MAY - 2013

Hello People of the World;

Today I was asked about this crazy weather, how it can change so quick? It went from 40 degrees to 80+ in two days I was told. Right now as I type this, in my oven masked as a studio apartment, we are getting crazy rains, wind and lightning outside. Hey, it’s just the weather.

I have been remiss of late in writing my posts to you dear Readers on a timely basis. The reasons are two – one: of late I find my burdens in my new employ rather taxing in travels that often times when I reach home I find myself in search of sustenance or weary to the point of collapse, and two: my literary aspirations have exceeded my need to write this blog on a timetable conducive to punctuality. My apologies. My other writings have so far interfered with the writing of your monthly “Wisdom of the Sages” doses.

I am pretty proud of the fact that I am edging closer to publishing an ebook for you. “The Autobiography of Blue Woman” is going through a final editing phase and soon I will self-publish via SmashWords. Also, in this dearth of creativity I have revived an old novel on mine called “A Rez Tale”, think “A Bronx Tale” set on an Indian reservation. I have many other novels, short stories collections and young adult stories to finish and I think self-publishing will be the way to go if “Blue Woman” works out. Stay tuned….

Anyways, let’s get started shall we?

1:[ First Item of the Month: More Truthfulness

My Useless Self: On Ego and Parenthood

May is typically the month for mothers as we celebrate Mother’s Day. Funny, I never saw my mom not be a mom the other 364 days of the year. It is a constant, daily, never-ending thing. One thing my girls will never understand until they have their own babies is how important this one simple day is to moms. Sure, we can say it is a made-up holiday but really. One day of gratitude a year is easy compared to the pain of raising kids until they are mature enough to take care of themselves, which sometimes never happens.

I know, I always say that my mom was my mom the other 364 days of the year as well, but one side of that cube is that parenting is damn hard. One day a year of appreciation is not a hard thing to do in light of, as Louis CK aptly put it: “It’s the hardest thing and you aren’t allowed to say ‘it sucks’. The future of our nation depends on our success and no one tells you how to do it.”

I worked hard at being a parent. (I think. The jury’s still out on that.) I tried to raise my girls by letting them question me. I never engaged them in that stupid adult-child dynamic but as two people interacting. To force that on them forces them to shut off what makes them present, what makes them a person. To this day, Char still challenges me and asks me questions. When they got mad at me, I let them be mad. When they shouted at me, or cried, I let them because how else are they ever going to learn that speaking out is important. When you shush a child you are telling them that what they have to say or what they feel at that moment is not important and they should not speak up.

I don’t engage any of the students I work with in that adult-child dynamic either. I think that is insulting to them. I don’t know if I stuck to that all the time with my girls but I tried to keep it in mind as often as I could while I was with them. I cannot tell you if I were successful because it is such an ongoing, never-ending thing.

Another side of this cube, the thing I have noticed over the years of parental observations is how much men are being pushed out of parenting and how we have seemingly escaped responsibility of raising children. While I praise the strength of single moms and would never expect them to “Find a man” I find it very interesting how much men actually escape being responsible for the children they helped create and how we have turned issues like abortion and parenting into “women’s issues”. We have made so easy for us to walk out on a pregnancy because we are not made to feel the responsibility of child-making.

Shoot, men are measured in how many women they have sex with. That is a stupid thing that’s been around forever and we still hold to that for some reason. I always thought abortion should be a parenting decision rather than just a woman’s. While I respect a woman’s control of her own body, she did not create that child alone. Men can skate while women struggle to control their bodies and are left to raise the child alone. I don’t know. It’s probably more complicated than that, as I am sure it was sometimes a good thing the man was not involved at all but I hope that it is something to think about.

How egotistical for me to talk about parenting when I have no natural children of my own, right? Just call me an idiot and move on….

Updates from my other Truthfulness Projects:

+ NAMELESS: The Authentic and Magical Ledger Art of EW3

A Treatise on American Indian Art

“All you care about is money. This city deserves a better class of artist. And I’m going to give it to them.”

