Victoria Sexual Assault Centre bravely breaks from the pack to stand in solidarity with sex workers

   

Draw close to the debate about decriminalizing the sex industry in Canada and you will quickly learn that while sex workers' organizations are working hard to move this issue forward, they don't enjoy much support from most women's groups.
    At least on the surface, the problem seems to boil down to a fundamental divide between those who see all sex work as exploitation and victimization, and those who support Canada's adult sex workers in making a free choice to work in the industry and in safe circumstance. Many women's groups have tended to align themselves with the exploitation side of the debate, which has left sex-worker-led organizations largely on their own to fight for safer working conditions, equality and basic human rights.
    Given what a hot-button topic this is among women's groups,  it's a powerful thing that the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre has done in stepping up to the plate this week to announce its solidarity with Canadian sex workers. The organization voted unanimously to support decriminalization and join the fight to stop Bill C36, the proposed law the federal Conservatives want to bring in to criminalize even more of the sex industry.
    With other women's centres such as Vancouver Rape Relief taking the opposite position on C36, it took real bravery for VSAC to stand up against the more popular view of sex work as victimization (a view that rarely includes the opinions of real-life adult sex workers who say they choose to work in the industry). VSAC is even standing in opposition to the position taken by the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres, which is against decriminalization and views all sex work as violence. That takes guts.
    Federal Justice Minister Peter MacKay and the Harper government are so certain they are right on this one - that the answer to problems in the sex industry is to crack down harder on it with more laws. They're wrong. And what's really disturbing is that so many otherwise terrific women's organizations, whose strong feminist roots ought to have taught them all to be mindful of silencing and patronizing other women, are also wrong.
    Yes, some people really are suffering and being victimized in the sex industry, and we need to do a lot more to help them. Human trafficking for any reason must not be tolerated, and children should never be exploited, coerced, abused or forced into any kind of work.
    But that doesn't have to come at a cost to the adults who choose to work in the sex industry, a group that I suspect probably numbers in the tens of thousands in Canada alone. Why are rights-based organizations that do such good work on so many other fronts unable to acknowledge that there is a significant population of sex workers who completely reject being portrayed as helpless victims? Why do sex workers have to suffer just so others can feel safe and smug in their pretension that it's possible to eliminate the sex industry if we just lay enough criminal charges?
     But along comes the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre to remind us that all it takes is one brave soul to break from the pack. Who knows what waves VSAC's decision might set in motion? Those who feel passionately about improving sex workers' rights are already convinced on this issue, but there remains a very large world of unconvinced who might be ready to consider the rights of sex workers if more support started coming from "mainstream" fronts.
     Years ago when I visited some of the legal brothels of New Zealand, I learned that the Federation of Businesswomen of New Zealand was among the organizations that actively supported decriminalization efforts. I felt a flash of pure envy for a country where even the regular folk were ready to stand in solidarity with sex workers. Surely that day will come in Canada? Surely.
     PEERS Victoria has worked hard for many years to explain the realities of the sex industry to a doubting community. I've been connected to PEERS in various ways for 15 years now, and admit that at times I wondered if any of those messages were being heard. VSAC's support is profoundly heartening confirmation that while the pace of change sometimes feels glacial, somebody is listening.
    

Who knew? I'm really into Twitter

    Last week when I commented on Facebook and then reworked the comment into a blog post that I could tweet, I felt like I was one with the social-media universe. I know a lot of people who have mixed feelings about social media and how it's changing the cultural landscape and way we interact. But personally, I love it.
    The big surprise for me has been Twitter, which I avoided for the longest time. The idea of being restricted to 140 measly characters just didn't do it for me, and I really didn't want a whole new "thing" to have to tend on-line.
    But I finally caved a couple of months ago and signed on, only to discover that a well-planned Twitter feed is like having an army of story-hunters around the world connecting me to the most interesting and diverse angles on what's going on out there. I've never had so many interesting news stories put in front of me.
   I like Facebook, too, although it tends to be used more as a gentle and life-affirming medium for my age group, a place where we go to feel good, catch up on the Facebook family goings-on, and share photos of the grandkids or our winter vacations. I also really like it for crowd-sourcing information, like "Who are the best caterers in town?" or "Where's a good venue for a public meeting?" I've spent this past summer in a series of great housesits thanks to connections on Facebook.
    Twitter, on the other hand, is a rougher space where the news is mostly edgy and the clash of opinions much more pronounced. I guess I must have been missing that in my life, because I'm not only loving the stories that my fellow Twitterites are delivering, but also my own hunts to find stories to share with them in return.
    Could a Twitter-like thing be the replacement for newspapers, which appear to be in their death throes? Could be, although the best Twitter stories for my money are still largely generated by paid journalists working in real newsrooms (Globe and Mail, New York Times, CTV, CBC, established on-line news sites). I think we'll always need at least a few good reporters who get paid to do their work, because otherwise a crowd-sourced news site like Twitter risks devolving into a forum for conspiracy theories, unsubstantiated comment, scams and incoherent rants. (Or cute-kitten videos.)
     But something Twitter does much better than traditional media is to act as a kind of clearing house so that stories from all over the world are coming directly to the Twitter subscriber without first having been boiled down or reinterpreted by media in the country where you live. It's like removing the middle man, and it really opens up the global conversation.
    There is much more space on Twitter than there has ever been in traditional media for the voices of activists, protesters, radical thinkers, and those wanting to shake up the status quo. Facebook is where we go to have a hug and share a life anecdote, but Twitter is the place for those wanting to foment a little rebellion. I've been so happy to discover a global community of sex workers on Twitter, where they are shaping a unified political voice through this new connection.
    And you know, I kind of like communicating in 140 characters and hashtags. I like a format that lets me reveal the more intense side of my personality. I admit, I would like more than 89 followers, but hey, it's a start. Come find me and we'll mix things up a little, maybe start a small revolution. I'd like that.
    

I'm just going to keep saying this: Stop Bill C-36

   

 I wrote this response to a couple of my Facebook friends just now on a great comment thread that has developed on my Facebook site. The comments came after I posted a rather pleading message to people to get past the knee-jerk stuff around the Canadian sex industry and get informed before Bill C-36 becomes law. Figured I'd put it out to my blogger audience, too, because damn it, all of us who feel this way need to be shouting from the rooftops right now before this country goes and does something that is shameful, regressive, poorly considered, potentially harmful, discriminatory and mean.

     For Lisa and Darlene, you are both my friends and I have MUCH time for both of you, and I do understand that this is a divisive subject. But this is a time for getting together to understand why each of us feels the way we do. I know that both your viewpoints come from your own life experiences. But we can't just stay here like this, in a standoff where we will be doomed to repeat our many failures on this front. Even if we believe absolutely that the industry must end and people urgently need help to leave it, surely we still want safer work places and human rights for those who are not yet in a position to leave, or in fact are quite happy to stay. 

There is room for all of us in this tent, but this ridiculous pretence that we can "help" people by further criminalizing the work they do is insanity. I don't think this has to be a question about accepting the sex industry, it's about providing the same level of basic rights, respect, access to civil protections (police, contract law, employment standards, etc) and community welcome to people regardless of what job they do. 

    Those who want to debate the right and wrong of a sex industry can continue to do that and see what can be done about it, but the question of decriminalization is, in my mind, not one about why people buy and sell sex but one of rights for a large population of workers who are mostly women, mostly earning at the lower middle income level, and really needing a break from being judged, talked over, silenced, patronized, misunderstood and arrested. I can barely handle that my own country is poised to make life just that much tougher for these workers. People, it is wrong, wrong, wrong. Please don't sit on the fence on this one.

And here's my original post on the subject. 

     How can a country so similar to ours, Australia, be progressively having a public discussion around ensuring employment insurance for sex workers, while Canada is poised to retreat into further criminalization? I know people hate this subject - I know it by the teeny number of "likes" I get when I post anything about it, compared to when I post a photo of an attractive flower or a grandchild. But people's need to not have to think about the existence of sex work does not outweigh Canadian sex workers' need for safer work places and a little dignity and respect. If you've ever thought that you really should learn more about sex work and get out from under the misinformation and myths, now's the time. Start with the Sex Work 101 section on the new PEERS web site. http://www.safersexwork.ca/sex-work-101/. And please, please, join the fight to stop Bill C-36.

Canada looks better from a distance these days

    It appears that I may have developed an idealistic sense of Canada while I was off living in Honduras these last two years. I was thinking of it as a great country with a few problems it needed to pay attention to at the time I left Canada in early 2012, but perhaps the distance - and the contrast with super-troubled Honduras - led me to forget about the "pay attention" part and just remember it as a country that largely had its act together.
    At any rate, coming home and learning about some of the messed-up stuff that's actually going on in my homeland has been pretty discouraging..
     The stuff around sex work has been particularly unsettling, given my affinity for the people who the rest of us leave without rights, dignity or safe workplaces just because we wrinkle our noses at what they do for a living. It is so, so sad that we're preparing to go backwards with a law that will only make things worse for sex workers.
     But the video of the contaminated water pouring out of the huge Mount Polley mine tailings "pond" was another serious wakeup for anyone who thinks Canada's got it all figured out. I could hardly believe what I was seeing, that vast volume of poisoned water just pouring across the landscape. How was it possible, that we would allow a 170-hectare "pond" at a mine to be so poorly maintained that a breach of this size could happen?
    These kinds of things - stupid laws, the ignoring of environmental regulations - happen regularly in Honduras, of course. But while I wouldn't want to make excuses for any country, the truth is that the place is relatively new to democracy, poor as hell, badly educated for the most part and has a government style so hands-off and self-serving that it could have only been created by the most Republican of the U.S. Republicans that have influenced the country so heavily.
    But what's Canada's excuse? We're comparatively rich, our infrastructure is amazing, and our education system is like a golden dream to anyone from a developing country. We have been a democracy ever since we were born as a country, and at least in theory talk a good game about the importance of democratic processes and citizenship. We are very big on equality, and at times have been brilliant leaders on the world stage with our progressive attitudes and drive to be fair.
     Yet here we are, with a chance to do right on behalf of an underclass of sex workers that is largely female and contains the most stigmatized, misunderstood and discriminated-against  people in the country, and we are walking backwards - toward greater discrimination, higher risk of violence, deeper inequality. Is this my Canada?
     As for that haunting spill at the Mount Polley mine, the weird thing is that we've got tens of thousands of regulations in this country, including I don't know how many that would have something to do with not being allowed to leave your tailings pond to get in such disrepair that it might rupture all over the wilderness.  I bet most of us presumed the whole point of having so many laws around things like that was to ensure a day would never come when Canadians would have to see a massive lake of arsenic-contaminated water pouring across our landscape.
    And yet there it was. And yes, we can blame the government, as many people already are. But we citizens have been here the whole time that various federal and provincial governments were taking apart the regulatory bodies and stripping away the funding that used to ensure things like tailings ponds got monitored. We reelected the same kind of governments over and over again. We voted for governments that hated to govern, and it is just a little late to lament their failings now.
    Anyway. I guess it's just a reminder that no country is safe from bad law-making and stupid thinking (like that corporations could ever be left to monitor their own environmental impact, or that you could "help" sex workers by criminalizing their customers).
     I guess I started getting a little dreamy about Canada while I was away. I got thinking that while we admittedly stumble on some fronts, overall we were on the right path. But I'm back in the real world now.
   

