By revealing how a city employee seemed to spend virtually all his time following her in a city truck, she has directed much-needed attention to city’s supervisory practices.
That’s in addition to highlighting, by explaining what it is like to be stalked, the nature of — and remedy for — a crime that can be devastating in its psychological effects, even if nothing worse happens.
De Blois, 40, who works at Youth Court, told The Gazette’s Katherine Wilton that at first she thought she could handle the situation herself. But in the months before the stalker, 49-year-old André Martel, was arrested, De Blois said she felt terrorized. She lost 23 pounds and had trouble sleeping.
Even after Martel pleaded guilty to criminal harassment and was conditionally released on bail, he continued to follow De Blois, she says. The lawyer suddenly saw the justice system through different eyes. “I can’t imagine what it must be like for a regular person who is not a lawyer, who doesn’t have contacts with a police officer or a crown prosecutor,” she said.
“Why were taxpayers subsidizing a stalker?”, Montreal Gazette, 2010-04-23
April 23, 2010
QotD: Seeing the justice system through different eyes
Vikings trade draft picks with Detroit Lions
As I noted in an update to yesterday’s post, the Vikings traded away their first-round pick to the Detroit Lions, who chose a running back with that selection. The source I was using for the update information didn’t completely clarify what the details of the trade were, so I mistakenly assumed that Detroit had given up more than they really did:
The Vikings’ quarterback of the future was sitting right there for the taking as the clock wound down to the 30th pick in the first round of Thursday night’s NFL draft.
Jimmy Clausen nearly had fallen out of the first round and now the Vikings had the opportunity to fulfill what had been predicted in so many mock drafts.
Only in real life, the Vikings didn’t pull the trigger.
Instead, they dealt their first-round pick to NFC North rival Detroit, along with a fourth-round selection (128th overall), for the Lions’ second- (34th overall), fourth- (100th overall) and seventh-round picks (214th overall).
With the Vikings’ first-rounder, the Lions took California running back Jahvid Best.
What little I’d heard about Clausen made me apprehensive that the Vikings might be bringing in a player who would not be a good fit, so I thought the trade made good sense. I thought that they might have drafted Tim Tebow, but he was already off the board by the time the Vikings selection came up.
Of course, with the 2nd pick in the 2nd round, the Vikings can be relatively certain that the Rams won’t pick another quarterback, having taken Sam Bradford with the 1st pick . . . but they could trade that pick to someone who does want to draft Clausen. We’ll find out tonight, I guess.
Update: Jim Souhan also thinks Clausen would be a bad fit for the team:
The Vikings were right to trade their first-round draft pick.
They were right to avoid Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen, a bratty kid who would have been a lousy fit in the Vikings’ veteran, professional lockerroom.
They were lucky they weren’t forced to consider Tim Tebow, who will be one of the great draft busts in NFL history.
They were right to abide by an NFL truism, that picks at the end of the first round aren’t much different than picks in the second round.
When old folkies get bitter and vindictive
An interviewer for the Los Angeles Times found Joni Mitchell in a mood to settle some old scores with fellow 60’s icons:
The Times interviewer referred to Old Nasal Voice in passing, citing his name-change from Robert Zimmerman to Bob Dylan. (Mitchell also abandoned her birth name, Roberta Joan Anderson.) Mitchell launched into an unprovoked assault. “We are like night and day, he and I,” she scoffed. “Bob is not authentic at all. He’s a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception.”
Cowed, the interviewer moved on to safer topics — such as Prince (apparently a Mitchell fan) and sex appeal. Yet Mitchell still had time to slag off Grace Slick and Janis Joplin (allegedly they were “[sleeping with] their whole bands and falling down drunk”), and Madonna. Railing against the “stupid, destructive” era we live in, Mitchell took aim at the Material Girl. “Americans have decided to be stupid and shallow since 1980. Madonna is like Nero; she marks the turning point.”
It wasn’t all piss and vinegar. Mitchell fondly recalled Hendrix, “the sweetest guy”, and late-night listening sessions together. But even this memory is shaded in frustration. “He made his reputation by setting his guitar on fire, but that eventually became repugnant to him,” she recalled. “‘I can’t stand to do that anymore,’ he said, ‘but they’ve come to expect it. I’d like to just stand still like Miles.'”
