::Native.Strength::

April 30, 2011

APTN to Broadcast Elections May 2

Filed under: Canada — ICTMN Staff @ 1:00 pm

The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) will broadcast live coverage of the Canadian election all day on Monday May 2, the station reported.

The network’s Cheryl McKenzie and Todd Lamirande will host the special broadcast, with the co-anchors Michael Hutchinson and Dana Foster reporting from Winnipeg campaign headquarters, and reporters weighing in from ridings across the country will weigh in.

There’s also a Twitter feed, #aptnelxn41, the station said.

Voters and other interested parties will be able to track the 33 aboriginal candidates vying for seats in 24 ridings, as well as get a gander of how it might go for the billions of dollars in platform promises that have been made to the First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples.

“Indigenous voices are speaking louder in Ottawa, and APTN is listening,” APTN said.

See APTN’s News and Current Affairs website for more information.

Read more @ Indian Country Today Media Network.com.

Pow Wow Summer Guide: Northeast Region

Filed under: News Alerts,Pow Wows — ICTMN Staff @ 1:00 pm

Summer is nearly here, which means the pow wow season is about to really heat up. That’s why we’ve put together a simplified guide for any pow wow lovin’ guy or gal out there who may want to fire up the car, throw the kids in the backseat, and pin a road map on the dash (it’s more romantic to imagine it that way, GPS device be damned) and blaze the perfect pow wow trail. We’ve broken the country up into six regions, but by no means is this list comprehensive—the modern pow wow schedule is so varied and stimulating that it would take many more pages (and staff members!) to come up with anything that could even begin to capture the breadth of the upcoming pow wow offerings. This is merely a quick peek at a few pow wows that caught our eye, and that might, should you attend, sooth your soul.

So come for a ride down both coasts, across the often-great plains, over those majestic mountains and into the desert—no matter where you may roam, there’s likely a pow wow you’ll want to attend.

Unless you happen to be reading this in Harvard Square (and thus can attend the 16th Annual Harvard University Powwow on Saturday, April 30 held on Radcliffe Lawn) we suggest you head south (but not too far south) to Maryland on Friday, May 20 and check out the American Indian Pow-Wow and Show at the Eventplex at the Frederick Fairgrounds on 797 E. Patrick Street, in Frederick, Maryland. The grand entry begins at noon, and more than 50 tribes will be represented, including the Haliwa-Saponi, Piscataway, Cherokee, Sioux, Iroquois, Lumbee, Hopi, and Rappahannock, to name but a few. Hundreds of dancers, singers, drummers and artists will be there, including daily performances from Mohawk hoop dancer Pete Four Winds. For more information, call 252-532-0821.

The 18th Annual Drums on the Pocomoke Pow Wow on Saturday, May 21 is hosted by the Assateague People of Delmarva, in Cypress Park in Pocomoke City, Maryland (right off of Ocean Highway 13). Pocomoke City is situated on the banks of the Pocomoke River, and the park is a beautiful place to take in the sights and sounds of this pow wow, that will include storytelling and demonstrations in dance accompanying the traditional dancing and drumming (all drums are welcome!). For more information, visit
AssateaguePeopleofDelmarva.org.

On Sunday, May 22, you can catch the last day of the Native American Cultural Awareness Pow-Wow at the National Guard Armory at 70 Victory Road in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Sponsored by the Massachusetts Center for Native American Awareness, the Cultural Awareness Pow-Wow has become an integral part of the pow wow circuit in the Northeast. For more information, visit Mcnaa.org.

Over Memorial Day weekend, head on down to Pennsylvania Saturday, May 28, for the 18th Annual Cherokee Indian Festival in Ambler, held on a satellite campus of Temple University. The Southeastern Cherokee Confederacy of Pennsylvania has been raising awareness of American Indian heritage and culture in the area since 1988, giving lectures at local schools, colleges, universities and churches about the Cherokee language, beadwork and leather work and dancing. There’s no better place to see all of this on display than at the annual Indian Festival. Veterans are honored, visitors are awed. Head to 580 Meetinghouse Road in Ambler, Pennsylvania. For more information, visit SeCherokee-ConfederacyPa.org/events.html.

Heading north from Pennsylvania after the Memorial Day Weekend it’s time to experience Big City Pow Wow-ing. New York City’s got two great events: First, The Gateway to Nations New York Native American Celebration from June 3-5. Located at Floyd Bennett Field (50 Aviation Road in Brooklyn) and sponsored by the Redhawk Indian Arts Council. The Gateway to Nations offers three days of song, dance (the Pura Women’s fancy dance is always a crowd pleaser), crafts, jewelry, drum competition, mechanical bull riding and food. For more information, visit RedHawkCouncil.org.

Also in the Big Apple, you can check out the 33rd Annual Thunderbird American Mid-Summer Pow Wow, which takes place from July 29-31 in Queens and is the city’s oldest and largest pow wow, with more than 40 Indian nations represented. Located at 73-50 Little Neck Parkway, on an apple orchard attached to the Queens Farm Museum, which is part of the largest remaining tract of undisturbed farmland in the city. The pow wow has the Tlacopan Aztec Dancers and a sunset bonfire to complement the traditional dance and drum contests. For more information, visit QueensFarm.org.

Back to Pennsylvania we go. The 13th Annual Native American Festival held by the Lenapé Nation August 20-21 in the town of Saltsburg at 236 Skyline Drive. This year the Lenapé are celebrating the addition of a Medicine Wheel Garden—the reconstruction of their pine arbor into a living arbor made of sycamore trees—and the grand opening of the Medicine Wheel Center for Self Healing in Delmont, Pennsylvania. The festival offers family fun, including a scavenger hunt, candy dance, tomahawk-throwing tournament and crafts, along with the traditional pow wow excitement. For more information, visit ThunderMtLenape.org.

Sticking to the Keystone State during the same weekend, on August 20-21, the 31st Annual Roasting Ears of Corn Festival takes place at 2825 Fish Hatchery Road in Allentown. This is Pennsylvania’s oldest American Indian festival, and with the White Buffalo Singers acting as host drum this year it is sure to be a great time. There will be Iroquois social dancing, Aztec fire dancing, Native cooking demonstrations, a children’s craft and face-painting area, and tomahawk and atlatl throwing (it’s a type of spear) as just a few of the festivities planned for the event. For more information, visit MuseumofIndianCulture.org.

If Pennsylvania doesn’t have anything that piques your interest, there’s always the Mohegan Annual Wigwam Festival held August 20-21, at Fort Shantok in Uncasville, Connecticut. The drums will include Unity of the Nations, Mystic River and the Rez Dogs, and the MC will be Aaron Athey. For more information, call 800-664-3426, or visit
Mohegan.nsn.us.

Rounding out this tour of the Northeast, there is also the 65th Annual Shinnecock Pow Wow over Labor Day weekend, in Southampton, New York from September 2-5, on the Shinnecock Reservation. (Last year, the Shinnecocks were finally federally recognized—the 565th tribe to earn this designation.) This 1,300-member Long Island tribe, “the People of the Shore,” celebrate with this pow wow on their beautiful reservation rain or shine, just as they’ve always done since 1946. For more information, visit ShinnecockNation.com.

Read more @ Indian Country Today Media Network.com.

Indian Law & Order Commission Moves Ahead

Filed under: Uncategorized — Troy A. Eid @ 1:00 pm

The Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA), signed into law by President Obama last July with bipartisan support, makes federal agencies more accountable for serving Indian lands. TLOA also provides greater freedom for tribes to design and run their own criminal justice systems.

TLOA’s reforms—including enhanced sentencing options for tribal courts, expanded Indian Country law enforcement training, and greater transparency for federal prosecutors who decline to file cases—are welcome and long overdue. Yet many of the greatest challenges to securing equal justice for Native Americans living and working on Indian lands are structural. They’re rooted in a system of federal institutions, laws and practices that pre-date the modern era of tribal sovereignty and self-determination, and which TLOA does little or nothing to change.

That’s why TLOA created the Indian Law and Order Commission. This independent, all-volunteer advisory group, whose nine members were appointed by the President and Congress, is charged with looking beyond the horizon.

TLOA directs the Commission to report back to the White House and Capital Hill next year with specific proposals to make Indian Country safer and more just, so that Native Americans may finally receive the full protections guaranteed to all U.S. citizens by the Constitution.

The breadth and depth of experience of the Commission’s members is its greatest asset:

• Former U.S. Representatives Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (SD) and Earl Pomeroy (ND), who were instrumental in writing and enacting TLOA.
• Affie Ellis (Navajo), assistant attorney general for Wyoming.
• Tom Gede, public policy expert and former head of the Conference of Western Attorneys General.
• UCLA Law Professor Carole Goldberg, Indian law scholar and a Justice of the Hualapai Appellate Court.
• Jefferson Keel, Lieutenant Governor of the Chickasaw Nation, President of the National Congress of American Indians, and a Vietnam veteran.
• Judge Theresa Pouley (Colville) of the Tulalip Tribal Court.
• Ted Quasula (Hualapai), former police chief and law enforcement expert.

The U.S. Departments of Justice and the Interior are already supporting the Commission’s work through financial and in-kind assistance. One of the country’s top academic institutions, the University of California at Los Angeles, has recently stepped forward with a generous gift of research support. The National Congress of American Indians and other organizations are likewise lending their expertise and volunteer assistance.
While our work has just begun, a consensus at the Commission’s kick-off meeting at the Pueblo of Pojoaque last month [April 6, 2011] is that strengthening the juvenile justice system for Native Americans must be a top priority.

In the federal criminal justice system, for instance, roughly two-thirds of all juveniles held in federal criminal detention in the entire United States are Native American. This is largely because of two outdated federal laws: The Major Crimes Act of 1885, covering felonies involving Indians on reservations, and the Juvenile Delinquency Act of 1938, which automatically transfers jurisdiction over most felonies involving tribal youth from Indian nations to the federal government.

In contrast to the vast majority of state and local governments in the United States, which have separate justice systems and programs for youth offenders, there is no separate juvenile justice system at the federal level. Tragically, Native American youth automatically enter the federal criminal justice system by operation of these outmoded federal statutes – based solely on their ethnicity and where they live – and often do not have access to diversion, drug court, and other rehabilitative programs. They’re routinely transferred from tribal justice systems to federal criminal custody based on purely local offenses – even when tribal courts assert jurisdiction and have rehabilitative programs available for them.

Once confined to the federal criminal justice system, Native American juveniles face harsher punishments for the same or very similar offenses. There is no parole in the federal system and no “good time” credit, which means comparatively longer sentences. On average, federal sentences for juveniles are about twice as long as those imposed by state courts. And because there is no separate juvenile justice system at the federal level, Native American youth are disproportionately sentenced as adult offenders. Less than 2 percent of all juveniles processed in state courts are sentenced as adults, compared to an amazing one-third of all juveniles in the federal courts.

To gain insight into these and many other systemic challenges, the Indian Law and Order Commission has begun visiting Indian tribes and nations to develop recommendations for lasting public policy reform. We ask your continued help. By listening to and learning from Indian Country, we hope to make lasting structural reforms to a justice system that, even with the much-needed reforms made by the Tribal Law and Order Act, is still failing too many Native Americans and undermining the Constitution that guarantees equal justice to all.

Troy A. Eid, a partner in the Denver office of Greenberg Traurig LLP and former United States Attorney for the District of Colorado, is Chair of the Indian Law and Order Commission.

Read more @ Indian Country Today Media Network.com.

Orphaned Norfolk Eaglets Given New Home; Mom Honored

Filed under: Environment,News Alerts,Video — ICTMN Staff @ 1:00 pm

This mother of three eaglets at the Norfolk (Virginia) Botanical Garden was struck and killed by a plane a few days after taking this flight.

Three eaglets are too much for a single-bird parent, so her three babies, orphaned when their mother was hit by a plane, have been sent to the Wildlife Center of Virginia to be raised by certified handlers.

Their 15-year-old mother, who was avidly followed by tribal members and others around the world via eagle cam, was struck and killed by a US Airways flight inbound from Philadelphia on April 26, the Virginian-Pilot reported.

The eaglets were removed from their nest the next day out of fears that the father eagle could not provide enough food on his own to a growing brood, the Norfolk Botanical Garden in Norfolk, Virginia, said in a press release.

“Without intervention, it is all but certain that one or more of these eaglets would not survive the next three months,” said Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF) biologist Stephen Living in a statement. “Pulling the birds and sending them to the Wildlife Center gives them their best chance. The birds are already old enough to know that they are eagles and to recognize their siblings. Maintaining them as a family unit and releasing them together when they are ready to go will certainly improve their survival potential.”

Eagles, representing freedom and courage, are considered emissaries from the sky, prayers floating on the wind, according to the website Support Native American Art. Their feathers are sacred pieces of their spirit and reflect a recipient’s vision and accomplishments, blogs site founder Michaele, who holds an anthropology degree from Penn State with a concentration in Native American archaeology and a minor in religious studies.

The garden is hosting a memorial on Sunday May 1 to honor the fallen eagle, whose spirit has indeed gone to the heavens. The Native American Drum Group Four Rivers Drum will play in tribute to her in an event open to the public. It begins at 10:30 a.m. in the Matson Garden area at the Norfolk Botanical Garden.

The eagle had been followed via webcam since 2006, CNN reported, with 5 million views in March when the chicks hatched, a VDGIF spokeswoman for the told the network, whose affiliate WVEC helped operate the webcam.

Now they will be watched by other eyes: According to the botanical garden, they will spend the rest of their eaglet-hood at the WCV in an artificial nest in the Center’s 200-foot eagle-flight cage before being released into the wild in late summer.

“Other adult bald eagle patients may also be in this enclosure,” the garden’s statement said. “While the chicks will be separated by a physical barrier from direct contact with other eagles, the eaglets will be able to see other eagles flying and feeding. As they begin to fledge, the barrier will be removed and the young eagles will have full access to the long enclosure, to build their wing strength and to learn to fly.”

Learn more about the eagle cam, then witness the last contact the mother had with her chicks, below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Read more @ Indian Country Today Media Network.com.

Kauffman & Associates Wins Video Awards

Filed under: Alaska Native,Business,Education,Health & Wellness,News Alerts — ICTMN Staff @ 11:00 am

Kauffman & Associates, Inc. (KAI)–a Native- and female-owned professional services firm specializing in public health, education and economic development issues, founded in 1990 by Jo Ann Kauffman (Nez Perce)–received industry awards for two videos produced for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The NSF video, “Weaving STEM Education and Culture,” won a bronze Telly Award in the cultural category and a gold Aurora Award in the documentary category. The video supports the federal agency’s Tribal Colleges and Universities Program, “which gives grants to innovative, culturally relevant programs that engage American Indian and Alaska Native students in science, technology, engineering, and math—STEM—education.”

The NSF video highlights students’ stories and unique education programs. One professor connects traditional Ojibwe teachings with plant taxonomy. A nutritional science program is centered around Native foods. Students at Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute conduct research for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s “Bringing Back Smiles” video won a bronze Telly Award in the social issues category and a gold Aurora Award in the news report/update category. The video profiles dental therapists who provide basic dental care in remote Alaska Native villages as part of the Alaska Dental Health Aide Therapist Initiative, spearheaded by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. In December, the firm also won a 2010 Gold Ava Award in the nonprofit category for “Bringing Back Smiles.”

Film and video industry professionals judge both awards. The Aurora Awards is an international competition for the film and video industries. The Telly Awards, which annually attracts about 13,000 entries, honors local, regional, and cable TV commercials and programs as well as video and film productions and web commercials.

KAI, which is based in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Spokane, Washington, serves federal, tribal, state, and regional governments, associations, foundations, and private-sector businesses. For more information about KAI, visit www.kauffmaninc.com.

Read more @ Indian Country Today Media Network.com.

American Indian College Fund Honors Scholars and Tribal College President

Filed under: Education,News Alerts — ICTMN Staff @ 11:00 am

Many students were honored recently during the American Indian Higher Education Consortium Student Conference in Bismarck, North Dakota held April 16 to 19.

The Coca Cola Foundation and the American Indian College Fund (AICF) gave 36 American Indian students $5,000 each for the Coca Cola First Generation Scholarship.

The scholarship was started to help fund the student’s first year in college.

“If a student maintains at least a 3.0 grade point average and shows strong participation in campus and community life the first year and beyond, the scholarship is renewed every year throughout her tribal college career,” reads a press release announcing the winners.

Richard Williams, AICF president and CEO, presented Kirk Glaze, the community affairs manager with the Coca Cola Foundation, a custom-beaded bolo with the Coca Cola emblem.

Iva Croff, a Coca Cola First Generation Scholarship recipient at Blackfeet Community College, gave a speech at the event. “Other than my family, I haven’t had anyone believe in me so much that they would invest in my education for three years. I will graduate this spring with my associate of arts degrees in Blackfeet language and Blackfeet studies, and had it not been for the College Fund and Coca Cola, it would have been very difficult to accomplish that in this timeframe. Thanks to them, I don’t think the word difficult was even part of my vocabulary during the past three years.”

The following students are First Generation Scholarship recipients:

Denise Aldrich, Tohono O’odam Community College

Janice Mendez, Haskell Indian Nations University

Tammi Proulx, Bay Mills Community College

Cindy Knapp, Keweena Bay Ojibwa Community College

Nicole McMullen, Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College

Leila Northbird, Leech Lake Tribal College

Iva Croff, Blackfeet Community College

Laura Whitford, Blackfeet Community College

Anthony Morrison, Chief Dull Knife College

Shelley Schenderline, Salish Kootenai College

Jessie Bennett, Institute of American Indian Arts

Tyler Tarpalechee, Institute of Indian Arts

Lyle Etsitty, Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute

Tiffany Shortbull, Oglala Lakota College

Sophia Renville, Sisseton Wahpeton College

Talia Graves, Northwest Indian College

Ashley Bierman, College of Menominee Nation

Teresa Blueshield, Candeska Cikana Community College

Felix Delmar, Diné College

Virgil McLaughlin, Oglala Lakota College

Alyssa Jackson, Fort Belknap College

Matthew Yellow Wolf, Fort Berthold Community College

Jayde Clampitt, Fort Peck Community College

Kivvaq Nungasak, Ilisagvik College

Anastasia Gordon, Lac Courte Oreilles Community College

Rochelle Long Soldier, Little Big Horn College

Brandon LaMere, Little Priest Tribal College

Olivia Holiday, Navajo Technical College

Lindsey Adams, Oglala Lakota College

Lucelia Fire Cloud, Sinte Gleska University

Lindsey Larson, Sitting Bull College

Sterling Chase, Sitting Bull College

Antoinette Eagleman, Stone Child College

Vincent Wilkie, Turtle Mountain Community College

Lora GreyBear, United Tribes Technical College

Victoria LaFriniere, White Earth Tribal and Community College

AICF also honored 33 Students of the Year at the American Indian Higher Education Consortium Student Conference. Each student received a $1,000 scholarship from the Colorado-based Castle Rock Foundation.

Students of the Year for each tribal college and university include:

Tamara Munz, Bay Mills Community College

Brendon Gobert, Blackfeet Community College

DeShawn Lawrence, Cankdeska Cikana Community College

Wayne Roundstone, Chief Dull Knife College

Cherie Thunder, College of Menominee Nation

Terra Harvey, Diné College

Shirley Blacketter, Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College

Jesse Brockie, Fort Belknap College

Sarah Cavanaugh, Fort Berthold Community College

Karri Charette, Fort Peck Community College

Ordell Joe, Haskell Indian Nations University

Joseph Pikok, Ilisagvik College

Shannah Serawop, Institute of American Indian Arts

Raymond Cadreaus, Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College

Acacia Fawn Crow, Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Community College

Dan Jourdain, Leech Lake Tribal College

Edison Jefferson, Little Big Horn College

Brandon LaMere, Little Priest Tribal College

Jamie Henio, Navajo Technical College

Isreal Harlan, Nebraska Indian Community College

Rita Asgeirsson, Northwest Indian College

Wanda Fields, Oglala Lakota College

Brenda Walker, Saginaw Chippewa Tribal College

Urban Bear Don’t Walk, Salish Kootenai College

Travis Jansen, Sinte Gleska University

Brendon Barker, Sisseton Wahpeton College

Harriet Blackhoop, Sitting Bull College

Calvin Silas, Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute

Nich’e Herrera, Stone Child College

Iris Francisco, Tohono O’odham Community College

Erin Trottier, Turtle Mountain Community College

Bobby Crow Feather, United Tribes Technical College

Kyla Van Pelt, White Earth Tribal and Community College

Williams also presented Lionel Bordeaux, president of Sinte Gleska University and one of the tribal college movement founders, with the Tribal College President Award and $1,000 for his educational contributions.

“The education system we have is not ours [the presidents’, faculties’, and staffs’]. It is yours…it comes from you…We’re all here today in redefining and rebuilding tribal nations,” Bordeaux said after accepting his award.

Read more @ Indian Country Today Media Network.com.

April 29, 2011

Former Economic Commissioner Denies Reported Racist Remarks

Filed under: News Alerts,Politics,Racism — Gale Courey Toensing @ 10:03 pm

Maine’s former commissioner of economic development czar who resigned earlier this week has denied reports that he made racist and offensive remarks at a Chamber of Commerce awards banquet and other events and has claimed he is the victim of a political attack, the Bangor Daily News reported Friday.

Philip Congdon, who suddenly resigned his post on Wednesday, April 27, told the Bangor Daily News (BDN) Thursday night that he was puzzled by the comments attributed to him in a flurry of media reports.

“I’m being accused of saying things that I did not say, but I don’t know how to refute them,” Congdon told the BDN a day after his resignation. “I think there is a political agenda here.”

Reports alleged that Congdon told members of the Aroostook County business community at the event on April 1 that the country’s downturn in the economy and education could be traced to the civil rights movement and allowing black people access to American universities, that if Aroostook County residents wanted economic development they needed to “get off the reservation and make it happen.”  He also attributed problems with Aroostook County young people to having “bad parents,” and said Maine’s potato farmers were wasting their spuds by selling them for French fries rather than vodka.

His comments, particularly the one about getting off the reservation, drew quick – and unfavorable – responses from Indian leaders.

“Usually people are a bit more subtle than that,” said Kirk Francis, the chief of the Penobscot Indian Nation. “You have four federally recognized tribes in Maine to whom these comments are extremely insensitive at best and the civil rights affirmative action comments are much more than that. I won’t use the word, but it is what it is.”

“In a nation that promotes diversity as both its foundation and its greatest strength, I am disheartened and outraged by the racism, prejudice, bigotry, and discrimination that still prevails in America today,” said Kitchki Carroll, the executive director of the United South and Eastern Tribes and a citizen of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma. “While many may wish to believe that this form of hate no longer exists, or worse yet turn a blind eye upon, examples such as this remind us that it is still present in profound ways. The perpetuation of such ignorance and hate is the reason we have failed to achieve true justice and equality for all as a nation.”

The following day, Condgon denied making the comment. “I did not tell anybody in Aroostook County to ‘get off the reservation,’” Congdon said, according to the BDN. Instead, Congdon said he may have told a group that he, himself, was going to get off the reservation as a flippant way of saying he was about to say something not necessarily consistent with the administration of Gov. Paul LePage. Congdon also claimed to be part Penobscot Indian and would not intentionally offend American Indians.

According to Wickionary, the expression “to go off the reservation” has negative connotations no matter what one’s intention may be or where it’s directed. Here’s how the web site defines “to go off the reservation”:

  • (literally) To leave a reservation to which one was restricted. Quotation from April 10, 1872, United States Congress, The Congressional Globe: The Indian may go off the reservation, he can steal from the whites and run back to the reservation with impunity.
  • (US, politics) To break with one’s party or group, usually temporarily. Quotation from January 31, 1960:  Harry S Truman, “Dear Joe”, from Strictly Personal and Confidential: The Letters Harry Truman Never Mailed: I’ll never forget 1948 when these so called “liberals” (synthetics I call them) went off the reservation and gave New York to Dewey.
  • (by extension) To engage in disruptive activity outside normal bounds. Quotation from 1965, Drew Middleton, The Atlantic Community: A Study in Unity and Disunity: When the Russians do go off the reservation, as they did early in April 1965, their object is not to challenge the Western allies of yesteryear, the United States, Britain, and France, but to impress upon West Germany their support for East Germany and its claim to West Berlin.

LePage became aware of Congdon’s remarks on Monday and “took immediate action on the matter,” the governor’s spokeswomen Adrienne Bennett told the BDN. She declined to say whether Congdon was fired or was asked to resign.

Read more @ Indian Country Today Media Network.com.

Supreme Court Blocks Multi-Tribal Trust Suit

Filed under: News Alerts,Politics — Rob Capriccioso @ 9:25 pm

WASHINGTON – In yet another loss for tribes with the Supreme Court, its justices have ruled that the Tohono O’Odham Nation is not allowed to pursue a lawsuit claiming mismanagement of tribal resources in two different federal courts at the same time.

The 7-1 ruling, handed down April 26, threw out a lawsuit by the tribe in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The tribe had sued both in U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in December 2006, arguing that the federal government had mismanaged its trust assets, including its reservation lands, mineral resources, and income.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the court’s majority opinion that the two lawsuits were essentially the “same claim.” “Indeed, it appears that the Nation could have filed two identical complaints, save the caption and prayer for relief, without changing either suit in any significant respect,” Kennedy wrote.

The tribe had argued that the law forces them to choose between partial remedies (either an accounting, or final damages), but Kennedy said the argument was without merit. “The Nation could have filed in the CFC alone and if successful obtained monetary relief to compensate for any losses caused by the Government’s breach of duty,” Kennedy wrote. “It also seems likely that Indian tribes in the Nation’s position could go to district court first without losing the chance to later file in the CFC, for Congress has provided in every appropriations Act for the Department of Interior since 1990 that the statute of limitations on Indian trust mismanagement claims shall not run until the affected tribe has been given an appropriate accounting.”

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the tribe should have been allowed both suits: “When Congress bars a plaintiff from obtaining complete relief in one suit, however, and does not call for an election of remedies, Congress is most sensibly ready to have comprehended that the operative facts give rise to two discrete claims.”

The ruling is expected to impact several tribes beyond Tohono O’Odham. To date, nearly 100 tribes have filed lawsuits in federal district courts seeking a historical accounting of their trust funds and assets, while some of those tribes also have filed lawsuits for financial damages in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Under the Supreme Court ruling, tribes will have to decide if they want a historical accounting in U.S. District Court, or a damage claim in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. If a tribe chooses a historical accounting, statute of limitations issues could impact their ability to file for separate damages.

“The consequences of the Court’s decision are significant for Indian country,” wrote Akin Gump lawyers James Meggesto and Patricia Millett on the Turtle Talk tribal legal analysis blog. “Tribes who have simultaneous litigation pending in both federal district court and the CFC may now find that subject matter jurisdiction is lacking over their CFC judgments.” The lawyers had filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the Osage Nation in support of the Tohono O’odham Nation in the Supreme Court.

“The decision is equally important for the numerous other litigants seeking both monetary and equitable relief against the United States’ violations of law,” they wrote. “For example, if the government is engaged in an ongoing regulatory taking of property, individuals must now choose between exercising their constitutional right to obtain just compensation for that taking in the CFC and their right to prevent further constitutional injury through an injunction in federal district court. The property owner cannot obtain both forms of relief simultaneously.”

The Supreme Court ruling was consistent with the Court of Federal Claims’ decision to throw out the suit under the rationale that it did not have jurisdiction and the two lawsuits were too similar. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit disagreed, ruling that the CFC retained jurisdiction because the two lawsuits sought distinct forms of relief.

Ginsburg wrote in her dissenting opinion that it would be “less harsh” and equally possible to grant a stay while a District Court case were to advance, which would keep the statute of limitations from running out on tribes.

Justice Elena Kagan did not participate in the decision because she was involved with the case when she served as solicitor general.

The Supreme Court has ruled against tribal interests in all major Indian cases before it since John Roberts became chief justice in 2005. The Native American Rights Fund and other tribal entities have been working to educate the court, especially its newer members, on tribal legal issues.

The Tohono O’Odham Nation’s suit in U.S. District Court goes on. The case argues that the U.S. government handled $2.1 billion in transactions for the tribe between 1972 and 1992, but “has never fulfilled its duty to provide a true and adequate accounting” of the trust funds.

Read more @ Indian Country Today Media Network.com.

Indian NFL Footballer Promotes Healthy Kids

Filed under: Health,Health & Wellness,News Alerts,Sports — Rob Capriccioso @ 7:12 pm

Sam Bradford, quarterback for the NFL’s St. Louis Rams, joined U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in supporting healthy initiatives focused on American Indian youth. Bradford and Vilsack met April 27 at the USDA headquarters in Washington, D.C., where they urged Native American youth to spend the summer pursuing healthy outdoor activities.

Bradford, an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation, joined more than thirty Native American students at USDA’s People’s Garden in planting an Indian-themed garden, called The Roots of American Agriculture.

“My mom wouldn’t let me sit in the house,” said the Heisman Trophy winner at the ceremony. “She would limit my TV to an hour a day. After that hour was up, I was out the door. What I was doing, it was up to me, whether it was playing football, playing basketball … There was a creek by my house that I used to go out to.”

Vilsack used the event as an opportunity to highlight the Obama administration’s youth-focused health initiatives. “Through programs like ‘Fuel up to Play 60′ and Let’s Move!, the Obama administration is helping get kids active in order to help them have a healthy future,” Vilsack said in a statement. “Our partners at the NFL and across the country are key to engaging kids in an exciting way that teaches them that physical activity can be fun, while also important to their health.”

Bradford and Vilsack noted that a recent study of four year-old children found that obesity is more than twice as common among American Indian/Alaska Native children than among white or Asian children. In 2002, nearly 15 percent of those receiving care from the United States Indian Health Service (IHS) were estimated to have diabetes, according to government estimated.

According to USDA officials, the agency’s People’s Garden Initiative promotes the establishment of school and community gardens to grow healthy food, people and communities across the country.

Youth participating in the Bradford event included students representing Eastern and Western tribes, Southeast Alaska, and a class from a Native elementary school in Tuba City, Arizona.

The garden Bradford helped plant included heirloom Native American crops and planting techniques and was aimed at celebrating Indian contributions to farming.

Bradford and Vilsack were joined at USDA by Robin Schepper, executive director of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Campaign; Keith Moore, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Education Director, and Janie Hipp, Senior Advisor to Secretary Vilsack with the USDA Office of Tribal Relations.

On April 22, 2010, Bradford was selected by the St. Louis Rams as the first overall pick in the 2010 NFL Draft. He grew up in Oklahoma and spent his college career with the Oklahoma Sooners. In 2008, Bradford became the second sophomore to win a Heisman Trophy. In his first season in the NFL, Bradford won the NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year award after setting the record for most completions by a rookie in NFL history.

Read more @ Indian Country Today Media Network.com.

Milky Way Meets Devil Mountain—Echeyde (El Teide)

Filed under: Environment,News Alerts,Travel,Video,World News — ICTMN Staff @ 6:00 pm

Amid the tragedy of tornadoes in Alabama, U.S., and earthquake-tsunami devastation in Japan, it’s easy to lose sight of the beauty that is our Earth.

Photographer Terje Sorgjerd journeyed to El Teide, the Canary Islands, to capture two of his favorite things: the Milky Way and “one of the most amazing mountains I know,” he wrote on his Vimeo page. Between April 4 and 11 he took this time-lapse photography of mountain scenes and juxtaposed them with shots of the Milky Way obtained almost by accident during a Saharan sandstorm.

The combination is especially fitting given its mythical history—the aboriginal Guanches believed that this 12,200-foot-high mountain, Echeyde, held up the sky—and its contemporary place as a home to the Teide Observatories, among the world’s most prominent celestial lookout stations.

Teide is also one of the world’s feistiest volcanoes, which also factors into Guanche legend: Echeyde was as sacred to the Guanches as Mount Olympus was to the ancient Greeks, according to Wikipedia and other sources. Guayota, the devil, lived inside the volcano and kidnapped the god of light and sun, Magec, imprisoning him inside and plunging the world into darkness. The Guanches asked their god Achamán for clemency; Achamán fought and defeated Guayota, Magec was freed, and he plugged the crater with Guayota, where the demon remains locked to this day.

Stone tools and pottery remains have been found inside crevices of the mountain. They are thought to be leftover from rituals that were designed to banish the evil spirits that were thought to live inside.

Sorgjerd’s video, in capturing the majesty of the earth and the stars above, has entranced the world. Have a look, and learn more about what was going through his mind here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Read more @ Indian Country Today Media Network.com.
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