New Media

The people have spoken. VANOC, tear down this wall!

“I’ve seen crowds peering through the fence (at the flame),” Robertson said. “We want that flame to be more accessible.”

That‘s an understatement. For me, it’s not even about access just to the flame. As alluded to previously, I think it’s an act of treachery to any tourism worker in BC’s Lower Mainland that the people are being kept back from the most beautiful spot of waterfront in all of Vancouver.

Let the Olympic flame burn true (North, strong) and free

Further Reading
Mayor Robertson, tear down those walls
A distant flame has Vancouver hot and bothered

UPDATE: Democracy works! Apparently, VANOC didn’t want to fully adopt my suggestion, but politics is the art of compromise.

“Homes, not Games” has been a consistent rallying cry of anti-Olympics protesters. But visitors to Vancouver may not realize that progress on this file has not been utterly lacking. The social housing we’ve built for our most vulnerable may even be a model for other cities around the world to follow.

Here’s an excerpt from my report in Granville on the viability of Woodward’s as a living example of social housing that works:

Of course, since about 2000, Vancouver’s residents and politicians have made substantial efforts to change this neighborhood. Without an umbrella organization to direct taxpayers funds effectively, many projects have seen pitiful returns on investment. But as I noted last week, the Woodward’s building is an example of a project that has provided real benefits to residents—and in the bigger picture, our city.

There’s no question that April and other residents of Woodward’s are now able to live with dignity in a supportive environment. But this improved living condition didn’t come cheap. Not everyone is pleased about the scale of the investment. As one friend who lives in Vancouver South confided in me the other day, “I understand people need housing, but why do we have to spend so much so that they can have views of Canada Place and brand new couches? I mean, do people really have a ‘right’ to live in some of the most desirable real estate in the world?”

Tough questions. But I think our city has provided some balanced answers in the Woodward’s experiment.

Hoping to see the Olympic cauldron up close and take in the scenery of the most beautiful waterfront spot in all of Vancouver, I roamed alongside thousands of people with exactly the same idea. Thanks to an unhelpful security fence all along the waterfront, none of us quite made it to our objective.

VANOC says the fence is there to provide security for the convention center and the Games’ international broadcast centre. All they’re doing is needlessly irritating visitors and locals by keeping them back from what ought to be a major venue for celebrations and for enjoying this city’s spectacular scenery.

The tragedy is that this stupidity carried out in the name of security is entirely unnecessary. VANOC could easily provide security for the convention center while allowing public access to this area by simply placing the fence perpendicular to its current deployment, aligned against the western entrance to the building. Besides, the malcontents involved in anti-Olympics protests are clearly incapable of mounting any mischief more threatening than knocking over some newspaper boxes and smashing in a store window. For this, VANOC is pleased to frustrate the photo opportunities of tens of thousands of tourists and all of the proud locals?

So much for showcasing our Olympic city. Here’s a reminder of what the people are missing beyond the chain-link fence, from photos taken when this public space was first completed with hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars.

How to Make Enemies and Irritate Visitors at the Vancouver Olympics

I described the protest movement against the Vancouver 2010 Olympics earlier as unable to articulate a unified protest platform to bring in the masses — despite a fairly wide groundswell of anti-Olympics feeling among the general public. This speaks not only to a lack of organization skills (they did have four years to prepare for this, after all) but also very shallow sympathy for the myriad causes stuffed into this counter-culture sausage-fest.

Having failed to win grassroots support, the vanguard has inevitably decided to resort to violence to get the attention they need just to sustain momentum among their relatively sparse membership. This desperation move is just alienating the rest of us even further, at least according to snippets from the local Twitter crowd:

@stephenfung: Olympic protesters are breaking shit downtown and scaring tourists. What’s your cause again? That’s the one I won’t be supporting. K. Thx.

@canucksgirl44: #Vancouver protesters are just a bunch of wannabe hippies anyway. Welcome to the West Coast, lol #realhippieslivedinthe60s

@MitchGarvis: @DanaEpp Yeah but the funny thing is the protesters are all white kids, and the natives are all involved with the games

@steaks: Also protestors damage cause of people they say they are helping. How NGO’s going to raise funds and lobby well when associated to douches?

It’s getting a bit uglier than I expected, given yesterday’s lackluster showing by the perpetually disaffected. But it seems a severely downgraded and ineffective version of the Battle in Seattle is the worst the IOC and the City of Vancouver has to deal with. For now, the Games go on unimpeded.

A video of security guards in Seattle standing still while a robbery victim suffers a savage beating has gone viral.

I’d like to be able to say that Vancouver’s transportation security had a better record. Sadly, the don’t. Remember this?

Ravinder Sidhu said he was beaten and robbed late on the night of July 15 in a well-lit area at Surrey Central Station. Sidhu said the attacker left him bruised after stealing his watch and gifts for his six-year-old son.

“I had to get up, call the security people from the red phone which is in the secured area, and then somebody came to my aid,” said Sidhu.

“What if I had been knocked unconscious or I got stabbed? I wouldn’t be able to pick up the red phone,” he said.

And don’t forget, tourists. Pay your fare for skytrain or get Tasered.