Archive for 'NEWS & POLITICS'
seeks Superfund site fix
ASSOCIATED PRESS, Worthington Daily Globe
Published Thursday, June 19, 2008
BEMIDJI , Minn. (AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency has ordered the owner of a contaminated site in Cass Lake to come up with a permanent cleanup plan.
Ever since the St. Regis Paper Company plant was shut down in 1985, government agencies have been trying to figure out how to clean up the site. Under the state’s Superfund law, tons of soil have been removed, and wells and extraction systems have been installed to clean contaminated groundwater.
(more…)
> Survey Finds More Prejudice Toward American Indians
> >
> > by Associated Press
> > Oct 2, 2007, 22:11
> >
> >
> >
> > TULSA, Okla.
> >
> > Results of a racism survey at the University of
> > Tulsa showing American
> > Indians more likely to be regarded with prejudice
> > than other minorities by
> > White students surprised researchers.
>
> > A written survey of 55 White, middle-class college
> > students in their 20s who
> > had been in college for more than a year found that
> > American Indians were
> > consistently regarded less favorably on social
> > factor indicator scales than
> > Black people.
> >
> > Researchers said the mix of the state’s many
> tribes
> > increased the likelihood
> > of students coming into contact with an Indian
> > person.
> >
> > “The findings support the idea that although
> overtly
> > racist ideas toward
> > African-Americans appear to be less prevalent in
> > contemporary America, overt
> > racism towards American Indians is present,” UT
> > researchers reported in the
> > study.
> >
> > According to 2006 U.S. Census estimates, 43,364
> > self-identified American
> > Indians live in Tulsa County. Statewide, the number
> > is 397,041.
> >
> > Findings from the study indicate that although the
> > respondents knew that
> > Indians are different in culture, they were viewed
> > less positively than
> > Black people. One aspect was perceived privileges,
> > such as free health care,
> > researchers noted.
> >
> > Dr.. Dennis Combs, a former UT associate psychology
> > professor who now works
> > at the University of Texas at Tyler, participated in
> > the research.. Combs
> > says the findings are surprising because college
> > students are perceived as
> > liberal regarding race issues.
> >
> > “Also, American Indians may also be subject to a
> > newer form of racism called
> > subtle racism, which is centered on them as being
> > different, having poor
> > work ethic and unfavorable,” says Combs, who
> > conducted the study along with
> > student Melissa Tibbits.
> >
> > Indians also are more likely to be regarded with
> > “blatant prejudice” than
> > Black people, the survey showed.
> >
> > Officials with the Tulsa Indian Coalition on Racism,
> > who viewed the study’s
> > results, say that when generalities about Indians
> > abound, negative
> > viewpoints are nurtured and sustained.
> >
> > “People think we have privilege and all get
> gaming
> > checks. … That’s not
> > true,” TICAR President Louis Gray says.
> “People
> > don’t think of us as human;
> > we’re just symbols, but we have hopes and dreams
> > like everyone else.”
> >
> >
> >
> > >>
>
>
Rosebud Sioux leaders make strides, despite fearby: Rob Capriccioso WASHINGTON - The Rosebud Sioux Tribe is still reeling from the devastating effects of suicide; and some tribal leaders, fearful of the situation, are doing their best to reflect inward regarding tribal and federal efforts in dealing with the outbreak.
”We are in the midst of an ongoing battle,” said Ken LaDeaux, CEO of the tribe. ”The problem hasn’t diminished.”
Many tribal members had hoped the epidemic might improve after President Rodney Bordeaux declared a state of emergency on suicides and attempted suicides in March 2007. The declaration authorized him to seek assistance from the Aberdeen Area IHS, the BIA and the Public Health Service.
Since that time, multiple news reports have touched on the issue. The New York Times highlighted two shocking Rosebud youth suicides last June. The Associated Press noted the hundreds of suicide attempts at the tribe in the last few years alone. And the tribe’s own law enforcement officials have kept track of several recent cases where suicide attempts within the reservation’s small population have been successful.
While the press was rather quick to cover the issue, federal help was somewhat slow to come. Many say the real educational and prevention work is just now beginning.
Bordeaux recently helmed a Gathering of Nations event focused partly on suicide prevention and mental health issues. A suicide summit, aimed at increasing awareness, is also planned to be held on the reservation in July. Federal and tribal officials from across the nation are expected to attend.
The tribe, too, has worked closely with Tillie Black Bear, director of the White Buffalo Calf Woman Society, on strengthening the work of her suicide task force, which began meeting before Bordeaux’s emergency declaration. The group has worked to spearhead tribal health training and educational awareness programs through a partnership with Sinte Gleska University. It has also offered programs in local schools to offer support and information to students who may have questions about suicide.
In some respects, members of the tribe said, all of the attention on suicide has actually glorified the act for some. Many young people are hurting inside, and they’re desperately seeking attention - even if that attention comes in the form of an emergency response to a drug overdose or a slit to the wrist.
”We need to strengthen our young people’s feelings about themselves, as well as their connections with their parents,” Black Bear said, noting that her task force’s motto is ”Stop, think, honor, and celebrate your life.” One of the videos that she regularly shows to youth notes that suicide is not a video game. ”We want them to know you won’t be able to press play and start again.”
Tribal leaders are weary of the increased visibility of suicide on the reservation, and they do not want to see it glorified. Bordeaux, in fact, recently requested that IHS obtain his permission before allowing its officials to talk about their efforts to combat suicide at Rosebud. And IHS has followed his request.
”We want to be sensitive to our government-to-government relationship with the tribe,” Thomas Sweeney, a spokesman for IHS, told Indian Country Today. ”We need to honor the tribe’s wishes. … We don’t want to add to their difficulties.”
He added that it is quite rare for IHS to have hashed out such an arrangement.
”We don’t want copycat suicide attempts, and I do wonder if that’s happened over the past three years,” Black Bear said regarding the increased attention as of late. ”This is an area where sensitivity is key.”
LaDeaux said that various federal assistance, including Centers for Disease Control and Prevention resources, have started to flow the tribe’s way. He added that there is an ongoing dialogue with federal agencies to try to get more support staff and financial resources for prevention programs.
”As many resources that can be brought to bear are going to help not only this reservation, but any other reservation that is dealing with this type of problem.” Behavioral health specialists and other experts with the PHS and IHS have also visited the tribe.
Black Bear wishes that federal response had come more quickly. She estimates that it took nine months for Washington-based health officials to visit the reservation after Bordeaux’s emergency declaration.
”Not enough has been done,” she said. ”I think that help was slow to come, although I anticipate that the connections will now be long-lasting.”
Members of Congress from South Dakota seem keenly aware of the problem.
”I am both saddened and alarmed by the high rates of suicide on the Rosebud reservation, particularly among youth,” Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., told ICT. ”I meet regularly with President Bordeaux on tribal priorities which include eliminating suicide on the reservation and I continue to support the tribe’s efforts to address this problem, including their successful request to locate a mental health counselor at Rosebud’s IHS facility.”
Herseth Sandlin is a co-sponsor of the House version of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. She said she is working with her colleagues to pass the legislation, which addresses the need for mental health resources in Indian country.
”Make no mistake, this is a tragedy that continues to unfold, and we need to do more,” she said.
|
A 2,000-year-old seed found in Israel may help restore a species of biblical trees. » Tree is doing ‘lovely’
Tom Hawthorn
Special to The Globe and Mail
June 11, 2008
VICTORIA
The horse-drawn covered wagons rolled toward Fort Snelling as part of ceremonies organized to mark 150 years of Minnesota statehood.
A wagon train of carts and prairie schooners – the drivers and their passengers clad in fringed buckskin and other pioneer costumes – travelled 160 kilometres from Cannon Falls to St. Paul.
