Lac-Mégantic. The name is now synonymous with disaster after a series of explosions on a Quebec train shipping oil this past weekend, left at least five people confirmed dead and approximately 40 others missing. Canada is reeling from the disaster that has also demolished 30 buildings, including a grocery store, a dollar store, a library, a veterans' park and a popular downtown bar.
According to an article in the CBC, police are actively searching for people after the tanker derailed and then exploded. Stephen Harper compared the scene at Mégantic, a municipality of 6,000, about 250 kilometres east of Montreal, as a "war zone."
"There’s a been a lot of work that has been done on the scene during the night, and hopefully we’ll get some more areas that we can search during the day—but of course, that is the firefighters responsibility," said Quebec's provincial police Sgt. Benoît Richard.
It's thought that failure of the air brakes on the train may have caused the parked train to career into the town. However PM Harper hesitated about discussing causes and railway safety concerns at this stage, claiming the federal government has a system in place for "events like this." The Transportation Safety Board and the police will launch a full investigation with a view to preventing future tragedies.
Evacuees—nearly a third of the town's population—are currently seeking shelter in a local high school. It's hard to imagine the terror at having to flee your home in the middle of the night. Our hearts go out to everyone in the area...
For information, call 819-583-2441 or to report missing persons: 819-832-4953 #6005
If you would like to help, please donate to the Red Cross at 1-800-418-1111 or via its website.
Ah, what a funny little world we inhabit. Naked women prancing around in pop videos are perfectly acceptable, yet a flash of nipple used to feed a baby causes furor. Fortunately it's an irony that isn't lost on Hollie McNish.
In a video called "Embarrassed," the UK poet has spoken out against public breastfeeding shaming. And we love it.
According to an article in the Huffington Post, McNish describes in "edgy, rap-like stanzas" the grim reality of breastfeeding her daughter in toilet cubicles:
"Sipping on milk, nostrils sniffing on piss, Trying not to bang her head on toilet roll dispensers, I wonder if these public loo feeds offend her, 'Cause I'm getting tired of discretion and being polite. My baby's first sips are drown-drenched in shite..."
Predictably, the video is going viral faster than you can say lactate. So share it with your friends. And remember, change starts here, with each mother who feels the 'embarrassment' and breastfeeds anyway.
Can you relate to McNish's sentiment?
What's in a name? For a former Apprentice, the answer is everything. Katie Hopkins caused consternation when she told ITV that she doesn't want her children hanging around kids with "low class” names, such as Charmaine, Chantelle, Chardonnay, and Tyler.
“A name, for me, is a short way of working out what class that child comes from,” Hopkins said on the televised appearance. “[And I can decide from that] do I want my child to play with them?”
According to an article in the Independent, when the hosts of This Morning challenged Hopkins, the star simply dug herself deeper, maintaining that such kids are "a disruptive influence," "probably didn’t do their homework and were unlikely to have 'good prospects'."
Presumably on the basis of their names alone, Hopkins discourages friendships with children who aren't of the right class, and conversely, courts those who are.
A fellow guest on the show, author Anna May Mangan, spoke out against the elitist comments, calling Hopkins an "insufferable snob” whose categorization of children was "cruel, snooty and unkind and so old fashioned.”
Of course Hopkins' comments added fuel to the class wars that continue to smoulder in Britain. “How dare she? I’ve just got my PhD and I’m from a working class family,” wrote one viewer, named—you guessed it—Tyler.
Would you ever judge a child on the basis of name alone? These names are so awful, this country actually banned them.
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