Velma and Rémy. Velma is only a week younger than Rémy, but she’s Violette’s babe, and Violette is a ‘small’ rat. (She’s not small now, Vi is a serious eater.) Velma seems to have mum’s appetite, so I expect she’ll catch up soon enough. Click for full size.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
Mourning Dove. Click for full size.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
Alternate title: Oh for fuck’s sake, stupid white people, get a clue!
A National College Prospects Hockey League team that has yet to even take the ice for a game is being blasted on social media for the red-skinned Mohawk logo they released back in May.
Additionally on July 26th, the team tweeted “Warriors Hockey beats the drum in Erie!”
One user responded, “You must be joking. Do you need graphic design help? Or an adult in the front office?” Another user said, “Please fire your branding/marketing team.”
Uni-Watch website contributor Paul Lukas shared the logo Wednesday on his Twitter account which started the massive social media response. Lukas wrote in his tweet: “Quite a logo for the Lake Erie Warriors, new team in the National College Prospects Hockey League.”
Many of the large number of responses deemed the logo racist.
Ryan Adams stated on the Lake Erie Warriors Facebook page, “Seriously? This is your logo? Could you make it just a little more racist?”
On deadspin.com, contributor Barry Petchesky also ripped the logo in an the article entitled, “Hey, Come Look At This Hockey Team’s Logo Before They Apologize And Change It.”
Currently the logo can be seen on the team’s Twitter page, Facebook page and their website.
The Lake Erie Warriors, a Tier III Junior A hockey team competing in the National College Prospects Hockey League, has not yet responded to ICTMN’s request for comment.
They haven’t responded. Well, there’s a big surprise. :eyeroll: Yes, that’s quite the fucking logo. I had no idea at all that the only warriors on the planet were Indians. As for ‘warriors’, gosh what an inspired choice, it’s almost like you didn’t spend a whole 30 seconds coming up with something. You need to fire your “creative thinkers” because they are out of creativity and not too hot on that thinking business. Apparently, the idiots who came up with this logo are unaware that the Mohawk people were (and are) a part of the Haudenosaunee, a confederation dedicated to peace. Kukúše takuni slolye šni šiča don’t care about that, or the reality of Indian peoples.
UPDATE: It’s the Lake Erie Gulls now. At least it was a quick turnaround, just like Barry Petchesky at Deadspin predicted. It’s good they pulled it down and changed it, but really, whoever came up with this in the first place? You should, at the very least, be deeply ashamed.
Full story at ICTMN.
Cheyenne River Sioux Chief David Beautiful Bald Eagle, Waniyetu Opi, walked on July 22 surrounded by family. Facebook/Richard Bullock.
Lakota Chief David Beautiful Bald Eagle, who was a military hero, champion dancer, professional baseball player and stunt double, walked-on at his home last Friday.
Chief Bald Eagle was born in a traditional teepee in 1919 in Cherry Creek, on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Reservation in South Dakota. His name in Lakota translates as Wounded in Winter Beautiful Bald Eagle. He spoke only Lakota until the age of 12.
His grandfather, Chief White Bull, a relative of Sitting Bull,was one of the leaders who fought in the Battle of Little Bighorn.
Bald Eagle underwent the traditional sundance ceremony at age 15. At 17 he enlisted in the Army’s Fourth Cavalry and eventually went from riding a horse to riding a motorcycle to deliver messages. After serving for several years, he was honorably discharged, but re-enlisted into the 82nd Airborne after hearing the news of that Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
As a sergeant, Bald Eagle parachuted into the battles fought at Anzio, Italy, for which he was awarded the Silver Star. He then parachuted into the fighting at Normandy, was injured by German soldiers and was left for dead. British commandos discovered him lying on the enemy grounds with a pulse.
After returning from the war, he met an English teacher named Penny Rathburn and married her. They became competitive ballroom dancers. She was killed in a car crash when she was pregnant with their first child.
