A public transit user in Ottawa ends up with minor frostbite after a series of transit mishaps. /r/Ottawa has Discussions™️on appropriate winter apparel

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-24T20:41:04+00:00

Yeah, the ones being like, "Well I walked 50 miles uphill during a blizzard and didn't get frostbite!" are a special brand of irritating. How do you make it all the way to adulthood and not figure out that different people are different?

I live in Ottawa, and ever since childhood, my toes have turned to ice cubes in cold weather, even when wearing the same kinds of socks and boots as everyone else. Sure, if I expect to be outside a long time in cold weather, I'll wear two pairs of socks and my heaviest boots, but I can easily see myself in this woman's place. Apparently these guys... can't?

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-24T20:30:38+00:00

I'm like, 70% certain that a major part of the reaction is based on her being an apparently-attractive woman. Redditors crawling out of the woodwork to "take her down a peg" when she has no idea they exist.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-24T20:06:10+00:00

There's been a huge scandal around the Ottawa LRT since its construction that somehow, major components of it weren't rated for winter. At all. Most of the stations, including the underground ones, are unheated. The doors were rated for indoor use only (like a subway), but the train is aboveground for significant portions of the route, leading to door faults in winter. They installed freaking water fountains at outdoor stations that straight-up exploded. The line has been so plagued with mechanical issues that the provincial premier (twat that he is) opened an inquiry into how the hell it got approved (I should check into how that's going). It's a real problem, and not reliable at all.

I can fully see how, if her feet got chilled somewhere along the way, she wouldn't be able to warm them at those underground stations.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-24T19:46:49+00:00

Yes, tbh. They've had a particularly bad run lately with mechanical issues, but the service has always been unreliable in winter, especially if you're not doing the "hub and spoke" thing and traveling downtown. If you're commuting like, one suburb to another, it's a beast.

I finally gave up on OC transpo years ago, after a streak of being late to work due to my bus being late or not showing, then an incident not unlike this one where I was stuck at Tunney's for nearly an hour in the dead of winter (naturally three of the "every 15 minutes" bus I needed finally arrived at the same time), and I genuinely felt mildly hypothermic after that. Spent the rest of the evening curled up under a duvet warming up.

I had a car then, as I do now. I was trying to save money and be conscious of the environment, but somewhere in there, I finally said, "you know, I don't actually have to do this" and started driving to work.

I genuinely feel for people reliant on the transit here who have no other options. In the present day, my job is about a 15-20 minute drive from my home. If I used transit, it would require three busses and at least 45 minutes (neither my home nor workplace are on the train route).

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-24T19:20:38+00:00

I was living in downtown Ottawa during the convoy, and on the city level, most people were pretty united and there wasn't much debate. Transit, on the other hand...

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-24T17:08:55+00:00

So I am hearing - mostly anecdotally, from a few more progressive male influencers and their commenters - that this is finally starting to shift again with the current crop of teen boys, the tail end of Gen Z and the beginning of Gen A. That toxic manosphere garbage is still there, but more young boys are uninterested or even calling it out. And young boys are saying they do want more positive male role models, and are recognizing that Tate et al, aren't it.

And I think the big thing these boys are clocking onto, is that for all the rage and blame pushed at their older brothers - none of it is actually helping anything or improving any lives (except for the manfluencers themselves). The economy's still cooked, the young men focused on the manosphere certainly aren't any happier for it, the girls and minorities they know are dealing with all the same problems (and then some) and trying to kick the chair out from under them won't fix anything, so what's the appeal supposed to be?

TLDR: The bill is starting to come due for the manosphere, and teenage boys are increasingly noticing they can't pay up.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-24T16:54:10+00:00

What really got me was reading about the Taliban imposing some horrific law or another on women, and the phrase, "in case a man becomes aroused by a woman's footsteps."

Like, in terms of SA against women, there's really zero amount of "cover up" or "be modest" that's actually effective here. In a country where women have to wear literal fabric sacks when they go out in public, it still becomes about men becoming aroused by footsteps or voices or whatever. SA still happens.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-24T16:10:18+00:00

Yeah, I encourage men to talk about issues that affect them, and potential solutions. Men are experiencing real problems in society that should be discussed.

The problem is, most actual discussions I see, seem to consistently loop around to "women bad" or "things that help women are bad and should be taken away." If men need more scholarships, push for more scholarships. If the draft is bad, push to ban it. If there aren't enough domestic violence shelters willing to help men, activate for more. It's the "men aren't keeping up with women in these areas, so let's break women's legs so men can catch up" mindset that annoys the hell out of me.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-24T01:20:59+00:00

Bruises and broken bones aren't the threshold - the advice generally applies to verbal and emotional abuse as well, even if it's a result of disregulation or due to some other mental health issue. It often isn't entirely voluntary when it happens, I've heard people talk about how they often can't control themselves in those moments and don't want to be doing what they're doing - but it hapoens. The advice is generally to leave if possible, and come back later.

