Cowboys are alive and well in Cochrane

"Merry Christmas," said a handsome, middle-aged cowboy as he strode into a small Cochrane restaurant the other day today sporting his hat and jaunty neckerchief.  He was sending everyone of us a Christmas greeting and was about as charming as cowboys usually are.  Yes, there are still real cowboys in Alberta, just not in Calgary or Edmonton; the latter are extremely ethnic.   

An 18-minute drive northwest of Calgary, Cochrane is a town we visit often because two of our grandchildren are there.  We go to the Cochrane rodeo because the same Stampede cowboys perform, but on a much smaller and less expensive scale.  It's actually accessible, whereas The Stampede is prohibitively expensive and impossible to get to with one's sanity in tact.

Nevertheless, I bemoan the dress code here.  I continue to be an Eastern woman, with jackets, earrings and shoes to match.  A few days ago, we attended a lovely Christmas gathering where the attire was....jeans.  Oh, and socks and a few hideous Christmas sweaters.  Ugh.  But hey, it's Christmas and it's all about joy, love and giving.  Merry, merry.            

He was 29

Just learned that Allan Thicke died from a ruptured aorta, same as what killed John Ritter in 2003.  My husband, "B", suffered an aorta rupture while playing tennis at the inn at Chaffey's Locks when he was 29.  Were it not for a farmer, who threw him into the back of his pickup and carted him to a Kingston hospital, he would most certainly have died.

I wasn't married to him at the time; he was married to the mother of his children who, by the way would not exist had he died.  She was in Winnipeg visiting a "friend" and simply asked to be informed were he to die.  Really?  How sweet.  Anyway, I think what saved him was when a priest was summoned to administer Last Rites.  B, after losing most of his blood, told the priest to eff off.  That anger and the realization he was about to die brought him around.  To this day, he recalls being outside his body, looking down at the nurses and doctors working on him.  Yes, there is a white light. 

The only doctor who could save him was scheduled to operate on a 75-year-old woman, but chose to save B instead and had to allow the older woman to die.  What a hero and to him I am eternally thankful.  Forty-seven years later he is alive and well.  We are grateful.        

John Doyle's Top 10

I love Globe and Mail television columnist John Doyle's top 10 annoying people of the year.  I always agree with him.  Here they are:

1.  Kevin O'Leary.  I definitely agree.  O'Leary is a loud-mouthed rich guy who thinks he's Trump.  I think the guy made his fortune selling something to a toy company, not exactly a leading-edge scientific discovery.  A complete bore.

2.  Justin Trudeau.  Doyle had him ranked eighth, but I've got him at two.  "The Minister of Gibberish" is what Doyle calls him because that's all he ever spouts.  He lives on talking points made up by the totally out-of-touch Gerald Butts.  Butts, after all, is the guy who advised Dalton McGinty right into oblivion.  Nice work there, Gerry.  Even Liberal back benchers are increasingly embarrassed by the hapless and dense Trudeau. 

3.  Peter Mansbridge.  To me, he's tied for first with O'Leary with his sanctimonious blather.  He has rendered himself completely redundant and obsolete by sticking to the same tired formula when reading the news -- news that he pulls off some newswire or other while he's getting his hair coiffed.  Any guy who says, "I'm Peter Mansbridge and this is The National" in that order has a big problem setting priorities.  He finally announced his retirement, too bad it's a year off!  He wants coverage of Canada's 150th to be his last broadcast.  Way to eff it up Peter!

4.  Wendy Mesley.  God spare us from Little Miss Priss!  Now here's someone who has no idea what she is reading?!  Just rolls along with whatever piece of paper is in front of her, grinning through tragedy after tragedy.  As Doyle says, it's all 'Harry Potter' to her.

