Authorities confirmed crowd of at least 100,000…

The New York Times – October 17, 2008

Its Native Tongue Facing Extinction, Arapaho Tribe Teaches the Young
By DAN FROSCH

RIVERTON, Wyo. — At 69, her eyes soft and creased with age, Alvena Oldman remembers how the teachers at St. Stephens boarding school on the Wind River Reservation would strike students with rulers if they dared to talk in their native Arapaho language.

“We were afraid to speak it,” she said. “We knew we would be punished.”

More than a half-century later, only about 200 Arapaho speakers are still alive, and tribal leaders at Wind River, Wyoming’s only Indian reservation, fear their language will not survive. As part of an intensifying effort to save that language, this tribe of 8,791, known as the Northern Arapaho, recently opened a new school where students will be taught in Arapaho. Elders and educators say they hope it will create a new generation of native speakers.

“This is a race against the clock, and we’re in the 59th minute of the last hour,” said a National Indian Education Association board member, Ryan Wilson, whom the tribe hired as a consultant to help get the school off the ground. Like other tribes, the Northern Arapaho have suffered from the legacy of Indian boarding institutions, established by the federal government in the late 1800s to “Americanize” Native American children. It was at such schools that teachers instilled the “kill the Indian, save the man” philosophy, young boys had their traditional braids shorn, and students were forbidden to speak tribal languages.

The discipline of those days was drummed into an entire generation of Northern Arapaho, and most tribal members never passed down the language. Of all the remaining fluent speakers, none are younger than 55.

That is what tribal leaders hope to change. About 22 children from pre-kindergarten through first grade started classes at the school — a rectangular one-story structure with a fresh coat of white paint and the words Hinono’ Eitiino’ Oowu’ (translation: Arapaho Language Lodge) written across its siding.

Here, set against an endless stretch of windswept plains and tufts of cottonwoods, instructors are using a state-approved curriculum to teach students exclusively in Arapaho. All costs related to the school, which has an operating budget of $340,000 a year, are paid for by the tribe and private donors. Administrators plan to add a grade each year until it comprises pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade classes.

“This environment is a complete reversal of what occurs too often in schools, where a child is ridiculed or reprimanded for speaking one’s heritage language,” said Inée Y. Slaughter, executive director of the Indigenous Language Institute, a group in Santa Fe, N.M., that works with tribes on native languages.

“I want my son to talk nothing but Arapaho to me and my grandparents,” said Kayla Howling Buffalo, who enrolled her 4-year-old son, RyLee, in the school.

Ms. Howling Buffalo, 25, said she, too, had been inspired to take Arapaho classes because her grandmother no longer has anyone to speak with and fears she is losing her first language.

Such sentiments are not uncommon on the reservation and have become more pronounced in the five years since Helen Cedar Tree, at 96 the oldest living Northern Arapaho, made an impassioned plea to the tribe’s council of elders.

“She said: ‘Look at all of you guys talking English, and you know your own language. It’s like the white man has conquered us,’ ” said Gerald Redman Sr., the chairman of the council of elders. “It was a wake-up call.”

A group of Arapaho families had sent their children to a pre-kindergarten language program for years, but it was not enough. Heeding Ms. Cedar Tree’s words, the tribe began using Arapaho dictionaries, night classes, CDs made by the tribe, and anything they could find to help resuscitate the language. In the end, “we knew in our hearts that immersion was the only way we were going to turn this around,” said Mr. Wilson, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe.

He was referring not just to the potential for the Arapaho language’s extinction but to a host of other problems that have long plagued the vast reservation, which the tribe shares with the Eastern Shoshone.

“Language-immersion schools offer an environment that goes beyond teaching the language,” Ms. Slaughter said. “It provides a safe place where a child’s roots are nurtured, its culture honored, and its being valued.”

According to tribal statistics and the United States Attorney’s Office in Wyoming, 78 percent of household heads on the reservation are unemployed, the student dropout rate is 52 percent and crime has been rising.

Most recently, in June, three teenage girls were found dead in a low-income housing complex. The F.B.I. has not yet released autopsy results, but many tribal members think drugs or alcohol were involved. The deaths left the reservation reeling. Officials here hope that the school will herald a positive change, just as programs elsewhere have helped native youth become conversational in their tribal languages, enhancing cultural pride and participation in the process. A groundswell of language revitalization efforts has led to successful Indian immersion schools in Hawaii, Montana and New York.

Studies show that language fluency among young Indians is tied to overall academic achievement, and experts say such learning can have other positive effects.

“Language seems to be a healing force for Native American communities,” said Ellen Lutz, executive director of Cultural Survival, a group based in Cambridge, Mass., that is working with the Northern Arapaho. At a recent ceremony to celebrate the school’s opening, held in an old tribal meeting hall, three young girls sang shyly in Arapaho. Behind them, a row of elders sat quietly, their faces wizened and stoic, legs shuffling rhythmically as familiar words carried through the building.

“They are the ones who whispered it on the playground when nobody was looking,” Mr. Wilson said, referring to the elders. “If we lose that language, we lose who we are.”

Click here for more info on Ian Mackaye Q&A Dates 2008. Here’s a summary:

Sun Oct 19
Riverside Art Gallery
Riverside CA
A Question and Answer Speaking Engagement. $5,
7:30 PM All-Ages Welcome

Mon Oct 20
UC San Diego Price Center
San Diego CA
A Question and Answer Speaking Engagement. $5,
7:30 PM All-Ages Welcome, click here for more info.

Tue Oct 21
UC Irvine Humanities Hall 178
Irvine CA
A Question and Answer Speaking Engagement. $5,
8:00 PM All-Ages Welcome, click here for more info.

