Lodge owner apologizes to First Nations for offensive brochure

A Manitoba fly-in fishing lodge came under fire for a section in its brochure that claimed all First Nations have a genetic intolerance for alcohol.A Manitoba fly-in fishing lodge came under fire for a section in its brochure that claimed all First Nations have a genetic intolerance for alcohol. (laurieriverlodge.com)
A Manitoba fly-in fishing lodge came under fire for a section in its brochure that claimed all First Nations have a genetic intolerance for alcohol. (laurieriverlodge.com)

 

Brent Fleck of Laurie River Lodge in Manitoba calls offending section of brochure ‘stupid’

CBC News (Canada) Posted: May 29, 2014 6:40 AM CT Last Updated: May 29, 2014 9:03 AM CT

The owner of a Manitoba fishing lodge said he’s devastated by a section printed in his visitors guide that says aboriginals cannot handle alcohol, and has issued an apology.

“It was a total mistake and should not have been in there. It’s an old trip planning guide that I’ve used for like 15 years and I had no idea that that was even in there,” Brent Fleck of Laurie River Lodge said via phone from the facility near Lynn Lake, calling the offending section “stupid.”

“I’ve issued an apology to the chief down in Pukatawagan and to the natives that work for me and … it’s certainly not our opinion and not something that we want to forward in any way shape or form.”

The lodge’s Facebook page was filled with angry comments over a section of the 37-page brochure for people planning a trip to the lodge. A paragraph on Page 10 warns guests not to give alcohol to aboriginal guides.

“We take great care when hiring our staff, however the subject of native guides must be touched upon,” reads the section.

“We use Cree Indian guides from the town of Pukatawagon (sic) in northern Manitoba. They are wonderful people and fun to fish with however, like all native North Americans, they have a basic intolerance for alcohol. Please do not give my guides alcohol under any circumstances.”

Although Fleck said it was written 15 years ago, that section of the guide was noticed recently by someone and spread rapidly on social media.

Fleck said he has removed the offending guide from the lodge’s website and offered an explanation as to why it was there in the first place.

“You might be interested to hear that the paragraph in question was written years ago in an attempt to remove the pressure that a guide feels when his guest asks him if he would like a drink at shore lunch,” he told CBC News.

“We run a very high repeat business here at Laurie River and many of our guides have guided the same guests for 20 years or more. Friendships are cemented with great memories of days on the water. That same friendship puts a guide in an awkward position if a guest offers him an alcoholic beverage.

“He is a professional and he is responsible for the health and welfare of his guests while on the water. If he accepts the drink, his ability to ensure that safety is diminished. If he does not accept it he may feel that he runs the risk of offending the guest. The best solution is to let the guest know well beforehand that he should not offer,” Fleck added.

“The sentence was poorly worded and for that I feel horrible. When this whole thing first came to light I’m like, ‘Holy cow, how could I be so stupid. I had no intention of offending anyone and I feel horrible that I did.

“We take great pride in the professionalism of our entire staff here at Laurie River Lodge and I am always bragging about the quality of my guides. In my mind they are the best guides in Manitoba, maybe even all of Canada and I had absolutely no intention of insulting anyone.”

Chiefs demand apology

Once the story about the controversial brochure hit social media and the mainstream media on Wednesday, Manitoba First Nations chiefs called for an apology from the lodge.

Arlen Dumas, chief of the Mathias Colomb First Nation, which includes Pukatawagan, wrote a letter to Fleck on Wednesday and demanded he apologize for his “racist, discriminatory incitement of hatred.”

David Harper, grand chief of the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, which represents First Nations across northern Manitoba, was also outraged.

“It’s totally derogatory, totally treating us like an animal. Basically, you’re saying, ‘Do not feed the bears,’ right? ‘Don’t give alcohol to these First Nations.’

“Nobody in their right mind would say such comments.”

Fleck said he told Dumas he would comply with the chief’s requests to make things better.

“My only concern is that I’ve hurt some of the people who work for me and who have worked for me for over 20 years and that wasn’t my intention,” he said.

Backlash on Facebook page

The wording was denounced by people posting on the lodge’s Facebook page.

“Disgusting … it speaks volumes of your own intolerance to basic intelligence,” read one comment.

“An incredible display of racism,” read another.

Harper said the Manitoba government should look into the matter to see whether it could crack down on the lodge through licensing or some other mechanism.

“In order for licences to be approved, these kind of comments should also be a factor.”

Deputy Premier Eric Robinson, who is aboriginal and a former tourism minister, said an apology was necessary, but he was also giving the lodge owners the benefit of the doubt.

“I think it’s an oversight on their part and perhaps they didn’t proofread what was written.”

 

Millions March Against Monsanto Calling For Boycott Of GMOs

On May 24, millions of people from around the world participated in the March Against Monsanto, calling for the permanent boycott of genetically engineered foods and other harmful agro-chemicals.

