Archives for category: crime
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Marquis de Sade

April 10, 2015 //
2

Marquis_de_Sade

Sapsuckers
Salved
Sadie’s
Sockets
on
Hawkin’s Day!

“Of all the writers and thinkers of the 18th century, Sade was among the few to gaze, without flinching, into the worst of human nature, in particular the capacity of inflicting want, pain and destruction upon others” -Geoffrey Roche

I take exception to two elements of the academic Roche’s statement.

In the first instance, it is the idea Sade had any equal as a French philosopher during his age. As much as I might appreciate Montaigne:

“The women are right in their way of breaking the rules, because men made them without asking women”

Or Voltaire:

“The history of the great events of this world are scarcely more than a history of crime”

Sade exceeds both; in his unvarnished, unflinching depiction of European cultural mentality and straightforward determination to unmask this necrotic social phenomena for what it is. The second instance I take exception to, is the descriptive term “human nature.” What Sade explored as a philosopher is NOT ‘human nature‘ but the underpinnings of a social and cultural cruelty specific to Europeans and their several progeny via colonialism. I am not aware of a larger ethnocentric bias (cultural narcissism) than European culture’s and that culture’s academics. That Europeans somehow believe their mentality and ability to perceive ‘human nature’ is in some sense exclusive is not the point of the essay on Sade; but pointing to this prejudice is helpful to understand how Sade fits in the  ‘pantheon’ of Western philosophy.

In short, Sade was the result of a convergence of circumstance; his father was a diplomat, as well, a debauched-orgy-engaged nobleman in the court of Louis XV. The younger Sade was educated in his early years by his uncle, a debauched-orgy-engaged abbot and then young Sade, a disciplinary problem, was turned over to the Jesuits to be educated further. Let’s put this into a bit of perspective:

^ From this (above) to Lycée Louis-le-Grand run by these people:

In other words; from the governing institution of France in all of its decadent, orgiastic splendor, to education at the institution responsible for producing a ruling class of people resulting in persons like Sade’s ‘uncle abbot’ who’d introduced him to orgies as a six year old. Immersed in sex already, the Jesuits introduced Sade to extreme violence with flogging for purpose of discipline. By the time de Sade was an adolescent, he’d been immersed in sex and violence, for years.

What makes de Sade interesting is not the cruelty he inspired people to explore more or less openly in subsequent generations, but the institutional cruelty he explored, fearlessly, and the institutional cruelty he consequently described, honestly. ‘Institutional’ is the key term here. He beat Linda Blair (‘The Exorcist’) by two hundred years with introducing the crucifix into sex acts in media, perhaps the most accurate metaphor for the institution of Christian civilization, ever.

De Sade was imprisoned for much of his life for that peculiar crime of exposing his culture’s hypocrisy. He openly practiced what is only allowed to be practiced behind closed doors; making him France’s greatest philosopher .. insofar as those speaking to the facts honestly.

*

Perverts of Western Philosophy

The Satires

Tags , , ,
Categories corruption, crime, culture, male hierarchy, philosophy, politics, psychology, religion, transcendent warfare

Cosmos and Consciousness

March 29, 2015 //
4

ruin

^ European cultural mentality is self-evident

Of course it is unrealistic to expect we can live again as had been in the past; in modern times where our nations’ cosmos as we’d known them, no longer exist. The first step to experience any event other than altogether completed extinction, is to recognize our nations previous circumstance cannot be recovered. Any pretense to the contrary is a self-deceit. That was then, this is now and everything is changed. As the living clock moves to erase humanity as we know ourselves in the present, one should look at where might any possible remedy be within reach. To discover such an avenue would require the great mystery again recognize our value as a species.

That most changed has been our mentality, and certainly not for the better. Related to this, the European mentality which has overtaken us will end in one of three ways, in this order of possibility; 1) we will see this culture blow itself to bits, together with all the rest of humanity 2) social-environmental collapse will bring everyone down, no matter their role or possible intention or 3) self-dismantlement. Our duty is to work for this third, most remote possibility. To accomplish this, the first priority is to point as many people as possible (no matter the color of their skin) to disconnect from the grid. To disconnect absolutely will require recovering from the poison of the Western culture’s thinking.

The essential beginning would be renewed practical thinking that can be recognized as healthy by the cosmos. Without this, there is no future for any of the human species. In fact, without enough of this, there is no human future, no matter had some small communities accomplished a recovery or preserved some understanding of what it meant to ‘live in the clock’ where all had been balanced. This would require a lot of people. And you don’t get a lot of people with prejudices of whether someone is ‘White’ or ‘Cree.’ You arrive in that space by shutting out stupid people and opening to intelligent people, no matter their relationship to you, tribal affiliation or color of skin. Recreating a healthy cosmos would require solely people who understand how not to step on other beings lives. And that fact excludes many tribal people and includes people with no tribal affiliation. If there is any future people, it is those who can put European cultural mentality out of their lives, no matter their origins.

What would be the test? For those raised primarily in European culture, this will be a more difficult road; except for those in the native world who’d sold out altogether or have become too stupid to understand they’re stupid (perhaps the harshest reality.) The Europeans because they do not know how to be silent and listen (to nature.) And those natives who believe a Red skin makes them Indian (as opposed to the fact they are e.g. culturally Blackfoot-Americans little different to Irish-Americans.)

