I only discovered SPARKLEHORSE about two years ago….I can only vaguely comprehend the sort of depression that leads to the taking of ones own life….many good thoughts for him…
Every time I go to the California coast I hike a different trail in the Redwoods or along the Smith River. Some trails I have been on many times others only once. I love exploring! Mind you I am not one of those ultra hikers who back pack into the wilderness areas for a few weeks. I would die. I first started hiking about 3 years ago when I moved to Oregon. Took awhile to build up the hiking muscles. Right now I am in terrrible shape. Family emergencies, bad weather, life….has me terrribly out of shape. Or so I thought..I have gained a lot of weight….but yesterday I was in the Redwoods on a trail that went up and up and up. On the way I passed some young men looking to be of college age and looking rather fit who I left in the dust. Got my heart rate up!! But it was a great hike I did not make my destination as I started out too late. I thought I might be feeling it this morning but only a little bit which is good news because it has been by for the most strenuous hike I have been on in awhile.
My day started in Crescent City.
REAL SAILING SHIP
I woke up and was in the hotel lobby where there was a stack of local newspapers. There was a picture of this ship on the front page. It was very windy and this ship took refuge in the Crescent City harbor. And they were giving free tours. So I headed there! But for some reason in addition to being frightened of heights I am afraid to be on the water. I took this picture with my digital but I have more on film. I went on the dock and took a few pictures but I started crying and was too embarrassed to go on the ship because I would have had a panic attack in front of everyone. I can work through panic attacks but I don’t like to do it in front of strangers. I have been on that dock before and it scares the hell out of me. It doesn’t help that there is a sign saying that you are on it at your own risk because some of it was damaged in the mini tsunami two? three? years ago….I was staying right across the harbor when that happened. It just damaged the harbor none of the buildings.
The people on the ship must have felt like celebrities as I had heard one of the other boat owners joking with them that they needed to get their work done before the crowds showed up. Already there were about 10 or 15 people to see the boat and as I was leaving cars were filling the harbor to see the ship. It was awesome!!! People turning out like that and not for a “celebrity”!
THIS IS NOT CRESCENT BEACH....I FORGOT THE NAME IT IS FURTHER SOUTH
LOOKING THE OTHER DIRECTION
POOR STUFFED BEAR
It was very dark inside of the State park headquarters so the photos were blurry as the shutter was left open longer.
THIS IS A COOL THING ABOUT NATIVE AMERICAN EARTH RENEWAL DANCES. WE ALL NEED TO START DANCING!!!!
ELK MEADOW
They actually have benches so you can sit and watch the elk grazing.
REDWOOD INFO
There is a book about this that I want to read….but…..I want to read everything and have shelves of books awaiting my attention!!!!
There are a whole bunch of trails around here and I can’t wait to go camping there next month!!!! I love the Redwoods! And never tire of them.
I WANTED TO GO TO FERN CANYON
ONE OF MANY BRIDGES
....
....
I LOVE SLUGS!!!!!
This slug is now my desktop background photo. I change them all the time. He looks even better big enough to fill the screen. I don’t know if WordPress reduces the pixels but you can copy this onto your computer and use him for your background! Of course most people I know don’t like slugs….
ISN'T HE CUTE????
I LOVE HOW THE PATH IS CUT THROUGH FALLEN TREES
PRETTY SURE THAT IS FROM A COUGAR OR BOBCAT IT HAD A BIT OF FUR IN IT
MINIATURE MARSH
FERNS GROW EVERY WHERE FALLEN STUMPS AND TREES
THE TRILLIUMS ARE OUT IN FORCE!!
I took a lot of trillium pictures with my film camera. I had my other film camera but it fucked up a roll of film and I was not happy.
BABY SKUNK CABBAGE AND LITTLE MOSSES
LOTS OF FERNS
YOU JUST HAVE TO DUCK A LITTLE
THESE ARE THE ROOTS OF A FALLEN TREE
WONDER IF THIS WAS THE HALFWAY POINT
MORE FERNS
MORE FERNS...
TRAIL BETWEEN TWO TREES
THIS PICTURE DIDN'T TURN OUT TOO GOOD BUT ITS INTERESTING ANYWAY
THE TRAIL
LOTS OF TRAIL!!
CLOSER TO THE HEADQUARTERS
NEW BORN LEAVES
THIS WAS SO PRETTY
FRIENDSHIP GROVE MARKER
I really need to go back there. Its funny but when I am in the Redwoods and that area I am elated and when I leave I am often overcome by rage. About nothing. I’m not an agressive driver and mostly pull over when ever someone is on my tail because I like to enjoy the scenery very rarely do I speed…but I want to curse everyone when I am driving back….happens all the time. I observe it as if in the third person-with curiosity. I have to wonder if my soul is bitterly disappointed that I don’t choose to stay. If I could find a job there I would stay. The economy is bad there. Maybe I could get a job at Pelican State Prison!! Pelican Bay is right outside of Crescent City but I don’t think that they have had any problems outside of the prison. I believe no one has ever escaped.
oops meant to schedule this for tomorrow! Not sure how to undo it! Lots of music today!!
I listen to Christmas music all year long except for the month of December. Working in a department store for many years and listening to bad music for two months eight or more hours a day…mostly I only like traditional and pretty much hate the modern stuff. Fucking hate BABY IT’S COLD OUTSIDE….SANTA BABY…ROCKIN’ AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE by Brenda Lee?? AAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!!
Here’s a new song by Aimee Mann though!
What I look for in Christmas music is the emotion and Bob Segar sounds like he means it!
I am putting up music all week long and the theme it has is that I consider it inspirational. Of course much of the stuff I want to put up is not on Youtube..for instance.
Miriam Makeba- What Is Love
anything by Liquid Bloom from their album Shaman’s Eye…I was in Mt.Shasta in a new age store and when I first heard it…I don’t think I had ever had music affect me so deeply in a store…I asked them what the hell it was and bought it. Its like the best trance meditative music!
Steve Halpern’s Deja Blues is not on Youtube…lots of his other stuff…
After all of my life saving efforts towards those considering moving to Pahrump….I needed to do a post on a wonderful area in the vicinity of the wretched town of Pahrump
This is how Death Valley should be experienced!!!
