Report-A-John in Canada

Looks like Edmonton has begun a new thing in the fight against prostitution in the city. The new 'report a john' campaign has begun. The basic idea is that this is a community watch program set up by the police so that the citizens who do not want prostitutes trawling respectable streets can report their 'unrespectable' business and make it so that the johns will not go near the area. Thus, like the idea of supply and demand, if there is no demand in a certain area, the supply moves to where it is needed.

Anyways, here is the deal. You are in your house/store/place of business or whatever, you see prostitutes mingling around (though, these days the way women are dressing, how can you tell a prostitute from a fashionable lady unless you walk up to them and ask?) and you are unhappy. You wait for a person to come up and talk to them, then you grab one of your handy 'report a john' cards that the police hand out, or you can download them online at "http://www.police.edmonton.ab.ca/Previous%20Headlines/2006/July/Report-A-John%20Card.pdf" You then fill out the particulars, hand it over to the police and they can either rush out to the person, find them, inform the spouses that this person was seen doing business with a possible prostitute, destroy the persons life and thus shaming men into not approaching prostitutes. After all, men approaching prostitutes on the street is an underground thing that only happens in the shadows, not in broad daylight. I also believe that the city counsel is also making known prostitution streets more well lite with extra street lights and lamps.

Problem with this however is that even the police admit that there is a lot of grey area in the whole prostitution thing. If you want to read up on it yourself, check out this site:

http://www.police.edmonton.ab.ca/Pages/Prostitution/PublicInfo/PublicInfoMain.htm

and see what is legal and illegal. Here are some key points: 'if a sex act is available but will cost the client extra and a discussion ensues about price for sexual services, and if the discussion occurs in a public place, then the john and the escort are committing an illegal act (i.e., communication for the purpose of prostitution -- s. 213). If, however, the discussion occurs in a private residence, no offence has been committed.' Note here that the discussion has to occur in a public place and price has to be mentioned. So, a guy goes up to a girl, girl says "how about a good time" guy says yes and she gets into his car, rolls up the window and they talk where no one can hear them, is that a public or private place? Or, if no one can hear their voice and hear that a price has been discussed, then how can you prove in a court of law that a price was mentioned?

I like the massage parlours. They can register themselves with the city, make it known that they are an adult massage parlour and can legally conduct business. They even go so far as to say that it is a certain price for a massage and will give you a 5 minute actually massage (though no better than what a girlfriend or wife will do at home) before conducting any sexual acts. Thus, they can say that it was not just for the explicit purpose of sexual acts, but it was a massage as well. It is also a private residence/establishment, done in the privacy of the room, no other people can hear the prices being discussed, therefore no offence has been commited.

Isn't this a wonderfuly strange world that we live in?

How many grains of sand does it take to make a heap?

While doing my daily blog readings of the few blogs that I do go through, I came across this post:

http://singabloodypore.blogspot.com/2006/07/nine-linked-to-falun-gong-group.html

Now, while I am not sure about what exactly the Falun Gong group is and what it's doctrine in the whole religious circle is, though am curious to look into it but at the moment am going to head to bed so can't do the searching now, the one thing that caught my eye that kindled a thougth I had long long ago was the one line that stated that the religion was banned in China as an 'evil cult'. This got me thinking of the thought I had long ago when someone brought up the topic of Mormon and Christinity. What makes a belief a religion over a cult?

When we were simple humanoids, learning to walk upright and discovering tools, it is believed that we had multiple gods. There were gods for water, sun, sky, earth, rock..Hell, even the greeks and romans had a whole army of gods that dominated everything with one big powerful god ruling all the other gods. The aboriginal (First Nation) people of Canada had many different spirits and gods that ruled over the world and were paid homage to and were told of in stories as to how the world was created and run. I bet during this time, when Christianity was first thought of and there was only a small handful of them surrounded by thousands of the polytheistic believers, then Christianity was probably thought of as a cult. Isn't there stories of the Christians being tossed to the lions of their religious beliefs?

