Native Corrections Officer Files Discrimination Suit - Note From Leonard Peltier

Native American Corrections Officer Files Discrimination Suit Against Albany County, New York Correctional Facility
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Caitlin Merrill, Director of Media Relations
cmerrill@tullylegal.com 518-218-7100

July 28, 2008 – Albany, NY – A claim has been filed by a Native American correctional officer against Albany County Correctional Facility for severe discrimination in the workplace based on national origin. The allegations include acts of discrimination against the officer over a period of three years, of which his supervisors were aware and frequently engaged in.

Robert Hunter, the correctional officer, was recurrently the target of derogatory comments and racial slurs based upon his status as a Native American at the hands of his co-workers, particularly his supervisors.

In one instance, employees at the facility publicly placed a poster of Native Americans in traditional dress and labeled the individuals pictured with the names of Hunter and his family. Another incident involved a surveillance video modified to depict Hunter being attacked to a “cowboys and Indians” style theme song. The video was shown at training sessions for the facility’s staff.

“This has been traumatizing not only for me, but for my family. It just became too difficult to wake up and go to work each day. I would be sick to my stomach in the morning,” said Hunter. “There’s no justification for the treatment I endured. I’m proud of my heritage.”

Hunter attempted to resolve the issues internally to no avail before pursuing legal action.

“The fact that administration failed to acknowledge and resolve the issue, in light of Mr. Hunter’s repeated requests, demonstrates a complete disregard for employees and civil rights in general,” said Ariel E. Solomon, the attorney representing Hunter. Solomon is a senior associate at Tully Rinckey PLLC.

Hunter and Solomon are available for comment on the case. For more information, please contact Caitlin Merrill at 518-218-7100 or via email at cmerrill@tullylegal.com.
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Tully Rinckey PLLC is one of the fastest growing full-service law firms in the Capital Region and is dedicated to providing quality legal representation and customer service to individuals, families and businesses throughout New York’s Capital and Hudson Valley Regions.

The team of attorneys, paralegals, and professionals helps clients in a wide range of practice areas. The firm maintains a website, http://www.tullylegal.com/, with additional information about its attorneys, achievements, and news stories involving the firm’s work.

A Personal Note From Leonard Peltier
Submitted by Harvey Alden

I want to thank all of you who have shown your concern and answered my call for help. This medical problem has been going on now for some time, at least a year or so. As you know, a diabetic coma is usually fatal. I am feeling a whole lot better now, so thank you for helping me. You can stop contacting the BOP or Lewisburg officials.

Let's get back to concentrating on other important things. Again, thank you very much. In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.
Doksha,
Leonard Peltier

Birthday Activities
Leonard will celebrate his 64th birthday on September 12. Please continue to lift Leonard's spirits by letting him know he is not forgotten. Send birthday cards and letters to
Leonard Peltier #89637-132,
USP-Lewisburg,
USPenitentiary,
PO Box 1000,
Lewisburg, PA 17837-1000.

Get event planning tips at
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/events.htm.
If you're planning an event to mark Leonard's birthday, please let us know as soon as possible. We'll post your event announcement on our online calendar and help promote your event by other means. Please send all the pertinent information about your event to contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info.

Branch News
We invite you to partner with us to formulate strategies, devise fundraising ideas, and build public support. We strongly urge you to consider establishing a branch of the LP-DOC in your area. Your participation is imperative to our survival and Leonard's freedom.

Support groups affiliated with Leonard's former defense committee are very welcome to join us, too. You're requested to formally register with the LP-DOC as soon as possible. As with all our branches, you'll receive a packet of information to help you continue your great work on Leonard's behalf.

For more information, see
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/establish.htm
and then contact us at
contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info.

Please provide your name, mailingaddress, telephone number and e-mail address. We'll be happy to send youwhat you need to get started.

Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee (LP-DOC)
PO Box 7488, Fargo, ND 58106
Phone: 701/235-2206
E-mail: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Web: http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/

In keeping with traditional Indigenous values, we believe that all life is sacred and must therefore be respected. Leonard and the LP-DOC respect the rights of others with regard to their political views and the expression of those views.

However, Leonard and the LP-DOC urge supporters to always behave responsibly. We have not and will never condone hate speech, destruction of property, and/or threats of violence or acts of violence ofany kind.

Always remember these words to supporters: "You are representing me and my bid for freedom. The public looks at you before they see me or my issue."-
Leonard Peltier.

While supporters are free to forward or repost our listserv announcements, please (for his protection) do not alter Leonard's personal statements in any way.

To verify the accuracy of a statement you see posted on the Internet, visit http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/, scroll down the main menu on the left sidebar and click on "Peltier Statements" located in the News section.

-----Amnesty International considers Leonard Peltier a "political prisoner" who should be "immediately and unconditionally released." Leonard Peltier, now a great-grandfather, is a citizen of the Anishinabe and Dakota/Lakota Nations and a tireless advocate for Indigenous Rights.

A participant in the American Indian Movement, he went to assist the Oglala Lakota people on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the mid-1970s where, on June 26, 1975, a tragic shoot out occurred. He was wrongfully convicted in the deaths of two agentsof the Federal Bureau of Investigation and has been illegally incarcerated since 1976. Federal prosecutors have twice admitted before the Courts of Appeal that they don't know who fired the fatal shots.

The government also has admitted that it isn't known what role Leonard Peltier "may have played" in the incident. Since his politically motivated prosecution and conviction, proof of fabricated and suppressed evidence, as well as coerced testimony, has been uncovered. The Courts of Appeal have repeatedly acknowledged investigative and prosecutorial misconduct in this case, but have failed to take corrective action.

A model prisoner, Leonard continues to maintain his innocence and has consequently been denied fair consideration for parole.

Join with numerous internationally recognized human rights organizations, civil rights leaders, celebrities and other luminaries who have called for the immediate release of Leonard Peltier.

Visit - http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info/.Time to set him free... Because it is the RIGHT thing to do. Friends of Peltierhttp://www.freepeltiernow.org/

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Populations Exposed To Environmental Uranium

Increased Risk Of Infertility And Reproduction Concerns
By Leuren Moret

This article is taken from Namaste Magazine - Vol 10, Issue 4
PO Box 127, Shrewsbury, SY37WS, United Kingdom

Guardians And Caretakers:
“The Navajos help guard the land for the Hopi. We don’t want them to leave. This is their sacred land, too. The White Man is the one who needs to leave before Nature intervenes. The Great Spirit made us caretakers of this land. We take care of it with our prayers and our ceremony. Now you poison it and rape it and destroy it with your strip mines and uranium tailings and power plants – all on sacred land! And you try to chase the last few Indians off so you can do your dirty work.” Thomas Banyacya, HopiMMMs

Kokopelli Speaks
Living on the Navajo Reservation heavily contaminated from uranium mining, a young Navajo girl when she was nine, lost her grandmother, her ama’sa’ni, to breast cancer. Her mother later had breast cancer twice. When Stefanie Raymond-Whish decided to become a molecular biologist at the University of Northern Arizona, she dedicated her research to finding the root causes of breast cancer.

Lood Doo Nadziihii - "The Sore That Does Not Heal"
Raymond-Whish discovered that there was New Mexico State Tumor Registry data on the New Mexico portion of the Navajo Reservation, which showed a 17-fold increase in childhood reproductive cancers compared to the U.S. average. Ms. Williams, the journalist who wrote “On Cancer’s Trail” about Raymond-Whish reported “These are extremely rare cancers related to hormone systems”.

Another set of registry data from 1970-1982 showed a 2.5-fold increase in these cancers among all New Mexico Native Americans. A 1981 paper identified a possible link between proximity to uranium mine tailings and incidents of birth defects in families. Breast cancer is the number two killer of Navajo women after heart disease. Uterine and ovarian cancers doubled or tripled since 1970 in New Mexico Indians, with no change in whites and Hispanics.

This has prompted the U.S. Health and Human Services to fund a study on kidney disease to be done jointly by a Navajo health agency and a New Mexico state agency. They will be looking at 1300 Navajos and 160 drinking wells, compiling illness data and analyses of drinking water contaminants (uranium, arsenic, etc.). With less than ¼ of the wells tested, the study has already established that living within 0.8 kilometer from an abandoned mine is a significant predictor of kidney disease and diabetes.

