Whew! I feel GREAT: It's Someone Else's Job To Raise My Kids!

I have received this e-mail chain letter a few times recently. I really dislike chain mail because it is usually such bloody garbage, but this takes the cake.

READ it and then READ MY RESPONSE. It is long. You're going to be here a while so get a coffee - or a scotch: Laphroaigh Quarter Cask preferably.

Here's the chain mail:

Dear God:

Why didn't you save the school children at ?. ..

Moses Lake, Washington 2/2/96
Bethel, Alaska 2/19/97
Pearl, Mississippi 10/1/97
West Paducah, Kentucky 12/1/97
Stamp, Arkansas 12/15/97
Jonesboro, Arkansas 3/24/98
Edinboro, Pennsylvania 4/24/98
Fayetteville, Tennessee 5/19/98
Springfield, Oregon 5/21/98
Richmond, Virginia 6/15/98

Littleton, Colorado 4/20/99
Taber, Alberta, Canada 5/28/99
Conyers, Georgia 5/20/99
Deming, New Mexico 11/19/99
Fort Gibson, Oklahoma 12/6/99
Santee, California 3/ 5/01
El Cajon, California 3/22/01 and

Blacksburg, VA 4/16/07 ?

Sincerely,

Concerned Student
-----------------------------------------------------
Reply:

Dear Concerned Student:
Sorry,

I am not allowed in schools.

Sincerely,

God

----------------------------------------------------------

How did this get started?...

Let's see,
I think it started when Madeline Murray O'Hare complained
She didn't want any prayer in our schools.

And we said, OK.

Then, someone said you better not:
Read the Bible in school;
The Bible that says
"thou shalt not kill,
Thou shalt not steal,
And love your neighbors as yourself,"

And we said, OK...

Dr. Benjamin Spock said
We shouldn't spank our children
When they misbehaved
Because their little personalities
Would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem.

And we said,
An expert should know what he's talking about
So we won't spank them any more..

Then someone said
Teachers and principals better not
Discipline our children when they misbehave.
And the school administrators said
No faculty member in this school
Better touch a student when they misbehave
Because we don't want any bad publicity,
And we surely don't want to be sued.

And we accepted their reasoning...

Then someone said,
let's let our daughters have abortions if they want,
And they won't even have to tell their parents.

And we said, that's a grand idea.

Then some wise school board member said,
Since boys will be boys
And they're going to do it anyway,
let's give our sons all the condoms they want,
So they can have all the fun they desire,
And we won't have to tell their parents they got them at school.

And we said, that's another great idea...

Then some of our top elected officials said
It doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs.

And we said,
It doesn't matter what anybody, including the President,
Does in private as long as we have jobs and the economy is good....

And someone else took that appreciation a step further
And published pictures of nude children
And then stepped further still by
Making them available on the Internet.

And we said, everyone's entitled to free speech....
And the entertainment industry said,
let's make TV shows and movies that promote
Profanity, violence and illicit sex...
And let's record music that encourages
Rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes...

And we said,
it's just entertainment
And it has no adverse effect
And nobody takes it seriously anyway,
So go right ahead.

Now we're asking ourselves
Why our children have no conscience,
Why they don't know right from wrong,
And why it doesn't bother them to
Kill strangers, classmates or even themselves.

Undoubtedly,
If we thought about it long and hard enough,
We could figure it out.
I'm sure it has a great deal to do with...

"WE REAP WHAT WE SOW"

Why is it our children can not read a Bible in school, but can in Prison.

Points to consider:Here's what I think:

Why should religion be in schools when the family is responsible for the well-being and upbringing of children? Teachers educate – a one-dimensional, secular job; parents RAISE children; a holistic responsibility that allows for specific religious (or not) instruction.

If children are loved, cared for, appropriately directed and given whatever spiritual instruction at home, why should it ever be the responsibility of the school system or of any teacher to fill in or pinch hit for parents? Neither the teachers nor the system is responsible for the fundamentals; the family is. Teachers and schools are not babysitters or daycares, nor are they replacements for family or parents, regardless of how much some parents want that to be the case.

In respect to children who kill, their pain is so deep, so long-term and so profound that no teacher or school or system can do anything for those children. Those children are alienated first and foremost by and within their families and specifically by their parents, who are usually so focused on themselves, their own pursuits and the so-called rules and regulations that they forget their children are thinking, feeling humans. If the parents do not realize the deep crisis their one child is in, why ever would we expect teachers to notice one child in 30 or more?

No amount of prayer in schools will ever fix the pain of an alienated, depressed, desperate child. Prayer is NOT a replacement for an aware, humble, committed, loving parent. Too often people resort to prayer when they should be making a move.

As for spanking, the church position on this legitimizes abuse of children due to an incorrect interpretation of “spare the rod.” The “rod” is not a physical object. It is correctly interpreted as “STANDARD.” When correctly interpreted, there is NO direction to hit, beat, whip or physically abuse a child. Christian scripture also says “provoke not the child to anger.” Hitting, slapping, whipping, slagging, insulting or any such abuse is not discipline. It is abuse and indicates a parent out of control. Parents in control and who are skilled at providing standards for their children NEVER need resort to angering or striking their flesh and blood.

