Ghost of Past Election

I came across this sign a couple of years ago...

I wonder if the owners of the sign regret tossing it in the garbage?

Google Poem: Do we really want a mayor?

* Personally, I don't want a mayor who isn't willing to do the legwork to ensure that all of her/his nominators are in fact on the voters list

* I don't want a mayor or councillor who blames new people for the ills of this community.

* I don't want a mayor who is too scary to talk to.

* I don't want a mayor with a track record of over 80% failure in city hall. I've been in the damn #verizon store so much that I'm the mayor

* We don't want a mayor that goes by his opinion only

* I don't want a mayor who's going to get up on his soap box, shake his fist and “stand up for our city”.

* I don't want a mayor that show-boats with an Islamic extremist that believes suicide bombers and the execution of homosexuals are acceptable.

* I don't want a mayor that delivers "energy" and "renewal"

* pick whatever hackneyed adage or idiom you'd like but the reality is I don't want a mayor who will make me feel good

* We don't want a mayor that signs papers without reading them.

* They don't want a Mayor who insists on protecting the hills, air and water, and avoid big-time traffic increases.

* I don't want a mayor that waddles.

* They don't want a mayor that would have this bunch, or an essentially similar one, happier in their work. They want a mover and a shaker

* I don't want a mayor that sits back and lets the city go down the tubes to protect his buddy Longos feelings.

* I don't want a mayor that's going to drop dead half-way through.

* I don't want a mayor who says “I'M WORKING FOR U”. It's not difficult at all to type the other 2 letters to make the correct word.

Smells like diss-spirit

Like all canines, we coyotes are connoisseurs of the aromatic. And the strong whiff we whiffed in the environs of Hizzoner-the-mayor yesterday was the reek of sweaty failure.

The mayor had lurched off the high road he claimed he would stick to when he started campaigning, to diss 77-year-old opponent Andrew Haydon with the jibe that he was "past his best-before date".

Them darned gotcha media picked up on it, and by the evening news, His Nibs was making like a Maytag, trying to respin that infelicitous turn of phrase to mean only Haydon's ideas, not the man himself.

That the mayor was pissed about looking like a jerk (again) was self-evident. Whether he accepted that he authored his own misfortune was less so. He tried to force a smile as he twisted in the wind - but the TV interviews betrayed a flat, clipped voice, a hard glare and gritted teeth behind perfunctorily-curved lips.

With about two weeks left to campaign, he's transitioned from his usual baseless confidence into a muted desperation hallmarked, in about equal parts, by abortive Hail Mary passes and highly defensive-sounding damage control.

He still struggles to project a self-confident visual, but the invisible bouquet that cascades from him belies it. Somebody else, I might feel sorry for. Since it's Larry 0'Brien, I'm snappin' a clothes peg over my snout to block the growing odour of flop sweat. And as has been my habit for four years, rolling my eyes heavenward until election day and trusting in the, ummm, wisdom of crowds.

Darkly dreaming of dirty work at the crossroads

One niggling issue with buying a brain is that it is - so far, anyway - only an aftermarket accessory. I expect that will change at some point, but at the moment, Mayor Larry's attempt to bolt on some kinda political savvy is hampered by the fact that his actual, own brain is still the one hooked directly to his mouth. Mouth-shooting neurons being as speedy as they are, he can say all kindsa crap before the hired brain can, ummm, hit the Emergency Crash Override button.

So it was, with the Ottawa Stun's editorial board yesterday. Larry blurted that he had a hard time not thinking, as unnamed "more suspicious people" apparently already have, that former regional chairman Andy Haydon's entry into the mayoral race was engineered by front-runner Jim Watson to bleed off Larry fans and cause his ultimate mayoral demise.

Apparently, any unelection event would so not be Larry's fault. Also apparently, Larry fans, while ummm, legion, can't tell two bald guys apart. I'll take a moment to point out to fiscal conservative types who might be duped by such nefariosity that Haydon, while indeed partly bald, is an actual practicing fiscal conservative who knows how to do that kinda thing successfully. He is also capable of pithiness. Unlike me. I just digressed again.

