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Inslee: Ellensburg Area Stream Restoration Good for Salmon

Credit Anna KingGovernor Jay Inslee signs his name to some of the pipe that will put water back in Manastash Creek near Ellensburg, Wash. — Credit Anna King
Governor Jay Inslee signs his name to some of the pipe that will put water back in Manastash Creek near Ellensburg, Wash.

By Anna King, KPLU news

A dried-out 3-mile-stretch of creek in central Washington will soon swell again with water. It’s part of a project near Ellensburg to pipe irrigation water from the Yakima River to keep water in the creek for salmon and steelhead.

In June, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill passed by the Legislature that sets aside $132 million to improve water usage and sensitive habitat in the Yakima Basin. Inslee traveled to Manastash Creek to celebrate the start of one part of that work—construction of a 13-mile pipeline that will replace an unlined canal system. With more water back in the creek, it will once again free salmon and steelhead to spawn on 25 miles of habitat upstream. Inslee says this project stems from lawsuits, bitter fights and earlier failures.

“You know sometimes water projects have not been shall we say perfect in the West, because they’ve ignored one aspect of our culture or our values,” Inslee said. This combines all of them, it’s jobs, it’s farms, it’s fish, it’s forest.”

The Manastash Creek restoration project is expected to be finished next spring.

More money pours into Wash. food labeling fight

October 29, 2013

By PHUONG LE — Associated Press

SEATTLE — A group fighting food labeling in Washington state has busted the record for the most money raised by an initiative campaign in state history.

Largely financed by five biotechnology giants and a food industry group, the No on 522 committee has raised nearly $22 million to defeat Initiative 522, which would require foods containing genetically engineered ingredients to carry a label, the latest campaign finance records show.

Initiative supporters have raised about $6.8 million, mostly from natural food companies and others.

Opponents of food-labeling have received an infusion of last-minute contributions with just days to go until the November election. Monsanto Co. gave $540,000 on Monday to No on 522, bringing the company’s total contributions to nearly $5.4 million. Monsanto is the second highest contributor fighting the measure.

A political committee formed by the Washington, D.C.-based Grocery Manufacturers Association is the top contributor to No on 522, giving $11 million total. About a third of that amount has come in the last several days.

The food group has collected money from the nation’s top food and beverage companies such as PepsiCo Inc., Coca-Cola Co., Nestle SA, General Mills Inc., Kellogg Co., The Hershey Co. and ConAgra Foods Inc.

On Nov. 5, Washington voters will decide whether to approve I-522, which requires genetically engineered foods offered for retail sale to be labeled. Products would have to carry a label on the front of the package disclosing that they contain genetically engineered ingredients.

Supporters say consumers have a right to know whether foods they buy contain such ingredients and a GMO label is no different from nutrition and other labels. Opponents say it would cost farmers and food processors and such a label implies the food is somehow less safe.

Moriah Armstrong, 67, who lives on Orcas Island, has already cast her mail-in ballot in support of the initiative. She said she has been alarmed by the amount of money that initiative opponents appear to have spent on numerous television ads, campaign fliers and phone calls.

“Time and time again corporations are using their money to influence the voters. I’d like to see the little man beat out the corporations’ big spending,” said Armstrong, a retiree who gave $50 to labeling supporters.

Armstrong said she voted for the measure because she believes in transparency and that the public has the right to know what’s in their food.

Doreen Wardenaar, whose family runs a farm in the eastern Washington town of Othello, opposes the measure.

“We feel strongly that it will add another layer to our bureaucracy that isn’t needed and Washington should fall in line with federal standards,” said Wardenaar, whose family grows potatoes, onions and fresh packaged sweet corn. “That would be an unfair playing field for Washington farmers.”

Wardenaar, whose husband gave $50 to No on 522, said the influx of money from the big corporations doesn’t help the cause. Still, she said: “I’m no attorney, but it just sounds like a mess to me.”

She said she looked at the initiative and decided it would be expensive and would put Washington farmers at a disadvantage. The farm grows crops that aren’t genetically modified, but they’re concerned it would cost them money to prove that, she said.

Adam Beach says a connection to ancestry is important

9055468 — Adam Beach talks to media at the annual We Day event at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, Oct. 18, 2013.
Photograph by: Nick Procaylo , PNG

The Province

By Tracy Sherlock, Postmedia News October 18, 2013

Adam Beach, a Canadian actor who stars in Arctic Air, lost both of his parents within a two-month period when he was eight years old. Although there was a lot of fear in his life growing up, he says it was a connection to his First Nations ancestors that made him who he is today.

