Friday, Saturday & Sunday, July 19-21
Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center, 3801 W. Government Way, Seattle, WA, Discovery Park
Author: Kim Kalliber
US Navy’s “Green Fleet” sparks praise and cynicism
By Lucy Wescott, Inter Press Service
The United States military, an organisation that consumes 90 percent of the country’s federal oil allowance, is trying to become a greener institution.
The U.S. Navy has said that by 2016 it will run one of its 11 carrier strike groups using biofuel. In a test run of the new approach in the Pacific Ocean, a novel mixture of jet fuel, algae and cooking grease powered FA-18 Super Hornets, a type of fighter aircraft.
Within a decade, half of the Air Force and Navy’s fuel needs will be met by alternative energy sources, according to Christopher Merrill, director of the International Writer’s Program at the University of Iowa.
Merrill, who penned an essay for Orion Magazine titled ‘The Future of War‘, suggested that with climate change posing an increasing threat to U.S. national security, another name for this pioneering strike group could be the Great Green Fleet.
The military also believes that the threat of climate change to U.S. security is not simply a temporary trend, Merrill said.
“I don’t view this as a one-off thing, I view this as somebody trying to look into the future, trying to figure out what (we) are going to have to do to defend the country,” Merrill said.
Climate change and security
In 2010, the Department of Defence recognised in its Quadrennial Defence Review (QDR) that climate change and energy will both play “significant roles in the future security environment”.
The military’s look towards a more sustainable future was confirmed by a report released by the Executive Office of the President last month, which affirmed U.S. President Barack Obama’s commitment to lower U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent of 2005 levels by 2020.
The report rendered the effect of climate disasters difficult to ignore: last year was the second most expensive year on record for the United States, with 11 weather-related natural disasters costing over 110 billion dollars in damages.
Marcus King, associate research professor of international affairs at the George Washington University, believes that threats from climate change would affect not only the United States through phenomena such as sea-level rise and droughts but the rest of the world as well.
The United States ought to be concerned that other nations, including U.S. allies, “could be constrained because they don’t have (the) adaptive capacity (to deal with climate change),” King told IPS.
Some, such as journalist Thomas Friedman, believe that issues around food security in Syria were the catalyst for the uprising there that began two years ago. And as climate change causes more humanitarian crises, the U.S. Navy will continue to assist in disaster relief and recovery, King pointed out.
“Once you look at global climate change as a threat, Africa has the least resistance…(and) it’s of strategic importance to the U.S.,” King said.
The Department of Defence recognised the potential increase in the Navy’s response to disasters abroad, reporting in the QDR that climate change is one factor “whose complex interplay may spark or exacerbate future conflicts”, along with cultural tensions and new strains of diseases.
Good PR?
But Leah Bolger, formerly with the U.S. Navy and now a peace activist, believes the green move to be more a publicity stunt than a progressive statement signalling changing times.
“I spent my (twenty) years in the military ambivalent about what the military policies were in foreign policy. It was a job…I didn’t really question my part in the military machine,” Bolger told IPS.
Now, however, Bolger called the Navy’s decision to make one carrier strike group green by 2016 “laughable”.
“(The green move is) like a page out of a PR book – something they can put out in their public affairs office to say, ‘We’re so mindful of the environment,’” Bolger said.
Still, one additional advantage of the green move is that the potential demand for alternative fuels could create a new market, Merrill told IPS. Already tax credits are being granted to wind farms, according to him.
“Once that market gets established, it’s likely that you’ll see the kind of innovations that came in the wake of the invention of the Internet,” he predicted.
Nevertheless, a change in the military’s energy consumption doesn’t necessarily mean a change in the behaviour of Americans, who consumed 19 percent of the world’s total energy resources in 2010, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, despite comprising around five percent of the global population.
Even if Americans knew about the Great Green Fleet, Bolger said, it wouldn’t do much to change their habits.
While the Great Green Fleet doesn’t necessarily improve the operational abilities of the Navy, the impetus is noble, King said. “If they have the ability to create demand (for alternative fuels)… I think that’s great, as long as it’s consistent with national security, which it is.”
