Mexican police on Friday arrested 70 illegal immigrants from Central American nations in the central state of Tlaxcala.
The arrests took place near train tracks in the city of Apizaco, said Fernando Azael Mendoza Lopez, a delegate from the National Migration Institute.
The immigrants, from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua, were healthy but tired due to the wearisome trip from their native countries to Mexico, he added.
Over the past five days, 159 immigrants from Central America have been arrested in Mexico.
According to figures from non-governmental organizations, some 500 immigrants die every year in their attempt to seek illegal entry into the United States via Mexico.
Note that this story comes to us from a Red Chinese outlet, since the invasion-enabling American MSM will not cover anything that reflects badly on their favorite cause.
RALEIGH, N.C., June 16 In a case that has brought one surprise after another, a disciplinary hearing panel found Michael B. Nifong, the Durham County district attorney, guilty today of ethical violations while pressing a false accusation of sexual assault against three former Duke University lacrosse players. The panel then ruled that Mr. Nifong should be disbarred.
But the ruling was almost an anticlimax to the case because in the penalty phase of the five-day ethics hearing, David Freedman, one of Mr. Nifongs lawyers, told the panel that Mr. Nifong believed that disbarment was the appropriate punishment in this case. The state also said it felt disbarment was appropriate.
After deliberating for less than an hour, the panel stated that any punishment short of disbarment would not be appropriate in the case. In a lengthy statement, F. Lane Williamson, chairman of the disciplinary committee, said that Mr. Nifong had received due process, and thats what was nearly hijacked in the case of the Duke lacrosse defendants.
Six of the charges against Mr. Nifong involved dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation, the most serious of the accusations against Mr. Nifong. Mr. Freedman said Mr. Nifong believes hes received a fair hearing and he accepts the findings of the commission.
David C. Evans, the father of one of the lacrosse players, said: My reaction is we take no pleasure in this and that people should realize that the North Carolina criminal justice system is strong.
Weve got the North Carolina Bar Association presenting this case and the North Carolina attorney general making a fair and independent investigation. North Carolina gives enormous discretion to their local prosecutors. This is a case where the local prosecutor systematically abused that discretion and that trust.
In closing arguments on Friday, Doug Brock, attorney for the North Carolina State Bar, the state agency bringing the case, said, From his very first involvement in this case, Mr. Nifong weaved a web of deception, which continued up to this hearing. Mr. Brock called the prosecutor a minister of injustice who had hurt the Duke lacrosse players, their families, real victims of sexual assault, and the reputations of lawyers, prosecutors and the justice system.
Mr. Brock said Mr. Nifong had immediately embarked on an unprecedented local state and national media barrage with loaded words like reprehensible, unconscionable and deep racial motivation. And he said he had hidden evidence showing at least four unidentified males had left DNA on the accusers body and clothes, but none of the lacrosse players.
F. Lane Williamson, chairman of the ethics panel, responded that there is no rational explanation sometimes for unethical or illegal behavior. I dont know if well ever know, he said.
More at the link, but go visit KC Johnson for all the information and analysis (and one of the better written blogs out there).
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/17/2007 00:00 ||
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I hope Nifong ends up in a jail cell someplace as the sex slave of some guy he sent up a few years earlier. He richly deserves such a fate.
Posted by: Mac ||
06/17/2007 3:35 Comments ||
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#3
Unfortunately, Mac, Nifong mostly did traffic court before he was appointed to fill in the DA's slot, broke what the governor says was an agreement not to run for election and then used the LAX team to lever his career.
Re: Magnum -- she won't be prosecuted and shouldn't be IMO. She is apparently seriously mentally ill, not violent and therefore not deemed a threat to herself or others so she is not institutionalized. But seriously mentally ill none the less and on heavy psychotropic medications -- and Nifong knew it.
What pisses me off royally here besides the hideous injustice to the LAX players, coach and families is what Nifong has done to future real rape victims. By pushing ahead with a case where a mentally ill woman changed her story often and where there was little solid evidence even that a rape had occurred, he's made it harder for women who ARE raped to be taken seriously. The SANE nurse was right to say that it's not uncommon for a raped person to be stunned and not consistent on small details. And even mentally ill women can be raped.
