(FP’ed 3:09 AM EDT, Sunday. October 14, 2007. – promoted by exmearden)
The snow crunches underfoot, and it yields to a soft underlayment, glistening with mystery as the moon parlays its reflected sheen on the infinite sparkling frosty desert.
An aroma of universal home wafts through the swaying branches of pine, of spruce and of arborvitae. Pungent, yet gentle, it speaks to timelessness, of shelter, of contemplation. Those trees, in their conversations, tell the stories of the wind, of the light and shadow, and of all those who pass overhead and underneath the regal limbs.
This night, the deepening blueblack of the scrim reveals brilliant gems in their courses.
The moon conducts the symphony, and the celestial choir hums the chorus. Listen, ears pricked, and feel the song of songs. The trees sway in rhythm. Tapping bark tympanics applaud the performance. The earth turns in time with the music to follow the melody.
Peering through the ferny pines are the night watchers. Those with wings ruffle their rachis and tuck themselves into the tempo. Paws shuffle and legs dance with the harmonic pulsing. Fur rises and then settles in warm comforting envelopment of its bearer.
The lone observer encumbered by clothes to protect a vulnerable fur-less skin, gazes unseeing, but with listening ears, hearing feet, fingertips alive and perceiving the deep cold that doesn’t come from the air. Hands curled and thrust deep in flannel-lined pockets, face turned to the moon, lost in the music, the pattern, the all, time wasn’t, and here was everywhere and nowhere.
To honor of the achievements and contributions of Native Americans to the United States, and for other purposes.
Let’s find a way to make it happen and in a good way, please.
This bill is in the first stage of the legislative process where the bill is considered in committee and may undergo significant changes in markup sessions. The bill has been referred to the following committees:
[Update]:
Here’s the email I received from a very credible friend.
Please use information below to take action to bring about
‘Native American Heritage Day’
This bill will open up the door for tribal nations to have a voice as to true Indian history and heritage in our nations school books and class rooms.
In bringing about ‘Native American Heritage Day’ It will open the door and spot light many issues concerning the Native American community.
H.R.3585 Cosponsors (63)
To honor of the achievements and contributions of Native Americans to the United States, and for other purposes.
This Act may be cited as the ..Native American Heritage Day Act of 2007′.
the Friday immediately succeeding Thanksgiving Day of each year would be an appropriate day to designate as Native American Heritage Day.
Bill before: “House Education and Labor” Committee/Subcommittee: http://edlabor.house…
Telephone: (202) 225-3725
S. 1852 Cosponsors (6)
Native American Heritage Day Act of 2007 (Introduced in Senate)
To designate the Friday after Thanksgiving of each year as ..Native American Heritage Day’ in honor of the achievements and contributions of Native Americans to the United States.
(Crossposted at the Orange Vortex of All Futility and Despair)
I’m not sure we need to help Atlanta with their water problem. They’ve had more than enough time over the last 7 years of our Glorious Decider’s reign to purge their local government of the anti-American elements that have no doubt worked successfully to deprive Atlanta of access to water at free-market prices. See, this is what happens when you have bloated and corrupt liberal government approach to providing services like water. If people would pay for water, they would have it, it is just that simple. Where are the entrepreneurs towing icebergs from the North and South polar regions? Note to Al Gore: those icebergs are going to melt anyway, why not use them for drinking water? This problem is Atlanta’s to solve. No bleeding-heart liberal water bail-outs for those lazy freeloaders, I say. If they want water, they can pay $1.75 a liter like everybody else from the convenience store. Its these water utilities providing 1000 liters of tap water for 2 cents that are causing these shortages, you know. Things aren’t priced right, there are shortages. Maybe they’ll figure out that dying of thirst is more painful than shelling out a fair market price to Aquafina or Costco.
We need to sell off all these municipal water utilities to private industry. That way, the consumers get the benefit of excellent management (instead of bloated corrupt civil service) and in return they pay a fair price.
But in the meantime, there is no doubt going to be unrest in Atlanta. Large portions of that urban nightmare have never reliably voted Republican, so you can count on trouble. It is a good thing that Blackwater is only a few hours away in North Carolina.
As a pre-emptive measure, I call upon Emperor Bush to declare an emergency of Homeland Security and suspend civil rights in Georgia. Actually, just to be safe, the entire Southeast region should be covered. This is the only way to protect water delivery routes until order can be restored. If you have relatives in the area, advise them to remain calm and stay in their homes until contacted by their DHS Ward Officer.
It is time to pull together for America, folks. Al Qaeda is jusst itching to capitalize on opportunities like this, so be alert but continue shopping. My contacts in DHS have let me know that AQ elements may be tempted to strike at anytime in this current period of unrest. It may be necessary to delay primary elections until the situation is under control. The media will be asked to cooperate in our response to this crisis.
Thank you for your patriotic service.
Help us in this time of crisis, O Great One. We ask this in Bush’s name, Amen.