Search for the truth on sex work

 

So many untruths are being bandied about as the Tories try to railroad uncertain Canadians into accepting new prostitution laws that will criminalize even more of the industry.
    I know from my own circle of friends - at least the ones who aren't sex workers themselves - that it's almost like people are frightened to rethink what they think they know about the sex industry. Yet there is so much exceptional research out there that challenges this fuzzy belief that to be a sex worker is to be a helpless, trafficked victim dragged into the business by a man who will beat you if you don't comply.
    But surely the public's instinct to want to avoid thinking about an industry they find unpleasant hardly outweighs the rights of tens of thousands of other Canadians to a safer workplace and some respect and dignity. In other words, get informed, people.
    And here are some excellent research papers and relevant info to help get you started:

• London School of Economics study on incidence of violent pimps, or any pimps at all, in the lives of U.S. sex workers
• Multi-project Canadian study into sex work funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research
• Straight-up information on "third parties" in the Canadian sex industry put together by the Montreal sex-work group Stella
• Opinion pieces, blog posts and research by Canadian sociology professor Fran Shaver
• Prostitution research from SFU criminology professor John Lowman
• A 2010 study of adult Canadian buyers
• Reality about managers in the industry from the CIHR research project
• Editorial in The Economist
• PEERS Victoria web site with connections to informed, well-researched resources about sex work, management of sex work, clients and more
• Researchers question findings of a Norwegian study of how new and punitive laws are working to control the sex industry

Lest we forget: A tally of police shootings and taser deaths of Canadians with severe mental illness

     I am haunted by the 2013 police shooting death of Sammy Yatim, and the words of Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair this month that the recommendations that came out of the investigation of the 18-year-old's death won't be "left to gather dust." If only we could believe that.
     Blair has said versions of that before, in past years when Toronto police killed some other person with mental illness. The case of Sammy Yatim was particularly tragic, what with him being a young man alone on an empty streetcar when he was first shot nine times by the police and then tasered as he lay dying on the floor.  (See the enhanced YouTube video of his death taken by a passerby here.)
    But he's hardly the only sad story.
     One night last week I went looking for every archived news story I could find on fatal police shootings of people with mental illness, and found at least 36 such shootings in Canada since 1988.
     And at least half of the 21 known deaths of Canadians after being tasered by police have also involved people with mental illness. (Must be careful with the wording here, as Taser International continues to assert that tasers don't kill people, just tasers when combined with cocaine use or that new-fangled thing we call "excited delirium," which I imagine we would all experience when about to be shot or tasered by police).
    There's nothing wrong with the recommendations issued in the wake of Yatim's death.  But when you go back through most of the news coverage of those other 36 shootings, you will note a striking similarity. And yet, ill people who desperately need help continue to be killed instead.
     While the Yatim case is a clear exception, I don't mean to lay all the blame at the door of police officers. They've got tough jobs at the best of times, and our country's decision in the 1980s to cut loose people with serious mental illness is clearly the root of much of the problem. We have left police to manage those with severe and chronic illnesses, which has to be just about as nutty of a societal approach as any you'd see.
     But here we are, with no sign that we're serious as a society about doing anything to correct that terrible decision. And people  - well, men, more specifically, as only one death has involved a woman - continue to die at the hands of police instead of receiving the medical and community help they so urgently need. A man gets shot, an angst-ridden community who briefly cares wrings its hands, a report is issued recommending this, that and the other, and soon enough it's all forgotten until the next shooting. In fact, another man with mental illness has already been killed by Montreal police in the year since Sammy Yatim died.
     There is power in speaking a name. So here they are, by name, to be remembered as those whose deaths once led to similar recommendations as those for teenager Sammy Yatim. Some were implemented, others weren't. And the country rolled on, each shooting treated like a surprising one-off instead of the latest indicator of a disastrously failed mental-health system.
    Lest we forget.

Fatally shot by police:

2014 – Alain Magloire, Montreal

2013 – Michael McIsaac, Durham

2013 – Sammy Yatim, Toronto

2013 – Steve Mesic, Hamilton

2012 - Farshad Mohammadi, Montreal

2012 - Michael Eligon, Toronto

2011- Mario Hamel, Toronto

2010 – Reyal Jardine, Toronto

2010 - Sylvia Klbingaitis, Toronto (sole woman)

2007 – Paul Boyd, Vancouver

2009 – Jeff Hughes, Vancouver

2008  - Byron Debassige, Toronto

2007 – Unnamed man, Vancouver

2004 – Martin Ostopovich, Spruce Grove 

2004 – Joe Pagnotta, Langford

2004 – O’Brien Christopher-Reid, Toronto

2004  - Magencia Camaso, Saanich

2004 – Antonio Bellon, Toronto

2003 – Unnamed man, Vancouver

2000 = Darryl Power, Newfoundland

2000 – Norman Reid, Newfoundland

1997 – Edmund Yu, Toronto

2000 - Frank Hutterer, Ottawa 

2000 - Otto Vass, Vancouver

1999 – Unnamed man, Langley

1999 - Unnamed man, Vancouver

1997 – Thomas Alcorn, Vancouver

1997 – Unnamed man, Vancouver

1996 – Charles Albert Wilson, Vancouver

1996 – Wayne Williams, Toronto

1996 – Tommy Barnett, Toronto

1994 – Albert Moses, Toronto

1992 – Dominic Sabatino, Toronto

1988 – Lester Donaldson, Toronto

Fatally tasered and confirmed to have a mental illness:

2013 – Donald Menard, Montreal

2010 – Aron Firman, Collingwood, Ont

2007 – Howard Hyde, Nova Scotia

2007 – Claudio Castagnetta, Quebec City

2006 – Jason Doan, Red Deer

2005 – Kevin Geldart, Moncton

2005 – Alesandro Fiacco, Edmonton

2004 – Samuel Truscott, Kingston

2004 – Ronald Perry, Edmonton

2004 – Roman Andreichikov, Vancouver

2004 – Robert Bagnell, Vancouver (opinions divided as to whether he had mental health issues)

May your life be simple and your reservoir full

   

   This is how life almost off the grid can affect you in a mere 13 days: It’s thundering rain this afternoon at our borrowed beach house in the Discovery Islands, and my first thought when it started to fall was, “This will be good for the reservoir.”

    Paul and I are currently in the waning days of an amazing housesit on North Rendezvous Island, at a property that is normally a little summer resort for getting away from it all but at the moment is totally ours. I can hardly believe our good fortune to have all of Solstua West to ourselves. I would be indebted for life to owners Pete and Karen Tonseth for the opportunity had I not been already indebted for life to Karen for picking up me and a Honduran dog in Vancouver after we got stuck there in April with no way home to Victoria.

    But back to the edge of the grid. A home like this – solar electricity only, water an ongoing concern in the summer months, no grocery stores for miles and even then only if you can drive a boat there (which we don’t know how to do) – quickly gets you thinking differently about things.

