WHAT GIVES?

Recently it has been hard to turn on the news, whether local or world news. I say this, without any inherent cynicism or prejudice. As I said recently, there seems to be a lot of unhappiness around in quite a few areas of the city, country and world.

In my own city, Toronto, recently we can hardly turn on any news station without hearing about another stabbing. Some of these have been fatal. I mean, a woman walks into a drug store and seems to have stabbed another woman who she didn’t know. The person who was stabbed (and died) worked nearby and was, a cancer researcher. The one who stabbed her seems to be a well educated business woman.

Someone who has lived on a main intersection corner for years, has, I am told, gone to jail for stabbing an elderly woman who told him not to feed the pigeons. His brother, also homeless, lived, quite literally, across the road.

These two are not isolated incidents. In the past couple of weeks I’m wondering whether Toronto will soon be considered the stabbing capital of Canada. Sadly, I am not joking. 

There have been several incidents similar to the above. I don’t even think any of them share similar methods or possible causes or similar victims or anything else. Just weirdly, stabbing is the latest crime method or something? Makes no sense.

Other things that don’t make any sense at the moment is why so many people seem to be doing relatively normal type activities and a moment later machine gunning people in the next building. In this case, in Tel Aviv. One minute looking at fruit and vegetables, the next minute going next door with a machine gun. Dropping off your baby at your mother's on the way to kill a lot of people.

Meanwhile, the long U.S. election cycle is continuing to dominate with daily coverage of strange comments and some detailed and very specific personal attacks that don’t make sense, in the middle of debates. Personally I can’t see any of the current candidates as a possible President of the United States, however, long they have been around in the media.

Oh yeah, and in 2020 President Kanye West? Maybe anyone in America really can grow up to be President.

It’s a strange world out there at the moment. I have said that I don’t think that I’m the only one who thinks so either.

The crux of the matter however, is not that a lot of violence and intemperate ideas and comments are being made. It isn’t even that an epidemic of stabbing incidents are currently the kind of crimes in my city. Nor is the fact that people are gunning down bystanders almost every day recently, in various parts of the world.

What is bothering me is the anger and hatred and frustration and despair that are likely to be the causes for all of this negative violence that seems to have worsened recently.

I have to ask also, why would any group of human beings seek to turn idealistic young people into suicidal mass murderers of strangers?

Without even getting into uncharacteristic flooding in the United States this winter or unseasonable warmth in December where I live, or dozens of other things beyond our control anyway; this seems to be a time, where logical behaviour, considered argument and common sense has, temporarily gone out the window.

I really hope we all settle down sooner, rather than later. It’s hard to imagine who or what will take the tone down to a manageable and reasonable level and let us work on the things in life that might actually be a manageable set of problems that can be thought out and which we can again work together on.

We can only hope that all of us in the world somehow take the equivalent of a deep breath and all start being more reasonable in this very New Year, than we seem to have been the past couple of months.