Perhaps, like me, you feel that our world is spinning out of control. Not just a teensy bit, but in a serious and loathsome way.
There is so much to worry us. There is so very much to alarm and frighten decent people in this once-great country of ours.
On Tuesday, there came a hammer blow. During the televised inauguration of the new mayor of the great city of Toronto, a shocking revelation was divulged. It seems that the integrity of well-off, elderly, eccentrically dressed TV personalities is being assailed by a cabal of bicycle-riding newspaper columnists.
A stunned city council and local media – and an audience watching on TV – heard that this cabal is behind the unrelenting and escalating abuse heaped on church-going, hockey-supporting, elderly and oddly clad TV personalities among us. I thanked the Good Lord that I don’t own a bicycle. I shudder to think of the consequences should I be tarnished by association with such columnists. Vigilantes will surely congregate and take necessary action against the cabal. This city has its work cut out for it.
That such scandalous assaults on integrity can transpire should not surprise us, really. This is now, after all, a country in which a grandfatherly looking professor of political science and leading intellectual light of the Reform Party, Canadian Alliance and Conservative Party cannot go on national television and call for the assassination of somebody without it becoming an international incident. In countries with what is known in the vernacular as “cojones,” calling for the assassination of somebody on TV is considered healthy, robust entertainment. It’s the kind of thing that makes those countries great.
At such times of dread and disappointment to what, to whom, do we turn? To the police, of course.
Police Women of Dallas (TLC, 8 p.m.) is recommended to you as a soothing balm, a restorative experience to remind us all that in some places the forces of law and order patrol the streets in sleek cars, mocking and then arresting the lowest of the low. They even have fun doing it. What larks, is the gist. That they are comely women with fabulous hair is a mere garnish on the experience of watching them at their noble work.
The program is the latest instalment in the terrific Police Women series. Previously the series celebrated police women of Broward County, Maricopa County and Memphis. Now, however, we move into the metropolis known as “The Big D.” Even the use of the manly term “The Big D” should send a shiver down the spine of those in Canada who are distressed by the appalling state to which, sadly, we have sunk.
I invite you to meet Officer Person, a young lady who is loquacious on the precise meaning of the term “open-air drug sales.” She also tells us modestly, “I’m all about catchin’ the bad guy.” We meet Officer Person as she drives gaily about, seeking crime to vanquish. A call on her radio tells her that open-air drug sales are taking place. The person (that is, not Officer Person) who must be apprehended is described as “black male, white T-shirt, blue-jean shorts.” Eagle-eyed Officer Person locates and questions said suspect. The rogue tries charm, but it is to no avail. In the end, he admits his misdeeds and addresses his captor as “Miss Person.”
Take note that in the Big D, people with a name like “Person” have the good sense to join the Police Department. Hereabouts, a person with a name like that or, indeed, “Nobody,” feels free to wander the streets and thoroughfares and take umbrage when the forces of law and order express skepticism about a name like that. If you insist on going about with a name like that, you take refuge in employment with the police. It’s as plain as a poke in your eye.
I cannot recommend Police Women of Dallas enough. It promises to “follow female officers with the Dallas Police Department …. These brave women juggle intense cop drama and action as they patrol one of the nation's biggest metropolitan areas, all while balancing kids, significant others, and life at home.” And it delivers. Nuggets of commonsense abound. At one point, two lady officers inform a bedraggled and back-talking individual, “If you’re going to drink and you’re going to get stupid, you need to stay inside your apartment.”
Would that such guidance had been given to a certain cabal of bicycle-riding newspaper columnists in Toronto. Tipplers and back-talkers the lot of them, probably. The times we live in. The country we inhabit. Thank heavens that television provides a glimpse of people and places of true greatness.
* * * * *
It-could-get-worse alert: Blowout: Is Canada Next? (CBC, 9 p.m.) is a new documentary that explores the aftermath of the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast. It then transposes the oil spill to Canada's Grand Banks, asking, “Is it only a matter of time before an oil catastrophe happens in Canada?”
Check local listings.