    For me there’s usually never enough sun, but these past couple of weeks I’ve found myself dwelling on the consequences of too many hot days in a row. And I’m feeling genuine pleasure at the sound of the rain pounding down all around us right now, imagining the depleted reservoir filled to the brim again and the dry gardens and lawns grateful for a good soak.

    I’ve been stung by two bees since being here, which also brought home to me another aspect of life on a remote island: No easy access to medical care. I’m not allergic to bees but they say that can all change with the wrong bee. So I stood there for a few minutes after the first sting just to see if I’d just met my wrong bee, and thinking that if my time really had come, at least I’d be dying in brilliant sunshine on a lovely island. But it turned out to be just another bee sting.

    Before we left for the island, we packed provisions like we were headed for wilderness. I guess in a way we were; the nearest corner store is a 40-minute boat ride away on Quadra Island, and as mentioned, we don’t know how to operate a boat. (Or manoeuvre the intimidating Surge Narrows.) But it’s wilderness with a super-nice gas stove, on-demand hot water and solar-powered fridge and freezer. So I can’t complain, even if I did eat through my treasured bag of raisins way sooner than I’d intended and at this very moment would kill for a big restaurant meal of fish and chips.

    We have no TV here, but I knew I wouldn’t miss that much. It’s just so disappointing, all those channels and nothing interesting. I didn’t bring anywhere near enough books, but happily there’s a place called the Bluff Cabin where Solstua West guests can hang out, and it’s full of books. And there are two kayaks and about a million miles of water to explore.

    I’m in my thoughts more here, probably because there just aren't the same number of distractions. I’m an introvert who loves solitude, but now there are so few people around that I feel a bit excited when I see someone pulling up at the dock.

     It has been a restorative, peaceful time – a gift that has brought me back to this beautiful country of mine after more than two years of living in another country that I still miss a great deal. Life can be wonderfully simple, with space for reflecting on the light left on unnecessarily, the overly long shower, too much time on-line. I’m here with my most hated form of weather falling all around me, and I'm thinking: Let it come. 

CUPE Ontario has the right idea: Sex work regs ought to be about workers' rights

    CUPE is my new favourite union now that CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn has written a piece in the National Post saying the thing Canadians should be aiming for in laws and regulations around the adult, consensual sex industry is a safer workplace for sex workers.
    So true. The violence and vulnerability that Justice Minister Peter McKay keeps going on about as he tries to push through the flawed and dangerous Bill C-36 exists primarily because sex workers don't enjoy any of the standard workplace protections that the rest of the country's workers rely on. When you're a sex worker, there is no workers' compensation board, no contract law, no employment standards. You can't even go to the police with a complaint without wondering if you might end up getting charged yourself, and that will be doubly true if Bill C-36 is passed.
    Were the bill to become law, sex workers will have to be even more secretive in their work to protect their clients from being charged. The potential for danger will increase even more as they move deeper into the shadows. I don't know if McKay really is naive enough to believe that criminalizing the entire industry will wipe it out, but the rest of us surely know that's not true.
    CUPE has been the most progressive union in Canada for some time when it comes to viewing sex work as a workers' rights issue. Hats off to them for a brave stance, when so many other unions are still sitting back in silence.
    Unions could play a powerful role in shaping a safer future for Canada's tens of thousands of sex workers. They have lost their relevance on many fronts, but here's an area where they're really needed. I look forward to the day when the Canadian Labour Congress, the BC Federation of Labour and other union voices are joining CUPE Ontario in making the support of sex workers' rights and work safety a priority.

Federal hearings finally put a spotlight on empowered sex workers

 

  While I'm offended as a Canadian that the future of my country is in the hands of people as uninformed, close-minded and unworldly as Justice Minister Peter MacKay, it's a wonderful thing to see Canada's sex workers stepping up to speak their own truths to combat all the lies that are being told about them right now.
     I saw footage from the justice committee meetings in Ottawa this week as the debate around Bill C-36 gets underway. I totally love seeing empowered and passionate sex workers putting it all on the line to challenge the Conservatives' proposed new anti-prostitution law, which would take the ineffective and damaging laws that we've had for the last 147 years and make them considerably worse.
    Based on the untruth that all sex work is violent, coercive and sick and that all sex workers are victims, Bill C-36 is so far from so many sex workers' realities that the generally low-profile community just can't take it anymore. For those of us cheering them on from the sidelines, it's a beautiful thing to see them fighting back with such passion.
     I couldn't have imagined that there would be an upside to Bill C-36, but maybe this is it: That sex workers who have mostly just gritted their teeth and coped with Canada's flawed laws up to this point are now so incensed by MacKay and his team of yes-ministers that they are organizing, speaking up, and refusing to be shut out of other people's discussions about them.
    Two representatives of PEERS Victoria will be presenting to the justice committee on Thursday. They are the kind of people whose knowledge is deep and wise, and I can only hope the committee has its ears on when the PEERS team talks about all the things that are wrong with laws that criminalize everything about sex work.
    This issue is about workers' rights, and in many ways women's rights as well given that the majority of sex workers and brothel managers are women. On that point, MacKay should have been ruled out right off the hop as the man for the job. A man who places all women in the kitchen packing the children's lunches (and all men moulding and shaping the minds of the next generation) simply shouldn't be involved in making life-endangering changes to a woman-dominated industry he knows so little about.
    MacKay was on the news this week saying the goal of the bill is to eradicate sex work. What it will actually do is drive the industry further underground, where the "victims" that MacKay seems so worried about can continue to go unsupported, unseen and vilified in even more potentially dangerous situations.
     More and more, sex workers are speaking out to say, hey, buddy, you don't know anything about our lives. Like all leaders in the early days of a social revolution, they risk so much personally to be "out" as sex workers, which adds even more to the significance of seeing them in the justice committee hearings, bravely and calmly telling it like it is.
      There are always going to be people who don't want to hear anything that challenges their conviction that sex workers are helpless victims and their clients, perverted pigs. But for those who suspect there's more to the story, this week's hearings just might be a powerful public-relations tool for real change and respect for sex workers. 
      Finally, Canadian sex workers have a national platform. So far, they're looking great. Hope you know what you've started, Mr. MacKay.
     

