It's all greek to me.....

Montrealer loses battle to paint Greek flag on garage door in Quebec Superior Court

ALAN HUSTAK

The Gazette

Sunday, August 24, 2008

MONTREAL - A Pierrefonds man has been ordered to remove the huge Greek flag painted on the garage door of his house because it violates the borough's esthetic standards.

Quebec Superior Court judge France Charbonneau ruled last week that nothing prevents Theodore Antonopoulos from flying the Greek flag on his property, but that by painting blue and white stripes on a garage door he has violated a municipal bylaw that governs the overall look of the street.

"A municipality has the authority to set uniform standards within its jurisdiction and for the buildings within it," she writes.

The ruling has taken Antonopoulos by surprise.

"It's a shock to me. I haven't been informed, and the flag is still there," he told The Gazette this morning. "I will speak to my lawyer and see if there are grounds for an appeal. None of the neighbours have complained to me about it. None at all."

© The Gazette 2008

Now I don't know about you, but why the fuck would a superior court judge, who is so backed up, what with meth addled rapists and such waiting years to get their day in court, feel the need to take such fast action about the color coding of one poor bastard's garage door. I mean there are all kinds of better ways to spend his time. Personally, I think if you want paint a mural of Ron Jeremy and Bill Clinton playing poker with those dogs from the painting, knock yourself out. There are whole blocks, metro cars, buses etc. looking like something straight out of the Road Warrior thanks to graffiti and tagging, but this guys garage door is an obscenity. You just know that people are going to bombard the newspapers with photos of buildings painted white and blue from all over Quebec. I wonder if they would have bullied this man if it had been a Canadian flag guarding his Geo Metro.

Memoirs of an Idiot Hunter, Part I

I was out for an early morning stroll on Wellington street in Verdun today (picture oldschool small town main street, shopping district 15 blocks long) taking in the sights ( breakfast cafe patios, hookers with their thongs showing in three or more places) and smells ( fresh croissants and danishes at Gaummond, roofing tar on the next block) and came across something I just didn't understand.

In the doorway of a down and out pet shop, was a pink cardboard box. I go to check it out. On top of the box is marked " kittens, two months old" in blue marker. The box was then taped up eight ways to Sunday, and laying in the already ruthless sun. Oh, I forgot to mention that the saint who did this poked two holes in the top of the box with a Bic pen.

So this wonderlunk had the brains to leave the kitties with their mother till they were weened, looked after all their needs, then stuck them in a cardboard box to roast for a few hours before the pet store owner sobered up and decides to open. Real genius. I'm surprised he hadn't tried mailing them to Bubbles in Sunnyvale.

I looked around and spied a stack of boxes in front of the Dollarama, bound for recycling and walked down, got a good size crate and folded it in three. At least this way I could shelter them from the sun without killing the airways.

I'm gonna go by in the afternoon tomorrow to check in on them at the store. Hopefully they made it.

Finally The Pendulum Swings Back.....

I was really pleased this week reading stories out of Ontario, that municipalities are starting to take a stand against bottled water. London is phasing the sale and distribution of it out of all public buildings by the new year. Now Toronto is looking into similar steps. Sure there will be public outcry ( hello smokers and cell phone toting vehicular death machines) for the first little while.

Its not a total ban, just the governments saying they have to do their part. You can still sit in your 2 1/2 apartment smoking up a storm, and rest easy, knowing that you have both of your closets half full( gotta save room for a few flats of WildcatXXXmax Dry) of that water that was on sale at such a good price last month. But all your clothes fit on the shower rod anyway. And learning sponge bath without hot water will be easy - especially when you realize that the five quarter full, lukewarm bottles from yesterday are enough to do it. Now you are truly recycling my friend.

I can't wait for Montreal to jump on the bandwagon. Its great that the STM has finally put paper recycling boxes for their newspapers, but placing bins for plastic at exits would be a great idea too.

It's not like we don't have good tap water in the northeast. It's not as if it tastes like fertilizer(howdy Saskatchewan). Time to give it a try.