Many people wonder why I do not “Like” certain artists’ art on the Facebooks. It’s simple: I Don’t. (Yeah, I wrote that.) Mainly, because FB has become this childish tit-for-tat in “Liking” things, “I won’t like your stuff unless you like mine first” and that’s stupid. Besides, I think I have stated this before, but most art does not impress me. A lot of things don’t. (I don’t mean in that stupid, hipster sense either.) Not that I am some big somebody for people to try to impress. I am the quiet, timid consumer. The lowest wrung on the artistic, political, informational, celebrity and “community” ladder. I am a Nobody. I have no working TV or satellite-cable systems. I am not up on the latest technologies and I don’t read newspapers or follow Internet news sites all that often. So, if I hear of some newsy tidbit in my lazy, solipsistic circles, then, I figure that it must be important and worth paying attention to. I don’t see a lot of Native artistry out there in the wide world other than those silly circles we keep yelling in.

While I do admire the skill and talent many artists have, I have to recognize that, the Art World has changed and the Native Art World, even more so. We created new reservation systems called art markets where we fight each other because someone is not a “Status Indian” in that they did not go to certain schools or hang out with certain bunches of other artists and therefore does not belong. It has also become a Pay-for-Play World of consumable marketing. The most colonized of behaviors. In the end, it’s all collectable coffee mugs. And that’s where I stand on this issue.

I’ll explain more in my Artist’s Statement for “NAMELESS: The Authentic and Magical Ledger Art of EW3”, so keep an eye out for that and hopefully, I’ll get another showing soon. I keep running into more things that support my view and I think I should add it to the treatise. And before you say “Ah-hah! You’re going to sell your stuff at an art showing.” Well, I’m not. All of the ledger drawings that are gone, I simply gave away. I don’t care if someone who will never remember me will never take my art “seriously” by paying money for it just so they can augment their expertise about Native Art and culture. It’s silly. If you are throwing money at owning art, you have no idea what art is….

Quote the great man “It’s not about money. It’s about sending a message….”

+ The Five Six SEVEN Hypocrisies of Native America:

(Because Seven is a sacred number):

I am constantly surprised that no one ever sees that Native Americans do the exact same things. I actually turned one of these hypocrisies into a “Mikey Redshade Saves the World” comic strip that you can see here. So, six to go. Something else I noticed too, thinking on hypocrisies – Gwen Stefani, that Victoria Secrets model, and Michelle Williams, all were raged against, threatened, boycotted and called out publically for an apology. Johnny Depp? Benicio Del Toro? Not a peep. How come Stefani, that model or Williams ever been invited to be adopted by a tribe? Are they not doing the same thing as Depp and Costner? Is there sexism in all this liberal political correctness?

+ ONE: A Spoken Word:

Are there any open mics that I can workshop this bad boy? My masterpiece. It’s about the time Crazy Horse showed up at my door. (I know. Shut up.)

NEXT MONTH’S TRUTHFULNESS: Ego and _____? Let me know.

2:[ No one ever talks about the negative impact of the "arts community". I was walking around in my old Wicker Park neighborhood last night, near Milwaukee and North, and was struck at what it has become. I used to live there just as this whole "arts community" thing was moving into the area, around the first year "Around the Coyote" began there. There used to be old mom and pop eateries, lost of local and ethnic flavor to the place. I haven't really been back in years but as I moved out while the arts community was moving in, so did also the suburban orphans, which eventually leads to gentrification.

Last night what I saw was a glorified strip mall with American Apparels and Carhartt boutiques and the hipster-nostalgia irony tip. You know your neighborhood has really been gentrified when you force even McDonald's out of the place. No more people of color walking the streets or hanging out in front of the Walgreen’s, just the college kids in the sweater vests, plastic glasses and low-top Chucks lolling about because its ironic to shop there. It has simply become a place for suburban kids to play and pretend they are living the gritty lifestyle guised as an artistic community scene and we all seem to have bought into it. I am sure I am being totally unfair but if you knew the place before and saw what it has become now. Someone will surely tell me what a shitty neighborhood it was with all the gang violence and ugly ambiance or something. But I am also sure that what it is now is not the solution to that….

