#1. RUMOURS AGAIN - A REAL SHAME!
What’s up with the South Asian community?
Last week, I told you about the ridiculous rumours that people spread about a woman being bitten by a snake while selecting okra at a Fruiticana store – one that caused unnecessary problems for Tony Singh, the well-known businessman who owns the chain. It also caused problems for Surrey RCMP who had to handle calls from the media about it. Of course, the rumour was totally false.
Then last week, some perverts spread vicious rumours that a popular radio talk show host was arrested for some domestic violence incident – again, totally false. And again, Surrey RCMP had to handle calls from the media.
So what do you think the Surrey RCMP thinks about our community?
When on earth will our guys learn to stop such vile practices?
No wonder in India people joke about themselves being a nation of “leg pullers” – not in the English language sense of joking as in “pulling one’s legs,” but in the sense of pulling someone down from a high position because we are jealous of their success.
This kind of cheap behaviour really doesn’t do our community any good.
It’s like the rumour some people spread about me becausr they don’t like the fact that I defend freedom of speech and our Charter of Rights even when I may be against something. I am no proponent of Khalistan and, in my opinion, there will never be a Khalistan. But I do believe people have a right to advocate for one as long as they do it peacefully and do not break any law. So some frustrated idiots started spreading the rumour that I was receiving money from terrorists!
When my friends contacted me about the rumours, I just laughed and told them not to worry. But those immoral goofs kept on spreading the rumours. So I finally wrote in this newspaper that I give the RCMP full permission to check all my bank accounts and whatever else that was required – and I requested them to please let me know where the money was so that I could pay off my Visa stuff. I am still waiting for the information.
#2. “420” ON STEAM CLOCK!
Someone wrote “420” on the world famous Steam Clock in Vancouver’s historic Gastown some weeks ago – and whoever is supposed to look after the clock has been sleeping on the job – or perhaps smoking you-know-what!
420 (pronounce four-twenty and not four hundred and twenty) is another word for British Columbia’s main crop – MARIJUANA – also known as pot, weed, grass, bud, and skunk. It’s very commonly used in chat rooms to indicate that you smoke pot. It’s also used in advertisements. “420 friendly” means that you are tolerant of pot smokers.
For South Asians, 420 is a very amusing term. It means a cheat since that is the section of the Indian Penal Code, left by the former British rulers, that deals with cheats.
Anyway, it’s time the City of Vancouver bosses woke up and got the clock cleaned up, because tourists from all around the world have been busy taking photographs of the clock all these weeks with the highly visible 420.
What better publicity for B.C.’s chief cash crop!
Meanwhile, here is what Wikipedia has to say about the origin of 420:
“Although there are many explanations for the origin of the term, one stems from a story about a group of teenagers at San Rafael High School in San Rafael, California in 1971. The teens would meet after school at 4:20 p.m. to smoke marijuana at the Louis Pasteur statue. The group was known as "The Waldos" because they would sit against a wall and became popularized in the late 1980s by fans of the Grateful Dead. Many North American cannabis users continue to observe 4:20 as a time to smoke communally. By extension April 20 ("4/20" in U.S. dating shorthand) has evolved into a counterculture holiday, where people gather to celebrate and consume cannabis. In some locations this celebration coincides with Earth Week.”
#3. SCARY: ONGOING THREAT OF ILLEGAL GUNS
A shooting in broad daylight at one of the busiest intersections downtown on Friday evening and a fatal shooting outside a busy restaurant in the 2500-block of Nanaimo Street in the early hours of Saturday last week in Vancouver highlighted the ongoing menace of illegal guns.
Indeed, it’s incumbent on our politicians and our judges to sit down with the police and work out laws and sentences – real tough ones - that would drastically reduce such crime and send a clear message to gangsters and wannabes that this is not something glamorous.
The sheer idiocy of what took place is really, really scary. It just shows a wanton disregard for life and an appalling defiance of law.
On July 4 at 5:15 p.m. a 21-year-old man was shot in the leg following an argument with two other men in the south lane of Davie Street at Thurlow. Police officers heard the shot from half a block away and responded rapidly. A 25-year-old man with a loaded handgun was arrested as he attempted to flee. Police say they believe they know who the second suspect is.
Behrang (Ben) Khosravi is facing charges of attempted murder, carrying a concealed weapon, unauthorized possession of a firearm and two counts of possession of a prohibited or restricted weapon with ammunition.
