Is "Darlie" toothpaste racist or not? What about "China Garden"?

Ed. here. 51 weeks ago Walt wrote "Politically correct toothpaste makes your smile brighter", which explained how "Darkie" toothpaste was gradually transformed into "Darlie", after the original manufacturer, Hazel and Hawley, got taken over by Colgate-Palmolive.

The change was made for reasons of political correctness because C-P didn't want to risk having a black blot of racism in its copybook. That was the point of the post.

For some reason, a link to Walt's post appeared on the much-better-known Reddit website this weekend, in a thread called "Chinese cuisine ad in Kuwait".

Here's the picture which started a very long discussion full of racist and anti-racist rantings! WWW got drawn into that, giving us 20 times the usual number of hits on Saturday. Amazing.

Footnote: Reddit's founder committed suicide on the weekend. Surely no connection!

Update on Canada's "native question"

For those following Chief Theresa Spence's hunger strike and the Idle No More "movement" -- and it seems not many of you are, but what the hell -- here's the state of play as of Sunday.

Many chiefs attended Friday's big powwow with "Call me Steve" Harpoon, but not as many as would have been desirable. Leaders from Manitoba, Québec and Ontario boycotted the affair, for reasons which weren't made clear. Ordinary Indians were not seen or heard. Perhaps the problem is too many chiefs and not enough Indians?

The Dear Leader was obviously under great pressure to give the Assembly of First Nations and its Grand Chief, Shawn Atleo, something to take back to the people. So Harper adopted the classic Canuck solution and promised, errr, further meetings "at the highest levels". Don't be surprised if a Royal Commission comes next.

Amongst those who didn't pass the peace pipe around the campfire [No more clichés, please! Ed.] Was Theresa Spence, the managerially inept chief from Attawapiskat who has become the idol of the Idle No More protesters. [You didn't say no puns! Walt] Ms Spence didn't go because she had taken the position that the Governor-General should have been at the meeting to, so if he didn't go, she wasn't going.

That didn't stop her, though, from going to Rideau Hall for the G-G's "ceremonial meeting" with the chiefs afterwards. That Her Britannic Majesty's representative met with the Indian chiefs face to face betokened (according to them) recognition that that First Nations were indeed "nations", thus the chiefs could negotiate directly with the Queen (or her stand-in) if they wished.

The logical extension would seem to be that what the Indians really want -- and that's the big question -- is something like "sovereignty association" with the rest of Canada (TROC), which is what Québec separatists have been pushing for since roughly 1867.

The idea of "separate but equal" territories -- that phrase was actually used by the Indians -- was tried in the 20th century in, errr, South Africa. It was called "apartheid". Of course when the white Africans told the black Africans that "separate development" was the way forward, the rest of the world (TROW) accused the whities of racism, genocide, yada yada yada.

Walt is waiting to see what Canada's usual gang of multicultists and "progressive thinkers" make of the idea. Come to think of it, "separate but equal" was tried in parts of the USA too. There it was called "segregation", and denounced as racist, genocidal, etc. As for apartheid, that ended in 1994 and black South Africans now run the whole country. Look how well that turned out.

Meanwhile, Chief Spence is continuing her hunger strike, for reasons which (again) have not been made clear. Some other chiefs has rather unkindly suggested that she should return to Attawapiskat and answer some questions about the missing millions referred to here last week. Members of Chief Spence's band are... hmm... restless.

Answers to yesterday's brainteasers

Yesterday, for your amusement and edification, Walt presented The Missing Dollar , a brainteaser devised by R.M. Abraham included in his book Diversions and Pastimes (1933). Today, as promised, I'll give you the solution. But first, in case you missed it, here's the puzzle.

Three women check into a motel. The women are charged $10 each for their rooms, or $30 in total. (Hey, this was in 1933, remember!) Later, the manager discovers that he has accidentally overcharged the three vacationers. Their rooms cost only $25 in total, so he gives a bellhop $5 to return to them.

The sneaky bellhop knows that he cannot divide $5 into three equal amounts, so he pockets $2 for himself and returns only $1 to each of the women.

Here's the conundrum. Each woman paid $10 originally and got back $1. So, in fact, each woman paid $9 for her room. Therefore, the three of them together paid $27. If we add this amount to the $2 that the bellhop dishonestly pocketed, we get a total of $29. Yet the women paid out $30 originally. Where is the other dollar?

And now the answer, from an article by Marcel Danesi in the University of Toronto Magazine (Spring 2007).

