There was a segment on CBC National News yesterday about a mother of a Grade 2 French Immersion student with a peanut allergy who had been bullied in a rather unusual manner. No, he hadn’t been pushed, pulled or otherwise tormented in the way we might remember from our own time in grade school. This bully used a form of psychological warfare against the nut allergy victim.

According to the story, the bully went up to the peanut sufferer and whispered in his ear that he had rubbed nut residue on his clothing. The boy went home in a panic and told his mother what had transpired. The mother became alarmed and alerted the proper authorities. They conducted an investigation and confirmed the bully had said these horrible things, but there was no evidence nut residue had actually been rubbed on the unfortunate child.

And that’s about it. Other than an interview from some psychologist who opined that the incident was one of “assault” and a CBC reporter reminding us the child couldn’t be charged with said assault because he’s all of eight-years-old, that was the entire news report.

What’s amazing isn’t just the fact this story made the news, since the CBC has a proclivity for dredging the mundane. But the idea that a Grade 2 student making an idle threat about nut residue, that may or may not have existed in the first place being worthy of some kind of alarm-raising outcry, is disturbing.

Is this what the world has come to in the modern day of bubble wrap parenting? That some peanut allergy kid with a high level of gullibility has been “assaulted” because he was forced to endure the uncertainty of whether his clothing might be infected? I must say, I don’t have a great degree of confidence in the child’s intelligence since the invisible nut residue didn’t generate an allergic reaction before he had time to run home to mommy.

The post-bullying world we live in is cultivating these gullible momma’s boys by the millions. Whereas in my day one might handle this incident by bloodying the offender’s nose, we’re now teaching our children to be paranoid snitches. Now that the schoolyard fight has been removed from the equation, running to teacher or mommy is really the only option anyway.

It’s not that I’m insensitive to the genuine danger of peanut allergies. It’s the typical overreaction to the smallest incidents that is a symptom of a generation of parents who are micromanaging children’s behaviour to the point where we’re actually depriving them of solving their own problems.

In our desperation to avoid having our children experience the same horrible things we did, we rob them of an essential human experience. No, Johnny, don’t hit Simon. Work out your differences verbally. Well, it’s impossible for 8-year-olds to articulate emotions and desires, which is why children used to have a variety of methods to assert dominance in the nuanced power structure of prepubescent interpersonal relationships.

For those lacking wit or craft, there was the fist. For those lacking strength, there was deviousness and manipulation (the peanut allergy bully). And for those lacking both, there was charisma. We’ve reduced this now to a one-size-fits-all method in which we expect the power structure to be neutral, making everybody into the same nervous, paranoid easy marks that they are.

If you have a pack of dogs, you accept the fact that one dog will assert a level of dominance and each subordinate dog will find a place in the order. It’s only at the dog park that you see humans attempt to assert a neutral and artificial concept of equality. Children are a lot like dogs, since they lack the capacity for mature reasoning, empathy and respect, so they find other ways to create a hierarchy.

And adults, neurotic as we are, have destroyed that, all because we’re militantly fearful of having our children experience anything unpleasant. (Ironically, the segment preceding this one on the CBC was all about having children wear helmets while sledding).

There are genuine cases of bullying that still exist, though they’re rare and exist at the more mature grades. When a child decides to terrorize a large group of kids physically or emotionally, it’s something that should be addressed. But I haven’t seen any child like that in primary school. What I’ve seen is a fanatical attempt to push adult values on undeveloped minds by academics who obviously don’t remember what it was like to be a child.

The first time I realized anti-bullying had overreached its authority was when my six-year-old son was suspended from school for chasing a girl threatening to kiss her. He was suspended for sexual harrassment. The sick and perverted part of this is that the principal was inserting an adult desire that was impossible for my child to possess. He didn’t want to kiss the girl for sexual reasons. He didn’t even want to kiss her. He just enjoyed the way the threat made the girl fearful and exploited it to the fullest benefit.

As we grow up we learn all sorts of interesting and important ways to manipulate people. And let’s face it, the kids who learn how to push the buttons and get other children to do what they want aren’t the bullies. They end up being your bosses and your corporate owners. The passive, fearful child who runs to authority for protection will learn nothing. Except that solving problems with other people requires going to a person with greater power.

