Chickens coming home to roost

What a surprise, she's misspoken again.

From ABC's news/politics site:

""We've got to elect a president next January who's going to remember Magnequench," Clinton told voters in Valparaiso on April 12.

It seems, however, that when it comes to Magnequench there's quite a bit that Clinton has conveniently forgotten...

What Clinton doesn't tell voters is that Magnequench was originally sold to Chinese interests during her husband's administration, which okayed the move despite concerns about national security and eventual job loss. Experts say the Chinese acquired the "technical sophistication" that created the magnets long before George W. Bush took office..."

Add that to the Colombia free trade mess ["I'm for it, even though my husband has collected $800k to promote it and let's not talk about my campaign staff" (paraphrased)] , toss in Bosnia and you have Hillary in a nutshell.

Here's hoping that American voters can get past Obama's ex-pastor and vote intelligently.

Charles Camsell Hospital, part of a blogburst

The recent release of locations of mass graves* related to residential schools has resulted in a total of two newspaper reports and lots of blog posts (not to mention Facebook). As has been pointed out in other posts, "mass graves" could also be cemeteries, and the possibility that a cemetery existed beside or near a hospital specializing in tuberculosis treatment is not an unreasonable one. Unless this is investigated by appropriate authorities, we won't really know if there was truly a 'coverup' of the gravesites or just really crappy recordkeeping. I guess we'll have to wait and see on that, although putting some pressure on our MPs and MLAs to ensure that investigations take place is not a bad idea.

Living in Edmonton and having passed the Charles Camsell Hospital (or what's left of it) a number of times, I decided to do a bit of digging. Interesting stuff.

According to provincial archives online, (click on "view the report!") the Camsell was originally a Jesuit college for boys (built in 1913) until 1942, at which time the American Army bought it to house men working on the Alaska Highway (I'm sure this made good sense at the time, since air travel wasn't as cheap or accessible and it was in the middle of WWII and all that). Once the highway was built, the Canadian military took it over and used it as a military hospital. In 1945, the federal Medical Services for Indian Affairs (may have also been called Indian Health Services) dept took it over and turned it into a tuberculosis research hospital for Inuit and First Nations people of Alberta, NWT and the Yukon. The gift shop sold "arts & crafts" done by the patients (scroll down to the bottom third of this link) , and makes me wonder who profited? Did the artists get anything out of it?

A new facility was built in 1967 and the original Jesuit building demolished. In the mid-70s there was no longer a need for a hospital devoted to the treatment of TB, the Charles Camsell became a full service hospital and served the general public. When it somehow merged with the Royal Alexandra (obviously a staff-merge vs a building merge as they are a few miles apart), the hospital was shut down and boarded up sometime in 1993.

This is where it gets interesting. My father remembers my uncle being engaged as a security/maintenance person to man the empty building. However, he was only there 40 hours a week, and as soon as he'd lock up, the vandals came in and trashed the place. My father was given a guided tour by my uncle (curiousity apparently running in the family) and Dad told me tonight of the top notch (at least to a layman's eyes) surgical ward and lots of equipment. Why on earth would they have left all the beds and equipment in place? (Further down this post, a link to a blog/posting of someone who recently went ghost-hunting there shows... dead equipment - what a friggin' waste!) And wasn't the AB economy in a slump at the time? Why NOT take the equipment? Very dumb.

Based on this history, I can see where there might well be a cemetery on the grounds (if only for the Jesuits), although I'm not sure why it would be 'hidden.' And if there were deaths from TB, which is highly contagious, I can see where there may be a need for a cemetery in situ, but again, why 'hidden' from public knowledge?