This is an OPEN THREAD. Here are four stories in the news at 4 o’clock to get you started. Hearts are the depositories of secrets. Lips are their locks, and tounges are their keys.
With the killing of an unknowable number of peaceful protesters and the imprisonment of thousands more during the pro-democracy demonstrations last month, many people fear reprisals by the military. At the Shwedagon pagoda, the nucleus of the protests, the military is still in force. Wearing steel helmets, flak jackets and carrying extra ammunition, the number of troops far exceeds the few old monks who potter among the golden spires of what is the spiritual centre of Burmese life…
Sources said that around 1,000 monks had lived and studied at these small monasteries, but where they have gone is not a question that anyone ponders aloud. One man simply put his wrists together in the sign of locked handcuffs when asked where they are.
“We cannot speak. We cannot defend. We have no weapons. They have all the weapons,” said another 30-year-old man, who cannot be identified for his own safety.
“Mr Blair was appalled by what we told him,” said Mats Lignell, spokesman for the international observers stationed here “temporarily” in 1994 after a Jewish extremist from the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba massacred 29 Palestinians praying in the Ibrahimi Mosque…
“Blair was really astonished and angry,” says the UN official who gave him a presentation on the devastating effects of Israel’s “security barrier”, settlements, checkpoints, and closures on the lives of Palestinians in the occupied territories. “He asked very smart questions, though I did think that someone who was prime minister for so long should already have known these facts.” …
Crucially, Mr Blair is keeping away from the Gaza Strip, which is under international boycott and cut off from the West Bank since Hamas took over.
He has said privately that Israel and the Palestinian Authority will eventually have to talk to the Islamists. The hope is that success in the West Bank will demonstrate the achievements of the moderates and weaken Hamas – ignoring evidence, from Iraq and elsewhere, that sanctions and collective punishment do not work.
Israel’s air attack on Syria last month was directed against a site that Israeli and American intelligence analysts judged was a partly constructed nuclear reactor, apparently modeled on one North Korea has used to create its stockpile of nuclear weapons fuel, according to American and foreign officials with access to the intelligence reports…
Many details remain unclear, most notably how much progress the Syrians had made in construction before the Israelis struck, the role of any assistance provided by North Korea, and whether the Syrians could make a plausible case that the reactor was intended to produce electricity…
“There wasn’t a lot of debate about the evidence,” said one American official familiar with the intense discussions over the summer between Washington and the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel. “There was a lot of debate about how to respond to it.”
Okay, once again the legitimacy of the “evidence” isn’t being questioned. Just like they “knew” where the WMDs were hidden in Iraq. Plus, Bush has advocated increased use of nuclear energy, which a Syrian (or Iranian) reactor could be used for, to counter climate change, but then they go an bomb any nation they don’t like that is building a reactor. Plus, these are the same people that claim the scientific evidence of global warming isn’t conclusive, but don’t even bat an eye at evidence of a nuclear weapons program in Syria? And still there are some people that believe Republicans are strong on security? Oy vey!
Also, remember this partially contradicts what Night Owl relayed that Laura Rozen wrote about the attacks and a recent scud missiles shipment coming from North Korea; however, the North Korean angle is the same. But this whole Syria nuclear bit, to quote Yogi Berra, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”
But that’s not all, Four at Four continues with today’s episode of “Guns of Greed” and an article about the “doomsday” seed vault in Norway. It’s a great story, so please make the voyage to the frozen land below the fold…
In today’s “Guns of Greed” more details on the Nisour Square massacre, the cost of having mercenary competition, and a pair of boots.
The three witnesses, Kurds on a rooftop overlooking the scene, said they had observed no gunfire that could have provoked the shooting by Blackwater guards. American soldiers who arrived minutes later found shell casings from guns used normally by American contractors, as well as by the American military.
The Kurdish witnesses are important because they had the advantage of an unobstructed view and because, collectively, they observed the shooting at Nisour Square from start to finish, free from the terror and confusion that might have clouded accounts of witnesses at street level. Moreover, because they are pro-American, their accounts have a credibility not always extended to Iraqi Arabs, who have been more hostile to the American presence…
The Kurdish witnesses said that they saw no one firing at the guards at any time during the event, an observation corroborated by the forensic evidence of the shell casings. Two of the witnesses also said all the Blackwater vehicles involved in the shooting drove away under their own power.
The Kurds, who work for a political party whose building looks directly down on the square, said they had looked for any evidence that the American security guards were responding to an attack, but found none.
“I call it a massacre,” said Omar H. Waso, one of the witnesses and a senior official at the party, which is called the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. “It is illegal. They used the law of the jungle.”
… The Kurdish witnesses on the rooftop said they had not been interviewed by Iraqi investigators. They said they had been visited by American investigators, but had not been fully interviewed.