At the fort, the procession was halted when a handful of protesters blocked the road. Among them was a 40-year-old professor named Waziyatawin. She was in no mood to honour a colonial triumph.
“They gained statehood at Dakota expense,” she said.
A Wahpetunwan Dakota from the Upper Sioux reservation, she learned stories about her people from her family as a little girl. As an adult, she earned a doctorate in history, bringing formal academic training to her studies.
Minnesota is having a birthday party. Talking about stolen land, broken treaties and of mass murder does not fit into the narrative of a celebration.
So she blocked the road. She was cited for misdemeanour disorderly conduct and held for an hour.
A few days later, a protest on the steps of the state capitol turned into a scuffle with police. Although not directly involved in that incident, she was warned not to continue shouting. When she did so, she was arrested again.
Two arrests on successive weekends made May a memorable month.
On July 1, she will leave Minnesota for British Columbia. Waziyatawin (pronounced Wah-ZEE-yah-tah-ween) will be taking up a five-year position as the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples at the University of Victoria.
She plans to teach courses on such themes as truth-telling and reparative justice, indigenous women and resistance, and decolonization.
She was born to parents who were both educators. Her father earned a doctorate in the field, while her mother is currently a director of a social welfare agency in North Carolina.
“I grew up in a family with a strong oral tradition,” she said in a telephone interview from Granite Falls, Minn. “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know stories. It was something I heard always when I was growing up.”
What she heard at home was unlike what was taught in class.
“All the children in U.S. schools learn all these myths we have about Columbus Day and Thanksgiving. Those were all nightmares to me.”
She remembers a dark day in Grade 9 when a social studies teacher offered for debate the statement that the only good Indian was a dead Indian.
After gaining a double major in history and American Indian studies from the University of Minnesota, she earned a master’s degree and a doctorate from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Her doctoral thesis was an oral-history project that became the first of her four books.
Research into the history of her people has not eased the pain.
The skirmishes of 1862 go by many names – the Sioux Uprising, the Minnesota Massacre, Little Crow’s War. The details are familiar to her, even as they are unknown to so many others. The outcome was dismal for the Dakota, some of whom had risen in opposition to the occupation of their lands.
Survivors were marched across the state, held in a camp, and then forcibly expelled. (The camp was near the fort at which she was arrested last month.) Thirty-eight Dakota were hanged in what remains the largest mass execution in American history.
A price was placed on the head of any Dakota found in the state.
At lectures, Waziyatawin shows a newspaper clipping from an 1863 edition of the Winona Daily Republican. It offers a bounty of $200 for a single Indian scalp – enough, she notes, to purchase a 160-acre homestead.
“It’s still stunning to me. It still appalls me. There’s still the hurt, a recognition of just how expendable aboriginal persons have been. And still are.”
Twice she has embarked on Dakota Commemorative Marches, treks of nearly 200 kilometres retracing the route her ancestors were forced to follow in their expulsion a century-and-a-half earlier.
The marches “provide a wakeup call to all of us about the extent of the injustice perpetrated against us.”
She is also left with a thought – “as Dakota people we are very much visitors in our own homeland.”
An elder gave her the name Waziyatawin as a girl. It means “woman of the north.” She began using it regularly five years ago and last summer Angela Cavender Wilson legally changed her name.
The lone difficulty with bearing a single traditional name has been in booking an airplane flight, as the computer system demanded a first name. A boarding pass was acquired by signing in as Miss Waziyatawin.
“Felt like a pageant title,” she quipped.
She looks forward to learning the history of the indigenous peoples of Vancouver Island. British Columbia, she was told, is also marking a sesquicentennial this year.
