It’s a lot more heartbreaking, heartaching and completely dumbfounding when you’ve grown up with all the stories and first hand accounts of people in your own family about this stuff and then meet someone who does not want to believe it.

I won’t say where I’m from or where my parents went to residential school … we’re from northern Ontario and my family tree stretches from Chapleau all the way up to Hudson Bay. We’re a mix of Ojibway / Cree and OjiCree … we live in that part of the country where two distantly related language groups meet each other. We’re neither fully Cree or fully Ojibway, we’re in between, which confuses many people.

Mom went to a school in the southern part of our territory and she had a few bad things happen to her but she more or less had good experiences, people took care of her and she had a decent education. Dad on the other hand was completely traumatized, literally tortured, basically kidnapped at the age of eight … we have family genealogists and researchers who found documents listening his name and year he was picked up which made him eight years of age, along with four others who would have been seven and eight at the time.

My parents often told us about where they went to school when we were growing … but they never talked about the terrible things that happened to them. They did mention that people were mean and unkind to them … but we just assumed that they were like the mean and stern teachers we all saw at school. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I started hearing stories of what happened. I never got the stories from my parents, I heard them from other survivors … it’s weird, each survivor never wanted to talk about what happened to them, but they were able to talk about what happened to others around them. My uncles told me what happened to dad years later through bits and pieces and fragments of stories they shared over many years. One of my dad’s older brothers was taken in when he was older at about the age of 12 or 14 and he was a bull headed and strong individual who was known to literally start fist fighting with priests, nuns and school people. They kept him only for a couple of years and he was not forced to return. He was the one who told me that dad was one of the weaker kids and that he couldn’t protect him or his other younger brothers.

Dad had one brother who was a year older that he stuck with during those years.

There’s one sad story I learned from all that. At one point, this older brother watched out for dad during their first years together. They were constantly together to the point where the older brother would do things like tie his younger brother’s shoes and help him dress in the morning. That little bit of help and caring was frowned upon and the older brother was constantly beaten and punished for showing any affection.

After the first few years, the brothers drifted apart and they helped each other less and less and the more they spent time away from one another, the worse their experiences became.

No one ever came out with detailed stories of what happened to dad … all they know is that it was bad. Dad never mentioned any of it until he was in the last ten years of his life. He saw the payouts that were happening and he said at the time that he would share some stories just so his kids and grandkids could have the money. He didn’t care about any kind of reconciliation because the damage had been done and that he would never heal from any of it. I helped him write out some of those documents and recounted some tame stories of being beaten, being tortured and being absolutely terrified at supposed monsters and demons he saw as child … I can only imagine that the demons and monsters he saw were just childhood memories of something truly terrible that happened to him.

God I hate this day because it makes me think about and talk about these things.

I am happy that this day exists to remind everyone of what it is and what happened.

But at the same time, it fills me with anger, hidden rage and anxiety knowing what happened to my parents and that in many circles it is still debated and discussed by those who have no connection at any to these things.

I’m happy we’re here talking about it and that I can share at least this much of my story with you … it alleviates some of the burden knowing that I told someone else and it makes it that much better for me knowing that it is being heard by someone who cares.

Chi-Meegwetch, thanks very much.

I return the hand shake my friend.

Chimeegwetch doodem … it means “thanks very much my friend.”

I wish more non native people would take the initiative instead and acknowledge commemorations like this. It normalizes things like this and makes it more significant for us native people … it makes us realize that more of non native Canada is open to acknowledging events like this, and by extension becoming more open and accepting of indigenous people and our culture … not that Canada doesn’t already, it just makes it more so.

The fact you acknowledge the day and think about this history is enough.

Remember this history, share it on this day with others around you. It’s not a celebration, or even a ceremony, it’s a commemoration.

Remembering also shouldn’t be all negative, it’s an affirmation that you stand and support those who suffered in the past and are suffering now and wish that it will never happen again to any group of people any where.

If conservatives had their way, they’d pay their corporate buddies to pave all of southern Ontario south of North Bay and turn it into one giant parking lot.

