Category: Teaching

Vine Deloria Jr. in God Is Red uses the self explanatory phrases, “spiritual owners of the land” and “political owners of the land.” Now, it is the “political owners of the land” who have taken tribal lands by conquest and yet distort the historical record.

Three members from the Hopi Tribe arrived to give their testimonies as show support for their neighbors, The Dine. Their presence dispelled the public relations myth that the traditional Hopi and the Dine are involved in a Range War.”

I have not many of my own words today.

Perhaps I am tired.  Perhaps I am simply lazy.

Perhaps it is simply that it is Spring.

So I have few words of my own.  But I do have a few graphics.  Clicking them will open larger versions.

I added just enough words, from Etymology Online and Wikipedia, to allow arrangement of the graphics…and perhaps allow a little bit of learning.

Crossposted on Square State

Happy Friday and welcome to the penultimate Friday Constitutional! This is the Dog’s series looking at the United States Constitution from a layman’s perspective. For those who like to have access to the entire series, all of the previous installments in this series can be found at the following links:  

Happy Friday and welcome to the 19th installment of Friday Constitutional! As nearly everyone that is reading this knows by now, this is the Dog’s series looking at the Constitution of the United States. For those that missed any of the other installments or are coming in now, you can find all of the previous installments of this series at the following links (the Dog just realized that the links for this series are longer than some folk’s essays. What does that say about the Dog?):  

It’s something out of a twisted wingnut fantasy: 25,000 identically-dressed, tough-looking men and a charismatic leader with a simple, strong motto (in this case, “Believe!  Obey!  Fight!”) barge into the capital city and bully their way into a leadership role in the government.  No complicated voting, no messy democracy, no stupid consensus; just a bunch of ballsy, take-charge kinda guys who know what’s best for the nation and its historically-destined people – and woe unto he who disagrees with their image of what “the nation” ought to be…

And yet, like so many bizarre, terrifying, and ultimately uncivilized events, this one actually happened.  Join me, if you will, in the Cave of the Moonbat, where tonight we’ll take a peek at Italy in 1922 – and if we’re lucky, we’ll even be able to discern how the shadowy rightists behind Santelli and the Teabaggers have moved beyond simply genuflecting before Zombie Reagan, and may now actually be trying to resurrect Benito Mussolini himself.

I had…or am having (it’s hard to tell sometimes)…a disagreement with someone which turned out to center mostly on our disagreement about the meanings of the words “selfish” and “egocentric.”

I believe that words come with denotations and connotations and that if our sets of either of these differ, we will have different interpretations of the words.  Because of this, all human communication is, in part, a negotiation.

The person with whom I was (or am) conversing believed that the dictionary rules.  I’ve never cared for that view because I don’t believe the language is dead, that words change meaning over time and even the best dictionaries are therefore mostly out of date.

Besides, I’m a mathematician at heart.  When we define words, they mean what we say they mean, no more and no less.  Of course, Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) was a mathematician:

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,’ it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’

Happy Friday and welcome the 18th installment of Friday Constitutional! For those who are joining this program already in progress, this series takes a layman’s look at the United States Constitution. It is shameful for the Dog to admit, but prior to this series he had never read the entire document. Sure he knew his Bill of Rights and had the basic mechanics of the Federal Government down, but that is in no way the same thing as actually reading it and thinking about it.  Being a gregarious hound, the Dog decided to share his thoughts on the Constitution with anyone that might wonder by. If you are interested in the previous installments of this series, you can find them at the following links:  

“Springtime” continues, as “BIA Hopi Agency Police and Rangers are patrolling this region (Big Mountain) where a few traditional elders continue to live and also resist federal mandates to relocate.”

Obama: Stop the Peabody Mine Expansion on Black Mesa

As we speak, there exist a state of fear and anxiety in a traditional community at Big Mountain in the heart of Black Mesa. And as we speak, the federally deputized officers of the BIA Hopi Agency Police and Rangers are patrolling this region where a few traditional elders continue to live and also resist federal mandates to relocate.

Part of the teaching experience unfortunately consists of the grading experiences.  I have a veritable shitload of it to do.  And I will spend most of the day pursuing that craft.

During the past week, as I struggled through a schedule of 8 overly spaced out classes which required my presence at school 12 hours a day for 4 days, with gaps filled with two programs I presented on transsexualism, a lecture on the Birth of Science and a faculty meeting, at the end of each day I took a little bit of time for some meditative time, working on a series of graphics.

They are shared inside.  Clicking on one of them will open a larger version.

Feel free to add anything in the way of music, words or graphics.

Happy Friday and welcome to the 17th installment of Friday Constitutional! Sorry for the late posting, the Dog has been in meetings all day! For those of you that are joining us for the very first time, this is a weekly series taking a layman’s look at the Constitution of the United States. If you are interested in the previous installments, you can find them at the following links:  

Source

Gover recited a litany of wrongs the BIA inflicted on Indians since its creation as the Indian Office of the War Department. Estimates vary widely, but the agency is believed responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Indians.

http://scholar.google.com/scho…

The last photo from the Fort Smith Historical Society begins by asking a question: “What does it mean to be civilized?” The implication being, the dominant culture was civilized, while the American Indian culture wasn’t.

The 8 Stages of Genocide

1. Classification: