By WILLIAM LEDFORD
I want to start with a thought to help you get through the day. “The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.” And now, here we go…
I want to offer an idea. Right now. We need to have the per capita disbursement moved up a week to enable tribal members to take full advantage of Turkey Day prep in addition to Black Friday, Blacker Saturday-Sunday and Cyber Monday shopping. Writing a check at Sam’s Club on Friday the 27th hoping it doesn’t get cashed until Tuesday the 1st got real weird. I’m joking, maybe.
I’m going to have to spend a portion of this issue questioning the latest circus antics of the GOP hopefuls because frankly these people are way the heck out there. I’ll start with the statement from Donald Trump about the French after the Daesh/ISIL/ISIS attack in Paris. “If they had been armed this wouldn’t have happened”. Yeah Donald, that’s an idea that’s worked so well here in America.
Ben Carson is popular in opinion polls because he stated in his book that he attacked his friends with rocks and his mother with a hammer (no one remembers any of this), he got a “scholarship” offer for West Point, that abortion is slavery, the Chinese are in Syria, every time the minimum wage is raised more people become jobless, German people were disarmed in the 30’s allowing the Nazis to rise, vaccines don’t prevent crippling diseases and illnesses (and he’s a doctor), the Pyramids in Egypt were constructed as grain storage facilities and the best one of all…people become gay while in prison. And, some people love him for his honesty. You can’t make this stuff up. No, I take that back… Ben Carson made all this stuff up.
I’m thinking that I’m not at all afraid of Daesh/ISIL/ISIS terrorists slipping into the US with the Syrian refugees potentially ready to attack us because I am more afraid of the domestic terrorists already here in our country that are fully, and legally, armed by the NRA and ready to kill people every day. There’s a debate going now about calling Al-Qaeda and Daesh/ISIL/ISIS Muslim extremists…so, now I wonder, do we call these homegrown killers Christian extremists? Baptist fundamentalists? Catholic crusaders?
I feel compelled to say this to a lot of people, especially guys, who wander around wearing white-framed sunglasses…hello, they look really stupid. It might be because I saw an old movie many years ago and the “scary Hells Angel dude” wore some cheesy white framed glasses, and he wasn’t very tough or frightening because of it…I dunno…all’s I know is white-framed sunglasses look really stupid. Might want to check a mirror before you leave the house wearing those, but, don’t let me stop you.
The Republicans on the campaign trail seem to be truly gung-ho to send American troops to Syria to fight the Daesh/ISIL/ISIS group. Hmmm…George Bush and Dick Cheney basically broke Iraq the last time we invaded a Middle East country and that breaking eventually created Daesh/ISIL/ISIS out of the Sunni sect. So, now we need to attack and occupy another country (Syria) and try to clean up that problem with more blood and lives from our men and women? And, while we’re thinking about the subject of terrorism, let’s not forget who made Al-Qaeda what they are today. That would be good ol’ Ronnie Reagan, GOP darling. He armed Al-Qaeda to the teeth with advanced weaponry which they turned on us after whipping up on the Soviets. Not cool.
Sometimes I think that I’d like to invent and patent a device that sticks, or glues, a phone to the side of some people’s faces. That way the long talkers can keep both hands on the wheel when they drive. It’s just my opinion that many females need this because that’s all I see yakkin’ on the phone but, it probably won’t work because it might mess up their makeup. Yeah I know, I’m a chauvinist, but you can’t tell me that I’m wrong. And, I’d also like to figure out a device that has an intense signal to short a phone out when you aim it at somebody texting while they’re driving. Why? Because texting and driving is dangerous, stupid and they won’t stop doing it!
Three cheers for the defeat of the Keystone XL Pipeline. The Republicans wanted to make this a liberal environmentalist issue and they kept it real quiet that the Northern Plains tribes were totally against the pipeline along with a great majority of the northern ranchers and farmers. The main force behind the construction push headed by the GOP were the Koch Brothers who invested millions and millions in Canadian tar sand leases and…wait for it…gifts and campaign donations. Betcha didn’t know that…didja.
Principal Chief Lambert may have just killed the feasibility study proposal aimed at marijuana legalization on the Rez, but this concept truly needs to remain active. When the Feds re-classify and de-criminalize marijuana, and they will, we absolutely need to be prepared to take advantage of this opportunity. I realize that decades of intense propaganda have made a natural plant medicine seem evil to the “moral majority”, but the alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical lobbyists have money to burn to keep us hooked on booze, cigarettes and pills.
It’s really funny…big money makes vodka, Viceroy and Vicodin look more attractive to the masses than a natural substance that really helps many people who have complex medical conditions – only in America. And, I’m sorry to be the one telling educated people this, but recreational marijuana has long since been proven not to be the gateway drug that the unenlightened claim it is. It absolutely has no business being classified with heroin or methamphetamine. Those are two of the really dangerous drugs that addict and kill our children.
That’s all for now…I’ll leave you with this thought concerning many of our national elected Senators and Representatives. “Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They should be changed regularly, and for the same reason.”
Ledford is an EBCI tribal member currently living in Albuquerque, NM.