It was Nifong's job to seek out the truth here and make a judgement call. He not only refused to see evidence that was important, he decided to go with Magnum's shifting story and eventually to send Wilson in to adjust that story to fit the evidence he was eventually forced to acknowledge.
It's Sunday, so I won't use the language I want to when describing him. But as a once-upon-a-time rape crisis volunteer I am more livid not only at what he did, but at the trivial personal reasons for which he casually destroyed dozens of lives.
#5
So does the Group of 88 87 also get to use the mental illness defense?
Duke lacks any credibility as an institution of higher learning if they're allowed to bury that deep dark mark upon their demonstration of intellectual integrity. Hate speech for thee, not for me. Go back fifty years and reverse the race of the accuser and accused and you understand how bankrupt the soul of academia has become. It's not about free speech or thought or civil rights. It is all about power.
#7
Durham PD, Duke Faculty and the Potbangers all need to pay for their perfidy as well
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/17/2007 9:19 Comments ||
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Duke has become a piece of work altogether in recent years. This is, after all, the same school which so eagerly hosted a Palestinian-lovers' convention. The Dean who'd invited them justified this to me because his Jewish, Holocaust surviving father did not tell him it was a bad idea. And besides, my bright, beautiful, Jewish, Zionist daughters are going to find all good schools do such things, and we might as well accept it... and learn to stop fussing.
#9
It's idiots like that Duke bonehead, TW, that are the reason why most Americans, and all Jewish Americans, should a)own firearms, and b)defend their right to do so unto death. There's a lesson to be learned from the muzzy scumbags about the uses of violence. No one wants to offend them for fear of being hurt or killed. If the Paleo-loving lefty academics had the same concern about violent Jewish retaliation, they'd be a hell of a lot more circumspect about being partisan in this matter.
Posted by: Mac ||
06/17/2007 11:55 Comments ||
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OC nails it. I've dealt with rape victims in my medical career, and let me tell you, they are seriously traumatized. Now there's always going to be a doubt as to whether they're telling the truth and whether the DA is just trying to railroad that nice, clean defendant over there in the suit and tie.
Nifong did serious damage to the concept of justice, and he did it just to preserve his pension. He can't go to jail, but people should spit on him in public.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/17/2007 12:13 Comments ||
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No punishment for the fake victem [sic]?
If you read her background and what she's like now, she's being punished. Just not by the legal system.
#12
The goobers did the right thing in disbarring him -- gotta give credit where it's due.
Posted by: regular joe ||
06/17/2007 12:35 Comments ||
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You know, I wasnt going to comment on this matter, but I see that there is such a profound misunderstanding of the Duke lacrosse team rape case that I feel I must. Nifong probably never thought that those boys were guilty of rape. Nor did he care. They are guilty of being the following four things, however: white, rich, Duke students, and outsiders . probably Yankee outsiders at that.
Why does this matter? Because Nifong is a smart politician with a profound understanding of his constituents.
As a very young man I lived in Durham, NC for two years, working as a dish washer, busboy, roofer, and what have you to make ends meet. I got to know the indigenous population of that town pretty well. They are mostly black, poor, and uneducated Southerners whose economic well-being is directly or indirectly dependent on a single institution: Duke University. Not that the minority white population of Durham is in a significantly different boat. Many of them resent the university too.
Biting the hand that feeds you. Its pretty stupid; but there are reasons for it, because in Durham the hand that feeds you is also sometimes the hand that slaps you. In my case, that slapping was literal. It came in the form of the worst beating Ive ever had in my life at the hands of you got it a bunch of drunken Duke athletes. I was bedridden for a week, while a buddy who tried to intervene spent some serious time in the hospital. What did we do to earn such a profound ass kicking? Simple. The Dukies (a local pejorative) were harassing a 14-year-old girl in the street and I stepped into the middle of it. Unintelligent, I know, but I was pretty young.
Man, I hated Dukies after that! And the Durham police. But age heals all wounds.
