Denial and Notoriety

Are they delusional? Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's popularity level was said to have risen, not fallen, while his world is collapsing around him and he denies having done anything - much - extraordinary, let alone inimical to his continuing in his self-declared beloved role as mayor of Canada's largest city. Their mayor's record, these die-hard Ford-nation stalwarts aver passionately, has been exemplary as a man elected to represent the little people of the city.

City of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford leaves his office for the day in Toronto on Friday, Nov. 8, 2013. Nathan Denette The Canadian Press
 

As for the understanding that the mayor's popularity lies among the lower classes, the outer-outer suburbs of the city, the immigrant quotient, the disaffected, right-wingers and the forlorn, letters of support have come from some of those living in upscale parts of Toronto, women included, claiming to be fed up with the kind of left-wing politics that have drained them of patience and prosperity.

"I've mentioned to Rob, maybe go away for a week, a couple of weeks, get your mind together. If Rob goes away on a little vacation, a week, two weeks, comes back, Rob loses 50 - 60 pounds, stays on the straight and narrow because he's a good, good man, he's an honest man, and he moves forward it would be tough -- John Tory Karen Stintz, Olivia Chow -- it'd be tough to beat Rob Ford."
"Rob hasn't been honest with himself and the people about his personal issues for many reasons."
Doug Ford, Toronto City Councillor

Mayor Ford's older, protective brother has raised a plaintive voice for understanding for his brother's dilemma -- only human, after all, just temporarily lost his balance, needing a chance to recuperate, find his way back to himself -- and his competitors for the position of Mayor of Toronto, all three champing at the bit to replace him, wouldn't stand a chance with the majority of voters. 

As he has it, with the prospect he envisions of a new, more svelte, remade, refreshed Rob Ford. Mayor Ford's mother is in deep anguish over the pain her son is experiencing. Doesn't anyone care?

On the contrary, everyone seems to care. Politely, considerately, and often quite hypocritically recommending he withdraw from the morass he has stumbled into, for the good of his mental and physical health, and just incidentally for the health of the city, and overmore, the health of those who aspire to replace him with a mindset more representative of how the city imagines itself.

Mind, they care that this giant of Toronto politics has impaled himself on a disemboweling sword of self-afflicted misery. His "drunken stupors" when he was unaware that he was stumbling about, cursing, threatening, using crack cocaine and consorting with riffraff from the city's inner tracts of subsidized housing where drug running represents a way of life and crack cocaine a temporary escape from that life, have garnered him international attention, and Toronto has picked up a new reputation.

Taking videos of Rob Ford when he is insensible to his situation and dignity and the gravitas of his position has fled the scene has proven to be lethal to at least one of those who posed with him. And now the revelation that competing drug gangs might have indulged in a bit of a power war, one doubtless claiming the support of the mayor's office, the other slighted and setting out to wreak vengeance.

What else could conceivably erupt out of the volcano of new and ever more startling revelations? Just asking; curious like everyone else. Curious that someone invested with the intrinsic ethical standards of Canada's federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, has shed a sincere tear of compassion for an old family friend.