2008 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Posted by Tom Hawthorn at 10:23 PM
Canada apologizes for decades of abuse of Indians
By MAGGIE FARLEY and CHRISTOPHER GULY Los Angeles Times
June 11, 2008
OTTAWA - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized Wednesday to the nation’s Indians for “a sad chapter in our history,” acknowledging the physical abuses and cultural damage they suffered during a century of forced assimilation at residential schools.
“Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country,” he said to applause.
A group of 11 aboriginal leaders and former students sat before Harper in a circle in the House of Commons, some weeping as the prime minister delivered the government’s first formal apology to them. In the crowded, expectant chamber, Harper bowed his head as he read a carefully crafted speech, asking for forgiveness for separating children from their families and cultures, exposing the students to abuse, and sowing the seeds for generations of problems.
“The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian residential schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on aboriginal culture, heritage and language,” Harper said.
The apology was billed by the government as a chance to redress a dark chapter in Canadian history and to move forward in reconciliation.
Over more than a century, about 150,000 native Canadian children were sent to boarding schools run by churches and the government to “civilize and Christianize” them. Expressions of native heritage were outlawed, many children suffered sexual and psychological abuse, and grew up with neither traditional roots nor mainstream footing, their ties to family and community unraveled.
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine, wearing a feather headdress, took the floor to declare that the occasion “testifies nothing less than the accomplishment of the impossible.” In 1990, he was one of the first to come forward with his story of abuse and push for an apology. “Finally, we heard Canada say it is sorry.”
Several churches offered apologies in the late 1980s and 1990s. A lawsuit settled in 2006 created a $1.9 billion compensation fund, and an independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission was launched on June 1.
Analysts say that the next step for the government is to settle outstanding land claims with aboriginal groups, and to refocus policies to alleviate poverty and improve education among First Nations.
Geraldine Maness-Robertson, 72, a Chippewa, said her six years at an Anglican school were a “horrific experience,” and her hands were often whipped with a razor strap to break her spirit.
“When I left I was so full of rage and anger and hatred,” she said. “Today’s apology was so helpful, it hit all the areas of hurt. I have spent my whole life reconciling and I turned a page today.”
Dr. Waziyatawin joins UVic’s Indigenous Governance Program on July 1 as the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples.
MEDIA RELEASE
June 10, 2008
INDIGENOUS HISTORIAN AWARDED UVIC’S NEWEST CANADA RESEARCH CHAIR
An historian who studies how settler societies have impacted Indigenous societies and how Indigenous nations can recover their traditional values is the University of Victoria’s newest Canada Research Chair.
Dr. Waziyatawin (pronounced Wah-ZEE-yah-tah-ween) joins UVic’s Indigenous Governance Program on July 1 as the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples.
“Through years of collaboration with Indigenous peoples in Canada and elsewhere, UVic has become a North American leader in research related to governance and developing an understanding of how to redress the ways that Indigenous peoples have been historically treated by the rest of society,” says Dr. Howard Brunt, UVic’s vice-president research. “This Canada Research Chair will build on those strengths.”
The Canada Research Chairs program is designed to attract the best talent from Canada and around the world, helping universities achieve research excellence in natural sciences and engineering, health sciences, and social sciences and humanities.
Waziyatawin, who is a Wahpetunwan Dakota from southwestern Minnesota, says that UVic’s Indigenous Governance Program was the only one in North America that she was interested in joining. “What drew me is the program’s intellectual commitment to Indigenous liberation and its dedication to personal decolonization and social action,” she says.
Waziyatawin’s research interests include Indigenous women and the struggle for social justice, the recovery of Indigenous knowledge, and truth-telling and reparative justice. She holds an MA and PhD in American history from Cornell University, and spent seven years teaching history at Arizona State University before leaving in 2007 to work as an independent scholar.
Waziyatawin is the author, editor or co-editor of four books, including In the Footsteps of Our Ancestors (2006) and Indigenizing the Academy: Transforming Scholarship and Empowering Communities (2004), which addresses the contemporary issues that Indigenous people face at all levels of the academy.
