Proof that the bible is true
The good news is that I'm not hungover from a delightful infusion of "Black Velvet" [1] into my liver last night, but I do still feel the penchant to yarg stomach stew all over the place given the wrong amount of jostling.

My father has written an interesting paper. He will be presenting it in London, England. I'm very proud of him.

We've been talking a lot more than we usually do lately, (dad and I) which I'm really enjoying. It turns out that I'm not the only one who has a well-hid fascination with nuclear tests, and we've been talking about that a lot, as well as our country's inauguration into being "Jesusland", as Joel has succinctly joked about in the past. In regards to nuclear tests in particular though, my father has put me onto a book to find...that I would put on here, but just realized would be a bad idea, because then my father would find my blog (le gasp!). He's been searching the internet fairly strenuously to devise the best plan possible to obtain the book. By best plan, I mean cheapest plan. If you're curious though, email me and I'll give you the title. And you can call me a wimp, because I deserve it now.

I skipped my morning class today, to stay home and do an assignment that I thought was due today. It's due next Friday. Despite this, my teacher took it in anyways, because she was genuinely curious about what my collective thought was (ie: ranting and raving graded on a "checkmark" or "checkmark-minus" basis) about.

I actually saw in the news yesterday that the Mason band (Hobbema) is thinking about passing a law allowing them to banish gang members, substance abusers, and other violent offenders from their reserve for indeterminable amounts of time. So I ranted on that, but honestly, I'm not sure still what to make of it.

One interesting thing that I've been thinking about though, in regards to native gangs specifically, is the idea of a loss of self. For example, you have an Aboriginal student who is in an institutional setting and not learning anything about his or her culture, (heritage, policy, etc.), and then is hardpressed to make the things that they learn at home necessarily relevant to themselves. There is a generational gap between the Aboriginal as a completely assimilated minority, and the Aboriginal dealing with the lifelong struggle to cope with the damage suffered at residential schools or missions. Thus there is this grey zone where it is too hard to step backwards and become familiarized with history and culture, and too foreboding to step foreward into the realm of assimilated population. It's a very daunting position to be in.

Returning to my original statement on native gangs however...throw this identity crisis in with the combination of third world conditions on a lot of reserves (third world infant mortality rates, and death rates, for instance), a hornet's nest of policy to abide by to get anything done or achieved for a band, abject poverty, shortage of housing, a traumatized history, and the press to assimilate, it is not surprising that the statistics for gang members are rising. It is not even a problem unique to Aboriginals alone.

In short, the more I think about it, the more I think that Mel Buffalo and Co. may be headed in the wrong direction with banishing the "ne're do wells", because it is like creating a rift within a rift. In schools, studies have shown that for an Aboriginal student, half of the dilemna of learning in a euro-centric institution stems from alienation. Buffalo will essentially be alienating members of his own band, as well as members from other bands who live on Hobbema and putting them out into the cold.

This gets touchy from here on out. Feel free to complain if I get offensive. Does Mr. Buffalo honestly think that by banishing misbehaving people from the band, he will be helping them? There is no denying that the situation of violence especially in Hobbema is quite critical, but this strikes me as a drastic move in the wrong direction. Why not instead focus on the roots of the problems in the community and work from there to dispell violence and gang participation? Bring people from the outside in to help, rather than turfing out community members. And I dislike how we are all so ready to just sit back and watch this happen, as we've watched the crisis in Hobbema escalate over the years, rather than jumping in and offering to help. I think that the police have been of great assistance to Hobbema, but I certainly have not seen the government step in and offer any assistance.

When there was an Aboriginal community down east a few years ago that had a critical situation regarding gas huffing, people pulled together, the government pulled together, and the problem was somewhat effectually addressed. I won't say very, because I don't think the government has been "very" anything to Aboriginal peoples, except terrible. Anyways, I see Hobbema as needing assistance in a form that the rest of Alberta and Canada are quite capable of giving, whether it be extra social workers, more social programs, more law enforcement, or simply, more funds for the band to put towards this. Do you know how hard it is for a band to wrangle any kind of funds or assistance from the government? Holy crap. The more I read of Government Aboriginal policy, the more I am simply agog at the hurdles present in them. And some of this is evident already, in housing shortages, and well shortages.

Returning to that Third World thing: There were two reserves (one in northern Ontario), and one in Quebec who "recently" came into the news as having E. Coli in their water supply. The Quebec reserve was the newsmaker. However, both of these reserves when spoken to, stated that the E. Coli had been in the water for two or more years prior to the media attention, and that simply no one had paid attention at the time.

Rant rant rant!


[1] Government brand Canadian Whiskey  ¶ 3:07 PM