This suggests that local uranium pollution point sources are contaminating the groundwater on the Navajo reservation where many family dwellings have their own well. Municipal drinking water supplies, utilized by whites and Hispanics in more populated urban areas, may explain the reduced uterine cancer rates in non-Indian populations.
. http://www.hcn.org/servlets/hcn.Article?article_id=17708

Dr. Ernest Sternglass has recommended that reverse osmosis filtration systems, for a cost to the U.S Government of about $500 per household, will remove heavy metals including uranium and other contaminants from water. He suggests that the U.S Government cost of providing these systems to contaminated Native American populations would be far cheaper than the public health studies and high health care costs of chronic exposure to uranium contamination.

Another Mouse Study And A Different Outcome -
When Raymond-Whish received her PhD in May 2008, she had already co-published a groundbreaking paper identifying uranium as an estrogen disruptor and a serious cause of infertility as well as breast, ovarian, and uterine cancer. She and researchers exposed mice to depleted uranium contaminated drinking water below the U.S. EPA water standard of picoCuries/Liter (or about 1 Bequerrel), in other words at levels the U.S. government considered to be a minimal health risk.

Their Results:
“Mice that drank uranium-containing water exhibited estrogenic responses including selective reduction of primary follicies, increased uterine weight, greater uterine luminal epithelial cell height, accelerated vaginal opening, and persistent presence of cornified vaginal cells. Coincident treatment with the antiestrogen ICI 182,780 blocked these responses to uranium or the synthetic estrogen diethylstilbestrol. In addition, mouse dams that drank uranium-containing water delivered grossly normal pups, but they had significantly fewer primordial follicies than pups whose dams drank control tap water.”

Their Conclusions Were:
“Because of the decades of uranium mining/milling in the Colorado plateau in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest, the uranium concentration and the route of exposure used in these studies are environmentally relevant. Our data support the conclusion that uranium is an endocrine-disrupting chemical and populations exposed to environmental uranium should be followed for increased risk of fertility problems and reproductive cancers.”

Andrea Gore, a neuroendocrinologist at the University of Texas, Austin, and former advisor to the National Science Foundation considers this to be a groundbreaking study:
“This is a science of subtlety, (Dyer’s and Raymond-Whish’s) work is consistent with other good labs. People criticize the field of endocrine disruption because we don’t always understand the mechanisms, but the effects are real. This is why animal studies are so important. The responses we see in lab animals can happen in humans, because we share the exact same hormones. The estrogen receptor is similar.”

Leuren Moret is a geoscientist and environmental scientist. She is an expert on atmospheric dusts, and how they move and are transported around the world. She was an expert witness at the International Criminal Tribunal For Afghanistan At Tokyo. She is an independent scientist and international expert on radiation and public health issues. She has worked internationally on radiation issues, educating citizens, the media, members of Parliaments and Congress and other officials.

She became a whistleblower in 1991 at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab after experiencing major science fraud on the Yucca Mountain Project. Leuren is a former Environmental Commissioner of the City of Berkeley and President of for Scientists of Indigenous People.
Tel: +1 510 845 3139
Email: leurenmoret@yahoo.com
See http://www.beyondtreason.org

Ms. Moret has written a very comprehensive article on “Populations Exposed To Environmental Uranium”. I am using only the portion of her write up for Native Unity that pertains to Raymond-Whish and Native Americans. BHO

To read the entire article “Populations Exposed To Environmental Uranium” go to:
http://www.namastepublishing.co.uk/Populations%20Exposed%20to%20Enviromental%20Uranium.htm

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Nicole Nelson Update - Slow Return To Normalcy

A "feel good" story - Young mother who faced death is nearing recovery

By RAY DUCKLER
Monitor staff
July 24, 2008

Concord, N.H. - Nicole Nelson doesn't care if her 22-month-old daughter, Katie, drops crumbs on the carpet or hides crackers in her toys.

Let the crumbs fly, Nelson says. Bring on the crackers.

"I don't get uptight about that stuff," Nelson said. "I laugh now."

And why not?

When you've been diagnosed with aplastic anemia - a rare disease that prevents your bone marrow from producing stems cells - and you fear you won't see your daughter grow up, and you can't find a marrow match to save your life, and you've slipped into a coma for three weeks, and your family was called to the hospital to say goodbye, and now, finally, you're on the road to recovery, then crumbs seem like, well, crumbs.

"It's all about perspective," said Nelson's husband, Rick, a cop in Peterborough.

We first met Nelson, a 35-year-old physician's assistant at Concord Hospital, last October, one month after she was diagnosed with a disease that destroys the immune system and saps patients of their energy.

We reported that several bone marrow drives were held, including one at Concord Hospital that attracted 1,000 people.

We learned that ancestry plays a role in finding a match and that Nelson's American Indian heritage gave her a rare tissue type and reduced her chances of landing a perfect fit. Even a four-minute segment on MSNBC didn't lead to the right donor.

Then, after no match was found, we were told that doctors moved to Plan B, an umbilical cord blood transfusion. That's when a small amount of blood from the cord of a newborn, in this case an Australian baby born 10 years ago, is used to help the bone marrow produce its own cells, with no outside help, via constant blood transfusions.

It's not the ideal solution, but there was no other alternative after so much time had passed.

We pick up our story here. Nelson received a cord transfusion in February. She came home, then suffered from dehydration, so back to Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston she went.

Then, in mid April, Nelson had trouble breathing.

"They're really not sure what happened," she said. "I had some sort of infection in my lungs. It was connected to me having a depressed immune system. They could never find out what I was infected with. I had a bad cough. I couldn't breathe."

She needed a ventilator to breathe, and she fell into a coma. Her kidneys later shut down, she was placed on dialysis, and surgery was performed to drain fluid that had formed near her heart.

Nelson was dying.

Rick and other family members were told to hurry to the hospital. They weren't told specifically why, but they knew. They spoke to Nelson, hoping a few words would slip through into her mind.
Rick wrote "scared" in his journal.

"I'd step out of the room and doctors would say, we need permission to do this, we need permission to do that," Rick said. "They could have been speaking a foreign language. I'd try to explain things to family and friends on the phone."

Nelson awoke after three weeks, for reasons unknown. She couldn't walk, since her leg muscles had degenerated. After a week or so of rehab, Nelson returned home, and, slowly, it's been good news ever since. She's making her own cells now.

How well is Nelson doing? She reports that one of her doctors, who rarely injects emotion into a diagnosis, had this to say about Nelson's comeback recently:

"I'm very pleased," Nelson said her doctor told her.

Nelson has lost weight, sure, but she no longer needs a walker, she can move up and down the stairs, and she watches Katie play out back, in the little pool, in the sandbox and with the big beach balls.

Nelson isn't supposed to travel often, but she went grocery shopping with her mother recently. She wore a mask and gloves. She stayed home when Rick brought Katie to Rolfe Park.

"The doctors want me to limit contact with other people until I reach my one-year mark of my transplant," Nelson said. "I'm still pretty tired. I don't have a lot of stamina, but I'm working on it."

She doesn't know anything about the Australian baby whose cord blood, frozen since 1998, saved her life. There's no information available.

"I might start talking like an Aussie," Nelson said.

There was no trace of a down-under accent this week, nor was Nelson hopping like a kangaroo. That'll come later, when her strength returns.

Katie, her forehead warm from the flu and her cheeks red, wasn't right on this day either. She snuggled up to Rick, looking for comfort. Nelson's lengthy hospital stays the past year have forced her to miss segments of Katie's development.

"I've come home and she's not a baby anymore," Nelson said. "She's a little lady. When I went in, she ate with her fingers, and now she eats with a fork and spoon."

She still needs work with those crackers, however.

And Nelson doesn't mind a bit.

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Tribes Use New Mediums To Tell Ancient Morality Tales

From the Los Angeles Times, Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times
Oneida tribal tales emerge transformed
That Indian nation and others are turning to new mediums to tell their enduring stories.
By Paul Lieberman,
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
paul.lieberman@latimes.com

July 13, 2008

ONEIDA, N.Y. — THE TOUCHY part of the Oneidas' animated short was depicting how the raccoon, after playing dead, gobbles up all the cute dancing crawfish celebrating his demise.

