Here’s a good one. Mental-health experts fear that the portrayal of Greyhound bus headhunter Vince Li, as presented in the media, will undermine attempts to treat mental illness.

Let’s flip it around. Look how Vince Li undermined the confidence society has in this same mental-health experts.

To be horribly blunt, the knife cuts both ways.

I am in Winnipeg still, guest-hosting the Charles Adler show on Sun News television, and Vince Li is just a half-hour down the road in Selkirk, Man., and now legally allowed to visit the town for a half-hour a week, with a security guard and a health worker.

This, as you know, caused a big stink.

Only four years ago, in a schizophrenic meltdown, Li stabbed to death a young man asleep next to him in a Greyhound bus, and then lobbed off his head as a trophy near the town of Portage La Prairie

Now his shrinks think he is good enough for outings into town and, according to one psychiatrist, has less than a 1% chance of re-offending if he stays on his meds. If, if, if.

But don’t throw ifs at psychiatrists. Many think they are God and Li’s shrink, in fact, thinks Li has a 0.8% chance of re-offending.

Do you believe that kind of precision when dealing with anything?

Neither do I.

Those who have long been fans of Maclean’s magazine, and various newspapers over the years, will be familiar with my much-older friend, Allan Fotheringham — Dr. Foth to his fans.

Dr. Foth, as you might then know, is hardly a fan of the British Royals, has written many, many times about how silly our association with them is, and has blamed Ottawa for not having the courage to cut Canada’s ridiculous ties with the monarchy.

So you might imagine the dismay in Fotheringham’s mind when he opened his mail the other day and found an invitation from Queen Elizabeth to attend the Toronto Lawn Tennis Club last Monday to accept the Diamond Jubilee Medal.

The invitation was sent via Art Eggleton, a Toronto mayor from 1980 to 1991, who is now one of those Ottawa types because he is also a senator.

Did Dr. Foth choke his words and accept the medal? Or did he stick to his guns?

Because I am in Winnipeg right now, and wanted to clear my commentary slate, I emailed the good Dr. Foth, looking for an answer. No worries. He was going.

He now has a diamond jubilee medal to go with the gold one he got 10 years ago.

Forgot all about that one, didn’t we?

Either the Queen holds no grudges or she has a sense of humour.

Today is my wedding anniversary. My wife’s too.

We got married in the Year of Orwell, and have managed to hang on for all the years since.

Think of George Orwell, think of his most famous book, and then do the math. I have run out of fingers and toes.

We have been empty nesters now for a few years. Arthur the Airedale is dead, gone and irreplaceable. My wife, Karen, misses him dearly because he was with her 24/7 whereas I am not.

I spend half my time either in Toronto or Ottawa, and the other half at home. My wife misses me too when I am away, but she misses the dog more.

And I am only half kidding.

He was a great dog.

Our daughter Erin — our only child — works for the Harperites in Ottawa as a communications strategist, is engaged to be married next year, and only calls her dear old dad when the moon is blue.

When I was her age, I did the same.

You don’t tend to think of your parents until you become one and start feeling old. My mother is 88, and my father has been dead since 1980.

When he died he was the same age I am now.

What I then thought was old, now feels young.

Funny how things change.