Konchok Rangdrol's Blog

Bombing Suspect Not Credible

I am surprised to hear that the police believe the Boston Marathon bombing suspect. Dzokhar and his brother Tamerlan, were going to go to New York to bomb additional sites? I do not believe it. And I know that in time we will find others were involoved.

Why would anyone believe a bona-fide terrorist?. Also, the mother appears to be a total wack job, and she herself is in part responsible for the radicalization and alienation her sons obviously felt to make these comments, stating that this is a set-up, and that her sons are being framed! How ridiculous. Her sister, who lives in Canada, has the same beliefs.

This is not the first time I have seen and heard the mother's of terrorists support the actions of their sons. The mother of the 16 year old Canadian citizen Omar Khadr who was convicted of throwing bombs at American soldiers, and who was responsible for the death of Captain Christopher Speer, a 28 year old who weeks earlier had been awarded the Soldier's Medal after he saved the lives of two Afghan children, made the derogatory comment that at least her son "isn't a homosexual." The mother's homophobic comments did not go unnoticed in the Canadian press.

Today, Khadr is in a Canadian prison. He was moved to an Ontario jail in October of 2012, and is supposed to spend another six years there. It is evident that Khadr was indoctrinated into the Pakistani Al Qaeda cells. Certainly this young man is no innocent, but his treatment by the Americans remains a serious concern. While Khadr Sr. died in a jihadi attack, it is also clear that the man's wife wholeheartedly supported the violent actions of her both her son and her husband. As a dual US and Canadian citizen, I do not feel comfortable allowing terrorists to live in Canada.

I am wondering whether or not Dzokhar Tsarnaev will be allowed to live in the US? Do we not have the right, as Americans, to expel those who are not living up to the letter of the Constitution? I think that they should be sent back to Russia, there is no reason that we, as Americans, need to be spending tax dollars to house individuals like this for decades.

Boston and Canada the Home of Islamists

Today I write to my siblings and friends in Boston and Watertown. Boston was my home for the past 30 years. Not only do I have many friends there, I also lived right on the corner of the Boston Marathon bombings, on the corner of Exeter and Boylston Street, just a hundred feet from the bombing. And, as I watched the ensuing chase and hunt for the killer, Dzokhar Tsarnaev, I realized that this location was just a block from Galen Street in Watertown, where I had also lived. And I remembered that one of my friend's sister worked as a police officer on the MIT campus.

Naturally I am deeply saddened and shocked at the recent bombings. I hope that my friends, many of whom run the Boston Marathon every year, were not hurt and are safe. I hope that all those victimized and terrorized by the actions of these two young men will heal quickly. I hope that Bostonians and the US criminal system will not seek the death penalty for this young man because even though he is terribly mis-guided, we cannot simply lash out with the death penalty. If we do, how then are we any different than terrorists? He should be emprisoned to protect citizens, but he should not be executed.

Many of Dzokhar's friends at UMASS Dartmouth and at his high school, Cambridge Rindge and Latin, are shocked at his actions. They describes Dzokhar Tsarnaev as a caring, and thoughtful, kind and compassionate human being, but what is clear is that he is no longer an "angel,"  the word his uncle used to decribe him. It is evident that this young man's heart is full of anger and hatred , and the video which shows him setting down a bomb next to a child shows just how hateful and disaffected Dzokhar is. 

The elder Tamerlan Tsarnaev, however, does not present as the nice guy his younger brother is portrayed as. Tamerlan, according to relatives, routinely abused women he was involved with.  He was arrested for domestic violence in 2009, one year prior to marrying a young woman from Rhode Island, the daughter of a prominent emergency room doctor. 

In a Huffington Post interview  a Belmont, Massachusetts woman who visited the Tsarnaev home for facials said that the young bride, Katherine Russell was clearly intimidated by her husband. It is also quite clear that the mother of the two boys, a devout Muslim, also held radical views which may have been passed down to her children. In a fit of anger, the mother has gone on television and accused the United States of the bombings, saying that her sons were framed. Her sister made many of the same claims on the Canadian CBC television news network. However, it was the mother who went on to say that her sons were innocent and that she was ready to die with them, which left me wondering just what her involvement may have been. 

