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Rob Ford's Toronto

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When this broke on Thursday last week, the first thing that came to mind was "finally something for Jon Stewart", so there you go. I'm enjoying our moment in the sun, gee thanks RF. Edit: I guess we know what the most popular Hallowe'en costume will be in Toronto this year.

On a more serious note I am waiting to see if there is a leader in City Council who can initiate some - any - sort of motion of censure against the mayor. The silence on the issue is damaging. And so I wonder now, who is such a leader? Perhaps Matlow?

On the bright side, there now is no reason for RF to stick around. So, shy of an official censure in council (if such things are possible) then I would recommend shunning the mayor in council, that may accomplish something, because it would reinforce to the public that RF has lost any respect and / or authority that he may have had before the tape's existence was known. Or is it more appropriate to hand RF more rope?
 
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Quick question that came up as we talked about this last night with some friends........has any other Toronto/Canadian media outlet acknowledged even being approached by the video owner to purchase it? The guy who raised the question noted that all the other media outlets when they report on this note that they have not seen the video and cannot verify any of the details of the story. He wondered why none of them can't even say something like "when were approached we declined the opportunity to view the video"....or words to that effect. His point was, if profit is the motive of the video owner you would have thought the best approach would have been to say to the Star "here's the price and you better not take too long thinking about this because Global/CTV/G&M are looking real keen".

Any idea?
 
you would have thought the best approach would have been to say to the Star "here's the price and you better not take too long thinking about this because Global/CTV/G&M are looking real keen".
There is no way that any of those outlets would pay that much for the recording, and I would bet that most of them have policies against paying at all (or at least anything beyond a nominal amount) for any news source -- that gets into very murky journalistic ethics waters. All the outlets listed, including the Star, would be tainted if they paid that amount for any kind of news.

The reason Gawker can get away with paying is that it is essentially an online tabloid, a digital gossip rag.
 
Quick question that came up as we talked about this last night with some friends........has any other Toronto/Canadian media outlet acknowledged even being approached by the video owner to purchase it? The guy who raised the question noted that all the other media outlets when they report on this note that they have not seen the video and cannot verify any of the details of the story. He wondered why none of them can't even say something like "when were approached we declined the opportunity to view the video"....or words to that effect. His point was, if profit is the motive of the video owner you would have thought the best approach would have been to say to the Star "here's the price and you better not take too long thinking about this because Global/CTV/G&M are looking real keen".

Any idea?

I believe AM 1010 said they were approached, but declined.
 
Back to the campaign, there was a major boost to the goal today. We're now at $105K. That's $95K to go with 6 days left. With the goal in sight, many of those who donated larger sums are often willing to put in more to see the goal reached. We've passed the hump so it's suddenly looking like a very credible campaign which is likely to attract a pack mentality: "Hey, I want to be a part of this winning thing!". I'd love to see the insurance of that $50K in the next couple of days, but I'm becoming increasingly confident that the goal will be reached -- with a large number of people rather than a few deep pocketed donors -- and that we'll be seeing the video next week if it doesn't get leaked before then.

I would be curious to see who the donors are, and how many are from Toronto.

suprised at how many 200 donors there are (50) I would guess those individuals to be heavily vested in the next mayoral campaign.
 
voxpopulicosmicum, I would hardly call Gawker "sainted and blessed" -- it's a pretty sleazy outfit that just happens in this particular instance to have its interests coincide with the good.
 
There is no way that any of those outlets would pay that much for the recording, and I would bet that most of them have policies against paying at all (or at least anything beyond a nominal amount) for any news source -- that gets into very murky journalistic ethics waters. All the outlets listed, including the Star, would be tainted if they paid that amount for any kind of news.

The reason Gawker can get away with paying is that it is essentially an online tabloid, a digital gossip rag.

I get what you are saying but the vendor of the video would not, surely, have known the editorial policies of the other outlets would they? You would think their best approach to get someone to pay for it would be to create the feeling that everyone was considering it.

I guess drug dealers/video blackmailers are not astute businessmen ;)
 
voxpopulicosmicum, I would hardly call Gawker "sainted and blessed" -- it's a pretty sleazy outfit that just happens in this particular instance to have its interests coincide with the good.

They may not be well-liked, but they have a pretty decent track record of breaking these sorts of high-profile scandals as with Manti Teo.
 
suprised at how many 200 donors there are (50) I would guess those individuals to be heavily vested in the next mayoral campaign.

Those are the 50 who claimed the perk. There are many many more who didn't claim it. 200 seems to be a popular number here.

An armchair analysis on the goal: it's moving quickly again this morning. I'm going to suggest that it might very well hit $110,000 by lunch. With that up on the board, I imagine a lot of those sitting on the fence finally jumping in. It's been shown that people want to belong to a winning movement and a number approaching the finishing line has all the indicators of winning. It happens in elections and it's happened in other high profile crowd sourcing campaigns. This is going to accelerate though if just the pace that was seen yesterday only continues stable, then we'll be looking at $120K by the end of today.
 
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Tell that to Marion Barry

Did Marion Barry come with an evil twin, a conflict of interest charge, read while driving, own a multi-million dollar company, never show up for work, hide from the media, flip a child the bird, go on a public diet then get spotted at KFC, say Orientals are taking over, vote against everything, get into drunken fights in public, get charged for a DUI and lie about it, try to buy his way out of a drug possession charge, oh god, I could go on and on but I won't. The answer is no. This new drug scandal is just the latest of a long line of incidents, that make our mayor so colourful. It's like an episode of Honey Boo Boo, except the main star is an adult, (OK, more like a man/child) and unfortunately, he's one of us. I would not be surprised if a movie of the week is made about Ford and his whole EtobiCOKE, hillbilly clan. (including his sister's drug dealing boyfriend/exboyfriend)

It's just too f**ked up to be real, and yet it is, all too real. (and the good part is just beginning) We all know, this is not the end of the antics.

I'm sorry but you just can't make this s**t up.
 
voxpopulicosmicum, I would hardly call Gawker "sainted and blessed" -- it's a pretty sleazy outfit that just happens in this particular instance to have its interests coincide with the good.

I was being hyperbolic, and I agree with your assessment. But, to my mind, Gawker could make some pretty glaring errors from here on in and I would be willing to forgive them based on the public service they have done for us.

EDIT -- By "glaring errors" I mean honest mistakes, rather than dishonest acts of, for example, a hypocritical idiot crackhead or an idiot who would vote for or support a hypocritical idiot crackhead.
 
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And the Kimmel Ford crack bit from last night's monologue.

[video=youtube;BjZpoRsJYTc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjZpoRsJYTc[/video]

Too bad SNL just finished it's season this past weekend or we would've been on Weekend Update for sure.
 
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