Tribe offers cash to schools to ditch "offensive" Indian mascots

A Michigan Native American Indian tribe is planning to bribe K-12 schools, both public and private, as well as universities and municipalities to replace Indian mascots.

A recent survey found that 35 K-12 schools in Michigan had Native American Indian-themed mascots, including the Indians, the Warriors, the Redskins, the Chiefs, the Big Reds, the Chieftains and the Braves.

The Notawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi (translated: "The Falling Snowflakes on the Murky Pond") said that they would be the first U.S. tribe to help offset the costs of replacing the mascots with a bribe. 

In addition, they ask that the Irish folk group, The Chieftains, call themselves by another name and suggested "The Porcelain Skin Beer Guzzlers."

Princess Summerfall Winterspring, a tribal spokeswoman, said the replacement process of the mascots can be very expensive. A school may have to change the gym floor, athletic uniforms, band equipment, student mindsets and even the official letterhead to its website.

But, she said, if it makes our braves feel better, then it's worth the cost.

The bribe money would be coming from the newly established Native American Heritage Fund, which will start each year at $500,000 in its account.

Other uses for the money will go to improving tribal schools and providing tribal members with good horses and firewater.

Everyone seems so easily offended--I hope you weren't. 

This post wasn't intended to offend, just like Native American mascot names are also not meant to 'hurt feelings. 

In fact, it seems as if the monikers actually honor the Native American.


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Words only matter to Biden when spoken by GOP

Words only matter when spoken by a Republican, according to Uncle Joe Biden. 

Biden said that Donald Trump's 2005 comments about kissing and groping women equate to "sexual assault" and "abuse of power" but Bill Clinton's actual sexual misconduct and abuse of power with a young intern "shouldn't matter." After all, Trump is running on the GOP ticket.

"What (Trump) said is textbook definition of sexual assault," the halfwit VP said in an interview on Sunday's "Meet the Press" (in spite of the fact that Bill "Pressed the Meat") on NBC.  "This is not a guy that should be representing the United States."

No, the video (below) of Biden making fun of American Indians is the type of guy that should be doing the representing.

When asked about Bill Clinton's behavior in the past, Biden said, "Shouldn't matter. I can't make excuses for Bill Clinton, but he paid the price. He was impeached, expressed deep sorrow."

Biden would be singing a different tune if Bill Clinton was a Republican  . . . or an Indian.

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The Trump campaign keeps blowing it

I believe it was Tony Randal of the "Odd Couple" who took apart the word 'assume.' He said, "Never assume, because when you assume, you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me.' 

Apparently, Donald Trump's security assumed Jake Anantha, a former Trump supporter, was going to be a heckler at a Trump rally, and was asked by security to leave.

The truth is, Anantha, the 18-year-old son of Indian immigrants, was a yoooge Trump supporter until this incident, but now he says he's going to vote for political panderer Gary Johnson. Both of his parents are also voting for Johnson and that's stupid on several levels.

On one level, Gary Johnson is a flip-flopping, pot-smoking, left-leaning political chameleon who has no allegiance to the GOP, only to himself and his political ambitions.

On another level, Anantha is the kind of supporter the Trump campaign should cultivate--telling Jake to leave a rally without knowing anything about him other than the fact that he has brown skin is not only irresponsible, it has the appearance of racism.

Now I don't think Donald Trump is a racist, but I do know that there are a substantial number of neo-Nazis on Twitter who support him. Trump needs to unconditionally denounce these white-supremacist pea brains.

But more than that, he needs to apologize to Anantha and his family. 

The person who removed him from the rally may have thought he recognized him from previous Trump rallies based on what he told the young man. If that's the case, then Jake deserves two apologies, even if he still refuses to vote for Trump.

Anantha said he saw a stream of white people enter the Convention Center as he stood outside. "I thought (Trump) was for all people. I don't believe he is for all people anymore," he said. "Why are all these white people allowed to attend and I'm not?"

Like it or not, he has a good point.

Sadly, Jake has decided to vote for Gary Johnson, the phony Republican who's pulling for Hillary to win the presidency in 80 days.


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GOPer sounding like Biden re: Indian accent

Bangor, Maine -- Governor Paul LePage said that foreign workers are being used in restaurants, and it's hard to understand them. He said this after he criticized a referendum proposal to raise the state's minimum wage to $12.

LePage said it's hard to understand workers "from Bulgaria" and added that workers from India are "the worst ones."

Then vot?

Well take it from me, a guy who's married to an Indian, you can understand them if you listen to their words. India is the largest foreign English-speaking country in the world, and they also happen to be among the hardest working people I know.

I wish LePage was a Democrat instead of a Republican because I like to think the left is more prejudice than conservatives. 

LePage gave the disclaimer people tend to give when making xenophobic or racist remarks.  He said that Indians are "lovely people but you've got to have an interpreter." 

When my wife was working as a crisis counselor for kids, a young woman who worked with her asked, "Do the kids understand you when you speak to them?" This sounds remarkably like something from the LePage playbook. 

Let me be clear--my wife is understood completely by everyone she talks to and has never had a problem being understood. She learned English in India as a young girl in an English medium school. He vocabulary and enunciation is better than people born in the USA, certainly better than Bernie Sanders. To question her like that young lady did was rude and obnoxious.

The good news--the woman was eventually fired for another stupid statement she made with prejudicial undertones.


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woman in black

woman in black
Originally uploaded by Rob Hoey

Why can't people just get along? We judge each other on so many levels--their appearance, political opinions, whether or not they agree with our own views or not, how hot they look, what their religion is or is not, what tv shows they watch, music they listen to, and how kind they are. Some values weigh more heavily on our assessment outcomes, but we always do assess, don't we? For example, does this woman look happy or sad? Hard to know. Maybe she is feeling the pain of a lost love, or the happiness of a moment in her youth when everything was pretty and in technicolor. I don't know the answer to this because when I photographed her in India, I forgot to ask her.