BONER CANDIDATE #1: WE ARE NOT MASCOTS
Before facing east to the snowcapped mountains to lead a prayer, Eileen Quintana asked the 50 or so protesters who gathered at the Utah Capitol to raise their hands. As they wiggled their fingers toward the blue sky, Quintana told them that they were all members of the same clan — regardless of their race or ethnicity. “You are the five-fingered clan of this Earth,” she said. “We all are five-fingered. We’re humans. We’re on the surface of Mother Earth, holy, sacred being.” But those who gathered Saturday morning say a Utah legislator’s push to have the state support Native American mascots dehumanizes those indigenous peoples who are living here. It takes their imagery and equates it to pets and animals typically used as sports mascots, said James Courage Singer, co-founder of the Utah League of Native American Voters. “Native mascots at their very core are dehumanizing,” he told the crowd. “If you look at popular mascots, they are often animals or occupations or, in our case, Natives. Natives do not deserve to be in that same category. We are sacred people. Mascots are not the way to honor sacred people.” Dozens of protesters gathered on the Capitol steps to oppose the resolution, sponsored by Rep. Rex Shipp, which would discourage the removal of Native American mascots unless local officials “determine that there is a consensus amongst the affected individual Native American or other indigenous people” that the symbol should be dumped. Read More
BONER CANDIDATE #2: SPACE TREK OR STAR FORCE
The Pentagon’s new U.S. Space Force is not Star Trek’s Starfleet Command, but their logos bear a striking similarity. President Donald Trump unveiled the Space Force logo Friday, writing on Twitter that he had consulted with military leaders and designers before presenting the blue-and-white symbol, which features an arrowhead shape centered on a planetary background and encircled by the words, “United States Space Force” and “Department of the Air Force.” The logo, which bears the date 2019 in Roman numerals, also is similar in design to that of Air Force Space Command, from which Space Force was created by legislation that Trump signed in last month. Read More
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