I don’t really believe bullying is as large a problem as we’ve made it out to be. What we have is a new generation of parents who want their children to grow up in a tolerant, pain-free, emotionless world. It’s a fantasy that doesn’t exist, so they’ve created rules and guidelines and PAC committees to enforce their delusions. All to the detriment of the next generation.

An image the CBC isn’t likely to show you. Omar Khadr during his younger, more happy days as a terrorist apprentice building IEDs to kill and main people.
Photo: U.S. DEFENCE OPERATIONS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

I can’t think of anything more appropriate to sum up this slobbering suckupfest to the life and times of a murderer, terrorist and a war criminal, than the following screenshot:

Whatever truth that the commenter imparted to gain the “thumbs up” from the 76 per cent of people who voted was apparently not truthful enough for the CBC, who not only deleted the comment, but appears to have deleted all and any comments that were approved of by the majority of the readers. Because you know what they say at the CBC, the customer is always wrong.

These, apparently, were allowed to stay. Probably because they reaffirm the main basis of truth the CBC operates under, which is that Canada is inhabited by a land of racists:

Well, uh, you see, Neoriel, the reason this young man is being villified, as it were, is that he’s an admitted murderer, a terrorist and a war criminal. Glad I could clear that up for you.

A pretty good little piece today from The Tyee begins with a rather obvious statement: television sucks.

I kept repeating that I was canceling my cable because, essentially, there were 60 channels and nothing on.
[...]
You can’t pay me enough to watch this crap; why would I pay for the privilege?
[...]
The rest of us have been skipping the ads for about 30 years, which has led to astoundingly inept product placement within TV shows, and more tuning-out on series like CBC’s current swillfest, Being Erica. There the hilariously bad embedded ads for cars and tea sound just like a 1970s detergent commercial. Incidentally, does anyone really need to ask why no one is watching CBC drama when they deliver writing and acting this amateur?

I quit my cable once again a month ago, like a bad recurring smoking habit, when I found out that the bill for my basic package of 40 channels with nothing ever on had gone up to some unbelievably ridiculous rate of $50 a month or something stupid like that. Which I really only paid for in the past so I could have the computer all to myself and not have the children bug me to put on a movie.

But really, who in their right mind would pay for the right to watch programming at a pre-determined time set by some network, who can then inundate you with advertisements for products you don’t want, or worse don’t need because you’re a man and frankly can’t wear tampons, when you can just download it for free? Has there ever been a more irrelevant era for the CRTC? I think not. And yet they continue to cost us untold millions.

Shannon Rupp’s article is a good little read in and of itself, with many truisms throughout that will probably gladden your heart and remind you of why you, too, gave up the idiot box in favour of Al Gore’s greatest invention. I mean, my wife and I have gone from never agreeing to what we should watch on the TV (and anyway I would always get bored during the six minute commercial segments and wander off back to the computer) to watching entire series over the course of a week. As Rupp writes (and kudos on picking the greatest drama in history in The Wire), “I didn’t want an episode weekly; I wanted to view the series when I had time.”

Isn’t that what it comes down to? Who, in today’s day and age, has the time to remind oneself to be at an exact location at an exact time with a stationary object in order to watch some show? It’s far better to miss a few weeks, and then download all the episodes at once and enjoy it commercial-free. And if I want to do that at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, or 3 in the morning, the prerogative is entirely mine.

Boxing Day gave me a wonderful post-Christmas present. I got a 32-inch HDTV for $199. But I didn’t park it in the living room. Nay, I connected it as my new standard VGA monitor, so that when we want to watch a movie, we no longer have to choose between relying on the kindness of network television doling out a severely dubbed and censored “Liar, Liar” over four hours, or scrunch up our eyes to make out the characters on my previous 17-inch desktop. Indeed, freedom has been won this Christmas, friends.

I posted up a poll from Harris Decima a few days ago which indicated a majority of Canadians support the funding levels of the CBC, or want them increased. I shared the poll purely as a curiosity, although I struck a nerve among many people who felt the very acknowledgement of its existence was a mistake. These people attacked the reliability of its data, the importance of whether respondents were apprised of the value of the federal subsidy before being asked the question, and from the more conspiratorial who roam the internet, suggested Canadian Press and Harris Decima were trying to make the CBC look good by distorting the real results.

