articles-july 18

Bolivians Support Gas Plan and Give President a Lift
By JUAN FOREROPublished: July 19, 2004
L ALTO, Bolivia, July 18 - Two days ago, protesters in this gritty, largely indigenous city, the flash point for fierce antigovernment protests that already toppled one president, burned an effigy of President Carlos Mesa. They were furious that Mr. Mesa's government had refused to wrest private gas installations from huge foreign corporations.

Whether hard-line indigenous leaders - who say free-market reforms and Bolivia's ruling classes have ensured the country's long misery - will now cede space to the president is not clear. full article
 
Native Sun Dance, rare in the area, is being held
kevin abourezk
HALLAM - As a child, Leonard Crow Dog was hidden from agents of the U.S. government for fear he would be taken from his parents and forced to give up his language and culture.

Leonard Crow Dog , L, sun dance medicine man directs helpers in the raising of a decorated cottonwood tree that will be used as center pole in a sun dance ceremony just west of Hallam, NE on Sat. July 17, 2004. His elders taught him Lakota cultural and religious practices in secret as they were banned by the government at that time. At age 13, Crow Dog became a medicine man.On Saturday, the Lakota holy man and Native rights activist who became famous during the 1973 Siege of Wounded Knee came to Southeast Nebraska to share his culture and religion.This time, he did so in the open. full article
 
Utah schools to teach tribes' history
Utah officials are developing a more inclusive curriculum to fill instruction gaps

By Ronnie Lynn The Salt Lake Tribune

Curleen Pfeiffer could only sigh when an acquaintance asked recently whether, given her Navajo heritage, she could understand the Maori language.   
 
After all, the Maoris are indigenous to New Zealand, and Pfeiffer's ancestors hailed from what is now southeastern Utah and northern Arizona. That's a 7,000-mile gap.   
 
The exchange confirmed Pfeiffer's belief that many Utahns - American Indians included - haven't a clue about Indian culture and its significance to state and national history. full article
 
Fighting back
Tribal leaders say cycle of alcohol abuse must end
By MICHAEL MOOREThe Missoulian
ABLO - The news came to Fred Matt in the hazy mingling of present and past.

Two 11-year-old boys, Frankie Nicolai and Justin Benoist, dead in a frozen field on the east side of Ronan. Matt, chairman of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribal council, cycled through his emotions - sorrow, loss, rage, vengeance. Most uncomfortable of all - guilt.

"I had to wonder if we'd done everything we could for these folks," Matt said recently. "Had they somehow slipped through the cracks."

Then his own past crept in.
 
"It occurred to me how many times I might have been those boys," he said. "How many times I was that close to death because of alcohol." full article
 
An Informed Commentator
Hundreds of thousands are readingProf. Juan Cole's Internet log on Iraq, andlearning why he find 'no good news and no exit'
By Robert Haug

Juan Cole didn't set out to be a public intellectual. After joining the history department in 1984 as a specialist in Middle Eastern and South Asian history, he focused on what seemed to be obscure topics, the Shiite Islamic denomination, the rise of the Baha'i faith: Egypt's response to colonialism and various other matters that the world at large does not follow on its TV screens. But it's a fact of academic life that if your region of scholarly interest becomes embroiled in a war of strategic interest to the US government, your role may change to one on center stage. full article

Terrorism and the Election: Trial Balloons and Spin

by Norman Solomon

Tom Ridge, the federal official in charge of defending the United States against terrorism, was on message when he told a July 14 news conference: "We don't do politics at Homeland Security." Such high-level claims of patriotic purity have been routine since 9/11. But in this election year, they're more ludicrous than ever.

Days earlier, alongside a photo of Ridge, a headline on USA Today's front page had declared: "Election Terror Threat Intensifies." There was unintended irony in the headline.

While a real threat of terrorism exists in the United States, we should also acknowledge that an intensifying "election terror threat" is coming from the Bush administration. With scarcely 100 days to go until Election Day, the White House is desperate to wring every ounce of advantage from the American Flag, patriotism, apple pie -- and the subject of "terrorism." full article