More importantly, Boston and Waltham police are also now re-investigating a triple murder in September of 2011 . In this murder, three men were brutally murdered in their apartment, stabbed in the neck. One of those men, Brendan Mess,  was Tamerlan Tsarnaev's "best friend". Polices say they worked out in the same gym. Police also stated that the three murdered men obviously knew their attacker.

Though the younger Dzokhar, communicating by writing from his hospital bed, says he and his brother worked alone, I do not believe it. It is my belief that there are other individuals hiding out in Boston, waiting to strike, and it is not the last time we will see terrorism strikes coming from the Chechen community. It is apparent that these individuals are working together, coming together, to plot more attacks.

Evidence of this is the recent arrest of two men, one from Montreal, and the other from Toronto, who were arrested yesterday for plotting to bomb on a Canadian ViaRail train. The men had planned to blow up a bridge as the train moved from Toronto to New York.  This is not just an isolated incident, there there have been many terrorism suspects arrested in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Canada, with its liberal immigration policies, has become a haven for terrorists. Though the two arrested yesterday are not Canadian citizens, there have been many Islamists who have been arrested here in Canada, many of them young men like the Tsarnaev's. 

The Killing of Innocents-Human Rights Watch Details the Illegal Bombing of Gaza City in 2012 Drone Attacks

Human Rights Watch recently published a report on the November 2012 drone attacks on Palestinian civilians living in Gaza City. Again the Israeli Army launched a series of destructive drone attacks in which 43 civilians were killed— 12 of those were children. Contrary to the Israeli comments that known fighters were targeted, all of these murdered were civilians who lived and worked in the area.

The drone attacks and sophisticated equipment of the Israelis and Americans are proving to be deadly weapons for the civilians of Gaza City and yet the attacks have increased, and not abated.

Why, we must ask ourselves, would the Israelis target a hospital,  a clear violation of international laws and treaties? Human Rights Watch does a great job chronicling these atrocities and has done so again in this report. I was sick to my stomach by the fifth paragraph, and I still had two more pages to go. 

In the targeted drone attacks, no one is safe. A grandfather and his 14 year old grand daughter were both killed. In another house, a drone attack killed not only a suspected member of a Hamas wing but they also "blinded their father's wife," killed the man's innocent 17 year old brother, and "wounded six of their siblings". 

It is clear to HRW and others who monitor the Israeli drone strikes that these highly efficient killing machines are an important tool in their arsenal. It is also clear that the trained technicians controlling these weapons, sometimes half a world away, are men and women who were out on a hunting expedition. Why would any military commander allow for the targeted killing of children, women, and a man of 79? It is becoming clear because of these detailed witness interviews in the HRW report that Israelis have little concern for taking innocent lives. 

Imagine the horror one woman will live with when she gives her account that she gives the HRW investigator. She tells of how she and a friend were watching two young boys playing in the street. The boys had apparently spread out a fishing net and had baited it with a female bird, hoping to catch more birds. Quite suddenly, a bomb landed near them and the boys simply disappear before their eyes.

It is not easy to read about these witness accounts: the mutilation of men, women, and children, but it is important to understand the Israelis are using drones to target innocent children and civilians.

Human Rights Watch report carefully chronicled the individual stories of these witnesses, including men, women, and children who were there in November of 2012 when "Operation Pillar of Defense" was launched by the Israeli Army. The staff writers included information they obtained from patient hospital records.  

As usual, the Israeli's have no ethical defense.  They can only say that they were targeting "members of Palestinian armed groups," but what we need to ask them is why they killed so many innocent people, given the drone cameras and equipment are very sophisticated and can show in great detail exactly who is being targeted? Clearly the equipment allows them to stop the attack, even at the last moment, and they never did.

The witnesses will bear the psychological effects of what they witnessed. Many of them lost loved ones, and many  of them were also wounded.  One woman tells of how her son has never wakened from a coma. I cannot imagine what gives Americans—who have used drones to target suspected villains in foreign countries—the right to do this, but the Israeli Army seems to have caught on, and it appears that those behind the killing machines enjoy their work. 

As an American, I believe that we need to encourage the Israeli Army to stop these exacting attacks on civilians. The majority of us are unaware of what is happening and what has been happening in Israel, and so we turn away from yet more tragedy. 

The Israelis love naming their killing campaigns and this one reminds me of another attack, operation "Mitza Matate," roughly translated as "Operation Broom Sweep". In this 1948 attack the Israelis rid themselves of the Arab "problem," they were able to send the Arabs scrambling out of the country.  

"Operation Broom Sweep" cleared the country of the Arab "problem" and made plenty of space, including property, businesses, and funds, available to the Zionists, but it did so at a great cost to the Palestinians, including the more than 700,000 who were literally chased out of their country. 

The people of Gaza City are the descendants of those who were forced to flee their homes in 1948. They found refuge wherever they could, and for the most part, many were forced to live in the squalor of refugee camps, like the Sabra Shatila massacre, where Israelis and Israeli trained mercenaries to massacre and attack unarmed civilians, slaughtering more than 3,000 innocent men, women, and children. Fifty years later, the citizens of Gaza City are still prisoners. In another report the author describes the benefits of the 1948 attack, beginning with this opening line: "Operation Broom Sweep," in which the Arabs were swept from Northern Galilee."

My blog account of the Shatila invasion is a more detailed account of another senseless, brutal massacre. In this operation, the Israeli Army aligned itself with Christian Phalangists from Lebanon, who made their way into the refugee camp and murdered men, women, and children. Ariel Sharon was forced to resign because of this incident, in which it was deemed the Israelis had played a major role. The mercenaries were said to have been trained by Israeli forces, and the Jewish-Christian alliance should not go unnoticed.

In 1948, the Zionists, under Ben-Gurion, led this operation. Ben-Gurion and the Israeli army chased nearly 700,000 people out of Israel. In "Mitza Matate",  the Zionist Solution to the Arab "problem"" we can examine Ben-Gurion's leadership more closely. 

And though this happened more than sixty years ago, if we look closely, we find the presence of similar racist attitudes and policies in Israel. Time and again, we are witnessing the lethal murder and systematic extermination of innocent Palestinian civilians, and this time, the Israeli Army is trying to distance itself from the killings by using the highly sophisticated military equipment and weapons to kill those civilians.

The French writer Jean Genet fell in love with the Palestinian people. He lived in the Sabra Shatila refugee camp for almost a year. While living in the camp and traveling in Beirut, he wrote Prisoner of Love. But I do know Genet, the writer, the prisoner, the gay man. That is the man, always a romantic, who was clearly in love with more than just the Arab culture; he had a more personal interest, you might say, a sexual interest, in several Arab men he met. Born in 1910, Genet was a man living in what was the end of the age of the Explorer, and Genet wasn't going to being sailing off into the world to make any great discoveries, but he had a enduring passion for the world, and especially Northern Africa. So great was that love that he was actually interred in Morocco. 

Genet sided, one could say, sided with the Palestinians and he was criticized for that. His sympathy is easy to understand, for his views are romantic in nature,  given his life and his writing style. His true sympathy was for the people living in those camps, in those deplorable conditions; he saw and knew a people who were being ritually killed by Israeli forces. Genet saw the result of Sabra Shatila massacre and wrote an essay about it, Four Hours in Shatila. 

It was not difficult for Genet to love the Palestinians. Genet once said "I am drawn to peoples in revolt ... because I myself have the need to call the whole of society into question." 

The Palestinians, like himself, knew what is was to struggle to live. Genet had done that, not exactly like the Palestinian refugees and the handsome Fedayeen militants had, but he too had struggled to survive. He wrote a book about the time he spent in the camp, titled Prisoner of Love. But it was his defense of the people that made him a hero in that community. It is certain that if "Genet was a "Prisoner of Love" he was also a Soldier of Love. 

While many view Ben-Gurion as a hero and the founder of the state of Israel, we must acknowledge that he was also a man with a large arsenal of weapons; a man who was willing to kill and terrorize a million Arabs to secure the Zionist plan. In the Zionist vision, there was no room for Arabs. Yes, Ben-Gurion was the founder of the state of Israel, but we must also admit that he was also a tyrant who caused great suffering for many Palestinians.

Lance "the Liar" Armstrong

I was thrilled to watch the new season premiere of the "60 Minutes Sports" interview last night on PBS. The show highlighted the demise of Lance "The Liar" Armstrongs' career, and his fall from grace due to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs while he was on the American cycling circuit. It is clear that Armstrong, who has been stripped of at least seven of those wins, was willing to risk not only his own career but he was willing to take those who spoke out against him down with him, and that is just what he did as he pulled out one nasty trick after the other, using both legal tactics and threats against members of his former cycling team, and those who challenged him.

I have always believed Armstrong was guilty of the drug charges, quite simply because you can't get so many positives without being guilty. But there is something even more despicable about a guy who pretends to care about children, and people dying with cancer, lying and smiling to everyone, year after year, as the evidence mounts against him. Last year, I noted that he was in Montreal, where I live; he had been here for a couple days, doing his foundation work, leading a group of cyclists on a bike trip around the island. I didn't see a man who appeared humble in any way, but a guy who seemed jacked on pride and fame, eagerly signing as many autographs as he could. True, he was here on behalf of his foundation, but this was just a few months ago, and even then the evidence was stacked against him. It takes a really jilted individual to show up at such a humanitarian affair, especially when his dominoes are falling all around him...

Armstrong, it is rumored, may be ready to finally admit his guilt, could and should have done so years ago, and if he had, he would have left less of a negative bruise on the cycling circuit. But again, that isn't really his style. For years, while evidence and the testimony of some of his closest friends and colleagues continued to accumulate, Armstrong continued to go to extreme lengths to deny the accusations and the evidence against him. In fact, while others would have retreated, he instinctively grew in size, threatening friends and colleagues alike. It is this cynical and deluded view of his own self-importance which I find particularly disturbing about Armstrong—that as evidence mounted against him, he seemed to grow in size. Unfortunately, his actions speak to a lack of character, and no amount of volunteer work or foundation work could have managed to make up for the trait he lacked.

Armstrong was rightly stripped of all his accolades, but if possible, he should be held criminally liable for tarnishing not only sport but the lives of athletes he destroyed, men who devoted their lives to their careers. Without question, Armstrong is not the only athlete who has abused sports enhancing drugs. Just today, there was mention of several prominent American baseball players who failed nomination in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Like Armstrong, they too were guilty of the abuse and use of steroids and performance enhancing drugs. And they too, like Armstrong, continued to deny they had ever used illegal drugs, and they too have done much to harm the sport of baseball. And they too lack character, and integrity.

If there is one thing younger athletes can learn it is that an honest player is just as important as an honest game, and that you can't have one without the other. And for the fans, it is best we remember that the real heroes who sit up in the clouds don't really matter much if they got there by cheating.

Japanese Are Eating Poo Burgers

A Poo Burger. That's right, a burger that you EAT, made from poo. And where does one get such a...delicacy? Only in Japan. I wrote this article because I remember seeing this on NHK, a Japanese TV station, so I am not being anti-Japanese.

Anderson Live was shocked when he noted the South Koreans had a chain restaurant where seating and tables took on the shape of...toilets—as did the plates the patrons ate from! So I wondered what Anderson would think if I told him that in Japan, someone was serving recycled shit burgers! I found it freaky, for sure!

Imagine my dismay when I learned that the land of the rising sun was eating poo-burgers! The Japanese are obsessed with toilets, and smells, and they are so sensitive to the toilet culture that they are now eating shit burgers! I kid you not! They are so sensitive that when they are in the restrooms, they don't want to hear the tinkling...the plopping noises, so they have come up with music, as a way to drown out those noises. Now, I've heard of being self-conscious and admit that I personally don't like public restrooms, but this is borderline...something! It's just downright weird!

Here is a link to the site that I saw, but I must tell you that when I first heard of this poo burger, it was on a Canadian TV show, and yes, people eat it! And in that restaurant where the plates are miniature toilets, yes, the foods they eat, like swirled chocolate ice cream, do in fact look like...well, you get it.

S T R A N G E. That's all I can say!

http://inhabitat.com/poop-burger-japanese-researcher-creates-artificial-meat-from-human-feces/

UN updates: 70 Palestinian Civilians Including 23 Children and 12 Women are Dead.

To date, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs occupied Palestinian territory, "70 Palestinian civilians including 23 children and 12 women, have been killed."

If Israeli leaders continue to target and assassinate individuals, without bringing them to face justice, is that not a barbaric act, comparable to the actions of terrorists? I believe the actions of the Israelis, who started this conflict, are tantamount to terrorism.

