By WILLIAM LEDFORD
It’s here! March Madness has begun. As usual I find myself in a quandary at this time. Not in picking the winner this year. That would be UNC. The Tarheels seem to have dropped into the groove. Now if Marcus Paige could find last year’s shooting stroke to offset Brice Johnson’s inside dominance…fuggetaboutit…wrap up the trophy and ship it to Chapel Hill. My dilemma is with the boys from DukeBack Mountain. Having watched them a couple of times this year and seeing what can happen when their latest infinite Plumley gets involved I keep picking them to go to the Sweet 16 in my brackets. If not, they get frustrated, Grayson Allen starts tripping people and down they go, the Blue Devils and the tripped players. Personally I love it when the Dookies take it on the chin but I worry about my brackets. Oh well…whaddayagonnado…
By now you’ve realized, if you are a Republican, Donald Trump, The Donald, he of the reality show The Apprentice, the filthy rich loudmouth with a bad, bad comb over and his latest immigrant wife, is probably gonna be your candidate for President of the United States. I’ve heard people state that since he’s a businessman he can run the country like a business. Yeah, well, I remember that he’s gone bankrupt and reorganized a few times, don’t think we’re we ready for that. I’ve revised an old slogan for this, “Friends don’t let friends vote Trump.” Take it to heart.
On the same subject the GOP hierarchy are attempting to circumvent the will of the voters by proposing an alternate candidate to Trump at the convention, one a little more aligned with their narrow thinking. In response The Donald says that if the GOP convention tries to select someone else to be the nominee, his people will riot. That scenario, angry whiteskins marching in the streets, tearing stuff up, burning cars, would be hilarious to watch. Perfect for pay per view. But now that I think about it, that already happens when teams win the World Series, the Super Bowl and the NCAA Championship and fans go nuts. On second thought, it’s already old.
Speaking of winners, cheers and congratulations to our basketball teams. Good job gals and guys. You guys made some good deep runs in the state playoffs. And also, kudos for making all-star teams. Still, I find it kinda funny that our Native players are named to the White Boys and White Girls teams but that’s just me. And…I’ve probably just offended someone. Get in line.
The other day I saw a guy wearing a bunch of Dallas Cowboy gear so I felt compelled to offer condolences in his time of woe. The stakes in the bet must have been very high for him to debase himself like that, if it were me I might have chosen to wear the French maid’s costume rather than Cowboy gear. Then he informed me that he dressed like that willingly because he was a Cowboy fan. I backed away slowly, not to alarm him. Rabid sheep are unpredictable.
Miesha Tate choked out Holly Holm of Albuquerque not long ago to win an MMA championship belt. Holly Holm had cleaned Rhonda Rousey’s clock with a kick to the jaw a few months before to win that belt herself. Rousey has already beaten Tate twice with both bouts lasting less than a minute each. I don’t think Tate will give Rousey a chance to embarrass her a third time very soon. I don’t watch this stuff myself, I’ve seen similar but better, free-for-all chick fights in bars. No pay-per-view needed.
In the NFL, Johnny Manziel was released by the Browns, so far no one has picked him up…who saw that coming. Brock Osweiler got huffy because the Broncos started Payton Manning and won the Super Bowl, so he signed with the Texans. The Raiders are quietly building a monstrous defense in Oakland. The Patriots signed Martellus Bennett and expect to be dominant again. But. All of that matters little because the Packers have everyone back. Go Green Bay!
I’ve noticed, couldn’t help but notice, it’s been prominent in the paper and on Indianz.com, that Council and the Principal Chief are bickering. And the Council, demonstrating their infinite maturity, have decided to pull a discretionary fund away from the Chief, probably because of some remarks that he made about their recreational habits. What happened to the good ol’ days that I remember when many of the Council would go to the USET conferences and spend all of their time partying and missing committee meetings? The show The Walking Dead wasn’t even on TV yet but running into these guys on days after the nightly parties reminded me of walking dead with the disheveled hair, the moaning and groaning, the shambling stumbles and the awful, awful, godawful hangover breath. I guess nothing’s changed. I really don’t think that Council needs any more of our money to spend and should give this fund back to the Principal Chief. They should be happy that they’ve given themselves raises while the folks that actually work for a living get pennies to offset cost-of-living. Ooops, now I’ve really done it, I’m probably in trouble and can’t come home for a while.
I like the feature the One Feather has started running with the mug shots. Our Albuquerque paper runs something similar with DWI and Property Crime offenders. In a city with 750,000 it’d be a separate paper on its own trying to list every offender so those are enough. But it hit me. Dang I’m old if I’ve gotten to the point where I’m now looking in the paper to see if anyone I know is in the obits or the mugshots. It’s funny though. I’ve stayed gone for so long that now when I see people that I think I recognize it’s usually their children.
I noticed that Unto These Hills is gearing up. Brings back memories. I was there from age 8 or 9 to age 15. I remember being a typical kid that enjoyed having fun and being fined most of my paycheck because I was 9 and talked while on “the bridge”. We made about a buck or so an hour back then so getting fined all of the time kept the Drama from paying me what I was saving for a bike. I was young then, didn’t matter, kinda hacks me off now. Where’s my money?
There was a show recently aired on the Cooking Channel, the chef was preparing ramps. The people that supplied her with the ramps stated that they would just go find the ramps, dig them up and according to them that was the way to do it. She did have a disclaimer later in the show that showed people the correct way to get ramps without wiping out the future growth.
This Trump for President thing makes me shake my head but doesn’t surprise me at all. You have to put it into perspective. Huge numbers of people these days watch shows on TV about Kardashians, Bachelors and Bachelorettes, rednecks that invented a duck call, pregnant teens, etc. Why not support another reality show clown. I’ve said it before, at least 2/3’s of the Republican voters in these primaries and caucuses didn’t vote for Trump.
I saw a statement from someone who wasn’t going to consider voting for the Democrats because they weren’t Christian, which cracked me up because I was under the assumption that neither Democrats nor Republicans were even though they proclaim to be. Just as I’m positive that all politicians sign a Hypocritic Oath before embarking upon that path. And…it brings to mind a one-liner that fits this whole thing perfectly…”Just going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you an automobile”. Thanks Billy Sunday.
Ledford is an EBCI tribal member living in Albuquerque, NM.