This person did a nice editing job on his trip to Death Valley
My nephew is still traumatized that his mother made him get close to the edge at UBEHEBE CRATER!!!
This is the Lower Table Rock a Medford landmark. There is also an Upper Table Rock but I haven’t been hiking on it yet…No excuses!! Except that is is so close that I take it for granted. The “tables” are left over lava from a flow that used to fill the Rogue Valley.
I have looked for quite some time for the “alternative history” of the table rocks…the history of the Takelma Indians (pronounced Dagelma). Apparently the land, because of gold and good agriculture characteristics were wiped out in less than four years of white settlers arriving…those that did survive were marched to Siletz Reservation. Many died along the way….
The Rogue Valley …the river spreads among wineries and farm land…lots of chemicals are introduced at this point and down further in the summer instead of nice clean water like the Smith River there is algae clouding the water.
Photo of the Upper Table Rock taken from the Lower Table Rock
I took some of these photos a few years ago…I really need to go back up there.
I stayed up there until the sun was setting then finally left the trail is steep and dark.
Finally I found this from “Grandma Aggie” the oldest living member of the Takelma Indians. She is also one of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers.
I have posted on this before. I thought maybe it was something new…Richard Two Elk the man who wrote the forward to AMERICAN INDIAN MAFIA also makes videos. This is being put up again for SNAPPLE who runs the THE LEGEND OF PINE RIDGE blog. After watching it again I still have the same opinion….after the video…
I have several problems with this video…Richard Two Elks supposedly owns and produces videos yet he doesn’t know not to wear a hat on camera…indoors either as far as I am concerned. I was raised that it is disrespectful. Another thing that bothers me is that Richard Two Elks never speaks confidently into the camera…he hides his face and is always looking down at a prepared statement he also mumbles and slurs. It was a bizarre video the first time I watched it and still is. Richard Two Elks was at Wounded Knee II he knows who everyone is and the history….I still get names confused…but I can tell you what I know and believe….looking you in the eye confident that I am true to my feelings and in my beliefs based on what I know…But as I said this might be a difference between whites and Indians?? I am not trying to be mean but the video lacks passion and conviction for the subject never mind that I do not agree with all that is in the video….
Because I have read many other things by Richard Two Elk….I have a hard time believing that these are his words…this is how Richard Two Elks usually writes in some weird voice. This is a comment to me for posting the SNAPPLE post on alt.native
so…why da hill ya postin it hear?…
not nuff room onyer Clog, i meanz…blog…?
please refrain from redundant posting of content which may be read
elsewhere, in it’s entirety, IF anyone should want…
DUH!
and this
da mistake ya repeatedly recycle IS…ya seem to bleev we all wanna
play yer stoopid pre-adolescent games witya… AxeUWally…we find sum sick entertainment in watchin you flop
roundabout…
pass dat Popcorn puleez…
and this from another post
if’n ya kickout 9 or 10 o yer C&Pz dat outta move yer last act o
IDIOCY off da Front Page anywhoz…
den ya kin maka neu face til Sizzle catch up witya N Cookya agin…
Dang…me Know ya Gotta B havin Bic Phun messin witus, eh?
Like I said it may be a difference between whites and Indians…but Monica Charles doesn’t speak like that…its weird like he has to create another personality for???
I could be wrong but I was raised in a very conservative home and while I am quite liberal in my political views…I mostly carry quite conservative values and this man really bothers me…
One of the other things that bothers me about Richard Two Elks is that he admits to hanging a man on a cross and beating him…I know he was young but he was never charged by the FBI and speaks of the incident in the forward he wrote(?) to Special Agent Joseph Trimabach’s book AMERICAN INDIAN MAFIA. I am a huge believer that all laws should be for all people….while I may not be happy with the prison system in the United States…I believe that run correctly it should be a place where people are held accountable for their actions…I think it is a necessary step to healing all parties involved.I think that people either rise to the occasion or remain unable to confront the horror of what they have done and thus are never able to be totally free. I do not believe that informers involved in crimes should get lesser sentences than those they have informed on…I do think that it should be a consideration after remorseful behavior and parole is being considered. Richard Two Elk reminds me of someone who is not proud of who he has become.
There are a lot of accusations flung about on alt.native and I try not to pay attention to the ones that are just insults being flung around…there are a lot….one of the accusations being hurled around for awhile was that the “real victims” of Wounded Knees were those whose homes were destroyed and that the occupiers of Wounded Knee should sew blankets. Some write like the people are living in cardboard boxes not with no blankets or food….Wounded Knee seems to be a very emotional and sacred site, there was a movement of Indians who were being repressed by the government State and Federal….they thought quite mistakenly that a group of individuals with a few rifles were a match for for the United States government…and like Japan-they were wrong.
The appropriate response after Wounded Knee would have been for the governor at the time to declare an emergency ask for Federal money in order for the owners to rebuild….if this was not done? Shame should be on our government.
The video is very one sided and while Richard Two Elk claims PBS neglected to tell the death of a black supporter at Wounded Knee.. he fails to mention that he hung someone on a cross and beat them to death…this person has disappeared and apparently he changes his story…AIM took him….the FBI took him…??? This is a man who the FBI has chosen as their spokes person on AIM and Wounded Knee. Further more this video fails to mention the abuse and murder of Indian children on Pine Ridge…a little girls eye was shot out. Houses and cars were routinely shot up….even some of the lawyers for the occupiers were beaten. A young woman named Jancita Eagle Deer was raped by the future Governor…He was disbarred by the tribal courts…but the FBI was so racist against Indians that they did not consider the tribal judge to be legitamate….because he was Indian?? There are so many twists and turns to this story I encourage all of you who are interested to read THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks. He seems to be unbiased and often criticizes or praises both the FBI and AIM.
The fact of the matter is PBS could do a five part series on Wounded Knee II and never be able to cover all of the finger pointing and accusations. The murder of Anna Mae Aquash alone has more whodunnit theories than CARTERS HAS LIVER PILLS!
My solution to all of this is to either let it drop or to put every single person under sodium penethol or hook them up to lie detector tests…every FBI agent, BIA workers…all of the major characters on Pine Ridge…in AIM…FBI informants…even with all of that peoples faulty memories probably still wouldn’t be enough to find out what really happened.
