another day another movie sequel

 

I told you we’d be back pic.twitter.com/RnoklPqBX6

— Mel Brooks (@MelBrooks) June 12, 2025

heh.

Now do Blazing Saddles 2

I actually first saw Blazing Saddles when I was working in Liberia. People would tape movies and then exchange them with each other. And I laughed, but had to explain all the jokes to the others watching it with me....you know, it is hard to explain humor which is embedded into a culture (e.g. many of the references not just to racism but references to other movies like Destry Rides again).

Well, anyway, the humor about a black sheriff in those days was a joke. But since then, history is being rewritten, or I should say some forgotten stories are now noticed.

and history has not remembered the black Marshall: Bass Reeves.

The complicated story of Black Indians

The story of the Osage murders is finally getting to screen thanks to a recent book and a recent film:

and many of us know about the trail of tears, when Andrew Johnson decided to force the civilized tribes in the southern USA to what is now Oklahoma.

there is still a small settlement of Cherokees in the Mountains of North Carolina, of those who hid successfully. But most settled in Oklahoma and are there today. 

Ironically the Osage were not part of that group: they were fleeing from their homes in Nebraska and bought a plot of land from the Cherokees to settle in.

ThomasOklahoma has a video channel with a lot of history of Native American tribes, from their point of view.

Much of the history was left out of the history books and now the nuances are usually left out of the history books because too often the histories are written to please the latest intellectual fad in the white community (white superior culture in the past, racism and victimization of poor Indians in today's history books.) 

And yes, there is a lot of racism against Native Americans: I ran into this especially in Minnesota and South Dakota when we would be stopped by cops for nothing, or would not be served in restaurants who would lose our order. And we had to be careful of who we referred our patients to, because of the cultural nuances were not understood by our referral doctors. (not just Indians, of course: I turned down one job offer because the German immigrant doctor made a remark about the Jews. And don't get me started on the racism of doctors against blacks).

well, anyway, the latest scam right now is some black Americans are saying that they are Indians, or the ancestors of Indians.

Probably harmless, although one does wish they would learn the history of the  many African empires, or the trade routes that connected sub Saharan African cities to the Middle East, something the Islamic countries wrote about but were left out of the history books when Europeans decided to divide African between them... 

But anyway, some activists are saying they want to get the privileges of the tribes under treaties signed by the US government with the Native American tribes, and some Native Americans are a bit annoyed at this, just like they tend to be annoyed when white folk claim Tribal heritage to get jobs etc.

To complicate matters, just like a lot of white folk in Appalachia have Cherokee ancestors, many Blacks do have Native American ancestry: and others who are descended from slaves owned by tribal members were granted tribal citizenship. So they have CDIB cards and are eligible for free medical care at IHS hospitals where I worked.

well, anyway, ThomasOklahoma has a short video today about the complicated story of the Black Cherokees, and yes this includes the background for the notorious Tulsa Race riots.

History lesson for today

Lots of videos out there by people who make a living off of conspiracy theories pretending E.T.s built the pyramids, 

One can just laugh them off. 

But when professors insist that Africans did this, there is a very real fear of being canceled by the elite white Karens if you deny this.

well, the Egyptians aren't the only ones who get annoyed.

....

The Mayans and South Americans who built these pyramids are still around today, and include many immigrants to the USA who are lumped together as "Hispanic", which ignores that the culture is mixed Spanish/AmerIndian.

the history of Indians as seen by the average Yank often means the movies about the tribes of the plains, and that story ignores the civilized tribes of the Mound builders and in the southern USA, many of whom were forced off their land to resettle in Oklahoma.

PBS also has this history

a reminder: They were not killed deliberately by the Conquistadors, or by superior arms of the Europeans, but because they lacked immunity to European and African diseases like smallpox, influenza, TB, hepatitis, etc.

Could such a thing happen in today's world?
Alas Yes.

and that is why the Johns Hopkins institutions hold scenerios of how should the world respond to infectious disease, be it a terrorist attack with smallpox or other pathogens such as the emergence of a new SARS like virus (e.g. Covid 2) or a more virulent influenza (e.g. bird flu).

These conferences are essentially the same as war games that my National Guard unit used to hold, or having the hospital or EMS system hold a drill to see if people are prepared for an emergency (tornado, airplane crash, oil refinery fire, etc).

One of the saddest stories of the Covid epidemic is that the conspiracy theorists have decided that because these drills were held, that they were not practice drills but plans to take over the world by the evil powers that run the world.

Given the plans of the globalists, one can suspect they saw the actual epidemic as an opportunity to grab power, but the conspiracy theory ignores that the good guys are behind these plans, and many good guys are making the vaccines that saved millions of lives, not just of covid but of yellow fever, cholera, dipheria, polio, typhoid etc...... and they are preparing for future epidemics, hoping that the mRNA, and other newer vaccine technologies that will enable vaccines to stop the next epidemic, that will surely occur... 

Sigh.

Ozymandius call your office. We need to remember the past.

The Gilded Age: The untold story (or how not to pay taxes on your income)

One of the famous Philadelphia families in the gilded age was the Drexels: and one of the unhappy marriages in that family inspired one of the subplots of the hit series the Gilded age:

But the Drexels left other legacies.

Best known today for Drexel University of course.

 
But one of the Drexels philanthropic acts resulted in the tax code being amended, so that she didn't have to pay taxes on income that she gave to charity.

Full story here at the Arkansas Catholic:

This tax season, Americans have an unexpected figure to thank for one of their most-used deductions. She wasn't an accountant, a lawyer or even a politician, but an actual saint.

St. Katharine Drexel is well known for being a trailblazing figure in the early 20th century, championing the needs of Native Americans and Black Americans, but few know she may have the most lasting impact on philanthropy of any American in U.S. history.

Her unexpected role in the U.S. tax code began at the outbreak of World War I in 1913, which spurred the creation of the federal income tax...by 1917, the tax became a graduated one, sending Mother Katharine's tax bills skyrocketing and potentially endangering the charitable work of her religious order...

By 1924, Mother Katharine and her influential family successfully lobbied Congress for what later became known as the "Philadelphia nun provision." Under the provision, anyone who had given 90% of their income to the charity for the previous 10 years was exempt from income taxes...

The "Philadelphia nun provision" was eventually written out of the tax code in 1969, but Mother Katharine's influence on U.S. philanthropy can't be understated, Branch said. "The official language may be out of the code, but in general, it is the genesis of the charitable deduction that still exists," he said..

So who was Mother Katherine? A pioneer in education for black and Native American minorities.

As an heiress, she had a large income, which she used to fund educational efforts for minorities.

She saw the need for sisters to work to help, but when she asked the Pope for advice, he told her to do it herself. Voila, she started a new order of sisters, dedicated to educating blacks and Native Americans.

Indeed, I was a bit startled, when attending a meeting in the Tribal council of the Osage tribe, to find her (and another local nun)  portrayed in a mural of the history of the tribe, because of their work in education of tribal members.

But it might be the sister's education of black children that has a more lasting legacy: at a time when black schools were inferior they gave local children an alternative to get a better education.

My mother would send small donations to a friend of a friend who belonged to Mother Katherine's order, and taught in a black school in Lousiana.

Nowadays, the order is essentially gone: maybe because their work is no longer needed thanks to the civil rights movement that integrated public schools.

But one of her legacies is Xavier University.

headsup from the old curmudgeon blogspot.

Some good news

 Guess who is back?

Why do we love the series? Because of the potboiler plots, but also for ordinary folks, it's nice to see the problems of the rich and famous.

,,,,,,,,,,,,

 a few essays back, I moaned that the MSM tends to ignore ordinary families.
Well, maybe not. This one is on Netflix:

and it is not just pro family and funny in a silly way, but might be prophetic:

.......

In this PC world, how did someone make a film that is pro gun, with an ex Marine as a hero, and also has sympathy for those coming into the US illegally: but also showing the problem of the cartels and smuggling dope.

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we have HBO and other movie channels, but more often we just watch videos in the evening: One US film or drama, and then a Korean drama (with subtitles).

We also have been watching lots of Agatha Christie films on youtube, and many British TV series like Rosemary and Thyme, or Heartbeat. The problem? These tend to disappear, as have the Columbo and Murder She wrote videos there. Luckily I downloaded them so we can still watch them.

Some K dramas and movies, are on Netflix or on youtube but we watch them via Asian sites. 

The historical dramas are the best, but the modern ones are good too. 

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Musicals seem to be something that was done better in the past:  and in these, dance often brought joy to those watching the film:

  ........

I dare you to watch this without laughing:

  .....

and then there is this classic commercial (Stan Freburg of

 course)

  .....

I ran across this on youtube: 

  ....

.and alas her family's home in Fairfax is now deteriorating......if you know any millionaires who want to preserve historical homes, maybe they can restore her house. I mean, if Ted Turner could buy local ranches to keep buffalo on, maybe he could invest a bit into getting her family home restored.

....link

the Missing women

Domestic abuse is not a rare occurrence in the world, be it rich or poor, educated or drop outs, hetero or gay, with or without substance abuse history, and in all races and cultures.

We doctors often see cases of abuse, especially in the Emergency rooms, but more often we find it is the cause of our (usually female) patient's symptoms.

Often the patients never mention the abuse, but present with vague symptoms, (aka "somatization") and some end up seeking opioid drugs or tranquilizers to numb their depression (these make things worse and can cause addiction).

Many of these patients have had bad things happen to them, and often counseling and anti depressants help, but not if the cause is chronic abuse and the patient refuses to leave her "loving" spouse.

And sometimes the cause of the depression is complicated from family and societal problems that we docs can't really treat.

My last job in the US was working in the IHS, and we saw a lot of these cases there too, often from alcohol/drug abuse, broken families, etc. but with the complication of culture stresses: living in a minority culture that is despised by the mainstream culture.

So I was happy to find out that the Feds under Attorney General Barr are now funding an initiative to fight abuse, murder, and to help find the missing women from Native American reservations.

(headsup from TeaAtTrianon).

Why the Federal Government? Because the FBI is in charge of investigating major crimes like murder on the reservation. This initiative will extend their expertise to help local tribal police to investigate the less serious crimes and suspected crimes as in missing persons.

LINK1 is the Federal statement of goals and initiatives.

MMIP coordinators will work closely with federal, tribal, state and local agencies to develop common protocols and procedure for responding to reports of missing or murdered indigenous people

Specialized FBI Rapid Deployment Teams will bring needed tools and resources to law enforcement.

The department will perform in-depth analysis of federally supported databases and share the results of this analysis with our partners in this effort.

Summary of this can be found at the Epoch Times which notes the tribes are pleased but they note this is a small effort, and more is needed, given the extend of the problem:

The Urban Indian Health Institute found, citing statistics from the National Crime Information Center, that there were 5,712 reports of missing American Indian and Alaska Native women and girls in 2016 while only 116 cases were logged in the DOJ’s federal missing person database, according to a February report.

most of these are runaways or just people who decided to move away without telling anyone in their extended family, but too many are found dead and the reason is never discovered.






sigh.

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the problem of modernization causing the destruction of traditional cultures is world wide, and is the argument in the background of the Pope's "Amazon synod":

and the Pope is causing a debate by backing the clueless German/liberation theology liberals against the clueless traditional  Catholics, and the whole argument is frustrating to me because both sides are so embedded in ideology that they don't understand the problem.

Question: Do you respect the culture so much that you refuse to interfere with their customs, even terrible ones like infanticide, kidnapping women and children from other tribes,  etc.? 

And if you are "traditional" and want to convert them, do you understand that they don't think like you, so maybe you need to understand (and love them) and that a lot of good customs of their culture can be incorporated into their daily religious activity?

to quote Camus:

“The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point...there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.”

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so how does one understand a culture where people have different priorities and who think completely differently from your own culture?

reading anthropology books help. 

And sometimes ordinary books/movies give a little insight.

When I worked short term physician on the Navajo reservation, the nurses told me to read Tony Hillerman's books to get some understanding of everyday tribal customs and attitudes.

One of our docs would tell our visiting physicians that if they wanted to understand the frustration of our patients that sometimes would burst out with violence and substance abuse, they should watch the movie "Once Were Warriors", a film about the Maori trying to cope with modernism.

another more optimistic film that gives some insight to Indian humor being used to cope can be seen in Smoke Signals.

the film that alerted many Americans to the problem of the missing Native American was the film "Wind River", which I didn't like because it was a white person's point of view (why is the lead character a white guy? And the FBI agent was a clueless blond who didn't know it's cold in Wyoming in winter? Most of our FBI guys I met on the res were middle aged and had some knowledge of the culture.)

a quick google will give information about other aspects of the problem.

the MMIW is one organization that is helping families to search for their missing loved ones: VOA report on their work here.

the problem of missing women is also a problem in Canada LINK

and I won't even go into the many many reports of abuse at the boarding schools in the past.

Remembering the veterans

................

When I worked in the IHS, Many of our staff and patients were veterans.

This is about the memorial to honor them built by the Osage tribe...When I worked there, the tribe held a (healing) ceremony for those returning from Iraq.

their facebook page is HERE

Stories below the fold

A follow up on the kerfuffle of Eliz Warren claiming she was part Cherokee, although her family had no ties with the tribe nor did they keep any customs from that ancestor.

In the meanwhile, Trumpieboy signed the law to recognize the six Virginia unrecognized tribes.

....
.........
 ....

and now that Warren is again running, she is trying to make nice with groups that actually represent Native American interests, but some are sceptical given her lack of actual deeds. True, she is backing a law to have the Feds help with the Amerindian women who disappear, but this was done in 2018, probably thanks to the publicity on the problem with the film WindRiver... and the act is still in committee.

maybe she should start by helping the IHS, which is still a mess due to understaffing and lack of infrastructure.
Trumpieboy threatened to cut their budget, but replace it with grants.
Don't ask me... I've worked on and off in the IHS since 1974 and things did get better, but problems still remain. Tribal takeover is helping in some hospitals, but since I retired over ten years ago I am uncertain what's going on now.


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in the earlier post I mentioned the black Cherokees. Here is a film on that:

No CDIB card here, fellahs, just move along

Tulsa TV station posted the Cherokee response to Elizabeth Warren's blood test that show she might be 1/64th AmerIndian.

"A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship. Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person's ancestors were indigenous to North or South America.

Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation. Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong. It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is prove.

You need a CDIB card to get treated at an IHS hospital, or to be eligible for government benefits.

A Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood or Certificate of Degree of Alaska Native Blood (both abbreviated CDIB) is an official U.S. document that certifies an individual possesses a specific degree of Native American blood of a federally recognized Indian tribe, band, nation, pueblo, village, or community.[1] They are issued by the Bureau of Indian Affairs after the applicant supplies a completed genealogy with supporting legal documents such as birth certificates, showing their descent, through one or both birth parents, from an enrolled Indian or an Indian listed in a base roll such as the Dawes Rolls. Blood degree cannot be obtained through adoptive parents...

however, each tribe decides who they want to be members

For example, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians requires at least 1/16 degree of Eastern Cherokee blood for tribal membership, whereas the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Higher Education Grant for college expenses requires a 1/4 degree minimum.[2] A Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood does not establish membership in a tribe. Tribal membership is determined by tribal laws and may or may not require a CDIB or may require a separate tribal determination of ancestry or blood degree.[3]

How to get your CDIB card.

this sounds confusing, which it is, especially with urban Indians and with those who are of multiple tribal ancestry.

And the IHS won't treat you if you are from Mexico or Canada, even if your tribe has members on both sides of the border.

on the other hand, in Oklahoma, we did treat the Cherokee freeman, who would not pass a blood test.

and there are on going controversies about the "unrecognized tribes". Many of these have a long history that can be traced in county records, and are suing to get recognition.


In some states, due to intermarriage, there are a lot of people with some AmerIndian ancestry, especially in places like Tennessee or Oklahoma, most of whom never try to get benefits because they have assimilated into the white or black local communities and have no tribal ties.

but to be eligible for benefits and/or affirmative action, you are supposed to prove your ancestry via the CDIB card.

On the other hand, there are lots and lots of white folks who "discover" they have a "Cherokee" ancestor, and become "born again Indians", often pretending to be shamans to sell books or get prestige among their new age friends. Others, like Warren, use this vague history to get jobs, or to sell counterfeit art work and artifacts.

the real controversy about Warren is that she used her vague history to get an affirmative action spot. She now denies it, and an "investigation" has cleared her of this charge, but there are many places where the university mentioned her as a minority, so who told them she was a "minority"? Why would they do that if she hadn't used her "history" to get a job under affirmative action?

Of course, this is Harvard, who bragged about Warren being a "minority" while routinely discriminates against East Asians....

so the scandal is that essentially by lying/exaggerating her Indian ancestry, she got job preference over other minorities who actually had been discriminated against.

Now, affirmative action is supposed to be there to help those who had suffered discrimination. and to help those who live in poverty on the reservation, or as "urban Indians", not rich white folks from Tulsa who had no cultural tribal ties, but wanted freebies.

St Kateri and others who chose the best of both worlds

When two cultures meet, the result is not assimilation as much as keeping our own culture alive but taking the best part of the second culture and making it our own.