In search of a truly portable cellphone

   

I wouldn't say I rail against all of life’s constraints, but the lack of control for customers of cellphone service in Canada has always made me crazy.

    This, then, is the story of one woman with minimal knowledge of cellphone technology on an all-consuming mission: To find an affordable phone that could be taken almost anywhere in the world with just the change of a SIM card.

    The term for this magical thing is an “unlocked world phone,” a phrase I’d never heard when the search got underway in May, but one which I’d become very familiar with in the research-filled weeks that followed. There’s nothing particularly exotic about an unlocked world phone, and in many countries they are a snap to buy. But this is Canada, and our cellphone companies work very hard to stop us from doing that.

    But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back in those halcyon days two months ago, I had no idea of any of that. I had come back from Honduras with yet another cellphone I could no longer use, and discovered that my old Canadian cellphone I’d left behind was now a defunct model and also of no use. Feeling certain that for the rest of my years I will want to travel, I got thinking about a cellphone that could travel with me and just be adapted to different countries’ phone services.

    I had to do a lot of Google searches to figure out what I was even looking for. I’d heard that some cellphones could be unlocked so you could exchange the SIM cards, freeing the phone owner to buy cards in different countries and thus have local phone service without issue. I soon discovered that I’d probably be buying an unlocked phone on-line, because all the normal channels for buying such things were mysteriously unavailable. It lent a bit of a black-market feel to the whole thing.

    Eventually, I also learned that it isn’t just the unlocking that counts, you need a “world phone” – one set up to be compatible with global protocols for second-generation cellphones (I know. Whoever expects to have to utter a sentence like that?). You need a GSM phone: Global System for Mobile Communications.

Armed with these two essential pieces of information, I found a decent-looking refurbished, unlocked world phone – a Samsung Galaxy – on the Future Shop web site.
     They don’t sell any new unlocked phones, only refurbished ones, which I found pretty strange. But by this point I was finding everything strange, so I went ahead and ordered it for $119. It came and I had to send it back because the battery wasn’t charging, but the second one seems OK. (There are many more unlocked world phone-ordering options on the web, so Future Shop is not an integral part of the plan.)

    Then came the research to figure out who I was going to buy services from. More than anything, I didn’t want a contract, because I wanted to be able to come and go from Canada without anybody slapping me with a penalty. It's not like you can ask any of the dozen cellphone companies about any of this, because they've all got an agenda: Tying you and your sparkly new phone into a contract with their network for as long as possible. 

    I first looked at pay-as-you-go, but it’s not as cheap as you think when you work it out. So then I looked at month-to-month. I also had to pay attention to which companies had protocols compatible with the phone (the GSM thing). I ended up with Koodo for $39 a month, which gives me 300 daytime minutes, free evenings and weekends, and long distance in Canada. I can cancel with 30 days’ notice, at least in theory.

    I got the SIM card at Wal-Mart last week, from two nice young Wal-Mart clerks who swore to me that they were not receiving any commission for the activation and were truly giving me good advice about Koodo not having contracts. I am surprised by my own capacity to despise the cellphone companies for their damn contracts and costly packages and general lording it over us, but I will give Koodo a try.

    I started using the phone four days ago, and it seems to be working just fine. I guess the next test will be when I go to some other country and try to buy a SIM from there that works with the phone. Helpful tip: The network compatibility number is on the phone under the battery, and you can find web sites where you search on it to learn if a specific network is available to you and whether the phone’s been stolen. (Mine wasn’t. Phew.)

    Anyway, one day soon I expect to test this whole world-phone business in some exotic land. Maybe I’ll now truly have something I can take with me for use as a local phone. I feel hopeful but doubtful at the same time, as if there’s still one or two wrinkles that I didn’t know to account for and they're going to trip me up in the end.

    But hey, nothing ventured. 

The Angelitos Felices gang gets a great new home

  A miracle happened yesterday in our old town of Copan Ruinas: The 13 remaining children at Angelitos Felices orphanage were relocated to a much better organized, resourced and caring facility, Casita Copan. 

    It's a dream come true for Emily Monroe, the young Pennsylvanian who has worked so hard to realize this dream. She met the children of Angelitos in 2010 and was so disturbed by the conditions that they lived in, she set out to open a new children's home using a model that ultimately strives to place children back into their families and support the whole family. 

    She was the one who introduced us to the children in early 2012, shortly after we arrived. We went on to raise almost $30,000 through friends and family back home to improve living conditions and day-to-day supports for the Angelitos children at the home, but the dream was always to see those kids moved over to Emily's new place once she launched it that fall. 

    As we were getting ready to leave Honduras this spring, Emily had no idea if the children would ever be relocated to Casita Copan, despite her many efforts. But on the very day we left the country, April 1, the branch of Honduran government responsible for abandoned children (but not responsible in any way that includes financial support) finally acted and told Emily that Angelitos would be closed at the end of May and the children moved over to Casita. 

    Emily, her staff and supporters scrambled like crazy to get ready, but the date came and went without action. That happened several more times.
    But on July 1, it happened for real - admittedly with more initial trauma than anyone would want for the Angelitos kids, who arrived crying and confused in the control of armed police. But they have known Emily for years and have many friends at Casita Copan, and word is they were already calm and happy by the time evening came and they were in their new pyjamas (another first for them) and ready for bed. 

    Casita Copan is going to need lots of ongoing support to be able to manage the big jump in operating costs that these additional children will require. I hope the many people who supported these kids while we were in Honduras will also support them now that they've relocated to their new home. Paul and I raised $4,200 for Emily at our fundraiser June 5 in Victoria, and will be looking for other ways to support her great work.
    Big congratulations, Emily! You're one tough cookie, and doing wonderful work. We're honoured to be supporting you in all of this.

Anti-sex work revamp is just so wrong

Could this be Peter MacKay?

