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By children's author/graphic novelist Sara Varon and Sheila O'Donnell. Appears in Harper Teens Book, 'declare yourself.'
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I always like to buy myself a little present (or two) when I finish a class. To celebrate the completion of Rare books and Special Collections Librarianship, I got the sweetest 1950s panda from Thirteen Eighty-Five on Etsy. I love reading Effie's blog, the snail and the cyclops and would encourage everyone to check out her Etsy store. I will post my new friend soon. He will fit in well with my other well-loved vintage pandas.
I also bought shoes! I'd been coveting these yellow shoes but didn't want to pay full price. Last night I found them for $100 less.
Okay, I'm attending the Medical Library Association opening reception tonight and need help. I can find no information on required attire anywhere. Is this thing business casual, cocktail, what?
Help.
For a study break treat I spent some time looking at The Art of the Photogravure. I had learned a bit about it before dropping my preservation class (and yes, I will be taking it again) and really loved going through the image database and learning more about the process.
Here are a couple of images, courtesy of the site. The first is from 1868 by Thomas Annan:
Next is an example from 2002 by ParkeHarrison, Robert and Shana:
I decided to reward myself with a bit of a splurge so I bought these. I am working at the U of I Health Sciences Library for alternate spring break (an alternate to having a fun vacation or time off, that is). If they arrive on time, the lure of cute shoes will definitely help.
I'm trying to imagine having Kirk in my classes. He'd so be the guy many dull pronouncements or asking twelve times about the format for a paper. I can see Spock in my Info Sources and the Sciences class. I have a wee crush on Spock, so that wouldn't be all bad.
It's six days past his birthday but on this national holiday, here are some excerpts of my favorite essays by Martin Luther King. I posted them last year, but they are still my favorites. They may not be as well-known as the quotes that are typically associated with him, but I feel they give us a glimpse into what it means to be human, to challenge oneself and to rise to challenges that present themselves in our lives.
When most people think of MLK, they tend to think of him as a person who fought for the rights of non-whites. In reality, he was a true fighter of injustice in our country. I think the following paragraphs are important as they show us a man who provides a beautiful example of someone open enough to challenge his assumptions about race and injustice.
"Often the question has arisen concerning my own intellectual pilgrimage to nonviolence. In order to get at this question, it is necessary to go back to my teens in Atlanta. I had grown up abhoring not only segregation, but also the oppressive and barbaous acts that grew out of it... All of these things had done something to my growing personality. I had come perilously close to resenting all white people."
"I had also learned that the inseparable twin
of racial injustice was economic injustice. Although I came from a
home of economic security and relative comfort, I could never get out
of my mind the economic insecurity of my playmates and the tragic
poverty of those living around me. During my late teens I worked two
summers, against my fathers wishes--he never wanted my brother and me
to work around white people because of the oppressive conditions--in a
plant that hired by Negroes and whites. Here I saw economic injustice
firsthand, and realized that the poor white was exploited just as much
as the Negro. Through these early experiences I grew up deeply
conscious of the varieities of injustice in our society."
-My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence, Martin Luther King, Jr.
And, later on, in the same essay, King talks about becoming aware of the teachings of Gandhi and nonviolent resistence. I find it meaningful that he thought he was just studying a philosophy and would never have chance to practice it.
"In 1954 I ended my formal training with all of these relatively divergent intellectual forces converging into a positive social philosophy. One of the main tenets of this philosophy was the conviction that nonviolent resistance was one of the most potent weapons available to oppressed people in their quest for social justice. At this time, however, I had merely an intellectual understanding and appreciation of the position, with no firm determination to organize it in a socially effective situation."
"When I went to Montgomery as a pastor, I had not the slightest idea that I would later become involved in a crisis in which nonviolent resistance would be applicable. I neither started the protest nor suggested it. I simply responded to the call of the people for a spokesman. When the protest began, my mind, consciously or unconsciously, was driven back to the Sermon on the Mount, with its sublime teachings on love, and the Gandhian method of nonviolent resistance. As the days unfolded, I came to see the power of nonviolence more and more. Living through the actual experience of the protest, nonviolence became more than a method to which I gave intellectual assent; it became a commitment to a way of life. Many of the things that I had not cleared up intellectually concerning nonviolence were now solved in the sphere of practical action."
-My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence, Martin Luther King, Jr.
And, from his most famous speech, "Facing the Challenge of a New Age".
"First we are challenged to rise above the narrow confines of our individualistic
concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. The new world is a world
of geographical togetherness. This means that no individual or nation
can live alone. We must all learn to live together, or we will be forced
to die together. This new world of geographical togetherness has been
brought about, to a great extent, by man's scientific and technological
genius. Man through his scientific genius has been able to dwarf distance
and place time in chains; he has been able to carve highways through the stratosphere. Through our scientific genius
we have made of the world a neighborhood; now through our moral and spiritual
genius we must make of it a brotherhood. We are all involved in the single
process. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. We are
all links in the great chain of humanity."
Today
is not only a day of respect, but a day of service. If you have the
opportunity to help another, please take it. It is the best way to
honor this great man.
It's really sad that all the talk of Jamie Lynn Spears pregnancy and other trivial shit is considered more important or interesting than this:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/12/lakota-withdraw.html
Lakota withdraw from treaties, declare independence from U.S.
