Updates from July, 2020 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Kate 09:46 on 2020-07-26 Permalink | Reply  

    In the “closing the barn door” category, police will now study the crossing of St‑Ambroise south of Sir-George-Étienne-Cartier square where the eight‑year‑old boy was killed in traffic this week. CBC’s Kate McKenna notes that crosswalks have already been painted.

    I have advice for the police: the people crossing there are not only going to be nearby residents. Anyone walking between the canal and Notre-Dame Street or St‑Henri metro willl need to cross St‑Ambroise somewhere near that spot because of the proximity of the Beaudoin Street foot bridge.

    It’s time for traffic lights. Here’s your study, wrapped up in a paragraph.

     

    • Kevin 10:55 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

      But can we include clowns?

    • Kate 11:49 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

      Clowns are always an admissible adjunct, Kevin.

  • Kate 09:19 on 2020-07-26 Permalink | Reply  

    There were three armed assaults overnight: a man was found with serious injuries in Anjou around 22:25 Saturday night, another around 23:00 was hit with a blunt object (“objet contondant”) in Ville‑Marie, and a young man was found by police on Park Avenue near St‑Viateur around 1:30, after being stabbed during a brawl.

     

    • Kate 00:31 on 2020-07-26 Permalink | Reply  

      An exchange of remarks about masks led to a brawl on an STM bus in the north end, Friday afternoon.

       

      • mare 08:35 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

        Nice autocomplete. (Original version: was “An exchange of remarks led to”. Early on a Sunday, and it’s remarkable how few errors our blogeuse makes.)

      • Kate 09:34 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

        What? That’s what I wrote, and it isn’t a mistake. I’ve since added “about masks” because that was only mentioned in the invisible headline.

      • mare 13:41 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

        Hmm, I copied it verbatim from the text, the headline was (and is) “Mask exchange ends in bus brawl”.

        The combination of the title and the text substituting the word “mask” with “remarks” made me think it was an autocomplete error. It was just confusing, not necessarily wrong. My bad, mea culpa.

        (BTW, That headline isn’t invisible, it’s used in the sidebar, and when you click on that, and in the RSS feed.)

      • JoeNotCharles 12:50 on 2020-07-28 Permalink

        An important to part of this story is buried in the middle of the second paragraph:

        Un passager muni d’un masque assis à proximité a reproché au jeune homme d’être entré sans masque et avec une bière à la main.

        “Beer in hand” explains a lot.

    • Kate 18:29 on 2020-07-25 Permalink | Reply  

      Saturday’s anti-mask demonstration brought hundreds out to protest wearing masks and call Covid-19 bullshit. Quebec reported 171 new cases Saturday, one of the highest daily increases since early June.

      Aaron Derfel’s latest Twitter thread inquires into Quebec’s plans for schools.

       

      • Kevin 09:07 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

        This protest is from people who are mentally ill, tragically uninformed, or acting in bad faith.

        Wearing masks does very little to protect the wearer which is why health orgs did not recommend it at the start of this pandemic.

        But they offer some protection to the people around you, hence the order.

      • JaneyB 11:34 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

        I guess big fines for individuals who don’t wear masks inside are imminent. As they should be in this exceptional public health crisis. I wouldn’t cry if they had to wear mandatory tracking anklets.

        I wish there were a way for ER staff to be able to cough freely on these covidiots without the medics themselves getting infected.

        Taiwan’s measures and tally are pretty impressive. Clearly early masking was a huge part of that. SARS was a cruel teacher.

      • YUL514 13:44 on 2020-07-27 Permalink

        The guy in the WWG1WGA t-shirt says it all about this crowd. I just don’t get it.

      • Ephraim 14:29 on 2020-07-27 Permalink

        @YUL514 – It’s about our education system not living up to it’s potential. Where people think that their search skills are better than CIHR, NIH, CDC, & WHO. And a bigger idiot who leans into these people… which of course makes us question his education as well. Dunning-Kruger and all that. You know, 65% of Americans think that they have above average intelligence… 65%. I’m sure if you walked around and asked these people, they would all think they are above average as well.

        Idiots who know nothing about the UN who think that the UN could occupy something (they have trouble even standing as peace keepers.) It’s incredible, there are people who are now making a living off of deceiving people on vaccines, etc. It’s a mad world.

