Ravenspeaker

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Thoughts about Christmas- We used to have Civilization in America. The simplest way to describe a civilization is as a society where everybody influences everybody else toward common meaning, culture and traditions of acceptable behavior. Some people, probably confusing the word with colonization, hate the word.

Christmas is a good example of what is ailing American Civilization. A few readers might love to see American society decline and depress itself. But the fall of a civilization has never in history been a happy event filled with joy and gladness. As an American Indian, part of 2% of the population I am not looking forward to the chaos when the 98% is no longer civilized.

Other readers will think I exaggerate. But, kids today have no idea what a big deal Christmas was in America even 20 years ago. I have been to three malls this week and none of them have a third as many people in them as would have been true in the 80s and 90s.

Don't give me Amazon either! Half the people wandering the malls back in the day were not there just to shop. Anyone who simply hates capitalism or "commercialism" has missed this entirely.

Christmas is a cultural phenomenon. It once was a religious activity, but it has been centuries since that was true. Americans would happily walk down the street spreading good cheer to everyone for no other reason than it being Christmas. Not "the Holidays", Christmas.

If you live in an Urban Environment there will be thousands of people living within a mile of you. Almost everyone of them, even many who are not religious or even born here, will regard Christmas as important, though probably less so today than 20 years ago.

Christmas is dying. Everyone who said there was no war on Christmas were those special types of liars who look you in the face with a smile and assure you what you see happening isn't happening at all. Saying Happy Holidays does nothing for anyone. Saying Merry Christmas brings cheer to many. If there is some group that legitimately suffers when they hear it, this is no reason for everyone to stop saying it to anyone. It is no reason to tell people to use meaningless expressions that bring cheer to no one.

I will start the process. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Ravenspeaker

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We don't live in a democracy. To be transparent, I am what used to be called liberal but is today called libertarian. I am neither conservative nor progressive so those viewpoints arent promoted or attacked here.
The United States was never organized to be a democracy and the Constitution goes out of its way to prevent what the Founders called "mobocracy" from ever happening here. Certain politicians and almost all media repeatedly use that phrase to describe us as if majority rules is always good and always sacred.
If you are a minority and think for five minutes you can suddenly appreciate occasions where half the voters plus one might want some law passed that would not be good for you and definitely not sacred. If you are minority you can think of actual historical examples to prove the point. Democracy can and will devolve into tyranny.
Today, people in Canada and the UK sit in jail for activity protected in this country by our Bill of Rights. Both those countries have the misfortune of being democracies. Half the voters, plus one, get whatever they want no matter who suffers. Its all well and good until you are in the half the voters minus one crowd. The technical term for this unhappy but "morally superior" system is bu****it.
I especially do not like this idiotic phrase some politicians use. "Save Democracy".

We need to be saying instead "SAVE THE REPUBLIC"
That is your morally superior system and it's amazing we let ourselves be educated (brainwashed?) out of understanding that.

Your friendly neighborhood Ravenspeaker

My thoughts on the Charlie Kirk situation-

If a man disagrees with your point of view and is able to hold his ground in a debate, he is not an enemy. You don't make enemies by scoring points in a discussion unless your opponents are psychotic.

I am sorry and not sorry to inform you that I question your humanity if you are pleased that a father and husband is dead for the crime of disagreeing with some deranged lunatic. There is no excuse. He did not have a single opinion that calls for his ex*****on. There no such opinions in the United States. I will not argue the subject.

No one should die because they have a political opinion and are able to persuade others to adopt it.

Your friendly neighborhood Ravenspeaker

High School Reunions- I suppose we all have at least one person we wish we could have said a deeply meaningful thing to back when it could have made a difference. For years I was only able to avoid eye contact with two such persons from my high school while offering some mumbling hints at the truth. The stories of what really happened are major themes in my book "Building a Man" which I am honored to know some of you have read.

About a year ago I finally had a heart to heart with the less intimidating of the two and told her how she changed the course of my life and taught me self respect. She had no idea she had any impact on me let alone being such a needed person in my journey through life. Hearing her declare herself honored and even flattered changed something in me and I only regret not having that conversation with her way back in the day.

Readers will know immediately who that person is by the clues I have laid down here. They will also know who the other person is by what I am about to say. Over the years I had admitted to admiring her in flippant, throw away, "used to feel that way" language. I would be an idiot if I thought she would have taken any of these weak "confessions" seriously. What I had never done is look her in the eye and express what never really left my heart.