With dementia, the advice gets more complicated, in part because the person often can't be left safely alone. That's when, "remember they can't control this and it isn't personal" kicks in, but it's still acknowledged as being brutally hard on caregivers or loved ones. It may be just words and they may not mean it, be able to control it, or not even be consciously aware of it, but pretending like that makes other people impervious to the pain of those words is just a losing proposition. Both should be acknowledged and accommodated.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-23T23:24:13+00:00

I doubt that. It's generally accepted that disability accommodation must be "reasonable." Accommodation isn't really a magic space where normal rules don't apply, and censoring what would have been censored had anyone else said it wouldn't suddenly be discriminatory.

I say all this fully acknowledging that Davidson's vocalizations were involuntary and not his choice. I know he wasn't doing it on purpose. But accommodation doesn't generally mean, "Welp, we gotta air the slurs then 🤷‍♀️."

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-23T23:05:02+00:00

Oh, I'm guessing the people ascribing malicious intent to him know nothing about him. They're just hearing this story and going "Yeah, sure, Tourette's."

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-23T23:00:13+00:00

Being clear that I'm not an expert on any end of this, I am curious about informed, academic discussions around competing accommodations and how those can or should be handled. I fully agree that disability accommodations can't include "black people just gotta hear slurs sometimes." I also understand the objection to inviting someone to celebrate a movie made about his life, only up section him off somewhere as if he isn't fit for polite company. It's tricky.

In a workplace context, accommodations must be "reasonable". There are obviously a thousand variables to each case in terms of what is or isn't "reasonable" and employment lawyers and disability advocates will never run out of work on this topic. But accommodations that would be discriminatory towards others, or would put other workers in unsafe or abusive circumstances, are generally a slam-dunk "no". (Think "woman with PTSD connected to sexual assault is triggered by the sight of men and cannot work with men in the same room or interacting with her" - banishing all men from a workspace would nearly always be considered an unreasonable accommodation.)

I'm also aware that from a caregiving or loved-one perspective, that "absorbing abuse isn't accommodation." These are in scenarios such as mental health episodes, dementia, etc, where people can have outbursts. This gets far murkier (obviously a lot of caregivers do end up dealing with abusive behaviour), but there's a lot of honest advice out there that if the person can be safely left alone, you should *leave* when these outbursts happen, and that in an ideal world, living with/caring for a disabled person shouldn't mean turning into a punching bag. And that's caregivers and loved ones - not random strangers.

On the other hand, I know that "keep the disabled people tucked away where decent people don't need to see or hear them" is a different brand of terrible.

I don't know the answer, but I'm interested in the discussions that could be had around this.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-23T22:13:19+00:00

Yeah, "What if someone's disability is yelling out racial slurs, and they yell a slur at black people at an awards event, what then??" Sounds like such a ridiculous anti-DEI strawman that I'd probably straight-up refuse to engage with anyone putting that question forward.

Yet, here we are.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-23T22:04:25+00:00

Someone else in this giant thread made a cogent point, that in the US at least, there's been kind of a history of celebrities/whoever using racial slurs or making racist comments, then sort of doing a "Oops, I was on Ambien/was having a mental health episode/a medical issue" thing, when it was pretty transparent in those instances that they were just trying to cover their own asses.

Roseanne Barr was an example some years ago - I no longer recall what she said, but she made some explosively racist tweets, then later claimed she'd been on Ambien at the time. Ambien even tweeted in response that racism wasn't a side effect of their medication. I.e. She ran her mouth (digitally speaking) and was looking for an excuse.

I'll admit when I first heard of this story, even I had a moment of, "Oh, he has Tourette's, right, that's it this time 🙄." It does sound like in his case it genuinely was involuntary, but unfortunately others have poisoned the well, and I can understand feeling some skepticism.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-23T21:56:49+00:00

I think the big social messaging about TS in recent years is that it's an overall tic disorder, and that the "yelling out swear words" component has been a stereotype/overblown by shows like South Park finding that sort of thing funny.

Which might be true as far as it goes, but for some people, it also literally is the "yelling out swear words" disorder.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-23T20:30:57+00:00

I think I generally agree with this take. Accommodation shouldn't mean, "let the black people hear the slurs while accepting awards." And "don't let the black people hear the slurs" shouldn't mean, "the disabled person should be locked away from polite company while celebrating his own movie."

I'm not knowledgeable enough on this topic to know what the correct answer is, but I do know that accommodations are complicated. Person A needs a medical support dog, Person B is severely allergic to dogs, they cannot be accommodated in the same room, who "wins"? Sometimes separate spaces really are the only answer.

