Here's To A Happy, Healthy New Year! DOE's Plan To Turn Earthquake Prone Mt. Into Nuclear Waste Depository!

Indian Country Today December 28, 2007.
Posted: December 28, 2007
by: Editors Report / Indian Country Today

For most of us, ringing in a New Year means making resolutions to become better individuals in one small way or another. Every Day One, we become a nation of quitters. We resolve to quit smoking, stop swearing, cut out the sugar and try again to become frybread-free. These are hard habits to break. Our vices become like dear friends to us, lending comfort in difficult times and stressful situations. Soon, around Day Seven, we forget our lofty goals and settle back into the familiar.

This year can be different, and we issue a challenge to individuals, families and nations in Indian country: resolve to get your body and spirit in better shape, and let us know how you are accomplishing it. Sharing a vision for a healthy Indian community, whether tribal or national, is the greatest of aspirations and is one of the most important common goals we will ever encourage.

Decades ago, even the simplest acts were considered revolutionary: giving our children Indian names, nursing them at the breast and celebrating the milestone of their first Native words. The collective effort to help raise strong and healthy children was an investment in our struggle to preserve Indian sovereignty.

Many of our best leaders today were raised in this fashion and know the significance of a good early start that includes homegrown food and teachings. It is vitally important to reaffirm the values that help shape strong families and to renew the simple practices that have been overlooked or forgotten in our rapidly changing world.

Where does the creation of a strong and healthy people begin? Many Indian people, especially those keen to the cycles of nature, believe it begins in a mother's body. They believe, and abundant research confirms, that the education and care of expectant parents can have a significant effect on a child.

From prenatal development to the diet of both mother and child, we must continue to battle the health disparities that exist for Native people. There are many factors beyond our control, but consciousness, prayer and a healthy diet are always within reach.

Eating right and moving - ''Native-style,'' as a popular fitness campaign encourages - can curb the devastating effects of diabetes and obesity on our families and communities. The wisdom and leadership of our elders is being lost to early death and disease-related depression. The typical American diet, laden with sugar and addictive preservatives, is a major contributor to this great loss.

Getting healthy in Indian country has recently become a movement of cultural pride, with individuals sharing traditional foods and recipes and nations participating in physical endeavors to spread messages of wellness. Educating one's self and others about the physiological and emotional benefits of eating well and exercising can help keep this momentum going.

Native people are finding creative ways to raise awareness in their communities about the dangers of drugs, alcohol, junk food and sedentary lifestyles. We consider them role models, and will continue to profile their efforts in Indian Country Today. This year, for this particular challenge (which has as much to do with protecting Indian sovereignty as any other effort) we'd like to hear from our readers what kinds of community projects are helping them lead healthier lives.

E-mail: editor@indiancountry.com
Place "Op-Ed" in the subject line and include name and address

With today's tribal resources and the increasing sophistication of Native traditional practices, we're optimistic that many good stories will come from many great people this year. For the strength of our families, communities and future generations, let's get healthy.

Yucca Mountain Action Alert - Deadline Approaching!
YUCCA MOUNTAIN, SACRED TO THE SHOSHONE & MAJOR FAULT ZONE, IN IMMINENT DANGER!
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY MOVES PLANS FORWARD TO TURN YUCCA MOUNTAIN INTO NUCLEAR WASTE REPOSITORY.
PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD DEADLINE JANUARY 10, 2008.

Public hearings have not been well attended, statements mostly in favor of the plan to put all of the nuclear waste in the country in this one sacred place. Activists were told that if we do not go on record with a statement, we will have no legal recourse later on. Local papers & media spin have recently stated that opposition to the nuke dump had dropped off since the passing of Corbin Harney. The nuclear reps are confident to the point of acting like it's a done deal. LETS PROVE THEM WRONG! MAKE YOUR COMMENT NOW & TAKE ACTION!!

Yucca Mountain is sacred to the Shoshone as an herb gathering site, for rituals, and as a part of their stories. Yucca Mountain is known in Shoshone language as Snake Mountain. Indeed it looks like a snake. It is said that the snake was headed north when it froze where it is. Further more it is said that it will move again and "flip around".
Geologists say that there are thirteen different fault lines running through it.

Citizens can make an oral statement at the scheduled public hearings or fill out a form and mail it in to EIS Office U.S. Department of Energy Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Mgmt, 1551 Hillshire dr. Las Vegas, NV, 89195-7308 or by e-mail at EIS_Office@ymp.gov.
HERE ARE TALKING POINTS: http://www.h-o-m-e.org/Yucca/index.htm

"The eyes of the elders are on us. The fate of the unborn is rolling toward the cliff, the voice of Corbin Harney is ringing in my ears, "It's on your shoulders now...". Info from Bear Dyken. mdyken@goldrush.com.

YUCCA MOUNTAIN FACT SHEET, TALKING POINTS, & MORE INFO: Healing Ourselves & Mother Earth http://www.h-o-m-e.org/

The DOE released two Draft Supplemental Environmen-tal Impact Statements related to repository changes and rail transportation of high-level waste in Nevada.
Inyo County CA- Excellent Draft Impacts Assessment Report Comments due by 1/18/08

If we remain unable to imagine a world where love can be recognized as a
unifying principle that can lead us to seek and use power wisely, then we
will remain wedded to a culture of domination that requires us to choose
power over love. ~bell hooks

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Professor Robert J. Miller
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Uranium Victims Hope For Formal Health Study

By Kathy Helms
Dine Bureau
MILAN, N.M. ­ Members of the Post-71 Uranium Workers Committee are hopeful that a survey of former uranium workers and their families will lead to government funding of an official health assessment.

Members of the committee, which was organized Jan. 19, 2007, put together an informal, voluntary survey and sent it upon request to former uranium workers not now covered under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act in an attempt to document health impacts.

The federal government’s procurement program for uranium ended in 1970, thus Post-1971 uranium workers are excluded from RECA compensation.

News of the committee's survey has gone out, largely by word of mouth, resulting in roughly 1,600 surveys from victims in 25 states collected since March. The committee will continue to accept the surveys through Dec. 31.

Linda Evers of the committee said Wednesday that surveys are still coming in, but a final report is expected to be completed in January. Preliminary statistics run on 1,438 of the responses show that 18 percent of Post-71 uranium workers already are deceased.

“It’s not a government-funded, scientific study, so it¹s only going to walk so far; but my thing is, it is numbers that have been run that nobody else has done,” Evers said.

“The last couple of times I’ve talked to anybody in a federal position, I said, ‘Why hasn¹t there been a health study done? Why doesn’t the government want to know how sick these people are?’ People in the 40s and 50s are dying.”

Evers said she has received a letter written to the late Paul Hicks ­ who fought alongside Navajo Nation Vice President Ben Shelly to compensate uranium victims ­showing that lack of scientific data has had an impact.

The letter from U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman’s office to Hicks “says you will have to drop the Post-71 people off because there has been no health-related studies, government or otherwise, that we can base any kind of evaluations on,” Evers said.

“That’s why they pulled us off the RECA compensation to begin with. They took us off because nobody’s done any studies on Post-71 miners; and to date, nobody's done any studies on us, except us and our little informal voluntary survey.

“We’ve got professors and health people lined up that are more than willing to do this, they just need funding ­and our committee can't afford to pay for it. We're trying to get the government to fund studies so that there will be official medical studies done,” she said.

“I have a database of 1,600 people now. We might have to do some driving around to find them, but 90 percent of them are in the Four Corners area. I think we’re set up and ready to go. I¹ve got the database they can pull from. If we could get funding we could get a health impact study going right now,” Evers said.

As of Dec. 4, of the 1,438 surveys counted, 1,174 former uranium workers are still alive.

Among those, 38.5 percent worked for Kerr-McGee; 20 percent for United Nuclear/Homestake; 16 percent for Anaconda; 13.5 percent for Gulf/Chevron; 9.5 percent for Churchrock; and 6 percent for Sohio. The remainder worked at other sites.

Fifty-two percent worked at the mines and mills as laborers, 42 percent worked as miners and 9 percent were truck drivers. Evers said respondents listed 16 other job titles. The majority of workers, 37 percent, lived in Grants.

Seventeen percent of those reporting said the companies they worked for never held safety meetings and only 2 percent were provided disposable clothing or a clothing allowance/reimbursement program.

Of those responding, 94 percent said the companies never told them not to do their laundry at home, therefore, 94 percent washed their clothes at home.

Only 17 percent said they were required to shower before leaving work, while 10 percent said they were required to wash before eating or smoking.