In no case should a teacher ever strike a student. There is no excuse for anyone, especially a professional, hitting a child. They certainly have the right to have the child leave the class, but in no circumstance does a teacher have the right to hit another person, even when that person is young and small. Hitting is an abuse of power; it is not discipline. It is an expression of anger and frustration on the part of an out-of-control adult and is no less painful or damaging than verbal abuse, which is also an abuse of power.

The point about abortion is very interesting. As you know, I am highly opposed to abortion. However, I am pro-choice. Choice must include everything a woman has in her arsenal to PREVENT pregnancy – pre-conception. I have no respect for those who play Russian Roulette with their bodies then choose to kill their pre-born offspring when the trigger goes off and they lose the game. That’s not choice. That’s abdication of right/responsibility.

Having said that, and I know the statistics very well, due to substantial research and face-to-face interviews with several doctors (including my previous OB-GYN) and two nurses who work in the field: unplanned pregnancies are more common with girls from religious families than in the general population. This is because religious families are very disinclined to discuss sex and related topics, are judgmental and are inclined to use fear tactics. Girls in those environments are at greater risk because they’re terrified to ask for information and disinclined to protect themselves. I have done specific research in this area due to my four years with the Calgary Pro-Life Association and via research for several published articles I wrote in the late 90s.

The reason girls in these environments don’t tell their parents anything is that they’re terrified to do so. That terror indicates a parental flaw, not a child’s flaw. If children are terrified of their parents and/or their parents reactions, what are they to do? The stay silent and hope they’re never found out.

Pre-marital sex is not the sole property of this generation. I personally know three couples of my parent's generation who engaged and were ‘caught’ due to unplanned pregnancies. Part of the reason the church is so anti pre-marital sex and so rabid about marriage is that both those allow for social control and management of economic resources (not relevant in our time, but relevant at the time when protecting the family assets was tantamount to preventing clan/tribal wars) by managing family lineages. It doesn’t work, however.

It is sexist to say ‘boys will be boys.” Males and females are equally likely to pursue. It may be distasteful to some, but the reality is people engage and no amount of religious fear mongering or threats of hell fire has ever or will ever change that. None of the three couples noted above was able to fight the biological imperative with fear of eternal damnation. It is better, if people are going to engage, that they be protected from diseases and pregnancy than they become sick or they have abortions (which are damaging to the woman’s body and obviously terminal for the unborn).

As for privacy, neither the government nor the church has any place in the bedrooms of people in free countries – or any country. This does not make incest or abuse or paedophilia right and the government should be expanding their efforts to go after abusers and perpetrators who use electronic resources. Where it comes to sexual practice though, what one person thinks is ok another thinks is abhorrent: there will never be consensus on what thing falls in which category.

As for practice or preference, Paedophilia is neither. It is a serious, incurable illness. If it were a sexual practice or true preference, the practice or preference could be altered or eliminated. Paedophilia is not curable and is by definition a chronic mental disorder. There will never be a cure, no matter what anyone says, barring chemical or actual castration (of males. Not sure what the cure would be for female paedophiles.)

As to those who make and/or consume child porn, too often those around them who are aware, are also silent. Someone always knows about the little girl or boy who disappears into that apartment…. As long as people make jokes about it and people continue to consume products designed to sexualize children, the environment will persist. We, as a society, tacitly allow the practice to exist. Don’t think so? Have you ever bought “toy” high heels or ‘toy’ makeup for a little girl; strongman suits for little boys – dress up clothing made to render a child into a parody of an adult? We are complicit, however innocently we participate.

I am absolutely opposed to institutionalized censorship. Too much wonderful literature and art has been banned due to people’s discomfort with subject matter and use of words. HOWEVER, I am absolutely for and actively engage in PERSONAL censorship. If something is abhorrent then do not buy, rent or use that thing. It is not for me to choose for you, but I will always act on MY right to choose for ME. If everyone who was opposed to a certain book or film or product or whatever just didn’t buy it themselves, the market for that item would seriously decrease. However, humans are curious beings; they often believe they are alone in their protest and therefore powerless to change anything. They are curious in the other sense too: one may heartily dislike the subject matter of book or film but is yet compelled to know what it is we opposed to. That is the dichotomy. Sadly, too often people are so obsessed with what everyone else is/might be doing, that they fail to monitor their own consumption.

Schools are and must remain, non-religious and non-denominational. People in the west are terrified by and opposed to Madrassas overseas (Pakistan, Afganistan, etc), but they completely fail to see the parallel between Madrassa and ‘religious’ schools. Only the semantics change; the foundations are exact. As such, no bible, torah, Q’uran belongs in any school. Those things belong at home, in the family, where the family can put their own stamp on that education. It strikes me as odd that people clearly disrespect teachers and schools (the items below indicated that very clearly) yet expect teachers to mete out something as personal and specific as religion.

