News Archives - Page 253 of 455

The Red Road: TV Review

Generations of tension expands dangerously when a young Indian boy is badly injured in a hit-and-run accident that the police are having trouble with

2/25/2014 by Tim Goodman The Hollywood Reporter

Sundance’s ambitious drama has fine acting and a sense of place, but it can’t crack the big leagues when the writing lags.

One of the most difficult challenges of ambitiously trying to make a drama that can play in the big leagues of established series is getting everything – absolutely everything – right. In The Red Road, the new six-part series from Sundance TV, one crucial element comes up lacking.

Television is a writer’s medium and Red Road has enough hiccups there to disrupt what is otherwise a very well-acted, well-shot and intriguing series.

That’s not at all to suggest that Red Road is bad or without merit – it’s just trying to get from start to finish with a pretty important blown spark plug making it more bumpy than it ought to be.

The Bottom Line:

A horrible accident and the need to keep secrets has two men on opposite sides of the law making a deal with consequences. Plus lots of other murky stuff and a woman who hears voices. It’s a series too ambitious for its writing.

Creator and writer Aaron Guzikowski sets up a story with a lot of potential. It focuses on conflict between the small Native American Lanape tribe in the mountains of New Jersey and the Walpole, N.J., police. Generations of tension expands dangerously when a young Indian boy is badly injured in a hit-and-run accident that the police are having trouble with. Witnesses believe it was Jean Jensen (Julianne Nicholson), wife of police officer Harold Jensen (Martin Henderson) and daughter of a state senator.

Jason Momoa in "The Red Road" on Sundance TV — Jason Momoa in “The Red Road” on Sundance TV

That part is true – and the back story of how Jean got up into the mountains on a dark night is initially interesting, but then highlights some of the problems with the Red Road script.

The Jensens, who have two daughters, are having marital problems because of Jean’s drinking. While trying to sober up, she’s having difficulty keeping her emotions in check while dealing with 16-year-old Rachel (Allie Gonino), who is secretly seeing Junior (Kiowa Gordon), a Lanape. This is more than just a race or class issue, we find out, when Jean – prone to flying off the handle at Rachel – discloses that her twin brother drowned when some guy from the Lanape tribe gave him drugs and watched him drown.

Airdate: Thursday, 9 p.m., Sundance TV

Created and written by Aaron Guzikowski

Starring: Jason Momoa, Martin Henderson, Julianne Nicholson, Tom Sizemore

That – and her shaky battle with sobriety – are enough to set up the major hook of Red Road, which involves loving and dutiful husband Harold making the ill-fated decision to help protect his wife (in part to keep his teetering family from splintering). When Jean went off in panic and rage to find missing Rachel – who she rightly suspected was out doing God knows what with Junior — she brought Harold’s service revolver with her and then lost it. The gun is returned to Harold by the menacing (and charismatic) Phillip Kopus (Jason Momoa), an ex-con who has a history both with Jean and Harold (they went to high school together and Phillip dated Jean). In a remote meeting spot, Phillip tells Harold that he can make the issue disappear – promising that none of the witnesses will give a statement implicating his wife, in return for some unknown favor later. This is the “lines will cross” moment that Red Road boasts as its tag-line.

But it’s also part of the trouble. With Momoa and Henderson – and most everyone else – acting the hell out of their material, the story lets them down. While it’s not impossible that a good cop would make a bad decision, it comes too quickly and neatly for maximum believability. And then Red Road veers off by planting the notion that Jean is hearing voices – and seeing things. The voices sometimes control her and the images help viewers see the chaos in her mind – but the tone shift is too drastic and undercuts the gravitas that Red Road was building up.

Beyond that, there a number of instances where characters have dubious motivation changes that don’t seem to suit them. And while Red Road piles on the plot – there are a lot of other plates spinning as Guzikowski unspools the story – it begins to buckle under the weight. For instance, Harold and the rest of the police department are searching for a missing college student in the mountains around the Lanape tribe. They keep coming back to find what they might have missed and yet, in the first three hours, don’t think to check the lake (yep, he’s in there).

