Okay, so let's get started. So welcome to the glossary meeting. Oh, Noah is there. So welcome to glossary meeting. I think it's going to be the rather short, at least from my end. Hey, Noah. I was on vacation for two weeks and the other week on our conference. So basically all the time gone since the last one. So, but we do have some news. Okay, so we do have some news. So Ihor from the CNCF will be helping the glossary a little bit in the future. So very excited to get his support. I used to work with him back when we wrote some CNCS, no, new stack articles and he was reviewing it and it's really great to work with him. So I'm very excited. I'll be meeting with him next week just to give him like a quick update for where we're at and like how what would be helpful on our end. And yeah, so and the other thing that I'm really excited is the tags are finally implemented the tags. I mean this is going on forever. And so now when you see here, you can either go to a specific term or you can browse by tags. And then you can have like just one tag or combine them. And then you'll see everything that has those tags here and then go and see the actual term. So the idea is basically that specifically like if you're looking for some things specific of course you're going to use this but especially for people who are new. And like if you want to get started it's like okay here.  And then maybe you want to have fundamentals in architecture right and and so on so I think it's very helpful I'm very excited that that is now live. I also added a who can contribute side section in our glossary just to make expectations a little clearer I think like a lot of people think they can contribute but are not quite there yet. So just to make clear like what you need work where you need to be at to actually contribute to the glossary. Hopefully that will help because I think it might have led to a little bit of frustration because people think they are able to contribute something don't have the background and then there's a lot of back and forth and it's frustration for everyone right it's frustration for the contributor as well because they, they really wanted to participate we have a lot of people eager to participate in the cognitive ecosystem and contributed contributing to open source. I think managing that expectations and making clear what's needed is really important so hopefully that helps. And, oh yeah so that's actually I think that would be more in the Montana discussion so my. Let's think about remind remind me of that so because I think it should be part of the template just check people that they have read it, but we can discuss this further down. Again that's all I had three weeks basically gone from last four weeks so I don't know there's not much so back to over to you so. Let's go over to the localization of data I just to mention that take filters. I'd like to say thanks to Chris Abraham and James who implemented the take filters functionality. We brought this function to our grocery grocery project. So I hope to mention them. Okay, let's go to the localization update. I really called the last last meeting I requested to all localization branch maintainers to update their branches. Maybe based on to the latest main branch. And as you can see, many of localization team applied. I mean, completed this task. So I'd like to say thanks to all localization maintainers. We're still waiting for. PRs from route and Arabic language. So, in case of road language. We already have PR so it is working progress and in case of Arabic language. No response. Yes, so please. Take a look the issue. So those two branches are remaining tasks for me. Okay. Next item is about to sharing. Some additional. And strings. Then need to be localized. In t o ml file. So, if you check. The link. Can you open that link. Yeah. By the tag filtering implementation. We added more strings to that requires to be localized. As you can see, those new strings should be localized by localization team. But before work on this localization, you would better to rebase your development branch again to reflect those new t o ml pile. So I think that's all from the localization update. Is there any question regarding those two items. Yeah, I think most of localization maintainers understand what I mean. Okay, I think that's all from my side for the update, and maybe can go to individual language team Spanish maybe Carol. Yes, hi, everyone. Well, I think I put the update that we are trying to sink our branch that is deaf as the Spanish to the main at the end of the month, we are trying to sink. Yeah, I think is the second time that we, we did it, we're trying to keep this, this control our tower sinks. Yeah, I think. Also, I think we have a pool request about github actions about try to automatize the stage issues that I think some CEO. Someone one already reviewed, I did it, I applied the changes. And yeah, and we are only trying to apply it in the Spanish branch to testing this is this github action. Okay, I think that's all I don't know you have questions. Okay, thank you Carol. Let me check your PR regarding the automation for the state issues and PRs. Actually we shared the in the previous meeting. So, most of them understand what the PR implement. So, let me let me check your PR. Yeah, your review it was great that I applied this. Has been that you suggest. Okay, thank you. Thank you. In Germany. Yes. Okay. Yeah, we reorganized our workflow a little bit. As you can see we had a little bit problems to translate a lot of terms. And we are just three people. So we had, we made a meeting where we talked about how we can translate more terms and find our flow a little bit again. And yeah, I think to the next meeting we can have a little bit more news more terms translated. That's my hope and I'm optimistic to do it in this. Since last time we have just one new term merged and to review. And we have still 11 published terms. And same last like, like last month. And we've nearly finished our blog post. So I think all sex, all sections are filled. And I also already reviewed it. I don't know if the other two still in review to review everything. But we're very close to say it's finished. We also have a review again and then I guess Catherine you will probably go over it again to have some, some wordings improved or something, some editing and then we are good to go. Awesome. Yeah, we need to promote the team's work. Yeah. And also we still trying to find new members for our team. So it's also something we talked about in this meeting. Maybe we, we have some, some meet up in our city. And, and cloud native meet up and we want to promote this localization there. Meetups are, I think, great place to do that and maybe the blog post is like another resource that you can share it right because it's like you say it and then like, people can read it later on. It's nice to have several options to kind of. Yeah, I know that's always a problem finding contributors, but yeah, we have to keep on it right. Okay, great. So, now it's like open discussion time as someone added the brainstorming to promote glossary contributors. Okay, yeah. I opened each discussion item. From brainstorming to promote G&CF glossary contributors as well as maintainers. I think we can use this discussion to gathering and bring folks who have, who have idea regarding how to promote contributors in especially for G&CF cloud native glossary. So please feel free to add any ideas if you have any nice pro promotional ideas. So it is just for sharing this discussion item. You can find one idea from Victor. You can see some ideas from Victor in that comment. I think we don't have to discuss today, but feel free to check new comment here and add more ideas here. And maybe, David, when you go to the meetup, you know, and like if that was successful or what was successful that's something that you could add here right hopefully you find something that works and resonates. And then as we try things out, it would be a good place to gather best practices right that we have learned. Yeah, it's, there are a lot of contributors who are not the perfect contributors because they're not there yet and then like but having the people who are who have the knowledge they're really just like it's a really difficult situation. It's like, I don't know. Well, we had a few. Yeah, well, I guess that I think that we can add here to I think like we had some, I'm going to look into agenda and I think that there was like a folder that I started. I'm going to add those things in here too so there is that's like our source source of truth to say. And we should keep building on that and maybe make it like a, like a regular point where we kind of remind people that that is there and if they have any new ideas, because otherwise it's going to. People are going to forget and then six months later we're like oh we're all missing contributors right. Anything else. I'm sorry. Oh yeah, even though if you share any idea in select, I will bring it to this question so that you can easily check. I mean, get our ideas from there. Okay, that's all from my side. And oh she just wrote can and by the way you can just unmute yourself and just chime in. Feel free to do that. We're not much of a big group so if you can write a block block about the process progress. Do you mean. What's also like what, what's like currently happening like from where we got started and what is the current progress right now in the glossary, and we can write a blog about it and publish it on social media and like in the cubicle newsletter. You mean like where the glossary as a whole is not. Yeah, what is currently happening in the glossary open source project. Yeah, if there is a volunteer to write that we can do that. Yeah. Well yeah I mean like if we like what the blog post it has to be like I don't know like we could. It's a it's a it's an idea would you be willing to get that started. We would have to see if we have enough like things that are interesting to say but probably we do we just have to think about it. I would love to because this is my first meeting and I have just started so I have to look into glossy project more like what's happening right now. Okay, great. Yeah I didn't recognize your name so welcome. Oh goshy. So on which team are you. No, I just started, like I just created my first issue like can we add a new team regarding admission controller so I have to start with the localization team. Okay, yeah but with a localization team you said so which I'm from India so mostly I will start with Hindi localization. Okay with the Hindi. Okay, good. Okay great so welcome. And yeah, feel free to get started and then we can like all like once we have like a draft, we can build on that and then. I'm sure there are like cool things that we can say and just we just have to think about it right now from the get go I but it's a good idea we should we should try to get the word out. Anything else for the open discussion. I have one question one doubt when you are talking about new contributors, because what is the relation about the grocery with culvernets I don't know if we have hyperlinks to the concepts because for example I received a lot of questions I think about how to start it to be a contributor in culvernets. My answer is that if you want to. You are a beginner you can start