Ah, Agar … what a boob.

Yes, that’s Newstalk 1010’s Jerry Agar who recently made a video pushing his brilliant idea to solve Toronto’s commuting problems: telecommuting.

In his video, Jerry tries to make out like he’s the one that came up with the genius concept, or at least was one of its prime champions (which, as a formerly avid Agar listener, I can unequivocally say is a complete lie), and isn’t it amazing how people are finally catching onto it? And he uses a Star article to “prove” his point, no less!

See for yourself:

What I find fascinating is watching Agar weasel between the tight squeezes of his (surprisingly) logical position in support of telecommuting, his even more blusterous support of “free market” and “business knows best”, and then on to, “yeah, but big business like Yahoo don’t want people telecommuting.”

I don’t call people “mentally ill” lightly nor pejoratively (unlike Ford and his neo-Con buddies, I actually believe it exists), but people like Agar exemplify why I’m so quick to jump to the term when talking about their “logic”. I mean, if someone randomly said to you (in the same breath no less), “I love big business! Big business sucks!” , would you not be tempted to say that something is genuinely wrong with their minds?

Sorry, Jerry, just calls ’em like I sees ’em, and you are one messed up individual. Please get help.

Yesterday afternoon Rob Ford called in to Newstalk 1010’s  Closing Arguments show to once again put his ignorance on display for the world at large.

The topic of discussion was Richard Kachkar, the guy who ran over a cop in a snowplow and is now pleading insanity. Ford called in and boldly stated that lawyers shouldn’t be defending Kachkar. At least that’s what I was able to get from a Newstalk blog post that’s since been yanked.

Looks like Newstalk is in the process of covering up Rob’s words (the story yankage, all other shows except this one episode being available, etc.), so I’m not sure we’ll ever have a reliable transcript, but one of the show’s guests, defence lawyer Leora Shemesh, summed up Ford’s comments:

“I just think that it’s perplexing to have the mayor of the city calling in about this issue, particularly because it’s in front of a jury and he knew that, but more so because he seemed to be uneducated about not criminally responsible and what that means.”

Additionally, Toronto lawyer Sean Robichaud weighed in:

“It is truly astonishing that the Mayor of Toronto espouses such a gross misunderstanding of the law and mental illness. There is also something unsettling and disrespectful to the justice system when a politician of his position provides his opinion on a verdict that he seems to know little about, the night before the jury is set to deliberate.”

Is it really astonishing to discover such qualities about Rob Ford at this point? Only if you’ve been living under a rock.

And is it really surprising to hear neo-Cons spouting off such unhelpful, angry, and ultimately harmful ignorance? Ditto on this one.

(I just have to find the other one)

Perhaps one of TCL’s readers can tell me what this thing is? I’d guess either a fixed compass or solar clock.

It’s still cold and windy and I booked it over to warmth and coffee. On the lookout for ball #2.

According to brother Doug, Rob will continue to pound his recent round of weirdness “ward to ward to ward”. He says there’s nothing wrong with constantly hammering people over the head with casinos (especially when inappropriate), and fist shaking.

Doug also added:

“(Councillors) are good talkers until he shows up into their ward. When you win with 19% of the vote and the mayor wins with 60% in your (ward) — you’re damn right you better be careful.”

Sounds awfully specific, doesn’t it?

I happened to be walking around the maze of an area that’s become the front of Union Station yesterday, and it put one final question to bed that I had lingering from before. How far have they gotten?

Front Street is half closed, getting around is all weird and Escheresque, and they’re just digging out from under the street now. The main GO concourse is still 100% intact, so basically, not very far.

On the bright side, the Cinnabon is still open.

Or rather, he “pounded” out a thinly veiled threat to anyone opposing him (as Ford does), to a group of Orthodox rabbis. This, according to Councillor James Pasternak anyway. In any event, it was all re-election  this, casino that, pressure your Councillors the other. Blah blah.

True, I wasn’t there to get a gauge on the crowd so I don’t know how bothered they were by Ford’s diatribe and his “disheveled”  appearance, but I imagine that since they were there to discuss the Toronto Eruv (which, I’m taken to understand, is some sort of Jewish Sabbath cheating map), it probably wouldn’t have been appropriate.

Councillor Joe Mihevc said of Ford, ” he (almost) grabbed the mic … he did not do honour to our good city. He did not make people tremble with fear [over yet another election threat]. It was just an awkward and embarrassing moment.”

Classic.

I don’t mean to make light of threats, and if this whole thing turns out to be genuine I certainly hope that Mammoliti gets assistance tout suite. I make no light of my dislike for the man’s political flaccidness,  but even if I think he’s bordering on criminality, I always hearken to what we’ve all been told is “proper procedure”. In other words, police (doing their job properly), a court of law (applying the law equally), etc. Or is this Utopian idealism now?

But don’t you find it odd that, if this is actually true, Mammoliti’s assertion that Executek International is holding on to some possibly dangerous (for him), evidence seems kind of the wrong way to go?

Perhaps Executek is dispatching shadowy goons to neutralize the source of the attack  — computer and phone tampering, as well as a “threatening letter” — but you’d think you’d double up and get local PD on it too, no? Seemed okay for the mayor.

Executek says cops will be contacted “when appropriate.”

Private police force. Neat.

This city project that I was blogging about as early as 2009 has always been a bit difficult for me to imagine. I mean, I knew that the areas beneath the station (where the daily commuter crunch happens), were going to be gutted and something new was going to go in, but I recently discovered some new images showing what it’s really going to look like in the end. (Yes, I did borrow these from blogTO.)

The best one is probably the basic cross-section showing how the ground beneath the trains is being transformed:

Basically, they’re splitting the lower mezzanine into two levels from the existing one.

I’m not sure how this is going to connect to the TTC and PATH, but presumably (see below), this is being done to accommodate more foot traffic, so hopefully they won’t try to jam double the people into the same entrances and exists.

The builders, NORR Architects, also provided some artist’s renderings of the upgraded station:

Based on the illustration above, it seems like there’s a lot of wasted vertical space. This is where my doubt (above) comes from.

Don’t get me wrong, aesthetically it’s nicer, but the fact that this is being done in a limited space beneath the trains make me wonder how efficient this will actually be. But I’m staying optimistic.

The one thing we can definitely look forward to is seeing a newly scrubbed exterior on the station, and new moat roofs over the lower-level outdoor pedestrian areas (where all the smokers hang out):

I don’t take GO, or the TTC for that matter, nearly as much as I used to. However, even when I was commuting daily (and this was many years ago), the crush was sometimes unbearable and the station just seemed horribly dated. The decor would probably have been pretty cool in the 70s, but with the wear of age and constant traffic, it was just starting to look rundown.

Personally, I look forward to seeing the newly reno’ed station — it’s an indelible slice of Toronto, and worth an occasional (but sensitive), upgrade or two.