The Downtown Eastside's Own George Bailey

Vancouver, British Columbia
49°15' North; 123°08' West

Some of you may have noticed that we here at the Gazetteer are just a wee bit resistant to change.

In fact, we are only just now beginning to forgive Paul Kennedy for taking on the job of Ideas host on CBC Radio.

And it's not because we don't like Kennedy, because we do.

It's just that it was Kennedy who took over for Lister Sinclair after the deluded braintrust of the MotherCorp pushed out the latter prematurely for no good reason at all.

Our solution would have been to dump the useless replay of the morning shows at 8pm and go with back-to-back Kennedy/Lister free-form interviews/trials/lectures/documentaries and other assorted extravaganzas that would have expanded the nation's intellect to something like, well, maybe infinity.

Anyway, last night we were almost able to forgive Kennedy because of the fantastic hour long interview he had with a guy named Ken Lyotier who, along with a number of his down and out friends, has been able to develop a fantastically successful enterprise called 'United We Can' that gives dumpster divers a fair and honest shake in Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside.

It was an amazing and inspirational piece about an amazing and inspirational guy.

And a shining example of why everybody deseves a chance regardless their circumstances.