I must admit that politics is a crafty beast. I mean so much goes on in politics that unless you’re paying attention, you’ll never even notice the subtle nuances. Case in point, the tail end of last week.
For over 2 years, a special prosecutor has been investigating the case pertaining to the leaking of a covert CIA operative’s name. For anyone that’s been paying attention to the story, there are at least a few things that seem obvious (though I can’t be 100% sure of my conclusions until I hear them from the prosecutor). Clearly Robert Novak, the columnist that published the operative’s name (Valerie Plame-Wilson), must be working with the investigators; otherwise he would’ve had to spill the beans before the Grand Jury like “Time” magazine reporter Michael Cooper, or go to jail for not giving up his source, like "NY Times" columnist Judith Miller. Furthermore, I suspect that the prosecutor has known for a long time who originally leaked the name since all three of these parties have now cooperated, and since Novak has been cooperating since the beginning.
But all that is beside my point, and will play itself out in the weeks ahead (and will probably end up with VP Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff, Lewis “scooter” Libby, making a plea bargain to save his former boss and the White House some political grief…just my opinion, but we’ll see).
But in the game of politics, the rules work like this:
If your political party is in power, bad press for your party is released on a Friday. The reason why is because by Friday, the weekend has come and people tend not to pay as much attention to the news (there’s partying to be done, sleep to be caught up on, family to spend time with, etc.). What’s more is that over the weekend, people tend to forget the bad news that came out on Friday, and sometimes things happen over the weekend that will trump any Friday afternoon bad news.
So it came as no surprise to me that the special prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation, Patrick Fitzgerald, handed down his indictment of Libby on Friday and not earlier in the week. I wholeheartedly believe that Libby could’ve been indicted by Fitzgerald at least by Wednesday, if not weeks ago. But in politics, timing is a large part of the equation, and sometimes it is everything.
Make no mistake about it…
…it is no coincidence that President Bush’s Supreme Court Nominee Harriet Miers withdrew her nomination on Thursday, the day before Fitzgerald’s indictment announcement. It was a pre-emptive strike, if you will. That news was so big (even though we all knew that she wasn’t going to make it through the nomination process weeks ago) that it severely diminished the heavily anticipated CIA leak indictments.
I had been telling people for weeks that I thought Miers was going to withdraw her nomination. But when I saw the timing of her announcement, I was like, those guys are so crafty.
And you know what else, I am certain that the White House spent the weekend heavily engulfed in determining who the next Supreme Court Nominee is going to be.
Why???
Because the news of a nomination (ASAP) will close the sandwich of diversion around the corruption that has taken place in the White House. So, I am fully expecting an announcement Monday afternoon, by the President, declaring his latest Supreme Court nominee. By Wednesday for sure, and if it takes longer than that, I’ll be shocked.
One thing I have to say about this White House we’re currently under is that they really know how to play the game of politics. And no matter how one frames the arguments for or against them, they always win.
-Maelstrom
The Sidebar
October is Breast Cancer awareness month, and I’d be heavily remiss if I didn’t address it at all.
Breast Cancer is the most diagnosed Cancer for women each year by far (nearly 80,000 will be diagnosed this year). And indeed, about 1500 men are diagnosed with the disease each year. A sad but true statistic is that 1 in 9 women will be diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime with the risks increasing with age. Also, it is highly likely that you will know, firsthand, someone with Breast Cancer in your lifetime. A reality that I suspect is true since I see so many people wearing pink ribbons during the month. Because for the most part people don’t become aware until they’re personally affected, and that’s often when people begin to do things like wear ribbons.
I have had the pleasure of meeting one of the rare men who is a Breast Cancer survivor. He is a writer whose story is very inspirational.
Sadly, I also knew a very close family friend that suffered from the disease and eventually succumbed. She was my babysitter for many years, and her sons are my friends. It was through her that I first learned what a mastectomy is. Unfortunately, by the time she got hers, the Cancer had already spread to her lungs.
There’s so much that one can’t understand about the psychology of the disease. And certainly, men can’t identify with what it means to have a mastectomy as a woman. And unless you’ve witnessed the incredible declining health status of someone suffering with the disease, the devastation may not compute. I remember that my babysitter would take 30 minutes to walk up one stair (just one) once the disease had taken full hold of her. It’s overwhelming to say the least.
Gladly, the numbers of Breast Cancer deaths have been on the decline since 1990. Some attribute this to mammograms; others think it’s because of the drugs used. No matter the reason, it’s a great reality. Indeed a couple weeks back, a drug (Herceptin) designed to specifically fight Breast Cancer was announced, and it has shown great promise in fighting the disease.
Hopefully everyone has heeded the advice of doctors and performs self-examinations on their breasts (and yes fellas, believe it or not, that includes you too…yeah, you’ve got breasts). Hopefully if something looks or feels wrong no one hesitates to see their doctor about it. An action that simple can save your life; all it takes is your astuteness.
Certainly we have a long way to go in the fight against Breast Cancer (and all Cancers for that matter), but I’m glad to see that progress is being made. Most importantly I’m glad to see something that we see very little of in this nation these days…
…Awareness!
Long live the Pink Ribbons!
Monday, October 31, 2005
Monday, October 24, 2005
Illegitimate Defenders, Over-represented Victims
In a couple sidebar rants, I’m still pretty frustrated with racial inequality. By now, if you have any interest in the vicissitudes of America’s social status, you’ve seen the tape of a New Orleans man being “restrained” by several police officers and FBI agents about two weeks ago. In a tale as old as this nation, again we have one black man having to be “restrained” by several white law enforcement figures.
