Join us as we take a leisurely look back at some of the sights we encountered over the past seven days in St. John’s, won’t you?

In this, our first installment of the series, we’ve got free parking, urban art, sexy triangles and more!

Did you know there’s a bunch of free parking behind Wool Trends on Hamilton Avenue? Not very often you see a sign like that.

Does anyone else detect a hint of disdain in this signage? I guess you’d be pissed, too, if your front window got smashed in. I know the good people at Model Citizens didn’t appreciate it when it happened to them last week, either. Not to mention the laptop and merchandise that was stolen in the process.

None of which matters to these two, who are having a rest in the early hours of the morning before their world becomes bombarded with sticky-fingered children and their guardians. And in case you were wondering, the corn maze at Lester’s is in full effect.

At one point last week it appeared as though the sun had exploded shortly after a diesel-fueled rocket flew by overhead. Though as far as I know, neither of those things actually happened.

Art works like the one you see pictured here have been popping up throughout downtown all summer long. From a beautiful message about love to a garment-clad mask to what appears to be a screen print depicting Maurice Moss from The IT Crowd (played by Richard Ayoade, previously seen on The Mighty Boosh and Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place, both of which are brilliant.), these works don’t last long but are a much welcomed addition to the cityscape.

The old T.I. Brother Murphy Centre got a fresh lick over the weekend. Rumour has it a posh new restaurant is moving in. Here’s hoping it helps push this under-utilized end of Water Street towards becoming just as bustling as its more westward stretch. By rights there should be steady foot traffic from Harbourside Park to Colossal Pizza, where I only recently learned you can get chicken shawarma. Tell your friends.

And Junctions is being rebranded as Headquarters according to these equilateral flyers circulated around downtown last week. With the Junctions name having been synonymous with so many different kinds of clubbing experiences over the years, from candy-coated beats to blood-soaked metal, I can understand the need for a refresh. The flyers, on the other hand, mostly just left me feeling confused. And possibly violated.

If you happen to snap a photo in the coming days of this week and feel it’s captured something jeux ne sait St. John’s, send it our way!

The Boy Who Cried Wolf - Via Kidztory

I can’t count how many times I heard the name Samantha Goodyear over the past several weeks.

The story of Goodyear’s disappearance dominated provincial television, and radio for nearly a full week – pulling hard on the heartstrings of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador with constant replays of emotional pleas from her distraught parents begging for Samantha to be returned home safely.

I overheard countless people in the city, and around the island, state that she was abducted, or that there was a possible serial killer lurking in the shadows of St. John’s (I assume this was mostly due to Samantha being the second woman to go missing in St. John’s this summer).

However, mid Sunday night, in the midst of all this hysteria, Samantha decided to reappear from the great beyond and staggered back home on her own accord.

On the request of her parents, the RNC are withholding the finer details of her six day adventure.  However, I do think that at least some details should be shared with the general public.

There are people out there that feel that this was a personal matter and that it is only the business of the family; I believe this to be somewhat true. If Samantha Goodyear has some sort of serious psychological issue that caused her to be disoriented and lost in the metropolis that is St. John’s, than fine, you are off the hook. But, if this media frenzy and associated public fear was created by dear little Samantha off on a week long binge, than I think the public should know, and that the resources utilized in the effort to find her should be compensated (even if that is in the form of a public apology).

In the end, it wasn’t Samantha Goodyear personally that cried wolf, but she is directly responsible for her parents doing so (and creating a media storm) and I think I speak for a lot of people in this province when I say, next time we won’t be so quick to jump in and try to help save the sheep.

The RNC is seeking assistance in locating Samantha Goodyear, who has been missing from her St. John’s residence since Monday, August 16, 2010.

Samantha Goodyear is 20 years old, approximately 5′ 3″, 125 lbs, with black shoulder length hair with blonde roots and hazel eyes.

It is unknown what Samantha was wearing at the time she went missing.

If you have any information with regard to the whereabouts of Samantha Goodyear, please contact the RNC at 729-8000.

Below is a photo of Samantha Goodyear provided by the RNC.

Image via comparerehab.co.uk

It’s a sad story, really. Nothing like the uplifting tale of the flight attendent who, while still parked on the tarmac tells everyone to eff themselves, deploys the inflateable emergency slide, grabs two beers and slides himself to internet stardom. And albeit most likely a hefty fine.

A Newfoundland woman has been banned from WestJet for life and sentenced to 97 days in prison plus a $6,202 fine after trying to open up the door to the plane she was traveling on in mid flight.

As the story goes, she’d accidentally spilled her OxyContin pills into the toilet before boarding the plane, and somewhere between Calgary and Halifax her withdrawals became too much for her to bare.

The woman wound up having to be tackled by members of the crew and passengers en route to the door as she threatened to open it, some of whom sustained injuries from her as a result. She was then restrained in her seat by way of plastic ties.

She was flying with her 13 year-old son who has Tourette’s syndrom.

The story serves as a powerful reminder of just how intense substance addictions can be. I have my doubts that under any other circumstance this woman would have conducted herself this way; reportedly she wept as she pled guilty, no doubt heart stricken over what she’d done.

