The numbers are the numbers

Sorry, but the last thing we need is an inquiry into missing and murdered native women because we already know the answers.  The Calgary Sun published the facts in an article entitled, "Enough is enough".  Here is the deal according to the RCMP:

• "Of the 6,420 missing persons in Canada, 1,455 are women; only 164 are native women;
• 88% of murders of native women have been solved;
• 89% of non-native murdered women have been solved;
• Between 1980 and 2012, 20,313 murders occurred in Canada; 6,551 victims were women, of which 1,017 were native;
• 30% of the 1,017 murdered native women were killed by their husbands, 23% by another family member, 30% by an acquaintance;
• Only 8% of murdered native women were murdered by strangers;
• 44% of those family members who kill native women were drunk;
• 74% of those women murdered were unemployed;
• 62% had a history of violence with the murder victim;

"Welfare
The billions of tax payer dollars given to natives in the form of living expenses, free education, free medical and no taxation has crippled them -- just as it does non-natives.

"Corrupt Leadership
Most leaders have no idea how to lead, manage, inspire or teach their people.  Rather, they steal from their own members for themselves, their family and friends and refuse to be accountable to anyone.  Theresa Spence in Attiwapiskat, I'm talking to you as a prime example. 

"Alcohol and drug abuse and gang violence
Each contributes to the crime rate on reserves, the lack of parenting skills, family violence and poverty. 

"A two-tiered justice system
This mess gives aboriginal offenders lighter sentences, or none at all, allowing them back into their communities to continue to abuse the same native women again and again -- often resulting in death.  If the Canadian public wants a national enquiry, how about this topic!?"

A national enquiry will fix nothing.  And let's get one thing straight, as I have always said, North America does not "belong" to natives.  Their ancestors did not poof out of thin air.  They came in waves across the land/ice bridge from Asia, a genetically-proven fact.  They are immigrants like the rest of this.  Period, the end. 

The Sun goes on to point out that natives were not peaceful, but violently warring on each other constantly.  "Just ask the Hurons," says the Sun.  "Oh, you can't.  The Iroquios wiped them out."  The only solution is to get rid of the reserve system, but that will never happen because The Indian Act that keeps it in place is the mechanism by which the money flows to natives.  So, they will remain trapped on desolate, crime-ridden reserves and not able to function, get jobs and pay taxes like every other cultural group that calls Canada home. 

So please Justin, give your head a shake and do something useful for natives.  And don't ask Bob Paulsen to sit there and take sh-t from one native after another.  He is the man with the facts.   

Heartening

Opening The Calgary Herald this morning, I was thrilled to see it was heralding the birth of our Lord and trumpeting Christmas.  What a concept these days!  Last time I checked, December 25th was Christmas day -- not "holiday day", not "season's greetings".  No, Christmas.  Actually, I have been surprised by how many folks in the public thoroughfare are saying, "Merry Christmas" here in Calgary.  And this includes ethnic people I know are not Christians.  Here are a few images from the newspaper this morning...................

 

The editorial was by Catholic Bishop Fred Henry.  Imagine that!

 

Yes, we have snow in Calgary!



Apparently......

....it's a genetic fact.  One of my friends is a Chinese doctor and she tells me that most of her race cannot drink alcohol and that the same is true for natives and aboriginals because they share the same genetic profile.  Remember, natives arrived here when there was a land bridge connecting Asia with North and South America, so the biology is the same. 

Man, that explains a lot!

We were out for dim-sum and I ordered a wine.  She never drinks and proceeded to explain that her race breaks down ethanol into water and acid more slowly than do Caucasians because they don't have enough ALDH-2 enzyme; apparently, it's all about chromosomes four and 11.  And the same is true for about one third of Jews, which is why you don't see a lot of Jewish drunks sliding about in the public thoroughfare.