The great thing about video cameras is that they don’t lie.
Apparently the police officers' form of restraining is topped off with a few tactics employed by boxers and kick-boxers alike.
And so I listened to the White officers’ Attorney on the news the other day (of course another white man), and I was astounded to hear how he defended the actions of the police. Just to play devil’s advocate, let’s say that the Attorney’s clients are telling the truth: the man was in a drunken stupor, a threat to others in the area, and was resisting arrest.
Now even if all of that is true, does it really take 4 or 5 men to restrain 1 man? And if he is truly that drunken, how much of a fight can he really put up that it requires so many people to arrest him? I mean, the last time I checked, superhuman strength, crisp agility, and amazing dexterity aren’t exactly the hallmarks of drunken individuals. And where in the law enforcement training manual does punching several times to the head (as well as kicking for those that have seen the extended version of the tape) constitute arresting or restraining? Aren’t law enforcement agents trained on the swiftest, most effective ways to subdue someone, apart from bar-room brawling methods?
What I truly find funny is that every time an incident like this occurs, it’s always several white men beating the crap out of one “severe threat" black man (gosh...are black men really that scary). And then the people that defend them (both legally and in the news) are more white men who can clearly decipher between racial injustice and reality.
Doesn’t there seem to be something at least slightly wrong with that picture?
In my other rant, I am so frickin’ tired of missing persons’ stories on the news. Not that my heart doesn’t go out to the victims and their families, but because the stories are lopsided and incongruent racially and gender wise. If you just watch the news, you’d think that no racial minorities are ever missing anywhere in the United States. And you’d certainly never imagine that a man could possibly be missing. And no minority children are ever the victims of kidnappings, molestation and murder either.
If I see another missing white woman story, I think my head is going to explode.
Ok, so after making a statement like that, I know I’ve got to qualify it. Here’s the problem, in the year 2003, there were two thousand more missing men reported in the USA than women. In that same year less than 30% of all missing people reported in the USA were white women. Yet, on the news, white women are far and away all we hear about. EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE there’s a story involving a man or non-white female, but that is very rare.
So my issue is that most missing people stories should be carried by local or state news, not national news. And if we are going to report missing people on the national news, then we should report all kinds of missing people (black, yellow, white, purple, green, polka dot, male, female and other), not just white women.
And I know this may strike a sour chord with people to name names, but seriously, I don’t see how in October, in the midst/aftermath of a Pakistani Earthquake, Hurricanes Stan, Rita, and Katrina (with Wilma pending), the Iraqi elections (and about a dozen other serious major stories) Natallee Holloway still makes major news. She went missing in May.
I specifically remember watching one 24-hour cable news station during the 4 days after Hurricane Katrina (September mind you), and the only other story they deemed worthy of coverage was this missing blonde-haired white lady in Aruba. Of all the other stories to report on outside of the Hurricane (not to mention the sad Hurricane response), they took opportunity to report that one.
Again, my heart goes out to the victims.
But what about the missing Black lady down the street? What about the Asian man that went missing yesterday in Los Angeles? What about the Latino children that were kidnapped last week by a suspected registered sex offender? Aren’t their lives valuable too? Aren’t they victims as well? Shouldn’t we also start a nationwide search for them if we truly care about their safety?
Decades after Billie Jean King (a lady) beat a man in a tennis match, 50 years after Brown vs. the Board of Education, over 35 years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr., millennia after travel by ships allowed men of different shades and languages to see each other…and we still have all this overt, explicit and implicit gender and racial inequality.
What sad beings we truly are!
-Maelstrom
The great thing about video cameras is that they don’t lie.
Apparently the police officers' form of restraining is topped off with a few tactics employed by boxers and kick-boxers alike.
And so I listened to the White officers’ Attorney on the news the other day (of course another white man), and I was astounded to hear how he defended the actions of the police. Just to play devil’s advocate, let’s say that the Attorney’s clients are telling the truth: the man was in a drunken stupor, a threat to others in the area, and was resisting arrest.
Now even if all of that is true, does it really take 4 or 5 men to restrain 1 man? And if he is truly that drunken, how much of a fight can he really put up that it requires so many people to arrest him? I mean, the last time I checked, superhuman strength, crisp agility, and amazing dexterity aren’t exactly the hallmarks of drunken individuals. And where in the law enforcement training manual does punching several times to the head (as well as kicking for those that have seen the extended version of the tape) constitute arresting or restraining? Aren’t law enforcement agents trained on the swiftest, most effective ways to subdue someone, apart from bar-room brawling methods?
What I truly find funny is that every time an incident like this occurs, it’s always several white men beating the crap out of one “severe threat" black man (gosh...are black men really that scary). And then the people that defend them (both legally and in the news) are more white men who can clearly decipher between racial injustice and reality.
Doesn’t there seem to be something at least slightly wrong with that picture?
In my other rant, I am so frickin’ tired of missing persons’ stories on the news. Not that my heart doesn’t go out to the victims and their families, but because the stories are lopsided and incongruent racially and gender wise. If you just watch the news, you’d think that no racial minorities are ever missing anywhere in the United States. And you’d certainly never imagine that a man could possibly be missing. And no minority children are ever the victims of kidnappings, molestation and murder either.
If I see another missing white woman story, I think my head is going to explode.
Ok, so after making a statement like that, I know I’ve got to qualify it. Here’s the problem, in the year 2003, there were two thousand more missing men reported in the USA than women. In that same year less than 30% of all missing people reported in the USA were white women. Yet, on the news, white women are far and away all we hear about. EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE there’s a story involving a man or non-white female, but that is very rare.
