THURSDAY

The weather has changed and it was raining heavily this morning.  I need new windscreen wipers.  They were scraping and making an unbearable noise driving to Tecumseh for the donuts, I rang Terry and he will replace them tomorrow.

The Kiwanis speaker was from the local REACT ambulance service which covers this area.  I think he said there are five ambulances which respond to about 15 emergency calls a day.  They are also used to transport patients to other hospitals etc.  

There are 9 casinos in the area and they respond to a call there at least every other day.  He wasn't specific though as to what the calls were for apart from heart attacks.  I guess if one has gambled away one's house it would cause a heart attack.

He said the fuel cost $6000 - $7000 a month.  I wondered how much it would be if fuel was as expensive as yours.  

By this time I was beginning to understand why someone has to pay hundreds of dollars if picked up in an ambulance.

I went to Larry's midweek service at the hospital, but haven't done very much for the rest of the day.

Remind me of something - when we have high profile trials don't the jurors afterwards disappear off into anonymity?   Here they are identified after the trial, and if it is a major case they write books and give media interviews, and make lots of money.  I'm trying to wrap my head round that.

Something else I had a job wrapping my head round today was the end of a trial in which a school teacher was found guilty of having under age sex with five pupils.  Fox News was covering the end of the trial.  At the end of trials here the victims (or in this case because the victims were minors, it was their parents) stand up in court and tell the judge how the crime has impacted their families, and generally have their say.  First a mother stood up and sobbed and wept her way through her statement (I'm not criticising her, bless her heart, I'm just TRANSFIXED at all this emotion in the court room) then a father stood up and was similarly emotional, then - in mid sentence - we leave the court room and an advert for colon health comes up.  That snapped me out of my daze.   

The teacher was sentenced to four years which doesn't seem nearly enough, especially considering the very high penalties for what I consider to be less serious crimes.