Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is on a six-month mission to lose 50 pounds by June 19. The mayor and his brother Doug, both big guys, started the “Cut the Waist” challenge in an effort to get healthier and set an example, or something.
The really important part is that Rob Ford is a paranoid hothead who doesn’t like talking to the press. Instead, he prefers to reach the people via his weekly radio show where he and his guests can chortle about gay people having AIDS. Toronto reporters are so hard-up for access to the city’s mayor they actually have to wait for his weekly weigh-ins, standing next to the scale in the hopes of maybe being able to ask him a couple of questions. When he appears not to have made much progress, he haughtily walks away without talking to reporters. And now, after several disappointing weeks, he’s cutting back even more and only doing weigh-ins every second week.
Clearly Ford needs to keep losing weight. It’s the only way reporters are ever going to get to ask him about anything ever again.
Then again, it lets him avoid sticky questions about fixing the city’s transit system, restoring trust in the police service, or dealing with the city’s real estate explosion.
With a majority of Torontonians feeling buyer’s remorse since Ford’s election as mayor, he has a duty to talk to the press and explain what he’s up to. His refusal to do so is shameful, but if everyone gets together and cheers him on to a slimmer physique in time for beach season, things could get better. At the very least, experienced journalists should have more to write than “Ford gains weight again, refuses to take questions.”
Toronto Star