So, who among us native peoples will put television entirely out of our lives and the lives of our children? Who with more money will, instead of buying a new car, rather pay a native language granny to teach our pre-school children and the children of our neighbor without funds to do the same? Who will have the courage to stand up to the band councils and tell them ‘it’s going to be this way and now get out of our business’?

What Europeans would have the courage to pool their resources to buy land or other means to pull up fences and turn land back to the cosmos to mend, declaring it belongs to none other than life? And fight for the right to hand the land back, as well refuse their children educations intended to prop up a state that exploits with endless development? To be willing to have their children taught an alien language incorporating values far removed from Western Civilization and its historical ideals?

Who, between the two communities preceding, would have the courage to care for and depend on each other in a growing environment of trust where the White child is educated no differently to the Red; where the only idea worthy of spiritual reverence is the idea this world is not ours, it belongs to all life, where we have clearly demonstrated to step out of place is to step out of everything it could possibly mean to live in any positive way. And tell everyone else ‘there is no place here for stupid’

Even with all of this accomplished, it falls short, if you cannot clearly grasp your life is no more important than a beaver your ancestor either trapped or traded for. There are no innocent parties. So, what is consciousness? Certainly it is not the ‘self-aware’ preoccupied ego (‘it’s all about me’) of European concept. Consciousness is the gift of the cosmos to an entity that is an organism of many parts .. in which humans have become a cancer. Consciousness is nothing more and nothing less.

notes to follow-

*

Cosmos & Cosmology Cross-cultural encroachment (1)

Cosmos & Environment Cross-Cultural encroachment (2)

Cosmos & The Nation Cross-cultural encroachment (3)

Cosmos & The Clan Cross-cultural encroachment (4)

Cosmos & The Family Cross-cultural encroachment (5)

Cosmos & The Self Cross-cultural encroachment (6)

Cosmos & Consciousness Cross-cultural encroachment (7)

Cosmos & Consciousness (notes)

*

Life in Indian Country Essay collection

Tags , , ,
Categories crime, culture, intelligence, male hierarchy, matriarchy, philosophy, psychology, religion, shamanism, social responsibility, transcendent warfare, Uncategorized

Cosmos and The Family

March 28, 2015 //
3

deadindians

^ analogy for the modern tribal councils (the soldiers)

The females were all educated by the Motokis society, to which no male ever belonged or was admitted to. This secret tradition is therefore a matter on which I cannot comment except to say anything which has been written about the Motokis in modern times is almost certainly perverted-poisoned by Christian influences and consequent male view.

In the male educational tradition, if the band were largely an extended family made up of mostly cousins (1st cousin & brother are the same word, likewise uncle & father and so forth) as a matter of cultural habit, the nuclear families within the band were those several parts making up a clan’s patrilineal education system. Similar, but not precisely identical, to government, the male education reflected both consistency and diversity. In this case, had I been a male of former times, chances are most of those surrounding me would be Black Doors and this tradition would be the bands primary education model at the nuclear family level. Additional (compulsory) education would be the province of the warrior societies and elective education could be found in the ‘medicine societies.’

Throughout one’s life, defying the western stereotype of ‘shiftless, lazy Indians’, so-called ‘leisure time’ was much preoccupied with education.

When necessity of acquiring western technology (firearms) preceded the actual arrival of the Whites, this new pressure had already begun breaking this system down, through the erosion of values. To acquire guns required violating the most basic tenets and associated values of one’s education to sustain life within the cosmos. This requirement was reflected in the so-called ‘fur trade’ where the ‘Beaver Nation’ (mostly) was assaulted and nearly driven to extinction. With the new steel traps, the Pikuni (and nearly every other native human nation) set out to alter the cosmos as the skins of their sacred companions were harvested en mass, setting into motion a chain of events; whiskey came with the steel traps & firearms they traded the beaver pelts for and the rank and deep fear (a new concept) of what they were doing within the cosmos, created the opening for alcohol to make deep inroads into Pikuni society.

This knocking the cosmos out of balance had been deceptive in the perception of one’s surrounding in  the environment. Already dealt a death-blow, the dying cosmos appeared to live on; very much like the individual cells of a complex organism die over time following a mortal blow and cessation of brain function. There could be breath went on for awhile but then this ceases as well. At the end, a corpse’s hair and nails continue to grow for a bit longer. This may sound harsh but is an accurate reflection of what had happened since; within the families who’d kept their traditions more intact, in vicinity of vestiges of undisturbed nature, the original knowledge continued (in ever diminishing  form.)

Contrast this to the modern tribal council and its western economic development model and here I will note a few salient examples of how we, as native peoples, have embraced a lie; the native corporation throughout Canada and Alaska, the Navaho tribal council forcing through gambling after it’d been twice rejected by tribal referendum, the Navaho tribal council forcing electricity (with attending television) on all rural or remote households against the will of those wishing to keep to tradition (and off the grid), the Shoshone-Arapaho of Wyoming chasing the antelope to extinction on their reservation with all terrain vehicles, the Blackfeet of Montana aspiring to get a family member into tribal council so “it will be our turn” to loot that nation’s resources, such as clear cutting the Hudson Divide of premium house logs, sold to sawmills off the reservation – while the Amskapi Pikuni throughout have suffered chronic-critical housing shortage. And those many tribal members employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs who’ve made a career of bringing the nations into the ‘modern concept’ (while stealing the people blind), those several nations where one faction gained control over another faction and expelled their own people with dis-enrollment (such as the Cree had done to many of the Chippewa at Rocky Boy) and it just goes on. Tell me; just who among these can claim to be Indian?

*

Cosmos & Cosmology Cross-cultural encroachment (1)

Cosmos & Environment Cross-Cultural encroachment (2)

Cosmos & The Nation Cross-cultural encroachment (3)

Cosmos & The Clan Cross-cultural encroachment (4)

Cosmos & The Family Cross-cultural encroachment (5)

Cosmos & The Self Cross-cultural encroachment (6)

Cosmos & Consciousness Cross-cultural encroachment (7)

Cosmos & Consciousness (notes)

*

Life in Indian Country Essay collection

Tags , , ,
Categories corruption, crime, culture, male hierarchy, matriarchy, philosophy, politics, psychology, religion, shamanism, Uncategorized

Cosmos and The Nation

March 25, 2015 //
0

ismetpi001p1

^ evil incarnate

The Nation, to incorporate to the environment, had to integrate to the intelligence of the cosmos. This integration required merging two kinds of consciousness; female and male. The result had been androgynous thought reflected in the many genders in the language; where these many gender actually reflect the many varying degrees of androgyny in the observed processes of nature from whence the ancient ways of knowledge had been derived. This salient fact is what altogether set the ancient intelligence apart from the modern. The parallel I would draw is this: the two human brains, right & left, female & male, were not split as is reflected in modern experience. Awake time had its’ consistent dream element and sleep time was consistently informed with lucid dreaming. Never was a strict line drawn between, or boundary established, between the two. One reality was as valid as the other. Or, perhaps better said, they were never considered to be distinctly separate reality or experience. This integrated intelligence is what had made it possible for the Nation to exist within the social context of nature (or environment) within the cosmos. This unique (by comparison to the modern) integration is what enabled sight capable of ‘reading’ the language of other creatures, inclusive of trees, even stones. Also, within this integrated framework existed a ‘greater’ intelligence where time could be perceived in motion; a living clock could be its’ description. A Nation’s collective ability to ‘read’ this clock was an utilitarian principle allowing for the Nation to function as an organism within the environment hosted within the cosmos. Everything remained attuned within this clock, of which the Nation was a functional part (of the clock’s many parts, inclusive of ‘other nations’ such as the elk, antelope and bison.)

How delicate cultures can be is reflected in how the nations became dismembered. Already under pressures on account of European expansion and technology exerting forces preceding the actual Whites arrival, for example the necessity to acquire guns to compete with tribes being pushed into their territories, the Pikuni nation (a Blackfoot branch) was in a high state of male mortality. This was to have unforeseen consequence where the nation’s disintegration actually began before any organized attempt to bring these people to heel by government. The disintegration began with the poisoning of the nation by the Jesuits.

It was a mistake made by the women. The Small Robes band of Pikuni Blackfoot, also some other Pikuni aligned with them, invited the Jesuit DeSmet into their band, when they met him on a visit to the Salish. DeSmet learned their stories and subverted them (the stories) to Christian ideology. He accomplished this with convincing the women only one man had to die and if they celebrated that one death, they would be reunited with all the men they’d lost; in a paradise of immortals.

This deeply appealing (to the women) idea set loose in a world where lies were an almost inconceivable phenomena and lies about matters of spirit were beyond comprehension, turned Blackfoot society on its head in a single generation. DeSmet assigned two priests to followup on his stay with the Blackfeet and they were allowed (by the women) to educate a group of children. That fact destroyed the fabric of Blackfoot society, upending the principles of matriarchy. This infection of the Blackfoot mentality was the cause of future generations of women taught to submit to men and all balance was lost. This in turn made the men weak.

Over a longer period, this infection of Western thinking caused all of the males to become weak and ignorant by comparison to the ancients; because they lost their integrated intelligence or androgynous conceptual thought beginning with the Jesuit poisoning of Blackfoot understanding.

Illustrating this, there is an interesting piece of Blackfoot oral history that is a revisionism, related to McClintock in his ‘The Old North Trail.’ Here you see a modern ‘original sin’ story where the Blackfoot male at fault is named “Motokis.” This is interesting for two facts; it was Blackfeet men who’d capitulated to Christianity informed McClintock in oral history and the fact the story’s male protagonist name is Motokis, the name of the universal society of Blackfeet women who’d been the source of matriarchal intelligence. The cynicism of the Jesuits is stark, to use this name in a story manufactured to educate future generations of Blackfoot children to the idea of women’s intelligence being a source of bad luck.

The main group of the Small Robes associated with DeSmet suffered a terrible fate; when their men were wiped out by the Crow and the survivors became a Blackfeet speaking satellite band of the Crow nation. The other Pikuni group, those who did not suffer the Small Robes fate, were subsequently expelled by the larger Pikuni nation because the children educated by the Jesuits matured into pedophiles and rapists.

It happened that fast. The surrender (or poisoning) of native intelligence fractured the nation within the environment, and for all practical purposes, the environment integrated, ‘living entity’ had ceased to exist.

