HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: "Laura VerMeulen, University Graduate School" <beaver.cs.washington.edu!gnosys!ucs.indiana.edu!LVERMEUL>
Subject: RE: Northern Exposure
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 04:55:36 GMT

Original-Sender: "Laura VerMeulen, University Graduate School" <ucs.indiana.edu!LVERMEUL>

Ms. Lyn Dearborn asks:

"Speaking of Northern Exposure .... did anyone see this week's program?
Can someone tell me why Marilyn was being "honored" at the PowWow-type
gathering?  I was led to believe it was an episode I had seen, so I
didn't tape it ... but I came in the room just as "Marilyn Whirlwind"
was announced and saw her dancing ... she's quite lovely, in the
"right environment". "

Are you inquiring about the Story of Raven Stealing the Sun?  If so, Marilyn
was dancing the part of the Chief's daughter who swallows a pine needle and
subsequently becomes pregnant with Raven who is born as a human child.  The
story is about the creation of light, both daylight and the light we see at
night (moon and stars). The story is one that is told often.  While the tv
version was much too short, it was pretty neat to see a primetime show at least
attempt to relate it in some fashion.  Contrary to what the show tried to
imply, Raven is not typically seen as a Tlingit version of Christ.

Briefly, the story is thus:
The people lived in total darkness and did not know what their world looked
like.  Raven sets about to remedy this by disguising himself as a spruce
needle.  The Chief's daughter drinks the needle in a ladleful of water.  SHe
subsequently gives birth to Raven who is now posing as a human child.  As
childern are inclined to do, Raven wins the hearts of his mother and maternal
grandfather who dote on him lovingly, indulging him more often than is good.
Raven talks his grandfather into letting him play with the contents of the
Chief's cedar boxes....his most prized possessions.  Raven subsequently plays
with and "accidently" releases the sun, the moon and the stars, which
illuminate our days and nights.  Upon achieving his goal, Raven returns to his
birdlike form, to the shock and dismay of his mother and grandfather.

Marilyn was portraying the Chief's daughter in the story.

-Laura Grabhorn


Newsgroups: alt.native
From: Peshewegunzh <beaver.cs.washington.edu!gnosys!mthvax.cs.miami.edu!mamia!peshe>
Subject: Re: Northern Exposure
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 17:01:43 GMT

Original-Sender: Peshewegunzh <mthvax.cs.miami.edu!mamia!peshe>

McLuhan once wrote, "The point of the Narcissus myth is the
fact that men at once become fascinated by any extension of
themselves in any material other than themselves."

In effect, television watching as a pastime can become a
type of masturbation, with all the accompanying tendencies
to turning in on oneself and away from external reality
and growth.

People under stress are prone to engage in such behavior,
which is, indeed, psychologically no different from any other
sort of addiction. Indian societies are under a great deal
of stress due to the status of our being, essentially, conquered
peoples existing under an occupation authority.

However, that occupation society is undergoing considerable
stress, too, as it demolishes trust in any external spiritual factor.
In regards to the infatuation with self that is reflected in
the technologies of choice of Americans, Christopher Lasch has
observed, "In a dying culture, narcissism appears to embody -
in the guise of personal "growth" and "awareness" - the highest
attainment of spiritual enlightenment."


--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peshewegunzh

peshe%mamia.UUCP@mthvax.cs.miami.edu
mthvax.cs.miami.edu!mamia.UUCP!peshe
peshe@mamia.UUCP
mthvax!mamia!peshe

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Newsgroups: alt.native
From: wolf@netcom.com (Wolf Logan)
Subject: Re: Question of Nativity
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 20:08:43 GMT

<IO20905@MAINE.MAINE.EDU> writes:

>I'd like to see more information/discussion about the "sources,"
>for lack of a better term, about the "aborigines."  I have not studied
>such material, so in my haunting fogginess, I think the Arctic cultures
>may have crossed on the Bering Landbridge, particularly the Eskimo,
>while the other (and multitudinous) Indian group came up from the south.
>I think Indians and Eskimos do not consider each other "kin."

>Karen
>io20905@maine.maine.edu

Regardless of one's personal belief about the Bering Landbridge, I can
say that many Northwest Coastal groups share much cultural identity with
each other.  This extends from the coast of Alaska as far down, in some
cases, as Oregon and California.  I can't speak for the large population
of Southern, Mideastern, and Eastern groups, but I don't believe there's
much divisiveness between the coastal groups.  That is, beyond the usual
friction between groups...