The last point in the items below - "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW" - is true. Whenever people – parents in particular –get real about what and how they’ve sown, and when they quit blaming the establishment, the schools, the teachers, films, music, books, the ‘devil,’ and the water, and when PARENTS take PERSONAL responsibility first for their OWN behavior, only then will they be able to provide excellent examples, a solid foundation and appropriate guidance for their children. Only then will what we reap be wonderful, productive, respectful, loving, compassionate, self-assured children. Literal, rule-bound, non-thinking people raise literal, rule-bound, non-thinking and usually confused and angry kids.

Am I gloating?? Damn right. I live by what I write here. I have raised my children in an utterly open environment, where every question was met with an appropriate, honest, often researched answer. Have I been angry with my kids, yes. Have they been angry with me, yes. The greatest gift I have been able to give my children is the simple admission “I’m wrong, and I’m sorry.” Do I think I’m right about all this and that my way of raising children works? If the comments of my children’s friends, and the parents of those friends, the comments from teachers, employers and, in some cases complete strangers are any indication, yes, I’ve done a great job by controlling myself, not my kids; by being honest rather than hiding the truth; by being vulnerable and fallible and admitting it; by managing my anger and not taking it and my disappointments out on my children; and by NEVER blaming anyone else for failing to provide that which was my responsibility where it came to providing a solid standard for my children to live by.

The items in the chain e-mail may allow the reader to feel justified and righteous, but when looked at and considered, all except the last are statements that provide escape routes for people who would rather others do the jobs they should do themselves.

Friends

Over the weekend, last, an anonymous comment was left on my post, "A Short but True Story."

I knew almost instantly who the 'anonymous' poster is; a friend - a good friend.

My friend posted three simple lines, but the content of those lines was dense and rich with meaning and as welcome and comforting as a warm hug.

I met this friend by complete and utter accident and quite simply because I liked a photo I saw on line, not of this friend, whose existence I had no knowledge of at the time, but of their business. Absolutely random.

We have several things in common - events and incidents that are similar enough to have caused a bond.

Yes, my friend, I will write your story. I am blessed to know you and to be however small a part. I am so looking forward to flying over with my youngest angel and looking forward to her meeting you and all the angels who live with you.

What kind of Therapy would you prescribe?

I was reading today in Maclean's Magazine, June 4th edition, in the article "The Long Arm of Charles Taylor Versus the Law" about the legions of child soldiers in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Shocking and I can't even quantify how much.

Read the article and then consider where you live and the probability of your children being abducted by this or a similar madman...

If you live in Canada, the UK, the US or most of Europe and you are prone to complaining about your first-world lifestyle, do shut up.

But where did my mind go when reading parts of this article? To celebrities and rich people....

Getting therapy is a badge of honour in some communities - for rich chicks and bored housewives and people who are still angry at their parent's failings 20 years after the fact - and being in therapy for AGES is some badge of success.... I'm sure Paris Hilton will be so terribly traumatized by her 23 days inside that she'll be screwed for ever, despite the lush lifestyle she has....

But, for these kids, most of whom must kill their own parents and who've witnessed things you can't even imagine before they're abducted, and are then supplied with addictive, mind altering, cell-destroying drugs and alcohol, drafted into civil war, sometimes by the age of SIX, raped, abused and essentially rendered dead, there is no therapy that can ever erase experiences that word "traumatising" doesn't begin to address.

In the same magazine, a long, interesting article on zombies as a metaphor for the human propensity for self-annihilation.

Drive an Edsel, Save the Planet!

Anyone who knows me knows I don't trust anything that has a corporation or corporations, big pharma or politicians involved.

When it is all three of these at the same time plus the 'moral majority' and the 'religious right', I'm seriously on red alert.

Such is the case with Al Gore's global warming initiative. I think it is a crock and it is based on VERY faulty science.

I am, however, dead impressed with the former president-to-be's marketing ability, and the machine behind him. I'm also impressed that he's willing to use, slightly altered, the Bush slogan, "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists." In Gore's case, 'If you don't support this initiative, you're for the destruction of the planet. In short, get on board or you're a seriously flawed and horrible human being.

Additional to that is the evangelist's tactic of "Why would you ask questions? We have all these experts who say this is the truth. Just buy in, will you? Don't question the Gore, your Climate Change Guru."

On Monday, a friend forwarded me an excellent, well researched essay destined for a local MP (read: total dead end). I have requested and obtained permission to reprint this essay. My sincere thanks to Dr. H. May Gore walk through the giant hole in his theories and be reborn.

Here's Dr. H's great piece:
Much attention has been given to a group of well intended individuals who would like to see that green house gases especially CO₂ are reduced to prevent global warming. While I admire their intentions; there is an old saying that "A little knowledge can be dangerous." In this case these people have an over-simplified hypothesis that ignores some of the best proven facts about climate change. If they proceed as planned they could actually make the planet warmer rather than preventing global warming.