Bill Sizemore of The Virginian Pilot reports Blackwater quits trade group that was reviewing its conduct. Blackwater has left the International Peace Operations Association, its Washington-based trade group two days after the organization’s “executive committee had authorized an independent review Monday to determine whether Blackwater’s processes and procedures were in compliance with the group’s code of conduct” thus “effectively halting the inquiry”. “The IPOA code of conduct holds member companies accountable to standards of human rights, corporate ethics, international humanitarian law, transparency and professionalism.” TMPmuckraker has the IPOA statement in full.
The AP reports that Six-figure bonuses retain US commandos. “The Pentagon has paid more than $100 million in bonuses to veteran Green Berets and Navy SEALs, reversing the flow of top commandos to the corporate world where security companies such as Blackwater USA are offering big salaries. ¶ The retention effort, started nearly three years ago and overseen by U.S. Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., has helped preserve a small but elite group of enlisted troops with vast experience fighting the unconventional wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Defense Department statistics. ¶ Overall, more than 1,200 of the military’s most specialized personnel near or already eligible for retirement have opted for payments of up to $150,000 in return for staying in uniform several more years.”
Washington Post reporters, Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Dana Hedgpeth, have written a lengthy background piece, Building Blackwater.
In a decade, Blackwater’s revenue from federal government contracts has grown exponentially, from less than $100,000 to almost $600 million last year. In August, the company won its biggest deal ever, a five-year counternarcotics training contract worth up to $15 billion shared with four other companies.
Blackwater’s extraordinary rise would not have been possible without a swirl of historic forces, including sharp cuts in military and security staffing in the 1990s, the Bush administration’s drive to outsource government services to the private sector and the sudden demand for improved security in response to the threat of terrorism…
The organization most people think of as Blackwater is actually a collection of companies with Prince and his McLean-based holding company, the Prince Group, at the top. Prince, a former Navy Seal and heir to an industrial fortune, owns everything…
Democrats in Congress could not have been clearer how they view Blackwater during a packed oversight hearing last week. The company, lawmakers said, operates as an out-of-control, mercenary force.
As Prince drove around the grounds of his property Monday, six days after the hearing, he still fumed at the accusations. Acting as a proud tour guide in a black Suburban, he seemed to want the facilities to prove that Congress and other critics are wrong and that he has nothing to hide…
The Chicago Tribune has a commentary, Blackwater and me: A love story it ain’t, by Robert Bateman, a historian and U.S. Army infantry officer that served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006.
I know something about Blackwater USA. This opinion is both intellectually driven as well as moderately emotional. You see, during my own yearlong tour in Iraq, the bad boys of Blackwater twice came closer to killing me than did any of the insurgents or Al Qaeda types. That sort of thing sticks with you. One story will suffice to make my point…
I do know one thing: It enraged me … and Blackwater is, at least nominally, on our side.
But imagining that incident from an Iraqi perspective made it clear to me that though Blackwater USA draws its paycheck from Uncle Sam, it’s not working in Uncle Sam’s best interests. If I was this angry, I can only imagine the reactions of the tens of thousands of Iraqis who encounter Blackwater personnel on a regular basis.
Iraq operates on the basis of an honor culture. Honor is, arguably, more important than Islam. Being dishonored, in word or deed, or even by implication, is enough to set the average Iraqi man to plotting his revenge…
But the reality is that Blackwater USA, from top to bottom, just does not care.
What employees of the private security firm care about, and I have heard this from the Blackwaters with whom I interacted in Iraq, is their paycheck. They care about their huge compensation packages, and about getting home alive to spend them. Blackwater USA has already taken in more than $1 billion from the public coffers.
All in all, that’s not a bad take for Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater and a Naval Academy dropout who served less time under the colors of the nation, in uniform, than my most recent pair of boots.
This is really worth reading.
Louise Roug explores the “doomsday vault” in a story for the Los Angeles Times called ‘The seed bank atop the world‘. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is being built in a remote Arctic location in Norway.
High above the icy fjord, the vault is almost complete. Inside a frozen mountain not far from the North Pole, workers are building three concrete chambers to withstand global warming, floods and fires, wars and nuclear holocaust.
This Arctic safe, nicknamed the “doomsday vault,” will protect millions of crop seeds here on the forbidding Svalbard archipelago, the northernmost inhabited spot on the planet. The survival of Earth’s agriculture is being entrusted to a land inhospitable to life, where only the toughest plants, animals and humans endure…
National seed banks around the world might be devastated by natural disasters or raided in a war, but the remoteness of the Svalbard vault makes it the ultimate safety backup…
many of the world’s gene banks are plagued by funding shortages, management failures and equipment problems.
The only seeds that will not be accepted for storage at the Svalbard vault are those from genetically modified plants.
