‘Commentary’ Archives
It Ain”'t Easy Being”¦
By Peter Molenaar Just as the “Raise Your Voice” column appears once a month inside the back cover of “The Alley” so does Ricey Wild”'s “It Ain”'t Easy Being Indian” appear monthly in “The Circle”. Both columns should be regularly read. Admittedly though, for insightful truths elevated to the level of a belly laugh, Ricey is the one. In the April issue, the after-life is pondered via her childhood encounter with an evangelistic revival. She wryly states: “Until then I didn”'t know I was supposed to want eternal life”¦at the time mine was okay except for school and chores.” She goes on: “If I only knew then what I know now! GRRR! I could have been so mean, bad”¦freely hated, had B2 bombers full of cold cash, shoes and Ferraris to crash, and still in the end hang out in Heaven. Because I was saved! Yet, regarding the “straight and narrow”, Ricey says: “It is my [...]
Frank Reflections
By Frank Erickson It is intriguing how the financial hierarchy unfolds on our planet””there are 7 billion of us, and 6 billion of us live on less than $12,000.00 per year. 5 billion of us get by on less than $4,000 a year, and over 1 billion get by on only $1.25 per day”¦and I saw this investment expert on PBS, she told the all-white audience, “ you each will need at least a million dollars to retire on”, how privileged to say such an insane thing. So why would it make little sense for this investment expert to go to a desolate Native reservation in South Dakota, and tell them that they each needed a million to retire on, but it makes perfect sense to tell this to as group of white Americans? It is important for me to remind myself on a regular basis that this continent and all its wealth do not exist solely for whites. Who decided that the wealth of North America was going to be divided up based on the white men”'s capitalist [...]
