Where was Ford Nation Tuesday night when Toronto city council voted on the controversial 2012 city operating budget?

Where was Ford Nation inside council chambers to ram through the mayor's $20-million budget cuts to city pools, arenas, day cares, TTC service and homeless shelters?

Where was Ford Nation outside City Hall, the throngs of fiscally conservative citizens demonstrating their pro-mayor stance?

Nowhere.

Ford Nation collapsed.

"The job of the newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

- American journalist, Finley Peter Dunne, 110 years ago

Let's rewrite his words to say that "the role of the deputant is to comfort the children afflicted and afflict the comfortable adults."

Much progress has been achieved during the summer of 2011 in the work to preserve the Snake Mound, one of 57 remaining ancient Iroquoian burial mounds in Toronto's High Park in danger of destruction from BMX bike activity. In April, a meeting was set up between the Taiaiako'on Historical Preservation Society (THPS) and Toronto City Councillor Sarah Doucette where she was presented with information about the Snake Mound, and that the City of Toronto's main archeologist Ron Williamson, who is working under a suspended license.

'Regular Programming in Dufferin Grove Park will be cancelled during the day time hours on Saturday, September 10, 2011 due to an anticipated, large, unpermitted event.' (sic)

- Sign posted on a tree in the park by Toronto Parks and Recreation, as ordered by Mayor Rob Ford.

According to Mayor Ford, democracy is a large, unpermitted event.

At Dufferin Grove Park, 500 people gathered to discuss core public service cuts under the banner of Stop Ford's Cuts! earlier this month. Spread out on picnic blankets, Torontonians organized into 20 focus groups to strategize how to protect essential services, keep public sector jobs, and work together to draft the People's Declaration for presentation to City Hall this week.

Last week saw Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall abuzz with acclaimed Canadian artists, business leaders and community supporters, including acclaimed filmmaker Atom Egoyan, Shakespearean actor Graham Abbey, and Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts Director Jacoba Knaapen. Their mission? To demand inclusion in the Toronto City government's planning process and speak out against City Manager Joe Pennachetti's proposed budget cuts, which was presented to the Executive Committee of the Toronto City Council on Monday, Sept. 19.