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Big Bird stabs Armenians in the back
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Janigian, Aris
Los Angeles Times
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I am a devoted viewer of PBS. From "Masterpiece Theater" to "Sesame Street," I have always considered it a bastion of creative and intelligent TV. But two weeks ago, PBS stabbed me and every other Armenian American in the back when it announced that its upcoming documentary, "The Armenian Genocide," will be followed on some stations by a panel discussion featuring two so-called scholars who claim that the genocide is a myth. Worse, according to genocide historian Peter Balakian, PBS threatened to pull the documentary if he and another genocide scholar declined to participate "on the other side" in the panel discussion, which was taped in January. Although the documentary is not slated to run until April, programmers across the country are now deciding whether to air it at all, air it alone or air it with the taped debate.
"We believe [the genocide] is settled history," said Jacoba Atlas, senior vice president of programming at PBS, but "it seemed like a good idea to have a panel and let people have their say."
This is perverse. Either there was a genocide or there wasn't. Would anyone tolerate David Irving, the notorious Holocaust revisionist, hashing it out on a panel with Elie Wiesel after a documentary on the Nazi concentration camps? Should we give janjaweed reps airtime the next time we run a documentary on their genocide in Darfur?
Why has PBS resorted to double-speak in regard to the Armenian genocide? The answer is simple: PBS is capitulating to politics. For years the Turks, America's so-called allies, have issued threats against any organization or country that challenges their quack reading of history. When the French recognized the Armenian genocide, the Turks recalled their ambassador to France, boycotted French products and canceled military contracts. They have threatened to withdraw strategic support from our country if we should dare make the same mistake.
Article 301 of the Turkish penal code makes it a crime to "denigrate" Turkey by, for instance, mentioning the Armenian genocide in public. In March, the famous Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk did just that and faced charges. International outcry and a technicality got his case dismissed, but others are still in peril.
One of PBS' genocide deniers, University of Louisville history professor Justin McCarthy, was invited by the Turkish Grand Assembly — reeling from European Union pressure to come clean about its genocidal past — for a pep talk in March. "I know that the Turks will resist demands to confess to a crime they did not commit," McCarthy intoned, "no matter the price of honesty. I have faith in the integrity of the Turks." These rousing words brought the lawmakers, many of whom had sanctioned Article 301, to their feet. Does PBS really want to give such a belligerent falsifier airtime?
"It seemed like a good idea," Atlas said.
Raphael Lemkin wouldn't agree. He coined the word "genocide" in 1944, and viewed the Armenian case as a seminal example of such an atrocity. Norman Mailer, Carol Gilligan, John Updike and Cornel West wouldn't think so either. They signed a petition, along with 150 other scholars and writers, reaffirming the genocide's historical truth. Directors of Holocaust research centers around the world — including Wiesel and Yehuda Bauer in 2000 — also signed a statement declaring the Armenian genocide an incontestable historical fact. Even the Turks are on the record as acknowledging the truth. When Turkey was defeated in World War I, the allied powers created a tribunal that included members of the new Turkish government. The butchers behind the genocide had fled by then, but they were found guilty and sentenced to death in absentia.
Certainly the few remaining genocide survivors, now in their 90s, wouldn't think it "a good idea" to give the deniers a forum. They were children when hundreds of thousands of Armenians were herded like cattle through the scorching slaughterhouse of the Anatolian desert toward one of 25 concentration camps. They watched as their people were murdered, raped, tortured and left to starve in those camps. Armenian homes and shops were occupied and looted; ancient churches were turned into mosques or barns, used for target practice by the Turkish army or burned to the ground to eliminate any trace of Armenians in those lands.
By the time the Turks were finished, an estimated 1.5 million people had perished — more than half the Armenian population in Turkey. Armenians called it Medz Yeghern: "The Great Cataclysm."
The denial of genocide, as many have rightly observed, is the continuation of genocide. It should be clear to PBS, to Atlas and to programmers across the nation that the American public broadcasting system should not be complicit in a murderous lie. |
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Whose House? Colgate's House
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Epstein, David
Inside Higher Ed
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Last week, for the second time in four months, a New York judge threw out a lawsuit brought by a group of alumni who sought to block Colgate University from purchasing their fraternity’s house.
Around 65 members of Beta Theta Pi, approximately 5 percent of the members of the alumni corporation, filed a lawsuit in October 2005, alleging that Colgate forced the sale against the will of some of the corporation.
New York State Supreme Court Justice Dennis K. McDermott found the case, Sanford v. Colgate University, to be nearly identical to another Sanford v. Colgate University that was decided in favor of Colgate in December, except that the first Sanford case involved Phi Delta Theta, and that Sanford is the father of the Sanford in the more recent case. The decision leaves the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity as the only one that has not completed a sale of its house to Colgate as part of a push begun in 2003 to have all houses operating as university-owned buildings. Jim Sanford, the lead plaintiff in the most recent case said he was dismayed that “the court relied on an earlier decision to dismiss the lawsuit brought by alumni of Phi Delta Theta and did not seem to consider the complaint of coercion included our case,” he said. He added that he expects an appeal.
Administrators have said the plan is aimed, in part, at giving the university access to a house in an emergency, and at limiting underage drinking. The issue has been a divisive one on campus, with some students casting the plan as an attempt to exert control over campus social life. If a fraternity did not sell its house, it would no longer be formally recognized by the university. The DKE house currently sits empty.
According to the affidavit from Eric W. Will, board president of Beta Theta Pi, the board considered legal action, but eventually reluctantly recommended selling the house. In February 2005, according to court documents, the board told all 1,295 members of the corporation of its recommendation and asked for feedback. Over 80 percent of those who responded approved the sale, and a deal was closed in May 2005.
McDermott said in his opinion that courts should only interfere with business decisions “in instances where the directors served conflicting or divided loyalties or where they otherwise failed to properly consider and evaluate the situation” on behalf of the stakeholders.
Beta Theta Pi board member Ralph A. Jones, a lawyer, checked out other campuses with institution-owned fraternity houses, and testified in an affidavit that the fraternities were functioning acceptably. McDermott said in his decision that Jones effort show that the board clearly “gave the matter a thorough and fair evaluation.”
The plaintiffs still have nearly a month to appeal the decision, and the plaintiffs in “Sanford I” as it is being called, have filed an appeal. Only DKE’s house is still not owned by the university. Rather than selling, the DKE alumni corporation filed two lawsuits against Colgate. One of those lawsuits was filed in federal court and alleges that Colgate violated antitrust laws and the fraternity’s First Amendment rights. The other, filed in state court, is an attempt to have the fraternity re-recognized.
Meanwhile, Colgate administrators are pleased with the changes down on Broad Street, the location of Greek and theme houses. The house acquisitions are just one small part of Colgate’s Residential Education Plan, launched in 2003, which seeks to make students’ time outside of the classroom as educational as their time in it. Jim Terhune, Colgate’s dean of student affairs, said that during the acquisition period, Colgate has “gone through some difficulty years where we’ve all come to know each other a little better. This year, the mood on campus as it relates to Broad Street is very positive.” Terhune said that students don’t seem to be talking about the house acquisitions at all anymore.
The decision leaves the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity as the only one that has not completed a sale of its house to Colgate as part of a push begun in 2003 to have all houses operating as university-owned buildings. Jim Sanford, the lead plaintiff in the most recent case said he was dismayed that the court relied on an earlier decision to dismiss the lawsuit brought by alumni of Phi Delta Theta and did not seem to consider the complaint of coercion included our case, he said. He added that he expects an appeal. Administrators have said the plan is aimed, in part, at giving the university access to a house in an emergency, and at limiting underage drinking.
The issue has been a divisive one on campus, with some students casting the plan as an attempt to exert control over campus social life. If a fraternity did not sell its house, it would no longer be formally recognized by the university. The DKE house currently sits empty.
According to the affidavit from Eric W. Will, board president of Beta Theta Pi, the board considered legal action, but eventually reluctantly recommended selling the house. In February 2005, according to court documents, the board told all 1,295 members of the corporation of its recommendation and asked for feedback. Over 80 percent of those who responded approved the sale, and a deal was closed in May 2005. McDermott said in his opinion that courts should only interfere with business decisions in instances where the directors served conflicting or divided loyalties or where they otherwise failed to properly consider and evaluate the situation on behalf of the stakeholders. Beta Theta Pi board member Ralph A. Jones, a lawyer, checked out other campuses with institution-owned fraternity houses, and testified in an affidavit that the fraternities were functioning acceptably.
McDermott said in his decision that Jones effort show that the board clearly gave the matter a thorough and fair evaluation. The plaintiffs still have nearly a month to appeal the decision, and the plaintiffs in Sanford I as it is being called, have filed an appeal. Only DKE's house is still not owned by the university.
Rather than selling, the DKE alumni corporation filed two lawsuits against Colgate. One of those lawsuits was filed in federal court and alleges that Colgate violated antitrust laws and the fraternity's First Amendment rights. The other, filed in state court, is an attempt to have the fraternity re-recognized. Meanwhile, Colgate administrators are pleased with the changes down on Broad Street, the location of Greek and theme houses.
The house acquisitions are just one small part of Colgate's Residential Education Plan, launched in 2003, which seeks to make students' time outside of the classroom as educational as their time in it. Jim Terhune, Colgate's dean of student affairs, said that during the acquisition period, Colgate has gone through some difficulty years where we've all come to know each other a little better. This year, the mood on campus as it relates to Broad Street is very positive. Terhune said that students don't seem to be talking about the house acquisitions at all anymore. |
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Frozen Four skill challenge teams named by NCAA
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The NCAA has announced participants for the skills challenge that will be held during the Frozen Four on April 7 in Milwaukee.
