Bud Talkinghorn and More

The Aboriginal Dilemma

I was listening to the CBC's afternoon news program lately, when the interviewer was questioning the Auditor-General, Sheila Fraser. Again Fraser was criticizing the Liberals for their failure to reign in the exorbitant health cost overruns in the Native health program. Probably the most serious charge was that the government is actually sponsoring drug addiction amongst the Indians. The number of narcotic prescriptions issued to them is unbelievable. She could only assume that there were a lot of junkies or that they were selling their surplus on the streets. How they get the doctors to prescribe them and the multiple pharmacies to fill them is a mystery. I don't think other Canadians could pull this scam so easily. This is not a new event; the Auditor General had reported on the same abuse three years ago. The government, instead of tightening up, has let the problem grow worse. It is not only narcotics, but all prescriptions, that are abused. One aboriginal was funded in a one year period to the tune of $21,000 in pharmacy charges alone. The CBC reporter, trained to avoid anything that might disparage our natives, did not delve into that issue. He did however bring up her criticism of the native education system. For some reason, despite adequate funding, special aboriginal programs, counsellors, and totally-funded post high school tuition (along with gas allowances), the native advancement rate is poor. Fraser is enough of a politician not to lay blame on the Indian leadership. Yet it is precisely the demands of leaders like Phil Fontaine that natives be given the right to give 'culturally sensitive' instruction in native schools that is part of the problem. Certainly, the CBC interviewer was not going to touch that sacred cow issue either.

It is exactly this cowardly political correctness that is dooming the native students to not gaining a true education. Study that demands they develop the skills of a fast-moving western world is the answer. I have no idea what Fontaine is talking about when he pushes native value education, but I suspect that the average Canadian employer will not be impressed with their economic use. Industry doesn't care about the unique customs of their Asian or Latin American employees; the bottom line is "Can you do the job successfully?" and the sooner our natives get that message, the better it will be for them. Otherwise, we will see the pathetic plight of so many of them repeated through the ages. Playing the old white guilt card, as Phil Fontaine and the other leaders do, will eventually become useless. Whitey and the hard working immigrants have their own problems looming in the future, so self-sufficiency will be demanded of all, including our native brethren.

© Bud Talkinghorn




The voice of moderate Islam

Charles Moore, reporting in the English periodical, The Spectator, shows how thin the veneer of religious accommodation really is amongst Islamic leaders. He was asked to participate in a Three Faith Forum. When he brought up the fact that Sheik Muhammad Tantawi, the main imam of Cairo's leading 'moderate' Islamic center, thought that violence could be used against anyone criticizing Islam and that suicide bombings were justified, he was roundly castigated. Even the Jew on the panel called his statement phobic and unnecessary, although he didn't deny the Sheik's attitude was unfortunate. Moore's final comment on this experience was, "Two things came out of this meeting. One that even moderate Muslims are extremely prickly about any criticism, and secondly, that Jews and Christians are very frightened."

© Bud Talkinghorn




The illusion of Los Angeles--coming to a Canadian city near you

There is probably no city in the world that has fed us the ideal of blond ambition. Well, you have to get there soon, before that tint had been eclipsed. Now it is a population that has been supplanted by the mass immigration of the late 20th century. Even the native black population has declined. The middle and lower-middle class has been emigrating to other nearby western states. Now 45% of the population is Latino and another 15% is Asian, and growing rapidly. On top of this mass immigration is the massive sprawl the LA area. Once described as 56 cities in search of a downtown, LA is the new paradigm for North American cities. Pay attention to this phenomena, Toronto, as it will be yours soon.

