journal features

Toronto's politics are disturbingly amateur

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2012.11.30

So this week we lost our Mayor because it seems he doesn't know how to use of his position in an appropriate way.

I don't know if it's a can't-tell-right-from-wrong thing, but he manages to make a lot of unnecessary problems and enemies for himself.

The low caliber of people who throw their hats into civic politics is, I believe, the reason that the city is functioning with such an appalling lack of focus on the major issues of the day. While we deal with the longest commute times in North America, the city does things like build a cycle lane, then tearing it out, then rebuilding it, then tearing it out. And they close Ontario Place so the #1 destination for kids is gone: why - to nuture the idea of a casino being built in its stead. Like I say, it takes a special breed of incompetence to let things veer this badly astray.

rand()m quote

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov