Just what the GNWT hopes to discover through this latest round of public meetings regarding electoral boundaries is, at best, redundant and, at worse, ludicrous.

The courts have ruled that we need more MLAs to effectively, to legally, represent the people of the NWT. There is little or no room for discussion there. Aboriginal leaders have made it clear they are opposed to this reshuffling of boundaries as it may have an impact on their self-government negotiations.

For the assembly to go gathering public input seems to be nothing more than a somewhat feeble effort to avoid making any real decision.

Wouldn't this be the perfect time to merge the electoral boundaries issue and the question of self-government and at least try to forge a new, workable policy for everyone in the North rather than continue trying to avoid the entire issue?

Miramar recently announced they will be mining 100,000 ounces of gold from the Con mine.

While this is good news for the city of Yellowknife and the mine workers, the price of gold continues to flounder.

The Swiss have gone off the gold standard and the International Monetary Fund is planning to unload millions of ounces to "aid the third world."

The IMF fails to recognize that many of these impoverished states are also gold-producing countries in third world Africa.

By giving with one hand, the IMF is taking away with the other. Taking away jobs from the miners in the first, second and third worlds.

This bandaid influx of cash will temporarily help a few and hurt thousands. We have to wonder what logic motivates the meddling IMF.

Give a man gold he'll eat for a day, teach a man to mine and he'll eat for a lifetime -- or as long as the IMF allows.

Obviously, workers at the Power Corporation are considerably less happy and more disillusioned than initial reports indicated.

When 108 of 117 workers sign a petition to break away from the Union of Northern Workers, there has to be something wrong. For Charles Dent, the minister responsible for the Power Corporation, to sidestep the issue the way he appears to be doing does not inspire any more confidence in the government than the workers apparently have in their union.

Meanwhile, the UNW continues negotiating a contract for the workers in question with the Power Corp., with an apparently complete and utter disregard for what the workers want. So much for the will of the worker - both from the government and the union.

There's a new trend right now that kids everywhere are going crazy for.

I'm not talking about Tommy Hilfiger or the Back Street Boys, though I wish I was. I'm talking about violence.

It seems like there's another school shooting every other week now. Thankfully, no one was killed during this latest one in Georgia, but that was just a lucky break. Most of them end up with several students and teachers dead.

Georgia seems like a long way off from Inuvik, NWT, but based on the recent death threats made to a high school teacher, how far off is it? Do we take these threats seriously?

I think we'd better start.

The teacher certainly took the threats seriously. She no longer lives here because of it. Can we blame her, in light of all the school shootings? Teens have certainly proven they are not above committing violent crimes.

How did it get to this point? Who do we blame: the kids, the schools, the police, the parents?

Maybe all of the above, I guess. The kids are the ones committing the crimes. The schools? Maybe they have to get tougher. I'm not talking about suspensions here. That just doesn't seem to do the trick, but that's not the fault of the teachers. That's pretty much the only option open to them as far as discipline is concerned.

What about the police? How much of their workload is taken up with young offender crimes? Too much, I'll bet.

That leaves parents. It seems more and more parents blame teachers for their handling of disciplinary problems. It is my belief that students should be disciplined at home first and at school as well if the situation warrants it. My parents would have dragged me out of school by my ear if I even so much as quirked an eyebrow at a teacher and I would have been grounded for months.

Of course, that probably has a lot to do with the fact that my dad was a teacher (I say was because he recently retired). Growing up, I attended the junior high where he worked and I even had him for a couple of subjects. The other kids got a great kick out of that. According to him, teaching today is a lot different from when I was in school. Oh, we weren't all angels, that's for sure. But certainly no one ever made death threats to teachers. Not in my school anyway. Even if there were, they most likely wouldn't have been taken seriously. Violence, back then, was a fight in the schoolyard between two boys. When one broke out, everybody would yell "Fight!" and we'd all run to watch.

Today, those schoolyard fights have turned into all-out wars and they're not restricted to just boys any more. Girls now brawl just as much as guys do. Much of the time, it's not settled in the schoolyard either. It moves into the courts, as one teen charges another with assault. Now, weapons are becoming involved.

I don't want to paint all teens with the same brush though. Most around here are down to earth, sensible young adults, based on what I've seen during my countless visits to the schools. But nowadays, too many have poor attitudes and are quick to violence. Most adults who spot a group of teens hanging out in front of a store won't go anywhere near the place. The kids could all have just come from a church meeting, but it wouldn't matter. They can still be pretty intimidating, whether they intend to be or not. It's too bad that this happens, but teens can't really blame adults for this. They have only their peers to blame.

