December 18, 2008
Paiutes, descendants of Wovoka, want reburial for Spirit Cave Man
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
STILLWATER, Nevada -- Dell Steve, Northern Paiute elder, said the United States has seized the remains of one of the Paiute people, Spirit Cave Man, who deserves a ceremonial reburial.
Steve joins Wesley Dick, Paiute buckskin tanner and traditional hunter and gatherer, on Censored Blog Radio in the show, "Paiutes of Stillwater: Best of the Longest Walk Radio."
The descendants of Wovoka, who brought the Ghost Dance, send a message to the US President and US Congress to honor the inherent rights of Native American people.
Steve said Spirit Cave Man, seized by the US at Grimes Point in the early 1940s, should be reburied in the Stillwater Mountain Range, where the Paiute people began in this world. Steve describes how the colonizers first seized the use of this land and have now seized the remains of the Paiute people. "The state of Nevada and the Bureau of Land Management do not want to give the remains back to us," said Steve. The issue is now before the federal court.
Steve said the remains were first believed to be 2,00o years old, but were later documented to be at about 10,000 years old. The Paiute remains are among three of the oldest found in the Americas. Steve aid the other two oldest remains were in the Northwest US and South America.
"That proves our people have lived here for thousands of years," Steve said. He said the remains belong to the Paiutes and should be returned. However, he said the State of Nevada and its museum, Nevada State Museum, contend that "they are not our people."
"They claim these remains to be 'ancient people,' and not our people." Steve said the oral history of the Paiute people tells how the mother and father of the Paiute Nation lived in the Stillwater Range at Fox Peak. "That was the original story of our people," he said, adding that the Paiute people later migrated. In the region that is now called Stillwater, Paiutes lived around the marshes, where waterfowl were plentiful and deer were in the mountains. "We had plenty of food from Mother Nature. Our culture was hunting and fishing," he said of the early Paiutes. "They did that for thousands of years," he said, adding that Paiutes maintained their ceremonies and dances as they respected Mother Nature and believed in the culture.
Steve said the people here are the descendants of Wovoka, whose vision led to the Ghost Dance. In the broadcast, Steve shares the message of Wovoka and encouragement for Indian people to follow the traditional ways.
Wesley Dick, Paiute hunter and buckskin tanner, describes how the restrictions on Paiute hunting rights here makes it difficult to maintain the Paiute culture. As a Paiute hunter, his responsibility is to provide for the elderly and others in need. Dick said the large migrating waterfowl was once a main source of food, but is now restricted. Dick, who cooked rabbit for the Longest Walk Northern Route as it passed through Stillwater in west central Nevada in February of 2008, describes the process of traditional buckskin tanning. During the Longest Walk's stay here, Dick taught one of the walkers, Yukio from Japan, how to make a buckskin drum.
Speaking on the culture of the marshes, Dick describes the tules or cattails that were used to weave mats for the construction of homes. Dick gathers the tules from the marshes to create ducks and other traditional crafts. Dick sent a message to Washington to respect Paiute traditions and honor the Paiutes inherent right to hunt and gather wild foods.
Listen to the program, with audios recorded by Earthcycles, at Censored Blog Radio:
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com/
or listen at Censored Blog Radio homepage:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Brenda-Norrell
Graphic: The Peabody Octopus Cyclops on Black Mesa
The Peabody Cyclops on Black Mesa. Special thanks to Another Walker on the Good Red Road, for this original graphic to illustrate today's Censored News editorial, "A Call for Whistelblowers, Cyclops in the Closet:"
Double click on image to enlarge. High resolution image available for media and activists signs and websites.
A time for eagles: Code Pink, Muntadar and Ackerman
Today is Code Pink, Muntadar al-Zaidi and Judy Ackerman Day at Censored News
A call for whistleblowers: Cyclops in the Closet
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
In Washington outside the White House, the Code Pink ladies were throwing shoes at a Bush effigy on Wednesday, while a lone woman, Judy Ackerman, 55, was getting arrested in El Paso for defending the Rio Bosque Wetlands from the destruction of the US Border Wall construction.
It was a day for eagles.
We can only hope that more eagles in the form of whistleblowers will step forward before another dirty coal mine, Desert Rock, becomes a reality on the Navajo Nation, and Peabody Coal is allowed to expand its genocidal tentacles into the heartland of Black Mesa.