3:[ More MOVIE TIME ADVENTURES:

+ Pain and Gain – It was by no means a masterpiece or a great movie. It was funny and raucous and “based on a true story”. I enjoyed it. It was directed by Michael Bay. The first time I have enjoyed a Michael Bay movie…. This review reflects what I got out of it. Maybe recommend.

+ I picked the wrong season to grow out my “Hamlet hair”. I really dislike having long hair but I want my Hamlet to start the movie with shoulder-length hair. Then, he cuts it off in an act of madness. Anyways. I hate having long hair, especially when the weather warms and gets humid. Whew! Oh well, I cannot control the weather, but I can control the length of my hair. Speaking of Hamlet:

+ I am looking to shoot a scene from my “Hamlet” feature possibly in the middle of next month. I am trying to see if I can make a feature film for free to truly test artistic support in the community.

But, I think I am scaring off many Native folks with this approach. You already know about the producer from a couple of years ago. I was recently visiting with another filmmaker about this project and he was pretty excited about the idea when I told him my vision for it. He was asking about cinematographers and suggesting people and when I told him that I would be doing most of it myself in a style that was more mariachi-style, guerilla filmmaking, maybe even a few steps below that, he was surprised. I have done the micro-crew/one-man band shoots before. We will see. I hope he helps. I am shooting this on a $0 budget, mainly because I want to see if I can. If we get funds that would be great but I want to see how far the whole boasted “Support for Native Cinema” thing goes.

Will all those who truly support Native American Cinema truly support a film by lending their time and talents for free? I don’t think so. But I am going to get this done and for those that do help, they will prove that Natives truly do support each other. Besides, once this shoot is done, off comes the hair….

4:[ My VHS and dying DVD player: Sadly, I am down to possibly my LAST Mystery Science Theater 3000 VHS tape. My VCR has been breaking the tapes off their leaders of late in its rewinding. Mostly, lately, I have been saving my tapes by using the ‘Search Mode’ which rewinds the tape back to 00:00 slowing gently to the time code point saving the tapes from the hard snap of standard Rewind.

I left Wyoming with six of eight recorded MST3K VHS tapes, which was still a big home entertainment option at the time. These days, rather than playing one episode per DVD, I can just put in a 6-hour tape that holds 4 episodes or the 8-hour tape that holds five and let it run as I drift off to sleep. I need this to keep my head from running all night with its constant non-stop worrying, creating worlds, solving problems, from building the perfect utopian society in my head that keeps me from sleeping. I even use it as a way to time my sleeps, 6 hours = 4 episodes or 7 ½ hours with 5 episodes.

I had left two tapes back in Wyoming borrowed out to my brothers but in the last year or so, my VCR has been killing my VHS tapes one by one. Nothing compares to watching them on old VHS tapes rather than DVD or YouTube. The show grew in popularity thanks to circulated VHS tapes back in the day. Just pop a tape in and don’t worry about having to change discs

I now miss watching those shows that are on those tapes. I will not pretend to be a fan of MST3K from the beginning as I started watching the show during its Sci Fi Channel run and it did speak to me as a critic of media and it helped my own filmmaking.

All I have left now are the tapes with “Riding with Death”, “Agent for H.A.R.M.”, “Space Mutiny” (a classic episode!) and Corman’s “The Undead” and one with “Hamlet” (yes!), “Horror of Spider Island”, “Squirm” and “Danger: Diabolik!” which I cannot find right now. The 8-hour tape keeps getting mangled but I have been able to salvage it. It contains “Werewolf” (Another classic), “Space Children”, Soul Taker” (The Joel-Mike Episode!), “Girl in Gold Boots” and “Future War”, many of these have been released to DVD but as I said, nothing beats popping in a tape and letting it run all the shows.

It breaks my heart when the tape breaks from its leader. It means I have lost another collection of my all-time favorite television show. I may try to attempt to repair the tapes but I need one of those tiny screwdrivers, a lot of patience, steady eye-hand coordination and a lot of hope and tape.

Anyways. I guess I should look for a new VCR/DVD combo as it seems the DVD player is dying and is very picky about which discs to play. Plus, I still have a lot of movies on VHS that I do not have on DVD. So, I should get a new VCR. (I don’t mean in that stupid, hipster sense either.)

