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Ethan Baron1 40 days ago
Interesting comments on the Province website on the question of all men being potential rapists. Unfortunate to see some of the extremist views on both sides. I expected Flynn's comments to generate male anger, in fact she p***ed me off too, but I'd hoped that Reifferscheid's comments would show that not all feminists hold such adversarial and counterproductive views. When I was reporting from the Democratic Republic of Congo last year, I encountered many victims of the widespread rape there, and what was particularly disturbing was that rape had spread from soldiers and militiamen to men not associated with any armed group - they were raping, violently, because they could get away with it. And although I still don't understand what, exactly, would motivate a group of militiamen to kidnap a 15 year old girl and rape her for a week in a jungle, then for one of them to reach inside her and squeeze her bladder till it burst, or for a villager to rape his neighbour's daughter, I found it ...
Ethan Baron1 166 days ago
Several friends of Port Coquitlam's Bryan family took me to task for suggesting in my column Sunday that the Bryan parents may bear some responsibility for how their kids turned out - Tiffany on house arrest for drug dealing, Michael before the courts on pot-trafficking charges, with alleged gun offences stayed in his past. Raising kids isn't easy. But here's a family with a nice home, employed parents, and two out of three kids gone bad, so far. It makes you wonder what went wrong, and whether the parents had a role in that through action or inaction. I asked mother Debora about it, but she hung up after threatening to sue me. They have another son, a young man, who, I hope, can clearly see the pitfalls in the road his siblings followed, and will choose a different path. You always hope situations like this can be a wake-up call to the people involved. Those close to Tiffany, including her dad, tell me she's devoted to cleaning up her act. I wish her very well.
Ethan Baron1 171 days ago
Thirteen-year-old sentenced to a year, will serve about six months I didn't include in today's column some comments from transit police Sgt. Tom Seaman, who worries that the violent youngster's anger-management problem will get him injured or killed. "He’s just a tiny little guy," Seaman said. "He’s obviously got this temper, or did have." Probably, he still does, and who knows whether that's fixable. If not, he may find himself on the receiving end of a violent interaction after he's out of youth detention. "The scary thing about a young fellow like this is all the anger he has inside of him, one day he’s going to direct it at the wrong person, and something bad is going to happen to him," Seaman said. "If he does soemthiing to the wrong person, he could easily get the same back and it could end up tragically." If the comments on The Province website are an accurate reflection of public sentiment, my reference to legions of ...
Ethan Baron1 284 days ago
It was only a matter of time, I guess. Eric Raymond Morneau appeared in Kelowna Provincial Court on Monday, charged with internet luring of a 14-year-old girl. He allegedly used Facebook. This is a very creepy story. I even creeped myself out, checking to see how easy it is to find kids to whom any pervert can send messages, saying whatever he wants. Really, for protection, it comes down to one box on the Facebook privacy settings - the one that limits who can send you messages. Nearly every Facebook user accepts messages from anyone. The story's in the paper tomorrow, Thursday.
Ethan Baron1 286 days ago
So many people have taken my Valentine's Day advice to check on others' criminal history using the B.C. Court Services "Justin" system that the Justin web site crashed Friday. Traffic is still so high that Court Services has put a message on there that says they are reviewing the situation and if traffic remains high, they may have to suspend the service. Let me see, a public service is publicized, and because the public uses it, they're going to shut it down? And get this: a woman emailed me about her daughter's boyfriend, whose truck was searched by police when he was stopped with the daughter recently. The young woman's parents were very concerned about why the boyfriend might have been an object of police interest. After reading my column, the mom plugged in the boyfriend's name on Justin. Turns out he was charged with drug smuggling. Case is still before the courts. Nice one, Justin!
