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Whatever Ford is might be perfectly appropriate and even valued if Etobicoke had been grafted onto Mississauga, for instance. But creating a voting majority of surburbanites like him to impose on the real Toronto was a political malfeasance of the first order. I’m not interested in Ford except as an almost cartoonish Harris Tory revenge on a city that would never vote Tory.

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Yours is an interesting take on that situation, Mr. Keenan.

Are you forgetting that Councillor Parker’s involvement in returning Jarvis Street to its again more dangerous, 1957-designed, five narrow-laned configuration, began with his late “stealth” motion – which not only effectively silenced any public input, but also muzzled taxpayer-funded expert transportation staff opinion regarding attendant street-level safety implications – at the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee (PWIC)?

You may also not be aware that repeated calls to the Councillor’s office (following the PWIC’s subsequent majority – Minnan-Wong, Shiner, Grimes and again, Parker – vote to recommend that City Council rescind its approval of the Jarvis bike lanes) to discuss, as you so wisely suggest, the citizen-safety ramifications of said Committee members’ purely partisan-guided collusion, were ignored.

But don’t take my word for it.

Why not do a little more journalistic homework and ask – in this case, Parker’s assistant, Ishrath Velshi – about the stonewalling Councillor’s refusal to “have a debate” on the subject before spreading your own ill-informed, and here so misguided, opinions on the pages of this sadly still-struggling little “news”paper.

Those of us who daily face the physical threat that current City Hall corruption continues foster on our streets, have no need – nor desire – to “create cartoonishly evil straw men” when so many real villains, and their apologists, exist, eh Eddy?

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It’s an asinine belief, but Keenan is right that it’s different from out-and-out wanting to destroy the city.

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The way I see it, Rob Ford is unable to wrap his head around the needs or concerns or even the existence of anyone he doesn’t personally know, or anyone who does not share his interests. That’s why he thanked “everyone in Toronto” for supporting him through his appeal in the Magder case; his opponents don’t exist, they’re a lie. That’s why underprivileged kids of colour playing football in Rexdale mean something to him, while underprivileged kids of colour playing basketball in Malvern are “thugs.” That’s why he feels entitled to special city-paid services for his football team and his family business. They are real, and the rest of us — the riders of TTC buses, the beneficiaries of other city projects — are not real, and when other people suggest that those people and their needs ARE real, he reacts with anger and insults.

If we elected a four-year-old mayor who demanded unlimited free candy, I wouldn’t say that child was trying to give everyone malnutrition and tooth decay; but neither would I expect to have a meaningful debate about it with him or her. There are many right-wingers who are worth debating. Rob Ford isn’t one of them.

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Local level neo-conservatives in the US have largely moved away from the “put them in jail and let them rot” approach.

The idea that its only the left that listens is a myth.

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