 

By Eco Watch

 

On May 24, millions of people from around the world participated in the March Against Monsanto, calling for the permanent boycott of genetically engineered foods and other harmful agro-chemicals. Marches occurred on six continents, in 52 countries, with events in more than 400 cities, including 47 U.S. states.

Daniel Bissonnette, a very articulate 9-year-old, mesmerized listeners in this must-see video at a Vancouver, Canada, March Against Monsanto event, asking key questions on why children—the most vulnerable age group to ravages of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and pesticide—are subjected to the worst food possible.

“Monsanto’s predatory business and corporate agricultural practices threatens their generation’s health, fertility and longevity,” said Tami Monroe Canal, founder of March Against Monsanto (MAM) who was inspired to start the movement to protect her two daughters. “MAM supports a sustainable food production system. We must act now to stop GMOs and harmful pesticides.”

GMOs have been partially banned by Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Madeira, New Zealand, Peru, South America, Russia, France, Switzerland and Costa Rico, and are currently labelled in 62 countries. In India, more than 250,000 farmers have committed suicide after Monsanto’s Bt cotton seeds did not perform as promised. Farmers, left in desperate poverty, are opting to free their families of debt by drinking Monsanto pesticide, thereby ending their lives. Many farmers in other countries are also stripped of their livelihood as a result of false promises, seed patenting and meticulous legal action on the part of Monsanto and other big-ag interests. In many parts of Africa, farmers are left to choose between starving or eating GMOs.

“If we fail to realize that March Against Monsanto is not about GMOs alone, then we have already lost the battle,” said Kelly L. Derricks, founder of March Against Monsanto’s Agent Orange awareness program, which educates supporters on this deadly chemical weapon that Monsanto was the largest manufacturer of during the Vietnam War era.

An Open Letter from World Scientists to All Governments Concerning Genetically Modified Organisms is signed by 828 scientists from 84 countries and details concerns regarding GMOs coupled with a call for an immediate 5-year suspension of GMO crops in order to conduct “a comprehensive public enquiry of agriculture and food security for all.”

Firsthand Account Of Man Camp In North Dakota From Local Tribal Cop

By Damon Buckley, Lakota Country Times

 

 

Grace Her Many Horses has dedicated many years of her life to law enforcement. After this article was published she was removed from her position at Rosebud and has since returned to work on the Fort Berthold Reservation. Article is reprinted with permission from The Sicangu Eyapaha (Rosebud Sioux) tribal newspaper.
Grace Her Many Horses has dedicated many years of her life to law enforcement. After this article was published she was removed from her position at Rosebud and has since returned to work on the Fort Berthold Reservation. Article is reprinted with permission from The Sicangu Eyapaha (Rosebud Sioux) tribal newspaper.

ROSEBUD, SD – Former Rosebud Sioux Tribe Police Chief Grace Her Many Horses took a temporary job working in the Bakken Region near Newtown, North Dakota. This Bakken Basin stretches from Montana to North Dakota and it is rich in shale oil supplies. She began work in June of last year until October of the same year. It was her first experience with Man Camps. She seen them before while driving past on the way to pow-wows but this was going to be the very first time she would enter the premises and work the area as a law enforcement officer. This seasoned professional would be in for a rude surprise.

“When I first got there some of the things they talked about, in any of these areas, was they told the men ‘Don’t go out and party. Don’t get drunk and pass out. Because you’re going to get raped,” she said without hesitation.

It’s not exactly something you would expect to hear from a workers’ camp but these places are not exactly your ordinary laborers’ camps. The depth of depravity and dubious behavior are commonplace in these so-called Man Camps. No one will say that all of the inhabitants are criminal but there is definitely an element there that has rocked the local law enforcement officials to the very core of their morals and value systems.

There are identifiable variables that remain constant: These oil workers usually come from desperate conditions. These workers usually have a family they have left elsewhere so they are not looking to start new relations. These workers are paid an excessive amount of money. These workers are well aware their employment is only temporary. These workers know they are living in a remote environment where law enforcement is already stretched beyond its limits and the temptation for criminal behavior is very strong. Unfortunately, most of America still cannot comprehend this information.

“Sexual assaults on the male population has increased by 75% in that area,” she continued. That kind of statistic makes maximum security prisons look like the minor league. “One of the things we ran into while working up there was a 15 year old boy had gone missing. He was found in one of the Man Camps with one of the oil workers. They were passing him around from trailer to trailer.”

He went there looking for a job and was hired by individuals within the Man Camp to do light cleaning in and around their personal areas. The young teenager was forced into sex slavery. It’s the kind of thing you hear about in the ghettos of third world countries; not in the quiet and remote countryside.

The victims aren’t just males but females too. Everyone has heard by now of the missing school teacher that was kidnapped as she was out jogging, repeatedly sexually assaulted, and murdered near one of these Man Camps. The age of the Man Camp victims varies. The assailants are not necessarily looking for male and female adults. They are also going after little girls.

