Saturday, April 2, 2011

The Circus Has Come To Town

Well, a new group moved into the rooming house down the street. Lets see what the circus has in store for us this month.

Friday, April 1, 2011

And Now For Something Completely Positive ...

On a positive note, Spring is sprouting in my house. I started my seedlings for the garden last month, and they are coming right along.
The pepper plants were the first to appear (red bell and jalapeno varieties). Then the daisies popped up out of the soil, followed by the pansies.
I did not plant the seeds all at the same time. As part of my therapy to get me through the last legs of winter, I paced myself, planting a few varieties at a time.
Now the garden is showing morning glory, two varieties of tomato plant, sunflowers, cucumbers, spagetti squash, butternut squash, and a hint of coneflowers. Still to appear are the watermelon and strawberries, and a few more varieties of pepper plant.
My plants are growing every day, stretching toward the sun, as I continually rotate them.
I can't wait until the snow is gone and I can plant my new found friends. This year I am doing container gardening in the back yard. The ground is not really suitable for vegetable plants, so I will plant above ground. I decided to use pre-existing wooden containers. I am going to get some of those dressers that are gettting dumped in the back lanes, and bring them back into my back yard. Then I will fill them with fresh dirt from the garden center. And I will have my own, pre-made, recycled, enviro-friendly garden containers.

The Illegal Dumping Of Furniture

I was looking out my window just now, and saw a white half ton truck stop in front of the dumpster behind my house. There was a couch and chair in the back of the truck. And there was a guy standing in the back of the truck as it pulled up. The guy dumped the chair in my dumpster, then the truck drove on to the next dumpster to get rid of the next piece of furniture. When I got into the back lane, of course the culprits were nowhere to be found, but three dumpsters are now full as a result of this incident. The dumpster on one side of me is filled with cushions, mine has a chair, and the next dumpster has a couch sticking out of it.
What kind of bull shit is this!
Who do these people think they are, that they can drive into the North End and get rid of their unwanted items by dumping them into our dumpsters. It is illegal to put these large items in the dumpsters, and it is illegal for people outside of the area of these three dumpsters to get rid of their garbage here. The dumpsters are for use by the residents, and for residential garbage only. Until people are fined, or even told that this is an illegal act, it will keep happening.
As far as my back lane goes now, garbage day was yesterday, and there are three dumpsters that do not have room to take in the refuse of half of my street for the next week. Garbage will be stacked on top of these large items, then spilled into the lane. And the residents of my back lane have to clean up the mess resulting from the guys in the white truck, who think they have every right to dump their junk in my lane.
The City needs to educate people about these illegal actions. And the media could take this on as well, as a project. Something has to be done, because it is Spring now, and illegal dumping is back in play.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Camping Out On A Futon Tonight

I won't be sleeping in my bed tonight, and neither will my husband. We are sleeping downstairs in the sitting room. Even as I type, my husband is preparing the futon.
Why, you might ask, are we not sleeping in our bedroom? I will tell you why. It's because the bedroom is on the 2nd floor of our house. And on the 2nd floor we can hear everything that is going on outside. And we need sleep. Neither myself or my husband have had a good night sleep for days. Even last night, when I heard only two sirens, only one neighbour came home at 3am, and only one neighbour was yelling for someone, I kept waking up. If it was not happening outside, it was happening in my dreams. We hear so much noise all night that we are now dreaming the noise, and waking up every five or ten minutes through the night. And last night was the worst. Neither of us slept more than 10 minutes at a time all night, until 8am, out of exhaustion we fell asleep after the alarm went off, and were almost late starting our day.
My husband and I managed to stay awake all day, but are looking forward to shutting our eyes tonight, and hopefully getting a good night sleep. We are camping out on the main floor, on a futon, in hopes of getting some sleep. How sad is that! In our own house, we cannot sleep in our bedroom because of all the mayhem of our neighbourhood.
Spring has only just begun and we are already exhaused from lack of sleep. And we have been here long enough to know it will just get worse as summer gets closer. All I can do is write about it, and if the noise gets bad enough, call the police in hopes of something getting done. But if last year is any indication of "something getting done", the only thing that gets done is my calling the police, oh ya, and getting an incident number to add to the "nothing ever changes" file, or maybe the "why do I even bother" file. I think this year I will create a "who gives a flying f#*k" file. I'll have to go out to Staples and get more supplies to start the flying ....

Numbered Treaties Good Or Bad

In response to a comment from my blog entry :

More Politically Incorrect, While I Am At It ....

In the 1800's King George made a decision. He no longer wanted to have Aboriginal groups killed off, as happened on the East Coast. He decided to come to a compromise with the Chiefs of those groups in the Prairie regions, because England was colonizing the area. Agreements were met between both Aboriginal and European people, the numbered Treaties. It was agreed by the Chiefs that schools would be added to each community that wanted them, so the young could learn the new ways. The Chiefs were aware of changing times and agreed to these changes. The Treaties were not forced upon anyone, they were agreed to by all parties. And now we have Treaties, good or bad, we have them. If you feel we should not have Treaties, and would like to dissolve them, this is an issue to take up with the Federal Government and the Aboriginal Chiefs.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

What's With All The Sirens

Yesterday afternoon there seemed to be a higher than usual amount of sirens going by. Then last night the sirens went all night long. And the helicopter was in the air at 4:00am.
So, what was up yesterday? And what's with all the sirens? And why didn't any of the happenings make the news? Not a single thing was said in the media about the North End.

More Politically Incorrect, While I Am At It ....

In answer to one of the comments of my last blog post:
Of course this is a result of the treaties, be them fair or unfair. They were signed and we have them. But it is the responsibility of those who signed them to uphold them. And the Chiefs of each of the communities that signed the treaties agreed to ensure the Aboriginal people under them would be law abiding and cause no problems to "Her Majesty’s subjects". I do not see that. All I see is Chiefs spending money on themselves and communities going without water, and proper housing, and community members running amuck without community governance.
When I was in University, Aboriginal communities wanted the ability to govern themselves and the ability to have their own community courts. Well, it looks like the treaty allows for Aboriginal community courts, or actually demands them.
You may think this is a racist blog post. It is not racist, it is just not politically correct. There is a difference.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Lets Be Politically Incorrect

That’s right, I am going to be politically incorrect. I am going to say that a lot of the problems we have in Winnipeg, and a lot of the crimes we are dealing with have to do with Aboriginal people. We have a large population of Aboriginal youth committing crimes. We have a downtown that is becoming too dangerous to visit. And we see no end in sight.
Now that there is a Federal election on the horizon I got to thinking. The way I see it, it is the Federal government that can fix the issues we have. They can make changes to the Young Offenders Act, they can change the way the court system deals with offenders, and they can hold Chiefs more accountable for their communities.
And I got to wondering what the Treaties had to say about the responsibilities of the Aboriginal Communities. It turns out that the Chiefs of the communities who signed Treaty One do have a responsibility to maintain “perpetual peace between themselves and Her Majesty’s white subjects, and not to interfere with the property or in any way molest the persons of Her Majesty’s white or other subjects” (http://www.canadiana.org/view/30387/0315, p316). The other numbered treaties have similar clauses. The Federal government needs to go back to the numbered treaties and hold the Chiefs accountable to ensure their community members are upholding the laws of this land. The members of the communities in the numbered treaties who “interfere with the property or in any way molest” people need to be disciplined and/or rehabilitated by their own communities.
Have you ever heard that “We are all Treaty People”? Well, we are. And the crimes and violence occurring by Aboriginal people in this city is a Treaty Issue that needs to be dealt with according to the writings of the numbered treaties.