Mary Sojourner: San Francisco Peaks 'From Sacrilege to Sacredness'

From Sacrilege to Sacredness: What's the Big Deal About Snowmaking?

Monday 22 August 2011

by: Mary Sojourner, New Clear Vision | Op-Ed
Photo by Outta Your Backpack Media: Author Mary Sojourner being arrested as Klee Benally chained himself to an excavator on San Franicsco Peaks

This is not the first time I’ve traveled up this mountain. My once-lover Dark Cloud and I hiked, camped and made love in these old Ponderosa and Fir forests. My road buddy Everett and I crawled into a little cave in this mountain to drink water from an icy spring that tastes of volcanic rock. I’ve danced on the thick mat of pine needles under a New Moon and followed my son up Bear Jaw trail until I had no more breath.
http://www.truth-out.org/sacrilege-sacredness-whats-big-deal-about-snowmaking/1314041968

Tar Sands White House Day 3: 162 arrests

Photos Day 2 Tar Sands White House Arrests by Shadia Fayne Wood/Censored News

Another 52 Americans Arrested to Ask Obama to Stand Up to Big Oil

By Tar Sands Action
www.tarsandsaction.org
Monday, Aug. 22, 2011
WASHINGTON, DC — Another 52 Americans were arrested at the White House this morning for taking part in an ongoing sit-in to push President Obama to stand up to Big Oil and deny the permit for a massive new oil pipeline. (1) In total, 162 people have been arrested since the ongoing protest began on Saturday.
This morning’s demonstrators came to Washington, DC from across the country, willing to spend their vacation in handcuffs to send a message to the President that they feel has abandoned their values and his promises to take on climate change.
Lori Fischer, the co-director for Nebraska Environmental Action Coalition and a member of Nebraska Farmers Union, traveled with five other Nebraskans and was arrested this morning. She said before her arrest:
“If the government is going to refuse to step up to the responsibility to defend a livable future, I believe that creates a moral imperative for me and many others. This is a crucial issue for Nebraskans to speak up loudly about. Our land, water, and the future of our children are at stake. I feel our leaders need to take seriously their responsibility to pass on a healthy and just world to the next generation, I am going to Washington remind them.”
This morning, the New York Times editorial board reiterated its opposition to the pipeline, writing, “The State Department] should acknowledge the environmental risk of the pipeline and the larger damage caused by tar sands production and block the Keystone XL.” (2)
Many of the protest’s lead organizers remained in jail this morning after being arrested during Saturday morning’s first act of civil disobedience., including former White House official and co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Gus Speth.
“We the prisoners being held in the Central Cell Block of the D.C. Jail need company and encourage the continuation of the protests against the tar sands pipeline,” said Speth. “I’ve held numerous positions and public office in Washington but my current position feels like one of the most important.”
The sit-in at the White House will continue tomorrow morning with 50 more Americans and Canadians risking arrest to protect their air, water, and climate. Over 2,000 people have registered to take part in the sit-in, which will continue every day until September 3.
Among those planning on being arrested tomorrow are film-star Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane in four Superman movies, and actress Tantoo Cardinal, an iconic Cree actress who appeared in Dances with Wolves, Legends of the Fall, Smoke Signals and more. Cardinal, who was born in Ft. McMurray, Alberta, the capitol of the tar sands, was made made a Member of the Order of Canada in 2009.
Tomorrow, she will risk arrest to stop the destruction of her homeland and push President Obama to help shut down the tar sands by denying a permit for the Keystone XL.
Notes to the editor
(1) President Obama will decide later this year on TransCanada’s permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which will send 900,000 barrels a day of the world’s dirtiest oil to US refineries, allowing further development of the Alberta tar sands. The pipeline would pass through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Mining oil from tar sands creates three times more carbon emissions than conventional oil extraction.

Also see: Did Obama order tar sands protesters jailed?

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2011/08/22/did-obama-order-tar-sands-protersters-jailed/

Indian Country Today continues to curse readers in e-mail responses

Carlisle Indian School/Photo Brenda Norrell

By Brenda Norrell

Censored News

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

A columnist for Indian Country Today continues to insult readers while denying the abuse of Indian students in boarding schools.

Megan Jensen, Cherokee/Dine', received the following response from Indian Country Today columnist Chuck Trimble. In the e-mail, Trimble said, "You sound like a white bitch."

The widespread physical and sexual abuse of Indian children at government and church funded schools is well documented in the US, Canada and Australia.

However, readers who challenge the positive portrayals of Indian boarding schools by Indian Country Today have been cursed and insulted by both a columnist and an editor at the newspaper.

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On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Chuck Trimble wrote to Megan Jensen:

Where did your go to boarding school? You probably didn't. I am NOT saying
that kids weren't abused. What I am saying is that I had never seen any kids
beaten (spanked only), and had only gone to one school, which is all I can
attest to. I absolutely know that Tim Giago tells lies about his
experiences, because I was in school every single day he was, and in the
same grade, and we were best friends. He was a favorite of the Nuns because
he was cute and looked white, but you would think from his writings that he
was tortured. He's a phony, as you sound. You sound like a white bitch."
Chuck Trimble
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Trimble was responding to this comment from Megan Jensen. Jensen wrote this message to ICT op-ed writer Ruth Hopkins:

Subject: Offensive Indian sterotypes
"Regarding your editorial in Indian Country Today, those Whites are idiots.
We need to laugh at them and pity the fools who put on feathers and act like
idiots. Most Whites I meet need to be ignored. Even White Indians like Chuck
Trimble who write in Indian Country Today write like fools. He has been
denying boarding schools were places where Indians were abused and almost
seems to make fun of those of us who were abused in boarding schools. He and
his siblings weren't abused because they look like Whites. We Indians were
abused - Whites weren't abused. We need to start ignoring Whites. Ignore how
they act, ignore what they write, ignore what they do." -- Megan Jensen
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.
This was not the first time readers were cursed by Indian Country Today.
Trimble's response with profanity follows a previous text message from Ray Cook, Indian Country Today editorial page editor, to a reader, in regards to Trimble's columns:

From Ray Cook:
What is your f------ point dude? This man, a grown man, a elder, is
simply relating HIS experience. What a badger you are, and with no
f------ point other than to be angry at sh-- you don't even
understand. You (name removed), are a total young puck a-- dick head, of the
royal variety.
Shut up, sit down and listen to these people, you just might f------
learn something. A fellow comes out of the boarding schools with a
good experience and all you can do is sh-- all over it. What an a-- hole you can be.
Ray,
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

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Finally, here is an e-mail from a young man and his uncle, Pete Meyer, in regards to columnist Chuck Trimble's columns.

To: Editors at Indian Country Today

I am very disappointed that ICT continually publishes Trimble's essays where he keeps reiterating that Indian boarding school was a very enjoyable experience for him, his friends and his eleven siblings. Chuck Trimble very cleverly "frames" his essays in the context of inter-generational trauma but his real objective is to convey the impression that abuse in Indian boarding schools was non-existent. Trimble also mocks those who suffered abuse when he writes things like "one of the old-timers asked the question, “Where are the dungeons where students are chained and beaten?” and this drew hearty laughs all around." You need to recognize that Trimble is a denier and stop hurting those who were actually abused in Indian boarding schools. Indigenous people were abused not just in the US but also in Canada, Australia and elsewhere.
Trimble and his siblings were obviously not abused because they were Catholic, melted and looked White. Indians were abused in boarding schools; melted, White Catholics like Trimble weren't.
My uncle's response to Chuck Trimble's essay in Indian Country Today at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/ict_sbc/i-survived-boarding-school-unfortunately/ follows. Indian Country Today didn't publish my uncle's letter below:
"Mr. Trimble, you are very severely misrepresenting my nephew. I have seen all his emails to you. When you write, "and he insists that I couldn’t have had any fun because of the horrible suffering I was going through, which he likened to Auschwitz. And he wants me to snap out of my brainwashed state and start feeling appropriately traumatized and bitter like the victim I’m supposed to be." When you write this, you are not merely misrepresenting my nephew, you are completely fabricating what he wrote. I have seen every single one of his emails to you. In the same vein, I am sure no reader in ICT ever wrote that you did suffer horribly but you are trying to cover it up. That is purely your imagination or your invention; more likely the latter. Let me reassert what angers people:
Even in this essay, you say that you and your 11 siblings had an "enjoyable campus life" in several different boarding schools. I am sure some Jew must have had an enjoyable life in a concentration camp too. But it would be EXTREMELY offensive for that Jewish person to write column after column in the #1 Jewish newspaper dwelling on how enjoyable a concentration camp was for him and his 11 siblings when it was a horror for so many others. Do you get this at all? Or when you talk about an all-classes reunion when one of the old-timers asked the question, “Where are the dungeons where students are chained and beaten?” and this drew hearty laughs all around. When you say write such things you are implying that others are lying about their boarding school experiences. You are mocking people who did suffer abuse in boarding schools. Indeed in an email to my nephew you wrote to him that everyone else is LYING about their boarding school experiences and they weren't there. I have seen this email from you. You are truly a denier, Mr. Trimble. I must warn you - you seem to be in your seventies and soon you will have to confront your Creator, as we all do around that age. You will have to be answerable to all such lies and distortions and may the Great Mystery have mercy on your soul. So be very careful and tread softly my friend, and avoid hurting those of us who have actually suffered horrible abuse in Indian boarding schools. Pete Meyer" 
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Tar Sands Day 2 White House: Fifty more arrests

Fifty More Americans Arrested At White House on Day 2 of Sit-in Over Oil Pipeline

By Tar Sands Action
www.tarsandsaction.org
Photos Shadia Fayne Wood
Sunday, Aug. 21, 2011
WASHINGTON - Fifty more Americans were arrested this morning at the White House as fifty of their fellow protestors were held in jail in an attempt to “deter future participants” (1) from participating in an ongoing sit-in at the White House to push President Obama to deny the permit for a massive new tar sands oil pipeline.

Writer and environmentalist Bill McKibben, who is spearheading the protests, sent a message from jail last night, “The only thing we need is more company. We don’t need your sympathy, we need more company.”

This morning’s sit-in featured participants from as far away as Montana and North Dakota to risk arrest defending their air, water and climate. A group of doctors from Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility wore their white lab coats as they stood at the White House fence waiting to be arrested.

The ongoing protests have helped turn fight over the proposed Keystone XL pipeline into President Obama’s most important environmental decision before the 2012 election. Many of the participants in the sit-in this morning wore “Obama 2008” buttons as a statement that they want back the candidate who promise to take on climate change and help end our dependence on fossil fuels.

McKibben was amongst those arrested yesterday, along with the co-founder of NRDC and former White House official Gus Speth, gay rights activist Lt. Dan Choi, author and activist Mike Tidwell, Firedoglake founder Jane Hamsher, and many others.

“Saturday’s arrests and overnight jailings are already lighting a fire,” said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, who was also arrested Saturday. “More people are now inspired, determined, and committed to join. On Monday alone over 20 DC-area doctors, lawyers and students will be going to jail to chant, sing, and stop the pipeline. They’ll be joining Nebraska ranchers and others nationwide. Word is spreading.”

Harriet Korim Arnoldi, a folk musician from Cape Cod, was arrested today and she celebrated her 65th birthday in handcuffs.

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Notes

1. US Park Police told event organizers that they want to “deter future participants.” A full description of the situation is at tarsandsaction.org/not-deterred