I was going to try and compose a blog entry on Robert Latimer without delving too deeply into euthanasia. Unfortunately, what came to mind almost immediately was a snatch of lyric from "Gulf War Song" by Moxy Fruvous:
We got a call to write a song about the war in the Gulf
But we shouldn't hurt anyone's feelings
So we tried, then gave up, 'cause there was no such song
But the trying was very revealing...
Alas, I'm going to offend people today. On the one hand, I make no apologies for doing so: I'm merely writing my truth, and no matter what I write on this controversial topic, somebody's going to be offended. On the other hand, I make every apology: please understand, I never set out to deliberately piss people off.
For those living outside Canada' s borders (and any Canadians with news aversion disorder), Robert Latimer is a wheat farmer and father of four. Well, three, now. His daughter Tracy was born with the most debilitating form of cerebral palsy, and lived thirteen years with this disease, suffering five to six whole-body seizures daily and enduring a great deal of pain. She underwent several surgeries to manage her condition; the prospect of another, with resulting "incredible" amounts of post-operative suffering, motivated her father to end her life. He put his daughter in his truck and connected a hose from the exhaust pipe to the cabin, ensuring a painless death.
That Robert Latimer murdered his daughter is not in dispute (though he initially claimed Tracy died "in her sleep"--which is technically true but perhaps the worst lie by omission I've ever heard). Mr. Latimer later admitted killing his daughter...and a national furor erupted.
The case consumed Canadians as few have in my lifetime. Several trials ensued. Each one convicted Latimer; the facts of Tracy's death were never at issue. But with each trial came a different recommendation for sentencing, depending (it would seem) on the judge or jury's feelings about mercy killing.
The Supreme Court of Canada eventually decreed--unanimously--that Latimer's initial sentence would stand: life in prison, with no chance of full parole for ten years...though he became eligible for, and requested, day parole last week. To the surprise of a great many Canadians, who have become used to seeing murderous, gun-toting gangstas released at the first opportunity (if they serve any time at all, that is) Latimer's request was rejected. I can't predict with absolute certainty what will happen next, but it appears he will serve at least ten years, possibly much longer. It all depends on whether Mr. Latimer is prepared to abandon his belief that he did the right thing for Tracy. The parole board evidently wasn't prepared to hear that, much less inclined to accept it.
A 1999 poll found that 77% of Canadians believe Latimer acted out of compassion and should receive a more lenient sentence. The same poll showed that 41% of Canadians believe euthanasia shouldn't be illegal at all.
A significant number of those opposed to mercy killing are virulently opposed. I know this: I've seen their letters to the editors of various newspapers. Robert Latimer should "rot" in prison, they say, and ask why anyone would dare advocate "clemency" and "compassion" when none was on offer for Tracy. To exhibit any lenience in Latimer's case is to "devalue" Tracy's life and the lives of others like her, according to these people.
I'm not going to argue that the life a thirteen-year-old with the mental capacity of an infant is any less valuable to society than yours or mine. Even if I did believe so, that way lies madness: who makes the judgment call? On what grounds?
I will suggest, however, that Tracy Latimer's death, which never would have happened without a life lived as she lived hers, was an immensely valuable moment in Canadian society, as it forced a great many people to consider a very important issue.
For me, and I suspect a great many others, Tracy's grossly reduced mental and physical capacity is completely irrelevant. The myriad of advocacy groups for the disabled who have lunged to the fore, shrieking for all they're worth that if Latimer is accorded the slightest bit of leniency, the disabled will be murdered in heaps and piles by their caregivers, don't get this. For me, the matter is simple, and it has everything to do with pain.
Have you noticed, over the past twenty years or so, to what increasingly great lengths parents will go to spare their children any painful experience? You don't see near as many kids playing outside these days--they might get hurt. Lead-based paint might as well be liquid anthrax; child seats in cars are now inflicted on kids as old as eight. This overriding desire to prevent or allieviate pain is admirable (if a tad overzealous)...why is it not available to children like Tracy Latimer? Why is it perfectly acceptable (indeed, mandatory) for a person such as Tracy to suffer incalculable amounts of pain, with no prospect of relief? Not only that, but Tracy lacked the mental facility to understand why she was suffering. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I lack that mental facility too. If you saw your child suffering and did nothing, you'd be called a monster. Yet here is Robert Latimer, branded a monster (by some) for ending his daughter's pain forever.
