July 4th Editorial

Yahoo News item:
"A rare white buffalo walks in a corral after a Native American naming
ceremony was held in Greenville, Texas Wednesday, June 29, 2011. The
buffalo, named Lightning Medicine Cloud, was born to the Texas herd last month
and holds a special place in Native American culture. (AP Photo/LM Otero)"

As the Wikipedia says:
White buffalo are American bison (American buffalo) that are considered to be sacred signs in several Native American religions, and thus have great spiritual importance in those cultures and are visited for prayer and other religious ceremonies. Buffalo are normally brown in color; white buffalo can result from one of several physical conditions...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_buffalo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Buffalo_Calf_Woman


In the 1990s a similar birth of a white buffalo calf was hailed as a sign for future change and a return to the old ways owing to the Sioux tradition of the White Buffalo Calf Woman. Since then a good many more white buffalo calves have been born, usually to brown-coloured fathers and often themselves turning brown with maturity (due to a known genetic quirk)

Now for my part, I have been very vocal about criticism of this country's mismanagement of the Earth's resources, both in earlier presidential administrations but most especially in the current president's administration (see the companion editorial at Frontiers of Anthropology:
http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2011/07/july-4-editorial-not-greek-problem-but.html

And although I am primarily bound not to discuss religion or politics on these blogs,my ongoing concern is that not nearly enough is being done to preserve the remaining resources for future generations. Indeed, IMHO, the actions of the current US president and his immediate predecessor have taken a major step in the wrong direction by continuing the trend of useless waste rather than taking the harder and much less popular path of tightening belts drastically all around.

The very worst thing this presidet and his predecessor could have done was to shore up the obsolete luxury of keeping up the upper classes and the banking institutions which support them. Frequent postings on the internet make noye of the fact that something like 6% of the Earth's population controls something like 94% of the world's wealth, resources and energy output. That 6% lives primarily in the United States and the other "Developed" nations and THAT IS JUST WRONG.

Personally, I would very gladly rather be doing such a thing as managing a bison range for Native Americans' use and for continued use into the future, something sustainable-throw in some small-scale farming and raising turkeys. And doing my level best NOT to live so outrageously beyond my means that I deprive several third-world citizens of their fair share by my high living. Say it is a vision sent to me by a Buffalo.

Best Wishes, Dale D.