Red Road has more ambition than it can keep in check – the story of Phillips drug-dealing, drug-using criminal father (played by Tom Sizemore) doesn’t click and Phillip’s relationship with his mother (played by Tamara Tunie) is also needlessly complicated. While the actors do fine work with what they’re given, those storylines just bog down the movement.

If The Red Road had stronger writing, then the series would have been significantly more compelling. It’s exciting to watch Momoa and Henderson give riveting performances, so it’s not like there’s nothing to recommend here. It’s just that in watching them do it, you wish the story was giving them more fodder and not bogging itself down in side arcs.

E-mail: Tim.Goodman@THR.com
Twitter: @BastardMachine

Indian Affairs Chairman: Education Key For Tribes

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, center, dances around a drum circle with students at the Head Start early education center in Crow Agency, Mont., on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2014. Tester is the new chairman of the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee and says he'll use his new role as chairman to target wasteful spending, improve educational opportunities and promote job development on reservations. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown) — U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, center, dances around a drum circle with students at the Head Start early education center in Crow Agency, Mont., on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2014. Tester is the new chairman of the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee and says he’ll use his new role as chairman to target wasteful spending, improve educational opportunities and promote job development on reservations. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown)

By Matthew Brown, Associated Press, 2/19/2014

CROW AGENCY, Mont. (AP) — The new chairman of the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee said Wednesday he plans to use the post to target wasteful spending, improve educational opportunities for Native Americans and promote job development on reservations.

Montana Sen. Jon Tester outlined his agenda for the committee that oversees relations with the nation’s 566 recognized tribes during a visit to the Crow Indian Reservation with fellow Democrat Sen. John Walsh.

After a breakfast meeting with tribal leaders, the pair toured a Head Start education center and later danced with preschoolers around a drum circle.

Crow leaders showed the lawmakers cracks in the ceiling at the preschool and took them to the furnace room where a boiler dating to the 1960s was held together with vise grips to keep it running.

Tester said he was determined to address decades of dysfunction in how the government deals with tribes. He said excessive administrative costs incurred by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Indian Health Service and other agencies have drained money from crucial programs including health care and education.

“This is about making sure those dollars that are allocated go to the intended purpose. If there’s waste, eliminate it. And if it means eliminating jobs, then eliminate the jobs,” he said.

Brian Cladoosby, president of the National Congress of American Indians, said problems with the government’s treatment of tribes stem largely from outdated laws and regulations that make Native Americans subservient to federal agencies.

That started to change in recent years — with rules giving tribes more power over their land and property — but further improvements are needed, Cladoosby said.

Tester said too many bureaucratic roadblocks hinder tribes’ attempts to become self-reliant, such as the Crow tribe’s efforts to expand coal mining on the southeastern Montana reservation.

However, Tester added that he would tread carefully to avoid infringing on the sovereignty of West Coast tribes opposed to coal export terminals in Washington and Oregon.

The proposed terminals are key to the coal industry’s aspirations to ship more of the fuel overseas from the Powder River Basin of Montana and Wyoming, in part to make up for flagging domestic demand. Tribes on the West Coast have raised concerns about potential environmental impacts of the shipping.

“I cannot go in and tell another tribe that we’re going to respect the Crow’s sovereignty but we’re not going to respect your sovereignty,” Tester said. “That’s a very dangerous position to put yourself in.”

Despite limits on what the senator can deliver for his home state, Crow leaders said they were pleased to have someone familiar with their concerns assume the influential post of committee chairman.

Crow Secretary A.J. Not Afraid said tribes in Montana and elsewhere on the Great Plains have different needs than tribes in other parts of the country that are closer to population centers and able to bring in significant revenue through gambling.

Those opportunities don’t exist for the Crow, Not Afraid said.

Crow Chairman Darrin Old Coyote said Tester understands the differences.