For you Christians who believe that only God has the right to end a human's life when He sees fit, I'd ask you to consider two things:
--How much pain is Tracy Latimer suffering now, up in heaven?
--Is it not possible that Robert Latimer acted as an instrument of God?
No matter...that sort of spiritual avenue of inquiry doesn't have much place in a court of law. I do wonder, however, at the values of a justice system that routinely lets cold-blooded thugs out to kill again, while insisting a man like Robert Latimer must serve every minute of his sentence.
Showing posts with label jurisprudence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jurisprudence. Show all posts
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Saturday, November 03, 2007
When in Rome, don't off the Romans.
In August, 1982, a Canadian citizen named Ronald Smith abducted and murdered two Aboriginal men in Montana. He wanted their car, see, and I guess the only way to get it was to march Thomas Running Rabbit and Harvey Mad Man into the woods and shoot both of them in the back of the head.
He was sentenced to death for his crimes. Some people view the death penalty as a mockery of justice. As far as I'm concerned, in this man's case the real mockery is that he's still alive today, and his case is making headlines here in Canada.
It has long been the policy of the Canadian government to request clemency on behalf of Canadian citizens on death row in foreign countries. This policy has recently been firmly reversed. In the case of Smith, and other Canadians sentenced to death after due process in democratic countries, our government will no longer intervene.
I will repeat that. Canadians sentenced to death after due process, in democratic countries, can no longer expect our government to go to bat for them.
Before I consider capital punishment itself, I'd like to make a point. This is yet another example of Canadian over-reliance on government. No wonder so few people vote any more, when it's expected the government work miracles on an hourly basis. How many times have you heard, in the aftermath of any "tragedy" at all, some variant of "the government should..."? Gunplay in the streets of Toronto..."the government should outlaw guns". Somebody killed on the roads..."they should lower the speed limit". Some people aren't as fortunate as others..."in Canada, we are all equal". A Canadian citizen has murdered two people on foreign soil..."our government must demand the commutation of his death sentence and/or his extradition to Canada."
Guess what, folks? What a democratic country does with its convicted murderers--again, provided due process has been served--is no business of ours, no matter where said murderers were born.
When you deplane at Changi International Airport in Singapore, you are given a card to sign. The back of the card states, in bold red letters, "The penalty for drug smuggling is death." And they mean it: even if you're just passing through, if you're caught with drugs on you, you'll be hanged.
And so, if you've got the intelligence Nature gave a gnat, you don't smuggle drugs through Singapore. If you've got some drugs you just gotta smuggle someplace, you pick a different route. You may think drug smuggling's not too serious...just supplyin' a need, dude...but what you think is irrelevant. The Singaporean government thinks otherwise.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if you commit a crime (a) in a foreign country and you (b) are convicted (c) after a fair trial...well, then you (d)eserve to be punished by whatever form that country's justice takes. If that's death, so be it. Shoulda thought of that before you committed the crime.
There has been something of an uproar in the editorial pages over the last few days. The general consensus seems to be that our government is trying to bring capital punishment back, "through the back door", as it were. These are accompanied by lamentations: oh, the poor murderer.
I recognize that capital punishment is a contentious issue. Those who are against it call it state-sanctioned murder. And it is, albeit considerably more humane than most of the murders committed by its victims. Ronald Smith, for example, can expect not a shot in the head but rather a painless, quick-acting injection.
The argument that capital punishment is abhorrent on humanitarian grounds--that it violates the first fundamental right of personhood, the right to life--cuts zero ice with me. As far as I am concerned, the thought of murdering a human being in cold blood is dehumanizing. To actually do it is to abdicate any claim on being human yourself. To deprive another of their right to life, and then insist on your own, is barbarity and hypocrisy writ large.
The irony in this particular case is that Ronald Smith would almost certainly be a free man today if he had only murdered a couple of aboriginals in Canada instead of Montana. In this country, we sentence people to "life" in prison..."with no chance of parole for 25 years". In practice, this usually means a maximum 25 year sentence. Parole hearings start after 15 years, regardless of the sentence. Even "dangerous offenders" (e.g. Paul Bernardo) have parole hearings every seven years, with no legislated guarantee some parole judge won't take pity on them.