*

Cosmos & Cosmology Cross-cultural encroachment (1)

Cosmos & Environment Cross-Cultural encroachment (2)

Cosmos & The Nation Cross-cultural encroachment (3)

Cosmos & The Clan Cross-cultural encroachment (4)

Cosmos & The Family Cross-cultural encroachment (5)

Cosmos & The Self Cross-cultural encroachment (6)

Cosmos & Consciousness Cross-cultural encroachment (7)

Cosmos & Consciousness (notes)

*

Life in Indian Country Essay collection

 

Tags , , ,
Categories crime, culture, matriarchy, parapsychology, philosophy, religion, shamanism, social responsibility, Uncategorized

New Age Homicide for $MONEY$

March 23, 2015 //
1

chief2

Insofar as the ‘new age’ people co-opting Native American ceremony, here is another of my ‘myspace’ pieces, also from 2009, following on the 2009 preceding piece on Russel Means. Taken together, these are prelude to a following piece I am in process of working up; exploring the inter-cultural misapprehension of North American indigenous based and European concept. My commentary on the AP WIRE reporting in italics

AP WIRE: Oct 10th, 2009 | PHOENIX — Authorities seeking answers to what caused two deaths and more than a dozen illnesses at an Arizona resort’s sauna-like sweat lodge were investigating whether any of the victims had medical conditions or had been fasting

Humnn, what is wrong with this picture

In all, 21 of the 64 people crowded inside the sweat lodge Thursday evening received medical care at hospitals and a fire station. Four remained hospitalized Friday evening — one in critical condition and the others in fair condition…..

My elder teachers talked about this. Think about it. “64 people crowded inside”

Authorities haven’t determined the cause of the deaths and illnesses; tests for carbon monoxide and other contaminants were negative

This is a tragedy of IGNORANCE and GREED

Among those sickened during a two-hour session were a middle-aged man and a woman who were unconscious, according to a 911 call, and a third person who was found not breathing

1st question: How could this happen except whoever is running the sweat did not have proper training? I was taught when sweating the inexperienced or people from another culture, to constantly check on the welfare of my people in the sweat, you do not take in more people than you can keep track of, you make and keep communication established with everyone by name, you ask again and again if they have enough air, you ask if they are too hot, you make certain they have opportunity to drink, you make it clear they should tell you if they are dizzy or otherwise struggling, you take real breaks and you do not group sweat ANYONE with medical condition or if they have been fasting. The Sweat Lodge, other than certain events of long tradition practiced by the trained initiates in organized societies, is typically small, intimate and strictly controlled precisely because it is DANGEROUS. It is absolutely DANGEROUS if you don’t know what you are doing

“It’s not something you’d normally see at one of the resorts there, and it’s unfortunate regardless of the cause,” Yavapai County sheriff’s spokesman Dwight D’Evelyn said

“unfortunate”

Investigators were working to determine whether criminal actions might have been a factor in the incident, D’Evelyn said

Effectively, this is criminal negligent homicide. Or worse. These people did not have a cultural context that is in a sense a lifetime of preparation for enduring an extreme physical stress and to some, an extreme psychological stress. I can tell you what my primary native sweat teacher would have said about this event: ‘those people were murdered”

The Angel Valley Retreat Center sits on 70 acres nestled in a scrub forest just outside Sedona, a resort town 115 miles north of Phoenix that draws many in the New Age spiritual movement

“Sedona” and “New Age spiritual movement”

Self-help expert and author James Arthur Ray rented the facility as part of his “Spiritual Warrior” retreat that began Oct. 3 and that promised to “absolutely change your life.”

‘self-help expert’

Ray spokesman Howard Bragman confirmed that his client was holding an event at the retreat, as he has done in the past. Authorities said Ray was inside the sweat lodge Thursday evening and was interviewed at the scene

What could he honestly say? He murdered them with his greed and ignorance?

“We express our deepest condolences to those who lost friends and family, but we pray for a speedy recovery for those who took ill,” Bragman said. “At this point there are more questions than answers, so it would not be appropriate to comment further.”

“condolences” and “more questions than answers”

Sweat lodges, like that held on the final day of the Angel Valley retreat, are commonly used by American Indian tribes to cleanse the body and prepare for hunts, ceremonies and other events. The structure used Thursday was crudely built and covered with tarps and blankets

And those Indians, if solidly grounded in their tradtions, would know you do not sell the sweat lodge experience for $MONEY$. There is a long tradition of highly ritualized gift giving which is in no sense commercial at all, but is predicated upon a relationship to spirit and prices are not named because you cannot price the poor or unfortunate out of a relationship of learning or experiencing what is holy. There are certain traditional gifts, small in value, for the spirit. And then there is the self motivation of the heart of the patient or student towards the healer or teacher. No price can be named by the medicine man. Most Native American sweats involve no money at all, other than the gas required to gather the wood and haul it to the sweat site. All of the good medicine men I knew had real life day jobs, were older and retired, voluntarily sponsored by a patron [not for profit] or otherwise were somehow self sufficient in their own right and did not depend on their spiritual work for a living, because that would destroy your reputation. NONE OF THEM WAS WEALTHY. The ones I knew who succumbed to greed, yes, those sort of people do exist in Native America, were ostracized in their own communities and had effectively destroyed their relationship to their own people. In effect, if you work to serve the people, you do NOT sell spirit for $MONEY$

Stones are heated up outside a lodge, brought inside and placed in a pail-sized hole. The door is closed, and water is poured on the stones, producing heat aimed at releasing toxins in the body

Remember “64 people crowded inside” for $MONEY$

The ritual in sweat lodges is helpful in restoring balance and changing people’s attitudes and self-image, said Joseph Bruchac, author of “The Native American Sweat Lodge: History and Legends.”