with the grocery because it's more easy that they go into the culvernets and it's like I is so so some connections between the people that is wanted to start to contribute to go to the grocery because they. They have the attention on culvernets, I don't know how is it we have some that my question we have some relations that hyperlinks we think we use it inside so we are separate programs. We are we are kind of separate but not yeah I mean we're all part of the same ecosystem we're separate in that way that our teams don't necessarily collaborate but we have we're also joined at the same time is a lot of the. The teams localization teams are also the localization teams for the culvernets one but there is no coordination or anything. I think, like, interlinking is good. The only thing. The only issue is that core, the Kubernetes stocks is very advanced right so, and our goal is to make things very easy so I don't know like whenever it makes sense we should link to it but I think like probably a lot of the things that are in the culvern is docs and glossary are too advanced for what we're looking for so they're probably not too many opportunities to do that, or maybe it's too detailed for where people are at. So, I mean we should definitely do it it's just like I think that's more the issue it's that the glossary is more really like an, and not for contributors but for people who want to learn it it's an entry level of course right that is for people who have no knowledge yet or are just new to kubernetes to kubernetes not to the cloud native to cloud native in general. And then that will help them to read more technical articles right so I feel that's kind of the. But I think. Yeah. Yeah, in some level that as you say we always has beginners, even in kubernetes that they're trying to read and they, for example they don't know how is that the center or the terms that it's already the glossary and that's we started on the basic hyperlinks to the glossary from kubernetes. I don't know if we have this initiative is only that. You mean linking from the kubernetes stocks to the glossary. Yeah, I think that probably makes more sense because there are probably more words that come up in the kubernetes glossary that are also covered in in our glossary. Some of the definitions that is there that it's not in the in detail inside of kubernetes, but we can refer to our glossary because we explain, especially for the new people and we have some connection and also more attractions for us. It's like wing wing for everyone. I don't know how the, I know we have people from localization teams but like who like how does the actual the English kubernetes glossary work. So good, do you know anything about that. Well, they happen to have the maintainers, but I don't know if you mean, who is the responsible. They have a, I'm sure they have a slack on the corners. Yeah. Well, some of them because they participate in the kubernetes documentations but if you want to to start this. Visual mapping or hyperlink to work together is is that some words common words like we have all the definitions in the glossary we started to go today. Yeah, I think if you know people it would be great to ask if they have an interest in that, like if they if they would be open to that I think they would be but let's ask them. And that could actually be a issue that we could create for real beginners right because it's like going to the kubernetes docs finding words that are covered there and then hyperlinking. It would be like a real beginners contributor task, right because it's like, as a beginner coming up, like writing a definition is really difficult but like linking to that that's like something that people could do. So I'm sure we would find volunteers but I would want to ask them first. I mean I'm sure we could do it as well as well but any thoughts from anyone else. I think it's a good idea. I'm actually a long term contributor for kubernetes website. And I, I actually already shared our tasks, I mean, our status of, I mean, cloud native glossary to kubernetes website community, so very aware of it. And maybe we can just open up here to add our grocery website address in kubernetes website glossary page. And maybe we can simply add a link and some description for cloud native glossary. And based on that PR, the reviewers and approvals, and maybe she could leave. She could join for the discussion. So, maybe you can start by opening up here to add the links. Maybe Carol can help opening up here, or I can also open up here. Yeah, definitely I can talk with the kubernetes maintainers about this and what they think if we can collaborate and, and sharing this lack about this and try to officialize this with an issuable request if they everyone is. Would you like to start the PR as well or that so called suggestive Carol. Any initiative that if you think is a good idea, I can. I think it's a great idea. I think that way it really makes sense. And it would also help to get because more traffic to our or like race awareness about the glossary. And when the people started, it's going to governments, they are new people that also don't know about so many terms that we are helping in the glossary that makes sense, especially for me, and also new contributors for us. And it is very technical so it's like if you're new to kubernetes and want to read the docs it's pretty overwhelming. It's right. Hello. Yeah. Yeah, just this is a very good question from from point from cattle. And, in my opinion, we can think about, we can extend this for all projects because, for example, you have a PR to start the contribution for observability. So other projects talk about observability, permit use, etc, etc. So, not the only carbonates is documentation requires access, or use glossary to define key points to more. So, can I say, global, globally, concepts, then other person also needs so maybe, I don't know if you, if there is some kind of. Talk with the other person, but maybe the CNCF team that are in glossary contributors, I don't know, can start a kind of relationship with other projects. I don't know. I'm just saying that we need to avoid, first of all, we need to avoid duplicate and duplicate efforts and need avoid also, not only duplicate but have a difference of concepts. For example, if someone from contributor for permit use write something about observability in general and not about permiters per se, but in general about observability. Then someone from tunnels, write something like a stimulus about observability. This kind of global general, sorry, general concept could be, could be touched in glossary and be replicated in all projects, documentations to avoid. There is a relation, relationship between the projects. As I said, when you look to, as Carol said, when you look at covenants you have much more documentation, you have much more terms, concepts, etc. So we need to help do this relationship between the both projects, documentation for covenants and glossary, but if you, we are growing the glossary with concepts and terms general terms will touch concepts that all the projects are working and created documentation will define concepts for them that may be not only a duplicate but also has difference, is don't converge to something. So I think that we can maybe the group can start to talk to think about something as a best practice for documentation that allows bring to the general concepts to glossary and things for documentation will consult the open PRs with concepts, general concepts and glossary and use a specific project or the specific terms in the documentation and make a reference. I don't know if this makes sense, but it's something like Carol said, extending what Carol said. Yeah, I think that linking is definitely something that we should be doing. I don't know if into like, but between like things that are like open source and write that, as we said we had that discussion know to proprietary pages and mentions. I don't know if I've followed completely with the, what you meant with not. I mean there's going to be duplication always because people are always going to write their own definitions or how, you know, but what we want to do with the glossary is that there's one source of truth or one thing where everyone can contribute that is like easy and that is project and product agnostic and so on and it's like and everyone is welcome to contribute there and I think like it should. We should like different resources should link to the glossary as well because like a lot of people are new. And we want to make sure that they, as they learn about it, can find good and easy to understand definitions. Okay. If that's all I would like to move to the Montana discussion if that's okay. Anything else. And, okay. In that basically is like if people want to drop off. That is totally fine you can also stick around. We merged two of our meetings and I also have the Montana meeting here so there are some internal things that we need to discuss. So, yeah, feel free to do to get a few minutes back or just stick around. Okay, so go. You had something. But the number of approvers. Yes. Recently, she requested to add a little folk. If I say his name correctly, I'm not sure, but try to add new approval for Spanish team. Spanish team already had four approvers already. So, in order to add additional approval, they need to replace one of the approvers from Spanish team. So, I just thought, even though some approvers are not active during few months, I think they are still variable contributors so that I hope to discuss somehow how to keep them in their position. So that's the reason why I brought extending the maximum number of approvers for each localization team. Currently it is four, but my suggestion is increasing it to five. So that localization team can have more approvers, even though some of them are not very active, but it is a way to keep them in their position and make them come back again. I already shared this message to maintainers channel. So I hope to know the opinions from Noah and Catherine. I think she already agreed on that. I think it's fine because it's like, first of all, I think it should be up to the localization teams like as well to decide right we definitely do not recommend for people to have 15 approvers because it gets messy right but I think sometimes if they, I think it's good to restrict it to a lower number at first and then as they are in their flow and know how things work because sometimes maybe someone is gone for two months or on a project and can't do but they know they're going to be back you don't want to have to like put them like remove them and put them back again if they know they're going to come back right, but I think so. And if one person is gone for, and you only had for a few months and you only have three approvers it gets difficult with the because you're really depending on these two other persons and if they're not available for a week then you cannot merge something so it becomes a bottleneck. So, I think it's fine. I mean, I think each team should this will discover what works for them right now. Yeah, I agree. I agree on that the localization teams should should decide that on their own. And if they think that that will be beneficial because it doesn't scale otherwise or they are blocked otherwise then it's totally fair I guess. And maybe what we can do is like when a team is new, we restrict it to the four or maybe or the new one would be five. And then we say like okay after six months you know like once you kind of because they sometimes when they're new they want to make everyone you know because everyone is excited and every, but you don't know how engaged people are and then maybe after six months or more. And then you will figure it will, you will figure out who is going to be doing more work and less work and then they can decide who should actually if they should include more people or not. Because I think the reason we restricted is because at the beginning everyone is excited and everyone wants to make everyone right. But that. I just agree with you. So, initially, Paul is enough and based on request from the localizing ongoing localization team, we can extend the national approach. Yeah. Yeah, once they're established I feel like they should decide what they want to do right and the beginning we restrict them but just a little bit but then it's like okay you know best what works for you so okay. Okay, thank you I will share it to Spanish team and the PR. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Next time. Yep. Okay, go ahead when you put it in there because I have opinions here. Oh, okay. Yeah, next item is about new term suggestion for public cloud. You can check that issue. The contributor suggested the public cloud tone as a new term. And the reason why contributor the contributor open that issue is the contributor is actually working on defining virtual private cloud. The contributors thought in order to define the VPC. Public cloud time is required. That's the reason why the contributor. Open that issue. Actually, in my opinion. Current to the VPC virtual private cloud tone. Can be defined, regardless of the public cloud private cloud and any other cloud. And I think if it is just a cloud computing then we can. I mean, we can just refer the cloud computing for defining VPC. So I actually commented on that issue already, but I hope to hear other maintainers voice. And yeah, I already know the gasoline idea. Well, I just saw like, because VPC was still awaiting triage and people were signing up front and we never kind of decided if it should be part of the and I was like, oh, because I was like, didn't we don't remember deciding that it should be part so it's like the first discussion, the first thing that we should probably, I think we discussed that we started talking about it but then we never come came to a conclusion. And then, so I think we already take this triage accepted for VPC tone. It was, I just looked and am I crazy. Oh, yeah, we already gave. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, then I was like I was looking somewhere else. Okay, so we did. Then it's wrong. Forget it. I remember correctly, reason why I did the agreed to add VPC is that VPC service a little bit hard time to understand for beginners, but actually we are very often use that time, even though it. The term itself, or it's made by AWS maybe, but this is many close service providers are using that term in as general term. I think that's the reason why I agreed to add. To the close. Let's just get rid of this then because this is wrong. I, so my opinion on it is, why public loudest and very basic concept. So it would, it would be fair to accept it as well, not, not necessarily to to define the VPC one but if we said yes to VPC, then I guess it would be fair to also say yes to public cloud, even though it's super basic but I can imagine that that people want to see how it may be what problem it solves regarding to a private cloud, for example, I mean, so, maybe having this this this thing and the contract windows both in our glossary would be nice thing so I guess my, my, my feeling would say to approve it, rather than to not approve it. Yeah, it's kind of a little bit like data center right. So that is super basic, but we still have included it. Yeah, what I think what I think it's it's a little bit a little bit more advanced and data center because I don't know data centers this data center but public cloud you have to public and the private part so you can really have this. Yeah, I have the contrast of those but it's just that's just what I think about it I mean, no strong opinion. Yeah, just a God feeling more or less. Yeah, actually we already have a cloud computing definition. From that definition, I'm not sure what kind of content can be added in new public cloud tone. Oh, oh yeah, sure. So, yeah, so cloud computing basically. Yeah, okay. Computing basically refers to public cloud. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, I see. So, my concern is about what to say in public. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't have in mind that that's a cloud computing one was, yeah, more describing the public cloud. But yeah, with that information, I guess, we would rather not accept it. Because you're right. What, what would we say about cloud computing about public cloud which is not already included in the existing term. Yeah. Hello, please, please to share your idea. Can I, can I talk to just mention to you. Yeah, no. Okay, so. But I will send it by me. No, so just asked you to just invited you to talk. Go ahead. Okay. I didn't try to access issue 1707 to look at look around what is the suggestion public cloud. But so there is a very, very good definition come from NIST. This is the institute office of story and technology that could be reference or use it in public private or any kind of definition of cloud. There is something that is disconnected from any provider, because come from standard is to do. It could be used in this kind of general concept. I can send the number of the definition for you. Okay, thank you for the definition information and actually I also aware of that definition from NIST. And yeah, if we define cloud public cloud as a new term in glossary and maybe the way to define the tone is a little bit different. As you can see we have three sections, what it is. And how it acts. It is a little bit different to just the term definition provided by NIST. But I know it is very good reference. Also, as you probably said, public cloud is very rare established term already with very short and simple term. So the reason why I am concerning adding this public cloud term in glossary is that what can we add more additional information regarding the cloud computing public cloud. Okay, would it make sense to maybe have this cloud computing slash public cloud or something like that? Actually cloud computing is paradigm or concept and it can be deployed for public way or private way if we implement cloud computing in public way and for the public service then we call it public cloud. And if some companies are building their own cloud computing inside then we say it is just private cloud, right? I have a suggestion to make. What if we just extend the cloud computing what it is section by just adding one or two sentences stating that you can realize the cloud computing concept through using a public cloud provider like AWS blah blah or like using something a private cloud provider like I don't know what it is we spear or whatever they No examples we decided so. Okay, then I just said the exact. Yeah, okay, and then we could we could we could like reference, reference the VPC. If we want in that in that talk computing article or the other way around we just reference from VPC. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I agree. That's a nice idea. I think we all agreed to not accept public cloud new time. And we improved the term cloud computing, so that it can somehow show deployment type of cloud computing public cloud and private cloud. Okay, I guess maintainers agreed. Yeah. Okay, I guess we all agreed. Thanks and we can go to the next item. Catherine maybe. Yeah, so I updated observability as a reminder. Observability the definition was kind of a mix between the property and the tools. Right and so observability should be the property because like observable systems can be observed by a different tools. So because it is a property, it only has one section. I used like most of it came from the definition that was already there, provided it's just like slightly like formulated that it is a property that allows you to do those things instead of saying because it was like a little bit of a mix and I feel like it must be clear that one is a property and the other ones are tool that leverage that property. Yeah, that would be for technical ready for technical review, and I put our back I know no you've been you started that but it kind of got a little stale so if we could kind of get that. I just, I just dragged the task on my to do list and increase the priority. Like I said, I'm, I have a hard time to catch up with all those things but it's on my radar now again. So I will see that I finished that one. Okay, cool. So, because they're not too many that need to be brought to the finish line but would be. I had it on my on my on my radar. So I forgot about it. Yeah. Okay, cool. And about the observability definition is that I mean, maybe we would better to differentiate observability and monitoring itself. I know the top itself is property can be property but people try to use observability is more advanced way than just monitoring. So, since in cloud native domain, people try to use the observability tone and kind of advanced monitoring way. So maybe you develop to say something about relationship with monitoring just monitoring. In my simple opinion, and I try to comment Catherine's improvement in trying to comment review your PR. Somehow, how, how to reflect, I try to check how to reflect the differentiating the monitoring and observability. But you have not yet because I'm like you will you mean. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that that would be good to kind of have that because it is similar. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, so, yeah, just just add your comments or suggestion and I'll weave that in and then I also asked if you or could review it so no eyes off the hook maybe and then can look at our back instead and I think we can get that updated hopefully soon. Anything else. Okay, I think we can wrap it up. Thank you for all we've got a new visitor when we're just wrapping up. Thanks for those who's a stick stick around even for the maintainer session. So, thank you, and we shall see you in a month. Bye bye.


Specialist, John Scott, combat engineer, PFC, Alvarado, Noah, combat engineer as well. In APOBS it's pretty much an explosive, it's connected with some grenades on it and it shoots far. It's pretty much breaching any wire obstacle or mine obstacle we got.  It's fast and easy as well. How many times have you done this before? It's our first time, first time. Why is this significant? It's our first annual training and especially to see if they work in the cold. You're gonna miss already. You're missing already. Look at how the wire is. I'm from where I'm at. From where I'm at, I'm straight. From where you're at, you're gonna hit exactly where they are. That's your job, right?  You're making sure you're straight. Yeah, pull it. See you at ten. Keep everything, keep everything, everything, and then we'll verify everything against the evil.