I finally got a chance to do that at a small gathering the night before our high school reunion.

I was surprised at how nonthreatening she was when I spoke decades of suppressed truth. I was surprised how unthreatened she was by it. She was relaxed, interested and predictably denying of any claim to being special, which of course she practically defines.

There are two moments that stand out which might teach more people than just me: First, she repeated something several times, I had once overheard her say to someone else after one of my pathetic throw away "admissions".

"I wish I would have known that then," which was a pleasant thing to overhear, but not exactly saying I would have gotten a date to the prom if she had. I heard it very differently last night when she said it to me several times. We had talked about my personal struggles once or twice while I was writing the book that includes this story. She never suspected any of it or how I hated myself or didn't feel worthy even of having a pleasant chat with her in the lunchroom or something. We both understood she was including this recent knowledge in what she was saying.

"I wish I would have known that then," It doesn't matter if I ever could have gotten a date to the prom, though it seems less impossible today for me to have at least tried those decades ago. I declared my eternal friendship and devotion last night. She let me know I always had hers then she invited me to come sit at the table the rest of her friends were at.

Life seems to need concern from others and concern for others to live at all. I would like to thank the Goddess of Cleveland High for being my friend. I am definitely hers.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Ravenspeaker

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Here is what is wrong with what we pretend is the culture today in one casting decision: a rule in storytelling is 'what it's about is who it's about' and generally we want the characters we are learning about to stick out in some way. It's easier to figure out who they are if there is something about them that has more of some trait than the average person would, less of it or they are completely unlike the typical Joe entirely.

The original Star Trek is so memorable because each of the main characters does this. One of my favorite characters was Uhura whose name is a slightly mispronounced version of the word "freedom" in Swahili. Nichelle Nichols was almost too much for my pre adolescent senses and I always loved her.

The next time they cast the character they found Zoe Saldana who also managed to keep me awake at night as a full grown man. I had a girlfriend at the time from Kenya who informed me Ms. Saldana could easily pass for a resident of Nairobi walking down the street. Great casting decision.

Most people are unaware there is a new person in the role these days. Most people are unaware there are new Star Trek episodes available. Why?

A part of the problem is explained in the casting. We are accustomed for Uhura, for example, to be a super model. The new actress plays her as competent at her job and other things we are told is what we are supposed to admire in women because no one is ever supposed to notice if a woman is good looking. Only terrible people like good looking women and there is something wrong with you if you aren't in love with someone who is nice and maybe a few pounds over weight and has a boyish haircut.

It's the preaching in today's culture that fails. I probably would be good friends with the actress whose name i never learned because the New Star Trek is almost unwatchable and knows better than me what the right attitudes about everything should be. None of the traditional stories I tell manage to come across that way even though they are about morality.

The next Uhura should be smart, competent and friendly while being drop dead gorgeous. Enough with the preaching already.

Your friendly neighborhood Ravenspeaker

Have you ever had the experience of not being able to learn something or do something no matter how much you tried this or that to get better? What about realizing there was something in the situation you didn't even know you didn't know?
It can be very embarrassing to be so certain you will "get it right this time" only to stumble or even fail yet again. I have recently become convinced of the theory there is only ever one cause for this kind of activity or learning blindness. I have known about this idea for many years and casually agreed with it but my eyes were opened this weekend to just how true, important and far from casual it is.
If you can't do something, can't learn something or can't find any point of agreement when you hear someone say something there is a word important to the understanding of the subject that doesn't mean what you think it means.
If you are smart this is especially dangerous because "of course I know that word"
Yeah, do you know all 7 definitions of that word as found in the nearest dictionary? I will bet money if you get down to the bottom of a page and have no idea what you just read, just before you went blank, will be a word the dictionary defines differently (sometimes only slightly different) than you do; and that difference is not a casual, who cares, kind of thing. You can't do it because you don't know EXACTLY what is meant. Getting this and acting on it will change your life.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Ravenspeaker

I am going to try and mention something that got me in some hot water a couple weeks back. Such things only matter to me when I can't figure out how it happened. I think I got a clue in this instance.

Every man can think of at least one guy, probably several, who is NOT impressive in anyway a man could understand; yet his girlfriend is the most desirable woman in the room. Every man has asked himself: how did that happen? While much is said about subjective beauty and the eye of the beholder and all the rest; there is still such a thing as OBJECTIVE beauty and it's on the rare side without being terribly scarce.

What I realized is that men and women go down different checklists when deciding who to be excited about.

