q: do facts matter? a: it depends.
Does this ever happen to you? You see a news item and think, "This is something [name of blogger you read] would blog about." The item itself might interest you, but you think of it primarily in terms of how a particular blogger would approach it?
I just saw something on CBC News and thought, This is the kind of thing Impudent Strumpet would write about.
In fact, writing this - that I saw something on the news and thought, this is the kind of thing that Impudent Strumpet would write about - is the kind of thing Impudent Strumpet would write about.
This is getting very postmodern!
I was folding laundry (again with the laundry!), watching CBC News from Eastern Canada, because I must watch TV during laundry-related activity. The anchor was speaking with the editor of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald about a recent wave of violent crimes in that city, a time his paper has named "The Summer of Fear". I will paraphrase briefly; bold emphasis is mine.
Suhana Meharchand for CBC: The mayor of Halifax says statistics show that violent crime in Halifax is actually down. How do you respond to that?
Terry O'Neil of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald: Statistics don't matter. What matters is if people feel safe, and they don't. If crime is down, why did the mayor convene a commission to study crime in Halifax, and why did a professor emeritus of criminology say that Halifax has a crime problem?
[a few questions later]
Meharchand: Some of these horrible crimes were committed by teenage girls. Now that school is in session, are parents wary of sending their children to school, where there are large numbers of teenagers?
O'Neil: Again Suhana, you have to look at the statistics. The numbers show that most crimes are committed between 2:00 and 5:00 a.m. and mostly by young men. They get drunk, stumble out of the pub, look at each other the wrong way, and a fight ensues. The girls in this recent attack knew each other, there was a history, we have reason to think it was a revenge attack. There's no real evidence to show that random crime is on the rise.
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This post brought to you by Impudent Strumpet, another ad-free blog.
I just saw something on CBC News and thought, This is the kind of thing Impudent Strumpet would write about.
In fact, writing this - that I saw something on the news and thought, this is the kind of thing that Impudent Strumpet would write about - is the kind of thing Impudent Strumpet would write about.
This is getting very postmodern!
I was folding laundry (again with the laundry!), watching CBC News from Eastern Canada, because I must watch TV during laundry-related activity. The anchor was speaking with the editor of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald about a recent wave of violent crimes in that city, a time his paper has named "The Summer of Fear". I will paraphrase briefly; bold emphasis is mine.
Suhana Meharchand for CBC: The mayor of Halifax says statistics show that violent crime in Halifax is actually down. How do you respond to that?
Terry O'Neil of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald: Statistics don't matter. What matters is if people feel safe, and they don't. If crime is down, why did the mayor convene a commission to study crime in Halifax, and why did a professor emeritus of criminology say that Halifax has a crime problem?
[a few questions later]
Meharchand: Some of these horrible crimes were committed by teenage girls. Now that school is in session, are parents wary of sending their children to school, where there are large numbers of teenagers?
O'Neil: Again Suhana, you have to look at the statistics. The numbers show that most crimes are committed between 2:00 and 5:00 a.m. and mostly by young men. They get drunk, stumble out of the pub, look at each other the wrong way, and a fight ensues. The girls in this recent attack knew each other, there was a history, we have reason to think it was a revenge attack. There's no real evidence to show that random crime is on the rise.
* * * *
This post brought to you by Impudent Strumpet, another ad-free blog.
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