Carlyle Begay, Arizona Democrat Senator switches to Republican party

Carlyle Begay says a lot of people are going to be unhappy but he finds Republican party more suitable to the needs of his tribes citing unemployment and infrastructure high suicide rates in his two minute video explaining himself and his decision.

What more is there to say? Sensible fellow.

I got nothing. 

Except, the whole thing seems sad because from what little I know the two tribes Begay represents seem disparate, Hopi are different from Navajo, and Begay represents them both natively in an alien overarching political system, His two tribes are different and need different representation but they're lumped together and that's sad.

And what little do I know? 

I don't know. Does a plant know how it got its nutrients? It's all osmosis. From the air. The six grandfathers spoke to me in an awake-dream. Kidding. The Art Museum is next door, they have an extensive native American display of artifacts. Their exhibitions are excellent. Due to the vignettes, the dioramas that they had set up by the end of a tour viewers absorb things without really thinking specifically. Who knows what your mind takes in. For example you can tell by looking at Carlyle's face he appears more Navajo than Hopi, I'm guessing, only because he appears more warrior and less rounded-face, slightly less Asian. Lifestyles differ from pueblo dwelling to buffalo range nomadic tribes following along and traveling in teepees. Textiles differ. Clothing, pottery, utensils all differ. Amusing dolls of specific type are made by Southwest indians but not others, baskets differ and made from different materials, patterns are distinct between tribes. I think people end up knowing more than they think they know were they forced to think about it.

One time I had to think about it. This exact thing. 

Ed Merrill had a totem pole carved for his family's compound of cabins in New York. A big one too. You should hear him brag about it. I didn't have the heart to tell him those poles belong in Pacific Northwest and they're inappropriate in New York as a carved wooden cigar store indian in front of an igloo.

I signed up for a CLEP exam. A big one. It would count for two courses. A double whammy. I must be prepared so I sent for the CLEP preparation for the exam about Western Culture. I figured a lifetime of reading Smithsonian up to age twenty-four cover to cover would qualify me to pass any exam on the subject. I really am that arrogant. I thought I could waltz right in and ace the exam. Once I had the verisimilitude in hand I panicked because it was all about the technical side of arts that I had purposefully ignored with prejudice, all the hard stuff, how many stanzas in odes, specific vocabulary for poetry, rhyme schemes, and stage and musical composition and all the ballet positions and movements, matching authors to works to characters within books. The practice test was excruciating and difficult and discouraging and made me feel stupid and woefully inadequate.

I did not feel good for the test. But the test was actually much easier. Just like Colorado driving test. A breeze. The test in no way matched the verisimilitude preparation for it. As if from different planets. I was so over prepared it wasn't even funny. The test showed still images of famous films and asked questions about them to see if the student knows which still comes from Gone With The Wind and which still comes from another Civil War film. You can tell at a glance which still is from GWTW by its style, wardrobe, lighting, frame composition, although they both show a lady in a hoop dress. An eye for style gets one through the test. That's all.

This Hopi / Navajo was one such style related question on that Western Civilization CLEP exam. Photographs of several native American blankets are displayed and the questions have to do with which blanket belongs to which tribe. You sit there thinking," how should I know?" By osmosis, that's how. One tribe is pueblo and the other plains traversing all over the place chasing buffalo. What does the blanket say?  And that's how all the CLEP exams were aced.