Slow news day.

July 4, 2006 8:56 PM

Canadian PM Stephen Harper expressed his "disgust"over the Canada Day incident. Royal Canadian Legion spokesperson Bill Butt described it as “abhorrent” and “vile,” and demanded increased security. Ottawa police described the case as a priority. If only we had some sort of fence, or corral, to prevent this sort of disaster. The virtual manhunt has begun, but we need your help: have you seen this man?
posted by mek (56 comments total)

posted by mek at 8:56 PM on July 4, 2006

We're number one!
posted by Saucy Intruder at 8:59 PM on July 4, 2006

Urine trouble.

If this had happened under Chretien's watch, he would've made an off-colour joke, the nation as one would say "wha?", and that would've been about the end of it, I'm guessing.
posted by stinkycheese at 9:02 PM on July 4, 2006

I don't have anything to add besides this:

I'm soo glad my name isn't Bill Butt.
posted by puke & cry at 9:07 PM on July 4, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Given what he was pissing on, I would be good with seeing him held down while veterans pissed on him.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 9:13 PM on July 4, 2006

Reminds me of the guy who danced on Reagan's grave.
posted by wfrgms at 9:14 PM on July 4, 2006

I was down there around the same time as this incident. There were the piles of people, as there always is. There were no porta-poddy's (but maybe there were some on parliament hill??). And it absolutely pissed rain for much of the period after the fireworks ended.

So if I am understanding this right... a really drunk and soaking wet "kid" decided to take a pee on the first thing he saw. This makes the front page of the paper, disgusts the PM, becomes a national story and makes the local cops change there priorities. Some people in Canada suck.

Thank-god no one during WWII took a drunken piss where they wern't suppose too.......
posted by sety at 9:14 PM on July 4, 2006

I'm sure Don Cherry's on the case (this one, not this one). If he catches the urinator, he'll make the guy wear one of his suits.

That's a punishment worse than the beating he'd get if he'd done that to the American Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
posted by dw at 9:15 PM on July 4, 2006

Disrespect to veterans aside, you've gotta give him points for flair. That's one helluva pose. 8.4/10.
posted by dhammond at 9:15 PM on July 4, 2006

That's one helluva pose. 8.4/10.

Bonus points for using Metric.
posted by Mr. Six at 9:28 PM on July 4, 2006

i wonder if it was an american tourist
posted by pyramid termite at 9:37 PM on July 4, 2006

Was in ottawa at the time and got to see the story develop in the local papers. I'm not sure who's pissed me off more, this guy or the veterans calling for Canada to become a police state with round the clock cop presence at the war memorial.

Hell I want cops protecting all my favorite digs too! Up with police at the indian resto on Dalhousie. I don't want anyone pissing in my dhal!
posted by Smegoid at 9:38 PM on July 4, 2006

How long until we see pissboy photoshopped into strange & exotic locations?
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:45 PM on July 4, 2006

We'd better invade Iran.
posted by Krrrlson at 9:49 PM on July 4, 2006

"The Tomb itself is a target for people who don't understand our military history and don't want to understand it," he said.

Canada has a military history? Who knew?
posted by geekyguy at 10:04 PM on July 4, 2006

geekguy, you can go fuck yourself. Go be flippant about something else. In the mean time, read a book or two and become a better person. Canada has a fine military history.
posted by Ohdemah at 10:17 PM on July 4, 2006

geekYguy. Insert above sentiments.
posted by Ohdemah at 10:26 PM on July 4, 2006

Canada has a military history? Who knew?
posted by geekyguy at 10:04 PM PST on July 4 [+fave] [!]

Wow, why don't you just go urinate on...

oh, i see what you did there.
posted by mek at 10:28 PM on July 4, 2006

"How long until we see pissboy photoshopped into strange & exotic locations?"

Check totalfark in about half an hour.
posted by drstein at 10:37 PM on July 4, 2006

wow, that's a nice backpack.

who makes that backpack?

is that like the kind they use on LOST?
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 10:41 PM on July 4, 2006

drstein: 6 minutes
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 10:42 PM on July 4, 2006

The tomb of the unknown soldier in Ottawa is one of the weirder historical monuments I have ever visited.

I just about literally stumbled upon it... it is sort of in a small space in the middle of an intersection I was running across the street to avoid traffic, met the tomb area and then realized where I was. The monument's placement is really strange - I thought it belonged in a big park with a pond to sit and reflect near.

I believe people who piss on monuments or destroy them with skateboards are first class shitbags, but I would hate to be this guy... a lynch mob is forming and nobody is going to say anything in his defense. How do you tell an elderly veteran to relax and say this was just a stupid act?

I'd personally cross the street to avoid being anywhere near the photo-pisser and I wouldn't hire a man like him for any job. There is a part of me that wants to see this guy punished pretty harshly because is not hard to interpret his actions as pissing on Canadian society but at the same time I don't want Canada to get all weird and moralizing like Tony Blair's UK. This also plays right in to Harper's call for more cops, which I don't support.