“I grew up in sexual abuse and got involved in gangs in my teenage years. I was always running away from the fear of what happened to me,” Beach said in an interview at We Day. “I noticed myself being drawn toward the identity of who I am as First Nations and I realized that there are teachings there and a timeline that hasn’t changed.

“That helped me become brave and strong, a leader and who I am today.”

The Golden Globe-nominated actor was born in Manitoba, raised on the Dog Creek Reserve, and is a member of the Saulteaux First Nation. He has starred in more than 60 films and TV shows, including Big Love, Hawaii Five-O and the blockbuster Cowboys Vs. Aliens with Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig.

His Golden Globe nomination was for his role in the 2007 HBO film Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. He also won Best Actor at the American Indian Film Festival in 1995.

He says the entertainment industry changed his life by allowing him to have a voice. As an example, he said he was able to get a group of chiefs together to agree unanimously on the Save the Fraser Declaration because of that voice.

“That’s the voice I have and the strength I have … because of the entertainment value of being the ‘Hollywood Indian,’” he said. “And I respect it, I don’t abuse it, and I know that there is a value to this entertainment status. Every kid wants to be a star and looks up to an entertainer.”

The 40-year-old started the Adam Beach Film Institute last year in Winnipeg to help other native youth get involved in film careers.

“I want to find the next Adam Beach. I think we need to tell our stories — we haven’t tapped into that, so this will encourage an aboriginal workforce,” Beach said.

At We Day, Beach performed a First Nations blessing ceremony using a bear pipe and an eagle wing. He said the blessing was a way of connecting the crowd with its ancestors.

“I am asking our ancestors to hear (these) youth and help them with their vision of making social change,” Beach said.

“(The eagle wing is for) asking to take the energy of the eagle to help bless us … and to allow us to connect with it in the way that an eagle soars, has a longer vision and the gift of flight — so help us in our journey to fly.”

Tribal Nations Early Climate Adaptation Planners

Terri Hansen, Intercontinental Cry

Much has been made of the need to develop climate-change-adaptation plans, especially in light of increasingly alarming findings about how swiftly the environment that sustains life as we know it is deteriorating, and how the changes compound one another to quicken the pace overall. Studies, and numerous climate models, and the re-analysis of said studies and climate models, all point to humankind as the main driver of these changes. In all these dire pronouncements and warnings there is one bright spot: It may not be too late to turn the tide and pull Mother Earth back from the brink.

None of this is new to the Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island. Besides already understanding much about environmental issues via millennia of historical perspective, Natives are at the forefront of these changes and have been forced to adapt. Combining their preexisting knowledge with their still-keen ability to read environmental signs, these tribes are way ahead of the curve, with climate-change plans either in the making or already in effect.

Swinomish Tribe: From Proclamation to Action

On the southeastern peninsula of Fidalgo Island in Washington State, the Swinomish were the first tribal nation to pass a Climate Change proclamation, which they did in 2007. Since then they have implemented a concrete action plan.

The catalyst came in 2006, when a strong storm surge pushed tides several feet above normal, flooding and damaging reservation property. Heightening awareness of climate change in general, it became the tribe’s impetus for determining appropriate responses. The tribe began a two-year project in 2008, issued an impact report in 2009 and an action plan in 2010, said project coordinator and senior planner Ed Knight. The plan identified a number of proposed “next step” implementation projects, several of them now under way: coastal protection measures, code changes, community health assessment and wildfire protection, among others.

The tribe won funding through the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and the Administration for Native Americans to support the $400,000 Swinomish Climate Change Initiative, of which the tribe funded 20 percent. When work began in 2008, most estimates for sea level rise by the end of the century were in the range of one to one-and-a-half feet, with temperature changes ranging from three to five degrees Fahrenheit, said Knight. But those estimates did not take into account major melting in the Arctic, Antarctica and Greenland, he said.

“Now, the latest reports reflect accelerated rates” of sea level rise and temperature increases, Knight said. Those are three to four feet or more, and six to nine degrees Fahrenheit, respectively, by 2100. “We are currently passing 400 ppm of CO2, on track for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change worst-case scenarios.”

Since the Swinomish started work on climate issues, many tribes across the country have become active on these issues as they also realize the potential impacts to their communities and resources. The Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP) has been funded over the last few years to conduct climate adaptation training, Knight said, “and probably more than 100 tribes have now received training on this.”

Jamestown S’Klallam: Rising Sea Levels and Ocean Acidification

Jamestown S’Klallam tribal citizens live in an ecosystem that has sustained them for thousands of years, on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. Over the past two centuries they have successfully navigated societal changes, all while maintaining a connection to the resource-rich ecosystem of the region. Though they have also adapted to past climate variations, the magnitude and rapid rate of current and projected climate change prompted them to step it up. That became apparent when tribal members noticed ocean acidification in the failure of oyster and shellfish larvae.

