A-S-S-U-M-E

Did you ever hear the old saying, when you A-S-S-U-M-E you make an 'ASS' out of 'U' and 'ME'? Yeah, I'm sure you have. Trouble is, lots of people still do it.

Like a now deleted commenter on my previous post, who is not a regular reader, but came here, because of a tweet I did. He thinks that I, and I guess--anyone who disagrees with Mayor David Miller of Toronto is arrogant, asinine, illogical, and what was the other one? Oh yeah, negative.

He assumed that because my current form of birth control is not working and making me feel shitty and depressed that therefore, I am not allowed to comment on politics. That somehow, my brain no longer works. You know, the been-there-done-that hysterical hormonal women theme? Just because I hated David Miller.

Well, to clear up a few things---I feel much better now. A different pill and a nice estrogen boost and I'm much happier.

I still hate David Miller though. Always have, always will. Our current high pretentious dipshit Mayor frankly does a terrible job. I can proudly say that I have never ever voted for him. Not when he was a councillor, and not either time he ran for mayor. I know a lot of people who voted for him and are deeply ashamed of that fact and would give anything to take it back. I don't feel bad for them though.

You see, my brain, and my ability to assess someone's character still work just friggin fine even though I have some hormonal swings. They work fine even when I am depressed and they work just friggin fine when I am filled with joy. And even if they didn't work fine---guess what?

In Canada, there is no test for mental fitness to be a citizen or a voter or a commentator on political life. And politicians have an obligation to listen to me and to represent the mentally unwell's INTERESTS just as much as they have to represent the perfect white upstanding mentally balanced Bay Street lawyer in a suit.

I am equal to everyone else anywhere in this country. When I am medicated, when I am unmedicated, when I dress nice, when I don't, when my IQ is 60 or when it is 160, when I am male or when I am female, when I am in a wheelchair or striding down a street, when I am angry or happy or sad or suicidal or jumping for joy. No matter what is happening in my life, we never lose our right to free speech, or our right to tell a politician to FUCK RIGHT OFF BECAUSE HE SUCKS AT HIS JOB.

You see, this weekend, there is some sort of celebration going on about Toronto's 175th Birthday. No one really knows, because there has been almost no publicity about it, and really, no news coverage. It's that boring. Plus, in this economy, c'mon, if you are going to do something to draw in tourists, make it more fun than root canal. So, in light of the fact that his endless tweets about this boring drivel thing were making me want to stick a fork in my eye---I said so.

I could put up with it if we weren't facing total economic collapse in this city as a direct result of his incompetent leadership, but this guy really has no right to ever leave his desk at this point, much less tweet about it. Toronto has been teetering on the brink of budget collapse for years now all through the boom and he has done nothing. He was going to cut the out of control police budget and spend some money on crime prevention. Instead---he has spent over $400 million hiring new cops and every time the police ask for money, he's their go to guy. Cops now represent over 50% of the city budget when we are in a nationwide crime decline, but he says yes whenever they start some big freak out about gangs and guns. Considering today's headlines, you'd think he'd reconsider, but I'm not holding my breath.

Our streets are a disaster because he refuses to coordinate the private contractors and public road repair crews so that all of them work together at once. Instead they just randomly wander all over town ripping up streets and digging, one year for gas pipes, next year for water, six months later for hydro, a year later for high speed DSL repair. Nevermind that they could just plan it out and do it right all at once in such a way that people could walk, bike and drive around this city without losing their minds from potholes and construction debris. Then again, the city unions we have might object to actually working!

(And before anyone says it--I'm a union woman. I've been a member and I've organized and guess what? I want a good wage and benefits, but I also expect to work productively....I have zero respect for people who think union means they get to sit on their ass and only do their minimum quota, so don't even bother.)

But the thing I really hate about him the most is a problem that relates to my favourite subject. Health, specifically children's health. There are thousands of homes in Toronto that are contaminated with lead intake pipes, and now have lead in the water. Both from city pipes running down streets and pipes leading into houses. (The report has the nerve to use the term "acceptable levels of lead"; umm, no, there is no acceptable level of lead. None.) I already knew about this because before we bought this house I checked to make sure that the street pipe had been replaced, and when I discovered our intake pipe had lead, I paid to have it replaced. It cost a mint, but having struggled with learning problems, no way was I ever going to risk my babies having more problems because of some easy to fix water problem!

Years ago when we did it, during Miller's first term, the guy at the city had actually tried to convince me not to have it done, because "the crud on the inside of the pipe will protect you from the lead." Ummmmm, yah.

And who will protect me from the crud?

Not to mention the bacteria hidden IN the crud?

Anyway, you'd think that knowing that water is a basic human right, and that lead destroys children's brains and adult's body parts like kidneys and livers, that replacing these pipes would be his number one priority, his sine qua none, his reason for working round the clock, his budget centerpiece.

Not so much.

In fact, on his watch, the money that was supposed to be spent fixing the lead pipes was spent on a deep water cooling system for the downtown office buildings instead. Privately owned downtown office buildings, which get their air conditioning from Toronto Hydro, a separately financed entity, which could easily afford to finance the cooling operation without a dime of city water money.

David Miller and his cronies took the money that the taxpayers gave them to save us from lead poisoning, and they used it to install discount air conditioning for rich white dudes on Bay Street.

So was I hormonal when I tweeted? Sure...but I was still right, dead on.