Sins, videotapes and no lies or s(Tories) in the newspaper
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The sons are never responsible for the sins of the fathers. Or is it the daughters are not to blame for the sins of the mothers?
Political correctness, eh?
The recent furor in Saskatchewan over forgotten videotapes of young backroom boys making fools of themselves is a sign of one political party that ought to know better.
But a long-ago gathering in a small Saskatchewan city attended by this scribe remains etched in memory, not for the camaraderie (I had no political leanings at the time) but for the conversations:
"Hey, did you see me on TV when (Jean-Luc) Pepin was in Saskatoon? I was the one jumping up and down hollering at him."
Some young imminent socialist was proud of himself for harassing and threatening a man half his size and twice his age.
Probably twice his intelligence, too.
(Another unnamed participant at the same gathering):
"The guy who shot (then U.S. President Ronald) Reagan. . . wasn't a good enough shot."
Neither of these stories is on videotape, not in widespread use in the early 1980s except by the media.
I cannot recall the names of the people responsible for these statements, but I found it somewhat uncomfortable to be in the midst of a bunch of Prairie 'left-wingers,' some of whom were friends of mine.
I'm not going to demand any apologies from those people, I don't know where most of them are at the moment.
Stuff like this, when it makes the papers, or media, is surely followed by complaints of negative reporting.
Believe me, the media does not go out of its way to report on the moronic things that political types say. They do a good enough job of that themselves.
And if we do, of course accusations of bias fly from the aggrieved parties, if not officially then certainly “off the record.” Righteous indignation spreads across all party lines.
And, this humble scribbler has also worked for at least one western daily newspaper of which every existing political party accused of biased reporting. . . on behalf of all the other parties, for sure.
How can you be biased if you report on every party's ineptitude equally?
Why should the media be fussy about which party to be biased?
We only report the fact, or, in some cases, cut it down to the facts.
THOUGHTS ABOUT RECENT TRAVELS
There have been worries in the United States about citizens having to obtain passports in order to travel . . . to Canada. Some people are upset about the cost of the document, which is $87 Cdn, roughly the same in US dollars.
So American authorities are working on allowing enhanced security driver's licences as a cheaper alternative to passports. This makes sense, considering both documents are available in secured formats.
In Alberta, we pay about $65 to renew our already enhanced driver's licences. Considering both passports and enhanced driver's licenses are both valid for five years. . . the saving is what. . . $22?
David Nagy is an Advocate editor.