The filmmakers showed the raccoon's feast as a cloud of mayhem. But there were arms flying out, tiny arms from those adorable crawfish, a detail that risked being far too graphic for kids. And captivating them was the idea of telling an old tribal tale in a way that would teach new generations its message: that even if you're a cute little crawfish, you'll pay a dear price if you boast, and lie . . . as one crawfish did by claiming to have slain their predator.

But the flying arms were edgy, and fun, in a 21st century way. So Dale Rood and his crew left 'em in and began submitting the eight-minute "Raccoon & Crawfish" to festivals such as Moondance. "Oh, yeah, wow, that was a strange animation," recalled Moondance's executive director, Elizabeth English, who hesitated to take the short because one of her goals is promoting nonviolent conflict resolution.

You don't get many tribes submitting films, however, so she waited to see how an audience and jury reacted to the end, in which the raccoon sits satiated, while inside his swollen belly one crawfish lectures the boaster, "You are a liar!"

That's how "Raccoon & Crawfish" won Moondance's Sandcastle Award for best animation a year ago, and by now it's been screened at 64 festivalsaround the world and won 13 awards, and there soon will be more animated shorts telling legends of the Oneida.

Uses For Casino Profits
WHEN gambling began transforming Indian communities, there was opposition within many tribes from elders and others who said casinos would desecrate traditions. Gambling proponents would argue that there did not have to be a conflict -- that casino profits might help carry on traditions.

Two decades later, it's happening -- the slot machines indeed are funding efforts to preserve tribal history and culture, often through film.

UCLA-trained Sandra Johnson Osawa, a member of Washington's Makah tribe, has produced a documentary on Native American prima ballerina Maria Tallchief, funded by the area's Muckleshoot Indians, and is helping Oklahoma's Miami tribe use gambling income to document its tribal language, whose last speaker died in the 1960s.

Michael Smith, who stages an annual American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco, regularly brings a touring program to California's small rancherias -- paid for by their casinos -- to teach Native American youngsters filmmaking "as a tool for personal and community storytelling." One of Smith's instructors, Jack Kohler, has helped the Rumsey Band of Wintun Indians make a film in the tribal language and worked with the Auburn Rancheria north of Sacramento to build movie-making facilities with proceeds from its casino. Among its projects is "Red Road to Nirvana," about "an urban Indian who needs to go back and preserve his roots and along the way becomes a stand-up comedian."

Of course, not everyone gets a "yes" from such tribes. "It's been a tough nut for us to crack," said Shirley K. Sneve, executive director of Native American Public Telecommunications, which provides programming to public TV and radio. "Casinos don't see us as an investment that will put more quarters in the slot machines."

But several tribes backed actor Rick Schroder's 2004 "Black Cloud," a full feature about a Navajo boxer. And Connecticut's Mashantucket Pequots, with the vast Foxwoods casino, earlier financed "Naturally Native," the debut film of Valerie Red-Horse, a Cherokee who, like Osawa, got her training at UCLA. Los Angeles-based Red-Horse has a "day job" as an investment banker but is getting funding from various tribes for a new feature on Ponca Indian Chief Standing Bear, who was arrested in 1879 after attempting to return to his homeland to bury his murdered child. She also is following up her PBS documentary on WWII's Navajo "code talkers" with one on Choctaws who played the same role in WWI. The doc's backer? "The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma."

'Why Dont I?'
As A kid, Dale Rood would get up early to help his dad salvage parts from junked cars. But after school, he'd catch the TV cartoons, like "Rocky & Bullwinkle" or "The Flintstones." "I'd watch religiously," he said.

Rood, part of the Oneida Indian Nation's Turtle Clan, was a computer technician when the tribe opened Turning Stone casino in 1993, then two years later got video equipment. "The equipment sat for a number of months and so I asked my boss, 'Why don't I at least get it working?' " Rood recalled. "Well, I did that and, being one of the leaders of the nation, I said, 'Man, we can do a whole lot more with this technology than just creating commercials.' "

The tribe did form Four Directions Media, billing it as "the first film and television production company, 100% American Indian-owned and operated," and produced a one-hour network show on Indian Dance, which ran in 2003. By then, the equipment Rood wanted was less expensive and they decided to do more animation.

As director of studio operations he hired several young animators trained at Rochester Institute of Technology and between income-generating jobs had them develop characters to tell one of the fables his grandmother used to recite, about a hungry raccoon and the crawfish who tried to outsmart him. It took them more than a year to complete the eight minutes, with music by Brent Michael Davids, a Mohican, using rattles and water drums.

On a recent afternoon, studio manager Tracy Morris screened footage for a documentary on the sacred Sun Dances on South Dakota's Pine Ridge reservation, a collaboration with the Oglala Lakota Sioux he called "very slow, methodical, 'let's make sure we don't do this wrong.' " Then Morris headed out to film an Oneida who still makes lacrosse sticks out of wood.

The animators' offices were decorated with posters from groundbreaking Disney and Pixar features. On the screen of graphic artist Peter Hale were two new characters, a tribal elder and little boy, seated around a fire, part of the plan to carry the tribe's animation to a new level.

For all they knew, "Raccoon & Crawfish" could have been a one-and-out effort. Then came the festival showings that evoked the Hank Snow hit "I've Been Everywhere," as the Oneidas and their short made the scene from Cannes to London as well as Big Bear, screening there as wildfires approached. The flip side? A screening in an Iceland "ice theater."

"It's daunting, but what's neat about running the circuit is you get a pretty good feel for what people think of your film," Rood said. "We're finding people want to see stuff like this."

Thus the new characters, designed to introduce "Raccoon & Crawfish" and other animated tribal tales. It's all on a "Legends From the Oneida" poster, a series of five, including "The No-Face Doll," the story of how the creator transformed a corn husk into a beautiful doll who becomes vain and, like the crawfish, pays for her failing.

Rood credits Ray Halbritter, the Oneidas' leader, with defining the mission during a trip to South Dakota, where they saw ancient Lakota rock drawings of the Sun Dance. "They had petroglyphs all over. And Ray said, 'Well, these videos we're doing, preserving what we have today, these are our petroglyphs.' "

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Part Of S.D. Badlands Management Could Go To Tribe - Tribes Can Benefit From Energy Crisis

Submitted by Ann VanWert
By CARSON WALKER
Associated Press Writer
The Bismarck Tribune

BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK, S.D. - The north end of this national park bustles with roughly a million tourists a year who pull over to view and photograph the majestic canyons, spires and tables, hike the trails and learn about fossils.

The park's mostly undeveloped and far less-traveled South Unit, which also boasts mile upon mile of moonscape-like vistas, lies within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. In the 1940s, the federal government seized it from more than 800 American Indian families for a military bombing and gunnery range that was used until the 1960s.

In 1976, the land was returned to the Oglala Sioux Tribe, which has since co-managed it with the National Park Service.

As that agency drafts its operating plan for the South Unit, it's thinking about returning complete control to the Oglala Sioux, which it has never done with a tribe.

"Many people want more tribal involvement and management, and some want it turned over to the tribe," said Paige Baker, Badlands National Park superintendent.

"My job is to balance the Park Service mission and very strongly listen to what the tribe is suggesting and maybe do something that should have been done long ago."

Baker knows what it's like to lose land to a federal project.

He is a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of North Dakota. Around 1950, his family had to move to make way for the Garrison Dam.

Now, as an Indian managing the Badlands, he's asking tribal members how the South Unit should be managed."

The thing we haven't done with each other is listen," Baker said.The four concepts being discussed would:
- Keep things the way they are with the Park Service and tribe co-managing the area;
- Have both contribute equal funding and staff to manage the South Unit;
- Let the tribe manage the unit with technical assistance from the Park Service;
- Turn over total management to the tribe and remove it from Park Service territory.

Either of the last two would require congressional approval.

Those also are the options most favored by tribal members, but with a transition period of several years and congressional funding, said Birgil Kills Straight, director of the Oglala Sioux Parks and Recreation Authority.

"That's what seemed to prevail," he said.

Most tribal members are cool to the idea of allowing mining or increased foot traffic on the land, Kills Straight said. Instead, likely uses would be expanded tourism, replacing grazing cattle with buffalo and perhaps allowing more - but controlled - access to some of the fossils, he said.