Dead and injured as a result of “64 people crowded inside” This has nothing to do with “restoring balance and changing people’s attitudes and self-image” when it involves commercial event for $MONEY$. Think about it. What the people have done here is like trying to buy your way with spirit

People have died in sweat lodges in the past. They were either sick tribal elders who voluntarily stayed until they died or people who had heart conditions and were in poor health

This is true, the elderly, very tired or feeling complete in their journey, could make that choice. But always, life was taught as the first and paramount choice. And as for people dying at a sweat because of poor health, this is RARE in Native America and would ALWAYS indicate a mistake having been made

“The sweat lodge needs to be respected,” Bruchac said. “When you imitate someone’s tradition and you don’t know what you are doing, there’s a danger of doing something very wrong.”

Bruchac is correct. “Danger of doing something very wrong” and “64 people crowded inside” for $MONEY$, are two and two put together when it comes to “doing something very wrong”

Ray’s retreat schedule had few details about what participants could expect, other than thrice-daily meals and group gatherings that started at 7 a.m. and ended 16 hours later

Sixteen hour days. This deadly event was held at the end of six days of 16 hour days where people have been fasting, hiking, group encountering, essentially stressed out body and mind on top of not having a lifetime of cultural context to prepare them for the sweat experience. Then they are packed like sardines into a structure in such a large number there is no way the leader can keep track of their individual welfare. This was BEGGING for trouble

The details came in a lengthy release of liability that acknowledges participants may suffer “physical, emotional, financial or other injuries” while hiking or swimming, or during a multi-day personal and spiritual quest in the wilderness without food or water or the sweat lodge

Sorry folks, but these people picked a damn poor medicine man when they ponied up for a “spiritual quest in the wilderness without food or water” and “64 people crowded inside” requiring a LEGAL WAIVER. All for $MONEY$

Some participants told detectives they paid up to $9,000 for the event. Ray’s company, James Ray International, is based in Carlsbad, Calif

“they paid up to $9,000 for the event” to a medicine man named “James Ray International”

Ray’s posting on his Twitter account hours before the deaths said: “Still in Spiritual Warrior … for anything new to live something first must die. What needs to die in you so that new life can emerge?”

Creating reality. Grief emerges from arrogance. Where is the humility taught as the underpinning of Native American spiritual belief? According to what I know from 30 years intimate contact with the spiritual teachings of three separate Native peoples, Blackfoot, Ojibwe and Cree, this guy was begging for bad luck and things to go wrong. He’ll know humility now. Or hide behind lawyers, more likely. Nothing cultural in a Native American sense with that. So, in the end, is this guy practicing Native American spiritual tradition? I don’t think so

The posting and two others were deleted Friday afternoon

People lives deleted

A woman who answered the phone at the Angel Valley resort Friday said its founders, Michael and Amayra Hamilton, would have no comment. A call to the Hamiltons’ home went unanswered

“they paid up to $9,000 for the event” and “no comment”

The Angel Valley Spiritual Retreat Center, built on former ranch property in the high-desert and red-rock country of northern Arizona, bills itself as a natural environment for self discovery and healing through a holistic approach aimed at balancing the mind, emotions, body and spirit

$MONEY$. Just to let you all know, especially those wishing to follow a Native path, the Oral History (prophets) of Stone Child’s Plains Ojibwe people had a specific name for $MONEY$ in a spiritual context. That name? “The Leading Trouble Maker.” The surviving group of these people [Stone Child descendents] are now located at Sunchild Reserve in Alberta, Canada, perhaps the true teachings survive there. I was taught the Oral History by the last of the [Chippewa language] Montana branch of Stone Child’s Ojibwe people, who now for all practical purposes are assimilated into the Cree culture at Rocky Boy or culturally extinct. My friend and tribal elder Duncan Standing Rock will vouch for this. Maybe these elders either hoped or knew I would tell you about “The Leading Trouble Maker” also known as $MONEY$. There is a lot to be known about $MONEY$, and how it corrupts spirit from the Native American point of view. There is a simple oxymoron here. $Money$ is the human element of greed that is causing the planet to die. How can charging $MONEY$ square with the Native American spiritual belief and the primary sweat lodge teaching that all life, nature as a whole, is sacred?

The property includes American Indian structures such as teepees, guest houses and outdoor labyrinths made of stones

“$9,000” paid to die. Think about it

*

Duncan_recommendation

^ screenshot of following statement:

“To whom it may concern,

“I feel good about granting my recommendations in behalf of Mr. Ronald West of whom I had known for many years. I know Mr. West had served in the U.S. Military Service with an honorable discharge. I know Mr. West has very high respect for certain aboriginal inter-tribal cultural and ceremonies. I know Mr. Ronald West is a honorable and loyal to his beliefs and to those whom Mr. Ronald West works with.

With Respect,

Mr. Duncan Standing Rock Sr.”

*

 Life in Indian Country Essay collection

Tags , , ,
Categories corruption, crime, culture, psychology, religion, shamanism, social responsibility, Uncategorized

My Madcap Adventure Episode 18

March 14, 2015 //
0

Crystal_Ball

The effects of this trip had reverberated in the core of my being for well over a month, following my return. Landed in New York, I traveled upstate and spent a week hanging out with a friend. It was a quiet scene, talking philosophy and spending time checking out the old Erie Canal. The mundane was beautiful.