The US is too involved with Israel, and we will continue to pay the price if we continue to side with Israel, providing them with their military armaments. The US actually provides more military help to Israel than it does to the entire African continent! And yes, though Obama has taken to using drones in order to target and eliminate supposed terrorists in Afghanistan and neighboring countries, are his actions ethical? I do not believe they are. Why has the US remained silent about Obama and his use of drones to assassinate these people, including American citizens? Regardless of their crimes, American citizens and enemies should be brought to trial. The US is now acting in a barbaric manner, and yet, Americans—like Obama—are quick to praise their God, for this victory, or that.

Israel has occupied, subjugated, and terrorized the Palestinians and other Israeli minorities for more than 50 years. As such, clutching the reigns of power, Israel continues to deprive Palestinians and minorities access to lands they once occupied; they deprive them of food, water, education, the right to work and the ability to travel freely throughout Israel. This is especially true of the Bedouin minorities, a nomadic culture, living under Israeli occupation. The Bedouins have been treated just like the Tibetan nomads, who are first deprived of their own lands and them pushed into government housing where they are monitored by police forces, around the clock.

I ask you, Americans, and Canadians, would you not fight if your government denied you the right to travel throughout the US? Would you not fight if you were denied the right to visit relatives in New York, or California? I think that the majority of Americans would take up arms if they were subjected to these atrocities. And if the government characterized you as a "terrorist", would you accept this? I would not.

I Support Protesting Walmart Employees

I support Walmart workers and their protest on Black Friday. For far too long, coporations like Walmart have capitalized from the low wages of their employees.

Walmart needs to pay its workers decent wages. And Americans need to consider whether or not they will continue to frequent a company that cares so little about its workers.

Honesty

"Honesty Is Such A Lonely Word," a popular line from Billy Joel's hit song "Honesty" is a perfect place to start my blog on the misfortunes of a liar.

Jonah Lerner, staff writer for The New Yorker, and author of “Imagine: How Creativity Works," is the new enfant terrible of literature and the subject of much angst for his publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, who recently accepted Lerner's resignation.

After misleading his superiors at The New Yorker and Houghton Mifflin for months, Lerner's finally admitted that Dylan had never made a quote Lerner claimed he had. Making use of this supposed quote, when it never existed, is tantamount to murder in the publishing world. Why he fabricated this quotation will surely be the subject of another blog, but his publisher claims to have pulled the remaining titles from Amazon, and from bookstores nationwide.

According to Media Decoder, a blog of The New York Times', Lerner's supposed "his best-selling book", had sold 200,000 copies since March. I'm not sure if that means he has only published this one book, because 200,000 copies doesn't usually make for a "best-selling" novel. There have also been complaints of Lerner's "recycling" of blog posts but that was hardly the sin Lerner committed when he lied about Dylan making certain quotes he never made, not to Lerner, not to anyone else.Honestly, if that is how Lerner's imagination works, by lying, he really should give up the craft. 

Of course, there have been many other plagiarists, and I can think of a few. Martin Luther King comes to mind, who as a student at Boston University was said to have plagiarized part of a paper. Then, in Boston, Mike Barnicle, an AP, UPI journalist who wrote a column for The Boston Globe from 1973 to 199. Barnicle was also on many radio and TV shows. Barnicle was forced to resign from the Boston Globe after it was learned that he had plagiarized and fabricated numerous pieces in his columns during a number of years. He was later hired by The New York Daily News and the Boston Herald, both of which are considered rags. 

Barnicle not only plagiarized and fabricated much of what he wrote, but he repeatedly made insulting and racist remarks. In 1991 he made a racist remark about blacks in Boston, earning him a "Thumbs Down" award from the National Association of Black Journalists.

Both Barnicle and The Boston Globe were sued in 1990 by the prominent Boston lawyer and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz. Barnicle had made a claim that Prof. Dershowitz preferred asian women because they were "deferential to men". Dershowitz won an estimated $75,000 from The Globe.

The sad truth is that honesty is no longer a cherished value, rather, it appears that lying is the value. 

Is it because of the erroneous belief that integrity and honesty will prevent us from winning the prize, the deal, the account, the contract, that so many are willing to lie? Perhaps. For many, winning is the prize, at all costs. Whatever the reason, in a world of consumerism and fierce competitiveness, integrity is a cumbersome ball-and-chain, it would appear, and of little relevance except to yogis and monks, none of whom we would ever see on reality TV shows, trying to outdo another for "the prize".

