Hehehehehehe. Okay, if you have no appreciation of dark humor stop reading right now and stay far away from Flight–far far away. Got it? I’m warning you. This is no sweet flight of fancy tome. Our hero is an angry fifteen year old male of Irish and Indian origin with some serious grief and father issues–among other things. Now sit back and sip your hot tea, latte or bloody mary and think about a young man who refers to himself as Zits. If you can’t relate then it’s probably in your best interests–and mine (yes, I do fear homicidal repercussions from unhappy readers)–to go nowhere near this particular Sherman Alexie book. That said, last night I stayed up very late reading Flight via flashlight outside on the front porch–much to the dismay of anyone who had their doors or windows open to receive my hooting laughter when I turned to page 146. Some folks do not find boiled birdies funny–and I do understand that such minds exist. On the other hand, there are minds, such as mine and apparently Alexie’s, which find self boiled birdies absolutely hilarious–especially in the context of a potentially violent encounter between a homeless Indian man and the usual well-heeled white dude. If by some means, like using your local public library, you garner a copy of Flight you too will be in serious need of comic relief by the time you turn to page 146. Though, hopefully, you’ll have found other darkly comic things to chuckle loudly about before page 146. But you’ll also have encountered several incidents of mayhem, murder and molestation along the way. The lives of foster children are not all filled with sugar mommies and daddies. Nor do many events in American history since 1492 recount pleasant Thanksgiving din dins between Europeans and Indigenous folks.
Ever wonder how to diffuse the building anger of teenager? Well, Sherman Alexie offers one way–history lessons of the ”not me” and the “me?!” variety. Yep, direct confrontations of some dark sad truths of reality provide the fodder for the adolescent mind to chew heartily on and time travel, complete with out-of-body experiences, is the medium. From the Battle of the Little Bighorn to the grief ridden friendly skies of a private flight instructor Alexie takes us on a journey through history. Along the way he’ll shred your heart, sew it back together without anesthesia, and then shove it back into your chest. You’re going to need every last piece of humor to endure the operation. If you’re not laughing when Harry Potter takes a swan dive–then you might be dead and gone. Or you’ve abandoned Alexie’s exploration of time travelling adventures as an instruction manuel. Each episode serves as a short story with ethical issues galore. FBI agent Hank Storm may not get your heartstrings trembling–but Gus, Bow Boy and Small Saint could very well lay you flat on the floor demolishing an extra-large box of kleenex–or soaking an extra-large cotton hanky.
Zits experiences violence in many forms via his out-of-body time travelling–and this makes him seriously consider his pains of loss, abandonment and identity. Children NEED fathers–preferably decent men who care about their welfare. That lacking, one must find family where one can. Sometimes the concept of ‘family’ has not a damned thing to do with genetics and biology. It’s got to do with who gives a damn.
I’ve been a fan of Alexie’s work ever since reading his collection of poems and short stories The Business of Fancydancing. Yes, there’s a film by that title too– and it’s a great film. But–it was the text that had me wanting to scream and laugh from one page to the next. Ever felt bushwhacked by a writer? Well that’s how I felt while reading The Business of Fancydancing. It was great. Disturbing at times, but great nonetheless. I will never forget the story of the man, Eve and the post office. Hell, I’ve never entered a post office since and not thought of the story. The same holds true for Flight. It will not numb or bore you to tears. Not sure you can relate yet? Okay, who has had bad acne? Raise your hands now.
