This song is still unutterably sad to me. It was also the first real song I ever sang with my mom. I still remember hearing it when it was on the radio. I was about two. It’s one of my earliest, clearest memories, and one that I will probably have forever.

Say hi to her if you happen to see her, would you, Mary? You guys will probably wind up in the same neighborhood anyway. =)

I have to get a grip somehow. I have to. I just dont know how.

Where’s a good, high cliff when you need one?

Some folks continue to cry “BUZZKILL!” and “KILLJOY!” when they are reminded of what this day really represents. I dont care. What this day really represents is lies, thievery, rape, enslavement, and, finally, the widespread genocide of the peoples who called this country home for centuries before we ever got here. To this day they are outcasts on their own land, suffering more than any other people have suffered on this soil. This is the meaning of this day.

The settlers who came to Plymouth plotted against them on this day all those many years ago, to get the Indians out of their way so they could have the bounty of this land for themselves. They took all the Indians had to offer – gifts and hospitality without which they never would have survived – and in return for this kindness and generosity they butchered the Indians, men, women, and children, and enslaved the ones they did not slaughter. The Indians were rounded up and forcibly removed from the lands they had inhabited for generation upon generation and corralled into tiny areas which we, the usurpers, generously told them they could have as long as we didnt change our minds about wanting it. This land was often land that nobody else wanted or could use; useless for agriculture, often without water and with very poor hunting.

Today is the National Day of Mourning for the native peoples of this land, and while I hope that those of you who will be gathering with your family enjoy your day, I entreat you to spare a thought to the real meaning of this day. As you say your grace of thanks over your tables, remind those who are gathered of the people who have nothing to be thankful for, and at whose expense this day comes, and has come for nearly half a thousand years. They paid for your food and your football games and your gatherings and special shopping deals with their lands, their families, their blood, and their lives.

They still walk among us, these people. And they watch us on this day, and on Columbus Day, and they know that they will never be understood by the majority of people who grow impatient and frustrated and hostile when confronted by reminders such as these. I have chosen to stand with them and risk the annoyance of my fellow citizens, because I cannot do otherwise and still live with myself. I cannot partake of the celebratory meal without the stories and the history reverberating through my mind, causing the bile to rise and the food to stick in my throat.

Give thanks for what you have, and give thanks too that you have never had to pay for anything in your life the way they have had to pay for everything in your life.

So, happy Thanksgiving, folks. Enjoy your meals, your gatherings, and your holiday – and it is yours alone. It’s certainly not theirs, and it’s not mine, either.

Text of Wampsutta’s 1970 speech:

“I speak to you as a man — a Wampanoag Man. I am a proud man, proud of my ancestry, my accomplishments won by a strict parental direction (“You must succeed – your face is a different color in this small Cape Cod community!”). I am a product of poverty and discrimination from these two social and economic diseases. I, and my brothers and sisters, have painfully overcome, and to some extent we have earned the respect of our community. We are Indians first – but we are termed “good citizens.” Sometimes we are arrogant but only because society has pressured us to be so.

“It is with mixed emotion that I stand here to share my thoughts. This is a time of celebration for you – celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the white man in America. A time of looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People.

“Even before the Pilgrims landed it was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take them to Europe and sell them as slaves for 220 shillings apiece. The Pilgrims had hardly explored the shores of Cape Cod for four days before they had robbed the graves of my ancestors and stolen their corn and beans. Mourt’s Relation describes a searching party of sixteen men. Mourt goes on to say that this party took as much of the Indians’ winter provisions as they were able to carry.

“Massasoit, the great Sachem of the Wampanoag, knew these facts, yet he and his People welcomed and befriended the settlers of the Plymouth Plantation. Perhaps he did this because his Tribe had been depleted by an epidemic. Or his knowledge of the harsh oncoming winter was the reason for his peaceful acceptance of these acts. This action by Massasoit was perhaps our biggest mistake. We, the Wampanoag, welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people.

What happened in those short 50 years? What has happened in the last 300 years? History gives us facts and there were atrocities; there were broken promises – and most of these centered around land ownership. Among ourselves we understood that there were boundaries, but never before had we had to deal with fences and stone walls. But the white man had a need to prove his worth by the amount of land that he owned. Only ten years later, when the Puritans came, they treated the Wampanoag with even less kindness in converting the souls of the so-called “savages.” Although the Puritans were harsh to members of their own society, the Indian was pressed between stone slabs and hanged as quickly as any other “witch.”

“And so down through the years there is record after record of Indian lands taken and, in token, reservations set up for him upon which to live. The Indian, having been stripped of his power, could only stand by and watch while the white man took his land and used it for his personal gain. This the Indian could not understand; for to him, land was survival, to farm, to hunt, to be enjoyed. It was not to be abused. We see incident after incident, where the white man sought to tame the “savage” and convert him to the Christian ways of life. The early Pilgrim settlers led the Indian to believe that if he did not behave, they would dig up the ground and unleash the great epidemic again.

