The Anasazi Aren't The Enemy!

Is there no way we can escape the world of political correctness?  It seems it is even going to follow me on vacation!

A while back we got into a conversation with Joe Day, who along with his wife Janice, run the Tsakurshovi Trading Post on Second Mesa of the Hopi reservation.

He chided us for driving too much and not stopping often enough as he dug out a map of Indian Country and proceeded to mark routes to treasures we never knew existed. Ever since we've been planning how we could break up these trips into doable time frames. The time has come for the first of what we hope will be many.

We've long been interested in the ancient ones, the art and the culture of those known as the Anasazi  who have, for reasons yet unknown, totally disappeared.  I even consider myself an honorary Anasazi having earned it on a hike to Petroglyph Point in Mesa Verde.

You see, I'm not the most graceful of individuals and I have an unabated fear of falling.  I am also game for just about anything Hub suggests so I slipped and slid on the trail to the petroglyphs.  Mostly downhill it wasn't bad.  I hadn't reckoned on how we'd get out.  Retracing our steps wasn't the most appealing thought so we decided to just complete the loop back to the top of the mesa.  What I hadn't counted on was having to climb out.  Literally.  On a hand and toe hold trail up the side of the cliff.  I looked at Hub helplessly.

"I can't do this!"  "Sure you can. I'll be right behind you to catch you if you slip." Wonderful.  Then we'll both be dead.

With a deep breath and wobbly resolve I slowly but surely made it to the top. I breathed a huge sigh of relief as Hub joined me and we began the trek on what was a nice flat trail along the edge of the cliff.  All went well until we reached an outcropping of rock.  The trail ended.  It commenced on the other side.  I was deflated and scared witless.  There was no way I could step around that outcropping with no more than blind faith.

"I'll go first and tell you where to put your foot,"  Hub assured me. Terrific.  Should I  face out or in?  You know, I don't remember which I actually did.  But do it I did.

"No wonder they've disappeared," I remember muttering.  "They all fell off the bloody cliffs!"

The rest was smooth sailing.  Walking.  Whatever.  When our trek was over for good I proclaimed myself an honorary Anasazi for having conquered my fears and survived.  I consider it one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.

Enter the politically correct who we all know have invaded academia.  In their infinite wisdom they've decided the word Anasazi is pejorative, just like Eskimo and Indian.  Spare me.  At least the Eskimos and Indians are still around!

To the Navajo the name means "ancient enemies" or "enemies of our ancestors".  That may well be true, but so what?  They're all dead!  Do the Navajo even care?  But the academics do and have decided on "Ancestral Puebloans".

Nope.  It just doesn't sound the same.  I am not an honorary "ancient enemy" nor am I an honorary "Ancestral Puebloan."  I am and always will be an honorary Anasazi. Pejorative or not, the name has pizzaz!

The Intertwining of Adoption And Abortion

When the pro life forces ramp it up two things always seem to stand out.  One, there seems to be a disproportionate number of male protesters and two, nothing is ever said about who and how children will be raised when the birth mother is unable to assume the duties.

I am somewhere between pro life and pro choice in my thinking.  I don't believe that any woman who finds herself pregnant due to personal ignorance or carelessness should be able to have an abortion to rid herself of  her error in judgement.

That being said, what is to become of the child should she be forced to have it with no means to support it?  Is putting them both on the welfare roles really a good answer?  It solves nothing other than providing a minimal pittance for survival.  Not much of a life for either.

The alternative is putting the child up for adoption. For those wanting to adopt, there are somewhere around 130,000 children available.  If a different ethnicity is wanted, it's there.  If a special needs child is wanted, it's there. So I have to ask, why do so many choose to go overseas to adopt?

And why has Michele Bachmann, R-MI, penned a resolution encouraging Putin to lift his ban on the American ban of Russian children?  They all deserve a home she says and Russians won't adopt the ones with special needs.