-- 
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Wolf Logan                  wolf@netcom.com           "Aww, he's no fun...  |
| Esselen Tribal Nation       B4/7f+t+dcvk++s+mr++       he fell right over!" |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: alt.native
From: beaver.cs.washington.edu!gnosys!jfwhome.funhouse.COM!babs
Subject: Re: American Indians in Clinton cabinet?
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 15:42:09 GMT

Original-Sender: jfwhome.funhouse.COM!babs

	For Sam, and anyone else for whom it wasn't obvious:

Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller of the Cherokee Nation (I think of the
Eastern Band, anyone remember if she represents both East and West?)

Peterson Zah

	I'm pretty proud of Chief Mankiller.  She's currently serving
her second elected term as Principal Chief of the Nation.  It wasn't
always so, as I understand it, that a woman could rise to become the
principal ruler of the Cherokees (or any similar office).  Since she's
been re-elected, it would seem she's felt to also be doing a good job.
This is good (said the feminist).

				-babs

Newsgroups: alt.native
From: Peshewegunzh <beaver.cs.washington.edu!gnosys!mthvax.cs.miami.edu!mamia!peshe>
Subject: RE: Northern Exsposure
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 05:10:23 GMT

Original-Sender: Peshewegunzh <mthvax.cs.miami.edu!mamia!peshe>

>
> Original-Sender: Patrick Maun <AWIUNI11.EDVZ.UNIVIE.AC.AT!R5321GAB>
>
> Instead of condemning televion
> as bad, why not show your children good television. Talk to them
> about what it is and how it can be used. Instead of immediately
> condemning this new technological tool, show how it can be used.

Of course, it is not new anymore. Certainly, judicious use of video
(not TV) in small doses may be useful. Surrender of will and self into a
consuming entertainment culture is not.

> I think that
> video can have as possitive effect on society as the networks can. It is
> all just a matter of how it is used.

So far, the positive effect has remained elusive. Unlike television, through
this network, I can talk back. The entertainment and political moguls never
hear from our Indian children. With television, we are being programmed. With
the net, we are participating in an entirely different type of programming
that we are accomplishing creatively ourselves. Television, by the nature
of broadcasting, is totalitarian. It is one way, top down. It is democratic
only in that that is its audience, which it is designed to control. Because of
the technological constraints, it is inevitable I suppose that whether it
develops in a socialist or capitalist or other society, it develops along
similar lines that tend to lessen the freedom of those who become enthralled.

It is an illusion to have 13 channels ("of shit," as Pink Floyd puts it in The
Wall) and to think that this means that something is "happening" on them.
Nothing is happening on the medium, unless, indeed, it is in the Mcluhanist
sense of the medium becoming the message. I like to think of the hysteria
of seeming importance surrounding the entertainment culture as being best
evaluated by Charlie Chaplin, as he pulled up to a film premiere with his friend
Albert Einstein. Excited mobs surrounded their limousine, faces pressed
against the vehicle's windows. Einstein puzzled, asked, "But what does it
all mean?" Chaplin answered, "Nothing."


--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peshewegunzh

peshe%mamia.UUCP@mthvax.cs.miami.edu
mthvax.cs.miami.edu!mamia.UUCP!peshe
peshe@mamia.UUCP
mthvax!mamia!peshe

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Newsgroups: alt.native
From: "Gerard Philippe Menos" <beaver.cs.washington.edu!gnosys!firestone.Princeton.EDU!gpmenos>
Subject: Re: Northern Exposure
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 16:01:42 GMT

Original-Sender: "Gerard Philippe Menos" <firestone.Princeton.EDU!gpmenos>

----------------------------Original
message----------------------------
Original-Sender: Peshewegunzh <mthvax.cs.miami.edu!mamia!peshe>:

>...
> accomplishing creatively ourselves. Television, by
> the nature of broadcasting, is totalitarian. It is one
> way, top down. It is democratic only in that that is its
>...

In other words, it is not television per se that is totalitarian, but
rather the organization of society.  It's more an issue of
socio-economic and political power that needs to be addressed, rather
than the technology itself, which could be put to more benevolent
uses, depending on the organization of society and the intentions of
those in power.

> audience, which it is designed to control. Because of the
> technological constraints, it is inevitable I suppose

Where do you get strictly technological constraints?  It is not the
technology of television itself that has led to its present mode of
organization and usage, but the power structure behind its
development and application.

> that whether it develops in a socialist or capitalist or
> other society, it develops along similar lines that tend

Ignoring for the moment that there are no socialist or capitalist
societies, strictly speaking, but combinations of these models...
even if we accept the slight predominance of one model over another
in a particular society, it seems to me that there have been
differences in the way television develops in different societies.

In societies such as the United States that are "nominally" free
(i.e., in a primitive political sense, but not in the economic
sense), TV seems to be used to distract and anesthetize --to put
people to sleep and to minimize questioning of the power structure,
as "Soma" is used in Aldous Huxley's _Brave New World_;  the illusion
of political diversity is used to mollify the possibility of
political opposition.  However, in societies that are more
totalitarian in the political sense, TV's propoganda role is more
dominant than its potential as "Soma" --here TV is used more overtly
to enforce a specific model of human personality and to censor all
other possibilities for social expression.  The manner that TV is
used for social control in the US is thus more subtle --perhaps it is
more difficult to fight, but at least it too contains the seeds of
its own destruction in its ideological lip service to diversity of
expression.

The differences are important because you gotta know the enemy in
order to defeat it.

Phil

Newsgroups: alt.native
From: "Gerard Philippe Menos" <beaver.cs.washington.edu!gnosys!firestone.Princeton.EDU!gpmenos>
Subject: Re: AI in Clinton cabinet?
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 15:41:59 GMT

Original-Sender: "Gerard Philippe Menos" <firestone.Princeton.EDU!gpmenos>

----------------------------Original
message----------------------------
Original Sender: "LILA WITCO..........242-9609"
<BOOTES.UNM.EDU!NAVAJO>:

> [responding to the question "Are there any American
> Indians on Clinton's proposed Cabinet?"--mkk]
>

> .....My experience tells me that anywhere east of the
> Miss, non-Indian people believe that multicultural or
> valuing diversity or any of the other labels in fashion
> generally mean black & white, sometimes it includes

Actually, depending on the neighborhood, diversity may not mean more
than getting a balance of Irish and Italian.   :-)

> Hispanics; almost never is there any mention of American
> Indians generically and practically never is there any
> mention of Dine or Oglala or Ojibwa or... y'know
> whatImean?!

Dear M. Cramer:

Seriously, I don't know what you mean.  I find ignorant people on
both sides of the Mississippi.  And, I also find well-meaning spirits
on both sides as well, both in my personal experience and among
netters [does not the originator of the Native-L list hail from
Massachusetts?].  In fact, your use of the Mississippi as some line
of demarcation of enlightened attitudes seems totally arbitrary and
false --to me.

To tell you the truth, your comment strikes me as very narrow-minded
and slightly bigotted --though I may be missing something in your
tone.

Yes, it's true that many people (whether of East, West, North, or
South) think first of the peoples that they know, who are in their
immediate proximity [sometimes, bringing Irish and Italians together
is a big step forward].  But to extend your own limited experience to
an entire population east of a river seems to stretch the relevance
of your personal experience beyond the bounds of reason.

It sounds to me (correct me please if I am wrong) as if you have some
general prejudice against people from the Eastern regions of the US
--do you consider them to be the *new* ignorant savages?  It would be
like a southerner who gets along with all the peoples in his/her neck
of the woods, but hates "those damn yankees"  --thus replacing one
prejudice with another;  I would not call that progress.

A couple of days ago, I saw a cartoon in which a mouse is complaining
about the way that mice are treated in the Christmas poem [...Not a
creature was stirring... not even a mouse...]  This rodent complained
that the poem depicted mice as lazy creatures and proposed changing
the words of the poem to remove any references that his/her fellow
mice might find offending.  But when asked how this offensive
treatment of mice had originated, the mouse responded:  "it was those
stinking reindeer."

The relevance of this story seems obvious to me.  "y'know
whatImean?!"

> M. Cramer Div. C. Innovative Programs College of
> Education University of New Mexico Albq., NM  87131
>

> IN%"navajo@unmb.unm.edu"


With all good wishes,
Phil

Newsgroups: alt.native
From: beaver.cs.washington.edu!gnosys!iamok.enet.dec.com!"iamok: :gentile"
Subject: RE: Dances with Wolves problems
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 14:55:20 GMT

Original-Sender: iamok.enet.dec.com!"iamok::gentile"

It isn't real life - it's the same Hollywood sterotypucal white man to the
rescue and gets the girl movie with the slight difference in that it starts
to portray native people has having fealings and having family life, etc. In
that it is good but there are far too many problems. I am not worried about
the potryal of the US Cavalry, if anything, it was too kind. My Pawnee
friends didn't like it too much as being potrayed simply as the bad guys.
THe Pawnee also had families and spiritual pratices, etc.

