TIM GIAGO

Opinion: On plains, they don’t call the wind ‘Mariah’

John Raitt, Broadway legend and father of singer Bonnie Raitt, used to belt out an old song that suggested there are places where, “They call the wind Mariah.”
Out on the Great Plains the locals have many other names for the wind and not a one of them is Mariah. In fact, many of the really choice names for the howling winds begin with the letter “F.”

By Tim Giago , August 30, 2010

Opinion: Wolper’s ‘Mystic Warrior’ never became 2nd ‘Roots’

David L. Wolper died recently at age 82. Many of you will wonder what the connection is between Wolper and Indian Country.
Wolper will go down in media history as the film producer who brought you the epic story of slavery with his award winning “Roots” which aired in eight parts on ABC in 1977.

By Tim Giago , August 23, 2010

Opinion: Remembering impact of Native American reporters

Many Native Americans that have spent their lives as newspaper reporters, editors or publishers, whether in the mainstream or at Nativeowned newspapers, are wondering where the world of journalism is headed in Indian Country.
Some of the really great Indian news reporters, and I am referring to those who actually worked as news reporters for respected newspapers, have retired for personal reasons or have been forced out because the newspapers they worked for closed.

By Tim Giago , August 16, 2010

Opinion: New generation changing minds about race in S.D.

Have you ever witnessed a scene or overheard a conversation wherein an irony became a replica of itself; irony imitating irony?
I believe that’s what happened to me last week as I stood at the front entrance to the Prairie Edge Trading Companies and Galleries. I had just chaired an important meeting of the 2010 Unity Committee at the Prairie Edge office and our meeting with the director of the Central States Fair, Ron Jeffries, and a wonderful organizer of Indian events, Dixie Holy Eagle, had been a treat for every committee member because the fair was going to proclaim Saturday, Aug. 28, as A Day of Unity at the fair.

By Tim Giago , August 09, 2010

Opinion: New superintendent at Mount Rushmore

Two things happened nearly simultaneously at Mount Rushmore a couple of weeks ago. First, the only Native American superintendent to ever be in charge at the memorial, Gerard Baker, Mandan Hidatsa, decided that his new job as liaison for the National Park Service for the Indian nations would take him away from his home in the Black Hills and from his family much too much and since he had reached the point in his career where he could retire, he decided to take it.

By Tim Giago , August 02, 2010

Opinion: Give thought to allowing alcohol on reservations

Prohibition doesn’t work.
It lasted 13 years in America and gave life to nationally syndicated crime, the income tax and opposition by the United States Brewers’ Association to women’s suffrage, the right for women to vote.
All of this is detailed in a new book by Daniel Okrent, “Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.” The book, according to columnist George Will, “recounts how Americans abolished a widely exercised private right — and condemned the nation’s fifth largest industry — in order to make the nation more Heavenly. Then all hell broke loose.”

By Tim Giago , July 19, 2010

Opinion: Country will be great when racism is buried

It was shoulder-to-shoulder and hip-to-hip over the July Fourth weekend at Mount Rushmore Memorial, where tourists flocked to the He’ Sapa (Black Hills) and celebrate the 234th birthday of the Declaration of Independence. A slowing economy? You wouldn’t have thought that over this Fourth of July holiday.

By Tim Giago , July 12, 2010

Opinion: Legacy of newspaper founded in ’81 lives on

On July 1, 1981, a small, weekly newspaper was born on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The paper was named The Lakota Times for the people it would serve. My great admiration for the Navajo Times prompted me to add Times to the title.
I started the newspaper because the Indian reservation with a population of more than 30,000 where I lived had no newspaper.

By Tim Giago , July 05, 2010

Opinion: MS is incurable, but science getting closer

It contributed to the death of the black comedian, Richard Pryor.
Actresses Annette Funicello, formerly of the Mickey Mouse Club and “Beach Blanket” movies, and Terri Garr, “Young Frankenstein” and many other movies, have it. It is the debilitating and incurable disease known as Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
As a part of my education about the disease, I found myself in Seattle, Wash., this weekend because my wife Jackie, who has MS, belongs to a group known as Teva Neuroscience, a group that holds annual forums in different parts of the United States that bring men and women with MS together to discuss the disease and talk about one of its major treatments, a medication known as Copaxone.

By Tim Giago , June 28, 2010

Opinion: In House race, reservations might be important

For the first time in history, two women will be competing for South Dakota’s lone U.S. House seat.
Kristi Noem entered the Republican primary late, but outdistanced her male opponents in a stretch run that saw her win the right to face off against the incumbent House of Representatives Democratic candidate, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin.
Although lacking name recognition, Noem, a Republican from Castlewood, is well positioned to give Herseth Sandlin, a third-term incumbent, the fight of her political life.

By Tim Giago , June 21, 2010

Opinion: ‘Custer died for your sins’

The bumper stickers were born before the holiday.
They could be seen on cars coming and going from the Indian reservations in America. They read “Custer died for your sins,” or “Custer wore Arrow Shirts.” And then came the holiday.
The Indian holiday on June 25 marks the 134th anniversary of the thrashing of George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at the Little Big Horn, or Greasy Grass, as the Indians called it. On all of the Sioux Indian reservations in South Dakota, it is a statewide holiday. The Cheyenne and the Arapahoe, also participants in the great victory, also have joined the celebration.

By Tim Giago , June 14, 2010

Opinion: Death of the people

I don’t know who said, “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem,” but it certainly makes sense.
Teen suicide, it would appear, is a problem throughout America, but it seems to happen more frequently among young Native Americans.
A “study” on any topic usually does not offer a solution, but a “study” that gets to the bottom of why so many young Indians are taking their own lives would at least lay the groundwork for the traditionalists seeking a solution.

By Tim Giago , June 07, 2010

Opinion: No time limit on justice

An editorial on Indianz.com asks, “What happens if Congress doesn’t approve the $3.4 billion settlement to the Indian trust fund lawsuit?”
It answers its own question with, “Nothing. No one gets any money. Litigation will continue at the expense of the Bureau of Indian Affairs budget and Congress will continue to do nothing about trust reform.” It concludes with, “That’s not what Indian country deserves.” What Indian country got it also didn’t deserve.

By Tim Giago , June 01, 2010

Opinion: Burying the hatchet

I wrote, several years ago, that I was a recovering Catholic. Well, my recovery is complete, but the transition was a painful and emotional one.
For years, I had a lot of anger in my heart for the Roman Catholic Church’s boarding school, Holy Rosary Mission on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. In the past few years my anger against the school has subsided because it took me a lot of years to realize that it was not the school. Holy Rosary Mission is now Red Cloud Indian School. The school made many changes in the way the Jesuit priests and Franciscan nuns dealt with the Lakota students. They did so in such a way as to make Red Cloud one of the finest schools on any Indian reservation in America.

By Tim Giago , May 17, 2010

Opinion: Stop the madness

The old saying that one should never discuss politics or religion may have made sense 50 years ago, but in the year 2010 politics and religion are in the forefront of every conversation.
The 24/7 news channels and blogs are filled with stories highlighting the religious differences of Muslims and Christians and the two political parties in Washington, D.C. have become so partisan that a Democrat or a Republican would be humiliated to even be seen having lunch together. Muslims are killing Americans and vice versa.

By Tim Giago , May 10, 2010