The Jamestown S’Klallam work on rising sea levels and ocean acidification. (Photo: ClimateAdaptation.org)

“Everyone who was part of the advisory group all had their personal testimony as to the changes they’d seen,” said Hansi Hals, the tribe’s environmental planning program manager, describing a meeting of a sideline group. “Everybody had something to say.”

Tribal members brought their concerns to the attention of the Natural Resources committee and tribal council three years ago, Hals said. This past summer they released their climate vulnerability assessment and adaptation plan, which identified key tribal resources, outlined the expected impacts from climate change and created adaptation strategies for each resource. It included sea-level-rise maps are for three time frames, near (low), mid-century (medium) and end of century (high).

Mescalero Apache: Bolstering Tribal Resilience

Tribal lands of the Mescalero Apache in southwestern New Mexico flank the Sacramento Mountains and border Lincoln National Forest, where increased frequency and intensity of wildfires is due to drought-compromised woodlands. Mike Montoya, director of the Mescalero Apache Tribe’s Fisheries Department, executive director of the Southwest Tribal Fisheries Commission and project leader for the Sovereign Nations Service Corps, a Mescalero-based AmeriCorps program, has observed climate-driven changes to the landscape in his years in natural resource management.

Mescalero Apache Tribe’s holding pond can contain 500,000 gallons of water and nourishes the community garden. (Photo courtesy Mescalero Apache Tribe)

The tribe has undertaken innovative environmental initiatives to help bolster tribal resilience to climate change impacts, Montoya said. One example is a pond constructed for alternative water supply to the fish hatchery in the event of a catastrophic flood event. It holds 500,000 gallons of water from a river 3,600 feet away.

“It’s all gravity fed,” Montoya said. “Now, with the aid of solar powered water pumps, we are able to supply water to our community garden.”

Karuk Tribe: Integrating Traditional Knowledge into Climate Science

With lands within and around the Klamath River and Six Rivers National Forests in northern California, the Klamath Tribe is implementing parts of its Eco-Cultural Resources Management Draft Plan released in 2010. The plan synthesizes the best available science, locally relevant observations and Traditional Ecological Knowledge to help the Karuk create an integrated approach to addressing natural resource management and confront the potential impacts of climate change.

Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes: Strategic Planning

Fire management planning on Salish and Kootenai tribal lands in Montana. (Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

These tribes, who live in what is today known as Montana, issued a climate change proclamation in November 2012 and adopted a Climate Change Strategic Plan in 2013. The Tribal Science Council identified climate change and traditional ecological knowledge as the top two priorities for tribes across the nation in June 2011, according to Michael Durglo, the tribe’s division of environmental protection manager and climate change planning coordinator, as well as the National Tribal Science Council’s Region 8 representative.

So did the Inter-Tribal Timber Council, which his brother, Jim Durglo, is involved with. In fall 2012 the confederated tribes received financial support through groups affiliated with the Kresge foundation and from the Great Northern Landscape Conservation Cooperative to develop plans, Michael Durglo said. A year later, in September 2013, the tribes’ Climate Change Strategic Plan was completed and approved by the Tribal Council. Next the tribes will establish a Climate Change Oversight Committee.

“This committee will monitor progress, coordinate funding requests, continue research of [Traditional Ecological Knowledge], incorporate the strategic planning results into other guiding documents such as the Flathead Reservation Comprehensive Resource Management Plan and others, and update the plan on a regular basis based on updated science,” said Michael Durglo.

Nez Perce: Preservation Via Carbon Sequestration

More than a decade ago the Nez Perce Tribe, of the Columbia River Plateau in northern Idaho, recognized carbon sequestration on forested lands as a means of preserving natural resources and generating jobs and income, while reducing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. [With the over arching goal of restoration,] in the mid to late 1990s the Nez Perce Forestry & Fire Management Division developed a carbon offset strategy to market carbon sequestration credits. The purpose of the afforestation project, about 400 acres in size, was to establish marketable carbon offsets, develop an understanding of potential carbon markets and cover the costs of project implementation and administration.

Nez Perce project before and after. (Photo: NAU ITEP)

As carbon markets soften and actual project development slows, the tribe cites the increased awareness and education of other tribes of the carbon sales process and opportunities for more carbon sequestration projects in Indian country as its biggest accomplishment of the last two years.

Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians: Attacking Greenhouse Gas Emissions

This tribe in southern California has taken numerous steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address the impacts of climate change on tribal peoples, land and resources. In 1998 the tribe formed the Santa Ynez Chumash Environmental Office.