I feel for Ronald Smith. Truly, I do. Nobody should have to be punished twice for the same crime. This guy's served a Canadian life sentence, and now he'll be executed?
It is said that capital punishment doesn't deter crime. Little wonder, since most criminals don't think a quarter-century ahead. If a death sentence meant a trial, one quick appeal, and then immediate execution in a chamber just off the courtroom...well, I bet you'd see people thinking twice. And as I have said before, of course capital punishment deters crime. I challenge you to name one person who's committed a crime after they're dead.
What I don't understand is the need to keep them alive indefinately, either by design (as in Canada) or by delay (as in the U.S.) In Canada, the average cost per diem for incarcerating a federal prisoner is $189, and that's in 2001 dollars. Doing a little quick math, we find a 25-year sentence, without even adjusting for inflation, costs an average of $1,724,625.00. Your tax dollars at work, people. Subsidizing the lives of murderers. How many of them are gloating behind bars, probably masturbating to endless reruns of their crimes?
We now have the technology to establish once and for all a person's guilt or innocence in matters of murder. The chances of another Guy Paul Morin or David Milgaard being wrongfully convicted grow smaller by the day. Provided correct forensic procedure is followed, there's no reason we should ever sentence an innocent person to death. This removes one crutch those against the death penalty lean on. I'd start with cases where the accused has admitted to commiting the crime--as Ronald Smith did. Or cases where the crime is videotaped, a la Bernardo. Tell me again why we're keeping that pond scum alive.
In the meantime, our government has enough on its plate with our own so-called justice system to even think about sticking its nose into another country's. And that's all I have to say about that.
He was sentenced to death for his crimes. Some people view the death penalty as a mockery of justice. As far as I'm concerned, in this man's case the real mockery is that he's still alive today, and his case is making headlines here in Canada.
It has long been the policy of the Canadian government to request clemency on behalf of Canadian citizens on death row in foreign countries. This policy has recently been firmly reversed. In the case of Smith, and other Canadians sentenced to death after due process in democratic countries, our government will no longer intervene.
I will repeat that. Canadians sentenced to death after due process, in democratic countries, can no longer expect our government to go to bat for them.
Before I consider capital punishment itself, I'd like to make a point. This is yet another example of Canadian over-reliance on government. No wonder so few people vote any more, when it's expected the government work miracles on an hourly basis. How many times have you heard, in the aftermath of any "tragedy" at all, some variant of "the government should..."? Gunplay in the streets of Toronto..."the government should outlaw guns". Somebody killed on the roads..."they should lower the speed limit". Some people aren't as fortunate as others..."in Canada, we are all equal". A Canadian citizen has murdered two people on foreign soil..."our government must demand the commutation of his death sentence and/or his extradition to Canada."
Guess what, folks? What a democratic country does with its convicted murderers--again, provided due process has been served--is no business of ours, no matter where said murderers were born.
When you deplane at Changi International Airport in Singapore, you are given a card to sign. The back of the card states, in bold red letters, "The penalty for drug smuggling is death." And they mean it: even if you're just passing through, if you're caught with drugs on you, you'll be hanged.
And so, if you've got the intelligence Nature gave a gnat, you don't smuggle drugs through Singapore. If you've got some drugs you just gotta smuggle someplace, you pick a different route. You may think drug smuggling's not too serious...just supplyin' a need, dude...but what you think is irrelevant. The Singaporean government thinks otherwise.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is that if you commit a crime (a) in a foreign country and you (b) are convicted (c) after a fair trial...well, then you (d)eserve to be punished by whatever form that country's justice takes. If that's death, so be it. Shoulda thought of that before you committed the crime.
There has been something of an uproar in the editorial pages over the last few days. The general consensus seems to be that our government is trying to bring capital punishment back, "through the back door", as it were. These are accompanied by lamentations: oh, the poor murderer.
I recognize that capital punishment is a contentious issue. Those who are against it call it state-sanctioned murder. And it is, albeit considerably more humane than most of the murders committed by its victims. Ronald Smith, for example, can expect not a shot in the head but rather a painless, quick-acting injection.
