New Media

Imagine you’re the slumlord owner of a rent-controlled bedbug-infested hotel in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. You’ve pocketed big bucks over the years from the government that was supposed to pay for essential renovations. Your welfare-dependent tenants usually don’t complain too loudly about the mold or the rats or the lack of working toilets, for fear of being tossed out on the street.

But this time, they couldn’t help themselves, when a wall fell down, exposing several families to the elements and the shocked stares of onlookers from Hastings Street. They spilled the beans. Reporters from all over the country started talking about the deplorable crisis. It’s downright embarrassing.

An independent auditor comes knocking to go over your financials. He wants to find out what you’ve done with the millions of dollars that you were supposed to use to fix the leaky plumbing and the crumbling brickwork and rotten wood and broken windows. You tell him to take a hike. When he objects, you physically throw him out.

Then you get an epiphany. Oh, this is brilliant. You file a grievance with the United Nations over your ill treatment.

How do you think this story ends? With you keeping your hotel? With the United Nations giving you a badge of honor? With your long-suffering tenants patting you on the back for your courageous stand? With you not going to jail?

No.

No, no, no, no.

The crisis of Attawapiskat has thankfully helped put the entire system of First Nations reserves under more scrutiny. Band leaders on many (most?) reserves operate with impunity and an explicit rejection of democracy. The nepotism, corruption and wastefulness not merely of money but of human beings is something that people in the rest of the country would never stand for.

I’ve been ambivalent about this problem over the years because I don’t live next to it. I see the conditions on reserves in the news from time to time. The places do look awful. But that’s not the fault of the government shoveling cash into these places. No amount of cash can paper over this perpetual horror show. Not with band leaders demanding 280 new houses at $250,000 a pop, according to the NDP — houses in the middle of nowhere that are just going to fall apart again after a few years because under the rules on reserves, no one actually owns the property.

Think about that figure again: $250,000 per house. That’s just to build a house, since the land has no value. This is a house that will stand in an isolated community with no jobs, no schools, no hospital, no reason to live there at all. Why does it cost that much to build a house there? Because that’s what the band council says it costs… for houses that are going to end up as firewood.

This problem needs to be solved yesterday.

The solution? Simple. Stop the flow of money. There are some examples of well-run, prosperous reserves that are closer in development to Whistler than Attawapiskat. They will survive, maybe even thrive. But those reserves like Attawapiskat that cannot survive without massive infusions of funds (or fail even with such generous support) need to be dismantled. Let the people living on those reserves migrate to places with education, jobs and a hope for a future.

No more money. No more reserves.

A North Korean warship fires a torpedo at a South Korean warship, killing all aboard. The South Koreans take their good time in developing a report (in triplicate, with lots of neat pictures and Power Point presentation), with the assistance of a range of other countries, which calls the Northerners out on their aggression. Naturally, the North is now threatening war for the release of the report and any future response to their lethal provocation.

Remember that old saying about the best revenge being “living better”? Here’s a case where that adage might apply very well. Do nothing. The North is already suffering badly enough under their own totalitarian misery that it’s hard to see how a South Korean military response could make things much worse for them. To illustrate, some videos:

Quality of Life in North Korea

Quality of Life in South Korea

Actually, not. But I thought it made a more interesting headline.

The real story, to absolutely no one’s surprise:

The action in Geneva by the 47-nation council was a sharp setback for Israel, which had labored to discredit the month-old U.N. report. The council’s vote could force Israel to defend itself for months or perhaps years — in diplomatic forums, if not criminal tribunals — as U.N. bodies grapple with highly charged fallout from last winter’s conflict in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

While the council embraced a report that condemned both sides, the resolution itself criticized only Israel and was adopted by a wide margin.

Idealized dramatization of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s upcoming speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Sept. 23, 2009:

DAY INT. UNITED NATIONS ASSEMBLY

AHMADINEJAD
I’d just like to begin by denouncing the Great Satan known as the United States for it’s diabolical meddling…

BAN KI MOON
Mr. Ahmadinejad?

AHMADINEJAD
Who dares interrupt the glorious revolutionary leader of the great Islamic Republic of Iran?

BAN KI MOON
I’m just the Secretary General of this organization, Mr. Ahmadinejad. But as Secretary, I must, ah, regretfully inform you that you don’t have an appointment to speak here today. I’m afraid the agenda for today’s gathering just doesn’t have time set aside.

AHMADINEJAD
You can’t be serious!?

BAN KI MOON
The rest of the assembly felt that since they’d pretty much heard what you had to say in your previous, ah, rants, they wanted to “skip” the speech. It was pretty much unanimous. Much regret, but as Secretary, I do have to set an agenda while juggling priorities. My apologies. Your speech just didn’t make the cut.

AHMADINEJAD
What new conspiracy is this?

BAN KI MOON
I’m terribly, terribly sorry, Mr. Ahmadi… Ahmedo… Golly, do you mind if I just call you Allan? Look, Mr. Chavez dearly wanted to hear you speak, but I understand he had to be fitted for a new beret to encompass his bloated cranium. And as you can see, you’re just not on the agenda. Terribly, terribly sorry.

AHMADINEJAD
This is unprecedented! Here is proof that the Zionist entity’s satanic agents have infiltrated the highest levels of…

BAN KI MOON
Allan! That’s quite enough. I must insist that you step down and let the Peruvian ambassador begin his dissertation on the global consequences of depressed prices on Llama pelts.

AHMADINEJAD
You cannot stop the voice of God’s revolution, vile Jewish swine. If we were in Iran right now, I’d have you thrown in prison, sodomized, and executed for being a godless Zionist homosexual.

BAN KI MOON
My goodness, that’s wrong on so many levels. Allan, for the last time, I have to insist that you step down. Mr. Gonzalez is waiting, with some very fine Llama pelts.

AHMADINEJAD
A thousand curses on your pork-flavored head, I shall go on! Once more, the downtrodden nations of the Earth condemn the United States for it’s…

BAN KI MOON
I. Said. Shut. Up. And. Sit. Down. Allan.

AHMADINEJAD looks down the barrel of an M1911 pistol. BAN KI MOON cocks the weapon.

BAN KI MOON
I would remind the representative from Iran that in addition to being a Secretary, I am also a General. When I give an order, I expect that it will be followed. Is that understood?

AHMADINEJAD
Yes.

BAN KI MOON
What was that? I didn’t hear you?!

AHMADINEJAD
Yes, sir!

BAN KI MOON
Damn right. Sit your ass down, Allan.

AHMADINEJAD slinks into his seat. The ASSEMBLY is intimidated into absolute silence. BAN KI MOON goes to his podium and withdraws from a hidden compartment a king-sized bottle of fine aged soju. Breaking the bottle open with his teeth with a sickening crunch, the Secretary-General proceeds to take a swig from the jagged edge. He keeps his pistol out in the open.

BAN KI MOON
Mr. Gonzalez, you have the floor.