Time to upgrade? I don’t know. How long until Blu-Ray and HD become obsolete. I always figured that the real Hispter throwback trend should be BetaMax with its better picture and sound quality and overall rarity of both consumer grade machines and tapes. But hipsters never listen to me….

5:[ Ah yes, settle in Dear Readers for more of:

Adventures at the Coffee Shop!

+ My coffee fast is now extending into its ninth month. So much so, that I barely have anymore coffee shop adventures. I do love sitting in a shop and people watching. You know what? I’m going to put this writing aside for now and go to one and finish up WoS there…. (By the way, while I got to a coffee shop, I did not finish WoS there….)

+ Ah, the Machiavellian Machinations of selecting the next shift supervisor and how every single candidate throws the rest of the crew under the bus all for a job I guarantee you they will complain about endlessly and tell everyone they hate it later on. If you think you have friends at the Starbucks, just wait until you hear what they say about all the others when being interviewed by the Big Boss for a raise and more hours….

+ I happened to stop in the Caribou Coffee on South Wabash near Columbia College on my way to a meeting. They offer this new “natural” Ginger Ale drink that I bought out of curiosity. I cracked a joke to the barista when he was not sure if it was an ale or not. “As opposed to a Ginger Lager,” I said. (Lager reference for the win!) It was really good. It was made with fresh ginger, so much so, that it had actual pulp in the bottom of the bottle, “spring” water and pure cane sugar. So, it was all-natural I guess. But looking at the label it did have a chemical ingredient that escapes my mind and an Internet search proves fruitless as I suppose they do not want that known. Oh, it was citric acid, a weak bio chemical used to sour flavors of drink. It was sweet and spicy at the same time. I enjoyed it and would recommend it….

6:[ Today, coming home on the train from a school visit on the south side I bore witness to a great exhibition of artistry I have ever seen. Sure, there are the egotistical big shots that brag they draw on the train all the time. This was a kid, in his teens using a purple ballpoint pen and crayons. He would draw something like “Dog Eats Banana” and then color it and whip it into his folder, draw up another sheet and do another. He was drawing on inkjet paper. He did not stop once. He was an Artistic Terminator that showed no remorse and simply would not stop, until you are dead. Or something. He never looked up once from his drawings.

I saw him do three all together. But that was when I was paying attention to him. He must have done at least ten in the time I got on the train at the Garfield Green line stop and got off at the Adams Loop stop. He spoke to no one, kept his head down and even the shaking of the train did not stop him. He would sketch figures in stylized cartoon with balloon letters for the titles and then switch to crayons and color them in. Then, SNAP, he would put it away and on a fresh sheet, would start again. Besides “Dog Eats Banana” he did “Armstrong/Oprah” with a fairly accurate caricature of the TV giant, “Pilgrims” depicting a turkey and a slave choking their oppressor.

I got on and he was coloring the “Dog Eats Banana” sketch and what caught my attention later was his snapping it under the pile in his lap. Then, on a clean sheet he would start drawing with his pen. Then, he would catch my attention again by reaching into his pouch for a crayon and start to color. Then, SNAP, another paper, the pen, then coloring, SNAP, the pen, then coloring, SNAP, pen, coloring, over and over again. It was damn cool to see. He said nothing. He just kept going. He was coloring one titled “Karate Kid” which was a cartoon of Daniel and Miyagi when I got off the train. This was the essence of true art. Simply creating. Inspiring….

7:[ And now Wisdom of the Sages presents:

“An Ever-growing List of Things That MUST Stop!”

+ When I was growing up I was called a “Math Nerd”. I never gave that label to myself. I earned that from the ire of fellow schoolmates by being at the top of my class in all of the math classes at St. Stephen’s Indian High School. “Fucking nerd,” they would say when I refused to let them cheat off me. Believe me, there was once a time when being called a Nerd was NOT a good thing. It was a passive-aggressive attack on your intelligence and self-esteem. It was meant to humble you to the point of actually wanting to stop being smart and being absorbed into the regular crowd and to give an excuse for others to beat up on you and make fun of you. But I liked math too much, as much as I loved reading, drawing, movies and comic books. I was a nerd in math and English and a geek about movies and comics.

