LJ Idol Week 4 - Current Events
I have a self imposed ban against keeping up with current events. This doesn't mean I remain ignorant of the world outside my ranch but it doe mean I choose carefully which events are significant for me and from which sources I will get my news. It was a difficult decision to make as current events have always dominated my life. My father, I believe I have mentioned before, was in the army. He worked for special intelligence (or whatever it is they happen to call it now). We never quite knew what it was he'd be doing but we understood that when world events started heating up, he would be gone...and we might not get him back. Some of the places he disappeared to --- we were allowed that much knowledge so we'd know which events to keep an eye on --- included Sudan, Egypt, and Korea. I'm certain there were others; he was gone a lot.
Anyone connected with the military develops an obsession with current events. Sometimes it's your only means of knowing whether or not your loved one will suddenly be called up or deployed elsewhere. Even after my father died in a line of duty accident, I kept that tradition. After 9-11, that obsession passed into a decidedly unhealthy habit. I seldom left the house because I was afraid to do so and when I did, I always kept the radio on a news station. Basically, I spent six months glued to the television watching and rehashing the coverage over and over. It was also during this time that I was diagnosed with a generalized anxiety disorder.
Clue-by-four, meet head. I realized that my obsession with current events wasn't helping my condition and cut the major news networks out of my life. Nowadays, I quickly scan the Google news summaries to see if anything needs my attention...and then I move on. I tend to focus more on human events and what I can do to help make the world a better place instead of worrying about all the awful things happening about which I can do nothing.
You can't break a lifetime of conditioning, however, and the soldiers --- all of them, all branches --- remain my primary concern. I'm old enough to remember Viet Nam and how those folk were treated when they got back home. I'm old enough to see the parallels between this current war-yet-not-a-war and that one. While the big news groups are reporting statistics, I'm looking for the humanity.
I found it in THIS ARTICLE about the renaming of Squaw Peak in Arizona to Piestewa Peak.
When you think about Arizona, I'm certain most folk conjure up picturesque images of Phoenix, a desert city nestled against the mountains. It's a retirement and vacation destination, some place adventurous, one of those "wouldn't mind visiting but I don't want to live there" places. They think about the Grand Canyon and campy tourist outposts.
Not many realize that Arizona is also home to one of the most powerful Nations in the United states or to a smaller, slowly diminishing Nation known as the People of Peace. It's the latter I'm talking about, the Hopi.
Ironically, I first became aware of Lori Piestewa's story through a song by Radmilla Cody:
o/` "From the tribe of Hopi
the village of Micopi
Comes a caring mother
to become a soldier
"Oh the woman warrior
she's my hero
"Her name was Lori
synonymous with glory
answered her country's call
she did it for us all
"Oh the woman warrior
she's my hero
"The price that she paid
the sacrifice she made
there's peace all around us
embraces all Americans
"Oh the woman warrior
she's my hero
"Oh the woman warrior
she's my hero
"Oh the woman warrior
she's my hero" o/`
That a Navajo, when the two tribes have a long history of animosity, would be singing a tribute to a Hopi woman struck me as extraordinary. The Navajo, when they tell a story, keep the details to a minimum. They do so in part because the choosing of words are important and one doesn't want to waste them; the other reason for doing so has more to do with being an oral history culture. Everyone knows the details, the basic framework, for the story and so the singer or storyteller focuses on their particular reason for creating the song or story.
I wanted to know who this woman was and why she was being honored so I looked up the name. Her full history can be found here. A more personal account exists here. Lori Piestewa was the first woman killed in combat in this current war and the first Native American woman ever to die in combat. Somewhere, somehow it struck me that this ought to be just a bit more important than the statistics. Sadly, I understand why her death is still largely unremarked by news commentators: she's a woman and she's Native American. Lori Piestewa's sacrifice remained unrecognized while Jessica Lynch, a fellow soldier she saved, was painted heroically in the media. Jessica is, of course, a white woman.
Why is her death any different than those reported in the statistics? Lori was a non-combatant (all women supposedly are). A wrong turn in the desert brought about a series of consequences in which she, a woman of peace, ended up having to fight for her life and the lives of those with her. Jessica is with us because of Lori's sacrifice.
When she died in the line of duty, it made sense that in a land dominated by the Navajo and the Hopi there should be some landmark to honor her. The mountain was originally called Squaw Peak, something anyone with sensibility ought to find offensive (none of the Western Nations, by the way, actually call their women squaws and with its derogatory, degrading meanings concerning women in general it's highly inappropriate in a land in which the two Nations have strong matrilineal cultures).
The peak, as the article mentions, has been known unofficially as Piestewa Peak since she died. Now Al Bates wants its name officially changed...to honor a white man. His justification doesn't sit well with me: that the man who designed the irrigation system for Phoenix "deserves more recognition than he's gotten" and that the proposition was "not to diminish Ms. Piestewa".
What the heck would you call it, then? Why does he deserve the recognition more than Lori Piestewa, especially since the residents of the state have so obviously expressed their preferences by calling the peak by her name?