Manitoba grand chief challenges AFN
Derek Nepinak tosses Indian status card in trash, promises new direction for First Nations
Source: CBC news
Manitoba’s grand chief is promising a new direction for Canada’s First Nations — one that would not include the Indian Act or the Assembly of First Nations — at a gathering of chiefs taking place this week.
Grand Chief Derek Nepinak of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs is heading up the National Treaty Gathering on the Onion Lake Cree Nation in Saskatchewan, which could result in the creation of a breakaway group separate from the AFN.
Nepinak has been talking about forming the National Treaty Alliance, citing too much rhetoric and not enough action from the AFN on First Nations issues.
“As these institutions have become more politicized and more developed along bureaucratic lines, we’ve lost them,” Nepinak said at the meeting Monday.
In a bold symbolic gesture, Nepinak threw his government-issued Indian status card into the trash — a sign of what he said he wants to do for First Nations people.
“This Indian Act card is done with me and I’m done with it,” Nepinak said, before he stood up and tossed his card into a garbage can.
Currently, Canada’s First Nations people are governed by the federal Indian Act, which was created in 1876. Under the act, a status Indian has rights to health, education, and tax exemptions for which other Canadians don’t qualify.
But Nepinak said he no longer wants anything to do with the legislation.
“Do something with that Indian card but distance yourself from it as much as you can,” he said.
“We need to recreate treaty cards and put our faith back in one another again. I think that’s how we deconstruct the Indian Act.”
Atleo calls for unity
At the Assembly of First Nations’ meeting in Whitehorse, National Chief Shawn Atleo warned an audience of more than 200 chiefs on Tuesday that conditions for Canada’s First Nations won’t improve if they split into factions.
Atleo called for unity and told delegates that the AFN strives to respect the sovereignty of First Nations while “being careful not to overstep” its boundaries.
“Our agenda, the First Nations agenda, requires that everyone come together … just as Treaty 7 pulled First Nations together to deal with the rising water,” he said, referring to the recent floods in Alberta.
A call for unity should not be confused with a call for assimilation or cultural hegemony, said Atleo, adding that the AFN supports individual nations negotiating treaty issues with the federal government.
Potential impact on treaty process
Some have expressed concern that having some chiefs split off into a new group could potentially hurt the treaty negotiation process.
“To create something separate and distinct from the AFN on treaty issues may result in a weakening of positions because not everyone will participate,” said Aimee Craft, a lawyer in Winnipeg.
But Jamie Wilson, Manitoba’s treaty commissioner, said Nepinak is prompting a much-needed dialogue about the state of Canada’s treaties.
“We’re talking about issues that a lot of people don’t understand, and when there’s a lack of understanding, there’s a lot of prejudice,” he said.
Wilson said treaties were signed between First Nations and the Crown to mutually benefit both groups, but those agreements have not been implemented.
A decision on whether a new breakaway group should be created is expected to be made later this week.
Victory at Last: Apache Activist Helps Pass HIV/AIDS Confidentiality Resolution
By Eisa Ulen, Indian Country Today Media Network
A resolution in support of the Public Health and Safety Code of the San Carlos Apache Tribe (SCAT) has passed that will directly impact the lives of Natives living with HIV/AIDS. According to SCAT HIV/AIDS Coalition Chair and Public Health Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Anita L. Brock, this resolution should help curtail the spread of communicable infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS. It offers tribal members “the system needed to continuously address the threat such diseases pose to the San Carlos Apache community,” Brock says. “The implementation of such a Code supports enforcement of public health responsibilities and the authority needed to identify the risk factors associated with the spread of infectious disease.”
According to HIV/AIDS activist Isadore Boni, a SCAT member and key supporter of the resolution, passage of this resolution does much more: “HIV/AIDS confidentiality is now in our health codes.”
Boni explains that this resolution “allows the protection and confidentiality of public health information and patient privacy, especially for those who have been infected by HIV/AIDS.” Another key component of this resolution, according to Boni, is that it renders HIV testing optional for SCAT members. “There was talk of doing mandatory testing,” he says, “but I advocated against it.”