Most of the major climate change of the last 1000 years can be easily explained by looking at one simple cause, "Suspended Particulate Matter." Ozone depletion explains the rest. The way this works is that suspended particulate matter blocks the suns rays and causes "Global Cooling". As we will see soon; this can be severe. Ozone depletion allows more of the suns rays to enter causing some increased warming and lots of melting..
First, let’s journey through the past thousand years and see several major cycles. In the beginning the air was clean and the Earth was warm. In 1066 William the Conqueror invaded England and at this time they could grow grapes in England. You can't do that now. About the same time a Viking named Eric the Red was banished to Greenland because he had murdered someone in Iceland. He started a colony there. They grew crops and gardens and animals grazed. You can't do that today. The planet was probably at its warmest ever then and suspended particulate matter (aka pollution) was at its lowest ever. This temperature was probably "normal" and this is probably how things would be again if there was no pollution. Interestingly, CO₂ was probably at its lowest then when the planet was at its warmest.
Now lets skip forward to the 1500's when we saw "The mother of all climate change" Throughout Europe there was a century long cold snap that many historians called a Mini Ice Age. Crops froze, growing seasons shortened, some years there was no summer. People and animals starved and died. In North America things weren't any better. The Spanish reported that some years the Rio Grande River froze. Scientists and historians blame this severe climate change entirely on suspended particulate matter. They believe that a great deal of volcanic activity somewhere spewed so much smoke and ash and dust into the atmosphere over a long period of time that this climatic event was the result. So, if you ever wondered how much particulate matter could become suspended in the atmosphere and how much this particulate matter can change the climate; now you know. It can cause a mini ice age! It is powerful and it is predictable. So, hold that thought.
Now we are going to move forward to 1819. The volcanoes have settled down, the dust and ash has settled, and the planet is nice and warm again. How warm is it? During this year Sir William Edward Parry lead an expedition in search of the Northwest Passage. Parry sailed along the north-east side of Baffin Island into Lancaster Sound, through Barrow Strait, and Viscount Melville Sound. He discovered and mapped Melville Island, one of the most westerly Arctic Islands. Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait and Viscount Melville Sound collective make up the Parry Channel which is the best route for a Northwest Passage. It is at about 74 degrees north latitude about or 1100 miles from the North Pole. It is about 700 miles long. But the point is that Parry sailed through this passage in 1819 in a wooden sailboat. You couldn't do that today. So it must have been a lot warmer in 1819 than it is today. So what could have caused this global cooling. What event might have caused a lot of particulate matter to be released unchecked into the atmosphere over the next 150 years. Perhaps it was the Industrial Revolution. That caused a lot of smoke and pollution.
The Industrial Revolution was barely under way in 1819. The only big polluters at that time were coal-powered steam engines and the steel industry. But, big polluters came thick and fast after that. In 1879 Thomas Edison finally perfected the electric light bulb creating a huge demand for coal powered electricity generators.. Then in 1888 Gotlieb Daimler and Carl Benz perfected the internal combustion engine. In 1904, the Wright brothers got their first airplane off the ground. This was followed by too many inventions to mention. But the point is, it was exciting times up until the 1960's and no one cared about pollution. Pollution went completely unchecked.
The 150 years from 1819 to about 1966 were very important years for learning about global climate change. For the last 750 years, through one ice age and two of the hottest periods on record, CO₂ levels had hardly budged. Now, CO₂ levels were about to start moving upward. The problem was that suspended particulate matter was also increasing. Increasing CO₂ levels are supposed to cause global warming. Increased suspended particulate matter (aka pollution) definitely causes global cooling. This is the classic confrontation. Who is the boss? Will the planet get warmer or colder? Well, the North-west passage froze solid and remains impassable to this very day, so, I guess it got colder.
People didn't start to worry about pollution until about the 1960's but once they did some interesting things started to happen. The planet started warming. And, in 1966, for the first time in 900 years we actually saw CO₂ levels rising at the same time as the planet was warming. But what is happening with suspended particulate matter? Clean air acts are just starting to be put in place and people are starting to do a lot of things to reduce the amount of particulate matter that is released into the atmosphere Suspended particulate matter is decreasing and this alone could explain the global warming that we have seen over the last forty years. As suspended particulate matter decreases the planet 's temperature may be trending back to the warmer , normal levels of 1066 and 1819.
The problem with the idea of trying to control the temperature of the planet at its current levels by reducing CO₂ levels is that the current temperature of the planet is probably lower than it should be and it is only being held at these lower levels by suspended particulate matter(aka pollution)Any attempt to reduce CO₂ levels by reducing the use of fossil fuels is almost certain to also reduce the amount of suspended particulate matter in the atmosphere and this would almost certainly cause global warming instead of stabilizing temperatures. If there is some compelling reason why temperatures must be stabilized at their current levels then this should be a matter of concern to you. But, that might be a bit complicated, so let’s look at a simpler problem.
Let's suppose for a moment that you can actually reduce CO₂ levels in isolation without any other factors and let's suppose that you are wildly successful and reduce CO₂ levels back to their 1066 level; what temperature do you think you would get? A certain amount of logic would suggest that you might get the temperatures that we had in 1066 which were the hottest ever in the last 1000 years. So you got global warming again. This is tricky. What is going on here?
One of the central flaws of the CO₂ theory of Global Warming is that in 1066 when CO₂ levels were at their lowest, the planet was at its hottest and in 2007 when CO₂ levels are at their highest, temperatures are quite a bit cooler. This doesn't necessarily mean that CO₂ doesn't cause global warming as some might conclude but it definitely alerts us to the fact that there are other more powerful factors at play in this. However, one needs to get this figured out before we start spending a lot of money and doing a lot of hard work, or it could all go to waste. In fact, if we do not completely understand this problem and don't know what we are doing, we could embark on a journey to correct our “CO₂ problem” that could easily make things worse instead of better because in fact, the problem is not CO₂ at all – it is suspended particulate matter..
Let's talk about Ozone. The CO₂ advocates are always quick to point out that while change is slow in North America and Europe where the cars are; the really big action is at the north and south poles. They say that there is a lot of melting going on there, and I believe them! But, they don't know much about snow. Any Canadian can tell you that raising the temperature at the top of a snow bank from -30C to -20C or -10C or even 0C is not going to change the rate of melting one bit. But snow does melt at -20C. That is why our rivers and streams run all winter. Snow melts at -20C because it is translucent and because it is 90% air, so it is a good insulator. The sun’s rays hit the snow and they pass right through the translucent snow until they reach the ground below. Then the sun’s rays release their energy as heat. Heat is trapped under the snow, which is a good insulator, the temperature at the bottom rises and the snow at the bottom melts. If melting is increasing drastically at the South Pole it can only be due to an increase in the amount of the sun’s rays reaching the snow and this is easy to explain. Remember those holes in the ozone layer that we were all excited about 10 or 20 years ago? They were over the North and South Poles and they are probably still there. Since ozone blocks the sun's rays; holes in the ozone layer would let more of the sun's rays in and cause increased melting. But this melting has nothing whatsoever to do with global warming and even less to do with CO₂. It is an entirely different problem.