I've found a few links:

• publication regarding patients at the TB facility - Inuit here and the Dene here
• this link refers to the "Charles Camsell Hospital and Surgical-Medical Research Institute" which, given the popularity of eugenics at the time, makes me say ?huh?,
• conservatives (both small and large C) favorite electoral officer, Mr. Kingsley (I knew that guy gave me the heeby jeebies for a reason!) - note that his intro discusses his close association with the "exclusively First Nation and Inuit" clientele of the hospital although earlier links imply that once TB became a non-issue, the hospital served the "general public" so someone, somewhere, has their wires crossed.
• Here's an Edmonton Sun column/report from January/08 on the residential school in St. Albert, which appears to have been a dumping ground for the Charles Camsell Hospital (so maybe there isn't a cemetery there after all? or was it an auxiliary?)
• Here is a newsletter (scroll to the last article) discussing healing ceremonies that have taken place in St. Albert (with another mention of digging graves for bodies from the Camsell)
• This excerpt discusses "hospital ships" that went into the Arctic to identify Inuit(s?) with TB and the pretty damn harsh removal of them, with or without consent, for treatment. All I can say is YIKES.
• Another excerpt on healthcare for Aboriginals/Inuit/Metis that isn't overly complimentary
• Here's an older article with info from Arnett - while I'm concerned about some of the inflamatory words he uses, I'm also aware of the popularity of eugenics at the time (particularly in Alberta) so hesitate to discount the stories
• Here's a link describing plans for the site (scroll down) which is old, so may no longer be accurate and realistically, I'll be damned before I live there.

On a slightly sideways turn, according to some paranormal investigators, it's haunted, particularly the psych ward. And according to this blogpost, that may be a common belief. And to be honest, I hate passing that hospital, it always has given me the heeby-jeebies.

Free to a Good Home (in Edmonton, I ain't shipping)

Well, damn!

The child (and cat and dog) had been pining for a guinea pig to replace PomPom, and I was missing the noise (wtf? I know, I know) and composting aspect (ie. no need to compost when you have a guinea pig to eat the veggie scraps) so like a fool, I got her not one, but two, for her birthday. I THOUGHT they were the same sex.

Apparently, I was wrong.

Mo'Moo appears to have given birth, and AbbyNormal is a proud papa. (So named as he looks a lot like Gene Wilder after he created the monster in Young Frankenstein, and as I'm going to be in the market for a vet that can neuter him, we won't bother with a name change.) So, if there's anyone in Edmonton in the market for a guinea pig that can wait about 6 weeks, well, drop me a line in the comments.

*dammit*

Food for Thought

While the Canadian blogosphere is all atwitter over Lukiwski (consider the times? believe his apology? forgive him? should he resign or be punted from caucus?) and have compare this with the CPoC's stance on Ahenekew (i.e. if the CPoC is okay with Lukiwski's apology, they should also accept Ahenekew's and get on with life), I have been busy watching the Democratic primary and related news.

Which, not too surprisingly, has recently been focused on the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King's assassination and how much society has changed in those 40 years (and how much of that change was driven by MLK, etc.). Obviously, Obama being a serious contender (ok, let's get real, the guy has pretty much won the nomination, everyone's just waiting for Hillary to get the memo) for the Democratic presidential nominee, things have changed considerably since 1968. Thankfully, assassinations are pretty much out of vogue (what was it about the 60s anyway?) and GWB seems to have broken the pattern of presidents elected in years ending with 0 getting shot at (although that whole Cheney-duck-hunting thing... hmmm).

But how much has changed and how much has just gone underground, not discussed in 'polite company' as it were?

Being your basic WASP, the only prejudice I have had to deal with as an adult is being a blonde female with some brains - irritating, sometimes more than irritating, but nothing I haven't been able to laugh off. As a child I took a great deal of grief for being Ukrainian (50%) to the point where I flat out denied/ignored/whatever I needed to do to get by that piece of my heritage until I was old enough to recognize that the only one being fooled (and hurt) by that stand was myself, and I have happily embraced my heritage since my late teens/early 20s. But I was never denied a job because of it, or the lease on a home or the loan for a car or... any of the other injustices that many visible minorities have had to deal with on a regular basis.

As for the inhumane treatment of African Americans in the southern states prior to... realistically, the 70s, I can't even get on a moral high horse when I look at reservations, residential schools, etc. We were not much better (although I don't think we ever lynched anyone, did we? small grace, that is).

I guess the point I'm trying to make is - we all grow and change as we are exposed to different people, different experiences, different cities... I am not the same person I was ten years ago, let alone 20 or 30 years ago. So we can get all excited about a really tacky video (I haven't bothered to watch it, I'll take everyone's word for it) that has surfaced from 17 years ago and demand someone resign over it, or we can accept the apology and move on.

