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Wednesday, April 23, 2003 |
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Jesus was the most active resister known perhaps to history. His was nonviolence par excellence. "
- - Mahatma Gandhi
AND ANOTHER:
"From this day forward all war between the parties to this agreement shall for ever cease. The government of the United States desires peace, and its honor is hereby pledged to keep it. The Indians desire peace, and they now pledge their honor to maintain it."
- - Article 1 - The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868
APRIL 23 IN HISTORY:
1993 -- Death of Cesar Chavez (1927-1993), nonviolent civil rights activist & founder of the United Farm Workers, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom & The Aguila Azteca.
Cesar Chavez
RHINO HERE:
Today an appeal from Rhino's Blog reader Tom Cook from The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Located in Shannon County South Dakota, statistically the poorest county in the U.S., Pine Ridge is home to the Oglala Lakota people, part of what the U.S. called in the treaties, "The Great Sioux Nation".
At Pine Ridge live the descendants of Crazy Horse, American Horse, Red Cloud & Afraid-of Bear. (The army name translator messed up. In Lakota it means, Bear's Afraid of Him.) After a 10 year war with the Sioux, unable to conquer them, The U.S. Army negotiated The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.
Photo of the 1868 Treaty Signing, A Map & the full text AT:
http://www.fireonprairie.org/Fort%20Laramie%20Treaty.html
Here's a related, but whole other story if you like...
"The Treaty of 1868, A Field of Industrial Hemp, And The Controlled Substances Act:
A Test Case for Indian Treaty Abrogation"
http://www.nativesunite.org/hemp/treaty.CSA/
The Appeal
The following appeal presents an opportunity for Rhino's Blog readers to foster vegetable gardens in backyards across the rez. An effective counter to the wave of diabetes confronting not only Indian communities but all communities who are several generations into puffy bread, meat & potatoes & deep fried fast food. Tom Cook runs a fleet of struggling rez tractors,& coordinates a crew of Indian relatives all tilling gardens & distributing seed. This program has been adequately supported in previous years but has run into difficult times this year as have so many other worthy non-profit efforts. These are good people. Rhino urges, "This is a great leverage point for shovin' the world over a bit."
APPEAL FROM - Slim Buttes Agricultural Development Project
SLIM BUTTES AG is appealing for support for ongoing tractor operations, tilling gardens on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. At this date, funds are running too low to provide for the last two weeks of the tilling window. We are casting for support for at least one additional week of labor costs (12 workers, two per tractor unit) for running six tractors. At 12 workers (2 men per tractor unit), the cost for a week's contract labor is $3,840. At the average of five gardens per day, the support would equal 150 gardens.
Repair and maintenance costs on aging trucks, tractors, and equipment have overburdened our base budget during the first year in over a decade that we have received no supplemental funding for repair costs. The vegetable gardening assistance program is in its 18th consecutive year of making gardens across the 5,000 square-mile reservation in South Dakota. In 2002, 331 gardens were placed in eight of the nine districts.
With the poverty conditions and the growing epidemic of diabetes on Pine Ridge, Slim Buttes Ag-Development Program provides crucial assistance to families trying to raise their own food. The people need better nutritious live food, outdoors activity, and the lessons inherent in gardening.
Thanks for your time & consideration,
Tom Cook, Program Director
Slim Buttes AG
1705 So. Maple Street, Chadron, NE 69337
Tel: 308 432-2290
EMail: slmbttsag@bbc.net
DONATIONS ARE TAX DEDUCTABLE IF SENT TO:
Lauren Haas, Executive Director,
Running Strong for American Indian Youth,
8815 Telegraph Road, Lorton, VA 22079.
Make sure to memo post to Slim Buttes AG.
FOR MORE ON SLIM BUTTES AG, GO TO:
http://www.indianyouth.org/sbadp.html
A Tale of Two Fridays
By MAUREEN DOWD, NY Times, 4/20/03
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon, a.k.a. the International Trust for Historic Preservation, has once more shown the world its deep cultural sensitivity. Franklin Graham, the Christian evangelist who has branded
Islam a "very wicked and evil" religion, was the honored speaker at the Pentagon's Good Friday service.
After Kenna West, a Christian singer, crooned, "There is one God and one faith," Mr. Graham told an auditorium of soldiers in camouflage, civilian staffers and his son, a West Point cadet: "There's no other way to God except through Christ. . . . Jesus Christ is alive because he is risen, and friends, he's coming back, and I believe he's coming back soon." When Muslim groups complained that the Pentagon was "endorsing" his attacks on Islam, Mr. Graham asked for a photo op with Muslim Pentagon employees. They declined....
SHE'S NOT DONE, MORE AT:
Tale of Two Fridays
Bush Goes AWOL from The Nation via Democrats.com
Eric Alterman writes: "as with Vietnam, 'W' is AWOL and Cheney has 'other priorities.' They have not merely ignored 'homeland' protection, they have sabotaged it. [The Brookings Institution] explains, 'President [sic] Bush vetoed several specific (and relatively cost-effective) measures proposed by Congress that would have addressed critical national vulnerabilities. As a result, the country remains more vulnerable than it should be today.' A Council on Foreign Relations task force chaired by Gary Hart and Warren Rudman concurs: 'America remains dangerously unprepared to prevent and respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil,' it warns... How does he get away with it? Quite easily, apparently. In the Orwellian universe of the 'liberal media,' Bush can inspire new terrorist threats, ignore the ones we already face and evade responsibility for both because he is 'tough' enough to spit in the face of world opinion."
Bush Goes AWOL
Rhino says, "Do you know where your nearest chemical company is?"
RHINO'S BOTTOM LINE today would encourage you to do a bit of research.
7:27:30 AM 
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Avoiding Chemical Catastrophe
NY Times Editorial 4/1/03
Among the biggest challenges facing Tom Ridge, the homeland security czar, is protecting America's privately owned infrastructure from terrorist attack - its power plants, pipelines, shipyards. Of particular concern are some 15,000 chemical plants, refineries and sites that use or store big quantities of hazardous materials. The Environmental Protection Agency has identified 123 places where toxic gases released by a terrorist attack could kill or injure more than one million people, and 700 other places where an attack could kill or injure 100,000 people. Mr. Ridge has said, and a new report by the General Accounting Office confirms, that most of these spots are vulnerable.
One would expect President Bush to put the safety of these plants at the top of his list. But so far the administration has offered no legislation to address the issue. In a speech yesterday in Philadelphia, the president noted that chemical plants were among the potential targets now receiving increased protection under Operation Liberty Shield, the surveillance program begun after the invasion of Iraq. But this protection is spotty at best, and no substitute for an industrywide strategy comparable, say, to the strict, federally enforced safety regimen required of nuclear plants.
Mr. Ridge may be able to rouse the White House from its torpor. Failing that, Congress will have to move on its own. Last year, Senator Jon Corzine of New Jersey, a warrior on this issue, introduced a bill requiring companies to devise plans for reducing the likelihood of a terrorist attack and the damage from such an attack should one occur. The Department of Homeland Security and the E.P.A. would oversee and enforce the program. The bill sailed through committee, but an industry counterattack killed the bill on the Senate floor.
In recent weeks, however, industry has begun to change its tune. Until the G.A.O. report, it had called for a voluntary program. It now accepts the broad objectives of the Corzine bill: a national risk assessment, federal oversight and enforcement. Whether it will accept a truly tough program is another matter. Mr. Corzine's bill envisions not only beefed-up security but also "new technologies" - using safer manufacturing processes, for example, and substituting less volatile chemicals for those now in use. That represents a level of invasiveness industry usually does not like.
There is talk of reviving the Corzine bill later this week. There are also rumors that the administration is preparing its own bill. We have been hearing that for a year. This is a matter that cannot wait. Neither should Congress.
"RHINO'S BLOG" is the responsibility of Gary Rhine. (rhino@kifaru.com)
Feedback, and requests to be added or deleted from the list are encouraged.
SEARCH BLOG ARCHIVES / SURF RHINO'S LINKS, AT:
http://www.rhinosblog.info
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http://www.dreamcatchers.org (INDIGENOUS ASSISTANCE & INTERCULTURAL DIALOG)
http://www.kifaru.com (NATIVE AMERICAN RELATIONS VIDEO DOCUMENTARIES)
Articles are reprinted under Fair Use Doctrine of international copyright law.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
All copyrights belong to original publisher.
6:22:35 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Gary Rhine.
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