My school

Come on in, spring is here. My kitty has decided she is needed to help me write this so she is perched on my lap staring at the keyboard as my fingers go clickityclack. Oh and trying to tempt same hands to pet her. Ooooh and there's nachos for snacking on today.

So you'd think I would have written a lot about the problems at my school. You'd think, I, as someone who might have a couple readers, would actively attempt to educate you all on various issues within this particular problem and spend great gobs of energy on ensuring that at least a few people out there were fully aware of all the issues involved. But I haven't.

Why? Asked with a note of concern and confusion. When has the Coyote ever shut up about issues that concern him? When he's angry. When he's very very angry. When it could best be described as a rage. When I know that my own base nature will cause me to snap out and bite you all despite our friendship and love. Because this situation has me in that rage.

It makes me want to say things that are fueled by bitter, vengeful feelings, to use words that will slash at you and make you bleed like I do when I think about these things. When I get like this, I want you all to feel the pain of the last 400 years of a people who invited in guests, to have those guests shit on the carpet, light the couch on fire, and then lock them in the coal room of the basement.

And some of you would say, 'But Coyote, this is not my fault, this was done hundred of years ago, how can this include me?' And again I would rage, and want you to feel my teeth and claws, because you don't get it. You forget that we all have benefited, have enjoyed the privilege of a society built on the backs of others and that makes us all responsible for those issues. Why does it matter now? Because now wouldn't exist without then.

I get so angry and I clench my teeth and fists, I feel my claws puncture my own skin and I howl and screech at the world around me and I say, I think, I ask, 'If they knew what would happen now, if those Anishinabe, my ancestors who helped Cartier stay, who led the whites further and further inland, even watching as these Europeans abused sacred practices like the pipe ceremony, would that do it again?' And this bitter, dark, poisoned part of me screams 'Of course not!! They'd kill those fucking interlopers and burn their bones to ash!' But that same voice laughs, and sits back down and shakes it's feathered, wide eyed head. It speaks and I don't just listen, I live it.

Owl speaks, 'You witness the darkness all around you and sometimes you're just too stupid to get it aren't you? You are lucky I watch and come to you when you start to do something wrong. Like now. Your people are beaten and weak, they bleed when they walk, when they breathe! When they die is the only time their pain stops and you sit there in your little place of privilege, able to act like the moniyas and think you get to rage? Stupid child, listen now. Open now. Your people are not bitter people. They would have done nothing different, for they foresaw that the welcoming of new people, no matter the pain, was always better than exclusion. They knew what the Europeans would do, they called them Wendigo. They knew. Stupid child, they would have welcomed them in just the same and given them the same hospitality and loved them, hoping that in time the love would pay off. Do you love stupid child? Do you? Then find those words. Don't use the angry ones. Love. In the dark, love is the only thing that makes you see your way out.'

With that I ask you, I beg you, forgive my anger. I mean harm but not hate, and as such I will leave this question in regards to the FNUC. In regards to this issue:
If you knew you could say something, something that was fueled by love, by your soul, rather than by the black ink of the issue, would you say it?

AH HA!

Come on in, the fire is low because the weather is just gorgeous!! Even my cat, who is terrified of everything that is outside our door, wants to enjoy it.

So my friend Cenobyte, she's pretty awesome. Really really awesome actually. She's wonderfully kind, brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and a whole lot of other words that say she's awesome. But there were times when I thought to myself, 'No one is this awesome... when will we find the bodies?'

Well I found them. Here. She twitters. Oh Ceno. Oh my, that's just ... so ... so ... unawesome.

PS I can't remember Ceno's hand signs for posts to denote humour and sarcasm, but various parts of the post should have those signs. Can you find them?

What moves me

Come on in and enjoy the fire, watch the flames. Watch what moves me. It's beautiful.



I've always loved this band and they're so underappreciated. Great music.

No we can't all get along.

Come on in and sit for a bit. I read something and so trying to sweat out how much it angers me to read bullshit like this. It continues to frustrate me that people still think like this. That they don't have the mental capacity to think beyond the here and now and figure out a far more intelligent response. Perhaps it is because of the crap they try to teach kids in grade school these last few decades.