The latter suggestion is, to put it mildly, absurd. And more than that, I think it really overlooks the more important question here, which is why Canadians feel that the CBC provides good value for the cost? I have my own answer to that question, but in order to ask it we must first accept the reliability of the poll results. Let’s face it. Most Canadians are satisfied with the CBC.

The main reason I think the CBC is supported is that Canadians have latched onto it as a part of our “heritage.” It is in the heritage department of the government, after all, and represents $1.1 billion of the $3.8 billion spent on cultural programs annually. Millions of people have grown up watching the CBC, many of whom remember when it was the only channel on television in remote areas of Canada. This aspect of our attachment to the CBC cannot be overstated. It connected us with the rest of the country before the Internet and wireless technology made it commonplace.

Because we’ve come to identify the CBC with our cultural identify, as much codified within the laws of Canada as multiculturalism, it’s no surprise the CBC has become iconic and people defend it with vigour. But that’s only because Canadians have a fleeting and transient understanding of Canadian heritage.

When my family immigrated to Canada in 1853, there was no such as the CBC, but nor was there universal health care, multiculturalism, or ice hockey. Were Canadian families in the 1800s, who knew nothing of our national sport, unfettered access to health care, or the joys of Sushi, any less Canadian than we are today because they didn’t have these things? Of course not, and yet we hold these infant traditions as a core part of our national identity.

So, once we separate the emotional value of the CBC from Canadians, all we’re left with is the financial value. According to government figures, the CBC has operating expenditures of $1.54 billion, capital expenditures of $106.3 million, with revenues of $570.7 million, leaving a federal subsidy of $1.07 billion a year. It’s a ridiculous way to run a business, running expenses at 2.7 times the total revenue.

That’s not to say Canadians don’t get some value for the government service. CBC operates a variety of radio and television stations that have some good programming competitive with any free market media out there. Having said that, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to continue subsidizing one media company when there is such a plethora of choice in today’s world.

I don’t even like to watch cable television anymore, since the commercial advertising makes it unpalatable to watch. All of my viewing needs are now satisfied through NetFlix or internet downloads. I have complete freedom over what I want to watch, making the concept of programmed TV an archaic one. Andrew Coyne has expanded on this idea substantially, particularly when it comes to our other archaic federal media company, the CRTC. He foresees a future where Canadians pay for programming on a pay-per-view basis, which would render the attempt to force-feed people Canadian content programming as obsolete as force-feeding people the CBC.

Although I think the addition of Sun Network was a good one for media diversity, the constant attacks on the CBC have become tiresome, particularly since Quebecor glosses over the absolute wasteful spending in government. All Sun Media chooses to do is cherrypick the CBC and the arts. Well, honestly, $1.1 billion is a drop in the bucket considering the annual spending increases of the Conservative government, and their reckless and erroneous deficit projections (don’t think I didn’t notice Harper and Co. revised their deficit projections again last week).

If you go through the list of government programs in the above link, I’m sure you can find more than enough wasteful programs and departments to match or equal the outrage of tossing away $1.1 billion on one media company every years. After all, we spend $117.3 billion on combined social programs a year. The overarching issue here isn’t about one media company or one program, but a matter of choice. Should Canadians have the right to buy their television programming, health care and education? Or should we continue to force-feed Canadians what we think they want?

At least that’s what a Harris-Decima poll is claiming:

A Harris-Decima survey conducted for The Canadian Press suggests 46 per cent of Canadians would like the CBC’s funding to stay at the current level and 23 per cent would like it to be increased.

On the flip side, 22 per cent say funding should be cut, while 12 per cent say it should be eliminated altogether.

I’ve never quite understood the value of promoting one company above all others to the tune of $1.1 billion, but I guess I’m not a member of the 69 percent.

Meanwhile, access to information documents reveal the CBC wanted to use 22 Minutes Feels Like An Hour to counterattack Ezra Levant’s appearance in the CBC lobby. That, and they wanted to hire him.

Because I work in news I tend not to want to listen to news on the way in to work, so I usually have the radio tuned to some rock or pop music station. But there’s only so long you can listen to Katy Perry before you go crazy, so I also switch to AM radio to try CKNW and CBC radio. The Current on CBC this morning featured an interesting war games scenario involving Israel and Iran.

