I took this photo yesterday, and awoke this morning to hear of the death of a good friend. Bob Maguire of Fairbanks Alaska. Drum Keeper of Soaring Eagle Drum, a man very respected and loved throughout the Native community of Alaska. Bob and I worked as Chairmen on the Midnight Sun Powwow and were drummers in the drum Walking Hawk. He was a friend, who i respected immensely.
I’m glad this little fellow stopped in for a bite to eat. I haven’t been taking a lot of photographs of much of anything here lately. My drive to do so, flows like the tides. One day I’m just itching to take photographs, the others I could care less. Everyone knows that I’m on a IRC community on Geekshed.net. Chris Pirillo wrote a piece the other day on community. It brought up the question in my mind, just what is my community. How do I affect those around me. I have friends and family that look at what I post, and I’m sure some wonder just why I do such a thing. I’m not really sure myself at times. Most of my posting relay no real message, most are for just fun and giggles. I do every now on then touch on a serious subject. Today on Facebook I posted a subject that I think very serious.
I have some native heritage in my blood as many of you already know in my Community . Although my blood line is thin and if I got a nose bleed I would lose it all very quickly. Nonetheless, I’m very proud of that heritage and over the years I have involved myself in several Native American Powwows and events. When I was younger I never told many folks of my heritage, it didn’t seem to matter to me, but as I’ve grown older things have changed. The more I learned the more I tried to follow a certain path in my life. A mixture of beliefs that walk between the modern and the old.
Now in this mixture of old and new, the one thing that I’ve learned is the first people of this land have a special way of honoring those who went before us. Native American Nations have a relationship with our government that is like nothing else in the world. We are nations within a nation, but nonetheless these first nations have a right to believe and govern themselves within this legal framework of the US Constitution and laws, In fact we have the right to believe and act in certain ways spelled out by those very laws.
Still, after all these years, we are constantly being told that our sacred places and beliefs are not valid. All the Native Americans who have given their lives to protect the very thing we hold sacred is looked down upon. Even in modern times, with many of our young men and women who have given their lives to protect this country by joining the Armed Services of the United States of America. We still haven’t won the respect or the honor that should rightfully be theirs.
The below story is a reprint from the MediaMatters for America.
Glenn Beck and his radio sidekicks attacked a Nevada student for singing a Native American song that she dedicated to American troops during a recent rally for Sen. Harry Reid. Her offense? Not singing “The Star Spangled Banner.”
Picking up on a story first reported by radio host Barbara Simpson and carried on Gateway Pundit, The Blaze, and Fox Nation, Beck asked, “When somebody says, ‘Please rise for the national anthem,’ what song are you expecting?” He then ridiculed Christina Thomas for not singing the national anthem at a recent Reid rally.
But audio makes clear, however, that Thomas told the audience that she was not singing the national anthem as the event’s emcee announced, but rather a tribal flag song. Thomas told the audience, “I sing this in honor of all our veterans” and “those who are still fighting for our freedoms overseas.”
After talking over Thomas’ explanation that she was not going to be singing the national anthem and that she was dedicating another song to “all our veterans” and “those who are still fighting for our freedoms overseas, Beck said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the national anthem.” While playing audio of Thomas singing, Beck said, “not really our national anthem, maybe her national anthem.”
From the November 1 edition of Premiere Radio Networks’ The Glenn Beck Program:
Earlier this year, Nevada’s senators Reid and John Ensign welcomed Thomas to Washington, D.C., as an American Indian ambassador.
After attacking Thomas for insufficient patriotism, Beck tied her song choice to an incident at Denver’s “State of the City” ceremony in 2008, when Rene Marie was introduced to sing the national anthem and then instead sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a song often called the black national anthem. Beck said that this was “the same thing … with the Democrats in Denver.”
According to the Rocky Mountain News, Denver Democratic officials were caught off guard by the singer’s decision to sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” instead.
Beck rounded out the segment by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for our national anthem,” and playing a parody of the Soviet national anthem with the lyrics, “All hail the messiah, Obama.”
He dedicated it to “our savior, Barack Obama.”
So to all you right wingers and tea baggers who think all the Native Americans and Black African Americans who have fought and died for this country are not real Americans. I hope you rot in hell. I hope my community reads this and understands my ire. Bigots are bigots and Glen Beck is a bigot.
