The American Spectator, a conservative magazine, doesn’t much like the move to ban Native-themed team nicknames. As a springboard for that opinion, it uses the current controversy over the University of North Dakota’s Fighting Sioux nickname.

The magazine, here, latches onto the fact that the Spirit Lake Sioux voted to keep the nickname. (The decision on retaining the name is contingent upon approval from both Sioux tribes in the state; the Standing Rock Sioux have delayed a decision.) But this piece ignores the fact that there was considerable opposition within the Spirit Lake Tribe to that stance.

American Spectator’s Mark Hyman writes, “The most absurd aspect of this politically correct ruckus is that non-native Americans are lecturing Native Americans on what should offend them. A hearing on the matter is scheduled in a county courtroom in early December.”

If the magazine had done its homework, it just might have found that plenty of Native people have opinions – negative ones – on this, too.

Gwen Florio

Tags: American Spectator, buffalo post, Fighting Sioux, Native American news, Spirit Lake Sioux, Standing Rock Sioux, Team nicknames, University of North Dakota

Mark Trahant is a Kaiser Media Fellow examining the Indian Health Service and its relevance to the national health care reform debate. He is a member of Idaho’s Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. Comment here.

A generation ago Indian Country wasn’t included in the conversation about health care reform. When Congress enacted Medicaid and Medicare it pretended that the Indian Health Service didn’t exist. It was as if it had never occurred to the government, that it, too, ran a major health care delivery system.

Say what you like about health care reform, the fact is that Indian Country is included in a big way this time around. If either the House or the Senate bill becomes law, there will be a significant boost in resources for the Indian Health system.

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Tags: Health care reform, Indian Country and Health Care Reform, Indian Health Service, Mark Trahant

Marie Cowen, of the Flathead Indian Reservation in western Montana, has seen more than her share of sorrow – starting with her removal from the reservation at the age of 9, when she was sent to boarding school in South Dakota.

Vince Devlin of the Missoulian follows the twists and turns of her story far better than we could do. Read it here. It’s a great kickoff to Thanksgiving week:

RONAN – This started out as a feature story about the Ronan Community Thanksgiving Day Dinner and the 82-year-old woman, Marie Cowen, who started it a dozen years ago.

When you walk through the door of Cowen’s home, however, it’s hard to see the turkeys for the bears.

Cowen, it turns out, has been collecting teddy bears for 15 years, buying most of them at garage sales, and to say she’s taken her hobby seriously doesn’t begin to cover it.

The bears are everywhere in Cowen’s little home off Terrace Lake Road east of town, every shape, size and color you can imagine, on virtually every shelf, table and wall in the place – somewhere between 7,000 and 8,000 of them, she estimates.

“If you want to count them, go ahead,” she says.

She and a granddaughter once tried, beginning with the teddy bears in Cowen’s bedroom.

“When we got to 2,100, I said, ‘Enough,’ ” Cowen says.

They weren’t even done with the first room.

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Tags: buffalo post, Flathead Indian Reservation, Native American news, Thanskgiving