Sam

[Please keep lines under 80 characters.  Thanks.--mkk]

Newsgroups: alt.native
From: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu (michael bruce mcdonald)
Subject: Peshewegunzh and Media
Reply-To: s1mbm@isuvax.iastate.edu
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 08:37:46 GMT

Peshewegunzh, this is just a note to thank you for your recent postings
on this topic.  While I am not always entirely convinced by your arguments,
I find you one of the most thoughtful, intelligent, eloquent, and *wise*
posters on the net.

I would also like to thank everyone else who has contributed to this thread,
which I've found quite fascinating.

I hope not to get messages telling me that this should have been said via
personal e-mail.  With all the disparagement conveyed daily over the net, I
refuse to accept the notion that messages of celebration and praise should
be kept hidden from the eyes of the general readership.

thanks,
michael mcdonald
Newsgroups: alt.native
From: idoy@crux1.cit.cornell.edu (Mike Wilson)
Subject: Re: Proposed 2nd RFD: soc.culture.native
Keywords: native, new newsgroup
Organization: Cornell Information Technologies
Date:  7 Jan 93 22:31:25 GMT

wurfa8v@nerix.nerdc.ufl.edu writes:

>Sounds great to me.

>Have fun!

>   =-Kathy->                                    waddell@firnvx.firn.edu

Kathy,

Thanks for the vote of confidence!  The e-mail I've been receiving
shows that there is very little disagreement about the charter, and
strong support for the creation of this newsgroup.

So far, so good.

Mike
Newsgroups: alt.native
From: beaver.cs.washington.edu!gnosys!tamvm1.tamu.edu!ihlpf.att.com!krista
Subject: Re: Relationship of Pawnee to Sioux and U.S. Army
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 17:19:00 GMT

Original-Sender: ihlpf.att.com!krista

Matt Luders writes:
>
> David Hough writes:
>
> "it seems to me that a big problem with Dances With Wolves is it makes the
>  Lt., and the Lakotas, look like a bunch of heroic saints, and the enlisted
>  ranks of the US Cavalry, and the Pawnees, look like a bunch of bums.
>  Something that clear cut doesn't sound like real life."
>
> Regarding the relationship of the Pawnees to their neighboring tribes,
> and to the U.S. Army, you may find the following excerpts interesting.
> They are taken from the book _Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee_, by Dee Brown.
.....
> Clearly, the Pawnees were no friends of the Sioux (Dakota), Cheyennes,
> or Arapahos.  That they were employed as scouts and mercenaries by the U.S.
> Army is historical fact.

I agree with David on this one.  Most stories have 2 sides; those
that tell only 1 side are less sophisticated than those that show
both sides and the tragedy of irreconcilable conflict.  The
Pawnees and other scouts had their reasons for allying with the US
Army.

In Evan Conlee's _Son of the Morning Star_, he tells the stories
of a few of the Indian scouts who worked for Custer.  One of them,
Bloody Knife, for example, hated Sioux because he was the son of a
captive Arikara woman and a Sioux man, and spent his life as a
rejected outcast among the "pureblood" Sioux.  In addition, some
Sioux hotheads killed his brother.

Another thing to remember is that a few indivual scouts needn't
make us prejudiced against a whole nation.

There was racism among *some* Indians.  Some Sioux hated all
Pawnee.  Some Pawnee hated all Cheyenne.  But there were also
individuals who rose above such prejudices, like Crazy Horse and
Sitting Bull and Pontiac and Tecumseh and Little Turtle who all
recognized the need for Indian people to unite against a stronger
common enemy.

Of course, even they weren't perfect.  Crazy Horse killed a
peaceful Shoshone woman only because it was expected of him as a
Sioux warrior.  But the difference is that he felt bad about it,
at least according to Mary Sandoz.  After that he tried his best
not to kill innocent bystanders and concentrated on fighting
soldiers.  And in the end, Crazy Horse himself was murdered by one
of his own people, a Sioux.  (Of course the incident was brought
on by US Army people, but what I'm trying to say is that good and
evil coexist in all of us; it's not the case that evil is
concentrated in some groups and good in others.)

I think group hates are a weakness and we will survive better
without them.

Newsgroups: alt.native
From: idoy@crux1.cit.cornell.edu (Mike Wilson)
Subject: Re: Proposed 2nd RFD: soc.culture.native
Keywords: native, new newsgroup
Organization: Cornell Information Technologies
Date:  8 Jan 93 00:55:47 GMT

wurfa8v@nerix.nerdc.ufl.edu writes:

>Sounds great to me.

