I didn’t get the Xbox 360 that I wanted but I hadn’t expected to receive it for Christmas. It was way out of the family and friends budget this year. Instead, I got an Irish Claddagh Worry ring and a collection of loose tea and a new teapot. I adore fresh loose steeped tea but cannot abide tea bag tea as it sours in my mouth. Nothing will soothe the soul like a really good cuppa but the wrong cuppa will always fail to soothe, and yes, it needs to be in a china cup as well. Stoneware, cheap glass or paper cup will just ruin the taste. If those are my options, I will opt for coffee every time. I had no idea how soon I would need both the tea and the worry ring.
I was talking to an old family friend on the phone yesterday afternoon when the Last Amazon and her brother (of the Happy Hand fame) gave me a kiss as they went out the door in pursuit of Boxing Day sales on Yonge Street. Their plan was to walk along Dundas Street East to Yonge Street and then go north up to Bloor Street and back again.
Periodically, they would phone home to apprise me of their progress or ask for advice on a potential purchase and at no time did they hint at how close they had come to becoming the latest causalities to fall victim to random violence on Toronto streets. I read Tom Wolfe’s “I am Charlotte Simmons” this past summer and the burning thought in my mind once I finished the book was to contemplate the feasibility of home schooling for the Last Amazon for university.
Call me whatever but I don’t give two shits on the root causes of crime. I could not care less on how troubled the backgrounds of the perpetrators are who turned Yonge Street into the OK Corral. I don’t care how young the perpetrators of this crime are but I do want them jailed, post haste, for a very, very, very long time. Five to ten years of their life isn’t going to do it for me nor do I care if they are only 12 and at the beginning of their criminal malice. I say, now is the time to cut them off at the root.
I have absolutely no patience left to listen to another sob story while a mother’s son or daughter dies. The theme of their lives is old now, and frankly, it’s the same old shit it’s always been with the only difference being a name change. At my root, I have my own sob story and it is enough to last me a life time. But at no time have I ever been compelled to wallow in my misery or use it as an excuse to pick up a gun and fire randomly or carelessly into a crowded public street without thought or care to those whose only crime is that they share the same street with me.
I have complete faith in the Toronto Police Force. They will work long and diligently until every single one of the perpetrators are brought before the court in this shooting and every other shooting in Toronto, but so what? As long as criminal court Justices continue to meet out sentences like the one handed to Tate Best for opening fire on an elementary school yard and injuring an innocent pregnant woman (six years and out in less than 4 years) our justice system will remain nothing more than a revolving door that never hits anyone on the way out. Meanwhile my children, my family, my friends and everyone else who lives or visits Toronto will be nothing more than a victim waiting to happen. It is long past the time to stop the excuses and accept that one cannot legislate salvation for all.
The Lost Budgie weighs in with his two chirps in Toronto Boxing Day Shootings - Wimp Politicians & Police Leadership Eunuchs
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