My grandmother

My grandmother Francine Gayle Fawcett was born on October 2nd, 1934, in Reno, Nevada to Frank Albert Luwe and Rena Ethel Smith. She was the second of three children. She had an older brother Jack and younger sister Trena. Growing up, she played games with neighborhood children, raised hamsters, and spent days at her grandmother’s […]

2020 Games of the Year

A bizarre year for video games, with the pandemic and everything else going on, the video games industry exploded in revenue as people stayed home. Games took on a new life as some embraced a role as a warm security blanket and others doused the blanket in gasoline. Can’t win them all. Still the face […]

Critical Review: Whitewashed Adobe

Deverell, William. Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 2005. In the pages of Whitewashed Adobe’s introduction, author William Deverell sets his foundation explaining to readers the consequential nature of the racial and cultural conflicts found at the heart of […]

Joe Biden elected President of the United States!

After the longest Tuesday of my life, Donald Trump won’t be president anymore and that alone is victory. The last several years have taken a very lot out of me. The arguments, and hysteria, and stress have all been numbing. Yet, here we are eking out a victory to tell this rat fuck to go […]

no justice, no peace

America is at a breaking point and if you were ever more in need of evidence of that look at the news the last week. The George Floyd protests have captured the nation, and the world, so much so that the once in a lifetime pandemic feels like old news even though it still rages […]

Perspectives on Reliance: Explorations of Native America’s Labor in the Fur Trade

Over the years, the historiography of the fur trade has reflected various perspectives on Native American importance. Individual scholars have developed differing insights into the contributions of Native peoples. Some see Native American contributions as secondary. Others see Natives as being crucial players who were necessary to support the existence of the trade. Still, others […]

Critical Review: Custer Died for Your Sins and Survivance

Native American history tells a difficult story that ranges from the great heights of empires to the deep lows of extermination. Despite the toll it has taken, Native American communities have, nonetheless, survived to tell their stories. These stories are acts of survivance. Native Americans seek to not just hold the line on Native survival; […]

Postmodernism, Postcolonialism, and Literary Theory in Orientalism by Edward Said

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York City, NY: Vintage Books, 1979. Early in the 2003 preface of Orientalism, author Edward W. Said states that if it were not for the Orientalist dogma as he describes in the pages that follow, “there would have been no war” in Iraq or Afghanistan.[1] This statement sets a tone […]

2019 Games of the Year

2019 has been a strange year for games on the whole. With the production of the final few blockbusters this generation wrap up and the next generations blockbusters begin 2019 has found itself stuck. Nonetheless, the games that did come out this year offered some promising glimpses of the next generation. Independent studios especially have […]

2009 Games of the Year

Assassin’s Creed II – Assassin’s Creed as a series means a great deal to me. I have written about that previously, and Assassin’s Creed II is where the series really proved what the entire series could be. Ezio’s journey began here with a simple story about vengeance. His father and brothers are killed in front […]