So my issue is that most missing people stories should be carried by local or state news, not national news. And if we are going to report missing people on the national news, then we should report all kinds of missing people (black, yellow, white, purple, green, polka dot, male, female and other), not just white women.
And I know this may strike a sour chord with people to name names, but seriously, I don’t see how in October, in the midst/aftermath of a Pakistani Earthquake, Hurricanes Stan, Rita, and Katrina (with Wilma pending), the Iraqi elections (and about a dozen other serious major stories) Natallee Holloway still makes major news. She went missing in May.
I specifically remember watching one 24-hour cable news station during the 4 days after Hurricane Katrina (September mind you), and the only other story they deemed worthy of coverage was this missing blonde-haired white lady in Aruba. Of all the other stories to report on outside of the Hurricane (not to mention the sad Hurricane response), they took opportunity to report that one.
Again, my heart goes out to the victims.
But what about the missing Black lady down the street? What about the Asian man that went missing yesterday in Los Angeles? What about the Latino children that were kidnapped last week by a suspected registered sex offender? Aren’t their lives valuable too? Aren’t they victims as well? Shouldn’t we also start a nationwide search for them if we truly care about their safety?
Decades after Billie Jean King (a lady) beat a man in a tennis match, 50 years after Brown vs. the Board of Education, over 35 years after the death of Martin Luther King Jr., millennia after travel by ships allowed men of different shades and languages to see each other…and we still have all this overt, explicit and implicit gender and racial inequality.
What sad beings we truly are!
-Maelstrom
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Pristine, Magnanimous, Impeccable
When I first began “The Vortex” over a year ago, I always made a point of referencing all of the information that I had accumulated so that any readers would know that I wasn’t just pulling my facts from a fantasy that I’d built in my head (see some of my earlier posts from the archives). I quit doing this after a while because I knew that I was writing on a factual basis, and if anyone was truly interested in knowing if what I was saying was true, that they’d go look things up for themselves upon reading my posts.
Just because I don’t reference all of my facts anymore doesn’t mean that I don’t do my research before posting something.
The other day, after my post about Christopher Columbus, someone had the audacity to post a comment saying that I was weak on the facts concerning him. Whoever left the comment has a lot of guts saying such things, and clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about or who they’re indicting. You serve just to annoy me, and maybe in the future I won’t respond to such silliness and just delete your ignorant comments. But for today, I’ll point out where you’re wrong, and where I was right.
First, you said that I asserted Vespucci was the first person to discover America. I never said that, I simply said that the distinction had been “ascribed to” Amerigo Vespucci. I made that statement with tongue-in-cheek (you know, a little literary humor) because I think that the very notion of Columbus, Vespucci or even the Vikings “discovering” a land that was already inhabited is a misnomer and laughable at best. Europeans wanted to believe that they discovered everything, and American text books seem to want to maintain these incorrect declarations, which is the subtle point that I was trying to make with that statement. They also wanted to make the inhabitants of the “New World” out to be savages and primitive peoples when in reality they had very complex societies and trade from South America to Africa is documented and had been going on for centuries before Columbus’ arrival.
Your second point that Columbus never traded for slaves is so incredibly false that I can’t believe you even made the statement. In fact, you’re so lazy that you didn’t even “google” the concept. If you go to http://www.google.com, and type in “Columbus Slave Trade” you return 809,000 hits, with 97 of the first 100 hits specifically referring to Columbus' role in opening up the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Looks like you’ve bought into the USA elementary school educational stories concerning Columbus. You know, the ones that leave out his involvement in implementing slavery.
So, brief slave trade history lesson. Portugal is regarded as the first European nation to enslave people from Africa. The methods that they used were known to Columbus, and he used this knowledge to enslave the indigenous people (namely the Taino or Arawak people) of the Caribbean. In fact, I’ve read several accounts that all agree Columbus took between 300 and 1200 Taino slaves from the Caribbean and brought them to Spain to be sold as slaves in the same fashion that African slaves were being sold on the Iberian Peninsula in 1495. By 1502, for several reasons (including the drastic diminishing of natives in the Caribbean, as well as the natives’ prowess in hiding in the hills and mountains of their familiar lands) African slaves were then being used to work the fields and mines in the “New World.” And there’s much more to be said about it that I won’t get into, but anthropologists and historians agree Columbus both had slaves and was the catalyst in the trans-Atlantic slave trade in more ways than one.
And to point out a very critical flaw in your failed argument concerning Columbus and the slave trade: You said that “Columbus never traded for any slaves, never set up any slave trading systems, first of all he didn’t know where he was so how could he.” You also said that Columbus had come and gone from the New World 3 times (1492, 1493, and 1498). The inherent flaw in your argument is that if Columbus had come and gone those 3 times, then he certainly knew where he was going even if he didn’t know where on the globe he was. Therefore could have easily set up a slave trade.
Finally, I never said that people liked Columbus in his day, or that Columbus got rich off of the slaves or the goods he stole from the “New World.” However, that reality is exactly why he was involved in trading for slaves in the first place. The spices and things that he was supposed to bring back to Spain from India were clearly thousands of miles from his location on the map. However he did find that there was sugar cane and gold in the Caribbean. So in lieu of returning valuable spices to the Queen of Spain, he brought Taino slaves to the nation. Upon realizing that the Queen didn’t want anything to do with the slaves, Columbus began pillaging (with the aid of slaves) the Caribbean Islands for anything valuable (gold, sugar, etc.) to bring back to the Queen.
