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Updates from August, 2021 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• Kate 17:38 on 2021-08-10 Permalink | Reply  

  I stopped posting daily Covid numbers a few weeks ago but I’m beginning to think I might resume. There were 234 new cases in Quebec Tuesday following 750 new cases last weekend.

  We’ll have a vaccination passport as of September 1; Quebec still has to decide whether to make vaccination mandatory for health care workers. La Presse also notes that the Université de Montréal’s going to make mask-wearing compulsory when classes resume.

  Update: indeed, as noted in comments, both McGill and UdeM will have strict mask rules in place. Grade school and high school kids won’t have to wear a mask in class, but they will wear one in the halls and on school buses,

  Kate, Kevin, and Chris are discussing. Toggle Comments

   

  • Chris 20:26 on 2021-08-10 Permalink

    If you do, might I suggest making hospitalization and death counts forefront. Case numbers are less important because case severity is going down on average since vaccination is going up.

  • Kevin 22:33 on 2021-08-10 Permalink

    McGill also made mask-wearing in the classroom mandatory.

    Cases are drastically skewing younger: about 3/4 are among the under 50 crowd.

  • Kate 09:28 on 2021-08-11 Permalink

    Chris, the numbers given by Santé Québec were simply the new cases and the deaths. If you’d like further information, the mainstream media will provide it, although not necessarily on time and in order.

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• Kate 12:04 on 2021-08-10 Permalink | Reply  

  Duckerns Pierre Clermont, the young man killed on the weekend – shot as he rode his bicycle to see his girlfriend –, was a promising rapper (under the name Jeune Loup) who had just got out of jail. The Journal mentions he was the second rapper killed here recently but says nothing about the other one.

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  • david922 13:47 on 2021-08-10 Permalink

    Funny how you never see promising young concert pianists shot and killed shortly after being released from jail.

  • Kate 15:14 on 2021-08-10 Permalink

    The children of the wealthy learn to perpetrate their crimes in other ways.

  • ant6n 16:58 on 2021-08-10 Permalink

    comments like that make me think of Trevor Noah: https://youtu.be/_AB1mxhd_H8?t=628

  • Chris 20:20 on 2021-08-10 Permalink

    In general (nothing about this case), it’s hard to argue that rap culture, white or black, doesn’t glorify violence more that piano culture (if there’s even such a thing). Homophobia in hip hop was recently in the news too. Of course the general case says nothing about this specific case.

  • Daniel 11:06 on 2021-08-11 Permalink

    At least David cut straight to his racist point this time and spared us three paragraphs of pseudo-intellectual garbage (written on a train!). @ant6n excellent referece.

  • EmilyG 12:40 on 2021-08-11 Permalink

    There’s plenty of crime and scandal in the classical music scene, believe me. Only recently has a lot of this come to light, and those not following the classical music scene might not know much about it (and even within it, there are so many people denying/excusing/enabling the problem people.)

• Kate 11:57 on 2021-08-10 Permalink | Reply  

  Someone tried to bribe a health-care worker on the territory of the CIUSSS West-Central Montreal to get a fake attestation of vaccination (not a “passport” as in the headline, since they don’t exist yet).

   

• Kate 11:05 on 2021-08-10 Permalink | Reply  

  Richard Burnett writes about the commercialization, fragmentation and attempted relaunch of “pride” parades and events, and the effects to be felt here during the parade on Sunday. Details about the parade and other events are included at the end of this piece.

  I tend to feel that when you’re driven to construct terms like QTBIPOC and LGBTQ2S+ that you’re bound to also provoke feelings about who’s included. But I’m probably not someone who should even have an opinion about this.

  EmilyG, Kate, jeather, and 5 others are discussing. Toggle Comments

   

  • Blork 11:48 on 2021-08-10 Permalink

    There’s a general principle about inclusion in that the more precise to try to be by naming things, the more exclusive you end up being. For example, if you’re making a “garden salad” you can add basically any fruit or vegetable to it, and happily feel like the salad reflects whatever plant-based food you can think of. But if you call it a “tomato salad” then it’s pretty much just lettuce and tomatoes, and even if there are other vegetables in there, they feel left out because they’re not mentioned.

    The same kind of thing happens when you try to include types of people in groups. The more precise you try to be by adding types, the more you exclude others who might no longer fit your more precise definition. For example, if you say “this washroom is for handicapped people” that basically means ALL handicapped people; those in wheelchairs, those who use crutches, the hearing impaired, vision impaired, people with brain injuries, etc. But if you say “this washroom is for people in wheelchairs” then you’re being very precise to the exclusion of all those other handicapped people who don’t use wheelchairs.

    So you add “and who need crutches.” Then a week later you add “and the hearing impaired.” Next week you add “and the vision impaired.” On and on until the sign you need is bigger than the door to the washroom. Maybe just stick with “handicapped.”

    I feel the same thing is happening with the queer community. It started with LGB but that excluded Trans, so it became LGBT, then it became LGBTQ, and then LGBTQ2S, and then the label-maker threw up their hands and added “+” and walked away.

    I prefer the single syllable and all-encompassing “queer,” which 20 years ago basically meant anyone who didn’t identify as simply “straight.” By not trying to name-check specific groups it actually is more inclusive because it is self-defining; it can mean whatever you want it to mean.