Teams of six male position players, six female position players, two male goaltenders and two female goaltenders were selected by coaches, the NCAA and the National Youth Sports Corporation to represent the East and West in puck control relay, fastest skater, hardest shot, rapid fire shooting and penalty shot.
"The rosters include an extremely talented group of men and women," said Marty Scarano, chairman of the Division I Men's Ice Hockey Committee and director of athletics at the University of New Hampshire.
The men's portion of the East squad is highlighted by the one of the nation's current leading scorers, Chris Collins of Boston College. The other male skaters on the East squad include Justin Cross, Niagara University; Derek Damon, University of Maine; Matt Moulson, Cornell University; Jaime Sifers, University of Vermont; and T.J. Trevelyan of St. Lawrence University. The two goaltenders will be John Daigneau of Harvard University and Brad Roberts of the United States Military Academy.
The women on the East squad include Lindsay Hansen from the University of New Hampshire; Allison Paiano, Colgate University; Jennifer Raimondi, Harvard; Margaret Ramsay, Brown University; Sam Shirley, Mercyhurst College; and Karen Thatcher, Providence College. The goalies will be Northeastern University's Marisa Hourihan and Sarah Love of Yale University.
The 2005 Hobey Baker Award winner, Colorado College senior forward Marty Sertich, highlights the men's portion of the West squad. Also on the West squad will be Adam Burish, University of Wisconsin; Colton Fretter, Michigan State University; Gabe Gauthier, University of Denver; Brandon Kaleniecki, University of Michigan; and James Shipley, Milwaukee School of Engineering. The West goaltenders will be Dave Caruso of Ohio State University and Adam Hanna of St. John's University (Minnesota). Shipley and Hanna were the only Division III players to be named to the rosters.
The women's portion of the West roster includes Adam Burish's sister, Nikki, who also plays for Wisconsin. Also on the team will be Sharon Cole of Wisconsin; Devon Fingland of the University of North Dakota; Jana Harrigan of Ohio State and Randie Jelinski and Kristy Oonincx, both of St. Cloud State. The two female goaltenders will be Meghan Horras of Wisconsin and Jill Luebke of Bemidji State.
To be eligible, players will have to have used up their eligibility by the event. Players whose teams are playing in the Frozen Four will be replaced by alternates.
The East male alternates in alphabetical order are: Adam Dann, Bowdoin College; Torry Gajda, Providence; Josh Gartner, Yale; Ben Kemp, Plattsburgh State University; Andrew Martin, University of Massachuetts, Lowell; Keith McWilliams, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Mike Ouellette, Dartmouth College; Tony Quesada, College of the Holy Cross; Bryan Schmidt, Merrimack College; Kyle Wilson, Colgate University; Kurt Wright, Robert Morris University; Brian Yandle, New Hampshire.
The East female alternates in alphabetical order are: Caitlin Barnes, Vermont; Becky Irvine, Colgate; Dani Jo Lansing, Mercyhurst; Ashley Payton, Providence; Rosina Schiff, Rensselaer; Carrie Schroyer, Harvard.
The male alternates for the West team in alphabetical order are: Nick Anderson, Michigan Tech University; Andy Contois, Northern Michigan University; Andy Cote, St. Norbert College; Tom Gilbert, Wisconsin; Jon Horrell, Bowling Green State University; Nick Licari, Wisconsin; Tom Mueller, Ferris State University; Marcus Reszka, St. Mary's University (Minnesota); Mike Walsh, University of Notre Dame; Brent Walton, Western Michigan University.
The female alternates for the West team in alphabetical order are: Anne Girtz, North Dakota; Grace Hutchins, Wisconsin; Cyndy Kenyon, Wisconsin; Meghan Mutrie, North Dakota. |
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Fury surrounds "The Armenian Genocide"
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Collins, Geneva
Current: The Newspaper About Public Broadcasting
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A decision by PBS to air a half-hour panel discussion after the documentary The Armenian Genocide has generated a firestorm of viewer e-mails and petitions of protest from members of Congress and the public more than six weeks before its scheduled airdate.
In some aspects, this is déjà vu all over again for PBS: The 1988 broadcast of a first-person documentary that also touched on the conflicts between the Ottoman Turks and the Armenians, An Armenian Journey, brought bomb threats to PBS stations and death threats to filmmaker Theodore Bogosian, the independent producer said. The Turkish government lodged a formal complaint, charging “inaccuracies and gross misrepresentations.” Turkish groups threatened lawsuits and urged PBS to distribute a 22-minute film with opposing views, which it declined to do, Current reported in 1988.
Although no one disputes that massive numbers of Armenian Christians died in what was then the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923 — estimates range from many hundreds of thousands to 1.5 million — the Turkish government has claimed for decades that the Armenians were victims of a civil war in which even more Turkish Muslims died.
On April 17 the new hourlong genocide film by independent producer Andrew Goldberg will air on stations in nine of the top 10 markets, but only two — in Chicago and Houston — plan to show the follow-up program, Armenian Genocide: Exploring the Issues. Oregon Public Broadcasting, presenter of Goldberg’s film, taped the follow-up roundtable in early February with NPR’s Scott Simon as moderator.
Opponents of the follow-up are outraged that it will give prominence to two historians who deny that the Armenian deaths constitute genocide.
"This is morally wrong. It is ethically wrong. It is no different from having Holocaust deniers on, or white supremacists on following a documentary on slavery,” said Peter Balakian, a Colgate University professor who wrote The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response.
Balakian appeared in both Goldberg’s documentary and the panel discussion afterward. However, he said he participated as a panelist unwillingly after he was told by David Davis, OPB’s v.p. of national production, that the documentary wouldn’t air without the accompanying panel discussion.
“The post-show had to be done to save the documentary. The documentary was way too important. They put me in a morally difficult position,” said Balakian.
“I don’t want to address that directly,” Davis said of Balakian’s assertion. “My position would be that PBS and OPB both felt it [the panel program] was a good thing. We made that clear to Peter.”
Davis sees “a big misunderstanding” about the panel discussion. “The follow-up is not meant to address some failing of the documentary; it is only meant to further discussion” on the topic, he said. Goldberg’s documentary already presents the Turkish government’s view that the Armenian deaths were the result of a civil war, not a formal extermination campaign.
Documentary “quadruple-checked”
Goldberg, of New York-based Two Cats Productions, said PBS executives told him as they reviewed his film’s rough cuts that it would be aired with a panel discussion.
“I didn’t think it was necessary,” said Goldberg, but he said he could accept it “because I knew that for our film we had done our homework six ways from Sunday. Every fact was quadruple-checked and had been vetted by so many people—historians, journalists—that I knew there was no way that the after-show was an interpretation of our reporting.”
Coby Atlas, PBS senior v.p. and co-chief programming head, said that PBS stands behind Goldberg’s film but elected to do the panel discussion “because this is not subject matter that is well-known by Americans. It is a subject that has been ignored to a great degree. . . . Our own presidents — both Bush and Clinton — did not call it genocide. Because they have declined to call it genocide, it raises questions. The Turkish government does not call it genocide.”
Although the U.S. government has avoided use of the term “genocide” since the Reagan era (Bush has referred to it as “annihilation” and “mass killings and forced exile”), more than a dozen countries have passed resolutions characterizing the event as such, as has the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Some European politicians have stated that they will not admit Turkey into the European Union until it admits genocide occurred. In September, the House International Relations Committee passed a resolution 35-11 that would have officially recognized the Armenian deaths as genocide, but it has yet to make its way to the House floor.
The man behind the House resolution, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), has drafted a letter to PBS urging it not to air the panel discussion. As of late last week, he had gotten 15 House colleagues to sign it, his press secretary said.
PBS had received about 4,000 e-mails protesting the panel show and 2,000 supporting it, said spokeswoman Carrie Johnson late last week. An online petition protesting the panel program numbered more than 16,000 as of Current’s press time.
Genocide naysayer featured in ’88 doc
PBS’s Atlas disputed parallels between Goldberg’s work and Bogosian’s An Armenian Journey, saying the earlier work “didn’t tackle this issue. It was more about Armenia, not about the genocide, and that (possible protests by Turkish officials) did not go into our thinking.”
However, Bogosian told Current his documentary did address genocide extensively and also included an interview with Justin McCarthy, one of the scholars in the panel discussion program who dispute that genocide occurred. (In the new program McCarthy says what took place was “mutual genocide.”)
"In the past 20 years, the Turkish lobby has strengthened in terms of its scope and its connections in Washington. I think what I faced 20 years ago was very strong, but the editorial attacks that the Turkish lobby made on the network, station and my program were rebuked by PBS and WGBH,” said Bogosian, a filmmaker based in Watertown, Mass., whose last doc for PBS was The Press Secretary in 2001. He had seen neither Goldberg’s documentary nor the panel discussion program.
Bogosian said he could not criticize the panel discussion program for allowing McCarthy, a University of Louisville professor, to speak, since he had done so: “I don’t think he should be denied an opportunity to present information.”
WNET reverses stand on panel show
Of stations in the top 10 markets, only KERA in Dallas had not decided whether to air Goldberg’s documentary at Current’s press time; KQED in San Francisco had committed to the doc but had not decided whether to air the panel discussion.