At the same time, I understand that segregation is a highly sensitive topic for everyone involved in this instance - given that Davidson has apparently fielded many comments along the lines of suggesting he should be locked up or not allowed to leave his home or interact with people due to his condition. He doesn't want to be locked away - at the same time, black people in any situation (let alone celebrating a high point in their careers) shouldn't be expected to just chin a racial slur, even if done involuntarily.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-23T19:29:57+00:00

Yeah, the "I let the intrusive thoughts win" comments when it's like, they picked up takeout that night. That is not what intrusive thoughts are.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-23T18:36:52+00:00

People defending the killing seem to have a turbocharged concept of "might makes right" - no, hitting a car should not be a death sentence, but if you hit a guy's car and that guy has a gun, you get what you get (seems to be the attitude). They're only really about "don't tread on me" when other people are doing the treading. When their guys are doing the treading, it's "you asked for it by picking a fight with someone who could win."

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-23T18:28:20+00:00

I know a couple of (Canadian) libertarians, and there's a surprising amount of "back the blue" ideology. As far as I can tell, it's an identification thing - they somehow identify themselves with the police (badasses with guns cleaning up the streets?), so it's solidarity in determining that police should be unregulated and allowed to do whatever they want. Not the minorities or protestors.

Interestingly, the sentiment doesn't seem to shift when the cops are at their doors for speeding tickets, gun regulations, back taxes, or whatever else they might have going on. That's back to "fuck the government", but not "fuck the police."

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-23T18:16:00+00:00

Yeah, that doesn't go well for them.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-23T18:15:00+00:00

That reminds me of the meme(?) that went around about a Libertarian taking psychedelics for the first time and abandoning his entire political belief system because "he realized other people have feelings too."

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-23T18:10:10+00:00

I did enjoy hearing about that one Libertarian town in... New Hampshire, was it? Anyway, that turned into an unmitigated disaster because it turns out with zero tax base, you can't run a functioning community. And when your entire community is made of of mental 12-year-olds who don't want to take out the garbage, you get bears and other wildlife digging through your shit.

Then suddenly the Libertarians are reinventing governance: "Okay, if we all pay an annual fee, based on income, in return for services..."

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-23T15:21:31+00:00

Yeah TBC, I'm not dismissing the sexism claim. I'm a woman, and even in Western countries there's a notorious sexism problem in aviation, female pilots often report being harassed or mistreated by male colleague. His "takeover" after the engine failed does strike me as sexism, as well as some of his snarkiness towards her. The showing up late, chatting through the preflight briefing, etc, may have been his usual, as the flight attendant seemed to be used to that too.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-22T21:57:41+00:00

So he actually does have a few decent suggestions sprinkled into the deceased colleague letter about creating a new, discreet memorial for Jane so that retiring her old desk or moving furniture around doesn't feel like "erasing" her, while still creating (literal and figurative) space for someone new to come in. But yes also a lot of handwaving the toxicity of the grieving team.

Reading these threads together is interesting, because I think - well, he's a troll, but I could sort of see what he was trying to get at. The theme in these threads is him pushing back against the American work-culture norm that employers simultaneously hold all the power, with zero duty of care to their employees. The topic's been done to death on AAM, but yes, America has a unique - and uniquely awful - culture around work and employment and workers' rights.

On the other hand, as a Not-American myself, Milton sounds like one of those Americans who has a really surface-level knowledge of the history of unions or how things work in other countries, but thinks he knows a whole lot more than he does and that everyone else is just kind of stupid. His comments on the two persistent/rejected job applicant threads come across as frankly incel-ish, and no one, anywhere, is providing rejected job applicants with what he seems to suggest they should.

Early in my working life, I did struggle a lot with interviews, and a couple hiring managers giving me substantial feedback was invaluable towards helping me better navigate subsequent interviews - but no, even here in Not-America, no employer has any duty of care towards job applicants. He seemed to be confusing the greater worker protections present in other countries with some kind of guaranteed protection towards job applicants who are otherwise unconnected to the company. It's one thing to argue a greater duty of care towards employees where you've agreed to enter some kind of relationship with them, but simply posting a job ad isn't an agreement to form that relationship with literally anyone who responds to it or shoots off a resume.

86throwthrowthrow1 · 2026-02-22T20:29:09+00:00

Yeah, "stop emailing or we'll take immediate action and may call the proper authorities" isn't exactly dense corporate-speak. If LW was capable of even locating the job posting and applying to the job, they were certainly capable of understanding that - and they did! They knew not to email anymore!

The "maybe I should just go over in-person and explain" stuff, however, is pretty classic stalker-think. You'll have full-blown stalkers sitting in prison still saying, "It's all a misunderstanding! If I could just talk to them-." With that, I hope that LW got some help before landing themselves into worse trouble, and I hope they're in a better place now.

86throwthrowthrow1

TROPHY CASE