h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You're welcome.

Phineas T. or P.T. Bogart is after the type of P.T. Barnum. I bet you've heard of him. Purveyor of the Greatest Show on Earth.

I know it's probably surprising to you but I have plenty of scars and I even limp although it doesn't necessarily keep me from dancing.

You don't need an invitation to a bear dance by the way. Just come if you want. Tell your woman to wear a dress and shawl if she wants to dance and sit on the south side of the corral. You can sit on the north. The dance is fairly simple, left foot forward then stamp with the right foot then left foot back then repeat. Most people can get it pretty fast if they have any sense of rhythm. The women choose their partners.

Probably the most popular one is in Ignacio usually during May. There are others too at Towoac and White Mesa as well as among the southern Paiutes further south and west. Inde and other Apaches often show up for these and the one at Ignacio. The Ignacio one is the one I would suggest for you. They're more comfortable with strangers.

And funny you should mention that "intuition" because sometimes I feel like two people. One was a little girl born in a great big cave where her parents were camping in Allen Canyon one year. She grew up learning to help with the livestock and doing domestic chores. The other girl got interested in the whites and why they seemed so different. She went to school on and off and did real well and finally got accepted to a university and goes there now. Those girls are kind of different I guess and I don't really know what to do about that yet.

I guess some people don't like to hear about how long my people have been living on our land. I'm not sure why that is unless they think it makes them feel inferior or it sort of suggests they might not have all the answers or as many of the answers they think. That's okay too. When you're hanging around a long time you hear most of the answers sooner or later anyway.

I thought it might be a good thing to share, but apparently that's not right. So I don't need to share it. I can just wait to be asked and decide then if I want to share or not. In fact, now that I think of it that might not be a bad idea to start implementing right now.

So like I said before, if you've got a specific question, I'll see if I can answer it and if you don't, we can always talk about something else. That probably works just as well because I certainly don't have all the answers and the ones I have are probably mostly stuff I've picked up while growing up or reading or observing or listening to elders and they might not be the same answers you'd get from somebody else.

I'm afraid I don't understand your talk about chimeras or veils or "_you".

Whatever, I appreciate you sharing your experience, I presume originating near the Great Lakes and then maybe growing up in the middle east or India or somewhere inbetween and maybe spending some time in Europe or England and then returning to the United States. You've evidently been around as they say. That's probably given you a far wider perspective than I have or ever will have I think.

That's probably the major difference between us and I kind of doubt it's going to go away real soon if ever. I still don't understand what you find so facinating about me or why you can't just deal with the stories and leave it at that but you'll probably get around to explaining it a little more clearly one of these days.

If you're at all like me, you probably don't see it very clearly yourself a lot of times. Sometimes we need these little conversations to clarify things for ourselves as much as for the other, don't you think?

Tell me Analiese, why you feel the need to dismiss me? Each time you respond - and after a long time away, most often - it is perhaps a deeply disguised kindness that compels you. Perhaps. like many, you are drawn to the entire clamor that is the world. How pleasing silence is to the ears and a vast sky to the eye.

Why is it that you are uncomfortable in telling me who you are and what has brought you here while you tell me that I deal in abstractions? Mirror, mirror on the wall…. Is it not better to get to know a fellow traveler well if there is to be a joint effort to truly advance a worthy cause? Why so begrudging here and so profuse elsewhere? What is it that you think you'll lose? Lurkers be damned; the world will always be full of voyeurs. Can you confirm then that that is what I meant by _you. I hope you understand now or that you care beyond an idle curiousity or the need to tie up a wandering thread. You are most welcome.

I did notice the few plates of armor you have laid down. I am able to through those chinks to catch a glimpse from the corner of my eye of you. Why do you limp? Who hurt you and why? How did you overcome it? My mother limps now; she has dealt with bad knees for a while. She broke her hip at an advanced age and it seemed she would not survive. Yet she walks, goes up and down ladders, and travels long distances. A long time ago she was a fast runner.

Who took you away to boarding school and for what purpose? You must have felt so abandoned and alone there. Not eating must have been a natural recourse. When first I was brought away from my parents home, I fell very ill and when I recovered enough, I refused to go to school. My other aunt, my father’s youngest sister, before she went far away, was a great protection. Then there was one aunt, my mother’s oldest sister, who took me to her home and so I am here.