The argument that capital punishment is abhorrent on humanitarian grounds--that it violates the first fundamental right of personhood, the right to life--cuts zero ice with me. As far as I am concerned, the thought of murdering a human being in cold blood is dehumanizing. To actually do it is to abdicate any claim on being human yourself. To deprive another of their right to life, and then insist on your own, is barbarity and hypocrisy writ large.
The irony in this particular case is that Ronald Smith would almost certainly be a free man today if he had only murdered a couple of aboriginals in Canada instead of Montana. In this country, we sentence people to "life" in prison..."with no chance of parole for 25 years". In practice, this usually means a maximum 25 year sentence. Parole hearings start after 15 years, regardless of the sentence. Even "dangerous offenders" (e.g. Paul Bernardo) have parole hearings every seven years, with no legislated guarantee some parole judge won't take pity on them.
I feel for Ronald Smith. Truly, I do. Nobody should have to be punished twice for the same crime. This guy's served a Canadian life sentence, and now he'll be executed?
It is said that capital punishment doesn't deter crime. Little wonder, since most criminals don't think a quarter-century ahead. If a death sentence meant a trial, one quick appeal, and then immediate execution in a chamber just off the courtroom...well, I bet you'd see people thinking twice. And as I have said before, of course capital punishment deters crime. I challenge you to name one person who's committed a crime after they're dead.
What I don't understand is the need to keep them alive indefinately, either by design (as in Canada) or by delay (as in the U.S.) In Canada, the average cost per diem for incarcerating a federal prisoner is $189, and that's in 2001 dollars. Doing a little quick math, we find a 25-year sentence, without even adjusting for inflation, costs an average of $1,724,625.00. Your tax dollars at work, people. Subsidizing the lives of murderers. How many of them are gloating behind bars, probably masturbating to endless reruns of their crimes?
We now have the technology to establish once and for all a person's guilt or innocence in matters of murder. The chances of another Guy Paul Morin or David Milgaard being wrongfully convicted grow smaller by the day. Provided correct forensic procedure is followed, there's no reason we should ever sentence an innocent person to death. This removes one crutch those against the death penalty lean on. I'd start with cases where the accused has admitted to commiting the crime--as Ronald Smith did. Or cases where the crime is videotaped, a la Bernardo. Tell me again why we're keeping that pond scum alive.
In the meantime, our government has enough on its plate with our own so-called justice system to even think about sticking its nose into another country's. And that's all I have to say about that.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Impound Found Sound: "Son, You're Grounded!"
An aside in my last post mentioned the new Ontario law permitting police to impound your vehicle on the spot if you are clocked at 50 km/hr or more over the limit. Your license is suspended for seven days and you are assessed a fine of between $2000 and $10000 as well.
When this law was announced, I have to admit, I cheered a little. Only a little: in my world, the punishment for such asinine behaviour would be considerably more severe; but at least the law's heading in the right direction.
Which is why I suspect somebody will soon challenge its constitutionality, on the grounds that police are acting, in effect, as judge, jury, and executioner. I've seen several letters to various editors in this vein: every single one prefaces the concern with something along the lines of, "while I do not support reckless drivers..."
I'd like to meet the people who write these letters, so as I can slap them upside the head.
Police are occasionally required to act as judge, jury, and executioner...sometimes literally. Suppose you are a police officer and you are called to a bank robbery in progress. Upon arrival, you confront the robber, who is waving a gun around and firing wildly. Do you
(a) write the lad a ticket, requiring him to appear in court at some later date, and throw it in his general direction, hoping he might stop firing; or
(b) remove the imminent threat to innocent bystanders and yourself?
To me, the answer's obvious. So the next question is: do you see reckless driving as an imminent threat to innocent motorists, or a mere misdemeanor?
Now, I'm not suggesting the police should just start killing anybody they pull over. (Though I'm pretty sure that would reform people's driving habits in a hell of a hurry.) But I fail to see how removing the threat--the car--is anything other than a reasonable response.
Perhaps it comes from my having a cop for a father, but I tend to look at police officers as the parents of us all. If your child is playing with matches, no amount of lecturing about the dangers of playing with matches will have any effect if you don't take the matches away. If your child is using any toy in a dangerous manner, it's only natural that you'd remove the toy--even if only for a short time.