Los Angeles’ KCET, the station in the city with the largest population of Armenians outside the former Soviet Republic of Armenia, is showing neither Goldberg’s documentary nor the panel discussion program. (However, Los Angeles residents will be able to catch it on KOCE in Orange County.) Instead, KCET will air Le Genocide Armenien, a French documentary. Bohdan Zachary, KCET executive director of programming, said the station had already acquired, at considerable expense, the Laurence Jourdan work before PBS announced it was feeding The Armenian Genocide. He also said the French piece “covers the subject more exhaustively and comprehensively than Andrew’s work.” KCET hasn’t ruled out airing the Goldberg film later in the year, Zachary said.
New York’s WNET announced initially it would air the panel discussion, but the station reversed itself early last week. Spokeswoman Stella Giammasi said execs changed course not because they had received a letter of protest from U.S. Reps. Anthony Weiner and Carolyn Maloney (both D-N.Y.) but because it had initially decided to air both programs before viewing them.
"When the program panel saw it, we really felt the follow-up didn’t add anything to the documentary,” she said.
Most of the other programming execs contacted who had rejected airing the panel program issued similar opinions.
Those who plan to air the follow-up panel give explanations like that of Andrea McKenna, assistant programming director for HoustonPBS: “When there’s something that controversial, with several sides to stories, we like to air a follow-up where all opinions can be aired in a forum.” |
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Researchers push back dates of first life on Earth
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Bauman, Joe
Deseret Morning News
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In the last few years, scientists have discovered that the early Earth cooled much faster than had been believed earlier, a finding that could affect our understanding of how quickly life appeared.
John W. Valley, professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, will speak on discoveries by himself and others, Wednesday at the Frontiers of Science Lecture, University of Utah. The free public talk will begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Aline Wilmot Skaggs Biology Building Auditorium.
Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago as the solar system was condensing from interstellar gases, according to a press release from the University of Utah. At first "it was an inferno of boiling metals, minerals and gases.
"Red-hot oceans of molten rock, massive meteorite strikes and even brimstone in the atmosphere justify calling this time period the Hadean." The word refers to Hades, a biblical term for the underworld.
Before life could appear, the atmosphere had to cool enough for liquid water to form. The question is when that happened.
The earliest known fossils are dated in deposits from 3.5 billion years ago, the release adds. Earlier evidence from geology "placed the boundary between the Hadean and the subsequent Archean Eon at about 3.8 billion years ago."
Now Valley and colleagues have pushed back the era when the environment was cool enough for life by nearly half a billion years.
"Life could have formed 400 million years earlier than we thought previously," Valley said in a telephone interview from his home in Wisconsin.
The discovery was made by examining zircon crystals from western Australia, dating to 4.1 billion and 4.4 billion years old. This is a highly stable mineral, retaining elements from the time it formed in molten rock.
Although that rock was itself exceptionally hot, it was formed of matter that had cooled earlier, and the record of the cooling is retained in such information as the ratio of certain oxygen ions.
"I've been interested in ions for about 12 years, from all different ages and different localities from around the Earth," Valley said. He and a then-graduate student, William Peck (now an assistant professor at Colgate University, Hamilton, N.Y.), "hypothesized it would be interesting to analyze the oxygen isotope ratio of the oldest oxygen we could find on earth."
These ratios provide information about the temperature at which minerals formed.
"I had attempted several times to get old zircons from people, with no success," until a "very serendipitous meeting" at a conference in Beijing in 1998, where he met Simon Wilde.
Wilde, another researcher, had been interested in ancient zircon crystals for a long time. "I asked Simon if he had any of the 4.1 billion-year-old zircons that had been reported from western Australia," he said.
Wilde replied that he didn't have any that had been dated, but he had the sample they came from and thought he could locate another.
He provided several tiny crystals from a conglomerate sample. A determination of their ages showed most were 4.1 billion years old, while one was dated to 4.4 billion years.
Wilde sent zircon samples encased in epoxy. Peck and Valley took them to Edinburgh, Scotland, where they used an Ion Microprobe to measure the oxygen isotope ratios in the minute crystals.
"We discovered that the oxygen isotope ratio was distinctly different from what we expected, and indicative of a low-temperature prehistory of the zircons." By prehistory, he meant the material that was present before the igneous rock melted.
"That was a total shock. We never expected this."
The ratios "meant liquid water" was present. To be liquid, it had to be below the boiling point — that is, not from the scorching Hadean period.
Of the five samples the researchers had, three had elevated isotope values, meaning formation when water was present. Since then, nearly 200 ancient zircon crystals have been analyzed "and many of them have these elevated oxygen isotope ratios."
