King Philip's War Boardgame - Seriously? What the....?

Image from MultiManPublishing.

The year from 1675 to 1676 presented one of the darkest periods in New England, and American, history - a episode that set the precedent for European colonial conquest of North America in the coming centuries. After years of tenuous relations, sustained largely through the efforts of the Wampanoag Sachem, Massasoit, the Native Americans were running low on trade goods and the British colonies were growing more established and entrenched. Finally, Massasoit's son, Metacom (a.k.a. "King Philip"), saw the writing on the wall and decided to take a stand for his people against the expanding colonies. What ensued was an all-out war between a confederacy of Native American tribes, led by Metacom, against the New England colonists and their Native American allies, including the Pequot (who had been their enemies a generation before) and the Mohawks.

The Native Americans won some early victories, but they were surrounded and outnumbered. They were weakened by years of introduced European diseases. They were at a technological disadvantage. The war ended when the colonists, aided by sympathetic Native Americans, tracked Metacom to Assowamset Swamp, shot him. His body was drawn and quartered and beheaded. His head went on display in Plymouth.

The War remains in the popular conscious throughout New England. Markers call our attention to battles, such as the burning of Mendon, and various natural landmarks are named after Metacom, such as King Philip's Rock in Mendon and Lookout Rock in Uxbridge. Perhaps nothing has carried the conflict into our current moment so much as Mary Rowlandson's captivity narrative. That is, until now...

A Maryland company is set to release a board game called King Philip's War. Designed by a Maryland teacher, the two player game pits colonists against Native Americans in a battle game that appears to resemble Risk.

Some Native Americans are unhappy with the game, which they feel trivializes the conflict. It seems likely to me that Euro-American victor-consciousness will make the colonists the good guys and the Native Americans the villains to most players. There have been WWII games in which some players can opt to be German, but that doesn't level the moral/historical playing field; history is written by the winners and it's awfully hard for others to re-write it. The Native Americans who oppose the game are upset by this trivializing of a brutal colonial massacre, and also upset that they were not consulted in the game's creation. Some who are protesting the game are asking (I think rather magnanimously) that they be allowed to give their input in hopes of making it a valuable teaching tool. I don't believe that a game that is essentially whites vs Indians has any place in education or popular culture, but what do I know? Curt Schilling, the Red Sox pitcher who owns part of Multiman, thinks it's just fine. This AP article quotes him as saying,

"...historical events should not be whitewashed for fear of offending someone. King Philip's War helped forge early American identity, even if it "clearly exposed the horrible side of humans in some cases"
...and...
"If everyone intent on keeping historical events stopped at content that might seem offensive, we'd lose sight of the horrific mistakes this nation, the world and the human race are capable of, and that would be a horrific thing."

While these might be true statements about a book, or a film, or an exhibit, this doesn't extend to a board game.  There is something inherently trivial about games and Schilling's decision to ignore the genre clearly demonstrates either his ignorance about, or financial interest in, this situation. Historians have spent years trying to come to terms with the our colonial past and our conquest of native people. A major part of our identity, indeed, our nationhood, is unjustifiable; we stole our land by force from its legitimate owners because their military technology was less advanced. So, Schilling is saying the right things, just about the wrong subject. We do need to examine the darker parts of our history, but not by playing fun games based on bloody colonial conquest. In fact, it's pop culture trivializations of history, such as this game, that keep the true nature of history safely tucked behind a veil of years and that inoculates modern Americans against the stress, harm, and pain of having to critically examine who we are and where we came from.

Hessian Teenage Years Redeemed: A useful skill

I may be teaching a composition class at Arizona State this summer. It's ENG 105 - Advanced First-Year Composition and it's online. Well, as it turns out, students aren't exactly lining up to spend their summer vacations thinking about the thesis, audience, stakeholders, pathos, logos, and ethos. Who knew?
To make matters worse, there are two Online ENG 105's being offered at the same time this summer. I teach for the main campus, and the other instructor teaches for another campus. But wait, there's more. I need to reach a quota of students in order for the class to happen. I have only a third as many students as the other person. Why? Well, on the class registration website, his was listed as "Online" and mine was not, even though it's an online course! All very confusing and threatening to my financial situation. I may need to change the blog title to Keeping Owls Solvent (Since 2010)!