Larry's campaign manager, Robert Thompson was in there yanking the leash. But it musta have been one of those spring-loaded thingies I see on all the posher domestic doggies: you know, the ones that can unreel to about 10 metres like taut clotheslines, to trip ya up. The leasher can theoretically thumb a brake button to shorten the line, and head off the leashee's intemperate darts into heavy traffic or other disasters - say, an unfortunate roll in something really smelly and unpleasant - but would have to be damnably quick on the draw* to slow down His Nibs.

So it was only after the blurtage that Thompson managed to yank that leash and tell Larry to STFU and get back onto the media line script. Carefully crafted by someone who's not Larry. A new, improved Larry 2.0 indeed. Two, ummm, too, bad about that legacy code...

* Mental digression: some freakishly-quick gamer with years of practice on X-Box or Playstation controllers might have developed the lightning reflexes needed. But I doubt they'd have the interest.

How dumb am I supposed to be, again...?

I'm on a roll. While I sucked my paws over the state of federal politics yesterday, the incumbent mayor, in what I imagine he hoped was a display of charming candour, finally admitted out loud what sentient Ottawattamies have pretty much realized since their last municipal election-night hangovers hit: that his first half-term was a disaster cratered with "rookie mistakes".

Oh, that his nibs finally got anything even half right is fairly momentous. But us semimythical coyotes still find him charmless. Being played for a simpleton by someone who lacks the chops to do the job right does that to us... I digress. That phrase is getting to be such a trademark that I'm gonna put that on a baseball cap and market it. I digress again...

It may be that the mayor figured that if he copped to his record of awfulness, he could then, whenever after it comes up, do what spin doctors call "changing channels". This is saying, in effect, "I've already dealt with that, it's ancient news, now let's just move on and talk about what really matters. Which is anything but that.". Watch for it.

It was also the sort of calculated move that suggests the guy is temporarily listening to his store-bought brain instead of the winging it that is his wont. Polling at less than half the support of your leading rival apparently focuses even the most scattered mind. Oh, he fondly imagines himself as a big ideas guy, but he's just scattered.

And what are we to make of what David Reevely calls "Larry 2.0"? The things he imagines to be his latter-day signature victories - like flogging the very public Lansdowne Park to the first very private commercial developers that had the balls to just ask for it, whilst shredding due process - are, well, who he is.

Self-proclaimed 2.0 status aside, worrying signs of that problematic unselfaware hubris remain. The guy who thought he was going to ride into Dodge City and change things all by hisself didn't even know what he didn't know then. He has never grasped important nuances. Driving a city this size on a learner's permit is dangerous egotism. And he's still more than a little hung up on how important being a 'multimillionaire' makes him - in multiple statements. (Read 'em if ya have the stomach.)

It takes more than a bunch of hired mouthpieces who are all about an election-year surface wax & buff to change the fact of a man whose flaws are deeply embedded in his personality. Four more years of Larry has a very high probability of being four more years of the same, no matter what he - or the backroom - think they're floggin'.

Emergency Meeting Minutes: 2010-07-19

Venue: The Usual Spot
Present: 4th Dwarf, Woodsy, Aggie

1) Nobody blogging

It is noted that poor Coyote is carrying the blog and nobody else has blogged for weeks.

A: I would like to start again.

W: Me too, but I like to say “continue to blog”. It’s less negative.

4D and A agree.

A: Maybe using the camera is the key.

W: A picture with a couple of words is not so intimidating.

A: And maybe sketching...

Some discussion ensues about factors that limit blogging.

A: Then there’s perimenopause.

W: Or menopause, and 4D, how is your andropause?

4D: My andropause?

2) Vampires

A: Why are vampires so hot right now?

W: Because relationships suck?

Aggie groans. 4D pointedly does not.

A: Is it about gender power differences?

W: Huh?

A: In True Blood, vampires are an oppressed minority group, even though they are powerful beings. Like the white male narrative that they are now marginalized.

4D: Hmm. Maybe the Chair would like to come back to the blog as a vampire persona.

W: What is our official position on vampires?

4D: I don’t feel a need to have an official position.

W: What if Aggie and I do?

4D: [Shrugs and makes confusing hand gestures] Well... Why?

A: They seem to have taken on a cultural importance.