      • YUL514 14:45 on 2020-07-27 Permalink

        Ephraim, exactly these types are making a mint on Youtube and other platforms online who take advantage of a lot of misguided people. It is astonishing how many followers/views/subscribers etc that these accounts have. Don’t get me started with the anti science “anti vax” movement. I guess they thought polio was cool and hey why not bring it back.

      • Ephraim 16:50 on 2020-07-27 Permalink

        Most people don’t think about latency and if COVID might actually have latency. But there are entire industries/businesses built on serving the stupid… like Fox News, the Rebel and Sun Media (with TVA). We are (supposedly) the second most educated country in the world, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t have that Dunning-Kruger underclass.

      • EmilyG 17:46 on 2020-07-27 Permalink

        I don’t see what mental illness has to do with this.

    • Kate 10:19 on 2020-07-25 Permalink | Reply  

      A stinging open letter signed by fifty people of Haitian origin has been published by Le Devoir in response to last week’s Christian Rioux screed about how Haitians shouldn’t think of themselves as Black. The paper undermines itself by allowing Rioux a snotty rebuttal within the page itself, which is despicable.

       

      • Meezly 11:13 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

        Agreed. And Rioux, who doesn’t have the decency and wisdom to make an apology. I had to read his original article. The caucacity and ignorance is astounding for a so-called intellectual. But sadly not surprising in a paper like le Devoir. Rioux is cocooned enough in his milieu where I doubt he would suffer any serious consequences. This crap would not fly in English media. I don’t know much about Fanon’s work but I suspect Rioux has taken many of his quotes out of context to suit his distorted and privileged perspective on how Haitians should align and identify themselves.

      • DeWolf 12:17 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

        Wow, 50 people sign an open letter and Rioux still gets the privilege of having the final word. That’s so disrespectful of the Devoir’s editors. Not to mention the kind of snivelling, self-pitying tone that Rioux takes, which is familiar to anyone who has dealt with unafflicted white men who are shocked (shocked!) they aren’t automatically considered authorities on issues of gender, race, sexuality, etc.

      • mb 16:41 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

        Le Devoir always gives Rioux the last word, whoever he insults. Why do they give him such a platform in the first place?

      • Myles 19:29 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

        I really shouldn’t be surprised anymore by how arrogant and cringe-worthy his type of spoiled white columnist can be, but here I am. He’s outdone himself.

      • Blork 20:52 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

        My initial reaction to Rioux’s article was to think “Hmmm, this is a fascinating hypothesis that upends conventional thinking, so maybe there’s something here that could use some further exploration” (I know, what a quaint, old-fashioned way of thinking), but no.

        The idea that Haitians, because of their country’s pioneering history are somehow “above” the identity of “black” is ridiculous. The one thing that Rioux gets right is that there is no black monolith; being black in the US or the Caribbean or Sweden or France or Nairobi are all very different experiences, and not every black person experiences their blackness the same way (yo, Ben Carson). They are, after all, first and foremost, humans, and are therefore subject to the vastness of the variability of human nature. But all of those various black people from all of those backgrounds do share some common experiences when they come to live in a place that is predominantly white (whether in numbers or in power dynamic).

        So a tiny kernel of an idea, based primarily in the writings of Franz Fanon, who died at age 36 in 1961, cannot find any sort of fit into the reality of 2020. Especially coming from a white person. The idea that Haitians are so noble because of their history that they rise above the US-centric identity of “black” is essentially a kick in the nuts to American blacks. The subtext (not so sub- really) is that black identity is fundamentally flawed and is something to be overcome, the way the Haitians did. FFS white dude, STFU!

      • Uatu 00:28 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

        Yes and that common experience is their unfair treatment from cops. The fact that these demos took place all over the world means it’s much more than trying to be ‘murican. I guess he also missed the “driving while black” demo that took place a couple of weeks ago which proves his thesis is full of shit. I sometimes think post graduate degrees only exist as a means of learning how to find “scholarly” research to support whatever whackadoo ideas anyone thinks up.

      • DavidH 16:39 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

        LeDevoir’s insistence on giving Rioux the last word reminds me of this kerfuffle on a much lighter subject: https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/574216/histoire-de-l-art-l-art-du-passe-nous-parle-souvent-des-enjeux-du-present

        Art history professor Itay Sapir had sent a letter to LeDevoir on his own about one of Rioux’s texts. The text itself was incredibly ill-informed but unless you work in the field of academia or art history, it was nothing infuriating. LeDevoir did not publish it then but Sapir posted it on Facebook and it became sort-of viral (viral in the Montreal Art History Academia world). LeDevoir then agreed to publish it as a collective text (if it’s going to circulate anyways, might as well be on your website, right?) followed by yet again a Rioux rebuttal.

