Fear and Loathing South of the 40: Sitting is the New Smoking

stanstead border crossing. photo nancy berman. Stanstead border crossing. Looking into the USA. Photo Nancy Berman.

Friends, I usually do not go into the heavy stuff, especially the heavy stuff that the media is crammin’ down your throats everyday. I figure you have enough of the crap without me adding to it. However, this week I would like to take a second and thank Cpl. Nathan Cirillo for doing his duty as a soldier, which cost him his life. I think I can speak for all of the Montreal Rampage team when I say our hearts go out to his family and his friends for their loss.

Ok on with the show!

Calling a Nut job a Nutjob

Since we started with the now infamous Parliament shooting let’s go a little further down that lane. The RCMP have now confirmed that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau’s attack was “politically and ideologically” motivated. So what? He was a nut. My faithful readers sometimes crazy is just crazy, don’t look any further. Whether it was ISIS, the internet, aliens or his goldfish telling him what to do, the guy was a nut job. We don’t need this whole background scenario about it. It’s a scary thing but there are some people out there just waiting for an excuse to do something crazy. Looks like this asshole found his. The real question here is how did a guy with a rifle get into Parliament?

My Kid Could Draw That

CHild drawing of horse

©www.tOrange.us “Horse. Children drawing.”, tOrange.us This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For internet website the hyperlink on www.tOrange.us. Rights beyond the scope of this license are available at: http://www.torange.us/2347.html.

This one has been sticking in my craw for awhile but I’ve been holding off, well the time has come. Earlier this fall Gaz Metropolitain had to do some work on a gas line under Rue St. Paul in old Montreal. For those of you who have been on St. Paul you know it is a lovely old cobblestone road. Instead returning the road to the state they found it in, Gaz Met, paved over the part of the street they dug up. The result, it looked like dog shit. Well, Mayor Coderre was furious, and promised a solution within two weeks. Way to go Mayor, you go get ‘em! So Montreal hires a company named Thermo-Design to fix the problem. The solution, draw lines in the asphalt to blend in with the cobblestone (I swear to God I am not making this up), and we are paying them $75 000 to do this! Hell they could have hired a couple of kids from kindergarten and pAID them in candy. The new result, dog shit with lines in it.

Big Dig 2

Speaking of Montreal streets, it seems St. Denis is in for some hard times. The already declining business on the street in the heart of the Plateau will have major roadwork to contend with in 2016. We all remember the wonderfully planned and fantastically executed two years of roadwork on St. Laurent don’t we? The vacancy rate for businesses on St. Denis has risen from 6.5% in 2012 to 10.59% so far this year. On the sunny side, parking is no longer a problem.

We Don’t Need No Education

What is going on with the whole School Board Elections? I have to admit I am very stressed and way behind the eightball on this one. All of the sudden I am seeing ads on TV, hearing ads on the radio and reading about it in the newspapers, get out and vote on Nov. 2nd! Now the President of the English School Board Association, David D’Aoust, is saying “Use it or lose it!” Sweet Jesus what are we gonna lose? The right to vote? The school board (what will all those kids do without a school board?), I have no idea. When do these elections happen, every hundred years because I have no recollection of ever being asked to vote in a school board election in the past. It doesn’t matter, I will be out there and you better get out there too, remember Nov. 2, vote!

Last week at a Glance:

Days of Our PQ

Bernard Drainville officially launched his campaign to become the next leader of the Parti Quebecois last week. The good news is that he will be a lot more flexible on the Quebec Charter of Values and a lot clearer on when a referendum would be called if he becomes the leader. The bad news is that he is not very good at keeping secrets. It ain’t like he is pulling a rabbit out of his hat here, Stevie Wonder saw this one coming. Bonne chance.

Allergy Sensitivity

In case you missed it, Montreal held a ‘Food Allergy Fair’ last Sunday at Complexe Dejardins. One function of the fair was to raise awareness of allergic diseases. The fact that we even need such a thing blows my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is incredibly important, but 40 years ago most of these allergies did not even exist. People what the hell are we doing to ourselves?

Ol’ Mailin’ Boxes

Canada Post was back in the news last week. Community mail boxes were installed in the communities of Charlemagne, Repentigny, Bois-des-Filion, Rosemère and Lorraine. Of course there were a bunch of complaints. I won’t go into them but you can check them out yourself if you like. But really, get over it people. It’s happening whether we like it or not. If you don’t want to go to the community mailbox, don’t go to the community mailbox, but for Pete’s sake quit bitching about it.

Save the Economy by Getting Out of Your Chair

Ok, you better sit down for this one. A new report by the Conference Board of Canada and ParticipAction says “Getting even a small fraction of Canadians out of their chairs and moving could boost the economy by an estimated $7.5 billion over the next 25 years”. It goes on to say that “sitting” is the “new smoking”. And we all know what happened to smokers! Soon we won’t be able to sit in any restaurants or bars. We will have to be 10 meters from a Government building if we want to sit, we will be reduced to hiding and huddling in our houses if we want to take a seat. No sir, nothing good can come of this. Get your asses up Canada, before it is too late.

Last Word of the Week:

98 slithering snakes were found in the basement of a home just outside of Regina last Wednesday. An expert was called in and the snakes were released back into the wild. Who was
living in the house at the time? The Devil.

Send Ken your questions, comments, and complaints at [email protected]

About Ken Gaucher

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