Belcourt’s Edsel

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It Took 50 Years For America To Come Up With Another Edsel

The original lasted two years before the plug was pulled and there was only a feeble effort to sell the third year models. Obama is basically finished after two years, he will surely become insignificant during his third year and it is doubtful whether he will complete his fourth year.

Most of us have gathered up a few friends in our lifetime and I have had my share of colorful friends. One of my favorites was Belcourt. He was an Indian or Native, depending on whose book of political correctness and nonsense you have borrowed, but Belcourt wasn’t just an Indian, he was one of the biggest and strongest men I have ever known. He could have destroyed men on a football field and run with the fastest, but sports isn’t what interests men like Belcourt. He preferred hunting and fishing, he loved drinking huge quantities of beer, driving Cadillacs and huge Indian women. In the White Man’s World, I am considered a fairly big man at 6 foot two, 260 pounds, but around Belcourt, his family, and friends, including the women, I was so small that I was the butt of continuous jokes and laughter.

I sat at his table many nights and watched him and his brothers consume a stack of “boiled” moose steaks stacked higher than a long neck beer bottle: I’m not talking about one plate for several men, I’m talking about a stack in front of each man. No potatoes, no bread, no beans, just boiled moose steak; when you boil moose steak it turns a grayish brown and isn’t that appetizing for me, but Belcourt and his brothers loved boiled moose steak.

I’d take one steak and scrounge around for some onions and turnips and cook my steak with butter in a skillet with a pinch of salt and some cracked pepper. They thought I was hilarious and a typical White Man. For many Native people, a White Man is to be pitied and treated as if he was a little touched in the head. You see it is their culture, for them it is enough to hunt and fish for their basic needs; jobs with wages are something you do as a last resort to purchase a specific item, like a used Cadillac or in this case an Edsel. For the Indians like Belcourt, a Cadillac is the only car they can squeeze into or that will carry three or four of them.

Despite their size these Indians are often horsemen, if they don’t ride, they can tie a diamond around panniers and a top pack as well as any man alive, Belcourt also skidded logs with a horse with an agility that defied description.

I admired these people, but when they were drinking alcohol, I kept my distance. They often fought with knives over the silliest arguments and once the cutting was over, they usually required several hundred stitches; however, they rarely carried a grudge and were usually the best of friends the next morning.

They were always in the mood for a good joke, for laughter and good spirits came easily to my big friends.

I liked working with Belcourt in hunting camps or logging camps; you never felt like you were carrying someone else’s load when he was with you, more than likely he was carrying some of your load. Packing in supplies with Belcourt was a different deal. I always packed a horse at 140 pounds for a long distance, (15 to 20 miles per day of mountains and rivers). The weight had to be balanced equally between the panniers with lighter bulkier stuff or perhaps a wall tent wrapped in a tarp for the top pack. Belcourt didn’t want to ride, even though we had Clyde and Percheron crosses that could have packed him well enough. He packed 140 pounds on his back and broke trail ahead of the horses. On one trip the temp was hot for that country, I’d guess it was approaching 80 degrees; it was an uphill grade and the sweat was pouring off the horses. Belcourt stopped at a little creek and told me that the grade and heat was too hard on the horses and that I should rest them and let them have a drink before heading for camp. He gave a little smile and took off at a fast walk to get camp ready, with 140 pounds on his back.

To many more civilized people, Belcourt would appear uncouth and out of a period of history that passed long ago, but to me he was a Hell of a friend.

He came to me once to ask me about buying an Edsel. I’d never seen an Edsel and didn’t know the first thing about them, but Belcourt had a picture of one and he was intrigued by the harness horse work collar appearance of the grill. He was a Cadillac man that was for sure, but since Ford was willing to incorporate such a piece of the horse world into the design of their vehicle he thought he might just take a chance and buy one. He thought with all my home school study and reading, I might know about this wonderful new car. Sadly, my education didn’t deal with cars all that much, so we studied the picture for an hour or so and made many judgments as to the abilities of the Ford Edsel.

Belcourt then told me for the hundredth time how his father’s first car had been a Packard Convertible and how he approached the car with the keys behind his back so as not to frighten the car and cause it to run away like a green colt. When he was close enough, he jumped into the car, put the key into the ignition, pushed the starter and took off at full throttle. He came back the next day on foot with no car; they never found out if he ran out of gas, wrecked it, sold it, or just grew tired of riding the steel horse. We laughed and laughed at the funny notions of the old people, but in my heart, I knew that Belcourt was not all that far beyond the silly notions of the old people.

Belcourt bought the used 58 Edsel and I was anxious to see his new car, but that was never to be, for fate had other plans.

Belcourt never drove anywhere without at least a cooler of beer on the seat next to him and we aren’t talking about watered down American beer we are talking about Canadian beer that is considerably more potent. Now in BC, between Chetwynd and Dawson Creek, there is one of the steepest hills in North America called the East Pine Hill. Just downstream from the confluence of the Pine and Murray Rivers it is quite a hill or maybe a canyon. Belcourt had been following a foreign car that was probably a Volkswagen judging from his description. He felt sorry for them because they were so fearful of the down hill section of the hill and they seemed to be scared of the narrow bridge that is fairly high above the river. When they struggled to get momentum up the hill, Belcourt thought he would do them a favor and push them up the hill with his new Edsel.