“We are also looking into opening a public compressed natural gas (CNG) fueling station, replacing our fleet with CNG vehicles, are installing EV charging stations, implementing an innovative home, and building upgrade training program through an EPA Climate Showcase Communities grant,” said Santa Ynez environmental director Joshua Simmons.

SYCEO’s projects are numerous and have had impressive results, including major reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. An example is the Chumash Casino’s implementation of a shuttle bus program that eliminated 800,000 car trips in 2009, replacing them with 66,000 bus trips. The casino is reducing its energy consumption, chemical waste and use of one-use materials. It also has an extensive rainwater and gray water collection and treatment system. Many of these initiatives have economic benefits and provide a model and economic incentive for tribal and non-tribal businesses to implement similar changes.

Newtok Village: Ultimate Adaptation Plan—Evacuation

This Native village on the western coast of Alaska is home to some of the U.S.’s first climate refugees. They leapfrogged over mere adaptation-mitigation as sea and river cut through and then eroded the permafrost beneath their village and a 1983 assessment found that the community would be endangered within 25 to 30 years. In 1994 Newtok began work on what then seemed the ultimate adaptation plan: relocation.

The Native Alaskan village of Newtok had to relocate as its shoreline was washed away because of melting permafrost. (Photo: Newtok Planning Group)

They selected Mertarvik nine miles to the south as the relocation site in 1996. Their efforts intensified when a study by the Army Corps of Engineers found that the highest point in the village would be below sea level by 2017. The Newtok community, government agencies and nongovernmental organizations formed the Newtok Planning Group in 2006, but as Newtok’s administrator Stanley Tom searched for funding he struck little pay dirt. Mostly, he hit walls. Now Tom is calling for evacuation, exposing it as the true ultimate in adaptation.

“It’s really happening right now,” He told the Guardian last May. “The village is sinking and flooding and eroding.”

Tom told the British newspaper that he was moving his own belongings to the new, still very sparse village site over the summer–and advised fellow villagers to start doing the same.

Wәłәb?altxw – Intellectual House: UW breaks ground on a 40-year dream

Native students and faculty at the University of Washington celebrated the October 25th groundbreaking of the new longhouse.Photo/Andrew Gobin, Tulalip News — Native students and faculty at the University of Washington celebrated the October 25th groundbreaking of the new longhouse.
Photo/Andrew Gobin, Tulalip News

By Andrew Gobin, Tulalip News

SEATTLE – Amidst university buildings with styles ranging from classic to modern, an old style is being resurrected. Wәłәb?altx^w, or Intellectual House, is the first permanent longhouse structure to be raised on the University of Washington (UW) campus since its founding in 1861. Native students and faculty celebrated the October 25^th groundbreaking of the new longhouse with a feast, hosting many tribal dignitaries from local Indian tribes and Native groups. The new longhouse will be a gathering place for all, and a chance to educate people about the culture of Pacific Northwest tribes.

Charlotte Cote, Professor of American Indian Studies, said, “As a Native, and I’m Native faculty, you come to places like this, these educational institutions, and you don’t see yourself. To have something like this is not only going to be a welcoming space for our students, but a safe place and a comfortable place that will improve their overall educational experience here at UW. It gives me great pride to be a part of this project.

“I want to acknowledge the tribal leaders and elders we have with us today,” Cote continued “I think it is important to note that, collectively, they funded a great deal of this first phase of a two-phase project.”

Forty years in the planning, the longhouse project survived budget cuts and plan changes that prevented the project from moving forward. Funding from local tribes, over the last 5 years, provided the final push to make this dream a reality.

The longhouse design remains traditional with a modern take. It is a two-building concept, in the Coast Salish style, to honor the tribes that remain in the area, though all Native students should feel welcome. The name of the project changed many times, finally returning to its original, Wәłәb?altx^w, so named by Vi Hilbert, a member of the Upper Skagit tribe who made it her life’s work to preserve Salish language and culture. The late Hilbert’s contributions to the university, as well as Puget Sound tribes’ efforts on language preservation, will live on and be honored with this house.

Located near the quad, at the heart of campus, next to Lewis Hall, the current plan schedules the longhouse to be open December of next year.

“The University of Washington has a hundred year standard, meaning anything they build has to last at least 100 years. And then we renovate. So this building will stand in this place for more than 100 years, like the spirits of the ancestors upon whose land it stands. There will always be a place for Native students at the University,” said Cote.

‘It’s always been about the hatred of Indian skin’: Native Americans, allies protest Washington Redskins in Denver

Courtesy Tessa McLeanDemonstrators march with signs toward Invesco Field in Denver, Colo., to protest the Washington Redskins name as the team arrived at the stadium, Oct. 27, 2013. — Courtesy Tessa McLean
Demonstrators march with signs toward Invesco Field in Denver, Colo., to protest the Washington Redskins name as the team arrived at the stadium, Oct. 27, 2013.

By Simon Moya-Smith, NBC News

Hundreds of people rallied in Denver on Sunday to protest the name of the Washington Redskins and to send a message to team owner Dan Snyder that the nickname is derogatory to Native Americans.

Two Native American organizations, American Indian Movement Colorado and Idle No More Denver, began the demonstration Sunday morning as the team prepared to kick-off against the Denver Broncos.

Tessa McLean of the Ojibwe Nation and youth council leader of AIM Colorado, told NBC News that they marched to Sports Authority Field from nearby Auraria Campus and met the players and coaches with placards, drums and a bullhorn as the team pulled into the parking lot.

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McLean added that Native Americans and their allies spent Saturday afternoon making signs for the demonstration, some reading “Change the Name” with others declaring, “What’s in a name? Everything!”

“(Redskins) is a term that was created for proof of Indian kill,” she said, referencing the early-American sale of Indian scalps.

Tink Tinker of the Osage Nation and a professor of American Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions at the University of Denver, told the crowd that the issue demonstrates a history of racism toward Native Americans.

“It’s always been about the hatred of Indian skin,” he said.

Basim Mahmood, whose ancestry stems from east India, told NBC News he was there to protest against discrimination.

“As a person of Indian origin, I stand in solidarity with them because we are all fighting the same thing — which is racism,” he said.

Radio ads, paid for by the Oneida Indian Nation in New York, have aired in cities where the Washington Redskins are scheduled to play. Prior to Sunday’s match-up between the two teams, Denver’s Sports Station KDSP-FM ran the latest ad.

Courtesy Tessa McLean

Reddog Rudy, a member of the American Indian Movement Colorado and of Ute and Chicano heritage, protests outside of Invesco Field in Denver, Colo., Sunday, October 27, 2013.

Oneida Nation has encouraged Americans to lobby the NFL in support of the name change at www.changethemascot.org, a website that debuted at the beginning of the 2013-14 football season.

The issue over the team name has even prompted comments from President Barack Obama who said that were he the owner of the team, he would consider changing the name.

“I’ve got to say, if I were the owner of the team and I knew that there was a name of my team, even if it had a storied history that was offending a sizable group of people, I’d think about changing it,” he said.

Washington D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray chimed into the debate earlier this year by stating that if the team wishes to relocate within the district’s borders from its base in Landover, Maryland, Snyder would need to consider changing the name.

On Oct. 9, Snyder released a statement saying that he “respects the opinion of those who disagree” with his position, but reiterated that he remains immovable on the subject, citing an acclaimed team history.

“We owe it to our fans and coaches and players, past and present, to preserve that heritage,” he wrote.

Numerous sports writers and publications including Mother Jones, Slate and the New Republic have recently announced that they have instituted policies against using the team name in their stories.

This week, officials of the NFL will meet with the Oneida Indian Nation in New York City to discuss the caustic subject of a name change, the Associated Press reports.

Debra Preston of the Omaha Nation, who was at Invesco Field protesting with her 8-year-old granddaughter, Lilliah Walker, told NBC News she was there in honor of Native American children and elders.

“We want Indian mascots to be deleted from mother earth,” she said. “This is our country, our nation, and we’re sick and tired of racist names being used against us.”

A group of Native Americans have sued the Washington Redskins arguing against the team’s trademark rights to the name. Trademarks that are deemed racist are illegal under U.S. federal law.

Texas inmate denied locks of dead parents’ hair

Texas prison inmate William Chance poses for a photo at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Michael Unit on Oct 1.(Photo: Michael Graczyk, AP)

Michael Graczyk, Associated Press

TENNESSEE COLONY, Texas (AP) — William Chance wants to connect to the spirits of his dead parents from his prison cell. All he needs is a lock of their hair for a Native American ritual he believes will help find them.

It’s not an easy task for an inmate in the Texas prison system, which considers the hair a security risk and has barred Chance’s family from delivering it. A federal appeals court says the request appears harmless and has sent the case back to a lower court for review — a ruling that could stretch Chance’s already long wait into 2014.

“The hair is just the connection to their physical spirit,” Chance, 57, said from East Texas’ Michael Unit prison, where he’s among some 85 prisoners who participate in Native American religious activities about twice a month. “This is something that our family has always done. The fact I’m not allowed to do that, it makes me feel bad.

