infundibulum

Technorati sent me a link to an interesting article at the ever-awesome LJWorld.com (the little paper/media empire that Django built):

Split-apart nation comes together

The paper is about a family reunion, of sorts, and a long overdue one: the two parts of the Ponca tribe have been living as as two separate entities in Nebraska and Oklahoma since the 1870s.

I happened to stumbled across this history before, because I was digging around in the Wikipedia article on the Omaha, who speak a related Siouan language. This detail in the article caught my eye:

Congress terminated the tribe in Nebraska in the 1960s, and it was reinstated in 1990. The northern tribe is still feeling the effects of that period, as the Nebraska members have no fluent speakers of the Ponca language.

“In order for us to continue to be a strong nation, Poncas, we need to have that language. We need to have that culture,” Wright said.

Coffee place:

Lady: Excuse me.

Me: Hi.

Lady: Do you know anything about Microsoft Works?

Me: No.

Lady: Oh. (Looking at my (Ubuntu) laptop.) Microsoft Works.

Me: No, absolutely nothing. I know absolutely nothing about Microsoft Works, I am using Linux, I don’t know Microsoft Works, I don’t know what Microsoft Works is. At all. [I really said that.]
Lady: ?

Me: …

Lady goes away. Finally.

Does this make me a jerk? I don’t think so. And in fact it has nothing to do with Microsoft or Linux or anything, it has to do with the fact that why should I stop what I’m doing and get into what’s basically guaranteed to be a “oh and could yo ufix my…” twelve hour session. I’m happy to do that kind of thing for people I know, but, somebody off the street?

Sorry, I got stuff to do…