The host, Jim Brown, discussed three scenarios to war with Iran to curtail their nuclear weapons program, and none of them sounded very appealing. Brown interviewed, Sam Gardiner, a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, about the possible approaches to Iran’s regime. They were as follows:

1. Israel attacks Iran’s program preemptively with about 70 stealth bombers that would target identified locations, and then follow up with a special forces team that would set charges on underground facilities. The resulting fallout would likely draw the United States into supporting Israel internationally, while Iran retaliated against Israel with terrorist attacks and would inspire more fanaticism in the Middle East. The nuclear weapons program would likely be set back by five to 10 years.

2. The United States and Israel launch a coordinated attack involving bombing and special forces. No land invasion would occur and the entire operation would take place overnight. The fallout would likely be the same, says Gardiner.

3. Do nothing. Gardiner believes the Iranian threat is not existential to Israel, since he doesn’t think Iran would use the weapons on Israel without dooming itself to annihilation.

Listen to the segment. Which option do you support? Is there a fourth option?

Brett Beadle/Globe and Mail

So, the rough draft of demands for the Occupy Vancouver homeless campers has been delivered to the CBC and it is among the most amusing and ridiculous list I think we’ve seen since Al-Qaeda released their last video tape. Not only do they seem to desire a collapse to the entire economy, it seems pretty clear to me that they shoehorned every socialistic wish since the 60s. The only thing that seems to be missing is a call to arrest George W Bush and repatriate Omar Khadr.

The funny thing is that the first sentence of their first demand isn’t so unreasonable:

We demand that the wealthiest 1% pay their fair share by the closing of tax loopholes such as dark pools of liquidity and employer-side payroll taxes. Progressive taxation principles must prevail, income from capital must be taxed at the same level as wage income.

But it soon descends into darkness and lunacy. They demand the banks being nationalized and the board of directors crammed with union lackeys. They demand that all income tax be eliminated for those earning below a “living wage”, then fail to explain what that wage might be. They demand we pull out of NAFTA, which pretty much comprises 85 per cent of our trade, and enact protectionism. I wonder what the people who don’t earn a “living wage” are going to do when their household commodities suddenly balloon in cost under union-activated inflation.

Those are just the economic demands, proving that nobody in the Occupy Vancouver movement has ever attended an economics course. But then they move on to the political demands. And they are nothing if not ridiculous. The adoption of “Swiss-style direct democracy” and “Nunavut-style consensus decision-making” is just the beginning.

The occupiers demand we pull out of not just Afghanistan, but repudiate each and every ally we have in NATO. Then they want to strip the military of its entire budget and hand it over to health, education and housing. Which they’ll definitely need to do, given the fact they’re going to destroy the tax base by crushing the economy.

There’s specific mentions to the most popular of leftwing principles, such as ensuring the CBC remain a perpetual drain on taxpayers, reinstating the long-form census, and ensuring that climate change science is accepted as being settled. To make it even more farcical, the occupiers demand we begin an independent investigation of 9/11 with the specific intent of finding out that the U.S. government was behind the false flag event.

The eye-rolling nonsense continues:

28. We demand massage, dental and eye care be covered under the health care system.

At this point you have to wonder whether people in the developing world just think we’re assholes. Not only do have an extremely high standard of living, health and life expectancy, but goddamit, we want free massages, too. As I said before, the 99 percenters are sounding more and more like the top one per cent.

That’s not all. The occupiers also demand an end to drug control laws and that people be allowed to grow their marijuana more freely. They also want all harmless criminals let out of prison (which sort of contradicts their earlier demands that they want white collar criminals in banks arrested and jailed). And after the drugs are free and legal, they want the prostitutes legal, too (but not necessarily free).

And finally, there are significant environmental demands. They demand the oil sands be shut down without suggesting where the $6 billion shortfall to the federal treasury would come from. They demand we magically shift all energy sources from fossil fuels and nuclear power to wind, sun and ethanol.

In all, there are 59 very specific demands without a single coherent explanation of how any of this is affordable other than taxing the wealthy. In short, they’re asking for large-scale nationalization and collectivization, withdrawal from trade agreements and partnerships, withdrawal from military and economic alliances, alienation from our largest trading partner, a dismantling of our national defence forces, and adherence to conspiratorial theories about 9/11.

Any credibility the Occupy movement may have had before, is now as soiled as the grass in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

UPDATE

The Occupy Vancouver twitter account has proclaimed that the above list of demands was only made by a small group of their membership and that it doesn’t speak for the masses. Which could be true. But it does go to show what sort of company they’re attracting and keeping.