So I don't really know where I stand on this issue, when is a piss just a piss?
posted by Deep Dish at 10:44 PM on July 4, 2006

Hmm... I wonder if he's going through the slit or over the top?
posted by RockBandit at 10:57 PM on July 4, 2006

Malkin is wetting her pants over the fact that he's only Canadian.
posted by dhartung at 11:03 PM on July 4, 2006

Given the fireworks crowd on Wellington -- the ones who wouldn't make room for the families with kids getting crushed in the press, chanting CANADA CANADA CANADA YEAAAAAAHHH! I am not at all surprised.

it is sort of in a small space in the middle of an intersection

It's French-style monument placement, at the end of a long major avenue (Elgin), which looks magnificent against the sunset-lit sky (despite that being a northward view) with Parliament in the background. Not that any of that makes it not pee-worthy, but what it in fact is certainly does.

Yahoos will be yahoos, and we have plenty of them. Update, by the by: an unemployed, outraged (or entrepreneurial) Canadian has taken to guarding the monument.
posted by dreamsign at 11:09 PM on July 4, 2006

If this makes the kid feel shitty about something he probably likely didn't even remember, yeah, lets make that kid feel really stupid.

I'm all for that.

How can we personally embarass this person? He got caught, he should be accountable.

No, seriously; this guy's a shithead and likely someone who needs to be informed that they're following a shitheaded persuation.

At least it wasn't a "people saw it on myspace and reported to the police."
posted by porpoise at 11:11 PM on July 4, 2006

Wrapping yourself in a monument is an order of magnitude more patriotic than a simple flag.
posted by srboisvert at 12:28 AM on July 5, 2006

Looks like I'm off Deep Dish's Christmas card list; I once peed on the Taj Mahal!



Not that I'm condoning what this guy did or anything, I'd never pee on the cenotaph.
posted by davehat at 12:30 AM on July 5, 2006

Wow. A lot of hatred for a drunken yahoo peeing on a vertical surface. Were any of you there? Was he chanting "Down with Canadian militarism!" while pissing on the monument? Somehow, I doubt it. Put a monument in the middle of a busy street, with tons of drunken eejits around, somebody is going to end up pissing on it. I'm willing to bet people have pissed on it several times before. The only difference is, this time somebody took pictures and put it in the paper.

Slow news day indeed.
posted by antifuse at 1:18 AM on July 5, 2006

Depressing: once, because the drunken yahoo tought maybe he was doing something cool or "fighting the system" ...duh ! Twice depressing because somebody is pretending pissing on slab of rock is an horrible unspeakable crime, much like burning a flag.
posted by elpapacito at 2:03 AM on July 5, 2006

So, it's ok to pee on a burning flag to put it out?
posted by loquacious at 2:17 AM on July 5, 2006

David McGuinty, the MP for Ottawa South, did not mince words on the appropriate punishment for those caught urinating, whom he called "the worst of the worst that society has to offer."

Um... the worst our society has to offer is someone like Paul Bernardo. This is a couple of drunk guys.
posted by jb at 2:53 AM on July 5, 2006

geekyguy, you whipping it out to have a slash too?
As someone who lost family in both the first and second world wars, and who's grandfather spent a good deal of his life enduring the memories of being a POW in a Japanese prison camp, I echo Ohdemah's sentiment. You're a former Marine, you should know better.
posted by Pseudonumb at 2:56 AM on July 5, 2006

when is a piss just a piss?

You must remember this,
A piss is just a piss,
A fly is still a fly,
The fundamental things apply,
As time goes by.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 3:38 AM on July 5, 2006

The ad presently at the bottom of the page is oddly fitting. Someone may pee on it.
posted by moonbird at 3:53 AM on July 5, 2006

Just so we're on the same page: that's not just a big monument, that's Canada's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, complete with real buried unknown soldier. Guarding that sort of thing isn't exactly unheard of, although we've got that whole "winter" thing to deal with.

While the whole thing has got a lot more news than you'd expect, guarding the Tomb for all of Canada Day, at least, seems like a bit of a no-brainer. If nothing else it makes for good Mountie photograph opportunities.

A ceremonial (but effective) guard of a military grave is a pretty long way from a police state.
posted by mendel at 4:43 AM on July 5, 2006

Well, I think geekyguy knew that Canada has a military history, but for the sake of some ill conceived hilarity opted to feign ignorance. The fact that it provoked such an angry response actually seems to offer at least a little insight into the reaction occuring over this picture.
posted by Atreides at 4:47 AM on July 5, 2006

I'm sure the guy feels like a doofus now, but a fence is a ridiculous idea if you've ever seen the memorial or where it's located. Apparently they have this concern every Canada Day, and things are calm the other 364.242199 days of the year. So post an RCMP on the corner on Canada Day and leave it at that. I am the son of veterans going back three generations and spent time in the CF myself but I think this was totally blown out of proportions and have no doubt the guy has learned his lesson. And it's not like he peed on the tomb of the unknown soldier. Also, I'm more than a little disappointed that the CBC reported the person was giving the finger in the photo that was snapped when it is clearly not the case.
posted by furtive at 4:49 AM on July 5, 2006

How long until we see pissboy photoshopped into strange & exotic locations?