Looked into this when another friend I was having coffee with talked about an AA meeting she had recently attended and complained about all the natives that were bussed from a nearby treatment centre.  "One guy stood up and talked about how he was in his fifth treatment program!  I'm sick of it," she added.  "And we're paying for it!"  Yep, we are.  But the treatment centres probably aren't going to let slip this little nugget about why natives simply can't drink because hey, they wouldn't get the money the rest of us hand over to uselessly treat them!

There are genetic racial differences.  Just ask any Caucasian runner trying to catch a Kenyan or a Jamaican. 
______________________________________________

While I am talking about natives, I'd like to say a few words about the just-released Truth and Reconciliation Report by native Justice Murray Sinclair.  Many of it's 94 recommendations are ridiculous, but our fearless new leader plans to implement all of them.  Please, give your head a shake!  It's all about the residential school system that saw native children taken from the reserve and sent to live and learn elsewhere. 

How is this different from any other boarding school?  The British upper-crust have not trusted their own to raise offspring for generations.  Every upper-class British child was sent to a boarding school at the age of seven to be molded in the "British" form.  And yes, they were -- and are -- regularly caned, bullied, shunned and strapped.  Who leads Britain?  Products of this system, that's who.  And by the way, Canadian private and public schools meted out corporal punishment with reliable results.  It was "normal".  One of my finer moments was being told to stand outside the classroom by my geography teacher, Mr. Qadri.  Me!  I was in grade 12, head cheerleader, girlfriend of the head boy and I was mortified!  The vice-principal happened along and asked me what I was doing there.  "Being punished, sir," I replied.  Didn't like it, but it took me beneficially down a peg or two. 

The many reserves I drive through in this area are places of squalor and desperation, where fentanyl, alcoholism and child abuse run riot.  The best thing to do is get off them.  Native North Americans did not have a written language, so it was concluded that children from these places needed to be educated.  Is that so bad?  Where it all breaks down is when natives stay on, or return to, the reserve.  There is absolutely no future in those hell holes and Justice Sinclair should be helping people move on, not encouraging them to dwell in, and dine out on, his personal despair, hopelessness and misery of the past.                

 

 

The hideous Christmas letter

"The reception was on the lawn, with pheasants, before guests moved to a glass-walled space behind the house (|The Gillyflower) for dinner........the wittiest speeches ever...........it was all a rose-filled dream...............October was euphoric................an absolutely beautiful humanist ceremony.......stained glass family crests (Beauchamp and Belknap).......Oh, the Belem waterfront along the Tagus and the Gulbenkian Museum!......Jack and Mabel Bush belonged to a supper club with parents of my St. Clement friend 'blah-blah' .....who was seeing a psychiatrist uncle of another friend...............they walked all the way past the palace, up the Mall and through Trafalgar Square to meet us for supper in Covent Garden......"

It goes on and on and on and on.  This woman is demented, totally unaware of what a grotesque bore she is and sends us one of the most pompous yuletide letters ever concocted each year.  Someone I would ordinarily have nothing to do with, she happens to be married to a very old friend of B's, a chap with whom he went to the London School of Economics a hundred years ago who sadly insists on keeping in touch. 

Anyone who knows me knows I cannot stand pomposity, phoniness and self-aggrandisement.  This broad boasts it all in spades.  Why oh why do some people think we give an s-h-1-t about what they do??!!  B also has another 'pre-me' friend who sends email missives from a winter get-away, filled with boring tales of all the bars they have frequented and the latest "friends" they have stumbled upon.  Please.  No one cares. 

Sometimes I am tempted to send a letter back, detailing all the laundries I have done, the toilets I have cleaned, the meals I have prepared and the front stoops I have swept.  Sadly, these writers-of-nothingness would not even get the message.  In fact, they would think there was something wrong with me! 

Please people, have a proper conceit of yourselves.    

A scandalous waste of time....

...and money.  I refer to the Paris Climate Summit, of course.  The self congratulating and smugness were breathtaking, in view of the vast "nothing" that was accomplished.  And I mean nothing whatsoever.  "It's a fraud really, a fake," said James Hansen, the former NASA scientist who is called the father of climate-change awareness.  "It's just worthless words.  There is no action, just promises.  As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest, they will continue to be burned."