Have the habits of pain and suffering gelled so completely into distrust and anger and hate? Have you become so used to your isolation that you feel being lonely is the only natural condition and keeping any who would know you at arms length? I don’t believe it. I say this even as you strive to keep any attempt to make the walls come down fail.

Once you invited me to dance I see now the invite is rescinded except as a general broadcast to all comers. That is as it is and so be it if it must be so.

Do you not like to hear that mother earth can call her children to all of her places - there to stay for a while or for a bit longer? It is good to love what you are most familiar with but is it necessary - to say the least - to shy away from all else? ...and, why so?

Why do I have interest in you? I like your mind. I like your story. Your stories are clever but don’t interest me as much as do you. I think you may well travel, as I did; we'll see yet where the clay of which you are made calls you. It would not be a surprise to me if you go to an ivy covered tower (as did I) and then if you become a great teacher. Do you begin to understand a little more now?

Analiese?

Dismiss you?

I'm tired. That's not all your fault of course, but in one respect at least I'm tired of being analyzed like a specimen in a bell jar or a psychological curiosity. Does that make any impression on you at all or have you so abstracted your feelings that it doesn't even make a dent? Talk about armor!

And why is it so important for you to sever my connection with my homeland and draw me out into the world you inhabit? I've already gone there a little and maybe I'll go a little more, but I'm not going to lose myself, whatever it is you've done that you think is worth emulating.

I'm glad to hear that your mother isn't too disabled. Very often in advanced age that injury does result in death. You and her are very lucky. I'm young so my injury isn't as bad as hers. It heals more or less with time. There will probably come a time when such injuries don't heal, or so I've been told.

But time usually heals most things, even 150 grain lead injections or knife cuts or whatever.

I didn't go to boarding school. I went to day school 80 miles from my house so I got to stay over in town and clean toilets for my room during the week.

I'd forgotten I'd invited you to dance. That must have been before I became acquainted with your tantrums maybe. But, like I said, you don't need an invitation anyways.

I'm not sure what sort of relationship you had with my cousin but knowing her I don't think it was nearly as serious as this one between us. Was there something you forgot to do that you want to do now with me as a proxy for the dead?

I'm sorry to mention that since it's just idle speculation anyways but it does show how those kinds of questions kind of intrude doesn't it?

What I really need to do is find my sense of humor again. I don't seem to be doing it that well when I talk to you for some reason. Maybe it's all that deeply disguised kindness that's got me confused or something.

Maybe that's because I don't think Mother Earth calls her children to all her places. I think she intends that some live here and some there so that we don't overgraze our ranges by congregating too densely in any one place. I know that's probably uncivilized by definition but that's where I'm coming from.

And I'm not even sure I like it at a school for ivy league rejects let alone the real thing. I'll have to ponder that awhile I think.

When you're on the brink of extinction it's not necessarily a good idea to wander off into the type of habitat you can't seem to tolerate. I never thought I was part of a captive breeding program but you never know.

So is that what you are, Kyaa, a great teacher? Do you aspire to teach the deprived how to deal with their deprivation with good humor? So they don't become like their oppressors? Is that the mission then?

Well, don't waste time on me then. I've already lost my wars and been put in my place and I'll live there just fine, even in good humor maybe. I hardly pose a threat to modern civilization or its privileged classes who go to boarding school and ivy league colleges. I'm just a lump of clay trying to avoid getting trampled. Nothing more.

So what else is there? Did I forget anything? Probably. I usually do.

But thank you for trying to help. In another place and time it might have gone better, but who knows? I'm can be really dense most of the time. There's undoubtedly someone somewhere on this vast internet that isn't so dense, but I think she's dead already.

Did you ever read her stories? Or didn't they interest you as much as they did her?

Yes, I read her stories. They were sad and defiant at the same time. In the end she was more full of hope and conciliation than ever before. I see her stories and I see her and I see what she shared as all part of a continuum. A unique creature, who, I pray, is now at peace. I do not ask for a proxy, now or ever.

You make me sad. It is tragic that there is such distrust and hate in you that perpetual conflict may well be the only obtainable end. Maybe someday you will overcome the great harm done you; harm that you now perpetuate. Please try to forgive me when I have added to your hurt. You are not a bad person; perhaps your allegations are a kindness and I have much in myself to correct. I repeat you are not a specimen for me or I for you.