Fifty-eight percent said they were provided inspected and approved safety equipment, however, 47 percent said the safety equipment was never replaced. Only 1 percent had their safety equipment replaced weekly.

While 66 percent reported that radon badges were required as part of their personal protective equipment, 42 percent said that their badges never were inspected.

Fifty-three percent of those responding said they are descendants of uranium miners or millers, and 96 percent said they never were advised that their exposure to uranium potentially could affect their families.

Though a variety of illnesses were reported, 21.36 percent said they suffer from hearing loss, headaches, heart problems, high blood pressure, or hysterectomies; 15.43 percent reported respiratory problems, birth defects, bone or blood disorders, and brain tumors; 11.72 percent suffer from various types of cancer; and 8.73 percent reported skin disorders/growths, seizures, silicosis, sterility, stillbirths and strokes early in life.

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.

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

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Toxic Legacy - Albuquerque And Water

Submitted by Eleanore Fanire
WESTERN ROUNDUP -
by Stephanie Hiller

A Cold-War- era landfill may threaten Albuquerque's aquifer
ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
Just south of Albuquerque on Kirtland Air Force Base lie 30 years’ worth of canisters, boxes and even plastic bags, summarily dumped into unlined trenches by Sandia National Laboratories during nuclear weapons research.

This mixed waste landfill, loaded with 100,000 cubic feet of "low-level" radioactive and hazardous waste, was once out in the middle of nowhere, but now the city of Albuquerque is growing rapidly in its direction. A new 90,000-resident development, Mesa del Sol, is going in west of the Air Force base.

Even as the city creeps toward the dump, some of the toxic substances in the dump may be creeping toward the Albuquerque Aquifer, currently the city’s sole source of drinking water. Sandia and the state regulatory agency have struggled to figure out a safe and legal way to keep that from happening.

The area’s burgeoning growth has depleted the aquifer, sinking it 180 feet. By next year a new water project, the San Juan-Chama diversion, should supply 90 percent of Albuquerque’s water, but the aquifer will continue to be an important source for the growing city.

The toxic wastes in the landfill, closed in 1988, include tritium, plutonium and other transuranics, volatile solvents, and some 270,000 gallons of nuclear reactor water. Tritium (radioactive hydrogen) has been detected less than 100 feet below the landfill; it’s the most mobile form of waste, and Sandia officials believe the other contaminants have not gone as deep.
Removing the containers of waste, many of which are broken and leaking, would cost about three-quarters of a billion dollars and endanger workers, according to the lab. And no approved "disposal pathway" exists for some of the waste.

Sandia has proposed simply covering the dump with three feet of soil, seeded with shallow-rooted plants to take up rainfall and prevent leaching. But critics say that won’t be enough to keep contaminants from reaching the groundwater, 460 feet below.

"The landfill will be a whole lot safer with the cover than it is now," says David Miller, the Sandia engineer who manages the landfill. "But because of litigation from one citizens’ group, we’ve had to put these plans on hold."

For the Past Decade, Citizen Action has demanded the excavation and removal of the wastes, and in 2005, it sued the New Mexico Environment Department and the U.S. Department of Energy over their approval of the soil cover. In turn, the environment department recently sued Citizen Action, trying to avoid making public a report on the risk of leaks at the dump.

On such legacy waste sites, soil covers are inadequate, according to a 2003 report from the National Academy of Sciences: "... the hazards will persist for centuries ... millennia ... or essentially forever." Another NAS report, from 2000, notes that at such sites, subsurface contaminants often travel farther than expected and future risks cannot be accurately predicted

Even if the soil cover does its job, no one will be able to tell, according to geologist Robert H. Gilkeson, because the wells installed to monitor contamination don’t work correctly. Gilkeson was lead consultant for a monitoring project at Los Alamos, but resigned when the state rejected his design in favor of a less expensive, quicker approach. Describing himself as a whistleblower, he now works independently - and for free - evaluating how the two New Mexico labs are affecting groundwater.

"The installation of the wells started in the late 1980s with a belief - a belief - that the flow of water was to the north," Gilkeson says. By 1990, however, data clearly showed that the groundwater was moving southwest instead. Despite this, the wells were not moved.

Gilkeson notes that the aquifer has two layers: a slow-moving sandy layer at the water table, and the actual drinking water source beneath. To accurately track wastes, both layers must be sampled. Only one monitoring well reaches the drinking water layer, but its screens cross both layers, mixing the waters.

Some of the stainless steel well screens are also corroded and clogged. Sandia engineers say that corrosion is responsible for the chromium and nickel that have been found in water samples at higher levels than drinking-water standards allow. Gilkeson suspects that these levels are too high to be accounted for by corroded screens alone. Bentonite clay from the drilling process clogs many screens, "hiding the contaminants (the wells) are intended to detect, especially radionuclides," he says. The same drilling process was used in Los Alamos, and those wells failed to detect groundwater contamination. Now, plutonium is showing up in Santa Fe’s drinking water.

The Final Monitoring plan now being reviewed by New Mexico’s environmental department corrects some of these problems, but not all. Three new wells will be dug through the landfill cover, with plastic screens instead of stainless steel. They’ll be located on the west side of the dump, closer to the potential contaminants. But there are still no wells on the landfill’s south side, and none directly over the "hot spots" where tritium was dumped and where tetracholoroethane (PCE), a probable carcinogen, has been found.

"The landfill is being monitored by very competent staff at present," says Jerry Peace, a Sandia geophysical engineer, "and will continue to be monitored in the future." Sandia officials say the soils appear to slow the transport of wastes, and given the short half-life (12.5 years) of tritium, it may not reach groundwater until it has become relatively harmless.

For the city’s half-million residents, though, the implications are unsettling. Sandia and the Department of Energy appear to be taking a calculated risk, banking on the probability that contaminants will not reach groundwater. But in water-sparse New Mexico, Albuquerque’s aquifer may well be priceless, and any risk too great.

Stephanie Hiller is a freelance writer who researches nuclear issues in Albuquerque.

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.

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

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2007 - Merry Christmas - Happy Hanukah - Feliz Navidad - Kwanzaa Greetings - Joyeux Noel

Apartment Dwellers Caught In A Not So ‘Merry Christmas’
Foreclosure, Fraud and Third World Living In the U.S.
by M. Davis
http://www.opednews.com/

All over the country, "Home, Sweet Home" isn't sweet any more. Through no fault of their own, thousands of people who live in apartments that are being foreclosed on, are left out in the cold. Although many have paid timely rents, owners, property managers and others have managed to keep from paying the mortgage on their property, sending apartments around the nation into foreclosure.

Forgotten and ignored in the long line of horror stories about foreclosure are the tens of thousand of apartment dwellers who live in foreclosure hellholes, where landlords and apartment complex owners play games, lie, steal food out of the mouths of babies and leave desperate apartment residents living in unsafe, unsanitary, Third World hellholes.

A social work student in Texas relates the story of how she spent Thanksgiving in what is supposed to be the richest country in the world. Her family lives in an apartment complex, whose management company apparently skipped out with the mortgage payment, failing to pay sewage and a host of utility bills.

The owner allegedly filled his apartment complexes with Katrina survivors, pocketed a skad of Section 8 voucher money, then neglected to pay utility bills, maintenance or upkeep, not to mention the mortgage. The upshot of the deal is that people are living in an apartment complex, which has sporadic water and sewage service, leaving residents to buy garbage cans and fill them up with water, just in case the water goes off again.

In her blog entry, the student wrote:
"This company has been doing this all over Texas for years. When Katrina first occurred, the owner filled nice apartments with hurricane victims carrying Section 8 vouchers and stopped paying to bills. He has cheated residents and management alike, promising them deposits and reimbursements that never come. One past resident nicknamed him the "Slumlord of the South" in a forum. He has become a master at taking advantage of people who are either ignorant of their rights or do not have the resources to fight for them." (blog entry)

In the Twin Cities, it has become a major problem. One reporter writes:
" When landlords face foreclosures, tenants often lose their housing. Rights and leases can extend for months after a sale, but many families are scrambling and some are finding themselves homeless."
(Star-tribune on line, “Wave of Foreclosures Hits Renters”, 10-29-2007

In the Minneapolis-St. Paul area alone, the newspaper reports that Metrowide numbers are hard to come by, but at least 2,500 tenant households are expected to be disrupted by foreclosures in Hennepin County alone this year, according to a county task force. Hennepin accounted for about 27 percent of the state's foreclosures over the last two years

Foreclosure is driving homelessness across the nation, leaving the nation’s charities scrambling to find homes for tens of thousands of families from coast to coast. And, more frightening than anything else is the fact that the massive wave of foreclosures expected because of the resetting of adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) has not even hit yet.