So what makes a belief a religion over a cult? How many grains of sand make a heap? If you had 1 grain and added one grain, is it a heap? two grains and add a grain, is it a heap? how many grains of sand does it take to add before you have a heap? and, once you have a heap, if you remove one grain of sand, is it no longer a heap? In that train of thought, is it the number of believers, in which case how many believers does it take to turn a cult to a religion? or what about age? how long does a belief have to be present before it turns from a cult to a religion? 10 years? 100 years? 1000 years? is there a secret hand shake or something tangible that has to exist for the cult to turn religion? I mean, you worship a man in Texas, give him all your money, cut off your nuts, drink poisoned Kool-Aid so that you can go to a UFO in the sky that will take you to the Eden/Heaven, then that could be a cult. You worship a man that died thousands of years ago, born from a virgin female, walked on water, was killed and rose from the dead and appeared to his 12 followers in a beam of light and give the preachers that tell of this person 10% of your wages, is that a religion? You have to have a book or an organization that classes you above a cult to religion?

I think that what it takes to turn a cult to a religion is what the powerful people of the land say. I believe I heard once that the greeks and romans were polytheistic but then an emporer came into power and felt that he liked Christianity better than Pagan worship and therefore, Paganism went out the door and became the cult and Christianity took hold and became the religion. So, I guess that means, intrinsically all beliefs are just that, beliefs and thoughts but what they are classed as is simply a manner of what the ruling people say they are.

Guess that means that if that was the case then people should have 'freedom of belief' instead of 'freedom of religion' since belief encompasses both cults and religion, whereas freedom of religion, in its very wording, means to imply that people are free to worship the religion that the ruling class says is a religion but excludes the beliefs that the ruling class does not accept making it a cult.

is there such a thing as 'under kill'????

I was watching the news at supper today and my favorite guy, Bob Layton, came on the news. Love this guy. He has a dead pan way of talking and he doesn't play to the higher crust crowd and talk about how mocha's are going up in price or the cost of SUVs mean that he has to sell his rolex to get one. This guy talks about the every day, mundane things that you will think about when you are driving to work and hear it on the news or see it on the street and scratch your head to think about. So, I was shocked when he mentioned that a 15 year old boy kills someone and gets one day in jail. I thought it had to be a mistake.

So, after work I went to my room and did a search and sure enough, this is what I found. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/print/CTVNews/20060622/teen_sentence_060622/20060622/?hub=Canada&subhub=PrintStory true to his word, a 15 year old beat a 22 year old Kurdish refugee from Iraq in 2001 because (I read in another article when I did more searching) the 22 year old 'looked at' the 15 years old sister 'wrong'. The 22 year old was working as a pizza delivery person. Of course, the justice Minister to Canada did mention that it wasn't the Supreme Court judges fault for upholding the sentence 7-0 because the law was read the right way in accordance to how it was written. Yet another case of badly written laws causing problems and injustice in our system. Now, the problem is, when will the Conservative gov't get off their butts and change that youth justice act so that harsher punishments will happen.

I am not talking about putting the kid away for life, I am not talking about beating him once a month for 20 years for him to learn, I am not even talking about capital punishment here for harsh punishment. All I am wondering about is the old saying "don't use a cannon to kill a mosquito". In the same aspect, 'dont take a pea shooter when you are hunting elephants'. A kid kills a man in such a horrible way, you don't slap his wrist and say "bad boy", you treat him like an adult. 25 years in jail, parole for good behavior maybe and, who knows, being in jail you could actually make sure he goes to school and maybe, just maybe, educate him so that he learns from this mistake.

Here is hoping that the Conservatives can change a Liberal law mistake and give us legistlation that is benefitial to all people and can give a serious punishment for a serious crime without stepping on the rights and humanity of the criminal. I know, I know..pipe dream, but we all have to have some dreams in life, dont we?

Did you have a good world when you died? enough to base a movie on?

I was happily working this morning, listening to a country CD because my co-worker in the kitchen can not listen to anything BUT country first thing in the morning, when the co-worker came in and told me about a plane crash that was mentioned on the news. He tried to tell me what happened, but him being of short memory and old in body, made for interesting recounting of the tale but this is what I gleaned from his words. Apparently a passenger plane was taking off, had a possible mechanical problem and crashed into a cement wall after leaving the runway. Not sure exactly where it went down. He said it happened in Russia but there are news articles about a plane going down in Venezuela. The thing that he did mentoin was that there were 152 people on the plane and all but 9 (not sure if these are in stable or critical condition as of yet) people died in the crash.

My first thought was that those 9 people that survived are probably going to be going through some interesting times ahead. Figure that they have one of three possible ways to live their life from now on. Either they will have one extreme where they will now realize the glory of the moment in that your entire life can be snuffed out in a second without you having any control over it and therefore they wont wait til a special occassion to use the good china, or they will not wait for that special occassion to surprise the person they love with a hug, a kiss or a romantic moment under the moonlight. Perhaps these 9 people will perhaps live the rest of their lives like the guy does in "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim McGraw.

