a correction sparked by Williams, followed by library passion.

In my last post I mused that a lot of energy was lost through heating and AC being on when unused. Williams alerted me to the fact that it uses a lot of energy to re-heat or re-cool. I looked it up and not surprisingly he is right. But in looking up that I came across a couple of other things... like this http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/energy-myths3.html

thanks Williams.

I am at work again, and I'm reading the book "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee." It has to be one of the most horrifying and heartbreaking things I have EVER read. I thought I knew a lot about what the US government has done to the Indians, and compared to a lot of people, I do, which is sad. My ex-step dad is Menominee as is my half-sister. Mommy got a degree in Native American studies and teaches at the Oneida Tribal School. We've been talking/learning about issues and wrongdoings my whole life and this book is still TEARING MY VENTRICLES.

Every chapter is a new adventure into the lies, trickery, and brutality of the US (government, army, and citizens) and blind hope, courage, and massacre of the tribes. Hopefully just about everybody knows about the massacre at Wounded Knee, but I'm halfway through the book and I count about 12 massacres already.

It is a shameful thing for me to read. I know it's foolish to wish that you could go back in time, but I wish I had been a president or general back then. The only white people who cared or thought the ongoing genocide wasn't cool just quit and went home. I find myself thinking, what would I have done if I was in the army? Would I have bought into the public perspective that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian?" Would I have joined vigilante groups to force Indians out of their homelands by stealing their horses, burning their villages, and killing buffalo so they had nothing to eat, all so I could pan for gold? Would I have handed out blankets infected with smallpox to freezing women and children, or shot Black Kettle in the head as walked towards me with a truce flag, then proceed?

To all of those questions I think I can answer no. But that's asking if I would or wouldn't have been as EVIL as most of the whites were out west. What about asking if I would have been GOOD? Could I have had the courage to say "Uhh guys... who the fuck are we calling savages? Are we even human anymore?" Could I have tried to defend the tribes and their rights (lives) out West or in Washington by any means necessary?

And that's when I find the most chilling answer, "You're going to find out." I'm going to find out if I would have been able to/had the balls to do something then, because all those fucked up things are still happening TODAY all over the world. Genocide, Starvation, Corrupt Governments, Massacre, Disease, Environmental Destruction , and PEOPLE WHO DON'T GIVE A DAMN. I've got my whole life to test if I'd have been different than our forefathers. To see if I'd have stopped the killing of Natives, of Jews, of Tutsis, or the enslavement of Africans, or if I'd just sit and feel bad about it. That's what I'm doing right now, feeling bad about the problems in the world.

This book is sad simply because it happened, but even sadder because people still let this shit happen. Let's be different. Let's be gangster and bust up some fools. Let's be real humans, because anyone that let's all the horrible things go on unchecked should have their membership in the human race revoked.

Even though there are hundreds of bloody and gut-wrenching quotations I could pull from the book, I think I'll leave you with this one from Chief Joseph. This his speech upon surrendering after he led his people on a 1700 mile flight to escape the horrible reservation his Nez Perce people his people were forced onto.

"I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is done. Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country, now overrun by white men. Good words will not give my people good health and stop them from dying. Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and broken promises.

You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. I have asked some of the great white chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees the white men going where they please. They cannot tell me.

If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The Earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself, and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty."

Chief Joseph and his people were immediately sent back to the reservation where they continued to starve. Chief Joseph died on the reservation at a relatively young age. The physician reported the cause of death to be a broken heart.

The people that did these things and let them happen didn't really have a heart.

Do we have one?

Show it.

(Although I didn't go into the whole heap of ways in which the US is still being a dick to Native Americans, I hope we all are aware of the fucked up things still going on. Maybe I'll write about it later.)