Car Wrapped Around Pole by Burger King

People enjoying Whopper Wednesday -- Whopper burgers for $1.99 -- at Burger King on Main St. at 1st Ave. were left stressed this afternoon after a car wrapped itself around a pole outside.

When the accident happened at about 6 p.m., a practical nurse having a burger and others went to see if they could help. The occupants of the car, a male and female, whom a male witness described as "East Indian", "just kids, about twenty five [years old]" were hurt. The woman reportedly had a broken neck and hip. "She was going in and out of consciousness", said the witness. The male in the car, said the witness, "had a bad back".

People who have seen the aftermath of a bad accident often have a need to talk about it in the hours afterward. That was the case with people walking down Main St. today toward the SkyTrain Station at Terminal & Main. One man whom I didn't know told me that the air bags had burst and that the pole had "impaled" the car, "like a can opener". He said if anybody had been in the back seat, they would have been killed.

55

photo submitted by Brian

Downtown Eastsider celebrates his birthday, between cigarettes.

Carnegie "Kangaroo" Election

Most Carnegie members didn't know their was an election last evening. And that was no accident.

The notice on the bulletin board was small enough that members could be counted on to miss it. "I had to take off my glasses and put my face right up to it to read it", said one member. He said the notice announced, "CCA AGM", letters that wouldn't catch the attention of most members. The election wasn't mentioned until the end of the notice, in fine print. I recall seeing this small notice myself but it was so small, I didn't stop to read it.

They should have announced the election in large print, said one member. "They hang banners over the steps out front all the time" when they want the poor to turn out for their povertarian projects and marches, but when there is an election, they produce only a teeny weeny poster.

Members of the Carnegie establishment such as paid anti-poverty activist Jean Swanson have worked to disenfranchise the poor ever since the poor's choice of Board members -- William Simpson, Rachel Davis -- didn't match their own. They stack elections with their friends and political allies. One member described last evening's election and the prior well-attended nomination meeting this way. "A bunch of strangers showed up, and they voted in their yes-people." He said the result is that longtime members who use Carnegie on an almost daily basis are finding decisions made by people they barely recognize, and at times don't recognize.

Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty, the City's representative at the meeting, left early, saying she was "busy". Very little Whitty says is believed by members, many of whom are aware of her well-documented record of lying. "Maybe she didn't want to be put on the spot and have to answer any questions," said one man. A woman said she saw Whitty leaving the building after the meeting in the theater had ended, supporting skeptics' view that she hadn't or shouldn't have been too busy to sit through the Carnegie AGM.

One member later sitting at a patio table at Waves coffee shop in the warm evening breeze, summed up the Carnegie election this way. "They pulled a fast one on us again".

Man Threatening to Jump from Rooftop Shuts Down Hastings

Hastings St. was blocked off by police for a couple of hours tonight, from Main to Carroll St.  A man standing on the roof of the New Lux appeared to want to jump.  The New Lux is government funded housing for the hard to house, near the United We Can Bottle Depot. 

The man was sitting on the roof and would occasionally stand up, teetering back and forth and hollering.  He appeared to be playing to the crowd of about 75 people watching from behind yellow police tape.  

One spectator quipped, "He's mad Pittsburgh lost the hockey game."  

Carnegie Staff Battered and Broken

Carnegie staff have more injuries than playoff hockey.

Skip Everall, head of Security has a bandaged hand.  Catriona Moore who oversees the kitchen has her arm in a sling.  

And Ethel Whitty reportedly broke her wrist and is in pretty bad shape.  Members say it's more relaxed now that she's away.  Call it harm reduction.  

Michael Ignatieff: Your Choice for a Bi-Polar Prime Minister

Radio host Roy Green said this morning that he didn't believe Harper's so-called "attack ads" on Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff were attacking enough.  So he made his own attack ad.  And instead of the 30 seconds the others had, he made his 60 seconds long.

Green's attack ad opens with the music of Springsteen, "Born in the U.S.A. I was born in the U.S.A."

Then there's a clip of Ignatieff telling an audience, 

"You have to decide, 'What kind of America do you want', right?  You have to decide.  It's your country just as much as it is mine."

Then we hear "Born in the U.S.A." again.

And again Ignatieff:

"You have to decide, 'What kind of America do you want', right?  You have to decide.  It's your country just as much as it is mine."

Then there is another song with lyrics that I didn't fully hear, something about "the colour of my life". 

Then there was an Arnold Schwartzenegger clip,

"I'll be back."

The "I'll be back" joke is a bit threadbare but the rest of the attack ad got me laughing.  And I enjoyed how unapologetic Green was for putting this ad together.