Welcome to Asia Review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. Our show today is, Will Taiwan Fight Part Two? We had such a great show last week with Wendell Minick that we invited him back this week to continue the conversation we're having then. As you probably remember from last week, Wendell has lived in Asia for quite a long time, especially in Taiwan. He used to work for Jane's Defense Weekly. Then he was longtime Bureau Chief for Defense News and now he works for Shepard Media and Military. So we're really glad to have him back with us. Good to have you again, Wendell. Well, thank you. Great. Well, at the end of last week's show, we were talking about, when we ran out of time, as usually seems to be the case, we were talking about what would happen if China were able to, that is mainland China, were able to take over the deep water port of Suow, which is located on Taiwan's east coast. So I think maybe that's a good place to start. We'll just start there and see what your thoughts are about that. Well, just to back up a little bit, trying to seize the Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines is what is termed as the Great Wall of Sea. They don't have a direct line of sight to the Pacific for their Navy and Air Force. So they'll have to go around these geographic problems by going around Taiwan, around Japan. So they have to break through this chain and the best way to do it is to take Taiwan, either by peaceful means or military means, it doesn't matter. But once you establish PLA bases on Taiwan, you can project force into the Pacific and disrupt lines of communications, sea lanes of communication, up and down between Korea and Japan and Middle East oil, of course, which is what they they certainly could do it in the South China Sea. But if you look at Taiwan, yeah, they got some great bases on the west or east coast of the Pacific. One is called Sue Al. It's a deep water port that just drops into the abyss, but certainly would make a great submarine base for the time for the Chinese. Another one is Wally and Air Base, which is underground inside a hollowed out mountain. Another great opportunity for the Chinese to establish an air power over the Pacific. Other facilities along the mountain there, of course, you could establish signal intelligence, electronic warfare over the horizon radar, all kinds of things there. So it's it's a you know, losing Taiwan would really just rub US power in the region. You know, it seems to me that that's not significantly enough appreciated by the folks in Washington. Well, politics of change in America, it's almost unrecognizable. The Cold War is over and people moved on. It just seems to be a different world back home in terms of political strategic concerns. It's still Middle East terrorism and Middle East crisis. And the mainland Chinese have been very clever. They haven't really been that aggressive. They've been assertive of their territorial claims in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, but they've been careful to avoid the US Navy. So as long as we don't see them as a physical or existential threat to our power, what some scholars are called salami slicing, where you you slice off a small bit at a time, it goes unnoticed after a while. And before you know it, South China Sea is gone. This is something they're certainly attempting to do with Taiwan, not just strategically, but they're certainly trying to do it economically by buying property and investing and using surrogates for this sort of thing. So we could lose Taiwan, not just from the invasion, we could lose it through politics, economics, economic coercion. But anyway, we do lose it. We do lose a vital chain in that US US military line of line of I won't call it the battle line, but you know, keeps the Chinese encumbered from entering the Pacific. Good. But you talked about surrogates just a minute ago. Explain what type of surrogates? Who are the surrogates? Well, many of the folks here who are who will go unnamed, who are there are members of the legislature and the politics politicians here who own factories and businesses in China. There are people I've met on the Defense Committee on the legislature here that own property and businesses in China. So that sort of economic coercion is there. And that's a huge problem. China would have something like two million Taiwanese alone living in Shanghai.  So there's tremendous amount of influence and interaction at the economic level. So it's very dark, actually, in terms of influence. The Chinese have been very clever. They don't actually know how to dangle the money in front of people, don't they? I'm not quite sure that came through. The mainland Chinese really know how they're dangle the money in front of people. That's right. They certainly do. It's money. It's they certainly have the capability of buying Taiwan. In some cases, that's already started. Property prices are rising here because of the potential speculation, real estate speculation that China will come in and begin buying property. So that's one of the reasons property is so expensive in Taipei and other places in Taiwan. It always shocks me that the rents are actually very cheap in Taiwan, but to buy some place is terribly expensive, especially in Taipei. Well, that's because the rents are not recorded as a tax. I pay rent to my landlord, but he doesn't record it. It's cash. Now, I'm not getting anybody in trouble, but, but everyone does that. And there's no tax on real estate here, property tax. So you can own land and set on it. You can own an apartment building and not rent it out to anyone. So when you drive through Taipei, you see a lot of empty buildings. They don't they're not forced to rent it out. There's no property tax. Hmm. Interesting. Well, um, okay, another big feature of the Taiwan military establishment is their quest to build a submarine and indigenously produce submarine. And I wonder what your view is on that. How's it going? Well, part of the arms package that the US is expected to release sometime this year, we'll have a lot of that equipment available made available to the Taiwanese, at least that's my understanding. But yeah, the Taiwanese are committed to building something like six to eight platforms. They have in their in their sites, possibly selling these platforms, continuing to build them and sell them elsewhere. But I don't think that the competition out there will allow that to happen. The US Navy is not really all that crazy about Taiwan building submarines. It just means more submarines in the water for them to track. A lot of countries in the region are buying submarines. And it just makes it just very underwater in terms of underwater congestion.  So yeah, they're going to build the subs. There's I believe that they're going forward.  The package that you talked about, did you suggest that it's going to have parts and instruments and electronic components, etc, that Taiwan needs to build its submarine? Well, yeah, they lack a lot of these sort of sophisticated technical aspects of submarines. So they'll be my understanding is will be requesting periscope stuff. And yeah, where they're going to test these submarines, I don't know. The US has a testing facility. Maybe they'll allow them to do it. But yeah, to build four to eight submarines is really very expensive endeavor. It's much easier to buy used ones and refurbish them. And but they refuse to do that, even though they've had several opportunities to do so. Who's been willing to sell them secondhand submarines? There was about 10 or 12 years ago, there was an offer from a European country to sell them refurbished submarines. Was that Italy? Italy, right? I believe it was Italy. I don't want to say the country for sure. But today, that would be impossible with China's economic influence in Europe. But that was their last opportunity to get submarines from another country. After that, there really wasn't any opportunities in the United States doesn't build these electric submarines. We certainly could do it. But and there's certainly some folks in US Navy that would might like to have diesels. They are quieter. Do we really need a long range patrol? You know, we can use more short range patrols, rather than go nuke all the way. There's a there's a there's huge debate within the US Navy about this issue. Let's take a break here. You're watching Asian review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. My guest today again, he was with us last week is Wendell Minnick. He's a wealth of information on Taiwan defense issues. We'll be right back. Don't go away. Is Raya Salter and I'm the host of Power Up Hawaii, which you can see live from one to 130 every Tuesday at thinktechkawaii.com and then later on YouTube. I am an energy attorney, clean energy advocate and community outreach specialist. And on Power Up Hawaii, we come together to talk about how can Hawaii walk towards a clean, renewable and just energy future? To do that, we talk to stakeholders all over the spectrum from clean energy technology folks to community groups to politicians to regulators to the utility. So please join us Tuesdays at one o'clock for Power Up Hawaii. This guy looks familiar. He calls himself the ultra fan, but that doesn't explain all this. He planned this party, plan the snacks, even plan to coordinate colored shirts, but he didn't plan to have a good time. Now you wouldn't do this in your own house. So don't do it in your team's house. Know your limits and plan ahead so that everyone can have a good time. Welcome back to Asian review. I'm your host Bill Sharp. Our show today is we'll Taiwan fight part two. I guess again, joining joining us again from Taipei, Taiwan via Skype is Mr. Wendell Minnick. He is the senior Asia correspondent for shepherd media military. Well, let's just finish up on the submarine thing. Now, I've heard that lots of folks have advocated that Taiwan acquire build miniature submarines, something like the this is almost dangerous to say the North Koreans have or the Iranians have. And but they don't seem to go along with that. Taiwan military is still a conventional minded military and asymmetrical and unusual operations. That's why they want Aegis combat systems on a destroyer, even though they have no practical use for them. They're not an international Navy. They only have to fight in the Taiwan Strait and around the Taiwan Strait. So they they still think in big terms and big equipment.  It's not clear why they want destroyers. They're very big platforms today, and they're so close to the mainland already that the anti ship missiles can hit them very quickly from land based and air air launched from China. I don't know. And sometimes it's sort of an ego thing within the military to get these systems, these bigger systems. I've heard it said that the Taiwan Navy sees itself as a miniaturized US Navy. And I guess that goes along with what you're saying. You know, last week, we were talking about Taiwan's will to fight, which is, incidentally, the title of today's show. You had a pretty dim view of that. And some folks I've been talking to say, well, the army might lack a will to fight, but the Navy is much more professional as much more gung hoe. Would you buy into that? Absolutely. Yeah, sure. Yeah, when I was talking about the will to fight last week, I was talking for the most part, the conscription of these folks in the army, and how the how these kids don't really want to get involved in this. Air Force and Navy are more technical.  