7/5/12

In Halifax, Nova Scotia, birthplace of bagels with smoked salmon on them (not really), A woman has been awarded almost $9,000 Canadian bucks for a misspelled tattoo. Apparently she wanted "Meet Me at the Crossroads" and the artist mistakenly inked "Cossroads" onto her as part of the design instead. The award was for the cost of tattoo removal, plus court costs and damages. No word on why the woman wanted her tattoo phrased in English. We would suggest the entire tattoo should have read "Meet Me at the Crossroads, eh?" so other Canadians could understand it.

Meanwhile in England, another place where people sort of talk like us, a study shows that nearly 1 in 3 people regret getting tattoos years later. To conduct this study, British scientists did what they always do when collecting data: they asked a former Spice Girl, and yes, Sporty now regrets getting 11  tattoos in the 90's and doesn't want her daughter to have any. Study complete. Actually, that wasn't the study, they interviewed over 600 people, but interestingly enough, another finding was that less than half of the people who said they regret a tattoo would choose to have it removed if they could. What could this indicate? Maybe that regret has more to do with societal pressures and taboos that get stronger as people age, while deep down they really still love their ink? Just speculation but it would make sense…

And finally, another article that touches on the same theme, about the difficulty tattooed individuals can have when looking for a job. We can shake our heads all we want at the mayor of Osaka trying to "out" tattooed employees, but over here intollerance simply has a less official face. Maybe someday people will stop making snap judgements based on race, gender, lifestyle choices and appearance and realize that external matters fail to tell the truth of a person's ability or character. Until then, however, the only solution is to live proudly the way we choose and live as an example.