It's about time someone stood up to those native americans...excuse me, indians. So what if it was their land first, they lost it, game over. World history is full of examples of this happening but only here do we try to make up for it with crappy consolation prizes like statues and casinos.
I've been thinking, and here are my pros and cons of each contender for supreme landmark.
Statue Of Liberty:
Pro:She is really tall.
Con:Not the tallest. (smallest?)
Pro:She has her own mountain!And a big torch! And a book!
Con:She's French.
Mount Rushmore:
Pro:There's 4 of them!
Con:Not much in terms of weaponry
Pro:It is a mountain!
Con:They are only heads.
Ugly statue warrior thing:
Pro:Natural Warrior
Con:Ugly!
Pro:has a pet eagle
Con:Doesn't actually exist yet...
My esteemed colleague Emily mentioned the possibility of the eagle's eyes shooting red lasers, in which case, game set match Giant Indian.
Ah, but Liberty can use her big book as a shield!
And then set fire to the eagle. :P
ah, monuments. about 30 mins east of where i live in northern canada, there is a town called mundare. i shit you not, it has a GIANT statue of a sausage that looks like a double-ended dildo.
i'm talking a 75-ft tall rust-coloured dildo. once again, i am PROUD to be a canadian.
Goddammit. The sausage dildo wins Sarah, i think you'll agree.
I will give you a Mt. Rushmore, and raise you a Crazy Horse monument. Oh, South Dakota, how I love/hate you...
Y'all need to hang out in Australia, where they try to be Texan, with their big things.
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~arundell/bigthing.htm
Seriously, a big banana?
(I bought a souvenir)
Ryan, In your list of pros and cons for each monument you leace out the fact that 1)Statue of Liberty is a girl 2)Indian chief got his ass kicked last time he fought anyone so that brings his warrior cred into question. Mt. Rushmore could beat them both pretty soundly plus three of the four on the Mountain have secondary monuments they can call for backup in the Lincoln and Jefferson memorials and the Washington Monument which can take an eye out.
The problem with Oklahoma tornadoes is that you can see 'em coming for days before they actually get there because it's so flat. In North Carolina, however (at least the western two-thirds of it), there's all these hills the tornadoes can hide behind, waiting until you're thinking, ah, just a little spring thundershower, and then the next thing you know, BAM! Your car's on top of the church and your cat is now living in Indiana.
Ok, 1st time through reading your post, as a Cherokee myself, I got pissed, then I thought, "Calm the fuck down." After re-reading your post I agree with you on the absurdity, but honestly, after having to drive down Lewis everyday to my high school job and pass the "HEALING HANDS" it just kind of goes with the territory right?
A note about tornadoes, one good thing about living in the country out by Stillwater in college (besides being about 100 feet from the Tumbleweed Dance Hall) was that we always knew when the tornadoes were coming as the "chasers" would be parked across the dirt road in the field looking at the sky. Now that I live in Nebraska I miss it. It's like a rite of passage. For the past 5 years I have been surrounded by idiots that think that they are going to by killed randomly by a sudden F-5 tornado just because there is a tornado watch....a WATCH not a warning. Fuckwits...all of them.
what a fucking bad-ass cat that can get swept up in a tornado & land alive in indiana. i need that cat.
So you think you got troubles with indigenous populations? Get what happened to me at work a few years back...It's the 16th century and me and a bunch od Spaniards are looking for cities of gold, which we were told, BY A RELIABLE SOURCE, was in what we called the New World. Well we get there, and the bastards stonewall us. All of the sudden they ain't got no gold cities. At this point I'm stuck cause all I got is a boat load a Spaniards in gay hats and the queen is gonna have my ass in a sling if I don't bring back the fucking gold I promised... Anyway things got out of hand and next thing you know we massacred the whole bunch of them. On the way home we get our stories straight and tell the queen that everyone was already dead when we got there and we didn't want to mess up the investigation by touching nothing. All woulda been fine if Juan carlos woulda kept his mouth shut. Next thing you know Neil Young is writing songs about me which hurt cause I liked that "Hear of Gold Song" I loked all the early stuff, you know before he blamed me for wiping out a civilization.