"If truth be told"— pun intended, Americans, as a society, condone dishonesty: a US study concluded that the average male lied 42 times a week—twice as many as women. When I first learned of this I was shocked, but when I look around at today's youth—and their parent's, it really shouldn't come as a shock. 

Look at the lives of high profile preachers, actors, politicians, sports figures, and Bel Air wanna-be's and it's easy to see how we encourage, promote dishonesty. And when adults lie, we send the message to children and teens that lying is acceptable.

Sexual predator-politicians (Herman Cain), sexual predator-priests (too many to mention) drug-ingesting automatons (Lance Armstrong), and predator-pedophile churches and organizations (read anything with "Catholic" and any organization run by Catholic Charities, and Rev. Ike, Rev. Moon), entice the populace, leading them through the streets, until we learn of their abominations. And even then, many remain loyal, ignoring all manner of behavior, as they did with OJ Simpson, Herman Cain, Lance Armstrong, the Pope, et.al.

The August 2012 incident at Harvard — where 125 students were caught cheating on their "take-home final exams" — is a perfect example that parents are now playing active roles in the lives of their children— parents are in fact admitting that they are doing this.

More tragically, though, our lack of integrity and willingness to lie to clear any manner of hurdle that comes our way just goes to show that we as Americans, and Canadians, and westerners in general, embrace a thoroughly fatalistic view of the world in which we live. Honestly, that's really sad.
 

Dr. Phil: Apologize to Members of the Cherokee Nation

 

(This is a petition letter I created on www.change.org last October. Please consider going to www.change.org and supporting this action. It will send the producers of the Dr. Phil Show a letter, asking them to apologize to the members and guests from the Cherokee Nation who appeared on the show that day.)

 

In "Battle Over Baby Veronica" [October 18, 2012] Dr. Phil presented his TV audience a story about the adoption of a six-month-old Native American infant. The child's mother decided not to keep the child, and handed her over to adoption lawyers. However, she did not tell the father of the child that she planned on doing this. 

Baby Veronica landed in the arms of Matthew and Melanie, (aka "Adoptive Couple") a non-native family. Of course, they appear to have been a wonderful family, but they rebelled when the birth father of the girl learned that he had a daughter and petitioned the courts for custody.

Mothers and fathers alike have rights. This situation would not have happened if the mother had told the father of the child that he was in fact, a father. It is clear that she acted out of malice.

When the father, six months after the adoption, learned that he had a daughter, he petitioned tribal courts in his community for custody of the child. And who doesn't support that decision, on his part? Well, lots of white people, who feel that as Americans they know better and can provide a better home for a child than a First Nation parent can. It is blatant racism. If someone had done this and a black child, or an asian child were at the center of the controversy, it would never have made any news at all, except to fine the mother for her failure to notify her husband that she had given birth to their daughter, regardless of their relationship. Mothers have rights, but so do fathers.

The adoptive parents went on a crusade, landing a spot on the Dr. Phil show where the custody battle was played out, months after the father had already been deemed the natural parent, and had been granted custody of his child. He did so with the help of the tribal court.

The father was well-intentioned, and nothing could have prevented the courts from granting him custody, and they did. He had also served in the US military, in Operation Iraqi Freedom. But that was not the end of the story. The adoptive couple went to the courts, requesting that they keep the child. They got many like Dr. Phil and others on their side, playing the race card, the misandry card.

Even if family courts and tribal courts had not come to the father's defense, there would have been a show down because it is clear that many consider First Nation people second class citizens, and this is why I wrote this letter and petition on change.org.

The adoptive parents' petition failed and the courts uphed the previous decision on 24 August, 2012. It was just a month later that Dr. Phil invited these guests to berate the First Nation guests and members.  More importantly, the Court also ruled that the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) has the ability to "supersede" state adoption laws, according to a pressroom article on the Cherokee Nation website. [www.cherokee.org]. This decision angered many, who feel, or don't feel, can't sympathize, with or for First Nations and Native American communities.

I have taken time to rewrite this blog, making it shorter, hoping that people will go to www.change.org and click on the letter section which would send letters to the management at the Dr. Phil show, asking them to apologize. So far, I have received very few petitions, so I ask members of the public, please, help promote this. I do not have many friends and though I am a monk I do not have a huge email list, which, it appears, is imporant when sending a petition of this nature out.

Cases like this have grown increasingly more prominent in the media due to the presence of adoption agencies which can now intervene to protect the rights of Native American children.  Also, so has the anger and the feeling of entitlement that many non-native Americans have. They simply believe that they are better qualified to take care of these children, but if they do adopt these children, they often turn them into household servants, farmhands, etc., and I have seen it myself, first-hand, because I was a foster child myself. The view that Mormons had of First Nations, more than a hundred years ago, is still prevalent in the minds of many Americans.

First Nation families should be happy the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was passed in 1978; it is by far one of the most important pieces of legislation that has helped protect Native American children.

According to statistics on the United States Department of Health & Human Services website it is clear that First Nation children  "…were being removed from their homes and communities at a much higher rate than non-Native children." Again, it is clear that this would never happen to African American children, but it is acceptable, somehow, in their minds, to do this to First Nation children.

When viewing the Dr. Phil Show I saw that it was evident neither he nor his invited guests were pleased with the courts' decision the infant girl be returned to the care of her biological father. It should have been a done deal, but no. Not only did Dr. Phil use his show as a bully pulpit to decry the actions of the courts, but he also insulted and insulted two young First Nation boys who were on his show.

Dr. Phil and his producers were wrong to air this show, quite simple an emotional response to the Court's decision which did nothing to promote understanding about the many issues First Nation, aboriginal, and Native American communities deal with. The ICWA ruling, contrary to what Dr. Phil and his invited gueests thought were wrong and spiteful. 

Troy Dunn, founder of the TV show "The Locator", where lost-loved ones are reunited with lost family members, was also asked by Dr. Phil to join in. Dunn, of course, gets paid exorbitant fees for his appearances, and his services are not free either, so he was more than happy to appear on the show.

The airing of this show was really a final opportunity for the disgruntled parties to rant and rave. Many nasty and inappropriate remarks were made and not once did I hear Dr. Phil address those issues. It was clear that the adoptive parents wanted to express their anger at the court's decision, which they had every right to do if they so wanted to, however, they chose not to appear on stage with the biological father, a very passive-agressive tactic that I was surprised D. Phil allowed. By refusing to sit on stage, they also snubbed Attorney Chrissi Ross Nimmo, also the Assistant Attorney General to the Cherokee Nation, and other prominent members of the Cherokee Nation.

One man, who had adopted two young First Nation boys, claimed his adopted sons were only "6.2 percent Indian". How he came up with these figures I don;t know, but what IS clear is that the show was Dr. Phil's Last Stand, and every guest who stood in opposition to the court's decision was going to get a chance to throw an axe, into the crowd, one way or another.

While guests continued to use divisive and sensational language, the "Adoptive Parents" claimed  “The Child Welfare Act is destroying families,” [sic] and "tearing children" from the arms of their parents." These were rather inflammatory comments, and Dr. Phil stood by quietly, never stepping in as he often does, to correct these comments.

But those statements were inflammatory and also completely inaccurate: the truth is that the Indian Child Welfare Act seeks to protect the rights of Native American children by allowing the adoption priority "to be given in the order of the child's extended family, the child's tribe members, and then to Indian families in general."

The fact that the ICWA is a federal program also seemed to anger many of the guests, simply because they felt powerless, and their own states could no longer ignore the rights of indigenous peoples.  Guests could no longer accuse the Native American communities of racism, which they felt they could do when decisions were being handed down by tribal courts which are now in a position to take corrective measures, when needed.

In a rather bizarre conversation, Dr. Phil assures Ms. Nimmo that the adoptive parents' decision to sit off-stage should not be taken "personally", but of course, Dr. Phil's denial of the obvious is even more insulting.

The reason I wrote the petition letter, however, is because of this particular incident. It involves the adoptive father of two other young First Nation boys. While talking about the squalor in which the two boys lived, on the reserve, prior to having been adopted by their father, Dr. Phil manages to get the two boys to describe their lives on the reserve, prior to having been adopted.

It's not a long conversation, and, in fact, they don't seem to have any pleasant memories at all. As a boy I grew up in a very poor family, the son of a lumberjack, and I made a whole world out of a babbly stream and rocks, so I find it hard to believe that these boys never had any fun at all. But again, the story is finely crafted to produce the story Dr. Phil wants us to hear. 

But the boys do have an experience, though not a pleasant experience; and they recount having had to urinate in "paint buckets" — evidently there was no plumbing in the home. And Dr. Phil, right on cue, in a derisive and belittling tone, turned toward the boys and asked them,"Do you recall visiting the..reservation...and looking around...and was that of interest to you?"

The comment/question may sound harmless, but I tell you, it was not. The boy's look embarrassed, or shy, and they giggle, responding,  "Not at all." And, as though on cue, or prompted by the "Applaud!" cards overhead, the audience gave the boys a round of applause. 

Mr. Johnston certainly has no respect for Native American culture, and he does not care to educate them about their culture because he is ashamed of their culture. And certainly, he will teach them to be ashamed about their culture, too. And this is the very reason Tribal Courts exist, and why some parents should not be allowed to adopt First Nation children.

We all live very busy lives; and it often takes considerable time and effort to examine issues that do not directly affect us, but I hope that some of you will consider going to see the actual TV show, just so you can tap into the hatred that is in Dr. Phil's words and attitudes, clearly, he is not the caring, considerate man that I have always believed him to be. And I hope that some of you with connections (read long email lists) will sign the petition, sending many letters to the shows producers.

Dr. Phil has a responsibility, as a public figure, to speak the truth, and to help lift people out of suffering, and on this show, he clearly is sitting on the wrong team. His actions, his comments, and his viewpoint are scurrilous, giving us a glimpse of his "dark passenger". 

Dr. Phil owes Judge Les Marston, Esq., Chrissi Ross Nimmo, and especially the two young First Nation guests on his show a sincere apology.

Again, if you are reading this on my blog, please consider surfing over to http://www.change.org and signing the petition. It will send a letter to the Dr. Phil Show's Production Staff

Letters may also be mailed directly to: The Dr. Phil Show, PO Box 1902, 5482 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, 90036

China Remains Serious Threat to Canadians

In 2007 and 2008 American satellites were hacked by Chinese military hackers. This activity interfered with several US satellites, at various locations and times, according to the March, 2012 US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. 

Canadian Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper seems to have a very cozy relationship with the Chinese, and recent news that the Chinese telecom giant Huawei may be a threat to both the US and Canada seems to be going unnoticed here in Canada. The US Intelligence Committee recently warned Congress, stating that the company posed a serious security threat to US. The Committee went so far as to say that American companies should not do business with Huawei.

It turns out that my web and cable provider, Bell Canada, has been doing business with Huawei for years, and after speaking to a Bell representative earlier today, I didn't get the feeling that Bell seemed to care about the security threats that Huwwei posed. Perhaps Bell representatives and the Canadian government aren't aware that Rogers, another large US and Canadian provider, has already "reported "numerous allegations of unexpected behavior of Huawei equipment."

That's a frightening proclamation, and a Yahoo News Canada web story reports that "the US and Australia have banned Huawei's subsidiary from bidding on a $38-billion broadband network project." Why Harper isn't concerned is shocking, because this isn't the first time Huawei has made the news, or been accused of hacking. 

There have been numerous accusations against more than 12 different hacker groups in China. In February of 2012, a Nortel systems adviser spoke to a CBC News journalist and reported that Chinese hackers had indeed hacked Nortel Networks, but even more troublesome, he stated that the same hackers had "targeted Canadian government computers in 2010, targeting the Finance Department, the Treasury Board, and Defence Research and Development Canada, a civilian agency of the Department of National Defence."

Comments on this story were not kind to the Prime Minister, and other Canadian officials, and cannot be repeated here, but it is apparent that Canadians need to be more aware of the relationships they are forging with China. Americans are aware of the serious threat posed by all hackers but are especially wary of Chinese threats.

These aren't baseless allegations but are backed up by government and other intelligence sources. There may be money coming in, but the price we may have to pay for doing business with Communists certainly does not appear to be a worthwhile endeavor.

Customers like myself don't want to be using routers that offer potential access to information every time we log onto our computers. Harper, and the Canadian government must consider the risk of doing business with Wauwei. Like the Americans, who have urged US businesses not to do business with the company, Bell and other providers in Canada should cease all business transactions with Wauwei. I, for one, would sleep a little easier.