The victim is recovering from non-life threatening injuries to his leg.
It appears to me that the suspect deliberately aimed for the victim’s leg just to show off his power. Only a coward would use a gun against a defenceless person. And that is what gangsters are: shameless cowards. They can only attack others when they have weapons or when they have more people with them than their victims. They also catch their victims by surprise. This is nothing to be proud of – it is everything to be ashamed of.
And take the losers at the Vietnamese restaurant on Nanaimo Street. An argument broke out inside the joint and then the group of some 20 people came out, still carrying on their altercation, when several shots were fired and a 25-year-old person, known to police, was killed. All the cowardly guys fled before the cops arrived – and none of them seem to be coming forward to tell police what transpired.
It seems that illegal guns are so common now that instead of fists, baseball bats or knives, they have become the first choice of goons. And that is terribly scary as these two cases show.
#4. SKYTRAIN SECURITY: INCOMPETENT MANAGERS
I just shook my head in disbelief when I came across this precious gem from SkyTrain spokesperson Ken Hardie in a local newspaper: “Hardie blamed the “troubled” neighbourhood around the station at 135 Street and 102 Avenue, rather than the SkyTrain system itself.”
Phew! How stupider could one get! How can you separate the two?
Listen up, you goofs. Obviously the security of passengers at any SkyTrain station is linked to the area around it and when there is a security problem, the SkyTrain management should respond rapidly and take the appropriate measures to deal with it.
All these years, it has been so clear that Surrey Central SkyTrain station has been a real problem. I know because I have been using it right from when it started.
That problem has always been the worst at night – people openly smoking on the platform, right before the security cameras; passengers without tickets; drunk people, some of them openly drinking on the SkyTrain, misbehaving with passengers; rowdy groups scaring passengers; and so on. I have seen it all over the past years. But one couldn’t spot a single SkyTrain attendant around. Even after the SkyTrain police was formed, the situation remained unchanged.
The fact is that when the attendants and cops are really needed, they are never around. And the only way to deal with this crazy situation is to have a SkyTrain attendant or a cop at every station – and be highly visible to have an effect.
Why the hell can’t these thick-skulled guys understand that instead of making all kinds of excuses?
#5. WHEN TASERS SHOULD BE USED
When police use Tasers indiscriminately and try to cover up their misdeeds with lies, that in itself is criminal for sure.
But when people assault police officers, they do deserve some generous helpings of energy - the Taser.
Respect for police officers is a must. Police are there for our security. Sure, they come under some brutal criticism at times when they screw up and that is good, for checks and balances are essential in a democracy. However, police represent law and order and they do a pretty good job in Canada.
So I was supportive of Abbotsford Police for stunning a couple of guys over the weekend for assaulting police officers in two separate incidents. Both guys were known to police.
In one case, the cops had to use the “conductive energy device” or Taser to subdue a combative man early Friday morning last week when they received a call about a domestic dispute in progress. They found that a 27-year-old man had assaulted his girlfriend and threatened two neighbours with a crowbar. In his anger, the man had punched a window, cutting his wrist. As the police officers tried to deal with his bleeding wrist, he suddenly attacked them, punching two of them in the face and kicking another in the chest, according to the police version.
When the officers couldn’t overpower the frenzied man, they Tasered him and brought him under control immediately. Police said: “Given the nature of the man’s injury, police believe had he not be restrained quickly there was a good chance he could have bled to death.” Police believe he was under the influence of cocaine at the time of his arrest.
Then on Sunday night, Abbotsford Police were called to a theft at the Esso Gas Station at 28020 Fraser Highway. Staff called police after a man entered the store and left with coffee and chips without paying. A police officer intercepted the man on Fraser Highway and he became combative. During the struggle the man kicked the officer in the face. The officer then deployed his Taser, but interestingly the clothing the man had on caused it to be ineffective. The officer was forced to use his baton. Only after several strikes did the officer manage to gain control of the suspect who kept resisting until he was finally handcuffed. The man was later taken to hospital where he was treated and released back into police custody.
The 36-year-old man turned out to be well known to police and is wanted in Halifax on weapon charges.
Assault on police officers should never be tolerated.
On the other hand, we have to be careful when police make up stories of assault just to cover up their own brutality.
