Mohawk Council Seeks To End Seal Hunt - UN Wants Global Network To Strengthen Indigenous Rights

TRADITIONAL MOHAWK COUNCIL SUPPORTS BILL TO END CANADIAN SEAL HUNT
Monday March 23, 2009
CANADIAN TAX DOLLARS FUND MASS SLAUGHTER OF MARINE MAMMALS
For over thirty years the Government of Canada has funded and endorsed the largest mass slaughter of marine mammals in the world. The annual Seal “hunt” taking place off the Atlantic coast is a cruel and unjustifiable abuse of Canadian tax dollars.

The Government of Canada is unwilling to admit their incompetency in providing safe and sustainable forms of employment for people living in these provinces. As a result, the atrocious acts against the seals continue in the form of “democrapitalism”.

Canada hides behind a democratic process adding to the misconception that Canadian citizens are in support of the barbaric “hunt” while the true culprit is capitalism protected by democracy. This is causing all humanity to sink to the subhuman behavior which is destroying the Earth and the necessary life forms that live upon her.

Many countries have recognized the cruelty of the hunt. Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Mexico, Panama, Russia, Ireland and the United States have all either banned seal products or made moves to do so, adding to Canada’s shame on a global level.Native people of Turtle Island have also become a scapegoat for the greed driven massacre.

The Inuit of the far North have hunted and praised the seals for many generations. However, they take only what they need to uphold their customs, beliefs and traditions.

Their way of life is now being used and compromised by the Canadian Government as propaganda to benefit a capitalist agenda, despite the fact that the Inuit do not participate in the commercial seal “hunt”.

As Mohawk people and world citizens we condemn these acts of horror being committed against the seals as it furthers the destruction of our Mother Earth adding to the global ecological crisis.

As stated by Prince Charles of Wales on March 13, 2009, “the threat of catastrophic climate change calls into question humanity's continued survival on the planet." Canada chooses to invest in the war on the planet putting pressure on an already fragile eco-system.Canada has many policies and practices that are deplorable to the environment.

Subsequently, in accordance with the Silver Covenant Chain under the Two Row Wampum, we advise that a first step in correcting this is to pass Senator Mac Harb’s bill to end the commercial seal “hunt” permanently.

The proposed bill calls for an end to commercial seal hunting while respecting treaty obligations and protecting the Rights of Native people. With this in mind we urge you to support the end of the commercial seal “hunt” and stand together in defense of our Mother Earth for the benefit of current and future generations.
In Peace and Friendship,

Secretary, Stuart Myiow
Mohawk Traditional Council
Box 531
Kahnawake
Mohawk Territory
JOL 1BO

UN TO LINK INDIGENOUS PEOPLES WORLDWIDE NETWORK TO STRENGHTEN STRUGGLE FOR RIGHTS
By Erika Tapalla INQUIRER.net
March 24, 2009
MANILA, Philippines—The United Nations is looking to set up a global network by which indigenous peoples (IPs) can help each other respond to violations of their rights, mainly by extractive industries.

Eighty-five IP representatives from Asia, Africa, the Pacific, Europe and Russia, Arctic, Latin and North America, as well as experts, have gathered in Manila for the International Conference on Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industries.

Victoria Tauli-Corpuz chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues said there is a need to unite IPs in a global network to strengthen their responses to the problems they face.

"This conference is really to tackle the indigenous peoples’ rights, which are violated by extractive industries…oil, mineral or gas corporations. There is a need to develop a global network because there is no one existing body of IPs, there is no existing global network. If there is one, the voice of these people [is] stronger, so that's what we did in this conference," Corpuz told INQUIRER.net in an interview.

Corpuz said among the things IPs could do is bring their cases before national and international courts, raise awareness about destructive cultural and environmental issues through media, and dialogue with investors.

"By raising the issues and cases to national and even international courts, the voices of the indigenous peoples will be heard. Now, with this global network, hopefully their voices can be heard. Media also [have] a crucial role in delivering the situations, the issues, these people encounter so everyone will know about what is really happening. And lastly, the dialogue with the investors and these corporations will really help. It is in fact the most important thing," Corpuz said.

Corpus also said it was sound corporate thinking to respect IPs’ rights.

"It is in the self-interest of these corporations to respect the rights of the indigenous peoples because, if not, there will be more conflict, and more conflict means more expenses for them. Then they [corporations] will be seen in a bad light. If they don't mutually agree to terms or negotiate, it's like they are robbing these people of their own things in their own home," she said

Corpuz also said states and mining corporations should adhere to the standards set by the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) to avoid criminalizing IPs for protecting their land or resisting the entry of extractive industries.

The UNDRIP, signed by 143 countries in September 13, 2007, is the latest international agreement adopted by the UN General Assembly.Conference organizer Tebtebba, the Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre for Policy Research and Education, said cases of human rights violations committed against indigenous peoples have been filed before courts in various countries as well as inter-governmental bodies such as the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

IP representatives said their cultural territories continue to shrink because of massive encroachment by mining companies.

The Philippines alone has suffered two of the biggest mining disasters—the collapse of the Tapian Pit of Marcopper Mining Corporation, which spilled 1.6 million cubic meters of mine tailings into the waterways of Marinduque in 1996; and the cyanide-laden waste spill of Australia-owned Lafayette Mining Limited in waters around Rapu-Rapu Island in 2005.

"We thought that the Philippines was in one of the worse states, but after this conference, we have realized that many groups [and] tribes from different parts of the world experience similar issues. The actors involved are the same– corporations that act like thugs encroaching on the lands of the people," Corpuz said.

INTERNATIONAL INDIGENOUS CONFERENCE ISSUES DECLARATION ON EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES
- Calls For Specific Action By Governments, Corporations And Others
March 26, 2009 Manila, Philippines.
The International Conference on Extractive Industries and Indigenous Peoples held in Manila, Philippines March 23-25th issued a strong declaration at the close of the three day meeting.

The conference, hosted by Tebtebba Foundation, involved indigenous representatives and organizations from over thirty countries representing every region of the world. The resulting Declaration calls for recognition, respect and implementation of indigenous rights and international standards for mining on peoples’ traditional lands.

Conference participants also reached agreement on the immediate formation of a global indigenous network on extractive industries to better monitor corporate behavior, provide support for communities and issue policy statements and guidelines on extractive industries practice.

The conference examined the social, cultural and environmental impact of extractive industries on indigenous peoples. Brian Wyatt, of the the National Native Title Council of Australia, stated: “The declaration is the result of many years of frustration felt by Indigenous peoples worldwide as they always play second fiddle to the big mining companies whose priority is increasing profit margins. Indigenous peoples’ rights and interests don’t always get the attention they deserve.

“We are here because the impacts of extractive industries on our people have reached a critical point where companies now come into our communities and divide our people by offering money and other things but refuse to address our spiritual and environmental concerns.

We need stronger human rights and other mechanisms to ensure that our L.A.W.S. (land, air, water and sun/spirit) are respected and protected.” Stated Larson Bill, Western Shoshone Defense Project (U.S.A.)

Beginning today, many of the indigenous delegates will join United Nations agencies and international experts in the International Expert Workshop on Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, Corporate Accountability and the Extractive Industries, chaired by United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Chairperson Vicky Tauli-Corpuz.

For more information on the Workshop, please see the Tebtebba website at http://www.tebtebba.org/.

A full copy of the Declaration is attached to this release.

Media Contacts:
Julie Cavanaugh-Bill, wsdp@igc.org 063 – 908-642-7069 (Western Shoshone Defense Project)
Brian Wyatt 61 417 970 413
Carolyn Betts 0400 854 067 (National Native Title Council)

TO SUBMIT an ARTICLE, OPINION PIECE, COMMENTS to the Native Unity Digest, e-mail bobbieo@digitaldune.net.

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Three New Fire Rocks: ASAP - 'To Kill The Indian In The Child'

Fire Rock's Success Spurs Plans For 3 New Casinos
By Kathy Helms
Dine Bureau
WINDOW ROCK – The Navajo Nation's Fire Rock Casino has surprised everyone in terms of the actual numbers it is producing. In fact, it's doing so well that the Navajo Gaming Enterprise is hoping to build three more casinos as soon as possible.

Robert Winter, Enterprise CEO, told the Budget and Finance Committee this week that Fire Rock has “almost a 60 percent EBITA” – an acronym that refers to net profit before interest, tax, and amortization expenses. “There's probably no casino in the United States that has that number. In fact most of their numbers are going down. This is a fantastic number and it seems to be going up.

“We had an initial expansion of 70 slot machines about two weeks ago, and we are now building an expansion in the bingo hall for another 110 slot machines. That expansion should net $23 million a year after all expenses.” A grand opening for the expansion is set for March 28.

Winter said the board now has selected three Class III gaming projects it would like to proceed on as quickly as possible.

One is Twin Arrows along Interstate 40 in Leupp, which will be designed to be a major resort. The project is estimated to cost more than $500 million, he said, with the initial phase estimated at $200 million.

Another project – a permanent facility that most likely will have a hotel attached to it – is proposed along the eastern boundary of Upper Fruitland on Navajo Route 36, about 3 minutes from Farmington. That project is probably in the area of $70 million to $80 million, Winter said.

A third project – a travel center-type facility with a casino – is proposed for Pinta Road, also off I-40.

“Altogether, in first phase construction, you're talking probably close to half a billion dollars for all three of facilities, but more importantly, what this means is jobs. We project that all of the facilities (including Fire Rock), once they're up and operating, will employ 3,000 people,” Winter said, and almost all of those employees will be Navajos. “We project that the payroll for all four casinos will amount to close to $90 million.”

Winter said construction at Twin Arrows will be elaborate, and as with Fire Rock, most of those construction jobs will go to Navajos, “so that's additional income going into Navajo families as a result of this project.

“We project that the overall net profit after all expenses and all financing will be in excess of $100 million to the Nation. It might even be more. We estimate on a conservative basis,” he said. They are approaching three times the figure originally estimated for Fire Rock.

Sean McCabe, chairman of the Navajo Gaming Enterprise board, said that every quarter the state of New Mexico puts out a report on what each tribe pays in revenue share back to the state. From that number they get an estimate of how each tribe did on its gaming net win.

“Fire Rock Casino, at the end of the third quarter, Dec. 31, had only been in operation five to six weeks. But one of the key gaming indicators that we use to measure our performance is a number that we call 'win per unit per day.' What that number tells us is that for each slot machine we have on the floor, this is how much this slot machine is winning for us every single day.

“We did a quick analysis for each tribe based on the estimated number of machines that each tribe is reporting, and their revenue, and Fire Rock Casino is actually the second biggest win per unit per day number in the state. Sandia Casino holds a number for $211 per unit per day. What that tells us is for Sandia's 1,600 machines, every single one of those machines is winning that tribe $211 every single day.”

Fire Rock's numbers were at $201 per unit per day with 485 machines. Now, they're reporting around $360 a day. “The average for the entire state, I believe, was $160,” he said. “These are numbers you can pull off the Web site. This isn't numbers we made up. This is coming from the state.”

Budget and Finance member Nelson Begaye questioned who makes up Fire Rock's customer base.

Winter said they have done customer tracking and though the majority of players are Navajo, most of the market is coming from existing gamblers who have been going to other casinos.

“What we have shown is we have seriously depleted the market from Sky City and Dancing Eagle. They are running marketing programs giving away $80,000. So, yes, the players are Navajo, but they're not necessarily new players. They're players who are playing at other facilities.

“We have not been able to market to any great extent because we had not enough machines for the people that want to come. You can't go out with a marketing program and say, 'Come to this casino' and then when they get here, they stand around,” he said.

With the expansion in slots, however, the Enterprise kicked off its first marketing initiative, designed to bring in non-Navajo players, on St. Patrick's Day.

“We have shuttle buses now that go to the hotels. They're bringing in players from those hotels. The tourist season is just beginning. We have a very, very involved marketing program for the tourists, so you will see a change,” Winter said. The marketing program runs through October.

They also have had a lot of interest from hotels. “I've been asked to put a term sheet together for a group that represents Hilton Hotels. They're interested in putting a 100 room hotel next to the casino,” Winter said. “The deal is we must put a 'no smoking' casino in the hotel. You can do that with Hilton, and you can do it in New Mexico, but you can't do it in Arizona,” where casinos and hotels must be separate.

The only security for the financing of the hotel would be the machines that are in the hotel, Winter said. The hotel would either be a Hilton Garden Inn or an Embassy Suites. “They're also interested in doing something like that at the other sites that we just mentioned.”

After giving a brief presentation on options for financing the three new casinos, the committee went into executive session to further discuss details.

PROJECT - 'TO KILL THE INDIAN IN THE CHILD'
Arthur Bleich, an accomplished photojournalist, has entered a contest in which he could win $50,000 to do a photographic assignment about Native American and First Nations survivors of genocide.

His proposal must get enough votes to go into the final round where it will be judged along with 20 other proposed projects.

The voting deadline is 3 April 2009 so there isn't much time left.

Here's a short summary of the photo project he wants to do and you can read the complete proposal when you go to vote.

"To Kill the Indian in the Child"100 Years of Genocide in North America
To document Native North American survivors of genocide who, as children, were forcibly taken from their families and sent to abusive government boarding schools to have their culture destroyed as a "final solution" to the Indian problem.

Here's how to vote:

1. First go here: http://tinyurl.com/c7exwl where you can read the complete Dream Assignment proposal. There's a voting icon to the left-- click on PIC IT.

2. You'll then be asked to register --which takes only a minute or so. This to prevent multiple votes by the same person. If you do not want to receive promotional material from the sponsor, just leave the "Communication" box unchecked.

3. Within a few minutes after registering, you'll get an email with a URL. Click it and you'll be taken to a log-in page.

4. After logging in, you'll find yourself at the project page again. Once there, click on PIC IT and your vote will be cast.

The voting process is not the smoothest (the sponsor is going to make it easier next year)but it takes only about five minutes and is worth the time.

REMEMBER, YOU MUST VOTE BY APRIL 3, 2009 SO PLEASE ACT PROMPTLY.

Feel free to forward this information to whomever you wish so that as many as possible can vote for this project.

Here's an alternate URL to the one above:
http://www.nameyourdreamassignment.com/the-ideas/ahbleich/to-kill-the-indian-in-the-child-100-years-of-genocide-in-north-america/

Government Boarding Schools
From the 1870s through the 1970s the Governments of the U.S. and Canada embarked on a program to eliminate Indian culture and language by rounding up native children and shipping them to boarding schools where they were forbidden to speak their language and forced to learn the white man's ways.

Many atrocities occurred at these schools- torture, rape, language eradication, deliberate infection of students with diseases, and separation of siblings. Many students died and never returned home. Many were surreptitiously buried on school grounds, often in unmarked graves.
However, as a prominent Indian tribal member and historian has pointed out: "The real crime of genocide [and later defined as such by the UN] was the forcible removal of children from family, friends and community- other abuses that occurred while it happened, merely makes it worse.

On September 8, 2000, Kevin Gover, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior offered an apology. "Worst of all," he said, "the Bureau of Indian Affairs committed these acts against the children entrusted to its boarding schools, brutalizing them emotionally, psychologically, physically, and spiritually. The trauma of shame, fear and anger has passed from one generation to the next, and manifests itself in the rampant alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence that plague Indian country."

Echoing this on June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on behalf of the Canadian Government, offered a public apology (along $2 billion in reparations) to 80,000 living former students of these schools and said: "Two primary objectives of the residential schools system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture. These objectives were based on the assumption that aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal. Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said, 'to kill the Indian in the child'."

On my Dream Assignment, I would visit pre-selected Indian reservations in the U.S. and Canada, shoot portraits of the survivors and interview them about their experiences and how their lives were impacted then and to this day. I would also document some of the old school buildings that still exist. The images, along with relevant excerpts from survivors' commentary, would be published as a book and prints for a traveling exhibit would also be prepared.Few Americans and Canadians are aware of this tragic chapter in their national histories (or if they are, tend not to believe it).

I have wanted to do this assignment for some time now but have not been able to obtain funding due to the highly sensitive nature of the subject. The prize money would cover the expenses of the shoot, the publication of the book and the preparation of exhibit prints.

A renowned First Nations Canadian author has agreed to consult on the project and write a preface to the book.Photographically documenting the unconscionable treatment of these children will finally put it on record in a visually graphic way so that it cannot be denied. But most of all, it is hoped that when this Dream Assignment is completed, it will help bring closure and healing to thousands of school survivors whose lives and culture were so cruelly damaged.

Please vote for this project. See voting instructions above. Thank you!

TO SUBMIT an ARTICLE, OPINION PIECE, COMMENTS to the Native Unity Digest, e-mail bobbieo@digitaldune.net.

NATIVE UNITY - A place for Native American Peoples to solidify their tribes to make a positive impact on the cultural, social, economic and political fabric of American society and a place for non-Natives to better understand the ways of the American Indian.