Vodpod wanted to start charging me money to create more pods…not this poverty stricken girl!! I did like having the videos on my sidebar though.
I first encountered the mixed blood issue when I read CEREMONY by Leslie Marmon Silko and more recently when a woman named Runningwolf on alt.native was accused of not being an Indian. Being a white person that lives in an area where many people claim to be Indian shaman’s or medicine men…I did have a bit of a negative bias that even transferred over onto enrolled Indians. It is easy to confuse the two when you are not familiar with Indian issues. But in reality it doesn’t matter as far as personal relationships are concerned..either you like someone or you don’t. There are many people who have ancestors who for whatever reason did not enroll…probably because they did not trust the government and now they have ancestors who wish they had enrolled because their tribes do not recognize them as such. But then if the United States was systematically rounding up Indians and shooting them in the head…they would be grateful to their ancestors for not trusting the United States Government.
I think the best way to live would be to honor your ancestors decisions, they had their own reasons…and make the decisions in your life that are best for you. Don’t worry about how others view you. YOU need to honor YOU and live the way that is best for YOU and do what is best for YOU. And hopefully that means teaching the next generation to be proud and embrace of every drop of blood that makes them such a unique addition to the human race.
YOU CAN’T PLEASE EVERYONE…IF YOU PLEASE YOURSELF AT LEAST ONE PERSON WILL BE HAPPY!
Having said that I cannot imagine that any human could look at a little baby and instead of oohing and ahhing over the wonder of life; would turn their back because the baby had a certain skin tone…or worse because of the blood that coursed through their veins. I have witnessed this behavior mostly with Asians…where big round eyes are desireable.
Of course being a mutt myself I can acknowledge that I don’t know what it feels like to belong to a tribe to have pure blood coursing through my veins. Maybe it does matter. But from my point of view race does not matter…or rather it should not matter
What I have learned is that being mixed blood can be a very painful experience. Rejection for any reason is painful. Hopefully this pain lessens with each new generation as they learn to recognize one another for more than their outward appearance.
From those whack jobs at FOX NEWS we have this video declaring anyone not white a different “species” or “ethincs”???
And more pertaining to the mixed blood issue where Native Americans are concerned…
A young woman talks of her ancestory
I like this young man! He embraces it all!!!
This to me is sad. I heard about it on the Mark Thompson MAKE IT PLAIN SHOW. African Americans who have created the myth that they are Native American to cover their own painful history. I don’t like the implications of the person who put these on youtube he looks at the videos as if the African Americans are less than human and trying to use Indians to rise above their station. I look at it as a wonderful exercise in learning your true history. And the video wasn’t produced to knock down African Americans but to re-establish peoples history. People should always be proud of who they are no matter what blood courses through their veins.
It amazes me that we allow any corporation to mess with the food supply. Every executive in a company and every politician that approves this non sense has a college degree and not a damn one of them as a bit of common sense!
I had to do some cleaning today the desk monster attacked again. Instead of listening to music I watched a movie on NETFLIX called SISTER HELEN. The documentary was so good that I did more watching than cleaning! Sister Helen was an alcoholic who became a nun after the death of her husband and two sons..she started a house for drug and alcohol addicts. She was a no bull shit type, used the word fuck a lot. She would not put up with any nonsense from the men if they were five minutes late of curfew she gave them HOLY hell!! Made them take urine tests all of the time and if they were postitive she would confront them and there would be a meeting on whether they could stay or not.
I found the first 6 minutes on Youtube. She says she tries to do for these men what she didn’t do for her own sons.
The world needs more Sister Helens…women who don’t coddle and support drug and alcohol abusers but who give them tough love. Confront them on the drug and alcohol induced lies no matter what. Women who hold men accountable for their actions….and of course the reverse.
I don’t think anyone has made a direct accusation of Red Cherries. It
bothers me that he used Portland AIM and Oklahoma AIM and the Oklahoma
Red Brotherhood to try to silence Eugene. I used this situation to
talk about a very real problem in our communities. DV and rape and
child abuse is too prevalent and accepted in our communities. It is
at the heart of what is wrong. It’s introduced behavior. It’s not
Traditional. It is the teaching of our People that women and children
are Sacred! Women represent Mother Earth. Children are our future.
When a man beats and rapes a woman he is actually beating and raping
Mother Earth. When a man beats and rapes a child he is actually
beating and raping our future. That is spiritual law! Why isn’t Red
Cherries talking about this? It would do much for People’s perceptions
of his innocence if he spoke out against child abuse and domestic
violence and rape. Did you know that men are sacred too? The Creator
gave them physical strength to protect and feed the people. During
those first dark days of reservations our men could no longer do
either. They couldn’t protect us. Weapons were taken away. Our men
couldn’t even hunt. The white man wanted us dependent on him for our
food. Our men watched us starve and could do nothing. They dove into
the bottle to hide and stayed there for generations. The white man
made sure we were down. He stole power and dignity from our men.
During those dark despicable days when we were first put on
reservations our men turned and stole power from our women and
children. They began beating and raping those in their care. It was
what the white man wanted. The moral fiber of our communities were
destroyed.What was the strongest thread in our communities today can
be our weakest. It’s our families. Children can no longer depend on
their fathers to protect them. Sometimes the father is the biggest
abuser. We need to change that. We need to stand up as a community and
say this atrocity stops here and now. It is the biggest atrocity in
our communities. Men seem to think they are above everyone in our
communities because they have a penis. They use that penis as a war
club to keep everyone down. When I was a student we went to a Sun
Dance at DQU in California. It was an AIM Sun Dance. It was announced
that the men would eat first, then the elders, then the children,
women would eat last. Indian women are low man on every totem pole.
When it came time to eat men crowded to the front. My friend Sally
McCloud and I started making fun of the men. We said if the pigs
attack we will put the men at the center of the camp because they are
our most precious resource. We would put the children around them.
Then we would put the Elders around them. Us women would be the first
line of defense. The elders didn’t correct or stop us. They laughed at
everything we were saying. Most of the men were local boys from the
reservations. They knew enough to be ashamed. They quickly got out of
line. We then fed the children and elders, then the men. We did eat
last. Not because we are lesser than anyone but because it is our duty
to see that everyone is fed. There is a difference. AIM, the Red Bros,
and Red Cherries are still trying to bully everyone into silence and
steal our power. That’s wrong and will no longer happen. Do we have to
go to war with our own men to bring balance back to our communities?