Conditions under which life could have survived, Valley said, "existed at 4.2 billion years ago." |
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Colgate explores Indian sovereignty
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Hornyak, Deanna
Oneida Daily Dispatch
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This weekend, Colgate University hosted a conference on a topic that doesn't have one clear definition agreed upon by all: American Indian sovereignty.
Chris Vecsey, director of Native American Studies at Colgate, welcomed people Saturday, saying the point of the conference was to look more deeply at the question of Indian sovereignty, in theory and practice. "It has not only impacted New York state, but the country as well," he said.
While Vecsey said that he didn't expect to come to complete clarification on the issue of sovereignty when the day was over, he hoped everyone would take something away from the conference. "American Indian sovereignty can be confusing," he said.
The first speaker, Frank Pommersheim, a professor of law at the University of South Dakota, said that American Indian sovereignty is at a crossroads. "Tribes are doing more now than they ever have in the modern era," he said. "They are testing the front of tribal sovereignty."
Pommersheim, who was formerly an associate justice on the Rosebud Sioux Court of Appeals and the chief justice on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Court of Appeals, framed his talk around the relationship between tribal sovereignty and the Constitution.
"I am willing to argue that when the Constitution was adopted in 1789, there was some degree of respect towards tribal sovereignty," he said. "I am also willing to argue that that respect doesn't exist today."
Pommersheim listed four themes in the Constitution that reflect the relationship between the Indian tribes and the new Americans.
The first answers the question of why the Europeans came to the Americas. "Their primary motivation was commerce," he said. "The Europeans were under the influence of the Enlightenment thinkers and the highest level of development for them was commerce."
Pommersheim went on to explain that the Constitution addresses commerce with Indian tribes in the Article I, Section 8. "It says Congress shall have the authority to regulate commerce with Indian tribes," he said. "The word 'with' recognizes that Indian tribes are sovereign. It indicates a partnership, not a power over someone else."
The second theme, Pommersheim said, is diplomacy or treaties. He said that treaties are negotiated between two sovereigns. "In Article II, Section 2 the executive branch is given the authority to make treaties, with the approval of Congress," he said. "This is how the colonists interacted with the tribes, with treaties, which mean that tribes were sovereign."
The third and forth themes, Pommersheim said, go hand-in-hand. "How did the colonists and tribes understand each other?" Pommersheim asked. "First of all, they didn't quite embrace each other; the theme of difference. Secondly, they lived separate of each other; the theme of separation."
The themes of difference and separation, according to Pommersheim, are reflected in the Constitution in Article I, Section 2. "The only place in the Constitution that makes reference to individual Indians," he said, "is when it explains how the number of congressmen in the House of Representatives should be determined.
The phrase "excluding Indians not taxed" suggests difference and separation, Pommersheim said, because Indians were different by not paying taxes and if they wanted to move into town and pay taxes, they would have had to separate themselves from their tribes. "While the phrase suggests difference and separation, it does entertain the possibility that an Indian's status could change on some level," he said.
While Pommersheim said he would define sovereignty as the ability of a government to govern all of its individuals in its borders in all ways, Congress does not see it that way. "In the United States, sovereignty is defined as whatever Congress or the Supreme Court think or say it is," he said. "Tribes are recognized as sovereign today, but with much less dignity and respect than in 1789."
To wrap up his speech, Pommersheim suggested some ideas that could achieve meaningful tribal sovereignty on a Constitutional platform. The first two, either a constitutional amendment or a return to treaty making, are long-shots according to Pommersheim.
"The second two, Congress or the Supreme Court taking steps away from plenary power over Indian affairs, may be more of a possibility in the long run," he said. "All in all, Indian tribes are a positive crossroads when it comes to tribal sovereignty."
How to obtain sovereignty
The second speaker, Robert Odawi Porter, a professor of law and founder of the Center for Indigenous Law, Governance and Citizenship at Syracuse University, explained what it takes to obtain sovereignty. "My definition of sovereignty is fairly straightforward," he said. "It is the freedom of a people to choose what their people will be."
Porter, a member of the Seneca tribe, said that sovereignty starts with the belief that your people should be free. Second, Porter said a group of people must have the ability to carry out that belief. "For example, they must have some sort of resources, financial, natural or governmental," he said.
The last thing a tribe needs, Porter said, is recognition of their sovereignty and abilities. However, Porter said there is tension in the United States when it comes to tribal sovereignty. "The USA disagrees with the belief and ability of tribes to be sovereign," he said.
Today, Porter said, it is hard for a tribe to be sovereign. "Colonialism shaped our ability to be sovereign," he said. "We don't have much land, people or financial resources."
Porter said sovereignty has eroded over the years. "We now have many non-Indians in our jurisdictions and the Supreme Court is increasingly mindful of this," he said. "That in turn can affect how we are recognized."
When describing the impact of the arrival of the Europeans, Porter Indians and the colonists were on two parallel paths, and still are. "We have to interact with each other, but still maintain our separate positions," he said.