        The bulk of Rioux’s response was that Sapir was a coward for not signing the text alone…. which he had actually done.

        I don’t know if Rioux knew the history of the letter before publication or not, but either ways, the editor certainly did. They allowed something entirely false and pejorative to go to print. All to defend a text that made no sense written by someone with no expertise. (Which brings up another question, the art critics at LeDevoir are actually very knowledgeable and even teach alongside Sapir. Why let Rioux stray into this field he clearly knows nothing about? If you do let him write, why not have him run his text by one of the paper’s contributors that actually does teach art history to enrich and support his text?).

        If they do this with a somewhat trivial subject, imagine what they do when they feel involved with the issues…

        The media ecosystem in Quebec has to few players not to support them but LeDevoir and QMI (TVA, Journal, etc) sometime seems to outdo themselves to determine who is the more ethically bankrupt. They make it very hard to root for them.

    • Kate 09:58 on 2020-07-25 Permalink | Reply  

      Laurent Duvernay-Tardif is the first NFL player to opt out of the football season and has decided to stay home and work in health care.

       

      • walkerp 11:34 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

        This guy is very impressive. I don’t know how much media this will generate in the American sports world, I hope a lot. It sends a strong countervailing message to the current dominant culture around the pandemic in the US.

        If you aren’t a sports fan, you might not see what a big deal this is. He gave up 2 million dollars and a chance for an extended contract. He just won a super bowl on a team with a generational quarterback and a chance to begin a dynasty in the league. Nobody walks away from that. Yes, he is an offensive lineman and his position is not guaranteed (they drafted a younger guy who could compete for the role), but still.

        When people say there is no difference between Americans and Canadians, you can point to Laurent. His background is a huge reason he is making this choice.

      • Daniel 13:24 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

        That’s very interesting, walkerp. Thank you for the perspective.

      • EmilyG 20:15 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

        I think he might be one of the few sensible people left in Quebec. Or at least, people in the sports world who want to be realistic about the risks of sports returning.

      • JaneyB 11:44 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

        I am not a football fan so this is news to me. A doctor and star football player?! Wow. How is that even possible? And this decision…amazing guy. His family and friends must be insanely proud of him. His story should be all over the US media. Let’s hope.

    • Kate 09:46 on 2020-07-25 Permalink | Reply  

      Shots were fired in Montreal North on Friday afternoon, but nobody got hit, and in the same area, in an unrelated incident, a man was nonfatally stabbed in a park during a brawl on Friday evening.

       

      • Kate 21:02 on 2020-07-24 Permalink | Reply  

        The Gazette is trying to create enthusiasm for a flag for the anglo community, but, I’m sorry, the examples shown are so amateur that it’s cringe.

         

        • Roman 21:55 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

          What’s even the point?

          I feel like it’s just adding to them vs us mentality.

          No flags!

        • Michael Black 22:23 on 2020-07-24 Permalink

          A couple of years ago UBC-Okanagan installed another flag pole, and then they fly the Okanagan Nation Alliance flag.

          There are a lot of existing flags that could find flag pole space before some made up flag. I’d love to see the Metis flag fly, though we’ve missed some obvious dates like Louis’ birthday and Manitoba coming into confederation. There’s always Aug 24, 150 years after the Wolseley expedition got to Red River.

          This story seems like a small group who decided a flag was needed. But I.don’t see a reason for a flag, other than because other groups have them.

        • Kate 09:53 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

          I’m quite satisfied with having 3/5 of the symbols on the city flag belonging more or less on the anglo side.

        • david232 12:04 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

          I don’t care about flags, but it’s true that anglo-Quebeckers don’t really have a flag in the way that others do. I was very staunchly anti-separatist for most of my life, now I’m agnostic – on identarian grounds I’d be tempted to vote yes, but on economic grounds absolutely no chance. But there’s no question that this lingering “historic anglo” (thank you for that, Gazette) anomie that prompts that feeling of detachment from the nationalistic trappings of both Quebec and Canada would have been settled one way or the other with a yes vote back in 1995.

