The morning after the demolition derby in Nice, the Canadian Press news agency reported Canada’s plans to prevent such carnage here. The tactics -- threat assessment, counter radicalization, intervention, surveillance -- all assume advance knowledge about who might be an attacker. Canada has had far fewer terrorist attacks than the U.S. has. Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot and killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo, a soldier on ceremonial sentry duty at the national War Memorial, and stormed the parliament buildings in Ottawa. Martin Couture-Rouleau ran down Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent in Saint Jean sur Richelieu, Quebec. Justin Bourque shot and killed three RCMP officers in Moncton, New Brunswick. Most recently, cooperation between the FBI and the RCMP foiled an explosives plot by Aaron Driver, in Strathroy, Ontario. Of the four, only the last came from a perpetrator already under any kind of surveillance. Driver was on a peace bond -- barred from contact with terrorist organizations. Otherwise the killers all slid under the intelligence radar. And all four got killed, making it impossible to learn more about their motives. Of course, security forces could profile typical killers. Let’s see -- young, male, impulsive, loners, hooked on social media, viewing strangers as enemies… Yup, that certainly narrows the field.

An organized enemy
Not long ago, we could blame these attacks on an organized enemy. Ordinary people were too stupid to organize mass violence on their own. Therefore they must be pawns manipulated by distant masterminds -- by Al Qaeda or ISIS today, by international communism or religious cults yesterday.

There’s some validity to that assumption. Canada’s terrorists have been notably incompetent. Aaron Driver detonated a device in the back seat of a taxi without injuring the cab driver. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Bruce ruled that John Nuttall and Amanda Korody were simply incapable of bombing the provincial parliament without RCMP support. But no one needs a foreign mastermind to commit terror.
Use what you’ve got This is the age of the lone wolf. No one has to issue orders. If you can’t build a bomb or buy an arsenal of rapid fire weapons, you just use a truck. Or, most infamously, a commercial airliner. I’m surprised that the National Rifle Association didn’t sanctimoniously assure the world, after September 2001, “The only way to stop a bad guy with an airplane is a good guy with an airplane.” Recent weeks have exposed the fallacy in the NRA’s “bad guy, good guy” argument. The guys who killed Alton Sterling and Philando Castile were supposed to be the good guys. In Dallas and Baton Rouge -- and earlier in Orlando -- the good guys already had guns, but they weren’t able to stop three bad guys. Eight good guys died. Along with 49 innocent bystanders. “If guns are outlawed,” insists the NRA, “only outlaws will have guns.” That might actually be an improvement. At least if someone had a gun, you’d know he was an outlaw. I sometimes wonder if poet W.B. Yeats was prescient. He wrote in his poem The Second Coming: “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world… The best lack all conviction while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.” It’s hard to believe that lines written almost a century ago could so accurately describe the present situation. 

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Copyright © 2016 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved. To send comments, to subscribe, or to unsubscribe, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN
After last week’s column about getting annual medical checkups -- and suggesting some other kinds of checkups as well -- Cliff Gieseke wanted to know about the financial side of medical care in our two countries: “Is all your health care paid for by your Canadian health care system? “Sadly, where I live in the U.S. we still do not have National Health Care. We do have Medicare for older folks like me and it paid half a million dollars for a stem cell transplant for the multiple myeloma cancer I have. If I had been under 65 I would have had to have gone to Havana, Cuba for a stem cell transplant (I called a hospital there and the lady I spoke to verified that they did stem cell transplants. I am a Spanish speaker and communication was not a problem.)”

Tom Watson liked the idea of regular checkups: “Another thought-provoking column! We all need such checkups on a regular basis no matter what age and stage is hurtling toward us. You suggest you need a map reader. In my car, I rely on a GPS -- it tells me, unambiguously, how to get to where I want to go. But in life as a whole, there is much more ambiguity. So what to use to keep us on track? Is the way in which we are maintaining our relationships with others and the world around us perhaps one pinpoint on the map, and a check on how we're doing? . 

Isabel Gibson might also have been thinking about GPS systems: “In a less mobile age, when people lived their whole lives in one community, I wonder whether parish priests and pastors used to provide the spiritual check-up 
service you crave -- or, at least, gave a sharp tug when they saw someone wandering off down the wrong path. “I sense an opportunity for an app . . . largely customizable so that users could tailor it to the things they (profess to) care about -- but maybe with a few surprises to keep it interesting.”

Dale Perkins does get checkups: ”Having turned 75 in July, I'm well aware I'm into the last quarter of my life. I do the annual stuff, but nothing about my spiritual health/well-being. Wonder about anybody around I might consider checking in with that one -- I do see a retired Jesuit every few weeks, for spiritual direction. That's good, and we respect each other enough not to guard our language or any need to protect 'mother church' from our indiscretions. I doubt if he keeps a record of our visits (like my MD does), so I’m probably protected from litigation from the institutional church (should anybody be so crazed as to attempt to sue or discipline me).”

The column prompted Eduard Hiebert to pursue some additional areas: “I like your application of a physical checkup as a springboard towards a possible review of "other kinds of checkups" -- emotional, spiritual, etc. “I'd like to make the move even easier, and note that the language we use to do so, or for that matter the lexicon of words we use, may in fact act like blinders that prevent us from seeing the larger picture. “Towards seeing the larger picture, if instead of an annual "checkup," perhaps if we saw this as applying a measuring stick annually, then further and various reference points come more easily to mind. Such as comparing measures of ourselves over time, or against others… These and more are the factors that help reveal our health. “Conceptually as well, a measuring stick approach would likely open the door more easily, and consistently help move us from seeing the world in absolutist binary terms like black and white, us versus them, either/or terms, to that of seeing the world in colour, in softer shades of nuanced meaning, relativity and both/and. “Furthermore, not only would the measuring stick approach lend itself to more easily be applied the other annual reviews you referred to, but qualitatively measuring sticks of much more depth and personal insight become more readily available.” “Not only would this measure help discern that we are all on a contiuum, but then could easily be adapted and applied to a wider annual stock-taking of our wider health, both individually and beyond as we extend the view to family, community, country...”

 I’m getting different stories about giving blood. David Gilchrist shared my experiences with Blood Services: “Like Helen Arnott, I too gave blood for many years, although I had Malaria while a child in Africa. But at 65, they turned me down. When I hit 70, they were taking it from 65s, but not 70s! Anyway, we have a shortage in our area, and I asked my doctor if I could give again at 88 but still fit enough to go trail riding and do my morning kilometre swim. She said okay, as there is no longer an age restriction. However, when the Red Cross checked my record, they would not accept it because I had had malaria. They used to take it and use the Plasma only; but will no longer do that! Too expensive, they said.”
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TECHNICAL STUFF
This column comes to you using the electronic facilities of Woodlakebooks.com.        If you want to comment on something, send a message directly to me, at jimt@quixotic.ca. Or just hit the “Reply” button.        To subscribe or unsubscribe, send me an e-mail message at the address above. Or subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message) to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at sharpedgesunsubscribe@lists.quixotic.ca.        You can access several years of archived columns at http://edges.Canadahomepage.net.        I write a second column each Wednesday, called Soft Edges, which deals somewhat more gently with issues of life and faith. To sign up for Soft Edges, write to me directly, at the address above, or send a blank e-mail to softedgessubscribe@lists.quixotic.ca

PROMOTION STUFF…
 Ralph Milton has a new project, called Sing Hallelujah -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.com Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up,  http://www.hymnsight.ca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)  Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>  Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com  Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.  Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatso@gmail.com or twatson@sentex.net
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