Morning Brew: December 3rd

Province readers fed up about crime. Because when you run a headline in massive bold print almost everyday, they will focus not on the causes of crime, the socio-economic ones, but on the spectacle. Its similar to nobody actually knowing why Osama bin Laden attacked the US.

It is entirely more likely that the cycle of poverty and violence are closely linked, in Reaganomic fashion, to keep those close to the poverty line working hard and not questioning the policies that lead us to perpetuate the aforementioned cycle.

And if you need help, we'll ship you out to an abandoned army base in Prince George. Mayencourt says a key element of the program is taking people out of the often chaotic, unstable environment they live in. And what happens when they get home Lorne? Where else can they afford a home? And the cycle continues...

Quest society creates grocery stores for the needy. While this is wonderful, it still makes me think that we consume too much, creating a sub-consumer class that feeds of our scraps.

East Side to get AIDS centre. Also great, but I worry about the concentration of social services in the DTES while cutting services to aboriginal mothers in the middle of winter. Meanwhile Berner reports on a private members bill to end "needless discrimination against First Nations children".

Art event shines light on troubled downtown corner. Right before they tear it down in the name of urban renewal.

Plans for co-op brothel opposed by activists. This is such a gray area. On the one hand there needs to be some sort of protection for prostitutes, but on the other it does seem to validate the commodification of the woman's body, despite the fact advertising does this already, and is mostly condoned. So I don't know.

Rookie officer responsible for raid on pig farm: "Missing-women task force didn't solve the crime, but members tagged along when property was being searched for firearms". Further proof that the DTES is a containment zone to be left alone.

"The Silver Lining of Ecological Meltdown". "He's right, at least partly, to say that my "agenda" is to "escape the depressing, desensitising 'language of environmentalism' that characterises headline news." I do indeed counsel against being all dreary and miserable about everything, and I agree wholeheartedly with Kimpton that the "language of environmentalism. . . only increases public guilt, impotence and indifference."

And assuaging guilt by finding 'the silver lining of ecological meltdown' helps how exactly? Why don't you stop pretending to be some sort of non-partisan pragmatist and just write for The Province? For example: Virtual reality no longer a refuge from green zealots.

Another Bomb Threat on BC Ferries. Oh come on, the food isn't that bad.