Blacks, Latinos and gay marriage

I tuned in Glenn Beck very briefly today, he was reading off the lists of states that had voted against gay marriage, mentioned that it was the Blacks and Latinos - in particular in California - who had caused these bills to fail, and then said, "The majority of Americans are against gay marriage."

And a few things ran through my head. Glenn is happy that the majority of people voted against gay marriage...but a majority of folks voted for Obama, too. So if they're dumb enough to vote for Obama, the only reason why Beck is supporting them now is because they're supporting a cause he believes in.

And are the majority always right? The majority of folks during the American Civil War wanted to keep their "peculiar institution," but they were wrong.

The other thing I thought was kind of sad was that it's the blacks and Latinos, fols who complain that they are held back by racism, who are denying equal rights for another minority.

Politically correct name change, or deserved honor for a fallen warrior?

Rush and a few other Republican talking heads were giving Elizabeth Warren grief today because it seems pretty clear she plagiarized a few recipes for a Native American cookbook published a few years ago. I went to the Breitbart link just out of curiosity (seizing a few minutes out of my role of entetainer-of-the-aunt), read the comments, and found this:

Remember these are the same people who renamed a mountain in Arizona when Napolitano was governor from "Squaw Peak" to "Piestawa Peak"-about a mexican who got lost and captured in Iraq because it was "racist". But "pow wow chow" is fine.....

As you can see the above guy seems to write as clearly as he thinks. But I thought it was interesting that a mountain peak with a Native American name should be renamed to a Mexican one, so I looked up "Piestawa" at Wikipedia.

And found the guy indeed did not know what he was talking about:
SPC Lori Ann Piestewa (December 14, 1979 – March 23, 2003) was a U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps soldier killed during the same Iraqi Army attack in which fellow soldiers Shoshana Johnson and Jessica Lynch sustained injuries. A member of the Hopi tribe, Piestewa was the first Native American woman in history to die in combat while serving with the U.S. military and the first woman in the U.S. armed forces killed in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Arizona's Piestewa Peak is named in her honor.

Early life

Piestewa was born in Tuba City, Arizona, to Terry Piestewa and Priscilla "Percy" Baca. Her father is a full-blooded Hopi Native American, her mother is a Mexican-American. The couple first met in 1964 and married in November 1968. The Piestewa family had a long military tradition; her paternal grandfather served in the U.S. Army in the European Theatre of World War II, and her father Terry Piestewa was drafted in the U.S. Army in September 1965 and served a tour of duty in the Vietnam War before he returned home in March 1967. The Piestewa family resided in a trailer park in Tuba City, a town located on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Coconino County. As a child, she was given the Hopi name Qötsa-Hon-Mana ( White Bear Girl). Her surname is derived from a Hopi language root meaning "water pooled on the desert by a hard rain"; thus, Piestewa (Hopi: [piˈɛstɛwa]) translates loosely as "the people who live by the water." Ambush in Nasiriyah, Iraq
Piestewa was a member of the US Amy's 507th Maintenance Company, a support unit of maintenance and repair personnel. Her company was traveling in a convoy through the desert and was meant to bypass Nasiriyah, in southern Iraq, during the opening days of the war; but the convoy got lost and ran into an ambush in Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003.

As Piestewa came under "a torrent of fire" (in the words of an Army investigation of the battle), she drove at a high speed, successfully evading the enemy fire until an RPG hit the front-left wheel well of her Humvee. The force of the explosion sent her vehicle into the rear of a disabled tractor-trailer. Piestewa, Johnson, and Lynch all survived the crash with injuries, while three other soldiers in the Humvee died. They were taken prisoner along with four others, with Piestewa dying soon after of her wounds. A video of some of the American prisoners of war, including Piestewa (filmed shortly before she died in an Iraqi hospital), was later shown around the world on Al Jazeera television. According to Jessica Lynch's book—I'm a Soldier, Too: The Jessica Lynch Story—Piestewa was wounded in the head, and it was impossible to perform delicate neurosurgery in an Iraqi civilian hospital in wartime conditions (such as intermittent electric power). In a U.S. military hospital with reliable power and neurosurgeons available around the clock, she might have survived.

