Or, “The Real Reason We Left T.O.”.

When it comes up in conversation, Maria and I never shy again from a good Rob Ford joke. We tell people that he’s the real reason why we left Toronto, and some of the time, it feels very much like the truth.

Although they said it couldn’t be done, although they said he’d need the support of council—which he’d never get—and the support of the people of Toronto—which he’d never have enough of—he’s doing it. Rob Ford is nearly single-handedly dismantling the City of Toronto.

He’s blown through the city’s surpluses created by Mayor Miller, he’s repealed taxes and fees which are going to have to be replaced with funding cuts, he’s declared war on the city’s social services and programming, and he’s flipping the bird not just to cyclists and pedestrians, but to motorists too. What’s more, Doug Ford, the mayor’s equally erudite brother, claims to have never heard of Margaret Atwood, one of this country’s most celebrated authors, after she spoke out against Ford’s earlier comments about closing Toronto libraries. That is, Doug Ford thinks that since there are more libraries than Tim Horton’s stores in his Etobicoke neighbourhood, some of those libraries have got to go.

What the Fords are doing to Toronto is not surprising, I don’t think, to anyone. If anything what’s surprising is how easily they’re getting it all done. With the Fords in charge, politics in Toronto feels more like schoolyard wheeling-and-dealing than it does governance of the country’s most populated city.

But,  if anything, Rob Ford’s alleged middle finger salute and his brothers comments about Margaret Atwood aren’t atypical but are becoming the norm. That’s because politics in Toronto, and elsewhere, are seeing the rise of a new kind of anti-intellectualism. A second coming of the Dark Ages.

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While cleaning out the basement today, I listened through a three-part series on CBC Radio’s Ideas called Dogs Themselves.

It tackles the way we’ve perceived dogs in the past and how we perceive them today; myths and confusions about dogs; and all kinds of anecdotal as well as scientific advice on training and getting along with dogs.

The series is very interesting and I’d recommend it to anyone who owns a dog or is looking at adopting one into their family.

Link: Dogs Themselves

If you’ve had your head in the sand this week then maybe you’ve missed the Internet’s newest sensation: Rebecca Black.

Earlier this week her music video, “Friday,” went viral. Big time.

The YouTube video quickly garnered 12 million views in the course of just a few days and now she’s doing the talk show circuit. But what differentiates Black from other YouTube sensations like Canada’s own heart throb Justin Bieber (I prefer Dwight from The Office’s “Justice Beaver”) is the reason why she’s become so popular.

Unlike The Bieb, Black’s video isn’t growing in popularity because she’s a great singer—an undiscovered musical gem from a tiny little town in Ontario—it’s her completely over-the-top cheeseball of a music video, and lack of any semblance of musical talent. When I first saw the video which features, at several points, Black trying to decide which car seat to sit in—the front seat or the back seat?!—I wondered if this wasn’t an SNL Digital Short. It was ridiculous, playing up all kinds of stereotypes, complete with Rebecca’s constantly auto-tuned voice and some of the worst lyrics imaginable.

But apparently it’s for reals.

Doing some digging I found out that Rebecca Black was recruited by Ark Music Factory, a record label that puts out casting calls looking for the next Justin Bieber. Ark Music Factory finds young people, gives them the songs to sing, and then produces high quality videos to stick up on YouTube hoping to make it viral. Whether the song Black was given to sing was an honest effort by some pretty minimally-talented songwriters or whether the joke was on her all along, it’s hard to say but the result is priceless.

The fallout, however, has been anything but kind. The success of the video is based on its terribleness. Black has been criticized and made fun of and given the kind of treatment that only the Internet is capable of. Her fame hasn’t come from her talent but out of what’s now become an embarrassment for her—her fame is at her expense.

And for me, this whole episode begs a pretty interesting question for me: Are we bullying Rebecca Black?

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Maria picked up Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend off the non-fiction new releases rack at our library. She knows me so well.

It was a pretty good read, in a way. Through the course of the book, the author, an “independent scholar” with a fairly strange name, Joshua Blu Buhs, sets out to frame the legend of Bigfoot in terms of its larger societal impact. From the outset, this seemed like a pretty interesting idea. I’ve had an interest in Bigfoot since, I think, I discovered my own big feet (size 12, not bad) so a book about society and the Bigfoot monster seemed like something good to read. But it was, to be sure, a little bit too good to be true.

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