According to Brock, who worked with the primary team in development of the code now in place, this new resolution benefits not just enrolled SCAT members, but Natives throughout Indian country. “The code adds to the infrastructure needed to make decisions that will benefit all tribal members,” she explains. “They will be the benefactors of a system which values their privacy and continuity of care. In addition, Indian country is quite vast with over 500 tribes, and each tribe may make this determination. From a purely public health perspective, the benefits are self-evident.”
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that American Indians and Alaska Natives ranked fifth in rates of HIV infection in 2011, “with lower rates than blacks/African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Native Hawaiians/Other Pacific Islanders, and people reporting multiple races, but higher rates than Asians and whites.” However, American Indians and Alaska Natives have poorer survival rates than all other ethnicities and races.
Boni believes the official CDC numbers documenting the rates of HIV infection among Natives may be significantly lower than the actual rates of HIV/AIDS throughout Indian country.
“I personally know more people on my reservation that have HIV than what our Indian Health Service has in San Carlos,” Boni claims. “People like me get tested in the city, so our numbers do not get counted, and agencies and even tribes do not share information. So how many people actually have HIV/AIDS? No one really knows.”
Boni was diagnosed with HIV and Hepatitis C in 2002. He relocated to Phoenix, Arizona for treatment. “There was, and still are, no services for tribal members who are HIV positive on the reservation.” He says he was homeless in Phoenix for two years and lived on the streets, in halfway houses, and in shelters. He was beaten, and his medications were stolen. He worked as a laborer making minimum wage by day, to try to put together funds to pay for shelter and food at night. On World AIDS Day in 2004, Boni shared his story for the first time, and he has been a public advocate supporting the lives of HIV positive Natives ever since.
“Confidentiality has always been a problem on my reservation,” Boni says. “Many people have shared with me that their health information was disclosed without their consent.”
Boni, who has a bachelor’s degree in social work from Arizona State University, goes on to say that privacy rules and regulations had not been in practice in San Carlos. “It got to a boiling point for me. I assertively pushed the San Carlos Health Department to do something about this.”
Partly due to his efforts, the resolution passed in time for National HIV Testing Day, in June of this year. “HIV disclosure is painful, not only for the individual but their families,” Boni explains. This new code protects them.
“I know the decision-makers in our health department are still clueless as to the impact HIV/AIDS has on our reservation,” Boni continues. “To them it’s not a priority, but I remind them over and over that this health crisis is serious. No San Carlos Apache tribal member should have to die of AIDS complications in order to prove that this is a problem. Period.”
Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/07/17/victory-last-apache-activist-helps-pass-hivaids-confidentiality-resolution-150460
California State admits traditional management more effective than marine reserves; Annual recreational abalone harvest reduced
By Dan Bacher, Intercontinental Cry
State officials and representatives of some corporate “environmental” NGOs have constantly touted the so-called “marine protected areas” created under the privately-funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative as a “science-based” method for bolstering fish and shellfish populations in California.
Yet a recent California Fish and Game Commission decision revealed that traditional fishery management, rather than the marine protected areas supported by the Western States Petroleum Association, Safeway Corporation and other corporate interests under the MLPA Initiative, may be much more effective in addressing fishery declines than the creation of questionable “marine protected areas.”
The Commission on June 26 voted to modify abalone fishery regulations along the northern California coast. By doing this, the Commission effectively admitted that fishing regulations, rather than alleged “marine reserves” that went into effect on the North Central Coast on May 1, 2010 and on the North Coast on December 19, 2012, are the “solution” to reducing pressure on a declining abalone population. The decline was spurred by a die-off that coincided with a local red tide bloom and calm ocean conditions in 2011.
The Commission voted to reduce the annual limit to 18 abalone (previously 24), with no more than nine taken from Sonoma and Marin counties. Other changes to abalone regulations included a coast-wide start time for the fishing day of 8 a.m. and a closure at Ft. Ross in Sonoma County.
The changes were proposed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and then adopted by the Commission.
“The new management measures we’ve adopted today will help ensure that the red abalone remains abundant on the North Coast and the popular recreational fishery there continues to thrive,” said Commission President Michael Sutton. “Our job is to keep wildlife populations in California healthy and not wait for a crisis to take action.”