In this age of youtube and instant messaging, if we expect anyone to run for political office that has had any life experience at all, we need to be realistic. Either that, or hope that a lot of infants start running for office, as they'll be the only ones "clean" enough to make it through the process intact.

OH my GOD! updated

"I forgot I dyed my hair green!"

says the 14-yr-old after walking into the bathroom Saturday morning.

Hair dye: $16
Brushes for dying hair: $ 6
That comment: priceless

Updated with picture: Normally I wouldn't post a picture of my child, but she somehow managed to take this and overexpose the picture (or photoshop it) so the only thing you see is hair, so I figure that's okay. It actually doesn't look that bad (for green hair).

He's *scary* - updated

His church is weird.

His pastor seems to hate the country, so he must too.

He says his pastor does good things for the community, but I don't believe him.

What do we know about this guy? What is he hiding?

Enough already.

Jesus H. Christ, am I the only Canadian conservative that realizes that the CPoC is actually left of the American Democratic Party? Am I the only one that sees so many parallels between the Canadian election of 2005/06 and the American Democratic primaries ongoing as we speak?

For grins and chuckles, cruise various & sundry conservative blogs. I won't bother linking, I'm sure you can find them.

You'd swear Obama was the AntiChrist or something, but the reality is, he has a hell of a lot more in common with PM Stephen Harper than the current President. And the primary/election (see Hillary and McCain combined as PMPM last election) seems to be pretty similar, too. "Surprise" wins where no one expected them. The "inevitable" leader appearing not-so-friggin' inevitable.

But no. Rather than looking at the FACTS, let's all jump on board the "CPoC=Republican" bandwagon. Let's support a guy that cheated on his wife (unless, of course, that guy is Bill, or his wife Hillary, in which case nevermind), which goes against 'conservative' principles (actually it goes against I'm thinking pretty much anyone's principles, at least those that have them). Let's root for a guy that can't even spell economy, which may not be such a bad thing as the US economy seems to be tanking, so maybe he won't need to say the word, let alone spell it. Let's denigrate a guy who not only looks different, but acts different, and raises his money the same friggin' way Harper did, because he's running under the "non-conservative" flag - even though that non-conservative guy is further right than any Canadian politician in office (now that Ralph's retired, anyway).

Yeah.

Cuz we are NOT the 51st state. We think, act and vote for ourselves, and we are capable of reviewing all the information and making an informed, intelligent decision about who is the best candidate.

***

Gimme a friggin' break already.

UPDATE 03/21 - Hypocrisy, thy name is Right Wing American-Hating Religious Nuts (as opposed to Left Wing American-Hating Religious Nuts)

Interesting posts:
Dr. Dawg weighs in with Wright and Wrong (h/t James Bow in the comments)
Glenn Greenwald (h/t Dr. D)
Frank Schaeffer via Huffington Post (via Glenn Greenwald's post): Obama's Minister Committed "Treason" But When My Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero
Jeez, even Fox News guys are getting fed up with the crap, how bad is that?

Honestly, some days it's downright embarassing to be on the right side of the political spectrum. I feel like I should be "denouncing and repudiating" something or someone.

He's got guts

Holy shmoly. Lesser men (or women) may have run and hide after the week or so he's had. Instead, he came out in front. Instead of taking a 'safe' position (denouncing & repudiating, because just one or the other is no longer sufficient) the pastor, he denounced & repudiated the words looping endlessly on cable and network news shows, but took the time to address the whys and wherefores that someone of Rev. Wright's generation might harbor some negative thoughts toward either his country's policies or whites, and vice versa. In essence, rather than try to shut down a line of attack, he "proposed a conversation, not a monologue."

Rather than figuratively throw the pastor under a bus, he took a different path. I wouldn't say he's taking the high road, because the path he's chosen is more rocky and dangerous than (in my experience) the high road.

Of course, many of the newscasts I've seen insist on rerunning the pastor in the background, sometimes turning the volume up for a particularly nasty remark, sometimes not. It makes me want to kick the screen, wondering how a "pundit" can talk about a speech they obviously didn't listen to very closely, i.e.:

"...For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that...

...That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” ..." (emphasis mine)

Agree with the man or not, you have to at the very least give him credit for boldly going where few have gone before.