Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Violence

It is interesting the difference in the amount and type of violence between here and Chicago. In Chicago, it seemed the nightly news would report at least one if not more shootings. Here in Montreal, at first I had the impression that there were only crimes of passion or accidental deaths that I would hear on morning rock station radio. By the way, if anyone has a good alternative radio station suggestion here in Montreal I would love to hear about it. I'm kinda stuck listening to classic rock which is fine time to time, but not everyday. Now that I listen to news radio in the evenings, there is more violence than I originally thought, but again, it is primarily crimes of passion or accidental deaths. Along the lines of old boyfriends attacking old girlfriends or hit-and-run deaths. The interesting thing is the lack of shootings. Attacks are generally with knives, which in my mind is a bit more savage and difficult. For me shooting a gun would be easier and less personal. It may be this personal connection and drive needed to use a knife that contributes to the less frequent accounts of homocides. Again, this is not based on numbers and statistics, but personal observations. Bowling for Columbine makes reference that there are ten times less crimes via guns even though there are a higher percentage of gun owners. Why they don't use them is a sociological question that I may address at another time.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you tried internet stations? The cbc allows you to tap into some cool eklectronic, as well as wnur at northwestern university!

Hope all is well...

Jason Palma

Unknown said...

Thanks for the idea, Jason. All is well.

Actually internet stations won't work for me except for the few times I listen to music on my home computer. My work computer doesn't have a sound card and I was looking more for stations I can get in the car. I flipped through the stations the car could receive, but no luck. Some co-workers suggested a couple college stations (McGill and another) but I haven`t tried them yet.

Anonymous said...

I listen to BBC Radio 1 through internet, but if you want an alternative radio station then the mest choice imo would be The Buzz @ 99.9FM. It's a Vermont alt rock station, I listened to it religiously in late 90's while in college

Anonymous said...

Haha, I am from the States and went to McGill. I'm now back in the US, in Chicago, more specifically. The funny thing is that when I went to school in Montreal many moons ago, I used to make the exact same comparisons. For instance, I also noticed that the crime was a lot less... and also it was more stabbing deaths than shooting deaths too! ALSO... what got me was the prevalence of Hell's Angels related crime... I now know that HA is a major player in crime, but back when I was a freshman, it was so weird to hear about ongoing battle between the Montreal PD and the Hell's Angels... I felt like I was living in the 70's or something!