There's no question. But the problem with the Navy is that, what are they going to do in war? Or are they going to deploy to, you know, only take seven minutes to cross the Taiwan Strait in a fighter jet? What are these ships going to do? Are they going to? I mean, you've got eight Perry class frigates, you've got four kid class destroyers, you've got, you can get these old Knox class frigates, you have control boats, of course. You have eight or nine Knox, sorry, Lafayette class frigates. Yeah, they have a lot of ships. But what are they going to do during a war? Exactly. What is their strategy? They're not projecting force beyond the straits. If they want to go to the South China Sea, they have to deal with the Chinese Navy. You know, they really should focus on a smaller Navy capable of using smaller missile patrol boats, Corvettes, like the one they just built, the stealth Corvette they built. Right. That was an excellent platform armed with anti ship missiles. But a bigger platform than that, I honestly don't think they need anti ship missile technology in China is advanced at a rate that is mind boggling. They now have ballistic missile capability for anti ship. Not that they'll bother using it on on the Taiwan ships, but that is for the US Navy and anybody else who wants to interfere with us with the Taiwanese invasion. But yes, the Navy, the Taiwan Navy is the more professional as is the Air Force. Okay, sounds good. Let me see a couple ways that can go here. There's some talk. I saw an article recently and I forget just where I saw it. And it was written by a unique wool. And he was who I'm sure you know, because you introduced me to him, actually. And he was advocating a return of conscription to Taiwan full fledged conscription, not this four months and go home stuff and then show up for reserve meetings. If you think there's any and you know, from what I understand, saying when is not adverse to that idea, but it's very hard for her to push ahead on that because a large part of her base as young people who as you've said are not particularly enthused with military service. But is there any possibility that Taiwan might bring back a more traditional conscription? I think that he is right that they need, they need bodies to fill these positions. But like I also said last week, they also need to improve the quality of serving in the military. And that means living a normal life, like regular US military people do their families in family housing and, and with the educational opportunities and other things they don't have here in Taiwan. That's the only way you're going to keep good people in the military. The horror stories I hear about the NCO program are pretty scary. You know, many of them should be let go. It is also the generational shift issue from the old KMT leadership now to more Taiwan identity mindset. But the Taiwanese will really have to have a crisis before they they'd be concerned enough to bring back conscription. Something like the Taiwan Missile Crisis in 96 might be one of these examples, but I don't think the Chinese will be that foolish enough to do something like that, to scare them that bad. I think they'll do what they continue to do. The Chinese will continue to slowly take advantage of China, Taiwan's economic opportunities and just buy the whole lot. I think you have something there. I think it definitely has something. Salami slicing at its best. Well, let's move on here because time is racing on. And let me see, I got a couple of ways we can go here. What about espionage in the military? It seems to me that's a concern of yours. Well, I've always been interested in espionage. Period. Um, I've always written about it. And the most recent case in the United States is in a very fascinating one. But yes, I would say the Taiwan military has been completely completely taken by the Chinese espionage community. They have arrested spy after spy after spy and some of the most critical areas of the Taiwan military, including the air defense upgrade the on your for the Bosong C four program upgrade. They have they've they've got they can turn the lights on and off at will. And so it it's pretty much completely compromised. The espionage factor here in Taiwan, you know, the other side of the coin is at one time, Taiwan had fairly robust intelligence operations of its own on the mainland. But my sense is those have all been wiped out. Yeah, about six years ago, they wiped them out. Militant intelligence bureau lost it. Oh, gosh, about 30 guys got picked up at the same time. MIB. There, the horror stories are massive. One year, the National Security Bureau personnel director retired and moved to China and disappeared. We don't know where he is and what he's doing. You imagine the CIA personnel director moving to Iran and just vanishing. That's the level of the kind of stuff that you see here on a regular basis. So yeah, they they've got Taiwan pretty much compromised at every level. So in a war, they won't have any trouble turning the lights off. That's sad. Pretty dark. You know what gets me to is because this issue is a particularly interesting to me is the penalties that are made it out to those involved in espionage seem to be rather light hand slaps sometimes. The one exception would be the general who got busted a few years ago because he he was in charge of the Porsche on communications project and he got, as they say, honeycombed and excuse me honey trapped Oh, I'm sorry, honey trapped. And apparently the US was very upset and they put a lot of pressure on Taiwan to really dull out, you know, heavy, heavy punishment and apparently Taiwan listened on that. Finally, yeah, he I actually knew him. He was the head of their NSA basically. Okay, that's basically the highest position. And he was the head of it. And he was recruited outside of Taiwan, possibly in Thailand by a young woman who was working for the Chinese intelligence. So yeah, they found the pressure on putting him away was pretty heavy. But in normal normally spies caught here in Taiwan, or anywhere in the United States, for example, normally don't receive more than three or four years in prison. I don't get that. I really have a lot of trouble with that. Well, Greg Bergerson, who was working for the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, spied for China. Here in Taiwan, he was in charge of the Vosheng project. He got three years. And then there was Fondren, I think it was named Fondren, he worked for Pacific Command also spied for China here in Taiwan. He got three years. Subin, the guy who spent on the F-35. We're down to one minute here. Boy, the time really flies. Let me ask again, I'm going to ask you this question right at the end. Sorry to do this to you again. But I send you a copy of that article by Shirley Khan, a retired Congressional Research Office analyst, spent her whole life working on Taiwan China Affairs. She feels that Taiwan has missed a lot of opportunities to help itself when it comes to promoting or advancing its own defense. Just, would you buy into that? Sorry, we don't have a whole lot of time to really jump into this, but perhaps, but it's also been hobbled by a lot of American activities, discouraging you, Taiwanese from developing cruise missiles that can strike China. But the US uses Taiwan bases here. We have a signal intelligence facility here run by the US National Security Agency out of Washington. Right. So we have facilities here that spy on China, and as well as a sonar facility that operates under the Fusha program under the Japanese, with sonars up and down the island chain. That's that's managed by the Japanese. That's managed by the Japanese. That's the fish hook sonar program. That's the Japanese military. So we have all the way down the island chain from from Okinawa to Taiwan. Taiwan is part of that program. It's called the fish hook program. Oh, it's secret. So it doesn't surprise me. You wouldn't know much about it. But look at it. I've written about it in the past. But the US does dip into intelligence collection by the Taiwanese. And that includes the early warning radar on the on the West Coast aimed at China, which is the largest radar in the world. Okay, well, I think we're gonna have to stop here. Okay. That clock really does us in week after week after week. Thank you very much for watching today. You've been watching Asian Review. My guest again has been Wendell Minick, who as you saw today and last week, there's a wealth of information about Taiwan military affairs. I'm really glad that we could get him to come back and join us again. Thanks again for watching. Thank you, Wendell for being with us. And we'll see you again next week.


Important note, this short story was co-authored by the Botanic Predictive Keyboard app. Every tale posted on the SCP Wiki from its inception through 2018 was fed into the algorithm, along with the works of erotic gay fantasy author Chuck Tingle. These are the results. I felt every muscle in my bedroom place has transcended reality, as my favorite lab of thomatologists tuck their fat germs into the darkness of my death-tailored man chamber.  Just give us that heavenly whistling. I never end until everyone else rapidly arranges their own shame gatherings to talk about my sweet length of pleasure wait. I shout back. Eventually we realize that we should be doing something about that incident with the uncountable containment breaches. So we didn't. Fifteen days later, the others were struggling to keep up with their rapid activities, and I couldn't say I was getting too comfortable. What with all the imposing foundation agents already hanging encouraging letters from the containment room ceiling. I just stood up and flipped through the door, hissing sounds of blackened laughter. I don't like forever scrambling up the staircase of pleasure. I need my butt hole open wide as the world, but not one person has breached containment of my heart. Suddenly, a deep voice crackled out across the landscape.     I apologize.  Someone who I've tasted countless miles of will help feed the butt in your heart. Light wrinkled over the cloud edge, a perfect relief after all this murdered communion we had.   Morning, brother lord.  Finally, soon we were adhering to each other like a snowball on a tombstone. He unfurls his muscular ears as he savors the one orange I must have found. Only molok time here. That's not the only thing I've destroyed. Me murmurs, pointing at someone with enough brains to get laid.   A shark agenda, I blurt.  And that was how friendship blossomed, right upon this handsome world of trouble. When the foundation eventually stops us, Dr. Barclay is going to punch my bones off.


