Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 10, 2009, Winnipeg, Manitoba C m y k Page 15 t Here was a kind of political poetry that played out on thursday night at the Asper jewish Community Campus As supporters of the palestinians and supporters of Israel exchanged some harsh words. The event was a rally in support of Israel and Winnipeg jews and their supporters were comfortably ensconced inside the building. Outside in thursdays bitter cold were the pro palestinians a Eliyas wrapped around at least a few Heads but everyone Well wrapped All round in All sorts of clothes in an Effort to keep warm. Fortunately and perhaps thanks to the presence of a dozen police officers there to keep the peace the Only weapons exchanged were words a far cry from what is taking place in the Middle East today As the terrorists of Hamas fire rockets and mortars into israeli towns and the israeli defence Force responds in self defence by pounding the Gaza strip from the air the sea and the ground. Disproportional perhaps. Justified absolutely. None of this in any Case is Nice business neither at the Asper Campus nor on a far grander and More bloody scale in the Mideast but the political poetry comes into it in the caricature that played out on thursday of the intolerant attitude of Western leftists liberals and muslims towards Israel. One can understand even sympathize with that attitude when it is held by arabs and muslims this is after All As much a religious War As it is a territorial one. It is More difficult to understand the virulence of opposition that exists to the existence of Israel on the part of the so called democratic left in Canada and other Western societies. There was a conspicuous example of that attitude this week at Ontario Ops York University. A representative of the Canadian Union of Public employees which claims to speak for some of the instructors at York provided a most egregious example of what frequently goes wrong at Canadian universities. York has been shut Down by a strike since the beginning of the academic year. The strike was settled last week with one proviso Sid Ryan the president of Cupes Ontario Branch said his Union would not agree to any settlement unless the University agreed to bar from its Campus All israeli academics unless they explicitly condemn the dec. 29 bombing of the islamic University in Gaza and the assault on Gaza in general. Cupe has a history of anti Israel activities so this should not come As a Surprise although Many of the unions members might wonder How Middle East politics even War in the Middle East should affect employer employee relationships in Canadian institutions devoted to democracy human rights and Freedom of expression especially when Israel is the Only nation in the Mideast where those concepts Are embraced. Ryan likened the israeli government to the Hitler government of nazi Germany saying that As the nazis burned books the jews bomb universities. The charge ignores the fact the islamic University in Gaza unlike the academic institutions that canadians Are familiar with is serving As much As an arms depot for palestinian terrorists As a recognizable school. Thatus in keeping with the tactics palestinian militants have traditionally used hiding from israelis behind the skirts of women the tears of children and the shattered bodies of their own people. It is no Accident scores of civilians have been killed in the israeli attack on Gaza but the blame for those deaths lies on the cowards who hide behind a civilian population rather than the israelis who must try to defend themselves from deliberate attacks on their own civilians. Ryan quickly realized his nazi analogy deeply offended Many canadians including Many of his own Union members but he is otherwise unrepentant. Just prior to expressing his regret for any possible offence to any member of the jewish Community or israelis that his comments might have caused he condemned the decades of human rights violations and outright atrocities committed by an Ever expanding apartheid Type regime. The apartheid accusation against Israel has become a refrain of the anti Israel lobby since it was first raised by former u. S. President Jimmy Carter in one of the most fatuous books Ever written about the Middle East. Falsehoods find their echoes As this one has even though it is nothing More than a historical distortion or not to put too Fine a Point on it an outright lie. But the truth about the Middle East has never mattered very much to those who oppose the existence of the jewish state. Neither is the problem of Israel As complicated As every Side involved in the Issue makes it out to be. Like most issues it is simpler than it looks Israel is a reality that cannot be ignored. Most of the Mideast is morass of corruption and despotism and in the Middle of All this hate and horror there is one Bright jewel of democracy and Freedom called Israel. Israel is in no other Way the anomaly that everyone makes it out to be. Israel is it is True an artificial creation but so Are All of the Arab states except for Egypt Post colonial creations. They make no More logical sense than Israel does. Jordan in fact was glad to be rid of the palestinians in the West Bank and Egypt bade a rude Good riddance to Gaza. Recognizing that would be a Start to undoing this gordian knot that Gaza has become. What would finally Cut the knot is so simple it almost defies belief that Hamas and israelis other enemies Stop attacking it and instead learn to live with it. Anyone who truly cares about the Well being of the palestinians should be working towards that goal. Tom. Oleson free press. My. Ca Winnipeg free press saturday january 10, 2009 View from the West and beyond comment editor Gerald flood 697 7269 Gerald. Flood free press. M. Ca Winnipeg repress. Com a 15 i heard about super juice a few years ago when my Cousin invited me on a Day trip to Garden Hill first nation. It was part business part fun. I went along to Check out the healthy living programming they were doing up there. We got a ride from the local Airport to the television station which was really just an old Shack with a table some chairs and a video camera. We hosted a makeshift phone in show on healthy eating which aired live. One of our props really got the phone ringing. Our viewers saw that wed brought along a 10 kilogram sack of sugar As a visual Aid to explain How much hidden sugar is in everyday food and drinks. But Calls started rolling in from people wanting to buy the sugar. My Cousin said off camera that super juice was pretty popular up there. Super juice Home brew he explained. Sugar is one of the main components of super juice along with yeast and water its a valuable commodity. My Cousin worked As a teacher up North. He kept having Neighbours coming to his door asking to borrow a cup of sugar. After a while he caught on to what it was for. Now Island Lake first nation youth leaders Are calling on the province to ban sales of yeast to first nations people across Manitoba. Its not possible considering human rights Laws you cant deny a race of people a product based on their race. But its admirable these Young leaders Are trying to solve an epidemic causing violence and death in their communities. However stronger solutions Are needed. Even if you banned yeast sales to first nations people theress no doubt a few enterprising folks will figure out new ways to break the rules like fermenting fruit or vegetables. They always do. Do these kids want All of the food groups in the Canada food guide banned next its Why dry reserves dont work. Bans create lucrative industries and bootleggers. People just end up paying More to kill themselves. A slow death just gets slowed Down a Little More. Community policing could be stepped up further people searched More vigilantly As they step off a plane and into the Community. Night watches and Community patrols could increase. Suspicious mail could get checked. Offer up big rewards for tips about bootleggers. But the real solution is to look at the addictions themselves. Why Are people drinking super juice in the first place its not just because its a cheap Way to drink on a dry Reserve. Many drinkers Are alcoholics. They could be self medicating to Deal with problems such As sexual abuse or Low self esteem. Or maybe they re kids who Start drinking out of boredom. From what i remember from my visit up to Garden Hill the recreation Centre was tagged with gang names and closed Down because there a snot any Money to keep it open. Violence often happens when people Are Binge drinking having five or More drinks in one sitting. People Binge drink because they think its Normal to drink so much. Along with teaching about alcohol abstinence lessons about responsible drinking should be out there too. You dont want people to drink but if they re still going to do it at least teach them to drink in a less harmful Way. The super juice crisis is a symptom of a bigger problem. Youve got to treat the addiction. Addiction treatment is costly but badly needed. Individuals dont need isolated treatment whole communities need treatment if its really going to stick. Whats the sense in treating someone Only to Parachute them Back into the same circumstances patience is needed. Our social ills we rent created overnight. Healthy communities will take Many years to flourish especially when real solutions fall victim to Federal funding gaps that have existed for generations. Colleen Simard is publisher of Urban non. Colleen. Simard email. Com Colleen Simard super juice crisis a symptom of a bigger problem Tom Oleson Canadian writer and broadcaster Allen Abel chronicles the dawning and unfolding of the Obama Era in columns from Washington beginning today. Read Abel Here today and watch for him hereafter on sundays in View from the West. F Fairfax Virginia the freeway crosses