The Black Rod

If you depend on the Mainstream Media to tell you about NATO's mission to Afghanistan, you hear nothing but reports of failure, division and impending defeat. That's strange. We see signs of success everywhere, and never more than in the past week. Just last Sunday U.S.-led coalition forces killed about 80 Taliban fighters near Musa Quala in Helmand province. It was the fifth major battle in the area since Sept. 1st. and the Taliban death toll tops 250 for Musa Quala alone. T he official report says a combined Afghan-coalition force was on a reconnaissance patrol when it was attacked by insurgents from a trench line with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. Over the next six hours the U.S. and Afghan troops manoeuvred to fix the enemy positions, then called in air strikes. Four precision bombs decimated the enemy forces, killing about 80. Find 'em, fix 'em, f-kill 'em (the f is silent). A time-honoured tactic that's been perfected by our forces. Fin...

(Bebo tribute page to Aaron Nabess on the right, his handgun-toting friend on the left) At least six murder victims in Winnipeg in the past year are linked to a network of thuglife, gangster rap-styled, mainly aboriginal street gangs calling themselves Crips and Bloods after the major black gangs of L.A. The Black Rod has been monitoring these gangs for several months ever since discovering memorial tributes to victim Josh Prince on numerous pages on Bebo.com, a social networking website like Myspace and Facebook. Josh Prince , a student of Kildonan East Collegiate, was stabbed to death the night of May 26 allegedly while breaking up a fight. His family said at the time he had once been associated with an unidentified gang, but had since broken away. But the devotion to Prince on sites like Watt Street Bloodz and Kingk Notorious Bloodz (King-K-BLOODZ4Life) shows that at the time of his death he was still accepted as one of their own. Our searches of Bebo have turned up another five ga...

Ka - boom. Sam Katz dropped a bombshell Tuesday when he appeared as a guest on The Great Canadian Talk Show, 92.9 FM's drive-home talk radio program. He's running for mayor again in 2010. And with that, he dropped the guantlet to his detractors who spent all of last week engaged in a drive-by smear against him. The smear was the product of the usual suspects, the Winnipeg Free Press, joined this time by their new partners-in-the-gutter, the CBC. CJOB's Richard Cloutier did his part in stirring up a mob against the mayor---up until the moment Katz slapped him silly on air and left him whimpering 'It's my show. You can't say that. It's my show. It's my show.' The week-long campaign was otherwise a coordinated effort by Free Press city hall reporter Bartley Kives and newby CBC reporter Sean Kavanagh, whose last claim to fame was his beer drinking capabilities demonstrated at http://lockedoutinwinnipeg.blog.ca/?tag=talent+show (8th photo down.) The medi...

Oh, no. Here we go again. Something about the news that Manitoba leads the nation in teenagers who kill sparked Ron Evans, Grand Chief of the Assembly of Manitoba First Nations, into action. Maybe it's because he knows that a hefty proportion of the 43 youths awaiting trial for one homicide or another are, in common parlance, "aboriginal in appearance." But for once, he was making sense. "There seems to be a lot of initiatives out there, but the numbers are growing..." he said. "We need to take a look and review what is working, what is not working. If it was working, the numbers would be reversing, right? But they're not," Evans told reporters. And he faced head on allegations that the youth violence problem tracks back to First Nations. "If we're the problem then work with us," he said. "We cannot do it by ourselves," he said. "It's going to take a collective effort." But it wasn't long before Evans rever...

After seven years of lying through her teeth, U.S. sprinter Marion Jones has confessed to using steroids leading up to the Sydney Olympics in 2000 where she won five medals. The International Olympic Committee is now preparing to strip Jones of those medals-- gold in the 100 metre dash, gold in the 200 metres, gold in the 1600 metre relay, bronze in the long jump and bronze in the 400 metre relay. The impact of that act will be felt by 29 women---the 29 victims of Marion Jones. Six--Jones' relay partners--will lose the medals they thought they won. 23 others will get medals they were cheated out of at Sydney. But that's cold comfort for the damage done to them by Jones. She stole their rightful place in the spotlight at the Sydney Olympics. She robbed them of the joy of standing on the winners' podium to the cheers of their countrymen. She cheated them of irreplaceable memories--photos of their getting their medals in the Olympic Stadium, welcome-home rallies at airports...

Imagine turning on the TV to watch the supper hour news only to see a reporter refer to the discovery of the Golden Fleece by a team of adventurers. You might say, "Hey, waitaminit. That's a myth. How did Jason and the Argonauts come to be considered news?" Well, the same way that the modern mythology of 500 missing and murdered aborginal women has become an unchallenged fact incorporated in newscasts across the country. This Thursday, 30 vigils were held throughout Canada to bring attention to what Canadian Press calls "an epidemic of violence against aboriginal women." And you can bet every news story about every vigil repeated the figure of 'The 500.' Even an experienced reporter like Winnipeg CTV's Kelly Dehn parroted the figure without question. Apparently it's bad form (though good journalism) to ask "Where does that number come from?" There's nothing that spoils a good story quicker than the facts. That's apparently why...