Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Friday, March 09, 2007

Exemplary? Not On Your Life!

One supposes there will always exist people for whom the great priority in their lives is to be noticed. And for these people to be noticed is to be admired. These ego-driven self-absorbed people among us who feel their presence is somehow outstanding by virtue of their sterling qualities, most often fed by a physical appearance of beauty and a personality that seeks to make the most of it. These people are also imbued, it would seem, with an adamant need to "become someone" and to that end are capable of employing wiles any thespian might envy and emulate.

Margaret Kemper, or Margaret Trudeau, select whichever name exemplifies the persona (and it will always be Margaret Trudeau, former wife of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau) has always been captivated by herself and anything and everything that has to do with herself. Above all, she is a woman whose pursuit of herself has kept her busy inventing and re-inventing herself as a personage of great interest.

From marrying a prime minister to bearing three seasonally-blessed children, to partying with the hippest band in town, writing a self-adoring book replete with whines of misunderstandings to thinking herself above the law and placing other people at risk through her belief in her own superiority in her station in life she has provided the public with a sad and sorry picture of failure.

But wait, how wrong could I possibly be, for only yesterday this woman was presented with an award for inspiring others through her courage. Among three other recipients, she has been recognized by the Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health at their 2007 Inspiration Award gala at the Congress Centre in Ottawa.

The three award recipients, aside from Margaret Trudeau appear to have earned their recognition for the work they have engaged upon and the commitment they have given to mental health awareness. This they have done quietly and with the best intentions, hoping to give value to the work of mental health workers, and hope to those suffering from mental health conditions.

One can only wonder how much value they themselves place in this recognition of their work, devalued as it has been in connection with Margaret Trudeau lumped in alongside them. Mrs. Trudeau is extensively quoted in a gushing newspaper article describing the event and the recognition given to her. A year earlier she had announced that she suffers from bi-polar disease.

She and countless other sufferers. But she stands head and shoulders above the throng for she is, after all, Margaret Trudeau, ex-spouse of the late P.E.T. She has lived, she recounts "without hope" and with an "emptiness" for a long time, as "low self esteem and lack of motivation" contributed to her depression. In her various incarnations as a photographer, a first lady, a flower child, one of the beautiful hip people we were given ample opportunity to witness her low self esteem.

She has had a trying life; it isn't everyone who has had to battle the deprivation which results from an early childhood of wealth and opportunity, an adulthood of admiration and public esteem, a mature life filled with assorted marriages while basking in the limelight of notoriety. She has made attempts to use her name well with the Watercan project and the B.C. Landslides awareness project.

However, Margaret Trudeau states that her involvement with mental health awareness stems from the fact that "I wanted a sense of social responsibility and a feeling that I could help others" to explain her presence at the award ceremony. Are we to believe that this woman has finally discovered herself?

Might this be the same woman who contested a charge of driving while under the influence of alcohol, otherwise known as driving blind drunk? Margaret Trudeau now stands to be retried on a charge of drinking and driving, since an appeal court has ruled that her Charter rights had not been violated at the time of her arrest two years earlier, as claimed by her lawyer.

How very peculiar; society abhors and for good reason, sociopaths who consume alcohol and then think nothing of getting behind the wheel of an automobile, turning it from a convenient conveyance to a potential instrument of death. And there have been more than sufficient deaths and maimings caused by drunk drivers. Most people with any sense of decency apologize under these circumstances.

But Margaret Trudeau, not even blushing in shame, had her lawyer invoke the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Surely her late husband whose child the Charter was would not have been amused at this further evidence that his wife's childish antics follow her into a riper age. To be held accountable through a law which protects other citizens her Charter rights are invoked. And the right to life and limb of others, are they of no moment?

Not, however, according to socially responsible Margaret Trudeau. The judge who originally acquitted her two years ago despite that she had failed two procedures attesting to her intoxication has been over-ruled. Both samples of the breath analyzers demonstrated her blood-alcohol level was well above the permissible level under the law.

Not exemplary, not at all; how about despicable?

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