If you'll parden the change of face, body and nationality into something akin to mine:

Notre Dame

Eiffel Tower

The source of the river Seine
posted by vbfg at 5:03 AM on July 5, 2006

Mendel, I'm with you on the mountie guard on Canada Day. But from what I remember of the article in the paper, the Vet in question was calling for constant surveillance, not just on canada day.
posted by Smegoid at 6:14 AM on July 5, 2006

I don't know why there wasn't some sort of honour guard posted there as a matter of course for the day. If nothing else, large crowds throw trash, kids get silly, and so on.

However, now that the politicians and vets have expended so much hyperbole on this issue, you can just bet the monuments are now a target for activitist groups looking to make a publicity grabbing statement about something.
posted by Zinger at 6:17 AM on July 5, 2006

How long until we see pissboy photoshopped into strange & exotic locations?



A bored hack job.
posted by Atreides at 6:18 AM on July 5, 2006

Mendel, I'm with you on the mountie guard on Canada Day. But from what I remember of the article in the paper, the Vet in question was calling for constant surveillance, not just on canada day.

Even that wouldn't seem bizarre to me (although now that I think about it, it ought to be one of the Armed Forces regiments that form the Ceremonial Guard, rather than a Mountie -- I get all my red serge confused). Doubly so since we don't have quite as much of an antimilitary stance as the US right now -- I think not being in Vietnam or Iraq has kept the opinion of honoring war dead a bit higher up here, since the connection is with the World Wars, Korea, and peacekeeping.
posted by mendel at 6:32 AM on July 5, 2006

Seeing the urine/ww2 connection, I immediately was reminded of Patton pissing in the Rhine.
posted by phirleh at 6:47 AM on July 5, 2006

While I would agree this has been blown out of proportion, it's a bit misleading to describe the memorial as something you stumble across at in the middle of a busy intersection.
posted by cardboard at 6:59 AM on July 5, 2006

It is a shame one can't electrify stone sometimes...
posted by QIbHom at 7:36 AM on July 5, 2006

This reminds me of the flag burning story posted earlier where...weird, deja vu.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:51 PM on July 5, 2006

As a Canadian, Ottawan and someone with formerly strong [and patriotic] ties with the military, I would like to express my complete and utter discontent with the way "they"'re handling this.
I'm positive that this happens not only every Canada Day, but on regular days as well... I only wonder why it took so long for someone to notice.
Granted, I had been surprised to see that the cenotaph had not been fenced off that day- even a little dismayed at the crowds casually sitting on the tomb of the unknown soldier, unaware of the message they were sending. But how can we stop them? This site is an open section between the downtown core and The Byward Market. Pedestrians are free to walk through and remember, and I think most of us do take a second to do just that.
Those who don't? f*ck-em. We shouldn't have to pay a guard to 'protect' it. Those who piss on it, while dumb and disrespectful, should not be treated as criminals because it's a war memorial, but because they're peeing in public! Let's get the priorities straight here.

Not everyone cares about Vets. I do, but it's certainly not a criminal offence to forget who gave us the Canada we have today.
posted by sunshinesky at 7:55 PM on July 5, 2006

sunshinesky, those are my sentiments exactly (as a fellow Ottawan). 99.9997% of people respected the war memorial that day. not bad.... the pissers are statistically non-existent and this event is not at all newsworthy.
posted by warby at 8:38 PM on July 5, 2006

That is some crazy over-reaction. This guy didn't do a hell of a lot.
posted by jimmy at 11:54 PM on July 5, 2006

But how can we stop them?

Uhm.

Velvet-roping off the tomb itself? Police? An honor guard? You know, all the things the article and the people in this thread have mentioned? Sheesh.
posted by mendel at 6:31 AM on July 6, 2006

That is some crazy over-reaction. This guy didn't do a hell of a lot.

Right. It was stupid and disrespectful, but just not that big a deal. It's just a monument, and the representation of a thing is not the thing itself.
posted by orange swan at 6:52 AM on July 6, 2006

It's just a monument, and the representation of a thing is not the thing itself.

Sigh. No, it's the thing itself: it's the grave of a dead soldier. He represents all the other dead unknown soldiers, too, but that's a real body in that box.
posted by mendel at 1:33 PM on July 6, 2006

Sigh. No, it's the thing itself: it's the grave of a dead soldier. He represents all the other dead unknown soldiers, too, but that's a real body in that box.

Except, from the picture, he appears to be peeing on the steps of the memorial, not the soldier's tomb itself, which is separate.
posted by antifuse at 3:30 AM on July 7, 2006

Right, he's pissing on the guy's gravestone instead of on his grave. That's a pretty subtle distinction, if you ask me.
posted by mendel at 8:08 PM on July 7, 2006

Hey, you were the one that said there remains in there, so he was literally pissing on the body of the dead. I was just pointing out that he was, in fact, not doing that.

I still don't see what the big deal is
posted by antifuse at 3:02 AM on July 10, 2006