To a sizeable segment of the (especially young, and especially male) population, a car is nothing more than a big toy. If you don't believe me, watch a young child with his Hot Wheels some time, and then compare it to the behaviour you see every day behind the wheel. More than half of the cars impounded on Thanksgiving weekend were driven by males 18 to 27 years of age. Little boys with big toys. Speeding and reckless driving are a predominantly male things. Next time you watch a car peeling away from a red light, check the gender of the driver. It's usually a guy. Only a certain kind of male would believe there's something inherently impressive about pressing an accelerator pedal.
I'll tell you how to solve the problem of street racing: remove the ability to race. Give me one good reason why pedestrian cars (by which I mean non-emergency vehicles) should be able to achieve speeds of 160 km/hr or greater. I can't think of one, but I'll consider any passed my way. Until I hear one, I propose all cars manufactured after 2008 be equipped with a device governing speed. I'll leave the exact speed up to a panel composed of police officers and people who've had family members and friends killed in street racing incidents.
And in the meantime, let's see if this law has any effect. If not, the next step is to permanently confiscate vehicles and sell them at book value. Proceeds to the victims of crime.
The hell of it is, even measures this draconian would only be a first step towards changing the driving culture. I've written before about what I consider to be the insanity of piling distraction after distraction on to the laps of drivers, and of drivers actively courting distraction. I'd be no different if I actually drove: show me a screen, for instance, and there's a good chance I'll look at it, even if only fleetingly (and with my luck, it'd be in that fleeting moment some kid runs out in front of me). Hell, I'm famous for being distracted to the point of trance by a simple radio. I may be an extreme case, but sitting in the passenger seat of our little Echo, I see me in microcosm everywhere I look. Cellphones are the paint on the asphalt. People eating, doing their makeup, fiddling with their iPods, who knows what else: driving with half a finger and less than half an eye, trusting other people just as distracted as they are not to hit them. Tell me again how sane this is.
It's bad enough that there are so many people careening around blind, and blind to their own blindness. Add in a few guys in their Civics-cum-Lamborghini Testosteronas and the wonder is there aren't more "accidents"...
When this law was announced, I have to admit, I cheered a little. Only a little: in my world, the punishment for such asinine behaviour would be considerably more severe; but at least the law's heading in the right direction.
Which is why I suspect somebody will soon challenge its constitutionality, on the grounds that police are acting, in effect, as judge, jury, and executioner. I've seen several letters to various editors in this vein: every single one prefaces the concern with something along the lines of, "while I do not support reckless drivers..."
I'd like to meet the people who write these letters, so as I can slap them upside the head.
Police are occasionally required to act as judge, jury, and executioner...sometimes literally. Suppose you are a police officer and you are called to a bank robbery in progress. Upon arrival, you confront the robber, who is waving a gun around and firing wildly. Do you
(a) write the lad a ticket, requiring him to appear in court at some later date, and throw it in his general direction, hoping he might stop firing; or
(b) remove the imminent threat to innocent bystanders and yourself?
To me, the answer's obvious. So the next question is: do you see reckless driving as an imminent threat to innocent motorists, or a mere misdemeanor?
Now, I'm not suggesting the police should just start killing anybody they pull over. (Though I'm pretty sure that would reform people's driving habits in a hell of a hurry.) But I fail to see how removing the threat--the car--is anything other than a reasonable response.
Perhaps it comes from my having a cop for a father, but I tend to look at police officers as the parents of us all. If your child is playing with matches, no amount of lecturing about the dangers of playing with matches will have any effect if you don't take the matches away. If your child is using any toy in a dangerous manner, it's only natural that you'd remove the toy--even if only for a short time.
To a sizeable segment of the (especially young, and especially male) population, a car is nothing more than a big toy. If you don't believe me, watch a young child with his Hot Wheels some time, and then compare it to the behaviour you see every day behind the wheel. More than half of the cars impounded on Thanksgiving weekend were driven by males 18 to 27 years of age. Little boys with big toys. Speeding and reckless driving are a predominantly male things. Next time you watch a car peeling away from a red light, check the gender of the driver. It's usually a guy. Only a certain kind of male would believe there's something inherently impressive about pressing an accelerator pedal.
