[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

(early, for a change!)

Asking Prayers

I ask your prayers, good people.

I ask your prayers because tomorrow night, this time, I may be in the midst 
of a drunken riot. I hope not, but it's a distinct possibility.

This weekend is Homecoming at Queen's University in Kingston.  Last year at 
Queen's Homecoming, we had a drunken mob scene involving 4,000 students 
(about a quarter of them townies or visitors), who trashed the student 
neighbourhood, turned over and set fire to a car stolen for that very 
purpose, and generally flipped the finger at the authorities and the city. 
They threw beer bottles at police and assaulted an ambulance trying to get 
in to take out an injured student.  It was an unbridled display of 
entitlement, destructiveness, and irresponsibility, masquerading 
alternately as "having a good time" and trendy alienation. There are some 
underprivileged kids at Queen's, but not many. It's Canada's equivalent to 
(say) Princeton.

There was a LOT of anger in Kingston about that scene, especially because 
the students refused to accept responsibility, made excuses, blamed 
everything on the visitors, and whined extensively about "police 
brutality"; in the course of defending themselves, the town cops had pushed 
a couple of students off the curb. Queen's University refused to ante up 
for the $86,000 needed for extra policing because the riot took place off 
campus, and so the costs came out of Kingston's pockets. Mine included.

This year, we're scared and angry -- scared, because whatever the students 
themselves may think, it is quite possible that someone will die this time; 
and angry because of the entitlement issue ("I get to have fun and **** you").

A local Queen's alumnus has organized a town volunteer initiative, which 
I've signed up for; we're going down to the Queen's student ghetto tomorrow 
evening, before the party really gets going, and we'll just be there -- 
talking to the kids (we hope!), bringing food, and adding a calming 
influence. The students aren't happy about this, as we're apt to dampen 
things down, and we make them feel less good about themselves. The city is 
also bringing in heavy-duty police units, prepared for a riot; our job will 
be in part to work with the police. And to take notes. There will be a lot 
of video cameras going.

I've come up with a contribution that I've sent to the organizers, to wit:

"An Aboriginal tradition holds that each of us has within our souls two 
wolves, a wolf of goodness and nobility, and a wolf of destructiveness and 
irresponsibility. The two wolves are always in contention. Which wolf wins? 
That depends on which wolf you choose to feed.

"On Wednesday, a young man who had chosen to feed the wolf of 
destructiveness -- someone to whom nothing really bad had ever happened, 
but who chose to feed on Goth black romanticism and alienation, who was 
wholly self-focused, who had an endless sense of entitlement, and who held 
everyone in hatred and contempt -- walked into Hudson College in Montreal, 
and opened fire.

"Is that the company you want to keep?"

I ask your prayers for two things: first, for my own (and everyone else's) 
physical safety tomorrow night, and second, for REALLY, REALLY heavy rain. 
Preferably a downpour, lasting the evening.  I'd rather get soaked than 
crowned with a beer bottle.

I'm hoping Gandhi had it right. And I'm taking apple crisp to the ghetto. I 
only hope nobody shoves it in my face.

Molly