The Loop of Henly: 09/10/2006

Well, Tara would like it!

("Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" comes on TV, I tell Jade to come watch a bit, since I figured she'd get a kick out of it - she likes aliens.)

Jade: What's this?
Me: It's called Star Wars.

(Jade sees Yoda)
Jade: Who's that?
Me: That's Yoda, he's an alien. Funny looking, eh?
Jade: I like him!

(Jade sees Jar Jar Binks)
Jade: Who's that?
Me: That's Jar Jar Binks, he's annoying.
Jade: I like him!

(10 minutes later......)

Jade: Where's the horse?
Me: Sorry?
Jade: Where's the horse?
Me: Did you say.. horse?
Jade: Yeah.
Me: What horse? There's no horse.
Jade: The star horse!
(I pause to think)
Me: It's called Star WARS, honey. Not Star Horse.

She still calls it Star Horse.

Shootings in Montreal

First off, this was a horrible event. It's amazing only one person was killed, when 20 were shot. Big kudos to the police and paramedics.

I've got two observations to make:

1) Publishing pics and information about the shooter is exactly what he wanted. He wanted to leave his mark. Of course, his name has to be released but I wish media would leave it at that. Instead, they publish pictures of him with guns, talk about his blog and websites he'd been to. It's basically like letting him win, and encouraging other crazies to follow in his steps. I guess society always likes putting a face to evil/madness.

2) Listening to AM radio this morning, my least favourite personality was outraged that this was a preventable crime, because the guy was talking tough (perhaps mentioning killing people) and showing off pictures of him with his guns. He couldn't understand why the police wouldn't check him out, or check that his guns were legit.

Look, the 'Net is packed with crazies. People talk junk all the time. There aren't nearly the resources for ANY police force to start looking at every kook that starts talking about violence and death. Even then, there's civil rights issues. If I was expressing how upset I was with a store and joked about 'bombing the place', I'd be pretty pissed off if the cops showed up at my doorstep. The only justification for police involvement is if he said: "On such and such a day, I'm going to walk in to my school and start shooting." Even then, someone would have to read this and REPORT it to the cops. There's no way to justify having a police position that surfs the web looking for potential mass murderers. If they do create that job, I'd be all over it!!

Simply, there are just some crimes that can't be prevented.