{"id":3285,"date":"2011-10-11T09:53:50","date_gmt":"2011-10-11T15:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3285"},"modified":"2011-10-11T13:42:27","modified_gmt":"2011-10-11T19:42:27","slug":"back-at-the-phd-piled-high-desk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3285","title":{"rendered":"Back at the PhD (Piled-high Desk)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rose<\/a>

Rose hips and buffalo berries on the North Dakota prairie. Sharptail grouse like them.<\/p><\/div>\n

It was good to disappear. I geocached along the Niobrara River,<\/a> hunted ducks in North Dakota \u2014 where “to combine” is the verb of autumn, and you accent the first syllable \u2014 and ended up finally at the Black Hills Powwow <\/a>in my old hometown of Rapid City.<\/p>\n

I ate way too much greasy food in small-town cafes but have also been reminded how much I like the taste of wild duck. I watched a badger\u00a0 roam in the great empty heart of South Dakota, which is how I designate all the country south of Lemmon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More about the powwow later.<\/p>\n

I returned to find the “progressive” blogosphere enjoying its annual Ten Minutes of Hate against Christopher Columbus, whom we apparently must now regard not\u00a0 as a 15th-century European with the mindset of his time but as truly evil<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Italian immigrants and their descendants who pushed for the holiday were not celebrating evil, notes political blogger Walter Russell Mead<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In American history, the fight to make a holiday on Columbus Day actually had almost nothing to do with the actual arrival of Christopher Columbus in the western hemisphere.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t about celebrating the European conquest of the Americas or the extirpation of the native tribes.<\/p>\n

The day was made a holiday after years of lobbying as a way of recognizing the contribution of Roman Catholics and immigrants generally to American life.\u00a0 It is a holiday to celebrate diversity, not to commemorate the imperial outreach of Ferdinand and Isabella, a deeply regrettable couple who were notorious oath breakers, inquisitors and anti-Semites.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Not marching, but dancing.<\/p><\/div>\n

Meanwhile, at the powwow \u2014 and it is no coincidence that it was held October 7th\u20139th \u2014 American flags were much in evidence and military veterans danced first, as happens at most powwows.<\/p>\n

Isn’t culture complicated?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was good to disappear. I geocached along the Niobrara River, hunted ducks in North Dakota \u2014 where “to combine” is the verb of autumn, and you accent the first syllable \u2014 and ended up finally at the Black Hills Powwow in my old hometown of Rapid City. I ate way too much greasy food […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,26,13],"class_list":["post-3285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-culture","tag-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-QZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11020,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11020","url_meta":{"origin":3285,"position":0},"title":"Playing Heathen Neo-folk on North Dakota Highways","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 16, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I was on my way to a little town in North Dakota where a friend lives about at the intersection of Norway and Washington streets \u2014 can you get any more perfect than that? And every little town is dominated by a Lutheran steeple. A friend in Poland and I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"music\"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=music"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/finley-lutheran-church.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12523,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12523","url_meta":{"origin":3285,"position":1},"title":"A Libation for the Mother River","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 28, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I wrote earlier about the hitchhiker whom I called Travis, a post writen on the 19th of October, mostly at the Twenty Below coffeehouse in Fargo, North Dakota, waiting to drive an old friend home to his tiny prairie town after he had been poked and prodded and MRI'd all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/missouri-at-fort-pierre-300x188.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1209,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1209","url_meta":{"origin":3285,"position":2},"title":"Fisher at Carhenge","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"On the way home from North Dakota, Fisher and I stopped at Carhenge. The Wikipedia article compares it to its inspiration in England.","rel":"","context":"In \"travel\"","block_context":{"text":"travel","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1214,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1214","url_meta":{"origin":3285,"position":3},"title":"Did a ‘Pagan’ Bury the Staffordshire Hoard?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"The \"Staffordshire Hoard\" is a cache of 7th-century Anglo-Saxon sword jewels and other items recently found in England (and a great boost for metal-detector sales, no doubt).The caption on one slide of the golden hoard suggests that because a gold cross was folded in on itself before burial, the person\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1061,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1061","url_meta":{"origin":3285,"position":4},"title":"On the Road","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Blogging will be sketchy for the next week, as I am on the road, my destination being first, a small town and an old friend in eastern North Dakota -- and then possibly the Turtle Mountain area of that state.Tonight I fetched up in Valentine, Nebraska (more than halfway there!),\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"travel\"","block_context":{"text":"travel","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1063,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1063","url_meta":{"origin":3285,"position":5},"title":"The Pulley that Broke the Plains","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 15, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"A close-up of pulleys and chains on that operated an old McCormick combine, one designed to be tractor-pulled rather than self-propelled.I am no expert on agricultural implements, but I suspect that it dates from the 1950s, no later.It seems to be part of the prairie aesthetic to park obsolete threshing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"travel\"","block_context":{"text":"travel","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3285"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3293,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3285\/revisions\/3293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}