Well, today’s his birthday, so that’s a good place to start. He turns 59 today, something to genuinely celebrate given the history of one of Toronto’s perennially peripheral figures.

Originally from England, in the early 80s Clarke suddenly found himself unemployed and decided to found the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, a group both vilified and praised for standing up for, or claiming to stand up for, the city’s poor.

Clarke doesn’t mince words or shy away from controversy, often staging demonstrations, sit-ins, and occupations to drive his message. He’s had run-ins with cops, politicians, and even the media aren’t particularly fond of him. Basically, he’s not in it for the popularity.

Although he’s not homeless, Clarke somehow manages to raise a family of two kids and a wife on a budget that verges on poverty. Prior to 1986, Clarke’s biggest investment was a vehicle — a 1980 Lada.

Clarke doesn’t like the word Marxist and instead prefers to call himself a socialist. Personally, I think the title of bellicose advocate for the poor is probably more appropriate– it’s certainly been his raison d’être.

And at the end of the day, even if you disagree with Clarke or his methods, you have to admire the man’s tenacity and willingness to stand up for justice. If the world only had more men like that in it, we’d all be leading much better lives.

Happy birthday, John.

You might be tempted to think that Ford is all about the populism (and being re-elected), what with his sticking fridge magnets on cars outside of an Etobicoke meeting and all. Or maybe he’s about SUBWAYS SUBWAYS SUBWAYS! Maybe it’s still about cutting the gravy at city hall?

Well, you’d be right to think that, but what our illustrious mayor is gunning for now is conservation of the beloved strip malls of his beloved Etobicoke; maybe even elsewhere.

To quote:

You can’t be tearing down this stuff, this is not downtown. This is Etobicoke … Personally speaking, I don’t support changing anything.

Ah yes, only Toronto is for tearing down. It’s not for such vast, beautiful, sweeping vistas as the Humbertown Shopping Centre.

No wonder Robbie doesn’t want such a marvel to be tossed aside like so much outsourced garbage:

But obviously, nothing is going to fly. So, if they want to propose something, an alternative, I’ll support the community. I support the taxpayers. What the taxpayers want, I’ll support.

Interestingly, the same meeting that Rob ran out of in order to put magnets on cars was the same one at which he made these statements.

David Price, Ford’s former high school football coach and his recently named director of operations and logistics, stood between Rob and reporters after the mayor said he would take no more questions, chuckling at the thought of Ford attending the taxpayers’ meeting:

I found it interesting to read what Peter Worthington’s final thoughts were about the paper he helped to found in his auto-obituary:

Of course, there is the Toronto Sun, which was never as good a newspaper as it could have been, but which was always a fun place to work, with good people who seemed to be forever being replaced by other good people.

The Sun was always pretty tolerant of me and, I must say, I was pretty tolerant of it from time to time. We both served each other’s purpose.

Not great, high turnover, and a necessary evil — or am I reading that wrong?

You must know me by now, I’m not exactly what you’d call fond of the Toronto Sun. But I guess it must fill some void out there because it’s managed to stay alive since 1971, and credit for that certainly must lie with Peter Worthington, the paper’s founding editor.

Worthington died from staph complications today, and although I’d probably have nothing polite to say to him (despite him occasionally being right on the money), you gotta give it to the man — he gnarled on that conservative bone until there was nothing left.

It’s been about 6 months now and Rob Ford has not yet responded to allegations that he’s taken control of City of Toronto correspondence by updating the wording at the bottom of City Hall press releases to make Toronto seem like a vigorous young suburb rather than the place you’d want to come to.

Under Miller

• Toronto is Canada’s largest city and sixth largest government, and home to a diverse population of about 2.6 million people. It is the economic engine of Canada and one of the greenest and most creative cities in North America. Toronto has won numerous awards for quality, innovation and efficiency in delivering public services. Toronto’s government is dedicated to prosperity, opportunity and liveability for all its residents. For information about non-emergency City services and programs, Toronto residents, businesses and visitors can dial 311, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

He did manage to kill the bike lockers, so that probably left old Robbie emboldened to try yet another City Hall renovation change. This time around he wanted to make the pool in front of City Hall a wading pool. But that didn’t entirely go over.