I neither asked you to sever any connections nor to lose yourself, ever. Nor will I ever do so. It seems you don't like it but I inhabit the same world as you and will continue to. I must go where I am called and called each of us are. There must be some need that brings each of us where we are or go. No mission. And, no, I am not of the privileged class though I feel I've been privileged.

You can have the last word, if it is your need or if it is your wish. For the time you have wasted with me, I thank you.

I'll never have the last word, Kyaa, because life is a struggle for everyone to survive and given that luxury to try to understand. I didn't intend to hurt you ever. Just keep my space unencroached. That's always been a struggle too.

You have my utmost respect for your aspirations and your concern. If I don't share all of them, that doesn't make either one of us necessarily bad, just different.

She's at peace by the way. I know. I saw her face in her last moments in this world. I'll never forget it as long as I live.

Maybe that should be the last words if there are any.

Admit it Rusty, you like to get the last word. I felt serious about letting this drop. We're on so many of the same threads I couldn't help but find you in the thick of battle in many places. Sorry, I can't stop myself; why, because I feel for you; again why, because I think you are making some truly important points to these people many of whom have never spent a day in poverty or even one day in the service of strangers or even seen how the world looks outside the boundaries of their own comfortable national existence. How they roar and howl! How little they know yet how insistent on their views! I am amazed. This isn't theory this is real flesh and blood people (in Iraq over 50% of the populace is under 15!). (As for you, your own branch of the family appears to have dwindled to less than a 1000 so if you speak of extinction it is no exaggeration! They are so eager to make the next point that they won't even examine that). There is much we agree on though there are other things we are very stubborn about. You sure are making a lot of 'enemies' it appears or at least you've succeed in antagonizing many. I've stayed out though there is much I'd like to say, especially since I lived and traveled in West Asia for several years. I know you don't need anybody. I'm not sure exactly why but I'm here.

I think you're making your share of enemies too, Kyaa, because when you tell them stuff they don't want hear, you become the enemy. Telling the truth is bad manners for some people.

Some branches of the family are down to less than 200 or 300 actually. Fortunately, we aren't a separate species so our populations may recover in time. They already have since the lows of the mid 20th century.

You may be interested to know that large tribes like the Navaho and the Sioux formerly took in strays. That's how they became large tribes. That also meant that the strays were expected to follow the ways of the big tribe, not their own ways. In time they became indistinguishable from the others.

Sometimes the taking in has not been by choice. Living among Navahoes in particular can be a little bit of a problem sometimes. But I think it'll workout and if it doesn't, well, at least we tried.

Yeah, and I fight a lot don't I? Always have to get the last word in somehow, but when you can't win, the least you can do is wear them down and never admit you've lost.

What is it you say? They can kill you but they can't command your obedience. I think that's worth living by and I thank you for it.

Rusty, I borrowed that phrase from Gandhi. I recently re-watched the movie so that my son could see it for the first time. If you've not seen it, I ask that you do.

I am aware that the Dineh were a kind of confederation but I didn't understand they were a little repressive? About the Lakota, Nakota, Dakota, I know they fought with Chippewa, Ojibawa (Anishnabek) and decided to move West. Did they start absorbing about then?

It's a good thing you have such a rich mix of blood in you! I only ask, don't allow those that you loathe to make you like them; maybe - it can happen - in time, you won't even need to loathe at all.

Anytime people get big they get little repressive it seems. Navaho have a very white government. Sorry to use the term but I don't know what else to call it. It's very centralized and hierarchal based on an arbitrary division of the reservation into districts.

Lakota absorbed people through the Indian Wars mainly. There were plenty of refugees, especially early on when the Lakota themselves were forced to move west but there were others later like some Cheyenne bands. Rita's got relations at Lame Deer for example. That's on the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Montana.

Good Day Rusty! What are you up to today? It gives me great happiness that we are corresponding as we are.

So, did you have some sort of run-ins with the local big tribe? Tell me.

You know, to be completely honest, I'm grateful, somewhere in me, that there are at least a few groups who can stand and must be seen. I am deeply disturbed by what you say; I pray that empathy will allow a reformulation that is equitable.

I thought Rita identified herself as Lakota? My greetings to her. I hope she will continue her studies and continue to do all in our power to heal the earth and help people reawaken to their intricate and intimate relationship with her (the earth, that is!).

Good day, Kyaa,

I agree it's good to talk.

