Mayoral Mistakes, Civic Stupidity, NHL Bedlam & More...

I expected more of you then this.....WAKE UP MAN!!!

I would love to know what the advisers of Mayor Rob Ford are doing. If he has them. And if he does, they should be fired. If he doesn't then Mayor Ford is making a massive mistake right now in failing to address the exact same issue he screwed up royally last summer. What am I talking about? The Gay Pride Parade.

Now, if anyone knows me well, you know I think this is a stupid parade that singles out one segment of the population and makes a spectacle of the city (and I don't mean that in a good sense). Where is the straight pride parade? What about the Black Pride Parade or the Asian Pride Parade? For that matter, why don't we have a parade every weekend of the summer for every single ethnicity in the city? Why? Because its not necessary. But that's not the point of this rant today.

Mayor Ford last year could have skipped the parade without any fanfare had he attended other events of Pride week. His personal feelings (and/or predjudices) should not be on public display like this. He really should know better then to be this transparent with his disdain of Pride events. He is the Mayor of the largest city in the country (which also has the 4th highest openly gay population in North America) and, like it or not, he has to be present for SOMETHING which pertains to events taking place that week. You would think he has someone telling him that there are a significant number of gay voters to whom he needs to, at the very least, maintain the peace with in order to try and coax them to vote for him in the next civic election.

The fact that he has already come out and said he will not be at the parade (which is 2 months away mind you) shows you that he simply does not understand the scope of his role as Mayor. You don't have to like everyone, that's actually impossible to do as a human being. There are always going to be people that you just don't like, for whatever reason. Showing yourself to be this much of a homophobic person just undermines his credibility with everyone. As a person, he is allowed to not like someone. As Mayor, if he ever wanted to win his re-election campaign, he just couldn't be this obvious. This tells me he either doesn't have real PR person that he can rely on, doesn't listen to one if he has one or, he just doesn't have one.

You are entitled to your views but as Mayor you have to suppress them a bit more, especially if 

you want to KEEP your job when re-election time comes around...

All of this of course just adds fuel for his critics to continue to roast him. Maybe its all the constant jokes he is taking in the media over his weight, his dietary failures or even how he is being stalked by anyone with a smartphone that have finally made him snap to the point where he purposely is provoking more unnecessary attention to himself and actually wants to create more controversy by saying things like this. It's just a stupid thing to do and someone needs to have a heart to heart with Mayor Ford and explain to him the finer points of finding a way of keeping yourself in office.

This leads me to another city with some idiotic people at the helm. The city of Mississauga has had the longest serving Mayor in North America in Mayor Hazel MacCallion. She has been at the helm of the city my entire life (since 1978) and has done an amazing job as Mayor. Unfortunately, some of the department heads in charge of various city departments are incompetent asses who would rather spit in the face of people with whom the city has had a long standing relationship and be adversarial then to actually have a strong, mutually beneficial and prosperous one with them. Let me explain.

 You would think the city would appreciate when a field is respected...

I can't get into specific details about what has happened but I will spill the beans on what I have been told. I play in an adult men's baseball league in the city that has been around for nearly 40 years. As with many of the other baseball leagues (kids associations mostly) its a scramble to secure permits to certain fields around the city. However, given the way in which the members of our league have conducted ourselves over the years, the head of baseball field maintenance for the city has always (and continues) to support our use of the best baseball diamond in the city, located in the North end of the city, by Derry and Mississauga Road.

 All it takes is one jerk to give a city department a bad name.....no respect left in this world for anyone

We have always treated fields with the utmost respect and adhere to every request the city has made of us about when we can or can't be on the field, maintenance schedules. etc. At the same time, one of the more arrogant Minor Baseball associations in the City (At least when I was a kid they were and, given how long they have been trying to take our field away from us thinking they are "entitled" to it, I stand by my claim) has had several of the newer fields in the city and totally destroyed them. Their lack of respect for the fields they use has cost the city thousands of dollars in repairs over the years while we have, as an organization, gone out of our way to add things to Meadovale Park in an attempt to beautify it and keep it looking like the best diamond in the city.

The end result has been that heading into this year, our longstanding good relationship has been flushed down the toilet by the head of Parks and Rec who essentially told the leadership of our league that we no longer have the diamond we have taken care of well for years and will be forced to use other, lesser diamonds while paying the same in terms of permit fees. Apparently this prick went so far as to take an aggressive and negative stand towards our league by saying that he will put us on the worst diamonds in the city and like it because he said so.

Now,  I wasn't there but the sources from which I heard this from have no reason to lie about this situation. What I do know is that for years baseball has been taking a back seat in this city as there have been a ton of soccer fields built at times at the expense of baseball diamonds (Huron Park used to have a softball diamond and a full sized diamond which was replaced by 2 soccer fields). At a time when adult baseball is exploding in other cities like Brampton (Which has built 8 new diamonds in the last 5 years), Milton and Burlington (each with their own growing leagues), the city of Mississauga is languishing behind not only in diamond creation but also in their people skills as exhibited by their Parks and Rec staff. Its a shame that our entire 15 team league, and all of their diamond fees, may end up having to go to another, more accommodating city because of one jerk.

This series has been amazing...

I don't know about you but I just can't stop watching the Penguins and Flyers Stanley Cup Playoff First Round match up. It's just been incredible. It has had everything from fights, great goals (many), great saves (few and far in between), heavy hits, cheap shots, all 4 goalies have played, a record for most goals ever scored in the first 4 games of a playoff series, anger, hate, contempt, crazy comebacks, suspensions, whining, bad officiating, coaches being fined....is there anything I missed? I mean WOW!!! No wonder the NHL made sure the officials called everything they possibly could against the Flyers last night, ensuring that this series (A HUGE ratings success so far) continues into the weekend.