So, looks like the only thing you’ve got going for you is that you agree with me that Columbus shouldn’t have a national holiday in his honor. Outside of that, you simply suck and you really annoy me.
I guess this was a good exercise for me though. It gave me the opportunity to prove my pre-eminence as a thinker and a historian, so now when people read what I write they’ll have further confidence that what I’ve written here is based on facts.
So Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous commenter, maybe you should do your research or come up with valid peripheral arguments the next time you wanna do battle with me. Better yet, just save yourself the time, and go pester someone else because I will NEVER just post something here that isn’t based in fact if there’s factual evidence regarding a topic to be had.
On the facts, I stand pristine, magnanimous, and impeccable!
Now who’s weak on the facts?
-Maelstrom
PS: here are a few websites you might wanna read concerning your false comments. And if you don’t believe them, maybe you should go to your local Public Library and look it up.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/Taino/docs/columbus.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/con_columbus.cfm
http://www.ustrek.org/odyssey/semester1/093000/093000madcolumbus.html
http://www.illinimedia.com/di/archives/1995/October/9/edit1.html
http://www.link-mail.com/44200.html
http://www.dangerouscitizen.com/Opinions/921.aspx
http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_slav.html
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/purcell/s_381984.html
http://www.workers.org/ww/2000/africa0302.php
Just because I don’t reference all of my facts anymore doesn’t mean that I don’t do my research before posting something.
The other day, after my post about Christopher Columbus, someone had the audacity to post a comment saying that I was weak on the facts concerning him. Whoever left the comment has a lot of guts saying such things, and clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about or who they’re indicting. You serve just to annoy me, and maybe in the future I won’t respond to such silliness and just delete your ignorant comments. But for today, I’ll point out where you’re wrong, and where I was right.
First, you said that I asserted Vespucci was the first person to discover America. I never said that, I simply said that the distinction had been “ascribed to” Amerigo Vespucci. I made that statement with tongue-in-cheek (you know, a little literary humor) because I think that the very notion of Columbus, Vespucci or even the Vikings “discovering” a land that was already inhabited is a misnomer and laughable at best. Europeans wanted to believe that they discovered everything, and American text books seem to want to maintain these incorrect declarations, which is the subtle point that I was trying to make with that statement. They also wanted to make the inhabitants of the “New World” out to be savages and primitive peoples when in reality they had very complex societies and trade from South America to Africa is documented and had been going on for centuries before Columbus’ arrival.
Your second point that Columbus never traded for slaves is so incredibly false that I can’t believe you even made the statement. In fact, you’re so lazy that you didn’t even “google” the concept. If you go to http://www.google.com, and type in “Columbus Slave Trade” you return 809,000 hits, with 97 of the first 100 hits specifically referring to Columbus' role in opening up the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Looks like you’ve bought into the USA elementary school educational stories concerning Columbus. You know, the ones that leave out his involvement in implementing slavery.
So, brief slave trade history lesson. Portugal is regarded as the first European nation to enslave people from Africa. The methods that they used were known to Columbus, and he used this knowledge to enslave the indigenous people (namely the Taino or Arawak people) of the Caribbean. In fact, I’ve read several accounts that all agree Columbus took between 300 and 1200 Taino slaves from the Caribbean and brought them to Spain to be sold as slaves in the same fashion that African slaves were being sold on the Iberian Peninsula in 1495. By 1502, for several reasons (including the drastic diminishing of natives in the Caribbean, as well as the natives’ prowess in hiding in the hills and mountains of their familiar lands) African slaves were then being used to work the fields and mines in the “New World.” And there’s much more to be said about it that I won’t get into, but anthropologists and historians agree Columbus both had slaves and was the catalyst in the trans-Atlantic slave trade in more ways than one.
And to point out a very critical flaw in your failed argument concerning Columbus and the slave trade: You said that “Columbus never traded for any slaves, never set up any slave trading systems, first of all he didn’t know where he was so how could he.” You also said that Columbus had come and gone from the New World 3 times (1492, 1493, and 1498). The inherent flaw in your argument is that if Columbus had come and gone those 3 times, then he certainly knew where he was going even if he didn’t know where on the globe he was. Therefore could have easily set up a slave trade.
Finally, I never said that people liked Columbus in his day, or that Columbus got rich off of the slaves or the goods he stole from the “New World.” However, that reality is exactly why he was involved in trading for slaves in the first place. The spices and things that he was supposed to bring back to Spain from India were clearly thousands of miles from his location on the map. However he did find that there was sugar cane and gold in the Caribbean. So in lieu of returning valuable spices to the Queen of Spain, he brought Taino slaves to the nation. Upon realizing that the Queen didn’t want anything to do with the slaves, Columbus began pillaging (with the aid of slaves) the Caribbean Islands for anything valuable (gold, sugar, etc.) to bring back to the Queen.
So, looks like the only thing you’ve got going for you is that you agree with me that Columbus shouldn’t have a national holiday in his honor. Outside of that, you simply suck and you really annoy me.
I guess this was a good exercise for me though. It gave me the opportunity to prove my pre-eminence as a thinker and a historian, so now when people read what I write they’ll have further confidence that what I’ve written here is based on facts.
So Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous commenter, maybe you should do your research or come up with valid peripheral arguments the next time you wanna do battle with me. Better yet, just save yourself the time, and go pester someone else because I will NEVER just post something here that isn’t based in fact if there’s factual evidence regarding a topic to be had.
On the facts, I stand pristine, magnanimous, and impeccable!
Now who’s weak on the facts?