ATT: NEW - News Blog - American Indian Report - AIR BLOG
http://falmouth-air.blogspot.com
'IRS Offers Insight On Essential Gov't Function'

NATIVE ISSUES BLOG
Professor Robert J. Miller
http://lawlib.lclark.edu/blog/native_america/

AIROS NATIVE NETWORK plays music, news and other great programs from Indian Country - www.airos.org

FOR ANNIE'S NATIVE CELEBRITY NEWS - go to www.nativecelebs.com

CATCH COLORADAN PETER JONES AT:
http://indigenousissuestoday.blogspot.com

SUPPORTING NATIVE AMERICAN/FIRST PEOPLE - ARTISTS, FILM MAKERS, ENTERTAINERS, ETC. http://www.krystynmedia.blogspot.com.

Arizona's Dr. Roubideaux May Direct IHS - Project: 'To Kill The Indian In The Child' - Summer Internships For College Students Available In LA County

Dr. Roubideaux Nominated To Direct IHS
Submitted by Jean Spinelli
Dr. Yvette Roubideaux, Director of Indian Health Service, Department of Health and Human Services is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family & Community Medicine at The University of Arizona College of Medicine.

She has conducted extensive research on American Indian health issues, with a focus on diabetes in American Indians/Alaska Natives and American Indian health policy.

Roubideaux previously worked in the Indian Health Service as a Medical Officer and Clinical Director on the San Carlos Indian Reservation and in the Gila River Indian Community.

Roubideaux, 46, is a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe. She received her MD from Harvard Medical School and her MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed the Primary Care Internal Medicine Residency Program at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA. She also completed the Commonwealth Fund/Harvard University Fellowship in Minority Health Policy in 1997.

Roubideaux is the Co-Director of the Coordinating Center for the Special Diabetes Program for Indians Competitive Demonstration Projects, a program implementing diabetes prevention and cardiovascular disease prevention activities in 66 American Indian and Alaska Native communities.

She also serves as Director of two programs, the UA/ITCA Indians Into Medicine (INMED) Program and the Student Development Core of the ITCA/UA American Indian Research Center for Health, that focus on recruiting American Indian and Alaska Native students into health and research professions.

Roubideaux was appointed to the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Minority Health from 2000 – 2002. From 1999-2000, she served as President of the Association of American Indian Physicians.

Roubideaux has received numerous awards including the American Diabetes Association’s 2008 Addison B. Scoville Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service and the 2004 Indian Physician of the Year Award from the Association of American Indian Physicians.

She is co-editor of the APHA book entitled Promises to Keep: Public Health Policy for American Indians and Alaska Natives in the 21st Century. She has authored several monographs and peer-reviewed publications on American Indian/Alaska Native health issues, research and policy.

Jean Spinelli, Information Specialist Coordinator
Office of Public Affairs
Arizona Health Sciences Center at The University of Arizona
PO Box 245095
Tucson, AZ 85724-5095

PROJECT: 'To Kill The Indian In The Child'
Arthur Bleich, an accomplished photojournalist, has entered a contest in which he could win $50,000 to do a photographic assignment about Native American and First Nations survivors of genocide.

His proposal must get enough votes to go into the final round where it will be judged along with 20 other proposed projects.

The voting deadline is 3 April 2009 so there isn't much time left.

Here's a short summary of the photo project he wants to do and you can read the complete proposal when you go to vote.

"To Kill the Indian in the Child"100 Years of Genocide in North America
To document Native North American survivors of genocide who, as children, were forcibly taken from their families and sent to abusive government boarding schools to have their culture destroyed as a "final solution" to the Indian problem.

Here's how to vote:

1. First go here: http://tinyurl.com/c7exwl where you can read the complete Dream Assignment proposal. There's a voting icon to the left-- click on PIC IT.

2. You'll then be asked to register --which takes only a minute or so. This to prevent multiple votes by the same person. If you do not want to receive promotional material from the sponsor, just leave the "Communication" box unchecked.

3. Within a few minutes after registering, you'll get an email with a URL. Click it and you'll be taken to a log-in page.

4. After logging in, you'll find yourself at the project page again. Once there, click on PIC IT and your vote will be cast.

The voting process is not the smoothest (the sponsor is going to make it easier next year) but it takes only about five minutes and is worth the time.

REMEMBER, YOU MUST VOTE BY APRIL 3, 2009 SO PLEASE ACT PROMPTLY.

Feel free to forward this information to whomever you wish so that as many as possible can vote for this project.

Here's an alternate URL to the one above:
http://www.nameyourdreamassignment.com/the-ideas/ahbleich/to-kill-the-indian-in-the-child-100-years-of-genocide-in-north-america/
------------------------------------
From the 1870s through the 1970s the Governments of the U.S. and Canada embarked on a program to eliminate Indian culture and language by rounding up native children and shipping them to boarding schools where they were forbidden to speak their language and forced to learn the white man's ways.

Many atrocities occurred at these schools- torture, rape, language eradication, deliberate infection of students with diseases, and separation of siblings. Many students died and never returned home. Many were surreptitiously buried on school grounds, often in unmarked graves.
However, as a prominent Indian tribal member and historian has pointed out: "The real crime of genocide [and later defined as such by the UN] was the forcible removal of children from family, friends and community- other abuses that occurred while it happened, merely makes it worse.

"On September 8, 2000, Kevin Gover, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior offered an apology. "Worst of all," he said, "the Bureau of Indian Affairs committed these acts against the children entrusted to its boarding schools, brutalizing them emotionally, psychologically, physically, and spiritually. The trauma of shame, fear and anger has passed from one generation to the next, and manifests itself in the rampant alcoholism, drug abuse, and domestic violence that plague Indian country.

"Echoing this on June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, on behalf of the Canadian Government, offered a public apology (along $2 billion in reparations) to 80,000 living former students of these schools and said: "Two primary objectives of the residential schools system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture.

These objectives were based on the assumption that aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal. Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said, 'to kill the Indian in the child.'" On my Dream Assignment, I would visit pre-selected Indian reservations in the U.S. and Canada, shoot portraits of the survivors and interview them about their experiences and how their lives were impacted then and to this day.

I would also document some of the old school buildings that still exist. The images, along with relevant excerpts from survivors' commentary, would be published as a book and prints for a traveling exhibit would also be prepared.

Few Americans and Canadians are aware of this tragic chapter in their national histories (or if they are, tend not to believe it). I have wanted to do this assignment for some time now but have not been able to obtain funding due to the highly sensitive nature of the subject.

The prize money would cover the expenses of the shoot, the publication of the book and the preparation of exhibit prints. A renowned First Nations Canadian author has agreed to consult on the project and write a preface to the book.

Photographically documenting the unconscionable treatment of these children will finally put it on record in a visually graphic way so that it cannot be denied. But most of all, it is hoped that when this Dream Assignment is completed, it will help bring closure and healing to thousands of school survivors whose lives and culture were so cruelly damaged.

Please vote for this project. See voting instructions above. Thank you.

125 Paid Summer Internships Available Through LA County Arts Internship Program
Submitted by Christine Yazzie
Eligibility requirements expanded!
Summer job opportunities for 125 college students are now available.

The positions are for 10 weeks and pay $350 per week. Interns also take part in educational and arts networking activities. Through the program, interns gain real work experience to strengthen their resumes and develop business skills that can be put to use in their future careers.

To support the internships, Los Angeles County, through its Arts Commission, has given grants totaling $500,000 to 95 performing, literary, media and municipal arts organizations throughout the County.

The internship program celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2009. More than 1100 college students have participated in the program since its inception in the summer of 2000.

Descriptions of and contacts for the 125 internship positions are posted on the Arts Commission’s web site.

Go to www.lacountyarts.org, click on Internships, then 2009 Internship Positions.

The direct link: http://lacountyarts.org/internships/docs/internships_postings09.pdf

Interested college students should apply directly to the organization offering the internship, not the Arts Commission. General information on the internship program is also available on the web site.

Eligibility requirements for the internships have been expanded in 2009. Graduating seniors who complete their undergraduate degrees by September 1, 2009 are eligible as well as undergraduates. Undergraduates must have completed at least one semester of college by June 2009 and be currently enrolled (full-time) in a community college or a four-year university. Applicants must be resident in and/or attending school in Los Angeles County.

christine yazzie
krystyn media

TO SUBMIT an ARTICLE, OPINION PIECE, COMMENTS to the Native Unity Digest, e-mail bobbieo@digitaldune.net.

NATIVE UNITY - A place for Native American Peoples to solidify their tribes to make a positive impact on the cultural, social, economic and political fabric of American society and a place for non-Natives to better understand the ways of the American Indian.