Amusing Fact about Wisconsin: A Canadian Explorer (damn my public school education, I can't remember his name) crossed Lake Superior, believing all the while he was sailing across the ocean to Asia. He of course wasn't, and he landed in my wonderfuly exasperating home wondering where the frell his silks and spices were and all he got were trees and if he was lucky some corn. I love that. It amuses me to no end, so I thought I'd share.
I could be wrong but I think that may have been Marquette. He was gay you know.
i think i will be able to see that thing from dallas.
right. one more reason why jimbo is never leaving the west coast.
i am a little glad i'm neither a cherokee or a rape victim after that roasting!
This is why I won't move too far from the "Heartland" a.k.a "Tornado Alley". Missouri had an extra 60 tornadoes last spring! New Mexico raves about her fantastic lightning storms. Last week was "tornado week" on the Weather Channel and I am gettin' all geared up for a great season. I understand, Brown. Spring isn't right without a little fear and anxiety from Mother Nature, to put the rest of the year into perspective. Loved the post.
I don't know why, but I miss you Sarah Brown.
Correct. Offended.
I think the saddest part to me is that nobody has mentioned how supid and ugly the statue looks. But, I am kind of an asshole.
I like the idea of a big statue just for the sake of big statues. Here is a link for all the big statue lovers of the world.
http://www.sctrinityheights.org/third.htm
P.S. The Queen of Peace is really at least that scary in person.
i'll share my tornado warnings with you, sarah.
The Indian needs to be able to eat white dudes.
my alma mater definitely erected a bronze, life-sized statue of our university's former president the year after he retired. it was donated courtesy of an 'anonymous benefactor' and was placed on prominent campus real estate. kind of reminded me of the whole iraqi statue situation . . . i wanted to hit the damn thing with my sandal every time i walked by it.
Get backin your trailer raight now!
It's really funny to me how an Okie can complain about Cherokee symbolism, or Cherokee nationalism, or whatever. It sure ain't far from your trailer to their reservation...
Having spent lots of late nights there I can tell you that her trailer is too far from the liquor store for any Cherokee to get to it.
Perhaps we can build a giant wrestling ring while we're at it. I'm hoping for a Big Ass Indian/Praying Hands/Golden Driller free-for-all.
oh yes, the spring-time Kentucky tornado warnings make me glad i'm back in NYC...
Kevynn wrote: "The Indian needs to be able to eat white dudes."
Cool! Start with that jackass, Will.
This reminds me somewhat of the time when Richmond erected a monument to hometown hero, Arthur Ashe. Arthur was a great man, but they found the most horrible sculptor in the universe to create this monstrosity that looks like Arthur is beating a gaggle of white children with a tennis racquet... Then they put him on Monument Avenue, which is filled with Civil War generals, presidents, admirals, what have you (AKA slave-owners).
Poor arthur. I bet he rolled in his grave when they put him up on monument avenue in that horrid track suit, weilding that awful tennis racquet, beating those poor kids. There was a cannon pointing at him for the first month he was there, until the city got a chance to move it, so it was pointed away.
The 17-story cherokee's eagle TOTALLY needs laser beams. PAYBACK'S A BITCH, MOTHERFUCKERS!
Ahh Sarah... you totally have to describe the feeling right before a tornado hits. The way the sky turns green and heavy, and everything goes quiet, how you can FEEL it. And then BAM! You get your ass in the baesment as the sirens start wailing. Yup. I may have cherry blossoms right now but I sure do miss that about WI springs.
this link REALLY doesn't do it justice....
but just so y'all believe me about the double-ended dildo thing....here you go.
http://www.roadsideattractions.ca/mundare.htm
you have to see the real-life statue to bask in its glory.....