-Maelstrom
PS: here are a few websites you might wanna read concerning your false comments. And if you don’t believe them, maybe you should go to your local Public Library and look it up.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/Taino/docs/columbus.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/con_columbus.cfm
http://www.ustrek.org/odyssey/semester1/093000/093000madcolumbus.html
http://www.illinimedia.com/di/archives/1995/October/9/edit1.html
http://www.link-mail.com/44200.html
http://www.dangerouscitizen.com/Opinions/921.aspx
http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_slav.html
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/purcell/s_381984.html
http://www.workers.org/ww/2000/africa0302.php
Sunday, October 16, 2005
Columbus Day
For years and years and years, this nation has committed a day on the calendar to honor our nation’s “discoverer,” Christopher Columbus. Federal buildings, offices and operations take the day off as they do on only 8 other specific Holidays throughout the year. Since the day has recently passed, I would just like to briefly spout about how sad it is that we celebrate the memory of such a treacherous individual.
“In Fourteen-Hundred and Ninety-Two, Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue.” Certainly anyone that grew up when I did, in the USA, has heard that rhyme recited time and time again. It refers to Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus…let’s just call him “CC”), and how he led a mission from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) to discover the New World. Among the “facts” I was taught for several years concerning CC were that CC proved that the world wasn’t flat, CC discovered America, CC wanted to trade spices with the Indians, and a handful of other accolades.
Since I was a 4th grader, “new” facts concerning CC have come to light. Apparently he wasn’t the one to prove that the world wasn’t flat, neither was he the first to navigate from Europe to the new world (he was preceded by at least 400 years by the Vikings). Furthermore, he didn’t even discover the America’s, that distinction has been ascribed to Amerigo Vespucci. And what’s more, despite our national holiday in his honor, Columbus never even set foot on United States’ mainland soil. He drifted from island to island in the Caribbean. Oh yeah, and spice trading…looks more like spice stealing to me.
So at best we can say that Columbus succeeded in traveling from Europe westward to what is now known as the America’s. He made this voyage a reproducible anomaly. And that’s about it.
Now here’s what we should really remember Columbus for. Columbus and his men made immediate enemies of the indigenous peoples living in the Caribbean. Maybe most notable was his leading the enslavement, massacre, pilfering, and rape of the Taino people in what we now know as Puerto Rico. Oh, and I should briefly mention that he and his men brought along with them a host of diseases that the indigenous peoples had no immune system to fight off.
CC is heavily responsible for much of the slave trading that marred the America’s for centuries, and whose explicit effects ended only a few decades ago in the USA. He learned from many European nations, like Portugal, how to trade for African slaves. He then arranged for these slaves shipment to the West Indies and forced them to work the land (full of cash crops like Sugar Cane) for his own personal gain.
Can someone please remind me again why we celebrate Columbus Day, complete with parades around the nation, and a Federal day off?
It would seem to me that a person who led the extermination and enslavement of one group of people, coupled with the displacement and enslavement of another group of people, would be a point of disdain and not accolade.
For real now, did he even accomplish anything reputable? He didn’t discover the America’s, he never made it to India to trade spices, he led a 16th century genocide, he didn’t even touch the USA mainland, and this is a guy that we’re going to halt the nation for and honor?
Funny how twisted this nation is.
It took marches on Washington, rallies, and even a Stevie Wonder tune to honor the memory of a truly remarkable man, Martin Luther King Jr. Indeed, there are members of Congress and in our Nation’s Judicial system to this day that voted against the MLK Holiday, and were in total opposition to it. So I gather that leading genocide is far more praise-worthy than leading non-violent campaigns of racial, social and economic equality.
I guess that I’m just frustrated with these “elephant in the room” issues. We talk about, debate, and discuss how women are paid 30 cents less than a man doing the same job, how teachers (who help develop multi-millionaire entertainers into who they are) are paid such pitiful wages, how the purchase of large gas-guzzling vehicles is financially wasteful/foolish, and about a bazillion other things; yet we never take steps to rectify these obvious “sillinesses.”
And one of the silliest notions that I can think of, with respect to national holidays, is to shut down the government in honor of a pillaging loser like Christopher Columbus; putting his name and reputation on par with Martin Luther King Jr. in January, and this nation’s Veterans in November. There seems to be some serious inequality in that very thought.
Since I know the task of erasing a National Holiday, no matter how unmerited it is, is a virtual impossibility, I at least hope that we tell the truth about Columbus and turn the day into an educational opportunity. In no way should he be praised, and certainly the people that became victims of his greed for prominence should be remembered and their history taught and honored.
It would be nice, sometime in the near future, to receive mail (no matter how full of bills it is) on the 2nd Monday in October. That would tell me that the nation has finally awakened.
-Maelstrom
“In Fourteen-Hundred and Ninety-Two, Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue.” Certainly anyone that grew up when I did, in the USA, has heard that rhyme recited time and time again. It refers to Cristobal Colon (Christopher Columbus…let’s just call him “CC”), and how he led a mission from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) to discover the New World. Among the “facts” I was taught for several years concerning CC were that CC proved that the world wasn’t flat, CC discovered America, CC wanted to trade spices with the Indians, and a handful of other accolades.
Since I was a 4th grader, “new” facts concerning CC have come to light. Apparently he wasn’t the one to prove that the world wasn’t flat, neither was he the first to navigate from Europe to the new world (he was preceded by at least 400 years by the Vikings). Furthermore, he didn’t even discover the America’s, that distinction has been ascribed to Amerigo Vespucci. And what’s more, despite our national holiday in his honor, Columbus never even set foot on United States’ mainland soil. He drifted from island to island in the Caribbean. Oh yeah, and spice trading…looks more like spice stealing to me.