Mentioned almost in passing is this story from Iraq. In 2003, Iraq’s seed repository was looted. “But Iraqi scientists had smuggled a ‘black box’ of plant samples across the border to Syria to safeguard them before the U.S.-led invasion that March, and Iraqi farmers today can replant their fields with indigenous crops.” Saddam Hussein was a very bad man, but removing him from power through war has made things worse for most Iraqis. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
(Ugh! Science Goood! 6:15 – promoted by buhdydharma )
(A rehash of a dKos diary from 8/27/2007 in honor of President Al Gore).
Science was the boring class you had to take in school where the teacher droned on and on about stuff you already knew, or didn’t care about. No, not really, although that is the only thing a lot of people know about science.
Let’s try a different definition. Science is the systematic gathering of data and the forming of theories to explain this data. This is a better definition, but kind of dry. Science is really all about model building. (No, not model cars). The models I’m talking about are mathematical, or systematic models (called theories).
Note : Don’t use Wikipedia for reference material, I’ve learned since I wrote this that information from Wikipedia is alway suspect because Anyone can edit it. It can be a useful tool when doing research, but realize that it is not a source you want to reference.
(I was brand new at the time)
More below the fold.
Through a process of making newer, better models we can come to a better understanding of nature and the rules by which it progresses. This process only works without dogma–flexibility is the key. Sure, scientists are human and can be very dogmatic, but gradually the evidence will come to convince scientists of the truth. This was the case when the theory of Plate Tectonics was applied to the evidence that South America and Africa look like jigsaw puzzle pieces. Many scientists refused to listen because they believed in an unchanging Earth.
Dogma is antithetical to Science. Maybe a couple of examples will help me explain.
First example: Charles Darwin’s theory is not that evolution happens but rather explains the vast amounts of data seen by Darwin which prove that evolution has occurred in the past-and still is occurring. Darwin’s theory is that Natural Selection is the driving force behind evolution. The fossils that Darwin observed in Patagonia, and the wildlife of the Galapagos, showed him that living things had changed their form in the past. And observations about domesticated plants and animals-along with the efforts to continue their evolution into evermore useful plants and animals (artificial selection)-showed that living things were continuing to change form. Darwin took the observed data and formed a theory that random mutations in plants and animals were “chosen” by how well they allowed the plants and animals to survive in their environment. It took a long time-and many experiments-for most scientists to agree that this is the way life works. And, still, many people choose to believe their dogma rather than open their eyes to the evidence.
Second example: Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was an agronomist in the early Soviet Union. He believed in the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Lamark about evolution. Lamark thought that the evolution of life forms was caused by adaptive selection or the passing on of acquired characteristics from one generation to the next. (If a giraffe has to stretch its neck to reach food its offspring would have longer necks). Lysenko was Stalin’s golden boy. As a peasant with no formal training in science Lysenko was an example of Stalin’s belief in the “barefoot scientist”. Stalin said that practice was more powerful than theory-and what Stalin believed everyone else had better believe too. Lysenko was put in charge of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the Soviet Union and persecuted anyone, including real scientists, who tried to dispute his theories. This dogma caused the Soviet Union to fall behind in many areas of science and contributed to wide spread starvation in the Soviet Union which lasted many years.
These examples illustrate how dogma is harmful not just to Science, but to humankind as well. The Bush/Cheney (Cheney/Bush?) administration has been interfering with science, and the public perception of science, to the detriment of the American people (and probably the entire Earth). Bush appointed George C. Deutsch, a 24 year old Bush campaign worker from Texas to the public affairs office at NASA. Deutsch was involved in pressuring James E. Hansen, a scientist who works on computer modeling Earth’s climate, to not speak publicly about global warming. Deutsch also told the programmers of the NASA web sites to always refer to the Big Bang as only “a theory”. It is a theory, but so are the theories that enable scientists to design cell phones and to orbit communications satellites. Deutsch later resigned after it was publicly revealed that he did not graduate with a B.A. as he said on his resume. By clouding the picture the bushies not only stopped America’s acceptance of the Kyoto Protocol, they also stopped many people from ever listening to what science is telling them about our future and the future of our planet.
Like your cell phones? Like your internet? Like healthy, long lived children?
Many years ago, the federal courts ruled that the Black Hills of western South Dakota had been taken illegally from the American Indian tribes –
As governor, would you consider transferring Bear Butte State Park land and management to a consortium of American Indian Tribes as a gesture of reconciliation from the state?
Mike Rounds, Republican candidate in 2006:
“I do not believe that Bear Butte State Park, and it is a state park, should be transferred to a Native American tribe.
I’m not sure which Native American tribe you might suggest (that) you hold that they are all sovereign.
Rapid City, SD — South Dakota Circuit Court Judge John Delaney denied a motion for a stay to stop any further drilling by a Uranium mining company near Edgemont. Opposing parties considering state Supreme Court appeal.