I'll tell you how to solve the problem of street racing: remove the ability to race. Give me one good reason why pedestrian cars (by which I mean non-emergency vehicles) should be able to achieve speeds of 160 km/hr or greater. I can't think of one, but I'll consider any passed my way. Until I hear one, I propose all cars manufactured after 2008 be equipped with a device governing speed. I'll leave the exact speed up to a panel composed of police officers and people who've had family members and friends killed in street racing incidents.
And in the meantime, let's see if this law has any effect. If not, the next step is to permanently confiscate vehicles and sell them at book value. Proceeds to the victims of crime.
The hell of it is, even measures this draconian would only be a first step towards changing the driving culture. I've written before about what I consider to be the insanity of piling distraction after distraction on to the laps of drivers, and of drivers actively courting distraction. I'd be no different if I actually drove: show me a screen, for instance, and there's a good chance I'll look at it, even if only fleetingly (and with my luck, it'd be in that fleeting moment some kid runs out in front of me). Hell, I'm famous for being distracted to the point of trance by a simple radio. I may be an extreme case, but sitting in the passenger seat of our little Echo, I see me in microcosm everywhere I look. Cellphones are the paint on the asphalt. People eating, doing their makeup, fiddling with their iPods, who knows what else: driving with half a finger and less than half an eye, trusting other people just as distracted as they are not to hit them. Tell me again how sane this is.
It's bad enough that there are so many people careening around blind, and blind to their own blindness. Add in a few guys in their Civics-cum-Lamborghini Testosteronas and the wonder is there aren't more "accidents"...
Nope, I think it's only fair that people who use their toys to threaten others have those toys taken away.
Monday, January 29, 2007
Stupid...Stupid....STUPID!
Wow, did the stupid stars align this past weekend or what?
At the box office, the epic movie, um, Epic Movie beat out the competition, raking in $19.2 million dollars. This despite not being pre-screened for reviewers. Don't people know by now that studios don't bother to pre-screen movies they know are absolute dreck? I'd hate to think that nearly ten million people are so ignorant as to go to a movie they know ahead of time is going to suck.
But then, given the level of stupidity about to be revealed, I shouldn't be surprised.
I used to toboggan as a kid. Yup: overprotected, sheltered, mollycoddled ol' me spent many a winter hour sledding down a hill. Actually, the preferred activity at my school was to slide down an icy incline standing up--which strikes me as perhaps even more dangerous. And yes, I took my fair share of spills. I've broken my nose three times, and I'm pretty sure one of those times was when I reached the bottom of the hill and just kept going.
I assure you, no self-respecting kid ever came out to slide equipped with a helmet. If he had, I'm pretty sure somebody would have ripped it off his head, thrown it on to the school roof, and beat him up, just on general principles.
And yet, a couple of Vaughan city councillors have teamed up with some doctors and recommended that the government pass legislation requiring all kids to wear helmets while sledding.
Somebody's got a brain injury, and I don't think it's the kids.
How many millions of children sled, slide, or skate down hills every winter? How many tens of millions of times do they do it? And how often is somebody seriously hurt?
Now, of those serious injuries, how many occur because the kid was dumb enough to pick a hill dotted with trees, or fences, or one that bottoms out onto a road?
God, it feels weird for me to be saying this...Ken Breadner, Jr., who never so much as attempted to climb a tree, knowing full well he'd fall out and break his neck....
There are risks in life. You take one just getting out of bed. Statistically, you take a big one every time you get in a bathtub, or descend a flight of stairs. Surely you shouldn't have to wear a helmet on those occasions?
If we slide much further down this hill, we'll all be living in bubbles. Nobody will ever do anything that might result in injury. We'll become a world o' wusses, ripe for the picking. Pathetic.
Next entry: the Pickton trial. I'm not going to write about it--I'll save that for its conclusion, which should be in about a year. No, what I want to concentrate on is the media coverage, or rather, the ridiculous (but oh-so-predictable) reaction to same.
For those few of you who may not know, Robert "Willy" Pickton stands accused in the deaths of six Vancouver prostitutes. They only went to trial with six because it was felt the twenty-one other known victims--there may have been many more--made the case too complex. Pickton has pled not guilty, which means an endless parade of horror must be mounted for the edification of a jury; the manner of at least some of the deaths is unspeakably obscene, making Paul Bernardo look gentle by comparison.