My own experience is one of being stupified by its vast sprawl. Once I went with a buddy to pick up his wife at the LA airport. We stopped at Laguna Beach--a once far southern beach community. It had been gentrified from its rowdy surfer status, and our restaurant perch there allowed us to see the yuppy beach scene below. Nobody except the wetsuit-clad surfers were swimming because the water there is simply too cold. There ended the last blond ambition. There was no green zone left. Laguna Beach was not even the far edge of the city anymore. As we motored into LA proper, the colours changed. Glimpsed images on the expressway showed that the fringes lied to us. The reality of the city proper was brown, not blond. The New Jerusalem of the Arkies and Okies has become that of the Third World. Millions of the world's immigrants had picked the Mediterrean climate California as their own nirvana. The Santa Monica of your movie vision of bikini beach is in fact a mosaic of Thai, Korean, and Laotian residents. I suspect that there are a few white hold-outs, but they will be soon be leaving. The result might be seen in the last LA riots, where the blacks targeted the Asian stores. The fractured racial divide--the naked hatred between the races--was exposed especially after the Rodney King episode. What LA has become is the Hobbesian city of all against all. There is nothing left except ethnic animosity. The Asians and Latinos against what is left of the Anglo-Saxon rump, and the Blacks against all of them. Say hello, Toronto and Vancouver. Of course I might be wrong and all these polyglot and mutually exclusive communities may submerge their animosities and embrace Rodney's lament, "Can't we all just get along?" However, as these ethnic communities become veritable cities unto themselves, the need to learn even the linga franca of English becomes less important. And as this invasion is so recent, there is not even the charm of their home cultures implanted. For those who think you might enjoy cruising Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood, my advice is to keep your windows up, your doors locked, and your pepper spray ready; she's a tough little momma of an area now. As Ry Cooder sang in Down in Hollywood, "They will drag you out of your car and kick your ass." The city was even more soulless than Toronto -- and that is saying a lot. If you are lucky, the smog will blot out its ugliness during your visit. My advice, skip the city and go to San Diego or San Francisco instead.

© Bud Talkinghorn




At play in the fields of CBC

Ah, it's that steady drumbeat of anti-Americanism that pervaded every step of President Bush's visit here that hypnotizes one. Every speech by President Bush was parsed for some error that could be exposed. One of the methods is to pretend that CBC is presenting little riffs of "balance" -- but the drumbeat never stops. CBC's quick cuts to various commentators--now we see the pitiful horde of protestors. Except for the man waving the Cuban flag, it didn't qualify as good leftist CBC coverage. That is not to say CBC didn't try to boot up the significance. Twice, again from different perspectives, the program devoted time to hear (fully, of course. No sound bites here.) the anti-Bushism of this ragtag bunch. God, there weren't even any marijuana activists there for the giant light-up. At least in Ottawa there was the mini-demo of disaffected gays marching behind the "Butt pirates against Bush" placard. [Did you see that on TV? No? That might reinforce the opposite views on gays and "marriage" by highlighting the promiscuity and the indiscriminate sexual activity of some gays -- not a good thing when CBC is pushing gay "marriage".]

Lest I be accused of being biased myself, I must say that the usually mild-mannered CTV afternoon anchorwoman certainly got wound up over the lack of demonstrators. Her voice took on this almost robotic cadence, where every fourth word was bitten off. This voice was used to detail every crime that Bush ("and his gang, undoubtedly, she would like to have said) have committed. Meanwhile the camera man was trying to capture the emotional version of the "If it bleeds, it leads". But there were only about five hundred protestors there. The protestors had to squeeze-frame to bulk out the TV image--their bread and butter. Supposedly, there were five "Raging Grannies" there, but I didn't see them do their schtick. What is their protest movement anyway? Having younger members of the travelling circus throw their walkers and canes at the cops? Finally, it is informative to see the vast amount of time CBC expended on the event after the curtain had fallen. Most stations only featured the key elements then moved on to other news. But CBC stayed on message, which was to present the negatives. That so naked an obsession should be funded by all taxpayers is abhorent to me. In fact, even its core audience must be slipping away, given its endless repeats. Their motto should be "You never have to worry about missing one of our programs, as we will recycle it endlessly. They have even cannibalized the few original programs they give us. Half of tonight's Fifth Estate special was previewed on their noon hour segment. [This was written about a week ago, I surmise, Ed.]

Anyway, they did allow us to actually see Martin and Bush's speeches unedited. I thought they both did well. No, the President didn't bow his head in shame for his actions or viewpoints. He simply said, "I will do what I think is right for America." I liked his thinly-veiled statement about the impotence of the UN. "If you threaten dire consequences from the UN, you must be willing to follow through." Otherwise, to the world's thug states you are a joke. In fact, these same thug states have a lot of influence on UN decisions. The African ones cannot protect their own continent's security, because they are, or will be, as guilty as the ones they would condemn. The assorted dictatorships in the Assembly are loath to do so also. Why would Bush pay attention to this expensive cocktail party of tyrannies? One suspects that most of them were secretly happy about 9/11. That Martin could finally came to see the reality of "multilateral response", the uselessness of a corrupt UN, is my fervent hope. Mind you, I am not putting any of my money on the odds that that will come about.