In an interview with the Wo Lakota project, Bald Eagle says he was nearly suicidal after that double tragedy, and decided to take on daredevil pursuits. He became a stunt double, took up skydiving, started racing cars and became active in the rodeo circuit.
Bald Eagle appeared in over 40 Hollywood films. He served as a stunt double for Errol Flynn, and even met and danced with Marilyn Monroe.
[…]
In an memorial post on Facebook, Richard Bullock wrote that though Chief Bald Eagle encountered many forms of prejudice and discrimination, “he never showed bitterness, and met adversity with invincible courage and humour.”
“It was tougher back then,” Bald Eagle told Bullock. “I’ve had a rough life. But I can remember everything. From horse and cart days right up until today; jet planes and computers. When I was a boy, there weren’t even any fences. No electricity lines or phone lines. No roads, nothing. You could just head out across country and you wouldn’t have to open any gates or anything like that. All just open prairie. The world has changed so quickly in just one lifetime. It’s so short a time. I’ve had a long life but it just seems like yesterday”.
David William Bald Eagle / Wounded in Winter Beautiful Bald Eagle born 8th April 1919, walked on 22nd July 2016. He is survived by his wife Josee, and his many children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren.
The full article is at ICTMN. David Rooks also has an article up. Thank you for a life not only well-lived, but a life which was a gift to us all, Chief Beautiful Bald Eagle.
The world hath ended, and everything continues on as usual. Golly, I completely missed the magnetic polar flip!
https://youtu.be/6HPrfFvkEj0
Stay calm and carry on, folks. Via TimesLive.
Pinterest.
Gyasi Ross has a great article up on the possibilities and problems of a Native president, When Will There Be a Native American President? [Part 1] ‘Sigh,’ It’s Gonna Be Awhile… Click over to read the whole thing, because I’m only going to include part here.
QUESTION:
Can we honestly tell our beautiful and brilliant Native children that, in 2016, they can grow up and be President of the United States of America?
SHORT ANSWER:
Probably not. Based upon the evidence (as opposed to optimism or good feelings), America does not seem to fully accept Natives as real-life human beings — thus it will likely be a few generations before we can seriously contemplate that.
After this, Ross takes some time to explain the normalization which has taken place in regard to Black people, Hispanic people, and Women. No, things aren’t all cherries and thornless roses with these groups, but they have been included enough in pop culture, normalized enough, that it’s not a complete shock for people to see any one of these peoples in high office.
But what about Natives?
Unfortunately, it looks like that’s still a long ways off. Here are a few reasons why.
First, Americans still have not normalized interactions with Natives. This is manifest in many ways in pop culture today—pop culture is very important toward normalizing a group of people. For example, for decades there are have been movies where a black person plays a president on-screen, making folks more comfortable with the idea. There have also been movies where women and Latinos/as, Asians play presidents, and every other role under the sun. That gets rid of the sticker shock of seeing a person of that group in that position. Moreover, it’s also not unusual to see folks from all backgrounds acting as a different ethnicity or in a leading role where race is not contemplated. For Natives, though? Not so much. Natives are still a novelty, a character to be played on-screen and not just an ethnicity that a person happens to be. There is no Fresh off the Boat or Chico and the Man or Blackish or The Jeffersons or The Cosby Show for Native people. Plus, the prospect of a Native playing, for example, a President? Hasn’t been on the radar, even in the most subversive of films.
Natives have largely been only deemed competent to play a Native no matter how incredible that Native actor is. “How well can you be a Native, Native person?”
Similarly, in my work as a writer and commentator, I largely am asked to only comment or write about “Native stuff.” Now, I love commenting and writing about “Native stuff” but I’ve also found that “Native stuff” is a HUGE category. It’s ALL Native stuff! Whether we’re talking about national politics to public school funding to infrastructure and trade policy. Now, similar to acting black folks, women, Latino/a, Asians, etc. are all considered competent to speak about things that are outside their communities and universal. It is not one bit unusual for a black person, a woman, a Latino/a or an Asian to comment or write on national news. For Natives? Not so much. It’s still a novelty and Natives are not deemed competent to have opinions on matters that are universal and aren’t uniquely Native.