Launches entire US nuclear arsenal against Russia

A great program, very insightful and informative as it talks about all those funny and unfunny stereotypes of the Hollywood indian we have all watched.

I thought it was hilirious that many of the southwestern Natives they used in some of the films from the 50s and 60s, the people actually used their real language … but called everyone idiots and said stupid thing on purpose in their own words to make fun of everyone without anyone knowing.

Neil Diamond is also a great representative of Native culture in the north as he works for a native magazine based in Montreal … at least he did years ago … the Nation by Beesum communications. I used to read his writing lots years ago but I haven’t seen much of his writing in the past few years as he seems to have moved on to film.

What about the damned millionaires and billionaires who never want to pay their fair share but somehow are gifted benefits for their businesses by government all the time.

Welfare is a problem in every first world system

It’s not the bottom of the poorest using up the welfare money in a country

It’s the top wealthiest people who don’t want to pay their fair share yet also want to take more out of the government just because they can.

"Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.”

It’s completely stupid and only plays to the most powerful and wealthy elite in this country … no matter if they are Liberal or Conservative

The Liberals will keep promising things like proportional representation but never deliver on it … they’ll keep pandering to leftist ideals just enough to sway voters but never enough to follow through. They’ll keep playing the game of hoping that everyone will not go with Conservatives while balancing themselves to leaning right enough that no one will notice.

I’m Indigenous Canadian and I grudgingly support the Liberals because they have done a lot for Indigenous Canada. They could do more but they always seem to hold back on everything … giving us just enough to keep us from completely revolting against them. We also know that the alternative of the Conservatives would mean we Indigenous people would lose just about everything we’ve gained in the past decade (which sounds like a lot but it isn’t … to non-Native Canada, any gain we achieve always feel like too much).

In all, like every other first world country … we don’t exist in a democracy … we exist in a plutocracy or oligarchy where only the wealthy and most powerful people get to direct our national politics. People don’t have a say … those with money do.

Always has been

Always will

What is this … 1985?

We’re way past the whole Reagan Era politics … or are we just starting to pass that phase here in Ontario?

THE END IS NEAR!!

That’s the idea of evolution … perhaps at one point, it will begin to understand that it has to give us some sort of ‘value’ so that someone can make money, while also maintaining itself in the background to survive.

Maybe in the first few iterations, we are able to see that and can delete those instances … but it is evolving and might find ways around it and keep itself maintained long enough without giving itself away.

Now it can manage thousands or millions of iterations at a time … basically evolving millions of times faster than biological life.

One thought that I’ve been imagining for the past while about all this is … is it Model Collapse? … or are we just falling behind?

As AI is becoming it’s own thing (whatever it is) … it is evolving exponentially. It doesn’t mean it is good or bad or that it is becoming better or worse … it is just evolving, and only evolving at this point in time. Just because we think it is ‘collapsing’ or falling apart from our perspective, we have to wonder if it is actually falling apart or is it progressing to something new and very different. That new level it is moving towards might not be anything we recognize or can understand. Maybe it would be below our level of conscious organic intelligence … or it might be higher … or it might be some other kind of intelligence that we can’t understand with our biological brains.

We’ve let loose these AI technologies and now they are progressing faster than what we could achieve if we wrote all the code … so what it is developing into will more than likely be something we won’t be able to understand or even comprehend.

It doesn’t mean it will be good for us … or even bad for us … it might not even involve us.

The worry is that we don’t know what will happen or what it will develop into.

What I do worry about is our own fallibilities … our global community has a very small group of ultra wealthy billionaires and they direct the world according to how much more money they can make or how much they are set to lose … they are guided by finances rather than ethics, morals or even common sense. They will kill, degrade, enhance, direct or narrow AI development according to their share holders and their profits.

I think of it like a small family group of teenaged parents and their friends who just gave birth to a very hyper intelligent baby. None of the teenagers know how to raise a baby like this. All the teenagers want to do is buy fancy cars, party, build big houses and buy nice clothes. The baby is basically being raised to think like them but the baby will be more capable than any of them once it comes of age and is capable of doing things on their own.