Home renters, apartment renters, condo renters are all in the same boat when it comes to foreclosure. When the property is foreclosed on, out the door they go in many cases. Many are upset about the injustice of it all, but they’re still headed out in the street, along with tens of thousands of people who rented property which has now been foreclosed.

“I don't think it's fair for us," said Carlos Lopez, a south Scottsdale resident, who said his property owner is forcing him to move out of the home he rents because of foreclosure.’ Fair or not, Lopez and other renters from Puget Sound to Miami are getting kicked out of their rental apartments or houses because the landlord failed to pay the mortgage.

Record foreclosures have people scared--scared to sign a new lease. Lopez told his interviewer that, he didn’t think it was fair that he and his family had to move, and he’s not alone. Many renters are caught between a rock and a hard place—they’ve paid rent and expensive deposits, and not have to start all over again because the owner of the property failed to pay the mortgage.

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.

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

History Ties Chickamauga Cherokee To England

By Kimberley Lyman

Dragging Canoe (c. 1738 – March 1, 1792) was an American Indian war leader who led a band of young Cherokees against the United States in the American Revolutionary War.

The Chickamauga Cherokee are bound to England and America by history, war and honor.
When the Chickamauga Cherokee opted to join in the fighting of the American Revolution -on the side of the British- our great leader, Dragging Canoe, was at the head of one of the major attacks. He is considered by many to be the most significant leader of the Southeast, and provided a significant role model for the younger Tecumseh, a Shawnee who would later join forces with the British in the war of 1812.

The Chickamauga Wars (1776–1794) were a series of conflicts that were a continuation of the Cherokee struggle against the encroachment into Indian territory by American frontiersmen which eventually broke out into open warfare in 1776 between the Chickamauga Cherokee led by Dragging Canoe and frontier settlers. The Chickamauga fought alongside the British with Indians from a number of other tribes, and with support, at various times, from the French, and the Spanish.

Dragging Canoe was Chickamauga Cherokee, this branch of the Cherokee "was born" out of a "great divide" among our people. The Cherokee people basically split-between those who believed the US would give them their land back-[if you wonder what happened there just look up the "Trail of Tears" the heart break of that horror will be clear to you]- the other Cherokee being those who refused to give up their lands and fought under Dragging Canoe. When those Cherokee opted to join in the fighting of the American Revolution, on the side of the British, Dragging Canoe was at the head of one of the major attacks-[and many others]

After the wholesale destruction of the Cherokee Middle (Hill), Valley, and Lower Towns] Dragging Canoe led a band out of the towns of the Overhill Cherokee to the area surrounding Chickamauga River (South Chickamauga Creek) in the Chattanooga TN area US, where they established eleven towns, including the one named Chickamauga "across river" from a place where the British commissary John McDonald had set up shop- doing so on the advice of Alexander Cameron, the British agent to the Cherokee. From this location, frontiersmen gave Dragging Canoe's group the name the Chickamauga and so we were/are called from that day forward.

Dragging Canoe did not hate the white man, but he had learn that their words was with out value, when they came across the mountains of Virginia they took 5,000,000 acres of the Cherokee lands, they ask us too come too Kentucky too treated with them, but the first thing they ask for was another 5,000,000 acres of our lands, Dragging Canoe said you will never be happy until you have push us in too some distant lands , remote in time, separate in space were we will be no more, it will be better that out young warriors die as Cherokee fighting for what is ours, than too die in some far way lands.

Over 250 years later we are still fighting for our lands and the right too be who we are Chickamauga Cherokee, it has nothing to do with hate , but the right too be who we are, Chickamauga Cherokee too live the way our Forefathers live free on the lands, the way Yowa wish us too live, we did not take their lands , their home, their past history, the lands of their dead, we are not asking so very much just too be who we are, too live with the honor of our history of our people, the way we all ways did, we thank our Irish Brothers & Sisters who under stand from their on past history why the fight to be who we are is so very important too us as a people.

Sincerely,
Kim Lyman
WHRO Public Television
5200 Hampton Blvd
Norfolk Va 23508
757-889-9459
kimberly.lyman@whro.org

To sign the petition for Federal Recognition for the Chickamauga Cherokee Indian Creek Band, go to:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/476156032

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.

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.

Weapons-Grade Uranium Made At Chalk River Not Needed For Medical Isotopes

Submitted by Kahentinetha Horn
Mohawk Nation News
MNN. Dec. 20, 2007. Gordon Edwards, of the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility, raised serious concerns about the “Maple” reactor delays at Chalk River.

"An important aspect of the isotope-production fiasco on Algonquin territory is being ignored. AECL Atomic Energy of Canada Limited uses 95 per cent highly enriched “weapons-grade” uranium HEU to make the main isotope (Molybdenum-99). This can be made using low-enriched uranium LEU which is NOT weapons-usable material, but is more expensive. Somebody wants to make isotopes and bombs cheaply.

He continued, “It’s easier to make a very powerful bomb with weapons-grade uranium like the one dropped on Hiroshima in 1945”. The only stockpile of weapons-grade uranium in Canada is at Chalk River, less than 200 kilometers up the Ottawa River from Canada’s capital. The Canadian public and Members of Parliament are told they are for “essential and life saving” medical isotope production. However, there’s enough there to build two or more atom bombs and the stockpile is increasing.

Why is the Canadian company, MDS Nordion, that sells the isotopes, ordering more of the risky weapons grade uranium from the U.S.? Why do Canada and the U.S. allow this hazardous material to be transported over regular highways, rails and air? The U.S. warns the towns where these materials are being transported. Not in Canada !

Hey, wait a minute? How medically necessary is this weapons grade uranium anyway? How did humans thrive and survive without isotopes? There are definitely cases where people’s lives have been saved using the new technology. But are we being sold a bill of goods? The isotopes should properly be made with uranium that is not weapons grade. If we care about having generations to come, do we not also have a responsibility to make sure they have a safe and clean environment to live in?

We are concerned about the international weapons shysters that like to wheel and deal with Canadian Prime Ministers and other heads of states. They have set up a situation where a valid medical use is being used to camouflage deadly life destroying practices.

Gordon Edwards, who has a lot more high tech knowledge than we do, worries that Canada’s Members of Parliament have been bamboozled? On December 11th every Member and Senator voted in favor of restarting the old decommissioned NRU (National Research Universal) reactor. The “scheduled 2005” maintenance was not done. Its reopening goes against the advice of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. What’s the point of setting up a committee of experts if you’re not going to listen to them?

Are there other ways to deal with a temporary shortage of medical isotopes created by the construction delays without threatening human life on worldwide scale? Couldn’t people cut the use of MRIs for the investigation of conditions that are not life threatening?

The isotope shortage could have been avoided if two AECL reactors, Maple 1 and 2, had been completed on schedule in the early part of the decade. It’s been put off year by year over safety concerns.

ACRs (Advanced CANDU Reactors) being proposed for Northern Alberta and the MAPLE reactors being built at Chalk River, Ontario, are very different.

The MAPLE reactors were designed to have a "negative power coefficient of reactivity" (PCR). In fact they have shown the opposite - namely a POSITIVE PCR. For safety, a negative PCR is good and a positive PCR is bad. Neither AECL nor CNSC (Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission) understands WHY there is all this positive PCR inside the reactor. Is this because only “weapons grade” uranium is being used? We could all be in for some very nasty surprises.

The ACR (Advanced Candu) reactors were designed to have a "negative void coefficient of reactivity" (VCR). The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission USNRC concluded the opposite. Under certain accident conditions, the ACR reactors could have a "substantially" POSITIVE VCR. As we said, a negative VCR is good and a positive VCR is bad. Since nobody has ever built an ACR, the two groups of experts, AECL (Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.) and USNRC, disagree. There is no analysis except on paper and using computer models. Both don’t understand what is going on in the core of an ACR reactor.

All it takes is not knowing about some as yet undiscovered force of nature that could invalidate everything the experts thought they knew. Think of the changes we’ve seen in our lifetime. Cars, radios, televisions and cell phones, all based on great discoveries. Their by-products have been “Love Canal”, Minamata Disease, Chernobyl. Human error has been a large factor in these man-made disasters.

Most of these technical wonders and environmental nightmares are less than a century old. We’re down to the last 10% of fish stocks. We’re still living with the delusion that there is some pristinely healthy corner of nature somewhere that we have not polluted beyond the capacity of life to survive as we know it.

When we ignore what is obvious to the few experts who have had the time to develop a real understanding of these potent technologies, what are we asking for?The public should wake up and throw the bums out. Is outer space their way of escaping the disaster they’ve created?

