Beyond Marriage: House of Cards Season 4

Underwood and Underwood for the win. Season 4 sees Frank and Claire maneuver to become running mates on the eve of a U.S. Presidential election.

"Beyond Marriage" 

House of Cards stormed back into our imaginations with the launch of a fourth season on March 4. It's no coincidence that four years marks the series length so far because it's also the span of a single Presidential term in office. For those who felt Season 3 ended with a whimper instead of a bang, you won't be disappointed with the new episodes. Season 4 of Netflix's political drama has more twists and turns than a rollercoaster at Canada's Wonderland.

The drama begins where we left off — with our protagonists (antiheroes?) squaring off against each other. Frank (Kevin Spacey) is in the midst of a tightly contested re-election campaign. His wife, the formidable Claire Underwood (Robin Wright), has left Frank to jumpstart her own political career, away from her powerful spouse's shadow.

Seeing them crisscross the United States while trying to out-network and outsmart each other is great fun to watch. As is the return of Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly) Frank's conflicted, emotionally troubled Chief of Staff. His character walks a fine balancing line — though he has done horrible things, you can't bring yourself to hate him. As the season progresses we see the effect of some of Stamper's decisions on his moral and spiritual well-being (or lack thereof).

Then, just when you think you can see around the next curve on the track, the tone of Season 4 changes dramatically after Frank is shot at a political rally by Lucas Goodwin (Sebastian Arcelus). Goodwin, formerly an Editor at The Washington Herald was sent to jail by Frank and his associates in Season 2 for trying to uncover the crooked politician's trail of murder and lies. During the gunfire Frank takes a bullet in his liver and is left clinging to life on a Hospital bed. His bodyguard Edward Meechum (Nathan Darrow) is killed by Goodwin, though not before taking down the would be assassin.

While waiting for a liver transplant Frank enters a dream state where he is haunted by the ghosts of Peter Russo (Corey Stoll) and Zoe Barnes (Kate Mara). One moment he is in a crowded train car that's rattling along toward some unknown destination. Then he sees Zoe, her hair cut short. Perhaps the train is a reference to the subway car that Frank pushed Zoe under at the beginning of Season 2. The next moment he is together with Peter and Zoe inside the Oval Office. Claire is only just visible outside the window. Inside the dead are more real than the living, inviting the corrupt President to enter their world.

It's nail biting stuff to watch, and one of Season 4's best episodes.

Frank survives his near death experience by receiving a last minute liver transplant. Unsurprisingly, people die for Frank to get back into the game. One of those deaths weighs heavily on Doug Stamper, and is a thread that follows through the rest of this season.

To heal a rift with Claire, Frank agrees to maneuver her into place as his running mate on the Democratic ticket. This plot arc provides even more tension and genuine surprises. The Underwoods decide on an open convention to play up the theater of politics, only to have Catherine Durant (Jayne Atkinson) their Secretary of State, make a play for the Presidential nomination herself when she discovers the Underwoods have betrayed her.

In my favourite scene from Season 4, Frank uses intimidation and fear to force Durant to abandon her challenge. One-on-one he drops his southern gentleman mask to show her what lies below the pleasant surface. From there, the Underwoods' path to secure the nomination is guaranteed.  

From personal terror to fear on a large scale, the Islamic Caliphate Organization (ICO) enters the picture in the last third of the season. A stand-in for ISIS, the terrorist organization is spreading fear in the Middle East and provides a means for Republican Governor and Presidential hopeful Will Conway (Joel Kinnaman) to portray Frank as a weak and indecisive leader.

So it goes through to Season 4's logical conclusion - a hostage situation. A situation the Underwoods take advantage of to horrifying effect in the last episode. Season 4's ending feels like a punch to the gut. Frank and Claire anticipate and allow the execution of an ICO hostage to take control of the situation when Tom Hammerschmidt and The Washington Herald publish an exposé on Underwood's path to the White House.

