also deficiencies in "leadership" and representing the City at official functions. Below is an excerpt from the City of Toronto website:
The Mayor
The role of the Mayor as the head of council is to:
- act as chief executive officer
- provide information and make recommendations to Council with respect to Council's role in ensuring that administrative policies, practices and procedures and controllership policies, practices and procedures are in place to implement the decisions of Council and in ensuring the accountability and transparencyof the operations of the City, including the activities of the senior management of the City
- preside over (chairs) meetings of council so that its business can be carried out efficiently and effectively
- provide leadership to council
- represent the City at official functions, and
- carry out any other duties under the City of Toronto Act, 2006 or any other Act.
Thank you.
Jane Oakley SweetIn my mother's hands, quotation marks and boldfaced type become positively insulting.She has not yet heard back from him. She should really have titled the message "Free football and monorails!"
And lest you think I grew up with at least one parent who raised me to feel respect for those who devote themselves to the public good and who let me mispronounce words like "buoy" and "clapboard", I give you the letter from my father that appeared in this week's Guardian:• In Notes & Queries (22 June), we read: "'honest politician' is the essence of an oxymoron". Not really: strictly speaking, an oxymoron is an expression that at first blush seems dead wrong, but after reflection is seen to be a meaningful paradox. "Honest politician" is simply a contradiction in terms.
Frederick Sweet
POLITE DISCLAIMER: This site is intended for entertainment purposes only. If you are not entertained, fair enough.
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.
 The Self is often misunderstood in Society. It's been an exciting week for disapproving of things. Many of the things offered up by the world for my disapproval were offered up at the CNN Tea Party GOP Presidential debate. When Wolf Blitzer, who always asks my favourite hypothetical-comatose-patient questions, asked the candidates who should pay for the care of an uninsured coma victim, and responded to Ron Paul's response with "Are you saying that society should just let him die?" a number of audience members I would very much like to meet and date cheered and someone yelled "yeah!"Michele Bachmann spoke piercingly about "little girls" (11 and 12 year-olds; still young, sure, but not the pig-tailed, thumb-sucking cuties she piercingly evoked) being given "government injections" (HPV vaccinations) and yesterday managed to up the ante on her own stupidness and lyingness by indicating that the vaccine might cause mental retardation (which it doesn't). When various people, among them quite an unsurprising number of doctors, told her she was wrong, she said, "I am not a doctor. I am not a scientist. I am not a physician. All I was doing was reporting what a woman told me last night at the debate." She's referring to a random member of the public who came up to after the debate and told her the vaccine had harmed her daughter.So one is apparently allowed to report ignorant, unfounded claims about something as long as one has oneself no knowledge or expertise related to the subject. Except when that's not the case. There's an astonishingly discouraging story out of York University this week, for once not related to a faculty strike. Cameron Johnston, a York prof, was teaching a Social Science class ("Self, Culture and Society" - a staggeringly descriptive title) and stated that not everyone was entitled to have and express an opinion. "All Jews should be sterilized", he said, was the kind of opinion that was egregious and inexcusable. At that point, a student stormed out. I assumed it was some kind of free-speech defender, rushing out to fetch Noam Chomsky (who waits out in the car for just such an eventuality), but, no - it was a student convinced that Johnston had just asserted that Jews should be sterilized. Sarah Grunfeld immediately contacted a campus Israel advocacy group, and it immediately sent out news releases calling for his prompt dismissal. The best part of this whole story isn't that some poor man who'd really rather be thinking about your Self and its Culture and Society was plunged into controversy by way of a complete misunderstanding, but Grunfeld's response to being told that it was a complete misunderstanding: "The words, ‘Jews should be sterilized’ still came out of his mouth, so regardless of the context I still think that’s pretty serious.”Actually, Bachmann and Grunfeld have at least one thing in common: both failed to consider the larger context surrounding the words they heard (i.e. some stranger at a public event with an unsubstantiated story not supported by science in the first case, and quotation marks and total condemnation in the second). What's so wonderful and inspiring is that it's the listener who decides whether something should be believed in with no cause or denounced for no reason. I'm so inspired, I might just ambush Hudak after a debate and tell him cuts to social services cause Muskoka cottages to spontaneously burn down. After all, there's a good chance he's no smarter than a potential presidential candidate or York university undergraduate. 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 have just discovered I am claustrophobic. No - I'm not afraid of elevators, or of being trapped in some small space underground. I don't have to steer clear of closets or crawl-spaces. You see, I'm not actually suffering from the traditional form of the condition. I've been trying to come up with a name for what ails me, but I can't find anything either appropriate or catchy. "Psychological claustrophobia"? "Political claustrophobia"? I couldn't even scare up a pun.
What I'm trying to describe is this oppressive sense I have of being surrounded by people whose beliefs I do not share. The symptoms first popped up after Rob Ford was elected mayor of Toronto. They have became noticeably worse since Stephen Harper won a majority government.
So if claustrophobia is (according to Merriam-Webster) the "abnormal dread of being in closed or narrow spaces", what I'm stricken by is the "abnormal dread of being in the company of closed or narrow people". I know that being a warm-hearted, diversity-loving left-leaner means that I should respect other people, that I should try to understand other points of view and mentally embrace my adversaries. That kind of thing. But for the past few days, whenever I see people, I think: "Are you one of them? One of the stupid people I don't agree with and who voted for a Prime Minister who is going to put women who want to have abortions in mega-prisons?"
At some point, I'm sure I'll feel a renewed sense of the beautiful contradictions inherent in the Human Condition, and a renewed sense of smugness about how I'm able to sense all those beautiful contradictions. But right now, I just wish I could live in a place where everyone shared my beliefs. Why do they have to do all that hating of immigrants in Sweden? If it wasn't for all the racism in Sweden, I could totally live there.
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 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 not crazy: Torontonians could rise up against their democratically-elected government and demand democratic elections. 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.
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