“My work is grounded in Indigenous world views and values, especially from a Dakota perspective,” she says. “That perspective has fostered my deep respect for Indigenous knowledge and ways of being that can be seen in all of my research and writing.”
Waziyatawin’s research frequently challenges the institutions and systems of “settler society” which, she says, continue to oppress Indigenous peoples in North America. British Columbia is no exception, she notes.
“Obviously, each Indigenous nation is unique with its own distinct culture and relationship to the land, but the historical experiences of Indigenous peoples on both sides of the Canada-US border are remarkably similar,” she says.
“I am most interested in how colonialism has impacted Indigenous societies and how we can continue our resistance while maintaining or recovering the ways of being that allowed us to live sustainably for thousands of years prior to invasion.”
The latest round of Canada Research Chairs was announced in Ottawa today. Also included were two UVic chair renewals: Dr. Neena Chappell, Canada Research Chair in Social Gerontology, and Dr. Sara Ellison, Canada Research Chair in Observational Cosmology. The renewals are for seven- and five-year terms respectively.
—30—
Media contacts:
Waziyatawin is currently in Minnesota but available for phone interviews at 320-564-4241 or by email at waziyatawin@gmail.com;
Valerie Shore (UVic Communications) at 250-721-7641 or vshore@uvic.ca
UVic Communications Services, PO Box 1700 STN CSC Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2 Tel. (250) 721-7636 Fax (250) 721-8955 E-Mail: ucom@uvic.ca
–
Waziyatawin, Ph.D.
Han Mitakuyapi.
I gave a radio interview with a radio station in Ontario with a program called Healing the Earth on the topic of the Sesquicentennial and the recent protests. You can listen or download the interview through this link:
http://www.resistanceisfertile.ca/
They do a great job of covering Indigenous topics and allow for far more depth than mainstream stations here…
Waziyatawin
–
Waziyatawin, Ph.D.
Support from Italy for Native Protest against Minnesota celebration
Hi, my name is Alessandro Profeti, I live in Italy, I
published, in my italian Blog www.nativiamericani.it, an
article on your legitimate protest by inserting the Youtube
video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9ait0L50yA “May 10,
2008 - ‘Wagon Train” at Fort Snelling”. We support your
actions, we believe that it is necessary to stop the silence
about your true history. We ask for a long time recognition
of the Genocide of Peoples Native Americans, please see my
video “Genocide is true”,
http://www.nativiamericani.it/?p=342 in italian and english
language. Please send news, updates, and also indications on
how we can help. Your people arrested by the police is free
now?
Respectfully
Alessandro Profeti, Italy
Nativi Americani.it
http://www.nativiamericani.it
Dakota protesters meet sesquicentennial wagon train
Covered wagons and police cars were stopped side-by-side as protesters blocked the roadway. (Photo by Scott Russell)
By Scott Russell , TC Daily Planet
May 10, 2008
Several dozen Native American protesters and allies tried to upstage a Minnesota Sesquicentennial event at Fort Snelling Saturday. Protesters said the state’s 150th birthday celebration failed to tell the whole story and demanded the state acknowledge broken treaties, land theft and ethnic cleansing.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Circle the Wagons
St. Paul, MN, May 10, 2008 — The sesquicentennial wagon train wending towards the state capital for tomorrow’s celebration of Minnesota statehood, came to an unexpected standstill this morning entering Fort Snelling when a group of Dakota people gathered in the road to dispel a few of their cherished myths. “This is a place of genocide, our ancestors were force marched here in 1862 and interned in the concentration camp for an entire winter. So many of our people died here, women and children, so much of our history is ignored and suppressed. We are here to tell the truth about this history and challenge the Sesquicentennial celebration,” said Chris Mato Nunpa, Ph.D.. “All we’re asking is to be heard,” said Ben Yahola, amidst protestors holding signs with “We are not invisible,” “1862,” “Site of Dakota Genocide,” and “My grandmother died here.”