Yes indeed-ee.  And all the tree hugging in the developed world will do absolutely nothing to alter that reality.  Just watched a ridiculous piece on CBC TV -- is there any other kind on that network? -- about people eating less meat and selling their cars to reduce the carbon footprint.  The whole climate-change Paris thing was nothing but a "scouts honour" declaration because there are no penalties for missing targets and doing nothing. 

Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente wrote a piece today that pretty well sums up the charade and debacle in France.  "As the rich world swears off coal, the rest of the world is going crazy for it.  China alone is building 368 plants and plans another 803."  And Alberta is bragging about closing one!!??  Please.

"As long as China and India are on a growth path, it doesn't matter how many solar panels anyone installs.  The increase in their CO2 emissions will dwarf any cuts in ours," the article continues.  With billions up for grabs by the climate junkies and consultants pushing green infrastructure, clean technology and energy efficiency in the developed world, the cash grab will continue as jets filled with such charlatans fly around the world with gay abandon seeking it.

Someone called it Japanese Kabuki theatre.  That's exactly what Paris was. 





  

I almost cried

"This is my grandma," said grandson yesterday to a daycare worker when I picked him up.  That's when you know you've made the right decision about picking up and moving half way across Canada just to be a grandma. 

The family was over to decorate our tree and it was magical.  "Well, go and ask grandma," I heard my son-in-law say after bath was over.  Down the stairs came grandson.  "Grandma, can I sleep over at your house?".  Unplanned, this was an unexpected gift which I accepted immediately.  "Of course you can," I replied.  We had a great time, snuggling and making pancakes in the morning. 

On December 18th he will be four.  How that happened I have no idea?!  We moved to Calgary before he was born and now we love it and are happily ensconced.  Next stop?  Taking them to visit Santa on grandson's birthday.  Can't wait!

Tea at six a.m. 

   

Last time I checked.....

....December 25th was Christmas.  It wasn't "Happy Holidays", it wasn't "Season's Greetings".  It was Christmas.  I posted something about wishing people a "Merry Christmas" and a Jewish "friend" on facebook posted back, "Not going to happen," she wrote.  "Today is Hanukkah."  (Actually, she spelt it incorrectly, which is quite amusing.) 

Really?  If she knew what she was talking about, she would know that many days are Hanukkah.  If you research it, you will find that Hanukkah is a relatively minor Jewish feast, elevated to larger importance to allow Jews to join in the celebration around this time of year.  It is marked on numerous occasions in late November and December, but it does not have nearly the relevance for Jews that Christmas has for Christians.  Just a fact, folks.  Unfortunately, Christians have been relegated to the back of the bus when it comes to December 25th.  Frankly, I'm sick to death of it and I take every opportunity to reclaim this feast.   

And that facebook "friend"?  Just unfriended her.  Can we not have one day people!?

Speaking of facebook, my American "friends" are blissfully ignoring the recent massacre in California.  How can they?  This was the 535th mass shooting there in the past year and people ignore it?!  I guess this is the new and current normal south of the parallel. 

Sad.      

William Wuttunee, visionary

 



"He was a visionary and a true leader.  He pushed for natives  to become wholly independent of the reserve system and the treaty system," said Nola Wuttunee, daughter of Cree elder and internationally-recognized lawyer William Wuttunee who died recently at 87. 

Now, this is a guy to whom I can relate.  Long before I learned my birth great-grandmother had been a Mohawk from the Tyendenaga Reserve in Napanee, I wondered why natives lived on isolated reserves, not integrating into Canada.  So did Wuttunee and he was right.  I thank God my ancestor married off-reserve, thus giving her descendants the gift of being "Canadian".  Said his daughter, "My father saw the reserve as a very limited environment.  He saw no future there."