So at best we can say that Columbus succeeded in traveling from Europe westward to what is now known as the America’s. He made this voyage a reproducible anomaly. And that’s about it.
Now here’s what we should really remember Columbus for. Columbus and his men made immediate enemies of the indigenous peoples living in the Caribbean. Maybe most notable was his leading the enslavement, massacre, pilfering, and rape of the Taino people in what we now know as Puerto Rico. Oh, and I should briefly mention that he and his men brought along with them a host of diseases that the indigenous peoples had no immune system to fight off.
CC is heavily responsible for much of the slave trading that marred the America’s for centuries, and whose explicit effects ended only a few decades ago in the USA. He learned from many European nations, like Portugal, how to trade for African slaves. He then arranged for these slaves shipment to the West Indies and forced them to work the land (full of cash crops like Sugar Cane) for his own personal gain.
Can someone please remind me again why we celebrate Columbus Day, complete with parades around the nation, and a Federal day off?
It would seem to me that a person who led the extermination and enslavement of one group of people, coupled with the displacement and enslavement of another group of people, would be a point of disdain and not accolade.
For real now, did he even accomplish anything reputable? He didn’t discover the America’s, he never made it to India to trade spices, he led a 16th century genocide, he didn’t even touch the USA mainland, and this is a guy that we’re going to halt the nation for and honor?
Funny how twisted this nation is.
It took marches on Washington, rallies, and even a Stevie Wonder tune to honor the memory of a truly remarkable man, Martin Luther King Jr. Indeed, there are members of Congress and in our Nation’s Judicial system to this day that voted against the MLK Holiday, and were in total opposition to it. So I gather that leading genocide is far more praise-worthy than leading non-violent campaigns of racial, social and economic equality.
I guess that I’m just frustrated with these “elephant in the room” issues. We talk about, debate, and discuss how women are paid 30 cents less than a man doing the same job, how teachers (who help develop multi-millionaire entertainers into who they are) are paid such pitiful wages, how the purchase of large gas-guzzling vehicles is financially wasteful/foolish, and about a bazillion other things; yet we never take steps to rectify these obvious “sillinesses.”
And one of the silliest notions that I can think of, with respect to national holidays, is to shut down the government in honor of a pillaging loser like Christopher Columbus; putting his name and reputation on par with Martin Luther King Jr. in January, and this nation’s Veterans in November. There seems to be some serious inequality in that very thought.
Since I know the task of erasing a National Holiday, no matter how unmerited it is, is a virtual impossibility, I at least hope that we tell the truth about Columbus and turn the day into an educational opportunity. In no way should he be praised, and certainly the people that became victims of his greed for prominence should be remembered and their history taught and honored.
It would be nice, sometime in the near future, to receive mail (no matter how full of bills it is) on the 2nd Monday in October. That would tell me that the nation has finally awakened.
-Maelstrom
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
It All Starts In The Mind
It all starts in the mind
As an avid fan of awareness, and the vicissitudes of this daily existence, I am increasingly amazed at what the average human being can do; both negative and positive. From the horrendous depths of criminal acts to the grand triumphs of those that have made something out of an impoverished life. This wretched, scarred, wrinkled, imperfect flesh can do virtually anything. The question is however, for what cause or purpose will we use this vessel?
In the trenches of my own mind, there exist hurtful notions as well as magnanimous ideals. There are failures that seem inevitable, and victories that seem unattainable. Yet I exist, and the struggle is to strive for the victories that seem impossible, while fighting against failures that seem certain. From there, we must decide what defines “victory” for us. What can we point at and say, “that is what I want to achieve?”
Watching the news is often a depressing and awe-injecting pastime. I watched this week as a little girl in New York City explained to police officers how she came to be alone, wandering the streets of New York in the middle of the night. Hours later it became apparent that her father had murdered her mother, and then took the girl (his own daughter) and left her on the streets in the middle of the night. After hearing the tale, all I could ask was, “who would do such a hideous thing?”
In my short few years walking this planet, I have become aware of a number of my close friends that have been raped and sexually assaulted, molested and manipulated. And I just question “who and why would someone do that?” I question “what made that sinister individual think that they could do that…who gave them the right to steal my friend’s dignity and innocence?”
And ultimately I ask the question, “What was going on in that person’s mind that told them they could commit such a heinous act? Do they have respect for another’s hopes, dreams, endeavors, future…humanity?”
The obvious, quick answer is no. However, the question is still a valid one. Nobody just wakes up and robs a bank. Even a child doesn’t just steal cookies out of the cookie jar. Certainly one doesn’t just rape another haphazardly. The rapist has an agenda, knows that they can accomplish their “mission,” and believe they can get away with it. And without knowing the numbers, I’d imagine that the vast majority of murders are premeditated to some extent too.
Before 9/11/01, we had never imagined that a group of individuals would take planes hostage, and crash the planes into buildings while taking their own lives. It was unthinkable and certainly didn’t follow the typical hostage-taking mold. There were no negotiations, no freed prisoners, no ransoms, and just utter malevolence.
The common link to all of these acts, great and small, is that it had to first be conceived of in the mind. And that alone is a scary thought. To know the treacheries that this physical existence has wrought. To think that someone could be plotting much more devastating calamities. To think that things could get worse.
But there are solutions, and one of them is you…me. Too often, I find, that we don’t take responsibility for the “messes” we make of our lives. It’s always the other guy’s fault, or, (she) made me hit her, or, I get my temper from my mama. Rarely do we look in the mirror and own up to the mistakes we made that helped to land us in the situations that we now find ourselves in.
