Fat Like Him

The dead tree version of yesterday's Globe and Mail (the rag that still fancies itself Canada's "paper of record") has this at the top of its Focus section:

FATGOONSTRASH

Yes, that's right, the G&M, a bastion of "civility" and furious back-patting re its collective intelligence ("we so smart; we da Globe and Mail") just called the front-runner in Toronto's mayoralty race a trashy "fat goon."

You won't be able to read the column by Stephen Marche referred to in the header, a "brilliant" analysis of the semiotics of Ford's "fat" belly ("his gut embodies the parts of the city hardest-hit by the changing nature of our economy and the evisceration of manual labour from our society"--you don't say, Steve, I thought it embodied his over-consumption of fats, carbs and sugar), because, as small dead animals observes, the Globe made it go bye-bye.

I would note that the disdain in certain quarters for Ford pertains not only to his conservative politics. It's an aesthetic distate, too. Some people cannot stand the idea that this unabashedly and unapologetically fat man might represent them to the world.

Me? I could care less what Ford looks like: ironically, the fat man is our best shot at some serious and much-needed belt-tightening.