“Sometimes I feel haunted, like I’m letting them down, and I realize my life in the past has been a pretty big disappointment for them.”

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled Texas should not have flatly denied Chance’s access to the hair, but agreed other requests he sought on behalf of a group of Native American prisoners were properly refused, such as smoking a nearly foot-long peace pipe and burning ceremonial herbs for what’s known as the Smudging Ritual.

Prison officials argued inmates sharing a pipe would be a risk for spreading disease and smoke from burning herbs threatened to set off fire detection systems.

But the court described the hair lock as “benign.”

Chance, whose grandmother was a Cheyenne from Lame Deer, Mont., was more than 15 years into a 65-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault when his parents died in 2008 and 2009. He asked the state to allow him possession of 4-inch locks of their hair about as thick as pencil lead for the “Keeping of Souls” practice, so he can mourn the deaths and reconnect with them for their “path to the creator.”

When the state denied the request, the Texas Civil Rights Project filed a lawsuit in June 2011 on Chance’s behalf. It argued the prohibition violates the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which bars discrimination or unduly burdensome restrictions on individuals and religious organizations.

“The spirit of a person remains in the remnant,” said Chance, who was convicted in 1992 by a Denton County jury. “And your behavior while you’re carrying this … you give them a little spiritual power so they can travel on the way,” he explained, saying it’s like a “guardian angel.”

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice says it denied Chance’s request because items that aren’t from approved vendors could be used to smuggle in drugs and contraband. Inmates must also purchase anything they want through the prison commissary, agency spokesman Jason Clark said.

Chance does have a “medicine bag” approved by Texas prison officials that includes an 8-inch strand of horse hair threaded through a hawk’s wing bone. According to court documents, those items were procured though vendors approved by the prison system.

Attorney Scott Medlock, who handled Chance’s case, said it was “odd and very strange” the prison agency would allow Chance to have natural items such as horse hair, but refuse his request for his parents’ hair.

“He’s not making this stuff up,” Liz Grobsmith, a Northern Arizona University anthropologist with expertise in Native American religions and how they’re practiced in prisons, said Tuesday. “One of the most common basic items in the medicine bundle is a lock of the deceased’s hair.”

She said Chance “cannot follow the prescribed ritual according to his faith,” equating it to “a Catholic wanting to go to church and take communion and being told you can’t have absolution and can’t take communion.”

A scheduling conference is set next week before a federal judge in Tyler, where the hair issue is set for trial in January. In the meantime, Chance said a brother has the hair for safekeeping.

“Let’s just say I’m not happy with the 5th Circuit’s ruling because of the fact the most important parts of Native American spiritual practices were dismissed,” he said. “Spirituality of the Cheyenne people is really heart-touching.

“I’d like to have my so-called day in court.”

Lou Reed Dead at 71, lyrics to “Last Great American Whale”

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Rock legend Lou Reed has died at the age of 71. Reed recorded four essential albums in the late ’60s with the Velvet Underground, and went on to an acclaimed, if uneven, solo career. Both the Velvet Underground and Reed himself were always more influential than successful; Brian Eno once remarked that only 100 people bought the first Velvet Underground album, but every one of them went on to form a band. Velvets songs such as “Sweet Jane,” “Heroin,” “Rock and Roll,” and Reed solo tunes like “Walk on the Wild Side,” “Satellite of Love,” and “Perfect Day” never threatened to top the pop charts (although “Wild Side” did make it to no. 16 in 1972), but will continue to get heavy play as long as music snobs congregate in dingy college dormitories.

In 1989, Reed released New York, which was hailed by critics as a brilliant comeback, if not the best album of his career. New York was a commentary, often spiteful, on both the city and ’80s culture in general; targets included such emblematic figures as Mike Tyson, Bernard Goetz and Morton Downey. One song, “Last Great American Whale,” addressed the environment with an allegorical tale of a massive sea creature summoned by an Indian tribe but killed accidentally by “some local yokel member of the NRA.”

The man who wrote the definitive song about hard drugs (“Heroin”) and one of the great tributes to the power of noisy, rebellious music (“Rock and Roll”) didn’t have an “Indian song” per se, but “Last Great American Whale” was in the ballpark.