The travelers looked on or away as Dakota speakers addressed them and a gathering group of other protestors, onlookers, and, soon, many police officers from the city of Minneapolis. They stood by, some perched atop horses, for about fifteen minutes before the tensions increased.
Two skittish horses were steered by their mounted officers through the protestors, endangering everyone in their path, including several small children. Unsure of what to do, one officer radioed for backup. As reinforcements arrived, one officer said, “I thought we came down to do some thumping.” A sheriff’s SUV tried to force its way through the crowd of protestors to clear a path for the wagon train. Then, two kids and two women laid down in front of the SUV. For twenty minutes while protestors smudged, prayer drums sounded, and speakers addressed their message about the past’s atrocities, officers conferred, debating how best to remove the blockade. Dakota protestors cried the history of the atrocities committed, including land theft, ethnic cleansing, bounties placed on Dakota scalps (up to $200 dollars), the largest mass hanging in US history, the horrors of the concentration camp at Fort Snelling, and the brutalities of the war of 1862.
Then the arrests began.
“You are benefiting from the same colonial practices which justified the genocide of the Dakota people,” Waziyatawin stated as she was pressed against the hood of a patrol car before being led away. “This wagon train is a fantasy of manifest destiny, as some sort of righteous thing.” Next to go were her two minor children, Talon and Autumn Cavender-Wilson. Anita Rae, Chris Mato Nunpa, Jim Anderson and Diane Elliot followed, before the officers ceased making arrests.
By use of truncheon, officers pushed the protest aside, finally clearing the way for the wagon train to enter the camp. Imprisoned protestors were then released under charges of disorderly conduct. At least some of the wagon riders began conversing with protestors, agreeing to the need for truth telling. One young man softened his position and even apologized for his participation in the wagon train.
The protestors will also be present tomorrow at the state capital, where the kick-off celebration for the Minnesota Sesquiscentennial will begin.
For additional information, Contact:
Chris Mato Nupa, Ph.D.
Oceti Sakowin Omniciya
Tel: (320) 981-0206
matonunpa@earthlink.net
Jim Anderson
Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community
(763) 753-2833
ander67@netzero.com
Waziyatawin Angela Wilson, Ph.D.
Oceti Sakowin Omniciya
Tel: (320) 564-4241
waziyatawin@gmail.com
Scott DeMuth
Oceti Sakowin Omniciya
srdemuth@stthomas.edu
Diane Elliot
hecetu1@yahoo.com
This Article from StarTribune.com has been sent to you by MonaSmith.
*Please note, the sender’s identity has not been verified.The full Article, with any associated images and links can be viewed here. |
Protesters decry ’shameful history’
TOM MEERSMAN, Star Tribune
About two dozen protesters, many of them Dakota Indians, blocked the Minnesota Sesquicentennial Wagon Train for about an hour Saturday afternoon as it reached Historic Fort Snelling.
The protesters said Minnesota’s 150th birthday this weekend is no cause for celebration among Indian people, whose lands were stolen from them and who endured injustice, broken treaties and imprisonment before and after Minnesota became a state.
Officials planning the sesquicentennial and historians have ignored the state’s “shameful history,” said Chris Mato Nunpa, who just retired as associate professor of indigenous nations and Dakota studies at Southwest Minnesota State University. “We’re engaged in truth telling,” he said.
He said the early history of Minnesota’s settlement by whites included bounties on Indian scalps, a mass execution in Mankato, and a “concentration camp” of Dakota women, children and the elderly at Fort Snelling during the winter of 1862-63.
“We honor those people who passed away, and we also grieve for them,” said Allan Henderson, another of the protesters. “It’s very emotional for us.”
The protesters carried signs in the rain, burned sage and beat on drums while singing, and two of them lay on the wet asphalt in front of horses pulling the first of several dozen wagons on their way from Cannon Falls to the Sesquicentennial celebration in St. Paul today.