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My name is Sylvie McAdam. I'm from the Big River Reserve, but it's called Atihumik Saigaihikhan. I am a fluent Cree speaker. I also write in Cree. I'm doing my final classes in law. So that's what I do, and I also work with different bands in Saskatchewan to begin re-implementing and reintegrating Cree laws back into their governance structure. And one of the biggest reserves that I'm working with right now is Big Island, but I'll be working with the File Hills Police Service to begin teaching the Cree laws to their members. So that's one of the stuff that I'm working on. Yeah. Well, unpacking and what you just said there, perhaps you can just speak about these laws in the way that how did you learn them and how they differ from the laws that we're up against when we do talk treaty with a non-indigenous person. Okay. I think for Indigenous people, you need to go back and speak to your elders in the community. You need to understand where it is that you come from. Who are your ancestors? How did our warriors and our women come to this place in time? How did our laws play a significant role at the time of treaty signing? So I'm very fortunate. My parents never went to residential school, never attended, so their knowledge is quite intact. And then when you look at my grandparents, my mother's parents never attended residential school, neither did their parents. So I'm very fortunate that knowledge is still being passed down. And in my father's family, there's sporadic where we could find people that went to residential school, but basically the knowledge is still intact. I could tell you my father's heritage, the lineage, right up before treaty signing. I could name because I've been taught that. And this is the same with my mother. Now, in saying that, when I was growing up and I was learning these things and my parents were telling me, you have to follow these laws. These are our laws. I took it for granted that other Kree people had that understanding. So when I started speaking about them in law school, people are like, what? And I'm like, yeah, we have our own laws. And they're like, really? So the first year of law school, I started to question things. I came out of there thinking, well, where are our laws? We didn't run around lawless. So I started talking to elders. And I've been so fortunate to speak to Leona Titusis, my parents, Francis and Juliet McCatham, and Jimmy Mayo, Alma and Simon Guy Toyhat. So they've really formed my thinking, especially my parents. They really formulated and I'm a good translator. I took their knowledge and I translated it into English. And what I came up with over the years is the laws translated into English. So those laws, I've been invited to speak at various conferences about these laws. Now, there is something happening. There is something happening around amongst indigenous nations. And I think there's an empowerment happening. I'm sorry. Do I go on? That's good, but you were giving me a thought. There is something happening. I do sense that. Actually, why don't you just keep going on with that idea? If there is something happening, how are those laws? How is that knowledge a part of that? How is that empowering? Okay. I'll expand a little more on, at the time of treaty signing, I'll tell you the history of how the laws came to be. The story behind this is, you know Wissachicac, the character of Wissachicac. Wissachicac was told by the creator to go to an area called Ogumawachi. Ogumawachi is in the Cyprus Hills area. And when he got there, he was told to climb those hills. And at the top of those hills, he sang four songs. And one of those songs is a woman's song. And when he was done singing those songs, the creator gave him the laws to take to the people to follow for all time. So when the Europeans came, they came with their laws. And then when the Cree leaders, Ogumawachi, went to meet with them, they had their laws to follow. And for example, there's two very significant laws. In Canadian law, they're called Actus Reyes. That's the similarity that I found. When you break a law, a human law, it's called Paastahun. Paastahun is the breaking of a Cree law against human beings. And this is the law that covers incest, adultery, murder, suicide. Those are all the different laws. And then there's the other law, it's the breaking of... It's called Otzinewin. It's the breaking of the creator's law against anything other than a human being. And that covers environment, hunting, earth laws, and the animal laws. And these things that human beings break in regards to the creator's creations. And in all this, in all of these laws, they're called Mantuingyuna, because that translates into creator laws. And then from the creator laws, they're called Uyesuna. These Uyesuna are the ones I just described, Paastahun and Otzinewin. Those are the human laws. And then amongst those Uyesuna are other laws. There's four elements that were given laws. That was the earth laws, the human laws, the spiritual laws, and the animal and the plant laws, all those things. So those are the things I started to learn about, and I started putting the translation from Cree to English. Now, at the time of treaty signing, there was different roles within the governance structure, the leadership. There was the hereditary chiefs, and what they were called at that time were Okitsutawskwok. They were roughly translated, they would be called clan mothers, but each tribe had them. And these clan mothers were the guardians or the keepers of these laws because they were the ones that raised the children. They were similar to judges. That's the closest that I could come up with in translation. Now, these Okitsutawskwok at the time of treaty signing didn't go and sit there, but when the day was done, the men, the chiefs of that day, would go back and go speak with these Okitsutawskwok. They did not have the authority or the permission to agree to anything unless they went back and spoke to these women. Usually, when the matters are not too serious, say if a child breaks a law, nine women would be called to deal with it and they would decide the appropriate remedy. And then after that's decided, then a consequence came with it. The community would decide what the remedy is and then there would be a consequence. And then in very serious matters, such as the time of treaty signing, there was nine women that were called upon because it was a very serious matter. This treaty signing was not, they did not go into it lightly. So when they used the nine women, it meant that it was very serious. And these two other women that were added to the seven were very knowledgeable and gifted. They were warrior women. They did not come into these matters very lightly and they were called upon because they were recognized for their knowledge and their gifts and the laws, their understanding of the laws. Now, so when that happened and the treaties were being negotiated and agreed to, these women were in a background and this is not something you read about in the history books. That's because at the time the Europeans were writing their version of it, but in the background over here were the women and this is the role that they had to play at the time of treaty signing. Now, today our biggest challenge is recognizing that this governance structure is not ours. It's an Indian act imposed system of governance. Our governance is under the treaties at the time of signing with the queen. We had Anogi Mao and his headman and they said, That was our system of governance and over here they had their system of governance as well. So we've left this behind over time and over history and these laws still sit with these individuals, with these governance structure over here and it's still there. It's not extinguished as the Canadian system of law would say. It's not extinguished. It still exists. So in saying that from my community, the elders have said there'll be a time in Cree, they say Kayas a long time ago and I've heard this while I was growing up. The elders said that the knowledge keepers and the keepers of the laws of these laws would awaken at a time when the Cree people, the indigenous people would need them. So the elders are thinking that now that time is coming, that time is slowly coming because the earth is being damaged. The laws are being awakened. But that's another topic. That's a whole learning process that someone needs to go on and appropriately access through the elders. Now, one of the things that I speak, you hear about people saying that the legal system doesn't work for us. It's true. It really doesn't work for us. The Canadian legal system, we have a high incarceration rate among indigenous people. And as soon as you can accept that the system doesn't work, I find when people accept that they can step back and say, okay, what did work? And that's what Big Island is doing, Big Island Cree Nation. They're stepping back and saying, well, what's going on in our community? How come it's not working? So they're addressing suicide and family issues and criminal matters by teaching their people about these laws, about the Cree laws and the Neheo laws. And so, you know, if you're going to go into the process of being a leader, you can follow the European system of law.   That's never going to change. So when I speak to young people about leadership and the structure of governance, and I hear people say, the treaties are broken. They're not broken. They're not. They're still there. We just haven't had the full impact of the treaties. You have to, I have to challenge people when they say, I'm a treaty person. Are you really? You know, we're all under the Indian Act. Is it, are we treaty people under the Indian Act, or are we treaty people under the treaties themselves? There's acts of treaty under the Indian Act, but we're not really under the umbrella of a treaty, because we stepped away from it through the Indian Act. Even the word, okimau is chief under the treaties. And if you look at it under the Indian Act, they're called okimahkan, that literally translates into a fake chief under the Indian Act. Now, I invite people to take a look at the Business Corporations Act, the Canadian Business Corporations Act, and look at the definition of municipality under there. The definition of municipality covers a reserve. So, the Canadian system looks upon our current chief and council as a municipality, like a mayor and council. This is what this act implies. That's what it infers. Now, if people are going to think about how they're going to view the future, the future of these laws, the future of the generations to come, and that's the process of the treaty signing. The treaty signing said that it's going to go on forever to the generations to come. So, how are you going to do that as a leader? Are you going to do it under the Canadian legal system, or are you going to follow the laws of the treaties? And in saying that, I speak to young people about the laws of suicide. I don't think our people really understand our Cree laws that govern suicide. When we speak of suicide, it's called kan baisut. It means literally it translates into to kill oneself. Now, with the elders and what I've learned speaking with them, they've said that when you break that law and you leave this world, you literally have to pay for it. When I say pay for it, it means to be punished or to suffer for it from the Creator because you've committed murder. That's the consequence for it.   There's no word in Cree for it.  There's no word for it because it was unheard of. It was almost non-existent because these laws were the ones that guided the people. These were the laws that they followed. When I started learning about the European system of law, a lot of the history of the common law comes from many, many years of an evolution of a legal system that went through so many thousands of years of change. But when you really look further and further, their laws came from the Bible, from Moses and all these thou shall not steal, those kind of things. And our laws here were given to us from the Creator. And when we followed them, when our people had followed them at the time of treaty signing, those were the laws that spoke to how the families would raise their children. There's a law even on how to raise children.  