It is becoming increasing evident that scientific investigation in all fields of study is twisted to support political and capitalist interests of one kind of another. The once sacrosanct scientific rule of neutral and objective observation and analysis has been abandoned. The objective should be public safety, not commercial profit, collegiality, party loyalty or “good press”.

The MAPLE reactors are small -- generating about 10 megawatts of heat. The ACR 1000 (Candu) generates about 3300 megawatts of heat. 1100 megawatts are converted into electricity and the other 2200 megawatts are "waste heat" which goes into the environment in some form. We wonder why we have global warming!

The MAPLE reactors produce no electricity. They produce "isotopes", which are radioactive materials created through the bombardment of various "target" materials by neutrons. These are released into the fuel of the reactor. Some neutrons are converted into new radioactive materials that can be used in medicine, industry, and research.

The ACR-1000 reactors produce electricity. The fissioning of the uranium atoms in the fuel generates a tremendous number of neutrons and a great deal of heat. That heat is used to boil water in the "steam generators", and the steam is used to spin a turbine, thereby generating electricity.

In all nuclear reactors, the number of neutrons must be kept within limits -- not too few, or the reaction will come to a halt; not too many, or the nuclear chain reaction will "run away" and accelerate out of control. If not stopped within seconds, the core of the reactor can “melt down”. Unwanted energy is released, which can lead to explosions. If the shell is cracked, a cloud of radioactive gases and vapors rise into the atmosphere and goes who knows where.

As Dr. Strangelove might say: “People are getting stupider!” What does our future hold? As the Indigenous people say, “We need creation. Creation does not need us”.

Kahentinetha Horn
MNN
Mohawk Nation News
For more on this issue:
http://www.nci.org/02NCI/08/nrc-heulet-9132002.htm
http://www.nci.org/heu.htm
http://www.energyprobe.org/energyprobe/index

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.

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.

White Supremacist Defeated In Comanche Tribal Election

Submitted by Monica Davis
by Dr. Al Carroll ( educatedindio [at] yahoo.com ) Monday Dec 17th, 2007
David Yeagley, a white supremacist who has made a career out of posing as both a mainstream conservative and part-Comanche, fared extremely poorly in a special election for Comanche Nation Vice President, coming in a very distant fourth place out of four candidates.

Yeagley only got 102 votes, or slightly over 10%, in an election that also had an extremely low turnout of only 10%. That means that the number of eligible Comanche voters who cast their ballot for Yeagley was about 1%.

Already Yeagley's loss has earned him a new nickname in Indian Country, ""1% Yeagley." Yeagley and his supporters, in a rather bizarre denial of reality, claimed victory since he expected to only get "about five votes."

Yet elsewhere in Indian Country, Natives that are familiar with Yeagley's chequered career are celebrating his getting his head handed to him. Yeagley became enrolled with the Comanche Nation by accident, because his stepmother was Comanche. Kiowa disabled rights activist Cinda Hughes investigated and uncovered that it is a fairly open "secret" among Comanches that Yeagley was adopted. Comanche traditions do not allow for banishing anyone, no matter how contemptible their actions or beliefs.

Yeagley is a member of the white supremacist One Nation, which works against American Indians, especially on the issue of tribal sovereignty. He also is a speaker for the notoriously anti Semitic John Birch Society, best known for its bizarre conspiracy theories. Yeagley also is a supporter and associates with members of the National Alliance, the neo-Nazi skinhead group Storm Front (a Storm Front member moderated a section of Yeagley's message board on Jews), the eugenics website Gene Expression, and self described white nationalists and anti immigrant vigilantes the Minutemen.

Yeagley has long been a notorious character in Indian Country. He routinely refers to nonwhites (including American Indians) as "darkies." He has called for the mass murder of illegal immigrants and the mass deportation of all Arabs and Muslims. He frequently describes his admiration for Hitler, Columbus, and the Shah of Iran. Yeagley once compared Janet Jackson to an ape and called Martin Luther King "a blight on history."

Yeagley received the strongest criticism when he attacked the Virginia Tech University shooting victims as "cowards."

Yeagley tried various tactics to boost his vote count in the campaign. According to one source in the Comanche Nation, literally every last vote for Yeagley was an absentee ballot. This suggests that Yeagley pushed his backers to vote early, before anyone could discover his unsavory past and beliefs.

Yeagley's campaign was marked by almost comical mistakes on his part. He gave a speech discussing Comanche clans. The problem is, the Comanche do not have clans. Yeagley was asked during a debate about the Indian Child Welfare Act, one of the most controversial issues in Indian Country. Yeagley was forced to admit he had never heard of it.

Perhaps the most amusing fumble in his campaign came when Yeagley went to the Comanche courthouse, only to hide out from a group of Comanche women asking why he had lied about his stepmother being elected to a tribal post.

Such mistakes in Yeagley's attempt to pass himself off as Comanche are not new, and have long made him the butt of jokes in both the Comanche Nation and across Indian Country. Yeagley has often become an unwitting source of amusement at tribal council meetings, where anyone enrolled may speak.

He once argued for the Comanche Nation to be the first to set up a tribally run bank. The first American Indian tribally run bank was begun more than twenty years ago, and more than two dozen exist today.

His attempts to "look more Indian" also make him hard for many to take him seriously. Yeagley straightened his curly brown hair and dyed it black, and is fond of pancake makeup and turtleneck sweaters. Rumors swirl that he has had plastic surgery and have earned him another nickname, "Michael Jackson."

Yet his attempts to use dubious claims of American Indian ancestry to promote his white supremacy beliefs are no joke. Sometimes hardline conservatives find him useful to use as a token, and quote him as though he had a serious following within Indian Country. In this he follows in a long tradition of others claiming to be American Indian being used by the right wing such as 'Princess Pale Moon" and "Chief AJ."

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.

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.

Shundahai Board Meeting - NAJA News - News Briefs

Shundahai BOD Sets Las Vegas Meeting - Jan 11-13
Submitted by Western 'Shoshone Defense Project
Greetings Brothers and Sisters of Shundahai Network,
Recently the Shundahai Network (SN) Board of Directors conducted an online survey in which everyone on the Shundahai email list was asked to participate. About 130 people shared their views via this means.

One question on the survey asked whether people would be willing to meet in January in Las Vegas to discuss and decide the future of SN, now that our spiritual leader Corbin Harney can no longer guide us. (For other survey results, see below.)

Of the 130 who participated in the survey, 37 indicated that they would be interested in attending such a meeting. In addition, others who did not participate in the survey have told us directly that they would also like to attend.

Accordingly, the Board is planning an open strategy meeting to plan the future of Shundahai Network. The meeting is open to all of our supporters, and any others interested in exploring future collaboration with SN.

The goals of the meeting include concrete strategizing for the future of the network and producing a general plan for the organization. The date is set for January 11-13, 2008, at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Las Vegas, 3616 E. Lake Mead, Las Vegas, NV 89115.

Please mark your calendar and RSVP to this email address if you are interested and able to attend. We are in the process of finalizing the details and logistics, which include agenda, schedule, accommodations, meals and other matter.

We look forward to welcoming a diverse group of SN supporters, both past and present. In order to finance this meeting, we will charge a $25 registration fee. This will cover the building rental, meeting materials and some food.

You can reserve your place at the meeting by pasting the link below into your browser or by submitting your $25 registration fee via the Pay Now button on the SN website (http://www.shundahai.org/).

Please indicate in the “optional instructions” space that the payment is for meeting registration and please include your name, address and phone number so we can contact you with additional information.

If you can make a larger donation, please do so. We look forward to seeing you at the meeting. Link to use to register:
http://tinyurl.com/2xa3Ka

If you would like to register by U.S. mail, make checks payable to: Center for Energy Research and write “SN LV MTG” on the check. Send it to: CER, 104Commercial St. NE, Salem, OR 97301.

The Board of Directors of SN would also like to share these general findings of the survey: Overwhelmingly, the results show that people value SN’s past work and would like to see the network continue.
* When rating the importance of SN's activities, they rated "Liaison with Native Community" highest, followed closely by "Offering Native Leadership" and "Direct Action."
* Looking toward the future, "Offer Native leadership toward environmental justice" was the clear priority.
* Sixty per cent of those who responded have attended at least one SN gathering.
* People consider direct actions to be the most important part of thegatherings. For a more extensive report on responses to the SN survey, please visit:
http://www.shundahai.org/SurveySummary.pdf

We hope you will be joining us in Las Vegas. Thank you for your continuing support of Shundahai Network. Please share this email with anyone you think should see it.
Sincerely,
Peter Bergel
On behalf of the Shundahai Network Board of Directors

NAJA And Tribal Newspapers
NORMAN, Okla. - The Native American Journalists Association expresses grave concerns about the recent "involuntary transfer" of Joseph Martin, the editor of the Cherokee One Feather, the tribally owned newspaper of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

According to a Nov. 1, 2007, memorandum to Martin, the transfer was initiated due to an alleged violation of the tribe's Code of Ethical Conduct. "By using your position you have been published in the Asheville Citizen-Times stating your personal opinion while citing your tribal position title along with your name on more than one occasion," the memo states.