They say he didn’t have an enemy
His was a greatness to behold
He was the last surviving progeny
The last one on this side of the world

He measured a half mile from tip to tail
Silver and black with powerful fins
They say he could split a mountain in two
That’s how we got the Grand Canyon

Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale

Some say they saw him at the Great Lakes
Some say they saw him off of Florida
My mother said she saw him in Chinatown
But you can’t always trust your mother

Off the Carolinas the sun shines brightly in the day
The lighthouse glows ghostly there at night
The chief of a local tribe had killed a racist mayor’s son
And he’d been on death row since 1958

The mayor’s kid was a rowdy pig
Spit on Indians and lots worse
The old chief buried a hatchet in his head
Life compared to death for him seemed worse

The tribal brothers gathered in the lighthouse to sing
And tried to conjure up a storm or rain
The harbor parted, the great whale sprang full up
And caused a huge tidal wave

The wave crushed the jail and freed the chief
The tribe let out a roar
The whites were drowned, the browns and reds set free
But sadly one thing more

Some local yokel member of the NRA
Kept a bazooka in his living room
And thinking he had the chief in his sights
Blew the whale’s brains out with a lead harpoon

Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale
Last great American whale

Well Americans don’t care for much of anything
Land and water the least
And animal life is low on the totem pole
With human life not worth more than infected yeast

Americans don’t care too much for beauty
They’ll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream
They’ll watch dead rats wash up on the beach
And complain if they can’t swim

They say things are done for the majority
Don’t believe half of what you see and none of what you hear
It’s like what my painter friend Donald said to me,
“Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they’re done”

NCAI Prez Demands New Farm Bill After Blizzard That Killed 100,000 Animals

Christina RoseDead cattle await burial on the Pine Ridge Reservation after the record-breaking, rogue blizzard that hit South Dakota in early October. Newly elected NCAI President Brian Cladoosby is urging Congress to pass the stalled farm bill, which would help aid those who lost livestock in the disaster. — Christina Rose
Dead cattle await burial on the Pine Ridge Reservation after the record-breaking, rogue blizzard that hit South Dakota in early October. Newly elected NCAI President Brian Cladoosby is urging Congress to pass the stalled farm bill, which would help aid those who lost livestock in the disaster.

Source: Indian Country Today Media Network

Fresh from his election as the 21st president of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), Brian Cladoosby has made it a priority to get aid for tribal members whose homes or livestock were wiped out by the record-breaking, early-season blizzard that devastated South Dakota and the Pine Ridge Reservation earlier this month.

The government may have reopened, but in the wake of its 16-day shutdown, a key farm bill still languishes that would provide assistance to ranchers and landowners who lost millions when 100,000 cows, horses and other animals died in the blizzard, many of them on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

“As I begin my term, my thoughts and prayers are with the South Dakota tribes,” Cladoosby said in a statement, his first since being elected on October 17. “The Oglala Sioux and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes have been devastated by the recent storm that swept the Great Plains—and the federal government failed, again, to maintain treaty agreements that ensure disaster relief is provided when citizens are in distress. When the federal government neglects citizens in times of emergency, the effects can be long term.”

One of the bill’s provisions would be to make disaster relief available under the Livestock Indemnity Program, which would pay ranchers part of the animals’ market value, Reuters reported on October 8. The deadline to extend the 2008 farm bill was October 1—the very day that the government stopped working. Now the government is back in business, but a vote has yet to be held.

Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives are scheduled to meet next week to try and reconcile their respective versions of the bill, according to the Billings Gazette. It had already been stalled for months before the shutdown.

During the shutdown, livestock producers could not file the paperwork on their losses with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Agency, Reuters said. All that state and tribal authorities could do was tell them to carefully document the losses as they buried their cattle and horses in mass graves.

Cladoosby, who is also chairman of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, said thresholds for assistance should be lowered for federal tribal disaster assistance and urged Congress to make Native issues a priority in the “post-shutdown calendar.”

Collapsing homes and widespread livestock losses are just the beginning, Cladoosby said, since the damage will cause tribal ranchers and farmers in South Dakota for years “as they will now have to rebuild their livelihoods from scratch.”

The first step, he said, should be to pass the farm bill.

“Allowing the current Farm Bill to lapse without action, coupled with the government shutdown, meant that support systems at the Department of Agriculture were unavailable to Native farmers and ranchers during this terrible storm,” Cladoosby said.

“Congress must pass a Farm Bill that will support tribal nations and others around the country who are in dire straits and it must keep nutrition programs with farm policies because there should never be a disconnect between food production and feeding people,” he said. “Congress must act immediately to provide rapid recovery for our tribes and work to ensure that political gamesmanship and inactivity does not harm Native peoples again.”

Help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) can go only so far, even with the Stafford Act allowing tribes to apply in their own right, Cladoosby said, because aid doesn’t kick in at the amounts of money that people make, and lost in the disaster. The dollar amount triggering aid eligibility needs to be lower, he said.