I love "Hear of Gold"!
Isn't that off Harvest Moo?
And I simply have two questions for you, brown...
Are the giant Indian's hands going to be bigger than the praying hands?
Is there any possibility that they could use said hands for the indian's hands?
Sen Oral to heaven in '87!!
sarah, you have the best comment box on the internet. i heart your comments.
and yeah. totally a double ended dildo.
Steve, Emily, the funniest thing my ex-boyfriend ever said was that he wished he had a helicopter so that he could steal the giant inflatable Miller Lite bottle in front of the strip club and airlift it into the Praying Hands at ORU.
I thought it looked like what you might find in the toilet after eating a ukrainian sausage...
I have no experience with tornados, just typhoons...It's strange to see a once green tropical island totally devoid of vegetation after a 200 mph storm. The last big one wiped out our smaller scaled Statue of Liberty and they replaced it with what I MUST call "The Midget of Liberty" (I should get some pics). Who the hell approved of this? Moreover who the heck designed it? If she weren't holding that book and torch I swear her knuckles would be scraping the pedestal on which she stands. HAHA on the Miller Lite bottle in the praying hands.
Don't forget Oklahoma's other motto,"Oklahoma is OK". Okay but not great. But, then again, not like, really, really bad either.
It may not be official, but you sure as hell hear it more growing up than you do,"Labor Conquers All Things".
We embrace our mediocrity. Fuck all that live free or die crap
Yeah, I lived in NYC for a year and 3 months, I got stuck in the ONE thunderstorm that lasted a minute or two (and somebody STILL died because they ran under a tree in a park in Brooklyn). I was SERIOUSLY unimpressed. Really, if you can't leave your work (which I did last May) and go outside to utter devistation, well, that's just sad.
Oh, and the weather people were morons.
But I'm an OKC girl, Tulsa sucks.
BLASPHEMER
I'm pretty sure one of your commenters is that rape girl. It's always that way - soon as someone starts talking about someone else, the someone else shows up.
Man, fuck that OKC noise.
damn it. being English, i feel i've really missed out on the whole tornado thing. i want one now!
We had our first tornado close to home this weekend, and I missed it!!!! It was only about 7 miles from my house, & I had to be in Texas. Figures! Sarah, Tornados are the best. Especially when the temperature suddenly drops & everything gets calm. It's great!
You guys can have New York, we've got the Big Apple not far from Toronto! http://www.roadsideattractions.ca/apple.htm
1. That whole beer in the hands thing really makes me like Mr. Stinky Pants a whole lot more.
2. Did OKC get the Big Ass Indian? No. Did they WANT the Big Ass Indian? No. Clearly you won on this one. But you do have a giant rotating cross on top of a hospital.
It may not be 5 months, but if it makes you feel any better, you're gauranteed some amount of oppression and death in a NYC summer . . .
This is all I can say:
http://us.cnn.com/2004/TRAVEL/03/25/giant.abe.ap/
So now we have a 5-way royal rumble: Abe vs Sausage vs B.A. Indian vs Lady Liberty vs Mt. Rushmore.
Somehow I don't see the heads of Rushmore being capable of more than helplessly bouncing around like those heads in Spirited Away, so they're out.
The sausage can try what it wants but it'll inevitably end up being roasted and consumed or at least sued for grave sexual harassment.
Big Ass Indian will then swiftly dispatch of Lady Liberty because, well, Angry Indian > Peacelovin' Treehuggin' Woman.
Ultimately though, Abe will just suck the others to the Nth dimension with his black hole inducing big ass hat of Doom.
Fear Abe.
Emily, we have that lovely giant cross in Edmond... which is oh-so-close to OKC. It may not rotate, but it is lined elegantly in neon and changes colors in the dark if you look closely.