The ending hits uncomfortably close to some of our biggest fears in the western world. The fear that tomorrow we could be next.

Frank concludes: "That's right. We don't submit to Terror; we make the Terror."

***

A small digression to end this blog. This time about two real life politicians:

Rob Ford, former Mayor of Toronto and longtime city councillor, died of a rare form of Cancer on March 22. His death is tragic, and I feel sorry for the Ford family. However, as Mayor, Rob Ford's politics held the city back. Simple slogans like: "Subways, subways, subways" and the former Mayor's view that Toronto should be run like a business didn't just miss the mark. They stopped us from evolving and moving forward. Complex problems cannot be solved by sloganeering and refusing to read briefing binders.

Which brings me to Donald Trump. The billionaire's rhetoric on the campaign trail makes all of Ford's shenanigans pale by comparison. Promises to build a wall along the U.S. / Mexico border, to deport Muslims, singling out certain ethnic groups, and the list goes on. Not only does spouting this kind of hate not solve anything, it turns people against each other.

When Marco Rubio failed to win his home state of Florida, he pulled out of the race for his party's nomination. What he said that night should be a wake up call for all American voters, regardless of who they intend to vote for.

"The politics of resentment against other people will not just leave us a fractured party. They're going to leave us a fractured nation. They're going to leave us as a nation where people literally hate each other because they have different political opinions."

Food for thought.

Dirty Little Secrets, Dirty Little Lies - The Undoing of Rob Ford

"Dirty little secrets, dirty little lies, we've got our dirty little fingers in everybody's pie." - Dirty Laundry, The Eagles

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford throws a world class freak out on October 31, 2013, telling reporters to, "Get off my property!" That was the day Toronto police revealed they had possession of a video appearing to show Ford smoking crack cocaine.

It was a scene you don't see every day, at least not in 'Toronto the Good.' Mayor Rob Ford was standing in the driveway of his Etobicoke house on Halloween day of this year screaming at reporters to, "Get off my property! Will you get off my property!" The press obeyed, temporarily, before going right back on said driveway to snap a few close up shots of the Mayor. Worth noting is that Ford was holding clothing, what appeared to be his drycleaning. As the Don Henley song goes, "I make my living off the evening news, just give me something, something I can use..."

Watching the scene, it's clear that neither the Mayor nor the media have clean hands in this. It was a bad news day for the Mayor, that's for sure. Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair revealed the Force is in possession of a video that appears consistent with media reports from Gawker and The Toronto Star that had surfaced months before Ford's Halloween freak out. The video shows Ford in the company of "gangbangers" as my friend, crime reporter James Dubro calls them, smoking what appeared to reporters to be crack cocaine. Maybe on that dreary October 31 morning Ford had some prior knowledge about what was about to go down. Then again, maybe he didn't - I'm sure it's not the sort of conversation Bill Blair would want to have with the Chief Magistrate, given how much of Ford's dirty laundry had already been aired publicly. 

In a pointed editorial for The New York Times titled 'Toronto's Hot Mess' writer Stephen Marche concludes, "Toronto is the city of Rob Ford now, an expanding hot mess, fueled by dark secrets, inarticulate desires and inchoate fury... (Toronto) has become a city making a spectacle of itself."

Indeed. The latest news about Ford's activities, released today, suggest that Ford may have used Heroin, and was a frequent visitor to 15 Windsor Rd., where he allegedly bought, and used, drugs. Even more interesting is that Ford may have offered $5,000 and a car for the cell phone video that allegedly shows him smoking crack cocaine.

Months of police surveillance paint a picture of Ford frequently meeting friend and sometime driver Alexander Lisi. He (Lisi) is now facing criminal charges. On August 13 police observed Ford and Lisi entering Douglas Ford Park, named after the Mayor's father - when the two left over an hour later they found an empty bottle of Iceberg Vodka and juice.