The trap in this puzzle is not to be found in any single word, but in the way the numerical facts are laid out. The manager kept $25 of the $30 he was given. The three women got back $1 each. Together, that amounts to $28 ($25 + $3). The remaining $2 was pocketed by the bellhop.

Another way of looking at it... The guests paid $27 in total: $25 to the manager and $2 to the dishonest bellhop. There is no missing dollar.

Did you get it? Yes? Let's see if you managed to hit the perfecta. Here's the second conundrum.

A customer in a bookstore gives a sales clerk a $10 bill for a $3 book. (Still 1933, I guess.) The clerk, having no change, takes the $10 bill across the street to the record store (definitely 1933!) To get it broken into $1 bills. (Canadian readers can substitute loonies for the singletons.) The bookstore clerk returns and gives the customer the $3 book and seven $1 bills in change.

An hour later the record store clerk brings back the $10 bill, claiming that it is counterfeit. To avoid quarrelling, the bookstore clerk gives the record store clerk ten $1 bills and takes back the $10 note. How much has the bookstore clerk lost?

May we have the envelope, please...

Many people guess $13, but the answer is $10. The bookstore clerk received nothing for the $3 book, since the counterfeit bill was worth nothing. So, for the outset, he was out $3.

The bookstore clerk then received 10 genuine $1 bills from his colleague at the record store. He gave 7 of the 10 good bills to the customer, and kept the remaining 3 bills in his pocket. When the record store clerk asked for the $10 back, the bookstore clerk still had the 3 good bills. He gave them to the record store clerk and made up the $7 difference from the cash register. So he was out an additional $7. In total, the bookstore clerk was out $10.

If you went two for two, congratulations. If you didn't get either of them, welcome to the Society for the Numerically Challenged. Walt is a charter member.

The Missing Dollar (math/logic puzzles!)

Previous posts about Chief Theresa Spence -- the icon of the Idle No More "movement" -- have mentioned the damning auditor's report into mismanagement of the millions of dollars doled out by the Canadian government (read Canadian taxpayers) to her band council. Under the supervision of her boyfriend -- a bankrupt -- taxpayers' money just vanished, paid to persons unknown without proper documentation or, indeed, sometimes without any documentation.

The story reminded Walt of an article that appeared in the University of Toronto Magazine about six years ago. Marcel Danesi wrote about "contrary-to-expectation" puzzles, designed to show how susceptible human logic is to the power of deceptive language.

The use of numbers and language to confuse the reader was known to the ancient Greeks, and persists to this very day in such things as misleading advertising. Case in point: TV infomercials that promise you a great deal on, say, padded bras, and then tell you they'll send you a second set of the same, absolutely free. Of course you pay extra for the shipping and handling of the bigger package, but hey, it's free, right?

This works because many people have trouble understanding mathematical logic if a set of numbers is presented in a deceptive manner. A classic brainteaser (Danesi writes) was described by R.M. Abraham in Diversions and Pastimes (1933). Here is The Missing Dollar.

Three women check into a motel. The women are charged $10 each for their rooms, or $30 in total. (Hey, this was in 1933, remember!) Later, the manager discovers that he has accidentally overcharged the three vacationers. Their rooms cost only $25 in total, so he gives a bellhop $5 to return to them.

The sneaky bellhop knows that he cannot divide $5 into three equal amounts, so he pockets $2 for himself and returns only $1 to each of the women.

Here's the conundrum. Each woman paid $10 originally and got back $1. So, in fact, each woman paid $9 for her room. Therefore, the three of them together paid $27. If we add this amount to the $2 that the bellhop dishonestly pocketed, we get a total of $29. Yet the women paid out $30 originally. Where is the other dollar?

Figured it out already? Here's another one.

A customer in a bookstore gives a sales clerk a $10 bill for a $3 book. (Still 1933, I guess.) The clerk, having no change, takes the $10 bill across the street to the record store (definitely 1933!) To get it broken into $1 bills. (Canadian readers can substitute loonies for the singletons.) The bookstore clerk returns and gives the customer the $3 book and seven $1 bills in change.

An hour later the record store clerk brings back the $10 bill, claiming that it is counterfeit. To avoid quarrelling, the bookstore clerk gives the record store clerk ten $1 bills and takes back the $10 note. How much has the bookstore clerk lost?

Answers tomorrow.

The chiefs meet the Dear Leader -- right out of Seinfeld

First, for those following the progress (?) of the Idle No More protests, an update from the Great White North. When last we looked into the tipi of Chief Theresa "What Money?" Spence, she was demanding some face time with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Apparently she didn't offend him by calling him "Steve", so Harpoon said he'd meet with her. And he didn't even say, "Show me the money!" -- that which vanished down the Attawapiskat rathole. Request granted.

Apparently flummoxed by her success -- not to mention the prospect of having to look into the Dear Leader's icy blue eyes -- Chief Spence and Shawn Atleo, the Biggest Chief of All, upped the ante. The Governor-General has to come to the meeting too, they said, because he represents the Great White Mother Over the Waters.

Reference was made to a number of treaties made with the Indians in the name of the GWM. The original GWM (Queen Victoria) died over a century ago, but the present GWM is her great-granddaughter, so nothing would do but the Chiefs meet with her viceroy. And, said Spence, if the G-G doesn't attend, then I'm not attending!

Surprise surprise, His Excellency David Johnstone said the chiefs -- or some of them, at least -- could come to a big potlach at Rideau Hall (his residence) after the meeting with Harper. Said the chiefs, that's not good enough! The G-G has to come with the PM to the same table at the same time, otherwise we won't meet with them. Or maybe some of us will, but not Chief Spence. Or not. We'll see.

As I write, a meeting of some kind is set to begin. The CBC reports that it's to be held in Harper's office in the Langevin Block, across from Canada's Parliament Buildings. Again, not good enough! The chiefs think the meeting should be in the nearby Château Laurier so that more of them could attend -- larger quarters, you see -- and those that couldn't get in the meeting room could repair to one of the hotel's very agreeable bars. Canadian taxpayers would pick up the tab, of course.

What everyone wants to know is not whether the meeting will come off, but exactly what will be discussed if it does. CBC-TV's famous "At Issue" panel of pundits attempted to make sense of the whole thing last night, and fell short...way short. All they could say was that if the meeting didn't happen, it would look bad for Shawn Atleo, who might even lose his position as Grand Chief.

Would it matter? Oh yes, the panel said, because then the Canadian government would be left with no-one to talk with. Which begs the question: talk about what? What is it that the First Nations people want? Chief Atleo finally held a presser yesterday and answered the question in a word -- more. Whatever it is the FNs are getting, it's not enough. They want more!

Walt would love to be a fly on the wall in Harper's office right now. My guess is that the meeting will be just like the famous Seinfeld episode in which Jerry and George are asked what their proposed TV show is going to be about. Even the At Issue panel should remember their response.

Footnote from Ed.: We were going to headline this post "Walt is puzzled", because it is so. The idea was to segue into a little math puzzle to amuse you while we wait to see what happens today, but Walt has already gone on too long... much too long. So the puzzle -- "The Missing Dollar" -- will appear, errr, later. 

Idle No More? The natives are restless

If you don't live in Canada, you probably haven't heard of Idle No More. The movement was the brainchild -- the runt of the litter -- of some First Nations people [That's the PC term for Indians. Ed.] who want the federal government to "do something"about the sad plight of the aboriginal people [Another term for Indians, although Eskimos -- oops, Inuit -- could be included. Ed.].

In Canada, FN people -- for short -- come under the jurisdiction of the federal government, under a 19th-century law called the Indian Act. Along with the jurisdiction comes responsibility, or so the FNs say. The feds are responsible, in their view, for all the ills of their society, including unemployment, alcoholism and poverty. And these problems do exist, as the briefest of visits to any Indian reserve (or whatever they're called now) will confirm.

Case in point: Attawapiskat, a chunk of the third or fourth world embarrassingly located in northern Ontario, not far from the shores of Hudson Bay. The deplorable living conditions there -- chipboard shanties with broken or no windows, no running water, no electricity, etc etc -- came to public notice when the band chief, Theresa Spence, declared a state of emergency and demanded the government send her yet more money to alleviate the misery of her people.

More beaver bucks were duly dispatched, but seem to have vanished into the muskeg, just like all the foreign aid sent to Haiti. So what did the feds do? Call in the auditors of course! Yesterday they released Deloitte and Touche's review of the Attawapiskat council's books for the last 6½ years. The accounting firm found "no evidence of due diligence in the use of public funds, including the use of funds for housing".

The auditors aren't alleging fraud. Their report is being called "political" as it is. (The term "racist" hasn't been used yet, but wait for it.) What they do say is that more than 400 of the transactions they reviewed lacked proper -- or, most of the time, any -- supporting paperwork or receipts. Page after page of the D&T report shows spending on contracts or services where the vendors are "unknown" or the documentation is questionable or non-existent.

"An average of 81 per cent of files did not have adequate supporting documents and over 60 per cent had no documentation of the reason for payment," said the firm. In an Aug. 28 letter to Spence, it called the lack of records "inappropriate for any recipient of public funds."

