beware indians bearing gifts, nafta flu, drug deaths, drones and assassins

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Decided to duck around in the unfamiliar today, and to use it to catch up on what I missed earlier in the month with my long succession of debacles. This particular taping of Democracy Now! stands out for a number of reasons... not least that it includes some poor Mexican guy pleading to have the public health hazard in Perote dealt with properly... and a couple of instances where Obama blows our collective minds with the audacity of chutzpah in calling those who wish him to turn back his coup against Zelaya in Honduras "hypocrites"... but also because you have a chance to listen to journalist, Charles Bowden speaking about asylum for a Mexican journalist and about the Mexican government and drugs and guns. You might want to read his piece in Mother Jones on it that they mention in the interview, help remind you of Obama's mendacity and the recent history of Mexico, but, more than that, more than anything, maybe you want to read Bowden's Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America, which will drill about three tons of delusion right the hell on out of you all by itself. I promise. It is a masterpiece. Don't die without reading it.

[It should also be noted that the piece by Bowden linked here, We Bring Fear, is so good that I had to stop reading it online and print it out to take to bed with me. Just look at the first page and tell me you don't feel the same way.

I never can bring myself to believe these "Kindle" things will overtake books and magazines because there are some things that cannot be absorbed on a monitor, a viewing screen. Some writers have to be held, and Bowden is one of them.

I also have found myself irked for posting an image of Obama painted as a brave. I wanted an image of an indian holding a wrapped gift... and I can do that because I'm indian... but lost patience in the search. Maybe I will forget the blast of "INDIAN GIVER!" that shot through me at some point during this broadcast, and replace the image with something that is not an insult to my ancestors, or maybe I will leave it and just concentrate on the miserable irony of someone honoring him this way....

No, really! That should be reserved for a man of courage, not squandered on someone who sells out everyone in his country, everyone on earth to play this murderating role on the world stage.]