Grace Her Many Horse recalls one specific instance where “We found a crying, naked, four year old girl running down one of the roads right outside of the Man Camp. She had been sexually assaulted.”

There has been a significant rise in prostitution, gambling, and organized crime in these Man Camps too. The oil workers enjoy being compensated at salaries far above that of the average American blue collar worker. So when their paydays come around the predators venture out of the camps and into nearby towns and places a little further down the road. They usually move in caravans of workers with large amounts of cash stuffed into their pockets. Their large payoffs give them the buying power to obtain anything they can think of including prostitutes and hardcore drugs that have never been seen in these towns before. It has a devastating effect on the local small towns.

This former tribal police chief’s first experience talking with prostitutes that cater to Man Camps came here on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation. She pulled over two vans heading out of town. They were filled with female passengers, again, of varying ages. They were heading in the direction of the Man Camps. One of the brazen occupants declared outright to this officer, “Well, you know why we are going up there.” It’s not something you would expect to hear from a woman but these passengers were determined to make it to their destination one way or another.

After taking a long breath followed by a sigh Officer Her Many Horse said, “That small tribal town has been through so much. When you go into to their casino around 11 at night you notice the flavor of the patrons has dramatically changed for the worse.” She speaks of her short time policing those camps and admits it was easy to notice how hard drugs and prostitution had increased dramatically.

She spoke with local Indians that said they used to frequent their casino but they stopped. Things had changed so much that a large number of locals dare not venture outside at night. There are strangers everywhere. Again, this is coming from a small town where most of its population is Native American and everyone had known each other’s first names and origin. Now it is hardly recognizable. Businesses were forced to open only to be shuttered later. Trash and debris has increased. Violence of all types has surged and the beauty of the land has been replaced with heavy construction vehicles and the destruction of lands once referred to as God’s Country. The traffic on local highways has increased significantly as well as the number of traffic accidents and its numerous victims that can no longer speak for themselves. Life goes on in these small Indian towns but it is a life that is bitter and strange.

Meth has been seen as having destructive effects on Indian communities before but now there are new drugs filtering onto Indian reservations from these Man Camps. “There is a new drug called Crocus. When you ingest it your skin boils from the inside-out. It leaves you with permanent scars on the surface of your skin that resembles the scales of a crocodile. It will literally eat your feet off, eat your limbs off. It’s horrible. That’s been introduced up there and it is more addictive than heroin. The drug trade is rampant up there.” She explains how the police department near that particular Man Camp is smaller than the one here in Rosebud. “They need help,” she confesses.

There are oil workers there that can’t even speak English. The sex offenders are very prevalent. “We found thirteen sex offenders in one Man Camp and that Man Camp is found directly behind the tribal casino. Our supervisors would tell us “Watch your kids. Don’t let them run through there.” Making matters worse was the fact that Grace Her Many Horses moved up there with her two young daughters ages ten and fourteen. Living in those conditions and having to worry about the safety of her children must have added years to her life. After the need for workers ends the small town is left with its eye sore oil pipeline, businesses will go bust, the introduction of these new hardcore drugs will linger on, and its shocked residents will be left to contemplate their decision for the oil pipeline in years to come.

The most startling time Grace Her Many Horses spent at the Man Camps was when her police force had to serve warrants on some of the workers and remove them from their dwellings. She and her co-workers took things very serious, suited up in full SWAT gear, went through extra-ordinary measures to could conduct their raids, and to protect themselves from harm.

“It was scary. I never had to do that before in my many years of service. I feel really bad for the local residents because the flavor of their [Indian] reservation has changed so much,” she admits.

It leads the common Rosebud resident to ask if we have enough police officers to cover the proposed Man Camp being built nearby the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation. She was not hesitant to argue: “No we do not have enough members on the police force. We barely have enough people to cover our [Indian] reservation right now. If you were around for the first week of January we had a double-homicide, we had unattended deaths, we had shootings, we had a major car accident, and that’s just in one week. We were so busy here at the [police] station. My whole department worked thirty hours straight. I told those guys to go home, get showered, and come back to work. That’s not even taking care of our outlying communities. This tribal police department isn’t equipped to handle what’s going to happen out there when the Man Camp arrives. The infrastructure of the towns on this Indian reservation will be forced to expand then months later it will collapse onto itself. Because I’ve witnessed it doing just that… what I am saying up there in Newtown, ND. It’s going to be really scary. Realistically speaking, we’re going to need to setup a substation for the area nearest to the Man Camp, and we got have people on call 24 hours a day there too. I don’t know how we are going to deal with that just yet. We are overwhelmed as is stands right now. Once the Man Camp moves in…” Basically, it’s not a future everyone wants to see.

 

 

Courts challenge Native American land rights: Recent cases have undermined tribal sovereignty and economic development, Native Americans say.