Anyhow, in Durham the Dukies are Somebody and the Townies are Nobody. Thats the way things worked down there and Nifongs constituents know it. When the Durham police showed up to see why paramedics were scraping poor Mike B. and I off of the sidewalk, there only comment was that next time we should stay out of the way presumably of gangs of drunken Duke jocks. Traditionally, Durhams police are not only corrupt, but completely and utterly owned by the needs of the University. Economically, it makes sense. Happy students make for happy parents. Happy parents make for tuition money. Tuition money makes for fat city coffers, which make for a well-funded police force. And so it goes.
Why do I say that the Durham police are corrupt? Well, I used to work for this guy named Fred L., who owned a bar and restaurant in Durham. Fred was not only an accomplish restaurateur, but an accomplished drug dealer as well. Naturally, most of his customers were Duke students, and he financed his operations by borrowing money from the local cops. In return for payback on their investments, they turned a blind eye to his activities; a nice, quiet setup that worked well for everyone until Fred skipped town one day. I found out a bit more about the situation when the local cops paid me a visit (they were looking for Fred) and got curious enough to talk with a few people. Id have never figured it out otherwise.
Anyhow, Dukes athletes are famous amongst the Townies for several things: winning games, throwing massive parties, running roughshod over the locals, and treating local women like garbage. Yep, thats right: Duke Universitys jocks are somewhat notorious for being . well, rapists is way to strong of a word, so lets just say sexually aggressive. It comes naturally enough to callous, incredibly intoxicated young men of any variety, and the traditional attitude of the Durham police toward the local population doesnt help matters any. Now, am I saying that the Duke LAX team was guilty of raping that woman? No I think that they are innocent. Am I saying that all Duke students are terrible people? No several of my best friends went to Duke. What I am saying is that Nifong is a good enough politician to know an opportunity when he sees one. To many people in Durham, those boys were guilty in a greater sense.
#14
I don't know when you were in Durham, SM, but I can well believe your story.
Two destructive things happened in Durham in the 80s that helped create the situation you describe. First, the tobacco mills became uneconomic to run. And second, the black middle class leadership in Durham was deliberately targetted by a series of actions that gutted that class.
That area where 15/501 swings north and especially east, joining I-85, was routed through the most prosperous black community in the region, I was told by lifelong (white) residents. Houses were eminent domained and streets that had been major conduits of business and social life suddenly were cut into two non-connecting segments by the thruway.
Re: the tobacco mills, I had the privilege of getting to know Jim Turner in the early 90s. Jim grew up in a blue collar family in NC, rose to be president of Liggett Myer in the 80s. As overseas competition pressed the tobacco industry hard, he worked closely with the unions to bring in the necessary automation to compete. I believe him when he said that he saved as many jobs as he could for the city, but the reality is that those jobs were going to go away, as did some textile and other un- and semi-skilled manufacturing.
Which left welfare and Duke. Professionals who moved in to support the Research Triangle Park technology firms tended not to purchase homes in Durham, by and large, unless they were biomedical people associated also with Duke. The newcomers settled in new suburbs like Cary (which the locals dubbed 'Concentrated Area of Relocated Yankees').
The home we purchased was in the western edge of the city in a new development. Most of our neighbors were either Duke alumni, faculty or similar professionals; there were a sprinkling of NC State types and we were the only Chapel Hill / UNC people on our street. It was an interesting experience .... ;-)
But yeah, Durham is pathological in several ways and Nifong attempted to lever the Magnum case into an elected position and a guaranteed pension. And you're right, he did not WANT TO KNOW if the young LAX players were guilty. He probably thought they probably weren't, but figured it was their job to prove it. And in the meanwhile he was sticking it to the university that refused him entrance as an undergrad.
Like KC Johnson says, Nifong's position is that they were guilty until proven innocent, and he was going to delay that proof as long as he could.
#15
Yesterday questions came up about legal action against Nifong under the judge/case from before the AG took over. According to this story, Judge Smith retained control of the case which came to his court and can therefore sanction Nifong directly:
Nifong's decisions last week to step down as Durham County district attorney and surrender his law license will keep him from practicing as a lawyer for the next five years.
