The world has changed drastically since the last time I sat down to write this column. Back in the lazy, no-news days of August it would have been inconceivable that one act of terrorism could devastate the airline industry, plunge the world into recession, unleash a war, and consign all-powerful events like the Emmys into the backyard of irrelevance.
At times like this one shouldn't be surprised that some folks panic. They get hysterical. Start talking crazy. This used to happen all the time in the old Hollywood movies. A bomb would go off, the ship would begin to sink and some spiny character would come down with a case of the screaming hab-dabs -- thereby risking the lives of every other poor sap in the lifeboat.
Fortunately, the script writers always made sure there was a trustworthy hero present. Nothing like having Robert Mitchum slap you upside the head to bring common sense back to a difficult situation.
Truth be told I haven't seen anybody in need of a cheek carresser up in these northern parts. In fact, I've been awestruck by the level of reflection, concern and measuredness with which folk around here seem to be applying to this terrible crisis.
It's helped reassure my faith in the average Joe (and Josephine). That being said, I am starting to get downright worried by some of the ranting and howling in what used to be stodgy, respectable papers.
Now the Canadian press can't be blamed for getting edgy. After all, they have the onerous task of filling pages of print describing a crisis -- of which no one really knows the extent, or feeding our interest in a war that doesn't have any journalists anywhere near the action. And to top it all, they're stuck playing little brother to the big American media outlets. Which might be the reason for the apparent "Little Guy" chip on the shoulder.
Seems you can't pick up a paper without some Canuck editorialist demanding that we give up our border and start finger-printing every person in the country. To do any less would be spineless, weak-kneed and oh, so typically Canadian.
Hell, if the U.S. military was being run by the boardrooms of Canada's leading newspapers, our cozy planet would be a smoldering ruin.
The papers are filled with all kinds of strange suggestions. In the Toronto Star there was an article about the possibility of legalizing torture or better yet, being able to deport wives and children of suspects to countries where it's still A-OK to torture and murder innocent dependents.
This brings me to the other downside of daily deadline wisdom -- there's no memory. In the 1970s, for example, the British papers egged on Parliament to enact its special "Anti terrorism" legislation in the wake of the Guildford and Birmingham pub bombings.
The very first people arrested were poor Mrs. McGuire and her teenage children who were sent away for long prison stretches along with 13 other innocent people -- thanks to suppressed evidence and torture-extracted confessions. Seventeen years later the media (having forgotten what it was that they were so mad about in the first place) were championing the release of these wrongfully-convicted people.
And so before we flush the last of our civil rights, let's get a handle on who it is we're going after.
Just check out the universally-acclaimed sitcom episode "West Wing". On the show, the dastardly terrorists got into the Land of the Free by crossing the Ontario/Vermont border. Hell, I didn't even know such a place existed. These guys are sneaky.
What's more, they could be lurking anywhere. Dave Brown's column in the Ottawa Citizen (Oct. 6th) about Sunera Thobani's speech to Canadian feminists about U.S. foreign policy, comes to mind.
"It's war, folks," Mr. Brown declared. "Ms. Thobani and her sisters are operational revolutionaries hell bent on rebuilding western society. To do that they have to destroy the old one."
Wow. I used to think the only thing NAC (National Action Council on the Status of Women) did was shout each other down at conferences and pass meaningless resolutions.
Not so says Brown. These resolutions are the thin edge of the legal wedge "which suspend the human rights of half our population -- the male half."
Now I haven't seen men around here being forced to don the veil but Brown assures us the Thobani crowd are responsible for the evils of zero tolerance. (And there was me, thinking the concept came from saber-rattling editorial pages.)
Prior to September 11th I would have pegged Mr. Brown's belief that women's shelter's are actually "bunkers of the revolution," as a manifestation of grumpy white guy syndrome. Now it seems, I dunno... weird.
Dave Brown, by the way, is the Senior Editor of the Citizen. Makes you wonder what goes on in those newsrooms.
Now I'm sure if Robert Mitchum were here, he'd slap us upside the head, tell us to "buck up" and make sure we didn't go running down the street shouting "fire in the hole," at every imagined feminist or Al Qaeda bunker in the neighbourhood.

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