Letter to NP

Friday's 75-words-or-less NP question was what to do about prostitutes. My suggestion:

The question is not what we should do about prostitutes; rather, the question is what should be done about the johns. Most will agree that prostitution is a miserable job to which few happily aspire and that society would be better without it. Arrest, fine, and jail johns as abusers of the vulnerable. Eradicate the demand and the supply will
wane. It’s economics 101. And then help the prostitutes left without their customers.

George van Popta
Ottawa

South Sudan Clarity

As published several days ago in NP, just because truth is important:

South Sudan Clarity

Re: ‘Selfish’ UN is picking on Quebec, June 19

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, complains that the Quebec legislature’s move to rein in massive street protests and campus blockades by students is an example of human rights abuses similar to those committed by North Korea, Zimbabwe, and South Sudan.

As most people know, this is bizarre in the extreme. However, to add South Sudan to North Korea and Zimbabwe reveals an astounding ignorance of world affairs. Sadly, there are human rights abuses in South Sudan, but to say that South Sudan is a human rights violator, belonging to a triumvirate of violators, is not right.

Shortly after South Sudan seceded from Sudan, the new president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, warned the military and police that rape, torture, and other human rights violations carried out by armed personnel would be considered criminal acts and prosecuted aggressively by the Ministry of Justice. The mostly Christian and Animist South Sudan seceded from Sudan largely to escape human rights violations perpetrated by Sudan.

George van Popta
Ottawa

French CBC

Sent today; feel free to borrow.
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Honourable James Moore

Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages

Dear Sir,

Today I heard and read that CBC's French division has been posting a pornographic television show on one of its websites free for all to see, and that when this was brought to your attention, CBC made the decision to make it available only between midnight and 4 a.m. As a Canadian tax payer this is offensive to me in the extreme. I resent my tax dollars funding pornography. I realize that many people view pornography via the Internet, but I find it disconcerting to think that Canada's broadcaster is fueling this socially destructive phenomenon with hard-earned tax dollars. You will undoubtedly agree that such as this does not lie within the mandate of the CBC. 

Sincerely,

George van Popta

Ottawa

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R e v.  G e o r g e  v a n  P o p t a
Pastor

Jubilee Church: the Canadian Reformed Church of Ottawa

My Website

My Bookstore

NP

I think it is unfortunate that though the NP published my letter to the editor today,  two grammatical errors were introduced.

This is what I wrote: On the day JFK was assassinated, I was a five-year old boy playing in our backyard when the neighbour girl came over, crying, to tell me that “the President” had been shot. I went inside where I found my parents listening intently to the radio. Before I had said a word, my father put his finger to his lips and shushed me quiet. That day my father rented a TV, an instrument viewed with great suspicion by my family. We had the TV in our house for a week, and on Saturday morning my brothers and I watched cartoons.

This is what they published: I was a five-year-old playing in our backyard when the a (error!) neighbourhood girl came over, crying, to tell me that “the president” had been shot. I went inside, where I found my parents listening intently to the radio. Before I could say a word, my father put his finger to his lips and shushed me quiet. That day, my father rented a television, an instrument viewed with great suspicion by my family. We had it in our house for a week, allowing my brothers and I (error!) to watch cartoons on Saturday morning.

But I'll get over it.