5.  Kellie Leitch.  I'm with ya on that one, John.  As much as the CBC often inspires Canadians to pound the remote, Canada needs the CBC -- an organization Leitch wants to abolish.  Without the CBC, Canada would be just like the US.  "Blah blah -- the elites -- blah blah," writes Doyle.  She is one of the most elite elites I can think of, rich surgeon and academic that she is.  "More fake than the most fake news story imaginable," says Doyle.

Doyle has five others, but I never watch them so have no opinion.  I know he is talking about Canadians, but I have a few others that rank right up there:

Michelle Obama/Hilary Clinton
Oprah
Barack Obama
Perry Bellegarde (right up there!)
Kathleen Wynn
Christie Cream (Clark)
Gregor Robertson OMG!
Naheed Nenshi OMG x 100!
Rachel Notley
Jodie Wilson-Raybold
Jane Philpott
Maryam Monsef
Christian Wolff (the annoying "old-woman" director of the Calgary Crowfoot Y)
Martha Stewart
Rachel Ray
Everyone on CNN
Ellen Degenerate
All the predictable dolts on CBC's "At Issue"
Everyone on every cooking show and competition
All the Bachelor(ette) shows
George Stroumboulopolous
Valerie Fortney (Calgary Herald columnist who needs a hair cut)
............I could go on. 

Merry Merry.

I don't get it?!

I must say that a hundred times a day, as events unfold around me.  But an article in The Calgary Herald today really stimulated the "logic" button in my brain because it actually made sense in a season that has become increasingly illogical.  Entitled "Everyone can embrace Christmas, regardless of their (sic) religion", it was written by a Muslim, Mansoor Ladha, a Calgary author.  If that's true, if Christmas does evoke feelings of love and peace, why can't we call it "Christmas"? 

The sticking point is that everyone agrees with that sentiment, yet we cannot call Christmas "Christmas".  How does that work?  Everyone celebrates Christmas, but refuses to call it what it is.  Don't get me wrong, I whole-heartedly applaud the celebration of Christmas -- I even sport a lapel button which says, "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" -- but why oh why can we not call it Christmas?  Last time I checked, December 25th was actaully Christmas Day.  Why is that so offensive?  If you're not a Christian great, but please let those of us who are have one lousy day. 

"As new Canadians, we are trying to adjust and adapt to our new environment and traditions.  We have a lot to learn and some new Canadians have to forget the practices so common in their former homelands and adapt to the Canadian way of life," Ladha writes.  I would certainly agree.  I mean, let's not stone women to death in the public thoroughfare or kill them if they expose a millimetre of skin.

"It would be appropriate to send a message of goodwill and make a wish this Christmas that Canadians of all religions should live in peach and harmony, while practising their different faiths," he continues. 

Christianity is a religion of peace.  Let's embrace December 25th for once as Christmas.     

The facts

As sad as the tragic deaths on the Oneida Reserve are, the cause was not inadequate housing funding.  Although no investigation has been done, the chief is already blaming the federal government.  As usual it's not enough money.

That's complete BS.  Maybe it was smoking?  Maybe it was drinking?  Who knows?  All I know from a few google searches is that there is no need to apply for housing funding.  INAC determines what it will be and it amounts to $146 million per year -- over and above the $17 billion handed out annually to 1.2 million natives.  As the great-granddaughter of a Mohawk, whose reserve was the Tyendinaga, Oneida was part of the same Iroquois nation.  I also discovered that in 1992, the Oneida opted out of the housing funding agreement with the federal government for another arrangement through the First Nations Confederacy of Cultural Education Centres. 

For them now to turn around and slam INAC is outrageous.  But the problem remains:  journalists do no research and never, ever, ever report the numbers.  I am not a native because my great-grandmother married off-reserve (thank God), but I wish card-carrying natives would speak up.  Because the Oneida purchased their lands outright, the government does not follow all sections of the Indian Act with regards to the Oneida settlement, to the band's peril because it is now in charge of its money. 

The community holds its own elections for self-government under the Indian Act, however participation is below 40%.

