This week's mass processing inside (and outside) a Toronto courthouse helped clarify June's Jailapalooza festival during the G20, the largest mass arrest in our history. Of 1,100 detained, all but 227 had the charges dropped or were never charged. Most had no links to burning police cars or battered bank machines. They were picked up while protesting peacefully or looking on.

Why? Police say they wanted to prevent recurrences, after the dramatic events. Some intimate they were embarrassed by criticisms of their earlier inaction, and overreacted. Why had police gone missing at the crucial time? There's been no clear answer. One possibility: to justify the vaulting security costs via shocking images of violence.

Sheridan Whiteside is The Man Who Came to Dinner, in an old Broadway play (and movie) of that name. He's a celebrity asked to a relatively normal family's home for dinner, due to his renown. But he slips on the ice outside, breaks a leg, and moves in to recover, for endless weeks, during which he commandeers the services of the entire household, utterly disrupts their normal routines and, above all, is totally oblivious to his impact. He is magnificently absorbed in his own needs, comfort and, er, security.