Listen to the Silence

 We have a word --- Pretendian.   (Okay, mostly we just roll our eyes, and the words we use aren't in your language, or when they are -- they're in southern accents, or First Nations accents, and they're pretty rude, vulgar, irritated, and tired.) But let's look at that other word.   Pretendian.  Someone who pretends that they're an Indian.  Why would they do this?   I honestly have no fucking clue, in modern America.   This is because...shock and horror...I actually am one.  But in the last few decades it has become trendy, and lately even fashionable, to claim native ancestry.  To the point where there are those who are now inventing their own Native tribes.   (Hey kids, it's all the rage!   Invent your own native tribe by stringing together some words, incredibly-offensive-John-Wayne-movie-style!  Or claim your ancestors were on our land before we were, and that makes you the "real" natives!) You can often recognize these people because they'll

...a bad week. No matter how you want to describe it, paint it, view it .. whether you ascribe to the differing view points that are pro-protestor, pro-police, anti-riot or ACAB (all cops are bastards) -- it's been a week for the record books.  And I find myself today having "the talk" with my 14 year old daughter, and trying to explain it to her.   Because I know she's getting some things from her friends, and some from online (which is essentially left slant heaven, every major media source), and from my ex (which is essentially ACAB), and...she needs perspective.  She's growing up as someone with dark skin in America, and more and more her features are developing into those of a young lady - she can't pass for a darkly tanned white girl anymore.  It's past time she's had the talk, for all that I despise the fact that she has to receive it.   So where to start.  Start with this.   If you aren't a minority in America, you don't understand what

A knee across the neck will not (except for very rare circumstances, or circumstances involving deliberate impact, not simple pressure) cause death.  The death in Minneapolis was NOT caused by a knee on the neck.  It was caused by positional asphyxiation.  They are two different things.   They are two very technically different things, and the differences are fairly technical and specific.   But they are also fairly simple - and extremely important.  Because you can say you "accidentally" put a knee on the "wrong part" of the back, and it slipped onto the neck.  You can NOT say that you left a man, face down, chest muscles seized due to skeletal-muscular constriction/positioning, for seven and a half minutes..."accidentally".  One, a knee on the neck, can be claimed to be bad training, or an accident.  The other, positional asphyxiation, is murder.  Plain.   Simple.  Murder.  When you handcuff the hands behind the back of most people (save contortionists,

Minneapolis is Burning.  The city on the lake is on fire, and not just with tension, racial and economic.   It's literally on fire, as police are forced to abandon their stations, and fires go untreated as the sheer press of bodies keeps firefighters and first responders from being able to respond to alarms.  And for the first time, I have to think... maybe this time its' right.  In Minneapolis, an officer committed murder, while wearing the shield and uniform that I've considered sacrosanct for the 40 years of my life.   Before I could pronounce the words to the oath, I considered the badge of an Officer something sacred.  It was up there with the uniform of an Army Officer or a Marine.  You took it, and the oath that came with it, and you bound yourself to a meaning larger than yourself.  Only God, and your brothers (and sisters) could judge what you had done, and be the final arbiter of whether you deserved to be called a good cop, or a disgrace to the badge.  But lately