Some discussion ensues, but nothing is resolved on the vampire topic.

3) Coyote Carrying the Blog

A: Coyote is carrying the blog.

W: We should give him an award... Dinner and drinks from everyone else.

4D and Aggie agree and the motion is adopted by consensus.

A: Where is he?

W and 4D: It’s a mystery.

4) Back to Vampires

4D: Perhaps our official position on vampires could be reporting on who is not a vampire and who might be. For instance, our mayor Is not a vampire because he was captured on videotape outdoors during the day.

W: And we was married in a church.

A doesn’t seem to be fired up by this idea.

5) BOLO

A: Woodsy, how was Blog Out Loud Ottawa?

W: It was fun.

O'Brien's brain

Anybody heard much from Mayor Larry lately? I mean, aside from innocuous grip and grin snaps in throwaway tabloids, and the usual public pabulum? No? Thought not. Us coyotes, neither.

We may have to thank the mayor's latest handlers for this. It's the kinda brain trust that epitomizes a simple rule: if ya don't have a brain yourself, buy one. Although I note that in this case there's a whole team of, ummm, expert henchthingies to stitch up the ol' intellectual fabric. Possibly from the whole cloth.

While we can imagine it, coyotes are not party to the (no doubt) Hunter-Thompson-esque blend of medieval restraint devices, modern psycho-pharmacology and space age adhesives that it might take to keep some kinda lid on hizzoner's natural, ummm, exuberance. Whatever it is, it works like a damn. The result has been (mostly) blessed quiet for the citizenry. We needed it after all that came before.

Enquiring coyotes everywhere suppose that the reason His Nibs is actually paying heed to his high-powered advisors for a change is because he might still be eyeing that second term in the big chair, and hoping a short stint of relative decorum will do the trick.

Fortunately for those of us who are sensitive, the new strategy so far has merely reinforced the esteem with which we hold our beloved mayor. One hopes the electorate's famously lousy long term memory holds on just a teensy bit longer, so we can all support him right out of office in fall elections. In the style which he deserves.

Send in the Clowns

Every time that I notice this mannequin, I am startled for a second.

But, despite her clownish hair and her maniacal smile, she has excellent fashion sense.

Shocker.... mayor hires new mouthpieces.

This morning's local news has informed us coyotes that City Hall last night fired a PR guy. While hardly causing us to spew hot Ethiopian Yirgacheffe at the monitor, it did prompt eye rolls and longing thoughts of stirring in something a tad stronger than half 'n half.

The firing was nuthin' surprising in itself.

Since the last election, appointed staffers within throttling distance of the mayor's office have been, pretty much, reluctant temps. Terms vary, but a remarkable number have been scragged and hoofed out the high-speed revolving door down there, possibly for their curious inability to articulate our Beloved Leader's, ummm, belovedness to the masses.

No, what made our furry forehead wrinkle was the new hires in Fired Guy's place. Forgot his name already... can't keep track anymore. Sorry! I digress...

Anyway, they are (ex) print reporters Patrick Dare and Derek Puddicombe, very recently late of the Petfinder's and the Stun's respective city hall bureaux. Oh, and Chris Day, lately the press secretary for federal minister John Baird's Tory-to-its-roots hair. And possibly the hair of Baird's famously late ex-cat...

I expect that in an ill-lit corner at City Hall, an elected official of less than total competence and far less than total hirsuteness may be congratulating hisself on his self-diagnosed genius in suborning two local newspaper scribes, and buying stronger ties to federal conservatives. At least until he fires them all. Very soon, when he rediscovers that the public still thinks he's unlovable. But right now, I bet he's thinkin' he's finally bought the right mouthpieces for a clear re-election shot.

Both former journos, being who they are, have probably done their due diligence. Even knowing what they're getting into, they must've calculated that job security with Larry still trumps that at the shaky newspaper conglomerates that employed them, Canwest Global and Quebecor. Good, ummm, luck with that.

And maybe they can turn things around in time for the next election. Or maybe, just maybe, the mayor will continue to do things as he has, and we will finally get to vote him into a job for which he's temperamentally and intellectually more suited. Something in the private sector. Although personally, given his record of success in office, dog catcher would suit me just fine...

