Measures of war

A selective reading of local news during the past week paints a grim sociological portrait of this city – but all this crime time coverage of assault in high school hallways and a homicide at a funeral has seemingly been a tune-out for anyone not personally impacted. What’s a few more strides toward our giant leap into oblivion? During the community meeting at Cardinal McGuigan Catholic High School at Jane and Finch, where 16 black students were charged with assault, plenty of vitriol was unleashed with little apparent regard for the alleged victim of sexual assault and criminal harassment. The blogging Impudent Strumpet tries to untangle the spin that only parents of daughters are qualified to understand what the parents of the bullied 16-year-old girl might be going through: "If I were the victim in this situation, I would feel even more dehumanized by people saying ‘I can empathize, I have a daughter.’ That isn’t empathy – that’s the kind of attitude that leads me to use the word ‘parental’ as an insult." Meanwhile, in regard to the killing of 18-year-old Amon Beckles while mourning his gunned-down friend outside the Seventh Day Adventist Church, "RightGirl" at the Western Standard Shotgun blog tries to shock with her assertion that police condemnation is hypocritical as "Toronto has actually led the way in disrespect for houses of worship and faith." Next, the pastor calling for a re-invocation of the War Measures Act to hunt down the murderer who spilled blood outside his church should be condemned for thinking like Pierre Trudeau.