I woke up this morning dedicating myself to writing an article that was happy in nature, maybe one of those feel-good topics that make people feel warm and tingly about other people. Something different from the ranting and raving I’ve been doing from my soap box recently. Something that would be good for me.
Nope.
That’s because in just the last couple of days, Bubba Pollock and Alex Stein came to my attention, two guys that remind me of the Alberta folk hero Elliot McDavid and, If I’m being honest, as repugnant as they come when it comes to people.
Let’s start with Bubba. And of course his name is Bubba. I mean Central Casting couldn’t have come up with a better name for Christopher Michael Pollock.
It seems Pollock has a problem with drag queens reading stories to children. It’s not my mandate to weigh in on that debate, nor is it my intent to sweep it under the carpet. Aside from that being the thing that got everything started, that issue stops being relevant to the story at hand.
Pollock, on Facebook, was rallying the troops for an anti-drag queen protest demonstration in front of the venue where these “performers” were going to be appearing. That caught the attention of one Britt Leroux, a person heavily involved in trans activism. She scolded Pollock with a number of comments, and I believe Pollock probably scolded her right back. This kind of stuff happens every day of Facebook, so really, nothing to see here. Except there is.
Leroux checks her Facebook one morning and sees a picture of Pollock taking a selfie in front of what appears to be a patient in a hospital bed. It strikes a chord in her so she lingers over the photo, checking it out. And to her horror, she realizes that the patient in the bed is her father, Andre Leroux, terminally ill in a palliative care room at Windsor’s Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare facility.
Pollock doesn’t know Andre Leroux. But he found out about him and his condition by creeping Britt Leroux on the internet. He found an article where Britt and her partner were married on the hospital lawn last year so that her father could watch his daughter getting married from his window, participating in the wedding as best his body would allow.
Bubba Christopher Michael Pollock, 34, of London, Ontario was charged by Windsor Police with criminal harassment. To his credit, I suppose, he left a card and flowers, but his intent was unmistakable.
Michael Stein is a Texas right-wing social media “provocateur,” something that seems to grow on trees in places like Texas and Alberta. He knew that WNBA star Britney Griner would be at the Dallas airport as her Phoenix Mercury were in town to play the Dallas Wings. Teams in the WNBA fly commercial, which means they have to parade along the terminal just like everyone else, and the Mercury were on their way to get a flight to Indianapolis after playing the Wings.
You may recall that Griner was arrested in Russia and held for eight months behind bars for allegedly having a cannabis vape pen in her luggage. All this at a time when Russia was, and still is, a world pariah for its invasion of Ukraine and the war crimes committed there. The Russians essentially kidnapped her as a geopolitical pawn, just like China did with the two Canadian Michaels, Spavor and Kovrig.
Understandably, the United States wanted her back. Negotiations with the Russians ensued, the stuff of cloak and dagger novels from the Cold War. Finally, a deal was struck. Griner would be released in exchange for Victor Bout, a notorious arms dealer nicknamed the “Merchant of Death.” The kind of guy you don’t want to let go after you’ve got him behind bars. Unless you feel you really have to.
Enter Alex Stein, who could wear the nickname “snotbag” perfectly. He lay in wait at the Dallas airport terminal, breaching security in order to get to the proper concourse and confront Griner. His smartphone recording in selfie-mode, Stein starts pestering Griner about the prisoner exchange.
“Britney, do you think you were a fair trade for the Merchant of Death?” “Do you think we got enough back in that trade?” “Is it true you had sex with Vladimir Putin so you could get released?” “Why do you hate America.” “Britney, why did you sell out America?”
Griner refused to acknowledge Stein, looked straight ahead, and continued walking with her teammates. Stein followed, repeating the questions. Passersby start to get annoyed with him and tell him to knock it off. Stein invokes his inner Tucker Carlson and claims he’s just asking questions. And then continues, more loudly, to ask the questions.
Eventually, bystanders become enraged by his antics and somebody present tackles Stein to the ground, hopefully with an elbow to the teeth as part of the bargain on the way down. Law enforcement becomes involved, there’s a pending police report, and predictably Stein has demanded Grier and the WNBA apologize for the treatment he received.
If you’ve read any of my other stuff on this blog, you’ll know I’m not the biggest fan of one Elliot McDavid, or “Elliot Mouse” as his buddies call him. Elliot Goof is a much better fit.
He’s the asshole that confronted Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland as she entered an elevator at Grande Prairie City hall, all dressed up in his favourite outfit and the signature style of Alberta rednecks, the wife-beater t-shirt and ball cap. A strapping 6 feet plus, McDavid closes on the much smaller Freeland while hurling obscenities at her, all the while being filmed by an enabling female who may have been his partner.
The result? Not a goddamned thing. I’ll bet his buddy Pierre Poilievre absolutely loved it. If you doubt me on this, look Elliot up online and see how many pictures of these two together yucking it up you can find.
Public harassment is a crime. Criminal harassment is a crime. Causing a public disturbance is a crime. Hey Mounties, if you can get your head out of your ass long enough, maybe you could do your jobs? Oh wait, sorry, you’re the Mounties. My bad.
This stuff happens all over the place ands nobody does boo about it, which only normalizes it and makes these ugly people emboldened to do it again, and other haters to begin doing it on their own without fear of consequence. Once upon a time there would be people to stand up against thugs and shit-disturbers and creeps.
I look for a happy story and I end up here.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 