I'm not even going to bother sending this to the Editor at The Stoney Creek News

Culled from the July 1, 2010 edition of the Stoney Creek News:

Seriously, Message to G8/G20 protestors

Was it just me, or did anyone else notice the majority of protestors at last week's G8/G20 summit were in their early to mid-20s?

Oh, to be 25 again, and have all the answers and wisdom to know what's right and wrong.

Ten years from now, as they sit on the back deck of a postage stamp house in suburbia, with a volvo station wagon parked out front and their children glued to their X-box, I hope they all come back and tell us how bad our democracy and capitalist economy works.

So. It would seem that the Stoney Creek News is branching out. Trying something new. (Not because it's perfected what it does, mind you. That notion is just plain...silly.)

Specifically, that Managing Editor Mark Cripps -the Group Managing Editor for all the area Metroland publications- has taken up...

...satire.

I have to assume it's satire. Otherwise, I'd have to regard this bit in his latest edition of 'Tales From The Crypt' as being the most ludicrous, the most farcical, egregiously condescending, the least professional -never mind ineffective- bit of soapboxing I've read so far in 2010.

But assuming for a moment that Mr. Cripps has not undertaken a stylistic morph into a satirical state of mind, even when the bit in question is tagged onto a 'humourous' piece, then there's a few things I'm compelled to say:

1) Mark, you're sounding OLD. Didn't you recently turn 40? How come you sound 60?

2) Are you painting ALL protestors with the same brush here? If so, are we going to retroactively paint the 60s Vietnam War protestors this way? The civil rights protestors of the same era? What about the current batch of protestors in Iran? See, I'm inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt, assume that satire was indeed your intent, because I know you realize that most protestors, no matter what era we're talking, no matter what geographical location being examined, have youth on their side. Without getting into this too deeply, I'm sure you realize that most 'older' people get too bogged-down in their own lives to be able to think outside paradigms and conventions, never mind the proverbial box, never mind being able to conceive of aligning themselves with even the suggestion of the notion of dissent. (Still, I have to ask: When was the last time you felt impassioned about something that veered from the path of least resistance? And no, your current travails with backyard bunnies don't count.)

3) Of course, by the same sarcastic token used to dismiss all of these 'youthful' protestors and their 'wisdom'...does this mean that everyone else in fact has all the wisdom, possesses all the answers? You know; your generation, mine, our parents'...? By extension, does this mean that we've actually gotten it all right, to the extent that there's no need for a discouraging word to be whispered, let alone declared via a bullhorn?

Seriously, Mark. Seriously.