adam pattersonFebruary 02, 2008 15:15 EST

This Winnipeg exchange district shot - is it in the foreign legion bar? Are these guys the Lonely Vulcans? I think I had drinks with this crowd while on assignment in Winnipeg last winter,

Adam Patterson
irishcamera@yahoo.com
N.Ireland

HFebruary 02, 2008 15:20 EST

Another photo of DTES. How original! All we need now is some other polar photo dealing with the Olympics and we will have completed the binary conversation that is endlessly used about Vancouver. The ghetto and the tower. Poverty exists outside of the DTES, Social injustice exists outside of the DTES, and drug use exists outside of the DTES. If we want to resolve these issues, instead of just exhibiting them in a typical voyeuristic dialog, which is inevitably followed by a audible "tut-tut" and a "gasp" by the arm chair critics, then we need to discuss them in the context of the entire city. A handful of dirty blocks does not an issue make. There is begging, drug use, and desperation in every neighborhood of all of our cities.