The puzzle assembled by police surveillance suggests a rather sad, small fry lifestyle - shady deals in parking lots and out of the way locations. It's pitiable, really. That's what I feel now whenever I see Ford's mug on the evening news, the soft emotion of pity. This is no scheming mastermind with an evil agenda; far from it. Here stands a man with personal demons that he temporarily held at bay with the bottle and / or powder. For all the politicians, many with their own Mayoral ambitions or a Dog in the coming year's race, who said Ford has shamed Toronto, they can stuff it. As National Post columnist Christie Blatchford pointed out Toronto needs a reputation before it can be slandered.

To every Torontonian who voted in the 2010 municipal election, and particularly to every GTA resident who makes an effort to stay informed about the world around them, were you really surprised to learn these unsavory details about Ford? Further to that, and I'm pointing at everyone who voted for him, how could you have not known who you were voting for? His simple, yet effective, line about fighting the, "Gravy Train" at Toronto City hall mobilized voters who have a hate-on for Toronto's establishment and institutions.

Suburbanites would rather have someone in office who holds views in accordance with their own - the values held by downtown residents and those in the suburbs are distinct. Former Toronto Mayor John Sewell pointed out that in Toronto's suburbs, "Travel is mostly by car, since densities are not high enough to make transit financially viable, and, where they exist, sidewalks are generally bereft of people since things are so far apart that it's a really long walk to anywhere... This city form promotes a sense of the individual, competition, and a distancing of people from each other." Welcome to Ford Nation.

Back to Ford himself - his pattern of behaviour existed long before he became Mayor. As a city councillor he was known for grandstanding during council meetings without having read any of the background material beforehand. His arguments were often concocted to keep himself in the spotlight, a lone warrior fighting the good fight for the tax payer. Witness Rob as a city councillor, the 'Fat Fuck' high school bully in action.

The Telling Details were there for anyone who cared to pay attention before the last municipal election, where Ford was elected Mayor. From the conclusion of a Toronto Life profile of Ford by journalist Gerald Hannon: " At the end of one council session a few months ago, I followed Ford out of the chamber. We hadn’t been introduced, and he didn’t know who I was. He and two other men entered the elevator. The two men talked city business, gripped by some arcane details of civic administration. Ford, lost in his own thoughts, paid them no mind. He was looking at himself in the mirrored wall of the elevator, tilting his head from side to side, stroking his cheek in that caressingly feline way he touches himself, smiling approvingly. He likes what he sees. He believes Toronto loves him, believes Toronto can’t wait to be annexed into Ford Country. He may be right. I could almost hear him purr."

As a professor once told me in a GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Test) study course, "people are patterns of behaviour." So it is with Robert Bruce Ford; the writing was on the wall for anyone with a brain and the patience to look.

The list goes on and on - allegations of spouse abuse, admitted drinking and driving, bending facts to suit his own ends, and on, and on, and on. What really infuriates me is not the man himself, it's that people could buy his cheap retail politics and vote him into office. Everyone who checked the box beside Ford's name on their ballot slips is getting exactly what they deserve.

For Ford himself it's long past time that he exited stage right. If he runs in, and wins, the October 2014 election, the most Telling Detail will be that voters endorsed Robbie's behaviour and looked the other way after his repeated lies. 

We've seen the full extent of Rob Ford's dirty laundry. Next October it's time to do something about it. 

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, Crack Cocaine, and a City Awaiting the Tale of the Smartphone Video

Rob Ford at the wheel. After a weekend of denial, Torontonians await the tale of the tape. Image Credit:
(Aaron Vincent Elkaim/Canadian Press)

Rob Ford and a City Awaiting the Tale of the Smartphone Video

I wonder if Torontonians knew what they were signing on for when they elected Rob Ford as Mayor of Toronto in 2010. How closely was everyone paying attention? The slogan, I'll admit, was very clever at the time: "Respect for taxpayers." That saying lost some of its cleverness as Ford became increasingly attached to the word. Other conservatives then picked up the ball. Now the word 'taxpayer' is right up there in the political vocabulary with 'Toronto elites.' These are words designed to evoke caricature images of people who belong to certain economic classes and hold certain beliefs.

