A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

Lessons learned from the brothel project July 25, 2008 It’s been close to a year since I started talking publicly about wanting to open a brothel. And let me tell you, it’s been one of the most fascinating and surprising years of my life. Brothels and escort agencies flourish in our region and right across the country, so I and my good pal Lauren Casey weren’t breaking new ground on that front with our little plan to start an escort agency with a difference. Our aim was to develop a fair and benevolent workplace for adult sex workers that also donated a share of profits to services and supports for disadvantaged workers. As you might expect of a volunteer project taken on by two very busy women, our plans poked along at a snail’s pace for months. But in the spring we quite accidentally connected with a human dynamo of a sex worker here in Victoria, who in turn connected us with a human dynamo of an entrepreneur with experience running a Vancouver escort agency noted for being a fair an...

Drunkenness at Music Fest puts teens at major risk July 18, 2008 As always, I had a wonderful time at Courtenay’s Island Music Fest this past weekend, and I don’t want what I’m about to say to be taken as criticism of what is truly a summer highlight for my family. But holy moly, there was some out-of-control drinking going on up there. There were kids drinking so hard that I suspect some of them were putting their lives at risk. They were falling-down, glassy-eyed, fumble-footed drunks. I can’t imagine the drunken coupling that went on in the teens’ sprawling, bottle-strewn campsites that wouldn’t have met the legal test of consent. I like young people, and saw a whole lot of them at Music Fest who were there for all the right reasons and not just to drink themselves blotto in the campground. So I definitely wouldn’t want anyone thinking that I’m pointing the finger at young people in general - or even underage drinking. What actually disturbed me was not that some teens were drinki...

Traumatic brain injury a common and life-altering experience July 11, 2008 One hard fall is all it takes. One punch. One smashup. One bolt out of the blue - a stroke, a case of meningitis. The official name for what results is “traumatic brain injury,” but that little label barely touches on what it means to have to live with one. Life will never be the same for those whose brains sustain a severe injury. People sometimes feel so dramatically altered that they come to consider the date of their injury as their new birthday. For Victoria man Des Christie, the injury was from a car accident at the age of 14. For the other 10,000 to 14,000 British Columbians who incur a traumatic brain injury in any given year, it might be a workplace accident, fall around the home, sports injury, medical problem, or any number of weird and unpredictable twists of fate. “In this organization alone, we’ve got a staff member, my younger brother, another staff member’s daughter and another staff member’s hu...

Little things mean a lot in halting a fall July 4, 2008 Everybody stumbles in their life. Most of us will bounce through any number of ups and downs over the course of a lifetime, some of it the result of bad choices and a lot of it for no obvious explanation other than bad luck and lousy circumstance. I suspect that’s why I’ve got a thing for issues like homelessness. I’ve seen my share of bad luck and lousy circumstance - nothing on a grand scale, but enough to help me see from an early age that life can hold some rough surprises. As the late John Lennon so eloquently penned, “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” Fortunately, every object nudged over the brink of the abyss is not destined to plunge non-stop to the bottom. Any number of things along the way can break the fall. The researchers call them “protective factors,” but what they ultimately come down to is having people in your life to catch you before you fall any farther. It’s a role that family ...