ATT: NEW - News Blog - American Indian Report - AIR BLOG
http://falmouth-air.blogspot.com
'IRS Offers Insight On Essential Government Functions'

NATIVE ISSUES BLOG
Professor Robert J. Miller
http://lawlib.lclark.edu/blog/native_america/

AIROS NATIVE NETWORK plays music, news and other great programs from Indian Country - www.airos.org

FOR ANNIE'S NATIVE CELEBRITY NEWS - go to www.nativecelebs.com

CATCH COLORADAN PETER JONES AT:
http://indigenousissuestoday.blogspot.com

SUPPORTING NATIVE AMERICAN/FIRST PEOPLE - ARTISTS, FILM MAKERS, ENTERTAINERS, ETC. http://www.krystynmedia.blogspot.com.

Do Uranium Mines Belong Near Grand Canyon? - 'Response To Article From Geologist'

Submitted by Eleanore Fanire
Mining Companies Stake Claims On Federal Land Adjoining The Park - Opponents Say Drinking Water Will Be At Risk.
By Mark Clayton Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor /August 19th, 2008

GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, ARIZ.
On a ragged outcrop just a short walk from a Grand Canyon overlook where millions of visitors annually come to gawk at one of the world’s most stunning vistas sits the old Orphan uranium mine. Soil radiation levels around it are 450 times higher than normal. It’s encircled by a protective fence.

A sign warns: “Remain behind fence – environmental evaluation in progress.” In the canyon hundreds of feet below, another sign by gurgling Horn Creek instructs thirsty hikers not to drink its radioactive water.

Even so, Horn Creek eventually splashes its way to the canyon bottom and into the Colorado River, a vital water source for 25 million people from Las Vegas to Los Angeles to San Diego. In that mighty river, the Orphan’s radioactive dribble is diluted to insignificance.

But what if a dozen or even scores of new uranium mines were leaching uranium radioisotopes into this critical water source? That is what Arizona’s governor, water authorities in two states, scientists, environmentalists, and Congress are all worried about. Should they be?

Everybody from mining-industry officials to environmentalists agrees that the Orphan mine is a poster child for the bad old days of uranium mining going back to the 1950s. Today’s regulations and newer mining techniques make such pollution far less likely, industry officials say, though environmentalists vehemently disagree. The question remains: Is Orphan only a vision of the past – or is it a vision of the future, too?

The US Southwest may be about to find out. Driven by soaring uranium prices and fresh interest in nuclear power, mining companies have staked more than 10,600 exploratory mineral claims – most of them smaller than five acres – spread across 1 million acres of federal land adjacent to the Colorado River and Grand Canyon National Park, a federal official told Congress in June. Most are uranium claims, though some may be for other metals, observers say.

Such numbers and testimony about pollution have begun to move Congress. Following congressional hearings, the House Natural Resources Committee in late June declared an emergency withdrawal of 1 million acres from any mining claims. The federal land in question is on the north and south rims of the Grand Canyon, just outside the national park, through which the Colorado River flows.

While a federal lawsuit and injunction have temporarily stalled uranium development in the national forest on the south rim, Congress’s action is being resisted by the Bush administration on the north rim.

There, lands controlled by the Bureau of Land Management are unaffected by the lawsuit to the south and exploration claims are still being processed routinely.

One such claim, by Quaterra Alaska Inc., the US subsidiary of Vancouver-based Quaterra Resources, Inc., was approved for exploratory drilling on June 27 – just two days after the House’s Natural Resources Committee vote that should have stopped such action.

A Department of Interior spokesman says the BLM is still processing claims because the agency doesn’t consider the Congressional vote valid. In a July letter it argued that the committee didn’t have a quorum, a point disputed by the committee’s chairman and the House parliamentarian.
Mining regulations are tougher now

“They are charging forward,” says Taylor McKinnon, public lands director for the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group based in Tucson, Ariz.

Last month, the US Department of Energy approved 42 square miles for an expanded uranium mining program in the watershed of the Dolores River, a tributary of the Colorado. But the question of what impact dozens of new uranium mines across the entire Colorado River watershed might have – an environmental disaster or an energy bonanza with few ill effects – remains hotly debated.

“Old mines like the Orphan were mined in the 1950s under no federal regulations whatsoever,” says Eugene Spiering, vice president of exploration for Quaterra. “Most mines today are above the water table, which makes chances of leakage practically nil. What we have now is a well-regulated industry.”

Still, there has been no regionwide environmental assessment of the likely impact of a new uranium mining boom on the Colorado River, close observers say. Nor is such an evaluation apparently of much interest to federal land managers, if comments on the subject by a Department of Interior spokesman are any guide.

“We already have the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and others that require comprehensive analyses before any mining is done, so there won’t be impacts to the environment,” says Chris Paolino, a spokesman for the Department of Interior. “At this time we’re still evaluating plans on an individual basis, but [a regional study is] not something I can rule out.”

“We hear from the industry and federal government that today ‘we can do it safely,’ ” says Roger Clark, air and energy director for the Grand Canyon Trust, an environmental watchdog group. “But the burden of proof is on the proponents. Somebody needs to ask, ‘What is the cumulative threat to drinking water in the Colorado River – not just from radioactivity, but from arsenic and mercury from these mines?’”

Some are asking for exactly such a study. With cities like Phoenix relying on clean Colorado River water, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano (D) is calling for an “overall environmental im­­pact analysis,” citing the uranium boom’s “potential to seriously harm” the water quality of Grand Canyon National Park and the Lower Colorado River.

Uranium company officials say fears about radioactive contamination are overblown. New mining methods, far tougher environmental standards, and desert-dry conditions for most mines mean minimal risk to the Colorado River and the region’s precious groundwater resources, they say.

“Yes, there were issues in the past,” says Ron Hochstein, president of Denison Mines, a Toronto-based company with at least nine mines under development in the area targeted by Congress. “But that’s not the way we do things today. We understand and know a lot more about uranium, radium, and radon and the impacts of those. So to say some things that happened in the 1950s and 1960s will happen again today is not a good comparison.”

Proven Deposits Are Likely To Be Mined
Whether or not the thousands of unproven claims are ever developed, a fair number of uranium mining sites seem almost certain to reemerge. “Congress’s action only applies to unproven claims,” Mr. Clark points out, leaning against a fence at the Canyon Mine site.

Denison’s group of established mine sites – including the Canyon Mine in the Kaibab National Forest a few miles south of the park – are among those likely to reemerge. The Canyon Mine was mothballed in the 1980s – before it had even opened – because of sinking uranium prices. It is a proven site: Uranium is there. Denison must still apply for new state environmental permits in order to proceed, but expects its mines to begin opening around 2010.

Despite Horn Creek pollution, the good news is that recent studies have shown that most springs and creeks in the Grand Canyon still have good water quality: Uranium and other trace metals appear in low concentrations, according to congressional testimony.

The bad news, experts say, is that digging into the cylindrical vertical rock formations in which uranium is found – they’re called “breccia pipes” – can “mobilize” the uranium, causing it to oxidize when water from periodic downpours seeps down through the rock strata.

Indeed, the negative impact of water on uranium mines should not be minimized even in the desert, says Chris Shuey, a scientist who directs the Uranium Impact Assessment Program, a nonprofit research and information center. His research in the Churchrock area of the Navajo Nation near Gallup, N.M. – where uranium was mined and processed between 1952 and 1983 – showed statistically significant effects on human health from the elevated levels of radioactivity in the region.

While much uranium in the region does occur in formations above the water table, the bottom of the breccia pipes are located in the upper portion of the Redwall Limestone, a principal aquifer supplying springs in the Grand Canyon and wells for much of the region, Dr. Shuey told Congress in March.

“When you take uranium and the other trace elements out of their resting places in nature and expose them to the environment,” Shuey says by phone, “you expose them in higher concentrations to the environment and intensify their effects. People don’t appreciate the cumulative impact of mining in a consolidated area. There’s a very real threat.” A flash flood swept through Havasu Creek last week. That same watershed includes the Canyon Mine and numerous uranium claims.

Abe Springer, a hydrologist and researcher at Northern Arizona University at Flagstaff, has made a career studying the movement of groundwater through the Redwall and other aquifers into seeps and springs that supply not only hikers, but also most of the region’s animal life with the water they need to survive.

“Once these elements became mobile through mining activities,” Dr. Springer told Congress in his March testimony, “they would continue to be mobile through the aquifer and eventually discharge in springs impacting the human uses of water of these springs.”
Even so, some industry figures dispute any connection between the Orphan uranium mine and higher radiation in Horn Creek.