I’ve read a lot of silly, childish nonsense in politics over the years, but the Rob Ford case certainly comes close to taking the cake. It’s hard to ignore the silliness even from the other side of the country. And though I know that I will once again be offside with many people on this matter, what kind of a person calls 911 on a television personality dressed in a costume and wielding a paper sword? And when did conservative politicians become so fearful of a camera?

Look, I get it. I know Sun TV and CBC are locked in a battle to the death and this incident is being demarcated on that bigger polarizing issue, with CBC and leftwing supporters backing Walsh and Sun TV and rightwing supporters backing Ford. But, as I’ve always done, I think I can straddle the line and place ample blame in both camps.

First of all, if you hate the CBC but don’t know who Mary Walsh is, then clearly you don’t know your enemy well enough. She’s only been toddling around on that horridly unfunny show, This Hour Has 22 Minutes, for about two decades now. The woman has been playing the same character since Jean Chretien was fitting curtains in 24 Sussex Drive for the first time. I mean, the only thing more ignorant than revealing that you don’t know what Mary Walsh looks like is admitting the same thing about Margaret Atwood.

Was it inappropriate for Walsh to show up unannounced at the Ford homestead? I guess so, if showing up announced is some kind of historical precedent. Look, he’s a politician, he’s got to be used to it by now. If a camera shows up at your front door with a woman dressed with in a ridiculous costume and a fake sword, the last thing you probably want to do is call 911 three times. I mean, there are people with real problems in Toronto. And God forbid anybody with a fake paper sword visit Rob Ford’s house on Halloween, he’ll have 911 tied up all evening.

Did Mary Walsh “assault” Rob Ford? That depends. Do you consider unwanted human contact assault? I suppose by that definition there are people who get assaulted dozens of times while riding the TTC every day. And the irony, of course, is that part of the politician’s job during pre-election campaigns is showing up unwanted at the doors of would-be voters. Did Rob Ford assault every person who slammed a door in his face and told him to get lost?

I can understand that Rob Ford wasn’t in the mood for a painfully unfunny interview with Marg, Princess Warrior. He could have said as much, and either gone inside his home with his daughter or driven off. It’s not a difficult dilemma. It’s not even a mildly challenging dilemma. We’ve watched Rick Mercer interview literally hundreds of politicians over the years, some who recognized him and some who didn’t, and nobody accused the man of assault.

The only issue of any importance from this whole debacle, aside from learning Ford is humourless and panic-prone (certainly wouldn’t want this guy close to any red buttons), is which version of events concerning the alleged profanity is true. And even that is mostly immaterial. It’s hardly possible for Ford to embarrass himself any further than he has already. Nor should anyone be genuinely surprised to learn that the CBC misreported the facts surrounding the 911 call.

The only thing I can think of that’s more embarrassing than calling 911 after being interviewed by Mary Walsh with her paper sword is accusing her of assault. I mean, if only to restore some dignity, let’s see some rational behaviour here. I’m not sure it’s Marg who should be termed the “princess” here.

I’ve read some comments defending Rob Ford, indicating he had every right to call the police, that Walsh terrorized his daughter, and that in reality he had every right to shoot her dead for coming on to his property. To these people I say, “poppycock.” Get a grip on reality here, this isn’t Texas. If the worst thing you have to deal with during your mayoral term is Marg, Princess Warrior, you’ve got a pretty easy life.

Ironically, if you want to see somebody handle Marg with poise and confidence, you might want to check the archives for her encounter with Stephen Harper. I don’t think Harper charged her with sexual assault either.

UPDATE

This is actually pretty funny. I think Ezra actually wanted to be an actress.

The CBC’s Brian Stewart has an introspective piece about Canada’s role in Afghanistan, and although we haven’t officially left the country yet, it’s a post-mortem of sorts. I don’t have a problem with much of his article, including his commentary about the lack of communication about the real war in Afghanistan, the problems within the government and the bureaucracy, and the lack of real understanding about the culture and history of the country.

I’m also inclined to be more lenient on Stewart than I would a lot of CBC journalists, since he made the same media familiarization tour I did, directly before me, which means a great deal more than simply writing about it from Ottawa. Stewart is also fair in his dispersal of the blame of mission failure on both the Harper and Martin governments, particularly the latter, who made decisions about Afghanistan quietly and before the Canadian public’s attention was really on the mission.