"Most people that we've had contact with would still like to keep the land as pristine or as environmentally safe as possible," Kills Straight said.

Some tribal members want to give the land back to the families displaced, said Clarence Yellow Hawk, chairman of the Oglala Sioux Parks and Recreation Authority board of directors.

Others who support turning the South Unit over to the tribe are concerned whether it would work, given the natural instability of tribal government, he said.

"I'm going to rely on my elderlies as to what direction to take," Yellow Hawk said.

If the South Unit were run by the tribe as a park, "that's another part of America that can be opened up and viewed and utilized for everybody," he said.

Comments from 14 public meetings this spring will be compiled into a document that will be the subject of another comment period before a preferred option is chosen.

The Badlands park is one of several places where the National Park Service has done more to accommodate tribal interests, said Robert Holden, deputy director of the National Congress of American Indians and a member of the Choctaw-Chickasaw tribe of Oklahoma.

"Tribes are getting a fair shot at being able to do this. I think it's commendable for the Park Service, and every effort should be made to make this happen," he said.

The government should return land that was taken from tribal members - often without consultation, Holden said, and turning over the South Unit to the Oglala Sioux Tribe makes sense because it has a vested interest.

"They would be careful in managing these areas. But they also know the areas from a traditional cultural standpoint. They know the critical habitat, the items of cultural significance, not only sacred sites but also plants and animals," he said.

Tribes Can Benefit From America's Energy Crisis
Introducing myself, I am Terrance H. Booth, Sr., Tsimshian Tribe, former Tribal Council, tribal planner, tribal grant writer and tribal economic development specialist. I work with an Authorized Factory Agent of Trelleborg (http://www.trelleborg.com/en/) a global industrial group whose leading positions are based on advanced polymer technology and in-depth applications know-how.

Trelleborg develops high-performance solutions that seal, damp and protect in demanding industrial environments. This Group has an annual sales of approximately SEK 31 billion, with about 25,000 employees in 40 countries. Their head office in is located in Trelleborg, Sweden. Trelleborg's President and CEO is Peter Nilsson and Anders Narvinger is Board Chairman. Trelleborg AB was founded in 1905. With 100 years behind them, their history, like their future, is characterized by a constant drive for quality and a passion for indentifying new solutions to complex problems.

The Manitowoc family of companies — Manitowoc Crane Group, Manitowoc Foodservice Group, and Manitowoc Marine Group — are leaders in their respective industries. Join them and become part of a respected heritage of quality, performance and innovation. They have necessary parts, equipment, supplies that can support the alternative energy or refrigeration field.

TheirWebsites:
http://www.hturbinechp.com/manitowoc/
http://www.hgasstations.com/manitowoc/
http://www.hturbinechp.com/manitowoc/
http://www.hgenerators.com/manitowoc/
http://www.manitowoc.com/en/default.cfm

Both are interested in working with tribal businesses or tribal enterprises for distribution of their goods, equipment, parts, supplies. Right now if your tribe has gas stations they can add to your existing business hydrogen refilling station for currently they are some hybrid cars burning hydrogen as there fuel.

Studies show there are only about 70 such stations nation wide giving a real advantage for tribes to enter into the alternative energy potentials. This can greatly improve the quality of life for our Alaska Native, Native American and Indigenous of Canada and Indigenous of the globe.
Also they are looking for Native American manufacturers to make parts for the Wind Power Industry for they have parts to enter into such a business.

Please contact Trent Portch Trelleborg's Factory Agent: 605-837-2005
or Email: dvport4@goldenwest.net
or Terrance H. Booth, Sr. at 602-368-7213
or email: terrancehboothsr@gmail.com
or in Northwest Eli Milton at: 360-293-7762
or email: jadesign1@comcast.net

Several States have tax incentives entering into alternative energy field. Here is the database for the tax incentives state by state: http://www.dsireusa.org/Index.cfm?EE=1&RE=1 also there are listed loans to put into place alternative energy for your tribe or business or community. Also available is converting existing vehicles of the tribe to be hydrogen drive and gas.

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INDNs Join Forces For Youth Sports Program Led By Notah Begay

Submitted by Alyssa Macy
Begay, Oneida Indian Nation and San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians Join Forces to Raise Awareness of and Support for Youth Sports Programs within Native American Communities

ONEIDA INDIAN NATION, (N.Y.) – (July 17, 2008) – Notah Begay III, four-time PGA TOUR winner, proudly announces a first-of-its-kind golf tournament to raise awareness and funding for the improved health and wellness of Native American youth on Indian reservations nationwide.

The Notah Begay III Foundation Challenge (NB3 Challenge) was conceptualized by Notah with the goal of educating the American public on the strong need within Indian communities to help children improve their lives through sport.

The event will be made possible by two Indian nations – Oneida Indian Nation of New York and San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians of California – demonstrating the collaboration of tribes in donating time and resources to this important cause. The tournament further presents an opportunity to showcase the significant strides Indian nations have made in recent years to create a more promising future for their youth and their communities as a whole.

"The Oneida people are proud to join with Notah Begay III in this exciting initiative," said Ray Halbritter, Oneida Indian Nation Representative and CEO. "Native leaders recognize the importance of providing lasting hope and unique opportunities for the seventh generation. That is why the Oneida Nation has invested in the future by becoming a founding partner of Notah's Foundation Challenge."

The Notah Begay III Foundation was established in 2005 to create sustainable programs that are designed by Native Americans for Native American youth.

The NB3 Challenge will serve as the Foundation's first national event and will be held August 26, 2008, at Atunyote Golf Club at the Turning Stone Resort, an economic enterprise of the Oneida Indian Nation. World-class PGA TOUR players Stewart Cink, Vijay Singh, Mike Weir, Camilo Villegas and Notah Begay III – with more than 75 combined professional career wins between them – will play in a skins game format whereby all proceeds benefit the Foundation.

"I am humbled to have such outstanding golfers join me at the inaugural tournament, as their support to bring national attention to the issues facing Native children and to raise funds for our youth sport programs truly speaks volumes," said Notah Begay III.

"This event was made possible by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians and the Oneida Indian Nation and the tribes' willingness to work together shows how dedicated they are to improving both their own communities and Native communities all over. It's through powerful partnerships such as these that together we can positively impact the future of our Native American youth."

The goal of the Foundation is that the youth sport programs are sustainable and will run strong for generations to come. To date, the Foundation has partnered with the Tohajiilee High School, a Navajo Nation community, to deliver sound golf curricula to a number of children. Since its inception, the program has seen considerable improvement in both participation and performance and remains true to the game's spirit by implementing sportsmanship, integrity and respect as its guidelines.

In addition to golf, soccer programs have been a huge success, and have grown to include approximately 150 Native American youth in New Mexico alone, each of whom participate on one of 16 different teams for a 10-game season.

"The decision to be a founding sponsor was very simple, because the outcome of this initiative will directly affect the future of our children," said Chairman James Ramos, San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians. "The success of the youth sport programs with the Notah Begay III Foundation is apparent, which compelled us to participate in the Challenge and to help extend the opportunities to other Native American communities."

For information on supporting the Notah Begay III Foundation, or to contribute to the NB3 Challenge, visit: http://www.nb3challenge.com/.

About Noah Begay III Foundation
The Notah Begay III Foundation is a federally recognized 501(c)3 non-profit organization that was started by PGA TOUR golfer and Stanford University graduate, Notah Begay III in 2005. The mission of the Foundation is to deliver sustainable, health and wellness youth sports programs in Native American communities in the form of soccer and golf programs.

The Foundation strives to be a catalyst for monumental change in Indian Country with three goals including:
• Get Native youth up and active to prevent the future spread of diabetes
• Offer programming designed by Native Americans for Native American Youth
• Positively impact the Native American culture.
For more information on Notah Begay III and the Foundation, visit: http://www.notah.com/.

About Turning Stone Resort & Casino in Oneida, New York
The Oneida Indian Nation's Turning Stone Resort and Casino has evolved into the premier golf destination in the Northeast. Three preeminent golf course architects -- Tom Fazio, Robert Trent Jones Jr. and Rick Smith – have each crafted masterpieces at Turning Stone. In addition to the three 18-hole layouts, the resort's ensemble includes two nine-hole courses and a training facility.