A “fact sheet” e-mailed by Quaterra’s Mr. Spiering says, regarding water pollution, that “statements that the historic operations at the Orphan Mine have been polluting Horn Creek are false.” It cites a 2004 US Geological Survey study showing dissolved uranium in a range from 8.6 to 29 parts per billion and “within the EPA levels of safe drinking water.”

Closer Look At USGS Study
But a closer examination of the 2004 results finds that some uranium concentrations are at the upper end of the safe range for Horn Creek.

The same study’s results for nearby Salt Creek (at 29 to 31 p.p.b.) “approached or exceeded the US Environmental Protection Agency’s drinking water standard” of 30 p.p.b., according to Shuey’s testimony to Congress.

The two creeks – Salt and Horn – also had by far the highest levels of the 20 springs and seeps tested in that study, Shuey testified. That USGS study also did not seek to assign causes of the higher radiation levels, he noted.

But the potential impact of tainted groundwater on native Americans, hikers, and local wildlife – as well as major cities downstream – are all reasons Rep. Rául Grijalva (D) of Arizona has sponsored legislation to permanently withdraw federal land around Grand Canyon National Park from uranium mining.

“I hope we’ve matured enough not to forget history,” Representative Grijalva says in a phone interview. “Protection of water quality in the Colorado River is vital to the long-term health and safety of humans and other species. We can’t afford to simply issue permits and decades from now simply dismiss the consequences as unintended.

“We should know better than that.

RESPONSE FROM GEOLOGIST
Dear Bobbieo:
Regarding the August 19, 2008, article from The Christian Science Monitor submitted to you by Eleanor Fanire and posted at http://nativeunity.blogspot.com/on March 24, 2009 --In that article, Roger Clark of the Grand Canyon Trust states,“We hear from the industry and federal government that today ‘we can do it safely,’ ” says Roger Clark, air and energy director for the Grand Canyon Trust, an environmental watchdog group.

“But the burden of proof is on the proponents. Somebody needs to ask, ‘What is the cumulative threat to drinking water in the Colorado River – not just from radioactivity, but from arsenic and mercury from these mines?’”

Since that 2008 remark by Clark, the Kaibab Joint Venture, a proponent of uranium exploration and mining in northern Arizona, has answered Clark's "cumulative threat" question in its Draft Environmental Assessment submitted to the Kaibab National Forest Supervisor's Office in Williams, Arizona, in mid-February of this year.

The question was answered using data collected by the US Geological Survey, and the answer is that uranium exploration and mining in the Grand Canyon region poses no cumulative threat to the water quality of the Colorado River .

A complete copy of the Draft Environmental Assessment of the Kaibab Joint Venture can be downloaded from http://public.dirxploration.fastmail.us/.

A related study recently completed by researchers at the University of Arizona indicates that historical uranium exploration and mining activities along the course of the Colorado River have had no effect on Colorado River quality.

See the blog of the State Geologist of Arizona found at http://arizonageology.blogspot.com/2009/03/is-uranium-in-colorado-river-naturally.html for more detail.

I hope that you will post the text of this email in company with Ms. Fanire's submission to your website, as it directly addresses many of the questions raised by those fearful of uranium industry activity in the Grand Canyon area.

Thanks for your attention,
Larry D. Turner
Managing geologist/presidentDIR Exploration, Inc.:
Kaibab JV Operator

PS: A copy of the Environmental Working Group news article originally reporting the results of the ongoing University of Arizona water study is attached.

As the Arizona State Geologist explained in his blog, this article was removed by EWG from the Internet sometime during the first week after its 2/23/09 publication.
DIR Exploration, Inc.
3614 G 4/10 Road
Palisade, Colorado 81526
USATel./FAX (970) 464-7236
Field (719) 530-1442
http://www.dirxploration.com/

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20th Anniversary - Exxon Oil Spill - Chiefs Push For Recognition Of Virginia Tribes

2020 Vision Film Fests - Your Vision For America's Arctic
Tuesday, March 24 will mark the twentieth anniversary of the disastrous Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska.

I invite you to join us as we commemorate one of the worst environmental disasters in our nation's history with 2020 Arctic Vision Film Fests at locations around the country. We'll show short documentary and activist films about the current state of America's Arctic as well as interviews with today's young people who provide a ray of hope for the future.

It was early in the morning on March 24, 1989, when the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef and spilled nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil, covering nearly 11,000 square miles of ocean. Despite devastating results that are still being felt today, oil and gas development continues in Alaska – particularly in America's Arctic.

During the eight years of the Bush administration, more than 4 million acres were leased to oil and gas interests in the Arctic Ocean, compared to just 186,000 in the previous eight years.

America's Arctic is a diverse, unique and fragile ecosystem. Alaska Natives have been relying on its natural resources for thousands of years. Another Exxon Valdez-type spill must not take place in America's Arctic. Now is the time to take a step back, study this amazing ecosystem, and create a comprehensive conservation and energy development plan.

Visit alaskawild.org/visionfest for more information

Films will be shown in the following cities on Tuesday, March 24 (except where noted):
Anchorage, AK (to be held Mon, Mar 23)

Durango, CO
Portland, ME
Minneapolis, MN
Santa Fe, NM
Pittsburgh, PA

Help support all of Alaska Wilderness League's campaigns.
Please contribute to support our efforts today!

Whether it's setting your search engine to goodsearch.com, having your company match your donation or snagging our new baseball hat, here are easy ways help benefit Alaska Wilderness League campaigns.

One of the easiest and most important ways that you can make a difference is by spreading the word. Send this email to your friends and family and encourage them to get involved in the fight to protect wild Alaska.

Keep up the pressure: Halt drilling in 'Polar Bear Seas'

Many new legislators don't have these critical facts: Before leaving office, George W. Bush authorized an expanded drilling zone in the Arctic Ocean that contains the entire American population of polar bears.

The government's own experts predict a 40 percent chance of a major oil spill in the Chukchi Sea alone, yet Big Oil admittedly lacks the technical ability to clean up a spill in the Arctic's icy conditions.

Your support is crucial in the fight to halt further Arctic drilling. We have fresh faces in Washington and we have the facts, but we need your support to connect the two. We've already held more than 150 meetings with Congress and the new administration this month, and we have an ambitious plan to keep up the pressure.

In the waning days of their administration, George Bush and his cronies attempted to push through one more favor for Big Oil — a new plan to open broad swaths of the outer continental shelf (OCS) of the United States to oil and gas development.

This plan threatened to put our nation's coasts, beaches, ocean life and coastal economies in great danger. It also attempted to open up even more of America's Arctic Ocean to drilling — adding further stress to polar bears, walrus, bowhead and beluga whales and Alaska native cultures that have lived off these waters for thousands of years.

Thankfully, since the Obama administration took over, cooler heads have taken charge. Secretary Ken Salazar recently announced that the Department of the Interior will take a step back to fully consider the plan's immense risks to our nation's precious ocean waters.

He extended the plan's public comment period and is conducting four regional public hearings across the country next month. Sec. Salazar will personally attend the following public hearings:
Atlantic City, NJ - April 6
New Orleans, LA - April 8
Anchorage, AK - April 14
San Francisco, CA - April 16

Alaska's national treasures are your lands and waters. This is your chance to have your voice heard by the Secretary of the Interior himself. Alaska Wilderness League is working hard to build a chorus of voices for Alaska at each of these meetings. We'll show the broad support across America for conserving America's Arctic fragile ecosystem and we'll advocate against Bush's plan for a massive expansion of drilling.

If you would like to help with these hearings or are planning to attend yourself, please drop us an email [action@alaskawild.org].

Please contribute to support our efforts today!
Matt Reading
Online Communications Coordinator
Alaska Wilderness League
https://netcommunity.alaskawild.org//page.redir?target=http%3a%2f%2fwww.AlaskaWild.org&srcid=1356&srctid=1&erid=1069334

Alaska Wilderness League,
122 C St. NW Suite 240,
Washington, DC 20001

CHIEFS PUSH FOR RECOGNITION OF VIRGINIA TRIBES
From The American Indian Report
By Joanne Kimberlin
The Virginian-Pilot© March 19, 2009
WASHINGTON
They've been here before, to this marbled city, this gilded room. So often over the past 10 years that they've lost track of exactly how many times they've made their case to Congress.
Nevertheless, Virginia's Indian chiefs journeyed to Washington on Wednesday to tell their stories again, hoping that this time would be different.

They're asking for federal recognition and the benefits - such as education, housing and health care assistance - that come along with the official stamp.

Such decisions traditionally lie with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. That path, however, can take decades. The application list is long, and standards are stringent. Tribes must prove they've been in continuous existence for at least a century.

Virginia tribes say that's nearly impossible for them. State officials in the 1920s began systematically changing birth, death and marriage certificates to reclassify resident Indians as "colored."