How timely to have University of Victoria researcher Cecilia Benoit and her team looking into the realities of the Canadian sex industry right now. Cecilia and other key researchers connected to the multi-project research have been gathering really meaningful information about the sex industry for many years, and with this project are investigating all aspects of the industry, from working conditions to management structures and clients.
    Such research will mean little to the Conservative government, which has already proven on a number of occasions that evidence-based research plays little role in its decision-making. But it's at least a branch to cling to for the rest of us in the coming storm around Bill C-36, which will set Canada back to the dark ages around sex work if it becomes law by criminalizing even more aspects of the work despite all evidence that criminalization doesn't work for anyone.
    I know how emotional this issue can be for people. I know how much people absolutely despise even thinking about the sex industry, having lived 10 years now of trying to talk about the realities of the industry and finding only a handful of people who want to hear about any of it. But for Canadians to stand back and let Peter MacKay and the federal government do this terrible thing - well, I just have to hope we can open our minds just a little to think differently about the people who work in this industry, regardless of our preconceptions.
    Bookmark the "Understanding Sex Work" page, which is already a great source of unbiased information on a profoundly misunderstood industry. For reasons I don't understand, we prefer to believe that all sex workers are forced into the business and are waiting to be rescued, and that all it's going to take is for Canada to get tough on "perverts" and pimps. The truth is that 80 per cent of the sex workers in this latest research said they chose to work in the industry.
    They are workers. They need standard work regulations, and access to all the resources the rest of us have to deal with the occasional exploitive, violent bosses or customers. They need support, not rescue. They need empathy, not these endless attempts to render them powerless, demoralized victims in the hands of horrible and violent men.
    The highest court in our land struck down the previous laws around prostitution, most of which we'd had for 150 years. Bill C-36 is no solution. It's a giant step backwards, and a truly heartbreaking development for those who understand sex work.
 
    

Racism in Honduras: Not Just On The Soccer Field

    
    
    This is a great read from the Washington Post on the roots of racism in Honduras, which I definitely saw during my time there. There were occasions when I asked someone if they were part Garifuna - the Afro-Hondurans who live along the Caribbean coast - only to see such questions were perceived as a grand insult. 
    
    One woman pulled me aside after I asked and confirmed quietly that yes, she was part Garifuna, but quickly added "I don't like the blacks." Another laughed nervously and said no, she was just from an area of the country where they didn't use chlorine in the water and as a result, people's skin was darker. 
    
    You tend to think of poverty as the great leveller in a country like Honduras, whose citizens certainly have much bigger things to worry about than the colour of a neighbour's skin. But no. White people against brown people. Brown people against darker brown people. What a world we live in. 
     Thank you to Joshua Nadel for putting some history around the mystery. Tragic how racism always finds its way through.
     
    In 2011, a number of incidents surrounding soccer and racism grabbed international headlines (most notably the  John Terry-Anton Ferdinand and Luis Suarez-Patrice Evra affairs). Outside of the limelight of most of the international press, Afro-Honduran players voiced their own charges to end racial discrimination. Osman Chávez, then a starting center back for los Catrachos (as the Honduran national team is sometimes called) and many of his teammates decided to boycott the national media as part of a campaign called “journalism without discrimination.” Racist comments on newspaper webpages appeared regularly, which disparaged him and many others on the team. He could understand racism in Poland, where he played professionally, as partly stemming from not seeing many people of color. But “in your own country, brother, where you were born,” he said, “it is intolerable, you just can’t fit that in your mind.” In October of that year, Johnny Palacios, also at the time a national team player, accused a referee in the Honduran professional league of racially abusing him during a game.

Racism is certainly nothing new in Honduras. Honduras identifies itself as a mestizo nation — of mixed indigenous and European roots — and officially only about 2 percent of the population is of African descent (though the actual number may be as high as 10 percent). And the fact that roughly half the Honduran national team at the 2014 World Cup is Afro-Honduran only serves to suggest that other issues are at play, such as access to education and job opportunities. But history is at stake as well, and the team exposes the contortions that the Honduran state historically attempted to “whiten” the nation.

So in the early 1900s, Honduran intellectuals and government officials began searching for ways to highlight Honduras’ indigenous heritage. In the 1920s, they “found” their new national hero: the Lenca warrior Lempira. He had waged a futile war against Spanish conquistadors in the 1530s, but he was rewarded nearly 400 years later. Though no images of Lempira existed, the Honduran government produced one, which still graces the Honduran banknotes that bear his name.In the early 20th century, Honduran nationalist leaders adhered to ideas ofmestizaje — a valorizing of the mixed race nature of Latin American nations popularized by the Mexican thinker José Vasconcelos — as a way to inspire national pride. While mestizaje uplifted the indigenous, it was still based on 19th century racist ideology, which placed Africans at the bottom of the racial hierarchy. People of African descent were seen as an impediment to national development, and their presence had to be minimized. Blacks,according to Honduran thinkers of the era, were “retarded ethnic elements” and represented “a problem for the purity for the ‘Honduran race.’ ”

In embracing Lempira, Honduran nationalists not only created a cultural icon for a nation supposedly built on European and indigenous bases, but also explicitly rewrote the history of the nation’s African roots.  According to the early 20th century thinkers, Honduras’ black population arrived as part of the influx of Anglophone Antillean workers for banana plantations in the late 1890s, and they remained confined to the north coast and the Bay Islands. They coupled the discursive reconfiguration of Honduran history with practical racism: Immigration laws in 1929 and 1934 banned blacks from entering the nation.

In fact, however, Honduras’ African roots are much older. People of African descent arrived in four different waves. Many Africans arrived in Honduras in the 1500s along with the first Spaniards (and may have fought against Lempira) and played a crucial role in the development of the colony and its economy.

While history books sought to de-Africanize Honduras, census data also played a role in minimizing the presence of non-mestizos in the nation. In a linguistic sleight of hand, the Honduran state erased the possibility of claiming African roots. The 1910 census enumerated seven different races:ladino (a catchall term for people of mixed race), indigenous, mestizo, white, blacks, mulattos and “yellow.” But by 1916, there were only two (indigenous and ladino), and by the 1920s racial categories ceased to exist. There were no blacks in Honduras, because there were only Hondurans. Racial identification would eventually be added back into the census, but no categories that allowed for African descent — ladino, mulatto or black — existed until 2001.A second African-descended population emerged — in the 1600s — from intermarriage between shipwrecked and runaway slaves and indigenous populations on the north coast. The Miskitos, as they are known, aligned themselves with the British and intermittently raided Spanish settlements. The third major influx of people of African descent came in 1797, with the arrival of the Black Carib — runaway slaves and members of the Carib indigenous group — who were deported to the Bay Islands after losing a war against England and France. These exiles moved quickly to the mainland and became known as the Garifuna, who remain the largest African-descended ethnic group in Honduras. And the fourth wave — the so-callednegros ingleses — arrived in the late 1800s from the British Caribbean to work on banana plantations.