A powerful statement that I read from Jennifer Aniston in Vanity Fair Magazine, concerning her divorce with Brad Pitt, was that even if the marriage failed 98% due to him, that 2% of the blame rested on her shoulders, and that’s the portion she has to focus on and improve.
As personal responsibility relates to the wickedness we witness on a daily basis, I whole-heartedly believe that if people counted the costs, and understood the gravitas of the actions that they have taken (or are contemplating taking), that we wouldn’t see so much heinousness. Certainly we can’t stop our mind from thinking some of the thoughts it encounters. When someone cuts you off on the highway, yes you want to go flick them off and ride them off the road (at least I know I do). But when you consider that something as minute as flipping someone the bird can (and HAS) lead to murder, then you know to handle the situation with grace and patience.
As a boy I was taught that “you can’t stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can stop them from making a nest in your hair.” In other words, in this context, there are times when we have been wronged and want retribution, but we can often save ourselves a lot of heartache by not allowing that frustration fester.
And yet this mind is amazing. It is truly a beautiful device. Look at what the human mind can accomplish.
Anyone that has watched ESPN over the last two weeks has been reminded of Roger Bannister, the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes. It was believed to be humanly impossible, but in his mind, it could be done. Now, the feat has even been accomplished by high-schoolers.
It was once thought that the earth was flat, and that if you went over the horizon, you would fall off of it until someday, someone believed in their mind that the Earth was indeed not flat and that you could travel a circumference from one side to the other. To imagine human beings flying was laughable until the Wright Brothers created the airplane. Breaking the sound barrier was a virtual impossibility, until someone came along and said “it can be done.”
Now it is conceivable that one day man will Long Jump over 30 feet. Now it is imaginable that the fastest human being on Earth will one day be a woman. Now it is plausible that there will be a manned mission to Mars. Now it is possible that a cure for AIDS will be discovered. It just takes for someone in their mind to say, “It can be done!”
So how does this apply to the “average” man?
I think the first step that many of us need to take in the morphology of our future is to look in the mirror. Stand before the mirror and say, “this is me.” “I’ve made this mistake, I made that error, I really messed these situations up, but they are what they are. I cannot change the past; I can only look toward the future.”
Then we need to define for ourselves positive goals that we would like to accomplish.
And here’s the big one: It is a hard thing to remove ourselves from comfortable situations, even if that situation is an unhealthy one for us. We are indeed creatures of comfort and habit.
I don’t know if this is an original quote, but I’ll attribute it to New York Times columnist Tom Friedman. He said, “People don’t change when they’re told they need to, people change when they realize they must.”
Unfortunately I know that change is easier said than done. Plus, you have to do more than want to change, or have more than just a reason to adjust your life. It takes a lot of strength and courage. Sadly, we often don’t have the strength to change our position on our own. It often takes extreme measures or occurrences to make us adjust our lifestyles.
Many people are obese and know that they need a more active lifestyle, and that a consistently healthier diet would greatly benefit them. They try and they try to do better, shuffling through diet after diet, but many can’t seem to make that transition until it is clearly apparent to them that their life is truly threatened.
Drug habits, even cigarettes, stand as an obvious roadblock to a smoother daily existence for millions of individuals. But it’s often not until it is crystal clear to that individual that their habit will harm their relationship, cost them jail time, or maybe even cause amputation of a limb, that the person decides to put that drug away.
And do I even need to mention what many people put up with in relationships (often women) even though they know they aren’t happy in it. From physical abuse, to emotional neglect, the victim often can’t let go and is many times being pulled by emotional strings like a puppet, often leaving the decisions about their relationship’s future up to their insensitive Agent of hurt. Then, and only then, do they move on; because they have to.
See, I’m a believer that it doesn’t have to be that way. If you want to see change around you, then you’ve got to envisage it for yourself. If you want the ground to shake where ever you walk, then you’ve got to believe that it’s possible in the first place. If you want to be in shape, you’ve got to tell yourself that you will eat healthier and that you will be more active. If you know your relationship is not what you want it to be, you’ve got to have the moxy to say I deserve better, I can live without this person, I will move on.
And trust me, all these things are realistic and possible…but here’s the key…
It all starts in the mind!
-Maelstrom
PS: This marks my 100th post. Yay me!
As an avid fan of awareness, and the vicissitudes of this daily existence, I am increasingly amazed at what the average human being can do; both negative and positive. From the horrendous depths of criminal acts to the grand triumphs of those that have made something out of an impoverished life. This wretched, scarred, wrinkled, imperfect flesh can do virtually anything. The question is however, for what cause or purpose will we use this vessel?
In the trenches of my own mind, there exist hurtful notions as well as magnanimous ideals. There are failures that seem inevitable, and victories that seem unattainable. Yet I exist, and the struggle is to strive for the victories that seem impossible, while fighting against failures that seem certain. From there, we must decide what defines “victory” for us. What can we point at and say, “that is what I want to achieve?”
Watching the news is often a depressing and awe-injecting pastime. I watched this week as a little girl in New York City explained to police officers how she came to be alone, wandering the streets of New York in the middle of the night. Hours later it became apparent that her father had murdered her mother, and then took the girl (his own daughter) and left her on the streets in the middle of the night. After hearing the tale, all I could ask was, “who would do such a hideous thing?”
In my short few years walking this planet, I have become aware of a number of my close friends that have been raped and sexually assaulted, molested and manipulated. And I just question “who and why would someone do that?” I question “what made that sinister individual think that they could do that…who gave them the right to steal my friend’s dignity and innocence?”