It was suggested that I make a flyer to advertise my course in hope of generating some enrollment. I am no graphic designer, artist, nor advertiser, so I wasn't sure how to go about making the flyer. Then I remembered the only other time in my life I made flyers - in the mid-1990's to advertise hardcore and punk shows. "Stick with what you know" can be good advice, so I constructed this beauty of a flyer. It might not attract students, but if it does, they'll be cool students.

That's Minor Threat on the flyer, F.Y.I.

Tucson Mountains at Night

View on Black
Erin and I tagged along on another stargazing journey with our friends Martha and James. James has been bitten by the astronomy bug and there's talk about the possibility of a new telescope soon. Very exciting. While we were out there, I took some night photos experimenting with cars, headlights, and desert roads. There all from the Tucson Mountains, which includes the west side of Saguaro National Park and the Tucson Mountain Park. The "View on Black" links go larger sizes of the pictures against a black background for optimal viewing. There are more Tucson Mountain night photos on our Flickr page.

View on Black

View on Black

View on Black

The Desert Magazine June 1949

Randall Henderson founded The Desert Magazine in Palm Desert, California in 1937. Though Henderson passed away in 1977, the magazine ran until 1985. Like the longer running and more famous Arizona Highways, The Desert focused on matters of interest throughout the southwest, such as history, culture and lifestyle, naturalism, geology, and conservation. You can find more issues of The Desert on Scribd. It looks like someone made an abortive attempt to revive the magazine,  but didn't get to far. See here or here. It's a great magazine, so good luck to the fellow who'd like to bring it back.

The Desert is actually fairly expensive on E-bay, but I got this one fairly cheaply because the cover is in lousy condition. Still, it's all there and I thought I'd highlight some of the cool stuff in this 60-year-old issue. The photograph on the cover is of a desert sparrow hawk and the photographer was Robert Leatherman. It's sitting on a cactus skeleton of some sort.

Among the articles are a piece about the Salton Sea in California, one of the southwest's most epic failure of planned living, and this article on petroglyphs in New Mexico.

It think Hard Rock Shorty is kind of funny, even though the joke is about the desert being a hot place. It's kind of in the old hyperbolic tall tale style and I appreciate that.

This was one lucky dude. The Desert ran short news pieces of interest like this from other publications in the back near the classifieds.

Click here to enlarge the photo and read the poems.

 If anyone wants to take the quiz, leave your answers in the comments. The magazine included the answers, and I'll post the correct answers if anyone takes it.

Farley Mowat

Farley Mowat's name pops up fairly frequently here on Making Owls Cool  - and I've mentioned that the blog title is a bit of a tribute to him - but I've been negligent in dedicating a post to talking about him. Until now.

Farley Mowat is a conservationist, naturalist, and one of Canada's finest writers. Now nearly ninety-years-old, Mowat's literary career stretches behind him for over a half-century. He's a prolific writer and I can't say I've exhausted his catalog. I'll give some brief descriptions of the works I've read at the end of this post.

Mowat used his stature as a writer almost exclusively to promoting issues of conservation of wildlife and protecting First Nation people, primarily in the Arctic. His memoirs are classic nature writing that explore the relationships between people and animals, though some also address his time as a soldier in WWII. Among his broad range of topics are his dog, his owls, wolves, Vikings, whales, Inuit people, Dian Fossey of Gorillas in the Mist fame, and the people of Newfoundland. He's a member of the Green Party of Canada and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society named a ship after him and he's donated money to that organization. If you're not familiar with the Sea Shepherds, they're pretty bad-ass and you should check them out.

Of course, like all public figures, he's not without some controversy. His book Never Cry Wolf has been attacked for being scientifically inaccurate, though Mowat has a degree in biology. In 1985, he was denied entry into the United States when he was supposed to speak in California. It made a lot of people angry and he was eventually granted limited entry, which is declined. The reason for his denial was unclear.

That's a very brief overview of the man, so let me give you a brief overview of his works that I've read. There's a lot more that I haven't read and look forward to reading.