“The white man used the Indian’s nautical skills and abilities. They let him be only a seaman — but never a captain. Time and time again, in the white man’s society, we Indians have been termed “low man on the totem pole.”

“Has the Wampanoag really disappeared? There is still an aura of mystery. We know there was an epidemic that took many Indian lives – some Wampanoags moved west and joined the Cherokee and Cheyenne. They were forced to move. Some even went north to Canada! Many Wampanoag put aside their Indian heritage and accepted the white man’s way for their own survival. There are some Wampanoag who do not wish it known they are Indian for social or economic reasons.

“What happened to those Wampanoags who chose to remain and live among the early settlers? What kind of existence did they live as “civilized” people? True, living was not as complex as life today, but they dealt with the confusion and the change. Honesty, trust, concern, pride, and politics wove themselves in and out of their [the Wampanoags'] daily living. Hence, he was termed crafty, cunning, rapacious, and dirty.

“History wants us to believe that the Indian was a savage, illiterate, uncivilized animal. A history that was written by an organized, disciplined people, to expose us as an unorganized and undisciplined entity. Two distinctly different cultures met. One thought they must control life; the other believed life was to be enjoyed, because nature decreed it. Let us remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the white man. The Indian feels pain, gets hurt, and becomes defensive, has dreams, bears tragedy and failure, suffers from loneliness, needs to cry as well as laugh. He, too, is often misunderstood.

“The white man in the presence of the Indian is still mystified by his uncanny ability to make him feel uncomfortable. This may be the image the white man has created of the Indian; his “savageness” has boomeranged and isn’t a mystery; it is fear; fear of the Indian’s temperament!

“High on a hill, overlooking the famed Plymouth Rock, stands the statue of our great Sachem, Massasoit. Massasoit has stood there many years in silence. We the descendants of this great Sachem have been a silent people. The necessity of making a living in this materialistic society of the white man caused us to be silent. Today, I and many of my people are choosing to face the truth. We ARE Indians!

“Although time has drained our culture, and our language is almost extinct, we the Wampanoags still walk the lands of Massachusetts. We may be fragmented, we may be confused. Many years have passed since we have been a people together. Our lands were invaded. We fought as hard to keep our land as you the whites did to take our land away from us. We were conquered, we became the American prisoners of war in many cases, and wards of the United States Government, until only recently.

“Our spirit refuses to die. Yesterday we walked the woodland paths and sandy trails. Today we must walk the macadam highways and roads. We are uniting We’re standing not in our wigwams but in your concrete tent. We stand tall and proud, and before too many moons pass we’ll right the wrongs we have allowed to happen to us.

“We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands of the aggressor. We have allowed the white man to keep us on our knees. What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a more humane America, a more Indian America, where men and nature once again are important; where the Indian values of honor, truth, and brotherhood prevail.

“You the white man are celebrating an anniversary. We the Wampanoags will help you celebrate in the concept of a beginning. It was the beginning of a new life for the Pilgrims. Now, 350 years later it is a beginning of a new determination for the original American: the American Indian.

“There are some factors concerning the Wampanoags and other Indians across this vast nation. We now have 350 years of experience living amongst the white man. We can now speak his language. We can now think as a white man thinks. We can now compete with him for the top jobs. We’re being heard; we are now being listened to. The important point is that along with these necessities of everyday living, we still have the spirit, we still have the unique culture, we still have the will and, most important of all, the determination to remain as Indians. We are determined, and our presence here this evening is living testimony that this is only the beginning of the American Indian, particularly the Wampanoag, to regain the position in this country that is rightfully ours.”

http://www.nativevillage.org/Inspiration-/Thanksgiving%20The%20National%20Day%20of%20Mourning.htm

I wish he could have lived through this next election. I would have loved to hear what he had to say about it. I can’t believe that he’s gone. I really can’t.

A Marine was recently discharged from the service for tossing a puppy over a cliff while someone videotaped him. That little nugget ended up on YouTube. You could hear the puppy yelping as he went over. The Marine was laughing, even as his fellow Marines chastised him for doing it. I’m sure he’s not laughing now, but I can assure you he’s not crying as hard as I want him to be.

I want to know what in the fuck is wrong with people who will do this. It’s bad enough that these creatures never did a fucking thing to you. These are babies. They are utterly defenseless. They offer no threat of any kind, no resistance, they are literally no match for you. What the fuck is wrong with you? What the fuck are you thinking?

I tell you what. These people are fucking lucky as shit that I’m not a superhero. They’re lucky, but I think I might have a goddamn stroke.

