Letters: Be aware of what you didn’t learn
As you make a new beginning in your life, graduate, be aware of important things you didn’t learn in school.
As you pursue your dreams, remember to take time to help and serve others even if doing so slows you down a little. As you explore and develop your unique talents, remain humble, realizing that your special abilities are gifts from God.
As life hands you challenges, welcome them as ways to become smarter and stronger. Keep on learning, though your graduation’s done, your whole life’s an education that has only just begun.
Your diploma is the first big step, for knowledge is the special key to winning what you want in life and being who you want to be. If you’ll always be a student, you’ll find the secrets to success and travel on the golden road to peace and happiness.
If every single graduate were as special as you are, the world would be a better place and everyone a star. In the real world, though, you sure stand out for your extraordinary traits, those uncommon things about you everyone appreciates.
As you acquire material things, know that you’re most important possessions are honesty, integrity, and the desire to make a difference.
Congratulations, graduate. May your new path take you where you want to go and also bring you pleasant surprises.
Congratulations, graduate! We wish you all the best. We know as you meet life’s challenges, you’ll ace each and every test. Your achievement is awesome, you’ve worked hard and you’ve passed the test.
We love you so, and we want you to know, we think you’re the very best.
Janet C. Etcitty/Bitah
Albuquerque, N.M.
Rescind Bears Ears monument immediately
I demand that Bears Ears National Monument be rescinded immediately.
As a Native American living in San Juan County, Utah, all my life, I understand that the Antiquities Act was only meant for protection of areas for which the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected.
Bears Ears Buttes is no more than 300 acres combined.
The cultural heritage sites and ruins all combined absolutely do not constitute the need to lock up millions of extra acres of land away from the actual locals and Native Americans that do use the land.
We provided much for the land as the land provided for us.
There are many cultural heritage sites near the Bears Ears area and Cedar Mesa, which is in close proximity, 75 percent of the entire area is already protected until a federal wilderness area designation. It seems that through the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, local stewardship land-use management and protections are already being implemented through the federal, state, and local agencies like county government and Native American tribal administrations. No one was being left out.
However, once President Obama unilaterally designated Bears Ears National Monument without the local input of the people who actually use the land from his vacation spot in Hawaii, the national monument designation simply washed away any local input whatsoever.
We, as Native Americans of Bears Ears, the true grassroots people that have cared for the lands so many years, are angered by this monument designation.
A few things to consider that the Bears Ears National Monument designation was a terrible decision:
- There has been poor planning for its management from its inception to the degree that there isn’t even a BLM supervisor even in charge of it.
- Local economies for local families always decline as a result of any monument designation as we saw in Grand County, Utah, once Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was designated. In fact the county commissioners even announced a state of emergency due to the economic disruptions that came as a result of monument designation.
- Tribal sensitives amongst BLM/NPS employees are almost non-existent. We only need look no further than Effigy Mounds National Monument in northeast Iowa where a disgraced National Park Service manager stole 1,200-year-old ancient human remains and hid them in his garage for more than two decades.
- The monument isn’t even funded! How can Bears Ears National Monument even implement protection controls when there are no dollars there to enforce these laws?
- The initial intent of the Bears Ears National Monument was to ensure Native American tribes would have absolute co-management. In the days since the proclamation, it’s been revealed that the tribes are simply relegated to have guidance and recommendation advisory roles, not co-management.The Bears Ears National Monument has failed in tribal representation, failed in providing funding to even protect cultural historical sites, and reflects a failed hundred-year policy that’s currently in executive review because of abuses to its implementation by past presidents. Native Americans deserve better.
Since the authority to manage monuments rests solely with Congress, we see why Native Americans were tricked by environmentalists to think they’d ever be a governing body to Bears Ears Monument.
The question of how to bring up Native Americans to meet the rest of the country in the 21st century does not get answered by Bears Ears National Monument.
I urge everyone to publically comment before May 26 to “Rescind Bears Ears National Monument” online at https://www.regulations.gov/, by entering “DOI-2017-0002” into the search bar and/or by mail to: Monument Review, MS-1530, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20240.
Ryan Benally
Montezuma Creek, UtahHonoring biocentrism, ecocentrism
Greetings, I was just in last week’s edition of the Navajo Times regarding my advocacy for the Shiprock pinnacle (“Protecting the pinnacle”).
I would like to thank the reporter for her effort and report. However, I felt my real premises were not included in the story. Therefore, I would like to acknowledge it by honoring biocentrism and ecocentrism and express my advocacy for environmental ethics, sciences, and traditionalism for the site.
Environmental ethics: Environmental ethics is a philosophical discipline that gives the moral and ethical relationship of human beings to the environment. In addition, human values become an issue when looking at environmental ethics.
I am asking that we be moral to the natural world when it comes to the Shiprock pinnacle. I will explain in the following.
Intrinsic value argues that in the natural world, all living and non-living matter should have “ends in themselves,” or “for its own sake,” or “in its own right” to exist.
Inherent value argues that in the natural world, all living and non-living matter should be honored as a permanent, essential or characteristic attribute. Sentient value argues that in the natural world, all living and non-living matter should have a moral standing. At the pinnacle, there is a biodiversity of living and non-living matter that needs to be protected and left entirely alone.
The opponents of environmental ethics: the pragmatists. Pragmatists (e.g., tourism industries, recreational or natural resource) are the biggest threat to the environment. They reject the ends mean distinction that the natural world should have, and they impose their biased ideologies to the natural world.
They have no ecological, geological, environmental, and scientific consciousness as well. They only see the natural world as a resource, for economic interest, and for recreational value. In addition, they have a lack of realization and appreciation. Many of their ideologies degrade the natural world.