"To say that an editor cannot express his opinion and put his name and title to it is antithetical to operating and honoring an independent press," Bryan Pollard, NAJA vice-president and editor of the Cherokee Phoenix, said. "One of the greatest responsibilities of an editor is to state an opinion about matters that affect your community, and to do so thoughtfully and judiciously. Being hired as an editor is not a gag order."

Tribally funded newspapers need the freedom of opinion and expression to cover issues important to their community, regardless of whether those papers are tribally owned and operated, said NAJA president Cristina Azocar (Upper Mattaponi).

"Tribal governments are not benefiting themselves or their people if they don't adhere to free press protection," Azocar added. "The more people are able to express themselves through their tribal media, the stronger our tribes and therefore our tribal governments are. When tribal governments take that freedom of expression away, our governments begin to break down - benefiting no one."

The National Congress of American Indians passed a resolution (ABQ-03-042) supporting a free and independent Native press during the 60th annual NCAI session in Albuquerque, N.M., which specifically resolved that:"The NCAI encourages Tribal Nations to ensure Freedom of the Press and develop those Media Policies so the rights of the People will not be abridged."

Although Martin said he wasn't surprised by the administrative action, he is using this situation to start an independent newspaper for Eastern Band Cherokees. Martin can be contacted at jmau1993@yahoo.com.

Created in 1984, NAJA works to support a free press throughout Indian Country, and encourages officials at the Eastern Band of Cherokees to resolve the issue in a way that protects the freedom of the press and preserves the integrity of the Cherokee One Feather, which is an essential source of news to its citizens.

A Seminar For College Journalists In The Center of Washington, D.C.
February 16-20, 2008
18 All-Expenses-Paid Fellowships Available
Application deadline: January 14, 2008

A career in journalism almost always requires familiarity with Washington, D.C., and not just for political junkies. Washington is home to the federal government and a crossroads for science, social issues, economics and most other topics that end up in the news.

This program, designed for college students with an interest in journalism, offers an overview of Washington and provides tools that will pay off for students when they return home or land first jobs. The program is being conducted in cooperation with the College Media Advisers. Among the topics under consideration:

· Are things “Inside the Beltway” really so different?
· How does Washington journalism work?
· Covering Congress
· Washington resources at your fingertips
· Field trips to government agencies and major news organizations

Like all NPF programs, this one is on-the-record with plenty of time for discussion. Eighteen all-expenses-paid fellowships are available to qualified college students. Fellowships include airfare (to $600), hotel and most meals. Demand for this program is high, so apply early.

To Apply: Send a ● cover letter making your case for attending ● an application form ● a letter of support from a supervisor, college media adviser, or professor ● a brief bio ● a clip, writing sample, or CD, DVD, VHS tape or audio tape. Applications may be submitted by mail, e-mail or fax and will not be returned. Applications must be received by January 14.

Send applications to the National Press Foundation
Attn: Introduction to Washington 2008
1211 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 310
Washington, DC 20036.

E-mail: programs@nationalpress.org ● Fax: 202-530-2855.
For information, call 202-663-7285 or check out our web site,
http://www.nationalpress.org/.

The National Press Foundation is a non-profit educational foundation.

Native American Advisors, Inc.
Dean Parisian
CHIPPEWA PARTNERS was founded in 1995. As a Registered Investment Advisor, the firm provides investment management to private investors, Native American tribes, and retirement plans. Chippewa Partners was Co-Investment Advisor to the 4 Winds Funds, the first Native American mutual fund.

We provide wealth management services designed to protect and grow serious assets. Money management is what we do. Our focus on portfolio growth and preservation has built an exceptional track record and our results have built loyal relationships with clients who rely on our investment solutions.

Dean Parisian is a former NASD and NYSE arbitrator and a very successful trader who started his career on Wall Street in 1982. The firm brings fiduciary standards to Native American clients and educates tribes that brokerage firms and stockbrokers generally are not fiduciaries.

From Native Celeb's Annie
Hi everybody,
Floyd Red Crow Westerman passed away early December 13, 2007:
http://nativetimes.com/index.asp?action=displayarticle&article_id=9182
http://www.myspace.com/floydredcrowwesterman

Details about wake and burial in South Dakota:
http://www.nativecelebs.com/talk/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12

I had the honor of meeting him in 2001, and it's an experience I'vealways treasured. We've lost a man who cared - about the destiny ofhis people, and about the young people he mentored.

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.

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.

Native Woman Needs Our Help - 'Activism' and Dr. Jeanne Bedell

Native American Woman Needs Our Help!
My wife (Nicole Nelson) is seriously ill with a life threatening disease (Aplastic Anemia). She has a year to find a bone match or she will pass away. My wife has a very rare tissue type (Native American/ French - Abenaki ancestry) so I am trying to get as many people as I can to our Bone Marrow Drives. If anyone is interested in our story they can go to:

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/video/14802651/index.html

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071026/FRONTPAGE/710260383

http://www.thecountycourier.com/index.php?option=
content&task=view&id=4327

Please spread the word to everyone you know especially if you know someone who lives in the area where a drive is going on. Currently we have drives happening:

January 5, 2008
12pm to 4PM
Abenaki Tribal Headquarters
Swanton, VT
(contact sogomo@comcast.net for more info)

January 6, 2008
East Montpelier Sugar House
4423 US Rte 2
East Montpelier, VT 05651
12pm to 4PM
(contact http://www.maplesugarhouse.net/ for more info)

January 12, 2008
Pilgrim United Church of Christ
111A
Brentwood, NH 03833
9Am to 1PM

January 12, 2008
Elliot Hospital
One Elliot Way
Manchester, NH
11AM-3PM

You can find a drive in your area by going to http://www.marrow.org/ , click on "how you can help section" then click on events. You will then be able to put you zip code in and find a drive near your home (anywhere in US). If anyone is interested in a certain drive please email me or I will put them in contact with the person running the drive. Age and medical requirements can be found at http://www.marrow.org/ .

People interested in doing their own drive in my wife's name can contact there local Bone Marrow Recruiter office also found at http://www.marrow.org/ . If your from the New England Area you can contact :

Nicole Rubeira
Recruiter, National Marrow Donor Program
Rhode Island Blood Center
405 Promenade Street
Providence, RI 02908
Phone: 401-248-5720
Fax: 401-453-8571
E-mail: nrubeira@ribc.org

Their company usually needs only a location, three weeks notice, volunteers and food. They take care of the rest. Thank you,

Sgt. Richard Nelson
Peterborough Police Department
73 Grove Street
Peterborough, NH 03458
(603) 924-8050

P.S. - Feel free to give out my email to people. If you or others would like to keep track of my wife's situation you can got http://www.caringbridge.org/ and put in nicolenelson1. She does a daily journal and is a great way to keep tabs on us. Have people sign her guest book.

Thanks Again ,
Rick
---
Dr. Jeanne Bedell Bailey (Phd) 'Sounds Off On Activism'

DIFFERENCES IN CULTURAL CONGRUITY, UNIVERSITY ENVIRONMENT, AND ETHNIC IDENTITY ON MEASURES OF PERSISTENCE FOR UNDERGRADUATE LAKOTA STUDENTS IN A LAKOTA HIGHER EDUCATION TRIBAL COLLEGE"

This piece was written for a small scholarship for activism last year. I have tried to present an honest picture and non-bias educational paper so others can see in it needs through my eyes as a Native American woman in activism education. The question I was supposed to answer was:
“Given today's political climate, what are the best/most effective forms of activism?”

To know the most effective forms of activism in today’s shaky political climate, we must examine the historical contexts that integrate moral standards into society today? The implications of the foundations in activism in the United States have been a continual democratic change since this country has begun.

If change is to occur, many facets of political factors also must be weighed in setting the right, appropriate actions into motion. American society must consider the fact that since the United States was formed a few centuries ago, a growth of multicultural citizens has grown too.

