Howard Won’t Get What He Deserves, and Neither Will We

Today on For Better or For Worse seems to be continuing down the path of criticizing the Canadian justice system, as Liz suggests that Howard Bunt will not get the punishment he deserves. The crucial ingredient which is unknown to the avid reader of this strip is: How bad was Howard to the other 2 girls? Did they get Liz-like treatment, or were they raped? This is difficult to judge from the information available. One way is to try to determine what would have happened to Liz, if Anthony had not been there. When Howard attacked Liz, it was during the daytime, in the middle of a store open to the public, where there were other employees who could walk in on them at any time. It seems an unlikely situation for an attack which would involve any kind of prolonged activity. The way it was played out in the strip with Liz, it looked like Howard was trying to kiss Liz and not much more. I suspect this could be because Lynn was more interested in the Anthony rescue aspect of the situation than a situation where Liz could be raped. As further evidence, you have the reactions of all the persons afterwards, who seemed to give the attack very little importance.

If the other girls are like Liz, and Howard tried to or did kiss them in a public place in the middle of the day, I don’t think Howard will get much of a punishment. My anonymous poster familiar with the Canadian legal system from back last year would lead me to believe it would be 30 days for each offence. The monthly letters have given us the clue it will be 2 years, so my guess is that this is the way Lynn is headed. But what does Liz really expect? It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It could be:

1. Howard comes off like an ass. He is taken down by Liz’s testimony and a much longer sentence than he expected, while Liz is impressed that things went better than she expected.
2. Howard comes off like an ass, but once again Anthony rescues her in some way.
3. Howard is completely repentant, and because of the Patterson influence, has decided to change his ways.
4. Howard comes off like an ass and gets a light sentence, if any at all, while Liz fumes about the poor quality of Canadian justice. Meanwhile, Howard gets his comeuppance in a different way, like falling in mud, or something like that.
5. Howard comes off like an ass and gets a reasonable/excessive sentence, while Liz fumes about the poor quality of Canadian justice, not realizing it is actually a reasonable/excessive sentence.
6. We don’t even see Howard, but we see another awkward conversation between Liz and Anthony during and after the trial.

Tomorrow’s strip: Iris can’t recognize her husband is not the one driving the scooter right beside her, and this is supposed to be funny? It’s funny in the pathetic “grandpa eats dog food” kind of way. It sucks to be old, but it sure is funny to laugh at them.