Increasingly though, over time, Porter said there is much more convergence on the Indian side of the path. "The path of extinction, as I call it, is a system by which we are drawn into the colonists' way of life," he said. "I do however see resistance by some. For example, many tribes try to revitalize their language and reclaim their land."
Lastly, Porter gave the audience some political observations about sovereignty. "Sovereignty comes from our own people, not the colonists or Congress," he said. "It is an inherent right."
"Sovereignty is not given, but earned and has a price," he said. "It may not be easy to get and we may have to sacrifice to get it."
Porter said Indians must not underestimate how much "the colonists" are still motivated by fear. "Fear is still out there," he said. "Especially on the local level when it comes to land claim issues."
In the end, Porter said that sovereignty is about one thing. "While happiness may be a derivative of sovereignty, happiness is not the goal," he said. "Sovereignty is ultimately about freedom."
Later in the afternoon, Mark Mitchell, governor of the Pueblo of Tesuque, L. Gordon McLester III, former tribal secretary of the Oneidas of Wisconsin and Chief Irving Powless Jr., a leader of the Onondaga Nation spoke. |
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Visitor spending rises in Madison County
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Gifford, Aaron
Post-Standard - Madison County Bureau, The
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Visitor spending in Madison County increased last year, thanks to a new hotel in Hamilton and several events at local colleges that drew thousands of people to the area, tourism officials report.
The estimated total visitor spending for 2005 was $30.8 million, or $100,000 more than in 2004. Taxable hotel room sales last year amounted to $5.23 million, compared with $5.21 million in 2004. Visitors contributed $1.23 million to the county sales tax coffers last year and more than $1 million in 2004.
"We've been lucky to have Cazenovia College, Colgate and Morrisville State," said Jim Walter, executive director of Madison County Tourism. He credited parents weekend events, alumni gatherings and other fall campus events for a strong fourth-quarter revenue.
"Those types of travelers are recession-proof. Regardless of gas prices, they still come here to visit their sons and daughters."
Visitor spending is determined by applying a formula that estimates, per person, how much guests spent on food, shopping and entertainment, Walter said.
The county occupancy tax that funds Madison County Tourism was increased from 3 percent to 4 percent in July. That translates to an additional $1.50 for a $150-a-night room, or 50 cents for a $50-a-night room. The increase is expected to generate an additional $50,000 to $60,000 per year.
The new 58-room Wendt University Inn in Hamilton was a factor in the increased spending. Walter said the hotel picked up business that in the past went to Norwich or Verona because no rooms were available locally during Colgate University's homecoming weekend or the Madison-Bouckville Outdoor Antiques Show.
Kerry Beadle, vice president of the Wendt University Inn, said he was surprised at the number of visitors who stayed at the hotel for non-Colgate events.
"We get quite a lot of people from Morrisville College and people who use the IcePlex there - youth teams from throughout New York, Canada," he said. "And there are a lot of people who are just passing through."
Maxwell's Ice Cream and Candy Shop, down the road from Wendt University Inn, enjoyed a busy August, around the time of Gravity Fest, the antiques show and the start of Colgate's 2005-06 academic year. Owner Pat Drahos said many first-time customers heard about the shop by word-of-mouth.
"During the antique show people would take a break and get an ice cream cone here," she said. "In the summer, people like to walk around the village. We have that hometown atmosphere." |
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Artwork guide in the works
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Kollali, Sapna
Post-Standard - Madison County Bureau, The
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After a semester in Venice, Italy, Colgate University junior John Steigerwald is back at the Lorenzo State Historic
Site in Cazenovia, working on an independent study project to complete a guide to artworks at the site. His project adviser is art and art history professor Mary Ann Calo, associate dean of the faculty.
Last summer, Steigerwald, an art and art history major from Fayetteville, held an internship through the Upstate Institute to create a working guide to about 80 fine arts works on display at Lorenzo. The guide is intended for use by the site’s professional and tour staff, the volunteer corps and visiting researchers and scholars.
Each entry in the guide will include digital photos of the works; descriptive and historical information; biographical information on the artist; a bibliographic citation; examples of comparable fine art; and related/complementary interpretive information.
Steigerwald is continuing the guide entries this semester. But he is primarily working from photographs because all the artwork is in storage during construction at Lorenzo.
"I really only go down to look through their records," he said. "It’s harder now because it’s tough to see some details from a photograph." |
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Picturing the prophet
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Shimron, Yonat
News & Observer
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While Christians are accustomed to seeing images of their holiest figures -- Jesus, Mary, the saints -- Islam frowns upon such representations. But lost in the protesting and rioting that have erupted over the Danish cartoons that depict the Prophet Muhammad is one historic fact: Muslims themselves have portrayed the prophet in art.