Jim Martin, the West Coast Regional Director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance and representative of the Sonoma County Abalone Network (SCAN), responded, “Apparently Fish and Wildlife believes that traditional fishery management is more effective than marine protected areas in rebuilding fishery stocks – and that reductions in harvest are more effective than closing down areas.”
Martin noted that the abalone decline – caused by a die-off and not overharvesting – occurred in 2011. SCAN immediately supported a temporary closure at the Fort Ross index site to help the population to recover.
“They extended this temporary closure to a year round one,” said Martin. “We supported both that closure and an 8 am start time to help enforcement, as well as reduced bag limit south of Mendocino County.”
However, the abalone fishermen felt the reduction of the bag limit from 24 to 18 was “completely unnecessary.”
“What they really did was reduced the allowable recreational catch from 280,000 to 190,000 abalone, over a 30 percent reduction. And the Abalone Recovery and Management Plan only called for a 25 percent reduction,” said Martin.
In the course of discussing the regulations, Martin and other fishermen asked the Department to quantify the benefits of marine protected areas to the fishery.
The MPAs were touted by MLPA officials, including Ron LeValley, the Co-Chair of the MLPA Initiative Science Advisory team now being investigated by federal authorities for conspiracy with two others to embezzle nearly $1 million from the Yurok Tribe, because of the “benefits” they would provide by bolstering abalone and fish populations. (http://www.times-standard.com/… )
“The CDFW refused to quantify the benefits because they said it would take too long,” said Martin. “We believe there should be some benefit to quantify these benefits based on science.”
“The whole selling point of these MPAs is that they would make fish and shellfish populations more abundant,” said Martin. “The first test of that theory turned to be based on false promises.”
Martin emphasized, “We don’t think these marine protected areas benefit abalone at all. If they benefit abalone, give us some numbers. Instead they turned to traditional management to deal with a situation wasn’t harvest related.”
The CDFW press release announcing the regulations confirms Martin’s contention that the Department effectively admitted that the marine protected areas weren’t benefiting the abalone at all.
“Northern California red abalone are managed adaptively by the Commission, using traditional management measures coupled with fishery independent surveys to maintain the catch at sustainable levels, as prescribed by the Abalone Recovery and Management Plan (ARMP). Ongoing data surveys by the Department of Fish and Wildlife detected the effects of a recent abalone die-off along the Sonoma coast,” the Department stated.
“The declines in abalone density triggered the changes to management measures, because the densities dropped below levels that are prescribed in the ARMP for management action,” the release continued.
“The new regulations are intended to provide an opportunity for abalone populations in Sonoma and Marin to increase, and to help Mendocino County maintain a productive fishery. The set start time for the fishing day will also aid enforcement,” the DFW said.
Not mentioned anywhere in the news release are the “glorious” new marine protected areas, created under an allegedly “open, transparent and inclusive” process, that were supposed to bolster the populations of abalone and other species.
The release also didn’t mention the reasons for the abalone die-off and how to prevent a similar situation from taking place in the future.
Background: MLPA Initiative based on terminally flawed “science”
The “science” that the MLPA Initiative is based on is very questionable, leading tribal biologists, independent scientists, fishing groups and grassroots environmentalists to challenge its assumptions, methodology and conclusions.
The Northern California Tribal Chairman’s Association, including the Chairs of the Elk Valley Rancheria, Hoopa Valley Tribe, Karuk Tribe, Smith River Rancheria, Trinidad Rancheria, and Yurok Tribe, believes the science behind the MLPA Initiative developed by Schwarzenegger’s Science Advisory Team is “incomplete and terminally flawed.” (http://yubanet.com/…)
The Yurok Tribe said it has attempted on numerous occasions to address the scientific inadequacies with the MLPA science developed under the Schwarzenegger administration by adding “more robust protocols” into the equation, but was denied every time.
For example, the MLPA Science Advisory Team in August 2010 turned down a request by the Yurok Tribe to make a presentation to the panel. Among other data, the Tribe was going to present data of test results from other marine reserves regarding mussels.