Lately, there seems to be this pervading usurpation of term “Nerd”, which I feel, stems from this egotistical need to look both humble and intelligent at the same time without really accomplishing the intelligence. Now, look at the first 42 seconds or so of this video as it sort of sums up the issues rather well. You can tell that this guy was probably never called a Nerd in his life. (Or maybe he was as a child, I don’t know.) But no one would ever call him one now. But because of his admitted love of comic books, for some reason he is allowed to take up that title.

Milhouse from “The Simpsons” had the correct definition of being a geek versus being a nerd. “Nerds are smart”. Geeks tend to be geeky about specific things that have nothing to do with intelligence (Or, higher intelligence, to not be insulting.) – comic books, movies, sewing, costuming, D&D, science fiction, fantasy, board games, action figures, swords collecting, trading cards and the list goes on. Nerds were only into one or two things that had a lot to do with math or sciences, with intelligence – chemistry, astronomy, physics (both theoretical and applied), computer technology, calculus and so forth. All are subjects that deal with knowledge and intelligence and they were outcast due to their devotion to such subjects.

But somewhere along the way we mixed both of them together and because we did, when certain people find themselves “into” such things as comic books, sci fi and the like, they feel qualified to call themselves nerds though that label has no bearing. We should be doing away with labels all together but there is also this thing out there: the egotistical victimhood of fighting a status quo. (Which I will write more about in a future edition of Wos and how it pertains to Native American identity and protests.)

Remember when Congress was holding hearings on that Internet Piracy Bill? They wanted to understand how the Internet worked and would state things like “It’s time to call the nerds in to explain this.” Remember? Well, they we actually using the label right because it was attached to a form of education and science and it was used to insult the intelligent. Can you imagine that guy in the motorcyle video showing up and saying “I’m a nerd ‘cause I likes comic books.”

See my point?

Even now, celebrities tend to garner attention for being into The Avengers or Star Wars or all those ladies who dress like Wonder Woman (But can never tell you their favorite story line from the comics) or Slave Leia from “Return of the Jedi” or jocks wearing Boba Fett shirts or hipsters wearing Power Rangers tees. It is all a façade to boost our egos into trying to look like humble little nerds that like science fiction without ever having to crack open a real science book.

My solution: do away with both labels and let people be into what they are into without invoking ire or causing those to be outcast simply because they are smarter than the rest of us. Which is another reason we are usurping that title. Our society is on a downward curve, it is actually dumbing down in almost all arenas of society and it is simply too difficult to be smart. We would rather hide behind superstition and myths rather than face the real world. Opting not to think critically but rather be apart of the hive-mind is something I will try to fight and this usurpation of a label of intelligence is the first fight….

+ After many years of catching up: Facebook has finally become Old MySpace. Really. Step back from it and take a look.

+ I have been surprised of late of how monetized our thinking has become. We think of everything in terms of dollars earned or spent. Here is an example of how we measure things, even our charity, monetarily. There was this palsied man on the train the other day as I was coming home from a festival event. Palsied is how I would describe him, as I would never guess at his affliction and he was fairly mute as well, he had to communicate through gestures. How difficult is that for him? Everyone he walked up to on the train, he would gesture mutely and roughly for change. He had with him a pad of paper to which I though he wrote his plea out upon but I could not read it clearly. So, he motions to this guy across the way from me from whom he only got his attention because, like me, thought he had something written on the pad of paper and leaned to read it. When he realized the man wanted change, he patted his pockets and told him “I have nothing, sorry man.”

Then, he turned to me. My mind immediately checked my pockets for loose dollars or change and realized that I was also cash broke. I had no money to give him. He gesticulated and me, pointing to his mouth wanting some money to get something to eat. I had to tell him as well, “Sorry, nothing” as if that explained my failure to help him. So, he moved on down the line of passengers and eventually got off at a stop empty handed.

It only hit me after he got off that I had a bag of pastries from the event and that I could have at least offered him some instead but my mind went instantly to cash….