The Atunyote Golf Club, designed by Fazio, is the host site of Turning Stone Resort Championship, September 29 – October 5, 2008, which is the only regularly-scheduled PGA TOUR event on American Indian lands. Visit: http://www.turningstone.com/ for more information.

About The Oneida Indian Nation
The Oneida Indian Nation is a federally recognized Indian nation in Central New York. It is a member of the Haudenosaunee (hoe-dee-no-so-nee), known in English as the Six Nations or Iroquois Confederacy. The Oneida Nation is composed of approximately 1,000 enrolled Members, about half of whom live in central New York. The Nation operates a variety of businesses to fund its government programs including golf, hotel, casino, media and more, creating tremendous economic impact on the region.

Proceeds from the Nation's enterprises fund essential services for Members including health, housing, education and infrastructure improvements. The success of their enterprises also allows the Nation's government to become economically self- sufficient. In 1999, the Oneida Nation became the first Indian government in the country to return federal funding to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Visit: http://www.oneidanation.net/ for more information.

About San Manuel Band Of Serrano Mission Indians
The San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians is a federally recognized American Indian tribe located near Highland, Calif. The Serrano Indians are the indigenous people of the San Bernardino highlands, passes, valleys and mountains who share a common language and culture.

The San Manuel reservation was established in 1891 and recognized as a sovereign nation with the right of self-government. Since time immemorial, the San Manuel tribal community has endured change and hardship. Amidst these challenges the tribe continued to maintain its unique form of governance.

Like other governments it seeks to provide a better quality of life for its citizens by building infrastructure, maintaining civil services and promoting social, economic and cultural development. Today San Manuel tribal government oversees many governmental units including the departments of fire, public safety, education and environment.

Visit: http://www.sanmanuel-nsn.gov/ for more information on the tribe.

Alyssa Macy
Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, Oregon

Indigenius Mediahttp://www.indigeniusmedia.com/

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Urban Inuit Get Employment Help From KRG In Montreal

Submitted by Ann VanWert
"If Anyone wants work, we'll find them work"
BY JANE GEORGE
Nunavut News
Are you an Inuk living in Montreal and looking for work?

Richard Desrosiers, the interim Inuit employment agent in Montreal, can help you, no matter what Inuit region you came from.

"If anyone wants to work, we'll find them work," said Desrosiers, a Kativik Regional Government (KRG) employee.

Desrosiers now has an office in Verdun, and a mandate to boost Inuit employment in Montreal and train an Inuk employee to take over his job.

Desrosiers' first task is to make contact with potential clients in Montreal.

To do this, he'll hop on his bike, ride around, talk up his services and hand out business cards with his numbers: "Anybody who wants to work in Montreal and wants to commit to working - I'll be more than ready to help them."

Desrosiers also plans to go to the next meeting of the Association of Montreal Inuit. As well, he'll keep regular contact with the Inuit employers and organizations located in the Montreal area.

"The Inuit staff working in the Montreal area is often the starting point for Inuit that come to live in Montreal, so it's important to keep them informed of these employment and training opportunities," Desrosiers said.

While Desrosiers will mainly link up willing workers to opportunities in the Montreal region, he will also scout for Inuit interested in working at Nunavik's two nickel mines, Xstrata Raglan and Canadian Royalties, which have many Montreal-based workers.

Even for Inuit who have fallen between the cracks, there are definite possibilities, Desrosiers said.

Referrals to upgrading programs are included in the range of services offered by the new office.

And Desrosiers will also be able to assist Inuit who qualify for welfare.

The Inuit Urban Employment office's operations are covered by a three-year funding agreement between Quebec's employment department, the ministère de l'emploi et la solidarité sociale.

"Since the federal government has refused to provide funding for this kind of service we're going through the Government of Quebec. We've really been neglected in the area of urban Inuit by the federal government and thank goodness that the provincial government has recognized the need and will step in," said Margaret Gauvin, the director of the KRG's employment, training, income support and childcare department.

For years, the KRG and other Inuit organizations in Montreal lobbied for employment services for Inuit in Montreal

A recent study by AMI found many individual Inuit residing in the Montreal area did not even know of the existence of Aboriginal Employment Services of Montreal.

The study found only there were only 19 Inuit who received services and financing from this group. This means about two per cent of its services went to Inuit, although Inuit represent up to 15 per cent of the urban aboriginal community in Montreal.

The new Inuit employment office will serve all Inuit who are residents of Montreal - not just those who originally come from Nunavik.

The office will be the KRG's 15th point of service and "the first time we offer services outside of Nunavik," Gauvin said.

The office is located within the premises of the Centre Local d'Emploi at 1050 Galt St. in Verdun. Its phone number is (514) 864-6646, extension 249.

Historic Announcement For Ontario
Premier sets aside area almost twice the size of England in Ontario

CPAWS Wildlands League congratulates Premier McGuinty on his vision to protect 225,000 km2 or 22.5 million hectares of intact Boreal Forest in Ontario in an interconnected network across the Far North.

The future of Ontario’s northern Boreal lands and waters will be determined through an innovative Land Use Planning initiative with First Nations. The announcement includes an important commitment to work with First Nations to ensure their consent is given before any industrial projects go forward and resource benefit sharing.

Also in the announcement is firm commitment to change the Mining Act from a ‘free entry’ system to one that respects the rights of First Nations and enshrines the duty to consult and accommodate in legislation in accordance with the Supreme Court ruling.

Please email the Premier through his website to thank him for this visionary announcement and for putting the planet first.

Together with government and industry we have a lot of work ahead of us in finalizing policy, regulations and legislation.

Read our press release here.

Read the Premier's release and backgrounder.

What are your thoughts on this announcement? Submit your comments

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Living Near The Homestake - Gardening - A Pathway To Exposure

Last of a three-part series
By Kathy Helms
Dine Bureau
MILAN - When the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry recently declared the Homestake mill a public health hazard, it did not have any vegetable or soil sample results to determine what contaminant levels were in the vegetables grown by local gardeners and therefore didn’t know what levels people may have been exposed to via this route.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said the amount of uranium, selenium, and molybdenum ingested would depend upon how often they consumed vegetables, if they used contaminated well water to irrigate the vegetables, and if the vegetables were thoroughly cleaned prior to eating them.

The federal agency advised residents who have vegetable gardens to wash the vegetables, especially root vegetables, thoroughly before cooking or eating them.

Linda Evers, a former uranium miller, was way ahead of them. When Evers bought her home located a half-mile from Homestake in June 2004, she was afraid to grow a garden without first making sure the soil was safe - especially after she found that her home was plumbed with high-pressure water hose from the mines.

“This place has been on village of Milan water since 1985 when Homestake paid for an alternate water source for well owners. But the plumbing under the house was still mine equipment. We bought here June 4, 2004, and had the whole house plumbed by June 28, 2004,” she said.
Her property is located next door to a home recently purchased by Michael Simonson, who has since found that the property contained all sorts of mining memorabilia, including old uranium ore bags.

“We had steel and we had drill bits and rock bolts Not quite as much as Mike has at his place, but we still had uranium stuff. We did find an old jack-leg here,” she said.After moving into her new home, she had about 30 tons of soil removed and about 50 tons of clean fill dirt brought in.

“I wanted a garden right away but I knew better. We started in 2004. I got all the dirt out that year and then got one load brought in, and then the next year two loads, and the next year two loads.

“This year, I can garden my whole area because I finally got enough clean fill dirt to garden all the way out there.” She started off with a small garden and then expanded it as she brought in fresh dirt. “We did the same thing to the terrace and greenhouse,” she said.

This year, she is building a strawberry and sweet pea patch along one of the fence lines inside the family compound, which is surrounded by a 10-foot-high red fence built from old mining timbers which was in place when she bought the house.

Her garden is like a smorgasbord: Cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, green beans, beets, okra, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumbers, giant pumpkins for the kids for Halloween; potatoes, artichokes, garlic, yellow pear tomatoes, cabbage, and bell peppers.

Around the greenhouse and in the terraces the family grows chili peppers, tomatoes, Indian corn, rosemary, parsley, sage, dill, snapdragons, and cosmos flowers. She amends the soil with droppings from the rabbits she raises and waters the garden with village water.