Ok so the student paper at the U of R is not known for its great product. But still, I expect a bit more than a recent editorial. The main point had to do with the Olympics and the various cultural conflicts involved. Said op-ed editor wrote:

This just isn't fair. I had no say in the cultural conflict four hundred years ago. It's not right for anyone to feel marginalized or as though their culture is undervalued, especially that of the Francophone. Why do I have to pay for the mistakes of English ancestry just because I speak the Language? [...] Why can't we all just get along?

Statements like this make my blood boil because of the inherent laziness and lack of care the author spoke against.

She states it is not right that anyone should be marginalized yet that is EXACTLY what she is doing with the next statement. You have to pay for those mistakes because you have benefited from them. You as an Anglophone have grown up in a society designed for YOU, where YOU have benefited from four hundred years of history on the backs of others, from the First Nations, to the French who first laid the work for settlement here in Canada. If you are unable to see this then you are guilty of continuing the issue rather than attempting to correct it.

And the catch all 'Why can't we just get along?' For exactly that reason! You obviously don't understand the issues nor care enough to learn more about them and attempt to correct them. Instead you bemoan your own fate and how unfair it is and why can't we get along. To sum it up: fuck you.

Perhaps if you better understood the issues, such as two of the three founding cultures of Canada being virtually erased from the history of our nation, or perhaps the early restrictive rule of the English upon the French of what was to become Quebec might help you to better understand the current state of affairs. You can't just erase that history and expect the animosity to just disappear. It takes active dialogue and planning to start to repair those bridges so that future relationships can continue in a more positive light. But to sit there in your place of privilege and talk about how unfair it is to you? Again I say fuck you.

It comes down to the oft quoted statement: Those who don't learn from history are forced to repeat it. You want to stop feeling the weight of four hundred years of oppressive history? Stop being one of the oppressors and fix the damn problem, not throw stupid platitudes at it.

Long Live the Queen

Come on in, sorry about the lack of posts, apparently I have picked up some more readers, imagine that. Kinda frightening that there is an audience besides the folks that know me well but hey maybe crazy is infectious. Anyways, I've been working on stuff and trying to catch up on stuff and dealing with other stuff and that stuff will all be made apparent. And I'm still writing. But I need a break and I realized there is something I've never written about that it is high time I do it. Not just do it but do it right. Oh and I can't sleep.

So in case it isn't apparent, I'm a bit of a character. I don't say this as a means to brag about myself but instead as a recognition that I am not a hum drum person. Sure I'm pretty normal all things considered but at the same time I stand out. Not out of any desire to stand out mind you, I mean really who wants all the hassle? And in case any of you were wondering, while I love you all and know my life is enriched and changed by all your presence there is one person out there who deserves the most credit. She is an outstanding person in her own right. Someone I've known to be the strongest, harshest, gentlest, most beautiful critic and architect of my life. She is my mom. And to start with I just want to say thank you mom, thank you so much for everything.

What kind of person does it take to raise an annoyingly precocious, overly demanding, and at times truly frightening, individual? It takes my mom. Sure things weren't always good, in fact there were some horrible terrible times, but you know what my mom never gave up. No matter what, she did the best she could with the tools she had and in the end has not just made up for the past mistakes but corrected and enhanced those flaws into strengths.

You see I'm going to share something and maybe she may not want it publicly known but my mom beat me. I beat back too. We used to have drop down drag out fights, weapons and everything. Walls were destroyed, a door or two, wooden spoons, trophies, so on and so forth. Not good. So bad in fact that I did some horrible things and ended up in custody. A lot of folks might lay down and just write off the kid as a bad apple, sometimes there are just bad people. Not my mom.

While I was in custody she did everything she could to be a better parent. Not just be a better parent but help others be better parents. She taught the same class she took! And boy did those things help. Not just that but she kept her materials and has since helped me deal with my teenager. Can't beat that.

But that is who my mom is. She never stops caring. I've seen her hurt by caring so much, she has watched a lot of suffering for no reason she can understand and still she stands up for those that want her help and it never stops to amaze me. I've never met one person so accepting and loving in how she operates and for that I must attribute all my knowledge on the subject to her because I can't think of anyone else who does it as quietly and perfectly as her.

