Just in?

The number of respectful and honest people ….Half of us.

TORONTO – If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if you lost your phone in public, a study conducted by an Ottawa-based security researcher suggests there’s one thing you can almost surely count on: a complete violation of your privacy.  The number of people, with opportunity to be respectful with others’ property, who practice what they preach: 4 of 100. Phew!  That’s evil.  If you have a better name for that I’d like to hear it.

If we knew the ages and gender we could blame it on kids, blame it on males, or if we knew their life experience or their educational achievements we could blame it on the traumatized or uneducated.  That  would not  change the fact that human beings are prone to miss the mark, even, of common decency.  That is not news.  What really is “just in” are the number of people who read the excerpt below (from http://ca.news.yahoo.com/odds-having-lost-phone-returned-50-50-privacy-171259550.html) and come away from the shocking evidence with nothing more than “I wouldn’t have done that”.

Community is not as safe as we think.  We have tried to build our sense of community on recapturing some idyllic time period or  on our efforts to create a community where righteousness and justice do flow like a river.  No matter how much we dress up our performances we are in the same boat as our neighbour.  If you are not an ace you are second class, so get busy; try to get past “one strike you’re out”.  The fight against criminality is not all there is to safety where we live, and safety is where we live, together.

It is a good thing that our capital has a better showing than other places.  Gee, we’re covered by Ottawa’s umbrella.  Before we get too comfy under the shelter, just look around you.  Statistically there is a person within your view who would violate you.   Why would I want to know who that is or how many exactly there are in the hood?  I am satan, slanderous and bent on destroying  other people’s lives if I do not get my way.

Have you ever seen one of the boys in blue chatting away happily on his cellphone while driving?  There’s the answer to why I would not want to know who and how many are likely to violate my privacy.  That is the cops’ job.  Can you tell where the arrests and citations would begin?

We had better wake up and start looking in the mirror more closely: the dishonest never like what they see because they  know what they want; the freedom to cut their noses off to spite their faces.  The first test, failed, is to accept what we see in the mirror (does a poll like the “lost cellphone” qualify as a mirror?), to keep our noses clean, and to accept that everyone of us has an evil streak that wants to dominate our will to be clean.