Red Cherries could bring great healing to our communities if he would
use this as an opportunity to talk about this issue. Let’s takj about
where things went wrong and how we can stop DV, rape, and child abuse.
The Exxon Valdez keeps popping up in my life some 20 years after the incident (DID I JUST SAY 20 YEARS??? FEELS LIKE FIVE!)
This book was written by a local Southern Oregonian. It isn’t a very long book and much of it is dedicated to various rants more appropriate to a blog. FOR FREE!
Having said that David Spruill was actually one of the fishermen in Alaska who helped with the cleanup. Unfortunately he does not elaborate enough on that and assumes us nonfisherpersons know what he is talking about.He needed to spell it out for us and explain more about fishing and the cleanup techniques. …He needed an editor to give him direction. He does give us enough information so that we will want to read more about it from another source.
Here is an example of what he writes that would make you want to learn more about what really happened.
Why would you steer outside of an intersection to miss a dog in the intersection and chance piling it up into a building when all you have to do is slow down? My point being the EXXON Valdez could have meandered through the ice ahead slowly, in and out of gear, rather than to choose to veer outside of the shipping lane and imminently pile her up on Blight Reef which is clearly marked on their GPS Plotter, there is also a lighted navigational marker to warn you of the reef’s presence.
Did you know that upon grounding, eight of the eleven storage tanks were ripped open? Did you know that the number of the gallons spilled was determined and reported to the Coast Guard by EXXON? The EXXON Valdez holds 53 million gallons, but their figure came out to be about 20% of that, or 10.7 million gallons. Volumetrically, if those eleven storage compartments were the same size, then rupturing eight of the eleven storage compartments would yield about two-thirds of the cargo loss in question or more like 38.5 million gallons.
Expedient deployment with oil spill response equipment that they were required to have was the only edge to be had, but at beginning of the year they had cut their required amount of response equipment in half to save money, which left them incapable to respond to a spill of this magnitude….
…it is written that any ship spilling more than one million gallons will be banned from the waters of Prince William Sound. since the spill, the Hell Ship EXXON Valdez was repaired and renamed the SEA RIVER MEDITERRANEAN.
Spruill goes on to tell about the clean up (mind you this is all by page 10! like I said it is more like a blog post and not a book he relates how a fisherman named Kelly found a way to fill his boat with 7,500 gallons of oil and that EXXON became upset because they had already told the press that they had cleaned up most of the oil.
The fishermen were halted from the cleanup and…
sorties flown by a C-130…..(once again he only spends one paragraph explaining this in an erratic fashion that doesn’t make a lot of sense)…we found a rip which consisted of what seemed to be an emulsion of oil, water and foam with little white granules, w(h)ere did all of the oil go?It was at that moment we were sure that they had been using that c-130 to sink as much of the spilled oil to the bottom without any spectators, out of sight and out of mind? Damn you EXXON! You wiped out our beautiful spotted prawns and our crab too.
What is a rip? What was the white granules did anyone take a sample? Apparently the white granules caused chemical burns on the people trying to do clean up..but once again no elaboration and all of this information is contained in 14 pages…that should be the length of a forward to a book!
The book includes pictures of the clean up effort by the fishermen and they are to be commended. The rest of the book is about how EXXON got out of paying for the damage to the environment or to the fishermen for their loss of work. The subject is outrageous and people should be boycotting EXXON and the politicians who support them or who are supported by them. The book includes many letters and rants
Sounds like racketeering to me, but what do I know? I’m just a “Red White and Blue” “Tried and True” “Human Being”. What is your faction? The PLO? “Political Lies and Oil?” Did you know that “tic” is the middle word in politician? You blood suckers!
Now, where I come from, if you continue to do your job incorrectly, you are terminated, fired! Now call me crazy if you want to but I think that I’m not the only person who feels this way. Every single person that I know or talk to seems to feel the exactly the same way. I think they call that unanimous, but I don’t expect you to understand that because of your denial of the facts and the fact that this is really going to affect where you sleep at night. It won’t be the country club or Camp Snoopy! Do You Get My Point?
It goes on and on and and on…He does have two plans one is for everyone to bring their pennies to the VFW so they can break the Guiness Book of World Records, and to show our undying gratitude, to request the government to discontinue use of the penny and to melt them all down for money? I’m not sure what that has to do with the EXXON spill. He also has a second project HANDS ACROSS AMERICA from the East Coast to the West Coast.
David Spruill is certainly passionate about his causes and I wish him all of the success with them. He is more than welcome to my penny jar! He says he has a website under construction but I couldn’t find it. He can get a free blog up on WordPress.com and this book has a Copyright of 7/23/08 today is 6/5/09 more than enough time to get a website up. He should have not announced it in a book until it was up. Why should people have to keep looking for his website? He wants people to send money for his Hands Across America project….he can’t even get a site up!!!
RAGE TENDS TO DISORIENT ONES THOUGHTS AND ACTIONS. I’m not giving up on David Spruill yet I think he has something going.
My sane Uncle Vic was one of the GAO investigators concerning the EXXON Valdez spill. Here is VICTOR REZENDES GAO TESTIMONY. I was hoping to find him on Youtube I think he was on 60 MINUTES too. People need to get with the program Youtube is one of the greatest things invented for us bloggers!!!
I would love to read a book that was a cross between David Spruill and a GAO document filled with emotion and lots of information that I can follow and pictures. I wish the government would dumb things down a little for me!!!
Here are some videos I found on the EXXON VALDEZ
Here is Governor Palin’s response to the Supreme Court letting Exxon off the hook for most of the punitive damages
Here is a very good piece by Journeyman Pictures
Americans need to start reading our History. Native Americans could have told you about our corrupt government 200 years ago… there is no difference between the theft of the lands we promised to Native American. Yellow gold, black gold its all the same when it comes to greed and American policy….now that it is affecting white people they are waking up and saying this is not fair! It’s funny in an awful, horrible sort of way but the white people affected by the Valdez still get off a lot better than the Indians did.
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
The testimony about the senate report led to the release of more documents. The documents related examinations on the stand showed that Army Vice Chief of Staff Alexander Haig had ordered two colonels to Wouned Knee to oversee the siege and to do so in civilian garb-the latter an order they had never been given in their long military careers.