Fresh life is breathed into the old golem myth in this Mignola and Golden collaboration nicely served up by St. Martin’s Press this 2012. If you aren’t familiar with golems then you’re going to be if you go exploring these pages. Let me tell you this is more than an average air freshener generously illustrated with what appear to be black and off white woodcuts. (I seriously needed fresh air after delving into Ghostlights by Lydia Millet–more on that tome another time.) The art of Joe Golem is good, the square shape of the book is very pleasing and the liberally spaced text entices the eye to read, read, read– all 272 monstrous pages all day long until the back cover is reached and one can go no further–yet! I hope this is just the start of a steampunk fiction series for one major reason– Molly. Ah yes in a time of teenage girls all agog over the likes of Lady Gaga (gag) comes the likes of Molly McHugh who knows there’s much more to life and people than shallow celebrities and everlasting lip-glossiness. Intelligent, resourceful, tough and damn fast on her feet Molly is my kind of heroine. Need a positive strong role model for the fourteen year old female in your abode whose fingertips are superglued to texting? Well Molly just might be the ticket to more stewing on a girl’s brainpan than speed dialing her wit challenged peers. Joe Golem reads like an expanded graphic novel–strong written and art images with much more text than usually offered in the graphic genre. It has monsters of both the human and non human variety. Its got action, suspense, and mystery! It’s FUN to run with Molly–she’d run any hollow-wood stuntwoman to death on the fire-escapes of the drowned lower Manhattan. It’s 1925 and the watery world is alive with certain sorts of magic–classy and ancient, wild, wonderful and wet– and strange portent dreams. It will make your heart pound to the tune of Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and then some when Joe battles the ever enlarging eels. It might break your heart when certain clock works stop ticking. It definitely should not bore you with another round of sex on the beach for the poor depressed tax man who has learned his wife is having an affair and his daughter does phone sex for a living (Oops, Ghostlights spoiler alert. My bad. I meant to refer to the drink–you knew that right? Yeah, I couldn’t lie to save my skin. A few more references to Ghostlights and I could knock that review off here via the old standard of compare and contrast–enjoyable read to not enjoyable read. In case you don’t know which is which at the moment just wait till I get to the Millet tome.) But you don’t have to be a fourteen year old girl to relish Joe Golem and the DrowningCity. I’m certainly not. But I sure wish there were girls like Molly in the books I was reading at fourteen. Little Women never quite did it for me. One more thing I really like about this book–how it presents notions of friendship, loyalty and family. There is more to relationships than who shares your gene pool. Just ask Felix, Joe, Molly and Simon Church. They don’t need no crystal balls to see the truth–after all, crystal balls are just props for amateurs in life. Oh, by the way, this is a story about a girl whose best friend, a classy old magic man is kidnapped by a mad scientist and how the girl and her new friends. Joe and Simon, try to rescue him. Yes, it is. And then some.
re- public comments on Bear Butte Oil Well drilling due now. Urgent!
Dear Defenders,
Public written comments are due by March 30th for a rehearing on Oil Well Drilling near Bear Butte.
Approximately one and one-half miles west of Bear Butte, the SD Board of Minerals and Environment approved of Oil and Gas Order No. 17-2010 for Nakota Energy LLC. However, they did not do a review according to South Dakota Historic Preservation laws. Bear Butte has National Historic Landmark designation as well as being a sacred site to many Native American nations from North and Central America.
Please send your written comments to SD DENR, Oil and Gas Supervisor Fred Steece at fred.steece@state.sd.us
and South Dakota State Historic Preservation Office, Jason Haug, State Historic Preservation Director at Jason.Haug@state.sd.us
Another hearing, open to the public for verbal comments, will be held on Thursday, April 21, 2011, at 10:15 AM (CDT) at the Joe Foss Building, 523 East Capitol, Pierre, SD.
For more information go to the SD Department of Environment and Natural Resources website.
If each member of Defenders of the Black Hills sent in an email to Fred Steece and Jason Haug, the Board of Minerals would know how many people are concerned for this National Historic Landmark and sacred site. As a National Historic Landmark, comments from all over the nation would have to be considered.
Let’s see if we can flood DENR, Fred Steece, and Jason Haug with our comments.