#6. BOUNCERS – WANNABE COPS – OUT OF CONTROL?
Whenever I walk past bouncers at nightclubs downtown I can’t help but smirk at their steroid-enhanced big bodies. A martial arts student could easily kick their juiced-up butts.
Many of them have in the past been terribly racist towards Indo-Canadians – as reported both in the mainstream media and in the VOICE.
But police must take action against these wannabe cops when they break the law. Vancouver Police are investigating allegations of a brutal attack on Steve Hill of Port Moody at downtown Vancouver’s Roxy nightclub in the 900 block of Granville Street on May 17.
Hill was celebrating his birthday with a group of people when, according to the club’s version reported in a local newspaper, he was asked to leave because he was harassing a female employee. The club’s director of operations claimed he had a videotape that shows Hill’s friends asking him to calm down before he attacked the doorman and their employees holding him on the ground without striking him. But he refused to show it to the reporter.
Hill, however, disputed that version, claiming that nothing he did justified the way he was brutalized. He got a black eye and bruises and suffered a concussion and a photo of his face graphically backed that up. The bouncers kept kicking him in the head.
I’ll tell you why I believe Hill’s version of being brutalized – the question is not whether he was misbehaving with the female employee.
First of all, unless you view the whole videotape, you can’t tell what really happened. I find it odd that the club’s director of operations would talk so confidently about the video but refuse to let the reporter view it. What is he afraid of?
Secondly, the videotape may show what happened in a particular area of the club, but not what happened in another part.
If those big bouncers merely held him down, how did he receive all those injuries? I remember when I was in security in Toronto back in 1990 I was told by some experienced security supervisors how they would hold a guy down and then bang his face several times on the ground to teach him a lesson. They would then tell the cops that he was struggling while being arrested and injured himself. The cops knew exactly what had happened, but they would ignore it because cops and security view themselves as partners against crime.
Oops, I let out a secret!
#7. JAPANESE CRAZED OBSESSION WITH WHITE PEOPLE
The Japanese obsession with white people is a weird one. Traditionally, they hate foreigners. But when it comes to sex, they are crazy about white skin.
It’s as one local newspaper put it this week after the murder of B.C. model Diana Gabrielle O’Brien in Shanghai, China: “Japan has traditionally been known for its thirst for North American “hostesses” to entertain in clubs and bars catering to businessmen.”
The writer goes on to say that they are not prostitutes and strippers, but “more like amateur geishas.”
Really?
Who knows what really goes on? Let’s not be so naïve.
Now the same business appears to be flourishing in China.
But back to Japan. I remember back in the early 1990s a security company was asked to send a guard to patrol two floors of a downtown hotel where Japanese businessmen were staying because they were taking prostitutes – white, of course – to their rooms. The hotel management did not want to embarrass their clients, so they decided to have a uniformed security guard patrol two floors.
His instructions: be highly visible; when you see a Japanese businessman coming with a white woman who didn’t appear to be a business executive type, approach them and greet them and try to embarrass them. It was a very bizarre assignment for the poor security guard who was told to exercise his discretion.
Also, in the 1990s, the Yellow Pages were full of ads of escorts – or prostitutes – in English, of course, but quite a few of them had a few lines in Japanese, too. That was a clear indication that those escorts expected calls from visiting Japanese businessmen and tourists.
Also, a few years ago, a non-white guy contacted a Toronto-based agency for a job as an English teacher a prestigious private school chain in Japan and was told by an apologetic white guy that the Japanese running that chain wanted only white teachers. “Their concept of an English teacher is a blue-eyed blonde,” he explained.
#8. RIVALRY BETWEEN POLICE FORCES SCREWING UP INVESTIGATIONS
The crying need for a regional police force or a metro police force can hardly be overemphasized and – as the VOICE reported last month – the move for one is likely to start after next year’s provincial elections in May.
That need has now become even more evident as bitter differences between the RCMP and municipal forces are bound to come out in greater detail this September when a case of alleged wrongful dismissal goes to trial in the B.C. Supreme Court.
The Vancouver Sun’s Chad Skelton, in a series, exposed the rancour that underlined the relationship between the police forces during the multi-million-dollar Project Phoenix investigation into the Hells Angels that flopped.