Escorting the wagon train were about a dozen Dakota County deputies on horses, who were joined by several squads from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office and the airport police.
Joe Dalby of Bemidji, riding a mule at the front of the wagon train procession, watched as Hennepin officers arrested five adults and two adolescents and ushered them to squad cars. “I certainly appreciate their passion, but it’s too bad it has to end this way,” Dalby said.
After the arrests, deputies formed a line across the road and walked through the remaining protesters, allowing the wagons to pass so they could reach a special campground a few hundred yards away.
The Indian group is planning a march from Mounds Park in St. Paul to the Capitol today, where it may meet the wagon train again.
Watching the event Saturday was Heather Koop of the Minnesota Historical Society, who said that she’s sympathetic to the issues being raised. “What this protest is really about is the power of place,” she said.
Bob Dalbec of Bloomington saw the police cars from the highway, exited and parked to see what was going on. “Indians have a right to protest and to show their feelings,” he said. “I’m with them 100 percent.”
After checking the identifications of the arrested and holding them for less than an hour, authorities released them with warning tickets.
Tom Meersman • 612-673-7388
|
Video’s of the Dakota’s Wakan/"Rum" River Watershed traditional/ancestral homeland
(1.) The mouth of the Wakan/"Rum" River.
This sacred Dakota river flows out of Wakan/"Mille Lacs" Lake. The Dakota call this river by the sacred name for their lake [Wakan], which translated means Spirit or Great Spirit. The Dakota had a village located at this sacred site. Around the year 1750 French "settlers"/invaders tricked a newly arrived band of Ojibwe to violently forced the Dakota from this sacred site of theirs. However, the Dakota are beginning to return to reclaim this sacred site. The Dakota name for the sacred land surrounding the mouth of this river is Mdo-te-mini-wakan, pronounced Bdoh-Tay-Mni-Wah kahn, and translated as Mouth (of river) + Water + Spirit.
www.newsfornatives.com native american indian news politics political satire famous native americans natives in the news http://newsfornatives.com
(more…)
Posted on 5 May '08 by admin, under NEWS & POLITICS. No Comments.
Ihanktowan Nation protesters arrested
Yankton Sioux Arrested For Protesting Hog Plant - Video Please Forward This Post to Everyone You Know.
This issue has been going on for more than a week. It is unlikely that you will see or hear unbiased reports about it in the media.
Reuben W. Kitto, Jr
Click to open videos
When it comes to global warming, are we getting in too deep? Here’s a look at the top 10 U.S. cities at risk from rising sea levels.
By Shiwani Srivastava for MSN City Guides
Global warming might be the current hot topic in the news, but the threat of rising sea levels can often seem distant, uncontrollable and even abstract. Just how soon can we expect to feel the impact? And is there really anything we can do about it?
In December, the OECD – a Paris-based international organization that gathers and analyzes economic statistics and social data to benefit the global economy – released a report listing the cities worldwide that are most threatened by rising seas in the next 60 years, measured by population and property assets at risk. U.S. cities ranked surprisingly high on the list, capturing five of the top 10 spots, with all but one of the top 10 U.S. cities ranking in the top 30 worldwide.
So how did they figure out which cities are most at risk? Researchers looked at the combination of a "1-in-100 year" major flooding event (a commonly accepted risk assessment standard) with a sea rise of 1.6 feet by 2070 (caused by global warming) and calculated the effects. The one-two punch is potentially devastating, especially for several major U.S. cities.
That said, the OECD’s report isn’t meant to be all gloom and doom. Rather, it is meant to spur cities into preparedness to prevent another situation like Hurricane Katrina, which caused more than 1,800 deaths in Louisiana and Mississippi, and displaced hundreds of thousands more. In many ways, America and its economy are still feeling the aftershock of this natural disaster. But re-witnessing Katrina isn’t a sealed fate. While it could take up to 30 years for cities to set up adequate protection against rising seas, the technology exists to seriously lessen the damage that cities potentially face.