No one wants to believe a kid in junior high would actually follow through on a death threat. Probably no one in Littleton, Colo., ever thought two students would show up at school with guns and go on a shooting rampage.

But it happened.

Calvin Pond's message to Fort Simpson is to give the disabled the same privilege to come and go that able-bodied people enjoy.

It really is something many of us take for granted. If we don't have to cope with a disability or live with someone who does, it's easy enough to put the issue of accessibility out of our minds.

Listening to Calvin Pond is a poignant dose of reality from someone who deals with being shut out on a daily basis. It can jolt one from complacency very quickly, especially when one considers that Pond was also an able-bodied person 14 years ago. He never envisioned himself in a wheelchair. He admittedly never gave accessibility issues much thought.

He fights the good fight, not by getting in your face or humiliating you. Rather, he casually makes suggestions regarding how we can make life easier for those who can't walk up three or four stairs, let alone an entire flight. After all, he or any other disabled person can't force anyone to install a ramp, so the best approach is the gentle art of persuasion, making others understand through telling his own story. If he can show them a way to make some changes, he can change their minds, he said.

Yet, there are some businesses in Yellowknife that have seemingly ignored his presence and that of other disabled persons for years. He's heard plenty of excuses, he admitted.

"I'll keep my money and spend it somewhere else," he said in response to those who won't let him in.

Essentially, that's what it boils down to, keeping the disabled on the outside. Sure, if they are accompanied by a friend or relative there's a chance they could be lifted or carried over the obstacle. Still, there's an issue of independence to consider as well. Because someone is in a wheelchair or using a walker, what right do we have to make them any more reliant on others?

We have a lot of work to do to make Fort Simpson more accessible and that includes the Drum office.

For all we know, we too could be in Calvin Pond's position tomorrow, next month or next year. It's not just a matter of opening our doors, it's a matter of opening our minds.

Shakes you up

Undoubtedly, everybody has heard about the fire at Checkpoint last week.

The gas bar burnt to the ground. Fortunately, nobody was injured. It sure shakes you up when you hear about it, though.

Just think about the effect it has had on the McKay family. Since the fire, Wayne McKay said he has cleaned out his generator house again, although it was already clean. Preventing another fire is foremost in his mind these days. Living 65 kilometres from firefighting services makes fire an even greater threat there.

Although the fire was ever so close to the fuel drums and the gas pumps, it's business as usual at Checkpoint. Even four or five days later, pulling up to those pumps, the charred remains were still smouldering. Thankfully, when the smoke cleared in the early hours last Wednesday morning, everything else was still standing.

There is a growing voice across the Keewatin which is quickly transcending the boundaries of complacency into one of moral consciousness.

This rising voice no longer thinks it appropriate for literally hundreds of God's creatures to give their lives every spring so that a handful of winners may benefit financially or from material gain.

This voice can be heard on local radio stations and its words read on community bulletin boards via the Internet. It is gaining in volume and quickly garnering the attention of those who depend on the popular vote to keep them in office.

This voice has a message and that message is the time for fishing derbies, were there ever a right time, has passed.

The voice has already been heard in Arviat, where community leaders are talking about this week's derby being the hamlet's last, at least in its present voice.

A growing number of Inuit feel their ancestors would be embarrassed or ashamed by the practice of killing fish to win money or prizes. This, they say, runs contrary to everything the Inuit culture prides itself upon when it comes to holding Mother Nature and her inhabitants in the highest of regards.

There are many people in Rankin Inlet who did not take part in that community's fishing derby this year because of the large number of last year's catch which met with no better fate than being left to rot in the community dump. Apparently, losing catches are not even worthy of being dog food.

There is also the scientific opinion to be considered, which warns such derbies put an immense strain on the fish population. The cold Arctic waters severely hamper a fish's ability to mature and too much strain on the resource in too short a period of time could lead to an instantaneous collapse of stocks under the right conditions.

There are suggestions being bandied about. The best of which is to lower the cash awards and prizes so that only those who truly love to fish will take part, effectively eliminating those who are only fishing for dollars.

It is hard to support an endeavour when something must give up its life for material gain. Surely the same prizes raised to support the fishing derby could also be raised to sponsor another form of traditional competition -- one based upon skill, which instills pride in both victors and competitors alike and does not rely on the death of living creatures for its success.

Can an event which trades one's natural resources for cash and prizes really produce a winner? Just a thought.