The families of soldiers in the 507th heard almost right away of the ambush and fatalities in the unit. The Piestewa family saw people in her unit being interviewed by Iraqi TV, and for more than a week families of the two women waited for news. All around Tuba City signs were hung out telling people: "Put your porch light on, show Lori the way home." They used white stone to spell her name on a 200 foot high mesa just outside the town.

Honoring Piestewa
Piestewa was awarded the Purple Heart and Prisoner of War Medal. The US Army posthumously promoted her from Private First Class to Specialist.

Jessica Lynch has repeatedly said that Piestewa is the true hero of the ambush and named her daughter Dakota Ann in honor of her fallen comrade. In addition, many entities have honored her memory with memorials. Arizona's state government renamed Squaw Peak in the Phoenix Mountains near Phoenix as Piestewa Peak and this was codified by the US Board on Geographic Names on April 10, 2008; the freeway that passes near this mountain was also renamed in her honor.

In addition, Senator Tom Daschle honored her, as did Indian Nations across America. Since her death, the Grand Canyon State Games organizers have held an annual Lori Piestewa National Native American Games, which brings participants from across the country. A plaque bearing her name is also located at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico and Fort Bliss, Texas. She has also been memorialized with a plaque and ceremony at Mount Soledad Veterans Memorial in La Jolla, California.[14] On November 10 American Legion Post No. 80 on the Hopi Reservation was renamed the Lori Piestewa Post # 80 in honor of this unselfish daughter of the Hopi.

On 30 November 2011, the Directorate of Training Sustainment headquarters at Fort Benning, Georgia was named Piestewa Hall in her honor.

I Crave Your Indulgence

My mother's sister is visiting for three days.

My mom's deaf as a post, my dad can't be bothered to get out of his chair, so I will be doing the entertaining - the chauffeuring and the talking and the communicating - for the next three days.

So I'll be posting back here Thursday.

Thanks for your patience.

Where did all the money we gave them go?

The US, and other rich countries, have long been criticized for being so wealthy when other countries are so poor.

My response is bushwa. Since at least the 1970s, American tax money, and the tax money from other wealthy counties - has been poured into these poorer countries.

With what result? What do we have to show for all that money? Nothing! Just more criticism that we're too rich and too greedy!
The main example right now is Haiti. We've sent millions of dollars to that country...not only the government using our tax dollars, but us people contributing to charities as well.

With what result? Sean Penn telling us that Haiti still needs money? Sean Penn demanding that we send more money? Hey, Sean, you are worth millions - how much have you contributed?

And what has happened to the money already sent? Why hasn't housing already been built for the people still living in tent cities? What's going on over there?

Why Romney Can Debate Obama Only on the Issues

Yesterday, Rush was commenting that Romney had no problem "going after" Newt Gingrich on a personal level, but now he's "repudiating" his Superpac's attacks on Obama's relationship with Reverend Wright.

But really, what choice does Romney or any white politician have?

Rush should know this better than anyone.

Rush is master of his own domain when it comes to his radio show, but was he able to become a part-owner of a football team? No, he was not. Why? Well, he was accused of being a racist. Can't have any racists owning football teams.

Rush has been attacking Democrat presidents since he started his radio program. But now that he's doing the exact same thing to Obama - oh, you want Obama to fail, you're a racist. No matter how many times Rush points out it's Obama's policies that he wants to fail, everyone thinks he's saying "I want the first black President to fail."

The accusation of Racist! is a very powerful one in these United States. We can't get rid of illegal aliens in this country because that's "racist."

Police responding to a call about a black man breaking into a house can't ask that guy for ID when he claims the house belongs to him - that's racist.

Blacks (and Latinos) fail tests to become firemen and police officers, at a higher percentage than white applicants. Well, the tests are racist because they failed, and standards have to be lowered so they can get in.

Remember Maxine Waters - a few months ago? If Obama had been white, she and all the other black politicians would have been excoriating him for his dismal record, but they are afraid to do so, because he's black, and they won't excoriate him until their constituents tell them that they won't be threatened with being voted out of office if they do. In other words, even though Obama hasn't improved the black community's lot one iota, they will still vote for him because he's black, and anyone, even fellow blacks, who criticize him, will be called Racists (if white) or Uncle Toms (if black), regardless of how valid those criticisms are.

