Rob Ford died

[Tabby]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/r ... -1.3489457

Many of you Americans may remember him as he was quite a notorious character providing late night comedians with an endless source of material. Though I was never a fan of him or his politics, he was unquestionably committed to the city of Toronto and the people who live there. RIP.

[orono]

I feel bad for him, I hope he can rest in peace. Despite all of the antics and controversy I suspect he had a very difficult life.

[Chisamba]

To my discredit, I immediately assumed drug use death

[Tabby]

Don't discredit yourself Chisamba. Ford probably dropped completely off the American media radar shortly after his last crack scandal (the one where he admitted to smoking crack but only because he was in a drunken stupor). The rest of city council tried very hard to have him removed from office. They failed, but they did manage to get many of his powers stripped. It didn't matter a whole lot since the city was heading into another election at the time. Shortly into the campaign, Rob Ford was diagnosed with cancer. He dropped out of the mayoral race but ran instead for city councilor of Etobicoke north (aka Ford Nation*) where he won handily without so much as putting up a sign. His brother, Doug, took Rob's place running for mayor but was unsuccessful. He didn't quite have Rob's 'charisma'.

Anyway, Rob Ford has continued to serve as councilor on and off between cancer treatments. Honestly, I think he's been at work more than in hospital so it was pretty surprising to find out he was in such bad shape. They announced a few days ago that the chemo wasn't working and then all of a sudden, this.

*I work in the heart of Ford Nation - up the street from RF's drug dealer, across the street from the school he coached football at and just across the highway from his family business.

[FlyingLily]

There is a lot of innuendo about his domestic life and violence; is any of that justified Tabby?

And: I know of Etobicoke from the American TV series "Deadwood", which is weird. The main character sheriff was from there.

[Tabby]

He made a fairly raunchy statement about his wife once: http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/ro ... edia-scrum

There was a domestic assault call from his house around the same time they were setting up the sting for his drug dealer: http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2 ... sting.html

Apparently there was an old domestic violence charge that was dropped.

I don't know if any of this is real - it could have been staged to protect his drug dealer but he certainly didn't show his wife the respect most people believe she deserved. It wouldn't surprise me if he did but I don't know that there's any proof of it anywhere.