A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

Craigslist controversy reveals foolish attitudes toward sex work My experience is that you can stop any conversation dead by trying to talk about the sex industry. People’s level of discomfort in the subject is near-universal. So indulge me in trying to steer clear of the squeam-inducing “sex” word for a moment by pretending that this ridiculous Craigslist hullabaloo is in fact about the sale of shoes. Please don’t take it as trivializing last month’s murder of a young Boston woman, as that’s definitely not the intent. I’m just trying for an analogy that might get us past the squirm factor long enough to think straight. OK then. At issue: The sale of shoes through the on-line listings operated by Craigslist. People have been selling shoes for years on Craigslist and nobody seemed to mind, but something tragic happened in April that has changed that. A shoe seller was killed at a Boston hotel by a shoe buyer, who first contacted her through her ad on Craigslist. Within hours of the mu...

At the request of the Times Colonist, I wrote a book review of former CBC journalist Victor Malarek's latest, "The Johns." Suffice to say that Mr. Malarek and I have fairly different views when it comes to the subject of prostitution, although I respect his passion. The piece ran in the Monitor section of the TC on Sunday, and you'll find it at the link above.

Our favourite drug causes major problems Broken windows. Broken bones. Bar fights that spill out onto the street. The news of drunk young men and the latest harm they’ve caused in the downtown just keeps on coming. The most recent news is of a Victoria police officer getting his leg broken after drunken young scrappers accidentally toppled him during a brawl outside the Pita Pit takeout restaurant. No doubt we’ll soon be talking again about early closure of the Pita Pit as a “solution,” as if the problem is in the gathering and not the fact that young men are drinking themselves into belligerent oblivion every weekend. Not every young man is out there getting himself slam-faced drunk in the downtown, of course. Most aren’t. But a significant number are routinely drinking at harmful levels, posing a danger to themselves and anyone who crosses their path. That’s the problem we ought to be trying to fix. I understand the appeal of alcohol, being a social drinker with a clear memory of ho...

It's been quite a week. Canucks knocked out of the playoffs, Gordon Campbell's Liberals re-elected, all hope of electoral reform tossed out the window. The Canucks and Campbell - so it goes. I've been waiting for the Canucks' big win for most of my lifetime, and I guess I still am. And on the Campbell front, it's not like I'm a solid supporter of any party. Still, it's discouraging to see that the Liberals can decimate the social supports of B.C. without getting even a sniff of kickback at the polls. But the electoral-reform issue - oh, that one has broken my heart. I'd put a lot of stock into STV passing. Probably too much, in hindsight, but to me a "yes" vote would have been a signal that British Columbians were ready for real change. It's not like I thought STV would solve all the problems we endure due to the way we elect governments, but at the very least a yes vote would have been a clear statement that we want something better. Inst...

Why I'm voting 'Yes!' to STV You probably know who you’re voting for in Tuesday’s provincial election. I’m not going to try to influence your decision, other than to urge you to vote with brain on and eyes wide open. But I do want to influence your vote on changing B.C.’s electoral system. You’ll have the chance to vote on that issue as well as pick an MLA when you go to the polls this Tuesday, and hopefully you’ll vote yes to STV. The acronym stands for Single Transferrable Vote. Far more informed people than I can give you the lowdown as to the details of STV (I’ve listed some Web sites at the bottom of this column), but the short version is that it’s a way of voting in which the makeup of the legislature more closely mirrors the popular vote. If 45 per cent of voters pick Party A, 30 per cent pick Party B and 15 per cent pick C, then that will be the party breakdown inside the House. The party that wins the biggest percentage of the popular vote still forms government, ...

Are we sure we're still on the way up? I suppose every generation wants to believe it’s improving on the past. That’s how it always seemed in my history lessons at school, too - that we were intent on working our way up, from “primitive” to medieval to Renaissance and right on through to the enlightened human beings of modern times. We’ve made some remarkable progress. We’re healthier than we’ve ever been, and easily surviving diseases that once used to kill us off in vast numbers. We don’t just talk about human rights, we enshrine them in our laws. We wear our seatbelts, bicycle helmets, sunscreen and in-car sobriety with pride, and are better for it. I used to ponder ugly moments in history and feel grateful for not having been alive in those years. The destructive and stupid behaviours of human beings through the ages baffled me, but I was happy that my generation dwelt in kinder, gentler times and was in turn leaving a better world for their own children. But is that what’s act...

U.S. road trip an eyeopener into true impact of recession I’m newly back this week from a road trip through California, and had been curious before we left whether we’d see evidence of the economic downturn during our travels. In fact, the signs of trouble were hard to miss. We were travelling routes that primarily took us through small towns, and it took but a glance at the lineup of grim legal notices in virtually every community’s local newspaper to grasp the impact the recession is having in the U.S. The April 8 edition of the Pahrump Valley Times, for instance, featured close to five pages of legal notices, almost all of them involving trustee sales of houses in foreclosure. The legal language of the ads made things sound very dry and orderly, but it didn’t take much to imagine the distress of the overwhelmed, indebted homeowner at the heart of every one of them. One California auction company handling foreclosures lists almost 1,400 homes for sale - and that’s just one company,...