Powertech, a Canadian mining company, began drilling uranium exploratory wells in the Dewey Burdock area northwest of Edgemont a few weeks despite the approval of their permit being appealed in court. Two environmental organizations, Defenders of the Black Hills and ACTion for the Environment are appealing the decision made by the South Dakota Board of Mining and Environment. Cindy Gillis, lead counsel for the two groups had previously sought a preliminary injunction and a restraining order. Judge Delaney denied those requests and said a “stay” was the proper procedure, and one was filed on April 30. A hearing was held on June 19, 2007, in the Pennington County Courthouse and the Judge denied the stay stating there was not enough environmental information to show harm to the plaintiffs.
Charmaine White Face, Coordinator for Defenders, said, “This appeal is about the violation of our Constitutional rights. Our concerns about the environment were not even considered by the Board during the first hearing in January,” she said. “That’s why we appealed their decision in the first place. We are not even to the environmental questions yet.”
Mike Rounds, who was a Republican candidate for governor in 2006 stated, “I’m not sure which Native American tribe you might suggest (that) you hold that they are all sovereign.”
It seems to me, that republicans appealing to their own willful ignorance as a false appeal to their own mistaken authority is a sad standard, not to mention appalling in light of what they apply their god-complex-politics to.
A person is who is said to have a “God complex”, does not believe he is god, but acts so arrogantly that he might as well believe his is God or appointed to act by God.
In addition to South Dakota Circuit Court Judge John Delaney’s decision regarding mining in the Black Hills, I want to highlight Bear Butte with bad and good news.
Here’s the bad news.
prayer atmosphere at Bear Butte (posted June 6 of 2007)
You can contact DefendBearButte.org and ask how you can help. Specifically, contact Carter Camp.
Sorry if this is too long. I wrote it when the movie came out. CC
Review by Carter Camp, AIM, Ponca Nation
Ah-ho My Relations,
It has been a long buildup to the showing of HBO’s “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”. We read about the good native cast that was being assembled and as the date drew near Indian people were emailing the starting dates and previews to each other. I remember telling my brothers that “I know this will be hard to watch”. I knew that because the book had touched my heart and I knew a movie would be even more emotional. I think everyone was prepared to see a modern, well researched movie that would be as truthful and hard hitting as the book. It seemed all right that they had narrowed the book down to the story of the 1890 massacre of the Lakota at Wounded Knee rather than try to tell the whole book’s many stories of the genocide of Indian people. It promised to be an Indian movie we could be proud of or at least a truthful one to counter some recent stinkers like Pocahontas and Apocalypto.
Of course that may have been wishful thinking on my part seeing as how the book galvanized a generation of Indian people to fight for the redress of the historical wrongs done to our people. The book touched a nerve with tribes across Indian Country and showed us graphically the commonality of our many struggles. The book proved that what was done to our people was a decades long, government inspired, well planned, process of genocide and a movie showing the same was eagerly looked forward to by Indians across the nation. The book was deeply researched and exceptionally careful in its scholarship, Dee Brown was one of the first historians to attempt to examine the native side of the conquest of America.
This movie began with scenes of a screaming bunch of be-feathered warriors charging down a hill and riding in a circle around and around a tightly gathered group of soldiers bravely making a “last stand” against the swarming horde. As anyone knows who has been to the actual Bighorn battlefield the soldiers death sites are scattered over many acres in a big fan shaped area from where it began. It shows that with few exceptions the soldiers were flushed like a covey of quail and died running to escape. As the camera slowly faded from the scene I said “uh-oh, I hope that wasn’t supposed to be Custer getting his arrow shirt”.
It was, damn it all to hell, the movie began with one of the oldest and tiredest of the old, tired Hollywood western stereotypes… suicidal Indian warriors, too dumb to plan battle tactics, letting themselves get picked off one by one by smart white soldiers who take cover while the Indians ride around and around. A sinking sensation began to come over me but I hoped against hope that this was perhaps a counterpoint that would be explained later. That hope was futile, the movie turned out to be full of those types of ignorant stereotypes and to make it worse it was also full of historical mistakes so egregious I doubt the perpetrators even read Dee Browns book! They had the Paiute preacher Wovoka in South Dakota teaching the Lakota how to Ghostdance and the protagonist Eastman devising the Dawes Act! They berated the Lakota for fighting other tribes as if their early displacement by the Ojibway was their fault. Every battle scene shows the Lakota doing their B-western thing and charging straight into superior whitemen shooting superior weapons. We see Lakotas getting blown every which way until they run off and then sue for peace from the superior white officer. I felt like I was back in my 1950’s youth, watching a cowboys and redskins flick!
Worse than some of their historical mistakes was the lack of important historical events like Chief Bigfoot’s desperate, 200 mile flight through the bitter, subzero cold under harassment by the 7th cavalry. These were the women and children that were to be slaughtered at Wounded Knee, after weeks of trudging and freezing they were almost to safety when the cavalry attacked and murdered them. How could they not portray such a major part of the story? Without Bigfoots attempt to save his people from the revenge minded 7th cavalry by leading them to Red Clouds agency seeking refuge, there would not have been a Wounded Knee massacre. They didn’t even make it clear it was Custer’s old outfit that committed the murders.