>Have fun!

>   =-Kathy->                                    waddell@firnvx.firn.edu

Kathy,

Thanks for the vote of confidence!  The e-mail I've been receiving
shows that there is very little disagreement about the charter, and
strong support for the creation of this newsgroup.

So far, so good.

Mike


==========================
Michael Wilson
idoy@crux1.cit.cornell.edu
==========================
Newsgroups: alt.native
From: Marianne Dugan <beaver.cs.washington.edu!gnosys!OREGON.UOREGON.EDU!MDUGAN>
Subject: Re: Northern Exposure
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 19:37:35 GMT

Original-Sender: Marianne Dugan <OREGON.UOREGON.EDU!MDUGAN>

Peshewegunzh wrote:
>
>When one walks through the forest, one is surrounded by spirit on all sides.
>A TV program about the forest, however, will have none of the spirit
>present, only a series of unliving still photographic images technologically
>sequenced.

This is certainly true.  But consider this example:  There is a
man who lives on a mountain in Southern Oregon that is constantly
being threatened with clear-cutting, and the man (along with many
other people) have for years worked to block the cuts (lying in
the road in front of trucks, etc.)  The man took some amazing
slides of the area, and some aerial photographs showing the
terrible destruction of the forests, and began giving his slide
show, with a very stirring and heartfelt talk about his home.  He
brought the slide show to Washington and convinced many senators
to see his slide show.  And it had a profound influence on the
people who saw it.  No, it did not capture the spirit of the
mountain, but his awesome photographs along with his powerful
talk combined to bring the spirit of the forest into the room
where he gave his talks (I saw the slide show myself), where his
speech alone would not be so powerful to many people.  The
visual, as you have noted, is very powerful and is mostly used to
bad ends in television.  But I think its power is not
intrinsically evil and I think that television is but an
extension (albeit probably more prone to misuse) of the other
visual media.  I am thinking of another moving visual experience
which I first saw on t.v. -- "Rage Over Trees" -- with similar
visual shocks and wonders as Lou Gold's slide show -- about one
of the last virgin old-growth areas in the Northwest, Opal Creek.
 The program had a great effect on people and helped to stop the
clearcutting in Opal Creek and finally led the owner to sell the
land to the Nature Conservancy.

In sum -- I do believe visual media _can_ convey _some_ of the
spirit of a forest -- enough to bring tears to the eyes and get
people off their butts and into action to care enough about it to
save it.

----------------------------------------------------------------
Marianne Dugan  mdugan@oregon.uoregon.edu

Newsgroups: alt.native
From: Dartmouth.EDU!Justin.A.Ruben
Subject: Re: AI in Clintons Cabinet
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 06:24:39 GMT

Original-Sender: Dartmouth.EDU!Justin.A.Ruben

re: this whole argument over Clinton's cabinet.

Why, when Clinton picks a cabinet with a greater share of oppressed
minorities (are there any other sort?) than past cabinets,  is it
automatically assumed that he traded quality for diversity?  Is this not
thinly veiled racism in itself?  When we get a cabinet that's 95% white men
it's assumed that the president used merit as his sole criterion.  If we had
a cabinet that was 95% african-american women, just imagine the cries of
"quota-monger" that would ensue from all quarters.  Because, of course, (the
reasoning goes) an african-american women must not be as qualified as a white
man and hence could only have been chosen to fulfill diversity goals.

It's about time someone took a (small) step toward choosing the cabinet from
among ALL those qualified, not just the white men who happen to fit the bill.

Justin Ruben
justin.ruben@dartmouth.edu
"rutabaga"

Newsgroups: alt.non.sequitur,talk.bizarre
From: connolly@cabot.balltown.cma.COM (Ian Connolly)
Subject: Re: Goodbye
Organization: New York State Institute for Sebastian Cabot Studies
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 19:56:50 GMT

In article <1id3tsINN5cb@chnews.intel.com> bhoughto@sedona.intel.com (Blair P. Houghton) writes:
>In article <1993Jan4.182700.21775@lut.ac.uk> L.H.Wood@lut.ac.uk (Lloyd Wood) writes:
>>Okay, Gooley's not posting. Roger Carrasso has no access. Sioux hasn't been
>>heard from in a while.  Man, I *LIKE* the way this froup is improving.
>
>Bite me royal blue, cave newt.

No, no...bite ME first!!
Newsgroups: alt.non.sequitur,alt.fan.gooley,talk.bizarre