Although such depictions were never widely seen -- and are now rejected by the mainstream of the faith -- these older works are respectful, even reverential, as opposed to the representations that appeared in the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten.
The historic artworks portray various scenes from the prophet's life -- his encounter with the angel Gabriel, his family and his ascension to heaven. Many of these exquisitely colorful images, mostly from the 14th to the 16th centuries, remain available.
When Omid Safi took his students to Turkey last summer, the Colgate University religion professor found reproductions of the originals in postcards and posters sold in shops and kiosks all over Istanbul, and especially outside the Mosque of Sultan Ahmet, commonly known as the Blue Mosque.
"You're hearing all this conversation about how Islam has prohibited images, while forgetting a large part of the rich tradition of representation," said Safi, a Duke University graduate.
When it comes to images of the Prophet Muhammad, the real issue, said Safi, is not whether the prophet should be depicted, but how and for what purpose. The incendiary cartoons of the prophet with a turban in the shape of a ticking bomb, for example, were obviously meant to provoke.
Muslims across the world reacted by boycotting Danish products, setting fire to Danish and Norwegian missions in Damascus, protesting and rioting. To Muslims, Muhammad is an exemplar of humankind. The cartoons implied to some that he was a terrorist.
Islam's tradition of avoiding the representation goes back to the religion's origins. The faith was born into a culture of idol worshippers in the seventh century. Fearing a return to those practices, early Muslim jurists discouraged any visual representation.
Such an aversion to images is not just a Muslim practice. The scribes of the Hebrew Bible saw idols as the chief competitors to the God of Israel. Christians, too, feared idolatry. In the eighth century, Christian "iconoclasts" destroyed devotional artwork and shrines from Rome to Constantinople. In the 16th century, Protestant Reformers and later the Puritans opposed any images of Jesus and stripped their churches of all art, with the exception of the unadorned cross.
But the inspiration to create artistic depictions of holy figures persisted, even in Muslim cultures. In historic Turkey, Afghanistan and Persia, which is now Iran, artistic portrayals of the Prophet Muhammad proliferated.
"We have lots of pictures of Muhammad in history and biography books," said Carl Ernst, a professor of religion at UNC-Chapel Hill. "These were not sacred books. They were made for the elite, the nobility. They were given as gifts by one ruler to another."
Still, mosques have, for the most part, avoided all representation, and that may be fueling the current furor over the Danish cartoons.
The Islamic Association of Raleigh has responded to the controversy by organizing a series of Friday lectures on the Prophet Muhammad. It recently took out a half-page ad in The News & Observer inviting the public to an open house from 2 to 5 p.m., March 18 at its mosque on Ligon Street in Raleigh, at which it plans to screen a PBS documentary on the prophet's life.
"A lot of people are uneducated on who the prophet is," said Zakir Hussain, a spokesman for the Islamic Association of Raleigh. "What we're trying to do is tell people who he really was and eliminate confusion."
Now forbidden
Leaders of the Islamic association objected to any representations of the prophet for this story, saying it would violate a key tenet of the faith. While depictions of the prophet may have been considered less blasphemous in the past, modern practice strictly disavows it. Because of their objections, The News & Observer is not publishing the historical images of Muhammad, but they can be viewed at www.zombietime.com.
"Muslim sentiments are frayed," said Ebrahim Moosa, professor of Islamic studies at Duke University. "They would see it as a way to add insult to injury."
Some scholars have suggested the rise of fundamentalism has driven mainstream Muslims to take extreme positions. Some Muslim jurists are so anti-image they even object to the display of family photos. It is this kind of extremism that led the Taliban, for example, to destroy two large Buddhist statues in Afghanistan in 2001. More recently, when Time magazine did a cover story on the afterlife, the Asian edition omitted a picture of the Prophet Muhammad ascending to heaven.
"Sadly," Emran Qureshi, a scholar and journalist, wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, "the recent polarization obscures a rich humanistic tradition within Islam -- one in which cosmopolitanism, pluralism and a spirit of open-minded inquiry once constituted a dominant ethos."
The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., includes a frieze of the "great lawgivers of history," and includes Muhammad alongside Confucius and Charlemagne. Sculpted in 1931, the frieze shows the prophet holding the Quran in his left hand and a sword in his right.
Various Muslim organizations have at times objected to the representation, but the court has turned down requests to remove Muhammad from the frieze. The court's Web site says the inclusion of Muhammad was a "well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor, Adolph Weinman, to honor Muhammad, and it bears no resemblance to Muhammad."
For Muslims, the frieze remains a thorny issue. Marc Conaghan, a spokesman for the Muslim American Public Affairs Council, an advocacy group for Triangle Muslims, said he thinks representation is wrong, period.
"Anything that can lead to worship anything other than God should not be done," Conaghan said. "It can lead to idolatry." |
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