In this movie it made the massacre seem like a fair fight with Lakota shooting as much as the whites, not showing that our men had been disarmed and only a very few had been able to hide a weapon. It obscured the start and never mentioned, much less portrayed, how so many unarmed women and children were murdered one by one, execution style. It made it look like they were killed in the heat of battle instead of being hunted down like rabbits and shot pointblank by crazed and drunken American heroes. It wasn’t hard to watch, like the murder of innocent children should be, even though a lot blood was splattered. Oh it got graphic with today’s special effects how could it not, but the people didn’t seem real because in this movie Indians have no personalities. Except for Adam Beach in a couple of scenes, Indians were one dimensional and stoic (as always) even Sitting Bull (the main personality of the Indian side) was never given any but the barest of motivations for his lifelong resistance.
Which brings me to my biggest disappointment with the movie, no, I should say what pissed me off the most about this movie. They got everything Indian wrong! They sang Sundance songs at inappropriate times and danced the Ghost Dance before a tree. The small things that make us Tribal people were distorted to make our societies the mirror of theirs. Things like our familial relationships were completely ignored and the fact that we had a governmental structure at all seemed unknown to the scriptwriter and director. That’s racist. It’s as if we were so primitive we lived dog eat dog lives while dictator chiefs ruled us with an iron fist. There were no Clans, no Societies, no Woman’s voice, no respect in a society built on respect. There was no beauty.
Chiefs, the honored leaders of our societies who were chosen by the people because they openly lived their lives above reproach, were shown as venal, greed driven autocrats who held life and death powers over their people. Nothing could be more wrong. In one sickening scene they had Chief Sitting Bull tying up a boy and whipping him unmercifully in front of his wife and family for trying to leave camp! Worse again was the way, all of a sudden when the agent said there would be no Chiefs, all the Indians immediately obeyed him and shunned Chief Sitting Bull and gave him no more allegiance. Again no understanding of Indian society or a Chiefs role in our society. The historical record says the agent, who the movie shows as harshly dictating to an intimidated Chief Sitting Bull, was in reality deathly afraid of the Chief and generally kissed his ass while scheming behind his back. And the truth is the vast majority of Lakota people still revered and respected both Chief Sitting Bull and Chief Red Cloud.
All of us have seen the beautiful way our Chiefs and Headsmen dressed when they had formal meetings with the whiteman or sat in Council for the people. In this movie in scene after scene our most respected leaders were dressed like 1930’s depression era bums! Why the hell was that done? The completely untrue and totally undignified portrayal of Chief Red Cloud must have been done with deliberate malice. He was shown as an overweight, sad and broken old man without dignity nor the respect of his people. The truth is, a more proud, straight and tall example of Lakota pride and dignity cannot be found in all the pictures of that era. We can only ask why? Why the hell would you make a movie like this? Why would you ignore the very book the movie is named after and choose to make a movie from the ignorant 1950’s? Why?
I’m outraged that this movie was foisted upon us under the name of such a respected book. In a different more subtle way this movie is worse and more stereotypical than Mel Gibson’s stupidly violent Apocolypto. This movie disrespects those that died at Wounded Knee in the massacre of 1890, it disrespects those that survived, it disrespects the Lakota Nation and it disrespects Indian people, most of all it disrespects the book and its title. When will they ever learn?
The good news is that the Northern Cheyenne Tribe purchased “36 acres of private land on the west side of Bear Butte.” The article is dated June 12.
BEAR BUTTE – About noon Wednesday, a small tribal delegation replaced a worn U.S. flag near the base of Bear Butte with the blue and white flag representing the Northern Cheyenne people of Montana. As a good neighbor, they said, they plan to keep their land pristine.
Northern Cheyenne Tribe President Eugene Little Coyote led the tribe’s council and other officials in a flag song after buying 36 acres of private land on the west side of Bear Butte.
Little Coyote, 33, said the tribe will not build casinos on its land or commercially develop the property. He said his tribe does not have gambling within its 444,000-acre reservation in Montana and would not develop it at Bear Butte.
Alex White Plume, a Lakota living on the Pine Ridge Reservation, has grown industrial hemp on his land since 2000. That year, the DEA, with helicopters and machine guns, confiscated the crop (legal in the sovereign nation in which it was grown), costing taxpayers more than $200,000.00.
In 2001, the DEA came only with side arms and weed eaters, this time simply destroying the crop.
In 2002, Alex and his family again planted fields of industrial hemp, but were unable to complete their contract by delivering the crop to the Madison Hemp and Flax Co., because U.S. District Judge Battey (in Rapid City, So. Dak.), issued a civil injunction stating that if Alex so much as touches his hemp, he will be held in contempt of court and jailed for up to six months without a trial or a jury. As a result, the hemp was cut and piled by people unknown; the pile lying in silent testimony between Alex and the Madison Hemp & Flax buyer Craig Lee, both barred from touching it by the government. Delivery was made, but the deliveree could not accept the product.