US native tribe bids to reclaim territory
US native tribe bids to reclaim territory

By Jake Hess

Aljazeera

 

Last updated: 28 May 2014 12:15

Narragansett Indian Reservation, United States – On an unmarked country road in New England, a faded sign welcomes visitors to the Narragansett Indian Wetuomuck Community Village. But what lies ahead is more akin to a graveyard. Instead of the community promised by the sign, 12 empty homes sit in a field swallowed up by weeds. The only hint of life is the dull hum of a distant highway.

It was on this patch of land that, in 2009, the US Supreme Court crippled the socio-economic aspirations of the Narragansett Indian tribe – and others across the country. The legal battles started when Rhode Island state authorities objected to the Narragansett tribe’s plan to build a low-income housing complex on 31 acres of land adjacent to its modest reservation.

In response, the tribe moved to place the land into federal trust, which would have freed it from most local regulations and taxes. Rhode Island tied up the application with lawsuits, saying the Narragansetts would eventually build a casino on the land – a claim the tribe denies.

“If you cut off resources to a group, that’s how you conquer them,” Narragansett tribal councilman Cassius Spears Jr told Al Jazeera. “That’s been the state of Rhode Island’s policy for hundreds of years: They want to dissolve the tribe.”

The Narragansetts held off the state until the case reached the Supreme Court. In its 2009 Carcieri v. Salazar ruling, the court decided that the government could only put land into trust for tribes that were “under federal jurisdiction” in 1934 – the year the procedure was established. Since the Narragansett tribe was federally recognised only in 1983, the government’s decision to accept their land trust application was ruled invalid.

The Carcieri ruling denied the Narragansetts and potentially scores of other tribes’ access to one of their most effective tools for development. Five years later, the results are being felt across Indian country.

Millions spent on legal fees

Matthew Thomas packs a wooden pipe, takes a puff, and raises the smoky offering up to the sky. The Narragansett chief’s feathered headdress sways as he repeats the blessing. Beside him, dancers decked in traditional regalia wait for the pow-wow drumming to start.

This is how many outsiders picture an Indian chief’s duties. But during his 16-year tenure as leader of the Narragansetts, Thomas has spent far more time battling for his tribe in courtrooms. By now, he said, the tribe has spent millions of dollars on legal fees.

“If we could utilise the money that we had to take to fight the state and everyone else, we probably could’ve done very well with other forms of economic development,” he told Al Jazeera. “The states and the towns have deeper pockets than us, so it’s easy for them.”

The Narragansetts are not the only ones struggling with litigation. The Carcieri decision has been followedby more than 15 federal lawsuits challenging Indian land rights.

“The court’s ruling has been at the bottom of much delay in the trust land acquisition process,” Robert Anderson, an Indian law expert at the University of Washington, told Al Jazeera. “Uncertainty and delay is the enemy of economic development.”

No one knows how many tribes could be impacted by the Carcieri decision, as there is no agreement on what it means for a tribe to be “under federal jurisdiction”. Some courts have taken it to be synonymous with being formally recognised as a sovereign tribe by the federal government. If that view persists, dozens of tribes could be excluded from the land trust system. Earlier this year, a federal court effectively preventedthe Big Lagoon Rancheria tribe from building a casino on trust land because the tribe was not federally recognised in 1934.

“Under the constitution, the courts should defer to Congress on its views of Indian affairs and its relationships with Indian tribes,” John Dossett, an attorney with the National Congress of American Indians, told Al Jazeera. “Part of the concern is that the Supreme Court’s becoming a little bit unmoored from that and is kind of making up its own ideas about what it thinks federal Indian policy ought to be.”

‘Tremendous victory’ for Rhode Island

Native Americans once roamed the area that is now called Rhode Island. Today, the Narragansett reservation is limited to a few thousand acres, most of it swampland nestled in thick forest. And under a 1978 agreement with the Rhode Island government, what little land the Narragansetts do have is subject to state jurisdiction.

States covet the potential tax revenues generated on Native American land. When the Carcieri ruling was issued, then-Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch gushed. “[T]his decision is a tremendous victory for the State of Rhode Island … and for the importance of states’ rights across the United States of America,” he said in a statement issued at the time.

Such statements evoke the domineering paternalism that has characterised state-tribe relations. Without the regulatory and tax exemptions the land trust system confers, Native Americans cannot take control of their development, said Spears.

“The main intent is to be able to put land under our sovereignty as a nation so we could be self-contained for the benefit of our people,” he said. “Any kind of economic venture that we’ve put forward has beenchallenged by the state and put in court.”

Native American self-rule makes economic sense. Research by Harvard University and the University of Arizona concluded that tribal sovereignty is “the only policy that has worked to make significant progress in reversing otherwise distressed social, cultural, and economic conditions in Native communities.”

But for the Narragansetts, this is about more than economics. In their view, land means cultural survival.