Colonels testified about how much ammunition and supplies were sent
16 ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIERS
400,000 ROUNDS OF AMMUNITON
120 SNIPER RIFLES
20 GRENADE LAUNCHERS
1 PHANTOM JET
3 HELICOPTERS
AND A CHEMICAL WARFARE TEAM WTF??? Did they think the Viet Cong had invaded??
Confronted with this evidence, the prosecution shifted its argument: “The Pentagon had no role at Wounded Knee” became “The Pentagon had no real role at Wounded Knee”.
It turned out the FBI’s Joseph Trimbach had lobbied the army to invade the village with 2,000 GI’s. He was apparently undeterred by the certain knowledge that scores-maybe hundreds-of the combatants would die. His scheme was vetoed by Colonel Warner.
…the government shifted its arguement again: the Pentagon was really involved, but it was only by an oversight that neither the president nor Congress had publicly authorized the Pentagon’s involvement. And since it was plain that the president wanted the military there it hardly mattered that he had not issued a public order.
Judge Nichol was of the same mind. he concluded that the armed forces had been used illegally at Wounded Knee, but he also concluded that the case of U.S. v. Banks and Means afforded no remedy against the government for this crime-save for dismissing the charges against Banks and Means, which he still was not prepared to do. if AIM wanted to hold the Pentagon accountable, Nichol said, it would have to file a separate suit.
WKLDOC did, naming as defendants General Haig, Attorney General Kleindienst, Colonel Warner, and other men of war.
WKLDOC filed its claim in Washington, D.C., but a federal judge there ruled that the case should have been filed in South Dakota.
It took seven years after the first suite was filed….
(Judge) Porter held that even if government officials had violated the Posse Comitatus Act at Wounded Knee, they could not be sued because the act did not specifically authorize suits in cases where the law was broken.
There’s lots of twists and turns and legal wrangling…basically as United States Citizens….
WERE ALL FUCKED….as is evidenced by the erosion of our CIVIL LIBERTIES. I think the white people running everything back then were saying to themselves who cares its just a bunch of commie Indians…see where the sins of the previous generations have led us to
I found this video of Jesse Ventura at the RNC he actually says American citizens have the right to have weapons so if they don’t like the government they can bear arms and change the government….maybe I should send him a video of the governments firepower at Wounded Knee II!
I think that Anna Mae works in mysterious ways….one little itsy bitsy line in a song and now….
For those of you who are newcomers to this series of posts, there is a page on the sidebar with the communication between Eugene Johnson, Oklahoma Red Brotherhood and Portland Aim.
EUGENE JOHNSON
Eugene is a radio talk show host on a station called KBOO and a blog called PUDGY INDIAN 2
I have never met Eugene. Monica Charles once made a comment that I reminded her of Pudgy Indian ( the name of Eugene Johnsons blog). I checked out hid blog and we I can see the similarities…he takes a lot of pictures and puts them up on his blog and we are both emotional about different causes and injustices.
Eugene and his wife had taken on the abuse of women and children and now everything that they have written has been deleted because of a threat. One of the reasons for the threat was that ‘such negativity shouldn’t be addressed in public as people from the outside would use this as a weapon against the Indian community’. That of course was not the case what has been brought to my attention is that a blogger was threatened for posting. ON THE SUBJECT OF ABUSE??? Got my attention!!!!
I wonder why this was not a concern when Bernard Red Cherries decided to go on a radio show with his family problems? Isn’t that something that you consider before going on a radio talk show and giving your permission to the host to also put it up on a blog?
BERNARD RED CHERRIES
AKAFrank Reynolds, Robert Coltte
Bernard Red Cherries says he is a Chief and Northern Cheyenne Sundance/ Arrow Priest, Elkhorn Scraper Society Headsman
I do not know what any of that means soooo….
Lets start with CHIEF:
when I think of chief I see an Indian with a feather bonnet on his head ala old westerns. I don’t mean this disrespectfully. I’m just telling the truth. If you have ever read my blog I don’t hide that I grew up with a lot of racism and prejudice against Indians.
The definiton I found said the leader of a tribe. But I am looking for what it means today. For instance Dick Wilson wasn’t a chief he was a president.
I found this movie on a website called THE CHIEFS PROPHECY which is a movie that was made by Leo Killsback
I tried to embed the video but it won’t work you can watch it by clicking on the above link THE CHIEF’S PROPHECY.
The photography was beautiful! And there was so much information that I will have to watch it again in the future..
But here are some of the things I took away.
The problem the Northern Cheyenne face is that the U.S. government imposed a political system that was based on competition instead of cooperation-capitalism instead of selflessness.
The traditional chiefs are only symbolic now and only concerned with ceremony the IRA government is the political leadership and of course in today’s world has all of the clout.
A Cheyenne prophecy said that in 100 years the old ones would come back…you would see them in your children.
You can’t sit and wait for the prophecy to come true you have to make it happen.
Another thing just occurred to me. There were no women represented on the video. But I remember at the end of the film there were these 3 elderly women dancing at a Powwow and I was struck by how straight they were no slouching from those women!
It didn’t really answer my question or maybe it did.I don’t think that Bernard Red Cherries lives on the reservation or even in Montana because I seem to recall that he was living in Portland and now he lives in Oklahoma because on alt.native I found a link to a DUI in Oklahoma this year under his alias Robert Coltte. He also spent some time in prison in Nebraska for kidnapping . Wow you can get out in a year after kidnapping someone? What was it a goldfish?
But on a more serious note it was over 20 years ago. And coming from a long line of alcoholics myself….all of the males in my family on both sides were alcoholics for some reason it skips the women….Wow I wonder if its because they had to live with us women?
There was someone on alt.native threatening one of the women about the Bernard Red Cherries saga. Not a real threat was going to put her on some list on some website…I can’t remember who she was but lets have a look
Oh here she is GUARDIAN
Sorry, the page you were looking for in the blog pudgyindian2 does not
exist. [/i]
While the “PudgyIndian” blog is still up, the pages accusing Mr. Red
Cherries of abuse have been removed.