“The data would have shown that there was not a statistical difference in the diversity of species from the harvested and un-harvested areas,” wrote John Corbett, Yurok Tribe Senior Attorney, in a letter to the Science Advisory Team on January 12, 2011. “The presentation would have encompassed the work of Smith, J.R. Gong and RF Ambrose, 2008, ‘The Impacts of Human Visitation on Mussel Bed Communities along the California Coast: Are Regulatory Marine Reserves Effective in Protecting these Communities.’” (http://yubanet.com/…)
No Tribal scientists were allowed to serve on the MLPA Science Advisory Team, in spite of the fact that the Yurok and other North Coast Indian Tribes have large natural resources and fisheries departments staffed with many fishery biologists and other scientists.
On the day of the historic direct action protest by a coalition of over 50 Tribes and their allies in Fort Bragg in July 2010, Frankie Joe Myers, Yurok Tribal member and Coastal Justice Coalition activist, exposed the refusal to incorporate Tribal science that underlies the fake “science” of the MLPA process.
“The whole process is inherently flawed by institutionalized racism,” said Myers. “It doesn’t recognize Tribes as political entities, or Tribal biologists as legitimate scientists.” (http://klamathjustice.blogspot.com/…)
To make matters even worse, the Del Norte County District Attorney arrested Ron LeValley, Co-Chair of the MLPA Science Advisory Team, in February 2012 for conspiracy with two others, Roland Raymond and Sean McAlllister, to embezzle nearly $1 million from the Yurok Tribe.
In January, District Attorney Jon Alexander said the state case was dismissed without prejudice against Raymond, LeValley and McAllister to “allow the case to move forward through the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” according to the Eureka Times-Standard. (http://www.times-standard.com/…)
Wouldn’t it have been prudent for the Natural Resources Agency and Department of Fish and Wildlife to have postponed the implementation of the alleged North Coast “marine protected areas” until this case had been resolved in the courts – and when the legitimacy of the “science” of the MLPA Initiative was already facing severe criticism from well-respected scientists?
The Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) is a landmark law, signed by Governor Gray Davis in 1999, designed to create a network of marine protected areas off the California Coast. However, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2004 created the privately-funded MLPA “Initiative” to “implement” the law, effectively eviscerating the MLPA.
The “marine protected areas” created under the MLPA Initiative fail to protect the ocean from oil spills and drilling, water pollution, military testing, wave and wind energy projects, corporate aquaculture and all other uses of the ocean other than fishing and gathering. These areas are not “marine protected areas” in any real sense, but are just “no fishing” zones.
The MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces that oversaw the implementation of “marine protected areas” included a big oil lobbyist, marina developer, real estate executive and other individuals with numerous conflicts of interest. Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the president of the Western States Petroleum Association, served on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force for the North Coast and North Central Coast.
Reheis-Boyd, a relentless advocate for offshore oil drilling, hydraulic fracturing (fracking), the Keystone XL Pipeline and the weakening of environmental laws, also chaired the South Coast MLPA Blue Ribbon Task that developed the MPAs that went into effect in Southern California waters on January 1, 2012.
The MLPA Initiative operated through a controversial private/public partnership funded by the shadowy Resources Legacy Fund Foundation. The Schwarzenegger administration, under intense criticism by grassroots environmentalists, fishermen and Tribal members, authorized the implementation of marine protected areas under the initiative through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the foundation and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Tribes, Utility Protect Salmon Eggs
K. Neumeyer, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission
A rainy April and a hotter-than-normal week in May created a challenge for the steelhead fry expected to emerge in Au- gust.
The rain, combined with heavy snow- melt after a string of 80-degree days in May, built up in the reservoir of Seattle City Light’s Skagit River Hydroelectric Project. To prevent an overflow that could scour out steelhead redds (nests), the utility released more water than usual, increasing the flow of the Skagit River. As a result, spawning steelhead dug redds in places at risk of being dewatered before the last fry emerge this summer, when flows are lower.
Water management in the Skagit Riv- er is guided in part by spawning surveys conducted by biologists Stan Walsh of the Skagit River System Cooperative and Dave Pflug of Seattle City Light. The Skagit River System Cooperative is the natural resources extension of the Swinomish and Sauk-Suiattle tribes.
Based on data gathered by Walsh and Pflug, Seattle City Light will release enough water in August to keep vulnerable steelhead eggs under water.
