Marginalization

In Cape York Australia a national holiday is celebrated called "National Sorry Day"

This Unofficial holiday was established to apologize for the way the government had treated the indigenous people of Australia. They are mainly apologizing for the "stolen generations" of children that were taken by both the government and religious organizations for their own purposes. This also includes the seizing of aboriginal lands and many damaging policies made by Parliament against them.

As a result of this holiday treatment of the Indigenous people has much improved with increased rights that allow them to make the necessary negotiations for their ancestral lands. Some compensation money has also been given, although many argue that not nearly enough has been given to rightly make up for what was done. The Australian government has never stated an apology though, and what needs to be done will most likely not happen until an apology is made.

Back in Canada, the Lubicon people face a touch challenge ahead of them. Oil companies are clearing the forests to drill for oil, the Lubicon need these forest and the wildlife inside to make their living. They have made many pleas to the federal government but have failed to grab their attention through peaceful protest, instead they have turned to more "active" ways to make the government pay attention. Mostly by taking the logs of the trees the oil companies have chopped down and blocking the road with them preventing the oil companies from getting their workers to the oil wells. This has made the feds listen a little as negotiations are now hit and miss.
The major problem the Lubicon face is the fact that their livelihood is being destroyed right before their eyes and as hard as they try to get help, no one will listen to them. they have tried negotiating through peace, violence, and every manner they can think of. However because the federal government has never actually ceded the land to the Lubicon officially they may not get the help they need until it is to late.
A simple solution to this problem would be to compensate the Lubicon people for the land and work that is and has been taken from them, this should be done by the oil companies as they are the ones that have destroyed these parts of the Lubicon life. This would also get the lubicon off the governments back so they could focus on other very important tasks.

Credit Crisis

The Credit Crisis began with the “Dot com” bust that supposedly forced the Federal Reserve into lowering the interest rates causing wall st. to borrow endless amounts of money and then proceed to loan it out to irresponsible citizens that were completely in capable of paying back their mortgages. Bankers themselves though are unwilling to admit their mistake and fork over the necessary funds to pay off the debts they’ve collected.
The Federal Reserve made the first and biggest mistake when they lowered the interest on loans and investments to just 1%. This drove the investors away from the reserve and in search of new safe investments. It also brought the bankers in to loan out billion upon billions of dollars, where did all this money come from exactly? The Federal Reserve printed it out of course, inflating the economy by doing so, why? To make a few extra bucks, and it only cost them the economy as a whole.
The next mistake was made by brokers that sold sub-prime mortgages to people who wanted to live the American dream, but was in no financial position to do so. But they sold the mortgages anyway, thinking they could sell them off before they defaulted thus passing the problem off to someone else and making themselves a pretty dollar. But their little scheme came back and bit them where it hurt when hundreds of thousands of homeowners defaulted, most because they couldn’t afford it but some also who were sick of making payments on something that was worth maybe only a third of what it was now worth. With this investors lost their trust in the bankers, refusing to buy any Collective Debt Obligations because even the safe ones were too risky to put their money on it.
Finally bankers stubborn attitudes and unwillingness to pay for the less then brilliant decisions they made is not solving any problems, it only delays any possible solutions. The N word (Nationalization) is only spoken of in whispers when it should be openly embraced, sure its not exactly what this country was built upon but none of these ideals will matter when we are unable to feed our people or protect them from any eager nations waiting for the US economy to fully crash, when they will be at their weakest point, and then they will strike. What will your free economic ideals mean when your countries defenses crumble upon themselves, what will that say about a free economy? They will say that it failed and Communism was the better form of government, that at least tyranny was stable enough to hold itself together.
In closing I would like to say that the absolute largest factor of this crisis is greed. Almost all of these mistakes were made in an effort to exploit someone else and take their money. If people would just be satisfied with what they had then the federal reserve wouldn’t have loaned money to banks that couldn’t afford to pay them back, bankers wouldn’t have sold mortgages to people who couldn’t afford a cardboard box let alone a house. But all they thought of is, “ if I can just get this to the next guy ill be safe, it’s his problem now.” You’re wrong, it’s our entire problem and we all need to step up and fix it, it wont be easy but it is still possible.

Mascots

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_Mascot_controversy

This was a secondary source

Http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/artiticles/2005/06/05/sports_and_native_americans/

This was another secondary source

http://www.ncai.org/ncai/resource/documents/governance/ncainews4.2.99.htm

One more secondary source

Moana Maniapoto

#1. Moana Maniopoto describes the "moko" is less of a picture simply embedded in someones skin, it is a symbol of the Maori culture, it shows lineage, and pride for ones tribe. It connects the tribes people to their history, from war to religion, love and death. She must think that tattoo's are silly and a disrespectful term to a sacred art of her people. It stays with you until the end. Moana Maniopoto is speaking to the youth of the Maori, telling them to remember their heritage and respect it for what it is, not some silly pictures like Western tattoos, they are two distinct things and should be treated likewise.

