I was inadvertently caught up in the closure of the Malahat this weekend, seeing as my two oldest kids, their five children and my ex-husband had all popped down to Victoria from Courtenay for a "quick" visit with my ex's new grandson.
The plan was to bomb to Victoria and back to Courtenay on the same day. Alas, the 22-hour closure of the Malahat nixed that one. Plans go awry in this world, of course, but watching the ridiculous situation on the Malahat unfold through their experiences really underlined for me how poorly prepared we'd be for any real disaster.
It's never going to be good when the only major route closes down. But what was worse was the inability of those doing cleanup at the scene of the diesel-truck crash to provide any kind of workable estimate of when the highway would reopen, or to quickly provide an alternate route.
For instance, skinny little Finlayson Arm Road was an alternate route, but highway crews didn't get around to allowing passenger cars on it until well over 20 hours after the Malahat crash. The long Port Renfrew-Lake Cowichan route could have been a possibility, but we all know how rough that road is due to years of stalling on fixing it - plus reports were of a three-hour delay for those trying to travel that route.
Travelling via the Mill Bay ferry (four hour delay) or Saltspring Island could also have worked - but only if travellers could have had a decent estimate that helped them gauge whether the extra distance and expense was worth it. From the very start, the updates around when the highway would reopen were way off the mark.
Right after the crash, the estimate was that the road would reopen at 1 a.m. Sunday. Then it was 6:30 a.m. Then it was 9 a.m., then 1 p.m., then 3 p.m. It was after 4 p.m. when traffic was finally allowed through. How was it that nobody had any real idea how long it was going to take to clean up after the accident?
For my kids, it was an inconvenience and a pain in the neck.
For other travellers, though, that delay might have cost them an expensive holiday flight. A long-awaited surgery date. A missed wedding or funeral or other big one-off family event. A day at work, not to mention the expense of a hotel room (in very short supply in Victoria on Saturday night) and meals.
Some would have had no access to medication they left at home, never dreaming their quick trip in or out of Victoria was going to be a long one. Others might have even left a youngish child or a pet at home for a couple hours, only to have it turn out to be an overnight odyssey.
We've got to be able to do better.Who was in charge, anyway? If I didn't know better, I'd suspect FEMA.
As for the driver of the overturned fuel truck, he was uninjured, but reports are that he's being investigated for drunk driving. Certainly you have to wonder when a truck jackknifes in a speed zone of 60-70 km/h. 

Grizzly-bear status under review


What do you think, should we finally do something to put more protection around Canada's grizzly bears? This writer thinks so.  They're magnificent animals, and it's pretty surprising that we've put so little thought into the pressures they're under, what with urban sprawl drastically shrinking their territory and gun-toting trophy hunters coming to B.C. from all over the world to hunt grizzlies.
We tend to fall back into the usual kneejerk stuff around hunting whenever we try to talk grizzly bears - an issue that's nearly as polarizing as abortion. But it's not just about hunting, seeing as the research has found that urban sprawl is a primary pressure on grizzly populations. It's really about the collective impact of the human species on the bears, and how we might mitigate that before it's too late.
It's not too late yet, thankfully. I hope we don't plan to wait until it is.

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.