Slide show of 10 U.S. cities most at risk from rising sea levels
Coverage of Earth Day 2008
Earth Day events
Download: The Living Sea
Posted on 22 April '08 by admin, under NEWS & POLITICS. No Comments.
Breaking News:
Location of Mass Graves of Residential School Children Revealed for the First Time; Independent Tribunal Established
Squamish Nation Territory ("Vancouver, Canada")
Thursday, April 10, 2008 11:00 am PST
At a public ceremony and press conference held today outside the colonial "Indian Affairs" building in downtown Vancouver, the Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD) released a list of twenty eight mass graves across Canada holding the remains of untold numbers of aboriginal children who died in Indian Residential Schools.
The list was distributed today to the world media and to United Nations agencies, as the first act of the newly-formed International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC), a non-governmental body established by indigenous elders.
In a statement read by FRD spokesperson Eagle Strong Voice, it was declared that the IHRTGC would commence its investigations on April 15, 2008, the fourth Annual Aboriginal Holocaust Memorial Day. This inquiry will involve international human rights observers from Guatemala and Cyprus, and will convene aboriginal courts of justice where those persons and institutions responsible for the death and suffering of residential school children will be tried and sentenced. . . .
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Posted on 17 April '08 by admin, under NEWS & POLITICS. No Comments.
This Omaha Family Lost Everything they Own in A House Fire Today at 3:00pm 4-14-08
DONATION INFO AT BOTTOM
They are in need of any kind of help, they will need to start all over they can use: Clothes, Cookware, Bedding, Jackets, Towels, Furniture, Financial Contributions are Greatly Appreciated if you find in your heart to help financially please make checks out to Barbara Omaha This Elderly Grandmother raised 9 children and 40 grandchildren and great grandchildren in this house. She is a spiritual elder she has lived in this house for 40 years she has a sweat lodge in her backyard.
Many community members have come here to pray, over the years she has helped
many people now it is time for her to receive help, as her family is homeless with nothing, all her spiritual items may not be recovered years of photos, and memories may have been lost, we lost a one year old puppy, luckily everyone got out safe, but now she is suffering and is in desperate need of help from our community if anyone wants to donate please drop off donations to her daughter Maggie’s
house the address is 3101 34th Ave South Minneapolis, MN there will be someone there at all times collecting any donations will be greatly appreciated as well as prayers, we are coming to you in a humble way asking for assistance and for help. Wolakota we are all related Thank you in advance from the Omaha Family
She has 7 grandchildren
Nellie Omaha Age 9 girl clothes size10-12 shoe size 6
Lavonne Senogles Age 10 clothes girl 10-12 shoe size 7
Arlana Senogles Age 11 girl clothes 14-16 shoe 9 woman
Buster Senogles Age 7 boy clothes 8 shoe size 3
John Omaha Age 8 boy clothes 8 shoe size 3
Leroy Omaha age 10 boy clothes 12 shoe 5
David Omaha age 12 boy clothes 14 shoe 6
Barbara Omaha is a 4x womans shoe size 9
Amanda Senogles age 20 clothes 7 shoe size 7
Tony Senogles adult mens 30 pants med shirt shoe mens 9
Buster Senogles adult mens 42 pants 3x-large shirt shoe 11
Jim Omaha adult mens 32×34 pants med shirt shoe size 10
Kevin Smokeyday adult mens 38 pants 2xshirt shoe size 11
Brad Senogles adult mens38 pants 2x shirt shoe size 10
please drop off donations to her daughter Maggie’s house
3101 34th Ave South Minneapolis, MN (MAP IT)
if you have any questions you can call me or email me:
Arlana Omaha
(952)913-0757
arlanaomaha@yahoo.com
Posted on 16 April '08 by admin, under NEWS & POLITICS. No Comments.
