It’s almost too painful to report stories like this one.

First Nations artist Cody Starr, a member of the Little Black River First Nation, was beaten to death on the reserve on New Year’s Day, the Winnipeg Free Press reports here.

Bad enough that a promising artist was cut down so young – he was only 23 – even worse that Starr thought he had left behind a life of violence and gangs when he turned to his art.

“I was just tired of it, it was a full-time job with those people,” Starr said back in 2005. Good things came his way as a result.

He was commissioned to paint a mural on the side of a youth agency, and his work was extremely popular.

Stephen Wilson, executive director of Graffiti Art Programming, says Starr “sold a lot of paintings. We couldn’t keep them in stock.”

Two men from Little Black River face charges in his death, Manitoba’s first this year.

Services for Starr are being held today.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Cody Starr, First Nations, Graffiti Art Programming, Little Black River First Nation, Native American Art, Native American news, Ojibwe

The first tribute to North Dakota Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan, who announced yesterday he would not seek re-election, comes from the very top.

Dorgan is one of three high-profile Democrats whose decisions yesterday not to seek re-election have set the political world abuzz. The other two are Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter.

President Barack Obama calls Dorgan, who chairs the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, a powerful voice for Indian Country, and notes his work to improve health care on reservations, the Associated Press reports here.

This Indian Country Today story by Rob Capriccioso notes many of Dorgan’s achievements on behalf of Indian people.

Since beginning his SCIA tenure, he has made tribal legal and justice issues something of a pet issue, using 2008 and 2009 to guide and grow support for the Tribal Law and Order Act. He’s also been strong on health issues – co-sponsoring the Indian Health Care Improvement Act two times – as well as tribal sovereignty and the need for oversight of federal programs and agencies that impact Native Americans.

Tex Hall, former president of the National Congress of American Indians and chairman of the Mandan, Hidatsa & Arikara Nation, said that Dorgan will be missed.

“I have known Byron for 20 years and have counted upon him as a close friend that whole time.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, D-Conn., D-N.D., Democratic Party, Gov. Bill Ritter, National Congress of American Indians, Native American news, President Barack Obama, Senate Indian Affairs Committee, U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd

Talk about making a bad situation worse.

Michael Steele, the head of the Republican National Committee, is in hot water for a Fox News interview, in which he suggests that the GOP won’t win back the House this year. And he said something else in that interview, addressing host Sean Hannity’s question about whether the Republican Party needs to be more moderate in order to be successful.

In the YouTube clip above, Steele defends the party’s plaform, saying that it’s one of the best political platforms in a quarter-century – here, he raises his hand – “honest Injun on that.”

Wait, it gets worse. Here’s the Fox transcript of the talk:

HANNITY: But there’s — but there’s a battle, and you know this is going on, because you’re the chairman. I’m sure you deal with this a lot more than I do. There are those that are saying that, for the Republican Party to be successful, they’ve got to, quote, moderate — be more moderate.
STEELE: No, no!
HANNITY: You hear that.
STEELE: That’s what has gotten us into trouble, when we walked away from principle. Our platform is one of the best political documents that’s been written in the last 25 years, honest engine on that.

A big boo-hiss to Fox for insulting people’s intelligence.

Michigan Democratic Rep. Dale Kildee, who co-chairs the Congressional Native American Caucus, takes Steele to task for his remark and Fox for its clumsy cover-up, as the Hill, the newspaper that covers Congress, reports here.

Kildee is demanding an apology from Steele.

“His insensitive comment undermines and threatens to reverse the progress we have made to correct those wrongs. A cursory look through a dictionary or even some knowledge of Native American history would show Mr. Steele that the term is a racial slur for Native Americans,” Kildee says.

No word on whether one is planned.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Congressional Native American Caucus, D-Mich., Fox News, Michael Steele, Native American news, racism, Republican National Committee, Sean Hannity, U.S. Rep. Dale Kildee

U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who chairs the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, announced today he won’t seek re-election next year. This story focuses on the political ramifications; we’ll follow up with posts on the likely fallout in Indian Country:

ASHINGTON (AP) — North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan said Tuesday he will not seek re-election to the Senate in 2010, a surprise announcement that dealt another blow to Democrats already struggling to protect their Senate majority.

Dorgan, a moderate who was first elected to the Senate in 1992 after serving a dozen years in the House, said he reached the decision after discussing his future with family over the holidays. Dorgan, 67, said he “began to wrestle with the question of whether making a commitment to serve in the Senate seven more years was the right thing to do.”

“Although I still have a passion for public service and enjoy my work in the Senate, I have other interests and I have other things I would like to pursue outside of public life,” he said in a statement.

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Tags: buffalo post, Native American news, Senate Indian Affairs Committee, U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan

You don’t get much closer to power than the Oval Office. So, the fact that President Barack Obama has accented what is perhaps the most famous workspace in the world with Native American art is telling. We’ve written about this before, but now there are photos to show the art in its new setting. This Associated Press story details the president’s choices. Let’s hope they’re more than symbolic.

By Nancy Benac of the Associated Pres

WASHINGTON – The decorative china plates are long gone. Historic metal gadgets and Native American pottery now stand in their stead. Resting on a bookshelf is a framed program from the 1963 March on Washington, where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I have a dream” speech.

President Barack Obama gradually has made the Oval Office his own.
To varying degrees, each president puts his own imprint on this celebrated workspace. Even the smallest change — Obama’s penholder, for example — is closely watched for symbolism.

While recent presidents have each done a big overhaul upon taking office, Obama decided against major redecorating. It would have struck a sour note in a time of economic distress.

But over his first year in the White House, the office has come to reflect his tastes.

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Tags: buffalo post, Native American Art, Native American news, Oval Office, President Barack Obama

As Crow Creek Sioux tribal Chairman Brandon Sazue continues his lonely, cold vigil on contested land on his tribe’s reservation, a move is afoot to replace his aging trailer with a tipi.

Since last month, Sazue has camped in the trailer on 7,100 acres sold by the IRS to pay a tax bill. But, as correspondent Stephanie Woodard writes here in Indian Country Today, the tribe contends that it doesn’t owe the money, and that besides, the IRS cannot sell the land of a sovereign nation.

Now, Gary LaPointe, of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, is trying to raise money to put up a large, lined tipi or two on the property.

The Navy veteran runs Northwest Tipi Sales and Rentals in Seattle.

“Large tipis, like the ones I want to acquire for Crow Creek, can cost somewhat over $3,000. They’re made of heavy canvas, with an outer layer as well as an inner lining that’ll be essential for the tribe’s chairman, Brandon Sazue, who is praying and fasting at the site – ‘forever, if necessary,’ he says. It’s very cold and snowy in the Dakotas now, so Chairman Sazue will need the additional protection from the weather a liner provides.”

Besides, says LaPointe, “what’s happening there affects all of Indian country. If their land can be seized, it can happen to any tribe.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Crow Creek Reservation, Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, Internal Revenue Service, Sovereignty

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Council has chosen a new leader, replacing longtime tribal chairman James Steele Jr. with E.T. “Bud” Moran.

“Any member of the council, if they feel up to it, can make a run for it,” Moran, a Vietnam veteran who is halfway through his council term, told Vince Devlin of the Missoulian (Mont.) here. “I felt James is a good man who I have nothing against. I just wanted a chance to serve as chairman.”

Moran says his priorities will include energy and water rights issues.

Meanwhile, Devlin has also learned that Luana K. Ross will head Salish Kootenai College, taking over from Joe McDonald, who built the school from a small satellite institution offering a few junior college credits in borrowed high school classrooms into the most successful tribal college in America.

She’ll take over July 1, he reports here.

Ross, an enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, is currently associate professor of Indian studies at the University of Washington in Seattle.
BOCK

She is also co-director of UW’s Native Voices, a graduate program where students, faculty and independent producers create documentaries about indigenous peoples, and author of “Inventing the Savage: The Social Construction of Native American Criminality.”

In the forward to the 1998 book, which investigated the high rates of imprisonment of American Indians, Ross recalls growing up across the street from the old tribal jail near Dixon in the 1950s, and how almost every family had seen one or more of its members jailed at some point.

“People from my reservation simply seemed to vanish and magically return,” she wrote, including her godfather, a “wonderfully brilliant man” who had trained to be a Jesuit priest, yet had been imprisoned four times in his life.

“How could this possibly happen to a well-educated, spiritual person?” Ross asked.

Gwen Florio

Tags: "Inventing the Savage: The Social Construction of Native American Criminality.", buffalo post, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, E.T. "Bud" Moran, Flathead Indian Reservation, James Steele Jr., Luana K. Ross, Native American news, Native Voices, University of Wahington

For months, members of a Foursquare church on the Crow Indian Reservation in southern Montana had to meet in a Quonset hut.

That’s all over now, with the construction of a new church, overseen by longtime pastor Ken Pretty On Top.

A dedication ceremony is planned for the congregation’s new, 1100-square-foot church this coming Sunday, reports Susan Olp of the Billings Gazette. here. The new church will be called Spirit of Life Lighthouse for the Nations Foursquare Church.

“This church is for everybody, it’s for all nations,” Pretty On Top tells Olp. “In the Bible it says to love God and love people, and that’s what we want to do here.”

The new church, equipped with a sound and video system, will be able to hold up to 500 people if its overflow space is used.

Every summer for nearly two decades, Pretty On Top and the church have hosted short-term missionaries from all over the U.S., as well as Europe and Asia. People come to Crow Agency for a week, paying their own way and helping out however they can.

The program is so popular, Pretty On Top said, the slots are usually booked a year in advance. He remembers one of the first people who came, a man, who asked Pretty On Top what the pastor wanted him to do.

On previous mission trips, the man had handed out Bibles and evangelizing tracts. But the Crow Agency pastor had a different idea. Crow Fair was going on, and he sent the volunteers out to lend a hand wherever they could.

“What I want you to do,” Pretty On Top told them, “is help people put up their tepees or tents. Don’t mention the church. Don’t preach. Go out there and help them. You have to build relationships first.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: Apsaalooke, buffalo post, Crow Indian Reservation, Crow Tribe, Foursquare Church, Ken Pretty On Top, Native American news, Spirit of Life Lighthouse for the Nations Foursquare Church

Here’s the entire text of today’s story from the Associated Press:

By ANDREW MIGA of the Associated Press

WASHINGTON  – Federal officials on Monday agreed to a request by two Indian tribes for special protections for Nantucket Sound, a move that could delay construction of a proposed wind farm off Cape Cod.

The National Park Service said the sound is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places due to its significance as a traditional cultural, historic and archaeological property.

The Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag tribes say the designation, which would come with new regulations for activity on the sound, is needed to preserve the tribe’s sacred rituals.

The Wampanoag — the tribe that welcomed the Pilgrims in the 17th century and is known as “the people of the first light” — practice sacred rituals requiring an unblocked view of the sunrise. That view won’t exist if the Cape Wind project’s turbines, each over 400 feet tall, are built several miles from the Cape Cod shore. The turbines would be visible to Wampanoag in Mashpee and on Martha’s Vineyard.

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Tags: buffalo post, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Native American news, U.S. Interior Department, Wind energy