But Chief Spence is no dumb wooden Indian. 28 days ago she pre-empted the potentially embarrassing report by going on a hunger strike. The point? To get a face-to-face meeting with Prime Minister "Call me Steve" Harpoon. Why talk with the monkey -- Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan -- if you can get to the organ-grinder! Now the chief shrugs off the audit report as "a distraction", released now just to make her and her council look bad -- which it certainly does.

Which brings us back to Idle No More. When Theresa Spence went on her much-needed diet of fish broth and tea, the "organizers" of that movement were quick to see her and the Attawapiskat situation as emblematic of everything that's wrong with the way Canadians treat the natives. Hey, they were there first! Then the evil whites came and gypped them out of their land, and reduced them to living on welfare. But they will be "idle no more". Geddit?

Now it seems every Indian in Canada -- not forgetting Métis and "non-status Indians", who just yesterday were declared by the Supreme Court of Canada to be entitled to the same entitlements as status Indians -- plus the usual gang of guilt-ridden white liberals and professional agitators, is demonstrating their indignation about nearly everything.

In so doing, Idle No More has come to resemble nothing so much as the Occupy movement of last year. "The Occupy and Idle No More movements share two characteristics," says Robert Brym, a sociology professor at the University of Toronto. "They both have relatively diffuse demands and decentralized leadership."

But they also differ in one important respect. "The Occupy movement's demand for greater economic equality seems to have resonated with a large part of the Canadian population, which has experienced growing income disparity and slow growth in real income for decades.... In contrast, I believe the public has more mixed feelings about the Idle No More movement."

The professor's "large part of the Canadian population" apparently doesn't include any of Walt's Canadian agents, whose comments about the Occupiers were less than charitable. [Geddit? Ed.] The phrase "welfare bums" is one of the few that we can print.

As for what the Canucks in TROC -- the real Canada outside of the tony parts of Toronto and Vancouver -- are saying about Idle No More, Walt is reminded of the remark attributed to American General Philip Sheridan. So far, no-one, not even Don Cherry, has used those exact words, but stay tuned.

Worth reading: Whatever the Canadian state cedes to Theresa Spence, it will never be enough, by John Ivison in the online edition of today's National Post. Don't bother to e-mail John and threaten to send his racist immigrant ass back to Scotland. He's heard that -- and worse -- already.

Cherry picking on Haiti

He knows dogs, and he knows hockey. And now, it seems, he knows Haiti. Yesterday Canada's Mouth of the North, Don Cherry, weighed in on the topic of handing out zillions in foreign aid to nations notorious for corruption.

Here's what "Donless" said in a series of tweets on @CoachsCornerCBC.

"You know, I am one of those guys, like most people in Canada, we like to help the countries all over the world. But sometimes it makes you wonder. Maybe it's just me. But Canada gave Haiti 49.5 million dollars last year. Are we nuts? We've got a guy dying in Toronto waiting 3 hours for an ambulance.

"We got people waiting 7, 8, 10 hours, if they're lucky in a waiting room with one doctor for a zillion people. We nickel and dime our doctors, nurses and veterans plus a million other services. Yet we can send almost 50 million to Haiti.

"I'll tell you something. The working guy is getting kind of sick of people spending money like that. It's a good job we got a good guy like Julian Fantino, with a little common sense, in charge.

"50 million? I wonder how much have we given them over the years? Let's smarten up. As the old saying goes, charity begins at home. Am I right or is it just me?"

"Don, you're right!" Walt can hear millions of Canadians saying just that. What you're saying sounds a lot like what Walt has been saying for years, most notably in "Canada gives up on Haiti, freezes foreign aid" a couple of days ago.

Is anyone listening? The minister in charge -- Julian Fantino, whom Don referred to -- said he would be calling Cherry to thank him for his support.

Of course the chattering classes and the lamestream media heard Don's rant too, or at least heard about it. The oh-so-PC producers of CBC Radio's Metro Morning (aka "The Herald of Multiculturalism" -- "sounding like Toronto looks") devoted an entire segment to attacking Cherry's "racism". That would be the same "racism" with which the majority of Canucks in TROC (The Rest Of Canada) agree. But they don't listen to Metro Morning anyway.

Another portion of the same propaganda broadcast -- for that's all Metro Morning is -- featured the usual gang of bleeding heart liberals decrying the "racism" of those who are opposed to the Idle No More "movement". Walt will explain that later today. For now, kudos to Don for being the voice of real Canadians, no matter what the Volvo liberals call him.