In the former case, it's Regular Joes who vote Conservative and hold the highest respect for someone who will keep cash in their pockets - and out of the tax man's. Because the most important thing in life is saving money. Not the quality of the neighbourhoods we live in or the level of services cities provide (everything from water sanitation to outdoor pools in the summer)

Toronto elites, of course, are the Michael Ignatieffs, Dalton McGuintys, and David Millers of the city. Highly educated people with money who have left leaning political views. Oh, and they know what's in all our best interests. Tell me the phrase 'Toronto elites' doesn't bring to mind Premier Dad, as McGuinty was nicknamed when he led the Ontario Liberals.

Since his name has embedded itself in the minds of Toronto's public (not to mention the brains of federal and provincial politicians) what mental images does Rob Ford bring to mind?

In the last two weeks that image has been of a man keeping company with drug dealers while smoking crack cocaine. After the story broke, Ford kept silent for a week. His brother, city councilor Doug Ford, even disappeared for two days himself, dropping off the Grid, as it were.

Until now Rob's brother has a history of defending the error prone Mayor promptly. Why the silence? Why the disappearing act? Then there is Rob's prolonged silence. When he finally did give a statement to the media on Friday, May 24, he said that it was under advice from his lawyer that he kept mum.

Oh, and there is the small matter pointed out by the Toronto Sun that Ford did not take the step of suing The Toronto Star and Gawker for libel. If a newspaper of record were to say that I smoked crack cocaine in the company of drug dealers, I would certainly pursue legal action. But Ford has not done so. Why?

Also interesting to note, before Rob Ford spoke on May 24, his brother Doug defended him on May 22. To quote: "Rob is telling me these stories are untrue, that these accusations are ridiculous. And I believe him." Then he goes on to defend his brother's administration.

Did you notice how Doug's language leaves room to wiggle? When Rob spoke for himself last Friday, again there appeared language with wiggle room to spare. "I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine. As for a video, I cannot comment on a video that I have never seen or does not exist."

To the questions. Does that mean he has never smoked crack cocaine? Since he leaves the possibility of the video's existence open with that sentence, does such a video exist? (He has since repeatedly denied that it does)

Then the exits began. Within the last week, Ford has fired his former Chief of Staff Mark Towhey. Then, today, George Christopoulos, his press secretary, and Isaac Ransom, deputy communications officer for the Mayor's Office, quit.

Oh, and his former Press Secretary Adrienne Batra ripped Mayor Ford in The Toronto Sun.

Where Does Toronto Go from Here? 

Denial of the allegations came a little too late for my liking. And since Gawker, the outlet that broke the story, reached their goal with the indiegogo fundraising campaign, it's time for the video's owners to come forward. If it's true after all these denials, Ford should exit stage right and save what dignity he has left.

Side Effects

If you still haven't had your fill of drugs and political intrigue, I suggest watching Side Effects, a thinking man's thriller from director Steven Soderbergh. It touches on many questions that should be asked about an increasingly anxious, medication dependent society. Where does responsibility lie when someone on medication breaks the law? No spoilers will be forthcoming here. You'll just have to watch it for yourself. 

Rob Ford Wins Toronto Mayoralty

Rob Ford is Toronto's new mayor elect. He won the election on Monday night with 47 per cent of the vote to George Smitherman's 36 per cent. After a campaign of simple slogans (Stop the Gravy Train; Respect for Taxpayers) and populist positions, Ford will lead Canada's largest city for the next four years.

Last Tuesday's amusing edition of CBC Radio's As It Happens featured a 'part interview' with Ford. You can find a transcript of that interview here on the Torontoist and the audio clip from the As It Happens website here. The interviewer catches Ford as he's coaching a football practice. And it's clear from the conversation where Ford's attention is. At one point he yells, "Go out and get changed! Go out! And get changed!" At another point: "Coach, half your juniors aren't even here, eh ? Alright, alright."

