New Media

Japanese tourists are reportedly being treated for shock and psychiatric problems after visiting Paris and finding that the city of their dreams is really a cold, snob-infested slum. They’re calling it “Paris Syndrome”.

The Reuters story caught my eye because we’re experiencing a similar problem here in Vancouver. No one has yet had to undergo psychiatric treatment after coming for a visit (at least, it hasn’t been reported yet). Still, the sheer number of homeless beggars and stolen purses and cell phones has given a serious check to our reputation as the world’s most beautiful city.

Business conferences and hotel bookings are getting canceled and an untold number of such reservations are not getting made in the first place. After a few days in town, local gems like Stanley Park and Harbor Centre are not the first things that pop up in one’s mind. Tourists, business travelers and foreign students are all going back to their own countries with a vision of Vancouver comparable to that of third-world shanty-town slum laid out in the shadows of gleaming modern towers.

Call it a Mobilization Against Wankers and Obsfucators.

The Georgia Straight recently published an article criticizing the Canadian military’s multicultural-oriented recruitment policy, quoting one of the local propagandists affiliated with Mobilization Against War and Occupation as saying the practice amounted to an “economic draft”. My subsequent letter to the editor can be found here.

Rather than point out once more the dumb ideology and ethically shaky ground that MAWO stands on in its fight against “Canadian racist imperialism” and our biggest security commitment abroad, I’ll let Georgia Straight contributor Terry Glavin do the fighting for me. His article in the same issue stabs right at the organization’s legitemacy (or lack thereof).

Glavin writes: Vancouver’s antiwar activism is moving away from the broad base of support for Canada’s refusal to join the Anglo-American enterprise in Iraq, and it has jettisoned any hope of friendship with Vancouver’s 6,000-member Afghan émigré community.

Glavin also brought up Vancouver City Council’s own Councillor Tim Louis’ tragedy of illogic and inhumanity regarding Afghanistan in his article:

“The government would collapse in a matter of days,” he says. Nevertheless, when asked for his view on the Canadian military presence in Afghanistan, Louis replied: “Out now… I don’t have a coherent argument against the fact that the UN has authorized it (the Afghan mission).…Even if the UN authorized it, it would still be against the rule of law.”

Hmmm. Nice, Tim. I think you could probably have finished your speech at, “I don’t have a coherent argument…”

There’s an optimism that comes from living in Vancouver on Canada’s west coast. From the beach, the mist that typically shrouds the horizon hints at a limitless sea beyond. The great ocean is at once an inpenetrable barrier and a passageway to unimaginably distant and exotic lands.

A long time ago, being Canada’s gateway to the Pacific might have been considered a liability. During the fight against Imperial Japan in the Second World War, Vancouver was effectively on the front lines. American and Allied ships may have dominated our part of the pond, but after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Phillipines and Hong Kong, few at that time would have thought a Japanese attack on our city beyond the pale. Wartime hysteria led to the well-documented and tragic internship of Japanese Canadians living on the coast.

Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, the pair of films put out by Clint Eastwood about the battle of Iwo Jima, is surely a first in film history: simultaneous production of two movies depicting a crucial battle – as seen from either side. The films are an interesting look at a time when relations on either side of the ocean were at their worst – produced during possibly the greatest period of cooperation and friendliness that Japan has ever had for our southern neighbor.

In the course of teaching international students over several years, I’ve developed many friendships with Japanese nationals and a a real respect and admiration for Japanese traditional culture. It’s hard to imagine a time when Canada and Japan would have been at war.

I’m looking forward to seeing Eastwood’s films. I’m just glad we can view them in an era where the events they depict are clearly consigned to the record of history.

Was it historical inevitability, or just a bad business plan that finally killed Vancouver’s Storyeum?

Storyeum closed its doors today, pretty much putting an end to its saga of bankruptcy protection and deflated investment.

I enjoyed visiting our city’s fine live performance of BC history on three occasions. Unfortunately, not very many other people did.

Fifty-five actors were given their pink slips – hopefully they can pick up some work on the Fantastic Four sequel. My sincere sympathies go out to those guys: they could perform a full-on musical production smiling triumphantly all the while with only four people in the room to witness the spectacle.

Now that the place is officially boarded up, investors are going to stay as far away as possible from this train wreck. The production is millions of dollars in debt, including $5 million in rent to Vancouver City Hall. That’s a lot of bad debt for a non-sports venue to rack up in two years – not including the $22 million it cost to build the thing.

Storyeum was a visionary project and potentially a great anchoring landmark for Gastown. Whatever happens, I hope the building doesn’t stay vacant for long. There are enough boarded-up windows for the whole city in that neighborhood already.

How many pillars are in the Four Pillars strategy again? The Conservative’s “get-tough-on-crime” moves are meeting resistance from Vancouver City Councillor Kim Capri, according to one article in the Vancouver Courier.

They are looking at more of an agenda that revolves around incarceration and using incarceration as a tool against drug trafficking,” Kapri said.

So… locking up criminals is a bad thing? And we should be making special exceptions for drug crimes?

That’s dumb. We have a crime problem in this city, in large part because of our drug problem. Paying for more cops on the street, more prisons and speedier trials doesn’t necessarily mean less money for treatment and rehabilitation.

Enforcement is the fourth pillar of Vancouver City Hall’s Drug Strategy. When one pillar goes down, so will the others.