If there is some compelling reason why we must stabilize the planet’s temperature at its current leval; rather than allowing it to return to its levels of 1066 & 1819; then we should pursue a strategy with a proven record. I can not see where CO2 had much to do with the major climate changes of the last 1000 years. The CO2 theory of climate change was cooked up by some guy with a computer about 40 years ago and his theory has holes in it big enough to walk Al Gore through. There is no doubt that the planet has warmed over the past forty years but I have never seen very convincing proof that CO2 was the major cause of this change. In fact, the case could be made that you could do more to prevent global warming by convincing Ford to bring back the Edsel as a pollution stabilizing measure.

Author’s note: Since a lot of this theory hinges on the change of temperature and ice conditions in the arctic between 1819 and the mid 1960’s; it is worth noting that Sir William Parry wrote two books, “Voyages for the Northwest Passage” in 1821 and “Narratives of an attempt to reach the North Pole in Boats” in 1828. These books may give a huge insight into the climate in the Arctic in the 1820’s.

Yah!!! Why hasn't Bush been impeached yet??? WHY?

Great article by Gary Kamiya:

Go HERE

Why people in the US were so freaked out over the Clinton blow job that they wanted him impeached but they're seemingly not bothered by GW Bush's lies and cover ups and illegal war and illegal election, is TOTAlLY beyond me.

What the HELL people??

WAKE UP USA

How to Build a Nation By Fear, With Lies and Via Coercion

Last week, someone told me they didn't think I really understood the situation in the middle east. That was probably one of the most true things anyone's ever said about me. Except that I am not alone.

Nobody understands the middle east. The only way one could ever understand the middle east would be to suspend their knowledge - and thus their bias - of their own culture and to live in the middle east for several years. Then said person would have to regain their knowledge of their own culture. Oh. and they'd have to be able to grasp the preceding 1000 years of strife and religious tension in the middle east, as well as to understand why people would choose not only to expose their children to violence on a huge, cultural level but to also involve those children in it by way of teaching them at the earliest possible moment why they should hate the child across the street....

No, I don't understand it. From my privileged western perspective, it is entirely incomprehensible and always will be.

I do understand,however, that a nation that presumes itself to be the 'leaders of the free world' is taking quite advantage of 1000 years of disturbed life in the middle east to further its own agenda.

There's a great site called Best On Line Documentaries where I was directed to this video: 9/11: Fear and the Selling of the American Empire

I suppose a bunch of my readers will see this and go "propaganda."

Well, dear readers, where there's smoke, there's fire.

Lies and the Buildings that Make Us Feel Better About Them

Hypocrisy & Human Rights

By Michelle Stirling-Anosh

The concept for a Museum of Human Rights in Canada is naturally appealing to Canadians. Our national identity is imbued with the cultural mythology of globe-trotting as peacekeepers, a long tradition of welcoming refugees, and generally being nice, polite people.

But this self-serving picture of virtue is tragically laughable in light of the reality of the past and present treatment of Canada’s First Nations by the so very ‘humanitarian’ majority white population. It is an even greater tragedy that we all think Manitoba is the ideal place for such an edifice – a prairie city emblematic of the downward spiral of life for the plains and woodlands natives that followed the signing of the treaties.