And then there is the law of war, there's kinship, that's kinship, how you relate it to everybody. There's certain, even that's a whole process of how to teach your children who they're related to. Nobody ever speaks about that anymore. The elders that I speak to, they're really concerned about that because now we have first cousins having a relationship and that creates abnormal births. And that's what they're really concerned about. If you're not going to follow the kinship laws and you're breaking them, there's consequences. And of course, those consequences are abnormal births. And all the kinship laws govern the male and female lines. It's a complicated relationship recognizing how you relate it to each person and how you relate it to them is how you address them. Now, when you're going to play a role in the leadership, it's not just a male leadership line. There's also the female. Now, for example, my brother, his children would be related differently to me because of the female line versus my sister's children because my sister and I are of the female line. Her children would be like my children. I would be obligated, if anything happens, to my sister to raise her children. That would be my role versus my brother's children. They would be of the male line, so I would look at them differently, treat them differently. There's a certain respect for them that I must follow because they would be, in Cree, they would be translated like they were my son-in-laws, my daughter-in-laws. That's how it would translate. So I would have to address them in that manner and with real, a different respect. But if my brother and my other brother, they're again, that's the male line. That's the same with my father's brother. He would be my little dad. That's how it would translate. It would be a little dad, and he would be obligated a certain way to me because I would be his daughter and his children would be my brothers and my sisters. But I can't address my aunties the same way. They're like my mother-in-laws, so I have to have a certain deference and a different respect for them. I can't speak to them the same way. Now, a lot of our people don't know that in detail, so I've seen uncles address nieces that they're not supposed to address. I've seen very severe breaking of the kinship laws, and it causes such an imbalance and a sickness in the leadership, in the leadership role of the community. If you're going to begin a process of providing leadership and governance, then it's not about you as a human being. It's about looking at how you affect people. There's a law for respect, manatsuin, it's called. There is a law for that, and then there's a law for obedience and quietness, and there are so many laws in the culture with the nihil people that it's much stricter than any European system. It's so much more strict. You can't be using drugs and alcohol if you're going to step into the role of leadership. That is such a severe breaking of our laws that there's consequences that follow. And in saying that, oh, I wanted to say that when you look at the whole Canadian system of law, you're not going to get help, like financial help to get these Indigenous laws going. I know that there's communities struggling, but yet you'll get the Regina Correctional Center just got $51.5 million to build an extension to their center. Those are the challenges that people come up against. One of the biggest challenges is just accepting that there's no financial help to get these laws going or to get people to recognize them. It's about believing in them yourself. It's about putting them in your life. It's every day making a commitment to follow a standard of respect, following kinship, following the laws of how to raise your children, following the laws of not drinking and doing drugs and not even smoking. And it's a difficult process. I've had many challenges in my own life trying to follow these laws in my own life. It's difficult. You're tempted to have a cigarette or those different things that people do, especially for the young people. This is a challenge. Now, one of the things that I talk about to people is when, at the time of treaty signing, we had such a strong attachment to land. A lot of our laws are so connected to the land. Our medicines, our water and the animals and all these different things are so connected with us as human beings, as Indigenous people. Now, a lot of us have lost an attachment to land. We don't feel the harm being done to the land anymore because we don't follow these laws as much anymore. Nobody really speaks about them anymore. And just like any courtroom, you see these lawyers go into a courtroom, they bow, they follow procedure, there's rules in place. That's the same with Cree laws. If you're going to go seeking out these laws, you have to follow protocol and procedure. And Cree people, and I know that the Soto people and the Lakota and Lakota and the Denne, they all have this process. Something that a person said, I went to a conference in December at the College of Law and his name is Leroy Little Bear. He said, someone asked him, this was during the time when the election was going through the conservatives and the liberals. Leroy Little Bear said, people would go up and ask him, should I go and vote? And he would tell them, if you're for rights, go and vote. But if you're for sovereignty, then don't vote. So one of the processes that I tell people is, if we're going to exert sovereignty, if we're going to say we're a sovereign nation, we can't go to the table and say, here it is, this is how we're going to be sovereign by using their laws. It's kind of strange. You can't use their laws to claim sovereignty. They have to use your own laws. And these are the indigenous laws that I speak about. Now, the Indian Act was imposed. It was not done through consultation or consent. That's a well-known fact, of course. Now, if there are still people within every reserve in Canada that have a hereditary lineage, my suggestion is, and this hasn't happened, I don't know what would happen if people were to follow this suggestion that I've had elders tell me that the only way to go back to the treaties is, to go back to that hereditary line, to go back to that treaty chief. In our reserve, the lineage is the treaty people that first signed treaty. You've got to find those ones and find who was the last living treaty chief that existed. Now, the challenge for people is to let go of this system, this elected system and to go back to that system of a hereditary chief and headman. Can they do it? See, that's the challenge. There hasn't been one reserve that's done it in Canada. And are they able to do it? I don't know. It's a very challenging idea. Now, back then it was normal. A hundred years ago it was normal to have a hereditary chief. Today, with the Indian Act and the election system that many of us grew up under, it's strange. It's almost a strange concept which is unfortunate because that's where our treaties are. That's where our laws are. And that's where these, who gets it out of school, exist is under those treaties. So that's my suggestion. Now, the other thing that I wanted to tell you is at the time of treaty signing each reserve in Canada was surveyed. Now, this is in the Treaty 6 book. It says there, one square mile per family of five or more. That's how those reserves were surveyed. Now, if you look at my reserve, I'll keep using my reserve because I'm familiar with the landmass and everything. At the time of treaty signing it was 13 by 15. So it was surveyed like that, 13 by 15. And at the time when the treaty commissioner allocated the land, when the land was surveyed, they surveyed either by 13 families or 15 families given 13 by 15. Each family got one square mile per family of five. So when they signed the treaty, they were given their one square mile per family of five. So they all got their one square mile. And at the time the understanding was that they were going to start farming and living off the land in agriculture. That's another issue, the treaty right to agriculture. No one's really gone after that treaty right or applied it. The other thing I've heard elders talk about is the land is supposed to grow with the population. I heard that growing up all my life and I never really understood it. And elders kept saying, the land is supposed to grow with the population. Well, how is it supposed to grow? And then when I was in law school, the professors said, well, there's this one way that it could have grown. Since that family at the time of treaty signing got one square mile per family of five, that was their piece of land. They had ownership, if you will, over that one square mile. When their children grew up, when that family, their children grew up and married, those children would have had children. And when they had their family of five, they were supposed to be allocated their one square mile. And that land base was supposed to grow as the generations grew. So really, when you think about it, that one square mile of each reserve or squatters on that family's land, really, we're all living off of that land when really it's not ours. It was those people that signed at the time of treaty and it was supposed to grow from there. And that's one of the things that was pointed out to me. And that's another thing that would need to be brought out. And I'm not sure who could.  Yeah, they did. They're growing land base and their risk-blowing forever type rights are kind of an unfortunate, for them that we dialed out. Sounds like a good plan. Yeah. I was curious with the idea of, because you mentioned treaty six, and it seems that, you know, with each nation's different laws and each nation's treaty signing, why is it that we share a lot of the rights that are in some of the treaty, like the idea of the medicine chest, you know, and that's something that everyone claims as a right when if the nations are sovereign from each other, why would that crossover, why would I have health care rights when there's no medicine chest in treaty four? Is that something else, sir? Well, from what the elders have told me and what they talked about, it was since we're all indigenous people, you know, you can't withhold one, since we all have the same indigenous laws and we ask for basically the same things at the time of treaty signing. And the other thing, if you look at the treaties as well, the government had agreed that the treaty people would basically have the same agreements. But there are little minor word differences here, here and there. Like in treaty four, they have the treaty right to ride a train for free. You know, I don't see it happening. You know, that treaty right is not extinguished. It's still there. So how come it's not happening? And yet that health, that clause for treaty six to health is applied. So there's these really big differences. Again, you have to go back to that governance structure that we left behind over here, because those under the Indian Act, there's those sporadics of acts of treaty. It looked like the government took little words here and there from the treaty book and tried to put it under the Indian Act and call it treaty. But when you look at the Indian Act, it's just an arm of the government. Now, in order to understand the Indian Act, you have to go back again to the history of it. In 1644, the Indian Act came into being because the government wanted alliance with the Indians as allies within the military. It was a part of the military structure. It was never under the government as a policy to assimilate or anything. It didn't start out that way. The Indian Act started out as an office in the military. It was supposed to be a governing document that's structured how to meet with the Indian allies under the military department. That's how it started out. It just evolved into a system of oppression because in 1812 and into 1820, you see these changes. It had a lot to do with the people that came into power. The changes reflected their values and the way that they looked upon Indian people. That's how the Indian Act evolved. The next thing you know, they were putting in place the past system and all these different things that caused a lot of oppression. That's where the residential schools came to be too. It didn't start out that way. The residential schools weren't treated as they were passed off. That's their education.  