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Monday, December 13, 2010
Pretty in Pink
It's hard to stay angry at Don Cherry.
I haven't quite forgiven him for his support of Julian "Caledonia" Fantino. Still, just when I'm trying to stay pissed, he goes off and delivers one of the greatest rant in Canadian history. Perhaps there's some long forgotten off the cuff Jeremiad by Dief or Laurier, a real doozy, that tops this performance by hockey's most colourful colour commentator, but I doubt it. I don't mean that Cherry delivered the Gettysburg Address. No, Grapes gave us a pure unadulterated rant. Bless him.
Technically he shouldn't have done it and Rob Ford shouldn't have invited him to the inaugural. But the Toronto MSM - which is as pink as bubble gum and twice as soft - couldn't just sniff haughtily at Grapes and Rob and let it go. No they had to tempt fate. They even picked on Grapes for going to church. Below the belt that. You don't believe in God? Neither do I. But I try to be tactful enough not to insult people for what they do on their private time and dime.
The MSM is dealing with primal forces here. You get the feeling that when Mayor Ford was in knee pants he got into a lot of fights. I'm guessing he won quite a few of them. Same with Grapes. Latted Ryerson j-school graduates aren't all that threatening in perspective. Thus the former coach of the Boston Bruins began his tirade:
“Well, actually, I’m wearing pinko for all the pinkos out there that ride bicycles and everything, I thought I’d get it in. (laughs, claps, oohs) What’d ya expect, Ron MacLean here, to come here?
Ron MacLean is what most Canadians are, a decent guy doing a good job. Don Cherry is who, in their angry moments, Canadians wish they could be. Enough with the damn politeness for once, this is what I really think. Don Cherry as the Canadian Id.
Certainly his rant to the new City Council was pretty unorganized. He just got up and said what a great guy Rob Ford is, what a fantastic job he is going to do and that pinkos suck. Much the same has been said in bars and Tim Hortons across Toronto these past weeks. Ford is the great middle class hope for Toronto.
When then councillor Ford denounced bikes and bike lanes as an impediment to the flow of traffic - which they obviously are - he was condemned by the pinko choir invisible. Why? Because Ford had the temerity to tell an obvious truth to a council obsessed with inflicting Greenista dogma on a modern city. The dominant means of getting around Toronto is the internal combustion engine. Has been for nearly a century now. Having a few bicyclists holding up several blocks worth of buses and cars makes no sense. But car hating is part of the environmentalist creed. Ford pointed out that the environmentalist emperor was naked as a newborn.
When Mayor Ford did was to invite the loud mouth uncle to Christmas dinner. He knew perfectly well that loud mouth uncle and pretentious spinster aunt don't get along, but he decided that some free entertainment would go well with the turkey. Spinster aunt, who doesn't like meat of course, was appalled by loud mouth uncle's poor table manners, and said so. Loud mouth uncle put spinster aunt in her place. It was poor taste all around, but you know auntie had it coming and are secretly pleased with loud mouth uncle's guts.
Much has been made of how the election of Rob Ford was about the plebs triumphing over their social and intellectual betters. Clearly the uncouth, portly and blonde Ford was just some nasty bigoted throw back, standing athwart progress toward the Pinko New Jerusalem, soon to be built in Toronto's grey and unpleasantly clogged streets.
Ford's shocking victory - well it was shocking to the Leftists anyway - has produced the usual rationalizations. It was terrified white voters reacting to Toronto's diversity! Toronto has been a minority-majority city for some time now. It's been a good three decades since anyone could seriously describe the Imperial Capital as an Orange stronghold.
The ethnic vote also clearly split for Ford. The realization is slowing sinking in that the ethnics have wandered off the Leftist plantation. A hard but very real truth. After decades of taking the immigrant and first generation vote for granted, the Toronto Left is confronted with a political awakening. Without allies in the middle class, how long can the Left stay in power? For the first time in many moons, the long-term electoral numbers are looking good for the Hogtown Right.
Slowly, but surely, the ethnics are realizing that the nice sounding Liberal and NDP politicians, ever ready with a trowel worth of collectivist flattery, are not their friends. The bald statist in the red tie would impose more taxes and regulations. The fat white guy is promising to leave them alone to manage their businesses and raise their families, thus saving them the move to Hazel-land. Thanks to Jason Kenney's tireless rubber curry summitry, the same phenomenon is also being seen at the federal level.
The frequent rants, by both Grapes and Ford, about how the city's elite is screwing over the ordinary Joes have been regularly mocked in Red Star and elsewhere. How can two famous millionaires pretend they are not members of the elite?
Well, elitism isn't so much an income bracket as a state of mind. it's looking down on people because they don't like what you like. Sometimes that's justified. But a little recognition that even if the proles don't like avant garde dance routines, at least they perform some useful function in society (unlike the avant garde dancers).
Years ago my maternal grandfather, a sweeter and gentler soul that your unhumble correspondent, was walking with friends through a posh area of Lisbon. A day labourer in the farmlands of the Alentejo, he was dressed simply. Two upper class women - the equivalents of the Holts bag-totting pashminas of modern Toronto - dismissed them, asking aloud what these "shits" were doing in the high-rent district.
My usually polite grandfather replied: "If it wasn't for us shits, you bitches would have starved years ago." There's a difference between being an elitist and being a bitch. An elite, secure and intelligent enough to understand we are all part of the same society, each doing our honest bit, wouldn't have so crudely insulted Don Cherry and Rob Ford. All the "shits" are asking for is a little respect. The bitches should keep that in mind.
Posted by Richard Anderson on December 13, 2010 | Permalink
Comments
What makes you think you know anything at all, much less about the media in Toronto, the city council or traffic flow issues?
Posted by: Charles Kinsley | 2010-12-13 12:49:11 PM
Cherry remains the bravest and most intelligent man on Canadian TV to this day. Of course, the mincing, lisping, limp-wristed, effeminates who populate the Canadian political scene cannot hope to have been born with enough balls as Cherry.
Posted by: AB Patriot | 2010-12-14 12:26:07 AM
Publius, I'm beginning to like you as much as I like Mark Steyn. In fact, even more, because you're less hysterical....
Posted by: BillBC | 2010-12-14 9:39:20 AM
Don Cherry is an ignorant loudmouth dumbass.
Posted by: DrGreenthumb | 2010-12-19 6:17:01 PM
That's better than being a criminal, Greenthumb.
Posted by: Shane Matthews | 2010-12-20 6:32:19 AM
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