Filipinos are famous for doing that (Jolibee, anyone?) but before the snowflakes started getting hysterical, we saw this with the welcoming of Immigrants. Everyone won.

 we also see how immigrants in the US are keeping the often bland and boring Catholic churches alive and vibrant, from Vietnamese priests to Spanish language masses.

so my remark in the previous essay about Kateri combining Native American spirituality with Catholicism was showing that taking the good things from one culture to enrich your own (NOT replace it) is a good thing.

Our Catholic church in Pawhuska has a Kateri Shrine in the garden. They were still  building it when we moved here to the Philippines, but here is the statue of Kateri and a story about the shrine in the Osage news in 2012.

According to the Tulsa World, the Kateri shrine is inspired by the late Opal Delos Rector, an Osage who said she survived 24 years with breast cancer after praying to Kateri. In a 2001World article, Rector said: “I want the people of Pawhuska, and especially the Indian people, to know that God loves them and that he has given them a strong advocate

more photos HERE.

the church was built with Tribal money, so when the post Vatican II renovators tried to simplify (read destroy the fancy stuff) the place, the local tribal folks went to the priest and mentioned if he destroyed any more of their beautiful church they'd ask for their money back.

the Stained glass windows are beautiful... this one got mentioned in 405 magazine:

The Idea Was Conceived In Pawhuska And Brought To Life In Munich. But It Took A Ruling By The Holy See In Rome To Make The Osage Window A Reality. Towering at 36 feet, the window in Immaculate Conception Church memorializes the Jesuit priest John Schoenmakers. He lived and worked at the Osage Mission in Kansas for 36 years, from his arrival in 1847 until his death, bringing Catholicism, enthusiasm and supplies. Unlike previous missionaries, he encouraged the tribal members to adopt a blend of Christianity and traditional Osage culture. They coined the term “shouminka,” an affectionate version of his name, as the new Osage word for priest....

the Vatican had to give permission for the artists to portray living persons in stained glass windows.

For the landmark window, photographs of current tribal members in traditional Osage dress were mailed to Germany, where artists of the Bavarian Art Glass Company rendered their likenesses... Installed in the north transept, the Osage Window honors Schoenmakers with a perpetually attentive audience modeled after prominent tribal members of the time, including Chief Baconrind, Chief Saucy Calf and Arthur and Angie Bonnecastle. portraying living persons in a stain glass window is not allowed in Catholic churches.

The Osage are famous, of course, for their oil. But it didn't stop there.

The Osage are also famous for their ballerinas (e.g. Maria Tallchief) who grew up in nearby Fairfax

and they continue the tradition:

Oklahoma history (and the birth of the FBI)

the notorious Osage murders in the 1920's.

A good book. I worked there and knew the story, but even I learned stuff from the book.

soon to be a major motion picture:



FBI files can be read on Archive.org (all 19 volumes).

That's why they call it a tornado watch

There is an old joke: How can you tell if a person is from Oklahoma?

Answer: He is the one who stands outside in the thunderstorm looking at the sky.

Tornadoes can form quickly. During one warning, I stood outside and watched a funnel cloud form a mile away... it took 30 seconds. Luckily it also disappeared before it touched ground, but you get the idea.

The oldsters just ran to the shelters when the warnings hit (and our neighbors just put the kids into the shelter and left the door open to keep an eye on the sky.) One of my memories was trying to persuade Lolo to get into the neighbor's shelter (he wanted to put on his shoes and sock, not go in bedroom slippers). This was the middle of a hail storm, and the street was 4 inches deep in flowing water. We got him there with a minute to spare, but luckily the tornado hit a mile north of us so we were okay.


This CBS story asks why Tulsa's warning sirens didn't go off when a small tornado hit.

The officials said it was because by the time they got the radar warning, the tornado had moved on to Broken Arrow.

That sounds about right. Our sirens used to go off after the tornado had passed too, but in rural areas, you couldn't always rely on weather radios or the local media...we got our news from radio stations 30 miles to the east, 40 miles to the west, or 50 miles to the south. The best way to track what was going on was to check the local TV station for the map where the "warnings" were...  a big problem if they hit at night.

However, for huge tornadoes, which don't look like funnel clouds, these warnings are life saving.

Since we had a couple of tornadoes nearby every year, you can see the problem: often folks don't pay attention to warnings and watches unless the local conditions suggest one is nearby.