On the bright side, Rob called yesterday’s TTC transit debate defeat (or almost) “one of the greatest days in Toronto history”. A city stuck in gridlock, a fool for a mayor, and no way to fund transit — that’s a grand day indeed!

Whenever we can afford to, Sarah and me like to try out a new place to see how well it sits with our delicate culinary sensibilities.

And, truth be told, we are actually pretty snobby about food. Now that I’m thinking about it, we’re fairly uptight about our drink too.

And for good reason, I figure — now matter where you go, you’re paying for what you get, so why not get the best deal for your money?

When it comes to food, cheapest is hardly the best, but neither is the most expensive. It’s those in-between gems that manage to put together a tasty, filling meal at a great price that we focus on — sensible satiety.

Every once in a while we manage to get a few words in with the owner, or the head chef, or whoever has just delivered a meal worth writing about. Most of the time, though, we sit back unmolested and are thus able to bring you genuine reviews.

Hence the new link at the top of the site ↑↑↑

Just not all the time, cuz that gets expensive.

I think if you’re going to watch the Hindenburg that is our country go up in a blazing ball of glory, it should at least be against a backdrop.

Maybe on a base of that special ruddy blush of our country’s French province, Quebec. Oh, they’re probably not implicated, but whoever it is thought it was clever to use the name Pierre Poutine. And Quebec doesn’t much care for Conservatives.

Nevertheless, it’s a pretty massive breach of electoral rules, and it basically makes the Harper government illegitimate. Little wonder they’re in no hurry to get to the bottom of things.

Oh, they’ll go after Joe Everydude before you can bat an eyelash, but then they turn around and “misplace” $3 billion dollars, and it’s basically just “oops!”

Harper had this to say:

The auditor general himself said today this has nothing to do with improper use of government money . . . There is some lack of clarity. The auditor general has made some suggestions on how we can be more clear in our tracking in the future.

So, basically, nothing’s wrong here, we just need to tweak a few (billion) things.

The audit people were in lock-step with the Prime Minister:

… audit officials chalk up the discrepancy to lax bookkeeping. The audit suggests several scenarios for what may have happened: the funding may have lapsed and never been spent; or it may have been spent on anti-terror efforts but reported as other program spending; or it may have been spent on program unrelated to security.

Basically, the money could have gone anywhere and been spent on literally anything.

The (Harper-appointed) auditor concluded:

We didn’t find anything that gave us cause for concern that the money was used in any way that it should not have been,

Nothing to see here!

That massive pile of cash that could’ve helped to pay for things like Toronto transit … better that that money just disappear and no, you aren’t allowed to ask any questions. Heil Harper!

Just a few high-def old maps I pilfered from around the web.

Download the whole pack here (caution, it’s 122 MB): http://www.torontocitylife.com/downloads/Toronto_Historic_Maps_HD.zip

Doug Ford didn’t like that TTC Chair Karen Stintz had some things to say about streetcars while visiting Cincinnati:

“She’s making it sound like everyone in Toronto loves streetcars. That’s how she’s making it sound, that everyone is Gung ho and it is the total opposite. The mayor won with a clear mandate from the people of Toronto to build subways and she’s gone, in my opinion, and sold a bill of goods that is inaccurate in my opinion.”

Of course, Dougie is fully entitled to his opinion, but based on the abject failures that comprise his own brother’s travels  (still waiting on all those Chicago jobs!), you’d think he might temper his criticism a bit.

But then again, these are the Fords we’re talking about and they aren’t really about “subways, subways, subways!”, or “casino, casino, casino!”, they’re about getting and retaining flunkies who will toe their line on any old issue they pull out of their ass. And, being the Fords, the naturally believe that women make the most natural and passive of subservient flunkies.

That’s not just the vitriol they hurl at Karen Stintz that tells me that; Lauren Strapagiel of Canada.com recently took up Robbie’s offer to teach her (and all women), about politics, as did Lisa Kirbie who not only received a response, but was kind enough to record it for posterity.

The über-brief, late-evening, and mostly one-sided conversation comprised of Ford advising Kirbie to get her name on the ballot, and at that time he’d give her more advice. In other words, make sure you’re running against Ford — become his opponent — and he will advise you on how best to defeat him.

Maybe I’m reading a bit between the lines here, but I’m getting the nagging feeling that the Ford brothers think that we’re all complete idiots (and extra on you ladies!)