The only remedy, the Indians say, lies here, with an act of Congress. This is the fifth time that U.S. Rep. Jim Moran, a Democrat from Alexandria, has sponsored legislation on behalf of the roughly 3,000 Indians who make up the Chickahominy, Chickahominy Eastern Division, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock, Monacan and Nansemond tribes.

Wednesday's hearing was before the House Natural Resources Committee. A vote by the committee, taken weeks or months from now, will determine whether Moran's bill makes its way to the full House. In 2007, the House passed this bill's predecessor but the Senate let it die in committee.

Concerns about casino-style gambling - an option that often comes with federal recognition - have blocked the bill in the past. It's now crafted to prevent gaming on tribal lands. Opponents say they also worry about being fair to the hundreds of other tribes waiting in line at the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine spoke in support of Virginia tribes, pointing out that 562 other tribes are federally recognized. Kaine called it "especially tragic" that none in Virginia share that designation.

Many Virginia Indians are the descendants of the Powhatan tribes. Their ancestors were the ones who helped the first colonists survive at Jamestown.

"Let us, once and for all, honor their heritage," Kaine said.

Looking back is well and good, said Stephen Adkins, chief of the Chickahominy: "Recognition acknowledges that we were here first, we are still here, and we have a unique position within the fabric of this nation."

But now, it's "about the future more so than it is about the past."

Joanne Kimberlin, (757) 446-2338,
joanne.kimberlin@pilotonline.co

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'Native Sun News' Debuts April 1st - Expand Gaming Off Reservations?

Native Sun News - To Debut on April 1st - No foolin'
By Tim Giago (Nanwica Kciji)
© 2009 Native Sun News
March 12, 2009
Some would say I am crazy, but I think what is needed in Indian country is a good Indian newspaper. Let me explain.

The condition of the newspaper business seems to go from bad to worse. Perhaps it didn’t ruffle a feather in New York City when the Rocky Mountain News bit the dust, but out here in the west it shook up an entire region.

With the Seattle Post Intelligencer sinking in the wake of the Albuquerque Tribune, it would appear that newspapers will soon go the way of the dodo bird. Let me say this about the death of the newspaper business using the words of Mark Twain: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

Perhaps the near death of many newspapers will cause the publishers and editors to take a hard look at this business of news reporting. We can’t blame it all on the Internet although by putting their newspapers online, newspaper publishers helped to give it a shove toward the open grave.

But when newspapers suddenly became attachments to a chain with the bottom line becoming more important than good news reporting, the readers responded by dropping their subscriptions. Conglomerates with offices in faraway places forgot that local people wanted to read local news. In order to write local news the paper had to have reporters that knew the territory and the people.

Yes, national news is important because so many things that happen in Washington, DC eventually comes back to bite the local people in the butt. But please consider that the newspapers that maintained a balanced sense of community are still doing well. A classic example is the Mitchell (SD) Daily Republic. It is a small daily serving a small community that continues to grow. They are succeeding because they never lost that sense of “community.”

I have been in the newspaper business for more than 30 years, first with the national Indian newspaper Wassaja, as a reporter with the Rapid City (SD) Journal, and as a regional editor with the Farmington (NM) Daily Times. I started my own newspaper, The Lakota Times, in 1981. The Times morphed into Indian Country Today in 1991. I then started The Lakota Journal in 2000. I thought I had retired in 2004.

But there are always pieces of news floating around out there about Native Americans that are downright degrading, erroneous and misleading. Whenever I saw this kind of news reporting I shuddered, especially when I saw it in so-called “Indian newspapers.”

When the newspaper I sold to the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe folded its tent in January of this year I realized that there was not a statewide Indian newspaper to keep the residents of the nine Indian reservations in South Dakota informed and educated to events that would shape their daily lives. My phone began ringing from longtime Lakota friends asking and yes, urging me, to get back into the business.

Let me say that retirement isn’t all it is cracked up to be. If one has a job that is not a job, but a joy, leaving it is difficult. Admittedly I was tired, and ill, but 5 years of rest and relaxation have brought me back to good health and a positive outlook on life.

Last week I opened an office in Rapid City that will be the home of the brand new Native Sun News. Many of my old reporters will be writing articles for me and the investigative articles that were a weekly menu of the Lakota Times and Indian Country Today (when I owned it) will once again become a weekly staple.

For too many years some tribal governments have run roughshod over their members without recourse. Indian country needs a watchdog, one that does not fear turning over a rock to see what is under it.

You won’t find us on the Internet. So many of my Indian readers do not have computers or do not even have access to them. Native Sun News will go back to the traditional way of providing news for Indian country. The paper will have serious news, but we will never abandon that Indian sense of humor that so many non-Indians accuse us of not having. You will be able to hold our newspaper in your hands, sip on a hot cup of coffee, and read the news you used to love to read in The Lakota Times and Indian Country Today.

I decided to keep my annual subscription rate low because of the hard times so, except on the newsstand where the paper will sell for $1.00, a subscription at $42.00, will cost less than $1.00 per issue. But even for $1.00, it is the best dollar you’ll ever spend.

To subscribe call Michele at: 605-721-1266 or email her at: sales@nsweekly.com. You can write to me at: editor@nsweekly.com or to the newspaper at:
Native Sun News,
1000 Cambell St., Suite 1A,
Rapid City, SD 57701.

I am excited and looking forward to serving the Indian nations of America with a newspaper they will truly enjoy reading. Hece tu yelo!

Off Rez Gaming?
Friday, March 13, 2009
Submitted by Original Pechanga

California's Budget Gap: Should we EXPAND Gaming off Reservations?
The California Legislature's budget analyst says the recession has created another $8 billion hole in the state's budget just weeks after the end of a fight to close a $42billion gap through June 2010.

Maybe it's time to get a NEW analyst, one who could have forseen this coming. Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor says in the report released Friday that California's 10.1 percent unemployment rate, further declines in the stock market and lower tax collections have led to lower revenue projections. He expects the new $8 billion budget gap in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

State Controller John Chiang also said this week that February revenues were nearly $1 billion below previous projections.Taylor says the deficit will grow even larger unless lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger take action.

Well THEY DID take action, they decided to RAISE our taxes. Here's a better idea: Get gaming off the reservations, where many tribes have proved that they couldn't/wouldn't take care of all their people and bring it to the state unrestricted to federal lands.

Let's let CALIFORNIA get it's regulated share, like Nevada does. The tribes have gotten a fair head start. Let's get California the money it deserves.

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'Virginia Tribes Seek Rcognition'

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Wisconsin Schools May Lose NA Logos - 'Squaw' Removed From Montana Landscape - White House Internships

Wisconsin Bill Requires Indian Logo Investigations
Submitted by Western Shoshone Defense Project
Indian Country Today

By Todd Richmond,
Associated Press Writer
MADISON, Wis. – Wisconsin schools may have to drop their American Indian logos or face hundreds of dollars in fines under a bill a Democratic lawmaker has proposed.

Schools have been moving away from American Indian logos and nicknames for years. More than three dozen still use them, however, according to a fiscal estimate attached to the bill.

The bill calls for the state Department of Public Instruction to investigate complaints about race-based names, nicknames, logos or mascots. School boards would have a chance to argue the logos or mascots don’t discriminate or amount to harassment or stereotyping.

If the state superintendent finds the complaint has merit, he or she would order the school board to drop the offending moniker within a year or face $100 to $1,000 in fines each day it continues to use the logo.“It’s 2009. It’s time we put this behind us. It’s the Native American’s heritage, first and foremost. If they’re not feeling honored, then it’s time to get rid of it,” said the bill’s author, Rep. Jim Soletski, D-Green Bay.

Like many other Midwestern states, Wisconsin has dozens of towns, counties and cities with names derived from Indian languages. The name “Wisconsin” is derived from the French version of the Miami Indian word for the Wisconsin River, according to the state Historical Society. That history has been reflected in school nicknames across the state.

Academia began moving away from the nicknames in the late 1980s to avoid offending American Indians. The University of Wisconsin La Crosse changed its nickname from the Indians to the Eagles in 1989.

Several states, including California, Oklahoma, Kentucky, New Jersey and Vermont have tried to introduce legislation banning racially offensive mascots since 1992, but nothing has passed, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Wisconsin lawmakers have also tried, but failed, to pass bills similar to Soletski’s in the past decade.Former Wisconsin schools
Superintendent John Benson sent a letter to school districts urging them to change American Indian logos to more ethnically sensitive ones in 1994.

Current Superintendent Elizabeth Burmaster sent out a similar request in 2005, citing an American Psychological Association resolution that said use of such mascots and logos could have a negative impact on students, particularly American Indians.

