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Bob Layton Editorial: Lovely looking longhand

Morning light reflects off the Mandalay Bay Hotel and the broken windows where shooter Stephen Paddock conducted his rampage from the 32nd floor in Las Vegas, Nevada, October 3, 2017. Reuters/Mike Blake

In the time before everyone had a computer in their home, not that many decades ago, counsellors would tell their patients if they were upset with someone to write them a letter in longhand, take your time and put in all the details and all of your feelings.

Then, just put it in your desk, don’t mail it for a while, and then re-think it and see if you still want to send that letter.

Breaking news from Canada and around the world sent to your email, as it happens.

As you might guess, many never sent it, but they did get all that emotion out of their head and onto paper.

Today, people upset with someone just hammer out an email and hit send – sometimes with devastating results, like the owner of a vegan food truck in Las Vegas.

When that mass shooting happened outside the Mandalay Bay, Delinda Jensen wrote, “Yes, I am jaded, 58 meat eaters are dead. How many animals will live because of this?”  Then she used an expletive to show she did not care about “carnists”.

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Then she got death threats and had to shut down her vegan business.

Looks like there is a place for longhand, after all.

And, by the way, not all country music fans eat meat.

Bob Layton is the news manager of the Corus Edmonton group of radio stations and a commentator for Global News.

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