“Without the ability to put land into trust, we cannot gain land and put it under our jurisdiction that will allow us to have access to traditional life ways,” Spears said. “Our clams and quahogs, going out and getting blue shell crabs, gathering bulrush to make mats for our traditional homes – we now have to fight for public access to try to find those areas. If we don’t have land, our culture is at the point where it cannot be practiced without permission from outside societies.”

‘Out of Control’

Relief from the legal tussles may be coming. The Supreme Court did not offer detailed guidance on how authorities should determine which tribes were “under federal jurisdiction” in 1934 and are therefore eligible to use the land trust system. In response, a Department of the Interior solicitor recently issued an opinion outlining a new research procedure for deciding which tribes qualify and which ones do not.

Under the new system, tribes which had continuous relations with the government, or participated in government-administered programmes as of 1934, will likely be able to use the land trust system even if they were not formally recognised as a sovereign tribe at the time.

Most if not all 566 federally-recognised tribes should be able to satisfy the new criteria, Anderson said. He added that “the best solution” would be anew law unequivocally allowing them all to use the trust system, regardless of what their status was in 1934.

“The solicitor’s opinion simply makes the best of a bad situation,” Anderson said. “Courts could disregard it, and every tribe arguably not ‘under federal jurisdiction’ in 1934 would have to obtain an administrative ruling on their status that could then be litigated in court by any who disagree.”

For now, the fate of the land that sparked the Carcieri case is uncertain. Thomas “likes” the solicitor’s opinion but expects further litigation if a new law is not passed soon.

“I think tribes are going to have to unite,” he said. “Due to the makeup of the Supreme Court and the way they’ve treated the native people of America for years, it’s just getting out of control.”

Supreme Court Says Mich. Can’t Block Indian Casino

WASHINGTON May 27, 2014 (AP)

From ABC News

By SAM HANANEL Associated Press

A divided Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Michigan can’t block the opening of an off-reservation American Indian casino because the state’s legal challenge is barred by tribal sovereign immunity.

In a 5-4 decision, the high court said the state could not shutter the Bay Mills Indian Community’s casino about 90 miles south of its Upper Peninsula reservation.

The ruling was a win for Indian tribes, which have increasingly looked to casinos as a source of revenue and have relied on immunity to shield them from government interference. But it’s a disappointment for Michigan and more than a dozen others states that say the decision will interfere with their ability to crack down on unauthorized tribal casinos.

Michigan argued that the Bay Mills tribe opened the casino in 2010 without permission from the U.S. government and in violation of a state compact. The tribe had purchased land for the casino with earnings from a settlement with the federal government over allegations that it had not been adequately compensated for land ceded in 1800s treaties.

Writing for the majority, Justice Elena Kagan said that the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act only allows a state to bring lawsuits challenging casinos operating on Indian lands. But the Bay Mills casino was opened outside the tribe’s reservation, Kagan said, placing it outside the law’s coverage.

Since the casino does not fall under federal gaming laws, Kagan said it is subject to the ordinary tribal immunity that extends to off-reservation commercial activities. Kagan said it doesn’t matter that the casino was authorized, licensed and operated from the tribe’s reservation.

Kagan noted that Michigan officials have other options for dealing with the casino, such as bringing a lawsuit against individual tribal officials or even prosecuting tribal members under criminal laws. She was joined in her opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.

The casino has been closed since 2011, when a federal judge sided with Michigan and issued an injunction barring it from operating. The 6th Circuit U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw the injunction out after ruling that the court lacked jurisdiction over some claims and that the tribe also has sovereign immunity.

In a statement, the Bay Mills tribe said the decision “affords proper deference to Congress’ judgment and it will ensure that tribes like Bay Mills can continue to fund tribal education and perform other sovereign functions.”

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said he would follow the court’s advice and target individual tribal members for civil and criminal penalties.

Sixteen other states had submitted a brief in the case urging the court to side with Michigan. They argued that criminal prosecutions are less effective and more burdensome on the state in policing unauthorized casinos.

In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said he disagreed with the court’s 1998 case extending tribal sovereign immunity to bar lawsuits arising from an Indian tribe’s commercial activities outside its territory. In the 16 years since that decision, “tribal commerce has proliferated and the inequities engendered by unwarranted tribal immunity have multiplied,” Thomas wrote.

Thomas was joined in dissent by Justices Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Samuel Alito.

Scalia also wrote a separate dissent to say that he had agreed with the court’s 1998 decision, but is now convinced that is was wrongly decided. Scalia said he would overrule that case “rather than insist that Congress clean up a mess that I helped make.”

The case is Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community, 12-515.

———

Associated Press writer John Flesher in Traverse City, Michigan, contributed to this report.

‘Redskins’ Players Weigh in on Name; Team President Says It’s ‘Respectful’

 Associated Press
Associated Press

Indian Country Today

Redskins President Bruce Allen sent a response to Senators Maria Cantwell (D-MD) and Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) letter on Friday, saying that the team’s name was “respectful” toward Native Americans. “Our use of Redskins as the name of our football team for more than 81 years has always been respectful of and shown reverence toward the proud legacy and traditions of Native Americans,” Allen wrote in the letter addressed to Reid.

On May 22, 50 senators sent a letter to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell urging him to endorse changing the team’s name. Goodell has yet to publicly respond to the letter, but Allen and his franchise remain defiant.

In his letter, Allen said the name “originated as a Native American expression of solidarity” and that its logo was designed by Native Americans (ICTMN reported that this story about the logo’s design was fabricated; as did the The Washington Post). He also wrote that a majority of Native Americans as well as all Americans supported the team’s name, a fact that has been frequently disputed; most notably by the Change the Mascot Campaign.

RELATED Change Happens: Majority of Wash Post Readers Now Say Change ‘Redskins’

RELATED Redskins Run the Wrong Play, Again, With ‘Community Voices’ Campaign

Some of the team’s players have tweeted their support for Allen’s letter. Each tweet from Ryan Kerrigan, Desean Jackson, Alfred Morris, Brian Orakpo, and Pierre Garcon said something similar, “President Bruce Allen sets the record straight in response to Harry Reid’s letter.“ Other players also weighed in in support of the letter.

Bruce Allen is the President and GM of the Washington football team (AP Photo)
Bruce Allen is the President and GM of the Washington football team (AP Photo)

 

In January, however, cornerback DeAngelo Hall told Mike Hill of Fox Sports that the team should “probably change its name.” He’s the only ‘Redskins’ player who has dared even whisper a public name-change endorsement. And the Seattle Seahawks’ Richard Sherman, told Time.com, that the NFL would not take action similar to what the NBA did in banning soon to be former Clippers owner Donald Sterling for his racist comments“because we have an NFL team called the Redskins.”

RELATED ‘Redskins’ Player Says Team ‘Probably Should’ Change Name

But the National Congress of American Indians is hoping for more than just a few players to speak out. The organization reportedly sent more than 2,700 letters to players and former players in the NFL asking them to speak out against the name. The letter included some of Sherman’s comments on the Redskins name.

“Because you are in the NFL, you command a level of respect and credibility when speaking out about the league’s behavior,” NCAI’s letter said. “Indeed, players are the most publicly identifiable representatives of the league, which means your support is critical to ending this injustice.”

Players — some former players and coaches — were asked to respond using the hashtag #rightsideofhistory.

Here are a few tweets in support of the name change:

 

 

 

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/05/28/redskins-players-weigh-name-team-president-says-its-respectful-155064?page=0%2C1

 

Sherman Alexie Keeps Crowd in Stitches, Praises Student Activists

Photos by Jack McNeelA dapper Sherman Alexie on stage in Spokane, Washington.
Photos by Jack McNeel
A dapper Sherman Alexie on stage in Spokane, Washington.

 

Sherman Alexie could make a very good living strictly as a humorist — he’s that good. A large crowd in Spokane recently laughed themselves to tears through an hour and 45 minute routine on subjects ranging from his books being banned, body hair, funerals, gay marriage, basketball, his family, and more.

Nobody was spared as Alexie interacted with the crowd and his own family members, and he laughed at his own “inadequacies”. “When you’ve been married 20 years you have to spice things up. I’m getting older. I’m middle aged — 47. I’m at the age now that I need more foreplay than my wife. Honey, if you listen to some of my worries and fears for the next 15 minutes I’ll be ready.” The crowd exploded in laughter and Alexie joined right in.

RELATED: And Stephen Colbert’s Replacement Is…Sherman Alexie?

“This last year I feel like I’ve aged dramatically. I have more body hair than any Indian guy is supposed to have. I keep thinking one of my grandmothers lied. One of my grandmothers was getting it on with a Jesuit. I can just feel it. I’m like a little bit Catholic,” he laughed and the crowd roared.

“The hardest part are the random hairs. I’m getting ear hair. I’m getting gray nose hairs. You can’t hide them because it’s dark in your nostrils. It doesn’t matter what color you are as a human being, nostrils are all the same. Our nostrils are really multi-cultural.”

The dialogue continued, the stories getting wilder as he progressed and a bit more “colorful.”

His book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian was recently challenged by a school board in Meridian, Idaho. “People would stand up and testify against my book. One woman was like, ‘these children come from our wombs!’ It’s funny but it’s sad,” Alexie said. “Apparently she thought we didn’t know that! I think we need to have ‘The Talk’ with Meridian.”

Alexie explained that “an amazing, courageous student, Brady Kissel,” testified at the meeting and had a petition signed by 350 students asking that the book not be banned. Another young lady raised enough money to purchase enough money to buy 350 of the books, which they distributed at a city park in Boise.

“The craziest part of it is that as they were distributing the books one of the parents called the police and said kids were distributing pornography in the park,” Alexie explained. The police arrived, checked it out, and left. Sherman’s publisher heard of this and sent an additional 350 copies to be distributed free.

RELATED: Idaho Students Get 700 Free Copies of Challenged Sherman Alexie Book

This novel won the American Library Association’s 2009 Odyssey Award as the best new audio book for children and young adults.

The two young ladies were on hand at the event in Spokane. The author had them stand for well deserved applause.

Alexie himself was in town to support the Salish School of Spokane, a school dedicated to teaching Salish to youngsters. It’s the native language of local tribes but few elders remain who still speak fluent Salish. Money raised this night will go to support the school and Sherman donated his time to attract a large crowd.

 

Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/05/28/sherman-alexie-keeps-crowd-stitches-praises-student-activists-155065

Nisqually Tribe looking for connections between zooplankton and salmon

 

May 27th, 2014 Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The Nisqually Indian Tribe is trying to find a way to predict future salmon runs by measuring what juvenile salmon eat on their way out to the ocean.

The tribe is expanding their research on local salmon to take a look at zooplankton in deep South Sound, which young salmon eat after leaving the Nisqually River. “Eventually, we might be able to connect the availability of food in Puget Sound with chinook runs three or four years down the line,” said David Troutt, natural resources director for the tribe.

As they migrate to the open ocean, juvenile salmon consume small animals like zooplankton. Nisqually tribal researchers want to find out if there’s less food in Puget Sound when salmon are migrating out, meaning fewer may be coming back.

Jed Moore and Emiliano Perez, Nisqually natural resources staff, deploy a plankton net in deep South Sound.
Jed Moore and Emiliano Perez, Nisqually natural resources staff, deploy a plankton net in deep South Sound.

The study will examine the entire community structure of competitors and predators, including plankton and other fish species. A smolt trap operated by the state Department of Fish and Wildlife on the Nisqually River will determine the timing, size and number of out-migrating salmon.

The tribe will sample juvenile fish from the Nisqually estuary and adjacent marine areas using a beach seine and lampara net. At the same time, the tribe will sample the water for zooplankton and other small animals. “If we find that in years when a lot of food is available, salmon survive to return at higher rates, we could more easily predict future salmon runs,” Troutt said.

In an earlier study of chinook leaving the Nisqually River, the tribe found a direct connection between fish that were able to find food in the river’s estuary and those able to make it back as adults. “We typically find two groups of juvenile chinook leaving the watershed,” Troutt said. “The fish that stayed and fed in the estuary survived to return as adults while those with other life history strategies did not.”

The tribe’s research is part of the region-wide Salish Sea Marine Survival Project. The project brings together researchers in both the United States and Canada to better understand the relationship between salmon and the marine environment.

Treaty Indian tribes are locally based and use cutting edge management techniques, making them uniquely qualified to conduct close to the ground research. “Being able to understand the salmon life cycle is important if we want to preserve our treaty protected right to harvest salmon,” said Georgiana Kautz, natural resources manager for the tribe. “Our treaty rights depend on there being fish actually available to harvest.”

When College Isn’t Worth It

Save up your pennies ... but shop wisely.Doram/iStockphoto
Save up your pennies … but shop wisely.
Doram/iStockphoto

By Anya Kamenetz NPR.org

May 28, 2014

 

The New York Times highlighted new data yesterday that once again beats the drum: Despite skyrocketing costs, a college degree is a good investment. In fact, MIT economist David Autor writes in the journal Science that the value of a degree is rising. College grads made almost twice as much per hour in 2013 as workers without a four-year degree. And the lifetime value of a diploma is now around a half-million dollars, even after you factor in tuition.

Well, we here at NPR Ed thought we’d play the skeptic and ask: When is college not worth it? Because, lo and behold, sometimes it isn’t. Here are the three broad cases in which a college education, in fact, does not pay.

If … You Don’t Graduate

Lots and lots of people who enroll in college just don’t finish. And, to get an honest accounting of a diploma’s value, these noncompleters (that’s the term of art in the research —”dropouts” is a bit too judgmental) need to be part of the math. Otherwise, it’s like the latest fad diet touting “befores” and “afters” without counting those who didn’t stick with it.

Only 59 percent of people who begin a four-year degree, with all good intentions, actually finish within six years. How many people are we talking about? Some 34 million American adults attended college but have no degree to show for it. That’s huge, compared with the 41 million Americans who have a bachelor’s as their terminal degree.

Keep in mind, noncompleters borrow student loans just as often as those who finish. And, unfortunately, raw knowledge picked up while in college doesn’t do nearly as much to boost earning potential as a diploma does. Folks with some college earn less than those with an associate’s degree. They’re also more likely to be unemployed. In other words: results not typical for college graduates.

If … You Pick the Wrong College

For-profit colleges enroll just under 10 percent of all college students, but they’re notorious for relatively high tuition costs and low graduation rates. Research shows that graduates of these schools have higher unemployment rates and lower opinions of their education long after graduating.