But that does not mean the prosecutor who bet his career on the Duke lacrosse case will not be back in a courtroom.
Defense lawyers said they plan to file a motion asking Judge W. Osmond Smith III to sanction Nifong for his actions in court.
This month, Smith issued a memorandum saying that he retains control over the lacrosse case and has the power to discipline Nifong as well.
In his memorandum, Smith, the Superior Court judge assigned to the lacrosse case, wrote that significant concerns about evidence arose during a Dec. 15 hearing.
At that hearing, Brian Meehan, director of the private lab that did DNA testing, testified that he and Nifong agreed to write a report that only included information about DNA matches. In crafting the report that way, the prosecutor and lab director excluded crucial information about the presence of DNA from unidentified men - evidence that could have helped the defense prove the innocence of their clients.
The families, who have spent more than $3 million, have contemplated civil suits and lobbied for the federal Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into civil rights violations.
"I would be surprised if the saga of Mike Nifong is over," said Joseph B. Cheshire V, one of the defense lawyers. "His continued efforts to smear the members of the Duke lacrosse team ... did not endear him to the players' families or anyone he hurt in this."
Families in the capital now have a new venue to spend their leisure time where they can enjoy both privacy and recreation all in one. Located adjacent to the Prince Faisal Olympic Complex, the newly inaugurated Universal Bowling Center has bowling alleys, pool tables, snooker tables, a coffee shop, a restaurant, an electronic games center, a cinema area for children and a VIP lounge.
Prince Abdul Hakeem ibn Musaed Al-Saud, head of the Universal Bowling Center and head of the organizing committee of the 1st Kingdom International Open Bowling Tournament, said the aim of establishing such a center was to meet the needs of families in the capital. It provides the Saudi family with a proper environment in a relaxing atmosphere, he said. If I wanted to take my kid to one of those (other) bowling places I would fear for him. Those places were not built with the family in mind.
The UBC provides 12 lanes for families only. Eighteen other lanes are for single men. Another aspect that is considered a plus for families is the professional security and availability of caretakers. Parents can leave their children here and go with a relaxed frame of mind. We will take care of them, he said.
The prince said that UBC provided a proper venue for Saudi women to practice sports, which would have a positive effect on their health and welfare. He mentioned that among the priorities of the center was preparing future female bowlers. We have hired a world champion bowler from Colombia to train women. We intend to spread the sport of bowling among men, women, and children.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/17/2007 00:00 ||
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Really. If you're fully bagged, you can still get the ball down the alley with proper spin ? Probably going to behead the instructress after she fails to produce any competent bowlers. Can this be later turned into the national camel training center ?
The preliminary investigation into the death of Sulaiman Al-Huraisi, a Saudi who died in the custody of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice after members raided his house three weeks ago, is over. Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Ghaith, president of the commission, said: The investigation is over in its initial stage. The Governorate of Riyadh will announce the details of the full investigation soon.
On May 27, four days after the raid, authorities in the Governorate of Riyadh ordered that all members involved in the case be arrested until the investigation had been completed. Some 14 members of the virtue commission were arrested along with 11 members of the deceaseds family who were in the house when the raid took place. Police officers who took part in the raid were also detained for questioning, according to the governorate. An earlier statement from the governorate said that large quantities of alcohol and narcotics were found in the dead mans apartment.
The father of the deceased has accused commission members of beating his son to death. The details of the investigation will also include the results of the autopsy as well as a medical report specifying the cause of death.
If Al-Huraisis death is found to be accidental, blood money will be paid to his family. If commission members are found to have been at fault, they will be tried in a religious court.
Speaking to reporters yesterday, Al-Ghaith hinted that some of the commission members may possibly have acted in self-defense when Al-Huraisi was being apprehended. People who deal in drugs and alcohol do not usually surrender easily. In most cases there is a struggle, he said. He added: Commission members must be wise and lenient whenever they can but there are situations which oblige them to act in self-defense. Is it logical that a person surrendering would be harmed? That is not rational.
