Toronto mayor Rob Ford calls media “maggots”, celebrates his 44th birthday
Rob Ford’s crack video saga has continued with Gawker saying that it reached its fundraising goal to purchase the video allegedly showing the mayor of Toronto smoking crack.
Few in Toronto ever thought their city would be catapulted into the world spotlight due to a case of high profile crack cocaine use.
The Rob Ford scandal saga has persisted despite denials from the mayor that he uses (some point out that he doesn't deploy the word "used") crack.
On Monday, the US website Gawker said it had reached its $200,000 fundraising goal to buy the alleged iPhone video of the mayor using rock.
The problem now is that Gawker's editor John Cook can't reconnect with the Somali drug dealers that showed him the video in a suburban parking lot in Toronto.
Cook said the following about the AWOL dealers:
As for the purchase: We are working on it. As we noted before the campaign concluded, we lost contact with the people who have custody of the video. I updated the Indiegogo campaign site yesterday morning to reiterate that there had been no movement on that front, and am repeating it here right now.
As for the mayor, his adversaries and detractors are baying for blood.
On his local radio show he hosts with his brother recently, Ford called the media "maggots."
“You want to keep throwing stones?” his brother Doug threatened. “I’m going to throw boulders right back at you.”
Since the story broke, the mayor has dismissed his chief of staff and two press secretaries but the reason for their departures remains unclear.
Ford turned 44 on Tuesday.
In a column last week in Canada's Globe and Mail, urban affairs guru Richard Florida said that he'd never seen anything quite like this – and he grew up in Newark.