Until 1960, Status Indians could not even vote in a federal election unless they first gave up their right to be registered under the Indian Act, their treaty rights and their statutory right to property tax exemption

Guess Canadians are only concerned about human rights in a more contemporary context. Like Maher Arar, the unfortunate Syrian-born immigrant Canadian who was deported to his native land by the Americans where he was reportedly tortured for 10 months and subsequently received some $10.5 million from Canadians for his pain and suffering.

If this is the restitution for a non-native born Canadian for less than a year of suffering, what shall we pay out to our aboriginals who suffered and many were tortured as children here in their home and native land?

Aboriginals in Canada were "systematically dispossessed of their lands and livelihood, their cultures and languages, and their social and political institutions," the 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples documents. The result was the creation of a Third World underclass with poorer health, housing, water, education and greater poverty than the majority of Canadians; a life expectancy that is still five to seven years shorter; a rate of incarceration that runs roughly six times higher than that of the general population.

Click Here for the story:
Changing Native History

How can we justify building a Museum of Human Rights on the Canadian plains when First Nations people did not have a right to vote until 1960, could not leave the reserve without written permission until the ‘70’s and had to be back by 7 pm upon penalty of imprisonment, and until 1985 lost their treaty rights if they went to university?

What shall the compensation be for these human rights violations against the generosity and naivety of a people who agreed to terms of a treaty negotiated in a language they did not understand? And how come it took us only about 100 years to notice this discrepancy of treatment of peoples?

Yes, I see in the mock-ups of the Museum of Human Rights the Sihks in their turbans, Jews in kippahs, Muslims in hijabs and Scotsmen in kilts – how very multicultural and tolerant.

But honestly, would you hire a ‘red man’ to work for you in your store or industry? Or is it hiding in the core of your Canadian sense of fairness that this person and all like him or her are ‘lazy, ignorant, alcoholic and just plain bad news.’

Have you ever been grateful that their ancestors were willing to share this land with our forefathers so that you could live the life of freedom, prosperity and dignity that you enjoy today? Ever said ‘thanks’?

Or do you assume that the natives were a conquered people like in Custer’s Last Stand? So, their claims are not just.

Sorry. Canadian natives were not conquered in war. They freely negotiated with the Mounties and Queen’s representatives. The First Nations chiefs made their treaties with the Queen as equals not as her ‘red children’. They did so without bloodshed then, or retribution now.

Until we rectify over a century of injustice to our First Nations, we shouldn’t delude ourselves by building an edifice to hypocrisy in the form of a Museum of Human Rights.

Are some of your ‘best friends’ aboriginal Canadians? If not, maybe its time. Human rights begin where individuals encounter each other as people. One on one.

Would you work for a company that has this bunch of crooks???

Ok. Usually I don't go after the Canadian political system or its worker bees, but only because the US is so scary and interesting at the moment.

But what about this juicy story from The Ottawa Citizen?

Can you imagine working for a company that has a few more than 300 employees and has the following statistics:

30 have been accused of spousal abuse.
9 have been arrested for fraud
14 have been accused of writing bad cheques.
95 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses.
4 have done time for assault.
55 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit.
12 have been arrested on drug related charges.
4 have been arrested for shoplifting.
16 are currently defendants in lawsuits.
62 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year!

Can you guess which organization this is?






The Canadian Parliament!
The same group that cranks out hundreds of new laws designed to keep the rest of us in line?!

TAKEN FROM THE OTTAWA CITIZEN.

Lee Iacocca is ALSO embarassed that "president" Bush comes from Anywhere

Published on Tuesday, May 8, 2007 by CommonDreams.org


Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
by Lee Iacocca

Excerpted from Where Have All the Leaders Gone? by Lee Iacocca with Catherine Whitney

Had Enough?

Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, “Stay the course.”

Stay the course? You’ve got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I’ll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I’m getting senile, that I’ve gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country any more. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don’t need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we’re fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That’s not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I’ve had enough. How about you?

I’ll go a step further. You I’ll go a step further. You can’t call yourself a patriot if you’re not outraged. This is a fight I’m ready and willing to have.
My friends tell me to calm down. They say, “Lee, you’re eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people.” I’d love to—as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I’m going to speak up because it’s my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I’ll tell you how I see it, and it’s not pretty, but at least it’s real. I’m hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don’t vote because they don’t trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

Who Are These Guys, Anyway?
Why are we in this mess? How did we end up with this crowd in Washington? Well, we voted for them—or at least some of us did. But I’ll tell you what we didn’t do. We didn’t agree to suspend the Constitution. We didn’t agree to stop asking questions or demanding answers. Some of us are sick and tired of people who call free speech treason. Where I come from that’s a dictatorship, not a democracy.

And don’t tell me it’s all the fault of right-wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That’s an intellectually lazy argument, and it’s part of the reason we’re in this stew. We’re not just a nation of factions. We’re a people. We share common principles and ideals. And we rise and fall together.