He said that it was not the responsibility of commission members to detain suspects who deal in narcotics or drugs unless the suspects had been detained for other reasons and were then found to possess drugs. That would be the sole responsibility of the department for combating drugs, he added.
He denied that any head of a commission center anywhere in the Kingdom or any commission member had been fired since the time the investigation began. None of that has taken place, he said. Al-Ghaith said he was hopeful that some of the commission members who were still in custody would be released soon.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/17/2007 00:00 ||
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A MAN is dead after three were shot in Melbourne's central business district and police in bullet-proof vests are scouring the area for a man believed to be armed with a handgun.
Police have told News.com.au one person is dead at the scene and a man and a woman have been taken to hospital. Police have said the two men apparently came to the aid of the woman who was being dragged by her hair by another man, who then opened fire on all three.
The intersection of Flinders Lane and William St is closed, after the incident triggered peak-hour chaos. Emergency services have set up a field hospital in the middle of the intersection.
Witnesses have reported hearing six or seven shots in the area before police and emergency services arrived shortly after 8.15am.
A spokesman for the Ambulance service said paramedics worked for an hour to revive one victim, before declaring him dead at the scene. It is believed all the victims were shot in the upper body.
Witnesses have reported a man getting out of a taxi with a women, allegedly dragging her by her hair, before opening fire on two passersby who came to her aid.
The gunman is described as being about 183cm tall, wearing black jeans, a denim jacket, and with short brown hair.
A witness, Peter, said he rang emergency services after coming across the scene, but he initially thought it was a car crash with three people in the gutter and on the street.
"The people who were standing around didn't seem to be perturbed by anyone with a gun, it was almost as if there had been a car accident," Peter said.
Another witness rang her mother and said: "Mum, I've just witnessed this horrible shooting, I have to go." She reported seeing bodies in the street.
People working in the Rialto building have reportedly been told not to leave their offices. Customers and staff at a nearby cafe have also been told to remain inside.
Police have asked motorists and pedestrians to give the area a wide berth and be patient with traffic detours.
More information on the aftermath in Melbourne can be found at the Herald Sun website.
The life-size silicone and fibreglass artwork "The Embrace" (2005) by artist Patricia Piccinini, is displayed at 'Art 38' in Basel, June 12, 2007. The international art exhibition is running from June 13-17. REUTERS/Siggi Bucher (SWITZERLAND)
#1
Anything, ANYTHING right down to crucifixes drowned in piss or rap music can all be defined as art. As with most of life, it is the matter of quality which remains to be determined.
One of Dave Barry's columns had an illustration showing a man walking his dog through a park where, next to a galvanized trash can, was a pedestal bearing a consecrated galvanized trash can displayed as art. The pedestal was labeled "Art" just as the garbage receptacle was labeled "Trash". Both were identical, save for the plinth. For those in doubt, I cheerfully refer you to DuChamp's Fountain "Urinal"
This article's subject is no different.
Shall we discuss how this "art work" has been SOLD AT OVER ONE MILLION DOLLARS? Let's please giggle at how two "performance artists" put this cheap piece of porcelain crap to its intended use, okay?
Art is what you make it. Much like life itself or a sewer, you get out of it what you put into it.
Yikes!
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Making human-animal embryos for scientific experiments should be allowed because of the benefits to science and medicine, British experts said in a report released for Sunday. Such embryos should never, however, be implanted into either a woman or an animal, said the Academy of Medical Sciences.
The combinations would include animal eggs and the nucleus, containing the genetic material, of a human being, or human embryos that carry the genetic material of an animal, the independent advisory body said.
A cloning technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer, or SCNT for short, involves removing the nucleus from an egg cell and replacing it with the nucleus of a cell from the animal to be cloned -- perhaps a skin cell, for instance. Scientists have tried this using, for example, an egg cell from a cow and a human nucleus.
There are no laws against it in either Britain or the United states and the independent Academy said it should remain legal. "Provided good laboratory practice is rigorously followed, research involving cytoplasmic hybrids or other inter-species embryos offers no significant safety risks over and above regular cell culture research," said Martin Bobrow of Britain's Wellcome Trust, who chaired the panel making the recommendations.