We can’t speak about things that are just “human” or “American.” It would be hard enough for a Native person to get a role as a doctor or teacher on TV, much less a Native President.
We also see it in regards to our tragedy. Simply stated, the mainstream largely does not care or cannot relate to Native pain or outrage. The mainstream ignores the structural and institutional barriers, for example, that allow Native women to be raped at a rate exponentially higher than other women. It likewise ignores those same structural barriers that forbid Native nations from prosecuting outsiders who peddle drugs and/or murder our people. Those same structures then, adding insult to injury, refuse to utilize its own resources to prosecute those bad actors, allowing them to prey upon our communities with impunity.
But nobody mentions that outside of our communities. If they do mention our communities, they mention the poverty without explaining how those barriers help to create and sustain that economic poverty.
As shown above, there is a perception that Natives cannot partake in these larger conversations. As we discussed, there is a lack of empathy or understanding about our communities. When those two things are combined with the mathematical fact that Natives are a tiny percentage of the population, it doesn’t bode well for a Native rising to be President anytime soon. At some point, it’s a humanity question as it was for women, black folks, Latino/as, etc.; are Natives reflective enough of America generally to sometimes not be considered “Native” and instead just “human?”
Can a Native person represent America? Stupid question. OF COURSE. The truth is, Natives are the story of America and are more America than America. Natives are America’s dental record and thumbprint and spinal cord. You cannot intelligently tell the story of America without Native people being one of the main characters. Yet, it seems like mainstream America is a ways away from recognizing that truth.
When Will There Be a Native American President? [Part 1] ‘Sigh,’ It’s Gonna Be Awhile…
Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver (left) with his wife and Liberty Counsel president Anita Staver. Credit: Liberty University.
After months of preaching that the so-called First Amendment Defense Act was the only way to protect the “religious freedom” of those opposed to marriage equality, one of the nation’s leading anti-LGBT organizations has done a complete 180.
In a press release published Wednesday, Liberty Counsel explained why it abruptly stopped supporting the sweeping federal legislation. As it turns out, the anti-LGBT legal nonprofit that represented antigay Kentucky clerk Kim Davis and a host of other right-wing dissenters wasn’t all that worried about religious freedom. It appears the group was instead primarily concerned with making sure individuals, businesses, and federal contractors could discriminate against LGBT people without “punishment” from the government.
So after the bill’s lead sponsor in the House, Idaho Rep. Raul Labrador, revealed a change in the language of House Resolution 2802 that would protect people from adverse government action regarding any “religious belief or moral conviction” about marriage, Liberty Counsel balked. While the draft bill posted on Rep. Labrador’s website is dated July 7, the official congressional page for the bill has not been updated since it was introduced June 17.
“For the first time, the federal government under the proposed FADA will formerly [sic] recognize and condone same-sex marriage on par with the natural marriage,” read Wednesday’s press release. “Liberty Counsel can no longer support FADA unless the proposed amendment is abandoned and FADA returns to its original language of marriage being between one man and one woman.”
Liberty Counsel founder and chairman Mat Staver went on to “urge all members of Congress to reject the proposed amendments to the First Amendment Defense Act that include same-sex marriage,” promising that “pro-family” organizations will not be able to support the legislation unless it singles out same-sex couples for legalized discrimination. The antigay language in FADA is “necessary to protect people of faith,” Staver concluded.
Seems to me that what ‘people of faith’ need is lot of quiet time. Quiet time used to reflect on your personal morals not only being evil, but being used as the justification to treat other people as objects to be crushed.
The Advocate has the full story.
Most people know about Bill O’Reilly’s unbelievably idiotic remarks about slaves building the White House, and his subsequent doubling down, attempting to justify his previous commentary and digging quite the hole for himself. O’Reilly spent a fair amount of time opining that liberals literally want him dead. I don’t want you dead, Bill, I want you off the air.