So I'm so glad I now live in the Philippines, where we only have to worry about typhoons, floods, earthquakes, and dengue fever.

Stuff below the fold

latest masterpiece theatre show worth watching:

however, the book has a lot more about animals, which in the TV series is more about the people.

book here.

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Huge political demonstration shuts down bridge and hiway in Chicago, gets in the headlines.



nah, it's only the Catholics praying for peace and remembering Fatima, so you won't read about it. Via FatherZ.

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Austin Bay discusses the art of the deal in North Korea.

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via StrategyPage:

Good news of the day: Colombia is prospering.

The bad news of the day: Venezuela is collapsing.

my son just finished a long visit to Colombia with his new (Mexican/American wife).

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tips on interpreting the fake news hype of the day.

actually, that is advice on how to handle terrorist events. but given the number of stories that are being hyped and retracted, it is a good way to read the ordinary MSM who are coordinating with Hillary's minions to overthrow the president.

headsup EdDriscoll at Instapundit, related item:

NICK GILLESPIE: All This Impeachment Talk Is Pure Trump Derangement Syndrome. “For god’s sake, they wanted him impeached even before he was the Republican nominee.”

The Russian story was concocted by Hillary  and so Muller will face the music if he doesn't go along with the predetermined meme...

Seth Miller, call your office...

update: Dilbert's take:

If you can sit passively while watching the Opposition Media turn “hope” into “asked Comey to end the investigation,” you are part of the slow assassination of President Trump. And you are also part of the slow assassination of the next president, and the next. If Trump goes down from leaks, Mutually Assured Destruction kicks in automatically.

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Sigh.... Tornado alley has these all the time.
One dead in Oklahoma.

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Quote of the week

via Dustbury (An Okieblogger):

Baton Rouge attorney Heather Cross, in a blistering Open Letter to the media

...Not one person I watched on the national news during the weeks following Alton Sterling's death, or the murder of three police officers gave my friends, my family, my neighbors - any credit or the benefit of the doubt. Nope. The entire news media looked for someone to blame...

So where are the reporters on the flooding?

 I think you people are stone cold silent about this flood, because really, there's no agenda to push. 

There's no side to take. There's nobody to blame. So even though you don't seem in the least bit curious, here's what's been happening around here since you left.

First - as previously stated. There was a Noah's Ark Level Flood.

It affected all of us. Black, white, dog, cat, man, woman, child, transsexual.

While it was still raining, a spontaneous, private, and well-meaning navy of ordinary people assembled themselves. They were black, white, asian and otherwise. They weren't protesting anything. They got into their own boats, spent their own money, spent their own time, risked their own lives. Black people saved white people. White people saved black people. Nobody asked what color you were before knocking on your door.

These are not first responders on some list somewhere. These are a bunch of guys who like to hunt and fish and as a result own flat bottom boats and they assumed that the actual police and other first responders, not to mention their fellow citizens - could use a little help.

So they just showed up. Nobody told them to. They wanted to....

I suppose a bunch of self-sufficient folks that actually love one another, and are trying to figure things out isn't as interesting to you as casting gross stereotypes over people who live fly-over country. But we are a little bit baffled after all that unwanted attention we got a few weeks back, when we actually need you to get the word out, you are nowhere to be found.

I posted this under "Oklahoma" because in previous disasters, I saw a lot of locals do just this:  went to help.

And others organized supplies at their churches and had their youth groups take them there.

In our prayers

Tornado season has started in the USA. Some hurt in the Tulsa area where I used to live.

Been there, done that....in Oklahoma, hiding out from tornadoes in our neighbor's storm celler (along with three women, four men, five kids and six pets) was something we did several times a year.

Ironically, however, I have also had close calls in Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Dakota and Pennsylvania. The difference is that usually these are small, not the dangerous F4 and F5 ones that hit the plain states.

AlJ  notes:

At least seven people were injured as storms brought devastation to several Midwestern states of the US.
Twelve tornadoes - including a number that touched down in northeastern Oklahoma - damaging hail and torrential rain smashed through homes and businesses, reducing them to a pile of sticks over two nights.

and before the obnoxious SJW start tweeting and commenting they deserved it, because it is God's Punishment for voting for Trump, please note: Oklahomans voted for Cruz and Bernie.

Vikings and Okies and Runes, oh my

via Medievalistnet.

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for later watching...

of course, back then, the Caddoan Mississippian culture was still around, so why didn't they wipe the Vikings out?