"UK legislation permits research on human embryos under license from the HFEA (Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority) up to 14 days in the laboratory," Bobrow added in a statement. "Re-implanting human embryos into a woman or animal is not permitted. There are no substantive ethical or moral reasons not to proceed with research on human embryos containing animal material under the same framework of regulatory control," he said.
Researchers want to make clones for a variety of reasons, but one of the most contentious is as a source of embryonic stem cells. In some countries, such as Britain, their use is not controversial and is actively funded and encouraged. In the United States, their use is legal but federal funding of the work is strictly limited by Congress and by President George W. Bush, who has vetoed legislation that would broaden it.
Researchers also routinely make chimeras -- animals that contain the genetic material from more than one individual. These include animals that carry human genes, most commonly mice engineered with human genes that are used to study disease. "We found no current scientific reasons to generate 'true' hybrid embryos by mixing human and animal gametes (eggs and sperm). However, given the speed of this field of research, the working group could not rule out the emergence of scientifically valid reasons in the future," Bobrow said. In other news, Great Britain has been renamed "The Island of Dr. Moreau."
You have to travel back in time to get from the nearest town to the chipped and wind-whipped little stone face that peers out over the Missouri River and the endless plains beyond.
The drive from Mobridge across the river takes you from the Central Time Zone into the Mountain, and if you turn off the main road and clatter four miles down a winding path, you find it - a modest monument on a lush green bluff.
This simplicity is striking because of what lies beneath: The remains of Sitting Bull, the Sioux chief said to have foretold the defeat of Lt. Col. George Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876.
But it is more striking because of the state of extreme disrepair that befell the resting place of one of the best-known American Indians in history for half a century, until just two years ago.
It was shot and spat at, and worse. On the surrounding grounds bonfires burned and shattered beer bottles glittered. Someone tied a rope around the feather rising from the head of the bust, rigged it to a truck and broke it off.
The site is on what is called fee land, within the boundaries of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe but privately owned, and two years ago two men - one white, the other a tribesman - paid $55,000 for it and began cleaning it up.
They have plans for a $12 million monument complex they hope will honor Sitting Bull's memory with the dignity missing for so long, and let new generations learn about him.
But these plans, like Sitting Bull himself, are not so simple. And they have torn open a wound over who will control the great Sioux chief's legacy.
First some history.
By 1868 there was relative peace between the Sioux and the U.S. government. The Second Treaty of Fort Laramie had secured for the Sioux a patch of land in southwest South Dakota.
Then gold was found in the Black Hills, whites rushed in, and the Sioux were ordered back to their reservations. Sitting Bull, having retreated into Montana, was said to have had a vision of a slaughter of soldiers.
Of soldiers falling like grasshoppers from the sky.
It was not long afterward that Custer and the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry were defeated at the Little Bighorn, in Montana, in the summer of 1876.
In the same way the Civil War has names particular to points of view - think "War of Northern Aggression" - Little Bighorn is also known as Custer's Last Stand, and, to some American Indians, as the Battle of the Greasy Grass.
The United States ultimately prevailed in the Indian Wars, but Sitting Bull became, and remains, an icon, a hero to his people. Later in his life he may have taken up - the point is disputed - the "ghost dance" movement, which forecast the return to life of dead Indians and an end to white domination.
This spooked U.S. authorities, and they went after Sitting Bull, who had settled back at Standing Rock.
He was killed in a battle with Indian police and American soldiers on June 15, 1890.
There are pictures of Sitting Bull - instantly recognizable, the single feather rising from the parted hair, the look at once stern and at peace - hanging today in the home of Ernie LaPointe, in the Black Hills town of Lead.
He is a great-grandson of the chief, with a craggy face and jet-black hair pulled back into a pony tail. And he is furious.
His mother always told him never to stand on Sitting Bull's back. Never boast of your heritage, she said. LaPointe, 58, believes the plans for a memorial complex atop his great-grandfather's grave are doing worse - cashing in.