The Lakota Sioux Indians, whose ancestors include Sitting Bull, Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from all treaties their forefathers signed with the U.S. government and have declared their independence. A delegation delivered the news to the State Department earlier this week.
Portions of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming comprise Lakota country, and the tribe says that if the federal government doesn't begin diplomatic discussions promptly, liens will be filed on property in the five-state region. Here's the news release.
"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," said Russell Means, a longtime Indian rights activist. "This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically Article 6 of the Constitution," which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land.
"It is also within the laws on treaties passed at the Vienna Convention and put into effect by the U.S. and the rest of the international community in 1980. We are legally within our rights to be free and independent," he added during a press conference yesterday in Washington.
The new country would issue its own passports and driver licenses, and living there would be tax-free, provided residents renounce their U.S. citizenship, he said, according to a report from Agence France-Presse.
The Lakota say the United States has never honored the pacts, signed with the Great Sioux Nation in 1851 and 1868 at Fort Laramie, Wyo.
"We have 33 treaties with the United States that they have not lived by. They continue to take our land, our water, our children," said Phyllis Young, who helped organize the first international conference on indigenous rights in Geneva in 1977.
Means said the "annexation" of native American land had turned the Lakota into "facsimiles of white people."
In 1974, the Lakota drafted a declaration of continuing independence. Their cause got a boost in September, when the United Nations adopted a non-binding declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. The Bush administration opposed the measure.
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another source here
http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1220-02.htm
Freedom! Lakota Sioux Indians Declare Sovereign Nation Status
Threaten
Land Liens, Contested Real Estate Over Five State Area in U.S.West
Dakota Territory Reverts back to Lakota Control According to U.S.,
International Law
WASHINGTON, DC - December 20 - Lakota Sioux Indian representatives declared sovereign nation status today in Washington D.C. following Monday's withdrawal from all previously signed treaties with the United States Government. The withdrawal, hand delivered to Daniel Turner, Deputy Director of Public Liaison at the State Department, immediately and irrevocably ends all agreements between the Lakota Sioux Nation of Indians and the United States Government outlined in the 1851 and 1868 Treaties at Fort Laramie Wyoming.
"This is an historic day for our Lakota people," declared Russell Means, Itacan of Lakota. "United States colonial rule is at its end!"
"Today is a historic day and our forefathers speak through us. Our Forefathers made the treaties in good faith with the sacred Canupa and with the knowledge of the Great Spirit," shared Garry Rowland from Wounded Knee. "They never honored the treaties, that's the reason we are here today."
The four member Lakota delegation traveled to Washington D.C. culminating years of internal discussion among treaty representatives of the various Lakota communities. Delegation members included well known activist and actor Russell Means, Women of All Red Nations (WARN) founder Phyllis Young, Oglala Lakota Strong Heart Society leader Duane Martin Sr., and Garry Rowland, Leader Chief Big Foot Riders. Means, Rowland, Martin Sr. were all members of the 1973 Wounded Knee takeover.
"In order to stop the continuous taking of our resources – people, land, water and children- we have no choice but to claim our own destiny," said Phyllis Young, a former Indigenous representative to the United Nations and representative from Standing Rock.
Property ownership in the five state area of Lakota now takes center stage. Parts of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana have been illegally homesteaded for years despite knowledge of Lakota as predecessor sovereign [historic owner]. Lakota representatives say if the United States does not enter into immediate diplomatic negotiations, liens will be filed on real estate transactions in the five state region, clouding title over literally thousands of square miles of land and property.
Young added, "The actions of Lakota are not intended to embarrass the United States but to simply save the lives of our people".
Following Monday's withdrawal at the State Department, the four Lakota Itacan representatives have been meeting with foreign embassy officials in order to hasten their official return to the Family of Nations.
Lakota's efforts are gaining traction as Bolivia, home to Indigenous President Evo Morales, shared they are "very, very interested in the Lakota case" while Venezuela received the Lakota delegation with "respect and solidarity."
"Our meetings have been fruitful and we hope to work with these countries for better relations," explained Garry Rowland. "As a nation, we have equal status within the national community."
Education, energy and justice now take top priority in emerging Lakota. "Cultural immersion education is crucial as a next step to protect our language, culture and sovereignty," said Means. "Energy independence using solar, wind, geothermal, and sugar beets enables Lakota to protect our freedom and provide electricity and heating to our people."
The Lakota reservations are among the most impoverished areas in North America, a shameful legacy of broken treaties and apartheid policies. Lakota has the highest death rate in the United States and Lakota men have the lowest life expectancy of any nation on earth, excluding AIDS, at approximately 44 years. Lakota infant mortality rate is five times the United States average and teen suicide rates 150% more than national average. 97% of Lakota people live below the poverty line and unemployment hovers near 85%.
"After 150 years of colonial enforcement, when you back people into a corner there is only one alternative," emphasized Duane Martin Sr. "The only alternative is to bring freedom into its existence by taking it back to the love of freedom, to our lifeway."
We are the freedom loving Lakota from the Sioux Indian reservations of Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana who have traveled to Washington DC to withdraw from the constitutionally mandated treaties to become a free and independent country. We are alerting the Family of Nations we have now reassumed our freedom and independence with the backing of Natural, International, and United States law. For more information, please visit our new website at www.lakotafreedom.com.
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