On the one hand we have a white man who fought on both sides in the Civil War, was involved in civil disputes, and who died in jail accused of committing a serious offense. He's described as a "near-native' of the area. On the other, we have a Hopi woman who defended our country and died for it. Her people have been on that land, tending it and caring for it long before the first Europeans ever set foot on the North American continent. It seems to me that the landmarks should be a true reflection of the people living upon the land. I can think of nothing more appropriate than allowing the peak to retain her name. Not only will it help erase the atrocity of having what amounts to a stereotyped racial slur as a landmark name but it will remind people of the kinds of sacrifices --- and the people who made them --- being given for their freedom.
Anyone connected with the military develops an obsession with current events. Sometimes it's your only means of knowing whether or not your loved one will suddenly be called up or deployed elsewhere. Even after my father died in a line of duty accident, I kept that tradition. After 9-11, that obsession passed into a decidedly unhealthy habit. I seldom left the house because I was afraid to do so and when I did, I always kept the radio on a news station. Basically, I spent six months glued to the television watching and rehashing the coverage over and over. It was also during this time that I was diagnosed with a generalized anxiety disorder.
Clue-by-four, meet head. I realized that my obsession with current events wasn't helping my condition and cut the major news networks out of my life. Nowadays, I quickly scan the Google news summaries to see if anything needs my attention...and then I move on. I tend to focus more on human events and what I can do to help make the world a better place instead of worrying about all the awful things happening about which I can do nothing.
You can't break a lifetime of conditioning, however, and the soldiers --- all of them, all branches --- remain my primary concern. I'm old enough to remember Viet Nam and how those folk were treated when they got back home. I'm old enough to see the parallels between this current war-yet-not-a-war and that one. While the big news groups are reporting statistics, I'm looking for the humanity.
I found it in THIS ARTICLE about the renaming of Squaw Peak in Arizona to Piestewa Peak.
When you think about Arizona, I'm certain most folk conjure up picturesque images of Phoenix, a desert city nestled against the mountains. It's a retirement and vacation destination, some place adventurous, one of those "wouldn't mind visiting but I don't want to live there" places. They think about the Grand Canyon and campy tourist outposts.
Not many realize that Arizona is also home to one of the most powerful Nations in the United states or to a smaller, slowly diminishing Nation known as the People of Peace. It's the latter I'm talking about, the Hopi.
Ironically, I first became aware of Lori Piestewa's story through a song by Radmilla Cody:
o/` "From the tribe of Hopi
the village of Micopi
Comes a caring mother
to become a soldier
"Oh the woman warrior
she's my hero
"Her name was Lori
synonymous with glory
answered her country's call
she did it for us all
"Oh the woman warrior
she's my hero
"The price that she paid
the sacrifice she made
there's peace all around us
embraces all Americans
"Oh the woman warrior
she's my hero
"Oh the woman warrior
she's my hero
"Oh the woman warrior
she's my hero" o/`
That a Navajo, when the two tribes have a long history of animosity, would be singing a tribute to a Hopi woman struck me as extraordinary. The Navajo, when they tell a story, keep the details to a minimum. They do so in part because the choosing of words are important and one doesn't want to waste them; the other reason for doing so has more to do with being an oral history culture. Everyone knows the details, the basic framework, for the story and so the singer or storyteller focuses on their particular reason for creating the song or story.
I wanted to know who this woman was and why she was being honored so I looked up the name. Her full history can be found here. A more personal account exists here. Lori Piestewa was the first woman killed in combat in this current war and the first Native American woman ever to die in combat. Somewhere, somehow it struck me that this ought to be just a bit more important than the statistics. Sadly, I understand why her death is still largely unremarked by news commentators: she's a woman and she's Native American. Lori Piestewa's sacrifice remained unrecognized while Jessica Lynch, a fellow soldier she saved, was painted heroically in the media. Jessica is, of course, a white woman.
Why is her death any different than those reported in the statistics? Lori was a non-combatant (all women supposedly are). A wrong turn in the desert brought about a series of consequences in which she, a woman of peace, ended up having to fight for her life and the lives of those with her. Jessica is with us because of Lori's sacrifice.
When she died in the line of duty, it made sense that in a land dominated by the Navajo and the Hopi there should be some landmark to honor her. The mountain was originally called Squaw Peak, something anyone with sensibility ought to find offensive (none of the Western Nations, by the way, actually call their women squaws and with its derogatory, degrading meanings concerning women in general it's highly inappropriate in a land in which the two Nations have strong matrilineal cultures).
The peak, as the article mentions, has been known unofficially as Piestewa Peak since she died. Now Al Bates wants its name officially changed...to honor a white man. His justification doesn't sit well with me: that the man who designed the irrigation system for Phoenix "deserves more recognition than he's gotten" and that the proposition was "not to diminish Ms. Piestewa".
What the heck would you call it, then? Why does he deserve the recognition more than Lori Piestewa, especially since the residents of the state have so obviously expressed their preferences by calling the peak by her name?
On the one hand we have a white man who fought on both sides in the Civil War, was involved in civil disputes, and who died in jail accused of committing a serious offense. He's described as a "near-native' of the area. On the other, we have a Hopi woman who defended our country and died for it. Her people have been on that land, tending it and caring for it long before the first Europeans ever set foot on the North American continent. It seems to me that the landmarks should be a true reflection of the people living upon the land. I can think of nothing more appropriate than allowing the peak to retain her name. Not only will it help erase the atrocity of having what amounts to a stereotyped racial slur as a landmark name but it will remind people of the kinds of sacrifices --- and the people who made them --- being given for their freedom.