Reading those newspaper stories I am reminded of Michael

The following week saw our news blitzed with three days of “Top Story” coverage of a whale beached in the sound and the public’s efforts to rescue it. I commend those who helped the whale but have to shake my head at the priorities of our populace. Michelle Joyal-Blumenfeld mirrored my thoughts in her letter to the Province. I find it appalling we make such a big deal about a beached whale yet we step over a 29 year old man suffering from a diabetic seizure after stumbling off a crowded Skytrain.

Is it that we so consumed by what is going on in our own lives that we don’t want to see the world around us? We even feel assaulted if someone pushes his or her “life” into ours. Walking foreword with the blinders on full. Well that’s not working! We live in a society where 12 & 13 year olds are robbing and beating the elderly – for fun. Not even because they needed the money; they are just looking for a way to have fun. How we have failed the next generation as parents when this is looked at as, “oh well…, it happens”. The next generation are the future leaders and decision-makers of our country. They’re not growing up Canadian; they’re growing up empty. The newest virtue is apathy.

Reading those newspaper stories I am reminded of Michael Thrasher’s words and the responsibility we have of helping our children to grow up Canadian.
There was a time that our hearts would leap at the cry of the voice of Humanity. Closer to my home, in prison that is, I can see the end of public compassion. Just 25 years ago Claire Culhane would speak out against the dehumanizing of prisoners and demand that we, the public, actually see them. Work to accept them, and accept the concept of rehabilitation, to embrace the idea of prisoners coming back into society as people.