Bananas

I have a banana on my desk. The skin is still a bit too green for easy peeling, so I'm watching it ripen. When it turns a proper shade of yellow, I will take my lunch break.

The banana is my favorite food. Since 2005, I estimate that I have eaten well over one thousand bananas. During that time I have not decapitated a single Greyhound passenger, nor have I cannibalized said passenger in front of a busload of horrified onlookers. I have never stabbed a sleeping man to death or used a human head as a prop for my one-man performance art installation. I love bananas but I am not crazy.

It happened though. A man on a Canadian Greyhound recently killed a fellow passenger and decapitated him as the other passengers heroically fled for safety. At least one Canadian newspaper has used this event as a cause for advocating random bus searches by drug-sniffing dogs.

Minutes before he was savagely slain on a Greyhound bus last week, Tim McLean was busy texting some friends,and reports are that in one of his text messages,he mentioned that other passengers on the bus were taking ecstasy.
No link has been drawn between his death and illicit drug use.
But,in any case, let us assume he was accurate in his observation.McLean's bus was bound from Edmonton to Winnipeg. Had sniffer dogs been patrolling the Edmonton bus station, they might have been able to nab those individuals who felt they had a right to carry drugs in a public place and to use them on a bus. Greyhound's policy states: "We have a zero tolerance for alcohol, drugs, weapons and unruly behaviour."

In the wake of the attack, Greyhound scrapped a billboard ad campaign that extolled the relaxing side of bus travel.
The ad said: "There's a reason you've never heard of 'bus rage'."

Now you have heard of bus rage.

So there is no evidence that drugs played a role in this murder, but let's just assume they did and pass laws according to that assumption, says the Calgary opinionater...Canada is starting to sound pretty darned American with this new presumption of guilt until proven otherwise.

Somehow, I don't think it was ecstasy that killed Tim McLean. I think it was the hunting knife that did him in. Perhaps a metal detector would have been a better preventive measure than a drug-sniffing dog.

Curiously, the bus was watching a 'Zorro' movie at the time of the killing but I haven't seen any calls to ban Zorro movies. Zorro stabbed people in the movie...is there a connection here? No link has been established between the movie and the murder, but let's assume there is one and ban all movies that feature swords. Or knives. Or eating. If your bus or plane is showing "Silence of the Lambs", you may wish to consider hitch-hiking.

Drugs may have played a role, however. According to police, thirty-seven people witnessed the murder, decapitation and subsequent human snack attack...were they all so stoned that they couldn't stop one man?

Human Redemption Update: I just learned that a co-worker I have never met is being presented with an award for running into a burning building , yelling and waking up people who otherwise would likely have suffocated. Many years ago, a homeless man did the same thing in my brother's apartment building...it's important to remember that there are still some good people out there. Kudos!