According to the Wikipedia: “A phoenix is a mythical male bird with a tail of beautiful gold and red plumage (or purple and blue, by some sources). It has a 500 year life-cycle, and near the end the phoenix builds itself a nest of cinnamon twigs that it then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix arises. The new phoenix is destined to live, usually, as long as the old one. … The bird was also said to regenrate when hurt or wounded by a foe, thus being almost immortal and invincible — a symbol of fire and divinity.”
How immortal or invincible the RCMP and the municipal police forces will prove to be as opposed to a metro police force remains to be seen.
But as Allen Dalstrom, who led the investigation, alleges in his statement of claim: “Certain members of the senior management of the RCMP in British Columbia were opposed to the creation of the OCABC (Organized Crime Agency of B.C.) from its inception because the OCABC was given the mandate to carry out the investigations that had been previously been within the mandate of the RCMP.
“The RCMP in British Columbia sough to persuade the province to disband the OCABC and return the mandate for investigating organized crime to the RCMP.”
The OCABC was created in 1999 and was merged with the new Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit (CFSEU) of RCMP and municipal police officers in 2004.
Port Moody Police Chief Brad Parker, who was the acting chief of the OCABC in 2003-04, in an affidavit, stated that he believed Dalstrom was fired because of pressure from senior management within the RCMP.
I wonder how many other cases have been screwed up because of all these rivalries between the different police forces in the Lower Mainland?
#9. LEAKY CONDOS: GOVERNMENT’S ASLEEP AT THE SWITCH?
This is truly bewildering – the magnitude of the leaky condo scandal. And what on earth have successive governments done about this crisis except for some patchwork solutions at best?
One thing that any sensible and honest government should have done was to keep a track of all builders – not just the companies that they conveniently dissolve only to start others under new names – and make sure that all their assets were seized and they were sent to jail if any of the buildings they contructed turned out to be faulty.
But then, why would politicians want to harm the people that fund their political campaigns and do other favours for them, eh?
According to a recent report prepared by private consultants for the province’s Homeowner Protection Office, between 45 and 68 per cent of leaky buildings have yet to be repaired and repair loans that this office makes to owners stood at an average of $62,000 for wood-frame apartments and $72,000 for concrete buildings last September.
Forty-five to 55 per cent of about 160,000 strata-owned apartment units built between 1982 and 1999 have suffered what the consultants called “premature building envelope failure.”
At least 72,000 strata units leaked and had water damage. This number could be as high as 87,500, according to the report.
So, what the hell is the government really doing about this ongoing scandal?
#10. HARPER SHOULD ATTEND OLYMPIC OPENING CEREMONIES IN BEIJING
I think it is absolutely hypocritical of Prime Minister Stephen Harper to so self-righteously and foolishly boycott the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing. American President George Bush did the right thing by announcing that he would attend the opening ceremonies – and that evidently caught Harper off-guard.
When it comes to money, Western countries are the first to look after their interests, human rights or no human rights. These politicians bend over backwards to look after the interests of powerful multinational companies that finance their political campaigns. So if they are really so incensed about the state of human rights in China, why don’t they stop trade with that country altogether?
In any case, politics should be kept out of sports and it was absolutely inappropriate that the Olympic Committee chose Beijing because they felt that that would encourage China to respect human rights. After all, the same committee chose Moscow when it was under Communist rule. In fact, I think that any country or any individual athlete that boycotts any Olympic Games, no matter what the reason, should be banned from the next Olympic Games as a punishment. But I don’t think the Olympic Committee has the guts to do that. Why should the poor athletes suffer because of politics?
I am glad that the federal Liberal Foreign Affairs Critic Bob Rae has urged Harper to attend the opening ceremonies in Beijing.
Rae said: “Canada has had a policy of constructive engagement with China for nearly 50 years. The Prime Minister has a responsibility to do the same. An important signal would be to attend the opening of the Beijing Olympics.”
He went on to note: “Mr. Harper claims he won't attend because of a scheduling conflict, but it appears he is trying to have it both ways - using this as an excuse to appease the hard-line anti-China sentiments in his caucus without taking a position on China.”
Rae also noted: “French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced (this week) he will attend the opening of the Games. In the past several days, U.S. President George W. Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda have indicated they will also attend, and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has also said he is "leaning toward going."”
Rae pointed out: “A government can raise human rights issues and engage with China at the same time. It's been done before, and we can do it again."
- Rattan Mall
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