Easing up behind them, he gently engaged their rear bumper with his front bumper and gradually increased his speed to help them up the mountain road. He maintained that he had to keep increasing his speed or he would lose contact with their bumper; consequently, the people in the VW were quite excited about being pushed up the hill, they were waving at Belcourt and he was waving back, only too happy to be of assistance. At the top of the hill, Belcourt’s speedometer was reading 110 MPH, he applied the brakes and let them continue on ahead.

He said they pulled over to let him pass and he waved at them once again while he drove on toward Dawson Creek at around 80 MPH. The people in the VW stopped at the Groundbirch store and made a call on the pay phone to the Dawson Creek RCMP and the local gendarmes had a road block set up near the entrance to the city. Belcourt said they arrested him and towed his car away, but he wasn’t all that upset since he didn’t really like the Edsel all that much, he had decided that he was a Cadillac man and they could keep the Edsel.

Now I am sure that the people in the VW were quite content to make their way up the hill at their own pace; it was Belcourt who took it upon himself to give them a boost up the hill and despite trying to wave him off, with furious hand and arm signals, Belcourt continued on with his personal mission of showing them a new way.

In our current political situation, Obama is driven to take us up the steep hill of Socialism and like Belcourt, he is oblivious to our protests and considers us to be, a little stupid because of our inability to see his wisdom. Unfortunately, there is rarely intelligence involved when a leader is an ideologue.

Belcourt may have scared the people in the VW, but they arrived at the top of the hill in one piece and ready to resume their normal lives: Obama has people losing their homes and their businesses and he is still driven towards his mission. The welfare of the average American is inconsequential when compared to the magnitude of Obama’s dreams of Scialism: Belcourt cared for the welfare of his captive audience, Obama only cares about his dreams of Socialism.

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Boxer’s Indian casino ties.

http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2010/10/30/boxers-indian-casino-ties/

Oddly, the original story about Senator Barbara Boxer (D, CA), Boxer’s son, a regenerated Native American tribe, and a rapidly-looming San Franciscan casino seems to have disappeared from The Hill’s site, but a copy can be found here. It’s fascinating reading.

The short version: back in the 1990s, Rep Lynn Woolsey introduced legislation that would reinstate an officially defunct Native American tribe (the Miwoks), with the explicit restriction that said tribe would not be permitted to build a casino (which is a standard revenue generator for Native American tribes, thanks to various federal regulations and exemptions). When the bill came over to the Senate’s side, however, Senator Barbara Boxer changed the legislation to both remove that restriction and to make the land owned by the Miwoks a reservation. This was supposedly done without the knowledge of either Rep. Woolsey, or Senator Dianne Feinstein.

Then – shock and surprise! – the Miwoks decided that they wanted to generate a revenue by building a casino. Just outside of San Francisco. As The Sacramento Bee glumly notes, the Miwoks can get away with quite a lot along those lines because they have a reservation – including essentially ignoring state environmental laws – and they’ve been pursuing the construction of a casino ever since. In fact, they’ve just recently finally jumped through the appropriate federal hoops – and if Jerry Brown is governor next year the tribe expects more help on the state level from him than, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger (taking over 700K in campaign contributions from tribal sources can produce that kind of expectation).Meanwhile, in 2003 Senator Ma’am recused herself from the situation that she herself caused… but not before her son Doug Boxer did quite well for himself out of the deal. Big Government reports:

Less than a year after Boxer’s tribal bill was signed into law, Doug Boxer helped negotiate a casino partnership between the tribe and Station Casinos of Las Vegas. Doug Boxer’s firm also acquired options on 2,000 acres of land that was later transferred to Station Casinos for an undisclosed price, but which some reports indicate could have been as much as $24 million.

In addition, Doug Boxer’s firm took a consulting fee for brokering the land deal. The amount of that fee has also remained undisclosed, but in May 2003, tribal chairman Gregory Sarris told the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat that the consulting fee was “too much, more than I would like.”

If and when the casino does in fact open, Doug Boxer will profit then, too: According to Boxer campaign spokesman Matthew Kagen, Doug Boxer and the developer involved in the project are partners in a limited liability corporation that would financially benefit from such a move.

The Hill article – before it was taken down – reported that Doug Boxer’s take was around $8 million dollars. And all because his mom happened to rewrite a House bill. Amazing what you can get away with when you have a relationship with the people making and enforcing the laws, huh?

Old Trooper 2,

“He always felt that the Reservation folks had traded their independence for dependence and will continue to suffer for that unless they leave and make a life outside the fence.”

. . . A great proclamation for minimalist government size, intervention, and interference, and for running in the opposite direction of the Nanny state which current Washington seems bent on building.

As I read your statement, “He passed on to me the value of hard work, self reliance, individual responsibility and honesty,” it reminded me that from what I have sensed in some of the commentary on F.A. over the past couple of years, there is another differentiating element residing in many like yourself and the engrossing Skook, . . . they cannot be bought.

That self confidence means an individual can be trusted. Only those burdened with bags of insecurity will turn on their neighbours, or steal from them, or defraud them in some way, or harbour expectations from them.

We have witnessed too many in Washington, including Obama, exploit that insecurity in desperate struggle to remain relevant.