articles-september 22

Team Name Belongs in A Museum

By Courtland Milloy
Wednesday, September 22, 2004; Page B01

Watching and reading media reports about the recent football game between Washington and New York, along with stories and photographs about the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian, I was struck by the clash of images: of real Indians and of gung-ho Redskins fans impersonating Indians.

"Redskins Lose to Giants," read one headline, while another, about the museum, quoted an Indian as saying, "We're Finally Being Recognized."

During a tour of the museum, which opened yesterday, I felt that many exhibits had been set up simply to introduce American Indians as human beings. In a region that is host to one of the most potent stereotypes in professional sports, that was no small order. full article

Schwarzenegger refuses to sign Redskin bill
Vetoes bill that would ban word

Sam Lewin 9/22/2004
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed a bill that would prevent state public schools from using the “Redskins” moniker.

"Decisions regarding athletic teams' names, nicknames or mascots should be retained at the local level," Schwarzenegger wrote in his veto message.

The legislation attempted to ban use of a word considered derogatory by many Native Americans. Had Schwarzenegger signed the bill California would have been the first state in the union to put a ban on mascot names. full article

Report: B.C. close to signing aboriginal treaties

By DIRK MEISSNER
 
VICTORIA (CP) - Two British Columbia treaty pioneers are confident the
province is on the verge of signing its first modern-day land-claimtreaties with up to five First Nations.

Former NDP premier Mike Harcourt and Jack Weisgerber, a former Social Credit aboriginal affairs cabinet minister, said Tuesday it's taken years of talks, but the lengthy process will soon yield deals. But how soon still appears to be a matter of debate, said the two former political foes at a news conference highlighting the release of the 11th annual report of the B.C. Treaty Commission.

Harcourt and Weisgerber serve on the commission, the organization that
oversees B.C. treaty talks.

All sides in negotiations are pushing for a breakthrough signing in time for the coming May 17 provincial election, but it could also take years, said Harcourt, who was premier when the current treaty negotiation process was introduced in 1993. full article

BIA acknowledges sloppy bookkeeping with Indian prison funds

BY MAURICE POSSLEY

Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The Bureau of Indian Affairs accounting procedures are
so archaic and ineffective the bureau is unable to account for $28 million
specifically budgeted over the past five years for improving its prison system,the agency's top official admitted Tuesday.

David Anderson, the assistant Interior secretary in charge of the bureau,
told a Senate Finance Committee hearing that because of the haphazard accounting practices - much of the accounting was done by hand - officials have no idea how nearly 90 percent of $31.5 million in supplemental funds doled out since 1999 was spent.

Anderson, who was named to his position in February, said he has spent a
considerable part of his time attempting to bring the bureau "into the 21st
century. We still have a long way to go. We're not there yet. ... We have been behind the times for many years. full article

Indian jails likened to Iraq

By John Heilprin
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Indian jails are "a national disgrace" in which 11 people have died and hundreds have tried to kill themselves or escaped over the past three years, federal officials say.

Senators said they were deeply troubled by the report of the situation from the Interior Department's top watchdog, and they likened the jails to the U.S. military's mistreatment of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Earl Devaney, the department's inspector general, painted a grim picture for the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday. His report, capping a year of investigation, found at least 11 fatalities, 236 suicide attempts and 632 escapes since the Bush administration took office in January 2001. full article

Political Dissonance
by Sherri Byrand
 
My mother's Alzheimer's disease has greatly worsened; it is unbearable to see how this once quick-witted woman is now being deceived by her own brain.

In one moment she was crying, "I'm sick because I need to get out, but your dad won't take me anywhere."

When I asked where she wanted to go, she exploded, "It's too damn hot to go anywhere. Your father always wants to take me out. But it's too damn hot."

She has no idea of her complete self-contradictions, the utter lack of logic she is displaying. Her grammar is perfect, but the ideas are rooted in confusion at best, delusion at worst. full article