© Bud Talkinghorn



Strippers put Ottawa program at centre stage -- With about 400,000 potential immigrants waiting to enter Canada, why should strippers have been able to jump the queue? There's an old saying worth considering here -- follow the money -- "foreign dancers will merely find other ways to enter Canada"

I see that the stripper program has been ended, announced by Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan. Why was it ever started? I suspect, according to the following article, the stripper program has not ended; it will simply go under another name or the strippers will take another method of entry, as this article suggests.

Colin Freeze and Maria Jiminez, Globe and Mail, Nov. 27, 04

The industry itself says it is aware of the problems and is attempting to self-regulate by establishing hot lines for foreign strippers and developing brochures in English, French, Romanian and Spanish instructing strippers on everything from how to keep their work place clean (by wiping down brass poles they use in their acts) to reminding them that sex with patrons in the clubs is prohibited.

This week Human Resources Skills Development Canada, which runs the program with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, said it will revise its labour-market opinion on strippers on Dec. 15, and that the onus will shift to the employer to prove there is a shortage, as opposed to an assumption that there is one.

Mr. Kurland, the Vancouver immigration lawyer, believes that if HRSDC scales back the program, foreign dancers will merely find other ways to enter Canada. "If you don't let them come in legally, they'll come in illegally, and you'll have to extend more resources to scrutinize the inevitable underground created by the closedown of the program," he said. "There will always be a market for exotic dancers." [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] Mr. Cohn, at Diamonds, said many of the foreign dancers do marry in Canada, but denies they are paying men $10,000 for the privilege, as some allege. [. . . . ]

Our government has underfunded our security for many years; now, are we to be blackmailed? Does Canada need more strippers, lap dancers, women who come through the nightclub stripper door to get a Canadian husband and Canadian citizenship? Our citizenry have become people to be exploited, our citizenship for sale to those with money / influence / votes to be offered, and our government has let it happen.



The following stories have been given to me by a reader. Thanks, HH.


'The New Gay World Order' -- "The unrelenting assault by homosexual activists disguising as human rights proponents is something that requires careful thought and strategy."

This article comes from the point of view of one who believes in a Christian God and in the Bible. I am printing it because of its call to stop the intimidation of believers. I agree wholeheartedly. The Judeo-Christian tradition has given us democracy, tolerance and the best of lives; intolerance today is reserved for Christian belief and Christians who question how our society is being changed. Most Christians do not want to foist their beliefs onto others; they simply want the same tolerance accorded their beliefs as is readily accorded the beliefs of others. Surely, this is not too much to ask.

Betty Ann Blaine, Nov. 23, 04, Jamaica Observer

Let us be clear about one thing. What we are seeing is calculated, deliberate and focused strategy to apply as much pressure as possible so that we will not only bend, but capitulate and bow before the altar of what I call, "The New Gay World Order".

It seems to me that there is no end to how far we can stretch the barriers of personal behaviour, and then arrogantly ask the rest of us not to judge or criticise.

The question is, where will human beings draw the line? I'm told that there are countries in Europe where public notices are posted enticing people to have sex with anybody or anything - man, woman or do. If we are not careful, we may be muzzled by laws which tell us that we cannot criticise people who engage in bestiality.

I realise that what we are seeing is the ever-expanding borders of human degradation, where absolutely anything goes, and where people with a sense of decency are being goaded into silence.

[. . . . ] The tragedy of Jamaica is that we are ripe for infiltration, and for the proliferation of homosexuality because of the grinding and pervasive poverty that exist. More and more of our young children are being lured into homosexual acts entirely for money and the ability to get things.

The combination of poor education and parenting, and the unrelenting exposure to the Western sex media, embellished by our own local porn networks, create fodder for young, vulnerable minds.

[. . . . ] What we have to be wary of, however, is this rabid remnant of homosexual activists who use pressure, power and money, to intimidate us into accepting their particular lifestyle. [. . . . ]

I notice this intimidation in Canada takes the form of declaring Christians "intolerant" or treating anyone who disapproves of homosexual "behaviour"--not "being" homosexual--as someone who has committed "hate crime". This is supremely intolerant. The range of thought allowed expression in Canada is being curtailed rapidly by a political correctness foisted upon us unrelentingly by the media, and particularly by CBC, which is far from balanced. The only religion CBC regularly sneers at is Christianity. Their agenda is so obvious. They are using taxpayers' money to push the leftist/NDP/Liberal agenda.




Record blow-out in nation's debt -- Economists predict a slowdown as the trade deficit soars and Australia's foreign debt tops $400 billion for the first time.

Record blow-out in nation's debt -- Economists predict a slowdown as the trade deficit soars and Australia's foreign debt tops $400 billion for the first time.