“There are actually two wells on this place. The first one right here by the house has been capped off for years, but there was a well out back that was still operational. We thought at first that we would water the critters with it because it’s back there by the chickens.

“We filled the water buckets up one night and the next morning I went out to check on them and the water had turned grayish and there were little chunks of things floating around in it. I know chickens throw stuff in their water but they don’t make it turn gray.

“So then we got some buckets out in the garden area and filled them up with water and let them sit for 24 hours and it did the same thing - turned a grayish, charcoal-ish color and started growing things in it.

“It looks clear when it comes out of the faucet - there’s no smell, there’s nothing to make you think that this water is anything but water. But let it set for 24 hours and it grows into a different beast. So we don’t use it at all,” she said.

After state and federal agencies tested the well in 2005 and the results came back, she said, “We made it so you couldn’t get water out. It’s just a framed-in hole back there that we keep wired up so nobody can get into it.”

Evers said that when she and her family harvest the garden, “just in case, we wash the root-veggies very well and we also skin them before we put them up. As far as I understand from the powers that be, that’s enough to keep your veggies from being bad.

“But we already went in with clean dirt and clean water, so I’m not worried about my vegetable garden - but I wouldn’t eat anything else that I grew. We just don’t grow flowers everywhere, and we don’t grow any vegetables other than where the fill dirt has been put in.”

Airborne contaminants from the mill site are a concern, however.

“I worry about it constantly,” she admits. “On a calm night the smell from the tailings pond just gets in the air - rotten eggs, sulfur, chemicals. If it’s been raining a lot it seems like you smell more chemicals than sulfur; on dry days when you can smell it, it seems like it’s more sulfuric.

“The good news is most of our wind is south and west and we’re on the south and east side of the pond. For us to actually feel the sprinklers, feel the dirt, it has to be a pretty hard wind straight out of the north. I know it happens, but it’s not the norm for out here.”

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Uranium Mining Temporarily Halted At Grand Canyon

By Kathy Helms
Dine Bureau
Gallup Independent
WINDOW ROCK – The House Natural Resources Committee invoked an emergency withdrawal resolution to require the Secretary of Interior to withdraw public lands adjacent to the Grand Canyon from uranium mining activities.

The resolution was introduced by Arizona Rep. Raul M. Grijalva, chairman of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands. It now requires action from the Secretary.

“We have a responsibility to defend the Grand Canyon,” Grijalva said. “Given the importance of the resolution, the Republican leadership decision to leave the committee instead of upholding their duty to side with one of the country’s greatest treasures was petulant and childish.”

Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr., expressed gratitude to the committee for its resolution, and especially to Grijalva and the subcommittee for hearing the concerns of Native people about protecting the Grand Canyon from uranium mining.

“On behalf of the Navajo Nation and Navajo families who have been harmed by uranium mining, I’m very grateful that our voices were at last heard in the sacred halls of Congress,” he said.

“Our Nation has passed a law to protect ourselves from further uranium mining on our lands, and we did our best to approach the Congressman’s committee with heart, integrity, diplomacy and a sacredness of mind to seek protection for the Grand Canyon. We’re pleased that our prayers were heard.”

Shirley testified March 30 at a subcommittee field hearing in Flagstaff hosted by Grijalva designed to gather testimony on community impacts from proposed uranium mining near Grand Canyon National Park. There are more than 2,100 mining claims for uranium in the Tusayan district alone.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, and Grand Canyon Trust filed suit March 12 against the U.S. Forest Service and Tysayan District Ranger Richard Stahn challenging the December 2007 approval, using a categorical exclusion, of up to 39 new uranium drilling sites by VANE Minerals.

The Independent contacted VANE's office in Tucson Wednesday afternoon and left a message on the company's answering machine. The call had not been returned at press time.

However, during a previous interview, Clark Arnold of VANE, said, “There are a number of safeguards in place to ensure that proper procedures are followed. ... Our activities are closely monitored.”

Arnold said the company has been exploring for uranium on the Colorado Plateau, drilling on state and private land for almost a year in northern Arizona and southern Utah.

On March 6 Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano asked Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to withdraw the Grand Canyon area from mining, but the administration refused to do so without a congressional request.

In his statement to the committee, Grijalva said the vast majority of federal land in and around Grand Canyon National Park is already withdrawn from mining. “This resolution simply covers the last remaining acreage open to new claims.”

The resolution will have no impact on valid, existing claims, he said, adding that the authority to compel such a withdrawal has been on the books for more than 30 years, and the committee has exercised that authority four times.

“While I support permanent withdrawal, this resolution is not permanent,” he said. It gives the Secretary up to three years to comply with assessment and reporting requirements, however, the Secretary retains authority to determine the actual length of the withdrawal.

Chris Shuey of Southwest Research and Information Center of Albuquerque, who also testified at the hearing, said the committee's action “is a prudent, short-term step to protect public health, the environment and Native lands around the Canyon.”

“It gives all parties some time to examine the cumulative impacts of past uranium development on the Arizona Strip and the potential impacts of new mining on both sides of the park."

David Taylor, senior attorney for Navajo Department of Justice and the primary attorney responsible for uranium related matters, said the committee's action is consistent with and supports the spirit of the Dine Natural Resources Protection Act of 2005 that bans future uranium mining and processing in Navajo Indian Country.

Grijalva said the uniqueness and fragility of the Grand Canyon ecosystem, combined with the legacy of pollution, illness and death left by previous uranium mining, “make this the last place on Earth new mining should take place.”

He reminded the committee that accidents do happen, citing the Churchrock tailings spill that released 94 million gallons of radioactive sludge into the Puerco River as an example.Grijalva said the suffering of the Navajo, Kaibab-Paiute, Havasupai, Hualapai and Hopi has been well documented. “Contaminated soil and water from uranium mining and processing led to deadly cancer clusters, birth defects, and unusually high rates of chronic illness, persisting even today.”

He quoted Navajo Resources Committee Chairman George Arthur, who testified that “we are still undergoing what appears to be a never- ending federal experiment to see how much devastation can be endured by a people and a society from exposure to radiation in the air, in the water, in mines, and on the surface of the land.”

Grijalva said dollar signs are blinding the uranium industry to the devastation, and motivating unsupportable claims that this time, everything will be different.

“Sadly, things are not different. The woefully inadequate mining law which allowed this disaster to occur remains on the books, unchanged in a century and a quarter. And the Bush Administration argues that exploratory drilling for uranium should even be exempt from more recent laws such as the National Environmental Policy Act.

“It is simply naive to claim that a ten-fold spike in price, combined with a lack of federal action to stop it, does not constitute an emergency regarding uranium mining at Grand Canyon.”

President Shirley said the Nation's position continues to be that “it would be unconscionable for the federal government to allow uranium mining to be restarted anywhere near the Navajo Nation when we are still suffering from previous mining activities.

“But today, we our very pleased that one of the country’s most sacred places is on its way to being protected.”

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Scientology And The Blackfeet

Tribal members are getting advice, free trips ”and perhaps a new rehab program ”from their connection with L. Ron Hubbard's church. Is this the help they need?

By: Paul Peters
The Bismarck Tribune
Scientologists have alternately denied that the Xenu story reflects their beliefs, or have said that the story is taken out of context.

Aside from news stories, Scientology also maintains a high media profile through celebrity members such as Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kelly Preston, to name a few. It claims to have millions of members in the United States, although a 2001 survey by the City University of New York pegs its membership closer to 55,000.

Besides auditing, Scientologists also believe in using “technologies” or “tech”—their terms for the theories, methods and programs developed by Hubbard. A tech called Criminon aims to stop criminal behavior; one called Applied Scholastics aims to improve people’s studies.

Narconon is considered a tech to stop drug abuse. Currently being promoted on the Blackfeet reservation and present today on reservations in Oklahoma, in towns across the nation—and in dozens of countries around the world—the nonprofit program was created in 1972 by Hubbard and a former Arizona State Prison inmate who was a Scientology convert.

Narconon teaches that drug residue accumulates in body fat and remains there indefinitely, tempting the former addict to use again.

According to Narconon, addicts can remove drugs from their fat through saunas and a vitamin regimen that’s similar to a Scientology practice known as “the purification rundown.”