        • Kate 13:58 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

          Another thought on this: there is no anglo community. There’s very little to tie us together. Unlike, say, Italian or Chinese Montrealers, we don’t have a cuisine that brings us together at the grocery store or restaurant. Unlike Montrealers from the Maghreb, we don’t meet at the mosque, and unlike Jewish Montrealers, we don’t meet at the synagogue. Nobody’s going to give me a job or help bail me out of trouble merely because I’m a fellow anglo. There’s no need for a flag for this sort of apathetic negative identity.

        • Ephraim 15:45 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

          What, you don’t like a flying pelvis with a vagina?

        • Dhomas 06:15 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

          We do have “Montreal English” that ties us all together:
          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_English
          😉

          Also, @Ephraim: I’m glad I’m not the only one who saw the flying vagina in that flag. Actually, I’m not sure how anyone can see anything else in it. What were they thinking?

        • EmilyG 11:07 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

          I admit that I voted for the vagina flag because I found it amusing….

        • Uatu 11:13 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

          I’m Anglo but also a visible minority. Am I included included as a member of the Anglos or my ethnic group or both? It’s time Quebec moves on. It’s the 21st century. The province is more than the binary of English speaking white people vs French speaking white people.

          Also I’d hate to be part of the group represented by the image of the vagina in that design.

        • GC 11:46 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

          I can see the vagina, but does anyone know what it’s actually meant to be? A bird? A flower? As a Quebec anglo, I feel like it should speak to me and I should know right away how it connects to me.

          I can’t speak for all the anglos but, personally, I didn’t feel the need for a flag. The representation of England/Scotland/Ireland on the Montreal flag is enough for me.

        • dwgs 12:15 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

          It’s not just a vagina, it’s a vagina borne aloft by moose antlers.

        • MarcG 12:21 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

          I was going to get in on making fun of the designs as well but they were made by young people so I’m holding back. The adults behind this project, however, must be bored AF to have thought of it.

        • EmilyG 17:26 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

          On the voting site, it said that the last flag was “inspired” by Indigenous people, but didn’t go into details (maybe there weren’t many?) and just mentioned some vague things like nature and mountains. It doesn’t say there was any input from any Indigenous people, or which ones.

        • EmilyG 17:31 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

          (It’s the second flag in the Gazette article. The, uh, flying something or other.)

          It says on the survey site about this flag:
          This flag design takes its inspiration from the Indigenous communities in Québec. The stylized clouds honour the seasons and the vastness, and the mountains reference the province’s ancient mountain range and extensive natural environment of Québec. At the centre of the flag is the crest of antlers, which also represent the vast natural beauty of Québec. The antlers are filled by several different colours that represent the flags of the diverse countries of origin of the English-speaking communities. This element is inspired by the flag of La Francophonie internationale.

        • Kate 11:17 on 2020-07-27 Permalink

          I’m still reacting, I think, to an earlier Gazette design “project” in which they went on and on about how much better it would be to get the Greater Montreal logo designed by high school students. Never mind that a significant logo is developed carefully by experienced artists after a lot of study and verbal description – no no, let’s have some hideous naive scribbly thing produced by kids.

          This may be one reason I’m not holding back. By taking lines like this, the Gazette undermines the whole process of graphic design and the development of graphics that need to be professional, inclusive and enduring. I’m not saying the too-many-cooks aspect of logo development can’t have its downside – in fact, the Greater Montreal logo that was produced, shown above, was a dud, and I don’t believe has ever been used – but naïveté is not one of the prized qualities of a logo.

          See, this is the logo they use for the CMM:

          It’s simple and clever. The island is central, the northern and southern shores are included, and the whole thing wraps up into a circle. I wouldn’t letterspace the text nearly so much, but that’s easily fixed.

          Anyway, what’s with the giant fleur-de-lys in this suggestion? No idea. None.

      • Kate 20:50 on 2020-07-24 Permalink | Reply  

        A woman motorist being harassed in traffic by an STM bus driver caught some of his gestures on video. The STM treats this as an internal disciplinary matter so we probably won’t hear of any consequences.

         

        • Kate 20:45 on 2020-07-24 Permalink | Reply  

          The bar block of Crescent Street will be car-free till the end of September to allow terrasses to spread into the street.

           

          • david232 12:05 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

            Awesome! Hopefully this lasts after everything is back to normal.

          • Kate 14:06 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

            Even if there is a “back to normal” you will notice that the car-free situation described here is only till the end of September.

