The ugly topic of racial profiling was raised again this weekend by a Winnipeg Free Press columnist who has filed a complaint against the Winnipeg police on behalf of her son. From the details provided by the newspaper, it's clear somebody's guilty of the offence of racial profiling, but it's not who you think -- it's their own writer, Colleen Simard. Simard's sad tale involves her 14-year-old son who was stopped by police, frisked, questioned and sent on his way some day recently. (The 'when' of a story doesn't seem to matter to newspapers anymore.) Simard declares she recognized immediately what happened. "Not every brown kid in dark clothes is a criminal. To treat them all like that is racial profiling." "Police shouldn't be grabbing kids in back lanes and pushing them against fences. They shouldn't be searching them and treating them like they're already guilty of a crime." The simplest details in her column, which are...
The origin of the Usher of the Black Rod goes back to early fourteenth century England . Today, with no royal duties to perform, the Usher knocks on the doors of the House of Commons with the Black Rod at the start of Parliament to summon the members. The rod is a symbol for the authority of debate in the upper house. We of The Black Rod adopted the symbol to knock some sense and the right questions into the heads of Legislators, pundits, and other opinion makers.