Indeed, Martin carries much of the failure for Canada’s miscommunication on the mission, including but not limited to the dreadful handling of the detainee agreement with the Afghan government. Originally drafted by Martin’s government with General Rick Hillier, it was the lack of oversight within the arrangement that led to the catastrophic media coverage, which in turn sapped all vim and vigour for the mission. The Harper government hurriedly overhauled the agreement in 2007, but also did so quietly and in secret, leading to the false appearance of torture complicity and cover-up.

And yet, what Stewart’s article is really missing is a fair appraisal of his own employer’s role in destroying the country’s morale, when from 2008 through to 2010 it wrote innumerable articles hinting at, digging for, and alleging the Canadian military was playing a complicit or even direct role in torturing Afghans. The tenacity with which the CBC attacked this issue was unparalleled by any other media source, releasing documents like it was some kind of publicly funded WikiLeaks, heedless to the implications of its allegations.

The media assault on the Canadian Forces and the Harper government led to a fairly predictable and blatant blackout on the issue, which Stewart refers to as “cabinet secrecy.” This is surely unsurprising. When the CBC diverted attention from reporting on the war itself and invested the tremendous weight of its resources into broadcasting the great torture scandal, it closed any door it might have had on open and transparent leadership.

And the more the media attacked the Harper government on the issue, the less inclined it seemed to want to fight the political battle that the predatory and purely hypocritical Liberals and NDP were happily exploiting. It could be argued that the CBC’s wanton sabotage of the moral integrity of the Afghan mission led to the opposition being forced to cast itself as the official voice for the “torture-rendition-war crimes” movement, which led to the capitulation of the Harper government on this political issue.

The odious hypocrisy of the NDP in the Afghanistan mission could not be more apparent or more collusive with the CBC either. The same people who called for the open release of all and any information related to the mission in Afghanistan in the hopes it could politically destroy the Harper government, have protected the CBC in its refusal to release documents to other media who have made freedom of information requests. I do not go as far as Sun Media in referring to it as a state broadcaster, but it’s certainly a public company that has no right, no excuse not to release any and all documents to us, the taxpaying shareholders.

The NDP never had a dog in the Afghan fight anyway. Jack Layton suggested we simply make peace with the Taliban from the first day and after successfully helping to self-sabotage Canada’s effectiveness in its mission, took credit when the NATO leadership began murmuring about a potential peace deal with the terrorist organization. This is surely like Brutus casting the last, lazy stab wound into a dying Caesar.

It’s preposterous for Stewart to say that Harper fed the Canadian public as little information for “reasons still unknown.” The obvious answer is that the media vultures, led by the CBC itself, was less interested in the war itself and more sniffing for any blood in the water at all that might lead to a political feeding frenzy. This led to the PMO clamming up on the mission, which saddened both opponents and proponents of the mission there, but the PMO can hardly be blamed for not wanting to aid and abet its own destruction.

There are many lessons to be learned about the Afghan mission, but we would be remiss to ignore the media’s role in distorting the importance of events there. And though torture has surely taken place in Afghanistan just as ubiquitously as it happens elsewhere in the region, Canada did not go to Kandahar to rid the country of torture. We went there to provide security to the people that they would otherwise not be able to receive on their own.

I don’t want to be a conspiracy theorist on 9/11 and naturally I’m pleased that the boy has been returned safely to his family, but there are too many weird aspects to this story that don’t add up.

The first time I got a weird feeling about it was on Thursday morning when I heard the father talking on CBC radio in an eerily calm voice. Then there was the fact that the police knew right away who this abductor is, who seems to have all of the evasive stealth skills of an Mi5 agent.

So we’re to believe that Randall Hopley abducted this child and kept him for four days without a trace, and then after a public request from the father for his safe return, he sneaks back into the home where he abducted the child and returns him without incident? Then Hopley disappears again without a trace.

The weirdness of this story just doesn’t pass the smell test. Something is not right. If the abductor actually managed to steal the kid in the dead of the night, evade a province-wide search for four days and then return the kid in the dead of the night again before going on the lam is all true, it would just be too Hollywood for words. To top it off, the child can’t tell us what really happened.

The next few days are going to be very interesting.