Your post made me kind of sad, I've been reading your stuff for a while now, but now I don't know. I think the thing you forgot is that indigenous people are still suffering from the shit that happened way back when and the shit that is happening to them now in many ways a result of what happened way back. There are alot of statistics, which anyone can look up that proves this. Everyone's happy to be like "look at the casinos!" but has anyone seen the pitiful ass casinos in Oklahoma? Nobody is getting rich off of that shit.
I mean if you think the statue will be ugly, then say Im sad that there is a big ass ugly statue where i used to live. Please do not follow it up with alot of anti-native american sentiment, because you end up sounding racist, the kind that live near indian reservations or other minority neighborhoods/communities, that theoretically love all people, unless of course they are in their backyard- because why like them, you know how "they really can be."
I wish you a blessed day.
I will start this by saying I'm a super Sarah B. supoporter so I may be biased, but I see this post as clearly anti statue not anti native peoples. The most blatantly anti native comments are mine which are intended as a joke. Perhaps the whole point of the piece is to show the white guilt attempts to ammend the past with monuments and casino's are misguided.
WTF as that about?
The hits just keep on coming...there's plans for a giant 500-foot Maitreya statue in India ("Maitreya" being the next Buddha): http://www.maitreyaproject.org/
bwahhahaha! wow. pixel and gulshan said you were awesome. and new york spring is pussy. actually, i think of it as pleasant. just not right now. there is nothing like midwestern thunderstorms to lively up your day. rock.
I said absolutely nothing that was anti-Native American. Anti-statue, anti-pussy New York spring, some digs at my home state, and I pretty much picked on rape victims, but nothing anti-Native American. I'm sorry if you read it that way.
being a full blood, I'd have to say that yes it is very offensive. Not what YOU wrote but the fucking statue. AS for those who feel that we've been crying too long about what happened in the past. We're the only country that has covered up and refuses to PUBLICALLY acknowledge the American Holocaust. You know, even an apology would be enough. We can't even get that. So for those of you who think it's cool and daring to put down the native american tragedy... all I can say is... kiss my copper ass.
addendum:
and please don't call us "indians." we didn't come from india we have no affiliation with India in any way shape or form. This is 500 year old ignorance. Indians are people from India. American Indians are people from India residing in America. I'm Diné. If you don't know what to call me. ASK. it's that simple. I prefer native american or first nation (leaning towards first nation).
You're making up that "don't call you indian" thing right? Beeause I've never heard that before.
once again... 500 year old INSTITUTIONALIZED ignorance. No, I'm not "making that up."
I was kidding Tonto, lighten up.
How do all the huge things in OK (hands, cross) co-exist with the amazing, life-changing forces of nature that are tornados? Do the tornados never rip those things down or throw them around? And if Jim Caveziel gets struck by lightning when he's acting as Jesus, isn't that like, a sign from God that he's going to hell?
yeah... nice response.. very culturally aware.
..and you wonder why we get so pissed off..
I'll talk to you sometime when you gain some maturity and wisdom.
"I was kidding Tonto, lighten up."
that sure doesn't sound like you were kidding. 'just saying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs
some pope-ish guy once said something along the lines of "tis better to throw a stone at random than a word", i'd ammend that to "Think before you hit Post."
I think a statue is a dumb idea as well...instead of a statue they should just print the truth in history textbooks.
Phil I was kidding about not being aware that Native Americans had no affiliation with India.
Thanks for only reading what you want to see.
hey, i realize you were kidding, just using what is considered to be a slur in your statement sort of cancels it out? that make sense? just wanted to make that point. [Tonto, btw, is a spanish word for "Idiot"].
your clarification gets all scrambled, and since this is a blog comment instead of conversation over a beer or something, it seems a lot more serious, even this--me--seems more serious...and i'm just a fairly jovial guy, who--if you knew me in real life--would just sort of say "dude, you don't call some native american guy 'tonto' without sounding like a dick." And you would know i mean no ill will.
