30 May, 2007
No Longer Accepting Applications
Because DING!DING!DING!DING!DINGGGGG!!! I think I can confidently say we have a winner for Asshole of the Year (and it's not even June, yet!). The Pink Pucker Award goes to:
The Unnamed (as yet) TB Patient. Quoting the article (emphasis mine):
"The man flew to Paris from his home in Atlanta on May 12 for his wedding and honeymoon, even though health officials told him they “preferred” that he not get on the flight, he said in an interview published today in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
"Days later, while he was in Italy, he was contacted by officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and was told that he had a rare and potentially virulent form of the disease and should turn himself over to Italian health authorities immediately.
"Officials of the centers said at a news conference today that they had begun to make arrangements with the Italian authorities to isolate and treat the man in Rome. But instead of cooperating with the plans, the man traveled to the Czech Republic and took a flight from Prague to Montreal.
"He said in the published interview that he did that in the belief that he had been put on a no-fly list and would not be allowed to board a flight bound for the United States. "
To which I can only add, FUCKING DUH!
Oh, but check out his AOTY acceptance speech; IT'S A REAL HOOT:
"I’m a very well-educated, successful, intelligent person. This is insane to me, that I have an armed guard outside my door, when I’ve cooperated with everything other than the whole solitary-confinement-in-Italy thing."
Let's hope that good edjumucation was in civil litigation and that he's made a shitload of money from it because, right now, there are several hundred people, with several hundred attorneys with their lawsuits drawn up just waiting to fill in the name of the Defendant.
Take a bow, Asshole!
(Full-disclosure: I fully realise that this guy is dealing with a horrible disease and is in for some bad times ahead. While I don't begrudge him marital happiness, being "successful, well-educated, etc. etc." is no excuse for not exercising some common-fucking-sense.
More disclosure: I never knew my grandmother (my mom's mom). When my mother was six years old, her mother contracted tuberculosis and spent most of my mother's childhood in and out of the TB hospital in Portland (there's a whole sad tale about this that, one day, I'll go into). My grandmother died when my mother was just thirteen.)
Labels: Asshole of the Year, gah
~~ victoria on 3:29 PM ~~ 0 comments
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