On the other hand, perhaps these 9 people will go the total other way of thinking and say that their life can be snuffed out in a second without any control and therefore will heighten their method of self preservation to the point that they might not do anything. They will never leave their house again, sit on a chair for the rest of their lives and be so scared to move out of the house because at any second, their life will be over and they dont want their life to be over. Though never really realizing that by living a sheltered and hidden life from all the wonderful things life has to offer, they really did die in that plane crash that their bodies survived from, but it just so happens that their body did not lie down and expire.

Then there could be the middle road where the survivors will walk away and shrug it off and say "whoa, this is gonna make a nice beer drinking story" and then go to work, go home, eat their dinner and sleep with their spouces and never really change their life style in the least. They could treat this like any other bad thing that has ever happened in their life but perhaps will have a slightly better self confidence because when they are asked to present a speech at a gathering they will sit back and think "hell, I survived a huge plane crash and did not die...what is a speech in front of 20 people going to do to me that a fireball wreckage failed to do?"

Those thought went through my head in about 10 seconds and then my co-worker said something else that got me thinking more about my life. "When you are going to die, they say your life flashes before your eyes in 2 seconds. Can you just imagine?" I sort of looked at him when he said that and jokingly said with a shudder "damn, my 2 seconds would be pretty boring" He laughed at that and then he walked away. Though he did not realize it, his words got me thinking about the quote from the doors CD that is in the title of this entry. Could I imagine the two seconds that would flash before my eyes, my entire life and what I have done. What would those images be?

So, I took a second and went to the back of the camp into the store room and got me a chair. I sat down in it and then tried to imagine flying in the plane. I felt the seats around me, the smell of the fuselage, the sounds of other passengers, the rumble of the plane and then I felt the plane take off. I then threw in the lurge of the plane that obviously felt that something was wrong, the feel of the plane going down and tried to imagine my impending death coming at me in a few seconds. I then let my mind free and images flashed in my head. I did not time them but just let them go til they finished. Here are a few of those images that I experienced:

Walking to school with my brother when I was 7 years old in Burnaby, seeing my mom at the door and waving good bye to her as my brother and I walked to school; walking home with my brother and him swinging a baseball bat by accident and smacking me in the nose and then trying to tell me the story I was to tell to cover his tracks so he would not get in trouble, all the while my nose was throbbing and I swear was bleeding; walking along a high wall (to my eyes at least 20 feet high, but really only 4-5 feet high) at 3-4 years old and then falling off of it; walking through a park when I was 7 with my dog, Tiger, when a bully picked on me and for the first time in my life watching Tiger actually growl, bark and then attack the bully protecting me; moving to Inuvik and seeing the new place and being so happy running around the new place until I stubbed my toe on the couch leg and then crying to my parents that I wanted to go home to Kamloops; winning the science fair in grade 5 but not really caring about it because when I got my ribbon my brother was taken to the hospital the night before the judging and no one would tell me what he was in for or what was being done to him (to this day I still do not know); my job interview with Judy at the Farside Lounge and her reluctance in hiring me but then repeated flashes of me working for her and even coming in on my one hour break between classes and have her say "we need a hand" and I was behind the counter working happily; winning the 'honourable mention' award for student involvement for my work at the Farside and winning the 'student contribution award' later the next year for my dedication to the Farside job and then being told that I would have won it again another year but because I had already won it they felt it should go to another student to be fair; seeing EeWei for the first time as she walked through the door at the hotel in 2002 where I was staying and how shy and reserved she looked; walking through Sentosa and the beach at Sentosa and how mad she got when I used her towel to dry my feet after we washed them coming out of the water; our nights together....

I am sure that they would have continued on for a lot longer but figured my 2 seconds of self reflection were up and got up out of the chair. I then took all those thoughts and considered them and came to the conclusion that while I may not have had enough happen in my life to base a movie on that anyone would gladly pay $13 these days to go and see. I feel that I have had a good world to date and I believe that with my upcoming marriage in Decemeber of 2006, it can only get better. While the memories that I have had in my life are good ones and the people and things I have done are memorable to me, that does not mean that I have done all that there is to do and that there will not be more memories to make.