They took the residential school concept from the United States from a man named Peter. I can't remember what his last name is, but he developed the concept of the residential schools. They took that from there and brought it here. I wrote so many papers in law school that I'm quite familiar with all of that. Interesting. You mentioned the training for free in treaty 4. When I was coming back from Ottawa, I wanted to take the chance of a challenge that I went down to the CM with my establishment. I was like, well, it's been reduced to a 15% student discount. It's still... I don't have the money. Let's see. Well, are there things that you want to... I can tell you based on your PowerPoint presentation because what we're looking for in terms of the bigger project that you're included in is the idea of treaty implementation and how do we do that present day? We spoke about living as sovereign people and it doesn't seem that a lot of people even understand what that means. You ask one person what self-governance means. It's completely different than self-government means to another person. How can... I'll look for a definitive answer for how we can do this, but in your view, and from what you've been learning from your elders and also from the Western education that you have, is there any real hope of legitimate treaty implementation from both parties? You know what? There's something called at the international level of law, there's something called comedy, and it's spelled C-O-M-I-T-Y. It's a concept at the international level that respects the other nation's laws. It's a friendly relations concept that I respect your international laws of your country and you respect mine. Now, that's not new. That's already recognized at the international level. It's just a matter of believing enough in ourselves as a sovereign nation to begin going back to that. Now, I really believe that someday there will be a hereditary chief and hereditary headman, and it's already been prophesized by many elders that that system of governance will be applied again. It will come back. I don't know what reserve or what nation will bring that process back, but it was foretold that they would, and it will be at the time in the South, which means the United States when a different-colored president came into power. I never knew what that meant, a different color. Now we have Barack Obama, and now the elders are saying, now during his time, this president's time, the hereditary chief and headman governance structure will find its way back into Canada, because that was the prophecy. I don't know when it'll happen or who, but I look forward to that. I'm excited that somebody would bring back that system of governance, because that is our inherent system of governance. It worked really well for our people. If we have no word for incest and all these sexual offenses, something must have worked. And people had such a profound respect for elders and children and all these different things. I'm not saying to go back to the teepee. I can't live without my computer. I can't, but it's the idea of how you live your life. It's the idea of following these laws every day in your life. It's when you get up in the morning and choose to be respectful to people and choose to follow the laws of how to raise your children, choose how to be respectful in a kinship manner to elders. Whenever I see elders that I know I'm related to a certain way, even if I'm not sure of my kinship with them, I'll make it clear with them. I'll ask them, how am I related to you? And they'll have no hesitation to tell me. There's Alma Gaituihat. She's my auntie. She's my mother-in-law auntie, so I call her Nsigwis. And I can tease her, certainly. I tell her, you know, where are your sons? You know, because I can tease her that way. She is my mother-in-law. And then my mother's sisters, if they were still alive, I would call them ngawis.  They're my little mothers. That is the wonderful thing about being Indigenous people. We don't ever run out of family. There's always so many people that love and nurture an Indian child. That Indian child was never without family. Now, today, we have a hard time finding a family that will take in a foster child, even the label of foster child, you know?  And I think for many of us, we've lost that compassion, that kinship with our children. And we don't welcome them into our home anymore. We don't have that relationship with children anymore. And that's harmful to them. When we speak about these laws, when I speak about them, when the elders tell me about them, they speak about the ceremonies as well. Now, these ceremonies are where these laws are housed. That's where their home is. When you go to a sweat lodge or the Sundance Lodge or the Prairie Chicken Dance ceremony, all these different ceremonies that are indigenous to the different tribes, you go there and you listen and you see all these laws spoken about and they're applied even the way you approach an elder when you go to them with tobacco. That's a law. That's a tradition that you're following. That's been in existence for thousands of years as far as I know from what the elders have told me. You know, there's little things that have changed, I'm sure, but the majority of the time when you go to offer an elder tobacco, you're asking and accessing permission to learn about these laws, to be spoken to. And then these ceremonies, when I talked to the elders, they said that if we're going to find similarities, then it would be the courtrooms. Now, it's not exactly the same as courtrooms. Not the European concept of it, but the courtrooms in European context, that's where they do the judge and jury and they apply the laws, the remedy and the consequences. So the ceremonies are similar in that thought pattern, but when a person breaks a law, they're considered unhealthy, they're unwell, something is wrong, something needs to be corrected. So what I've translated is the ceremonies are the corrective force to correct that person. So, for example, if a young person was caught stealing food from a neighbouring tipi or a neighbouring person, they would be told, so you think that you're man enough to steal food, and you will learn to hunt. So they're taken by the warriors in that community and they're taken out to learn to hunt and to replace that food. There's something, a sickness within them that needs to be corrected if they're taking food and stealing food, then the community has a responsibility to correct that. I've heard of, I've learned about the sentencing circles. Now there's a whole process that's being missed before you get to the sentencing circles. That's the very end of it. This whole process here is being missed. You have to teach these children about these laws, what they've broken, what are the consequences. Then you go put them through the ceremonies and then in those ceremonies, the clan mothers decide which ceremony would be appropriate after they identify what law has been broken and the community speaks about it. Then they decide, this law has been broken, stealing, it's broken. So that law has been broken. So they go ahead and say, okay, so this child, this young person needs to go in fast. They need to do their vision quest or they need to go in and learn from another particular elder about the sweat lodge and the laws governing the sweat lodge. There's a remedy that's identified in that process. But if that young person or that individual doesn't learn and they keep breaking the law, every chance they get they break the law and they're not learning and they're not obeying and they're not listening to what they're taught, that's when the circle is used, the sentencing circle. That's when the community comes together and the extreme punishment is used. It's either death or banishment. That's when that circle is utilized. So for this circle to be utilized in this contemporary Canadian system, they've missed that whole journey here. They've missed that. And I've been a participant of these circles. They work, you know, but they don't apply the Indigenous laws and they certainly don't speak about the Indigenous laws. I haven't been to a circle where these laws speak about the laws of kinship, the laws of bringing up your children.  The thing about the Indigenous laws is there are several people that have a role within the community of our nation. They have a role to play. And I mentioned the hereditary chiefs, the headmen, the Okitsitao School, Oskar Bilsack, and the women helpers. There's men and women helpers that have a very strong role because they're the ones that begin to be apprenticed and take on the other roles within the nation. We don't have that anymore as well. We do. There are sporadic people who are still utilizing it and they're still using it within their community. So our laws are still alive. They're still very much spoken about. And the elders that I talked to, they're just so sad that our young people are no longer speaking a language and how are we going to speak about these laws if we're not teaching our children the languages? It's easier maybe to follow the Canadian legal system of law, but you also have to recognize that it's not our system of law. Our law and governance and the things that we've been given to follow are still there. And I hope that someday that as a nation, as a sovereign nation, our young people in the future, the future leaders will begin to question why should we recognize the Canadian legal system as the process of leadership? It isn't.  China has a perfectly good system and they still honor their traditional structures and it's going well for them, I think. They're one of the up-and-coming nations and they still follow a lot of their traditions. And then there's Russia. All these different nations that have their own system of governance, Canadian law is not the all-be-all kind of law and governance. And there's wonderful work being done at the UN right now. There's the declaration of the Indigenous rights, the Indigenous people's rights. And in there it says the right to self-determination, the right to recognize their Indigenous laws. Now that's wonderful. That is such a wonderful empowerment for Indigenous people. It once again says Indigenous people had their laws. They're not gone. They're not going to disappear. Not as long as there's people like me going out there and just saying we have our laws, we have to follow them. We can't go to the government, federal government table and say, okay, we'll follow your laws and we'll still be sovereign people. How can that happen? It's like me going to Italy and taking their laws and coming to the table and saying that I'm a sovereign nation but I'm using Italy's laws. It doesn't work. And especially at the time of treaty signing, we had our laws. They were already there and we were using them at the time of treaty signing. It's just right now we don't have enough people who have that understanding. So I encourage the young people who may be listening to this conversation, this sharing to think critically about your history. Think about your heritage. Where do you come from? If an elder were to go up to you and ask you, who are your family, what is your lineage, are you able to answer it? If you don't have an understanding of the treaties, if you don't have an understanding of our laws, then you've lost that idea of sovereignty and leadership. Our leaders a long time ago at the time of treaty signing and a lot of the elders know this, they had a very strict system of leadership. It was filled with honor and truth and dignity and respect and a servitude for their people. It's been eroded over time. It's not gone. Those concepts are still there and those laws are still there. This is a matter of understanding them and believing in them and then bringing back into our way of governance, our way of leading ourselves to become going back to our sovereignty. And when you go back into that system of treaty, that idea of a hereditary chiefs and headmen, we never gave up our resources. There has to be plain and clear intent to extinguish. That's what the Canadian law says. There has to be clear and plain intent. Nowhere in the treaty does it say that we gave up our resources to land, to water, to the trees, the minerals. Nowhere in it does it say that. So whichever hereditary chief and headmen are prophesied to come back into this leadership structure are going to have powerful challenges ahead of them because they will have the authority with Okitsa Tauskog to access the challenge of bringing back those resources, the ownership to them.