Print Edition: October 15, 2014
Lookie-loos
You know what really grinds my gears? People who slow to a complete crawl in traffic when there is an accident, stall, or any sort of vehicular distraction on the highway.
I know I’m just as guilty of it as the next person, but it still infuriates me when the cars in front take their sweet time to get a good look before carrying on with their commute.
Is this something that has happened since the dawn of the vehicle, or are we just a generation of drivers who love the (potential) sight of carnage? We all need to remember if we were in the car that wound up in the middle of the highway, the last thing we would want is people slowing down to sneak a peek.
It could be a life-changing situation for the people involved, so a little compassion should be applied by those of us crawling on by.
“I know, right?”
It’s lately become standard conversation fare to inject a “right?” at an opportune moment — particularly at the end of a tangent, if someone agrees with you, or (especially) if you cannot think of anything else to say.
Please. Stop. This.
I love shooting the shit. The spontaneity of conversation, especially between two people who have differing mindsets about something, is deliciously stimulating. Moving from one nuance of argument to another — or jumping blissfully from one silly topic to another — feels great. But what am I supposed to say when someone says “right?”
When it’s uttered, the natural flow of conversation is stopped. An elegant, thoughtful, moving thing suddenly flops dead. There’s no agreement and addendum; even worse, there’s no disagreement and explanation. Instead, the ball is suddenly back in my court to say something else. It drains the energy from a good conversation.
Pop-star prowl
Just because you have pop-star status doesn’t mean you have license to condone violence against women.
The behaviour of some celebrities makes me sick. Adam Levine, if you think you can get away with portraying yourself as an animalistic sex offender who preys on women and views them as meat, perhaps you need a wake-up call. Fuelling your morbid mentality and your skewed ideology in the songs you write and the music videos you act in is not okay.
Preying sexually on women is a criminal offense. We don’t need a simulated scenario of this happening as a platform to gain popularity and fame.
There’s enough of this garbage, injustice, and crime happening every day. Seriously, man — if you are required to stoop so low as to choose sex crimes for your creative subject matter, you may just find yourself in jail one day.
Where are the precautions?
“The disease continues to expand geographically,” says Dr. Bruce Aylward in a CBC News interview regarding the spread of the Ebola virus in Africa. The pandemic has the World Health Organization and many others concerned. But despite health officials trying to calm the worried public by giving advice like washing hands and using sanitizer, people still insist on old habits.
There are many variables in the works that can help calm the irrational panic: Ebola is not airborne, undeveloped countries are harder hit because of their healthcare systems, and diabetes has killed over 69,000 people per year; it’s common, so it doesn’t raise fear like something exotic does.
Precautions from hospitals, airports, and individuals should be taken, but I don’t believe the threat of Ebola is as dire as the media is making it out to be.
