Its pretty eery as to how much things are still the same. Looks like the new generation isn’t much different from the last, but then again, “Hey, thats just the way it is..”

Teens arrested after vicious beating
Victim attacked from behind, police say
Mar. 23, 2006. 12:07 PM
BOB MITCHELL
STAFF REPORTER

Two teens have been arrested in connection with Monday afternoon’s beating of a 16-year-old Brampton boy, who suffered a skull fracture in the attack.

The two male accused, 17 and 18, are to appear for a bail hearing today in a Brampton court.

Peel Police arrested the young men last night and held them in custody.

The victim, who attends Turner and Fenton Secondary School, is recovering from his injury at Toronto’s Sunnybrook hospital.

“Contrary to what some media have been reporting, this incident wasn’t gang related,” said Inspector Len Favreau of Peel’s 22 Division Criminal Investigations Bureau.

“This was supposed to have been a one-on-one, man-to-man fight to be settled off school property but the injured teen was struck from behind.

“We don’t believe he saw it coming.”

Police are crediting the high school’s Crime Stoppers program with helping them make the arrests.

“We credit the many students and staff who came forward with information that allowed us to bring this investigation to a successful conclusion,” Favreau said.

Investigators allege the initial confrontation was between the victim and the 17-year-old.

Dozens of students from the school were at the crime scene when the fight began and it’s alleged the 18-year-old struck the victim on the back of his head with a crowbar.

“The word spread that a fight was going to happen,” Favreau said.

Police said the dispute escalated after the 17-year-old allegedly pulled a handkerchief from the back pocket of the victim’s pants and then stomped on it in the hallway of the school.

Police confirmed the injured teen had only just started attending the Brampton high school.

It’s alleged the two agreed to meet at a nearby strip plaza on the southeast corner of Kennedy Rd. and Steeles Ave. to settle the score.

The injured teen was knocked unconscious and initially transported to nearby William Osler Health Centre and later transferred to Sunnybrook.

The two accused have been charged with several criminal charges, including aggravated assault and assault with a weapon.

So many times we find Sikhs being miss-represented in the media. Whether its shows hinting that Sikhs are terrorists or just re-justifying stereotypes of all people who wear turbans being linked to terrorism in some way. Its safe to say that if you see a Sikh you’re not really educated as to them being something other then what people already think when they see them and that’s someone of Arabic, Islamic descent. You only need to go back a few posts and watch the Sikh in the Street video to confirm this.

So the other week while I was in Toronto for the weekend, I ran into one of my boys who suggested I watch this show called Sleeper Cell. As you may guess from the title, its main focus is terrorism, in a post 9-11.world. The basic premise for the show without giving too much away is the FBI tries to infiltrate a sleeper cell which plans to run a terrorist attack on the States. It seems to be a show that tries to show that terrorism is not confined to a single nationality, race etc. with the terrorists all being Muslims of different races, backgrounds etc. and that it’s an evil perverted form of Islam that promotes terrorism.

Anyways, like I was talking about earlier many Hollywood types fail to distinguish the difference between Sikhs, Muslims, Persians etc and rather just clump us all together. Its for that reason that I think its nice to see something that while keeping with the whole drama mood shows and teaches something else, anyways here’s a clip with what I’m talking about.

I think more stuff like this can go a long way.

Though much may have changed, some things still stay the same, story was from the Toronto Star

Brampton teen clings to life
Mar. 21, 2006. 09:49 AM
HILDA HOY
STAFF REPORTER

A Brampton teen is clinging to life after being severely beaten Monday afternoon, police say.

The 16-year-old boy was attacked by a group of other males at about 3 p.m. in the Kennedy Rd. and Steeles Ave. area of Brampton, near Turner Fenton Secondary School. An unknown weapon was used in the attack, inflicting serious head injuries, police said.

The attack took place in an adjacent parking lot and not on school grounds, said Peel police Const. Kathy Weylie. It is not known whether the victim knew his attackers or if any were students at Turner Fenton, she said.

Police are looking for five or six suspects, described as males between 16 and 18 years of age.

A number of witnesses were in the area at the time and have been interviewed by police, Weylie said.

