2014 - Year in Review - SPORTS

(Warning: Language suitable to a closed locker room)

Me and the NFL
  

I quit the national football league this year. It was my solitary protest to the hateful and racist name of the Washington Football team. I love the game. Everyone who knows me knows I love the game. I felt a kindred spirit to the men. I would tell my daughters, “you see that…those men are crying…that is a beautiful game that will take all that you have and let you cry like a man.”

I loved that it had a place for men all sizes and shapes, even the frail intellectual who can kick the ball. I dreamed of a day when the great Grandchildren of Jim Thorpe would rise up and dominate the gridiron again.

I quit the NFL but the NFL did not quit me. It was the year in which the NFL was always in the news and for all the worse reasons. Ray Rice’s vicious attack on his then fiancé in a hotel room elevator is the most despicable act I have ever seen in a close circuit security camera video. This man needs to be in jail. He needs to serve some time for what he did and if the league will have him back after he paid his dues he should be allowed to go back to work. He can’t just go back to getting paid to play. That shit ain’t right.

The stories and charges of abuse continued to flow for most of the season. I love the game but now that I have seen it without blinders, I am not sure if I can come back.

The Oiler's Walk of Derision

If you haven’t seen the video that went viral earlier this hockey season, you are probably better off. The Edmonton Oilers are slogging through their first long losing streak of the season. After another home loss, they have to walk past an opening where the fans can gather and see them into the dressing room. It was imagined, one imagines, a place where the loyal fans could gather and see the home team one more time. On this night the barricades held back a seething pit of vipers screaming derision upon the young men who carry the banner of their team.

It was sad. You can cheer and yell all you want from your couch and your favourite bar stool, if that’s how things roll in those places, have at it. But these young men didn't deserve the be treated with such bitterness and disdain.

Jersey Throwing Bastards

At the arena, I think you should be there as a fan. I’ve been lucky enough to see the Toronto Maple Leafs four times. All in the old building, the Maple Leaf Gardens, they only won one of those games. It was a beauty. CUJO was in net and we were in the standing only section underneath the seats and behind the goalie. The Leafs won. It was a beautiful thing.

That's how it is, a real fan has to survive all the shit that the team will go through with the belief that maybe one day.

Those Maple Leafs “fans” who have the money to buy a jersey attend the game and throw your jersey on the ice. FUCK YOU. Your not a fan. Most of us will never be able to attend a game at the Air Canada Centre and many of us can't afford to wear a quality Maple Leafs jersey. I can't imagine going to a game and making a show of throwing my jersey on the ice. If you can do that you are no fan.

World Cup Fever

It was most enjoyable and I got the whole thing but come on boys Instant Replay one flag per team. The acting and phantom penalties are undermining any possibility that the sport will be taken more seriously in North America.   

Canada's Football League 

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers had a shit season. I guess my locker room speech after the loss to the Hamilton Tiger Cats did not help. The Bombers season turned into a nightmare and the Tiger Cats had a near fairy tale season. The Cats did not lose a game in their new stadium and came one flag away from the most magical ending in when Brandon Banks who is literally 150 pounds soaking went ran a punt back for a touchdown. It would be his third return for touchdown in two playoff games. It would be the upset of the year and the Hollywood ending. It was not be.

This is when the penalty should not be a penalty. Did it really make a difference in the play? Was it that egregious? I think not. This is an area where I think a challenge should be available.

The Canadian Football game is great and I don’t understand why won’t it expand. When is there going to be a team in Halifax or Moncton, What about Windsor, What about Quebec. Wherever there is a University Football team that has a decent stadium a CFL team should be considered. Brandon should have a football team to take on the Bombers monopoly. There is room for a lot more competition in this league.

I’m not just saying that because I have NFL withdrawals.

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2014- Year in Review - Politics

Idle Reward

The National Chief walked away from the job to ride a motorcycle across America and no one noticed. That did not bode well for the Assembly of First Nations as a voice of the people and for Idle No More as an instrument of change. Foreshadow came to pass. 

The Former National Chief no longer wanted the job when an internal revolt took advantage of a backlash against the AFN that was spreading as part of Idle No More. 

In their commitment to the philosophy of a leaderless movement, Idle No More had refused to identify and thus create leaders. Part of the vision was speaking out and rejecting the institutionalized  patriarchy that is the dominant form of government on First Nations and within representative organizations like the AFN and in particular the Federation of Saskatchewan Indians where Idle No More began.

The Old Boys Network would have the last laugh. When election time came there would be no fresh faces to vie for leadership. The challengers were all political lifers, Leon Jourdain, Ghislain Picard and eventual winner Perry Bellgarde. They all knew the secret handshake. The whole thing was smoke and mirrors with the right amount of overacting. Before leaving the spotlight in defeat Jourdain laid a curse on the whole shindig saying that the events of the day “would haunt us all.” Someone should have said, “You’re haunting us right now…get off the stage.” Newly Elected National Chief laid out some bafflegab about what’s the other. Does the Turducken still go quack? 