Yet Afro-Hondurans have always been visible in the nation, and especially on the national soccer team. While the team for Honduras’ first international match — in 1921 — is unknown, in 1930, when Honduras won its first game, at least four members of the team were black. And this at a time when Brazil would not to allow Afro-Brazilians to represent the nation internationally. So too in 1982, when Honduras shocked hosts Spain with a 1-1 draw, Afro-Hondurans made up much of the team, including defenseman Alan Anthony Costly (father of current Honduran striker Carlos Costly) and goalkeeper Julio Cesar Arzú.

Presence on the soccer team, however, does not equal acceptance. For most of the 20th century, the Honduran state has ignored its African-descended population — or worse. In 1937, the government of Tiburcio Carias massacred 22  Garifuna leaders in the village of San Juan. Garifuna language was banned in school curriculums until the 2000s. Social indicators among black Hondurans tend to rank near the bottom; access to education and jobs lags behind much of the rest of the country. And in soccer, racism persists as well. In 2006, a politician claimed that blacks brought the level of play on the team down because they were not as “intelligent” as other Hondurans. In response to Chávez’s 2011 anti-racism campaign, a former Honduran national team psychologist argued that“blacks, by nature, have low self-esteem and therefore look for ways to call attention to themselves.”

In other words, while Afro-Hondurans make up a large portion of the national team — and always have — their presence has not yet led to greater tolerance. Nor has it occasioned a change in Honduras’ dominant narrative about race. What does this mean? The persistence of racist attitudes in Honduras implies that soccer, which many claim capable of changing attitudes about race and creating a more just world, may not be the panacea that many would like it to be.

 Joshua Nadel is author of “Fútbol!: Why Soccer Matters in Latin America.” He is an assistant professor of History and associate director of the Global Studies Program at North Carolina Central University.

No wonder moms can't get anything done

   

I've been back in a life with young children again for the last six weeks, helping out with three of our grandsons for a couple of months while their parents get up to various things. There’s much that is quite lovely about it, but being able or willing to do my usual amount of writing is not one of them.

    This new life has helped me see that in fact, I had become quite used to having time alone for writing and reflecting. But when you’re living in a house with children, forget it.

    At this moment, my 14-year-old grandson is madly playing some iPod game a mere metre away from me. The 11-year-old is steps away on the other side, charging his own iPod. Not more than 10 minutes ago, I had to stop everything to half-drag, half-carry the 5-year-old to the bathroom and then bed after he fell asleep on the couch watching “Free Birds.”

    There are magical grandma moments in there, for sure. But for the purpose of getting writing done, this life is totally unworkable. I am deeply sympathetic all over again with all the harried young parents out there puzzling over how it is that even one child can throw everything else about your life into a disorganized spin. It's all coming back to me now.

    Mostly what it means for me is dry times for my blog. I still think about things I want to write about, but knowing that I will struggle to clear three hours straight to put my thoughts together just kind of takes the fun out of it. I'm also not playing my accordion anywhere near as faithfully as is my habit, and even getting in the morning yoga is a struggle unless I can get up and at 'em by 6 a.m. before everyone else wakes up.

    But more creative days will come. Soon enough, the afternoon when we went looking for tadpoles will turn into a warm family anecdote about time spent together, rather than a memory of what was actually a fairly chaotic little walk to a muddy ditch that ended with the youngest grandson falling into a creek and getting soaked.

    Someday I’ll recall delightedly the time three of us walked through the Lazo bird sanctuary listening to the song sparrows, a walk I used to love as a young woman in the Comox Valley. I think by then I will have forgotten that in truth I could barely hear a bird cheep for all the noise my young companions were making, and that I had to constantly admonish them not to whack the heads off the tall ferns.

    Filling the well, Paul calls it. It's about experiencing something that isn't necessarily fun, at least not all the time, but is an Important Life Period nonetheless. Filling the well is very good for writers, who need a lot of experiences to avoid becoming dull people always writing about the same old thing. 

     My well runneth over. Thanks, kids. 

Fresh from the experience of a lifetime - join us June 5 for photos and stories

   

    Picking the photos for our event tomorrow night has been like a kaleidoscope journey through our two-plus years in Honduras, immersed in all the memories packed into however many hundreds of gigabytes of pictures and videos we collected over that time.

   As always, I’m reminded that it’s the people that make a photo. In the moment I’m drawn to the scenics – and we’ll certainly be including a few of those at the Victoria Event Centre tomorrow. But the ones that make me smile are the ones with people: Bustling about in our little town of Copan

Ruinas; packing a gun in their back pocket to a farming workshop; lovingly tending the graves of their loved ones; horsing around on the beautiful beaches at Batalla in the Moskitia.

   What a place. What an experience. We have been home 2 months now, and I’m really feeling grateful to Cuso International and the Comision de Accion Social Menonita – my placement in Honduras – for such an amazing opportunity. It has been a time like the three-year period when I headed up PEERS Victoria a decade ago: Life-altering, in

ways that will shake up my opinions, decision-making, passions, work habits and approach to life for years to come.

   I hope you’ll join us tomorrow, June 5, 7 p.m., and share some of our Honduran stories with us. We’re raising money at the event for a group of abandoned children growing up in the little town where we lived, Copan Ruinas, but the night itself is more just a chance to share the experience of living and working in a Central American country for the past 28 months.

   I know there are many people out there wondering about work opportunities like this, wondering what it would mean to step out of their lives for a while and into something completely different. Please come to the Victoria Event Centre, 1415 Broad St., and let us fill you in. I find myself using empty phrases like “an amazing experience!” and “A fabulous opportunity!” when people ask me how we liked our time in Honduras, but I’m hoping we can get past the platitudes tomorrow night and impart more of what it really felt like to have this experience.