And ultimately I ask the question, “What was going on in that person’s mind that told them they could commit such a heinous act? Do they have respect for another’s hopes, dreams, endeavors, future…humanity?”
The obvious, quick answer is no. However, the question is still a valid one. Nobody just wakes up and robs a bank. Even a child doesn’t just steal cookies out of the cookie jar. Certainly one doesn’t just rape another haphazardly. The rapist has an agenda, knows that they can accomplish their “mission,” and believe they can get away with it. And without knowing the numbers, I’d imagine that the vast majority of murders are premeditated to some extent too.
Before 9/11/01, we had never imagined that a group of individuals would take planes hostage, and crash the planes into buildings while taking their own lives. It was unthinkable and certainly didn’t follow the typical hostage-taking mold. There were no negotiations, no freed prisoners, no ransoms, and just utter malevolence.
The common link to all of these acts, great and small, is that it had to first be conceived of in the mind. And that alone is a scary thought. To know the treacheries that this physical existence has wrought. To think that someone could be plotting much more devastating calamities. To think that things could get worse.
But there are solutions, and one of them is you…me. Too often, I find, that we don’t take responsibility for the “messes” we make of our lives. It’s always the other guy’s fault, or, (she) made me hit her, or, I get my temper from my mama. Rarely do we look in the mirror and own up to the mistakes we made that helped to land us in the situations that we now find ourselves in.
A powerful statement that I read from Jennifer Aniston in Vanity Fair Magazine, concerning her divorce with Brad Pitt, was that even if the marriage failed 98% due to him, that 2% of the blame rested on her shoulders, and that’s the portion she has to focus on and improve.
As personal responsibility relates to the wickedness we witness on a daily basis, I whole-heartedly believe that if people counted the costs, and understood the gravitas of the actions that they have taken (or are contemplating taking), that we wouldn’t see so much heinousness. Certainly we can’t stop our mind from thinking some of the thoughts it encounters. When someone cuts you off on the highway, yes you want to go flick them off and ride them off the road (at least I know I do). But when you consider that something as minute as flipping someone the bird can (and HAS) lead to murder, then you know to handle the situation with grace and patience.
As a boy I was taught that “you can’t stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can stop them from making a nest in your hair.” In other words, in this context, there are times when we have been wronged and want retribution, but we can often save ourselves a lot of heartache by not allowing that frustration fester.
And yet this mind is amazing. It is truly a beautiful device. Look at what the human mind can accomplish.
Anyone that has watched ESPN over the last two weeks has been reminded of Roger Bannister, the first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes. It was believed to be humanly impossible, but in his mind, it could be done. Now, the feat has even been accomplished by high-schoolers.
It was once thought that the earth was flat, and that if you went over the horizon, you would fall off of it until someday, someone believed in their mind that the Earth was indeed not flat and that you could travel a circumference from one side to the other. To imagine human beings flying was laughable until the Wright Brothers created the airplane. Breaking the sound barrier was a virtual impossibility, until someone came along and said “it can be done.”
Now it is conceivable that one day man will Long Jump over 30 feet. Now it is imaginable that the fastest human being on Earth will one day be a woman. Now it is plausible that there will be a manned mission to Mars. Now it is possible that a cure for AIDS will be discovered. It just takes for someone in their mind to say, “It can be done!”
So how does this apply to the “average” man?
I think the first step that many of us need to take in the morphology of our future is to look in the mirror. Stand before the mirror and say, “this is me.” “I’ve made this mistake, I made that error, I really messed these situations up, but they are what they are. I cannot change the past; I can only look toward the future.”
Then we need to define for ourselves positive goals that we would like to accomplish.
And here’s the big one: It is a hard thing to remove ourselves from comfortable situations, even if that situation is an unhealthy one for us. We are indeed creatures of comfort and habit.
I don’t know if this is an original quote, but I’ll attribute it to New York Times columnist Tom Friedman. He said, “People don’t change when they’re told they need to, people change when they realize they must.”
Unfortunately I know that change is easier said than done. Plus, you have to do more than want to change, or have more than just a reason to adjust your life. It takes a lot of strength and courage. Sadly, we often don’t have the strength to change our position on our own. It often takes extreme measures or occurrences to make us adjust our lifestyles.
Many people are obese and know that they need a more active lifestyle, and that a consistently healthier diet would greatly benefit them. They try and they try to do better, shuffling through diet after diet, but many can’t seem to make that transition until it is clearly apparent to them that their life is truly threatened.
Drug habits, even cigarettes, stand as an obvious roadblock to a smoother daily existence for millions of individuals. But it’s often not until it is crystal clear to that individual that their habit will harm their relationship, cost them jail time, or maybe even cause amputation of a limb, that the person decides to put that drug away.
And do I even need to mention what many people put up with in relationships (often women) even though they know they aren’t happy in it. From physical abuse, to emotional neglect, the victim often can’t let go and is many times being pulled by emotional strings like a puppet, often leaving the decisions about their relationship’s future up to their insensitive Agent of hurt. Then, and only then, do they move on; because they have to.
See, I’m a believer that it doesn’t have to be that way. If you want to see change around you, then you’ve got to envisage it for yourself. If you want the ground to shake where ever you walk, then you’ve got to believe that it’s possible in the first place. If you want to be in shape, you’ve got to tell yourself that you will eat healthier and that you will be more active. If you know your relationship is not what you want it to be, you’ve got to have the moxy to say I deserve better, I can live without this person, I will move on.
And trust me, all these things are realistic and possible…but here’s the key…
It all starts in the mind!
-Maelstrom
PS: This marks my 100th post. Yay me!
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