 If Raffi Torres and the Coyotes advance after his cheap shot on Hossa, it's called a fix...

The playoffs so far have been just great theater so far. The stories that have been emerging so far have been mesmerizing. From Sidney Crosby losing his cool (and his team on the verge of an embarrassing first round sweep before last night) to the craziness that was Games 2 and 3 in that series, to the Vancouver Canucks almost becoming the first top seeded team in the league to be swept out of the playoffs by the #8 seeded LA Kings (who will finish the job tomorrow night). Then there is the plucky Ottawa Senators battling tooth and nail with the heavily favoured New York Rangers and winning last night in OT despite missing their Captain from the lineup (after he suffered a concussion at the hands of s cheap shot elbow to the head).

 This hit earned Haglan a 3 game suspension....How many games should Alfie have gotten for his hit on Tucker in 2002? Hmmmmm....It's called Karma Alfie....ain't it a BITCH!!!

Washington is standing toe to toe with the mighty Boston Bruins (with both of their top goalies out, having rookie Braydon Hotlby standing on his head), Chicago looks like it's getting royally screwed by the league both in non-calls by officials (I can't believe how bad the officials have been in this series....Its almost as if the league owns the Coyotes......oh yeah, THEY DO!!!)  The only "boring" series so far (if you can call them that) have still featured some high scoring games (the Devils and Panthers?!?! Really? Brodeur looks like he is done) and some drama (OT Winner by Marty Havlat of the Sharks over the Blues in Game 1 and then in Game 2, Jaro Halak gets hurt and in comes Brian Elliot to the rescue....A super back up who had 9 (!?!?!?!) shutouts this season in his 21 wins).

If you can't love the game of hockey after the insanity that is on display in the last 9 days, then you will NEVER love this game. Its been fierce, intense, gripping, emotionally draining, heart-wrenching and enthralling all at the same time!!! There is nothing that you could possibly want more in sport that unpredictability. Life would be boring if everything went according to plan all the time and there wasn't a wrench thrown into the plans every now and then. That's what we are seeing here in the NHL playoffs. Something we won't see in the NBA playoffs, set to begin in the next 2 weeks. It's pretty much a given that only one of 4 teams will win the NBA Title this year; LA, Oklahoma, San Antonio or Miami. And that's about it (yes I know LA has 2 teams, so technically I am cheating by saying only "LA" but this is mky blog so I will stick to that call anyway...too bad!)

The fact that 2 of the early favorites to win the Stanley Cup (Vancouver and Pittsburgh) were almost swept in the first round goes to show you that hockey is unpredictable. A hot goalie (or stone cold like Marc-Andre Fleury was for the first 3 games of that series) can determine a series all by himself. In Basketball, star power makes the biggest difference and who the League wants to have advance because the officials play
WAY to big a role in the final outcome. Easy to see why I like hockey better then basketball when you start to see that basketball is slowly morphing more and more into the WWE-style sport than it is an actual sport determined by actual competition.

I thought this was the perfect picture...Mr. Mulcair has a lot of work ahead of him to keep 

Mr. Layton's Vision for Canada alive and carve out one of his own over the next few years....

Thomas Mulcair has been elected as the new leader of the Federal NDP and official head of the opposition party in Federal politics. Congratulations Mr. Mulcair, you have large shoes to fill in those left by Mr. Layton but I don't get your commercials. I understand introducing yourself to the population but one of the actors in the commercial makes it sound as if you are the "one person" who can take on "Stephen Harper". First, you should show some respect and at all times refer to Mr. Harper as the Prime Minister. He has been for 6 years and has earned that title, whether you like it or not. Mr. Layton, while he disagreed with the Prime Minister on a vast array of topics, at least maintained a semblance of decorum in referring to the Mr. Harper by his proper title.

Secondly, you are not going to be "taking him on" like its a 1-on-1 fight to the death or something. You are leader of the opposition at a time when the ruling party, the Conservatives, have a Majority. That means that essentially, your role will be to act like a little Chihuahua, nipping at the heels of the big boys as the Prime Minister and his cabinet make the big decisions, many of which you may not agree with. Your job will be to voice your disapproval of just about everything he does (because despite being the last country into the great recession and the first one to come out, you have to complain about the Prime Minister just to be cool nowadays).

What you SHOULD be doing Mr. Mulcair, is trying to solidify the gains made by Mr. Layton in the last election and keeping the Liberals down in 3rd party status. You should be doing everything you can to grow your popularity all over the country, not just in Quebec where your party was able to gain an astounding 59 seats.The NDP needs to maintain their hold on being the new centrist party by appealing to people from all walks of life and not slipping back into the shadowy edges from which they had been idly drifting along in for decades.

Good luck Mr. Mulcair, you have a difficult task ahead of you. I am sure that Mr. Layton, wherever he is now, will be pulling for you to continue with his vision of Canada but you have to also find your own ideals and use your strengths as well. It will be an interesting time for your party over the next 3 years.


We are in for an interesting few years in Federal Politics. We could have also seen a resurgence in the NDP in Ontario had Andrea Horwath had the balls to bring the Provincial Government down next week. Apparently she isn't nearly the political leader some people thought she was as she is going to prop up Dalton McLiar and keep him in power without getting nearly the guarantees she sought in her requests from the Liberal Party. She is going to keep this perpetual and habitual liar in office, knowing full well he is going to screw teachers, doctors and all kinds of other unionized workers with his unfair wage freeze requests (not those of Docs, they make a shit load o money as it is, they don't need more of it). I hope she remembers this when she wonders aloud why she is the 3rd party in Ontario.

Until next time....