Back at Helena, I was asked what I thought of the trip. By this time I knew the sisters had the then popular astrologer, Zipporah Dobbins, choose the trips date; it would be an ‘auspicious’ time. Based on this intelligence, I answered “Those girls should be jailed.”

I went to Starr School on the Blackfeet reservation, to pack up and head south for a few months, coming from the tropics into a Montana winter was not an appealing thought. I dropped by to visit Pat, my medicine man friend and he laughed at me … Native America has perhaps the darkest humor on Earth and the prevailing joke in the community was “Ron shot Mrs Gandhi.” It was a pun on the shamanic aspect of life not understood in western culture, but similar perhaps to a joke on someone who’d followed an astrologer into a disaster. Kind of like saying ‘your medicine man sucks’ relating to consulting over preparation for a journey.

Reprising a trip from over a decade earlier, when I’d driven a Volkswagen ‘bug’ to Arizona, to escape Montana’s cold, following my return from tropical Vietnam, here I was again, driving a Volkswagen bug to Arizona, to escape the Montana cold, following my return from tropical India.

It was at Agua Prieta, just on the Mexican side of the border with Arizona, I’d asked at the local grocery a simplest possible question; of a proprietor who’d probably never been beyond the borders of his native Sonora. My imperfect Spanish couldn’t find the impersonal ‘are there’ and instead I blurted out the personal ‘do you have’ .. eggs? His reply was:

“Sì! Dos grandes!!”

-end-

notes to follow-

*

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags , , , ,
Categories assassinations, crime, culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, satire, Travel, Uncategorized

My Madcap Adventure Episode 17

March 13, 2015 //
2

It was mid afternoon on 4 November I was free in Cairo. I was able to amend my original return ticket from India and would be able to catch a plane from Cairo to New York with a plane change at London, on the 6th. I caught a taxi to Giza and checked into a ! Swiss Chalet ! or cheesy imitation thereof, a sort of motel configuration, not too expensive. I laid down and was dead-out until I heard the muezzin calling people to prayer at daybreak, or about 12 hours. It was that kind of sleep where you offload immeasurable amounts of stress. But surrealism apparently doesn’t simply vanish but follows some trips like a con-trail. Or maybe I was just tripping, but here is what I experienced: This ‘chalet’ had a dining room and I was by now thoroughly sick of curried vegetables, the mainstay on my diet for the past six weeks. I wanted red meat. English boiled beef, fine no argument with that. Feta cheese was a treat. But here is what made the journey cartoon just keep going on; the ‘chalet’ dining room had an American ‘Old West’ theme … with waiters dressed in paper-felt cowboy hats with plastic sheriff star pinned to vest and toy revolvers holstered on their hips! This was the very outfit American parents bought for their 10 year old boys and here we were in Giza, Egypt!! I understood I wasn’t hallucinating but still .. face in my palm.

Cowboy

May I take your order?

This was the evening of 5 November. Earlier in the day, I’d been visiting the home of the taxi driver who’d fetched me from the airport and brought me to Giza, his home village. We’d had lunch with his family and he was wanting to know when I’d like to see the pyramids .. Haji Hassan El-Koly was stunned to hear a westerner state, and his daughter nearly fell on the floor laughing at his amazement .. when I’d gestured to the window and said “I see them, they’re there.” It was almost inconceivable to him I was more interested in discovering who the Egyptians of the present were, than going to some presentation or touring any archaeology site. We spent part of the afternoon discussing contemporary Egypt and regional geopolitics, as well he became curious and was asking questions about myself. El-Koly stated he would never forget me on account of my name: “Where the Sun goes down.” He probably never did forget me; I had paid him an honest fare for my trip to & around Giza and return to the Cairo airport .. but then tipped him one inferior quality counterfeit USA $100 bill, courtesy of a Guardian Angel.

Cairo_to_London

Arrival in London (L) from Egypt (R)

At Heathrow in London, I had to clear customs to walk across a street into another concourse, to catch my plane to New York. Two British counter-narcotics officers were waiting for me as I entered the second concourse, they wanted a look inside my carry on day-pack. I had a collection of perfume oils I was returning with, to give to a woman friend. Eight brown glass vials about 3 inches tall and one inch wide, probably seen in some x-ray scanner my pack had been through. Asking me questions about the movie ‘The French Connection” as they pulled out the flat box containing the vials, I merely replied ‘Not everyone’s life fits a movie script.” They sorted soon enough it was oil of musk & other scents and one of them asked “What are you West, some kind of a rat?” And then let me go. I ate a ‘drop into dead sleep over the Atlantic’ pill I HAD smuggled, just for that purpose, and woke up at JFK in New York.

*

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags , , , ,
Categories Author, crime, Folk Stories, narcotics trafficking, philosophy, politics, psychology, satire, Travel, Uncategorized

My Madcap Adventure Episode 16

March 13, 2015 //
2

On 2 November in my room at the Taj Palace, watching Indian state tv was like watching science fiction; with expressionless humanoid faces telling us not to believe “rumors of communal violence.” As I watched Rajiv light his mother’s funeral pyre on television, I could coincidentally look out the window at a column of smoke rising in the distance. Indira Gandhi’s body going up in flames or another Sikh home? There was no way for me to know, as these were simultaneous phenomena. So, what was the point of the television lie? Another trait India holds in common with the western democracies – ‘what you’re told isn’t the reality.’