    We’re asking for $20 at the door, with all proceeds to Casita Copan and Cuso International. And hey, a bonus: Drinks, 20 or so terrific silent auction items, and a chance to meet each other in person, not to mention a guest appearance from the dog we brought back from Honduras, Maggie (aka White Dog). 

    Big thanks to Anne Mullens, Vivian Smith and  Sante Communications Group for organizing the evening!

   To Honduras With Love   7 p.m. Thursday, June 5   Victoria Event Centre, 1415 Broad Street

Who's right? Who's wrong? Who cares - just get a grip and negotiate like everybody else

    A looming strike/lockout in B.C. schools gets my attention more these days due to living with my son and his two school-age boys, who are bracing themselves for disappointment now that their final month of school is about to be disrupted by lockouts and rotating strikes.
     One of the boys is worried about losing out on his band trip to Tofino this week, which looks pretty likely. The younger one will probably have to give up a field trip to Victoria. I'm sure there are kids like them all over B.C. who - far from cheering for more days off in the event of a work shutdown - are really worried about what this latest work action at their schools is going to mean to them.
    Way to go, government and teachers. Stick it to the kids just because you're completely incapable of settling a contract like grownups.
    As a CBC report rightly notes, the essence of the problem between teachers and their employers is that "this is a dysfunctional bargaining relationship." In 20 years, the B.C. Teachers' Federation and bargainers for the provincial government have successfully negotiated just two contracts. All the rest have ended up like this one.
    What's up with that? If there's one thing that ought to be obvious to both sides by this point, it's that contracts come due with surprising regularity. The rest of the world manages their employment contracts without getting into a work stoppage virtually every time. Why can't these guys?
    Read the media coverage and you'll soon see that there's much more than the usual contract issues running below the surface here. But really, big deal. This is not a question of who's right, it's one of why each side can't get past their own interests long enough to see how pointless and damaging all of this is.
    And as always, what a disastrous message to our young people: That our government can't be trusted; that the people in charge of educating our kids are ready to throw them under the bus any time a contract expires.
     Shame on everybody. Grow up, people. Find a new way, just like everybody else does when their relationship turns toxic. This public scene you're always making got tiresome quite some time ago.
   
    

Best legacy for Michelle is to keep this conversation going

   

    May the hills ring with our conversations about disordered eating in the wake of Michelle Stewart’s death. I know it would please her to think that we weren't just going to let that elephant in the room pass unnoticed.

    What I mostly know about the various disordered-eating illnesses is they aren't about disordered eating at all. Eat a lot, eat a little, obsess about burning it off, throw it up, fixate on it – food is ultimately just fuel for the body, but for some people it becomes a way to manage the bad feelings of your life. For me it seems almost like cutting, where the pressures of the world are all just a bit too much and so you seek a release within your control. For the "thin" disorders like anorexia and bulimia, it’s also got that complicated social aspect of netting the sick person more compliments for keeping themselves so slim.

    Positive feedback for negative behaviour. Not good. Pretty soon it’s a habit.

    When I consider my own few years with this problem as a young woman, I see a recipe that started with me as a little girl who already thought poorly of herself and had experienced an awkward stage around 10 or 11 of looking like a potato. I then got pregnant at 16 – a body-image nightmare – and inadvertently ended up with a doctor who was a freak about pregnant women keeping their weight down.

    Seven months in he told me that I had gained all 20 pounds I was allowed to gain. I walked out of his office and straight into disordered eating, becoming completely obsessed about not gaining an ounce for the final two months of my pregnancy. I would stay in that mode for the next six years, controlling my food intake with an iron hand until the day a passing stranger who I fancied saw me in a bathing suit and told me I looked like a starving person. 

    I don’t know what it was about that comment, but I heard it. I was 23. For the first time in years, I looked in the mirror later that day and saw the prominent hip bones and ribs, the gaunt look around my face.

    I never went back to those hungry days. But I have to admit that even now, when life’s problems overwhelm me – no job, no home, no car, dislocated in my own culture, the future unclear - the first thought to my head is that I have to lose some weight. I can write those words and think, whoa, what does that have to do with ANYTHING, but that doesn’t mean I can stop the thought from coming into my head. I’m almost 50 pounds heavier than I was when disordered eating had me in its thrall, but my inner anorexic has never really left.

    And like always, body weight questions in our society of plenty are double-edged swords for all of us – necessary to pay attention to for all kinds of health and aging reasons, bad to pay too much attention to.     Those who think we simply shouldn't talk about body weight need only look around at the growing girth of the developed world to know that’s not true either.

    So. No easy “cure,” unless one thinks that potato-shaped children, troubled lives and compliments for being slim are going to disappear anytime soon. If you have known the virtuous phase of a fast, you will also know the compelling feeling of clamping down on your own eating. It’s a siren’s call – brain chemicals, I suppose.

    The disordered eating is the symptom – a killer, insane-making, suicidal symptom, but still just the symptom. The reason for why we do it is something else entirely, and different for everybody. Any hope around treating this frustrating illness hinges on our ability to figure that piece out.

    I never had the chance to know Michelle Stewart in any kind of meaningful way, although we did have a handful of surprisingly deep conversations on Facebook when I was still in Honduras and she was in the last months of her life. I thought from the get-go that she had been enormously brave to confess to the world why she’d developed end-stage renal failure, because nobody would be expecting you to own up to three decades of anorexia and bulimia and she probably could have kept that truth hidden.

     But by refusing to, she invited us all to step forward into this debate, to peel back the layers on this issue and kick up the research and bring it into the full light where at least some of its baffling mysteries might be revealed.

    What can one person do? We can talk. Those of us who have been there and back can poke our heads out of our closets and at least lift some of the shame of this illness. Those who know this beast more personally need to find ways to share our experiences around where eating disorders come from – and more importantly, about how people leave them behind.

    Because they do. That’s where the hope is. I expect Michelle would love that, to think that hope might emerge as a result of the conversation started by her own sad and unnecessary death.