Saturday, September 08, 2007

 

Sioux Sioux Saturday

Kitchen under a modicum of control? Check. Laundry under way? Check. Critters fed, petted and accounted for? Check. Rainy day canceling any plans for yard work? Yes!

Western Channel on the TV to tickle my muse? Yippy ki yi.

Ergo, before the day is done I will have:

Rewritten a paper I did a few years ago to make it suitable to present at a history conference in November. Written a talking version of same. At least attempted to start a Powerpoint on same (Dr. ER usually puts 'em together for me.)

Subject: What Indian newspaper editors in 1876 Indian Territory (prestatehood eastern Oklahoma) thought of the U.S. gubmint's talk about possibly relocating the Sioux down here after Custer and the Seventh Cavalry got whacked at Little Big Horn.

It is exquisitely more complex than one might think.


Tangent: The scary spiders in Texas.


The gospel truth:

"After the deadly Christmas 2004 tsunami hit countries in Asia, I turned on National Public Radio and heard a Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian give their perspectives on the tragedy. The Buddhist explained that he does not really believe in a personal god and see natural disasters as an inevitable part of fate, though he and many other Buddhists were extending aid to the victims. The Muslim had a more pointed diagnosis: perhaps the tsunami had come as a punishment, or at least a warning, to Muslims in the ara who had not been taking their religion seriously.

"The commentator reminded listeners that most of the tsunami victims were either Buddhist or Muslim before he turned the microphone over to the Christian, a representative of an international aid organization. 'I have no good explanation for why such a thing happens, and cannot pretend to guess at God's involvemenmt,' he said. 'We are there on the ground because we follow a man who defined love by telling the story of a Good Samaritan reaching out to a person who was his ethnic and religious opponent. Jesus showed that same love, and we believe that by following Jesus we are doing God's will on earth.'"


-- from Philip Yancey, Prayer: Does it Make Any Difference? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 128-129.

--ER

Comments:
First, enjoy the work. I would be interested to see the end result. I had no idea the government was that stupid even then.

Thanks, also, for the scary spider story. Yowza! That looks like something out of a really bad, or really satirical, horror movie. Yeech. Of course, this being Texas, not only is the web large, the spiders likely are as well. I get the heebie-jeebies just thinking of it.

As to the last bit, it is nice to read something where Christians say something eminently sensible rather than grotesque. Thanks.

By the way, in case you were wondering (don't know if you were or not), but I'm doing fine. Hope all is well with clan ER. God's blessings.
 
Glad to hear it, buddy. Just a short break from the madness does wonders. :-)
 
Gah. The Sioux thing is so tangled up. ... I have allowed myself to get sidetracked on a smaller and more manageable project: Choctaw newspaper coverage of the Wichita Mountains gold rush, one of numerous spurts of gold fever the accompanied the California rush. It's publishable, too, though, so it's not like I'm WASTING time, just maybe not using it wisely since the Sioux thing involves an actual deadline ...
 
Um. Poke. Poke. Pay attention to your deadline, Bub.
 
Well, it's still, like, a month away. That's the problem. It ain't a deadline unless somebody, or some project, is fixin' to die! :-)

But hey, I got this gold thing wrapped up, totally. So now I can get back to the Sioux thing ...
 
If you find any of that gold stamped KGC, it's mine!
 
Welp, I have taken two messes, the product of previous reworkings of one Sioux-Indian Territory paper, and recrammed them together to make a whole new mess! Progress? Sigh.
 
I've been in a few of those mines down below Mt. Lincoln in the Charen Gardens. I understand that you can still find color along Cache creek in place. You would be a lot richer if you could find the gold that Frank James stashed in there howvever.
 
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