The photo spookily resembles a political cartoon drawn by Lalo Alcaraz from 2002.  The cartoon depicts a man dressed as a stereotypical Native American and is explaining that his dress is “honoring” the Native American to whom the man is speaking.  http://www.tumblr.com/search/chief+wahoo/recent?language=pt_PT

http://mmqb.si.com/2014/04/03/washington-nfl-team-name-debate/2/
John Warren, Chairman of the Pokagon Band of the Potawatomi, in Michigan and Indiana: “To me, I look at it as a part of an old, institutionalized racism. I don’t understand why some athletes, especially the ones of color, don’t say something. The ‘R’ word is just as offensive. Athletes of color should be very, very offended when they hear that word. It’s the same thing we’re talking about here. Why is it offensive to us, and not others? Does it matter that there are not as many Native Americans playing the game? It shouldn’t matter. The connotations that word has, any minority group who has had a history of oppression, they should know that it is wrong.”

Neely Tsoodle of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Oklahoma: “My personal belief is completely different than anyone I know. But I don’t see the need to eliminate Native Americans as mascots. In fact, I don’t want to do that. At all. If we do, then we are erasing another part of our footprint in American culture. … Somewhere along the road it got out of hand, and became a caricature. Maybe it was lack of education, maybe it was society, but it turned into crazy, violent men running around beating drums with red paint on their face, and that’s not OK. But that doesn’t mean we should erase the name completely. We just need to make sure that the nickname is used in a tasteful manner and we are educating people about the meaning behind it. If we get rid of the name completely, we are erasing a part of our identity, and that’s something I know we have fought so hard to maintain.”

Kansas City Chiefs, Washington Redskins, Atlanta Braves Cleveland Indians, Central Michigan University Chippawas and Ottowa University Kansas Braves are just a few of the endless sport teams that use some sort of Native American reference in their team's sport title.

The controversy surrounding the use of Native American mascots in both collegiate and professional level sports has remained unsettled for many years. Taking into account all the oppression and injustices that the Native Americans have endured for hundreds of years from the United States government, should provoke Americans as a whole to be more in tune to this hypersensitive topic?

America was different many years ago. They were more accepting of prejudice and racism. Then came the civil rights movement and people started to evolve in their beliefs and opinions. Society as a whole became acutely aware that capitalizing on a particular race for financial gain will no longer be tolerated. Today, with a multitude of social media and devices to catch every word and action makes it that much more important to be aware of stereotypes.

The Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder has been under pressure recently to remove the “redskins” slur from his professional football team. Snyder who defends his team's name refers to a survey conducted ten years ago citing that 90 percent of 768 Native Americans polled did not consider the team name “Washington Redskins” to bother them.

As a society evolving, we do still have a ways to go in understanding other races and cultures. For example in March, the late night satire news host Stephen Colbert blasted Mr. Snyder for initiating The Washington Redskins Original Americans Foundation. Mr. Colbert poked fun at the fact that a corporation worth millions would “assist” an Omaha tribe in the purchase of a new backhoe as opposed to the foundation purchasing the whole thing. Colbert then introduces his own foundation, which promises to help Asians, which is racist satire and again poking fun at Mr. Snyder's foundation. Colbert's skit started a tweeting frenzy which called for the cancellation of his show.

Of course, his show was not canceled, but because the Asian racist skit has not been a part of the American culture such as football and baseball with all the tolerated racist names Americans were disturbed more by the Asian skit then the actual reason the skit was aired to begin with.

The Government has started to make amends with Native Americans by building a better relationship with the tribal nations. This includes, returning land to the rightful family owners, giving tribes water rights, investing in education and employment for adults and children. Until we come together as a Nation and honor the history of Native Americans, will we then see the true meaning of respect and know that just by the mere fact that we are still using stereotypes as mascots shows no progression in our society to treat all races equal.

Putin

I whole heartedly agree with Iryna Aniushkevick’s blog http://governmentandpoliticsgovt2305.blogspot.com/ regarding Vladimir Putin and his hostile takeover of Crimea.  But, what leverage does the United States and the United Nations (“UN”) have at this point?  Iryna states that Putin will not be content with the warlike takeover of Crimea and that Putin will most likely not stop at Crimea’s takeover.  His recent actions against Ukraine have solidified that he will not stop until Ukraine has renounced its land to Russia.

President Putin’s most recent action is to cut off gas to Ukraine if their 40 billion dollar bill is not paid to Russia.  This would not be the first time Putin cut off gas to Ukraine.  The problem is that major pipelines also are fed into other parts of Europe.  Now, there are alternate lines and IF the time comes, Putin will probably use these routes under his conditions remember.

I also agree with Iryna where she said “Russian’s aggressive actions toward Ukraine are linked to a desire to prevent Ukraine’s integration with the European Union.”  To elaborate, on this, in my opinion, Vladimir Putin has put millions into Ukraine’s economy and does not want to continue this anymore.  He feels the European Union (“EU”) should bail out Ukraine and if they don’t Putin has threatened to cut gas from Europe if something is not done about Ukraine’s debt to Russia.  The International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) will soon propose and pass an aid fund for Ukraine for the next two years; however this aid may not be enough to bail Ukraine out of its financial debt to Russia. 

Again, I am in agreement with Iryna when she stated that “It is every nation’s right to decide its own future, although only by political means rather than military force and aggression.”  However, in Ukraine’s case I don’t think this will be possible.  Here is a county that has in the past faltered financially and has relied heavily on Russia for economic stability, where the United States has said they will not go to war over this invasion, and where even financial aid from the IMF would not totally pay off Russia’s debt.  Ukraine is a defenseless, tender state who is constantly exposed to Russia and Putin’s rule.  I wish there was an amicable resolution to this travesty.