The time has come to wage war with our wallets as weapons. Yes folks, the only thing that any political entity in the USA has any respect for is money. The profit margin is the battleground for the unfolding economic-social-political class war. Since money is what has been making the world go round according to the agendas of the corporate elite, then money can stop their greedy worlds from going round. We are going to have to become very well-informed about who owns, manufactures, and sells everything we purchase so that we gain some control of how our money is used. The growing efforts in Wisconsin for waging this sort of wallet warfare may provide everyone with a beginning playbook for what needs to be done in order for us to have a say in how we live and work. This goes beyond voting whenever there is an election. This involves how we live and work and play every day of our lives. Every choice we make with our wallets becomes a vote, a political action. Here in lies a form of great collective power based upon informed choices every day. It will require mindfulness, will power and unity to be effective. Take note, there are more of “us” than there are of “them” aka the rich corporate elite. We have the strength of numbers. Now, the question is, do we have the strength of conviction to act for the long-term? Our actions will impact our children’s lives, the environment, and the state of the rest of the world.
Check out Boycott Scott Walker’s Contributors, complete with lists, on Facebook.
Consider what gasoline you pump into your car, which toilet paper you purchase 52 weeks a year, and where your breakfast, lunch and dinner comes from. Think about all the money you earn and spend–and who gains from it. Yes, America–it’s Wallet War Time.
Channel 3000′s Wisconsin news coverage of the unfolding Wisconsin Waller War –>
I do believe the working people of Wisconsin are giving brand new meaning to the old slogan–”Workers of the World Unite!”
Clearly this is not the end but the beginning of a new worker movement as is evident from Facebook pages where Wisconsinites and their growing ranks of supporters organize boycotts of banks and Koch products to recalls of right-wing Republican backstabbing politicians.
Beware the enemy inside the city capital gates.
Our times, “they are a changin’” big time.
14 Democractic State Senators with guts? Who knew!?! Super Glue!
Puppets for truth in funding.
One more for just for truth telling fun.
Love cheese? Milk a dairy farmer. Cheese = Wisconsin gold.
Cows outting big pictures.
Koch whore? Who? Walker? Say it ain’t so, Scotty! We dare you.
Dumb drug money.
Who needs a little red wagon when ya got a big red tractor?
Roots digging deeper day by day.
All photographs @ “Concerned Madison Parent” 2011
Much thanks to intrepid “Concerned Madison Parent” for this ground zero visual record of the united ranks of Wisconsin’s working class people.
Sharing information feels like planting seeds–seeds of knowledge and power. And we need all the knowledge and power we can get. Knowledge is a currency–and can be a weapon–in its own right. So, without further ado, here is the latest Urban Farming Guy’s video update straight from the Urban Guy, Jason Fields.
Nada to lose. Todo to gain. Dig in and get some inspiration, folks.
Searching for sustainable urban living solutions? Farmin’ in the Hood! is a video about exactly what its title proclaims: small-scale urban farming complete with worms, compost, duckweed, fish, chickens and more. Video content by the Urban Farming Guys and ROCK SOLID Urban Impact. Much thanks to TransitionKC for helping Jason Fields’ efforts for getting the word/video out for widespread consumption. Watch, learn, get inspired by these creative and innovative people of Kansas City. Have fun–the bullets are long gone.
Madison, Wisconsin isn’t the only place with an ongoing protest in America. As things have “frozen up” on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the Lakota Elders have been dealing with mounting issues of “abuse” on several levels. They’ve taken all they’re going to take and are appealing for news coverage of the corruption that has lead to the conditions they are experiencing.
The Lakota Elders on Pine Ridge have issues, MAJOR ISSUES involving food, housing, sanitary conditions, threats, intimidation, eviction and more. Apparently their patience has reached the point of taking protest action. Do note that this situation involves longstanding cultural conflicts. The posting of this media release presents an introduction only to the situation.
Here is a Media Release.