#2. Maniapoto uses factual information to get her point across. It is a fact that genealogy and occupation could be deciphered from the paintings. They tell us almost everything about the Maori culture including religion, government, and their wars. This is the most effective way that we can know without actually being amongst the Maori themselves. Her method is effective because of how catchy her song is, making you want to listen to it many times thus the message is sent out lots.

#3. Maniapoto clearly defines and expresses her views in her music. One such view is opposition to free trade. She also wishes for Independance of Timor ands supports Maori troops out in the field fighting to defend the traditions of her people. Overall she has lots of pride about her people and would defend them valiantly with all her heart and soul.

Legacies

My definition of a legacy is something great that has been left by those before us to help us remember great deeds of the past.

The Richmond Oval will be a Legacy of the twenty-ten winter Olympic games because of what will happen to it after the games, not what actually goes down during the Olympics. It will also be remembered for the marvel of engineering the "Wood wave" is. After the closing ceremonies of the 2010 games the Richmond oval will immediately begin it's conversion to a training facility for many sports such as Ice hockey, Running with a 200m track, and lots of ball sports in the full size gymnasium. The actual speed skating track will remain being covered in a removable floor though and could be used for completions and training for our athletes. The roof includes over 1 million feet of BC pine beetle linked together to make a astonishing ripple effect. These things will make us remember the Richmond oval and the 2010 games forever.

Dangerous Activities in Magrath

Magrath is a fairly calm town but a few residents have taken up Weed/marijuana/Pot as their new hobby. Unfortunately despite the benefits to the plant it has been made an illegal substance in Canada due to the hallucinations its addicting effects on users requiring them to purchase more and more of the herb. But still many people are growing Pot in their basements for both personal use and for profit. It's not easy to grow illegal substances in most areas but the surprisingly small police force in Magrath allows most growers to operate without much worry. There are many benefits to smoking the plant, it alleviates headaches, clears the mind and is said to have cancer fighting properties to it. It also induces visions and hallucinations that users claim to reveal great truths to them. Overall I believe the drug to not be worth the effort, most of it's medical properties can be substituted with other drugs that are easier to get, legal and cheaper. Maybe it might be fun to try it just once, but I'd rather not take the risk of arrest or addiction.

First Assignment; What it means to be Canadian

Being Canadian means many things, it means that you are responsible to represent your country in any international affairs at home or abroad even if it includes warfare. Being Canadian means that you must honour and live the laws of the land and Finally being a Canadian Citizen means that you are free to do whatever your heart desires that is within the law.

Representing your country is a difficult job, Canada is a very well respected nation amongst the international community and we are expected to act like a respectable people. Don't mock another countries traditions or ways of doing things, be courteous and even try to adapt to another countries rules of etiquette. We must also be ready to defend our nation in times of war and our freedom is being challenged. That means we should be ready for a war at anytime, stay in decent physical shape, and be alert of what is going on in the world so you can know who your up against, you can't fight a nameless foe.
The Canadian Government has made laws for the good and safety of its people and we should respect that. Arguing with the police officer about your seat belt ticket is by no means honouring the law, its straight-up challenging it which is ridiculous because if you have any common sense you would know that seat belts save lives. You should not try to find loopholes in the law so that you can do illegal activity and not be punished for your wrongful actions. While it's legal it's completely unethical. Laws are also there to protect the livelihood of the people, if there was only one company that controlled all the grains in the country they could legally abuse their power and basically steal from the people by charging ridiculous prices. Lucky for us our government saw this coming ahead of time and then made it much more difficult for something like this to happen. It's our duty to respect what has been done for us.
Even with our many laws we have many freedoms that most of the world cannot enjoy. if you want to you can create your own business to manufacture and sell whatever you can afford to do and even if you can't afford it right now we have wonderful banks that will temporarily give you the money you need to get started. They'll even give you the choice of how or when you pay it back, of course if you choose to not pay them back you will be held accountable for your actions and will find yourself sitting in a cell for quite some time. One of the greatest freedoms we posses though is the right to move about the country and live anywhere in this vast and diverse country.
Overall as Canadians we have lots of responsibilities and lots of rights that go along with them. We can choose to uphold Canada as the greatest country to be in by behaving ourselves or we can totally trash it. We are given laws to uphold for the safety of the people and are punished for breaking them, we know what were getting into when we commit crimes so we shouldn't whine and throw a little legal tantrum when we get busted. But we have the freedom to do so if we honestly believe we haven't done anything wrong and having these freedoms is what separates us from the world and makes us Canadian.