Canadian, eh?

Well, it's official. There's a full-time cop patroling my kids high school hallways, and the city's putting full-time cops in most high schools across the city. What seemed to be an American phenomenon has finally reached our fair cities, and we now work with "lockdown" procedures in case of stabbings or shootings.

Last week, a student was stabbed in the chest with a butcher knife at a local high school. Over a girl, no less. Kids seem to be carrying knives, machetes, and brass knuckles as their weapons of choice - to "feel safe". Schools are clamping down on Facebook accounts, and cell phones for their picture-taking abilities. Kids bully other kids by setting up Facebook "groups" to target unfortunate kids, and put cell-phone pics on YouTube and the net in general, as bullying tactics.

A teenage girl was attacked in the bush are behind her school, by a 14 yrs old, 16 yrs old, and another 18 yrs old. They tortured her, and beat her face so badly she's almost unrecognizable. This also happened back in Barrie, Ontario when I was running the street crisis shelter for youth. That particular young teen was attacked at a "party" because she refused to take an Ecstasy pill. She was beaten to a pulp also.

I have no answers, only prayers that my kids, and all the kids at their high school will be safe.

When we put violence in our novels, it's imaginary, happening to characters who're fictional even if they seem "real" enough to us as writers.

When the violence reaches out to our kids, it becomes something different. It feels like a Steven King novel, except that every time you see your kids get on their bus, you know they're not "characters" in a fictional world. They're your kids, your flesh and blood, the ones you love more than anything in the world.

And violence takes on a whole new meaning.