I've had some runins with the tribal police, but usually if you just talk with the local people you don't have problems. Most people will share the land without a good deal of friction. A few, mostly the wealthy, think they own everything of course, but there's not that many of them.

Rita is Lakota but she has Cheyenne relations which sort of illustrates my point about people kind of getting absorbed into the bigger tribe over time.

You seem in very good humor today. I'm glad to see that. I was especially laughing at the NZ sheep joke. I hadn't thought of it quite that way, but now that you mention it, it makes a lot of sense.

Rusty, I am so very happy to finally make you laugh!!!

Check the "Virtual March on Washington DC" thread when you get a chance, k?

I will do that.

And you check the Iraq war thing too. It's becoming so laughable I can hardly contain myself, but I will, don't worry, because it would be even funnier if it wasn't so pathetic.

Now, in case you didn't notice, this is how they respond when we ask them to honor their treaties. They have absolutely no imagination in addition to no consciences. Isn't that interesting? I wonder why I even waste my time?

I can't find the thread. Is it buried somewheres?

Here ya go, try this link and act fast young lady!! http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F19585?thread=251697 talk to me. ...and I'll go check the clowns at the Iraq thread. These people have no idea they are talking about killing kids who are less than 15 years old and for what to keep the SUVs running.... When will they ever learn ... dear God.

Here ya go, try this link and act fast young lady!! http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F19585?thread=251697 talk to me. ...and I'll go check the clowns at the Iraq thread. These people have no idea they are talking about killing kids who are less than 15 years old and for what to keep the SUVs running.... When will they ever learn ... dear God.

Hey Rusty, where've you been ... again?!

Thanks a lot!!! for sending me back to the Iraq war Opinion thread! Some've been trying to eat me alive (look back a few posts). Par for the course.

I notice you try to slip away but are drawn back to those persons, time and again, like a moth to the flame. I should talk, the same happens to me.

What is most discouraging is the fixedness of some people's views. The rigidity of thinking on display. I guess, at some point or the other, the same accusation could be attached to any of us. Life is such a challange ... makes it worth getting out of bed each day!

Here's a good collection; I'll probably share it elsewhere too; from the placards carried at the marches for peace.

I'd rather my President MAKE LOVE - NOT WAR in the oval office

Drunken frat boy drives country into ditch

Bush/Cheney: Malice in Blunderland

Let's bomb Texas, they have oil too.

How did our oil get under their sand?

If you can't pronounce it, don't bomb it.

Daddy, can I start the war now?

1000 points of light and one dim bulb.

Sacrifice our SUV's, not our children.

Preemptive impeachment.

No George, I said Mac Attack.

It's the stupid economy.

Stop the Bushit.

Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld: the asses of evil.

$1 billion a day to kill people -- what a bargain.

Consume -- Consume -- Bomb -- Bomb -- Consume --Consume

Disarm Bush too.

Big brother isn't coming -- he's already here.

Empires fall.

An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind
(Gandhi).

Impeach the squatters.

Mainstream white guys for peace. (Sign held by three
mainstream-looking white guys)

Hans Blix -- look over here.

Let Exxon send their own troops.

Destroy Florida. [It could happen again]

There's a terrorist behind every Bush.

We can't afford to rule the world.

War is so 20th century!

9-11-01: 15 Saudis, 0 Iraqis.

Drop Bush not bombs.

I asked for universal health care and all I got was
this lousy stealth bomber.

America's problems won't be solved in Iraq.

War is not a family value.

Colorfully dressed drag queen carrying a sign that
says: I am the bomb.

Picture of the peace symbol: back by popular demand.

A picture of Bush with a red-stained upper lip: Got
blood?

A picture of Bush saying "Why should I care what the
American people think? They didn't vote for me."

A picture of Bush saying "Ask me about my lobotomy."

Beneath a picture of a menacing soldier pointing his
rifle/bayonet toward the viewer: Say it! One Nation under God. Say it!

What would Jesus bomb?

A village inTexas is still missing its idiot!

Sorry I haven't been able to answer you before now. There's been local networking problems preventing me from getting on the site or staying on long enough to get much done. Today's a little better.

I see you've been receiving the complaints pretty good. It's funny, don't you think? How they can argue endlessly about how you present things without addressing the things you present. I think that's what they mean by Dogster whatever. If you don't like it, ignore it.

>>If you don't like it, ignore it.<<

Yeah right!!

Comeon Rusty, you know me better than that now doncha?!?