Quote, unquote: Complicated visual symbolism

"Yet the traditions of police funerals, for me, evoke images that have nothing to do with mourning and the genuine connections between people that such tragedies engender. These events, rather, are filled with profoundly complicated visual symbols — of invasion, of force, and of a conspicuously defensive sort of esprit de corps."

-- from a thoughtful and thought-provoking post by John Lorinc on the Spacing magazine blog about Sgt. Ryan Russell's over-the-top funeral in Toronto last week.