Muffin Bottoms [not] Just another WordPress weblog

03/19/2011

Please Watch ‘Broken Rainbow’ Now That Someone Placed It Online.

Filed under: Academic,Mundane Or Sublime,Tech — admin @ 8:03 am

“Either things that we make will overtake us or nature will take over.

“Earthquakes, floods, rain, severe drought, severe winter, lightening destructing, wind destructing.”

— Thomas Banyacya.

Interpreting for Martin G., David M., and the other Elders deep inside the Kiva on an important day in the early 1970s.

My friend Gil T’s mother Laura Nyro wrote the soundtrack song “Broken Rainbow” for this movie.

I did not know him or his mom when I first heard this song.

I didn’t know them when I first saw this film either!

I was surprised and delighted to learn that the woman who wrote “Eli’s Coming” for Three Dog Night was the same woman who wrote this song for Roberta Blackgoat, Pauline Whitesinger, Kee Shay, Katherine Smith — and essentially she wrote it for all of us.

Please watch this movie if you can.

I wish copies of this movie were given to each of the people who are filmed in it. That’s not how the movie industry works though, is it? Roberta got to watch it eventually because Kee Shay went and got a copy on VHS from someone. And then he started showing it to all kinds of people who couldn’t watch it otherwise. Kee even showed it to me when my microbus was stuck in a wash one February day. I’m so thankful I got to watch movies at his house like you wouldn’t know. The places I was living that year didn’t have VCRs, internet, television, electricity or anything. For better or worse. I remember Roberta explaining to me that she is so famous she’s been quoted in dozens of books, and so many movies, but no one gives her copies of any of them. Please help me vow that when we make movies and books about people we will at least give as many free copies to the people we “mined” for them, as we do to our cronies who we hope will help us climb up the ladder over.

I will never take electricity for granted, I will never take water or air for granted. I hope to never take you for granted!

Sometimes I will but I’ll stop myself, because I have in fact vowed that I will never take all this for granted.

That is important. Especially because of the people in Japan who die so that I can type this on a battery powered laptop, recharging in an electrical outlet in a nice warm Starbucks when the weather is sunny and cold.

It’s important because of people in Arizona who die so that Uranium 238 can become Plutinium 239 and I can keep plugging in my laptop any time the battery starts getting low.

I will never take any of these things for granted. I was taking them for granted when a 9.0 Earthquake hit and people were making it so important that they call it an 8.9 instead of a 9.0. I was taking all this for granted when a Tsunami hit and people were trying so hard to say it wasn’t quite as bad as the one in Sumatra; and when many reactors began melting down and exposing radioactive rods as people were trying to say it’s not as bad as Three Mile Island and focusing so much important energy arguing whether this is worse than Chernobyl or not.

Does it matter whether it’s worse or better?

People are dead, plants and animals are dead.

I have the electricity I need and want.

That, my friends is what matters.

When I eat bison chili, or smoked cornbeef, or brisket there is ceremony I can do to thank the animal who gave his life so that I can be nourished and sustained.

We’d better find ceremony to remain thankful for people in Japan who gave their lives up not just under nuclear bombs, but in/near power plants so that we can have electricity at a low subsidized rate.

Ceremony must include people in Arizona who will mine our Uranium, Coal, Molybdenum and Gold so that our way of life can stay maintained.

Broken Rainbow – Part 1 of 7  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iN3zdpdgvY

Broken Rainbow – Part 2 of 7  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ7Dua4RZNA

Broken Rainbow – Part 3 of 7  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBOUBKDvzhQ

Broken Rainbow – Part 4 of 7  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69-XEN1BTpY

Broken Rainbow – Part 5 of 7  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtMri7I8D4Y

Broken Rainbow – Part 6 of 7  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9LctAViabA

Broken Rainbow – Part 7 of 7  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmhRdYZ0S8c&feature=related

03/10/2011

Whether a Governor, F-15 pilot or a Sheep Herder, your actions influence people you will likely never know.

Filed under: Mundane Or Sublime,News — admin @ 3:55 pm

BLACK MESA ARIZONA –  I was herding Roberta Blackgoat’s sheep one sunny February day when a fighter plane dusted by 20 feet overhead or less.

I hit the ground as all the sheep and both dogs scattered. They all gathered back together when the plane was long gone and seemed to be comforting by circling around each other in really strange ways that I can’t understand. That all seemed fine though.

I looked over and there was one lamb shaking nonstop near a short tree. I went over and pet her and hugged her, and tried to say things in assuring ways hoping she would feel in my breath that she no longer needs to fear all that. Her shaking seemed to subside but she never seemed right after that. She would always drink less water than the others, and sometimes refused to drink or eat altogether.

Not too many days later Roberta handed me a long knife and instructed me to go out and slit the lamb’s throat saying that she will freeze to death either tonight or tomorrow night so our job was to stop the suffering. It was very difficult for me to do, but she was 50 some odd years my Elder and I was there primarily to herd sheep and chop wood for her, so I completed the task as competently as I could. She had said to be very swift, and use the sharpest part of the knife right across the neck so the lamb would die instantly and feel no extra pain.

That was not the most difficult thing I ever did in my life, but it remains in my top ten.

Incidentally, I will never forgive the very same military that I served proudly in years before that. The two men or women in that F-15 did NOT need to do that, and they probably don’t even care how much suffering they caused in a gigantic circle around them.

The only thing I can thank these two inhumane people for, is they helped me to live out my life being just a little more deliberate about each and every action I make as I try to be more aware who I might help or hurt in a big circle around me.

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