People of the Deer (1952) - People of the Deer recounts time Mowat spent with the Ihalmiut Inuit tribe in northern Canada. The tribe had been nearly driven out of existence and the government didn't even acknowledge they were there. Mowat followed their way of life as migratory caribou hunters and exposed ways in which interlopers on their land were ruining their ancient culture. The book helped raise awareness and government support for previously neglected people.

The Dog Who Wouldn't Be (1957) - This book is a memoir about Mowat and his relationship with his dog, Mutt. It recalls Mowat's boyhood growing up on the prairies of Saskatchewan. Mutt is just that - a mutt - but he's a dog with myriad idiosyncrasies and questionable luck. I believe every dog would make a great literary hero in the right authorial hands - they often seem to believe themselves heroic -and in The Dog Who Wouldn't Be Mutt gets his chance to shine. There's one sad point here, though. The target audience of The Dog Who Wouldn't Be is older children and adults, which meant that I read it after I read Owls in the Family, which is a children's book. Owls in the Family ends with an optimistic nod toward the future of Mowat's owl friends, but The Dog Who Wouldn't Be reveals what actually happened to them. Needless to say, I was very, very sad about that part of the book.

Owls in the Family (1961) - This book is, as some of you may already know, the inspiration for the title of my blog. I read this in 1986 and I've been an owl devotee ever since. Like The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, this book recounts Mowat's childhood on the Canadian prairies and his adoption of two great horned owls, Wol and Weeps. Like Mutt, the owls are full of personality and make fantastic protagonists. Poor Mutt is often the target of their antics. Mowat describes his extensive critter collection, which made me intensely jealous as a kid, though I had a respectable critter collection myself.

Never Cry Wolf (1963) - Though the science and scope of this book is contested, Mowat's depiction of wolves is undeniably sympathetic and does a great deal to dispell myth about the species. In the book, the watched a wolf family through breeding season and keeps a journal about what he sees.

My Parents Were Awesome

I submitted this photo of my parents to My Parents Were Awesome months ago and I was pleasantly surprised to stumble upon it today. Very exciting! This picture was taken the day I was christened. I don't know what I was up to that kept me out of the picture, but perhaps I was crying or sleeping. I didn't do much else back them.

Signal Hill at Night

Check out this photo on a black background. They're all best viewed large and against a black background. 
Our friends James and Martha got some high-powered binoculars for sky watching and invited Erin and I to go try them out. We headed to the west side of Saguaro National Park, to a petroglyph site called Signal Hill, and spent a while looking at stars, planets, nebula, and star clusters. I also took some nighttime photographs. Photographing the desert at night is one of my favorite things to do. It's really dark, and sort of an inexact science, so the pictures never come out perfect. Still, I was pleased with a few of them and I thought I'd share them.

Large on Black

Large on Black

Large on Black

Large on Black

Large on Black

For more nighttime Signal Hill photos, visit our Flickr page. The "On Black" option comes from Big Huge Labs, which is a cool website that you can link to your Flickr page and use to modify photos, order prints, and a whole lot of other stuff.

Best Easter Wishes

My family sent me this great postcard from 1908 for Easter. Obviously, the picture is really funny (rabbit as beast of burden!), but I also love the font. I'm no designer or anything, and I don't generally notice fonts, but I really like this one. Thanks guys!

I also like the handwriting on the reverse as it's very easy to read. Here is goes:

"Dear Mother,
We are so glad to hear you and Father are both well, and I will write you a long letter next week.
With Love,
Lillie H."

Sent to:
Mrs. James M. Hayes
1218 S. Walker St.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

The postmark is from San Francisco. It's both sad and wonderful to think that this postcard has been sent not once, but twice, by families separated by great distances at Easter time. Unlike Lillie, I suppose I have the luxury of calling my family on the phone, rather than waiting until next week to write a long letter, but I wonder if the technological convenience really makes me feel any closer to home than Lillie felt a century ago...

Happy Easter, folks.

Garden of Gethsemane

From the Reverse - "THE LAST SUPPER - "Take, eat; this is my body." St. Matthew 26:26. The breaking of the bread at The Last Supper is the central piece among several sculptured religious representations by Felix Lucero in the Garden of Gethsemane on the west bank of the Santa Cruz river at the Congress Street bridge, Tucson, Arizona."

