Just a few random tidbits today:
1. I’m looking forward to learning the details of the latest Mayor Larry scandal. From what I can gather, it has something to do with his ex-wife allegedly raising funds for his legal defence. The mayor has taken a pre-emptive strike by calling a press conference to react to the story that will appear in tomorrow’s Ottawa Citizen. He says it’s not true. [Update: Here it is.]
2. The City of Gatineau has abandoned its responsibility to plow its sidewalks. They’ve simply declared that there’s too much snow and they give up. Meanwhile, they’re piling snow from the roads onto the unplowed sidewalks. Apparently a number of cities in Quebec have similarly decided to give up on sidewalks this year: Montreal, Quebec City, Trois-Rivieres, Longueuil. Instead, they are urging pedestrians to just walk on the streets, and the police will “watch for drivers who pass too close to pedestrians.” If I were a pedestrian in any of these cities, I would be screaming bloody murder over this.
3. In other news, some woman spent two years sitting on her boyfriend’s toilet.
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I saw that toilet story too!! hahaha sent it to all my friends
Québec has never really got its roads infrastructure working, has it?
Heavens. I hope that woman at least knits. It would have given her something to do. The boyfriend needs at least as much help as she does. Common sense lessons should be compulsory.
I wish you could send us your surplus snow. That would be nice. Happy snowshoeing!
wow – she must have had a helluva prolapse
Being a pedestrian with a stroller, the sidewalks are always a challenge, even when plowed, so I might actually be glad to have formal permission to walk on the road (except for the busy ones – that would really suck!). I often do anyways… off to read the toilet story.
It all makes sense… The sidewalks in Gatineau are a total mess. I couldn’t figure out why. Ottawa’s bad, but eventually they get around to it.
This must have been a psychiatric issue. It is tragic that the general stigma against mental illness and general failing of the education system in the USA left these two people at such a disadvantage.
But really, if you have no knowledge of mental illness and a lack of education in general and your girlfriend keeps telling you she’s fine, and maybe tomorrow she’ll get up, it would be easy to end up in a similar situation. You have to realise that this man likely had no idea of what was going on with his girlfriend, and that the general attitude in the states is that of the rights of the individual procluding everything else. After all, she was on the toilet of her free will, so who was he to force her up? I can definitely see how this situation could devolve so drastically, and I mourn the lack of public awareness and education that left these two individuals without any tools to deal with this crisis.
Rhiannon, from what I heard, she had developmental disabilities, and she claimed to be staying in the bathroom in order to avoid her family. I saw an interview with him, and for a minute I thought he was a police spokesman being interviewed by the media – he seemed to be fairly competent. I think that’s why they’re considering laying charges against him – because, given his level of apparent mental competence, he should have gotten her help long before two years had passed.
Imagine being a wheelchair user and living in Gatineau. Ottawa’s bad but at least there’s gesture toward curb cuts.
Hey, I taught in Kansas for 10 years. Sure blame it on the educational system. As a teacher I never let a child stay in the bathroom for more than 10 minutes.
Mayor Larry probably wishes that ex-Mrs. Mayor Larry had just stayed in the bathroom for the last few months.