That's the problem.  The tragic fire was not the federal government's fault.  It was the fault of the community.  But I am sure Minister Bennett and Trudeau will continue to take the fall while the cynical Perry Bellegarde laughs up his sleeve.   

Have a very Merry Muslim Christmas!

That's what I wished the young lady who cut my hair this morning as I left.  She is a Muslim, but celebrates Christmas with gusto.  "Everyone loves Christmas," she said.  "In our family nine of us have birthdays in December, so we go all out."

I suddenly felt ridiculous for thinking the three in my family in December were a chore.  This young lady was born in, and emigrated from, Afghanistan and knows a thing or two about how women are treated there.  Very badly.  "Before we left, I had to hide in my house because I refused to cover myself when I went out.  So, I just didn't go anywhere.  I was a prisoner.  This was when the Taliban was in charge and the one time I ventured out, I had to wear the full burka and I was tripping over my feet and sweating, blind and it felt like I had bugs in my hair.  It was so terrible and I only had to walk a couple of blocks to my aunt's house," she added.

She also told me that she refused to cover herself in any way after puberty and that her family supported her.  "Everyone knows I will not do that and I will stick to my principles," she added.  I told her I was proud of her stand.  "These are dirty men who want to cover women.  Dirty," she volunteered.  I agreed.  "The minute I crossed the border to start the journey to come to Canada I tore off the burka and threw it in a heap into the river.  I was free of that intolerance."

She also agree with me that young women wearing the hijab, yet covered in thick makeup with nails painted, was completely ridiculous.  "It's not logical," she said.  "It's stupid."  Bravely, she told some members of the Taliban that in Canada, we can go to a mosque, we can worship freely.  Why, she asked them, can that not happen here?  They simply told her that Christians should not be free to worship in Afghanistan.  "That's the uneducated in that country, that's how they think."

Christians are routinely persecuted worldwide, just as Christ was.     

        

Really?

"A lot of kids have issues these days," said a young mother I met at a gathering yesterday.  "What the eff are issues?" I thought to myself.  How can little affluent kids have "issues"?  "Oh, it's quite the thing," she explained. 

Apparently, the latest parental fad is having a kid with "issues".  I guess this renders the parent "special" and affords them more power and authority.  She went on to explain that her stepdaughter suffered from anxiety.  Whaaat?!  The kid's 10.  Apparently, this girl has to be taken by hand up the stairs and sat with 'til she falls asleep.  In the morning, she has to be hand-held down again.  "Is she afraid there are boogeymen under the bed?" I laughed inappropriately.  "Something like that," she replied. 

How ridiculous.  It's a given that we all knew for certain there were boogeymen in the closet and under the bed, but we got over it without our parents sending us for counselling, for Gawd's sake.  And the schools actually have.....wait for it......therapists to deal with this joke of a charade.  Well, at least someone's making money. 

Read something in the newspaper the other day that drove this insanity home with a pile driver.  Apparently, some male teacher at a snooty private girls' school used the word "abortion" in logical context, which caused two girls to flee the class and run to the office.  They told the principal.....wait for it.....brace yourself.....they had felt "threatened" by the word.  The stupid principal actually called in a support team -- A SUPPORT TEAM -- to guide these brats into a "safe" environment.  And what was the outcome of this savage episode?  You guessed it, the teacher, who had been there 11 years, was summarily fired.   

People have gone insane.       

Not wishing to speak ill of the dead....

.....I will tell you what I think of Gord Downie's hysterical appearance at a native conference in Ottawa yesterday while the man is still alive. 

I thought it was disgraceful.  It was one of the most hubris-filled spectacles I have ever witnessed, replete with Gord sobbing and natives bestowing all measure of hats, ceremonial blankets and sacred feathers upon this self-centred rock star.  It was unctuous, grovelling, ingratiating and smug.  I know I will be vilified by the hoards of fans of the Great God Gord, but seriously.  The guy has no clue of what he bewails.  Apparently, he will now devote the rest of his life to righting the wrongs of residential schools.  He and hundreds of others.   