Floods in Oklahoma

LINK


in our prayers

Video downloads of the day

link

although I am sceptical that "better warning" will work all the time, or even if buying a "weather radio" is good advice if your town is between cities that have radio stations or you live in a rural area...so you go outside and look for the funnel cloud.

And when they strike at night, you are in deep doodoo...

if you don't have a basement (which we didn't) it means either driving downtown and hoping that someone remembered to bring the key to unlock the public shelter, or run across the street with Lolo to the neighbor's tornado shelter. 

The Twins find a home

Originally the twins were separated and cared for by their grandmother and great aunt, both of whom were aging and worried they'd die before the girls were grown. So they asked Congressman Mullin and his wife, who were part of the extended family, if they would adopt them.

then Mrs Mullin pulled what her husband calls the 'trump card'. She asked him: 'Would you pray about it?'

'How do you pray about that?' said Congressman Mullin at a town meeting in Henryetta, Oklahoma, last week.


'I mean, really. "Hey Lord, would you please, please make her heart as selfish as mine"?'
So instead he prayed that God would change his own mind, 'And man did He ever,' he says.
The Congressman, who himself is the youngest of seven, told TheHill: 'Our family prayed for God's will and He opened our hearts to the idea of adoption.
'We were unsure about whether, at this time, we could handle the extra responsibility,' he added. 'But God's timing is always perfect.'
Now the congressman - who is part of the Cherokee nation, just like his twin girls - says Lynette and Ivy have taught him more than he ever expected.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2406891/Oklahoma-congressman-Markwayne-Mullin-wife-reunite-twins-separated-birth-adopting-them.html#ixzz2dUyug4uy
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the part about being part Cherokee is important, because of the Indian welfare act. In the past, often children in "bad situations" were placed with loving white families, but the cultural differences resulted in problems. So now the rule is to try to find someone in the extended family to care for children (even if old, or too poor to meet the usual criteria such as separate bedrooms for each kid), and if there are no family members, then another tribal member, then to let someone in another tribe adopt, and then to allow someone with tribal ties but not a member to adopt, and only then to let a non Indian adopt.

The law has sometimes been misued, but as a whole is a good idea...

Stuff below the fold

Another day, another earthquake...this one in the south, not in our area.

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with all the headlines about storm chasers being killed or injured in Oklahoma, Dustbury has a photo showing a heck of a lot of stormchasers, and comments:

...Each of those little red dots represents a storm chaser. US 81 (the big vertical line) was just crawling with them....

you can’t really complain about the TWC team; corporate, over the years, has done everything short of parachuting Jim Cantore onto an ice floe in the Arctic. But the volume of chasers this time around suggests a high volume of people who just want their footage on YouTube to go viral. I’m not sure I’d risk my butt for that. It did not help matters in the least that one of the local television weather gods made noises to the effect that it might be possible to outrun the damned thing.

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Bookmarked for later reading: Mom Jones has an article on those protests in Turkey.

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The "Math is your friend" post of the day:

The BBC has a new program on Anne Boleyn, and one of the controversies is how old was she when she snared Henry.

leading to this sarcastic letter to the editor:

SIR – Throughout Thursday’s BBC Two drama-documentary The Last Days of Anne Boleyn, it was repeated time and time again that the story has divided historians for more than 600 years.

I know that time passes faster with increasing age, but Anne Boleyn’s death in 1536 still appears to be only 477 years ago. Mental arithmetic is evidently a thing of the past.

Robert Grindal
Reading, Berkshire

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Ancient French winemaking had it's roots in Italy.

but it originated in the middle East, and was brought to Italy by the Etruscans...

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Getting rid of sugar and replacing it with an herb.

I sometimes buy the local version of this: I want to grow it, but you need a clipping to get a plant that is sweet, since most of the plants aren't sweet, and the seeds don't replicate the parent in all cases. I tried using seeds, but none of the surviving plants were any good.

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There was a program awhile back about the libraries of Timbuktu, which have not yet been duplicated or examined in detail by the west.

But the BBC reports how a lot of them, and other treasures, were kept safe from the recent war.

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TORN has an Essay wondering if Tolkien would have liked Jackson's treatment of his writings.

No, he probably would not. But he was still poor when he sold the film rights, (and facing retirement with a tiny pension) so he was philosophical about it. And Jackson's fidelity to the story was a lot better than Hollywood's proposals in 1957...