Saturday, July 31, 2010
Something special for NAKED EDGE fans
The real Kat James passed me the link to this. You truly can find anything on YouTube.
This series of videos highlights the Navajo-Hopi Relocation Act, one of the great crimes perpetuated by Washington, D.C., against Indian people. This is why I first went to the Diné reservation to report on Indian issues, and it's why I kept going back, doing my best to share with a disinterested outside world what was happening to more than 15,000 Navajo people.
The relocation forced people who didn’t speak English and who’d lived their entire lives freely on the land as subsistence farmers and sheepherders into government housing where they had to pay rent, utilities and taxes — things they’d never been exposed to before.
Imagine that you have the entire landscape as your home and that you migrate back and forth across that landscape with your family, herding sheep, growing corn, and drinking water from washes and springs. First, the water disappears, drained off to feed the coal mine's slurry line. Then the government tells you that you can’t have sheep because... well, they don’t want you to overgraze the land, even though you've been doing this without their help for centuries. Then they tell you that you must disappear and that your hogaan, the burial sites of your ancestors, and everything you've known is going to be off limits to you. They force you to sell your sheep, drop you in a government house, and force you to pay rent. You don't have a job. You've never been to school. You don't read or speak English. And your entire lifestyle, the rhythm of your life, is gone forever.
So many Diné were heart-broken by this. Many became homeless. It’s such a terrible thing. Words can't adequately describe to you the loss that relocated Navajo feel. The Navajo I know in the Denver area are all victims of this forced relocation, and their carry the grief with them everywhere they go. What was done to them was a sin against humanity.
I don’t often get gritty and political on this blog, but I thought you all might find this interesting or at least be curious as to why I ended up spending so much time with the Navajo.
Friday, July 30, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Getting ready for surgery
This weekend, I plan to finish Chapter 10 of Breaking Point, Zach and Natalie’s story. But I’m also going to be spending a fair amount of time getting things organized for my surgery and recuperation.
I go to the hospital on Tuesday morning, and the surgery is scheduled for 1 p.m. MT. It should take about three hours, plus about an hour or so in the recovery room. I’ll be at the hospital for a couple of days and the home again, where I’ll be resting for the next eight weeks while the bone grafts in my neck heal. My mom and younger son will be here during that time, because I won’t be able to drive or do much of anything apart from walk and sit.
While I’m in the hospital, I hope and pray to have sexy male nurses, like the one above. I think just having a nurse like this one would help me feel a lot better. I feel better just looking at his photo. Goodness! My temp is rising! Quick! Mouth-to-mouth!
Okay, so that was silly. Couldn’t resist.
I’m not sure whether I’ll have the energy to post, particularly during the first two weeks after the surgery, during which I’ll be pretty out of it. The doc said that post-operative pain peaks at three to four days afterward and then tapers off. So we’ll see. If I don’t feel up to it, I won’t do it. It’s so important to get the rest I need to heal.
It was weird leaving the office today. The publisher and staff had filled out a get well card, and what they'd written was so sweet and encouraging that I got all choked up. The paper is in good hands while I’m away, so I don’t have to worry about that. I haven’t had eight weeks off from work... ever. This week was crazy-busy because I was trying to do as much as I could to organize things for the managing editor, who will be running the newsroom in my absence. He’s an awesome man, and an old friend of mine is coming in to back him up.
Because it was so busy, I had to leave you with those wet men and their towels, and I didn’t even get a chance to comment on your very funny comments.
I hope you all have a great weekend!
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Monday, July 26, 2010
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