An unknown weapon…extreme head injuries??? My money is on it being a karrDa, after all saw nuff men break heads wid dem tings. But then again I could be wrong, considering most people saw a tire iron being used. The Brampton Guardian article,

Police search for attackers

A 16-year-old Turner Fenton Secondary School student is in stable condition after he was severely beaten and hit over the head, possibly with a tire iron, in a parking lot in the area of Steeles Avenue East and Kennedy Road.

The teen was beaten by five to six other teens in front of a crowd of witnesses, according to police. He suffered head injuries, including a fractured skull, and was unconscious when police arrived just after 3 p.m. Monday. He was taken to Peel Memorial Hospital, then transferred to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. His condition improved overnight and he was upgraded to stable from critical. He is expected to survive and recover from his injuries, according to police.

Police are interviewing several witnesses, but are asking for anyone in the area to call if they have any information. Police say witnesses have told them the weapon used to hit the boy looked like a tire iron. It has not been recovered. The attack happened in a parking lot just south of the Sears Home Store and just north of Turner Fenton Secondary School, but not on school property. It is not known if the attackers are students at the school, or if the victim knows his attackers.

High school students from Turner Fenton often congregate in the west end of the parking lot, part of the Orion Gate plaza. Investigators are searching for five or six South Asian youth between 16 and 18 years.

As you can see, things are looking a little different.

For some reason or another the Blogger, the service which I was using to host and manage my blog started to have issues (a lot of them), so I decided rather then give them time to sort things out, I’d make the jump and start using Wordpress.

I thought that the conversion would have been a lot more of a headache, but since the new version of Wordpress it’s as simple as logging into your blogger account via Wordpress and clicking import.

When I originally created my blog, I looked at the whole Wordpress vs Blogger thing and decided that even though it lacked in features, you can’t go wrong with Google, (who owns Blogger), and so went that route, but as fate had it, I was bound to use word press in the end, so here I am.

I still got to redo the template and all that, and for some reason every single video has disapeared, but all that should get sorted out by the end of this week. Anyways hopefully things are back to normal for now, and I’ll be back to my regularly scedhuled blogging habbits tomarrow.

So the last video, in the description I wrote a little about what our community is doing good, after all we have made huge in roads in the past while, but at the same time there’s some stuff that we’re not doing.

Here’s another video by Sartaj Singh:

As can be expected the one thing our community is missing now is our Roots. The comparison of Sikhi to that of a plant has been long made and so like any plant as long as that plant has its roots, it will prosper and grow otherwise it will slowly begin to rot and decay.

In Sikhi the limbs of the Sikhs would always be cut, but they would always grow back stronger because our roots were firmly planted. In Mir-Manu’s prisons a common saying had become,

???? ???? ?????; ???? ???? ?? ??? ?
????? ????? ???? ????? ; ???? ??? ???? ??? ?
Mannu is our sickle, we are his grass.
As Mannu cuts us, we grow back more than twice as high.

Now in Sikhi Gurbani has always been that root, but less and less is stressed on Santhia (proper pronunciation and understanding) of Gurbani with more it seems being put on the actual performance of it.

These days it seems people are wanting to more and more jump into the high-profile type of sevaa but never firmly plant their roots. Any jeevan being raised on a foundation without the Gurbani support will sooner or later tip over.

In many Taksals, and primarily Damdami Taksal, Santhia was always the first step. Regardless if you wanted to learn Tablaa, Kirtan, Kathaa, or Khavta’s step one was complete your Santhia. After that it was all on you, as to what type of Giaan and vidiya you wanted to prapat.

The entire essence of Gurbani being the root and focal point for our Jeevans sometimes seems to get lost in all of the klaraa around us, especially amongst the youth. Soooo, read and learn your bani before becoming the next great prechaarak. Instead of running to Sikhi To the Max or other Gurbani search engines we should try to find Gurbani Tukhs that we have kanth (memorized) and use and reflect on those when doing Vichaar. Understand those more fully, then go out and make an effort to learn more, memorize more and contemplate more, and then we to can claim to have our roots in tact.

Akhooo Satnaaam Sreee Vaheguroooo..