Cante Tenza Okolakiciye – Strong Heart Warrior Society
Free & Independent Lakota Nation
Box 512, Hill City, South Dakota 57745 | 605-454-0449 or
605-517-1547 | lakotaoyate.net
MEDIA RELEASE
For Immediate Release: March 4, 2011
Contact: Duane Martin Sr. 605-517-1547 or 605-454-0449
LAKOTA ELDERS, WARRIOR SOCIETIES, NOW OCCUPY PORCUPINE ELDERLY MEALS
CENTER – WILL STAY UNTIL DEMANDS ARE MET
Porcupine Elderly Meals Building, Pine Ridge Reservation, SD – After
four years of abuses and calls for remedy from the Bureau of Indian
Affairs(BIA) Oglala Tribal Government, Lakota elders with support from
the Strong Heart Warrior Society, United Urban Warrior Society, and
Rapid City AIM- Grassroots have peacefully taken over, and now occupy,
the Elderly Meals Building in the Porcupine Community of Pine Ridge
Reservation.
The occupation occurred as a result of human rights and civil rights
abuses, including physical assault, of Lakota elders at the center,
the illegal selling of drugs and alcohol from the building by center
staff, refusal of Oglala tribal government officials to take action,
and the use of the tribal judicial office to attack and penalize
elders and advocates who spoke out against abuse, graft, and
corruption occurring in the elderly meals program and throughout
complicit tribal government officials.
The elders and warrior societies are demanding the removal of all
current center staff, the construction of a new, sanitary building,
restoration of healthy meals, expansion of elderly meals to those home-
bound, and an investigation into the graft and corruption in the
program and those complicit tribal officials.
Respected Lakota elders including Lorraine White Face Eagle Elk,
Cecilia Martin, Elizabeth Young Bear, and Enoch Brings Plenty issued
the following statement:
“The former president and the cook have discriminated against the
elders at the Porcupine Elderly Meals Center. Elders are demanding
them to be removed immediately.
The Elders will be leading this occupation with the support and
protection of three warrior societies – the Strong Heart Warrior
Society, United Urban Warrior Society, and Grassroots AIM.
I, Enoch Brings Plenty, as president of the Meals for the Elderly
Program at Porcupine, will try my best to please the Elders in my
district as best as I can -to bring back honesty, trust and integrity.
This is why these three warrior societies are here with us. They are
going to teach our children how to protect and remain free with the
elders of our oyate. Hoka hey!”
In support of the elder’s statement, the Strong Heart Warrior Society
said, “The elders have exhausted all legal remedies that they possibly
can and now they face the critical mass. So it is now their urgency to
request these warrior societies to step up and give them that
opportunity to regain control for what is rightfully theirs.”
The Oglala Tribal Council, which has been at the center of controversy
for years over graft and corruption in their ranks, continues to
publicly state there is no problem with Pine Ridge Reservation elders.
Activists have noted numerous incidents of retaliation and dirty
tricks in order to penalize elders and advocates from speaking out and
making these abuses public.
The occupation is planned until the demands are met. While State and
Federal officials have been slow to respond to this crisis, the South
Dakota Governor’s Office is now aware of the situation, as is the U.S.
Justice Department.
###
The Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota
is the size of the state of Connecticut. Due to decades of abuse,
corruption and colonial enforcement, Pine Ridge faces epidemic rates
of suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, elder abuse, and poverty. Life
expectancy for Lakota men is below 40 years of age. Nearly ¾ of the
Lakota people have lost their language, and the traditional language
is on the verge of extinction in Pine Ridge. The reservation has one
of the highest rates of unsolved murders. These unsolved deaths are
widely attributed to violent retaliation against those seeking an end
to corruption and assertion of traditional Lakota sovereignty.
Cante Tenza Okolakiciye also known as the Strong Heart Warrior Society
of the Lakota Nation is an ancient Lakota warrior society as well as a
broad-based civil rights movement that works to protect, enforce and
restore treaty rights, civil rights, and sovereignty of Native people
and their communities across Turtle Island. In addition to activist
efforts to protect the land and people, each year Cante Tenza collects
and freely distributes shoes, winter coats, school supplies, food, and
other support to Oglala Lakota elders, children and families. www.lakotaoyate.net | “Lakota Oyate” on Facebook
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