No more mayhem

I have been tatting, quite a bit actually, enough for a book. The tatting is done and I just need to get some good weather to do a proper photo shoot in and I can pull everything together. In the lulls between blog posts there have been a lot of posts started, left languishing unfinished, and finally deleted as what felt important enough to say one day fizzled the next.

Today you get to hear all of those things that I've been storing up, none of which are tatting related. Last summer Toronto was part of the G20 summit and some folks thought it would be a good idea to assemble and protest anything and everything. I have no objection to peaceful protest. It sometimes shines a spotlight on an otherwise unknown ill. I am a firm believer in the idea that you can't fix what you don't know is broken, so sometimes a protest is the only way to be heard.

That said, there was absolutely no excuse for the car burning, building trashing mayhem that ensued. I have absolutely NO sympathy for the people that were strong armed as the police endeavored to control the crowd. People were asked to avoid the area unless they absolutely had to be there. Some people were peaceful while some were thugs. In a massive crowd of people there was no way for the police to distinguish and no time for niceties. A lot of people got hurt. TOUGH. They chose to be where they were asked not to go. They did not restrain their compatriots. They got the consequences. I say, take your lumps and shut up.

Then there was that mess in Vancouver after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup. I'm a Canadian born and bred, I understand the pain, but I am totally embarrassed that it was Canadians behaving this way. Where is the sportsmanship that says we tried but we lost to a better team and next year we'll be back? Scratch that. It wasn't the team, it was the morons who assembled to watch the game, who drank to excess and then behaved like cavemen when they didn't get the result they wanted.

I was raised to understand that I wouldn't always get what I wanted. I understand respect for other people and other people's property. I understand logic. What mental connection does someone make that says "my team lost I ought to go turn over a car, smash store windows, loot and set things on fire"? There is no logic. It is simply totally unprincipled behavior. It is letting go of all self control (and self respect) and just being totally destructive.

Today I ran across several blogs talking about swearing and when and where it is appropriate. I read a variety of comments on the subject, but the bottom line is that it's all part of the same malady. A lack of self control and a lack of good moral upbringing.

When I was a teenager (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth) someone told me that people who use a lot of profanity only do so because they have nothing else to say. After that, I paid attention to the people around me and I found that it was true. If you removed all of the profanity from some people's dialogue you realize that their mouth is moving but they aren't really saying anything. On the other hand, people who rarely swore usually had a lot of interesting information to impart.

I had gotten into a bad habit of repeating the profanity I heard around me but after that, I made the effort to remove it. I replaced "shit" with "sugar" just because once the -sh- sound was out of my mouth it was the only short word I could think of that fit. It stuck. I still say sugar when I get mad. There are a lot worse garbage words out there, but they don't really add anything to your vocabulary or your conversation and it's easier not to start using them, than to try to get rid of them after they are ingrained.

Controlling your language means disciplining your mind and it's the first step to living an ordered and orderly life. Some people seem to believe that total chaos is a good thing. The Bible begins with the words; "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void;..." Literally, there was chaos and out of it God created order.

More and more these days it seems that people need order. As a Christian I know that what they really need is God to help them create the order they need. Only with the kind of order He provides can we have the kind of society that's worth living in.