            For every temporary change city hall makes to try to give this city a bit of summer glow, there’s a lot of blow-back, and the media are very diligent about reporting on every negative response to the temporary changes. CBC is on Facebook today fishing for negative comments on making one single block of Crescent Street car-free, and respondents are reliably catastrophizing. The temporary bike lane along Terrebonne is the end of the world, to read some comments.

          • Kevin 11:00 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

            The temp bike lane on Terrebonne is annoying because residents weren’t notified, the signs were changed without the standard “we’ve changed the rules” sign being posted on the street, and now that the parked cars are gone drivers have been given the psychological cues to do 70 in a residential zone.

          • EmilyG 11:11 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

            In a West Island Facebook group, a lot of members were getting angry over the pedestrianization of Crescent Street. Oh no, they can’t park there!
            Crescent Street isn’t even in the West Island.

          • Tim S. 12:00 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

            Yeah, I’m optimistic about the Terrebonne bike path in the long run but last week I watched them literally paint the lines around parked cars that hadn’t gotten the notice in time to move. Also, the plan for the schools seems to be to just have no bike path on those blocks, so rush hour cyclists will all of a sudden find the path disappears and is replaced by dozens of parents in various vehicles dropping their kids off. Keep in mind that the schools are explicitly asking parents to drive their kids to school in the fall to create more space on the buses. I expect to witness a few angry confrontations come September.

          • Ian 15:47 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

            F.A.C.E. school stopped having buses a few years back in a round of Ministry cutbacks and I assure you that stretch of University has been utter chaos every school morning since. Now multiply that across every school in the city. Should be fun. I’m glad we left F.A.C.E. and opted for walking distance schools but not everyone is in the same boat as me and I don’t envy them … strangely I haven’t seen a big influx of new members in the homeschooling groups I’m in but we’ll see how people feel by September.

            @EmilyG I hear you but let’s be honest, Crescent Street is probably catering to West Islanders more than you think especially now that there have been COVID cases at Annie’s and McKibbin’s… but the irony of bar patrons complaining about parking isn’t lost on me… just one more reason some decent public transit to the West Island is sorely needed.

          • EmilyG 18:20 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

            @Ian Yes, I remember I used to live in the West Island. And when I lived there, I was, uh, quite fond of visiting Crescent Street… usually by public transit, sometimes on foot from McGill.

          • Ian 21:27 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

            The bar traffic from universities are quite another matter… I am sure the bars will be feeling the pinch come September for sure.

        • Kate 20:40 on 2020-07-24 Permalink | Reply  

          A male strip club in the village is suspending its activities after several cases of Covid among its staff.

          Lachine is closing some pools after lifeguards tested positive.

          Here’s an interesting tweet from a user called NonMasqué, calling people to Place Émilie‑Gamelin Saturday at noon to protest masks. “Le peuple québécois est invité à s’unir pour défendre ses droits et libertés…” yadda yadda.

          Why is Le Devoir giving time to a grotesque anti-mask op-ed at this point? Note that it’s written by a philosophy PhD candidate, not a medical professional.

          Quoting Les Perreaux on Twitter: Bars are voluntarily closing because they’re afraid and the covid homeless shelter is reopening for a second wave but also let’s have public gatherings of 250 people while scolding people over house parties. I’m confused.

           

          • Francesco 22:11 on 2020-07-26 Permalink

            The Lachine lifeguards all had a party a couple of weekends ago, then one tested positive. They are all isolating, and as a result the pools are closed.

        • Kate 20:19 on 2020-07-24 Permalink | Reply  

          Four SPVM cops face criminal charges, as mentioned in an SQ press release Friday, but details are not forthcoming.

           

          • Ephraim 15:46 on 2020-07-25 Permalink

            More vacation time instead of actual punishment.

        • Kate 20:17 on 2020-07-24 Permalink | Reply  

          The old church that used to house the Negro Community Centre (NCC) on Coursol Street was condemned and finally demolished in 2014, and some community members would like to see a new centre rise on the empty lot. But a developer owns the land now, and he has other plans.

           

          • Kate 13:29 on 2020-07-24 Permalink | Reply  

            A strike is looming at the Port of Montreal.

             

            • Kate 13:25 on 2020-07-24 Permalink | Reply  

              The Canadian Grand Prix is definitively cancelled for this year. Organizers had hoped to reschedule it for Thanksgiving weekend, but it isn’t going to happen.

               

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