Cody Bousquet, Louis Riel, and more graffiti

On Page A13 of the Saturday Free Press, there was a little article called "Minimum sentences prevail":

Canada's top court refused to lower the sentence below the legislated minimum for Lyle Nasogaluak, an Alberta oil rig worker who suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung from an RCMP beating when he was arrested for impaired driving and leading police on a high-speed chase.

As it should be. A wrong by one person doesn't cancel out a crime by another. Unfortunately the Supreme Court didn't say anything about dropping charges and essentially buying off a dangerous offending punk like Cody Bousquet because the police officers wrongly, but understandably, roughed him up a little bit. Those officers should be reprimanded I suppose, but no way should the crown have given an inch in prosecuting the little shit.

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Q: Is Louis Riel a hero or a villain?

A: He's both.

Riel is different things to different people, and through the clouded lens of time he can be viewed as either. I argued on the first Louis Riel day, partly tongue-in-cheek, that it doesn't really matter. Most heroes from the past were flawed, but we forget about the bad things and remember the good things because it gives us a figure to rally around. At that point they become icons ... almost fictitious. Riel the person was a murderer, possibly insane, and certainly divisive. But Riel the hero and icon is something else entirely.

RELATED: Dust My Broom one and two. That second one is a particularly good read.

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I just noticed that the Free Press also picked up on the "authorized graffiti area" puzzle that I wrote about here and here. I must say that the Uniter did a much better job of covering it.

I suspect that commenter B-bonn is a reader of this blog.