Cue the evil lighting...

An elliptical voicemail led me late last night to the doorstep of Mister Sloppy's evil world domination HQ in Centretown. After I buzzed the intercom and the reinforced door silently swung open, I let myself into the computer room. There, Mister Sloppy looked ineffably smug.

"Oh, hi, Slop! You called?" I said.

"Indeed. I brought you a gift from my trip."

He pushed a small corrugated carton toward me. One heady sniff and I opened it. Two dozen extremely fresh bars of Cailler Ultrafine Dark. None of that Tobler crap... Mister Sloppy's taste in gifts is legendary.

"Thank you!" I said gratefully. "And how was the vacation?"

"It was... very fine," he said. "Ate great ice cream. Sailed a private yacht on Lake Geneva. Took an excellent Swiss train to visit the Large Hadron Collider..."

"And how did that go?" I asked, an alarm ringing faintly in the back of my mind.

"It's working again, isn't it?" purred Mister Sloppy, fixing me meaningfully with a bright blue eye. "And good thing, too. I'm gonna be needing it."

"Eep! So you're still on the world domination thing?

"Does the mayor think he's finally a real civic leader because he hung out with Prince Chuck and John Baird's hair for a photo-op? I'm all over it!"

"Ummm. Oh. Look at that! It's bedtime for little coyotes. Thanks for the chockies. Gotta go! " I yelled over my shoulder.

"Oh, I know." Mister Sloppy's voice followed me out the door. "But you'll be back... I have more chocolate."

Fiend.

After Trump's inspirational speech in Ottawa...

...Mayor Larry felt convinced more than ever that his own stand on Lansdowne Park development was quality, pure quality, all the way...

My Vision for the New Lansdowne

I am excited by the mayor's recent invitation for redesigns of Lansdowne Park. The main submission requirements are unorthodox. (To avoid wasting tax dollars?)

"Anyone can draw a pretty picture on a piece of toilet paper and submit it."

As always, I'm up to a challenge.

I'm afraid the definition of "pretty" will have to be stretched for my design to be accepted, but I did manage to put it on toilet paper and only ripped the paper twice. Unfortunately, because the square is so small and the ink is so wide, I could only fit in 3 of the features that are in my vision for the New Lansdowne Park.

It's really not that easy to draw a pretty picture on a piece of toilet paper.

Ottawa's Light Rail Re/Up/Set

Today, Ottawa's mayor and certain of the council are spinning their version of City Hall's latest light rail trainwreck like a 37-million-buck pinwheel. Maybe hoping that dizzying fuzzyheaded quadrupeds such as myself unto pukin', will compel us to ignore the fact that this week's good news on the light rail front is, ummm, last week's out-of-court contract settlement with Siemens AG.

Because, you see, during the election, the mayor famously vowed to "hit the reset button" on the previous administration's fatally flawed north/south light rail plan. Once in the mayor chair, he airly persuaded council to nix that signed and sealed deal in favour of his (unarticulated) better idea, claiming his vast business experience told him the penalty would be negligible. Last week the city paid Siemens that vast-bucks legal settlement.

Now we learn that the first leg they're thinking of building under the new improved light rail plan is, ummm, that fatally flawed north/south line. Because, hey, Siemens, by a huge coincidence, had already drawn the plans and done the environmental studies, before the mayor smacked that big ol' expensive button.

What Hizzoner and council apparently failed to clarify among themselves was that when you hit "reset" on a system that's nominal in the first place, you merely waste a lot of time rebooting - in this case, enough years that the damn thing would've been close to done if we'd stuck to the original plan - to get much the same system. Apparently, I am not the only one confused by council's inability to grasp this.

Sometime long before he was elected, the mayor shaved his head bald. I am not party to his reasons. My head is still as fuzzy as nature intended well-dressed coyotes about town to be. But at this point, I'm thinkin' he could hot-wax and buff that sucker 'til it glows in the dark, and he'd still look totally fuzzyheaded, next to me...

Down to...

This morning, the ol' inbox washed up a veritable tsunami of friends, well wishers and ummm, others, pointedly informing me of the Petfinder's latest screed about the Zero Means Zero blog

I have no idea why...

