There's something strangely fascinating about the Falun Gong stories coming out of Vancouver these days. I'm sure it's damn annoying for everyone coming to the Chinese consulate to have to deal with Falun Gong protesters every day, but it's unsettling to think that the City of Vancouver is prepared to side with China on this long-standing human-rights issue and ban the protesters. Here's what the Vancouver Sun's Pete McMartin has to say.
The issue has many similarities to the abortion debate: two polarized groups, both very certain that they are in the right, fighting for control over the piece of sidewalk out in front of some building that represents the issue (abortion clinics in one case, the Chinese consulate in another).
But B.C. manoeuvered very carefully on that issue. The "bubble zone" law prevents protesters from setting up within 50 metres of the entry of an abortion clinic.  The reason the law was able to sustain a free-speech challenge was because the courts ruled that a woman's right to medical treatment trumps freedom of speech.
How do you make that defence in the Falun Gong case? As irritating as it must be for the Chinese consulate to have to deal with protesters outside every day, I have to think it pales beside the right of the peace-loving followers of a religion to protest the killings, assaults and harassment that plague their peers in China.

I just want to respond to my "anonymous" blogger friend, who's wondering where his/her earlier comment went. I have no idea, but given the nature of what we're talking about here, I definitely don't want to look like I wiped it out or anything, so here it is again:

Why is it that when I post anonymously I'm treated as an scribing scumbag, but when some awful, nasty, ugly, vicious, ignorant, intemperate, uninformed anonymous bile is posted in a newspaper as an editorial it is treated as scripture?
Let us say - for the sake of this discussion - that you, Jody Paterson, have decided to apply for a job as an entry level position at one of the big corporations. Let us also say that you are fully qualified to do the job and the local office has approved you. The local office passes along your particulars to the corporate level for routine final approval, but corporate turns you down. Why?
 You never find out, but the truth is that corporate ran an automated background check of your online activity and found out that your views did not match theirs. Had you been writing anonymously Big Brother would not have known what you think. 

Just a couple points on that comment: First, there are many good reasons for posting anonymously, so it's not the anonymous part that I have a problem with. But when the sole reason people do it is to hide from their own vicious, ugly words, that's when it bugs me. 

As for newspapers, editorials are supposed to represent the paper's opinion, not that of the person who wrote it. In the old days, it would have been the publisher's opinion, but times have changed now that publishers are rarely the owners and editorial positions are now decided by the "editorial board," which usually consists of the publisher, the managing editor and the editorial-page editor. The person who actually does the writing is just the one who puts it all into words.  

If editorials were "signed" by the people who wrote them, they'd be more like columns rather than the opinion of the newspaper overall. That's why they don't have any name attached to them.

Slam-dunked by the anonymous posters

A note to those who post anonymously on my blog - this column isn't about you. The people who post here have been very respectful in their comments, even when they hate everything about something I've written. Thanks for that. 

Once upon a time, people who felt strongly about something I wrote would send me little notes and cards in the mail that either thanked me or put me in my place.

Then email came along, and soon that was how I got all my feedback. Now, it’s mostly through on-line comments.

The era of handwritten notes was lovely. I think I still have a file folder of the kindest ones somewhere, saved for the bleak days. But the shift to email was nice for its sense of immediacy.

On-line comments, on the other hand - well, that’s a whole other matter.

I love the concept. There’s potential for great public conversations through on-line comments. In the early days of the technology, I envisaged a wealth of opinions posted by smart, thoughtful people sharing informed and diverse experiences.

Not quite. On-line comment sections have in fact turned out to be the place where people feel free to hide their identities while saying the most awful things. It’s a rare day that I can even summon the courage to read the ugly stuff that gets posted under some of my columns.

As an opinion writer, I get that I have to be able to “take it.” I support free speech, including the right to make vicious and ignorant comments anonymously. I’ve got the skin of a rhino after many years of reader cruelties. I can handle it.

But really, a little on-line civility wouldn’t kill us. I talked to a couple of candidates in the Victoria civic election who were stunned and even a little scared by the horrible comments made about them on-line  during the campaign. Unfortunately, such experiences are now just part of being in the public eye.

Who are these intemperate commentators? What do they get out of posting nasty, uninformed statements and not even attaching their names to them?

They must recognize their comment makes them look bad, because otherwise they wouldn’t hide behind anonymity. But if they know that what they’re saying is embarrassing enough that they don’t want their names on it, why would they post it in the first place?

I love it when readers genuinely engage with me. True, I like it best when they say nice things, but I also appreciate people who disagree with me in intelligent ways and challenge me to see an issue from another perspective.  

Sometimes my detractors and I will even have a series of respectful exchanges via email, at the end of which we usually understand each other’s positions more clearly or have politely agreed to disagree. But when the comments are nothing but mindless, anonymous bile, that’s not going to happen.

Web sites like the Times Colonist at least filter out the worst of it. If you really want to see ugly, check out YouTube, where moderation of so-called “trolls” is non-existent unless the person uploading the video chooses it at the outset.

Salon television writer Matt Zoller Seitz wrote an intriguing piece on the subject in the August 2010 edition of the on-line U.S. magazine, where he argued the societal benefits of uncensored comment on media sites.

“It shows us the American id in all its snaggletoothed, pustulent glory, with a transparency that didn’t exist before the Internet,” writes Seitz. “And in its rather twisted way, that’s a public service.”

Anonymous comments remind us that racism and sexism are alive and well, contends Seitz. That literacy skills are in decline. That it’s misguided to presume that “deep down, most people are good at heart.”

Yup, that pretty much sums up the experience for me, too. Nothing slaps the Pollyanna out of a columnist quicker than a browse through the on-line comments. I guess I owe the nameless cowards thanks for that.

***

Great event coming up April 30, when Coalition Connect for Families makes its debut at the Victoria Native Friendship Centre.

 It’s a first for the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness, which has taken its highly successful Project Connect concept and turned it into a new service fair for low-income families. All kinds of items - diapers, grooming products, small toys - are needed for the hundreds of “family packs” organizers will hand out at the all-day event, which features haircuts, ID replacement, health care, a BBQ lunch and many other services and connections.

Want to donate or volunteer? Contact co-ordinator Mary Gidney at mgidney@shaw.ca for more information, including a list of items needed for the packs. Donations can be dropped off April 14-16 at Burnside-Gorge Community Association.

Good news over at Our Place, the Pandora Avenue drop-in and community centre for people living in poverty. The money for their 7 a.m. openings ran out March 31, but the non-profit has launched a direct-donation campaign and is now going to be able to keep funding it for at least another three months. Here's more on that. 
Obviously, a breakfast every morning doesn't mean you've solved homelessness, but it made a big difference on downtown streets when Our Place began opening at 7 a.m. again (once upon a time, they had some other funding that made that early start possible) and gave people someplace to go in those hours before other services have opened.
It also ended the ludicrous practice of sending police into the downtown at 6 or 7 a.m. every day to rouse the homeless from the doorways and such even though there was absolutely nowhere to go.

Man, the intensity of the on-line commentary under my column last Friday made me realize that sexual assault is still a sizzling, completely misunderstood issue out there. I think there's a solid contingent of people who seriously believe that rape is in the nature of men, and that women "ask for it" when they dress or act a certain way. Really? That's a pretty discouraging realization for me. 

Turns out April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, so here's more fuel to the fire: A piece in Salon laying out some frightening statistics around the incidence of rape on U.S. campuses.