Wednesday, February 06, 2013

Mid-Week Post

Every third letter spells your name.

It never ends:

Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence has called a band council meeting for Thursday to discuss a blockade on a winter road leading to a De Beers diamond mine.

De Beers Canada says a group of residents of the remote northern Ontario reserve set up the blockade on Monday on a road the company uses to move in supplies like fuel, machine parts and equipment that would be too heavy to fly in.

De Beers and Attawapiskat band officials met with the blockaders on Tuesday afternoon.

Aboriginal Peoples Television Network reports one of the band officials involved in talks is Danny Metatawabin, who was Spence's spokesman during her recent hunger protest in Ottawa.

De Beers spokesman Tom Ormsby says the blockade has not yet impacted the mine's operations, but has forced De Beers to cease operations on the road.

The mine — 90 kilometres west of Attawapiskat — has a large aboriginal workforce, but First Nation has complained that its share of the bounty from the mine isn't getting back to the community.

Honestly, what do these people want? More negative publicity? If they want jobs, apply at DeBeers. If they want justice, get rid of Chief Spense. If they want to look like they are shaking everyone down, block a road.

How are those sanctions against North Korea working out?

North Korea vowed last month to carry out its third nuclear test but has said nothing about timing. As a result, the building suspense in Seoul has prompted many to look at the dates Pyongyang has chosen for past atomic tests, as well as rocket and missile launches.

Dates and numbers have great symbolic importance to North Korea’s government. So Pyongyang often schedules what Washington calls “provocative acts” around U.S. holidays and important South Korean political events, an effort to send none-too-subtle messages to its main enemies – Washington and Seoul. Pyongyang also uses the tests to give a nationalistic boost to its citizens, often favoring significant milestones of the state, party and ruling Kim family.

This is the same page from the same playbook North Korea has always been using. It can do so because no one will do anything substantive (if at all) about it. One can one do? Withdraw from the UN where North Korea's greatest ally, China, permanently sits on the security council. One can cleanse one's reputation of belonging to that useless organisation and take the funding with one.

Just do it:

With Canadians being blamed for recent terrorist attacks in Bulgaria and Algeria, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has suggested new legislation may be needed to revoke the citizenship of dual nationals who commit terrorism.

Mr. Kenney told reporters Wednesday he wanted to discuss the issue with Conservative MP Devinder Shory, who has tabled a private member’s bill proposing that Canadians who commit acts of war against Canada should lose their citizenship.

The minister said he wanted to look into broadening the scope of Mr. Shory’s bill to include Canadians who commit acts of terrorism. The bill, C-425, applies only to Canadians who are also citizens of a second country.

“You know, Canadian citizenship is predicated on loyalty to this country and I cannot think of a more obvious act of renouncing one’s sense of loyalty than going and committing acts of terror. And so I think that’s an idea that I look forward to discussing with Mr. Shory,” he said.

From Honoo Kegawa No Neko: schlub pleads guilty to domestic terrorism, being lapsed in some countries is dangerous, missiles found hidden in a kindergarten class in Abu Sinan, how multiculturalism in Germany is working, like the TDSB really cares where Jesus was born, it's not soft ethnocide when you eliminate yourselves from the gene pool and then demand more privileges than what your numbers allow, and Joyce Arthur would need a brain cell to be a fascist. All that and more!

From: "The Saga of the Tuxedo Cat" by Kurojiro Nekogawa

Finally, it is the feast day of Saint Paul Miki and the martyrs of Nagasaki on whom I've blogged before. His and the others' stories give one a true idea of what it means to adhere to one's faith and how important it still is now.

That third letter thing is not true.

2 comments:

Carlos Perera said...

Thank you very much, Osumashi Kinyobe, for the reminder that today is the feast day of the Nagasaki martyrs. Their example--and the underground survival of the Church in Japan for three centuries--should serve as an inspiration for us, as our own societies transition from their present "post"-Christian stage to an overtly anti-Christian one; I fear that real persecution is not too far distant; I only hope we can meet it with something approaching the faith, fortitude, and courage of the martyrs.

Osumashi Kinyobe said...

Thank you.

The denigration and isolation of Christians here pales in comparison to what goes on in other countries to be sure. Nevertheless, the example of the Japanese martyrs really does serve as an example of bravery and faith. If they can do it, we all can.