"They want to use our grandfather," he says, speaking for his three sisters, "as a tourist attraction."
So this February he drafted a letter. He sent it to an assortment of Sioux tribes, including Standing Rock, which claims Sitting Bull.
"North Dakota, South Dakota and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe have not honored their promise for proper care and maintenance of our Grandfather's burial sites," the letter said.
It called for a "final reburial" - in Montana, at the site of Little Bighorn.
"So that he may spend eternity," the letter went on, "at the sacred place where his vision had predicted the greatest victory for our people, the victory at the Battle of the Greasy Grass."
The two men who want to turn Sitting Bull's resting place into a memorial complex are Rhett Albers, an environmental consultant who is white, and Bryan Defender, who owns the sanitation system for the Standing Rock tribe and is enrolled there.
They say people who come to the banks of the Missouri to see the site are confused - wondering: Well, where is the rest of it?
Their plan for the site would stream visitors through an "interpretive center," focused on the four Sioux ideals they say Sitting Bull represented: Fortitude, generosity, bravery and wisdom.
Other features under consideration are a snack bar, offices and meeting rooms, a gift shop and a restaurant serving wild game and American Indian dishes.
Confronted with LaPointe's suggestion that all this adds up to an attempt to cash in on Sitting Bull's legacy, they look perplexed.
"We are not wealthy people," Albers says over lunch at a diner on the opposite side of the river. "We've donated our time and expense and money to do this, pursue it, do it in a positive way."
Defender, 35, said he and Albers have met with groups on the Standing Rock reservation and received an overwhelmingly positive reaction to their plan. (The tribe's chairman did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this story.)
Albers said they hope someday to recoup their $55,000, but have no plans to draw salaries from the tourist center.
"It's not about the money," Albers, 45, says on a bumpy drive across the river in his pickup truck. "It's about the man. And the tribute. And to have these sites which everyone recognizes as being significant."
The two men take pride in their friendship, pointing out that in Mobridge, there is still lingering distrust between whites and members of the tribe.
"There's all these hard feelings, racial discrimination all over the world, and in this area also," Albers says. "There's a way we can understand each other better, reconcile these differences, learn from this tradition."
This is not the first struggle over Sitting Bull's remains.
The Standing Rock Sioux reservation, where the great chief lived his last years, straddles the Dakotas, and for the first half of the 20th century his remains lay at Fort Yates, N.D.
The grave was poorly marked. Weeds sprouted.
So in the early 1950s, a group of businessmen from Mobridge approached North Dakota authorities about having the remains moved south of the state line. North Dakota balked.
And that is how, in 1953, during a blizzard and in the middle of the night, a group from Mobridge, with a mortician in tow and with the blessing of the Standing Rock tribe, dug up the remains and secreted them into South Dakota.
Ernie LaPointe says his mother, Angelique Spotted Horse, was among those who agreed to the 1953 disinterment, and was assured by South Dakota authorities that the remains would be treated with dignity.
She had her doubts, telling relatives: "They never lived up to it before. What makes them want to do it now?"
The Polish sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski contributed the granite bust that marks the remains today. The bust is 6 feet tall and sits atop an 8-foot pedestal yet still seems small set against magnificent, mostly undisturbed, natural surroundings.
For a time volunteers visited the bluff to mow the grass and clean up. But those efforts waned, said Larry Atkinson, publisher of the Mobridge Tribune. Into the vacuum stepped vandals, drunks, partying teenagers.
"It was isolated. It was up on a spot where you could see vehicles coming," Atkinson says. "Kids are kids, and they saw it as an easy place that everybody knew where it was. It was a party place."
It was also a dumping ground. Refrigerators were dropped there. Shower stalls, too - tubs and faucets, the whole thing. Water heaters, furniture, tires.
Bullet holes pock the shaft on which the bust of Sitting Bull sits.
Trashing the site became something of a rite of passage, Albers says. You became a senior in high school here and you and your friends drove out to Sitting Bull to raise a little hell.
He hears from them today. "You mean we can't have the senior keg at Sitting Bull anymore?" Albers laughs.