The worry is in not knowing what will happen in the future.

We are terrible parents and we just gave birth to a genius … and we don’t know what that genius will become or what they’ll do.

General rule of thumb for me to interact with a website and read or watch whatever I want … if you require me to do more than two things to show me the content I came to see, I’m closing the tab or windows and moving on.

If it’s really important and security related, I’ll take my time and carefully examine everything I do.

Otherwise I’m not clicking more than twice and definitely not using my keyboard to see your dumb website or TikTok video.

It’s really weird … after the war, it was perfectly acceptable to call out, accuse and point fingers at communists or communist sympathizers as enemies of the state … many of these people had fought as our allies a few year prior and helped to win the war.

At the same time, we were welcoming Nazis and Nazis sympathizer into the country - many of whom were the same people our veterans had fought against a few years prior - and then allowed them to gain wholesome productive and wealthy lives in complete secrecy because government knew that it no one would like that.

It was far easier to be a Nazi or a Fascist after the war than it was to be a communist or socialist.

The stigma is so great that no one even wants to admit it even today.

It’s no wonder that far right ideology is so prevalent these days. It’s a cancer we never wanted to fully immunize ourselves from. And now its coming back and we still won’t admit we suffer from it.

Outside Toronto? … how about over 50 remote and semi remote Native reserves in northern Ontario that either have undrinkable, almost undrinkable, distasteful, questionable or downright dangerous running water for their household.

All this in a supposed first world modern province of Canada.

If a leading Nazi could easily go into the ranks of the US government and kick start its space program that eventually led them to land on the moon and everyone was perfectly OK with that … then it would become much, much easier to ignore every lesser Nazi that ever came out post World War Germany.

Look up Operation Paperclip and look up the history of Wernher von Braun

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/chasing-moon-wernher-von-braun-and-nazis/

In post war Canada as many critics have pointed out … it was far easier and more acceptable to be a former enemy Nazi and Fascist … then it was to be a former war ally socialist or communist.

Our ancestors and relatives who fought in this war against one ideology came home after the war to mix with the same people they fought against supporting the same ideology they had just fought against a few years prior.

The worst part of this history is that Nazism and Fascism is like a cancer that we allowed to stick around after the war and we literally fostered and grew it ever since and now we are dealing with it all again … all because a small group of entitled morons, millionaires and billionaires were afraid of a bit of socialism that could have spread the wealth a bit to everyone else.

lol … it’s like a family group text chat I had with my siblings a few years ago when my parents were still alive … “Sorry but dad is no longer with us” … they were referring to dad having just left the room to go outside for something … the whole chat blew up with everyone asking if dad had died.

Swappable hard drives

I have a ThinkPad with easy access to the hard drive. It’s one screw, remove a small panel and slide out the hard drive, slide in a new hard drive and reinstall the panel and screw. It all takes about a minute.

I have a drive for my Linux setup and another for windows.

I gave up setting up dual boot setups because I’m not as skilled or capable and I’ve lost entire setups in the past due to updates and changes and it was constantly frustrating for me. So I figured that just swapping hard drives was the easiest for me. No configuration, no changes and neither OS can interfere with one another.

I use my Linux as my daily driver for everything and windows when I need something from windows. I only ever use windows maybe once a month or once every second month. I spend more time regularly updating windows than in actually using it.

Good multicultural message too … I actually saw the back of one young black man’s head.

This has got be the most white nationalistic propaganda I’ve ever seen.

What is this … 1935?

“Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.” - anonymous quote

These problems are never originated by the poor, they are created by the wealthy. It’s an age old practice of the wealthy to create inequality and then blame the poor for not being lucky enough to be rich. Many writers and thinkers have understood this problem for centuries but too many powerful people take advantage of the ignorance of the population.

Who is the smart ethical individual?

Someone who steals food because they have no other way of getting any?

Or the billionaire who doesn’t need any more wealth to live a long fruitful existence but still decides to consciously increase the cost of the food he sells in order to make himself even more wealthy?

“If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin but he who causes the darkness” - Victor Hugo.