  • SMD 12:35 on 2021-08-10 Permalink

    Tangentially related, there’s an interesting history and semiological analysis of the pride flag in today’s Devoir: /www.ledevoir.com/politique/623841/politique-en-couleurs-sous-l-arc-en-ciel-de-la-diversite.

  • Tee Owe 13:34 on 2021-08-10 Permalink

    Queer+ ? Includes everybody ?

  • Blork 15:15 on 2021-08-10 Permalink

    Sure, but I would argue that the “+” is redundant. Like “people” includes all people; we don’t say “people+” unless you want to include things that are not considered people, like pets. So who is the + in “queer+?”

    …ok thinking about this as a write. Maybe some trans people are more + than strictly queer, since not all trans people consider themselves to be non-straight. And some non-binary people might not feel particularly “queer.”

    So yeah, actually. Queer+ totally works. (But this is coming from a straight cis guy, so it’s not like it’s up to me to decide…)

  • H. John 19:49 on 2021-08-10 Permalink

    Like Blork, I’m most comfortable with Queer.

    I think their question about trans would be easier to understand if they defined what they meant when they used “trans”.

    I wasn’t sure which pronouns Blork uses.

    I quick look at Wiki will show that the use of the terms transgendered, transexual, transvestite, cross-dresser, and drag queen/king (artist) have morphed, even in the Queer community, over the past 40 years (and RuPaul, willing to be politically incorrect, would throw in “tranny”).

    It’s useful to think of the Queer community as an amorphous group of sub-communities; each of which is trying to find self-definition, space, and respect.

    It’s an ongoing process.

    People who identify as transgendered (or cross-dressers) arrived later to the parade; and, don’t even start to think about racial minorities within the minority and their effect on the on-going discussions.

    It’s not for nothing that one of the first bars for people who self-identify as transgendered, or cross-dressers, isn’t in the gay Village (I.e., Café Cléopâtre).

    And clients of Café Cléopâtre may have little in common with the artists of Cabaret Mado.

  • mare 22:12 on 2021-08-10 Permalink

    I personally use QUILTBAG
    (Queer/Questioning, Undecided, Intersex, Lesbian, Transgender/Transsexual, Bisexual, Allied/Asexual, Gay/Genderqueer)

    It’s a bag, so it can contain everybody, even people who self-identify as something not on the list.

  • jeather 08:34 on 2021-08-11 Permalink

    The terms for trans people are perhaps new, but as a group they aren’t new.

  • Kate 09:44 on 2021-08-11 Permalink

    mare, nobody is going to adopt QUILTBAG.

    The terms for trans people are perhaps new, but as a group they aren’t new.

    No, although the sheer numbers of people openly unhappy with their own biological sex seems to be a new trend, but I think we’ll need to see it in retrospect to understand it.

  • EmilyG 12:53 on 2021-08-11 Permalink

    It’s not so much a “trend,” though it might look like that to those used to status-quo, normalist society. It’s great that so many people now feel that they can be more open with talking about how they feel when they realize that they’re not cis.
    Though sadly, comments that are openly or covertly hostile to trans people, show that many people still are dismissive at best, or hostile at worst, towards trans people’s openness about their issues. Which can harm trans people in ways that the people making those comments might not realize.

• Kate 09:13 on 2021-08-10 Permalink | Reply  

  American tourists with 2 vaccinations can now freely enter Canada and an ad campaign will soon be luring them to Montreal, to the delight of people in the tourism industry.

  There’s some alarming news lately about the Delta variant in the U.S., especially in the south, so I hope we don’t look back on this border opening as a big mistake.

  JaneyB and Daniel are discussing. Toggle Comments

   

  • Daniel 18:50 on 2021-08-10 Permalink

    I hope so too. I’m encouraged that this is only fully vaccinated people who also present the results of recent negative covid test and then are subject to a further random covid test. I wouldn’t call it infallible, but I think it’s reasonable.

  • JaneyB 07:49 on 2021-08-11 Permalink

    So fully vaccinated plus the negative test? Not bad. I’m happy they added the test. I can live with that.

• Kate 09:09 on 2021-08-10 Permalink | Reply  

  A warning’s been given on the state of the Olympic park infrastructure right on top of Pie-IX metro station with the implication it’s got to be fixed or risk collapse.

   

• Kate 08:58 on 2021-08-10 Permalink | Reply  

  The heat warning continues Tuesday, which is expected to reach a high of 33°.

   

• Kate 08:57 on 2021-08-10 Permalink | Reply  

  Valérie Plante has presented eight new candidates including a challenger to Sue Montgomery for the borough mayoralty of CDN-NDG.

  An Île-Bizard councillor who won his election last year under Projet will be running this time with Mouvement Montréal, Balarama Holness’s party.

  A councillor elected in St-Léonard with Coderre’s party was informed recently she was not welcome back to run again. Spokespeople are quoted saying they want a younger, more inclusive crowd: Lili-Anne Tremblay admits to being over 55 and has been councillor for twelve years. She’s sitting as an independent now and deciding what to do next.

  Will Prosper will run for Montreal North borough mayor with Projet.