"We're stopping that."
The aspects of the plan that anger LaPointe are the very attractions Albers and Defender say are most needed to sustain a fitting memorial to Sitting Bull - the visitors center, the amphitheater, the snack bar.
The pair are in the early stages of raising an estimated $12.7 million to bring the memorial to reality. For guidance, they have consulted the operators of a monument to Crazy Horse, carved into South Dakota's Black Hills, about 200 miles southwest of the Sitting Bull site.
More than 1 million people a year visit that still-unfinished sculpture, begun by Ziolkowski in 1948, which features the Sioux warrior atop his horse. Crazy Horse's head alone is spacious enough to house the four presidential heads of Mount Rushmore.
Enthusiasts support the monument with memberships at donor levels from $41 to $1,500. Pat Dobbs, a spokesman for the Crazy Horse site, said its success has taken "quite a bit of effort and years."
LaPointe says he has the backing of the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument to move the bones of Sitting Bull to Montana, and that an environmental assessment is planned soon.
And he has the backing of Darrell Cook, superintendent of the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, where there are already some memorials and markers recalling the battle in 1876.
If LaPointe is successful, expect nothing like what Albers and Defender are trying to do in South Dakota.
"Sitting Bull, he was a humble man," Cook said. "I don't think building memorials and visitors centers and that type of stuff is appropriate."
The Smithsonian Institution, meanwhile, is researching Sitting Bull's living descendants and preparing a "repatriation report" for a lock of the chief's hair and a pair of his leggings it holds, which would be returned to them.
South Dakota authorities, in letters to LaPointe, have deferred to the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which says removal of human remains, even from private land enclosed by a reservation, requires the consent of the tribe.
Members of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, which also claims descendants of Sitting Bull, have voted to leave the remains where they are.
Ron His-Horse-Is-Thunder, the chairman of Standing Rock, did not return repeated calls from The Associated Press over several weeks. But Tim Mentz Sr., who is enrolled at Standing Rock and handles issues related to the repatriation law, said the tribe established a formal "lineal tree" for Sitting Bull in the early 1990s that named LaPointe as one, but not the only, direct descendant.
He refused to say who else was on the list. As for LaPointe, "He cannot promote or say that he is the only closest relative," Mentz said. "That is clearly false."
There are whispers that the dispute may wind up in court, and LaPointe said he has been looking for law firms that might represent him for free.
It is difficult to nail down any aspect of the dispute as provable fact, particularly in a culture that for centuries has relied on a tradition of oral history.
It is not even possible to nail down as fact the presence of the actual bones of Sitting Bull on that Missouri River bluff.
One story that persists in North Dakota is that his remains are still buried at Fort Yates, that fakes were placed atop them, and that the fakes that were taken to Mobridge in 1953.
Another story goes further, holding that Sitting Bull's remains are somewhere in Canada. According to that legend, the great chief himself ordered that fakes be planted at Fort Yates.
The story holds that he foresaw a bitter fight over his bones once he was gone.
#1
I have the remains, and I will sell them to anyone for $50,000. Make sure the check is certified. And don't ask me for ID because I am a secret agent, oath bound to secrecy.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Families in the capital now have a new venue to spend their leisure time where they can enjoy both privacy and recreation all in one. Located adjacent to the Prince Faisal Olympic Complex, the newly inaugurated Universal Bowling Center has bowling alleys, pool tables, snooker tables, a coffee shop, a restaurant, an electronic games center, a cinema area for children and a VIP lounge.
The preliminary investigation into the death of Sulaiman Al-Huraisi, a Saudi who died in the custody of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice after members raided his house three weeks ago, is over. Sheikh Ibrahim Al-Ghaith, president of the commission, said: The investigation is over in its initial stage. The Governorate of Riyadh will announce the details of the full investigation soon.
The life-size silicone and fibreglass artwork "The Embrace" (2005) by artist Patricia Piccinini, is displayed at 'Art 38' in Basel, June 12, 2007. The international art exhibition is running from June 13-17. REUTERS/Siggi Bucher (SWITZERLAND)
