Friends, A couple of years ago, CBC came to K-W. After a fashion. We have our own morning show but everything else is the same: evening repeats of network morning shows I’m almost certain I heard last week or, was it, last summer. Aside: I must confess, I don’t miss Jian. While I thought he was one of the most interesting interviewers around, I thought his opening essays were awful. My God, he was full of himself. Given that his show was rebroadcast just as I was nodding off, I would frequently have to rely on Barbaras patience as I greeted his opening monologue with my own rant from twixt the sheets: “Bring back Arthur Black. At least, he was funny.” You get the picture. Aside two: Just Googled Mr. Gomeshi to make sure I had the spelling right. I appreciate Google’s forbearance. You don’t actually have to know how to spell things to ask it stuff. I appreciate that very much. My New Oxford Collegiate OED Condensed is not nearly as forgiving. Anyway, I could never remember: “J” or “G”. Apparently, one of each. JG’s Wikipedia bio came up stat. Opening sentence: “Jian Ghomeshi (born June 9, 1967) is a Canadian writer, musician and /former/ radio broadcaster.” Italics mine. My, how the mighty have fallen. And in real time! Back to CBC. This morning, Guelph’s Acting Chief of Police was being interviewed. (Morning interviews on CBC K-W are quite leisurely, much less pointed and breathless than those from the alternative, CBC-Tranna.) Anyway, the Chief made two observations based on some sort of annual review or report: crime is down and the trend remains downward; mental health issues are up and the trend is upward. Bottom line, policing has more and more to do with sorting out people who are off their centre than with catching bad guys. The truth is that there are fewer and fewer bad guys to catch, unless you count my relatives who get speeding tickets. And they are not criminals in the usual sense. Not mostly. So, I’ve been thinking. Wouldn’t it make more sense to train mental-health workers who dabble in small arms and cars with sirens than to train people with paramilitary skills who dabble in the human condition? Just a thought. Or maybe “Just sayin’”. Arthur Black would know which. All blessings. André
Posted on: Fri, 28 Nov 2014 13:57:23 +0000
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