Bellegarde had been elected despite being called out during the election by Idle No More co-founder Sylvia McAdam. The future National Chief shut her up with the classic "why you bring this up now, Women." He told APTN, "Look at the timing of it all and then you question the sincerity of dealing with the issue." He was running for National Chief and he was being asked what role he played when he was at the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Chiefs and the province began taxing First Nations. He told the co-founder of Idle No More to go Idle.

Supreme Leader

You have to admit it though. At least the AFN maintained some illusion of democracy, the President of the Manitoba Metis Federation was elected by acclimation. I think maybe the title should be Supreme Leader or something more befitting that kind of election. 

Missing in Action on the Missing and Murdered

I believe that we must make sure our homes and communities are safe. It is our responsibility as Native Men to must do more to stand up to the violence. We must be ready to take our place in order to protect our women and children. Our young men have become IED within our communities. Our leadership fails.

The horrific attack on the 6 year old girl at the end of the year reminded us all the truth its not all the White Boogeyman. She should be our Eric Garner. 

It is disappointing that the provinces continue to watch the carnage and do nothing but call on the federal government to have an inquiry. It is especially disappointing that Manitoba with such a high percentage of these cases continues to do nothing. The Minister of Aboriginal Affairs is First Nations, the government is NDP which acts as though it is some kind of friend to Native People, what is going on under the Golden Boy. 

Stephen Harper is King

Stephen Harper can do whatever he wants and no one is going to stop him. The Liberals are trying to convince people that they have the second coming of Pierre Trudeau and we all know it is more like the second coming of Margaret Trudeau. Not the reflective Margaret of later years but closer to the "No panties waiting outside the Rolling Stones dressing room while my husband is the Prime Minister of Canada" Margaret.

Thomas Mulcair. Shave off your beard. I don’t what else to say about that guy but he scares the shit out of me and I think maybe it’s because of that fucked up beard.  The NDP could have made a better choice.

The opposition sucks and the Conservatives will have all the money in the world to convince people that all looks no brains Liberal and bearded NDP are not to be trusted with the keys to the kingdom.

The devil you know. You know.

Obama's Lincoln Moment

South of the Border it looks like President Barack Obama had a good year on many fronts, the Affordable Health Care Act, Executive Action on Immigration and Naturalization and Normalizing relations with Cuba. The Health Care Act is commendable although my personal belief is that the people need less health care. I do wish I traveled to Cuba before they let the Americans back in.

It is the Immigration Act that will forever change North America. These are Indigenous Peoples. It was just before American thanksgiving and it seemed like President Obama was returning the favour to the Indigenous Peoples of North America in one bold and historic action. It will be his Lincoln moment. He has made them Human Beings in the U.S. and they are still children of Mother Earth and that means we have a chance.

War of 1812 Re Dux

Here at home, the First Nations made an aggressive expression of their ownership of the beach from Kettle Point all the way to Stony Point. I don’t know the details but one day the First Nations had road crews remove the barriers that blocked access by vehicle to the beach. The barriers were large poles about the size of telephone poles and a backhoe was used to pull them out of the sand.

You could now drive down the beach that had been easily accessible only to the private land owners. They were upset and were talking about boycotts and at one feisty meeting broadcast on the London TV News a resident was calling for “WAR”. The man dared use the “W” word.

It is shameful that the average Canadian is so woefully uneducated that few acknowledge that the reason this strip of land that extends far south of the 49th and boasts some of the most important agriculture and industrial lands in all of Canada are still Canada because of these First Nations and the sacrifices made by their ancestors in the War of 1812. Racism is the highest expression of ignorance.

Perhaps, I should not so quickly put the blame on the Canadian education system, it is possible that this upset owner had crossed the border from the US as many of the largest homes are owned by non-Canadians.

Enough about the past, that’s what they always say. What I do know is that the average folks around these parts are all intermarried and intermingled with the First Nations. It’s not just familial it is cultural and economic, they love our cheap smokes, cheap gas, tax free groceries, auto parts and hardware (yep tax free to all) and radio bingo.

We put millions of dollars into their businesses and the ones who know what’s what know what’s up. There are few towns in this region that would not benefit immensely from have a First Nations in their region. That is an economic fact.

The one percenters who own land along the beach front have the media jumping and the trolls working overtime online, but there's nothing on fire. Once again it's all smoke and mirrors.

Two Crazy White Men let the Crazy White Man in Charge Go to War

It became known as acts of terrorists that were somehow connected to the web of international terror and the rise of radical Islam; but it was Two crazy White Guys. The actions of these individuals struck to the heart of Canadian society but it was still just Two Crazy White Guys. Two Crazy White Guys seen crazy shit from Crazy people and they murdered. It had nothing to do with anyone else other that these were terrible men and their minds were driven by and with hateful insanity.

The Stephen Harper government used the actions of Two Crazy White Guys to commit our country to war against ISIS and enact who know what laws to limit our speech and our dissent. These are dangerous times.

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