Anyroad, the idiotic remarks about slaves and the astonishing distortion of actual history inspired Marcus Ranum to do a very in-depth post about slavery. Here’s a little bit:
The Odious Institution
The colonies in America had been priming themselves for a revolution for some time. Unpopular legislation from England, in the form of taxes and regulations – notably The Stamp Act, The Sugar Act, The Townshend Act – had provoked protest, violence, tax collectors being brutalized, and civilian protestors shot down by redcoats. England was trying, simply enough, to extract some of the colony’s massive wealth through taxation, to pay for its various wars. The colonial leaders were trying, simply enough, to keep their wealth – a great deal of which was at best semi-licit: whenever the crown would levy a new tax, the colonial entrepreneurs would smuggle the goods, anyway.
The “triangle trade” was taking place “off the books” to a significant degree, and was at least partly designed to facilitate smuggling. It was a hugely profitable trade-route, and underpinned much of the New England economy as well as that of the American south’s most powerful and wealthy state, Virginia. From 1770 to 1780 the people who became the political leaders in the colonies were all wealthy, and that wealth depended on smuggling, slavery, land speculation, tobacco or cotton farming, or “trade” (which meant: buying and selling alcohol, tobacco, slaves, etc) – the unhappiness the colonial political leaders were feeling with England was that their tax-sheltered existences were threatened. They were already hugely wealthy, in terms of the time, with some notable exceptions (Jefferson was really really good at spending money!) George Washington was the largest land speculator in the colonies, John Hancock was a smuggler “trader” of large but unknown fortune, Jefferson owned lots of land, slaves, and farmed tobacco and cotton.* They had time and inclination to get involved in politics because they had a great deal of wealth at stake and had enough wealth that they could take the time – literally afford – to travel about protecting their interests.
For the colonial elite, the Somerset decision had the attention-riveting effect of a dagger pressed against the throat. It was immediately seen as a threat to their interests for the simple reason that: the colonies were under England’s law. If English law had finally come down on the issue of slavery as odious, immoral and – what really mattered: unenforceable – the colonial elite had a serious, serious problem on their hands.
So they did what any justice-loving group of leaders would do: they worked out how to emancipate the slaves, apologized and compensated them with grants of land** and started tithing a reasonable percentage of their gains to England.
Of course they didn’t.
It’s an excellent read, so click on over for the full article.
Hanging Animal Furoshiki! Eeeee, so cute!
A fun and adorable, contemporary twist on the furoshiki (風呂敷), a traditional wrapping cloth that’s been around in Japan since the 700s. With a few simple folds these unique furoshiki transform into a carrier that resembles hanging animals that will transport your stuff anywhere!
Literally meaning “bath spread,” furoshiki were used to bundle clothes while at public baths. But nowadays people use them to bundle or gift-wrap all sorts of things like lunches, accessories and bottles of wine or sake. Nothing to carry? You can use it around your neck as a scarf too!
They’re newly available in the Spoon & Tamago Shop for $35.
I must have the bat! Must have.
Now we have what might just be the best candle ever. I think protesters should be bulk ordering these.
Living in New York, artist Nao Matsumoto had found himself relying on the middle finger gesture quite frequently. But when he nearly sliced off his middle finger while cutting wood in his studio it made him realize the severity of the potential loss – an accident, he says, that would have been equivalent to losing his voice.
So the Brooklyn-based Japanese artist created a series of middle finger candles. Each candle is hand-made by Matsumoto himself and comes from a mold made from his own hand. The candles were originally used to protest the use of nuclear energy in Japan on the anniversary of the March 2011 tsunami.You can read more about the protest Here.
You can order your very own middle finger candle here.
Litter. In this case, a discarded target. Click for full size.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
Sunflowers, from Kengi. The first one is over 11 feet tall! Click for full size.
© Kengi. All rights reserved.
From rq, an arachnid parent. Click for full size.
© rq. All rights reserved.
A very young Black-headed Grosbeak. Click for full size.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.