Since 1991, 32 state school districts have dropped references to American Indians, according to the Wisconsin Indian Education Association’s “Indian” Mascot and Logo Task Force.La Crosse Central High School, for example, changed its Indian-on-horseback logo to a knight in the mid-1990s but kept its Red Raiders nickname. The Tomah High School Indians became the Timberwolves in 2007, and the Wisconsin Rapids School Board voted 4-3 last year to shorten its Red Raiders nickname to Raiders and redesign its mascot.

But 38 districts with American Indian mascots, logos or nicknames haven’t changed them, according to the mascot task force.

The Mukwonago School District uses the Indians nickname and an American Indian in a headdress as a logo. Superintendent Paul Strobel said they reflect the area’s past and the state shouldn’t dictate to local leaders.“It’s our identity. We take pride in the fact that’s supposed to be a name taken in a positive light,” Strobel said. “We recognize there is accountability and responsibility in using that name. We’ve done that.”

The Mosinee School District did away with its Indian mascot years ago but voted in 2005 to keep the nickname.“The older generation has a harder time with this issue. They just have a hard time understanding how this could be perceived as no longer politically acceptable,” Superintendent Jerry Rosso said.

Task force chairwoman Barbara Munson, an Oneida Indian, said her children went to Mosinee High School. While social studies classes presumably teach diversity, student athletes are still exposed to racial stereotypes when they play schools with American Indian nicknames, she said.

“My culture, the Oneida culture, values peace. The Indian mascot in Mosinee is kind of tied to ideas of being fierce and warlike. ... It’s just one more layer of things kids have to figure out.”

Soletski said it isn’t up to individual districts.“The common argument is we’re honoring American Indians,” he said. “If American Indians don’t want to be honored, it’s their choice.”The bill’s prospects look good. Democrats control both houses of the Legislature and Assembly Speaker Mike Sheridan, D-Janesville, has signed on as co-sponsor. The bill would still need Gov. Jim Doyle’s signature to become law, but Doyle is a Democrat, too. He issued an opinion in 1992, when he was attorney general, saying an American Indian logo or mascot could constitute discrimination.

Doyle spokeswoman Carla Vigue declined to comment on the bill, but said if the logos and nicknames are offensive, the state should “make a change.”

Comment
Proud Apache from Arizona wrote ...If they honor Native Americans, why don't they have Native History classes instead of honoring us with pink and blue headdress feathers, and orange and green face paint. This is too ridiculous, and why didn't our so-called "expert" and "tribal leaders" do anything about this years ago, why is it the young people that are ACTUALLY doing something. I know people like to be in the limelight, and some people have promoted themselves on these issues and never done one *** thing to help their PEOPLES.
Ahe'hee

New Names For Montana's Landscape
By the Associated Press

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A decade-long project to remove the derogatory word "squaw" from the names of 76 streams, buttes and mountains across Montana has been completed.

Most of the name changes are official, although a few are winding their way through the process.
More than 150 people gathered Thursday in the Capitol rotunda for the "Old Places, New Names" ceremony. Gov. Brian Schweitzer was unable to speak because he traveled to Bozeman after a natural gas explosion in the city's downtown.

"We celebrate 76 old places and 76 new names," Jennifer Perez Cole, the governor's Indian affairs coordinator, said at Thursday's observance.

"This derogatory word 'squaw' was a word used by white men to describe Indian women," Perez Cole said. "We sent a message in '99 that it was unacceptable."

Perez Cole said Montana was the second state to undertake the name-change effort, after Minnesota. Other states have followed.

Process Has Taken 10 Years To Complete
"This law will go a long way in healing these past wrongs," said state Sen. Carol Juneau, D-Browning, who as a state representative sponsored the 1999 law. "With these name changes, we've made Montana a better place."

The Legislature didn't fund the effort, Juneau said, so people who served on the panel did so at their own expense. She figured it would take just a couple of years, but it wound up taking 10 years to work with tribal governments and national, state and local governments. And the group found many more names that needed to be changed than it anticipated.

Some examples: Stands Alone Woman Peak, a rock formation in Glacier National Park, has supplanted Old Squaw. Storm Castle Creek now flows through forested land in Gallatin County instead of Squaw Creek.

"We've got some wonderful new names," Juneau said.

White House Internship
Submitted by NAPT
Deadline: Mar. 22
President Obama has launched the White House Internship Program for his administration and announced that applications are currently being accepted for the summer of 2009.

Those selected to participate in the program will gain valuable job experience and an inside look at the life of White House staff while building leadership skills. The 2009 Summer Internship program runs from May 22 to August 14, and the submission deadline is March 22, 2009.

More information on the White House Internship Program, including application instructions, can be found at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/Internships/

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Career Focus: Wind, Part 2 - Indigenous Activists Honored

Submitted by Native Workplace
Green Collar Career Focus: Wind, Part 2

DOE: Wind Energy Educational Programs
The U.S. map shows which states have higher education or continuing education programs for wind energy. Click on the map to activate it and then click on a state to read more about offered programs.

USA Today: Wind Farms Need Techs
Last year, wind farms installed almost 3,200 turbines, boosting the nation's wind energy capacity by 45 percent and cranking out enough electricity to power 1.5 million homes for a year. But wind power officials see a obstacle coming in the form of its own work force. Two-man teams are generally responsible for seven to ten turbines, so the industry will need up to 800 technicians to serve the turbines expected to be installed this year alone.

Rooftop Wind Turbines: Throw Caution to the Wind
Rooftop wind turbines offer a relatively inexpensive way to participate in the rush to renewable energy The principle allure is low installation cost.

Wind Jobs Highlighted on Capitol Hill
A press conference convened by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer put the spotlight on the wind energy industry’s ability to create new, high-quality jobs in America.

The Small Wind Certification Council
(SWCC) has information for manufacturers and consumers related to the certification of small wind turbines.

Longtime Indigenous Activists Honored By IITC For Their Work To Protect Sacred Sites
Submitted by Alyssa Macy

San Francisco – On March 7th, 2009, two longtime indigenous activists, Carrie Dann (Western Shoshone) and Manny Pino (Acoma Pueblo) were honored by the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) for their lifelong work to protect sacred places.

Both received the “Human Rights Defenders” award during the “Indigenous Peoples Struggles to Defend Sacred Places” training and symposium at San Francisco State University.

Carrie Dann and her sister Mary (now deceased) have been on the forefront to protect the traditional lands of the Western Shoshone for over forty years. Ms. Dann has worked diligently through litigation and civil disobedience to defend Western Shoshone lands, treaty rights and sacred places such as Mt. Tenabo from international gold mining corporations, the nuclear industry and the U.S. government.

Both the United Nations (UN) and the Organization of American States have supported the Western Shoshone struggle and most recently the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination condemned the actions of the U.S.

Manny Pino has worked many years to protect traditional indigenous lands and peoples from the destruction caused by uranium mining and defending sacred places such as Mt. Taylor and the San Francisco Peaks. Uranium mining has long impacted the Indigenous Peoples from the southwestern part of the U.S. where mines were opened to aid in the production of the world’s first nuclear weapons. Most of its victims, including Diné (Navajo) and Pueblo miners and their families, were unaware of the dangers of exposure.

Mr. Pino has played a key role in raising awareness of this issue including the impacts of uranium and other types of mining on Indigenous Peoples’ sacred sites. Radley Davis, IITC Board Member (Pit River Nation, California) and activist, presented the awards on behalf of the IITC.

Opening words by IITC Executive Director Andrea Carmen (Yaqui Nation) affirmed the importance of recognizing and honoring Indigenous Peoples for their dedication and heroism, as examples for our younger generations of what brave and dedicated individuals can accomplish.

The All Nations Drum from Oakland provided an honor song for the recipients, their families and friends. The awards ceremony closed the daylong training on human rights and protection of sacred sites from mining and other forms of imposed development.

The IITC’s “Human Rights and Capacity Building Program” trains Indigenous activists to use international standards and mechanisms to defend their human rights and increase their direct, effective participation in international fora.

For more information, visit IITC online at: http://www.treatycouncil.org/.

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Help Wanted: Wind Farms Need Techs To Keep Running - Green Collar Career Focus: Wind

Submitted by Native Workplace
By David Twiddy,
AP Business Writer

LINCOLN, Kan. — The line of towering wind turbines stand motionless on the ridgeline above Interstate 70 in central Kansas, Y-shaped silhouettes amid the swirling snow.

Despite the weather, dozens of technicians are working to get the 10-mile-long Smoky Hills Wind Farm ready to begin producing electricity.