“He gets it,” Old Coyote said. “He understands our plight and what we’re fighting fo

Carbon dioxide pollution just killed 10 million scallops

By John Upton, Grist

Scallops go well with loads of chili and an after-dinner dose of antacid. It’s just too bad we can’t share our post-gluttony medicine with the oceans that produce our mollusk feasts.

A scallops producer on Vancouver Island in British Columbia just lost three years’ worth of product to high acidity levels. The disaster, which cost the company $10 million and could lead to its closure, is the latest vicious reminder of the submarine impacts of our fossil fuel–heavy energy appetites. As carbon dioxide is soaked up by the oceans, it reacts with water to produce bicarbonate and carbonic acid, increasing ocean acidity.

The Parksville Qualicum Beach News has the latest shellfish-shriveling scoop:

“I’m not sure we are going to stay alive and I’m not sure the oyster industry is going to stay alive,” [Island Scallops CEO Rob] Saunders told The NEWS. “It’s that dramatic.”

Saunders said the carbon dioxide levels have increased dramatically in the waters of the Georgia Strait, forcing the PH levels to 7.3 from their norm of 8.1 or 8.2. … Saunders said the company has lost all the scallops put in the ocean in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

“(The high acidity level means the scallops) can’t make their shells and they are less robust and they are suseptible to infection,” said Saunders, who also said this level of PH in the water is not something he’s seen in his 35 years of shellfish farming.

The deep and nutrient-rich waters off the Pacific Northwest are among those that are especially vulnerable to ocean acidification, and oyster farms in the region have already lost billions of their mollusks since 2005, threatening the entire industry.

So get your shellfish gluttony on now. Our acid reflux is only going to get worse as rising acidity claims more victims.

Exploding Oil Trains Prompt More Stringent Safety Tests

By Tony Schick, OPB

The U.S. Department of Transportation has issued an emergency order requiring crude oil from North Dakota and Montana to be tested before being transported by railroads.

Tuesday’s order follows several fiery derailments involving shipments of crude oil. It is intended to ensure greater safety when the highly flammable liquid is being shipped.

Federal regulators also said Tuesday they are prohibiting shipping oil using the least-protective packing requirements.

The order is a response to derailments of trains carrying oil from the Bakken region in North Dakota that resulted in explosions and fire, including a train that exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, near the U.S. border, in July, killing 47 people.

Jerry Vest, Vice President for Government & Industry Affairs at Genesee & Wyoming railroad, called the order a fundamental step to ensure safety. Genesee & Wyoming owns the Portland & Western rail line carrying Bakken crude to a terminal at Port Westward near Clatskanie, Ore. Last year, 110 unit trains carried Bakken crude to Port Westward, each one carrying about 70,000 barrels.

Vest clarified that the commodity would be tested not by the railroads but by companies using the railroads to ship the oil.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said the new rules will help, but won’t eliminate the risks posed by oil-by-rail shipments.

There is far more work to be done on securing the safety of oil trains, but this is one step of many that can be part of a solution,” Wyden said in a written statement.

Shippers already had to classify oil shipments based on their risk for explosion or fire, but federal investigators found that many shipments were being misclassified as less dangerous. The order requires testing for classification before shipment.

Jay Tappan, Chief of Columbia River Fire and Rescue, said his department has been waiting for stricter federal rules to help his responders know how to handle an oil train fire.

“I think we’re all finally starting to understand that the Bakken crude is a little bit more volatile, little more flammable than we had thought before so it’s good that they’re getting a handle on the exact classification of that commodity,” Tappan said.

Better classification of the Bakken crude was one of many issues raised at a January meeting between railroads, first responders and Oregon senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley in Portland. Local responders and state spill and emergency planners had previously received little information from railroads and oil companies about shipments of crude oil through their areas.

Tappan’s is one of many fire departments in the Pacific Northwest preparing for the risk of an oil train derailment. A port in Oregon and five refineries in Washington currently accept rail shipments of crude oil. Several other shipping terminals have been proposed in the region.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

2014 Fall Chinook Returns Could Be Biggest On Record

A chinook salmon photographed in the Snake River in 2013. That year's run set records, but 2014 returns are on track to outnumber last year's in the Columbia and Snake rivers. | credit: Aaron Kunz | rollover image for more — A chinook salmon photographed in the Snake River in 2013. That year’s run set records, but 2014 returns are on track to outnumber last year’s in the Columbia and Snake rivers. | credit: Aaron Kunz | rollover image for more

By Courtney Flatt, Northwest Public Radio

The future is looking bright for fall chinook salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers. Predictions are in that this could be another record-breaking year for the fish.

Officials are predicting the largest return on record since 1938. That’s 1.6 million Columbia River fall chinook. Nearly 1 million of those fish will come from salmon near Hanford Reach. These are known as upriver brights, said Stuart Ellis, fisheries biologist with the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission.

“One interesting thing about the forecasts is that even though most of the forecasts are big, it is just the two large bright upriver stocks, the upriver brights and The pool upriver brights that we are predicting to be record high runs this year,” Ellis said.

Last year saw a record number of fall chinook salmon returning to the Columbia and Snake rivers since the dams were built. The upriver bright salmon are predicted to reach the same record as the entire returning fall chinook last year.

Joseph Bogaard, executive director of the advocacy group Save Our Wild Salmon, said the strong numbers are due in part to favorable ocean conditions, enough water spilling over dams during migration season and good habitat at Hanford Reach. That’s one of the longest free-flowing areas on the Columbia River.

Columbia River Indian tribes contend hatcheries also play a part in large Snake River fall chinook returns.

Sara Thompson, spokeswoman for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission said, right now, a record number of salmon are spawning in the Snake River.

“This is the highest number of salmon spawning in the Snake River Basin that we’ve seen since the Lower Granite Dam was constructed,” she said. The dam, one of four on the lower Snake River in southeast Washington, was completed in 1975.

Thompson said more wild fall chinook salmon are expected to return to the Snake River this year.

Bogaard said even though the fall chinook predictions are high, work still needs to be done to protect other endangered salmon runs.

“While the fall chinook run looks like that they’re as strong as they’ve been in quite a few years, we’ve still got a lot of work to do to protect and restore many other runs that provide the benefits to people and ecosystems in the parts of the basin,” Bogaard said.

Around the Region: Montana movie delves into life on the reservation

Nicolas Hudak films in 2009 during the production of 'Where God Likes to Be.' / Photo by Nicolas Hudak — Nicolas Hudak films in 2009 during the production of ‘Where God Likes to Be.’ / Photo by Nicolas Hudak

Feb. 24, 2014

Written by David Murray GreatFalls Tribune Staff Writer

“Where God Likes to Be” is a film that captures both the hope and the hardship of life on the reservation.

Filmed over the course of a single summer, “Where God Likes to Be” is a documentary filmed and produced by Nicolas and Anna Hudak. The movie premiered at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula this past week, but its genesis stretches back 10 years ago to when the Hudaks found themselves stranded in Browning by a late winter snowstorm.

Growing up in Kalispell, Nicolas had heard all the stereotypes about Browning: The reservation was dangerous and the last place a white person would want to spend the night. But what he and his wife experienced was altogether different. They were greeted with generosity and hospitality.

“That changed my perspective on all those ideas that I had growing up,” Nicolas Hudak said of his stay in Browning. “Yes, there’s definitely a lot of hardships going on — as there has been for the last 100 years or more. It’s a pretty tough spot to make a living. But there are a lot of good people doing good stuff and just trying to get by.”

In 2009, the Hudaks returned to Browning to document the lives of three young people: Andi Running Wolf, graduating from Heart Butte High School and preparing to go to college at the University of Montana; Doug Fitzgerald, a Blackfeet cowboy from Babb working to support his young family; and Edward Tailfeathers, a young man from Browning debating whether to stay on the reservation or leave in search of greater opportunity elsewhere.

The stories of these three people could easily be transposed to nearly any community in the United States. Running Wolf struggles with homesickness and fitting in at college. Fitzgerald comments that becoming a husband and father came sooner than he was expecting. Tailfeathers worries about finding a job and passes the time singing in a band with his friends.

“Where God Likes to Be” emphasizes the similarities its three characters share with young people throughout the United States, viewed through the lens of life in a community where hope and opportunity are frequently in short supply.

WHERE GOD LIKES TO BE Teaser from counter production on Vimeo.

“What’s important here in our film is the deep connection that people have,” Hudak said. “We didn’t set out to make a film about ‘the Indians.’ We were going to make a film about these young people growing up here and what’s important to them.”

However, each of the three characters is deeply aware that the choices they make have the potential to lead them away from the reservation. Each voices concerns about the risks of leaving, and possibly weakening their sense of identity as Blackfeet.

“Everyone I know is here. Everything I have had is here,” Tailfeathers says as he contemplates moving away from Browning. “It’s part of the connection of who you are.”

“Here we are at this cusp of change, and there are two ways this could go,” Hudak said of the decisions his characters face. “One is that everybody just becomes culturally homogenized and there’s really no difference between Blackfeet and anybody else. Or, they can try to hold on to what’s left. This is basically the last generation that has any kind of chance of saving those things that make the culture unique.”

“Then again, they are just American kids growing up in America,” he adds.

Within the first few scenes of “Where God Likes to Be” the viewer is introduced to the film’s fourth main character: the landscape of Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Hudak’s cinematography intersperses sweeping vistas of the Rocky Mountain Front with intimate glimpses of life in Browning and Heart Butte.

“Andi, Doug and Eddie are the heroes of the story, but certainly the landscape is the overseer of everything,” he said. “Part of the reason we wanted to make this film about the Blackfeet in particular is because that area is just so spectacular. There is just something so dramatic and so poetic about the way Browning looks in contrast with Glacier Park. I feel that beauty lies not just in fabulous sunsets, but also in those heavier human elements.”

“If we didn’t teach or learn all these old ways — religion, culture, language — then what are we?” Fitzgerald asks toward the end of the film. “Just a name. This will be a story in a book someone will pick up here and there. I always want to be. Be here. I want to be here where it started and never die, so that my kids will have a good place and be proud of where they’re from.”

Fitzgerald’s words could have just as easily been spoken by any of the young people featured in the film.

As a small budget film, “Where God Likes to Be” is not likely to show at a local multiplex cinema any time soon. To keep track of where the movie is playing, log on to the movie’s website at http://www.wheregodlikestobe.com.

Native Americans vow a last stand to block Keystone XL pipeline

By Rob Hotakainen

McClatchy Washington Bureau February 17, 2014

Faith Spotted Eagle sits in her home in Lake Andes, South Dakota on Monday, Feb. 10, 2014. Spotted Eagle is fighting against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. TRAVIS HEYING — MCT

WASHINGTON — Faith Spotted Eagle figures that building a crude oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast would bring little to Indian Country besides more crime and dirty water, but she doubts that Native Americans will ever get the U.S. government to block the $7 billion project.

“There is no way for Native people to say no – there never has been,” said Spotted Eagle, 65, a Yankton Sioux tribal elder from Lake Andes, S.D. “Our history has caused us not to be optimistic. . . . When you have capitalism, you have to have an underclass – and we’re the underclass.”

Opponents may be down after a State Department study found that the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would not contribute to global warming. But they haven’t abandoned their goal of killing what some call “the black snake.”

In South Dakota, home to some of the nation’s poorest American Indians, tribes are busy preparing for nonviolent battle with “resistance training” aimed at TransCanada, the company that wants to develop the 1,700-mile pipeline.

While organizers said they want to keep their strategy a secret, they’re considering everything from vigils to civil disobedience to blockades to thwart the moving of construction equipment and the delivery of materials.

“We’re going to do everything we possibly can,” said Greg Grey Cloud of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, who attended a two-day conference and training session in Rapid City last week sponsored by the Oglala Sioux Tribe called “Help Save Mother Earth from the Keystone Pipeline.” He said tribes are considering setting up encampments to follow the construction, but he stressed that any actions would be peaceful. “We’re not going to damage anything or riot or anything like that,” he said.

Like much of the country, however, tribal members are divided over the pipeline. In South Dakota, the battle pits those who fear irreversible effects on the environment and public safety against those who trumpet the economic payoff and a chance to cash in on a kind of big development project that rarely comes along.

In Winner, S.D., where the population numbers fewer than 3,000, Mayor Jess Keesis is eager to welcome construction workers from a 600-member “man camp” that would open just 10 miles from town if President Barack Obama approves the pipeline.

“Out here on the prairie, you know, we’re a tough people,” said Keesis, who’s also a member of the Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation in Kansas. “We deal with drought and eight-foot blizzards and all kinds of stuff all the time, so anytime we can get something like this to give us a shot, it’s a good thing.”

Opponents say the risks are too great.

Two weeks ago, an alliance of Native American groups approved a statement saying emphatically that no pipeline would be allowed in South Dakota and that tribes stand ready to protect their “sacred water” and other natural resources.

That includes Native women, who opponents of the pipeline say would become easy prey for thousands of temporary construction workers housed in work camps. According to the federal government, one of every three Indian women are either raped or sexually assaulted during their lifetimes, with the majority of attacks done by non-Native men.

“If you like to drink water, if you like your children not being harmed, if you don’t want your women being harmed, then say no to the pipeline,” Grey Cloud said. “Because once it comes, it’s going to destruct everything.”

Opponents said they don’t want to have to follow through on their plans. They hope that they have the ultimate trump card with a president who just happens to be an adopted Indian. That would be Barack Black Eagle, who was formally adopted by Hartford and Mary Black Eagle of Montana’s Crow Indian Tribe in 2008, when he visited the tribal reservation during his first presidential run.

“They didn’t do that by accident – they saw something in him, and I hope he recognizes that within himself,” Spotted Eagle said.

Grey Cloud said Obama would be “going against his word” if he approves the pipeline: “His main promise was to not allow pollution in our area.”

Keesis said the project carries risks but ultimately would be a winner for the region. He said the city of Winner and surrounding Tripp County would get a windfall of roughly $900,000 a year from construction workers patronizing the town’s restaurants, bars and its recently upgraded digital theater. Even the city would make money, hauling liquid waste from the nearby construction camp to its municipal facilities.

After spending 20 years working in oilfields and boomtowns, he’s convinced that much has changed, with construction workers “under the gun to behave.”

“I’ve been in boomtowns all my life: Wyoming, Texas, California, Colorado, Alaska, everywhere,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to be near as bad as what people have in their minds. The oilfield, as with any other occupation like this, has really mellowed over the last 20 years. It’s not the Wild West like it used to be. . . . But you’ve got to take a little bad with the good.”

Obama, who has not said when he’ll make a final decision, is under heavy pressure to approve the project. Just last week, all 45 Republican senators sent a letter to the president, saying thousands of jobs are at stake and reminding him that he had promised them to make a decision by the end of 2013.

Nationally, project backers appear to be riding the momentum, armed with a State Department report on Jan. 31 that minimized the climate change impact of building the pipeline. Republican House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio said the report shows Americans that there is “no reason, scientific or otherwise, to block this project any longer.”

While Obama has kept mum, his administration has been offering hope to tribal officials.

“If we’re developing an area that runs through Indian Country, it’s very important that we reach an agreement that makes sense to tribes,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told tribal officials during a visit to Oklahoma in November, according to a story published in the Native American Times. “If not, that might mean the pipeline or transmission line goes somewhere else.”

In South Dakota, the proposed line would not go through any of the state’s nine reservations, but opponents say its close proximity would still pose a hazard.

TransCanada officials say they’ve worked closely with the tribes, even halting work in northeast Texas last year as a team of archaeological contractors dug for Indian artifacts at a sacred site.

With the southern section of the pipeline already open, company spokesman Terry Cunha said TransCanada is now working with 17 tribes in South Dakota, Montana and Nebraska, where the company needs Obama’s approval to build. He said the company hopes to begin work in those states in 2015.

Cunha said the company expects the pipeline to have a “limited impact” on the environment and that its work camps will be provided with around-the-clock security.

“We see it as a positive benefit,” he said.

Besides the short-term construction work, Keesis said his city would gain another 30 to 40 permanent residents who would work on pipeline-related jobs. He said Winner needs a lift, noting that since the city shut down its strip clubs a few years back, fewer pheasant hunters are visiting, opting to stay in big hunting lodges nearby.

“When I moved here, during the first three weeks of pheasant season, you couldn’t find a parking space,” he said. “Now you can park anywhere.”

But the economic argument is a hard sell for many tribal members in South Dakota, where history is still raw. It’s the scene of the some of the bloodiest battles between Indians and the federal government, including the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee Creek by the U.S. 7th Cavalry that killed nearly 300 Sioux.

Spotted Eagle said she feels obligated to try to stop the pipeline, both to provide toxic-free land and water for her grandchildren and to protect women from attacks.

“This is a form of militarism, bringing in these man camps,” said Spotted Eagle. “For those of us who have the history, it smacks of repetitive economics, when they put us in forts and they wanted our land. . . . All we’re willing to do here is sell our soul, just for the economy. That’s the dark side.”

Email: rhotakainen@mcclatchydc.com; Twitter: @HotakainenRob

U.S. Attorney will speak about efforts to fight crime on tribal lands

Feb 24, 2014 Rapid City Journal

Thomas Shortbull (right), president of Oglala Lakota College, and Brendan V. Johnson, United States Attorney for the District of South Dakota, lead the procession during OLC’s 2013 commencement.

United States Attorney Brendan Johnson will discuss the Justice Department’s recent efforts to fight crime on American Indian tribal lands during a presentation in the University Center-Rapid City lecture hall Thursday, Feb. 27 at 5:15 p.m. Johnson, son of longtime U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), will also speak about human trafficking and crime trends in South Dakota.

The event is free and open to the public.

Johnson has served as the U.S. Attorney for South Dakota since October 2009. He was chair of the Justice Department’s Native American Issues Subcommittee for four years during which time the Justice Department worked with tribal officials to empower tribal courts, increase law enforcement cooperation, and improve public safety in reservation areas. Johnson has invested a significant amount of time and energy attempting to establish relationships with people living on the reservation and attempting to gain a better understanding of Native American culture.

Prior to becoming the U.S. Attorney for South Dakota, Johnson was a federal law clerk in Rapid City for Chief Judge Karen Schreier and later worked as a deputy state’s attorney in Minnehaha County where he presented cases ranging from attempted murder to narcotics and domestic violence. In addition to his public service, Johnson practiced criminal and civil law as a partner in the law firm now known as Johnson, Heidepriem and Abdallah LLP. He is a fifth-generation South Dakota native and a graduate of the University of South Dakota and the University of Virginia School of Law.

For more information contact Maria Hartung, coordinator of admissions and marketing, at 605-718-4194 or Maria.Hartung@BHSU.edu

Wind Project on Tribal Land Dies Quietly

campo-wind-turbines-2-24-14-thumb-600x480-69313 — Wind turbines near Campo | Photo: Joel Price/Flickr/Creative Commons License

by Chris Clarke

on February 24, 2014 kcet.org

It’s official: a wind power project that would have generated up to 250 megawatts of power with as many as 85 turbines in the San Diego County backcountry is off the table.

The Shu’luuk Wind Project, proposed by the firm Invenergy for up to 4,000 acres of the Campo Indian Reservation, suffered a mortal blow last June when the tribe’s General Council voted 44-34 to oppose the project. Opposition stemmed from concerns over quality of life, the risk of fire, and perceived health impacts of the project.

Though the project’s proponents had suggested last June that they might seek another vote on the project, the tribe subsequently canceled its lease with the project’s proponent Invenergy. On Thursday, the Bureau of Indian Affairs announced that it was cancelling the project’s final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), thus sticking the proverbial fork in Shu’luuk Wind.

Shu’luuk Wind’s Draft EIS, released in January 2013, was widely criticized for containing insufficient detail about the project’s design, including the type and output of the turbines to be built. Nonetheless, tribe members and other locals expressed strong concerns over fire danger from the project in the traditionally highly flammable San Diego backcountry, as well as increased dust problems from more than 25 miles of new dirt roads, along with concerns over noise and visual disturbance.

The cancellation of the final EIS doesn’t mean there won’t be turbines on the Campo reservation: the tribe already hosts an existing wind installation, the Kumeyaay Wind Farm, with 25 large turbines. An explosion and fire in one of that project’s turbines December 16 didn’t exactly alleviate locals’ concerns about fire danger from local wind development. That facility was offline for nearly a month after the mishap.

Also in December, the BIA approved a deal by which the nearby Ewiiaapaayp Band of Kumeyaay
Indians would lease reservation lands for a westward expansion of the large Tule Wind project, which would be mainly sited on BLM lands to the east of that band’s Cuyapaipe Reservation, and just north of the Campo Reservation.

Opinion on the Shu’luuk project was mixed within the Campo Reservation’s residents as well, so the cancellation of that project doesn’t necessarily mean the end of new wind projects on Native lands in the backcountry. But as more turbines appear in the area, opposition could intensify.

Wind turbines near Campo | Photo: Joel Price/Flickr/Creative Commons License

Support in Indian Country Growing for ‘Anti-Bullying Pink Shirt Day’ on February 26

Vincent Schilling, ICTMN, 2/24/14

On Wednesday, February 26, students, teachers and notable figures all over the world will promote the anti-bullying campaign “Pink Shirt Day.” The day is commemorated by anti-bullying advocates who will wear pink shirts to promote awareness about bullying in school and the effects of bullying on children in today’s society.

The campaign, which was started in 2007 by two students in Nova Scotia who sought to protect a fellow classmate, is now garnering support from Indian country, particularly by Fashion Designer Jill Setah and the design company Native Northwest.

In Setah’s online blog First Nation’s Fashions, she encourages her fans to don pink t-shirts Wednesday in honor of Pink Shirt Day, a cause she backs for personal reasons. “As a First Nations Woman I was bullied in elementary school for being First Nations. I would cry every day in class as the teacher would do nothing,” she wrote to Indian Country Today Media Network via email.

“As a First Nations designer, my kids and I are making our own pink shirts for Pink Shirt Day,” she added.

On February 14, 2014, Native Northwest a three-decades-old company that creates art by First Nations and Native American artists, debuted their version of a ‘Pink Shirt Day’ t-shirt.

Two teachers sport pink Native Northwest t-shirts. (Native Northwest)

Haida artist Andrew Williams designed the t-shirts emblazoned with a Haida design and the word RESPECT. Money raised will go to aboriginal women’s shelters for abused women and for family events at Friendship Centres, Native Northwest’s website states. The shirts are available online and retail for copy5 + shipping, or you can buy them in person at 1644 West 75th in Vancouver.

Presently, the largest bastion of support comes from Canada’s CKNW 980 AM News radio station which mans the www.PinkShirtDay.ca website and promotes the Pink Shirt Day campaign. According to the site, “Last year over 160,000 people committed on Facebook to wear pink and help stop bullying.”

“Boys and Girls Clubs proudly participate in Pink Shirt Day because it promotes awareness, understanding and openness about the problem and a shared commitment to a solution. BGCGV relies heavily on community support to deliver our daily Club programs. Supporting Pink Shirt Day supports everyone who has experienced bullying as well as Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Vancouver’s anti-bullying programs.”

Setah expressed the message she and her children hope to share:

“I want my kids to learn to stand up for those who are not strong enough to speak for themselves. I want my kids to have enough confidence to not care what others think of them, I also want them to always LOVE, Always have RESPECT for themselves and others, Always have COURAGE, Always have HONESTY, Always have WISDOM, Always have HUMILITY and most of all ALWAYS TELL THE TRUTH!”