July 6th 2010

This is the itroduction to our focus on government. Along with government comes Politics. People saying that government and politics are the same are very wrong. Governemen is the pure side of our government where procedure and law are what ultimately decides what is acceptable. Politics are the means by which a law is passed or rejected, also the reactions that take place after a decision is made. Everything we see on government is usually political. It is political beacause a lot is drawn from face value rather than reporting facts. One clear example is during campaigns.

Campaings, regretfully, use this ploy as a way to attract more voters to elect their candidate. Smear adds will be placed on regular radio and TV rotation picking at an opposing candidates reputation, usually past votes the candidate in question  has voted on the questionable side on. The adds never take into the consideration that the person may have never thought the law to be bad but that things attached to the paper may have caused more harm than good. I have yet to see a candidate that has faught against a smear campaign againse them. All I have ever seen was another add showing how bad the other person was. I think it would be way better to actually defend your vote or stand on an issue explaining your choice, unless their is some guilt behind it.

It is essential that a person keep their own name in good standing with pretty much everyone. The way people view you may have deeper reprocussions later down the road. This is where the recent event of the biker dying within Laguna boundaries comes into play. The biker was killed by a person in Laguna. Most people out here know a name and what actually happened. All we hear from the news is that a suspect is yet to be found or even targeted. I wonder if our own tribe has anything to do with this event of not knowing. Whether they did or not something needs to be said, it is only fair to the family. People from outside may see this as negative depiction of Laguna people. Much like how the rest of the world views Aerica. Do what is right no matter the person in question.

A case of the Mondays…

Like just about everyone that goes to work,  I don’t like mondays. I don’t know if it’s just the fact the weekend is over or that I wanted to sleep an hour more but monday morning work seems like such a chore. Well I know that this blog is supposed to be work related but I feel that I’ve done enough work related work for the day. Ha Ha Since this is my blog today I’m gonna post something I am currently working on to expand to a slam poem. The poem is not about a particular person or anything like that. It’s core is simply talking about how everyone goew through relationships and how we all seem to remember only the good times after a long enough time period has passed after a break. Next leading us to question why we ever left that person, then we remember why we broke in the first place. I think we remember all of these moments as a template to what we want that “one” to be.

I write for butterflies…

Six legged, winged creatures that have the ability

To paint my skies with the 

Color of crimson lips after bitten too hard

Explosions of colorful mushroom clouds

At most beautiful when dancing with

Stars by the pale moonlight

Wafting on sweet scented perfumes that so many

Times no matter how many times washed

I wished would just stay

And that’s where I got stuck. I have a hard time writing up a second part to this. In a way I can’t find words that can smoothly transition from the top to the rest of the poem. Any comments or even suggestions would be awesome.

Culture=Religion

This weeks primary focus has been culture. During discussion I listened to everyone but it seemed almost as I heard none of it. My mind kept trailing off on a quest trying to find the true source of culture. Culture in music, games we enjoy, end our deep rooted culture in Laguna. Mind racing I came to one notion that I’ve always had a hard time conveying to others, especially to those that believe theirs to be the “true”.  I believe that culture is really just a way that people attempt, or a way to live life. People around the globe have formulated countless cultures. Everyone feels a need to grasp on to something higher than themselve. No one on earth can truly conceve that life is nothing more than a series of chemical reactions, being driven by the urges to eat and reproduce. Whether this be human fantasy or not, people feel the need to confide and even explain actions to a higher being.

An example would be any major religious sect. Catholics,Hindus, Jews, Baptists all grasp on to a text that permits what is right or wrong. All serious culture thrive on the corner stones of Family, Love and Respect. I freely challenge anyone to present to me a culture that does not include these values. Culture simply provides us an avenue to follow in leading a good and happy life. To hell with divisions and walls. I can write all day on this but right now, I don’t feel like it. So I’ll leave a Haiku…

Nations’ flags wave proud

Set are my unwaving Hopes

From All, reis Blead…

Monkey Business

Today we took a look at own local news paper “The Town Crier”. We looked at how disappointing the quality of our local paper was. The headline of the paper even had amphitheater spelled wrong. we then began to look at why more people do not read this publication. I thuink that if a publication does not take pride in it’s printed material, it will show in the amount of readers it grabs. articles within the paper seem to have little relavance to what is astually going on in Laguna, just like the opening of the “Amphitheater” at Sky City Casino. Sure this is good information, but this article would have been better placed somwhere within the paper and not the front page. This story really has no importance to Laguna members and benifits the Acoma people if anything.

     The article also do not have any real subject that can grab a reader and pull them into being a loyal reader. as a reader I would like to come across something that affects me as a member of Laguna. Talk about specific problems going on, like the lack of employment but all I see covered is broad issues of thing like problems at home. The articles give no real insight or first hand accunts of the subject being talked about. How am I as a reader supposed to be drawn in by an author that has no experience with what they’re talking about.

     One section I would really like to see a dedicated section to local writers. This would include stories and poems from people wihin our community. This could be a revival of the art of story telling within our community. I know authors upon authors here in Laguna that do write, and some of their stories are better than half of the stuff I find in big time publications. Local writers sometimes have new takes on old stories and opinions that are new and refreshing, that spring other people to chase new subject matter. Having an avenue would encourage some writers to maybe write more and I see it as a bug that can slowly infect us all and bring up Laguna’s reading comprehension.