Zero Means Zero is apparently written by an administration insider, and as such has been a thorn in Mayor Larry's side almost since the moment he strutted into City Hall. It's scathing, mean-spirited and entertaining. It's been a bit tiresome recently, but still packs a nifty assortment of pointed words. And it has often publicly asked the questions that some of us were thinking privately. That it has also (somehow) remained anonymous all of this time seems to piss off the Larry partisans all the more.

I realize I may attract all manner of hurled debris toward Casa Coyote's infamously glassy walls when I ask this, but... the person(s) responsible for sending the lawyers after Zero by trying to force Google to reveal (his/her/its/their) identity? You noticed that they wanna be anonymous, right?

Oh, the irony. Or, ummm, possibly the paradox. Maybe the sarcasm. Er, the satire...? The oxymoron...? Crap! I dunno! Much like Alanis Morissette, we coyotes are frequently iffy on literary nuances. But doesn't it seem kinda goofy...?

Tinfoil hats: a gut wrenching exposé

As avid, nay, militant exponents and proponents of tinfoil hats, especially in dire emergencies, we Irregulars have just gotten extremely distressing news:

Namely, that a buncha bright engineers from M.I.T. seem to have discovered that tinfoil hats do not protect your brain from zombifying, soul-sucking government and/or alien mind-control radio frequencies, but instead amplify them! (See the terrifying conclusion.)

Wait! This means that all this time when we thought we were laughin', and thought you were too - because you put on your tinfoil hat when we told you to, right? - all of us were actually under the influence of sub rosa mind-control rays, making us beleive things that were untrue. Evilly fostering, for instance, the illusion that our tinfoil hats were protecting us. And under that illusion, we were actually.... oh. Oh. Dear, dear me!

The very insidiousness of it all boggles one's (controlled) mind! Especially if one trusts engineers!

That we're all doomed over here, goes without saying . But hey. If we all just put on our soothing, comfy tinfoil hats, we'll never notice...

Hello Dolly

I wish that I had bought this doll that Gabe, over at Fish on Fridays, made and was selling at Urban Art in Minto Park on July 18th.

It would have made a great pincushion.

Better Proclaimers

What's with these politicos going off half-cocked, lately? It's such a prodigal misuse of their big swinging dicks . . .

After belatedly finding that his Slur-of-the-Month Club dealt him very shoddy goods, the PM retracted his latest partisan insult with appropriately bad grace, before a single TV camera in a bare studio. So as not to face the embarrassing prospect of an actual, you know, audience while he did the, ummm, manly thing.

Meanwhile at the local level, Temporary Putative Ottawa Mayor Doug ("Dog") Thompson took a minute off from harrassing innocent coyotes in the 'burbs to become a wannabe proclaimer, as reported below. He then swiftly proclaimed that he is naught but a mere groveller before the wilting rage of councillor Jan "Nobody's Bunny" Harder.

Enough. The Scots-type guys in these pictures are definitely better Proclaimers. They sing. They play. Some pogo gracefully. And on Friday night, in the midst of a superlatively soggy summer, they bore sunshine from Leith to the free Bluesfest stage on York Street. Bless 'em.

Trials of Larry: The Offishul Evil Genius

We're not outta the woods yet - the verdict doesn't come down until August 12. But as of yesterday, Mayor Larry's influence-peddling trial is all over but for the gavel slam. Done. Like summer barbecue. Or your back, say, after falling asleep on your boat in the sun, whilst contemplating a mayoral candidacy over a beer or two.

All we citizens have to do is kick back on the patio for another month and let the assorted smog from burnt hot dogs, journalists' Blackberrying thumbs and lawyers' overheated brains dissipate into the ozone, while Mr O'Brien sweats it out in his secret lair exclusive penthouse.

As an occasionally black and white kinda coyote, I really appreciated the lawyers' summations.

Prosecutor Scott Hutchison faint-praised main witness Terry Kilrea as "hardly Machiavellian." Then Larry's best-money-could-buy defense guy, Michael Edelson, did his darndest to paint him up as some kinda evil genius.

Which on the evidence, compared to Larry, he may be...