The 1851 Ft. Laramie Treaty left control of agriculture on reservation land to the tribes.
On Nov. 21, 2001, the The Oglala Sioux Tribal Council enacted regulations allowing licenses fornon-psychoactive hemp to be grown on reservation.
A long legal battle ensued, thus far not favorable to the White Plume family, who’ve attempted to grow and market a hemp crop. 2002 interview with Alex White Pluume
6th Annual Lakota Hemp Days August 21-23, Kiza Park, by Wounded Knee Creek.
Thankyou ben masel.
Uranium is not only what is being mined in my opinion – tribal sovereignty is.
Concerned people are trying to get the message out through the media, so I’ll end this diary with this video.
I look around at a whirlwind of disaster, even having happened already or imminent. But in crisis lies opportunity, I am told. I’ve more often found that in crisis lies stress.
Yesterday I had to empty almost ever box of papers I possess (at least any such box which has been open in the past three years) looking for my divorce decree. Then in the afternoon Debbie and I went and filed for our New Jersey Civil Union license.
The upshot is that the house is a disaster area. Check that. It’s more of a disaster area than it was. It’s midterm week, so housework has not been done for quite some time.
In six days a house guest arrives. That sounds like a deadline to me. Of course, with grades also due on that Friday, that puts us in sort of a bind. And I have to have my hair done on Friday, too, presuming I can get an appointment. I neglected to register the fact that Wednesday I won’t be available for hair styling since I’m scheduled for jury duty (oh, joy!) on that day and Thursday.
Time will have to be spent grading exams and projects today, so I may be a little longer in responding than usual. Priorities will have to be observed.
But it will be better than next week, when I won’t be responding much at all. In fact, you’ll have trouble locating a Teacher’s Lounge next Saturday. For the second time in its history, TL will move to Friday night (a couple of times it was reposted on Sunday because of site crashes).
For those keeping track, that history will have reached 104 issues next week. That means a birthday part of sorts might be in order for issue CV. It will return to Saturday on that day (October 27).
We call them hands
on a clock
going ’round
at a predictable rate
But it’s my mind
and feet
that are spinning
never enough time
do this
do that
you forgot that
never enough time
you’d think I’d learn
and I have,
in a way there’s
never enough time
and there is
nothing I can do
to change that
never enough time
–Robyn Elaine Serven
–December 5, 2005
It must be midterm time for other people as well, both teachers and students. How’s it going?
You have to feel for our conservative, neoconservative, right wing and keyboard kommando brethren. I mean, there is just so much that they are up against. With total control of Congress for over a decade, the White House and the Judicial Branch for at least the past 6 years (longer if you count how many Supreme Court Justices have been appointed by republicans) and near total control of the political, economic and foreign policy agenda – it is tough to find others to blame when shit meets fan and it all blows up in their face.
Of course, there are also those of us liberals who support terrorism. Not this kind of terrorism which actually does exist and did happen (and still is happening), but this kind of terrorism that those who weren’t in charge and didn’t blow off warnings and didn’t focus on it were clearly responsible for, and actually cheered it on.
Yes, so many groups of strawmen ganging up on these fine upstanding citizens, nay, heroic patriots who are so bravely fighting off all these strawmen armies that they themselves created. It gets tiring saving the world from evil people that want basic affordable healthcare for millions of children. And it must be downright exhausting telling those fake troops who put their lives on the line for this country what is really going on in Iraq.
But those liberals…..they don’t stop. They want to kill babies. They want to take away everyone’s guns. They hate Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Jesus Christ – that is if they even believe in them. They want to legalize rape and marrying your pets. They are out of the mainstream. And they hate America.
So many strawmen who were responsible for the shape this country is in. Their agenda, values and actions are emboldening the terrorists and leading to the downfall of society.
It’s tough being a republican, conservative, neoconservative, rightist or keyboard kommando nowadays.
This morning (here) I am just going to start writing and see what comes out! I think I will write about writing….and see where that goes as the words come out!
Ok, I know this is a good thing….but not all good things feel good at the time they are happening. Like Shots. But the current good thing is a change in how I write. Or when I write, or perhaps why I write. But certainly when I write. And now…..what I write as well.
It is a subtle but meaningful change. I used to write on blogs merely for pleasure and to impose my will on the world to get it to change by admonishing it or yelling at it or strangling it into submission through snark. But mainly for pleasure. It is a great pleasure in my life to be able to express myself, to say out loud all the things I have been keeping hidden in my head for all these years, only letting them out to a small circle of friends.
Plus, I genuinely enjoy the creative act of writing. Making something, even something as ephemeral as words on a blog page that will soon scroll off. Where before there was nothing…a blank page. There is now something. The act of creation is always worthy, the act of creating beauty is sublime.