8:[ I've been re-reading "World War Z" (mainly due to getting the book back from Char) and silly enough as it sounds, I have made some interesting connections to some ideas I've been working on for a while, most of it dealing with Native American representations. So, the book, for those who have never read it, is a series of interviews with the many participants of the Zombie War, where zombies rose up and nearly wiped out civilization and once humanity was able to regroup and reorganize, fought back, the survivors share their experiences during different times of the war. It’s a great read actually. Some of it scary, some touching and some make you think, which is why I made the connections to other ideas that I did.

It had struck me some time ago that many Anglos of the nations of the US and Canada still view Native Americans in two versions of a particular point-of-view – as the primary antagonists in the “conquest” of the North American continent. History contains the full spectrum of cooperation and violence that the two cultures meted in these times. Yet, the righteous aggression of destroying Native cultures to settle the land is the singular vision that keeps winning out in our taught histories.

So, how did “World War Z”, a sci-fi, horror novel about a zombie apocalypse inspire new thoughts on this issue? It is a work of fiction, of that I am aware but it did re-awaken some thoughts and ideas in me that I had been long digesting and found, through this reading a more concrete way of expressing those ideas. Although there were no direct correlating stories, the context of the situation did make me connect to the histories of violence during the “Western Expansion”:

1) Surviving the Fight or Die Situations of Western Expansion and how it pertains to Hobbyism and Wannabes

In one story, the interviewee talks about coming across non-infected humans whom have gone feral and began acting like zombies, to the point of attacking other humans, feeling no pain when shot and general mindlessness. The reason was the feeling of hopelessness in the face of an unchanging situation of dread. Some people were simply going to sleep and never waking up. Virtually willing them selves to die rather than face yet another day of facing the truth of the world as it is. Others, simply gave up and joined the zombies as defense mechanism of the fight or die situation because they could not face doing either. They could not fight back against that dread nor did they want to die. So, they became zombies as a way of trying not to deal with the hard reality of the world.

So, how did this connect to the Hobbyists & Wannabes? Not that I think Natives are zombies, (Though we do have the tendency to mindlessly follow hordes.) I was struck by a recent interview with comedian Louis CK (again) and he referred to this idea that you “cannot take way people’s historical context”. That people just want Natives to forget what happened because it happened so long ago. “It wasn’t US!” I can tell you, it still happens. So, they become the “join ‘em” crowd of not wanting to face their history. They dress up in powwow regalia, “respect the culture and history” and love everything Native American, which is still in reference to the past and does absolutely nothing when Prime Ministers threaten to undo all treaty rights and tribal statuses and Presidents are willing to pollute the reservations for a pipeline. They do not want to face another day of dread in the realization that their country tried to eliminate hundreds of civilizations of Native but they do not want to let die that grand history of conquest, so they dress up like Indians of a hundred years ago….

2) The "Always the Enemy" mentality still taught in schools and how it affects Native representations in media and sports mascots

Out of that same story was this smaller incident of night patrols coming across zombie hordes and how they would almost instinctively try to create “back stories” for the zombies, try to figure out who they were before, their situation based on their looks and the clothes the zombies were wearing. The interviewee stated that they had to train themselves to stop this, that to anthropomorphize, to “humanize” the zombie makes it harder to kill and conjuring a back story costs you precious seconds that could cost you your life.

Which brings me to what I call the The Adversarial Disposition of the colonizing culture, where many people still view Natives as an enemy combatant, something to be controlled or destroyed. It is taught in our US histories that Natives tried to prevent the frontier settlers from establishing this great country. A sort of brainwashing of history where people are taught to view Native culture through a lens of colonial conflict with Native people being “always the enemy.” Do not think about their back-stories, their tens of thousands of years of histories and of the genocide that was inflicted upon them. Even today, we are viewed as a “defeated people” that needs to be swept away and that “survivors” cannot deal with living in the modern world.

