The family of Maria Pantazopoulos, who drowned on the weekend, is trying to find someone to blame in her death. Of course the family is hurting but they should be careful about laying unfair blame because of their grief.
Sue Smith on CBC is on radio trying to press the mayor of Rawdon, who sounds both saddened and very reasonable, to admit the river is an exceptionally hazardous location. He keeps saying in various ways that he’s sorry about the death but he can’t stop adults doing risky things if they’re determined to do them. (Why do journalists take this line? They can’t really want everything fenced off, padded with cotton, manned with security guys to warn people off dangerous natural features like, you know, rivers and rocks and things.)
Had Pantazopoulos donated her wedding dress to charity instead of following the decadent fad of wilfully destroying it, her family wouldn’t now be trying to blame the photographer, the town of Rawdon and anyone else for an error of judgement. I hope if this somehow gets to court, the judge will have the good sense to call misadventure rather than blaming anyone.
Matt 18:45 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
When you stop to think about it, we live in a society so concerned with safety (or rather the protection of future Darwin award nominees) that the collective ‘we’ loses out on certain things. One example that comes to mind is the old Pie-IX express line. Someone gets hit by a bus, goodbye transit option. Come on.
jeather 18:47 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
Well, losing out on “trash the dress” photoshoots sounds like a bonus, though I agree that sometimes the line is drawn too far towards safety.
Marc 19:06 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
Life involves risk. Plain and simple. What do you want them to do, completely cage the waterfalls in so that no one can get even close to get a glimpse of them?
willie granger 20:31 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
The CBC must be trying to overcompensate for their reputation as the chit-chat-about-flowers network and must have received some directive to conduct only tough-as-nails interviews. So their favourite question to anybody is, “will you resign following this incident?” I find it pretty ridiculous whenever I hear them doing that faux bloodlust stuff. That said, I’m not exactly a regular listener.
walkerp 21:44 on 2012/08/28 Permalink
The CBC has been doing this faux-tough interviewing style for a while now. It was great when it was Barbara Frum asking truly tough questions to liars and prevaricators in power, not so great when it’s Mike Finnerty repeating the same blunt and inappropriate question to some poor, beleagured local figure. It’s super lame and I suspect there is some mandate from the top pushing this down. They need to stop doing it.
As for this family, it’s really a terrible tragedy, but there is nobody to blame. Rivers can be dangerous. We used to be a country where people respected and understood nature, but as we all move to the suburbs, we are slowly becoming a bunch of idiots who think feeding racoons is Wild Kingdom and walking out into a strong current with a tight, dragging wedding dress is a cool idea.
Stefan 03:33 on 2012/08/29 Permalink
When I went to the river in Rawdon, I saw a huge sign warning of danger. I also saw a 4-year kid attached with a leash to his parent. I thought both to be exaggerated.
However, the river at this place flows extremely fast and turbulent because of many rocks. It was evident to me that it was too dangerous to go in. But then I grew up playing in rivers a lot (and without adult supervision).
It comes to my mind that Quebec, since it is really flat, does not have many fast-flowing rivers and that most people here never have made the experience how much force water has.
@walkerp: i am not sure that nature is or has been respected or understood here (with the exception of first nations). this concerns the aspects of conservation (there is very little compared to other countries, what little is left around human developments is still being destroyed at a rapid pace), pollution, knowledge of native plants etc.
instead of trying to cohabitate with nature, it seems to me the average quebecker puts a maximum effort into isolating oneself from it (and in consequence destroying it) or making it inaccessible: putting asphalt everywhere, artifical grass in the gardens, and living in a artificially temperated home or car year-round, putting an awful lot of ressources into removing snow. see plan nord for finishing with it all.
i think the mentality of most quebeckers is still that “nature has to be conquered”. that may have resulted from an initial hostile impression on arrival of the first european immigrants, which had wiped out many of them because they did not know the climate and the land, and been handed down through the generations.
Kate 07:50 on 2012/08/29 Permalink
Stefan, you have the seed of an entire book there on how North Americans feel about the land, and/or Quebecers in particular.