Herewith, a sample letter to the editor, in this case, of the Kitchener-Waterloo Record. I've seen substantially identical letters in four other papers; I'm pretty sure by now that every paper in the country has published at least one letter like this:
I thought The Sun arrived in my mailbox January 23 -- but no, it was The Record. It must have been the sensationalist headline: "I Was Gonna Do One More -- Make It An Even Fifty" that made me think I had the other paper by mistake.
I do not need to know about the "gruesome revelations" or "shocking public details".
My being informed about the trial of an individual charged in connection with multiple slayings over 4,000 kilometres away is of little importance. So I refused to read that article and will continue to avoid any other sensationalist articles thrust at me by The Record.
Sheila Brown
Waterloo
I'll give Sheila some credit: her letter is milder in tone that most. Moreover, she notes she "refused to read" that article (making me wonder how she knew it contained "gruesome revelations" and "shocking public details", but anyway...)
I'd like to correct Sheila on one minor point before I head on to the meat of her letter: the Toronto Sun would never have printed that headline. Too much ink.
Sheila asserts that her "being informed about [the Pickton trial] is of little importance."
To her.
That's perfectly okay: it's up to each of us to determine what's important. Me, I'm not so sure I need to know about every last spatter of gore, either.
But it happened. All of it. There appears to still be some doubt in at least one person (Pickton) 's mind who did it, but it all happened. If a tree doesn't fall to chronicle a murder, does that somehow make it didn't happen? I don't think so.
Most of the letter writers in some way question the need for coverage of such a horrible event. Sheila, above, bases her objection on the distance of the event from her home, an attitude I find ridiculously provincial (and, might I add, very common in this city which thinks it's a village). You know, next year we might uncover a serial killer in Waterloo Region. If that were to (heaven forbid) happen, would we have exclusive rights to the story? I don't think so.
Does someone's assertion that he killed 49 women qualify as news? I hope so! How many would he have to kill before it could make the papers, as far as these letter-writers are concerned? A hundred? A thousand? Hell, I believe a confession to one murder is news, especially if the confessor then turns around and pleads not guilty. Where do these people get off, telling the newspaper what they can and can not print?
The simple solution to news you don't want to read: don't read it. I'm an avid reader of the Toronto Sun, the tabloid Sheila impugns in the above letter. Rarely, however, will you catch me reading the reportage, which is often sloppy and yes, sensationalistic. I simply leaf past all that in search of the editorials, the entertainment, and the sports sections, all of which are second to none. Never would I for one second suggest the Sun shouldn't print lurid headlines. They appear to sell papers, after all.
Freedom of the press means the freedom to print things you might not like.
Freedom of movement means--or it ought to--the freedom to rocket down a hill...and maybe, just maybe, to hurt yourself.
Freedom of assembly means the right to assemble at a cineplex and watch Epic Movie. Though I can't imagine why you'd want to.
At the box office, the epic movie, um, Epic Movie beat out the competition, raking in $19.2 million dollars. This despite not being pre-screened for reviewers. Don't people know by now that studios don't bother to pre-screen movies they know are absolute dreck? I'd hate to think that nearly ten million people are so ignorant as to go to a movie they know ahead of time is going to suck.
But then, given the level of stupidity about to be revealed, I shouldn't be surprised.
I used to toboggan as a kid. Yup: overprotected, sheltered, mollycoddled ol' me spent many a winter hour sledding down a hill. Actually, the preferred activity at my school was to slide down an icy incline standing up--which strikes me as perhaps even more dangerous. And yes, I took my fair share of spills. I've broken my nose three times, and I'm pretty sure one of those times was when I reached the bottom of the hill and just kept going.
I assure you, no self-respecting kid ever came out to slide equipped with a helmet. If he had, I'm pretty sure somebody would have ripped it off his head, thrown it on to the school roof, and beat him up, just on general principles.
And yet, a couple of Vaughan city councillors have teamed up with some doctors and recommended that the government pass legislation requiring all kids to wear helmets while sledding.
Somebody's got a brain injury, and I don't think it's the kids.
