The mainstream media did no homework on Rob Ford's shirtless stalker John Furr

Yesterday morning, at a public press conference, an hysterical opponent of Rob Ford named John Furr whipped off his shirt to reveal a pasty, doughy, 52 year-old torso and screamed abuse at Toronto's mayor for the entire proceeding.

Toronto's mainstream media, which for the most part shares a detestation for Toronto's embattled mayor, was more than happy to give Furr air-time and promote a sanitized representation of him. Doing absolutely no homework, or at least not willing to report any of it, they played accomplice to Furr's efforts to portray himself as someone who, as the Globe and Mail uncritically reported,  "wanted to represent normal people."

So how 'normal' is John Furr, someone who histrionically screamed at Rob Ford while the mayor was trying to explain his opposition to a proposed LRT line along Eglinton Avenue?

The blog Socialist Studies, which concerns itself with education issues, took an interest in Furr when he declared himself a candidate for the Toronto District School Board. Furr's campaign garnered virtually no support and ended quickly, however the intervening picture revealed someone who is anything but 'normal' by most people's standards.

Furr is a supporter of Ford's rival Olivia Chow, which the media that interviewed him, such as The Toronto Star, didn't bother to ask or disclose. While it did emerge that Furr ran a brief candidacy for the School Board, the mainstream media neglected to note his positions, such as that education should not teach facts but values.

The image of a weird, obsessive twitter stalker is also something that comes into focus through Socialist Studies' reporting on Furr.

I've had my own twitter encounters with Furr, when he decided to take it upon himself to make unsolicited replies to tweets of mine. Those episodes show someone who promotes the hateful slur, which Canada's Prime Minister described as "the new face of antisemitism," about Israel supposedly being an apartheid state, when all facts belie that.

In fact, Furr is someone who is either so stupid or dishonest (or both) that he tried to extrapolate an insult against the fanatical anti-Israel group "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" as a "smear" against the entire LGBT community.

If that's what 'normal' people are like, then normal doesn't mean what it used to.  But then, Toronto's mainstream media has its own definition of normal by which thinking exactly what they want you to think is a part. And if there's pertinent information which contradicts their version of normal, they obviously think it's better that you never know about it.