After all, as Peter Pan said "ahhh, to live...now THAT would be an interesting adventure to come!"
****
Update

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060709/plane_crash_060709/20060709?hub=TopStories

apparently it has been downgraded to 120 people dead, 40 or so in hospital. Strange how they mention that "no canadians were on board". Am I, as a Canadian, now supposed to say "whew, what a relief...if Canadians had died then THAT would be terrible"??? why do we care only when our own nationality seems to die?

Tis better to have loved and lost????

At lunch today I found myself eating with a lady that works in the office. She knows me for being the rather 'interesting' individual that I am and often asks me "so, what is the thought for the day?". Meaning, she is curious as to what stupidly mundane and idiotic turn of events I have been mulling over and over in my head repeatedly to the point that it would drive a normal person insane. Of course, never being one to shy away from questions like that, I quickly pulled one thing out of the air that happened to pop in and we started to discuss it.

"is it better to do something, get to really enjoy it and then face the risk of never doing it again and feel the loss...or is it better not to have done anything and therefore never run the risk of feeling loss about it?"

She thought this through and mulled it over. We then made up the simple example of "is it better NOT to have eaten ice cream ever in your life and therefore you dont miss it when you go somewhere that it never exists, or is it better to have spent the time eating it for those few moments of pleasure?" For, pleasure can last only a second to a few minutes, but regret and loss can last as long as that item you desire is not readily available to you. So, is it worth those few moments of pleasure to risk suffering a life time of loss and regret?

Later she thought she rememebered a quote about regrets but it was eluding her so I supplied my own quote. "My only regret in life is that I have regreted something" She thought this was rather amusing and then carried on by saying that isnt it better to have tried something instead of doing nothing since doing nothing would mean that you would live in a white little box and have had no experiences in your life. Of course, this is easily countered by saying that if you were looking at living in the box now after having been alive in the world for years and years, then yes it would be bad to sit in that box because you know what is out there and what wonders and experiences you are missing. However, if you were born in that box, never experienced life outside that box, how do you know what you are missing to miss?

A real life example of this would be to simply imagine the things that you are missing by being on planet Earth and not out on planet, say, Xerionia that has all these wonderful technological wonders and play toys. There they have mana that falls from the sky that tastes like heaven, toys that can keep you occupied for years on end, a landscape that produces the most beautiful horizons that you could ever imagine that paint the sky with colors beyond our spectrum. Now, don't you feel rather left out and miss those wonderful things? of course not...why? cause you have never set foot on this planet, seen these wonderful things and you can always sit back and say "doesn't exist. that was just my imagination". Same as the person in the box could say. They could imagine a box that would show pictures and sound that they could laugh, cry, get mad, sad, aroused by. Then they can sit back and say "only a dream" and then sit looking at the white walls, just as we sit back and look at the few things that are given to us in this world to keep us occupied and entertained.

Then, of course, we had to end with me just saying "sort of like the saying 'tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all'" and she agreed but then I had to burst her bubble by telling her that our philosophy class on gaming, chaos and society ethics class proved that quote wrong using the ideas of pleasure and pain.

Of course, at the end of all my little talks with people, I always get the usual departure farewell of "you are serious screwed (sometimes even a harsher word there*G*) up!" and they smile, say thanks for a confusing meal and walk away.

Guess when it all comes down to it, the only one who knows if it is better to have 'loved and lost than never to have loved at all' is the person doing the loving and losing, for only they know what means more to them than to anyone else.

Things I Will Miss...

I have started asking questions into possibly moving to Singapore to be with my financee (soon to be wife in December) and live there for at least 4 years. I can see that the decision to move is sinking in because I am looking at things now and saying "I am going to miss that when I am gone". For instance, the other night I was watching the news and came across this story:

Officer injured, man dead after north end shootingFriday, June 30, 2006 @ 1:00 p.m.

Homicide detectives are investigating an early morning incident that resulted in an officer being seriously injured and another man dying as a result of gunshot injuries.

Around 10:30 p.m. Thursday, June 29, North Division officers went to the area of 128 Avenue and 68 Street in response to a report of a disturbance. While investigating into that matter, they were alerted to a possible weapon inside a home at 12838-68 Street around 12:20 a.m.

A number of residents were home at the time and three officers entered the home to investigate the complaint. One officer went upstairs while the two other officers went downstairs. A short time later, around 12:30 a.m., shots were fired in the basement resulting in both the EPS constable and the suspect being hit several times.