But it is not just pleasure that motivates me anymore. Two things changed that. The first was quite alarming and VERY surprising and the second is just an outgrowth of the first. The first was….people started listening to what I was saying. I never expected that! Especially at Daily Kos, where I figured the smart folks already know what I know. I still struggle with that! I take it for granted that people have all the info I have and have processed it, so I don’t want to talk down to anyone or state the obvious. I am still amazed when stuff I take for granted is greeted with surprise. I suppose some of that is just ‘my take’ on stuff. But I can assure you all, I never thought that my writing…my take…would become ‘popular.’ When people started listening to me, I felt like I had a responsibility. I felt that because I feel that if I can make even a tiny difference in this world to move it closer to sanity….even in one persons head….that is a real contribution. The world needs BADLY to change, ANYTHING, no matter how insignificant in the big picture I can do towards that is important.
The second of course, was starting this blog! I am now REQUIRED, lol, to produce ‘content.’ Which is a good thing, as I say above. I have a LOT I want to say to the world. But I am a lazy writer.
I have two excuse for my laziness…and one fact. The two excuses are that I have to find comfy positions to write in so I don’t strain my back, but when I write, I tend to get excited and forget to get in a good position. So writing cause me pain, hahahaha. I am making progress and it helps the writing to be relaxed too.
The second excuse is that I am slow and bad typist. The words are often in my head but come out of my fingers slowly. I don’t just flow…..though this long, self-involved, self-important, self-indulgent essay is a move in that direction! I have so much inside me that I want to get out, the process of overcoming the obstacles to that is just as worthy as the gaol itself and teaches me and transforms me nearly as much as the writing itself.
Of course the more I write, the better I get at all these things, and this is why it is a good thing. I think we all have an inner self that we long to share. I think this sharing brings us closer together. I think letting our inner self blossom is good for us and for our neighbors and ultimately for the world. We hold to much back out of fear of ridicule or rejection. This puts a barrier between us and helps to keep us from connecting and realizing that whatever our differences our, we are all humans, all the same…..underneath it all.
One of the reasons for this blog is to create a safe(ish) space for us all to express that inner self.
Unless of course your inner self has been driven mad by our modern world…..and the inability to express ourselves in it, to be heard…..to let the release valve pop and say what YOUR truth is. It is a theory of mine (not just mine of course) that if we all could express ourselves freely there would not be mnearly so many angry people, and without so many angry people, there would not be so much strife. I will NOT get into the dynamics of how the inability to express ourself creates angry people on the web, LOL.
So….to finally end this ramble, with some semblance of a point….I would like to encourage everyone here to let your inner self out, as I am, hahaha, now being forced to do!
There are no restrictions here and no cops…..unless you choose to express yourself by attacking other posters here.
Let out your rage and your frustrations by all means, but try to do it creatively. It is under all of that frustration that the beauty that is within each of us lies. Move THAT out on to the page and then you may find your inner self underneath the anger we all feel at the brutality of this world. Keep your outrage and frustration handy, we need it to change the world…… But don’t forget or hesitate to transfer your inner self from inside you to outside, here, on a page. Express your creativity in all of its beauty. Because that changes the world too.
Due to scattered, random questions pondering just what a ‘Pony Party’ is, I’m re-posting an edited portion of a previous Pony Party
Pony Parties should appear in the ‘Recent Essays’ section of your DocuDharma Front Page 3 times a day, 9 a.m., noon, and 6 p.m. Eastern. They serve as open fora, so feel free to ‘pimp’ an essay, say hello, vent, or throw up a plethora of ponies and pooties. Basically, the floor is yours.
They appear in the essay column, and due to their frequency and the additional open fora that will appear on the Front Page (more on that later), are meant to scroll away. So please, don’t recommend the Pony Party essay. I know it’s tough. You’re nice people, and you like to give acknowledgment. Trust me, we won’t take it personally. But you know who might? The person who gets bumped off of the Recommended Essays list by a Pony Party. Put yourself in his/her shoes.
In addition to Pony Parties in the Essay list, on the Front Page you will see
Also for your chatting pleasure-
Monday – Friday 6 am Muse in the Morning– Robyn Serven favors us with some art and poetry. This is an Open Thread.
7:30 am The Morning News– I’ll be handling this for now. (Thank you mishima for taking the reins and assisting us with our Morning News!!!) This is an Open Thread.
4:00 pm 4 at 4– Magnifico gives us just 4 stories of importance. This is an Open Thread.
Monday – Thursday 12 midnight Midnight Cowboy– pinche tejano provides some late night thoughts. This is a semi-Open Thread.
[editorial note…as you can see, we here at DocuDharma have our priorities straight…we take our art and poetry before our news]
I hope this clears up any confusion. We Pony Party Planners like to spice up the parties with little ‘themes’ or snippets of news or sports….please don’t feel limited to those topics in your Pony Party Prattle…