I have been reading the accusations of abuse being made against a
supposed Elder of the Cheyenne Nation “Bernard Red Cherries” here and
on Johnson’s blog (before it was removed)
Runningwolf, your nic has been popping up in some of the posts
supporting the public “charges” made against him. Do you have any
evidence of these horrible accusations? Police reports, victim
statements…anything at all….. or was this yet another Internet
smear campaign against an Indian who spoke out against frauds?
I am not really interested in the Dueling DJ’s aspect of this issue as
personality conflicts abound on the web. My focus in on predators of a
wide variety. I would like to know if Red Cherries is an abuser, or if
he has been falsely accused by abusers he has exposed …which is VERY
common on the net.
If Mr. Red Cherries has been convicted of abusing women and/or
children, we will add him to our “Convicted Predators” pages and no
one can make us remove such a listing…..and believe me, they have
tried. Conversely, if fake Indians are telling lies on this man, we
will post that info on Faux Indians….and no one can make us remove
that either.
Monica Charles posted the info on his arrest lets see if she meant what she said about posting the information…NOPE! It took me all of about 10 seconds!! Pissed Monica off though…
You have asked if Bernard Red Cherries was accused because he has
exposed “frauds?” The young ladies who came forward to comment on the
issue did not mention “frauds.” Child abuse was introduced into our
communities by the white man’s churches, residential schools, bia
schools. We are working to eradicate this abomination from our
communities. I am an enrolled member of a federally recognized Tribe.
You can call my Tribal office to verify that. Their number is 360 452
8471. Ask for Lola Antioquia. She is our enrollment officer. Then you
can talk to her mother, she is director of our Elders program. Ask for
Serena Antioquia. She will verify my standing within the Tribe as an
elder. She may give you an earful beause I have told her about
internet discussions. It would be nice if Red Cherries came forward
himself instead of making veiled threats through you and using the
bullying tactics of Portland and Oklahoma AIM and the Oklahoma Red
Brotherhood. It would be more productive of him to help stop the abuse
of our children that is destroying the very fibers of our communities.
Poor girl she’s just a baby in diapers compared to Monica Charles!
Interesting thing about not being interested in a pissing contest between dj’s because there was a person that left a comment on KBOO…from Sal Whitehorse
WHY??? did eugene johnson LIE about an upstanding Honorable Cheyenne Chief??? Yes, eugene johnson did offer an apology BUT he did state he was told too. WHY??? is eugene johnson still a DJ at KBOO??? WHY??? didn’t the station management stop eugene johnson from spreading these LIES!!! WHAT??? is KBOO management going to do to correct this and see that it NEVER happens again!!!
I LOOK FORWARD TO READING AND HEARING WHAT KBOO MANAGEMENT IS GOING TO DO!!!!!!!!!!
This incident can tarnish KBOO’s reputation for the entire station if not handled properly.
Guy sounds like me on certain days of the month.Here is the link to his MYSPACE PAGE…more rants about Eugene Johnson. Like I said Eugene never spread lies he was as bloggers do posting information as it became available. Wonder if they actually read the stuff….actually I have encountered this several times on my own posts….people imagine what I said instead of actually reading what I said.
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
The saga of Pudgy Indian continues and I really have to wonder if this wasn’t a good thing. Light coming to a dark subject is always a good thing. I wonder if Autonomous AIM really supports the inappropriate behavior of some of their members or if there are just some overly enthusiastic people who are acting without thinking the issue through….you know take your friends side blindly. Apparently one of the leaders of Portland AIM was appointed by Dennis Banks himself. I don’t know Dennis Banks or that much about him…but it seems to me while reading THE UNQUIET GRAVE that he has probably figured out that this nonsense is just that….non sense. There are a lot of comments about what a bad person he is or was with the drinking and womanizing. Being a woman I get frustrated at the AIM leaders who do not protect women…the stuff about his sex life and his children beating up women while horrific is really no different than Paul McCartney. Jimmy Page was the worst carrying around a special suitcase of whips to beat his groupies…I don’t think that Dennis Banks was abusing women for gratuitous reasons like Jimmy Page was. I think it is more conducive to someone who was ripped away from his family and thrown in a boarding school….it takes a tremendous effort to overcome the cycle of abuse. When you consider the resources that have been historically available to the Native population it is a miracle and a blessing when just ONE Indian can stop the cycle of abuse. It is not easy and to blame men for all of the ills is too easy. I myself am guilty of it…as evidenced by some of my rants on the blog. Sort of like the poll WKLDOC took in this installment, it is easy to answer by pointing your finger at the obvious scapegoat. Right or wrong. The problem is more complex than that. Its just that women are brainwashed from the day that we are born that men will take care of us. That men are in some way superior….that we should hold them to above us. And of course our society reinforces this by denigrating the importance of stay at home mothers, unequal pay etc.. So by the time I figured out that I had been lied to….I was pissed off. Sort of like being pissed off about the quality of teachers in the schools teaching American History!! My whole existence as an American is a lie. The history of the country I grew up in is just an empty lie. And I believed every word of it!!!
Here is the PORTLAND AIM WEBSITE. I used the search to look up Bernard Red Cherries and Eugene Johnson and came up with nothing. So either they have nothing to do with the nonsense going on or their website is like a false store front in a ghost town. In which case the movement that may have started out with good intentions is already insignificant…they just haven’t figured it out yet. The moment AIM became insignificant in the previous decades was the moment they allowed fear to creep into their minds and they started hiding their actions which started a chain of paranoia. It is the history of every revolutionary group. DIVIDE AND CONQUER!! It doesn’t matter how many times the government does it….people fall for it every single time. WE NEED TO STOP LETTING THE GOVERNMENT DIVIDE US. And the care and safety of children should be put above all else.
This is an excellent song that is done much better by Lucinda Williams but I couldn’t find her version of this song. I do own it though.
The song starts out…
Well let’s start by
Making it clear
Who is the enemy, here
And we’ll show them
That it’s not them
Who is superior
The video contains disturbing images….
Dennis Banks and Russell Means were the first of the Wounded Knee defendants to be tried for the takeover. They asked Bogue to recuse himself for blatant bias, and much to their surprise he did.