Walsh and Pflug have monitored salmon and steelhead redds between Rockport and Newhalem on the Upper Skagit River since 1995. They document new redds, note the condition of existing redds, and measure the depth of the shallowest redds to make sure the river’s flow stays high enough for those eggs to survive, but not so high that the eggs are washed away.
They also share data with state fisheries co-managers to help forecast run sizes.
“Seattle City Light has been a great part- ner to the tribes in water management,” Walsh said. “They’ve gone out of their way to protect fish beyond what’s required in their license agreement.”
NYT: Photos of Tlingit country in Alaska at turn of the century
Source: Indianz.com
The Lens blog of The New York Times explores a new book, A Russian American Photographer in Tlingit Country:
The black-and-white photograph taken in Killisnoo, Alaska, at the turn of the 20th century depicts a group of fishermen reeling in a gigantic halibut. The image is lighthearted and almost comical: workers smile as the imposing creature writhes perilously close to them. What makes the photograph (Slide 5) unusual is not its subject matter but its subjects. The fishermen, working in apparent harmony, represent a cross section of the population of Killisnoo, an island off southeastern Alaska that was an important outpost for American businesses and tourism. Several of the men are white; at least two are Native American, members of the Tlingit community; and one is Asian. Taken at a time when racial integration was the exception and not the rule in the United States, the image by Vincent Soboleff, a Russian-American amateur photographer, is noteworthy. As the Dartmouth anthropologist Sergei A. Kan argues in his new book, “A Russian American Photographer in Tlingit Country: Vincent Soboleff in Alaska” (University of Oklahoma Press), Mr. Soboleff’s images of the United States territory, especially its Native population, are also significantly different from others of the period.
Get the Story:
Lens: A Russian-American Photographing Native Alaska (The New York Times 7/17)
Native boxers set sights on 2020 Olympics
TOP: San Carlos Apache boxer Tommy Nosie (left) spars with Nico Martinez of the Menominee Indian Boxing Club of Wisconsin during the 2013 All Indian Boxing Championships in San Carlos, Ariz.
By Quentin Jodie, Navajo Times
The host city of the 2020 Summer Olympic Games has yet to be determined but Greg Parsons is thinking big.
As the promoter of the 2013 All Indian Boxing Championships, Parsons is prophesying that we’ll have a Native American boxer competing in those games.
“I am looking at some of our 15- and 16-year-old kids,” Parsons said. “Some of them competed at the JO (Junior Olympics) this year and they placed real high.”
Of course that conversation depends on what happens to the fate of the boxing climate within the Native American community.
Parson said in years past, the AIBC has attracted as much as 90 fighters back in his heydays. But last year the event only drew in 32 boxers, which featured only four championship bouts.
This year, however, the numbers were a bit healthier as 52 boxers showed up, which was held at the Apache Gold Casino and Resort in San Carlos, Ariz., on July 4-6.
“We need consistency,” Parson said. “Sometimes this event goes away for one year and it comes back another. It’s really about consistency because for some Native kids this is the biggest tournament they look forward to.
“If this is not around they could lose interest for a whole year,” he added. “If we can keep this going I am sure we can get someone to the Olympics. We just need to so support them and send them places and give them the best fights we can. Maybe we can schedule some international bouts.”
Parsons said it’s imperative to keep the AIBC event ongoing and in the future he would like for the event to be move to other sites.
“I believe it will be back in San Carlos next year but we would like to spread this around as much as we can,” he said.
At this year’s event, Parsons said they ended up with 54 fights including 17 tournament bouts.
“I think we did pretty good,” he said. “We got teams from Canada, Wisconsin, Oregon, Utah, Washington and South Dakota.”
The Wisconsin team, which was represented by the Menominee Indian Boxing Club, brought in eight fighters ranging from 9 to 14 years old.
“Everyone got a ‘W’ this weekend,” said Jason Komanenkin, who co-serves as the MIBC coach along with Arnold Peters and Gerald Wayka Jr. “We are very happy with the results. We got eight national Native American champions.”
One of those fighters is Leon Peters, who went 2-0 in the 110-pound category in the 11-12 age group.
“My coaches told me what to do,” said Peters, while adding that his right hand is his best punch.