But to give the man credit, he's apparently already reaching out to councillors by seeking meetings with all members of the newly elected council. On election night Ford received the usual congratulatory calls from outgoing Mayor David Miller, Premier Dalton McGuinty and defeated rival George Smitherman.

Smitherman must have had a bitter taste in his mouth on election night. After entering the race as the front runner, he left it roundly stomped by Ford. Smitherman's campaign had a number of different platforms and messages — and to its detriment, no memorable slogan. He also kept adjusting the political messages his campaign was sending out, from left of centre to veering right to mixing the message so that his policies borrowed from both ends of the spectrum. I don't think this helped him.

The next four years promise to be highly interesting. In a time where no government's problems are easy fixes and costs from health care are set to skyrocket, Ford has promised to slash the city's budget while not reducing services. Where he will find those efficiencies is anyone's guess. There will be no shortage of people paying attention to see if he can deliver.

***

Lately I've been listening to the score from American Beauty. Thomas Newman, who composed the score, has worked on a number of films, including Road to Perdition and the Pixar hit WALL-E. Newman once called his work on the film's score a balancing act to move the action along without disturbing the movie's "moral ambiguity." Many of the tracks have clever titles in addition to being great instrumental music. I've linked to a selection of them below:

4) Lunch with the King

6) Mr. Smarty Man

12) Structure and Discipline

18) Any Other Name


Enjoy, and Happy Halloween.

Rob Ford As Mayor ? Give Me Furious George Any Day

The hot news in Toronto this week is a poll showing mayoral candidate Rob Ford sitting at 45 per cent support among the city's decided voters. Trailing badly in second place is the provincial government's former deputy premier, George Smitherman. Smitherman has recently been making statements suggesting he is the only candidate who can stop Ford the Destroyer, as some have dubbed the Etobicoke councillor.

Ford is the subject of a feature length profile in the October issue of Toronto Life by none other than Gerald Hannon. He also profiled George Smitherman for the magazine in their March issue. Smitherman clearly wants the job so bad he can taste it. In recent weeks he's taken to cribbing Ford's speaking points. Now Smitherman's focus is 'Service First', and like his opponent, he now talks about putting, "the customer first." At least he doesn't refer to everyone and their dog as "buddy" (yet, anyway)

Smitherman clearly sees which way the wind of public opinion is blowing. He figures he can catch this wind at his back if he steals enough of his opponent's talking points and obsession with freezing this, cutting that and slashing the other thing. Because that's what Rob Ford is about. His campaign's themes circle back to the same point of waste at city hall and stopping, "the gravy train." Ford's campaign even produced a cartoon to hammer home this point in case you weren't paying attention; he only mentions it every time a reporter with a microphone is within shouting distance.

Christopher Bird, one of Torontoist's resident wits, has nicknamed Ford the 'Flounder.' The nickname is used to great comic effect in this recap of a CP24 mayoral debate. Particularly hilarious is Bird recapping the debate's closing arguments:


9:30 PM: Final thoughts! Thomson: Flounder sucks, platitude platitude platitude. Rossi: City Hall isn't connected to people, so it's time for a newbie to connect to people! Pantalone: Most people like Toronto how it is, and I am the candidate of "how it is," and Flounder sucks. Smitherman: City Hall needs to be better and we can be better, but do you really want an asshole in charge of the city? No? Then vote me. Flounder: Tax cuts gravy train wasteful spending councillor perks. (I literally wrote that before he started speaking and it was completely accurate.)

***

I bolded the 'Flounder's' lines because this is Rob Ford's standard campaign rhetoric. He repeats it again and again because he knows these particular points are what's selling him to GTA voters. When I see the man give a campaign speech I can't help but picture an overweight, drooling toddler pounding the same note over and over again on his toy piano. This would be funny, except people aren't ignoring the man.

