The Indigenous Beat

I’m staring at a report about a former Anishinabek Nation chief being sentenced to 60 days in jail for his part in a scheme that defrauded his band of almost $3 million. This type of news always evokes a mixture of emotions in me.

It’s hard to be critical at Christmas. Especially so if your regular job involves writing things that don’t always cast people in the best possible light.

It's important that we put to good use that two minutes of silence we observe at 11 o'clock each Remembrance Day. It's not a lot of time for us to sacrifice, considering what thousands of men and women wearing uniforms gave up.

Beach sand is a lot like Christmas tree needles – it stays in your stuff forever.

Different people just see things differently. It’s so simple, yet so complicated...and so divisive.

They say it would be a strange world if everybody held the same opinions, but it can also be pretty weird when we don’t.

THURSDAY, APRIL 22, 2010 8.30 a.m. -- Get out of taxi at north side of Ontario Legislature at Queen’s Park ; notice wooden barricades, scaffolding surrounding the pinkish sandstone structure.

National Aboriginal Day is itself an example of how the very peoples it is supposed to honour are so often misrepresented.

Nobody owns history. But that never stops people from trying. History is often seen by ambitious or greedy people as a commodity, rather than a record of the past that belongs to all of us.

I spent some time in jail in December – just a couple of hours, actually. An invitation had been extended by a group of inmates at a minimum security facility in central Ontario.