A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

Why some of our biggest problems just drag on (and on) My late father took to calling me “Little Miss Know-It-All” once I became a columnist. My mother still teases me about it. It’s a funny thing, being an opinion writer. You have to be out there with something to say - otherwise, what’s the point? It seems I’m always weighing in on one thing or another, and never mind that I might not have known the first thing about the subject prior to that.   I wish I really did know it all, because wouldn’t that just be the coolest thing? But what journalists are good at is identifying problems. That doesn’t mean we know how to solve them. Still, you learn a lot after years of writing about problems.   The upside of journalism is getting to see big thinkers working together with the information, insight and team skills needed to solve a problem. The downside is realizing how often we get stuck, and how the ruts in the road just keep on getting deeper in the places where we’ve spun our w...

There's a great new report out from the Vancouver Board of Trade and the Justice Institute that really puts some solid figures to the argument that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure when it comes to social services to children and families. We all know that - even government knows it. But the reality is that time and again we ignore the wisdom and scrap preventive services, leaving some future taxpayer to foot the bill for all the crisis costs that will come due once the child who didn't get the support they need grows up into the adult awash in poor health outcomes, criminal involvement and low productivity. Read the report here. 

I can relate to that poor bus driver who got lost on the way to Bamfield with a busload of students. I've done that drive, and found myself wondering many times along the way which was the most likely outcome: That I would take a wrong turn and get lost forever on the winding gravel roads between Victoria and Bamfield, or be killed by one of the giganto super-size logging trucks whooshing past me. Fortunately, I happened to pick up a mom-and-son hitchhiking duo a couple weeks ago on a drive back to Victoria from Courtenay, and they hailed from Bamfield. The son gave me very sound advice for staying on the straight and narrow while driving to Bamfield: Follow the power lines. Either that or drive in sensible fashion to Port Alberni and take the Lady Rose steamboat in. Lovely way to see Bamfield.

Thank you, UBC researcher Kate Shannon, who wrote this piece for the Canadian Medical Association Journal this month. Note the tremendous surge in arrests for outdoor sex workers in Canada due to short-sighted changes in the communications law in the 1980s, and with zero improvement in the lives of sex workers despite a lot of talk around that time of how the new laws were going to "help" women. We can't let them add another bad, poorly considered law to the mix by toughening up sentences for keeping a common bawdyhouse. From the September edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal: (All editorial matter in CMAJ represents the opinions of the authors and not necessarily those of the Can adian Medical Association.) The hypocrisy of Canada’s prostitution legislation Often described as the world’s oldest profession, the exchange of sex for money has always existed and will continue to exist worldwide. For many, the sex industry evokes a sense of moral unease, ...

Canada has a habit of following the U.S. into good times and bad. But with that big country to the south of us deep in the grips of truly terrible economic times, let's hope we're not following too closely. Here's an alarming read about the astounding amount of U.S. households going into foreclosure these days, and the equally astounding rise in homelessness happening in the big cities like Los Angeles, where homelessness grew  30 per cent between 2007 and 2009. As the story notes, one in 400 homes went into foreclosure in July 2010. In Nevada and California, the foreclosure rates are five times higher - one in 80. Scary to contemplate where this is all going.

If you needed any more of an excuse to lie around in the sun (oh, wait - that's me), there's a new study linking a lack of Vitamin D to the development of schizophrenia. Seeing as a lack of that vitamin has also been linked to higher risk of multiple sclerosis and a few cancers, maybe it's time for us to quit slathering on the sunscreen QUITE so thickly and start letting a little of that Vitamin-D-maker-in-the-sky shine on our skin. Just a little.

Google has changed my life, but you do have to wonder if they're aiming to take over the world. Here they are talking about their new "instant search" feature, in which you don't even have to wait that draggy millisecond after you hit Enter to find the info you're searching for on-line. Pretty soon, you won't even have to type in your search criteria - Google will just know.

Scientific evidence isn't for everybody An intriguing article  out of the U.S. on how people have a tendency not to trust scientists. Apparently we don't trust scientists as a general rule, and tend to pay more attention to the bad news and less to the good. But really, why is it a surprise that we don't always trust science? Science has been known to get things wrong many times in the past. So it is when you're human, of course - scientists are no more able than any of us to avoid mistakes and see past their own prejudices and presumptions that could slant findings. Pharmaceutical companies' growing power as funders of scientific research should only make us even more suspicious.

Have years of dislocation taught us nothing about people living homeless? What’s left to say on the subject of homelessness? We’ve studied the issue from every angle for almost 20 years now. We’ve lamented it, lived it and produced many, many reports on it, all urging immediate action. And yet at the end of the day, we’re still standing here wringing our hands - this time over conditions on the Pandora boulevard, but ultimately about a recurring problem we’ve pushed around the city for a long time now. Once it was the neighbourhood around Holiday Court. Then Speed Street. Then Fernwood, and Cormorant.   Now it’s Pandora. A couple years from now - who knows? If we still haven’t comprehended by then that the solution is to fix the problem and not just move it along, bet on a new hot spot somewhere in the city. Don’t get me wrong - good things are happening around homelessness. We’ve come a long way in understanding the complex problems and societal changes at the root of modern-day ...

Public forum coming up with Victoria Police Chief Jamie Graham, Sept. 7, from 7-9 p.m.  at Canada West University, 950 Kings Rd. The topic: "Families, Mental Illness and Police Involvement." Sounds like required viewing if you've ever wondered how police deal with people in an acute phase of their mental illness when they get a complaint.  If you follow the news, you'll know that a significant number of people in Canada and elsewhere end up killed by police in conflicts that occur due to somebody's mental illness. Often the person's family has even phoned in the initial complaint as a way of getting help for their loved one. Too often, it goes very badly - witness the tragic story unfolding in Pickering, Ont. right now . We all know police have a tough job to do, but there has to be a better way. Sadly, I can't make this Sept. 7 forum, but I hope to send somebody in my stead to report back. Register at  250-384-4225 or admin.bcss@shaw.ca. The forum is ...