Frankly, though well meaning, I think Ms. Bachmann is on the wrong track.  First of all, I don't think it's an area where a Congress person should be involved, but if she wants to involve herself in benefiting children in need of homes, why not our own?

If our laws are so convoluted that adopting a child in this country is an effort would be parents don't want to make I wonder what type of parent they would be.  Raising a child is an effort, a great effort and one is ideally committed to it for a life time.

Too, if they make it so difficult, wouldn't Ms. Bachmann's efforts be better used in correcting those shortcomings rather than beating her head against a brick wall like Putin?

After all, with the restrictions being put on abortions more babies are going to be born, more will need homes and it would be nice if they went to American homes. Real homes.  Not foster homes.

I don't have first hand knowledge of the process from the prospective parents point of view, but I have a legitimate one from the adoptees point of view.  I am one.  I was adopted by wonderful people who gave me the best they had to give.  I cannot help but rejoice they chose an American child to be one with them.

I feel so strongly about this.  As in most everything, should we not be looking after our own first and foremost?  It's often argued we can't police the entire world.  Well, we can't solve all their social issues either.  Not when we have so many of our own.  And our unwanted children is a big one.

Sports - A New High In Lows

I've long thought professional athletes get more breaks than they should when it comes to breaking the law.  It pleases me when someone like Aaron Hernandez, a self styled prima donna of professional football, pushes the envelope once too often and has found himself divorced from his team and facing murder charges.  Don't mistake pleased with happy.  It's nothing to be happy about.  But rather I am sad and concerned.

How many others do we read about who are in trouble with the law or their sport for drug abuse, spousal abuse and just plain thuggery.  Their egos tell them they are exempt from rules.  Fortunately the teams and the law in this country are cracking down.  Fortunately for the young men if they're able to mature and get their lives together before it's too late.  In the case of Mr. Hernandez, I'm afraid it is too late.

What happens though, when those they entertain are bigger thugs then they themselves?  You have professional soccer where the fans are worse than the players.  More than worse.  They become savages.  That professional soccer hasn't caught on in this country is probably a blessing.  The hooliganism, property damage and sometimes even death caused by the fans in this country is for the moment confined to, of all things, victory celebrations. It could be worse.

We're all familiar with the picture of a baseball manager jaw to jaw with an umpire.  The manager  often gets expelled.  Or the football player kicked out of the game for unsportsmanlike behavior.  It could be worse.

Soccer has gone about as low as humans can go in the name of sport.  In Brazil a referee expelled a player and a fight ensued.  The referee, the one who is to keep the peace and control of the game, pulled a knife and stabbed the player who later died.

The fans were outraged, stormed the field and stoned the referee to death.  That not satisfying their blood lust, they proceeded to quarter his body, decapitate him, stick his head on a stake and place it in the middle of the field.

Oh, my, the unanswered questions.  Beginning with where were the authorities and ending with what type of people are associated with soccer from the fans to the referees!  The World Cup Soccer Championships are to be played in Brazil in 2014 and of course the Olympics are coming.  I don't completely blame Brazil however, I blame the culture of the sport - whatever it is! Culture seems to be an oxymoron.

This is one more indicator of the creeping violence in sport.  We tend to over look a lot of it when it's just a player, or just one celebration but a pattern is obvious and incidents are becoming more prevalent.

Will this horror be the point when the pendulum begins to swing back to what sports used to be about, is it stuck where it is or is it the beginning of redefining what sports and those involved are becoming?  Violent, cheaters, drug abusers, murderers. And that's just the fans!

Why is it the best examples of sport, like former Saints player Steve Gleason who is suffering from ALS are the ones ridiculed by clueless radio personalities while hooligans like Hernandez get swoons from admiring Facebook fans?

Is Sodom and Gomorrah in rerun?

Perspective

After having read an article by Roger Simon on the pain felt by a group of Miss America contestants, I'm beginning to understand that those we elect to high office are a reflection of what we consider important.