I have mentioned the show Heart Signal previously. As a logic based decision maker I find it helpful when writing characters in my stories to study how emotion can lead to decisions by watching Korean Dating shows. Culturally Koreans are much more expressive emotionally and the women are far less hesitant than American girls to express interest. Perhaps this is because her parents have to approve of the guy before things get too far but I am not sure.

The most "unimpressive guy" in these shows often gets one or more total beauties completely excited about him. I don't mean interested, I mean full blown, will do anything for you, crushes. At first I couldn't understand it, the Pilsbury Doughboy rarely has much personality either so why do these super models ignore every other guy in the room including your stereotypical bad boys and muscle dudes to go all in for Elmer Fudd?

What I picked up on is they give off other cues proving they are reliable, emotionally stable and ready to assist in an emergency. Men don't normally ask their girlfriends to come over and help move a couch or whatever. They get their homies for that. Not a cue men are looking for.

Reliability in emergent situations does seem to be a cue women look for. P*e Wee Herman down the street has a chance if he projects it.
Now, I got roasted for suggesting men do not choose women based on their job (a reliability cue if there ever was one). I got scolded for saying things I didnt actually say about women needing to stay home or some such nonsense. This was way more sensitive a topic than I thought it would be. I think a woman's job might say something interesting about her personality but it will be the personality not the job title that closes the deal for him.

The bank teller has just as much a chance with most guys as the manager or even the coroporate vice president. Her job title isn't the cue. Just like the out of shape dad bod having guy on all these dating shows ends up with someone who looks like she should be a member of Blackpink, a guy will date a woman who scoops ice-cream all day long just as quickly as the owner of the shop.

Now if I get in trouble for that I won't know what to think.

Your Friendly neighborhood Ravenspeaker

Public Statement: A dear friend advised me to finally make a statement about the incident that caused me to withdraw from my public life. I have decided to take her advice. Nearly eleven years ago someone I cared for deeply died. Virtually everything I was doing among the people died soon after. My only comfort and outlet became my children, teenagers at the time, and they and now my grandchildren became almost my entire social life.

By the time of the memorial service, several days had passed, and we became aware of a group of gossips telling each other fantastic stories about me and this person after her death. I couldn't deal with it. It was why I pulled away from people and just focused on being a dad. Today, I do not think I did the right thing. I have come to believe that walking away validated lies being spread about myself and her.

By becoming a hermit and reliable friend only to my children and grandchildren I did not do my duty to my community and share my gifts and talents where they might have found use. I also likely delayed my own healing by isolating myself and not tending to my open wounds. I have had a number of spiritual experiences in the past few months that have made me see all this differently.

I am declaring my intention to rejoin the American Indian/Alaska Native community. I ask forgiveness for being a rare sight and further ask patience as I cautiously reemerge into it. I will never defend myself against what never happened. I will answer any questions honest people have, but not publicly. If anyone has anything to say to me let them say it to me and not this person, that person and the other person besides. I don't want to give the gossips any details they can use to create more stories.

Thank you, and if you feel a need to know more you can message me directly. I repeat, I will not make any details public; nor will I confirm or deny anything that might be a detail in public. I have made this decision long ago to protect the honor of a deceased loved on.

Ravenspeaker

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Thoughts about Opinions- I am a classical liberal in my political views. This is a loose collection of principles rather than a well defined ideology most of which, these days, are called 'libertarian' with a small 'L'. This is because the big "L" Libertarian party has gotten loudly ideological and because modern liberalism often is too.
I don't like ideology which is basically no different from faith. It's why I sometimes refer to certain philosophies and political views as religious. A faith is something you belief in so strongly you act on it without the need for testing it to see if it's true. Why would you? You believed it before you ever heard any proof.
That's the heart of our problems socially today. We all believe things so deeply we aren't open to differing views. We hear something we find challenging and think we have a right to be offended.
I realized recently after a spat with a friend of mine that even I am not immune. I was troubled at how upset I got. I don't like being told to go read some article that supports the other persons point of view as if I have never read anything that supports mine.
What I realized is that me believing this, and she believing that, really doesn't matter. I appreciate her for other things so why dwell on conversation that gets both of us upset?
It's not so much that isn't shouldn't say what I think. I just have the idea that what I think really only matters to me just as what she thinks matters to her. I have decided to be more aware of such things and offer a general apology to everyone I ever forgot this with.
-Your friendly neighborhood Ravenspeaker.