I did not live until today

[jawnbc]

As I move further and further into my dotage--like today's little threshold of "gee this one floor flight of stairs is hard"--I find myself gaining patience where there was none. And it evaporating where it resided en masse. 

Once a week my pals Winnie, toneyvr  and I have BNO (Boys' Night Out). It's a rollicking time of food, conversation, and food. Par-tay. We're all nerds, but all hawt at the same time, and we're all pretty passionate and motivated guys. And hawt, in case I didn't mention that.

Anyway, the topic of Vancouver came up this week, or rather I presented the working hypothesis "we the people of Lotus Land™ have let Vancouver go to shit." In what ways? My whinges legitimate concerns largely centre on homelessness, mental illness, substance misuse (including alcohol) and ascendent litter. No, make that garbage.

I'm right, of course.

Ten years ago I would have argued--narrow-mindedly, ideologically, and snarkily--for the rights of poor people. I've not lost my commitment to them, but I no longer can countenance any argument that rationalizes the status quo. Yes, these folks have been hard done by. Yes they almost always have medical conditions (like addiction or mental illness) that mitigate their actions. But Vancouver wasn't this grotty in 1990, and the correlation with the increase in overall population (and concomitant homelessness numbers) isn't there: if we have 4x the homeless, we have 20x the grot.

I'm no NIMBY; in fact I support more programmes and services for these folks in my neighbourhood (next door to me is fine too). But I no longer accept any social justice argument for the quality of life of everyone in Vancouver to degrade this much. And certainly not any further. In fact, we need to get it back up to where it was (at least) 10 years ago. 

How? Jaysus I've no tidy answers. But I do believe (believe, not know) that part of it is holding everyone to some standards of behaviour. When I moved to Vancouver you would be ticketed for having an open beer in public (excluding restos and cafés with patios, along with private property. Of course). That's no longer enforced and now we have people toking everywhere--and people smoking rock or shooting up in plain view. Doesn't strike me as a human right issue to tell people "you can't drink, smoke dope, do crystal or any other intoxicants out here."

Conversely, I have a fairly shockingly surprise reserve of compassion for that minority of religious persons who are panicked about us queers bringing the end of civilization. Also I also want to shake them and say "dude, you want End of Days and we're just doing our part. Nice arse, by the way."

In other news, I'm buried at work, but still feel valued and respected and supported. I'll be teaching this summer, and the extra income should help pay down some pesky debts.

And querrelle  is building us a new kitchen! 

Comments

[garpu.livejournal.com]

I think if people really *were* into social justice they wouldn't accept that grot was a human rights issue. I think they'd be concerned that homeless people didn't have access to basic human rights things like adequate bathrooms, showers, healthcare (including mental), etc. You get a lot of those kinds of "liberals" down here, too. You're right. it is a glorified NIMBY.