In the final paragraph of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, the Delaware sage Tamenund remarks, "The pale faces are masters of the earth, and the time of the red-men has not yet come again." Despite hopeful signs, in the case of commercially viable movies, that time has still not come.
Although we’ve come a long way from those movies in which whooping, headdress-bedecked Plains Indians are depicted riding around and around circled wagon trains – a myth stolen directly from the performances of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show – the only places you can typically see Indians as more than savages or sidekicks is in films by Indians given attention by the American Indian Film Institute at the American Indian Film Festival, the 33rd annual of which will take place this autumn in San Francisco, and the Talking Stick Film Festival, which debuted two weeks ago in Santa Fe. The Talking Stick Festival opened with Older Than America, a Canadian film by director Georgina Lightning (Cree) about atrocities at Indian boarding schools, and Hopi director Victor Masayesva’s Paatuwaqatsi – Water, Land, Life.
These festival films aren’t the kind that make it to your neighborhood multiplex. Indeed, although Wes Studi (Cherokee), Gary Farmer (Cayuga), August Schellenburg (Mohawk), Michael Horse (Yaqui), Irene Bedard (Inupiat-Metis), Steve Reevis (Blackfeet), Adam Beach (Saulteaux), Kalani Queypo (Blackfeet), Graham Greene (Oneida), and a handful of others make a living as actors, only a single American Indian has managed to sustain a career as a director – Chris Eyre (Cheyenne-Arapaho), whose premier film was Smoke Signals a decade ago.
I was forced (more or less) to resign my job this week, and I go over to 4th of July weekend and my Dad gives me crap (in this economy you'll never get another job) and then my neighbor gives me shit about KATRINA of all things. Says it's all Bill CLINTON'S fault. grrrrrrrrrrr.
Gene McCarthy used to say that the function of liberal Republicans was that, when they saw a drowning man, they would throw him a rope exactly halfway too short to reach him. Under the ironclad economic rule that there are no progressive multimillion dollar corporations, the New York Times is now, and always has been, a liberal Republican paper. In the editorial today, "New and Not Improved," the Times is letting its desire to appear loftily superior outrun the facts. Just as it did when it permitted the discredited Judith Miller to shill for the Iraq war, the Times is now flacking for the Republicans with today's arguments. As usual, it does so just to create the appearance of being evenhanded while proclaiming a nonexistent equivalence of disreputability between the candidates.
New York Times, 14 October 2001 ''If bin Laden takes over and becomes king of Saudi Arabia, he'd turn off the tap,'' said Roger Diwan, a managing director of the Petroleum Finance Company, a consulting firm in Washington. ''He said at one point that he wants oil to be $144 a barrel'' -- about six times what it sells for now.
As you may have heard, oil prices went above $144 this week.
It’s the Fourth of July and while other families are enjoying barbeques and fireworks and family together time, I’m fighting a pity party by making a "movable banner" for my dog and dragging her to a public fireworks celebration to register voters this evening.
Don’t worry, I promise we’ll be home long before the fireworks start and make her heart pound.
I’m kidless for another fourth and if you sense a little self-pity, yeah, I’m indulging. It’s not too often but on days like this, I think have every right... You see, my two boys signed up to serve their country and nothing's been the same since.
Short diary to thank Malia Obama, 10, for sharing her birthday with so many others in Butte, Mont.
I'm the father of a 10 year old girl myself. I know how important birthdays are.
Here's my birthday wishes for you. I'll be going to my father in law's later today for a cookout. You and he share a birth date with this country. Born on the 4th of July. And I'm going to be talking to him about you and your father. I hope both you and my father in law have wonderful birthdays.
GOP strategist Karl Rove and former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards will debate the issues of the presidential campaign Sept. 26 as part of the [University of Buffalo's] Distinguished Speakers Series, The Buffalo News has learned.
"Modern man likes to pretend that his thinking is wide-awake. But this wide-awake thinking has led us into the mazes of a nightmare in which the torture chambers are endlessly repeated in the mirrors of reason."
This article, in the Roanoke Times, should be a heads up to everyone in the country.
Roanoke, Virginia is in a very temperate region, with winter temperatures falling from slightly below 20 degrees and rising to a high of over 100 degrees, with an annual average of between 60 degrees and 80 degrees.
With the startling statement:
No matter how you heat, be prepared for costs to rise significantly this winter.
our local newspaper is delivering a dire warning and begging for people to begin to prepare for the coming Fall/Winter season.
I’d like to invite everyone to take a journey with me over the next year and a half. It’s a farewell to our beloved farm, and the beginning of a new one. In the course of it, I hope to give y’all a glimpse into the real life of a farm and the practices of sustainable ranching. And I'll share a few pictures of our farm, including some adorable baby lambs, along the way.
My husband and I have a small, organic (not-certified) farm just outside of Austin, Texas. I bought this place after I graduated law school ten years ago. I’ll post about my transition from environmental attorney to farmer another day. For now, suffice to say that I am a student of holistic management and eco-agriculture.
