Guess what folks …

… we’re not in Kansas anymore.  We’ve had a series of wake-up calls recently in Canada, but the same is true pretty much everywhere.  This may come as a nasty, unwelcome surprise to a lot of people out there, but crime, drug and alcohol addiction and bad and even deviant behaviour is not the exclusive territory of the underprivileged and uneducated among us.

Easy and convenient as it’s always been to point fingers at them, while denying, ignoring and doing nothing about what’s going on behind closed doors right in our own backyards.  Yes, my dears, on university campuses, in corporate boardrooms nice, middle class neighbourhoods and luxurious penthouse apartments and sprawling estates.

Just look at our soon to be former mayor, Rob Ford.  There are videos of him drunk, consorting with criminals, buying crack, making offensive racial slurs and comments about women and even threatening to kill people.  He’s got three siblings — two brothers and a sister and each and every one of them has had involvement with drugs.

His brother, Doug, sold hash in the ’80s.  His brother, Randy, not only sold drugs, he was once charged in relation to a drug-related kidnapping.  His sister, Kathy, is an addict, among other things, and Rob Ford was caught yet again on video, while at her house, in her basement, smoking crack with her.  It was after that he finally ended up in rehab; and she’s been

Is it me?

What’s going on?  Am I just getting cranky and intolerant in my old age?  Because I don’t know about you, but it sure feels like I’m living in a world where manners and civility are fast becoming endangered species.

A world where callous, boorish, insensitive, classless, vile behaviour is, sadly, becoming the norm; and is generally accepted, excused, ignored, overlooked and, sometimes, even rewarded.

Of what do I speak?

If, in the end, the NBA does find a way to make Donald Sterling sell the Clippers he will make pots and pots and pots of money.  He’ll laugh all the way to the bank.  And he’ll still be a racist pig.  And a womanizer.  And a slum landlord.  He’s 80 years old and he’s got prostate  cancer.  He’s not about to change any time soon.  And why would he?  He’s gotten away with it so far.

If, in the end, by some miracle Toronto’s Mayor, Rob Ford, comes out of rehab and never smokes crack or drinks 

If there’s anything I can’t stand …

Liars drive me insane.  I have zero tolerance.  Years ago there was a guy I was crazy in love with.  He lied to me.  That was it.  I was gone.  Forever more.  So you know I am just going out of my mind over our infamous mayor, Rob Ford.

He tells so many lies it’s a wonder his nose isn’t 10-feet long.  In fact, I don’t think he’s ever told the truth, about anything, in his entire life.  He claims he’s saved the city of Toronto 1 billion dollars.  It is a bald-faced lie.

He swore he never used crack until our police chief said he’d seen the video of him smoking it.  When, red-faced, he had to admit he’d “tried it”.  He insists he doesn’t know who he was talking about in a video where he was seen, and heard, threatening to kill someone.  Excuse me!  

He says, over and over and over again, he doesn’t have a drinking problem yet there are videos surfacing constantly in which he’s loaded.  He’s been asked to leave sporting events and official city