This is partly why professional sports teams fight the mascot/name change rallies. We are still “always the enemy” and an enemy must be fought in defense of “tradition” and a “way of life.” It really is a way of controlling how the rest of the world sees Native people. You could say that it is about money, which is partly true but it really is about control, control of the image, how people must continue to see Natives as the historical enemy. There are some that even defend the teams, in this op-ed from Indian Country Today, of all places, saying the Redskins’ name change is unnecessary in light of what is truly owed to Native peoples and does nothing to improve their situation. Look at the comments to the article with one stating that it is “tradition”, even “honorable” to “honor your enemies” by naming your teams thusly.

“Enemies”. Still the enemy.

“Honoring” by naming your team a racial epithet meant to demean.

But in reality, media and especially sports media with its opponent-aggressor mentality, influences widely and subtler that blatant outright messaging. More historical brainwashing of accepting the concept that Native Americans will always be the enemy and an enemy must be controlled or destroyed. The more that people see the historical back-stories of Native Americans, the more that it is taught in our schools the sooner that they can come to terms with a long history of genocide, forced and now accepted assimilation and continued racism, blatant and subtle, of Native American peoples.

Anyways. That’s all I got.

3) The Dumbing Down of our Education Systems into a "learning to memorize" constant-testing environment versus learning critical thinking

In one particular story, a Japanese dropout was talking about how he was a terrible student, although he was a genius really, but due to how the schools did nothing but constantly test you on facts and figures, leaving no room for critical thought or creative thought. Because of this he segregated himself as a computer hacker and due to his mode of learning became almost an automaton absorbing facts with no real way of dealing with the real world. He was numbed down into submission into the doxa of his country.

It seems the same is happening to our education system. We are constantly testing kids on facts and figures. Lolling them into submission to an authority that is supposed to present accurate facts and information. But with the introduction of Creationism into the science classroom and other dogmatic instruction, students are being forced to memorize rote information without question. But then, who controls what the kids are learning and are never allowed to question, to fact-check? How is this not brainwashing?

Kids who cannot think critically and creatively are being done a disservice because they are supposed to be the movers, shakers and innovators of tomorrow, they think. But if we continue to drag their information and thinking back into the Dark Ages, how are we to thrive as a species. Then, when things get serious, how will they ever learn to think outside of the box, to innovate their own solutions? Tragic.

What is more tragic is the erasing of our critical history. You see it when Presidential libraries re-write history and corporation buy up Native lands and tear down ancient mounds for a parking lot. Neil Postman once wrote about this in his Introduction to “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” when he mentions that while Orwell’s vision of society, that of an all oppressing Big Brother, in “1984” did not come true when that year come and gone, he warned about another writer, Aldous Huxley and his vision in “Brave New World”. In “Brave New World”, society does not care about their oppression because they come to love it as they are still being entertained. Postman was worried that in today’s media-centric society that the possibility that Huxley’s, not Orwell vision was coming true.

But in “1984”, there was this idea that when Big Brother spoke about history and was wring, the main character would go into historical databases and change the information there so that it appeared Big Brother was correct all along. How is this not happening today when media is conglomerated and historical places like Wounded Knee can be sold? I am fearing that both Orwell and Huxely may be right, that they were on the same curve but from different ends.

Or maybe I am just over-thinking this? Is that possible?

So, I got all this info simply from reading Max Brooks’ zombie novel “World War Z”. This book and George Romero’s original “Night of the Living Dead” are the only zombie ephemera that I actually enjoy. Zombies are played out and are the most boring and stupid of horror creatures. Anyways. Moving on….

9:[ From the “This Just In” Department: Speaking of zombies. So, here is what the Internet is doing to our brains. It seems that our brains need quiet reflection times to process all the information we are exposed to on a daily basis, to form new ideas, connections and thoughts and to commit those to our long-term memory to process and recall later. But with the distractions of cellphones, instant messaging and the Internet, that process of converting short-term memories into long-term ones is being interrupted at a constant rate. So much so, that we are processing less and less into our long-term memories for future analysis. If we do not do that, who is to say that in the future we will not analyze situations or information anymore but just accept it because it is in front of us. Interesting. Interesting because, how are we not like that now?