Where are the voices of leaders who can inspire us to action and make us stand taller? What happened to the strong and resolute party of Lincoln? What happened to the courageous, populist party of FDR and Truman? There was a time in this country when the voices of great leaders lifted us up and made us want to do better. Where have all the leaders gone?

The Test of a Leader
I’ve never been Commander in Chief, but I’ve been a CEO. I understand a few things about leadership at the top. I’ve figured out nine points—not ten (I don’t want people accusing me of thinking I’m Moses). I call them the “Nine Cs of Leadership.” They’re not fancy or complicated. Just clear, obvious qualities that every true leader should have. We should look at how the current administration stacks up. Like it or not, this crew is going to be around until January 2009. Maybe we can learn something before we go to the polls in 2008. Then let’s be sure we use the leadership test to screen the candidates who say they want to run the country. It’s up to us to choose wisely.

So, here’s my C list:
A leader has to show CURIOSITY. He has to listen to people outside of the “Yes, sir” crowd in his inner circle. He has to read voraciously, because the world is a big, complicated place. George W. Bush brags about never reading a newspaper. “I just scan the headlines,” he says. Am I hearing this right? He’s the President of the United States and he never reads a newspaper? Thomas Jefferson once said, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.” Bush disagrees. As long as he gets his daily hour in the gym, with Fox News piped through the sound system, he’s ready to go.

If a leader never steps outside his comfort zone to hear different ideas, he grows stale. If he doesn’t put his beliefs to the test, how does he know he’s right? The inability to listen is a form of arrogance. It means either you think you already know it all, or you just don’t care. Before the 2006 election, George Bush made a big point of saying he didn’t listen to the polls. Yeah, that’s what they all say when the polls stink. But maybe he should have listened, because 70 percent of the people were saying he was on the wrong track. It took a “thumping” on election day to wake him up, but even then you got the feeling he wasn’t listening so much as he was calculating how to do a better job of convincing everyone he was right.

A leader has to be CREATIVE, go out on a limb, be willing to try something different. You know, think outside the box. George Bush prides himself on never changing, even as the world around him is spinning out of control. God forbid someone should accuse him of flip-flopping. There’s a disturbingly messianic fervour to his certainty.

Senator Joe Biden recalled a conversation he had with Bush a few months after our troops marched into Baghdad. Joe was in the Oval Office outlining his concerns to the President—the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanded Iraqi army, the problems securing the oil fields. “The President was serene,” Joe recalled. “He told me he was sure that we were on the right course and that all would be well. ‘Mr. President,’ I finally said, ‘how can you be so sure when you don’t yet know all the facts?’” Bush then reached over and put a steadying hand on Joe’s shoulder. “My instincts,” he said. “My instincts.” Joe was flabbergasted. He told Bush, “Mr. President, your instincts aren’t good enough.” Joe Biden sure didn’t think the matter was settled. And, as we all know now, it wasn’t.

Leadership is all about managing change — whether you’re leading a company or leading a country. Things change, and you get creative. You adapt. Maybe Bush was absent the day they covered that at Harvard Business School.

A leader has to COMMUNICATE. I’m not talking about running off at the mouth or spouting sound bites. I’m talking about facing reality and telling the truth. Nobody in the current administration seems to know how to talk straight any more. Instead, they spend most of their time trying to convince us that things are not really as bad as they seem. I don’t know if it’s denial or dishonesty, but it can start to drive you crazy after a while.

Communication has to start with telling the truth, even when it’s painful. The war in Iraq has been, among other things, a grand failure of communication. Bush is like the boy who didn’t cry wolf when the wolf was at the door. After years of being told that all is well, even as the casualties and chaos mount, we’ve stopped listening to him.

A leader has to be a person of CHARACTER. That means knowing the difference between right and wrong and having the guts to do the right thing. Abraham Lincoln once said, “If you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” George Bush has a lot of power. What does it say about his character? Bush has shown a willingness to take bold action on the world stage because he has the power, but he shows little regard for the grievous consequences. He has sent our troops (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens) to their deaths—for what? To build our oil reserves? To avenge his daddy because Saddam Hussein once tried to have him killed? To show his daddy he’s tougher? The motivations behind the war in Iraq are questionable, and the execution of the war has been a disaster. A man of character does not ask a single soldier to die for a failed policy.

A leader must have COURAGE. I’m talking about balls. (That even goes for female leaders.) Swagger isn’t courage. Tough talk isn’t courage. George Bush comes from a blue-blooded Connecticut family, but he likes to talk like a cowboy. You know, My gun is bigger than your gun. Courage in the twenty-first century doesn’t mean posturing and bravado. Courage is a commitment to sit down at the negotiating table and talk.

If you’re a politician, courage means taking a position even when you know it will cost you votes. Bush can’t even make a public appearance unless the audience has been hand-picked and sanitized. He did a series of so-called town hall meetings last year, in auditoriums packed with his most devoted fans. The questions were all softballs.

To be a leader you’ve got to have CONVICTION —a fire in your belly. You’ve got to have passion. You’ve got to really want to get something done. How do you measure fire in the belly? Bush has set the all-time record for number of vacation days taken by a U.S. President—four hundred and counting. He’d rather clear brush on his ranch than immerse himself in the business of governing. He even told an interviewer that the high point of his presidency so far was catching a seven-and-a-half-pound perch in his hand-stocked lake.

