Citizens of Adler nation love a man bites dog story. Dog bites a man. Not a story. Man bites a dog, that's a story.
In this case, the man is an anger management consultant. He teaches people how to restrain themselves. He became a dog biting man when he went the other way.
We take you to the suburbs of Washington, D.C.
An anger management counselor is accused of pulling a gun on two men. Was it self defense? No...It was to scare the hell out of them because he felt they were in his way - blocking his car. Wrong move for two reasons. One, he is supposed to be the guy who teaches people not to use force or the threat of force.
Two… The two men he was threatening turned out to be federal marshals.
The counselor, Jose Avila is now up on a charge of assaulting a federal officer.
His lawyer is assaulting your sense saying his client had pulled a gun, hadn't pointed a gun. He was pointing -- a cellphone, says the lawyer.
Does Jose Avila have the right to carry a concealed weapon?
Yes, because he works for a non-profit group and gets frequent counseling referrals from judges and lawyers.
They send him dudes who do the kinds of things he is accused of doing.
If you have a great man bites dog story email me
atcharles@charlesadler.com
Remember the story of the clerk working for Toronto Transit whose job it was to take tickets. But a cellphone camera caught him taking a nap. He was on our show. We talked to him. He apologized and told us how he loved his job, loved working with a public, used to drive a bus, saved a person's life ten years ago and was given a commendation for being a hero. Most of us who heard him - liked him. A good guy with some health problems who had a bad day at the office picked up by a camera. Now this from Joe Warmington our good bud at the Toronto Sun:
10 TTC operators have been punched, spit on or violently threatened during the past 24 hours.
It’s an utter disgrace writes Joe. It’s virtually open season on TTC workers right now.
In fact the atmosphere in some sections of the TTC, in the wake of the recent cellphone journalism, is one of angst, mistrust and poison.
Most of the haranguing seems to be over fare disputes.
“There is an undeclared war between some riders and some staff,” a TTC management insider said. “There is wrong on both sides and it has to stop before somebody gets really hurt.”
People already are getting hurt. One woman was before the courts at College Park Thursday charged with assaulting veteran bus driver James Lockhart along Rogers Rd. after, a police source says, the driver was “allegedly being punched from behind and his hair being pulled.”
Charged with assault by is Bonnie Clayton.
There was also a 17-year-old in court charged with assault “for spitting in the face of an operator.” A source alleges “to add insult to injury, the last thing he heard was ‘I am going to get my friends to come back and do to you what was done to Jaime Pereira.’ ”
Recall “what was done” to bus driver Pereira? He was blinded by a gunshot in 2005.
“Normally we have about 50 employees a month assaulted or criminally threatened,” a TTC insider said. “If this keeps up at this pace, the number will reach about 300 a month.”
Big economic positive today on jobs, jobs, jobs! More than 40 thousand new jobs in Canada in January. And the unemployment rate inched down instead of up. Half the new jobs coming in Ontario.
Another positive - the Buy America provisions in the Obama administration stimulus packages no longer impact on Canada. Buy America...Buy Canada...whatever. As long as our companies are putting in good bids they are as eligible as American companies. We agree to do the same for them.
The Harper government working vigorously to get this done - it's a net job creator for our team.
And while those people hustling votes want to spit in the face of reality and pretend that governments only operate when MP's are in Parliament, well this is more proof that they LIE. Can't say they don't know what they are talking about. The idea that government employees, whether it’s the prime minister, the trade minister and all their staffs - the idea that they only work for their keep when Parliament is sitting isn't worthy of the words. They don't know and it's just political spin. No, let's not serve that diluted old porridge. It's a lie.
Not that you can't live politically on a lie. Not that you cannot live on the Boulevard of Urban mythology on a lie.
Example:
A story posted this week on the National Post Blog by Joe O'Connor. Some of this is likely tongue in cheek, but it rides on the False Premise that the PM is dogging eat these days, has lots of time to kill and so he is killing it by doing things that have nothing to do with his job.
“Stephen Harper would throw it all away for shot at NHL” is the Headline.
It is nice, in a way, when Parliament has been prorogued, since it gives a Prime Minister a chance to do the kind of things that Canadians really admire. Like, for example, talk about hockey to an American magazine.
Stephen Harper can’t seem to finish his eternal hockey book project, but he has managed to crack the pages of Sports Illustrated’s Olympic preview.
Writer Michael Farber spoke to our dear leader about the game we hold dear to our hearts. Some of the interview failed to make it into print. Among the items left out was a startling confession from the PM. Asked if, given a choice, he would be serving as Prime Minister or playing in the NHL, Harper said perhaps the most honest and endearing thing he has ever said.
“It’s probably terrible to say, but any Canadian boy, if he could play in the NHL, would play in the NHL.”
Being a history/political science nerd, the PM also made it clear to the magazine that as big as an Olympic gold medal game featuring Canada in Vancouver would be, it won't be the biggest game ever played on Canadian ice.
"I'd go back to the '72 [Summit] Series [against the Soviet Union]. Probably the second game in Toronto. My dad told me [the Series] was sort of like the experience of the Allies in 1940, feeling as soon as the shots were fired this thing would be over [but then] find we're scrambling out of Dunkirk."
There are other insights into the Harper hockey mind. The PM ponders the national character, and how it is informed by the great frozen game.
“Hockey is a fast, aggressive, tough sport and that’s an important part of the Canadian psychology and history. It’s sometimes forgotten because Canadians are thought of as peace-loving and fair-minded and pleasant — which I think we are — but that’s not inconsistent with tough and aggressive and ambitious...”
Translation: Canadians say please, thank you, give up their seats on the buses for the elderly and then go out on the local rink and slash a stranger across the shins — or worse. It is the Canadian way. So is taking time to talk hockey, even when you are supposed to be hard at work doing things, like, for example, running a country.
As I said earlier maybe his tongue was in his cheek, maybe not, but does anyone seriously believe that the PM only works when parliament is in session. Let's be clear about what you see or don't see when parliament is in session. Nothing is going on and certainly nothing is going on in question period except opportunities for some pols to ask or answer a question that might get on the tube for local or national consumption and if it's really hot, it might, might get You Tubed into the national bloodstream.
As far as what most of them are doing when the cameras aren't on - they're on their blackberries to each other and sometimes to members of the media and that sometimes, sometimes includes me. So I cannot get into this game of the only time these guys are really doing real work is when they are in parliament, I know better and now you know better and for the fools and dullards and liars with access to cameras or microphones, printing presses or news sites who say otherwise, they are lying to you.
