Adventures in Situational Ethics

Riding the TTC can be a dangerous adventure, but if you want to avoid the Crips pissing in the trains or the Bloods robbing old ladies of their rent money, you can take the train during safe times: like when people go to work in the morning.

This morning, as I boarded the first train East out of Woodbine station, I was confronted by an amazing sight: There was a man coughing blood. He was coughing blood into a soggy, bloody handkerchief.

This explains why two people got off at the door where I got on at Woodbine. In my experience, people only get on at Woodbine.

I looked at the man as I sat in my seat. He coughed and coughed. A nice lady sat close to him and offered him some Kleenex. The other guy who got on with me at Woodbine opened his eyes wide, his skin paled, and then he walked the length of the subway car, to the farthest point, far away.

I was gripped with indecision. What should I do?

Option 1- Press the alarm strip and summon The Authorities.

What a stupid thing to do. What if the guy is a homosexual? Would not associating his sexual preference with a negative, such as a viscous contagious disease like tuberculosis * be racist? I cannot tell if the guy is a homosexual, bisexual, transgendered, or other poly-gendered. No way, Comrade Fenris.

What if the guy is an immigrant? Associating immigrants with virulent contagion is just not done. The Toronto Star never, ever does this, so it must be bad. My friends in medicine do, but they do not know as much about medicine as Toronto Star news hounds with a nose for news. No way, Comrade Fenris.

Doing the right thing is always a big mistake in leftist times. Our cops are criticized for shooting machete wielding bandits who attack them out of the dark. Our cops should have psychic powers to determine that the guy with the machete has been diagnosed with being bipolar and really needs a hug.

Option 2 - Do nothing and hope that nothing happens.

O Steaming Feces of Set, the Snake God! What if this is a sting operation by the Main Stream Media? The pale, sweaty guy coughing up blood is really an actor, trying to entrap me into some situation that makes good footage for some CBC flagship like the Beachcombers or Cross Country Check Up. Being depicted as Toronto White Racist of the Week would not be good for my ambitions as a poet * on the payroll of the prestigious Canada Arts Council. (I am a gifted poet: my Mommy told me so). I know the media would leave out the bloody mucous dripping from the guys hands, and edit in a shot of him reading Margaret Atwood, while I was shown shouting at him to ‘see a doctor’, or covering my face with my scarf, or screaming ‘Plague! Plague!’.

Unlike June Callwood * , I am new to the cash for activism game. I could not survive a charge of racism like she did this early in my career as an artistic village people person.

Option 3 - Get off the train and pretend to not be involved. Indeed, this is what I did. I left the man behind in his personal aerosol cloud of tuberculosis bacilli. I just blended into the sparse crowd. Too bad there were not any gangbangers hanging around the station platform at Main Street. I could piss on the platform and blend in. Hopefully nobody noticed that I noticed.

How your behaviour should be modified by my anecdote - For You who ride the subway, especially the second car from the back going East, or the second car from the front going West, I know that you only care about increasing taxation to pay for better Health Care, for food supplements, and for canary yellow photo copier paper. The fact that you have been exposed to a quick acting, death dealing disease is unimportant. If it was important, and it happens all the time, the Media would talk about it. They do not, so you should stop thinking about it. Stop thinking now.

And as for you racist heteronormative Americans reading this, let this be a good lesson to you war mongering bullies: You must have Universal Health care and Open Borders, or you will end up having situations like we do in Toronto which has Universal Health Care and Open Borders.

I, Fenris Badwulf, situational ethicist, wrote this.