I haven’t posted regularly in so long, I honestly cannot remember my mindset for blogging.
It’s like I’ve gone to get dressed, and I realized I have forgotten how to put on pants. It’s not hard to figure it out, but there’s this nagging feeling that somehow, in some way, I’m doing it wrong.
Comments(1) To: Gawd
Date: 2008/05/18 16:18
Subject: I’m sorry for the lateness of this report
Gawd —
Sorry for the long time since the last e-mail. I keep forgetting the important things in the midst of all the flotsam and jetsam of everyday busy-ness. I’m working on it, like you asked, but my idea about using Outlook reminders just isn’t panning out. Maybe G-mail SMS reminders would work, if someone gave me an an iPhone…
I’m kidding!!!
As usual, my disclaimer: my perspective keeps changing every year of my life, so I’m inclined to believe that my reports change because I’m the one changing. My reports, as always, contain my conjecture and theories despite my best attempts to remain true to just the facts.
I’m a city boy. I grew up in a city, yes there were trees around and areas you could honestly get lost, but I am a the cliché city slicker.
When I was young, around six or seven, I used to imagine the Indians living on the Duluth hillside. I didn’t know then that I had some Red Lake Indian blood in my veins, and I wouldn’t have believed anyone who told me otherwise. I was as white as white gets, and I grew up on a steady diet of television and imagination. In that imagination, I came in on a wagon to live at the new port growing at the nose of Lake Superior, or I came through on a canoe with the French traders, I never was here to begin with.
My perspective on some of this stuff is naive, really, but when I told (with proof) at age twelve that I have somewhere between twenty-five to fifty percent Ojibwe in me I got all gung ho on it. There was no one more Indian than me.
It took me a couple of years to cool down, hearing from white people that I wasn’t Indian because I am too pale, and hearing from Indians that I should keep my pale ass outta their business. That I shouldn’t steal their culture as their own.
Over time I got to the point where I really don’t care about other’s opinions very much anymore. Some twinges occasionally, but really not too much.
I want to emulate the best of the Ojibwe, and to me that has always been the elder. The elder is there to help the young with their experience and wisdom.
So when I hear a story about the Lakota “ceding from the Union” I have to think about it. Almost a bit like mental indigestion. Firstly because of the incorrectness of implying they joined the Union instead of being conquered. Secondly the lack of big media coverage. Thirdly, who is defined by the phrase “the Lakota?”
Comments(5) This needs some time to digest… I don’t want to over-react, I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I don’t want to misunderstand what has and hasn’t been claimed and/or done.
In case that link doesn’t come up, here‘s another.
I have a feeling that some are going to freak out over it. Some people will call it treason, some will call it delayed justice, some will probably even think it’s the end of the world.
What the hell is “it”?
The Part of the Lakota have decided to exert their sovereign-nation status. Can you blame them? They always have had that right, they just haven’t exercised it. They’ve just been doing homework and are being very thorough in the process.
The biggest problem I see with these reports is they are being very free and un-careful regarding the usage of the phrases “sovereign nation”, “breaking away”, “ceding from the union”, et cetera.
Please read carefully, readers. I have a second tab up with dictionary.reference.com to help me sort through the linguistic mess.
Enjoy.
Skåll!!!
Edit: 18:55 – Their own website: http://www.lakotafreedom.com/
Comments(1) …So why aren’t people any brighter?
I just don’t understand, I’ll say off the bat, why people just react to things in a knee-jerk way and dig themselves deeper into their troubles rather than figuring out what’s happening and how to fix it.
But then again, I make my living recovering computer & communications systems from failures, so I tend to see the worst examples of how members of the human species can fail to appropriately react. Sadly, sometimes those failures of appropriate reaction can make situations worse, not better.
