top of page

Can Anyone Guess Why Pedestrians Are Getting Hit Crossing the Street with Earbuds Tightly Tucked int

We thought to start this week’s Blanche Report with some humour. Remember Watergate? Irangate? Pastagate? Well, now there’s fartgate. Blanche, we hope your senses are not too bent out of shape, but the news is the news.

Eric Swalwell, was, up until not that long ago, one of the democratic candidates running to be the presidential nominee. He was being interviewed by MSNBC last night and about 15 seconds into the interview, which was being held in an open hallway that echoes, he let one go. Seriously, he just let loose.

Swalwell of course is denying it, saying someone moved a mug. Seriously? Go move a mug in your house and see if it makes a noise. It doesn’t. Nothing earth shattering here, just very funny. If you are so inclined, google his name and the interview will pop up. Enjoy the laugh.

Remember the mayor of Cote des Neiges/NDG, Madame Sue Montgomery? Remember she was knitting at city council meetings to make a point that men were talking more than women? Remember she baked cookies while NDG was drowning in snow during a snowstorm? Remember when the snow was not cleaned first anywhere near schools and bus stops even though that’s the mandate?

Well Blanche, it appears that her office is out of order – OOO. Montreal’s comptroller general is investigating her office because it appears she hired the wicked witch of the west as her new chief of staff and the rest of her staff is so upset that they had to go to the media to get their story out. They don’t seem to be too happy with a witch as their boss. Really?

Wait a minute. Isn’t Montgomery the boss in her office? Don’t tell us that her knitting was so distracting that she didn’t see what was going on under her nose. It appears Ms. Montgomery was given an ultimatum – clean up your hostile environment or others will do it for you.

The moral of the story is that when someone is incompetent, they are incompetent in everything they do. We wish the residents of CDG/NDG the best of luck in trying to get anything done in your borough, including clearing the snow when there’s a storm. You are dealing with an office that is OOO.

This story belongs in the best British tradition of keeping-a-stiff-upper-lip and all that rot. Over the weekend, Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth’s second and seemingly favourite son, agreed to be interviewed about his friendship with that lowlife Jeffrey Epstein. To say that Andrew dropped the ball would be a gross understatement. For most of the interview he looked like a deer in the headlights.

He not very vehemently denied having intimate relations with a woman by the name of Virginia Giuffre who was 17 at the time. Where the ball went completely bouncing away was when Prince Andrew said he could not recall ever meeting Giuffre but, get this Blanche, he does remember going to a Pizza Express that day. Seriously? Does he really think people believe him? He remembers a pizza but not a woman? Calling the interview a train wreck is being kind to him.

On thing is very certain. Prince Andrew has been living in a little bubble his entire life and is now having to survive out of that bubble. Let’s just say he’s not doing well. In fact, if someone threw him a lifeline, we are guessing he would grab it and run back to the palace where he would most likely lay low for, oh, about ten years.

Can we have a frank conversation about how many pedestrians have been run over and killed in Montreal this year?  Our very energetic, very smiley mayor Plante is adding a few seconds to crossing lights to give people more time to cross streets. While that is a very good idea, that’s 1/20th of the problem. The other 80% of the issue lies squarely with those pretending that cars, buses and trucks are subservient to them.

Are we the only ones who see tens of people crossing streets not bothering to look up? They are either fully engrossed on their phones or mindlessly listening to something with earbuds, tightly tucked into their ears. Of course the cars, trucks, buses and snowblowers will a) see them and b) stop in time so as not to run them over. Clearly this is not the case.

Here’s a headline for pedestrians: If you don’t make eye contact with the driver in the car heading right towards you, or turning the same corner you are crossing, then assume he does not see you.

Here’s another headline: Nothing happens to the car, truck, bus or snowplow when it runs you over. Oh, maybe a dent here and there. The person? Dead.

If Madame Plante wants less fatalities,  she should start giving tickets to people who think that because they are walking and not emitting carbon gases, they can do whatever they want.

Colin Kaepernick was given  a private workout by the NFL and invited every single team in the league to attend. What did this spoiled seemingly adult do? He ditched them at the last minute and went 30 miles away to a high school. Why? He didn’t like a waiver they wanted him to sign, which every other player has to sign.

Kapernick had one kick at the can to come back to the NFL. He lost it and now he’s on his own. Good riddance and don’t let the door hit your backside on the way out. Feh.

The suburb of Côte Saint-Luc in Montreal, with a very large Jewish population, has some of the worst tap water in the province, according to testing results for lead released through access to information legislation.

Guess who was mayor from 2005-2015? Anthony Housefather, erstwhile chairman of the Justice committee that oversaw the ousting of Jody Wilson Raybould.

Here’s another interesting tidbit: The current mayor, Mitchell Brownstein was very surprised at the results. It’s also no surprise that everybody working in public works and other departments in Cote St. Luc are passing the buck. Not my fault.

In 2005, under the watch of Anthony Housefather, the city delegated management of the water supply and sewer systems to an outside source. Hampstead, the city right next to Cote St. Luc, never used an outside contractor to take care of their water mains. They do regular testing of their water and if they find a problem, it is immediately corrected.

We will not give illustrations of what happens when people drink water laced with lead. It’s bad.

Does CSL have to be put under receivership to get its house in order? Doesn’t seem they are managing very well on their own.

We’ll talk…

2 views0 comments

Comments


bottom of page