[PHOTO] Pigeon debris

Something happened to a pigeon on an Annex sidewalk, something that left clumps of the bird's feathers scattered on the cement. (There was no sign of more of the bird elsewhere.)

[URBAN NOTE] "Picturing a Toronto without Ford"

Writing last Friday in The Globe and Mail, Marcus Gee warned presciently that even if Toronto mayor Rob Ford was removed from office, that would not put an end to tumult. Quite the contrary: things could become more complicated still.

[Ford's] removal would throw city politics into turmoil and confront city councillors with two unpalatable options: Appoint someone to serve out the rest of Mr. Ford’s term or call a by-election. Either way, the business of city government would surely stall as the whole mess got sorted out.

Appointing an interim mayor would put councillors in the awkward position of making a call that should properly be up to voters. And who would they choose? A right-winger who would carry out Mr. Ford’s mandate? A centrist who would better reflect the will of council?

Names are already being tossed around: deputy mayor Doug Holyday, the genial conservative and former mayor of Etobicoke; TTC chair Karen Stintz, who seized leadership from the mayor when his ill-considered transit plan went off the rails; Josh Colle, a well-liked rookie who has managed to avoid partisanship; even someone from outside of city council like former Ontario Conservative Leader John Tory. But being a caretaker mayor would be no treat for anyone. What real power would he or she wield, lacking a mandate from voters? Calling a by-election, on the other hand, would cost $7-million and pitch the city into an unwanted campaign in the middle of winter. Assuming a vote could be organized as early as January, the winner would hold office for only 21 months, until the next scheduled election on Oct. 27, 2014. If things go as usual, campaigning for that election would start in early 2014, little more than a year from now. What that would mean, in effect, is a continuous election campaign for the next two years.

If Mr. Ford were disqualified from running again (an option open to the judge), it is not impossible to imagine his brother, Doug, running in his stead. How about this prospect: Mayor Doug Ford. If the mayor were not disqualified from running again, he has said he would plunge immediately into campaigning to be re-elected, whether in a by-election or in 2014. Going on past performance, he would claim he was driven from office by left-wingers bitter at his original victory and determined to halt his war on gravy at city hall. Who knows? It could work – Ford fights back against those who thwarted the will of the voters.

[URBAN NOTE] "Mayor Ford’s removal arose from bad law, even judge agrees"

Writing for Postmedia News, columnist Christie Blatchford takes issue with Ford's removal from office.

(The title of the article, incidentally, is misleading. As Blatchford admits further in the article, the judge did not disagree with the idea of a law dealing with conflicts of interest, or even with the idea of punishing politicians who by their actions violate laws dealing with potential conflicts of interest. The judge simply didn't think that having mandatory expulsion from office as the only punishment offered by the law.)

As the judge said, [Ford's] speaking and voting “was far from the most serious breach,” but removal is mandatory unless the breach was inadvertent or by reason of an error in judgment.

Ford’s own testimony at trial made it clear it wasn’t inadvertent (he said he came to that meeting with the intention of speaking, on principle if you like) or an error in judgment (or that if it was, it was his fault for either not knowing or ignoring the rules). Besides, the judge said, Ford showed “a stubborn sense of entitlement and a dismissive and confrontational attitude” to the integrity boss and council’s code of conduct.

The mandatory removal required — under Section 10.1 of the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act — makes the statute an ass, as the judge himself acknowledged.

It “is a very blunt instrument and has attracted justified criticism and calls for legislative reform,” the judge said.

[. . .]

Had Judge Hackland been looking for an out — to address what he pretty plainly agrees is a bad law — his best bet was Section 4 (k) of the statute, which says that removal doesn’t apply if the pecuniary interest “is so remote or insignificant in its nature that it cannot reasonably be regarded as likely to influence the member.”

But the judge found that what the Mayor said at that meeting where he shouldn’t even have been speaking revealed “his pecuniary interest…was of significance to him” and the 4 (k) exemption didn’t apply.

[URBAN NOTE] "Toronto mayor cannot seek office until 2014: city solicitor"

CTV Toronto has more about the legal mechanics involved with Ford's removal. One major question remaining to be definitely answered is whether or not Ford could run for mayor again in a by-election. (Ford says yes, the city solicitor says no.)

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s application to postpone a decision ordering him out of office will be heard in court next week, his lawyer has confirmed.