Romney wants to debate Obama strictly on the issues. Well-he should be able to win strictly on the issues, so why not?

Man who fathered 30 kids says he needs a break—on child support

As a woman, I really have to blame the women in this story for their plight. It's one thing to have unprotected sex with a multi-millionaire athlete in order to get pregnant - you'll be on the gravy train for the rest of your life. It's quite another to have unprotected sex with a guy who - although, shockingly, he has a job, has a minimum wage job - and will only be able to afford $1.40 a month in child support.

Where do these 11 women, many of whom have 4 kids by this guy, get the money to raise their kids? Too bad the article doesn't say. Are they gainfully employed with good jobs, or are they on welfare? Did they know the guy whom they're having unprotected sex with has twenty other kids? Enquiring minds want to know.

[And yes, Desmond Hatchett is black, but that's just a fact, not a racial statement. As I've said a few times, all my uncle's step-children, all white, are also illegitimate, and their fathers are also utter jerks, one of whom doesn't even have a job and has been in jail a few times...yet somehow they can still get women to have unprotected sex with them...

From Yahoo News: Man who fathered 30 kids says he needs a break—on child support
And you thought Octomom had her hands full—a Tennessee man who has fathered 30 children is asking the courts for a break on child support.

Desmond Hatchett, 33, of Knoxville has children with 11 different women, reports WREG-TV.

The state already takes half his paycheck and divides it up, which doesn't amount to much when Hatchett is making only minimum wage. Some of the moms receive as little as $1.49 a month. The oldest child is 14 years old.

Hatchett explains how he reached such a critical mass: He had four kids in the same year. Twice.

Back in 2009 when Hatchett was in court to answer charges that many of the mothers were not receiving child support, he had 21 children. At the time, he said he was not going to father any more kids, but he ended up having nine more in the past three years.

The state cannot order Hatchett to stop making babies. He hasn't broken any laws, according to the report.

Has the Mainstream Media Mentioned ANY of this

There's a new book out about Obama, called Amateur in the White House.

RUSH: You know, this Reverend Wright stuff with Barack Obama, it's back in the news again. Something is happening. It's anecdotal, but I happen to think that this might be applicable in a statistical way to the nation at large. We played the audio sound bite from Obama reading from one of his books a couple of weeks ago, in which he admitted bullying a young girl, in which he admitted trying cocaine, admitted that he drank a lot, basically just lollygagged around. I know we've got new listeners to this program. It's been documented by the official ratings companies that monitor such things.

There are tons and tons of new listeners, but even at that, I'm overwhelmed by the number of people -- we're three-and-a-half years into his regime, and I'm getting e-mails from people that the first time they'd heard he'd done cocaine was in the past two, three weeks. The first time they'd heard that he had bullied a young girl. They didn't know his college transcripts hadn't been released. They just assumed all that had happened and they missed it. They didn't know any of this.

Now, we know Obama wasn't vetted. We know the mainstream media has done everything they can to protect him. But the Reverend Wright stuff was out there. I'm even getting e-mail from people who had not heard all the Reverend Wright stuff. New listeners, not people who listen to this program regularly. New listeners say they're hearing this for the first time. I'm getting e-mails from people like we got when we were in the first year or first two years of the program. "My gosh, I found you the other day driving around. I couldn't get anything else on the radio, and I'm hooked now." Similar comments from customers at Two If By Tea who are finding the program for the first time and learning stuff about Obama that we've all known for four years. They're just now hearing about it.

It's driving home the fact that the Drive-Bys didn't vet this guy at all. We know it, but I'm sitting here, I assume everybody knows that Obama did cocaine, and this is the mistake we make. We know it, so we assume everybody else knows it because of word-of-mouth and this kind of thing. Some of the Reverend Wright stuff surfaced again because there's some new aspects to the Reverend Wright case. For example, in Ed Klein's book, The Amateur -- and Klein's got this on tape -- a friend of Obama's offered Wright 150 grand, a bribe, to stop preaching during the 2008 campaign. Yeah, it was just 150. That's probably why Wright didn't take it.