The More Things Change...

Judge James Robertson awarded the paltry sum of $455.6 million to the Cobell plaintiffs for a century of mismanagement of Indian trust funds by the Federal government. The legal equivalent of a penny tip, as noted by Wampum. Discussion at John Cornsilk's Place. An appeal will surely follow, but given the anti-Indian attitude of the current Supreme Court, this case could very well end up being yet another example of the one overriding principle of Indian Law: Indians always lose.

In a related story, the 9th Circuit has ruled that pouring massive amounts of urine on the sacred San Francisco Peaks does not violate the religious freedoms of the Navajo. I won't hold my breath waiting for the same sort of outrage that erupted at Andres Serrano's famous work in the same medium.

A Victory for the Sacred

The Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Bush Administration violated the religious freedom of the Dine (Navajo) and Hopi People by allowing reclaimed wastewater to be used to make snow on the sacred San Francisco Peaks of the Arizona Snowbowl

Freedom of Whose Religion?

So, let me see if I have this right; the Forest Service considers dumping wastewater (a polite euphemism for human excrement) on the sacred peaks of Arizona's Snowbowl to be a proper use of public land, but a small group of Navajo attempting to pray there need to be escorted off "for their own safety"?

Conscientious Objector

A Navajo medicine man, from an exceedingly rare group known as hand tremblers, is seeking conscientious objector status from the Marine Corps.

UPDATE: The Commandant of the Marine Corps has reversed an earlier decision and granted conscientious objector status to Navajo medicine man Ronnie Tallman. Good on the Marines!

Corporations Seeking to Screw Indians...Again

Yes, yes, I know; terribly shocking. Evidently, the mining companies are in a snit because the Navajo won't authorize any new uranium mining until the contamination from all the previous mining is cleaned up. How unreasonable!

"We could worry ourselves to death that one additional cancer in a million will be caused," [Juan] Velasquez [mining company vice president] said. "It sounds stereotypical, but these Indians jump in their car and drive 90 miles per hour down the road. But they won't take the risk on uranium."

Stereotypical? No! Surely not! Incidentally, there, Velasquez, when's the uranium mine going up in YOUR backyard? When was the last time 93 MILLION gallons of radioactively contaminated water was dumped in YOUR water supply? That's what happened in ONE day, July 16, 1979, on the Navajo Reservation.

The 2006 George Orwell Newspeak Awards

First nominee, the United States Department of Agriculture. Someone needs to alert the Navajo and the Sioux; apparently they aren't hungry, merely "food insecure."

Once Again...

...the Right Wing proves that there is no governmental wrong so severe that they won't vociferously object to any effort to make up for it. A century of kidnapping Indian children and beating their language and culture out of them in government-funded church schools is one thing, but trying to teach today's children their own languages? The horror! Jim Boulet, Jr., Executive Director of English First, states At a time in life when children of Limited English Proficient parents need to hear the most English in order to develop fluency, H.R. 4766 seeks to ensure they will hear far less, evidently unappreciative of the ironic fact that the overwhelming majority of Indian parents with young children are not, in fact, of "Limited English Proficiency." If they were, and mostly spoke Cherokee or Navajo or whatever in the home, not only would this bill not be needed, most tribes would be turning cartwheels in the halls for joy! To the contrary, unfortunately, Indian children are growing up learning nothing but English while the language of their culture and heritage dies with each generation.

You Have GOT To Be Kidding!?!

The Navajo try to negotiate top dollar for a pipeline across their territory and this guy accuses the tribe of treaty violations? Unbelievable!