Frankydoody

But first, something positive: Éloïse is 4 months old!  She was also introduced to the fellow churchgoers with my family in attendance.  Here’s some pictures of last Sunday.

/RANT Start/

Don’t let me pick up a newspaper if you don’t want me to start ranting.  Every day I take the subway I’m being offered one or two free “newspaper”, but I will not take them.  I can’t believe the poor guy that hands out one of them doesn’t recognize me: I’m sure I show a sour face every single time.  I can’t help it: I always find something wrong, from grammar mistakes to straight news errors.  I once found that the hockey scores were wrong!  In Montreal, of all the places!

So I did pick one up today.  It was abandoned on a subway seat (don’t get me started on “abandoned” stuff in the subway).  I picked it up, not like I usually do, which is to stuff it in a recycle bin (don’t get me started on the waste of paper these “newspaper” are).  No, I picked it up because I didn’t have my reading book with me and was wondering if I’d won the lotto.

Well, I didn’t find the winning lottery numbers, but I found an article that got me ranting.  It appears that our prime minister doesn’t believe that we need more police on our roads to reduce this year’s record-breaking death toll.  In his comments, he says that “people have responsibilities, and they have to take their responsibility” (my translation).  He also recognizes that his government has already increased police presence as well as fines, without apparent effect.  Finally, he states that the problem is found in Quebec’s culture.

Ooookay.  First of all, it is obvious people do not take their responsibility behind the wheel: the death toll is only one of many things that proves it.  They do not take their responsibility, yet they do drive around and use their cars.  How then does our premier thinks people will take their responsibilities?

Of course, he does skip that part, politician that he is.  He points out what’s already been done, and singles out our culture as the core of the problem.  Culture!  He dropped the magic word through which every head bows down — but that’s starting another rant.  Alright, then, Mr.premier, how do you solve a cultural problem that leaves 32 persons dead in only 2 weeks?  On holiday too, where you can drive leisurely because, well, you’re not late to get to the office, or in a hurry to the bank before it closes.  You can’t even blame frustrations or road rage from traffic jams because there wasn’t any for those 2 weeks!  (If anybody out there *thinks* there was one, try driving through that same spot now that the holidays are over.)

“We’re not going to create a police state to discipline every driver”, Charest said.  That, while he’s in China for a few days this week.