Of big swinging appendages *

Our on-hiatus for legal reasons mayor has a pottymouth problem. Among others, since his fascination with the felicitous phrase, "big swinging dick contest", entered the court record this week past on a lo-def police interrogation video. (Hey - who doesn't look guilty on those...? But with no corroborating evidence, he could safely deny the whole rat fuck thing. This was right there in grainy black and white.)

Citizen editorial writer Kate Heartfield - one of the good guys at that eroding edifice - has smartly and thoroughly whacked the language's psychology with a post-modern feminist yardstick, in print and on air. I think that covers it completely, except for small additional light the phrase may cast on O'Brien's record. Ummm, in office.

It's not as if we didn't suspect that he regards his political day - or in the case of the Transpo strike, most of a financial quarter - as an endless series of big dick swinging contests. Supporting evidence for this inference is rich.

Maybe the mayor enters such duels because he honestly thinks his is bigger than everybody else's. Why would he believe this? Possibly because he lucked out in business and has a lotta money. Maybe because he only hires assistants that reinforce his own perceptions. Perhaps because he has temper in private and has demonstrably whirled through a veritable spin cycle of revolving-door staffers.

Doesn't matter. Unfortunately for Ottawa, this view was probably never grounded in reality. Also unfortunately, Mayor Larry is a guy who for some time has been enthusiastically dick-swinging his way straight into The Peter Principle. Problem is, he's so pathologically - and unjustifiably - self confident, he'll never know it. Sorry to keep going on like this. Honestly, I was tired of him before he was elected.

* Just so you know, the photo is named that way because original graphic concept for this post did not make it past certain members of the ESI Ethics Committee. (It also grossed out Woodsy, which takes some doing. I'm kinda proud of that.) And no, it was not what you were thinking just now... and neither is this one. It's a perfectly innocent tee-shirt graphic, for cripe's sake. Purell® your minds, people! We run a squeaky clean metablog here!

May Day: The trial(s) of Mayor Larry

As a city pauses to either smell the scent of spring, or (depending on your kink) possibly the mayor, His Nibs will step down (temporarily, he truly believes...) at midnight tonight to deal with that pesky criminal matter pending before the courts. And I just wanna say that it is so unfortunate that others - you uninformed critics and naysayers! - cannot see him in the same optimistic light that he does. Because despite the repeated intrusion of actual, you know, reality, time after time he somehow manages to keep right on believin' in the essential rightness, goodness and smartness of Mayor Larry, to a point that some may call ummm, delusional. In this spirit, it seems like a good moment to pause and recall some of our favourite Larryisms:

• "Zero means Zero!" - Campaign promise to cut city taxes. And, umm, how did that go? Now an eponymous blog pointing out Our Beloved Leader's piddling, minor, utterly forgivable oopsies...
• " "I fell asleep on my boat in July drinking a beer and when I woke up I was the mayor of Ottawa." - That's okay, fella. At least a third of Ottawa voters seem to have been blacked out that entire time, too...
• "Quite frankly I believe with every fibre of my being that I'm innocent." - Right, gotcha. See intro, above... And after consulting (barely) overnight with an unspecified focus group whose opinions seemed to fly in the face of popular majority opinion, he said "overwhelming support" led him to cling to the job instead of bowing out after being charged...
• "I feel like a rock star!" - To media at Ontario Provincial Police HQ, where he was formally charged and printed, in:re that aforementioned pesky criminal matter...
• There is, naturally, no fifth quote...
• "No comment..." - The Mayor's hired spokes-thingy, after three companies that had been signed to build a light rail system slapped the city with $277 million worth of lawsuits. His Nibs had previously persuaded council that it could tear up the contract without major consequences...
• "Certainly I'd vote for myself..." - Larry announcing his intention to continue screwing up royally ummm, run for mayor again, in 2010 municipal elections. Maybe he went back to the same focus group he used to decide to stay in office, after he was charged in that aforementioned pesky criminal matter...?

Y'know, looking back over these quotes, I'm beginning to see that Hizzoner is in way over his custom-buffed head. Alone they might mean nothing, but there's obviously a pattern of half-recognized denial. Together, they form a highly public cry for help. Mayday, indeed...