$ame old, $ame old

We are giving $4.5 Million to Simon Fraser University to study youth violence. And another half million to...uh...study youth violence.

Many wonderful people are involved and several levels of government.

Among other things, these studies promise to "develop more effective prevention and treatment strategies."

I have been observing these marvelous announcements for 45 years now.

And I have yet to see any results.

This is what governments like to do. They like to give money to intellectuals to do studies. They would rather do that than give money to the front line workers who are striving every day - usually without adequate resources - to PROVIDE prevention and treatment programs.

You know why governments like to waste your tax dollars this way?

Because paying for studies is safe. Politically safe.

If you pay for an actual program and something goes wrong, goes wrong, goes, then your political ass is in a sling.

Of course, it rarely occurs to these cowards that doing nothing - and paying for studies is the same as doing nothing - allows everything to continue to go wrong.