“The high monetary damages threshold hampers impoverished areas because what is lost by low-income citizens often does not meet the required amount,” Cladoosby said. “The federal government has a fiduciary duty to protect tribal citizens, but without changes to the threshold, tribal citizens will continue to suffer from the consequences of disasters.”

He added the lack of action not only violated treaty and sovereignty rights but also cut off food supply to many tribal members.

“These failures of Congress prolong the claims process and inhibit Native food production and economic development,” Cladoosby said. “Further, with no Farm Bill and the lack of government funding for food assistance programs, many tribal citizens were left without access to food all while these vital programs are used as political bargaining chips. No one—especially our tribal citizens most in need—should ever have to go without food while being used as pawns in the lawmaking process.”

Indian Law Attorneys’ Advice to Tribes: ‘Stay Out of the Courts!’

By Gale Courey Toensing, Indian Country Today Media Network

During a impersonation of President George Bush Sr. on Saturday Night Live some years ago, comedian Dana Carvey made the following joke: “We have learned well the simple lesson of Vietnam: Stay out of Vietnam!”

Indian law experts are giving the same advice about United States courts, but it’s no laughing matter.

At the National Congress of American Indians 70^th Annual Convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in October, Richard Guest, the Native American Rights Fund’s lead staff attorney in Washington, sounded the alarm.

Since John Roberts was made chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2006, Guest said, “We’ve had one win and nine losses in front of the Roberts court. And our message as we sat in Reno at the mid-year [NCAI] meeting and we‘d just been handed the decision in the Baby Veronica case – that message is still true here today: Stay out of the courts!”

Guest, NARF founder and director John Echohawk, and NCAI general counsel John Dossett have worked together for years on the Tribal Supreme Court Project and updated convention attendees about their current work.

“The federal courts are not your friends anymore,” Guest continued. The majority of judges sitting on the lower federal courts were appointed by Bush II – very conservative, have no understanding of Indian country at all. No interest in your issues. And that can be said of the Roberts court as well. It’s a very difficult place for tribes to secure victories.

The NARF still wins about 50 percent of its cases in federal courts, Guest said, but the challenge is in determining which cases will go up to the U.S. Supreme Court.“There are a lot of cases to keep track of that may be headed toward the Supreme Court and that’s one of the things the Tribal Supreme Court Project does,” Echohawk said. The project works with the tribal parties involved to brief the issues and bring all the experts – Indian law attorneys, Supreme Court practitioners – together in the hope of changing the losing record, he said.

There was no reason for the Supreme Court to grant review in the Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl case, Guest pointed out. Although he did not claim outright that the high court’s decision to grant cert was politically influenced, his descriptions of the powerful players brought in by the plaintiffs suggest that the fix was in for that to happen. “The petitioners secured the assistance of a Supreme Court practitioner, Lisa Blatt, who wrote a brilliant amicus brief. She brought in Paul Clement, the former solicitor general of the United States, along with Gregory Garre, another solicitor general of the U.S. under the Bush administration. And they wrote amicus briefs on behalf of the adoptive couple, on behalf of the baby girl, on behalf of the birth mother, all indicating reasons why the court should grant review.”

Foremost among the amici’s strategies was to use the scare tactic of promoting the idea that the Indian Child Welfare Act, which seeks to protect Indian children by keeping them with Indian families, was unconstitutional – that Indians do not deserve special treatment or protections under federal law, Guest said. “And as soon as they got review granted they backed away from that position. But it was a case that should never have gone to the Supreme Court of the United States. Having those nine justices decide whether Baby Girl belongs with father or with adoptive couple in South Carolina – why is that an issue for the U.S. Supreme Court?”

The same goes for Michigan v. Bay Mills Community, Guest said. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether a state can challenge a tribe’s right to open a casino in this case, which involves a three-year old conflict over an off reservation tribal casino in northern Michigan. The high court will not rule on whether the off reservation casino is legal; it will decide whether the state has the legal standing to challenge a tribe’s right to open the casino. The ruling can potentially impact tribal sovereignty throughout Indian country and be as devastating as the Supreme Court’s 2009 Carcieri ruling, which limited the U.S. Department of the Interior’s ability to take lands into trust for tribes recognized after 1934, Guest said.

“When you have states or local governments on one side [of a case] and Indian tribes or tribal interests on the other side, [the Supreme Court is] interested,” Guest said. “They’re interested in being able to define what state authority is going to be over Indian activities.”

The Tribal Supreme Court Project attorneys are asking tribes not to file individual briefs in the Bay Mills case but rather to sign on to the project’s amicus brief on the “strength in numbers” theory. For more information contact Guest at Richard.g@narf.org or Dossett at jdossett@ncai.org.