I would summarize Ford's appeal as this: he provides solutions that sound like common sense and would also (in theory) be easy to implement. How to solve the waste at city hall ? Let's cut the number of councillors in half! After all, there are only 22 Members of Parliament for Toronto and area, and another 22 MPPs sitting in Queen's Park. As the candidate's website states, "There are too many politicians and not enough accountability." Never mind that many Toronto residents already have a difficult time reaching their city councillor when they need assistance. Ford, master of customer service that he is, will return your call personally. I promise.

For Toronto residents who are normally disengaged from politics many of Ford's proposals sound like good ideas. The problem is when you actually analyze if they would make sound city policy. When that happens Ford's platform is revealed for the smoke and light show it is.

The other problem I have with Rob Ford is that his campaign is based on anger. As many astute Toronto columnists (and former mayors) have pointed out, anger is not the best emotion to build a city on. The verbs Ford is fondest of using are the proof in the pudding. Cutting, chopping, destroying, scrapping, stopping — do I need to continue ?

I agree with the idea that city council needs to show spending restraint and that councillors need to use their office budgets wisely. When the state of the economy is uncertain and people are feeling the pain in their wallets, it's not a good idea to throw "free barbecues" or any other events that city councillors host where the money being spent is the taxpayers.

That said, Toronto will not thrive as a city if our new Mayor's sole obsession is cutting costs and finding efficiencies in the operating budget. Running city hall like a business — where the bottom line is the only line that counts — is not how you make a city succeed or make its residents feel pride and optimism about the future.

Problems with his campaign and lack of coherent policy vision aside, my vote is with Smitherman.

Globe and Mail's Marcus Gee Urges Rob Ford to Run for Mayor

In today's Globe and Mail, columnist Marcus Gee is urging right-wing city councillor Rob Ford to run for Mayor of Toronto. The piece is titled, 'Rob Ford, please run. You're the right guy for a lefty race.'

Gee goes on to point out that two of the declared candidates - Rocco Rossi and George Smitherman - are Liberals; and there's Adam Giambrone, chair of the TTC and a former director of the federal NDP. While Rossi has been coming up with some right-wing ideas, such as killing planned bicycle lanes and selling Toronto Hydro, if Ford decides to run for Mayor he'll make Rossi's ideas sound like they're coming from a moderate.

Ford has developed a reputation for frothing at the mouth about over taxation and generally placing foot in mouth at a predictable pace. Check out this YouTube video where Ford berates John Barber, the Globe and Mail's former city hall reporter, in a manner worthy of a high school bully. Ford embodies the worst of what the right has to offer.

Which is why I want him to run for Mayor. Rossi is coming up with right-of-centre ideas because he thinks the electorate is so pissed off with incumbent Mayor David Miller that the voting public now has a hate-on for the unions. This is mostly because of the city workers' strike that dragged on last summer to a smelly end. If Ford makes a run for the city's top job, Toronto voters will wake up and realize how destructive these kinds of ideas are. Because, Ford being Ford, will come up with positions and statements so over the top that he'll draw attention like moths to a flame.

Torontonians should read Heather Mallick's informed and witty book of essays: Cake or Death: The Excruciating Choices of Everyday Life, to get a solid refutation of the right-wing idea that taxation is bad. Hell, you can even read the essay where Mallick logically and convincingly makes the argument for taxation on her website's teaser for the book. Ford's entry to the Mayoral race would provide a clear contrast between platforms that would hurt the city (Ex. Putting light rail transit projects on hold - Rossi, again), and a vision to improve transit, living conditions for the poor, and a host of other initiatives that Miller has devoted time and energy to. Then we'll see who agrees with Rob Ford's fiscal tightwad views.

Gee closes his piece by urging Ford to step into the ring, "Run, councillor, run." I couldn't have said it better.

I sincerely hope that councillor Adam Giambrone, despite his troubles running the TTC, can offer a platform and vision a majority of Toronto voters will get behind. He is the heir to David Miller - Giambrone just needs to show what he stands for and prove he's got the chops for the job.