In an email to CP24, lawyer Alan Lenczner wrote that Ford’s request for a “stay of removal” order will be heard on Dec. 5.

The news comes a day after Ontario Superior Court Judge Charles Hackland ordered Ford to vacate office in 13 days.

After Judge Hackland’s ruling came down, it became apparent that Ford’s legal saga would not end there. The mayor promptly indicated that he would appeal and seek a stay-of-removal order, which could allow him to hold onto his job while his request is considered by the courts.

In the meantime, Toronto’s top lawyer has shut down Mayor Rob Ford’s plans to run in a potential byelection, determining he cannot seek office again until the next general election.

Speaking to council on Tuesday, City solicitor Anna Kinastowski said she believes that a judge’s ruling ousting Ford for the “current term” bars him from council until the year 2014, when the next scheduled municipal election will take place.

“That is our interpretation of that particular fact,” she said.

Kinastowski’s analysis runs contrary to claims Mayor Ford made on Monday, as he vowed to fight “tooth and nail” against a court order removing him from office in 13 days.

[LINK] "Re-evangelizing New England"

An article by Slate's Ruth Graham takes a look at the efforts of conservative evangelical Christians from the Southern United States to establish viable offshoot congregations in New England, a place where religion is not important in the same way as in the South. (Note should be taken, too, that at least one of the interviewed transplants doesn't think much of the religion that does exist in New England.)

My guess is that, in the long term, this effort won't succeed in changing New England's religious culture: enduring patterns of religious belief endure, especially if they remain successful. The church planters might succeed in altering things at the margins, in rural areas or in other specific communities, but that's all I can see happening.

The pastor of a small church in rural Vermont is not the kind of guy you’d expect to speak with a slow North Carolina drawl. But Lyandon Warren felt a calling to New England ever since he heard a speaker in his college Christian Studies program explain that less than 3 percent of the region’s population is evangelical Christians. By his denomination’s definition, those numbers indicate an “unreached people group”—a whole population without a viable Christian community. “My heart was opened,” he says. “To be a foot-soldier on that battleground is a joy and a privilege.”

In 2006, Warren moved to Vermont to open a new Baptist church in a town whose last church had closed its doors the year before due to lack of attendance. His congregation, which meets in the closed church’s old white clapboard building, grew slowly but steadily, and in early September, Warren opened up a second new church in a nearby town. Similar churches have sprung up throughout the region: New England has become a mission field, and there are seeds of a revival sprouting.

The Northeast is the historic cradle of American Christianity, and just about every postcard-ready town here boasts a white church with a steeple. But sometime between the Second Great Awakening and today, the region evolved into the most secular part of the country. In the words of one regional missions group, “pulpits that once boasted gospel preachers like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield now proclaim universalism, liberalism, and postmodernism.” A Gallup poll this year found that the four least-religious states in America are in New England. For evangelicals, the issue is more pointed: Evangelical researcher J.D. Payne has found that of the five U.S. metro areas with the lowest percentage of evangelicals, New England cities are beat only by Mormon-dominated Provo, Utah. New England is relatively wealthy and educated, and overall, its population is shrinking and aging. That’s why some Christians see New England as “hard soil”—and desperate for re-evangelizing. There’s a palpable sense of momentum growing among evangelicals in New England, who say this hard soil may soon bear fruit thanks to institutional efforts, individual leaders, and an intangible sense of energy often credited to the Holy Spirit. But do they have any hope of success in the most proudly and profoundly secular region in America?

The movement to convert New Englanders looks something like the recent evangelical focus on Western Europe, another traditionally Christian region that is now broadly unchurched. One popular approach is “church planting,” in which a pastor moves to a new location to found a new church that he hopes will eventually spawn several others, and so on. Because the method eventually produces indigenous churches, it’s considered a more reliable and organic path to growth than traditional “outsider” evangelism. To generalize broadly, church-planters tend to be young and Web-savvy, are almost always male (with a supportive wife), and often share a conviction that orthodox theology needn’t be burdened by the trappings of traditional worship. Think overhead projectors, not organs.

[. . .]