He was right, of course, and to this day native reserves remain poor, deprived and degenerate places, regardless of the $8.5 billion handed them by the Federal Government.  In fact, although I don't know many, every successful native I do lives and works off-reserve.  But here's the rub:  getting off the reserve, dumping the treaties and becoming "Canadian" means the money stops flowing via The Indian Act.  That's why Wuttunee was a pariah among his own people.  In fact, many tribal chiefs would not even permit him to come onto their reserves, so worried were they about losing the money funnelled them from the federal government via the Act. 

Wuttunee won a scholarship to McGill and became the first native lawyer to practise in Western Canada at the age of 26.  Successful , he was appointed to a cross-section of boards and commissions by both provincial and federal governments because of his unique perspective about life both on and off-reserve.  He chose off-reserve because, as he said, he knew firsthand the hardships and limitations of life on a reserve.  Sent to a residential school, he suffered abuse but chose to move past it.  "He wanted to move on and leave that psychological burden in the past," said his daughter.  He also would not teach his children Cree until they had first mastered English.  "No, you need to learn English to succeed in this world," he admonished.  What a brilliant guy.   

The "National Indian Brotherhood", which he founded, later became the "Assembly of First Nations" but unlike its leaders of today, Wuttunee remained a fierce advocate of integration.  Ironically, under Justin Trudeau's father Pierre, a white paper was published that proposed an end to "Indian status" and the dissolution of the federal Department of Indian Affairs.  Native matters would be transferred to provincial hands.  This is ironic because Trudeau-the-younger is gung ho to cater to the native leadership in whatever way he has to and however they want him to.  Trudeau mistakenly believes this will ensure they cooperate, but nothing is further from the truth.  Our new PM needs to channel his father and Wuttunee.   

When the white paper was published it was universally panned by native leaders.  No kidding!  But Wuttunee supported it because it promoted integration.  "He believed a better life was to be had for natives in cities, working and living alongside white people," said Doug  Cuthand, Saskatchewan native activist. 

How can anyone argue that?      

Has he taken leave of his senses?!

Calgary's Mayor Naheed Nenshi is pushing for our city to take in thousands of Syrian refugees.  I can't remember how many thousands, but enough to be ridiculous.  If anyone should know how Calgary is suffering with the downturn -- make that "tanking" -- of oil prices, it's the mayor.  Instead he says, "Let's get this right.  Let's be sure we can support the newcomers and integrate them into the economy." 

What economy?!  Now if he'd qualified that with, "And if we can't, they can't come," that would have made sense.  But, of course, he didn't.  The problematic words are "support" and "integrate".  With more than 45,000 people laid off in this province, people are suffering.  Yet he wants to "integrate" thousands more!?  Can't be done. 

I have experience with well-meaning, delusional messes such as this.  When I was chair of a parish council in Ottawa a few years ago, we had a refugee committee which sponsored several families from Bosnia in a moving, but naïve, display of charity.  What happened?  The refugees never got off the parish dole, so I eliminated the committee and the newcomers got on with it.  Seemed a scam to me and funnily, all those who were weeping and wailing about bringing them in, didn't utter a word of protest.  Everyone was over it.

Between the bogus climate change conference in Paris, where no commitments are binding, Rachel Notley basically shutting down the oilsands and Justin Trudeau giving away the store, this province and this country are in for a rude awakening.  The hubris of people to think they can affect climate is breathtaking!  Climate change may exist, but mere humans have absolutely no affect on it one way or the other.  The planet has been warming and cooling for billions of years with no help or hindrance from us.  Just ask the dinosaurs.   

Climate change reminds me of another bogus brouhaha, Y2K.  Remember that one?  The world was going to end and everyone's money was going to poof because banks were going to fail.  Naturally, a whole lot of "consultants" and "experts" made a ton of money out of that scam and nothing happened.  (I am acquainted with the carney barker who started the-sky-is-falling Y2K hysteria and he is a very rich man today.  He even made up those catchy call letters.  No dummy he. )

This cartoon sums up the whole sorry Parisian sting and swindle:

Courtesy of The Calgary Herald