Meanwhile I’d picked up a security detail shadowing me, no one believed for a New York second I was Old Babette’s grandson. It’d been better if she’d said nothing. I took care of that with fortuitous circumstance. I was sitting in a lounge in the morning when some vile looking, dowdy and incredibly wealthy (her gold and jewels hanging on her like kites tangled in utility wires) old woman decided to abandon her huge purse that appeared to be so heavy as to be filled with gold bars and leave the room. I spotted my security man across the room in a doorway, looking the other way. I walked swiftly over to him and, without mentioning the owner, I told him “There is an untended bag.” He immediately followed me into the lounge where I pointed out the purse, as it happened the old woman was returning to claim it. After, there was no further suspicions; they didn’t care who I was, other than an extra set of security eyes. No one wanted a bomb going off. A little later I frightened the ‘bejezuz’ out of myself with a stupid trick. Heading back to my room I turned the corner to see the elevator doors were beginning to close. With a sprint & leap worthy of some caped hero, I flew into the elevator as the door closed behind me: squarely into some VIP”s armed security detail! And fortunately for me, sans VIP. I wasn’t shot. If only they’d taken a photo of my face in that moment, some things are absolutely priceless. Recovering my composure in the stare of several ‘men-in-black’ security types, I simply said “Sorry” and pushed the elevator button to my level.

3 November simply dragged on in some sort of time warp that makes a day seem as though it will never end, as Indian television insisted despite rumors, there was no communal violence. Meanwhile I’d encountered an American who said a mob had boarded at a stop and killed Sikhs on the train he’d taken to Delhi.

Meanwhile Old Babette had been showering me with promises. Grateful, at least momentarily, for engineering our escape, she insisted I was going to be put up in Cairo and take a boat tour with her on the Nile, all on her dime. I listened but said nothing. Underneath, both of us knew we were absolutely incompatible personalities. That, and I recalled her brief episode of delusional belief she was a siren of eternal youth. That made me more paranoid than the rioting city we were looking to escape.

On the morning of the 4th, the Guardian Angel Sister’s Muslim travel agent manifest, to be certain Old Babette and myself made it onto the airport shuttle. For that fact, I totally forgive her for -on my departing the Hotel Imperial- passing off to me two, inferior quality, counterfeit USD$100 bills as a means of getting rid of them. On the other hand, her Bandit Sister was prone to absolutely angel moments (time to time.)

Cairo

Cairo

In our (cheap) silk kimono jackets courtesy of 1st class tickets on Japan Airline, we were among the first people out of Delhi. No sooner than we we’re in the air, Old Babette’s immense gratitude began to wane; she  was certain I wouldn’t mind a 2nd class hotel in Cairo. The truth is, other than reassurance as escort on absolutely insane taxi rides, there hadn’t been much I’d done she couldn’t have done for herself. It was the Muslim friend of the Guardian Angel Sister had made our departure possible. I don’t know if Old Babette had ‘male companion’ in mind for Egypt, but as far as I was concerned we were parting ways. As we were disembarking our plane in Cairo, her plans for us were getting reiterated and I said nothing until we’d passed through customs; her needing assistance with luggage, and myself with two carry on totality of luggage, I turned to her and said “I’ll take a rain-check” with a wave of the hand I strode away .. and the look of complete surprize-shock-amazement on her face was the last I ever saw of Old Babette.

 *

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

 

Tags , , , , , ,
Categories assassinations, crime, culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, politics, satire, Travel

My Madcap Adventure Episode 15

March 13, 2015 //
0

Of the numerous photos of the 1984 ‘riots’ I could have chosen, of Sikhs being beaten to death, burned alive, arson of their businesses or simply bodies of children, women and men alike murdered by the mob, I decided instead to show a taste of the opulence I’d escaped to .. and is likely an accurate picture of the Gandhi family’s life; even as Rajiv was setting fire to his mother’s funeral pyre while powerless Sikh families were being burned alive in their homes:

???????????????????????????????

^ Interior of Taj Palace Hotel at New Delhi

I’d put on my day pack and shouldered my small sport duffel, the totality of my luggage, grabbed one of Old Babette’s suitcases (she had two) and escorted her out of the Hotel Imperial’s gate, past the Sikh security contingent, all armed with swords or batons, one of whose face was severely beaten. We turned right outside of the gate and walked maybe a hundred meters or so to an area where there was a taxi business. The taxi people pointed us down an alley where there were a few taxis with drivers willing to risk exiting the area and hired one to drive us to the Taj Palace Hotel … for one hundred US dollars. Working was an affront to the memory of Indira Gandhi and could get a taxi driver killed, with no safety promise made to the passengers. We made the trip with a wide-eyed, nearly panic stricken driver speeding through the empty streets of Delhi – it looked like a ghost city with scattered debris and the occasional smouldering ruin. Suddenly we breezed through an army checkpoint into the upscale area of the city where life looked like a calm calendar holiday. We arrived at the marble & brass edifice that we’d call home for the following three nights, without incident. Then, Old Babette made her first screw-up. She quite spontaneously decided to create an alibi for the character she was traveling with (that would be me) and went into an unrequested, convoluted, unconvincing explanation I was her “grandson” at check-in. Of course all this did was raise suspicions; as I bore no resemblance whatsoever to her. A medium-short, dark, muscular male with no scent of money whatsoever in his attire, in the company of a clearly wealthy, slender, taller, translucent-White woman who’d burn in the sun in less than 10 minutes without her protective hat and sunscreen. For purposes of cover, I would never bring myself to pose as her male prostitute; as well, we had separate rooms .. otherwise that might have almost been the story that fit her unnecessary, unwanted, counter-productive attempt at an alibi. In a way, we WERE using each other. But now I was marked by hotel security in a venue that was filling up with high profile guests arriving for a state funeral.