I was talking to one of my school site teachers about this and she noticed this too in that schools do not allow students to have time to do nothing, it is a constant flow of work and tests and many of the higher brain function activities like art and creativity and being scuttled. They pack computers and laptops into classrooms now. Many are Internet capable and kids will tend to want to go online in their down time. It happens to us “grown ups” as well. I look around and see almost everyone staring at tiny, little screens, distracted. Shoot, we’re all staring at screen right now.

This video probably explains it better than I just did but I wanted to connect it to how we are teaching our youth. I have always said that school teaches students how to be “adults”, to function in the rigid societal structure we navigate but practically kills the “person” inside that all kids are from the start. We modify their behaviors with schooling and our own sense of what we deem important to us, not the child, such as expected behaviors, and strictly impose those on children, who have no sense of a strong identity to begin with to fight back and if they are not allowed to question or speak up, well…. Again, how are we not calling it “brainwashing”?

We all notice that kids will always play with other kids regardless of race, gender, religion or class all because they are people because they carry no such judgments. We simply “teach” them not to be that person any more and turn them into adults, which are basically carbon copies of our bullshit personas that we think are so great.

Anyway. There was a Yahoo Finance article that covered this (Why “Finance”?) but the link is broken and I am not sure if the other articles from other sites are the same one. I am rambling now and I just wanted to show you that video. Geez….

10:[ Last Item of the Month: I was going to write about one more thing I gleaned from “World War Z” about “The lie we all tell ourselves: hope” but I felt that I would put this off until a later edition. As you can see, I unloaded a lot in this month’s edition, would you agree? This one goes to the heart of a lot of things in society beyond Native culture, beyond self-identity and beyond media. It would talk about the very structures of how we live life day to day. It would cover politics, religion, culture, class, race, population and environment all those superficial things we use to segregate our species and use to not really truly unite, “decolonize” (whatever that means) and truly help one another.

Nope. I moped enough on this page for this month. You can see why I am never invited anywhere – cool kids don’t what their silly notions challenged. Or maybe I’m just a boring downer of a dude or a crotchety old man. So here’s something silly to write about instead to wrap up this edition:

The south side lines of the Red Line train line here in Chicago have been completely closed down for the next five months to begin track repairs and replacements to increase service and eliminate “slow zones”. For the next five months, every one living south of 63^rd will have to bus it to the Green Line stations. EVERYONE.

I mean for the north side replace and repair on stations they closed stations one at a time and diverted trains onto other tracks so services, while slowed, would not be stopped. They do that for rail replacement and repair as well. I think it is because the north side line has more than one set of tracks heading north. For repair on the Purple Lines, geez, get out the torches and pitchforks. They usually do that in the dead of night so service in not stopped at all.

It makes you wonder why there are no extra lines on the Red Line all the way to the south side or no express lines either. Weird.

That will do it for this month.

I hope you are able to comment or correct or contradict anything you read here on this page. Please, present an argument to any of the items here. I just presented my opinions and thoughts here and I ask you do the same. It also took me a while to write this up because sometimes I go back and forth on whether or not I should but my thoughts out there. Last month I got my first empirical evidence that hardly any one really reads this or they don’t read it all the way through, so I’m taking a chance this month.

I am not saying it takes courage to put my thoughts out there, how egotistical is that? But I do feel like some of my ideas are not really looked on as “part of the regular ‘group-think’.” Which makes me a lonely nerd… or a hypocrite, or an idiot, I forget which one.

I am not out to “burn” or belittle anyone, so a countering argument would be welcome. Most of the comments I get here, apart from friends, seem to be angry or upset and just try to burn me or put me in my place. Fine. I don’t really care, as long as you are able to comment. I really do not reply to people’s comments either. Not that they convince me otherwise or that I am scared to but because any reader should be able to present their own opinions and thought without fear of anger in return. I’ll find a way to make fun of them.

So, please, comment, correct or contradict anything you read here. Again, apologies for getting this out late. I was wrestling with some of the items on here this month. Plus, my rash of new writing has put this project on the back burner, which is why I stated it to begin with – to jumpstart my other writings. I hope to get next month’s edition out in a timely manner. Take care and I’ll see you later.

Until Next Time, “I try to show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control everything really are.”

2013 Ernest M. Whiteman III