I'll tell another quick little story just to show you how fearless she is when it comes to her love. A good friend of hers was suffering in her relationship and it was becoming abusive. Alcoholism was involved yet my mother never feared wading into the fray and making sure her friend was taken care of. I remember we were helping my mom's friend move out and when we came back my mom saw that the spouse, who promised to stay away, had shown up, drunk. I was a teenager, and full of myself and my newly found physical strength from massive amounts of working out and my mom said 'No SWC, you stay back, let me handle it. If he dares hit me you feel free to do what you need to do but not until then.' We walk in and there is the abusive spouse, yelling and he grabs my mom's friend and boom, there goes my mom and she has got her hand around the guy's throat and up against the wall. She has gone from pure love and caring to snarling beast because she had to. Me, it is more of a natural state, for my mom I'm sure it hurts her to do it. In a few minutes, without any further violence, she convinced abusive spouse to leave and we finished the moving. But there was no fear. None at all and she hated the idea that she had to be at all violent to get what needed done done.

There a million ways in which my mother showed her caring for me and so many I could list that it dizzies my head to think how much I owe her. Everything from my first box of condoms (Was a birthday present) to sharing her twisted humour and showing me that laughter was indeed the best medicine, I just can't say enough to show her how much she means to me. Not to mention that whole gift of life thing. Let's just say that when I tally up all the strong points about myself I can attribute them directly to my mom. A woman who did her best with what she had and always put others before herself, including a troubled son who I'm sure still tries her patience on a daily basis.

So mom, this is to you, thank you for everything, for life and all the rest that goes along with it. You are my personal guardian and angel and mean more to me than most would care to say but I gladly admit the debt. At best I can carry forward what you have given and do my best to honour you and your life by making sure mine is the best it can be. Thank you.

I love you mommy.

A baby

Come on in, it is not often that I get all nostalgic and such but I thought with all of the craziness of the past two weeks perhaps it might be best to sit down and enjoy a moment of times past.

So fourteen years ago, I was still rubbing my ex-wife's back with Sprite cans while she went through three days of labour. We went into the doctors office about this time just to see if we should go to the hospital. She was only about 3 centimeters at this point and the doc said wait.

Later that day it started to sleet. Thick, heavy, wet clumps of ice, snow and water were sloshing down into the streets of The City that Rhymes with Fun. We had moved the two born and the one unborn into the hospital and my parents were on their way. Through a lot of different issues (crazy pregnant lady, sadistic anaesthesiologist, no doctor due to weather) my baby bear was born.

I cut the cord and laid the baby bear on her mother's breast, and that little girl, why she lifted her head up clear of her mother, and looked about the room with just about the world's biggest pout on her face. She never cried, she just gave that pout and then put her head down and went to sleep.

I went home that night stunned, elated, drained, and amazed. I thought if that little baby bear could go through that ordeal and do nothing more than pout, I s'pose there was a lot I could endure without having to make much noise.

So if you would all be so kind, sing a little birthday song for my little bear today at some point. She's fourteen and has turned into one hell of a young lady.

So many things to say

Come on in, the den is a bit of a shamble right now because well, there's been a lot of rage. Rage and flying emotional mood swings, and a whole lot of words said and heard and overall, I'm feeling quite drained. So excuse the mess, it won't be cleaned up for a bit.

Anyways, what this has to do with is of course the wonderful situation that has occurred at the First Nations University of Canada. I am of course a student there and while I would love to rehash with you folks about all that has gone on, I would prefer to actually hear from you about what you think about it. Because at this point I think my best bet is to be an observer.

So with that I will give you some highlights, in point form, of some of the highs and lows:

• Being in a meeting with board members and not having a single question answered. Questioning said board members about their communication and lack of leadership, getting the same old bullshit of 'trust us we know what we're doing,' and finding out the entire room agrees with my rather dark and dreary assessment.
• A trip to the Dakota Dunes Casino to attend the FSIN General Legislative Assembly. Finding out the system really isn't set up to work but being proud of my fellow students and being amazed at their leadership and abilities.
• Lying on my back all Thursday due to a migraine that threatened to split open my skull because all the stress and rage caught up with me.
• Listening to Grand Chief Guy Lonechild speak at the University and hoping for positive change.
• A few minutes alone with said Chief to explain what I felt was important.
• Being able to tell other students about a more inside view of what is going on.
• Being terribly frightened that we, the students and the faculty of the university, are being used by both sides (Provincial gov't and FSIN) as political pawns in a larger game where eventually we will be tossed aside and left to flounder about. Some hope that despite that we will pull it out because there really are some impressive students and staff at the FNUC.

So if you would be so kind, I have decided I need more points of view, and frames of reference. Please weigh in and tell me what you think about what you have heard from any source and give me your honest opinion. It would be greatly appreciated.