Last December, Peters also went 2-0 and won the National Silver Gloves Championship in Kansas City, Mo., after qualifying in a regional meet in South Dakota.
“I won my first match by a split decision,” Peters said. “I drove him with my right hand and he started running (away from me.) I practically chased him down.”
In his next match, he stopped his opponent with a TKO in the second round to win the title.
“I was proud that I brought the title home to my tribe,” he said.
According to his dad, Arnold Peters, his son prepared for that tournament by sparring with kids older than him.
“He’s big for his age,” Arnold Peters said of his son. “In a lot of tournaments we went to the normal-sized kids would not fight him so we moved him up. He lost a lot of those fights and his spirits was down but I just told him to keep going.”
Besides Leone Peters, the MIBC also got one of its fighters to compete at a national event as Antonio Makhimetas boxed at the 2013 USA Boxing Junior Olympic National Championships in Mobile, Ala., two weeks ago.
“I think he beat the best 145-pounder in the country,” Komanenkin said, “but the judges didn’t think so.”
According to Arnold Peters, they started their gym four months ago as a way to get kids off the streets.
“We got 16 kids in our basement but we’re doing our best to keep the kids off drugs and alcohol,” Peters said.
The former boxing pro said it’s a shame that they have those issues on the reservation but a lot of people in the community are thanking them for the service they provide.
“They like what we’re doing,” he said. “We don’t have much but we’re taking what we have and turning them into champs.”
– See more at: http://www.navajotimes.com/sports/2013/0713/071113box.php#sthash.0xP8IHCi.dpuf
5 Genetically Modified Foods You Should Never Eat
Source: Indian Country Today Media Network
Since genetically engineered foods were introduced in 1996, the United States has experienced as upsurge in low birth-weight babies, infertility and an increase in cancer.
Agricultural tech giants like Monsanto have restricted independent research on their crops, which is legal, because under U.S. law, genetically engineered crops are patentable. The studies that have been conducted link genetically modified foods to a vast array of diseases—and long-term effects have yet to be measured.
Below, Indian Country Today Media Network rounds up the five most deadly genetically modified crops or substances on the market that you should avoid at all cost.
1. Corn
This is not our ancestors’ corn. Genetically modified corn contains toxic materials and is at least 20 percent less nutritious for our bodies, according to a report titled “2012 Nutritional Analysis” by globalresearch.ca.
Corn is the worst offender on the GMO list, because at least 65 percent of the U.S. corn production is genetically modified, and it is found in so many products and forms—on the cob, in nearly every processed food with corn syrup, in the corn feed consumed by the chickens and cows you may eat, and the list goes on.
Genetically engineered corn contains the highly toxic gene Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis), which Monsanto introduced in the 1990s to make plants immune to Roundup, which is Monsanto’s weed and insect killer that tears into the stomachs of certain pests.
According to Sherbrooke University Hospital in Canada, Bt has been found in the blood of humans, including in 93 percent of pregnant women they tested, in 80 percent of the umbilical blood in their babies, and in 67 percent of non-pregnant women tested.
2. Soy
More than 90 percent of soybeans grown in the United States are genetically modified, and animal studies have shown devastating effects from genetically engineered soy, including allergies, sterility, birth defects, and offspring death rates up to five times higher than normal, according to Dr. Joseph Mercola in the Huffington Post.
Americans typically consume unfermented soy, mostly in the form of soymilk, tofu, TVP, and soy infant formula, which have at least 10 adverse effects on the body, like reducing one’s ability to assimilate essential nutrients and increasing the potential for thyroid cancer.
3. Sugar Beets
Sugar beets comprise more than 50 percent of U.S. sugar production, while sugar cane counts for the remainder, Natural News reports. Last year, the USDA deemed genetically modified sugar beets safe, de-regulating the crop. Now the hazards of an already toxic substance are exacerbated, presenting the likelihood of increased cancer rates, changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal tract, allergic reactions, infertility and accelerated aging.
But all sugar is best avoided, according to a specialist in pediatric hormone disorders and the leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco, Robert Lustig. “Sugar is not just an empty calorie, its effect on us is much more insidious. It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s a poison by itself,” Lustig says.
4. Aspartame
This fake sugar substitute is made from genetically modified bacteria and is used in basically every diet soda and product on the market.
