not funny

[jawnbc]

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For the record folks - and blathering about "free speech" aside - do me a favour and don't make jokes in your blog about the trial happening here in Vancouver for the murder of (the first) 6 (of nearly 30) women in the downtown East side.*

These women were brutalized and murdered and have all too often been dehumanized in the press as "prostitutes" and "drug addicts" etc. Their families are suffering enough.

Your need to be clever or kewl or cutting edge? Fuck off. Take your adolescent, insensitive shite elsewhere.

It's horrible. All of it. And not funny. None of it.

*I'm gonna avoiding naming the accused: I don't want to contribute to his notoreity.

Comments

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Color me crazy, but just because a person makes certain choices doesn't mean that they deserve to be brutally murdered by a serial killer. I remember when the case broke, and I wondered if the people would've been missing as long as they had, had they been "respectable." :/

[lusty-librarian.livejournal.com]

thanks for that.

[jawnbc]

They're doing that out here as well, even in those cheap-assed freebie "newspapers" handed out at bus stops.

I've done a bit of work in the neighbourhood (a bit) and know lots of people that knew some of the women (through their work, activism, or having been down there using themselves, so it's been on my radar for a really long time.

What so many people don't understand is that authorities did sweet fuck all about the first 20 women. It was years before they would even investigate any as missing. Because, you know, prostitutes and junkies disappear all the time...so what? There were even allegations about parties and assaults "out at a pig farm in Coquitlam"...that weren't at all looked into.

I'm glad these women are now people again. I just wish something had been done sooner: it might well have saved most of them.

[catdraco.livejournal.com]

Sweden seem to have the right idea: decriminalising the selling of sex, but criminalising the purchasing of sex.

[catdraco.livejournal.com]

Mm. I disagree with it being a victimless crime, but aside from that the evidence I've seen doesn't seem to support the theory you're outlining. Legalising and regulating prostitution seems to increase the volume of sex workers/trade - and increases dramatically the amount of organised crime that goes along with it. While it's a logical idea, the reality doesn't seem to follow that logic.

[lusty-librarian.livejournal.com]

while i don't know much about the highway of tears (http://www.highwayoftears.ca) (where lots of folks, mostly women, have disappeared on the highway in northern BC), or the more than 20 women, many of whom were sex workers, who have "disappeared" in Edmonton, i see that there's not much effort expended to find out what happened to these people. oh yeah, most of these women were Native, and poor.

it's like deja vu all over again...

[pectopah.livejournal.com]

I mentioned the trial in my blog as a commentary on the television coverage, which on CTV Newsnet, at least, strikes me as lurid and flashy--how special graphics and sensational music can be viewed as anything more than a ratings grab seems cynical to me. I learned more from your post than reading the intensive coverage in the Gazette, by which I mean a complete listing of the names of all 30 victims.

[jawnbc]

Indeed. One of the reasons that I rarely watch any TV news besides CBC and BBC.

[jeffbriggs.livejournal.com]

It is a very sad and serious situation and unfortunately involves a lot of women who seem like cast offs to so much of society. But as you drive home by listing so many of their names they were individuals who had families and lives and fears and emotions just like all the rest of us. Unfortunately so many of them fell into troubled existences that made them extremely vulnurable and easy prey.

[that-dang-otter.livejournal.com]

Such a thing would never have occurred to me, but I have to say I don't respond well to the word "don't".

Out of curiosity - we don't get much news of it below the 49th parallel, but the snippets I've heard suggest that despite the evidence there is some doubt about the guilt of the accused. Is this a serious doubt, or just obfuscation and/or BS?

[jawnbc]

It's a request, obviously not a command. Strongly worded.

Hard to tell, but at this point it would have to be speculative. The trial only started 3 days ago, and is expected to last a year. And it's only for the first 6 (of 26) charges. From my experience Crown prosecutors err on the side caution: for them to be laying so many first degree murder charges without really strong evidence seems unlikely.

Whether he worked alone, that's another matter. We'll have to see what the DNA evidence is I guess.

[mathan.livejournal.com]

AMEN!

[deafdyke.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[mason5280.livejournal.com]

Someone is making fun of this? I'm flabbergasted. I'm sickened hearing all about this dark part of Canadian history. No one deserves what they went through. Thanks for posting their names.

[eressea.livejournal.com]

George had a segment on The Hour tonight about news coverage of the trial: how much is too much, what lines should (or should not) be crossed, and so on. The more I kept listening to the "media experts," the more I kept thinking - as one of your earlier respondents noted - that the real story is why it took so long for the police to get off their asses. If I remember correctly, it was a small handful of family members of the victims who finally succeeded in getting an investigation launched.

We know that these women were brutally murdered... to my way of thinking, the details of their deaths drag the whole series of events down to a Nightmare on Elm Street level.

[bear-left.livejournal.com]

thank you

[chen-tokuryu.livejournal.com]

I hate it when people do this sort of stuff then state that it's some sort of "backlash against political correctness."

[callingzero.livejournal.com]

I'm not naming anyone(s) either, but ... that's twice in one day that you've said what others wouldn't (myself included), and nailed it.

(And your other statement I'm referring to wasn't even made on LJ ;) !)

I'm too complacent, and more inclined to just change the subject in such cases.

[jawnbc]

*blush*