The constable is Daniel Furman, 26, an EPS member for more than two years. He was transported to hospital with serious injuries and, at the time of this release, is undergoing surgery for his injuries. He is listed as being in serious but stable condition.

The suspect, who has been identified as Darren James Cardinal, 26, of Edmonton, was treated on scene by both EPS members and paramedics and was transported to hospital where he died as a result of his injuries a few hours later. The autopsy is scheduled for 1:00 this afternoon.

As per provincial protocol, an RCMP member from Edmonton Major Crimes has been assigned as oversight into this investigation.

****

Now, this story was being reported on the news saying that the officer was out of serious condition and moved to an even stablier condition and all. It then went on to explain how the parents of Darren James Cardinal were saying that they were demanding of the officers why the officers didnt go in shooting rubber bullets to subdue him without killing him. I had to laugh at this and could just see the response that I am sure the chief of police would love to give but can't.

"I accept your question and feel sorry for your loss. However, we decided not to use rubber bullets at the time since your son did come out of the house firing real bullets at our officers. We were in the process of asking him to return to his house and fire his criminally obtained rubber bullets at us but by then he had accidentally hit one of our officers and we just returned fire with our real bullets. Please, in the future, educate your sons in when you fire rubber bullets as opposed to real bullets at our police officers. Thank you for your consideration and, again, sorry for your loss"*G*

Yeah, will miss the things that some people here in Canada think up when talking about their sons and daughters and the run in with the law...But, I am sure that in Singapore I will find things to keep myself amused in the headlines just the same.

Love...what is it?

I was talking with a friend recently, and she was talking about how she was developing strong feelings towards another individual. After a few seconds I asked "so, are you falling in love with him?" and she had to stop, think about it for a second and then, like the debater that I know her to be, asked "can you define 'love'?" I sat there for a second, thought about it, dug deep into my heart and soul and can up with the definition of "love is never having to beg for sex". So, this got me a look which I had to smile at and then dig even deeper for the true answer.

Love is a deep longing for the individual. You love a person when you don't need to be with them, but you want to be with them. You don't 'love' the air that you breath because you have to have it to survive, it is not a mutual relationship. You can 'love' lasagna simply because if you don't eat lasagna, you won't die or you won't get sick. You can live a long life without a certain food. Granted, you can't 'love' food since you need some form of substance to survive, but you can love certain types of food. Love is a deep emotional response to having to be with someone either psychological, emotional, mental, geographical or physical, again, not because you HAVE to be, but because you WANT to be.

Not the most romantic and ideal definition, I know, but it is my own thoughts. Just thought I would share...

bitter sweet update

The world is still a screwed up place, but at least there is some light at the dismal end of the dark and long tunnel. I posted a couple stories concerning how the justice system and people are turning into immoral monsters. The sisters that drowned their mother and made it look like an accident, and the ex-soldier that claimed it was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that caused the rape of a 13 year old girl and he shouldnt be held to blame for it because he was in Bosnia. The verdicts are in and sentence has been past.

http://news.sympatico.msn.ctv.ca/TopStories/ContentPosting.aspx?newsitemid=CTVNews%2f20060630%2fbathtub_sentence_060630&feedname=CTV-TOPSTORIES_V2&showbyline=True

In the case of the two girls, it looks like they were found guilty and sentenced to 10 years (the maximum for a youth sentence) of which 6 will be served behind bars. While I still hold my belief that a youth should not be let off easy because of what they did since more often now youths are doing stupid and illegal things almost with the safe knowledget that their actions wont be made punished. I am going to resign to the fact that this might be alright. They got nothing in return for their actions (no insurance or inheritance), their family should now ignore them (would you take in your neices if you knew that they killed your sister for insurance money?), and they have to live with the guilt that they killed their own mother. So, that in their minds, starting a new life onwards should be semi difficult.

However THIS one, the case of the soldier that blamed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as to why he raped a 13 year old girl, has me shaking my head saying "WHAT WAS THE JUDGE THINKING!?!??!?!"

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060622/soldier_ptsd_060622/20060622?hub=TopStories

Dont think I can even comment on this one because the level of stupidity and all runs soooo deep through so many areas of the case that I have read that I would not know where to start. I mean, judge for passing the verdict, lawyer for actually taking this defence and accused for doing the crime and taking the defence. It is like looking at the Keystone Cops and how they catch criminals and then actually seeing these policing methods being employed in the real world. You just have to shake your head and wonder if the system will get improved in certain areas.