Mayor Peter Kelly, in his finite wisdom, had hired former Chronicle Herald columnist Peter Duffy as his speechwriter and community liaison.
Most people were up in arms that the mayor had hired a guy most famous for publicly claiming to be anally raped by a ghost. This must be what first-century Romans felt like as they watched Caligula appoint his horse to the senate. Though to be fair, the horse never claimed to be anally raped by a ghost.
But to be honest, the whole ghost rape thing doesn't bother me that much. While it's goofy and embarrassing, it's unlikely to affect his job performance (spectral sodomy falls under provincial jurisdiction.)
Pictured: Caspar the convicted sexual predator.Instead why I'm angry is that one of the most out of touch mayors imaginable somehow hired someone even more out of touch to connect to the community. Halifax is a pretty liberal city and Duffy is a guy who dismissed gender reassignment as kids disgustingly mutilating themselves and doesn't like the idea of gay marriage (to be fair he doesn't oppose legalizing gay marriage, instead taking a do-unto-others approach. So at least Kelly is hiring progressive homophobes.)
The bottom line is that in a city swarming with interesting people and unemployed journalists who could use the reported $42,000-$70,000 salary, Kelly hired a guy who made a career of sitting in his cubicle watching Coronation Street and whining about gas prices.
Just to remind people how excrutiatingly bad Peter Duffy was as a folksy columnist I thought I'd reprint a critique I wrote last year of one of his columns. I'd normally say enjoy but in this case I think the proper word is endure:
Why I Hate Peter Duffy, or, How to be the Worst Writer Ever
December, 2007
Every few months I get overcome with masochistic urges and read a column by the Chronicle Herald's Peter Duffy. Today was one of those days.
In Canada it's illegal to rape or murder people, yet we allow Duffy to viciously torture the english language week after week. Every Duffy column is a clinic on what not to do in writing. I've decided to prove it. I present to you, exhibit A. (Bold writing his, italics mine.)
Bad news is all connected somehow
by Peter Duffy
The crisis besetting the world has taken on a life of its own.
The turmoil gets worse, hitting closer and closer to home with new shocks almost daily.
Witness the week’s events in Ottawa.
It’s the butterfly effect become real.
In that legend, the mere flap of a butterfly’s wings causes a chain reaction of conditions that ultimately spawn a tornado.
A butterfly’s wings!
Holy shit! A butterfly's wings? Really? That's so crazy. It's almost like it's a hypothetical example chosen specifically for its insignificance. I'm blown away!
But think about it; isn’t it how this all started?
Somewhere in Anytown, U.S.A., awash in a sea of easy credit, members of a low-income family allowed themselves to be talked into a mortgage on a home everyone, including them, knew they couldn’t afford at a rate impossible to sustain.
Yeah... sort of. Except the butterfly effect and chaos theory demonstrate how seemingly minor events can have unforseen reactions in complex systems. Billions of dollars of unrepayable debt is actually a pretty obvious link to trouble. You might as well call it the Tornado Machine Effect. Also, dude, that sentence doesn't even make any grammatical sense. The rate of one family buying a mortgage was impossible to sustain?
And sure enough. When the chickens came home to roost for them and millions of others, such economic and social chaos was loosed on the world that not even the sturdiest institution was safe, including governments.
Actually, Peter, there are many institutions that are safe, or recession-proof. And what do you mean by "even governments?" Obviously they're going to be involved in a recession. That's like saying, "I shot Bill in the face and afterwards no one's life was the same, not even Bill's."
It’s no stretch to say this week’s parliamentary meltdown in Ottawa is part of that butterfly’s legacy.
We’ve endured a week of constitutional upheaval, the likes of which we haven’t seen since Quebec almost left, back in 1995.
Now we find ourselves in legislative limbo with a government in hiding, thanks to the prime minister’s ill-conceived attempt to choke off public funding to political parties under the guise of economic restraint.
How come the only time you make sense is when you're parroting well-known opinions that have been uttered thousands of times in the last week? What's the point in telling us what we already know?
As if we needed more fear and stress in our lives at this point.
And somewhere over the horizon, those little wings continue to flutter.
God I hate you.
Eventually, normalcy will return.
Oh, sweet. Hey do me a favour and try to talk down to us a bit more.
But it’s likely to be a new normal, not least in Canadian politics.
Perfect, thanks.
Just consider the amazing developments we’ve witnessed this week.
The Liberals and the NDP announced not only could they govern jointly, but they’d be happy to do so for the foreseeable future.
And if that wasn’t surprising enough, here comes the Bloc, offering to prop them up.
Who would’ve supposed a party bent on destroying the country would step forward to ensure it stays together?
Yes, how shocking. Who would've thought a perennial opposition party would want to have the power to single-handedly uphold the government? Who wants that kind of influence anyway? Especially a party which, as described by you, has all the character depth of a Die Hard villain.
It’s opportunistic partisan politics, of course, but the mere fact the Liberals and NDP are willing to work together suggests their ideologies are not as far apart as one might suppose.
In fact, given ongoing voter disenchantment with both those parties, the idea of a permanent merger is not unrealistic.
I suspect it will come, encouraged by the blurring of centre-left lines and driven by economic realities.
Woah there, Mr. Cynical Pants. So you're basically predicting our entire political system turns into an American style Party A vs. Party B system (based on "economic realities," of course. As opposed to economic fictions like the crash in leprachaun stocks). Very controversial view. I look forward to hearing your reasoned arguments for this debatable position. Oh, we're done here? Just going to throw that out there and leave it at that? Ok, moving on.
And then there’s the Stephen Harper Party, formerly known as the Conservatives.
Zing!
After two minority governments, outcomes which speak volumes for the public’s reservations about this man, his days as leader must surely be numbered, especially now he’s been forced to run for the hills.
Actually it's very likely Harper will stay on because... You know what? Fuck it. Why bother? It's clear you subscribe to the russian roulette school of punditry. Just throw out something with no real insight and hope it sounds like you know what you're talking about. You are the Carrot Top of journalism.
Which leaves — the rest of us.
We, too, have a lot of rethinking to do in the wake of this parliamentary crisis.
Yearning for stability, we may decide a return to majority governments is the way to go.
Truly, it’s a good thing that butterfly doesn’t know its own strength.
Wait, what? The whole point of the column is that the world is going to hell but at least the goddamn butterfly doesn't feel guilty about it? Wouldn't it be a good thing if the butterfly knew it's strength so it could settle down and stop fucking up our shit?
That doesn't even make sense metaphorically. The people who bought subprime mortgages presumably get CNN or have some some access to reality. They know about the recession. I defy you to find any way that sentence makes a lick of sense.
Duffy's column also ends with an unrelated note that claims it's "ironic" that markets go up and down, thus demonstrating a Morisette-ian understanding of the English language.
Empty comments you don't even try to back up? Check.
Rhetorical flourish without any regard for factual accuracy? Check.
Basing your entire column on a metaphor you don't even understand? Check.
Simply stunning. Bravo, Peter Duffy. If words had feelings, your columns would be the Saw franchise.
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