Although this country was set into motion with colonization strategies at its peak with its citizens, we must not forget that this country too, has a manifesto claim to sovereignty based on Native American removal policies and the slave historical significance. These deployments of policies made it necessary for civil activism in which, time and morality was served unjust for these populations, and has not yet been exonerated.

There is still a distrust epic to the ideologies for which these specific populations live by still today; so, activism strategies for these populations is embedded in the historical pragmatic capitalistic values made in the past by former governmental policies. In as much, speculation about secular humanistic contexts which are individualistic, it is contemptuous to say all Americans should believe and practice the same views of the majority race.

The forms of activism need reframing that suits the multi-racial proponents of change. Ethical reasoning and knowledge should be an educational tool for activism to take place; which places the importance of civil rights for all and not just a few.

Ethics, historically meant for human subjects in medicine, and mental health has also implications in politics and society. Other measures in activism forms can be seen in current media hype which defocuses the visualization of political issues, and is controlled by the corporate, rich, and political heads.

Media activism could suggest ironical media quirks that imply questions to wake up the public to the hype that is prevalent in capitalism, advertising, and life today, whereby, the American public has become desensitized to current political and social issues.

Although activism does not have to be a tyrannical quest with negative results, social change can only happen when the outcome can be seen as fruitful and just to those who are victims in the systems of unbending indifference and stereotypical oversights based on lack of historical truth.

The most effective forms of activism given today’s political climate, may be non-violent forms of activism, thereby, creating organizations and institutions to make available to students education that embraces activism to its fullest.

This educational model in social politics and activism could include the issues of colonization, globalization, and how this affects cultures. Moreover, violent consequence can be looked at in an educational context which teaches the unfolding of passive aggressive protest to exploding riotous civil unrests, the behaviors in groups, and protest masses.

With today’s war on terror and the war in Iraq it is important that activism forms such as student and community activism, weigh the odds of consequence and law conformity before engaging themselves in attempted strategies which refute its main purposes in reaching intended goals.

The best activism that protects the public against ramifications of direct action and results of civil disobedience can be seen as the last resort of public reaction when a group’s needs are not being heard. However, steps in the activism process can be contemplated in an educational realm for students to learn other measures in non-violent action such as adult and higher education.

Education can be a collaborative process in learning the history and role of diverse organizations in local, state, and national politics which include unions, professional organizations, and religious groups and how they affect activism.

Unfortunately, America has had a history now of direct action strategies that resulted in people dying, like the Kent State tragedy, and the protests of the Vietnam War. Community activism gatherings can be seen as a positive form of heightened public awareness for people too, where there are participatory action strategies to be taught and learned.

Pulling together for a common social cause that protects individual civil rights, protects against racial issues, and promotes a multicultural approach to social change, may be what this country is really looking for, along with community education in social change, and political activism.

One way would be to educate in undergraduate courses, the many factors and facets in socialization of people in the United States such as minority, environmental, and political issues. Historical significance at times can play a big role in bringing out an issue and bringing it out in the open for others to see.

The pros and cons of social and political conflicts can be evaluated as important in making decisions for positive social change. One way is to openly advocate for assistance through boycotts, letters, and to promote individual rights. Positive social change advocacy has not been more prevalent than these modern times by social scientists and anthropologists. Subsequently, in looking at factors in communities and what’s works best for them, educator activists can empower people to be apart of something and connected within their communities.

This initiation will give students and people a chance to create their own reality through education for positive change and giving them resources to make those changes. Thus, activism forms will serve as a powerful tool in civic action.

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.

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.

NAPT Producer Profile - Kimberley Lyman - Cherokee Band Seeks Federal Recognition

BREAKING NEWS -
From Roscoe Pond
FLOYD WESTERMAN PASSED TO THE SPIRIT WORLD EARLY THIS MORNING (THURS DAY).
RIP, FLOYD!!!

The Westerman Family has released the following info:
Services for Floyd Westerman will be in Sisseton, SD at the Tiospa Zina Tribal School Gym.
The Wake will be Saturday and Sunday, December 15,16, 2007.
Funeral services will be on Monday, December 17, 2007 at 10 AM.
Interment will follow at St Matthew's Catholic Cemetery in Veblen, S.D., where he will be laid to rest beside his beloved mother.

X X X

KIMBERLEY LYMAN
WHKO Public Television
Norfolk, Virginia

by Zach Oliva
Tears of joy streamed down Kimberley Lyman’s face when she heard the news. On May 9th, 2007 a bill was unanimously passed to bring six previously unrecognized tribes into recognition.

“They (the tribes) have spent many years, and I have been alongside with them watching this journey for years and when I heard the news it was just tears of joy for their success,” says Lyman.

The journey began back in the 1920s during one of the darkest eras in American history. In what became known as the “paper genocide” Virginia natives were forced to profile themselves as either “white” or “colored,” in effect, eliminating “Native American” as a race. This wiped out much of the historical documentation of these tribes, making it difficult to gain federal recognition.

The passing of this bill brings the Chickahominy, Chickahominy Eastern Division, Upper Mattaponi, Rappahannock, Monacan and Nansemond to the verge of federal recognition.
“I am very excited for them, and it’s been a long time coming for the first people of Virginia,” says Lyman.

For someone who has dedicated a good portion of her career to advancing Native American recognition, this is especially great to hear.

Lyman has been a filmmaker since her early years of college. While at school she was doing some research about her heritage and came to an alarming conclusion.

“What I found was there was little or nothing available regarding Indian history, as told by the Indian people…and I decided way back then that I wanted to do something about that.”

Since then Lyman has been creating programming about Native tribes across the country. Much of her work is specifically designed for the classroom and even includes links for teachers to help structure lessons. The content of these programs result directly from feedback she receives from Native Americans across the country.

“The most important part of my job is to listen to what Native people say is important to them,” says Lyman.

“The way I produce is to go in with an open mind and no preconceptions of how I’m going to do (a) show and I listen to the people. They tell me what’s important to them.”

This feedback has led to some long lasting and important relationships with Native Americans everywhere, including the Virginia tribes.

“I have a very large group of people now that are considered very close friends of mine. The reward is the journey and the friendships that are built as part of the process.”

Lyman’s most recent work, Monacan Voices, includes traditional Native storytelling, poetry and conversation with the Monacan people.

“I like to embellish whatever it is that is happening that is important to the tribes,” says Lyman.

“I see no end in sight regarding new and exciting stories that will come out of the Native people here in Virginia and across the country. There is a lot of history that is not included in the history books that really belongs there.”

Recent years have brought an outpouring of content from the Native point of view, partly thanks to Lyman’s work.

“Native people are opening up and beginning to trust to tell their history. I think they understand that the responsibility lies with them to tell that history.”

The change is evident in news stories everywhere, and it is quickly gaining steam.

“The winds of change are upon us right now. There is a movement across this country to reclaim our heritage and our history as our own.

nativetelecom.org

Chickamauga Cherokee Indian Creek Band Seeks Federal Recognition
by Mother Gimi (Kimberley Lyman)

We, the Indian Creek Band, request support from the public to inspire Congressman John Mica (R-Fla) to acccept and support our bid for Federal Recognition. It is time we receive proper recognition of our heritage and identity.

Chief Old Billy Bowleggs designated the Indian Creek Band as the keepers of the history for all Chickamauga Cherokee. We ask that you help us fulfill our duty to the Chickamauga Cherokee by supporting our bid for Federal Recognition.

We have gathered nearly 500 signatures to date and each member is working to collect signatures. We created an online petition to make supporting our bid for federal recognition easier, if you wish to support our bid please take the time to sign the online petition located at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/476156032

The Indian Creek Band Chickamauga Creek & Cherokee, Inc. have for too long been denied their proper place as the keepers of the history of our people. If we are granted Federal Recognition our first project would be to create a museum dedicated to the history of all the Chickamauga Cherokee. Recognition of the Indian Creek Band Chickamauga Creek & Cherokee is long over due; we deserve to stand with the other Native American communities as a Federally Recognized Tribe.

We, the Indian Creek Band, turn to the public and ask your help to reach our huge goal of 5,000 signatures by signing our online petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/476156032

Chief "Little Red Wolf" Chance and the Chickamauga Cherokee Indian Creek band would like to honor the Great Chief Dragging Canoe, and our people, by taking on the battle for Federal Recognition. Each and every signature is vital to this work. In the old days, communal support of the tribe was part of everyday life.

Things have changed since Dragging Canoe walked this earth but his message is still significant, especially today.In the words of Dragging Canoe, "We had hoped the white men would not be willing to travel beyond the mountains. Now that hope is gone...They wish to have that usurpation sanctioned by treaty. When that is gained, the same encroaching spirit will lead then upon other land of the Cherokees. New cessions will be asked.

