The Only Thing Constant is Change

Hello folks in TV and Radio land!

This is Elvagabundonumerouno dropping in from the comfort of a leather lazy boy recliner in the town where I grew up, Clarkston. Looking out the back sliding-glass door, I can see the glistening lights of Lewiston across the Snake River. If it weren't for said river, life in "the valley" would most definitely be less enjoyable, or maybe not even exist. The first Western U.S. historians found the Nez Perce Native Americans living on a plateau on the Eastern side of the river at the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake Rivers. As I write about the native peoples that inhabited this land long before any European ancestors even set foot on the continent, I start to wonder what the indigenous people's names for the rivers are. Did the U.S. Government ever consider repatriating the initial names of geographical landforms and monuments when they granted them the rights to utilize destructive yet lucrative vices on their small plots of land? It seems like relatively small pickens in the vast scheme of the brutalization that the natives had (and still have) to endure. I can only imagine the uproar that Patriotic U.S. Citizens would launch at such an idea. But I am a firm believer in euphemisms, cliches, and other corny sayings such as "you must reap what you sow". I also believe that the price for what was done to indigenous peoples not only here in the U.S., but everywhere around the globe has not been paid even in part. That being said, it seems to me only right that the economy is in shambles, that the "happiness index" continues to fall, and that the debt our nation has amassed is at an all-time high. What doesn't seem right to me, and what all U.S. residents might not know is that corporations have the same rights as individuals, political elections are bought, and that the U.S. Government spends way more money on military spending (foreign wars, "homeland" security, and surveillance technologies) than education. The above examples represent issues of structural violence that is now legitimized and normalized to the point where they are not very important to the average "American". And I could probably sit here in my lavish lazy boy bitching and moaning about what I may or may not believe to be just in today's society for four more hours. Instead I think I'll go to bed and follow up on el primer blog del vagabundonumerouno manana. Oh, one more thing. I stole the title of this blog from a Volcom sweatshirt I saw years ago. Petty much?