It’s no better on Capitol Hill. Congress was in session only ninety-seven days in 2006. That’s eleven days less than the record set in 1948, when President Harry Truman coined the term do-nothing Congress. Most people would expect to be fired if they worked so little and had nothing to show for it. But Congress managed to find the time to vote itself a raise. Now, that’s not leadership.

A leader should have CHARISMA. I’m not talking about being flashy. Charisma is the quality that makes people want to follow you. It’s the ability to inspire. People follow a leader because they trust him. That’s my definition of charisma. Maybe George Bush is a great guy to hang out with at a barbecue or a ball game. But put him at a global summit where the future of our planet is at stake, and he doesn’t look very presidential. Those frat-boy pranks and the kidding around he enjoys so much don’t go over that well with world leaders. Just ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who received an unwelcome shoulder massage from our President at a G-8 Summit. When he came up behind her and started squeezing, I thought she was going to go right through the roof.

A leader has to be COMPETENT. That seems obvious, doesn’t it? You’ve got to know what you’re doing. More important than that, you’ve got to surround yourself with people who know what they’re doing. Bush brags about being our first MBA President. Does that make him competent? Well, let’s see. Thanks to our first MBA President, we’ve got the largest deficit in history, Social Security is on life support, and we’ve run up a half-a-trillion-dollar price tag (so far) in Iraq. And that’s just for starters. A leader has to be a problem solver, and the biggest problems we face as a nation seem to be on the back burner.

You can’t be a leader if you don’t have COMMON SENSE. I call this Charlie Beacham’s rule. When I was a young guy just starting out in the car business, one of my first jobs was as Ford’s zone manager in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. My boss was a guy named Charlie Beacham, who was the East Coast regional manager. Charlie was a big Southerner, with a warm drawl, a huge smile, and a core of steel. Charlie used to tell me, “Remember, Lee, the only thing you’ve got going for you as a human being is your ability to reason and your common sense. If you don’t know a dip of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream, you’ll never make it.” George Bush doesn’t have common sense. He just has a lot of sound bites.
You know—Mr.they’ll-welcome-us-as-liberators-no-child-left-behind-heck-of-a-job-Brownie-mission-accomplished Bush.

Former President Bill Clinton once said, “I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent half my childhood trying to get into the reality-based world—and I like it here.”
I think our current President should visit the real world once in a while.

The Biggest C is Crisis
Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It’s easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else’s kids off to war when you’ve never seen a battlefield yourself. It’s another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. Where was George Bush? He was reading a story about a pet goat to kids in Florida when he heard about the attacks. He kept sitting there for twenty minutes with a baffled look on his face. It’s all on tape. You can see it for yourself.

Then, instead of taking the quickest route back to Washington and immediately going on the air to reassure the panicked people of this country, he decided it wasn’t safe to return to the White House. He basically went into hiding for the day—and he told Vice President Dick Cheney to stay put in his bunker. We were all frozen in front of our TVs, scared out of our wits, waiting for our leaders to tell us that we were going to be okay, and there was nobody home. It took Bush a couple of days to get his bearings and devise the right photo op at Ground Zero.

That was George Bush’s moment of truth, and he was paralysed. And what did he do when he’d regained his composure? He led us down the road to Iraq—a road his own father had considered disastrous when he was President. But Bush didn’t listen to Daddy. He listened to a higher father. He prides himself on being faith based, not reality based. If that doesn’t scare the crap out of you, I don’t know what will.

A Hell of a Mess
So here’s where we stand. We’re immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving. We’re running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. We’re losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. Gas prices are sky-rocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves. The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you’ve got to ask: “Where have all the leaders gone?” Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We’ve spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.

Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone’s hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn’t happen again. Now, that’s just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you’re going to do the next time.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when “the Big Three” referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen—and more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn’t elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bobblehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don’t you guys show some spine for a change?

Had Enough?
Hey, I’m not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I’m trying to light a fire. I’m speaking out because I have hope. I believe in America. In my lifetime I’ve had the privilege of living through some of America’s greatest moments. I’ve also experienced some of our worst crises—the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the Kennedy assassination, the Vietnam War, the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11.

If I’ve learned one thing, it’s this: You don’t get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it’s building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play. That’s the challenge I’m raising in this book. It’s a call to action for people who, like me, believe in America. It’s not too late, but it’s getting pretty close. So let’s shake off the horse shit and go to work. Let’s tell ‘em all we’ve had enough.

Excerpted from Where Have All the Leaders Gone? by Lee Iacocca

Just a thought....

...like I said, I work in financial services...


My most favourite idiot comment is; "I'd do anything for my kids. They come first," which is so often uttered by people who are
1. In debt up to their eyeballs
2. Have no home but who have two new - leased - vehicles
3. Do not understand that their kids can't live in a car
4. Don't know that buying a boat or a motorcycle before they buy a house is NOT putting the kids first.