An unexpected “feature” of the “Everyday Heroes” show at the Jack Frost Winter Festival here in Charlottetown this month was Batman selling the young audience on the virtues of police and firefighter adulation:

Now I’m all for supporting police and firefighters — they do, in fact, “put themselves in harm’s way” so that I might life a safer and more peaceful life. But I also think a healthy suspicion of the police is a Good Thing, and I’m not convinced that we should employ cartoon characters to propagandize our children to mindlessly look up to the police as heroes.

Of course mindless adoration is one of the big themes of the Jack Frost Festival — mindless adoration of corporate sponsors, etc. — so this isn’t an unusual aspect of the event. But it is sort of state-sponsored self-inflation.