OxyContin is a prescription drug.

Ann Marie Shirran, who has been missing from her residence on Brennan Field in Kilbride since July 18th 2010, may be on the West coast of Newfoundland. This according to information given to the RNC by the public alleging someone matching her description was seen in the area.

The RNC did not specify where on the West coast Ann Marie Shirran may have been spotted, but their Major Crime Unit is following up on all leads and continues to seek the public’s assistance in locating her.

Ann Marie Shirran is 32 years old, approximately 6’0″, 170 lbs, with shoulder length brown/auburn hair and blue eyes.

She was last seen wearing black pants, a white sleeveless top and flip-flops.

If you have any information with regard to the whereabouts of Ann Marie Shirran, please contact the RNC at 729-8000.

Below are two recent photos of Ann Marie Shirran, one provided by the RNC and the other by a friend of the family.

Ann Marie Shirran. Click to enlarge.

Ann Marie Shirran.

The RNC continue to seek assistance in locating Ann Marie Shirran, who has been missing from her St. John’s residence since Sunday, July 18, 2010.

Ann Marie Shirran is 32 years old, approximately 6’0″, 170 lbs, with shoulder length brown/auburn hair and blue eyes.

She was last seen wearing black pants, a white sleeveless top and flip-flops.

If you have any information with regard to the whereabouts of Ann Marie Shirran, please contact the RNC at 729-8000.

Below is a more recent photo of Ann Marie Shirran provided by the RNC.

Ann Marie Shirran. Click to enlarge.

Update:

A friend of her family passed along this photo of Ann Marie Shirran.

Ann Marie Shirran.

The RNC is seeking assistance in locating Ann Marie Shirran, who has been missing from her St. John’s residence since Sunday, July 18, 2010.

Ann Marie Shirran is 32 years old, approximately 6′ 0″, 170 lbs, with shoulder length brown/auburn hair and blue eyes.

She was last seen wearing black pants, a white sleeveless top and flip-flops.

If you have any information with regard to the whereabouts of Ann Marie Shirran, please contact the RNC at 729-8000.

Below is a photo of Ann Marie Shirran provided by the RNC.

Ann Marie Shirran. Click to enlarge.

Law enforcement should be considered a last resort in the fight against crime. As a defence, law enforcement does little to prevent crime, it mostly waits for crime to occur and then steps in to deal with it as best it knows how.

Our best offence against crime, to date, has relied on the theory of deterrence: if people know they will be punished for committing a crime, the theory goes, they are less likely to do so.

Deterrence assumes that there are a lot of would-be criminals out there just chomping at the bit to commit crimes, but the crippling fear of getting caught and going to jail keeps them at bay.

Whether or not the assumption is correct, the fact remains that deterrence is still not as effective a measure as we’d like it to be for crime prevention in this province.

In order to understand what would be an effective measure for preventing crime, you first need to answer the question, why does crime occur?

If your answer falls somewhere in the ball park of, because some people are bad, then you’ve got a ways to go. It’s this kind of thinking that has kept our crime rates climbing and our prisons overcrowding in this province.

Criminals aren’t born, they’re nurtured.

More to the point, it’s a prolonged lack of positive nurturing that takes would-be model citizens and develops them into criminals.

You can break this lack of nurturing down into two main factors: lack of education and poverty. Considering one of these factors often leads to the other, it’s an easy formula for promoting criminal activity.

Which leads us to our two easy steps for crime prevention.

Step one: make education more accessible in this province.

At the elementary to secondary level, education needs to be more specialized, with more focus given to each individual student’s development. We need more teachers, but we also need more guidance councillors so that we can better assess each student’s educational needs. With this knowledge we can develop a multitude of curricula within each grade level in order to better realize each student’s potential and reduce the likelihood of failures and dropouts.

At the post-secondary level, education should be free. If you were born in the province and/or have been living here for x number of years, college and university would be free so long as you remain in the province. If you move away from the province, you would have to make payments on the cost of your education until you repay the cost in full or return to the province.

Step two: reduce poverty in this province.

See step one.

We can continue blaming criminals for being criminals, or we can acknowledge the root cause of criminal behaviour and do something to prevent it.

A highly effective education system is the cornerstone of any successful society. It isn’t cheap, but it’s an investment that more than pays for itself over the long run as it increases quality of life, which reduces the likelihood of crime.

According to the latest report from the RNC, two males were arrested this morning for throwing rocks off the Pearltown Road overpass and striking two vehicles passing underneath along Pitts Memorial Drive, one of which was a cop car.

The icing on the cake is that while one of the males is a youth, the other, who turned 18 at midnight, is considered an adult.

Welcome to adulthood, dude.

I wonder if these were the same wunderkind who were responsible for throwing the picnic table off the bridge at Bowring Park, seen here Monday morning, July 12th.

A bridge not too far. Click to enlarge.

Whoever or whatever did this tore their way through most of the park, leaving a trail of busted up picnic tables and scattered garbage behind them.

I mean, wow. They sure showed the park custodians who’s boss.