The case fell to Fred Nichol, a prairie moderate, former prosecutor, and chief federal judge for South Dakota. Nichol intended to try the case in the state until WKLDOC commissioned a survey of bias among South Dakotans. the the question “What should be done about Indian militants, American Indian Movement members, and other Indians who demonstrate claiming they haven’t been given equal rights?” the most common answers were “Jail ‘em” and “Shoot ‘em”. Judge Nichol moved the trial to St. Paul. It started in January 1974.
People give answers to polls like that without giving it any consideration because it does not effect them…..who cares abut Indians getting a fair trial? If only they would play the game and get in line….Now I’ll bet if you polled white South Dakotans standing in line waiting to pass through airport security with their shampoo and nail clippers….
Banks and Means served as their won co-counsel, backed by some of the country’s most accomplished trial lawyers. These including the gifted embellisher Mark Lane, the meticulous Ken Tilsen, and the wild-haired, brass-tongued Bill Kunstler, whose clientele included Martin Luther King Jr., Black Panther Stokely Carmichael, the Chicago Seven from the 1968 Democratic Convention, and the antiwar Berrigan brothers.
Hurd and Geinapp agrgued a straightforward criminal case; Banks and Means had conspired to riot, seize, and hold Wounded Knee and then had done so, along the way destroying property, taking hostages, and firing on officers of the law.
The defendants denied everything…
Every time the Oglalas and their allies in AIM tried to right the reservation’s many wrongs, federal and tribal governments blocked them with duplicity, persecution, and terror. The Indians had been left no choice but to break the law.
The key to this defense lay in destroying the government’s credibility and Banks and Means caught a break early when the prosecution called a witness to disparage a petition signed by 70 percent of the permanent residents of Wounded Knee.
the copy the government produced at trial was doctored to seem weaker. On cross examination, the defense proved that the FBI had had custody of the petition at the time it was doctored. An FBI agent was called to the stand to explain how the document had been altered. The agent was at a loss. He said the FBI had a lot of files on Wounded Knee and it was hard to keep them all straight. Perhaps there had been a clerical error.
Judge Nichol declared himself “greatly disturbed” by this answer. “I used to think the FBI was one of the greatest bureaus that ever cam down the pike. I think it’s deteriorated, and I don’t care how may FBI agents are here in court listening to me.
…Judge Nichol to ask exactly how many the FBI had on Wounded Knee. He was astounded to learn 315,000. WKLDOC was astounded too. the government was bound by law to give the defense nearly all of its files that might help exonerate the defendants, but Banks and Means had not received anything approaching 315,000. they asked Judge Nichol to find out whether all appropriate files had been handed over, and Nichol forced the prosecution to give the defense 200 of the unseen files as a test. Half of the 200 files turned out to be relevant to the defense and should have been handed over months earlier.
When I started this blog as you can see by the description I meant it to be more fun and then that post on Buffy Sainte Marie sent it off in another direction…..such is life. While Monica Charles opened the door to exploring our history it was those dumb fucks trolls at AMERICAN INDIAN MAFIA who shoved me through the door.
I almost put this poem up on the last Anna Mae installment….I started laughing when I read it…..sort of reminds me of me…..asking Monica too many questions!
You asked me what I did at Wounded Knee
“What is the woman’s role in history?”
“Did you hold a rifle on the rooftop?”
“Did you know my friend, he said he was there?”
“He wore a denim coat, and cowboy boots.”
“He likes to tell stories and laughs a lot.”
“He’s vain about his braided hair with an
Eagle feather fluttering in the wind?”
“Did you meet anybody famous there?”
Breathing icicles, hunger thundering
Death guessing our names chasing away sleep
Frozen fingers stitched quilts from old clothes
We made the men trigger finger mittens
A teacher from Brooklyn started a school
Cooks made magic with plain macaroni
For seventy one days of sweet freedom
We laughed and danced and prayed on a frozen world
Made from our fate dreamemd by the Ghost Dancers
I have been feeling out of balance and out of sorts at times and then along comes Ordinary Sparrow to bring me back towards the center. I was way over the line and brought myself back far enough to not get burned but it was a struggle and reading her blog has a way of making it easier calming the crashing waves. She put up an incredible post last night which you can read here. As I have said she has the most beautiful blog I have come across….and when you are feeling out of sorts it is good to go there and just look at the pictures…read a few words and soon a smile replaces the frown.
So to balance the anger and frustration that the Anna Mae posts bring about here is a bit of Rumi…
A few months ago I would have rolled my eyes at the idea of making friends with people on the internet!
We had to empty our pockets of knives
Lighters, flashlights, all things unnatural
To enter the world of our grandfathers
An ethereal place where dreams and songs
are the language spoken by Spirit
They wrapped and bound Crow Dog in a star quilt
and laid him face down on the cold hard floor
All light was blacked out forcing us inward
The Spirits prophesied, preached like grampa
Our starving souls, baby birds, open mouths
for food foraged by our eagle mother
Drums, rattles, birds, deer, little points of light
whirred past like the rings of a hoop dancer
We spent the night in the realm of Spirit
Lost children finding our way home at last
Sounds like some good things came out of Wounded Knee II!
..not everyone at wounded Knee liked Pictou. Her friend Mary Moore (later Mary Crow Dog, wife of Leonard) wrote that Pictou fought with a group of women called the…..
Won’t even print that until I hear the same kind of reference towards the leaders of AIM these great warriors who were supposed to be protecting their people did they forget about those looking up to them? I’ll be damned if the colonizers didn’t teach Indian men the art of double standards! (I might be having a bout of pms)
Moore wrote of the Patrol, “They were loud-mouth city women, very media conscious, hugging the limelight. they were bossy, too, trying to order us around (and) getting all the credit and glory while we did the shit work, scrubbing dishes or making sleeping bags out of old jackets. Annie Mae gave these women a piece of her mind and I took her side.” Moore was too hard on the…..Many of the patrollers, like Madonna Gilbert, cousin to Russell Means, and Lorelei DeCora Means, wife of Russell’s brother Ted, did great amounts of work in the shadow of their more famous male relatives. But Moore was right that the patrollers did not like Pictou. Probably they resented that she was less retiring in front of the men, that she was toting a weapon and"manning" a bunker, and so on.
A few weeks after Anna Mae and Nogeeshik arrived at Wounded Knee, Mary Moore delivered herself a son, whom she named Pedro for her friend Pedro Bissonette. Pictou was one of the midwives. The next day, Anna Mae and Nogeeshik were wed before the citizens of the Independent Oglala Nation.
