RIP Lindsay the Northbourne window washer

lostinbias said :

…if you get off on figuratively dancing on the graves of dead men, or endorsing those that do, then I really wonder how you get to sleep at night. Hopefully your wall will crumble someday.

Now that’s what you call irony.

DUB said :

KB1971 said :

So you are OCD then?

You know life is not as simple as you think it is.

I generally dont give any of teh beggars in Civic any money but I do flick the odd couple of dorrars to Rudy. He gives me a poem in return, its not a very good one but a poem none the less.

Some people on here need to get over themselves.

No OCD, but there is nothing wrong with being organised. Messy people, generally, have messy lives as well.

Who is Rudy? I couldn’t care less about local hobos, to be honest.
It is your business if you want to “flick a couple of bucks” to them, you are a hero (in your opinion). Get over your false sense of pride.He-he.

Prey you never become one of them……..

Robertson said :

KB1971 said :

Robertson said :

Good comment. Our society seems to have gone off on a tangent where very poor values (aiding and abetting the mafia/ being a dropkick junkie) are not publicly reviled, whereas good values (discipline in school/tough sentencing for criminals) are ignored.

Is this a contradiction of terms? Considering your own lack of ethics?

Ad hominem, eh?

I win!

So you are irellevant?

Lindsay is dead, time to move on…

Rumour has it someone has alrady taken his place..

So, is he any good, does he do a decent job, can he operate a squiqqy? Is he a junkie? Does he keep a 4 pack of Woodstock near him like Lindsay did?

Discuss……………………………

tommo said :

“Seriously, if the worst part of your day is going out of your way to come across hateful comments posted online, you’ve got it pretty good.”

There, fixed it for you.

Maybe you should go and call Juliar – she’ll understand. Last I heard, she’s developed a real complex after trawling online forums and getting offended by people expressing disapproval of her breaking her own pre-election promises.

KB1971 said :

So you are OCD then?

You know life is not as simple as you think it is.

I generally dont give any of teh beggars in Civic any money but I do flick the odd couple of dorrars to Rudy. He gives me a poem in return, its not a very good one but a poem none the less.

Some people on here need to get over themselves.

No OCD, but there is nothing wrong with being organised. Messy people, generally, have messy lives as well.

Who is Rudy? I couldn’t care less about local hobos, to be honest.
It is your business if you want to “flick a couple of bucks” to them, you are a hero (in your opinion). Get over your false sense of pride.He-he.

KB1971 said :

Robertson said :

Good comment. Our society seems to have gone off on a tangent where very poor values (aiding and abetting the mafia/ being a dropkick junkie) are not publicly reviled, whereas good values (discipline in school/tough sentencing for criminals) are ignored.

Is this a contradiction of terms? Considering your own lack of ethics?

Ad hominem, eh?

I win!

DUB said :

Wow, having just read all 5 pages of comments (talk about competition to cyclists vs. cars threads), as well as comments to the article in CT, here’s what I think:
Those politically correct f wits, defending deceased junkie, must be morbidly obese and lazy (as I suspected).
I never, ever let my windscreen get dirty, I have a squeegee and every 2-3 days it only takes me 30 seconds or so (up to 45 seconds) to clean my own windscreen. Not hard at all, then again, I like my car to be clean and shiny.

On one unfortunate occasion this dude (RIP), who did not take “NO” for answer (car wash fully washed and cleaned earlier that day), made such a filthy mess of my windscreen that I had to pull over and spray it clean myself, as I could not see anything.

I assume that all these posters defending the junkie will attend the funerals, can’t wait for the report on pages of RiotAct (with photos).

So you are OCD then?

You know life is not as simple as you think it is.

I generally dont give any of teh beggars in Civic any money but I do flick the odd couple of dorrars to Rudy. He gives me a poem in return, its not a very good one but a poem none the less.

I am under no illusions that he has had, or is having a good life, or has been a model citizen. The one thing that makes me flick him a couple of bucks? I have never seen him buying grog whenever I have seen him in the shops.

Some people on here need to get over themselves.

Innovation said :

Lindsey and others are not to blame here. They have just availed themselves of an opportunity permitted by the ACT Government. I think the risk of injury to these guys is too high, the risk of attack either against or by a future window washer is too high, the practice occasionally disrupts traffic, and the activity is creating a cash economy that avoids tax, often still allows welfare payments and supports the drug industry.

This is one charity type that I will not support in any way. I refuse offers to clean my windscreen, of a fashion, and, touch wood, I now appear to have worked out how to rebuff the persistent ones.

It has been good to read both positive and negative stories of Lindsey’s life. To me, Lindsey was one of the nicer window washers that I have come across, although I’m not surprised that others may have been less fortunate.

Lindsey doesn’t strike me as someone who would have wanted to be idolised but very few people in history deserve to be trashed as badly as some here have done about him. Those people sound like they live very sheltered lives, are completely devoid of empathy and/or are more worried about the (de)valuation of their car than the quality of another human life. Anyone outside of Canberra reading RA might well assume that the volume of such negative comments is a very poor reflection on Canberra as a whole.

Agree with most of this, except for the reference to tax and supporting the drug industry. I couldn’t care less about the ‘fraud’ in cases like this and it’s not limited to window washers. And the only way you’re going to stop junkies from supporting the drug industry is by making all drugs legal (and taxable) or by locking up each and every drug user.

I once nudged a window washer with my car at an intersection. I was turning onto Northbourne and he suddenly crossed in front of my car from the left, walking on the on road bike lane. I stopped when I heard a thump and saw the guy bent over my bonnet. He appeared unharmed and it gave him a good excuse to yell profanities at someone as he walked off.

Gungahlin Al said :

Sheesh what a thread.

He was a man with his life on a bad track who demonstrated (on his own terms) to everyone prepared to open their minds that he was prepared to turn up and work long hard hours, in all sorts of conditions, every single day.

He may or may not have been supporting a current addiction, but at least he paid his own way rather than taking routes that caused harm to others.

It’s that sort of cred that people are recognising.

But I always had to wonder whether he was declaring his full income to the ATO at the end of each tax year. Yes, I’d probably be a lot more willing to work longer hours if my income was tax-free, rather than a significant portion of it going to subsidise people on various ‘pensions’.

Robertson said :

Our society seems to have gone off on a tangent where very poor values (aiding and abetting the mafia/ being a dropkick junkie) are not publicly reviled, whereas good values (discipline in school/tough sentencing for criminals) are ignored.

Our society is in trouble if the domination of others is considered ‘good values’.