Felix Lucero Park, more commonly known as the Garden of Gethsemane, sits next to the usually-dry riverbed of the Santa Cruz River here in Tucson. The park, which is very small, contains sand and plaster sculptures depicting people and scenes from the New Testament, such as the Last Supper pictured on this postcard. Lucero was a homeless WWI veteran who lived under the Congress Street Bridge and built the statues over a series of years out of material he recovered from the Santa Cruz River.

The legend goes that Lucero was injured in battle and made a pact with the Virgin Mary that if he survived he's dedicate his life to making religious art. Apparently, they both made good on their respective ends of the deal.

Here's the info if you want to visit the park. The city likes to advertise it as a tourist spot, but be aware that it's a favorite hang out from vagrants, the homeless, and less savory characters. Considering Lucero's story, I'm happy to share the park with homeless folks - perhaps they have a better right to be there than I do - but I take a friend with me on the visit all the same.

Address: 602 W. Congress St., Tucson, AZ

Directions: To Felix Lucero Park, take I-10 to exit 258. Head West on Congress St. for one block. It's located on the western bank of the Santa Cruz River, at the corner of Congress St. and Bonita Ave.

Hours: Daily 7:00 AM - Sunset.

Phone: 520-791-4873

Dear Texas, Can We Keep Taylor Sanford Jr.? Sincerely, Arizona.

I paint a pretty picture of Arizona on Making Owls Cool, but all's not well in the desert and I'd like to take a moment and air some dirty laundry about our state. I promise I will not make a habit of it. I wouldn't want to read this stuff all the time. I'll get back to loving Arizona tomorrow, I promise.

Arizona's economy is really in the shit, and not only because of the housing crisis and recession. For years the state government has failed to raise enough revenue to provide adequate services to the citizens of the state and now overspending on a unsustainable budget has caught up with us. A lot of folks out here are living in La-La Land and care more about keeping their guns and keeping Mexicans out and less about education, civil rights, or conservation. We're the only state that no longer provides healthcare to uninsured children. As I write this our foolish state government is wasting its time trying to grant the governor the power to file a lawsuit against the healthcare reform bill. This is something our attorney general has refused to do because A. it appears the federal government is within its jurisdiction and B. because only one state would need to bring the lawsuit and win to overturn parts of the bill and other states have already done this, making AZ's suit unnecessary. The state's priorities are not just backwards, but ignorant. You may ask, won't the people get fed up and do something about it? Nope. They're too busy making undocumented Mexican immigration the scapegoat for every problem. Education no good? - we're paying for illegals. Job loss? - illegals taking them. Swine flu - illegals. Cloudy days - illegals. You get the idea; many people aren't involved in realistic, let alone productive, dialogue about improving the state.

Regardless your political standpoint, the 48th state isn't only near the end of the list in terms incorporation, but also in terms of legislation and management. We have one of the most severe budget deficits in the country and poorest funded education systems with results to match. Yet, we're near the top of the list in terms of natural beauty, unique landscapes, and historical sites. Luckily, many of Arizona's finest resources are managed by the National Parks Service, like the Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest, and Organ Pipe Cactus. Unfortunately, many of the amazing natural places cared for by the Arizona State Parks system are at the mercy of our Hindenburg of a state government. However, as is usually the case, there are enough resourceful people around to offset at least some of what the hyenas are up to. Local communities, often in rural areas, rely on state parks and tourism for revenue. The state parks board and local communities are working together to try to keep the state parks open. Many communities are taking over control of the state parks. For example, Tombstone will manage Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park, the town of Payson will manage Tonto Natural Bridge until September 7th. Other communities, like Tubac and Flagstaff have also assumed responsibility or are working out deals. I for one will make an effort to visit the parks and help support the townships, historical societies, and citizens who are working to maintain that privilege for me.

In an extremely generous move, a fellow named Taylor Sanford Jr., a 76-year-old visitor from Katy, Texas, wrote a check for $8,000 to keep Lost Dutchman State Park open a bit longer. Lost Dutchman is a personal favorite of mine, too, so thanks Mr. Sanford. I'm glad to end this political rant with the example of Sanford's generosity. Arizona could use a few more Taylor Sanfords and a few less J.D. Hayworths and Joe Arpaios.