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Rob Ford's Toronto

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dt_toronto_geek said:
I figured it would happen eventually, but something more in line with perhaps a few books or a documentary after all was said & done. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rob Ford TV Show - http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/08/13/rob-ford-tv-show-crowd-funder_n_3748487.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
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It's not a show about Rob Ford. It's a crowdfunding show prompted by the popularity of the Crackstarter campaign. The show will pitch ideas that people can crowd fund, sort of like Dragon's Den.

However, I'm sure that a Rob Ford movie or tv movie isn't far. There are probably a few versions in the works but his story isn't over yet.
 
somuchwater said:
Hey, you're free to do whatever you want. But if you want to suggest that around 380,000 Torontonians are stupid, well... it's a bit ironic, isn't it? It's not an intellectually sound position to take. It's just emotional, knee-jerk posturing.
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379,999. My friend who voted for Ford, given his fiscal conservatism and ignoring his antics, has publicly apologized to me for making light of my warning that it was the worst mistake of his voting life.
 
BTW, SMW, I don't suggest 380,000 Torontonians were stupid. However, anyone that continues to support him today, after years of insane antics, deserves to be questioned as to why they cannot admit their mistake. To say that he's been good, in any way, shape, or form, for Toronto is to deliberately ignore the damage he's done.
 
OSS 117 said:
Okay, here's the thing. First we have to agree on a definition of stupidity. You don't seem to think it exists outside of as an insult to call someone. I just use it as a definition of someone who is either willfully ignorant or unable to process information. You can trade stupid for a less inflammatory word if you want. I suppose it is harsh. But if you want to make it simple and just look at the I.Q. rates, well, as I said before 3.6% of the population of the United States is mentally challenged, so it's probably roughly about the same here. And 75% of the population of the United States has an I.Q. below 110, putting them in the category of average or below average. I don't want to get into the thing of whether or not an I.Q. test is a true indication of intelligence, I'm just using it as an example. If 75% is average or below, that means 25% is above. If 25% is above, it's probably likely that roughly 25% is below, with the 50% in the middle being average.

So, taking out the inflammatory word "stupid" and replacing it with "below average intelligence", yes, I'm pretty comfortable suggesting that at least 20% of the population is of below average intelligence. Now I'm not saying all of that 20-25% voted for Rob Ford, but given the evidence I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a good chunk did.
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I would also be comfortable suggesting that 20% of people are below average intelligence, but mostly because I know what the word 'tautology' means... (Seriously, think about that for a second).

But here's what you're doing: you're setting up an entirely arbitrary, perfectly contestable standard by which you measure 'intelligence'--in this case, whether or not someone voted for Ford--and then simply saying that those people are 'unintelligent'. Here's what's wrong with that: 1) It assumes that the only reasons someone would be willing to vote for Ford are either stupidity or spite, which is totally false; democracy is always about choosing the candidate who best represents as many of your interests as possible, but not all. Maybe many people simply felt like Ford best represented what they wanted and absolutely no-one in the press or the public sphere ever explained why Ford's policies were mostly crap; 2) to assume that the only two options are 'informed voters' and 'stupid ignoramuses' is to grossly oversimplify not only the mechanisms and context within which public opinion is formed, it also overstates the extent to which people are in fact informed voters. Many people on UT who are way more informed than the average person also make mistakes about things like transit policy, taxation, budgeting etc. It's simply naive to assume that broad swaths of voters are equipped to deal with the details of policy, a fact which is a result of structural issues - education, poverty, the state of media - not just simple ignorance posited as a unique quality that somehow exists outside of a socio-historical context, free floating like a magic spell.

Maybe more to the point, though - what is the voter turnout amongst the mentally challenged? You're just eager to blame ordinary people, rather than the structures of power that enabled Ford - at which point, you may as well just vote for Ford or some other 'fiscal conservative' who just sides with the power of the establishment and the status quo.
 
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And so, let me repost this from yesterday...

adma said:
Anti-Ford Nation

motel6m9b.jpg


Ford Nation

motel6a11.jpg


Is that a "classist" knock?
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...and may I offer this to those of you antsy about the references to diehard-to-the-end Ford supporters as "stupid". It's like being antsy about those who'd defend this kind of reno hack job being labelled "stupid"--like, you know, it's their property, it's their right to do what they want with it, and we should shush up all urban aesthetic criticism because it's like force-feeding holier-than-thou elitism.

Well, I can understand the *legalistics* behind it's-within-their-right, just as I can understand the legalistics behind the inability to simply remove Ford from office. But anywhere beyond the legalistics issue...well, look at it this way: if you're going to defend this kind of stuff on urban/aesthetic grounds (even in veiled terms of "all aesthetics is subjective") in any of the design/construction-related UT threads, expect to be horselaughed if not altogether horsewhipped out of the joint.

So, consider that when you're defending Ford.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
I feel like this thread has been hijacked and has taken a turn for the worse.
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My apologies, I'll stop. I feel like it's really important to complicate the simplistic right/wrong, black/white, smart/stupid dichotomies that are being used here, but I don't want to threadjack either.

Here's hoping that either the tape comes out and Ford quits/is pushed out and gets help, or that a compelling progressive candidate can become a force in the next election.
 
somuchwater said:
My apologies, I'll stop. I feel like it's really important to complicate the simplistic right/wrong, black/white, smart/stupid dichotomies that are being used here, but I don't want to threadjack either.

Here's hoping that either the tape comes out and Ford quits/is pushed out and gets help, or that a compelling progressive candidate can become a force in the next election.
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I wasn't specifically targeting anyone with my comments. Just a general observation.
 
TheTigerMaster said:
I feel like this thread has been hijacked and has taken a turn for the worse.
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On the contrary, history has just been made. This is officially the first UT thread to reach rarefied air and go beyond a 10/10 rating!

[video=youtube;EbVKWCpNFhY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbVKWCpNFhY[/video]
 
adma said:
And so, let me repost this from yesterday...



...and may I offer this to those of you antsy about the references to diehard-to-the-end Ford supporters as "stupid". It's like being antsy about those who'd defend this kind of reno hack job being labelled "stupid"--like, you know, it's their property, it's their right to do what they want with it, and we should shush up all urban aesthetic criticism because it's like force-feeding holier-than-thou elitism..
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To expand upon your analogy - if the defaced building shown above represents Rob Ford - I would suggest to you that George Smitherman was the equivalent of a nuclear waste dump. I suspect most of us who voted for Ford did so because he represented the lesser evil. Considering all options it was better to live next door this EIFIS clad monstrosity than live next door to a nuclear waste dump. Given the same choices I would vote for Ford again even knowing what I know about the man now. Hopefully next time around we have better choices but I will say right now if it becomes a race between Ford and Chow - Ford has my vote again!
 
Peepers said:
To expand upon your analogy - if the defaced building shown above represents Rob Ford - I would suggest to you that George Smitherman was the equivalent of a nuclear waste dump. I suspect most of us who voted for Ford did so because he represented the lesser evil. Considering all options it was better to live next door this EIFIS clad monstrosity than live next door to a nuclear waste dump. Given the same choices I would vote for Ford again even knowing what I know about the man now. Hopefully next time around we have better choices but I will say right now if it becomes a race between Ford and Chow - Ford has my vote again!
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What is it about Chow that would drive you to vote for Ford again? She's tough, politically savvy, well connected, was a former City Councillor, is a strong supporter of transit, she works well with those "across the aisle" and would represent the city better than Rob Ford any day. She's smart too.
 
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