Oftentimes I hear people wondering why newspapers, including ours, seem to focus on what's wrong with our society. They want to see more good news stories, especially on the front page. However, much as we'd like to accommodate our readers, it's often the wayward in our society who make the headlines.
For instance, this week, if the world were just, the front-page story would be the efforts by Ali Khan and others to beautify the garden at Totem Lodge for residents and their families. While this may not be the most important story we cover this week, it's certainly the most heartwarming.
All of us here would also like to have just one week when there was no vandalism to report. And lately that appears to be a tall order. As quickly as one spate of destruction comes to an end, another pops up to takes its place.
In Gibsons, there are the fools who like to damage cars - scratching paint and breaking windows in strangers' vehicles is obviously fun on some level. And if that doesn't quite provide the thrills expected, there's always a newspaper box to kick over or burn.
In Egmont, most of the vandalism appears to be done by people in vehicles. Somehow the sight of destroyed landscaping is vastly amusing to a certain segment of the northern population of our peninsula.
In Sechelt, the midnight marauders seem intent on destroying any efforts to beautify local parks and boulevards. I can only imagine how discouraging this is for the parks department at the District of Sechelt. How frustrating it must be to plant and nurse decorative trees and shrubs, only to have lugs come along and either steal them outright or wreck the trees beyond salvation.
Considering the height and weight of some of the trees, it's difficult to put this down to a school boy (or girl) prank. It would take a lot of people to manage the wholesale destruction evident in West Sechelt.
Which brings me to my next point - most of the time, lowlifes aren't happy until there is another bottom feeder to share in the illegal deed. But I can't believe there are as many idiots on the Coast as recent events would have us believe. Either the same five people are running amok from one end of the Coast to the other, or there are a heck of a lot of people who are in on the deeds.
Whether they're doing the damage or just watching, in my estimation anyone at the scene when the carnage takes place is equally guilty. And if any of them feels so much as a twinge of guilt, it might be a good idea to call Crimestoppers and come clean.
Perhaps the time has passed for the rest of us innocent citizens to treat these goons with kid gloves. I think a fitting punishment might be a tattooed V down the face of the vandal. If nothing else, having it removed would sure hurt, probably almost as much as these senseless acts pain us law-abiding citizens. And just to be fair, we could put the tattooed pictures on the front page. Now that would be a good news story.