Please.

He needs to do his homework on the finances.  In addition to the regular $8.5 billion given 1.2 million natives every year, the hapless and randomly-educated Trudeau has promised another $8.5 billion, making the annual total $17 billion.  That's 17 hundred million dollars.  That's not a hundred million.  It's 17 hundred million!  My calculator won't even give me that broken down per native, so it must be incalculable.

As a former journalist, who was rapped on the knuckles by my diligent editors if I did not check facts and numbers religiously, I decry today's lazy bunch who can't get the figures right even when they have the google we didn't. 

Gord's net worth is $4 million.  How much of that do you think he will pour into his cause?  Yeah, I thought so.

This is what I mean

Trudeau waiting to bestow more money

 

  

    

Serendipity

Serendipity had me seated at a table with three card-carrying natives last evening at a dinner.  Boy, weren't we all in for a few surprises!  Twenty-two, 21 and 17, these young men were absolutely clueless about what it means to be a native, but they all whipped out their status cards in a show of bravado.  Depressing. 

Members of the 1,100-member Cape Mudge Reserve on Vancouver Island, these young men told me their father was the chief.  He's not.  Google anyone?  They did not know they were members of the We Kai Kai Nation.  They also did not know they did not own the land on which their reserve stands.  They had no idea what Crown Land was?  Their band sits on it.  They had no idea Canadian taxpayers fork out $17 billion every year for the keep of 1.2 million natives.  Their ignorance is a deliberate tactic by their own leadership to keep them in the dark waving placards.  They are the next to be manning the pipeline barricades with no idea of what they are protesting. 

What do they do all day living in Calgary?  "We play video games," said one.  "Are you not in school?" I asked.  "Yeah, I finished grade 12, but I'm not working."  Their mother chimed in and asserted they were..."certainly not ready to live on their own".    Ha, ha, ha, they all laughed.

So, there you have it.  Todays native warriors.  With my own Mohawk ancestry, all I could think was but for the Grace of God.............. 

 

Hundreds of thousands of dollars

That's what a BC interior chief says his band spent on lawyers (Canadian taxpayers paid for it) fighting with Kinder Morgan over the proposed pipeline, now approved by Trudeau.  "In 2007 we hired lawyers and started fighting with Kinder Morgan lawyers, just trying to establish who had jurisdiction over the land," said this chief (can't remember his name or band, but never mind).  "We finally discovered five years later in 2012 that we didn't own the land, it was Crown land."

OMG!  Did that guy get ripped off!  Either the chief can't read, misplaced his copy of the Indian Act, or doesn't have google.  A two-second search tells you right up front who owns the land:  The Crown, i.e., Canada.  It is then allocated to native bands for use, but they don't own it and they can't legally stop pipelines. 

"It's a big misconception natives have about reserve land," he went on to point out.  "Many think they own the land, but they don't."  And a big shout-out to the thieving lawyers who robbed them blind for five years.  Eventually, the native leaders themselves sat down directly with Kinder Morgan and negotiated a joint agreement by which they worked in partnership with the oil company to sort out the environmental and economic issues facing them to the peaceful satisfaction of all. 

"After that, when we presented it to our members, it passed unanimously and we're all very happy with it."  Bravo to this guy, but it won't change or stop one Standing Rock-style protest in the least.  Remember Oka?  Remember Ipperwash?  Get ready for chaos and bloodshed -- aided and abetted you can be sure by phalanxes of pricy lawyers and hysterical enviros.  In fact, turn on your TV, it's already started.

Yesterday, during a speech to oil executives, the environment minister said he would call out the army if necessary to move pipeline protesters.  For that remark he was almost lynched and had to climb down from the tree they had him hitched up to.  That's unfortunate because he will need the army to get a pipeline through tree-hugging BC.

I agree with Rona Ambrose.  Trudeau cynically approved a pipeline he knows will never be built.  And we'll all be the worse for it.