Narconon has claimed this treatment method has a 70 to 80 percent success rate; the average drug treatment program success rate, by comparison, is much less. For instance, a 2001 article in Neuropsychopharmacology, an international scientific journal, calls the post-treatment relapse rates for people with substance abuse dependence “remarkably high.”

About 30-35 percent of alcoholics avoid a relapse within a year of treatment and those percentages are even lower for people addicted to drugs. Medical experts have repeatedly argued against Narconon’s basic physiology. No significant amount of drug residue is stored in fat for any length of time and whatever minute amounts do exist in fat cannot be sweated out, they say.

A series of 2004 articles in the San Francisco Chronicle about the use of Narconon in public school drug education efforts led California to study the program in 2005. Ultimately, a panel of scientists advised the schools to kick Narconon out, stating that the program’s methodology “does not reflect accurate, widely accepted medical and scientific evidence.” Narconon’s allegedly high success rates, critics say, have not been verified in peer-reviewed, independent studies.

Running Crane and other tribal members embracing Scientology are not deterred. Despite the headlines Scientology and Narconon have generated over the years, they say they were only dimly aware of any of controversies until recently.•••

Larry Ground says he didn’t know much about Narconon or Scientology until this February, when his old friend, Patricia Devereaux, Running Crane’s niece, showed up at his Browning home with American Indian actor Saginaw Grant. They wanted Ground’s assistance in honoring Hubbard—who died in 1986—with a posthumous Blackfeet war bonnet.

Devereaux says she is a public service supervisor for Narconon. “I head a division, and one of the departments of my division is opening pioneer areas,” she explains. She says she chose Indian reservations as her pioneer area, starting with the Blackfeet, her tribe.

Grant, in an interview with the Independent, says he is not a Scientologist and does not work for Narconon, but has helped promote Narconon for the past 20 years. He got his show business start in 1998 with a part in War Party, which was partially filmed on the Blackfeet reservation. He has also appeared in television shows such as “Saving Grace.”

“I agree with some of the tech they use in rehabilitating people,” he says. “They don’t get repeat clients,” he adds, citing the high success rate claimed by the program.

Grant says he knew Devereaux through his involvement in Narconon, and she asked him to go to Browning to offer help with the rehabilitation program.

“Several years ago I made a movie up there,” Grant says, referring to War Party. “So when they contacted Patricia to do this, she knew that I’d been familiar with some of the people up there, so she asked me to be a part of that.”

But Grant and Devereaux did more than just talk about helping people addicted to drugs and alcohol during their visit. They also approached Ground, a member of the Crazy Dog Society, a legendary group of Blackfeet warriors, about the war bonnet.

According to Blackfeet tribal historian Curly Bear Wagner, warriors in the Crazy Dog Society “were the police force, you could say, a very long time ago. It’s a very important organization.”

Wagner adds that the war bonnet is one of the most sacred honors the tribe gives. “You have to do something very outstanding to receive one of those war bonnets,” he explains. They can only be bestowed by certain tribal elders, Wagner says, and the elders must get permission from the tribe’s chief.

Ground says he was able to find elders through the Crazy Dog Society who, he says, could legitimately do the ceremony.

“We didn’t take it very lightly,” Ground says of the decision to award the bonnet. “We said ‘Okay, well, let’s take a look,’ you know. It’s an honor that is bestowed upon people that made great efforts, that save lives, that take care of people.”

Ultimately, Ground says, members of the Crazy Dog Society decided to award a war bonnet to Hubbard because of Narconon’s positive influence on Devereaux’s life and because of Hubbard’s alleged relationship (as Scientology presents it) with the Blackfeet.

In February, a bonnet was presented to Devereaux, on Hubbard’s behalf. The event in Browning was glowingly described in a press release distributed by Galaxy Press, a business branch of Scientology that publishes Hubbard’s novels.“

Amidst the steady beat of tribal drums and ceremonial chants of Montana’s Blackfeet Indians,” the press release states, “leaders of that proud nation recently honored their blood brother and champion, L. Ron Hubbard, with the Blackfeet Indian war bonnet, the highest honor that can be received for any person.”

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UA Med Students And Rural Physicians Work Side-By-Side

in Program That Encourages Health Professionals to Practice in Rural Areas
Four- to Six-Week Mentorships Include Native American Sites and a Native American medical student
Contact: Jean Spinelli, (520) 626-7301.

To help increase the number of physicians practicing in rural Arizona, every summer for the past 11 years a select group of physicians in rural communities throughout the state has mentored medical students from The University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson.

For four to six weeks in June and July, the physicians volunteer as preceptors, or mentors, to UA medical students between the first and second years of medical school. The students work at the physicians’ practice sites and reside in their communities.

The physicians are rural faculty members in the UA College of Medicine’s Rural Health Professions Program (RHPP), established in 1997 by the Arizona Legislature to encourage medical school graduates to practice medicine in rural communities.

The students are matched with rural physician-preceptors based on medical specialty interest and community preference. Physician specialties include family practice, pediatrics, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, and surgery. Thirty-five rural communities are participating in the RHPP, and additional sites will be selected throughout the state.

Communities hosting students this summer include Douglas, Flagstaff, Payson, Prescott, Show Low, Snowflake, Springerville, Williams and Yuma, as well as the following Native American sites:
Chinle: Melissa Lee, MD, medicine and pediatrics, mentoring Karren Seely, originally from Chandler and now in Mesa, June 2 – July 18.

Cibecue/Whiteriver: Stephen Savoia, MD, medicine, mentoring Anna Landau, of Tucson, June 30 - July 25. (Dr. Savoia has been an RHPP preceptor since 1998.)

Polacca: Kristin Burkholder, MD, family medicine, mentoring Briana Cranmer, of Cottonwood, June 16 - July 25. (This new site on the Hopi Reservation also includes physicians Ramesh Karra, MD, an RHPP mentor in Elfrida in 2007 who completed his residency in family medicine at the UA College of Medicine in 2001, and Jon Stucki, MD, a 2004 UA College of Medicine graduate who completed his residency in family medicine in Anchorage, Alaska.)

Tuba City: Diana Hu, MD, pediatrics, mentoring Janie Mercer, of Bullhead City, June 2 - 27.
(Dr. Hu has been an RHPP preceptor since 1998.)

Native American medical student Rosalie Zhine, Navajo, of Flagstaff, is being mentored by Karen Saal, MD, medicine, in Williams, June 2 - July 11.

The students will continue to work with their preceptors over the course of their three remaining years of medical training, returning to the rural communities in their third and fourth years.

“This program helps nurture students’ interest in a rural practice,” says Carol Galper, EdD, assistant dean for medical student education, UA College of Medicine. “Many of the students grew up in rural towns in Arizona and have a desire to practice in small communities, perhaps even returning to their hometowns. Their RHPP experiences help them understand the unique health-care needs of rural populations as well as strategies to address these needs, and help them decide about where they want to practice in the future.”

By working side-by-side with a physician -- consulting with patients, discussing lab results, helping to diagnose childhood ailments, observing surgeries -- students learn about the unique health-care needs of rural populations and how to meet them.

By returning to the same community during each year of medical school, students learn to appreciate the area’s culture and community character and begin to experience the lifestyle of rural residents.

Each year, 15 first-year UA medical students are selected for RHPP. This year, the Arizona Area Health Education Centers (the Arizona AHEC Program) provided funding for three additional RHPP students. “With the expansion of the medical school to the Phoenix campus, AHEC funding will help us provide RHPP opportunities to these students as well,” says Dr. Galper.

RHPP students receive intensive preparation, including a course covering managed-care issues, referral needs, the impact of poverty and lack of health care, environmental health concerns, the influence of culture and the role of physicians in rural communities.

RHPP students learn to use telemedicine technology in communities linked to the Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP) -- a health care telecommunications network that allows rural physicians and patients to have real-time online medical consultations with specialists at the UA College of Medicine in Tucson.

The system also allows rural physician-preceptors and their students to “virtually” attend grand rounds lectures at the UA College of Medicine. This year, the RHPP course was teleconferenced between Tucson and Phoenix, with instruction originating alternately in Tucson and Phoenix.