Stephen Um is pastor at Boston’s Citylife Presbyterian Church and a leader in the movement to re-evangelize the region. Born in Seoul but raised and educated mostly in Massachusetts, Um founded his church just over 10 years ago with a base group of 12 people. Citylife now meets in two locations in Boston, including a hotel conference center on Boston Common, and attracts between 700 and 800 people—a highly educated congregation that’s about one-half white and one-half Asian—every Sunday. Um calls what’s happening in New England a “quiet revival.” He speculates that since the drivers of the revival are small churches spread throughout a largely rural area, it doesn’t get the kind of media attention that megachurches attract.

[. . .]

Um’s rapid success in expanding his own congregation is unusual here. In New England, he estimates, it usually takes a talented pastor 10 years to build a new church of 100 people. By contrast, he says, even an average pastor can plop down in South Carolina or Tennessee and grow from 50 to 300 attendees a year. “But that’s a Christendom culture,” Um says. “You set up shop and people come.” Up north, it’s a “post-church, post-Christian” environment. “You come to Boston and you see all the beautiful historic churches, but from my perspective they don’t preach the gospel.”

[LINK] "The Republican Postmodern Turn, Silicon Valley, and California’s Political Transformation"

An extended analysis of the changing political landscape in the state of California by Geocurrents' Martin Lewis, noting that a state once a stronghold for Republicanism has is becoming increasingly Democratic, is worth reading. First, the set-up.

Barack Obama still took California by almost 60 percent of the vote, a figure exceeded (among states) only by Hawaii (70.6%), Vermont (67%), Rhode Island (62.7%), New York (63.6%), Maryland (61.7%), and Massachusetts (60.8%). And in the California legislative contests, the Democratic Party triumphed handily, and is now poised to gain supermajorities in both the assembly and senate. California, it would seem, is turning into a one-party state.

[. . . ] Mitt Romney took several counties in interior Californian that John McCain lost in 2008. The 2008 election, however, was an unusual contest, as the country was in the midst of an economic meltdown. Better comparisons are the elections of 2000 and 2004. [. . .] Obama gained substantial ground over both John Kerry and Al Gore, winning a number of counties in Southern California and in the Central Valley that had not given a majority of their votes to a Democrat for decades.*

Southern California especially has seen a political transformation over the past few election cycles. In the 2012 election, only Orange and Riverside counties supported Republican Romney, yet as recently as 1988, only one county—Los Angeles—supported Democrat Michel Dukakis. Strikingly evident is the transition of gigantic San Bernardino County from red to the blue. This change is not quite as dramatic as it appears on the map; Obama’s margin was narrow, and the vast majority of the county’s two million inhabitants are clustered in its southwestern corner, with the rest of the county remaining right-wing. Still, southwestern San Bernardino County is part of the so-called Inland Empire, a relatively conservative corner of the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area that has been particularly hard-hit by the foreclosure crisis. Despite the hardships of the past four years, San Bernardino County continues to support Obama. As is true in many other parts of Southern California, a growing Hispanic population is helping push the county leftward.

The greater San Francisco Bay Area in northern California underwent its own political transformation two decades earlier. In the 1950s, the region was solidly Republican; at that time, the electoral geography of California was almost the reverse of what it is today (as is generally true for the United States as a whole). In the Bay Area, the watershed election was 1988. Four years earlier, Ronald Reagan lost only San Francisco, Marin, Alameda, and Santa Cruz counties, but by 1988, Napa alone remained in the Republican camp. By 1992, the entire Bay Area had shifted to the Democratic column. Since then, the Democratic margin of victory has only continued to grow.

What's going on? Lewis traces the collapse in Republican strength to its inability to adapt to the state's changing demographics, and to a studied disinterest in, well, reality. The episode of the 47%--40% of whom voted for Romney anyway--is a case in point.

[T]he disdain for reason behind this episode also reveals an ironic turn in the Republican core: a turn, effectively, toward radical postmodernism. When extreme postmodernists on the left began to argue in the 1980s that science is a conspiracy to justify the status quo and that “facts” are constructed to serve reactionary causes, conservative intellectuals were aghast, for good reason, arguing that this nonsensical movement threatened our intellectual heritage. Yet the party seems to have shifted 180 degrees, to the point where facts, reason, and science have come to be seen by many Republican stalwarts as partisan Democrat obstacles to American renewal. Such an attitude does not bode well for the future of the Republican Party. The question now is whether the voice of reason, represented by conservative thinkers like David Brooks and David Frum, will prevail, or whether the likes of Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh will continue to guide the party faithful. If the latter course triumphs, the Republican vote in Silicon Valley may well approach the vanishing point.