I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy
A Yankee Doodle, do or die
A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam
Born on the Fourth of July
I've got a Yankee Doodle sweetheart
She's my Yankee Doodle joy
Yankee Doodle came to London
Just to ride the ponies
I am the Yankee Doodle Boy
by George M. Cohan
Maybe you remember James Cagney playing the role of George Cohan in the movie by the same name. It was another of those films Hollywood put out during WWII to boost morale and patriotism. But, beyond some one born on the Fourth of July what is a Yankee Doodle? I have two ex-BIL's who where born on the Fourth of July, notice I said ex.
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is a part of the United States Bill of Rights that expressly prohibits the United States Congress from making laws "respecting an establishment of religion" (the Establishment Clause) or that prohibit free exercise of religion (the Free Exercise Clause), laws that infringe the freedom of speech, infringe the freedom of the press, limit the right to peaceably assemble, or limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Before I tell you about the crushing healthcare burdens destroying Americans of every socioeconomic level, I hope those of you too young to remember, will take a look at this video about how my generation changed the course of a nation.
THIS ELECTION IS GOING TO BE A BARN BURNER SO DON'T YOU TURN OFF CNN AND CNBC AND MSNBC BECAUSE IF YOU DO YOU'LL BE REALLY, REALLY SORRY AND YOU'LL BE THE LAST TO KNOW SOMETHING YOU WISH YOU WERE THE FIRST TO KNOW!
SERIOUSLY THIS ELECTION IS ESSENTIALLY TIED AND IF YOU TURN OFF THAT TELEVISION YOU MAY DIE OF "NOT KNOWING SOMETHING" DISEASE WHICH IS VERY PAINFUL AND TOTALLY EMBARRASSING... WORSE EVEN THAN THAT TIME IN HIGH SCHOOL WHEN YOU WENT OUT FOR GYM WITHOUT PUTTING YOUR SHORTS ON.
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
ALL MEN.
That should have included Brandon Mayfield, but the FBI lied about his fingerprint. For those lies, and more, it cost us $2 milion.
That should have included Steve Hatfield, but Attorney General Ashcroft called him a person of interest. For those words and more, it cost us $4.6 million.
That should have included John Walker Lindh, but we denied his repeated requests for a lawyer, and we stripped him, blindfolded him, bound him, and held him in a shipping container. For that treatment he got 20 years, but it cost us our honesty
That should have included Jose Padila and Yaser Esam Hamdi. Hell, it should have included Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
we hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. . .
That was the plea of another casualty of the Iraq occupation. But it wasn't cried out on the far off battlefields in the deserts of Iraq, it was cried from behind the door of a small home in Pinehurst, NC on June 28th, as the police kicked in the door. On June 28th, Doc Dywer died of an overdose trying to suppress his demons. He died at an oh-so-young, but for many combat veterans an oh-so-old 31 years of age, leaving behind an estranged wife and daughter.
But rather than going on to enjoy the public affection for his act of heroism, he was consumed by the demons of combat stress he could not exorcise. For the medic who cared for the wounds of his combat buddies as they pushed toward Baghdad, the battle for his own health proved too much to bear.
Today's media freakout on "refining" provided some great material to expose the bias and stupidity of many in the MSM.
In this video, I focus on the "reporting" of CNN, which pulled a classic case of: "Obama must respond to these allegations because he's facing questions" without noting that CNN was the outfit that had raised the questions in the first place.
Also, just so you've been warned, I've recently begun narrating some of my videos -- and this is one of them. On the bright side, you can find out that I am after all a real person, and that my name really is Jed.
Corn ethanol and biofuels production has driven global food prices up 75%, triggering a global food crisis according to a secret World Bank report revealed by the London Guardian. The report was apparently kept secret to protect the United States which is most responsible for the diversion of food to fuel. The World Bank, released a report on Wednesday, July 2, on the jump in food prices without specifying the cause (PDF).
Food prices have accelerated sharply in 2008. Grain prices have more than doubled since January 2006, with over 60% of the rise in food prices occurring since January 2008 (Figure 1). Individual grain staple prices have increased even more, with monthly average wheat prices doubling since January 2006. Rice prices more than tripled between January and May 2008.
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Although we’ve come a long way from those movies in which whooping, headdress-bedecked Plains Indians are depicted riding around and around circled wagon trains – a myth stolen directly from the performances of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show – the only places you can typically see Indians as more than savages or sidekicks is in films by Indians given attention by the American Indian Film Institute at the American Indian Film Festival, the 33rd annual of which will take place this autumn in San Francisco, and the Talking Stick Film Festival, which debuted two weeks ago in Santa Fe. The Talking Stick Festival opened with Older Than America, a Canadian film by director Georgina Lightning (Cree) about atrocities at Indian boarding schools, and Hopi director Victor Masayesva’s Paatuwaqatsi – Water, Land, Life.