Walking in two states

     Whenever I think about how I try to live my life, I compare it to walking in two states at the same time. Sure you’re walking in two states (New Mexico and Arizona) but you don’t really have a home at that moment. One side you know very well but the other side has this new appeal to it that you may want to pursue more. This is how I feel about the life that I walk with in culture, then the life I lead in pursuing my own personal ambitions in the new world. I am constantly pushed to pursue what I want in life but times when I come back home, it feels sometimes like I’m being scolded for not being home and taking part in our traditional ceremonies.

     Sometimes it really does feel like I have no true home. I come home and don’t knoe enough about my culture at home so in some ways I feel disconnected. It is definetly not that I don’t want to learn it is just that I find it very hard to find time to learn without sacrificing what I know will benefit me in the future. One example I can always think of was when I played sports back in high school. Some teammates would miss days of practice and games to take part in our tradtional ceremonies, but I would always stay at practice and keep going on with the current season. I always thought to myself “Why would someone want to miss a practice or game to go dance”? Culturally my thinking is very taboo cause you’re never supposed to br thinking this way when it comes to our culture. The reason I chose to stay commited to my sport was something my family taught to me when I was very young. “If you’re going to join anything I expect your dedication and promise you’ll never stop”.

     The other reason I stayed was because this was high school sports, and it was a real possibility that I never get another chance to play and represent a community like this again. I know that my culture will always be there and it was for this reason I stayed in practice. This is exectly how I see my future and what I plan to pursue. For right now I have to leave home but when I’m satisfied I will come back. It’s the time in between that I will learn as much as I can but I need to keep focused on my goal so that I can give back to my community.

What all week built up to

Today…one word stress. Our group has been working on a project where we become the college recruiter. We have been working on three main parts that include a handout, oral presentation and poster board. Along with everything that we do through out the day, I was unable to complete a lot of work that I wanted to do, at least the amount of detail. The six hours that we get to work a day seems far too short some days. It was not that I didn’t utilize my time efficiently but that my research portion was long. In order to complete the task asked of me I done tons of work at home. This would not be such a burden if all the resources needed to do the work were at my finger tips  like they are in college. I really do not mind the fact that I have to do work at home. It is the fact that I must use outside resources to complete my work. I have to plan to stay at the library longer messing up my families plans we figured out that morning. I do not have my own vehicle so I must rely on others to pick me up then pay gas money that I cannot spend right now. It would be nice if all this outside work came with a bit more money so I can come back and forth, or at least thes time that I spent on my project outside of work were counted toward my hours. Maybe that is one way last summer’s program was better. We did not have a set number of hours that we would work in a day. I can remember some days staying and finishing work that absolutely needed to be done and would not have if it were limited to only six hours. Oh well, just like college you learn to cope no matter how some things may be layed out.

Arlington ladies

     Last night we were sent home from work with a article entitled “At Arlington, every solddier has a speciaql lady”. This article informed me on a group of ladies at Arlington National Cemetary that attend every funeral of each fallen soldier. Each branch of the military has it’s own set of Ladies except for the Marines. Each branch of Ladies has their own dress code but all attend funerals of every soldier to pay respect for the soldier and the price paid for their country. The lady attending the service will deliver two letters to a relative left behind, one from the nation and one personal. The Lady will try to always stay a respectful distance from the gravesite and as a rule try to never cry. The article showed a real indepth view into what it is like to be one of these ladies. The rule of not crying is sometimes impossible to obey: one story told of a toddler that had lost their father and when the lady leaned in to whisper into the widow’s ear and deliver the letters, thechild immidiatley cluched on to her and would not let go, the whole time crying for his pa-pa.

     I read the article and honestly didn’t invest much more than saying that it was a very good article of how “someone else” is paying respect to someone they don’t even know, but is well deserved. I continued on my day and began to read when I ran across a quote within my book. “It is almost impossible for a man who enjoys freedom and all its prerogatives, to realize what it means to be deprived of that freedom”.- Erle Stanley Gardner I connected this quote back to the article sent home with me. I began to think of all the thing that are paid for my own freedom. Men and women from all across this nation have fought, and are fighting to keep my born rights as an American intact. People I don’t even know and will most likely never meet. I realized that to put your life on the line for this country is a big weight to place on your own shoulders. My mind then shifted to looking at how I have paid my country back for all of the liberties it’s given me.

      Now never in my life have I thought about enlisting in a branch of the military, but as I dwell more into my chosen career path I can’t help but look back and say to myself, “Maybe…”. In the past few months I have looked at things going on in the world. It scares me sometimes how close we are to war. I don’t mean to disrespect everyone in the service now but I do not consider Operation Iraqie Freedom a true war. The reasons the war began and still continue just do not make sense to me. we have yet to find WMD’s, plenty of IED’s but no mass weapons. The rumor that oil is the real motive will never leave my ears. In my own view we cannot help the people of Iraq by invading and remaining a presense. Our presense only incites more violence. I just can’t fight for my country in a war that seems to have no end. Their sect fighting has been going on for centuries and just cause we say STOP does not guarantee they will.

      At the end, I still do not see enlisting in my future right now. The article really made me think of myself and how I can repay my country. I found that in my heart of hearts that if a real danger were ever to threaten my nation, on the scale with Hitler and the Revolution, you would not be able to find me an enlistment officer fast enough.