Prosperity Avenue a few Miles West of the White House Banks southward at Gallows Road and its All downhill from there. Ism hurtling toward a major economic policy address by Barack Obama on a perfectly sunny morning marred by a few scattered swatches of ice after an overnight rain. The radio forecasters Are frantic temperatures Are below freezing crashes Are manifold casualties legion. It might even Snow. Sure enough As i enter the performing arts Centre on the University Campus where the speech is to be Given a wind tossed Squall erupts from the Virgin sky. Its coming Down like crazy Here a television reporter is howling to his producer As i walk in. I just know it thatus going to be their big Story instead of Obama thousands of foreclosures millions of layoffs billions in bailouts trillions in losses All Are trifles. Its Flurr Ying in the old Dominion but the blizzard lasts Only four minutes the Sun comes out again and we Are free to return our attention to the collapse of the u. S. Economy. On the stage Are flags and a lectern. Since his election on nov. 4, or. Obama no longer senator but not yet president thus for the moment merely mister has been giving his speeches from a podium onto which his staff have taped a sign that says the office of the president elect seeing this pomposity reminds me of Gilbert and Sullivan and of wearing a Kimono on stage in Grade 5 As we Sang Mikado from every kind of Man obedience i expect ism the emperor of Japan but this is a cruel comparison. Or. Obama is the Choice of his people not our god Given King. With All of us in danger of tumbling from Prosperity to the Gallows ourselves of amass summer of celebrity and fist bumps the throbbing stadium in Denver and the Wei Hunder Tausend in Berlin seems very Long ago indeed. Today about 300 Well dressed academicians Are in the seats awaiting the president in waiting. Then suddenly a Large shivering woman in a thin and Low Cut sweater leads three children to the Row in front of me. She gives her name As Lisa and explains that she and her Brood had been marooned in the Arctic whiteout hoping for just a glimpse of or. Obama before a kind Security Man let them inside. This is something youll remember All of your life she tells Christopher Andrew and Kathryn As the lights go dim. Introduced by an off stage voice applauded warmly but not whooped and cheered As he was As a candidate the president elect strides to the microphone and launches into a biblical Litany of gloom calamity misery disaster adversity despair and tribulation. This recession could linger for years he says. We could lose a generation of potential and Promise. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that at some Point we May not be Able to reverse. Almost ritually Obama flogs Wall Street the Dearest horse Ever whipped. He pleads for rapid action from Congress and echoing John Mccaints own War cry of country first implores us All to eschew greed and do Only what is Good for America. Compared to of amass pre election Blandishments it is astonishing to hear him confess the audacity of optimism at this dark hour. But Given the circumstances there is Little else he can say. As suddenly As he appeared Barack Obama stalks off stage right. How do you feel when you hear him talk like this i ask Lisa when the lights come up. She had voted for Obama of course believing that his Harvard Law school Genius would be a better fit for a perilous age than Mccaints puffed up Bantam rooster squawking. It takes a Little of my Hope away she replies. We Chat As the invitees exit. Her oldest boy Lisa says has overcome a brain injury at birth and years of special needs schooling to enter this very University on his own Merit. The Middle boy has asthma the daughter is on four or five medications. Even with health insurance from her husbands government Job the co pays Are killing them. I ask her if she remembers her own Mother telling tales of the first great depression and How Franklin d. Roosevelt lifted America out of the Quicksand with soaring rhetoric and make work welfare. She says that her mom died when she was 13 on a Christmas morning and that they never talked about anything As serious As that. Then Lisa takes my hands in hers and begins to cry. We lost our House she whispers. She looks at Christopher and Andrew and Kathryn. They dont know it yet. Youll be All right i Tell her. It will come Back. No she sobs. It never will. For an instant we share the Solidarity of strangers. Keep warm i Tell her As she bundles the kids away. The doors swing open to what passes for Winter with Spring still very far away. A Little less Hope tears but not of Joy As Obama delivers hard times message Allen Abel the answer is so simple it almost defies belief Charles Dha Rapak / the associated press president elect Barack Obama finishes his speech about the Economy at George Mason University in Fairfax Virginia. A 15_ Jan 10 09. Ind a15 1/ 9/ 09 7 38 55 pm ;