Aspartame “has been linked to a number of diseases, can impair the immune system, and is even known to cause cancer,” Natural News reported. In one study, of the 48 rats given aspartame, up to 67 percent of all female rats developed tumors roughly the size of golf balls or larger.
5. Canola
Canola—marketed as being void of “bad fats”—is a genetically engineered oil developed in Canada from the Rapeseed plant, which is part of the rape or mustard plant family.
Rapeseed oil is poisonous to insects and used as a repellent.
So while olive oil is made from olives and coconut oil is made from coconuts, canola oil is made from the rapeseed. Canola is short for “Canadian oil low acid.”
Agri-Alternatives, a magazine for the farming industry, notes “By nature, these rapeseed oils, which have long been used to produce oils for industrial purposes, are… toxic to humans and other animals.”
But, canola oil companies insist that through genetic engineering, it is no longer rapeseed, but “canola” instead.
According to Dr. Josh Axe, “It’s an industrial oil, not a food, and has been used in candles, soaps, lipsticks, lubricants, inks and biofuels. Rapeseed oil is what is used to make mustard gas. In its natural state, it causes respiratory distress, constipation, emphysema, anemia, irritability and blindness.”
Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/07/15/5-genetically-modified-foods-you-should-never-eat-150434
Cedar Grove odor complaints return
By Bill Sheets, the Herald
EVERETT — As the weather keeps heating up, so again are the complaints against Cedar Grove Composting.
The Smith Island business was cited for four odor violations last month by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.
Inspectors for the agency recently traced the smells from residences in Marysville to the composting plant, twice June 6 and twice again June 25, agency spokeswoman Joanne Todd said.
The citations bring the total to 13 in the past five years for Cedar Grove. The plant has received numerous other odor complaints during that time from people living in Marysville and north Everett. The company also has received four written warnings in those five years.
A Cedar Grove official said information from its odor monitors contradict the clean air agency’s information regarding the June 6 complaints. As of Friday the company hadn’t yet received the violation notices for June 25, company spokeswoman Susan Thoman said in an email.
“Our on-site electronic odor monitoring system indicated that no detectable odors left our property during the time cited by the (notices for June 6),” Thoman wrote. “We plan to share this monitoring information with the agency.”
The notices won’t necessarily result in disciplinary action against the company.
“It’s up to our supervisors to be able to work through that with Cedar Grove,” Todd said. “And they can appeal it.”
These citations were the first for Cedar Grove in 2013, Todd said.
In 2011, the company was fined $169,000 for odor violations going back several years at both its Everett plant and its plant in Maple Valley, King County.
The company appealed those fines to the Puget Sound Growth Management Hearings Board, a state regulatory panel. The fines were upheld but the board knocked $50,000 off in deference to Cedar Grove’s expenditures on measures to curb the odors.
The board said Cedar Grove to that point had spent $6.5 million on odor control at the two locations combined, some of it voluntarily and some as a result of earlier violations.
Cedar Grove collects yard and food waste from hauling companies in much of Snohomish and King counties and grinds it, cures it and sells it for compost in gardens.
In past years, complaints often have spiked early in the summer, corresponding with an increase in volume of waste being brought to the plant at Smith Island.
Cedar Grove officials have said other sources could be causing the odors. The remainder of Cedar Grove’s fine from 2011 — $119,000 — was put toward an odor study last year by the clean air agency.
The study will combine information from 10 electronic odor monitors, called “e-noses,” and recorded impressions from volunteers in an attempt to scientifically determine the source of the offensive stench.
The total cost of the study is $375,000.The city of Seattle and King County, which both have sent yard and food waste to Cedar Grove for composting, are putting up $100,000 and $50,000, respectively. The city of Seattle recently decided to end its arrangement with Cedar Grove effective next spring. The clean air agency is spending $25,000 on the study.
Four monitors are located at Cedar Grove, having been purchased previously by the company. One monitor each also has been placed at the wastewater treatment plants operated by Everett and Lake Stevens; the Cemex plant in north Everett; the clean air agency’s weather station in central Marysville; one at a volunteer’s home in Marysville and another at a home in Everett.
The results of the study are expected later this year.