On April 25, a few days after Frank Clearwater was killed and a few days before Buddy Lamont would be, they walked out of the new nation and into the welcoming embrace of the BIA police. The police took them to the town of Kyle, north of Wounded Knee, where they were charged with breaking Dick Wilson’s law that banned three or more people from gathering inn one place. the next morning ” Annie Mae Aquash” and her husband were interviewed briefly-whether by the FBI or BIA is unclear-and released. Her interview lasted sixteen minutes, an indication of how unimportant she was to authorities. this would soon change.
I was looking for something more positive but came across this instead
No wonder Monica ain’t too fond of white women…. after watching a minute of this I’m a bit ashamed myself!!!
It seems to me that there should be some sort of registry to investigate whites claiming to be an Indian medicine man/woman.
God help me end this on a good note!
I looked up Indian women Oregon and found this…
Oregon is so awesome and Indians are sooooo….. not really visible here. In fact now that I think of it on my tour of Oregon a few weeks ago I ran into Indians from India but no American Indians….How does that song go…There’s something happening here…
I should have been writing some posts this morning but I was thinking of my nephews whom I left about four years ago to move to the west coast. They are adorable!!!! One of them is in a band named Canis Cibus…He is fifteen and plays the drums as well as guitar but in the band he just plays the drums. I used to babysit him every week when he was a wee one.
All excerpts are in italics and from THE UNQUIET GRAVE by Steve Hendricks.
All morning I have been plagued with the thoughts of hatred surrounding this case. There is hatred by whites who profess to want to understand and learn about Indians and the self hatred of Indians. The severe condemnations of AIM so many years later by Indians are a a significant cause of many Indian problems today. Those condemnations represent a symptom of something else when considering that AIMS worst crimes are nothing compared to those who were/are oppressing them. Hundreds and thousands of people could be annihilated….but a handful by AIM? Outrage!!! Hundreds and thousands of women and children raped or starved all over the world as a direct or indirect consequence of our actions or policies…. Year after year after year…are forgiven, celebrated or ignored by so many as they focus on a decade of extreme activism in response to a few centuries of genocide and repression.
Some of AIM’s actions were reprehensible but pale in comparison to what white Americans have supported either by their own actions or inactions. How many white people can say they have never supported a terrorist regime??? Our whole history on this continent has been one of terrorism. Even the most enlightened of our presidents has been responsible for the annihilation of many. The only people who have the luxury of speaking out against our corrupt officials are white Americans….this is evidenced by the condition of schools, roads, hospitals, emergency response times and incarceration rates.
AIM and some of its leaders actually gave the future generations a gift. They showed bravery and a concern for all but eventually because a few succumbed to their ego’s and greed the movement descended into one of suspicion. They became what their colonizers had taught them….The colonizers were wrong. America is not better by our rule. It may eventually lead to something better by the recognition of our crimes against each other and our crimes against the environment.
Without the actions of AIM another generation speaking out would have done the same thing: Made the mistake of fighting terrorism with terrorism instead of openly and with truth and transparency. I don’t know if Indians have their own version of Karma but the worst of AIM have given the future generations a gift by taking on such Karma….If those future generations do not repeat the same mistakes. Condemnation, finger pointing and hatred of AIM are all signs that hint at repeating the past history. This does not mean sticking your head in the sand and denying the bad actions of people but accepting what is and instead of repeating what didn’t work finding a different way.
I need to resolve practicing this with my own country and get rid of all of my anger towards the FBI…lest I should actually be giving them something to feed on!
ANNA MAE CONTINUED…
Two years after the Thanksgiving Day protest AIM announced the Trail of Broken Treaties and Anna Mae left to go to Washington
With her on the trip was an Ojibwa artist named Nogeeshik Aquash, with whom she had fallen in love. They doted on one another, but their love was as volatile as hers with Maloney and as prone to bitter fights and jealousies.The mortar that held it together was a shared passion for Indian rights and for preserving what remained of Indian Cultures. They returned form the traildetermined to do more for their people but uncertain of precisely what.
… when Wounded Knee was seized in February 1973 (Anna Mae) took another leave from the assembly line, put her daughters in the care of her family, and traveled with Nogeeshik to AIM headquarters in St. Paul, where they presented themselves for duty. Their bona fides were checked and deemed sufficient, and Bill Means, brother of Russell, drove them to Crow Dog’s Paradise on South Dakota’s Rosebud Reservation.
Both Crow Dogs (Henry, and Leonard) were immensely important to AIM because they reconnected AIM’s many deracinated activists with their stolen spiritual past. Much of the religious reawakening that occurred at Wounded Knee could be attributed to Leonard Crow Dog, who was inside the village for much of the occupation. The Crow Dogs were also important to AIM for draping a mantle of holiness on the group’s militant shoulders and for letting AIM use the Paradise- an hour’s drive from Wounded Knee but beyond Dick Wilson’s Jurisdiction- as its staging ground for the pack trains that kept the besieged village in food, armament, and recruits.
I think that was probably another huge gift….I know little of Indian religion but it seems that if someone could inspire whites to start practicing it in even commercial of ways that it is actually a good thing and opens the door to educating future generations. I know that many Indians are angry about whites stealing their ceremonies and dress but as I have stated before the alternative of whites continuing to practice Christianity on American soil….is this really preferable to Indians??? Religion is probably the greatest strength Indians have. Religion has the power to change the face of the continent and the minds of the people. Just imagine a shift in America towards an Earth based religion. Native Americans made a lot of mistakes when it came to the environment but not so much that the entire continent was on the brink of disaster.
I cringe at any formal religion these days….I hate people telling me what to do and how to think….I love reading about religion and new ideas of looking at the world but I drag my feet at practice. What little I know of Indian religion seems to me to be time consuming?? But maybe that is where Christians went wrong handing over our religion to a few people instead of spending the time practicing ourselves except for an hour a week? These days its mostly on holidays or not at all. I fall into the not at all category although I do spend a bit of time praying. I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about for all I know Indians only practice for an hour on Sundays too!
I don’t know who this guy is but he makes me cry this morning. You can take his words and apply it to any situation that causes you grief in life.
I gotta go to work I’ll have to look up more about him when I get back from the Redwoods!
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