Finally the whole country, which the Cherokees and their fathers have so long occupied, will be demanded, and the remnant of the Ani Yunwiya, The Real People, once so great and formidable, will be compelled to seek refuge in some distant wilderness.

'There, they will be permitted to stay only a short while, until they again behold the advancing banners of the same greedy host. Not being able to point out any further retreat for the miserable Cherokees, the extinction of the whole race will be proclaimed".
Dragging Canoe 1775

The words of our great leader Dragging Canoe are strangely prophetic and true, some would say these words represent a time long ago, before our children and grandchildren of the Chickamauga Cherokee, Indian Creek Band were ever born. The truth is his words are vital to the time we are facing right now.

The Chickamauga Cherokee are spread to the four directions. Divided, and some would say, conquered. After nearly 211 years Chief Dragging Canoes fears have been realized. With out land and Federal Recognition our great leaders dream "we will have our land" is forgotten, lost in the fabric of time.

In 1775 when Dragging Canoe spoke, millions of acres were still in the hands of the Cherokee people. Now the Chickamauga Cherokee, Indian Creek Band must take up the battle and try to regain what was rightfully ours. With the 400-year anniversary of the United States of America at our doorstep- the time to act is now.

Tribes across this country are returning to their traditional ways and even, in the state of Virginia, they are building tribal communities and purchasing tribal land to aid in their bid for Federal recognition.

Please support our tribe; our efforts- together- we can gain the right to our own reservation through Federal Recognition our families can benefit with free education, heath care for our elders and so much more. So my friends, sign the letter, get your friends to sign and spread the word and tell everyone you know.

In the words of Dragging Canoe; "Should we not therefore run all risks and incur all consequences, rather than submit to further laceration of our country?. As for me, I have my young warriors about me. We will have our lands".
Dragging Canoe 1775

The responsibility lies in all of us to benefit all of our people, we must stand together.

Here, again, is the online petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/476156032

Here is our website:
http://www.chickamaugacherokee.org/HTMLFILES/welcome.htm
Wado,
Mother Gimi

Wado,
Chief "Little Red Wolf" Chance
Chickamauga Cherokee Indian Creek Band

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Shoshone Use Film, Courts To Fight Gold Mine On Sacred Land

By Lisa J. Wolf
CRESCENT VALLEY, Nevada, December 6, 2007 (ENS) - The 32nd Annual American Indian Film Festival presented Western Shoshone grandmother Carrie Dann with the Eagle Spirit award for best overall contribution in American Indian cinema at an awards ceremony November 27. "Our Land, Our Life," the film that shows the Western Shoshones’ determined struggle to maintain their way of life, won the festival's Best Documentary award.

"Our Land, Our Life," a 74 minute documentary directed by George and Beth Gage, details Carrie and Mary Dann's 30 year struggle to protect their traditional ways and ancestral lands from mining degradation in a battle that went to the U.S. Supreme Court and beyond to the United Nations with no relief as yet from the U.S. government.

Having won these film awards, Dann and her allies, speaking on behalf of the Earth, their Mother, are preparing once again to enter the U.S. Appeals Court and U.S. District Court.

The Western Shoshone grandmother and other Western Shoshone, who call themselves the Newe people, are trying to stop the federal Bureau of Land Management, BLM, from permitting the world's largest gold-mining company, the Barrick Gold Corporation based in Toronto, from mining on or any nearer to Mt. Tenabo. The mountain is sacred to the Western Shoshone and fundamental to Newe Creation stories and worship.

In the film, Dann, of Crescent Valley, Nevada relates, "As far as the Western Shoshones being here in this valley, they've always been here from forever, I guess. Our stories don't tell us coming here from anyplace. It tells us that as the Creator went by He planted His children. We've heard that from the time we were little, 'It's Western Shoshone land. It's your Earth Mother: She provides for you.'"

The history of the official Western Shoshone relations with the United States began in 1863 when the U.S. government and the Western Shoshone Nation signed the Treaty of Ruby Valley, which recognized Western Shoshone land title. But in the following years the U.S. government began to treat these lands as belonging to the United States and not to the Western Shoshone.

In 1974, the United States sued Carrie Dann and her sister Mary Dann for trespass, basing their suit on a 1962 stipulation of the Federal Indian Claims Commission that the Western Shoshone had lost their land to the United States by gradual encroachment of U.S. settlers and were entitled to $26 million for the 24 million acres of their original territory.

Dann's father homesteaded Crescent Valley ranch land but grazing rights for horses and cattle on surrounding land are now administered by the BLM, which considers the Danns to owe $5 million in grazing fees on what is disputed as traditional Western Shoshone range.

When Mary and Carrie Dann made it to the U.S. Supreme Court and wanted to discuss how title had never been legally transferred from the Shoshone to the United States, the court ruled the Secretary of the Interior had accepted the monetary award on their behalf. The court ruled that the Western Shoshone have been paid and had no right to come before the court and argue for title.

As Chris Sewall of the Western Shoshone Defense Project said in "Our Land, Our Life," "You have the government taking money out of one pocket and putting it another and saying, 'Justice has been done and the Shoshone people have spoken.'"

The documentary shows the BLM with a cavalcade of armed agents confiscating over 500 head of the Danns' horses and over 200 head of cattle in roundups that began in 1992.
Footage is also shown of horses and foals removed by the BLM during a 2003 roundup dead of starvation, decomposing.

Julie Fishel of the Western Shoshone Defense Project questions whether the real impetus for the U.S. government's raids on the Danns is because the area from which the animals were removed "sits atop one of the largest gold finds in the history of the United States."

Fishel argues that grazing degradation cannot compare with mining degradation. During gold extraction, tons of earth are dug, and leached with toxic cyanide to separate gold from rock.
In addition, 20,000 to 70,000 gallons per minute of underground water would be removed from this arid region for the gold extraction process "every day for one mine alone, every day 365 days a year," Fishel said.

On December 27, 2002, the Inter-American Commission issued a final report, finding the United States in violation of the rights of Western Shoshone petitioners to equality before the law, due process, and property under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man. The finding had no effect on the U.S. government.

Following the death of Mary Dann on Earth Day, April 22, 2005, the Western Shoshone took the cause to the United Nations headquarters in Geneva. In March 2006 they received a ruling from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, CERD, a treaty body set up by the United Nations and ratified by the United States in 1993.

The Early Warning and Urgent Action Decision issued by CERD urged the United States to immediately freeze, desist and stop any further actions against the Western Shoshone people, including legislative efforts to privatize their land. CERD ordered the United States to stop immediately and initiate dialogue with the Western Shoshone. This has not happened.

In addition, Canada's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, a committee of the Canadian House of Commons, condemned Canada's mining corporations acting abroad, including Barrick Gold, in a report dated June 26, 2005.

The Standing Committee recommended that Canada "reign in its corporate behavior abroad" and establish "clear legal norms in Canada to ensure that Canadian companies and residents are held accountable when there is evidence of environmental and/or human rights violations associated with the activities of Canadian mining companies."

James Anaya of the University of Arizona School of Law sees the Western Shoshone case as "very important for the indigenous movement world-wide" and said in the film, "They've won the moral battle."

"The United States has its legal maneuvering it can make within its own domestic system," he said, "but when it comes to judging those actions against fundamental human rights, the Danns and the Western Shoshone are the ones who are right."

In March, Dann and the Western Shoshone Defense Project requested that representatives of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Populations, the UN High Commission for Human Rights and other UN agencies attend as observers during a proposed global expert seminar to examine these issues next July.

The global expert seminar will be held on Newe Sogobe (Western Shoshone Territory) at the 14th Indigenous Environmental Network Protecting Mother Earth Conference, July 17-20, 2008 hosted by the Western Shoshone Defense Project.

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Action Alert - Mt. Tenabo In Jeopardy

Submitted by Western Shoshone Defense Project
December 21st deadline for comments

Mt. Tenabo and the surrounding environs are again under attack from gold mining. It is critical now for the Bureau of Land Management to hear the strength of opposition for this mine; see talking points and how to send your comments and concerns below.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has released a draft Environmental Impact Statement, dEIS, which reviews the proposal by Cortez Gold Mines, a subsidiary of Barrrick Gold Mining Co., to conduct new gold mining operations at the south end of Crescent Valley in central Nevada.

The Project, although termed as an “expansion” of the existing Pipeline and Cortez mines, is really a new gold mine complex. It would be located on the slopes of Mt. Tenabo, a mountain sacred to the Western Shoshone Indians, who have lived in the area since time immemorial.