I disagree with the recreational value for the Shiprock pinnacle that the Navajo Tourism and Shiprock Chapter are imposing for economic development. Moreover, in environmental ethics, I am arguing that humans must not become shortsighted human-centered instrumentalists and do not use our Mother Earth as only a view of our conception by our practical uses and successes.
Saving the environment: There are a number of environmental advocates and autonomists who advocate for the moral protection of the environment. As of today, the moral debate is how to preserve land with its natural state. Today, that can be only done, according to the recreationists, by creating more national monuments. For some reason, their ideology is that in order to preserve land it has to bear the tourism title.
This is logically fallacious (due to human impacts) because there are rational ways to protect the environment. This is where as environmentalists we argue from scientific research that tourists can cause problems such as pollution, physical impacts, carbon footprint, land and cultural degradation, air and noise pollution, trampling and the alteration of the ecosystems.
The causes of human impacts can lead to a greater environmental issue. All which can happen at the Shiprock pinnacle. This is where ecotourism (our tribal tourism is not ecotourism) comes about and we advocate for the process of zoning.
The core or protection zone is the protected area for preservation and it is where human activity is banned for the protection of the living and non-living matter.
The buffer zone is a region that is outside the core zone and is a region that is used for research, education, ecological tourism, and human settlements (or for our traditional ceremonies and offerings) such as harvesting resources by using sustainable practices.
Honoring the natural world: Many environmentalists argue that we and our ecosystems face extinction by using the natural world as a resource. The pragmatists are undermining the creditability of environmental ethics and sciences. These values and the “process of zoning” are the major saving components in saving the protected area.
The Shiprock pinnacle’s ecology, geology and the sacredness all need to be protected and left alone. They all coexist as a whole. The formation and the lava wall’s inselberg (rock hill) support the ecology. That is where the ecology is present.
You then have the sacredness from the formation and the lava wall. Therefore, all three attributes need spatial consciousness (something the national or tribal park doesn’t honor).
Many people have a hard time giving the natural world ethics. I think it has to do with how they see conception by their practical uses and successes. Diné Natural Law gives that meaning to the natural world as well. I credit the individuals who came up with the law because it relates to environmental ethics.
It is my hope that the chapters and the people honor environmental ethics, sciences, our culture, and honor the environmental dialectical value for the site.
Everything is permanent in the natural world. The reality is that nothing in the environment is constant due to human impacts. I stand with the Navajos who object to the Bears Ears project against the recreational value. Being half pueblo, they do a good job honoring and protecting the sacred.
Therefore, it is my hope that Navajo people can do the same by honoring our Navajo culture and stand by the proclamation that the Shiprock pinnacle is sacred. Thank you.
Pesancio Anthony Lasiloo
Shiprock, N.M.Are you stating the facts on NHA?
I deal with a lot of journalists and people in the media and one of the most important things and fundamental things of a good journalist is to provide a venue to the people to state the truth. But I don’t see how the article of May 18, 2017, gives Ms. (Aneva) Yazzie the idea that you are stating facts and taking the Navajo Housing Authority’s side ((“NHA officials blame Republic articles”). Am I missing something?
As you know I am fighting a war with NHA for not doing the right thing. I will start launching this week a series of commentaries on NHA. It is sickening to the stomach to think that the NHA leaders think people are stupid not to see the truth. NHA has been robbing the Navajos of having the right to live in humane conditions, with dignity.
I don’t see any disclosures of different amounts by the Navajo Times. I see cited what the Republic wrote: “According to the Republic, NHA reported spending $54.9 million in fiscal year 2016 to modernize 50 dwellings at an average price of nearly $1.1 million per unit, according to calculations made by the Republic.”
The newspaper went on to say that NHA records show $19.6 million was spent last year to complete 26 new homes, for a price tag of roughly $750,000 each.
I am not sure how this clears the NHA? Who in the Navajo Nation owns a house, which costs $753,846? I have people in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah taking pictures of homes that I will put on social media so the Navajos can see the reality of the NHA.
I will continue fighting for Ms. Slim and I hope that President Begaye really makes sure that Ms. Yazzie and the people sitting right now at NHA are removed and never ever again have access to public funds. I will continue uniting my strength and voice to Senator McCain to make sure that funds are controlled by HUD.
Please clarify your position and take the ridiculous notion that you are on the side of the NHA; that assertion from Ms. Yazzie is ridiculous and I don’t see the foundation for it. I am scared that Ms. Yazzie is seeing alternate facts, which will make a lot of sense for the things NHA has not done.
The Republic presented facts and acted in good faith on behalf of the people of the Navajo Nation, a concept that escapes the NHA. See this report and please find the people whose houses were remodeled, built, and conditioned. Follow the money and you will find out the truth, as always.
I stated to government officials that NHA is retaliating against Ms. Slim because I dared to speak out, but make sure that if Ms. Slim dies as a consequence of mold poisoning or a wall falls on her, or worst, she falls at getting in or out of the house, I will seek that any available punishment is inflicted upon the NHA leaders. If I cannot get the justice in the Navajo Nation, I will seek it among our government.
Nobody is above the law and to have power to use it for one’s own gain is sickening. I am done with trying to appeal to the conscience of people who apparently have lost theirs. Ms. Slim and many other families deserve to live in humane conditions and I will continue fighting until her home is done. I know that NHA probably is waiting for her to die, rather than fix it. Also, the family has been intimidated and in the words of David Slim, they are afraid.
Be aware that I am not afraid and that I will use the law of this nation to make sure that Ms. Slim have justice. She needs her house to be fixed.
Guadalupe Erazo
Metairie, La.
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Highway 264,
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