France also has a problem with Kevin.
Updates from August, 2022 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
The finale of the fireworks festival – dedicated to the works of the band Genesis – will close the Jacques‑Cartier bridge Saturday evening.
-
Kate
A man was injured, not very seriously, in a shooting in Montreal North on Friday evening.
CTV has a couple of maps showing gunfire hot spots in town, and citing Ted Rutland saying that simply throwing a lot of money at the cops is not the solution.
-
Kate
The odd thing about this report about a firebombing at the Direction de la protection de la jeunesse office downtown is not so much that it happened, as that it happened last Sunday and is only reported nearly a week later.
-
Kate
It’s a hot day for errands, but even in a short excursion along Jarry I noticed two things:
SQDC store plastered with EN GRÈVE stickers. The store is not on this list of unionized stores, though, and people were coming and going as if not crossing a notional picket line.
Small Fido store with its window boarded up – presumably broken by some of the high-end phone robbers we’ve seen reports on before.
Didn’t get photos – words will have to do.
-
Kate
The two big things this weekend: the tennis tournament and the pride parade Sunday along René-Lévesque.
Update: Latter event cancelled, see above.
-
Kate
A Montreal gynecologist has lost his licence to practice after decades of complaints about inappropriate remarks made to patients.
A woman in Saguenay who went to get the morning‑after pill was told by a pharmacist that he would not dispense it because it went against his religious convictions. Is a pharmacist allowed to block access to legally available medications because of their personal principles? It seems so.
jeather
Can’t have your head covered while you’re teaching in a public school named after Jesus, but you can prevent people from getting their legally prescribed medications if you claim it’s religious.
Kate
It’s been noted that the woman who gave François Legault his recent Covid booster, and was photographed doing it, is wearing hijab. (Presumably she’d be a technician, not a nurse?)
MtlWeb
The Bill 21 rule does not apply to health care staff even though, in 2013, the PQ’s charter of values as presented by Drainville did target all public service employees including those in health care.
steph
This is ridiculous. They should be out of business (if not rocks thrown in their windows)
Chris
Careful steph, advocating violence against someone for their religious convictions can get you in trouble. Seriously.
Kate
steph, if nothing else, Jean Coutu ought to be vetting the people they hire and making sure they don’t have personal issues with dispensing the full range of meds that are legally available.
Joey
Kate, FYI, in Quebec every single pharmacy is owner-operated. Jean Coutu runs a kind of franchise model whereby marketing, front shop, etc are all streamlined. But each store is owned and run by its own pharmacist. I don’t think Jean Coutu could deny a franchise to a pharmacist who isn’t violating the terms of practice established by the provincial order of pharmacists.
Kate
Joey, couldn’t the franchise rules say that the pharmacist must dispense the full range of meds available in Quebec according to the rules?
Kate
Footnote here: noticed this Guardian piece about a Minnesota judge ruling that a pharmacist there had every right to refuse to dispense the morning‑after pill.
-
Kate
A swimmer is missing and presumed drowned Friday afternoon in the currents near Habitat 67.
JP 22:50 on 2022-08-06 Permalink
This is the first I’m hearing of this and I don’t know why but I find it so surprising that a name like Kevin would end up being looked down upon.
Kevin 23:37 on 2022-08-06 Permalink
It’s okay, I’m used to it 😉
And the final season of Kevin can F$&% himself starts in a few weeks.
dhomas 06:32 on 2022-08-07 Permalink
Also? What problem does Montreal or Quebec have with Kevin? Did I miss something?
I’ve been working for French companies for about 12 years, so I know about the name Kevin. There are other names that elicit a response from the French. I once hired an employee called Bryan and every single time I would say his name to one of my French colleagues, I would get the response “Where is Bryan? Bryan is in the kitchen!”. (https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/Practical/Your-Questions/Why-is-Bryan-in-the-kitchen)
steph 07:17 on 2022-08-07 Permalink
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhbrR4-Z5fw
Also I’ve known some anglophone Kevins that have had problems with the quebec government francizing their names to Kévin, (They’ve also done it to my name, changing mine to stéph, ugh.)
Kate 09:58 on 2022-08-07 Permalink
steph, my sister had a female friend whose name was Jean Mary, and the Quebec government persisted in giving her a health card marked as male.
Chris 10:50 on 2022-08-07 Permalink
For a minute Kate, your summary had me thinking “our” Kevin had made international news. 🙂
Robert H 11:32 on 2022-08-07 Permalink
@dhomas, Ha ha! Mystery solved! My college linguistics professor would have had a field day parsing the significance or process by which names acquire a cultural symbolism that resonates across language, time and distance. Which is academese for this stuff is deep. I feel pretty safe myself, a minor benefit of my extremely common given plus family names. Most anglo-based directories would yield at least 20 with MY name. It sounds like a fellow who would show up at the TOWIE/Jersey Shore backyard party on steph’s video link in a three-piece suit. Calisse! C’est Bob! Viens t’asseoir, mange d’la marde! It’s all mixed up with class, zeitgeist and image and one day someone says your name or that of someone you know, people start laughing and cracking jokes, and you think, “huh!?”
Meezly 11:34 on 2022-08-07 Permalink
Maybe with the global popularity of the Despicable Me franchise it also didn’t help that the main Minion is called Kevin.
Robert H 11:43 on 2022-08-07 Permalink
@Kate, I would have thought your sister’s friend would have had a bigger problem being continually confused with someone named Jeanne-Marie.
DeWolf 11:47 on 2022-08-07 Permalink
@dhomas, in Quebec, Kevin is associated with macho blowhards who drive pick-up trucks and listen to Radio X. Same with Steve. Although “those” kinds of Steves and Kevins often spell their name Steeve and Keveun.
La Presse had an article on the phenomenon in 2018:
https://plus.lapresse.ca/screens/6ec06f58-078d-4f5b-bed8-b5f64a530ef1%7C_0.html
Joey 11:47 on 2022-08-07 Permalink
Have they not seen this in France?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rhbrR4-Z5fw
Kate 12:57 on 2022-08-07 Permalink
Robert H: Jean-Marie is an old-fashioned double-barrelled French boys’ name.
Robert H 13:44 on 2022-08-07 Permalink
My roots are showing. I should have known. If I grew up in France with that name, I’d have changed it by now.
Kate 15:49 on 2022-08-07 Permalink
The mythos of Kevin-ness also got a boost on Reddit from this story and this postscript.
Kevin 16:31 on 2022-08-07 Permalink
You have Kevin Dances With Wolves Costner and Kevin sadistic home guardian McAllister.
When the kids named after this duo come of age, they have multiple idiot Kevins in The Office, King of Queens, Mall Cop, and of course Britney Spears’ second husband.
steph 17:23 on 2022-08-07 Permalink
Germans have been mocking Kevin’s for a while – there’s university research on the subject and it’s warranted it’s own wiki entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevinism
Moses 10:12 on 2022-08-09 Permalink
I say “je m’appele Moses,” and I get “ah, vous vouliez dire Moise” and… uh, that’s not my name but okay.
Orr 22:09 on 2022-08-10 Permalink
@Moses, I ‘m surprised, because my coworkers frequently use Moses as a curse word. Of course, with laicité, the kids today probably don’t. This makes me wonder if religious curse words are going to disappear what with the decoupling of Quebec society from the reins of the papacy.