Jason Martinson, who is supervising the 56-turbine operation on behalf of Enel North America Inc., said after almost a decade in the industry he's still amazed by how fast wind farms like Smoky Hills are going up across the country. But he also said workers like those braving the blizzard-like conditions outside his office are becoming increasingly rare.

"Finding experienced techs is impossible with wind growing as fast as it is," Martinson said. "You get one year's worth of experience and it's like dog years."

Considered a cheap source of renewable power, wind farms have taken off amid concerns over greenhouse gases produced by coal-fired electric plants and the increasing cost of natural gas and other petroleum products. Some states have encouraged their development by requiring a certain portion of their future energy be created through renewable resources.

Last year, wind farms installed almost 3,200 turbines, boosting the nation's wind energy capacity by 45 percent and cranking out an additional 5,200 megawatts, or enough electricity to power 1.5 million homes for a year. The industry, which now accounts for a little more than 1 percent of the U.S. electric supply, expects to repeat that surge in 2008.

Critics of wind power have called the mammoth turbines eyesores and environmentalists have fought against them, warning the giant rotors could pose a hazard to migratory birds and other wildlife.

But wind power officials see a much larger obstacle coming in the form of its own work force, a highly specialized group of technicians that combine working knowledge of mechanics, hydraulics, computers and meteorology with the willingness to climb 200 feet in the air in all kinds of weather.

That work force isn't keeping up with the future demand, partly because the industry is so new that the oldest independent training programs are less than five years old.

The American Wind Energy Association, a Washington, D.C-based trade group, estimates the industry employs about 20,000 people, not including those making turbines or other equipment.
Future need is harder to quantify, given the uncertainties of the industry's growth. But with two-man teams generally responsible for seven to 10 turbines, the industry would need up to 800 technicians to serve the turbines expected to be installed this year alone.

Park developers, turbine manufacturers and utilities are investing in training programs, attempting to lure workers with wages of up to $25 an hour, or teaming up with the growing number of wind energy training programs being offered at community and technical colleges.

At Columbia Gorge Community College in The Dalles, Ore., seven wind companies are working with the school as academic advisers. Several of the companies are also supporting the college financially, including a three-year $150,000 grant from PPM Energy and donated equipment from Arlington, Va.-based wind developer AES Corp.

"They are all just crammed to the gills with students," said Jeremy Norton, operations, maintenance and training manager for PPM Energy.

The industry tends to draw heavily from the military and agricultural areas, which put a heavy emphasis on machinery and technical training. In Oregon, which ranks seventh in the nation for wind generation, many of the wind farms were able to take advantage of the need for jobs and training left behind in some towns where aluminum mills closed years ago.

"We're accepting a lot of people with technical skills that don't have wind experience," said Norton, whose utility fills out the employee's skills with its own training. "But if you have technical skills and wind experience you can pretty much write your own ticket in the industry and go anywhere you want to go."

That's what attracted Matt Froese, 19, who just started the wind energy program at Cloud County Community College in Concordia, Kan. He said he hadn't heard of wind energy until an uncle who is leasing land for some wind turbines showed him some pictures.

"It kind of got me interested," Froese said. "It's a career that has a good future in it and it'll help the environment because it doesn't pollute. I figured there'd be a lot of job opportunities when I graduated."

Maybe not even that long. On the very first day of school at Columbia Gorge, one of the wind companies came to talk to the class and two students left to take jobs that afternoon.

"We've told them since that day, no more," said Tom Lieurance, renewable energy technology instructor. "We are going to wait till spring before I let any more hungry lions in to get my students."

Wind companies also face competition from other industries, particularly in Texas, the nation's leading wind producer, where wind farms fight for workers with the resurgent oil industry.

"It's not so much an issue of comparable skills (between oil and wind power), but people interested in a mechanical career," said Douglas King, who runs the wind energy program at Texas State Technical College in Sweetwater.

The competition is benefitting new hires as companies have raised salaries to attract better candidates.

Bruce Graham, who runs the Cloud County program, said he estimates technicians being hired with no training are making $15 to $20 per hour while wind energy program graduates can make $20 to $25 per hour. He said trained technicians can quickly become supervisors, who he said can make well above $25 an hour.

"It's phenomenal," Graham said of the demand. "I could go out on the Internet and find 500 jobs right now that are open and they want someone right now."

Antonio Coutinho, chief energy management officer for wind farm developer Horizon Energy, added that training will only become more important as the turbine technology becomes more complex. The industry has no choice but to get its message out and attract the best candidates, he said.

"The growth is going to continue," Coutinho said. "In every system, every market, supply always meets demand sooner or later."

Associated Press writer Sarah Skidmore in Portland, Ore., contributed to this report.

GREEN COLLAR CAREER FOCUS: WIND
Turbine Technicians or "Windsmiths" The career of Wind Energy Technician includes repair, installation and to trouble-shooting of wind energy towers.

This is great career for people with electronic and mechanical talents.

Wind Technicians Must Work Under The Following Conditions:
-Ability to work comfortably at heights up to 350 Feet
- Good physical condition for ladder climbing and occasional heavy lifting
- Must work outdoors in all types of weather conditions
- Must be able to work without supervision in small teams
- Valid drivers license

Basic Requirements For Entry Level Positions:
-High school diploma or GED.
-Technical Wind Turbine Technician Degree from accredited school.
-Mechanical and electrical maintenance preferred.
-Ability to read and interpret complex instructions & diagrams.
-Safety certifications, especially regarding working at heights.-
-Good math, reading and writing skills.
-Experience using hand and power tools.

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$2 Million In Funds Sought For Tohajiilee Navajo Chapter Water Project

Gallup Independent
By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Last July, before Delegate Jerry Bodie’s group of 14 riders left Tohajiilee Chapter on the 12th Annual Navajo Nation Council Horse Ride, the Independent spoke with Ruth Secatero, supervisor at Tohajiilee Senior Center, about her views on what the chapter needed from Window Rock. The main thing, of course, was water.

“Right now they’re asking for capital money from the state. When it’s campaign time, when there’s new people running for office, they give you all this, ‘I’m going to run the water straight from Albuquerque to here along I-40.’ “I’ll believe it when I see it,” she said. “Water is water to us. What we have, we appreciate.

“In our growing-up days we didn’t complain about what type of water we drank. There’d be a dirt dam out there, there’d be tadpoles, whatever, and my uncle would run his wagon straight into the dam and we’d all be sitting in there. He’d have a barrel in there with a flour sack and he would pour it in and strain it. You’d see all these tadpoles jumping around. We didn’t care what it was.”

She still remembers the clay taste the water had to it, and now when it rains, “that dirt smell, oh, I just take a deep, deep breath,” she said.

Nearly eight months later, Tohajiilee Chapter is still waiting on funding to complete a cost share agreement with the Army Corps of Engineers to draft environmental compliance and engineering design documents for the water project.

The chapter has been working with the Albuquerque-Bernalillo Water Resources Board and has obtained an agreement to have a water line extended from the city of Albuquerque to Tohajiilee. The Army Corps has committed $6.4 million and the state of New Mexico has appropriated $250,000 toward the first stage of the project.

All that’s needed to get moving is a supplemental appropriation of $2 million from the Navajo Nation for the cost share agreement.

Tohajiilee Delegate Lawrence Platero received unanimous approval Monday from the Intergovernmental Relations Committee for a supplemental appropriation of $2 million from the Unreserved, Undesignated Fund Balance so the agreement could advance.

Unfortunately, the UUFB was drained dry by Council before the end of last September, after which the Minimum Fund Balance was nearly tapped out as well. The Minimum Fund will have to be built back up to $16 million from its remaining balance of $350,000 before any money begins to trickle into the UUFB for supplemental appropriations.

Meanwhile, Tohajiilee residents have to depend on poor quality water to meet an increasing demand.

“We have a water project in our community that serves about 275 families whether they do their monthly payment or not,” Platero said. “We provide water service to our families out there, we provide water service to the community school, the clinic, the chapter and several other businesses that are out there that provide services such as behavioral health, diabetes and Head Start.”

He said they are seeking a better water system than the one they are using. “Our water system currently has a lot of minerals in it, and the water at times does not taste good. At times you can’t see through the glass — you pour a glass of water and it’s so thick with different minerals and chemicals.

“Although the Indian Health Service has tested the water and said it’s safe for drinking, a lot of people still haul their water from Albuquerque,” Platero said.

The chapter is seeking funds through New Mexico capital outlay and currently has requests pending before the state, but even the state is cutting back on funding capital projects due to its budget shortfall. “I would appreciate any appropriations that the Nation can come up with so that we can get better water and have some matching funds for this project,” Platero added..

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