Meanwhile In Canada

June 24, 2018 8:34 PM

The @MeanwhileInCana Twitter account covers all things Canadian, often with a light touch (unless it's indigenous injustice or oil sands exploitation). Today it's highlighting ACTUAL HEADLINES FROM CANADIAN NEWSPAPERS.

Fat Beaver Stuck In Hamilton Fence Rescued By Animal Services Officer
Red Deer man punches cougar at Tim Hortons to save dog
Moose licking salt off car had 'kind eyes,' says Banff couple

posted by Johnny Wallflower (20 comments total)

I often read head lines like this in my local newspaper Niagara Falls Review and have thought to myself, “Wow, sometimes my town is impressed by the most mundane and boring ass shit.” And then I remember that it's 2018 and that sometimes it's nice to just read about a goose crossing or a deer that wanders into a repair shop.

Local news can be awesome. I'm not on Twitter much these days but I'll give this a subscribe. Good share.
posted by Fizz at 8:56 PM on June 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

Local Man Sorry for Chugging Eight Beers and Swimming to Detroit

truly, a hero for our times
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 8:59 PM on June 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

Both my wife and I come from towns with small local newspapers. We have a game called "Podunk Weekly" where we compete to find the most representative local headlines.

Recent headlines:
Missing father's ashes found in Tauranga supermarket's cottage cheese section
Kiwi family's foot-pedal-operated toilet-seat lifter could revolutionise loos
The great cow rescue of 2018
posted by Paragon at 9:09 PM on June 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

In my previous job I travelled a lot for work. There is a family member who always delighted in my bringing home local papers from wherever I was. Once I brought home a daily from a small town in BC where the front page banner headline, in the sort of font usually reserved for declarations of war, was about how someone had stolen all the toilet paper from the recently installed public toilet downtown.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:59 PM on June 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

truly, a hero for our times

Indeed, what is he sorry for? I'm not suggesting he do it again or encouraging others to imitate him, but now that he's done it, I daresay he should be proud of himself.
posted by Krawczak at 1:51 AM on June 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

This type of local-news-as-entertainment reporting has a dark side.

It sure does, but all these headlines seem pretty harmless. And the darker side of this stuff is actually something that I have a sense (maybe wrong) that the UK does more of than most countries. Although to look at my Apple News sidebar, Fox News in particular is a constant drumbeat of those local-news-style GUTWRENCHING TRUE CRIME and LOCAL PERSON HAS THEIR LIFE FALL APART, SHAME THEM AND MOCK THEM stories, except broadcast nationwide. Sowing fear and alienation in the populace is pretty much their entire mission, though.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:07 AM on June 25, 2018

Indeed, what is he sorry for?

This is Canada, where our children are trained to say “oh, sorry,” instead of Ow when people step on their toes on the subway.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:53 AM on June 25, 2018 [5 favorites]

He’s sorry because he didn’t make it across the river and had to get rescued by the US Coast Guard, but because they picked him up on the Canadian side of the river, he was only charged (by the Windsor police) with public drunkenness, instead of possibly being locked up by ICE, which would have made him really sorry.
posted by cardboard at 6:03 AM on June 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

I just learned that there's a town named Horsefly, British Columbia.

I don't think there's a newspaper there, but I think that name is a candidate for lists of Canadian small-town awesome.
posted by clawsoon at 8:01 AM on June 25, 2018

Sorry, I'm wrong. Horsefly does have a newspaper. It's the Horsefly Buzz.
posted by clawsoon at 8:02 AM on June 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

Years ago my hometown paper's second-from-the-top headline one day just before Christmas was STUDENTS RETURN HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:31 AM on June 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

My favourite headline came from the Oakland Tribune years ago... "Experts Fear Boom in Nuclear Shipments"
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 12:50 PM on June 25, 2018

Mod note: Couple comments removed. I think it's fine to be critical of the state of journalism but a fiery long-form takedown of it in response to a pretty chill light-hearted post feels pretty out of place; there's definitely gonna be better threads where that'd sit will instead.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:25 PM on June 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

I love these stories! I remember the first time I watched the news In vacation in Florida. All “find out if there’s a pedophile in your neighbourhood coming up next!”, I was shocked.
posted by Valancy Rachel at 4:20 PM on June 25, 2018

cardboard: "He’s sorry because he didn’t make it across the river and had to get rescued by the US Coast Guard, but because they picked him up on the Canadian side of the river, he was only charged (by the Windsor police) with public drunkenness, instead of possibly being locked up by ICE, which would have made him really sorry."

Actually he was on his way back from Detroit when the US picked him out of the water:

He jumped in the river near Hiram Walker and swam to the Renaissance Center.

“When I got to the Renaissance Center I couldn’t find a way to get up onto the platform,” said Morillo. “Then some guy said ‘hey there’s a ladder over here.’ I climbed up the ladder, then people were asking to take their pictures with me. There was one woman, she said she was from Windsor and she thought I was crazy. She was right.”

Then he slipped back in the river for his return trip. It wasn’t long after that he realized his swim had attracted more attention than anticipated.

We talked about it here.
posted by Mitheral at 4:30 PM on June 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

That’s what I get for skimming the article.
posted by cardboard at 7:20 PM on June 25, 2018

@MeanwhileinCana, they're saying. "Jesus! They're out of wine already!"
posted by straight at 9:19 PM on June 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

Stranded moose calf gets 'helping hand' from Thunder Bay, Ont., angler
posted by warriorqueen at 7:31 PM on June 28, 2018

I like how the fisherman asks the calf "Do you need help?" and when he doesn't get an answer, asks again.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:23 PM on June 28, 2018

Stranded fox rescued from iceberg by fishermen who fed him Vienna sausages
posted by peppermind at 4:49 AM on June 29, 2018 [1 favorite]