Now, things became more stupid in a blessed sort of way; We discovered there was to be an ‘inaugural’ Japan Airlines flight out of Delhi on 4 November, the day the airport would reopen for regular commercial traffic. This stroke of luck made available to us was on account of the Guardian Angel Sister who’d an Indian professional travel associate who came to see if we’d made it to our destination alive. This Muslim man, I do not recall his name, impresses me as one of the finest people I’d met on our trip. The catch was, I subsequently discovered, in order to secure tickets, we had to visit the Japan Airlines travel agency office, precisely located one city block from Hotel Imperial! Old Babette and myself had to get a taxi and retrace our route and return!! Argh!!! None of the travel businesses were overtly open but if we went to the back door of the business, we were told, we’d be allowed in to acquire plane tickets. This would be my fifth trip across the burning city in two days, if one counted destination and return separately. I told Old Babette she could either come up with a few thousand cash for myself to transact the business for us or take the ride and bring along her credit cards. She got into the taxi with me. Two wild rides & two hundred dollars in taxi fees later, we were back at the Taj Palace with a pair of first class tickets to Cairo.

*

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags , , ,
Categories assassinations, Author, crime, culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, politics, satire, Travel

My Madcap Adventure Episode 14

March 12, 2015 //
2

Humpty_Dumpty

The term ‘surrealism’ in the common vernacular is about more than any school of art or literature. In the collective conscious of humanity, it is sometimes expressed in the vulgar tongue as ‘shit happens’ .. as when life itself becomes surreal. As surreal as my adventure might have seemed to now, suddenly it took on that psychosis that does not belong to the ego of any one individual, no matter it was both; arrogance & narcissism of the individual had initiated some few days mayhem & bedlam worthy of some South Asian ‘El Greco’ portrait. Except these inmate behaviors were exterior to the walls of the asylum. But first:

Indira Gandhi was an arrogant woman. From the time of the so-called ‘Emergency’, it was clear India is no exception to the general rule of democracy; it is the selfish ambition of the individual rises to rule, and the rights of the ‘little people’ are run over. After, when a militant Sikh separatist had taken over the Golden Temple (some would justly believe he’d been radicalized by Gandhi’s Congress party acts) she could have waited him out. Instead, this woman had her army storm the Sikh sacred temple, as Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was an affront to her ego. Her long time body guard, the Sikh Beant Singh, consequently ended her life. Then, Gandhi’s Congress party empowered a massacre of Sikhs in Delhi. This is what I’d been caught up in. These organized (by Indian Congress Party officials who’ve never been held to account) riots were from the evening of 31 October, the day Gandhi was assassinated, through the evening of 3 November, when the authorities finally began moving to have order restored. Meanwhile, thousands of Sikhs had been murdered and countless Sikh businesses and homes damaged or destroyed. The Hotel Imperial was a Sikh owned and operated business.

Delhi_4_Nov_exit

I managed to get out of Delhi (and India) on 4 November and needless to say, I am no fan of the Gandhi dy’nasty.’ Reflecting on these events is not fun but I’ll seize any black humor opportunity in the narratives that follow.

The Hotel Imperial is first of all, a walled fortress. A late colonial period construction, it was probably built with defensive features in case of rebellion. There was a large population of Sikhs in the neighborhood and this resulted in two phenomena; every Sikh in the area that could make it alive, came to Hotel Imperial for refuge … and Hotel Imperial became a point of focus for the anti-Sikh mob or what was essentially an organized pogrom. It wasn’t the Alamo, but the potential for one seemed real.

Insofar as the surrealism, imagine this: after their evening dinner, European tourists are camped in lounge chairs in the garden by the pool, with waiters serving drinks while profoundly apologizing; for the occasional Molotov cocktail that comes sailing over the wall.

The morning of 1 November, I tested the waters beyond the walls; it was quiet during the day. Walking out the gate in my western clothes, past the Sikh guard contingent, I drew looks from the Hindu mob’s sentries across the street but no one made any move to accost me. Taxi fares were over the moon. You could get rides for wads of American dollars but it was clearly dangerous. I made it to the American embassy where I gave the details of our party and asked for their assessment. They said there appeared to be no hostilities directed at westerners but frequenting any Sikh neighborhood or associated business was definitely not good. I inquired what area of the city was secure and they recommended any hotel in the ‘diplomatic enclave’ as that was the only area the army had moved to secure. Back at the Hotel Imperial, I gave my report. Old Babette wanted out. The Guardian Angel Sister was more philosophical; “Oh, I love these Sikhs, I’ll stay here.” Of course that would have nothing to do with her carpets arranged for export having been commandeered to fortify windows; where muskets that looked to have been retrieved from a colonial museum were manned from behind her precious bales.

Meanwhile, Old Babette and myself struck a deal – using her money and my experience, we’d get out.

*

My Madcap Adventure (all episodes)

Letter to the De Sousa clan of India

Tags , ,
Categories assassinations, crime, culture, Folk Stories, philosophy, politics, religion, Travel
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »