Saturday, December 6, 2003

RHINO'S WEEKEND BLOG - December 6th & 7th QUOTE OF THE WEEKEND "With their dominance in sport, at work and at home eroded, Bush thought white American men needed to know they were still good at something. That's where Iraq came in." - - Norman Mailer THIS WEEKEND IN HISTORY 12/6/1981 -- Japan: 2,000 women march in Tokyo in remembrance of the day Japan bombed Pearl Harbor with a banner, "We Will Not Allow The Way To War." 12/7/1975 -- With U.S. & British assistance, Indonesia invades & annexes East Timor, overthrowing the popularly elected government. Genocide (an estimated one-third of the East Timorese population) rivals Cambodia's "killing fields", but little attention is paid in US media, which makes big to-do of Cambodia while ignoring East Timor, for political reasons. Long-time East Timor activists Bishop Carlos Belo & Jose Ramos-Horta received Nobel Peace prize. http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/east-timor/ http://www.motherjones.com/east_timor/comment/chomsky.html WEB SITE OF THE WEEK:  'I Have Met The Statistics...' An hour long webcast with Bono on the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa in which Bono talks with Kaiser Family Foundation Senior Visiting Fellow Jackie Judd,  4/11/03, about the spread of AIDS in Africa. View the webcast at Kaisernetwork.org: I Have Met The Statistics... RHINO HERE: In the past few weeks, Indian Country lost 2 influential matriarchs; Janet McCloud (Tulalip) & Florence Jones (Wintu). This weekend's blog begins with links to stories of these inspirational women's lives. Then, Rhino directs your attention to the winner of the 2003 Foot In Mouth Award. Hava Good Weekend. Janet McCloud, 1934-2003: Indian activist put family first By LEWIS KAMB, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER, 11/27/03 YELM -- Listen: "The woman who talks" has passed into the Spirit World; meeting death so quietly, but carried by loud rhythms of love all around her. Death's approach for weeks silenced the voice of Janet McCloud -- or, "Yet-Si-Blue" -- an Indian word for "the woman who talks" -- as she was known here, and all around the world.  ...McCloud, a prominent figure in this state's "fish wars" of the 1960s and '70s, which led to precedent-setting federal law and guaranteed half the salmon and steelhead catch for Washington tribes, died Tuesday evening. She was 69. ...During the 1970s, McCloud spread the message of native spirituality and human rights worldwide. She traveled the globe, speaking about indigenous women's rights and social justice, and she served as delegate to a national conference on corrections, urging prisons to adopt native spirituality traditions for Indian inmates. ...For McCloud, her family; 8 children, 25 grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren and countless others who called her "Grandma" -- always came first. "She was the greatest mother who ever lived -- above any movement she was involved in," daughter Binah McCloud said. At 8:11 p.m. Tuesday, with her family gathered bedside, Janet McCloud died. She had been dressed in traditional garb by her granddaughters, and wrapped in a handmade quilt. MORE:   http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/150189_mccloud27.html In Memoriam: Florence Jones (1907-2003) Sacred Land Film Project, 11/22/03 We have been asked to report the sad news that Winnemem Wintu elder Florence Jones passed away this morning at the age of 96. Seven days shy of her 97th birthday, the "top doctor" of the Wintu was at home surrounded by family at the time of her passing. http://www.sacredland.org/new.html Florence Jones (1907-2003) ...Mrs. Jones was an expert on the plants of northern California and their traditional uses. Throughout her life she conducted ceremonies at the Winnemem Wintu's sacred sites on and around Mt. Shasta, following a thousand-year tradition. She was recognized by her people, by elders of other tribes, and by archaeologists and anthropologists, as a uniquely gifted healer. Mrs. Jones championed the cause of protection of sacred sites from development. In 1998, the U.S. Forest Service dropped plans to build a new ski area on Mt. Shasta due in part to the efforts of Mrs. Jones. Despite unbroken traditions of language, culture, religion, and self-governance by Mrs. Jones and the Winnemem, they are not recognized as a tribe by the U.S. government. In the 1980s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs dropped the Winnemem from their list of recognized tribes without explanation. Mrs. Jones was the subject of a documentary film, In the Light of Reverence , which aired nationally on PBS in 2001. Florence Jones died in her sleep, at her home north of Redding, surrounded by family... THE ENTIRE OBITUARY POSTED AT: http://www.sacredland.org/Jones_obit.html The 2003 Foot in Mouth awards were announced last week, & the winner is someone who the Rhino guesses doesn't think he ever put his foot in his mouth. He probably believes he said exactly what he meant to say, & to him the results were poetry to his ears. The winner, for his Defense Department briefing prose, is Donald Rumsfeld.   So move over Rumi. Here come Rummie   8:07:10 AM    comment

RHINO'S WEEKEND BOTTOM LINR 1) The Foot in Mouth award This award, which we first gave in 1993, is for a truly baffling comment.  The 2003 winner is United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for comments in a press briefing. "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know." -Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing This blurb & a list of previous Foot in Mouth award winners posted at: http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/footinmouth.html 2) The Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld; Recent works by the secretary of defense. By Hart Seely, Slate, MSN, 4/2/03 ...Rumsfeld's poetry is paradoxical: It uses playful language to address the most somber subjects: war, terrorism, mortality. Much of it is about indirection and evasion: He never faces his subjects head on but weaves away, letting inversions and repetitions confuse and beguile.  ...And so Slate has compiled a collection of Rumsfeld's poems, bringing them to a wider public for the first time. The poems that follow are the exact words of the defense secretary, as taken from the official transcripts on the Defense Department Web site. Happenings You're going to be told lots of things. You get told things every day that don't happen. It doesn't seem to bother people, they don't- It's printed in the press. The world thinks all these things happen. They never happened. Everyone's so eager to get the story Before in fact the story's there That the world is constantly being fed Things that haven't happened. All I can tell you is, It hasn't happened. It's going to happen. -Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing The Situation Things will not be necessarily continuous. The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous Ought not to be characterized as a pause. There will be some things that people will see. There will be some things that people won't see. And life goes on. -Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing THIS ARTICLE & MORE OF RUMMIE'S POETRY AVAILABLE AT: http://slate.msn.com/id/2081042/ "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 RHINO'S OTHER WEB SITES: 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. Tell a friend about Rhino's Blog 7:04:18 AM    comment

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