Prostitution in Vancouver

I have long been an advocate for legalized prostitution; I think that it's important to acknowledge that the ignorance by police departments locally equate to a sanctioned activity that generates a significant amount of untaxed income. It's not just that prostitution can be passively ignored in Vancouver; it can only be true that it is actively avoided. You can't actually believe that the back of every newspaper in the city is littered with the ads of legitimate massage parlors and prude escort agencies. A quick trip down Cordova Street between Campbell and Main Street after 9 PM is not paraded by girls who just really like chatting to passing men. You can't quite say the same about Hastings Street's broad assortment of the drug riddled, mentally ill, and poverty stricken. East Cordova is loitered only by the prostitutes here.

Even those with the most strict morals, in terms of what these girls do, should be able to agree on a few things. I hope that any good person can believe that people have the right to the protections of the police. I believe that even the most hardened of them should be allowed to wake in the morning without a looming threat of death lingering about them. I believe that what we do in our sexual lives should be a choice. I believe firmly that even those opposed to what some of these people do, would still believe that all sexual acts should be of mutual consent.

In the world that we've fostered for prostitution to live in, this is not the case. Prostitutes are so wildly more vulnerable than any other occupation I can imagine. Picture a job more dangerous than one in which you are very likely a woman, work with strangers in the nude in (very) close quarters, and your customer base wants a fairly accessible product that, for one reason or another, they can't acquire for free. They want something that someone else in their life will not commit to doing uncompensated. Imagine working undocumented, with no regards as to where you are, or who you are with, at any given moment. No list of staff, no time clock. Imagine working an areas that are intentionally as private as possible. In the same sense that a failure to defend one's trademark equates to abandoning it, I believe that a consistent failure to defend the laws set equates to an annulment of those laws.

The limbo that prostitution lives in has allowed some atrocious consequences to those who reside in it. It has allowed gangs to profit from these operations and allowed them to funnel an untaxed and undocumented revenue into their coffers. It has allowed pimps, essentially bosses, to charge their workers with violence, rape, and unimaginable stress. It has prevented Canadian Revenue Services from collecting considerable sums of money in exchange for the rights and freedoms guaranteed (in writing) to every Canadian. It has given gangs an incentive to target young girls and lead them into drug habits. It has allowed anyone the possibility to murder without consequence. It has also come to light that it has allowed Vancouver Police to exchange their duty to arrest these girls for free sexual favours. 

Wherever people stand morally (and legally) on prostitution, it's worth noting that this state of purgatory is the most damaging to society. The police don't act on arresting the prostitutes because they are well aware of a few things; they know that (like marijuana) they would not receive overwhelming support from the general public. They know that prostitution is a massive industry and would require an incredible amount of resources not available to them and an attempt to cease the industry would likely only result in the workforce being pushed further underground. Shutting down Craigslist's "personal services" section only pushed somewhat more discreet ads to the personals section. They also know they like freebies. Prostitution's illegal status is absolutely as unwieldy as prohibition was, and as it can't be ceased, it should be legalized. We can take these girls off the streets and offer them the protections (and taxes) provided to every citizen of the United Nations. We can take gangs and drugs out of the equation. We can take underage girls out of the equation. We can save families. We can save lives.

New Music Friday - Shimmering Stars

So, it wasn't long before I learned in the studio that almost anything sounds pretty good if you drench it in reverb. This has never been truer than with Shimmering Stars - which is essentially a full album of echoes. They cite a lot of old artists such as The Everly Brothers and Del Shannon as influences, which lends to the lo-fi recording style, but I don't even think the cited Bo Diddley's early recordings sound this poor. Not even live, not even when they're ripped to Youtube.

The reverb can be a bit frustrating when the songwriting is as good as it is here, and when these guys are on, it's spectacular. It's the kind of 1950s throwback that makes me want a letter jacket, a malt, and to go for pinks. Whatever that means.

A few of their tunes are up as free downloads on Bandcamp, and they're worth picking up.

Occupying Vancouver (And Missing the Point)

In the United States, an unlawful assembly is defined as a meeting of three or more people with the intent to "carry out a lawful or unlawful purpose in a manner likely to imperil the peace and tranquillity of the neighborhood."When three or more people actually succeed in such an event, they have definitively committed the criminal act of rioting. 


I think it's fair to say that a gathering of, say, 700 people marching across the Brooklyn Bridge to protest the maligned middle class and the tilted personal wealth in the United States is something of a mild threat; the title, "Occupy Wall Street" has a strong and somewhat militant tone. A protest can show not only passive resistance but organizational strength in unwieldy numbers. A protest, even a peaceful one, is something of a threat display to an opposing institution. Governments aren't generally fans of letting legitimate concerns snowball from small gatherings into massive displays of solidarity. They block streets, close businesses, delay work, and have the potential to turn unwieldy. 


In a few days, a group called Occupy Vancouver intends on standing in solidarity with those who march in Washington by... doing something. Their website states that they will "demand a true democracy" and "will create a platform for people to speak and provide an audience that will listen." For starters, I'll call you when I learn what the true democracy is, as there are longstanding debates and arguments over what a true democracy is; from anarchism to totalitarianism democracies. I'm also not particularly keen on a group of uncertified loons spending the afternoon soapboxing on what they think needs to happen to Canada. Currently, their list of speakers includes a Grade 12 student, a guy suing Pfizer, and a man who wrote a book on the importance of smoking cannabis in ancient cultures. 


New York's fiscal concerns are legitimate; the country hinges on bankruptcy as every moment passes. One percent of the nation now owns 40% of the wealth, entitling protestors to moniker themselves as "99 Percenters." They've been hurt for the past 11 years by the Bush tax cuts and their extension, by a campaign system that required 5.3 billion dollars of Barack Obama's supporters to succeed, and by the opportunistic abuse of several major firms of the bailouts they've been given. I don't believe we have that here, and so for us to protest so maladroitly under their umbrella seems more than slighting; it seems downright embarrassing. I agree that Canada has it's problems; I've heard everything cited from exorbitant telecom costs to the fire sale of government-held properties to private interests, but I don't agree that Occupy Vancouver bears focus in this regard. Rather, it seems like a shallow attempt to ride the popularity of Occupy Wall Street with little focus at all.