The U.S. Department of Education has just drafted a proposed rule that’s meant to crack down on the for-profits. It’s called the “gainful employment rule” and would cut off federal aid to schools where a) too many students are defaulting on their loans or b) the debt burden of graduates is way out of line with their incomes.

But the for-profits are striking back, pointing out that — by the Education Department’s own statistics — 26 percent of graduates from public four-year colleges and 39 percent of grads from private four-year colleges are not “gainfully employed.” That’s an awful lot of college graduates, across all types of institutions, who have reason to ask: Was college worth it?

If … You Pick the Wrong Degree

What you study matters — a lot. The gap in average earnings by undergraduate major is just as wide as the gap between high school and college grads. They range from a high of $120,000 for petroleum engineers to a low of $29,000 for those who major in counseling psychology. Considering the average student debt burden is $29,400, that’s a big group of graduates whose degrees may not pay off.

Now, we’re not arguing that a college degree is a bad idea. It’s not. Let’s italicize that one: For most students, it’s not. Our point is, when it comes to bold, blanket statements about the value of a college degree and whether it will pay off … words like “always” and “never” aren’t helpful. Or true.

Could Diet Soda Really Be Better Than Water For Weight Loss?

By Allison Aubrey NPR.ORG

May 28, 2014

Answering the question of whether diet soda helps or hinders dieters’ efforts to lose weight has been the focus of much research. And buzz.

Unfortunately, the answer is still murky.

On one hand, as we’ve reported, long-term studies suggest that some diet soda drinkers’ efforts to lose weight are stymied when they compensate for the zero-calorie beverages by eating more food. Call it the Diet Coke and french fry conundrum. Or perhaps artificial sweeteners mess up our metabolisms, as some have theorized.

But there’s also research showing that when people swap sugary drinks for zero-calorie options, they lose weight. And, when people combine a diet drink habit with an overall healthy pattern of eating, the combination seems to work to lower the risk of metabolic syndrome, according to research.

Better than water for losing weight? A study funded by the beverage industry says yes.
Better than water for losing weight? A study funded by the beverage industry says yes.

Now a new study, funded by the American Beverage Association, suggests that diet drinks might be more effective than water alone in helping dieters shed pounds.

We had to ask: Really?

The study, published Tuesday in the journal Obesity, included about 300 overweight participants, all of whom were enrolled in a weight loss and exercise program. As part of the intervention, each participant was randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group was told to avoid all diet drinks and drink mostly water. The other group was told to consume a combination of zero-calorie drinks (for example, diet soda or artificially sweetened teas) and water.

At the end of three months, the participants in the diet-drink group had lost about 13 pounds on average. That was four more pounds than the average of nine pounds lost by those in the water group.

“We were kind of surprised by the findings that showed that diet beverages actually did a little better than water” in the outcome, John Peters, one of the study authors, tells The Salt. He’s the chief strategy officer of the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Health and Wellness Center.

So, what explains the findings? How could diet drinks potentially lead to more weight loss?

“We did see that people in the diet-soda wing of the study reported less hunger during the trial than those in the water group,” says Peters. But he emphasizes that this is just speculation. “We can’t determine mechanism from this trial.”

That speculation doesn’t fly with some experts, who question using diet soda as a tool to curb appetites. “Studies suggest that consumption of diet soda makes people continue to crave sugar, thereby making it harder to quit,” says Laura Schmidt, a professor of health policy at the University of California, San Francisco.

Peters tells me he’s aware that people are questioning the results. And he’s surprised by that reaction to the study so far: “I’m kind of amazed how much people are trying to find a reason not to believe these findings.”

It’s possible that many people are still leery about the safety of artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, despite years of studies aimed at establishing safety. “There’s always some lingering question: Are these good for you or not?” Peters says.

Or it could be that once people hear about the industry link, they’re just dismissive of the findings. But Peters says he and his colleagues carried out the study completely independently at their academic research sites.

“We responded to a [request for proposal] that was put out by the ABA to the scientific community” to study the effects of diet drinks, he says.

But, Peters explains, he and the other researchers made an agreement with the industry group in advance that whatever the findings — positive or negative — the results would be submitted for publication.

As industry funding of nutrition research has become more commonplace, there are protocols in place to keep separation between funders and scientists. But a 2007 meta-analysis in PLoS Medicine found that industry funding increases the odds of results favoring the industry’s position.

Beyond the study’s ties to the diet soda industry, other researchers say the new research doesn’t provide any closure to the murky science of diet sodas. “This paper is fatally flawed, and leaves us with little science to build on,” Purdue University researcher Susie Swithers tells us.

She points out that the paper does not include detailed information about what participants consumed in lieu of diet soda beyond the water they were told to drink. So it’s hard to know how many calories they consumed from other beverages. “Did they switch to regular sodas? [Did they] add sugar instead of artificial sweeteners to their coffee or tea?” Swithers wonders.

All in all, “this paper tells us nothing about the long-term health consequences that should be our real focus,” Swithers concludes.