Disabled Man With A Knife Tries To Enter A Walmart

 The following occurred in Tucson. It contains graphic content.

H/t Michael Mc

Just one of a multitude of reasons to boycott travel to the U.S.

UPDATED: To The Willfully Benighted

 

Ah, if only the willfully stupid among us could be ridiculed and that would be the end of it. Unfortunately, those errant souls persist in trying to shove their ignorance down the throats of others.

Last weekend anti-vaccine demonstrators gathered outside a clinic in North Bay called One Kids Place and tried to intimidate a mother taking her 7-year-old son to get his first shot.

Abby Blaszczyk says she had to endure a torrent of abuse as she escorted her son Nolan, who had just become eligible for a COVID vaccine.

“They told me I … was murdering my son, I was committing genocide, stuff like that,” she told CBC News. “And then, just misinformation about the vaccine itself.”

Like the infection they are, the anti-vaxxers insist on spreading their benightedness.

...  in Windsor last week anti-vaxxers picketed another clinic that was offering vaccines to kids between 5 and 11. They carried signs with slogans like, “It’s not a vaccine. It’s a bioweapon.”

Some may wonder why I have such an obvious and deep antipathy towards these people. Part of the reason, of course is that, as a teacher for 30 years, my career revolved around critical thinking. To see that abandoned so wholeheartedly by some is disheartening. But my larger contempt is for the motivation of these people, their insistence that they are right, and the damage they seek to do to their fellow citizens by their obdurate refusal to think of society as a whole and get vaccinated to afford the best protection possible for all.

Parse it any way you want, but their egocentric selfishness more than merits society's widespread condemnation. 

UPDATE: Just in time for the season of giving, Pastor Kent Christmas shares the gift of his 'thoughts':

Gone To Glory

Somehow, my heart, which should be heavy, feels gratitude at the news that this crazed evangelical, who urged his followers not to get vaccinated, is no longer with us. 

Daystar Television

@Daystar

It’s with a heavy heart we announce that Marcus Lamb, president and founder of Daystar Television Network, went home to be with the Lord this morning. The family asks that their privacy be respected as they grieve this difficult loss. Please continue to lift them up in prayer.

What the bereaved family does not reveal is this little nugget:

Marcus Lamb Cause Of Death – Anti-Vax Televangelist Marcus Lamb has passed away from Covid-19 on Tuesday, 30, November 2021. Lamb’s passing was confirmed by Mark Lowry on his Facebook page. Lamb died  Tuesday morning, November 30,  2021 leaving his loved ones devastated and broken.

Truly, the Lord works in mysterious yet productive ways.

It's All A Matter Of Perspective, I Guess

Some people are losing good union jobs because of their 'beliefs'. No doubt those being fired from well-paid positions at Toronto's TTC, from various hospitals, etc. see themselves as principled martyrs for refusing vaccine mandates. 

Others, however, see them in a different light.

H/t Patrick Corrigan

It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.

A Peek Inside The House Of Ford

Although the newspapers are apparently shying away from this, there is strong evidence of a breach in the dyke of official solidarity in Doug Ford's family. And that breach is his daughter Krysta, who, it seems, is unhappy with current societal regulations regarding Covid-19.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford's eldest daughter Krista has a bit of a history with anti-vax rants, voicing her vaccine skepticism, love of poppies over masks, dislike of vaccine passports, and steadfast support for fringe conspiracy theories.

The former football-playing 30-year-old — whose private Instagram profile refers to her as a 'police wife' — got heated on social media in both the figurative and literal sense this week, going on a sweaty cardio rant after her Toronto cop/bodybuilder husband was sent home on unpaid leave for failing to comply with the police service's vaccination mandate.

Sergeant Dave 'Juggernaut' Haynes (really, that's his actual nickname) of 31 Division has served on the force for 20 years, and wife Krista is furious about his suspension, a move which applies to all Toronto Police Service employees who refuse to get vaccinated or disclose their status.

Her fury is being vented via social media: 

H/t Caryma Sa'd

But wait! Justice is coming:

One ardently hopes that given all her furious spinning, some much-needed oxygen will make its way to her brain.

You Can't Get One Past Her

Admittedly, it has been a while since I have turned my thoughts to crazed evangelicals. Ever since Pat Robertson left the scene, no doubt having retired to better await the rapture, it just hasn't been the same.

Nonetheless, although not necessarily a worthy successor to Pastor Pat, preacher Sharon Gilbert proves she is ready, willing, and most able, should the call come:

End Times preacher Sharon Gilbert says that an alien imitated her husband, and then it tried to have sex with her, and then it claimed to be Xerxes, and then Jesus got involved, and then the alien turned out to be a reptile with a posse of gargoyles.

Jailed For Doing Their Jobs

It is an action worthy of a third-world nation. You know, the kind run by an authoritarian who takes it as a personal affront whenever someone demonstrates against or writes about human rights abuses, lashing out with incarceration or worse for the offending parties.

Only this time it is happening in Canada.

Two journalists reporting from the Wet’suwet’en territory were among 15 people arrested and detained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia Friday night. Both remain in custody.

Since last year, media has covered RCMP raids in the territory, Indigenous rights and police removal of defenders of the land who are blocking the logging of old-growth forests in the area.

Photographer Amber Bracken was on assignment for The Narwhal when she was arrested. Filmmaker and photographer Michael Toledano, a freelance reporter who has been living in Wet’suwet’en territory in order to create a documentary about what Indigenous people face in the region, was also arrested.

Despite having all the right credentials attesting to their journalistic enterprises, both are still in jail and slated to be transported to Prince George tomorrow for a bail hearing.

Anyone who reads this blog regularly may know that I have a deep respect for the work journalists do. Despite the odd number being mere mouthpieces for propaganda, most are hard at work in an often thankless job, disseminating the kind of information crucial to an informed democracy.

None of  this, it would seem, matters a whit to the RCMP, despite the fact that they are now engaging in clearly illegal action.

The Narwhal said in statements posted to Twitter that they are “extremely disturbed” to learn that Bracken was arrested and that the RCMP is refusing to release her in violation of her charter rights.

Brent Jolly, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), says that the two arrests are unjustified.

“It’s completely and utterly shocking the extent to which the RCMP are going to prevent journalists from covering events that are happening in the public interest,” he said. 

The action is especially shocking in light of a court ruling last summer.

In July, the Canadian Association of Journalists, a non-profit that works to defend press freedom and connect reporters across the country, along with multiple other journalism organizations won a court challenge at the Supreme Court in B.C. on press freedom in the Fairy Creek area.

 They urged the court to modify an injunction that would tell the RCMP to stop restricting media from the area without an operational reason to do so. The final decision from the judge agreed with the media groups, explaining that the RCMP had failed to prove why they needed to exclude media from covering the region.

Media have argued they need to be present to document police actions on the territory, where the Wet’suwet’en people say they have never ceded or given up their land.

Jolly says the recent arrests demonstrate that the ruling has fallen on deaf ears.

Our country has many things to be proud of. Suppressing freedom of the press clearly is not one of them.