How many millions of children sled, slide, or skate down hills every winter? How many tens of millions of times do they do it? And how often is somebody seriously hurt?
Now, of those serious injuries, how many occur because the kid was dumb enough to pick a hill dotted with trees, or fences, or one that bottoms out onto a road?
God, it feels weird for me to be saying this...Ken Breadner, Jr., who never so much as attempted to climb a tree, knowing full well he'd fall out and break his neck....
There are risks in life. You take one just getting out of bed. Statistically, you take a big one every time you get in a bathtub, or descend a flight of stairs. Surely you shouldn't have to wear a helmet on those occasions?
If we slide much further down this hill, we'll all be living in bubbles. Nobody will ever do anything that might result in injury. We'll become a world o' wusses, ripe for the picking. Pathetic.
Next entry: the Pickton trial. I'm not going to write about it--I'll save that for its conclusion, which should be in about a year. No, what I want to concentrate on is the media coverage, or rather, the ridiculous (but oh-so-predictable) reaction to same.
For those few of you who may not know, Robert "Willy" Pickton stands accused in the deaths of six Vancouver prostitutes. They only went to trial with six because it was felt the twenty-one other known victims--there may have been many more--made the case too complex. Pickton has pled not guilty, which means an endless parade of horror must be mounted for the edification of a jury; the manner of at least some of the deaths is unspeakably obscene, making Paul Bernardo look gentle by comparison.
Herewith, a sample letter to the editor, in this case, of the Kitchener-Waterloo Record. I've seen substantially identical letters in four other papers; I'm pretty sure by now that every paper in the country has published at least one letter like this:
I thought The Sun arrived in my mailbox January 23 -- but no, it was The Record. It must have been the sensationalist headline: "I Was Gonna Do One More -- Make It An Even Fifty" that made me think I had the other paper by mistake.
I do not need to know about the "gruesome revelations" or "shocking public details".
My being informed about the trial of an individual charged in connection with multiple slayings over 4,000 kilometres away is of little importance. So I refused to read that article and will continue to avoid any other sensationalist articles thrust at me by The Record.
Sheila Brown
Waterloo
I'll give Sheila some credit: her letter is milder in tone that most. Moreover, she notes she "refused to read" that article (making me wonder how she knew it contained "gruesome revelations" and "shocking public details", but anyway...)
I'd like to correct Sheila on one minor point before I head on to the meat of her letter: the Toronto Sun would never have printed that headline. Too much ink.
Sheila asserts that her "being informed about [the Pickton trial] is of little importance."
To her.
That's perfectly okay: it's up to each of us to determine what's important. Me, I'm not so sure I need to know about every last spatter of gore, either.
But it happened. All of it. There appears to still be some doubt in at least one person (Pickton) 's mind who did it, but it all happened. If a tree doesn't fall to chronicle a murder, does that somehow make it didn't happen? I don't think so.
Most of the letter writers in some way question the need for coverage of such a horrible event. Sheila, above, bases her objection on the distance of the event from her home, an attitude I find ridiculously provincial (and, might I add, very common in this city which thinks it's a village). You know, next year we might uncover a serial killer in Waterloo Region. If that were to (heaven forbid) happen, would we have exclusive rights to the story? I don't think so.
Does someone's assertion that he killed 49 women qualify as news? I hope so! How many would he have to kill before it could make the papers, as far as these letter-writers are concerned? A hundred? A thousand? Hell, I believe a confession to one murder is news, especially if the confessor then turns around and pleads not guilty. Where do these people get off, telling the newspaper what they can and can not print?
The simple solution to news you don't want to read: don't read it. I'm an avid reader of the Toronto Sun, the tabloid Sheila impugns in the above letter. Rarely, however, will you catch me reading the reportage, which is often sloppy and yes, sensationalistic. I simply leaf past all that in search of the editorials, the entertainment, and the sports sections, all of which are second to none. Never would I for one second suggest the Sun shouldn't print lurid headlines. They appear to sell papers, after all.
Freedom of the press means the freedom to print things you might not like.
Freedom of movement means--or it ought to--the freedom to rocket down a hill...and maybe, just maybe, to hurt yourself.
Freedom of assembly means the right to assemble at a cineplex and watch Epic Movie. Though I can't imagine why you'd want to.
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