Like a morbid octopus, Peabody wants to usurp everything that does not belong to the coal-chewing monster. Like a thirsty cyclops, Peabody wants to drain the pristine waters of the Navajo and Hopi aquifer, with its one eye focused on more dirty millions.
If the highly-paid spin doctors have their way, there will be more Navajo relocation to make way for the Peabody Coal dragon. There will be more lies in the media and more Navajo elderly will die from broken hearts.
Through the years there have been many whistleblowers on the Navajo Nation, exposing the dirty backdoor deals of Navajo politicians and corrupt corporate spiders.
Today, the Censored News blog calls on all those whistleblowers who are home biting their nails to come out and tell the world about the sleazy deals behind the Desert Rock scheme and Peabody Coal's latest parasitic coal mining plan.
Already, the sex and cocaine of the US Mineral Management Service in Denver with the Big Oil daddies has been exposed.
We would like to hear from the whistleblowers of the Office of Surface Mining in Denver. We would like to hear about the cash that is flowing to keep people silent in corporate offices and what is going on in the US Interior closets.
We would like to hear about the lush meals and lavish hotels aimed at keeping American Indian politicians voting for dirty power plants in tribal council sessions. We would like to hear about the advocates who receive scholarship dollars to speak out in favor of digging into the Earth Mother.
We would also like to hear from whistleblowers at the BLM and elsewhere within the Bush Family. We would like to hear more about how President Bush Sr., before leaving office, cleared the way for Barrick Gold mining to lease lands in Nevada. Once he was out of office, Bush Sr. then went to work as a senior consultant for Barrick. Barrick tore out the trees and bulldozed the area of the Western Shoshone's sacred Mount Tenabo in the past two weeks, as it prepares to core out the mountain for gold mining and poison the water with cyanide leaching.
We would also like to hear from the whistleblowers in the Cheney ring of private prison thieves, who profiteered from imprisoning migrants and all people of color. Surely there are whistleblowers in the US military torture schools and the private mercenaries for profit empire.
Meanwhile, there are the shoes to consider.
With more than 8,300 online articles now in Google Breaking News, Muntadar al-Zaidi -- the shoe-throwing journalist who called Bush a "dog" and remembered the dead, orphans and widows -- has become one of the most famous people in the world.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said of al-Zaidi, "What courage."
Today's AP article on the Code Pink shoe throwers outside the White House says, "The U.S. Secret Service stood by during the protests; however there were no conflicts with authorities and no arrests were made."
How could anyone have a conflict with what the reporter Muntadar al-Zaidi did in Iraq. There is no way to bring back the dead women, children and elderly of Iraq. The mass murders in Iraq can only be considered an act of US genocide. The US kidnappings and tortures were violations of the Geneva Conventions.
Today is Code Pink, Muntadar al-Zaidi and Judy Ackerman Day at Censored News. VIDEO: 'Code Pink Shoe-in at the White House'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yOC4ckof04
VIDEO: 'Shoe-icide at the White House'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju0VpP4oUyM
A call for whistleblowers: Cyclops in the Closet
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com
In Washington outside the White House, the Code Pink ladies were throwing shoes at a Bush effigy on Wednesday, while a lone woman, Judy Ackerman, 55, was getting arrested in El Paso for defending the Rio Bosque Wetlands from the destruction of the US Border Wall construction.
It was a day for eagles.
We can only hope that more eagles in the form of whistleblowers will step forward before another dirty coal mine, Desert Rock, becomes a reality on the Navajo Nation, and Peabody Coal is allowed to expand its genocidal tentacles into the heartland of Black Mesa.
Like a morbid octopus, Peabody wants to usurp everything that does not belong to the coal-chewing monster. Like a thirsty cyclops, Peabody wants to drain the pristine waters of the Navajo and Hopi aquifer, with its one eye focused on more dirty millions.
If the highly-paid spin doctors have their way, there will be more Navajo relocation to make way for the Peabody Coal dragon. There will be more lies in the media and more Navajo elderly will die from broken hearts.
Through the years there have been many whistleblowers on the Navajo Nation, exposing the dirty backdoor deals of Navajo politicians and corrupt corporate spiders.
Today, the Censored News blog calls on all those whistleblowers who are home biting their nails to come out and tell the world about the sleazy deals behind the Desert Rock scheme and Peabody Coal's latest parasitic coal mining plan.
Already, the sex and cocaine of the US Mineral Management Service in Denver with the Big Oil daddies has been exposed.
We would like to hear from the whistleblowers of the Office of Surface Mining in Denver. We would like to hear about the cash that is flowing to keep people silent in corporate offices and what is going on in the US Interior closets.
We would like to hear about the lush meals and lavish hotels aimed at keeping American Indian politicians voting for dirty power plants in tribal council sessions. We would like to hear about the advocates who receive scholarship dollars to speak out in favor of digging into the Earth Mother.
We would also like to hear from whistleblowers at the BLM and elsewhere within the Bush Family. We would like to hear more about how President Bush Sr., before leaving office, cleared the way for Barrick Gold mining to lease lands in Nevada. Once he was out of office, Bush Sr. then went to work as a senior consultant for Barrick. Barrick tore out the trees and bulldozed the area of the Western Shoshone's sacred Mount Tenabo in the past two weeks, as it prepares to core out the mountain for gold mining and poison the water with cyanide leaching.
We would also like to hear from the whistleblowers in the Cheney ring of private prison thieves, who profiteered from imprisoning migrants and all people of color. Surely there are whistleblowers in the US military torture schools and the private mercenaries for profit empire.
Meanwhile, there are the shoes to consider.
With more than 8,300 online articles now in Google Breaking News, Muntadar al-Zaidi -- the shoe-throwing journalist who called Bush a "dog" and remembered the dead, orphans and widows -- has become one of the most famous people in the world.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said of al-Zaidi, "What courage."
Today's AP article on the Code Pink shoe throwers outside the White House says, "The U.S. Secret Service stood by during the protests; however there were no conflicts with authorities and no arrests were made."
How could anyone have a conflict with what the reporter Muntadar al-Zaidi did in Iraq. There is no way to bring back the dead women, children and elderly of Iraq. The mass murders in Iraq can only be considered an act of US genocide. The US kidnappings and tortures were violations of the Geneva Conventions.
Today is Code Pink, Muntadar al-Zaidi and Judy Ackerman Day at Censored News. VIDEO: 'Code Pink Shoe-in at the White House'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yOC4ckof04
VIDEO: 'Shoe-icide at the White House'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ju0VpP4oUyM
El Paso woman arrested protecting Wetlands from border wall construction
Judith Ackerman arrested while protecting Rio Bosque Wetlands from the destruction of border wall construction
By Carlos Marentes
Photo by Bill Addington
EL PASO, TEXAS - Today, at about 2 p.m., Judith Ackerman, a member of a growing number of border residents against the border wall, was arrested by officers of the Texas Department of Public Safety ("The Texas Rangers") at the construction site inside the Rio Bosque Wetlands Park. She was attempting to stop heavy machinery and equipment from entering into the park which is the only remaining spot of real wildlife in El Paso' border.
A small group of border residents were in the area to show their support for Judy's action and to protest against the wall. The border wall contractor called for help to remove Judy. An impressive number of officers from the State, Federal, County and City law enforcement agencies arrived quickly to detain Judy and harass the rest of the demonstrators. Even Border Patrol officers moved to the area to stop American citizens from moving close to the border area. The officers approached many of the protesters to intimidate them but the protesters refused to leave the area. A woman was detained for almost three hours for interrogation. Many more received threats of more arrests if the group continue protesting against the construction of the border wall.
The construction of the border wall represents a serious threat to the already fragile ecosystem of the Rio Bosque. Plants and animals who had survived the predatory maquiladora model of economic development still live on this place. Some of these plants and animals are in the endangered species list. But thanks to concerned border residents, environmentalists, conservationists as well as faculty from UTEP and city employees have worked for many years to restore the ecosystem of the park. The construction of the wall will cause irreparable damage to the Rio Bosque Wetlands Park of El Paso.
Once completed, the wall will cover almost 70 miles from Sunland Park, New Mexico, to McNary, Texas. The wall will separate the border communities of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, México. Both cities used to be part of one community, the El Paso del Norte. The war against México created the current border and divided the El Paso del Norte, but both communities retained their common language and culture and developed deep family, social and economic relationships. The border wall is more than 18 ft. high and the estimated cost is more than 7.5 million dollars per mile. The cost of the wall is considered an offense by the people of El Paso, the Fourth Poorest City in the Nation.
Judy was released from jail and she expects to be charged by the arresting authorities. More arrests may occur since the demonstrators have expressed the commitment to continue the struggle to stop the construction of the border wall.