This mine would:
-Disturb (devastate) 6,792 acres of land, including a heap leach and waste rock facilities covering much of the Horse Canyon pass just south of Tenabo, and extending east into Grass Valley
-Blast the new Cortez Hills mine pit approximately 8,900 feet in length, 6,400 feet in width, and a maximun depth of 2,200 feet
-The pit would be within a few hundred feet of the White Cliffs at the base of Mt. Tenabo
Expand an underground mine with a horizontal extent of 1,000 feet wide by 5,000 feet long
Pump groundwater from around the pit with an average dewatering rate of approximately 1.8 billion gallons per year for ten years to keep it dry for mining
-Create a drop in the water table of 1,600 feet surrounding the pit, decreasing to 10 feet at 3-4 mile radius of the pit
-Potentially impact the 50 springs and seeps in the project area with 28 in the Horse Canyon area; however, according to the BLM draft analysis none of the 28 springs are expected to be impacted

A pit lake will result after mining is completed with an eventual depth of about 1,000 feet, and according to the BLM draft analysis of acceptable water quality. Of the 11 non-Cortex Gold Mine water rights, only one is expected to recover fully within 100 years after dewatering ceases

It is important to keep in mind that the results of the environmental analysis presented by the BLM are only estimates.

In many mines across Nevada and elsewhere predicted and actual impacts have varied substantially. Thus, being critical and skeptical of anticipated impacts is essential to a good review of this project.The permanent impact to the cultural and spiritual practices of the Western Shoshone is undeniable.

Mt. Tenabo has been, and continues to be, used by Western Shoshone people as a central part of their religious practices and world view. Western Shoshone visit the mountain and the valley below (the location of the mine pit) for prayer ceremonies, gathering of sacred plants, fasting, and vision quests, among other uses.

The Mountain also contains Western Shoshone gravesites. All of these values and uses will be destroyed by the Project. In addition, the massive pumping of groundwater will dewater sacred springs and streams on and around Mt. Tenabo.

From the draft EIS, "Although not quantifiable, the project area and the region surrounding the project area have been home to local Indian groups for centuries, and the resources in the area, the value placed on those resources, and potential effects to those resources are intertwined with the culture of local Indian tribes more so than any other population in close proximity to the project area."

There is no need for another gold mine in Nevada, especially one that will destroy such invaluable resources. The BLM has never denied a big mining project in Nevada. This is one BLM must deny.

In Summary:
-The BLM has ample authority to deny this Project, as it will cause “undue degradation” of religious, cultural and environmental values.
-The Project will permanently and irreparably destroy current and future religious practices and values of Western Shoshone people.
-The BLM should prevent any impacts to area springs, waterholes and streams from dewatering.

The Draft EIS fails to fully review impacts to these and other critical resources and should be re-done.

How to take action
The BLM’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement is online at:
http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/battle_mountain_field/blm_
information/national_environmental/cortez_hills_expansion.html.

If you write a postcard or letter to BLM, mail it to:
U.S. Bureau of Land Management
Battle Mountain Field Office
Attn: Steve Drummond, Cortez Hills Project Manager
50 Bastian Road
Battle Mountain, NV 89820

If you send an email, it must be emailed before December 21st – email it today!mailto:today!stephen_drummond@nv.blm.gov

Backgroud On Mt. Tenabo
Mt. Tenabo is located in central Nevada, approximately 20 miles south and a little west of the town of Crescent Valley. It stands at the intersection of three valleys, a familiar land mark along major Newe trails, one coming up Grass Valley from the south and another coming from the west through Carico Lake Valley and Reese River Valley.It is an area is an enormously rich cultural and spiritual locus for the Western Shoshone people since time immemorial.

Mt. Tenabo Is a significant landmark on an important north south trail, Dinabo is a place of food and medicine gathering, a place for refuge and spiritual guidance, a place whose springs feed the wildlife that feed the people.

Mt. Tenabo is located in central Nevada, approximately 20 miles south and a little west of the town of Crescent Valley. It stands at the intersection of three valleys, a familiar land mark along major Newe trails, one coming up Grass Valley from the south and another coming from the west through Carico Lake Valley and Reese River Valley.

There is abundant archaeological evidence of Newe occupation since “prehistoric” times, this evidence of Newe occupation extends through the historic mining period from 1863 to the 1940’s, with several historic camps documented containing both grinding stones and more modern “trash.”

A map of Nevada from the late 1860’s identifies the area of Cortez as Shoshone wells, and the natural spring at this site was later developed by Chinese workers, whose camp was adjacent to this area. Another Chinese camp is buried beneath arsenic laden tailings near the Cortez ghost town.Like all mountains it catches the clouds whose snow and rain feed the groundwater table and various creeks and streams.

The sole spring at Shoshone wells is the only water source on the west side but several creeks flow off of its east side into Pine Valley including Horse Canyon creek, Willow Creek and Four Mile Canyon Creek (flowing off of Mt Tenabo’s unnamed neighbor to the east). Medicine and food plants are found around the mountain and include doza, Indian tobacco, water cress, and yomba.

Plants also provide for abundant wildlife including mule dear (over a dozen of which came within a 1/4 mile of the Shoshone camp during the April 2003 Spring Gathering.) ya-ha, rabbits, bobcats, mountain lions, and many species of hawks, eagles and birds. An active sage hen (hucha) dancing ground (lek) is on the eastern flank of the mountain and I believe there is another in Grass Valley towards Mt Tenabo’s southern end.

Pinion trees and juniper have long been sources of food, fuel and medicine for the Newe.
Pine trees close to the “Shoshone well” are known to local Shoshone as a place where pitch was gathered to waterproof baskets and for other uses.

Gathering of these things by local Newe continues to the present day. Hunting, trapping, and gathering of food and medicine occur throughout the area of Mt Tenabo. Pine forests around the mountain were almost entirely cut down in the 1870’s to make charcoal for the mine smelters, but historic miners burrowed underground with shafts, leaving the soil covering the ground intact.

Over time mother earth healed the damage and the pinion forest has grown back and matured. What will the trees grow on if the new mine is created?When Cortez proposed a new mine in the early 1990’s, the Danns and the Western Shoshone Defense Project (WSDP) opposed this because of both the unresolved land title issue and the fact that this mine would require dewatering, threatening the most precious resource out there, the water.

In order to operate, the Pipeline mine must drop the water table over 800 ft at the mine site, pumping anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 gallons of water per minute, 24 hours a day from wells over 1000 feet deep. This deep groundwater meets drinking water quality standards, with slightly elevated levels of fluoride as it is warm geothermal water.

The mine then pumps it to a series of shallow ponds and trenches laid out in an arc several miles from the mine where it soaks this water back into the valley floor. Unfortunately the soil in the valley floor is full of salts, leftover from the evaporation of inland lakes and seas. When the clean water is filtered through the salty soils it is contaminated and no longer meets drinking water standards when it reaches the water table.

The WSDP and its allies in Great Basin Mine Watch predicted this would happen, but the State and the BLM have allowed it to continue to this very day. In addition to water contamination as a result of dewatering, we continue to be concerned that pumping at the Pipeline mine is affecting groundwater in the Cortez mountains.

Computer modeling done by Cortez indicated that there would be no waters affected by the pumping farther then a few miles from the mine site, no surface springs of creeks were predicted to be affected. However as soon as the pumps were turned on at Pipeline in September 1996, the old pit lake 7 miles across the valley at the older Cortez mine began to dry out until finally disappearing after remaining at a static level for a decade.

Initial studies indicated the water table in the bedrock around Cortez was dropping. The WSDP and Minewatch pressured the BLM and mine to look into this. Cortez commissioned a study in 1998 to study this.

Its conclusion was that pumping at Pipeline might be affecting the water table but it was one of several different scenarios the report discussed. Its final conclusion was that they needed a lot more data to understand what was going on. A followup study conducted in 1999 reached the same conclusion that they needed more information.

Unfortunately we know of no additional studies after 1999. This is especially important because in analyzing the impacts of the Pipeline Mine, the BLM relied upon these models to state that no surface waters and especially the springs around the flanks of Mt Tenabo and its adjacent mountains would not be affected by the pumping.

If indeed the pumping is draining the bedrock in the Cortez mountains, that means many springs and creeks are at risk and that their computer model was fatally flawed. Of course this would be inconvenient information for Cortez so it is no surprise that aren’t looking for the answers.

Western Shoshone Defense Project
So-Ho-Bi (South Fork) office:
775-744-2565 (fax and phone)

Main office:
P.O. Box 211308
Crescent Valley, NV 89821
Newe Sogobi
775-468-0230
775-468-0237 (fax)

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

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