Edit: And while I normally take the side of non-humans over humans, to be fair, I wanted to include this gem I discovered this morning while wrapping up a hearing I was working on: a 27-year-old man stomped a one or two-year-old toddler to death by the side of a highway in California on Saturday night. Several passers-by pulled over and tried to stop this man, and the cops had a chopper in the area, swung by, saw what this man was doing, and landed in the field next to the road. The officer was on the ground for less than two minutes, they say, before he made the decision to shoot this man because nothing would stop him from stomping this toddler to death.

They shot and killed him, but it was too late for the baby. Witnesses say that before the police got there, the man declared the child had “demons” in him, and though they tried, they couldn’t even pull him off the boy. Nothing would stop him from punching and stomping the kid to death by the side of the road. The police think they know who he is, but the beating caused so much damage they say it’s impossible to get a visual ID. Apparently, there was blood all over the cab of the pickup truck as well as all over the man himself and on the highway. I guess he sure did get those demons. More than he bargained for, maybe. Either way, not enough of them.

That week was able to distract me, more or less, from missing Yarrow, but it wasn’t able to distract me entirely, and now that I’ve been home a week and his remains have been delivered from the crematory service I send all my ratties to, the box is now resting in one of his favourite spots next to my window.

Yarrow was only just over a year old. From the time he was very young I had always noticed that he breathed a little too rapidly, a little too heavily. I knew it was a congenital defect, a growth – something that would never be able to be cured, only handled and maintained until it grew too severe for him to cope with. I hoped that he would be able to live longer than he did, and tried to give him the best life that I could while I had him. When he really began showing signs of distress in the beginning of March of this year, I took him in to verify what I had suspected all along: Yarrow had a massive growth in his lung. The tumour was so large it was literally squeezing the breath out of him; it took up nearly his entire chest cavity and not only inhibited his lungs but pressed against his windpipe. It was only a matter of time before this tumour suffocated him to death.

When I got him, he grew to be a very, very special rat to me. All my rats are special to me, but Yarrow was one of the different ones. He was mischievous and very, very smart, and full of fun. He was a practical joker. He used to play pranks on me all the time; he’d invent games, he’d play tricks on the other rats – and whenever he was up to his shenanigans he’d have an expression on his face that made him look EXACTLY like Harpo Marx. He used to sit and stare at me with that little masked face of his, and as he began to decline his eyes would never leave me. He rarely left my side, because I always knew I wouldnt have much time with him, but toward the end he was literally with me night and day.

The vet was very kind. He gave me steroids to inhibit the growth of the tumour as long as possible. My rat guru gave me a lot of support and advice and wholeheartedly and without hesitation offered to care for him while I was in New York.

The trip to New York was tormenting me. How could I leave him? Even with my rat guru, who knows more about these creatures than any human being I have ever met, it was not the same as me being here. He counted on me; he’d start to panic if I wasn’t around. How could I go off to New York and have a good time just at the time he needed me most? For the first time in my entire life, I hated – really hated – the idea of going on a trip. For the first time, I hated having to go to New York.

The weekend before I was set to leave, Yarrow worsened. A day or two later, I knew there was pretty much nothing more that could be done for him. I waited, spending as much time with him as I could, and that Tuesday night, he began to show the first real signs of being unable to breathe. Wednesday, he grew worse and started having his first gasping episodes. He was eating, he wanted to play, he wanted to cuddle, he was a normal, healthy rat in every way – except that he had an alien in his chest that was squeezing the life out of him with each passing moment, and now he was suffering.

I put Yarrow to sleep on Thursday morning. He died easily, surrounded by love and familiarity, not strangers or a cold examination room being handled by people who he did not know. He simply went to sleep. He wanted to live. I wanted him to live. But there was nothing either one of us could do, and letting him die a death of slow suffocation was simply not an option. I wasn’t feeling guilty; just heartbroken.

The cruel irony of it all is that one thing Yarrow used to particularly enjoy was smelling the air. From when I first got him, every time a breeze would blow in through the window, he’d raise his head and sniff and sniff and sniff and sniff. He’d lie in front of the window by the hour, sleep in front of the window. He loved to breathe. I gave him all the air I possibly could for as long as I possibly could.

Well, this is a testament to my boy. I love my other rats completely, and I am trying hard not to neglect them, but I miss Yarrow very, very much. So now what is left of his physical form sits in a handsome box in his old spot in front of the window. He may not be able to breathe the air anymore, but still it surrounds him, and true to my word, I will never abandon him. He’ll be with me always, just like all my other rats will. I just wish that things could have been different.

Safe journeys, Yarrow, my shining little masked prankster. Thank you for coming my way.

This post was edited to correct the dates, because I’m a dumbass. No number shall escape me unmangled!

He’s still a complete and total asshole.   I can see now why they stuck together for so long.  They are both so selfish, pretentious, and insufferable that nobody else could possibly stand to be near them, and my brother is such a witless moron that the idea of his surviving on his own is pretty much out of the question.
It’s funny how a one-line email can impart so many things, isnt it?