You know we could continue this in a three way email conversation instead of hashing it out on someone else's blog. That's like walking into a stranger's house and having a shouting match with one of the guests. Far from acceptable. So, for my part, the public posting is over. If you want to discuss this further my email is totah_sam@hotmail.com OR NakaiDineh@earthlink.net have a nice day. :o)
Argh, Americans.
you damn pro-rape racists.
You're the reason the LA riots, earthquakes and wars happen.
DO YOU HEAR ME CALLING YOU OUT, BROWN?
BRING IT, Gooch. Me and my tire iron are ready.
Retarded? More like CREEtarded! Get it?
Man, I'm Cree...
I meant SIOUXtarded. HAW!
Good post. Good comments. Nothing pithy to say at the moment. Love the read.
A friend sent me here to ask me what I thought of this. I'm half cherokee, and I must say, never anywhere in my life have I heard such racist angst against Native Americans. And the dude calling the other Native commenter "Tonto"... wtf? This is sad, and a few of you are really sick. I'd feel pretty sick to my stomach if I put up with this crap in my comments.
I agree the statue is pretty damn distasteful considering that it's not even the clothing most tribes wore.
I love my Cherokee grandparents. I hope they were never exposed to such disrespect as I've found here.
Kellie, See the First Amendment to the Constitution of United States of Land-Stealing America:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Even if those people are saying shit like 'blah blah blah maizecakes' and you think they suck donkey ass. "
OK, I may have made that last part up.
Just because we all have the right to freedom of speech doesn't mean that what asswipes are SAYING is intelligent, or even right. Sure they're 'allowed' to say it. Big deal - no one's saying they can't say it, they're saying *what* they're saying is a big pile of steaming horse sheeite. Especially when freedom of speech often hinders "peaceable assembly."
i'm from germany and all i can say is that i really don't understand the fact that some of you native-americans/first nation-people feel all offended or disrespected by this post or some of the comments. maybe that's just me, but i've always seen myself as a human and i feel bad about things like the holocaust, hiroshima, the native american history or the way women are being treated like sh.. in some eastern european countries and stuff like that -- and i'm neither jewish, nor vietnamese, a native american or a woman from an eastern european country. and i'm not offended when people call me "fischkopp" because i'm from the north or ask me how i like hitler since i'm german. and now i hope my english is good enough to kinda make clear what i'm trying to say ....
yes but you haven't lived with 500 years of conquest, repression, bigotry, extermination or relocation. You talk about how you don't understand why native americans react the way they do. You're from Germany. How do Jews react to racial slurs in Germany? Wasn't Germany responsible for the extermination of 6 million jews not to mention 4 million other "undesirables." Go talk to some of them. Maybe you'll gain some understanding.
omg -- are you 500 years old and have personally lived with conquest, repression, bigotry, extermination or relocation? .. all i think is that it's about time to stop feeling sorry for yourself, let go of things that happened that long ago, learn from them and concentrate on today's problems - i'm sure there are enough ... and i don't mean forget, i mean LET GO! oh and to you personally (since you got personal first): my comment was my opinion to the above and i don't appreciate people like you getting back at me like i was some naive, stupid kid -- you DON'T KNOW me or my story, do you? oh ja, the »lighten up«-thing sounds like a plan .... btw -- i enjoy sarah b. -- chill!!!
Thank you, Kim.
I suppose you people think that holocaust victims should just swallow it and get on with things as well. Maybe tear down their big ugly monuments. The thing about monuments to atrocities are that they ensure that a vital part of histoy is not forgotten. Lest the destruction of an entire culture and its people's way of life is once again perceived as an acceptable thing. I'd take a few eyesores over that any day.
This isn't a monument to an atrocity, it IS an atrocity.
Is that "rape girl" actually real? coz i have one of those at my college, and i swear, i know what you mean. i feel bad for thinking it, but dear god, dont let her EVER try and talk to me! and wtf is this 17foot statue about? are they planning on bringing it to life along with the statue of liberty and mount rushmore, and having a fight to the death? actually, that would be cool. Hmmmm, who do you think would win?