Observations and random thoughts Vol. 27.1
By WILLIAM LEDFORD
I hope everyone enjoyed feasting on Turkey Day. I certainly did. Turkey is my weakness in late November and late December. I actually can’t stand the stuff any other time. I keep hearing people state, “I lost some weight” and I wanna say yeah, I know, I found it. I need to exercise. The only problem is, I hate exercising. It’s such a waste of time when I could be somewhere warm, over-eating and very happy. Oh well.
Alabama’s GOP candidate for Congress, one Roy Moore, deposed judge, woke up one day to accusations from women who had kept their mouths shut about him and his preferences for stalking teenage girls while an assistant DA years ago. One accuser stating that she was 14-years-old and he in his 30s when Moore attempted to have sex with her. The number of women stepping forward are now eight and counting. Moore denies all, naturally, and admitted that he first noticed his wife when she was a teen. This was supposed to vindicate him I suppose, to me it just made him seem even creepier. Oh yeah, and it seems that he may have also been banned from a mall in Alabama for creeping on teenage girls.
The Alabama GOP, along with many evangelicals, has attempted to equate Moore with Joseph from the Bible. Some have stated that his guilt only amounts to the theft of a lawnmower, a misdemeanor…yep…you read that right. Some evangelical preachers have condoned his behavior stating that he was only seeking purity by stalking young girls. A few others have hinted about the age of consent in Alabama and still others have attempted the tried-and-true technique of discrediting the accusers for waiting this long not seeing the irony evident here. That irony being that women once were put through absolute hell for speaking out and too many predators used their power to silence them. There’s a fine line between Southern conservatism and bat crap crazy and these people have crossed over. But then, it’s Alabama, crazy lives in Alabama, ‘nuff said.
Add Al Franken to the list of offenders. The once un-funny SNL guy who’s now Senator from Minnesota (BTW, he’s funnier as a politician), who has been vociferous in speaking out against the degradation of women is now one of those guys accused of sexual abuse. One of his accusers, Leeann Tweeden, has photo documentation of his pretending to grope her while she was sleeping on a plane after presenting a show for deployed soldiers. Way to be classy Al.
The list in show business is also growing. Kevin Spacey was outed not only as a physically-abusive predator, but the supposedly unknown fact that he is gay was also brought to the forefront. He was outed as a gay man because he was a sexual abuser. Only comedian Louis C.K. has admitted to being guilty of the stories about him. That takes cajones. Of course that’s what he was guilty of exposing women to but that’s gotta be a story for a later time.
I’m going to toss out a number for you; 219. As in, 219 years of white male Presidents of the United States. America has had 227 years of male Presidents counting Barack Obama and seems like classic de-evolution. The whole thing has devolved into President Donald J Trump. This President seems to think that being President is the same as starring in a truly bizarre reality show. Never a week goes by without him tweeting some stupid stuff or saying stupid stuff. Oh, to his followers and himself, he’s a great man and he’s sticking it to Washington. To the rest of us, it’s going to be long, long three years of having it stuck to us.
Our beloved POTUS has done it again. During a show of honoring Native combat veterans at the White House, the Navajo Codetalkers, Trump thought that it was an ideal time to once again use his favorite racial insult and refer to Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas”. I once referred to Trump as a rube, a Gomer, that observation has not changed. And…did anyone happen to catch the portrait hanging in the room as Trump hosted the Codetalkers? It was good ol’ Andy Jackson, the 7th POTUS, the degenerate, racist, sociopath whose brain functions were possibly damaged by untreated syphilis. Yep, that guy. Another insult to Natives?
Our President has a love/hate relationship with the news media, well, all except Fox News because CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC all ignore what he claims to have done and instead focus on what he actually does, and says, and tweets. Fox News ignores all of the negative things and instead spins the stories to reflect positively on him and his actions. Fox News is basically a propaganda machine, not a legitimate news outlet. They are funny though. The funniest thing is, they are unintentionally funny and that is hilarious.
Colin Kaepernick, yes, the NFL guy, is in the news in Indian Country for showing up at the Alcatraz Indigenous Peoples Sunrise Gathering on what Natives call UnThanksgiving Day. This tradition of gathering at the site of the Native protest in 1969 has been a tradition since 1975. Colin was there to support the people again. I say again because last year he gave $50,000 to the Standing Rock clinic in North Dakota. Naturally, conservatives loved him for his actions by calling him a traitor with one of the more enlightened Trumpians even suggesting that he should just sacrifice a “white baby”. Yep, she said that. Never lose vigilance folks because these people, these Trumpkins, are our worst enemy.
In a wonderfully fine example of “I told you so”, the Keystone Pipeline, the pipeline guaranteed not to leak…has sprung a leak. Oh, at first they called it a “small leak”, only 5,000 barrels. But, the new assessment is 210,000 gallons of leaking crude oil. Not a small leak. TransCanada has crews busy on clean up. No word yet on the environmental impact. I have a word…no, sorry, I can’t use those words.
This time of year is always tough for me and my family, all of my family. Oct. 28 is the anniversary of my father, Bill Ledford, walking on and beginning the journey. We love you dad, grampa, great grampa, and we miss you. But, we know that you’re keeping an eye on us, like you always did. Yeah, when you’re keeping that eye on us, remember, I didn’t do what you think you saw me do.
Finally, I’ll end this by reflecting on the words of a deep philosopher who once said, “My parents are getting old and it’s time to put them in a nursing home. But, I live with my parents and I don’t wanna live in a nursing home…” See ya next time.
Ledford is an EBCI tribal member currently residing in Albuquerque, NM.
