A T-shirt featuring Toronto Mayor Rob Ford giving the finger has sold on eBay for $7,100 (U.S.). You didn't misread that. $7,100!
And why would anyone pay so much for so little? Check the signature on the inside of the garment. Yes, that's Can-Lit's most famous daughter, Margaret Atwood.
She's had words with the Ford brothers in the past.
Last year, the mayor's brother, Councillor Doug Ford, said he wouldn't recognize Atwood if she walked right by him after the author criticized the city's plan to close some libraries. Ford suggested Atwood should go ahead and run for office if she wanted a voice in the city's politics.
For her part, Atwood gave this glowing description of the brothers Ford to the Toronto Star: "Who pays for those people? They represent every citizen, every inhabitant of the city. Are they going to say they don’t represent three-year-old kids? They don’t pay taxes? Flipping them the bird? Old people in nursing homes? They don’t much like them either."
The middle finger referenced by Atwood and the T-shirt comes from the story of the mayor reportedly flipping the bird at a mother and daughter while driving and talking on his cellphone. The mayor has described the incident as a "misunderstanding" and has denied giving the finger.
The shirt was auctioned to raise cash for Fanado, an Atwood-supported website and app aimed at letting fans interact with artists and performers. The artist behind the image is Gerry Fournier.
The seller is Curtis White, a teacher in Edmonton who also just sold a signed portrait of Atwood by his wife, Oksana Zhelisko, to raise money for Fanado, according to Torontoist.
No word yet on who the buyer is.
"It's a really good lesson to Mayor Ford," White told Global Toronto. "He gets negative press for doing negative things so we're turning this into something positive, going to an app that helps artists."
While the sale can't reflect well on Ford, it certainly pales in comparison to the scandal generated on Thursday by a photo of the mayor posing with neo-Nazi Jon Latvis. Ford's office has claimed the mayor had no knowledge of Latvis' beliefs when the mayor posed for the image or when he took a meeting with him to talk about transit issues in March.
The mayor just can't catch a break.
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