The bombings at the Boston
Marathon really fired me up last week and I made some comments on Facebook that
didn’t sit well with some of my ‘friends’. You know me. I’m not the
most politically correct person in the world and, sometimes, I maybe go a
little too far with my views. But, I stand by my opinion that law
enforcement officers should be able to use any means necessary to keep us all
safe, even if all they have to go on is a ‘gut feeling’. I have no
problem being searched and opponents have said that’s easy for me to say
because I won’t ever likely be searched for anything. Well, when I was
younger and dressed like a metalhead, I was scrutinized by people in authority
rather close. I didn’t like it, but turns out now that I’m older and can
be honest with myself, those people in authority had every right to pay extra
close attention to me and, in a few instances, their hunches would have been
correct. Sometimes I was up to no good.
I used the Tom Brady-Tony
Romo/Ben Roethlisberger example last week when I said that sometimes you can
just go by ‘look’ when deciding who is a more upstanding citizen. Romo,
for example, always wears his hat backwards on the sidelines. And, what
is the knock on Romo or Roethlisberger? It’s that they are a little
immature and give off a bit of a ‘disregard for authority’. I don’t think
Romo has ever done anything really wrong (Roethlisberger has), but it’s
perception. Brady, meanwhile, is the All-American Boy you want to take
home to mom. Looks do account for something whether we like it or
not. I’m not saying every backwards hat wearing man is a bad person, but
if you are giving off a perception, you can’t be upset if people form an opinion
about you. It’s not fool proof, but I don’t think there is anything
wrong with a police officer taking a closer look at someone who appears as
though he/she should be watched a little closer than others.
I read a very interesting
article on the airline El Al, which is Israel’s main airline carrier.
They racial profile people and are very open about it. Security is very
strict, and they do look at Muslims a lot closer than Jews. In our part
of the world, that’s wrong. Their feeling is that all Muslims are subjected
to extra scrutiny based on the sins of their brothers. I wonder how many
of us would be open to closer searches, etc. if it meant a ‘safer’ place.
Some say you should just live your life and take your chances and hope what
happened to the poor people in Boston never happens to you. It’s an
incredible debate regardless of what side you are on.
The alleged Boston Marathon
bombers have an aunt in Toronto and she was all over the news on Friday night
proclaiming her nephews innocence despite having not talked to them in
years. This is the type of thing that should, highly, alert Canadian
anti-terrorism officials. I’d watch her so close to the point that I’d
know what she puts in her coffee.
Meanwhile, the older brother
(who was killed in the firefight with police Thursday night) was looked into by
authorities based on a concern from another country a couple of years ago, but
nothing untoward was discovered. His quote of ‘I don’t have a single
American friend; I don’t understand them’ should send off alarm bells.
Hopefully, citizens can help law enforcement by reporting such nonsense to
authorities. We’ve come too far to shrug off such comments. Even if
meant as a joke or something not to be taken serious, it is now a serious opinion,
to me.
I expect the Yorkton Terriers
to have a successful week at the Western Canada Cup in Nanaimo. I’m not
just saying that because they are our home team, but based on how they
play. They are, an incredibly, difficult team to plan against because of their
puck moving defense and I think that translates really well into a tournament
setting where it’s a one-game only scenario as opposed to a best of seven where
good coaches and teams are able to make adjustments over the course of a
series.
Saskatchewan won’t host the
Western Canada Cup until 2016 and I pressed Bill Chow during the Canalta Cup
finals to see if there is any one league centre that has stepped up to start
organizing a host committee and it doesn’t sound like there is at this
point. Estevan is an obvious favorite based on the gorgeous new
Spectra Place. Bill says it takes more than a nice building,
however. To me, Melville needs to make improvements as far as being able
to accommodate dignitaries (they get an F for press box) in order to put in a
bid to host. Yorkton has been a good guinea pig in years past for things
like the Top Prospects Game and the World Junior ‘A’ Challenge, so don’t be
surprised if Yorkton puts something together for this event too. Warman
will be in the SJHL by 2016 and with Saskatoon so close, it wouldn’t shock me
to see them step up too.
Nice person mentions this
week to Ron Inkster, Cora Devos, Adam Wog, Parker Rice, and Brady Harland.
