I really liked Elizabeth Warren since the first time I saw her interviewed, which I think might have been on the Daily Show. My first thought hearing her speak, and I've thought it every single time since then, is why is she about the only person that can explain complex financial topics (including how regulations would work or don't work) in a manner I can easily understand?
I mean I LOVE the lady. When I heard she was running for the Senate I couldn't have been happier. Heck I sent her money and I live more than a thousand miles away. I hope beyond all hope she wins, cause well if most of the folks in DC were not already bought and owned by Wall Street, I bet about 98% of them have no clue what even happens on Wall Street much less how the bills they vote for work.
Warren clearly does .... and can explain it to folks like myself.
So I have to admit I am kind of confused about this whole Native American thing. As Charles Pierce at Esquire said today (a former reporter for the Boston Herald and long time MA resident):
Coverage of the Senate race here in the Commonwealth (God save it!) between prospective Democratic nominee Elizabeth Warren and Republican incumbent Scott Brown has been dominated in recent weeks by an absurd "controversy" regarding whether or not Warren is 1/32nd Cherokee, as her family legend apparently had it, and as the various institutions at which she has been employed have touted.
I want to focus on the whole "family history" thing below the fold.
As I often mention here I like to tell personal stories. I think they help people understand my point-of-view. See I have a "family history" where I would have bet anything was true, but alas, it isn't.
Both of my grandfather's served in WWII. Neither of them would speak a word about it. One of them, well I knew a lot about what he did, cause the local paper wrote about it more than once or twice. But my other grandfather, my mom's dad, I only knew the little my parents told me (which wasn't much).
When I would ask my mother about it, she would always say the same thing, something close to:
He enlisted when the war was almost over. He was just paid to walk around Europe.
Here and in my personal life I don't know how many times I've said this. Heck I think I might have even mentioned it in an essay I wrote in 1985 for my college admission.
Well surprise, surprise it isn't true.
He passed away last year at 93. While going through his belongs my parents found a ton of photos. My dad scanned them and sent me like 10 DVDs. Yesterday I went through them in detail. Imagine my shock when I saw this one (my grandfather is on the left).
There were no notes on any of the pics and this was the only one with any info that could help me track down where it was taken. I went to Google and typed in "Kanagawa Perfecture." Well it wasn't in Europe. Not even close. He was stationed here:
Japan and Europe, not really the same thing.
I have no idea how this "history" got twisted, but my family are kind of anal about getting facts correct. Heck my father has a PhD in History, military freaking history. So it happens.
Just to reinforce my point, as I was going through these DVD I found this picture of my mother in her wedding dress:
Here is my mother getting married to my father:
You might be saying to yourself, "wait, those are not the same dresses!"
It was at the funeral of my mom's father last year that I learned, not from a family member, somebody I didn't even know that in the early 60's my mother had been married before she married my father. I am FUCKING 41 and NEVER KNEW THIS!
So is it hard to think that Warren had been told she was 1/32nd Cherokee and that maybe wasn't true. Not really, I never even knew my mother had been married before. Oh and my father before moving to the DoD was a college professor. His Vita runs like 14 pages. A lot of stuff in there you would never put on a resume. So that a university where Warren was teaching first picked this up, again nothing surprising.
That is all I have to say on this topic .... other than GO GIRL YOU GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!