In this day and age when Honey Boo Boo reigns on reality TV,  it is not the most comforting of thoughts.

I first became aware of beauty pageants as a way of life when my Mom required my help in interviewing care givers in North Carolina.  One of the ladies had a grand child that was a perpetual contestant and it had become a family obsession.

My thoughts on seeing pictures of the child were much as I thought of the pictures of JonBenet Ramsey.  She struck me as looking like an underage tart being exploited by a mother who 'never was and never would be' trying to live her life vicariously through her daughter.

Perhaps it does become fun for the young ladies over time.  Heaven knows they work long hard hours to achieve the perfection needed to win.  Some of course are extremely talented and if they win they are rewarded with  mostly fleeting fame and fortune.  How many of the last five Miss Americas can you name?  And what have they done with their lives since their reign ended? For that matter what did they do during their reign? Was it really worth giving up being a normal little girl?

That's why I was concerned about how this particular group of girls reacted to their loss.  Not so much for themselves, which is good, but for how they felt they had let down their communities.  Being young ladies immersed in this lifestyle for years, I can understand their feelings.  I'm more concerned as to whether or not their communities actually felt the way these girls perceived.

I hope not.  I hope it's more like, "We're happy for your success,  good luck in the next round." No more important than the local 4-H kids winning a blue for the best bovine.  If it is as important as the young ladies seem to believe then our sense of  what's really important is certainly out of whack!

Then maybe it is.  When you consider what some of our leaders consider most important - like the amount of vacation they take versus the time they spend in Washington doing the nation's work,  it's apparent they too have a perspective that's out of whack.

Of course there are the media executives who think the likes of Honey Boo Boo is worthy television and the people who seem to agree.  For the moment my perspective seems to be in the minority. Is it temporary or is this what we've become?

A "Prisoner" Of Love

Ah, Michelle, we know you didn't mean it the way it came out, as you stated living in the White House is akin to living in a prison.  You qualified it nicely by saying it was a very nice prison.  And we know you were thinking of it as having lost your autonomy.

Somehow I don't think you garnered much sympathy.  When I think of prison I think of total loss of freedom, isolation, the barest of essentials and in many cases around the world far worse but I guess it means different things to different people.

It could be said you are a prisoner of your love for the good life.  Nearly nightly entertainment with entertainers most of us will never see.  Lavish dinners with the most expensive foodstuffs to be found.  Then there are the designer duds, ski vacations, trips to Paris and London and everywhere else under the sun.  Hotel accommodations costing in the thousands and entourages in the millions and most of it from coffers not your own.  You have live in help for every possible need, chefs, housekeeping, transportation. Kids don't even haunt the great corridors of your house anymore, except your own.  Some prison.

You know, I don't begrudge you your life.  I do begrudge your thinking of it as burdensome.  You see, the rest of the country is still struggling to make ends meet.  The military is closing some of it's swimming pools and axing fire works displays for the troops. Of all people to be made to sacrifice the smallest of pleasures.  Oil has gone over $100 a barrel again so already punitive gas prices will be going back up.  Parts of our National Parks aren't open or being maintained for the lucky few who would like to vacation in them.

And the trip to Africa you and family just returned from cost how much?  $100 million?  I know we see things differently.  I know the President likes to and does spend freely and many times indiscriminately. It brings to mind the French Revolution where the aristocracy lived the high life while the serfs suffered.  That's the image. Just once I'd like to see the Obama family make some sort of meaningful sacrifice to show that they are one with the people.

The President being one with the people seems to be a forgotten concept.  That's the way it is and we'll manage.  But please, at least have the good graces to think before you speak. There are specific connotations to certain words and prison is certainly one of them.  May those around the world who are rotting in the worst of them for no reason other than not agreeing with their governments be spared from hearing your comment.  We don't need another layer of contempt on top of that which we already have.