Rural physician-preceptors enhance their teaching skills by attending faculty development and continuing medical education programs conducted by the UA College of Medicine. To minimize disruption of the physicians’ medical practices, the programs are offered regionally as well as by video links provided by ATP to the UA College of Medicine and the Regional Behavioral Health Authorities of the Arizona Department of Health Services/Division of Behavioral Health Service Services.

RHPP students develop long-term relationships with their rural physician-preceptors, who act as medical and career counselors, helping the students make informed choices when they decide where they will practice medicine.

Upon graduation, RHPP students are more likely to select primary care specialties than their classmates: 75 percent versus 56 percent of UA College of Medicine graduates. This year, 63 percent of the RHPP graduates in the Class of 2008 chose a residency in Arizona, compared to 42 percent of their classmates.

“We now have other graduates throughout the state, in places like San Luis, Yuma, Pinetop, Fort Mohave, Camp Verde, Flagstaff, Safford and Prescott, with more graduates returning each year,” says Dr. Galper. “It is exciting to see these physicians return to Arizona and to have them teach our RHPP students. RHPP has come full circle.”

For more information about RHPP, visit the Web site, http://www.medicine.arizona.edu/pcrm/RHPP/rhpp.html.

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Living Near Homestake - Area A Virtual Mining Museum

Second in a three-part series
By Kathy Helms
Dine Bureau
MILAN - Michael and Christina Simonson might have gotten more than they bargained for when they bought a house about seven months ago within a half-mile of the former Homestake uranium mill in New Mexico. The Superfund site, however, is not necessarily the problem.

The house, located at 406 Wagon Wheel, is situated on a 1-acre parcel littered with metal, but since it once belonged to a scrapyard owner, that, too, made sense to Simonson. Plus, there are numerous homes in the area with yards strewn with metal. All this place needed was a little elbow grease ;and at just over $40,000 after closing, the price was right. Simonson's neighbor, Linda Evers, 33 Sundowner, said the housing area was subdivided into 1 acre lots in 1956.

After moving in, he and his family set to work hauling off junk.

“We’ve already gotten five cars off, made one trip to the steel mill and eight trips to the dump,” he said. Then he stumbled on a surprise.

“We found like 200 uranium ore sample bags on shelves. We found a bunch of slides with elevation markings that fit under a microscope, one of which has United Nuclear written on it.” They also found a marked syringe containing an unknown green substance.

“We found a bunch of stuff that says Kerr-McGee on it, and mining helmets, mining drill bits, lots and lots of cables in the yard and by the shed. We found things that we don’t even know what they are,” he said.

“One item, which resembles an air pressure gauge, has numbers and percentages on it and says ‘uranium’ at the top. Some of the items were in shelves inside storage sheds, he said. Some of it was laying back in the corner by the shelves. Some of it we found just raking in different places.

“The uranium meter thing freaked me out and the slides freaked me out. We found one blasting cap, but we got rid of it,” he said.

Simonson believes the roof to the larger storage shed might have been made from old piping from a mine or mill.

“They’re coupled together and welded to the shed roof. There are two wooden sheds out in the back. One of them used to be a locker room or something for Kerr-McGee because it’s got all their stuff written down on how many truckloads they were getting a day,” he said.

The writing is on a piece of wood used to frame in the window to the laundry room.
They found clipboards from United Nuclear Corp.’s Churchrock Mine, parts used in a ball mill, 4-by-4 foot vent fans, bottles commonly used for yellowcake samples, parts of conveyor belts and the rollers.

Robin Webb of New Mexico Mining Museum said she did not know what the uranium gauge might have been used for, but added that the museum's board meets next Friday and she thought someone on the board might be able to identify it. The gauge also could be submitted for donation to the museum, she said.

“We found a really old decrepit book about Mr. Kerr and Mr. McGee. It was almost falling into dust but we bagged it up and put it somewhere.

“When you start digging in the dirt you can see where they put fill dirt by where the house is. The rest is just dirt. You can dig and see almost layers of the tailings that have blown. They’re whitish like over there,” he said, pointing across the back yard to Homestake.

“At night time you can smell it from over there when the wind’s blowing the right way. You can smell the tailings pond itself. It smells like every other tailings pond I’ve been around. It doesn’t have a clean smell to it.”

Simonson’s dad worked at Kerr-McGee’s Section 35. He died of liver and lung cancer and Simonson’s mother later received survivor’s benefits under the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act.

“I didn’t work in it; I just grew up by it,” he said. Simonson’s new home and virtual mining museum has not been surveyed for radioactivity, although he would like to have someone come in and do just that.

“That’s one thing that was in the contract. It said that it had not been tested for radioactivity, or something like that, but there was nothing about the well water being contaminated,” he said.

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15th Protecting Mother Earth Conference - July 17th-20th

Submitted by Western Shoshne Defense Project
"Enough is enough. This earth is our mother. If we keep on contaminating her and abusing her where are we going to go? Everything should come to a standstill and we should take a look at ourselves and what we are doing to the earth.
Carrie Dann -
Western Shoshone Grandmother

As Western Shoshone, we are honored to welcome our brothers and sisters from around the world to our beautiful homeland, share with you our struggle, and learn about your struggles and strong works in your own homelands.

This conference will be an important opportunity for Indigenous peoples and our allies to come together in a good way to strengthen our solidarity and find ways to work together to protect our Mother Earth for all life. We look forward to seeing you soon!

Thank you,
Larson Bill
Western Shoshone Defense Project

"ANSWERING MOTHER EARTHS CALL FOR HEALING REAFFIRMING OUR ROOTS"
July 17-20th, 2008
Newe Sogobe (Western Shoshone) Territories
Located at the (So Ho Bee) South Fork Pow-Wow Grounds in Lee, Nevada (approximately 22 miles South of Elko, Nevada)

Traditional Gathering – Sacred Fire, Sweats, Camping Style, Circle Talks - Meals provided, bring your own reusable eating utensils.

Donations welcomed at the entrance, but not required, please leave dogs and pets home.
Click Here to Signup for the conference online.
Véase abajo para Versión española

For more information, contact:
Simone Senogles, IEN,
(218) 751-4967,
Email: simone@ienearth.org

Larson Bill, WSDP,
(775) 744-2595,
Email: wsdp@igc.org
For printable flyer and Agenda please check out our website:http://www.mynewsletterbuilder.com/tools/refer.php?s=213695755&u=18137345

Topics To Include:
Traditional L.A.W.S. (Land, Air, Water, Sun);
Mineral Extraction, Energy, Climate Change, Water;
Rescinding the Doctrine of Discovery;
Food Sovereignty;
Un-Doing Colonialism;
Youth Activities;
Organizing and Action Trainings;

Indigenous-Based Environmental Protection & Ecological Knowledge
Hosted by: Western Shoshone Defense Project (WSDP)
Sponsored by: Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN)

For assistance in travel or hotel arrangements, contact:
JUST TRAVEL (775-738-9847)
There is an AMTRAK Station in Elko, NV - for schedules click here.
We are able to help coordinate rides for those who wish to rideshare
Free shuttles are available for those taking the train or flying into Elko, NV
No Alcohol, No Smoking of Marijuana and Illegal Drug Use

Daycare Available
Camping available~ Camping is free at the site.
Some local host homes will also be available (Elders and international guests will be given priority

Note: Nearest hotel (at your own cost) is 30 miles away from conference site.
Craft/art booths are available for a small fee on a first come first serve basis.

Donations needed: The Indigenous Environmental Network and the Western Shoshone Defense Project would like to thank those who have donated funding and or volunteer time to the conference.

If you have not already given and would like to help support the conference we are still in need of donated funds to help us bring people in on travel scholarships, particularly youth who need travel assistance. Donations of frequent flyer tickets are also very welcome!

Volunteers make the Protecting Mother Earth Conference possible: We still need many volunteers!

Weather~ Gathering place is hot during the day (80's Fahrenheit), and chilly (40's Fahrenheit) in the evenings. Be prepared for hiking, walking in the water, and being near the mountains.

This Conference may be photographed or video taped. By submitting your registration for the Conference you are consenting to being photographed and video taped while attending and for the potential use of your image for education and informational purposes.

For Craft Booths, Rideshare postings, Elko Shuttle, Donations and Volunteering, as well as general questions, please contact Simone at 218-751-4967 or simone@ienearth.org

The Indigenous Environmental Network • PO Box 485 • Bemidji • MN • 56619

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