Wed Oct 22
Ventura Library
Ventura CA
A Question and Answer Speaking Engagement. $5,
7:30 PM All-Ages Welcome, click here for more info

Wed Oct 22
Mary Pickford Auditorium
Pitzer College
Claremont CA
A Question and Answer Speaking Engagement.
THIS IS AN EARLY SHOW, 12:00 Noon, free, All-Ages Welcome.

Thu Oct 23
Sunken City Skates
San Pedro CA
A Question and Answer Speaking Engagement. $5,
7:30 Doors All-Ages Welcome

Sun Oct 26
Hollywood High School
Hollywood CA
A Question and Answer Speaking Engagement. $5
(Hollywood High students free with i.d.),
6:30doors/7pm show, All-Ages Welcome

“If you’ve been following the Joe the Plumber story over the past 24 hours, it turns out that he’s not a licensed plumber and apparently makes about $40K a year, so is in no position to buy a business pulling in $250-280K net per year.

“The McCain campaign may not have planted him as a seed, but they certainly are cultivating him.”

October 17, 2008, 12:09 pm – New York Times

A ‘Dose of Nature’ for Attention Problems
Can nature walks help kids with A.D.H.D.?
by Chris Cummins for The New York Times

Parents of children with attention deficit problems are always looking for new strategies to help their children cope. An interesting new study suggests that spending time in nature may help.

A small study conducted at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign looked at how the environment influenced a child’s concentration skills. The researchers evaluated 17 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, who all took part in three 20-minute walks in a park, a residential neighborhood and a downtown area.

After each walk, the children were given a standard test called Digit Span Backwards, in which a series of numbers are said aloud and the child recites them backwards. The test is a useful measure of attention and concentration because practice doesn’t improve the score. The order of the walks varied for all the children, and the tester wasn’t aware of which walk the child had just taken.

The study, published in the August issue of The Journal of Attention Disorders, found that children were able to focus better after the “green” walks compared to walks in other settings.

Although the study is small, the data support several earlier studies suggesting that natural settings influence psychological health. In 2004, a survey of parents of 450 children found that “green” outdoor activities reduced A.D.H.D. symptoms more than activities in other settings.

“What this particular study tells us is that the physical environment matters,” said Frances E. Kuo, director of the university’s Landscape and Human Health Laboratory. “We don’t know what it is about the park, exactly — the greenness or lack of buildings — that seems to improve attention.”

Dr. Kuo noted that the study used tight controls to make sure that the walks were identical except for the environment. Who the child was with, noise levels, the length of time, the time of day and whether the child was on medication stayed constant.

“If we kept everything else the same, and we just changed the environment, we still saw a measurable difference in children’s symptoms,” Dr. Kuo said. “And that’s completely new. No one has done a study looking at a child in different environments, in a controlled comparison where everything else is the same.”

Dr. Kuo said more children were initially involved in the study, but logistical problems like weather changes, late arrivals or changes in medication made it difficult to maintain tight control, leaving the study with just 17 children from which to draw conclusions.

Despite the small size, the study is important because it involves an objective test of attention and doesn’t rely on children’s or parents’ impressions. During the walks, all of the children were unmedicated — participants who normally took medications to control their A.D.H.D. symptoms stayed off the drugs on the days of the walks.

The researchers found that a “dose of nature” worked as well or better than a dose of medication on the child’s ability to concentrate. What’s not clear is how long the nature effect can last.

Dr. Kuo said that while there are “hints” exposure to green outdoor settings offers a benefit, the science isn’t advanced enough to give parents a strict formula.

“We can’t say for sure, ‘two hours of outdoor play will get you this many days of good behavior,’ but we can say it’s worth trying,” she said. “We can say that as little as 20 minutes of outdoor exposure could potentially buy you an afternoon or a couple of hours to get homework done.”

Dr. Kuo said it’s notable that parents themselves consistently report benefits for their children from green settings.

“One reason we believe this is that if the effect were short-lived, we don’t think that parents would have so consistently observed it,” she said. “But they do. They report it over and over.”

The three music sensations that made Akron, Ohio famous join together for the first time in the important battleground state.

In the middle of an arts revitalization movement, Akron plays host to the music legends who are coming home to show their support for presidential candidate Barack Obama.

After 30 years away from Ohio, DEVO organized this effort.

The show happens Friday, October 17, 2008 8pm at the Akron Civic Theatre.

Twenty electoral votes are up for grabs in the swing state, and winning Ohio could play a pivotal role in winning the upcoming presidential election. With John McCain’s campaign recently pulling out of Michigan in an effort to place more resources in states such as Ohio, band members have been persuaded to show their support through a dual act.

“Ohio is where we need to be,” said Mark Mothersbaugh, DEVO co-founder and frontman. “We hope to make an impact with this concert, and raise consciousness to what’s happened in Ohio in the past eight years. I think that Barack Obama and Joe Biden are our only hope. That’s why we are here.”

The founding members of DEVO sprang from Akron in the 1970s at a time when the city was in a severe recession and dealing with the after-effects of a failed war.

The Black Keys, a new addition to the ticket, have been a rising sensation in Akron throughout the past decade, also a time of national economic hardships and an on-going war.

All proceeds will benefit the Summit County Democratic Party.

A limited number of tickets are on sale now at the Akron Civic Theatre Box Office by calling 330.253.2488 or visiting akroncivic.com. Reserved seats are available for $25, $35 and $50. A limited number of V.I.P. tickets, which include a post show reception with the bands, are available for $150.

Senator John McCain reacts to almost heading the wrong way off the stage at the conclusion of the final presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York (Reuters).