Wednesday, December 4, 2024

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Letters: NTEC needs to report to Nation

The Navajo Nation took an energy step in obtaining rights for the 500 MW lines of power from Navajo Generating Station. It’s clear the nation is trying to work the Nez Administration energy plan for the future. Selling those 500 MW of renewable power from Bureau of Reclamation is a first step.

On the other side, it’s clear that the Navajo Nation energy company, Navajo Transitional Energy Company, is not on board with the Nez Administration energy goals. Discussion with members of Nez sunrise committee revealed that NTEC still has not gone before the energy committee.

Sunrise committee members have been waiting to hear what are NTEC’s energy goals and if any of those goals support the current Nez administration goals. Is this arrogance on the part of the company CEO, Clark Moseley, to not answer to Navajo Nation?

Individuals say calls to NTEC’s new headquarters office in Gillette, Wyoming, and Denver, Colorado, have provided no information.

What we do know about the mining industry in Wyoming and Montana doesn’t look good. Industry experts that watch the coal industry say the road to recovery is shaky and long for bankrupt mines such as the ones NTEC purchased. This could be one reason that Moseley isn’t sharing those numbers nor is NTEC sharing any information on when a profit might be made.

Based on the other mines in the Powder River Basin, analysts say it will be years before the PRB mines see a profit. The Navajo Nation Resources and Development Committee and Budget and Finance Committee will probably be interested to hear from NTEC as well.

Until the Navajo Nation makes changes with NTEC board and Moseley, it will be hard for the company to get in step with the Navajo Nation president’s and Council’s energy goals. For now, it is a shell game.

The longer NTEC board holds out in answering to the tribe, the more the Navajo people will demand a change in direction to their company. Remember, the sour taste from NTEC buying former tribal officials still lingers with many.

Ben Shorty
Shiprock, N.M.

Communication will make or break us

This is a general illustrative view of human communication that acquaints our everyday reservation life and is not to imply we are all at fault, but suggests prudence with our future.

Communication is information transfer through relationship with its intent either to inform, persuade, entertain, or to actuate an action or reaction from the listener, the intended receiver of the message. From prehistory imparting information was with visual or sound effects, as with bodily gestures, cave drawings, fire signals, voice, language, and probably beating two stones together to establish a relationship. And what happened then if there was misunderstanding?

Throughout the ages, function of communication remained the same, as the mode of method vastly evolved. Through evolution came inventions of pencils, writing, reading, books, radio, telephone, newspaper, and television, to name a few. And some say, after dedicated reverse engineering and exploits of certain discoveries and acquisitions we now possess super computer tablets, digital phones, and flat-screen televisions.

Anyway, with computers came massive information storage (database) and its interconnection systems (networks) to the far side of the planet. Now we have social media devices at our fingertips, retrieving and exchanging information on any subject matter within nanoseconds.

Yes, communication has its irony, the most easiest, yet the hardest act to follow. Perhaps the saying “Do not kill the messenger” is in itself an insight. The blame may not lie with the messenger, but falls on the listener, due to not paying attention, not knowing how to listen, or prejudice. And then there is the glitch of our seeming assumptions that we possess telepathic abilities. This is where we only think it, and we expect others to know our thoughts and these apparent in verbal assertions — “What is wrong with you? I thought you knew about it!” Without communication there is no connection to the intended listener.

For further public service enhancements through communication, just as top-level elected officials designate their at-will aides and advisors, so should managers, but through employment contracts. If managers’ potential and communication skills do not correlate with expected quotas or production then employ those with innovation and enthusiasm to fulfill expected job responsibilities. And this image-driven Popularity Con Test during elections of Council delegates and other elected social servants needs to cease. Communications is foremost in public service sector and is serious business that needs well-informed, knowledgeable, responsible, civil servants. For specifics, a degree or proven track record in communications, law, political science, business administration, management, social science, computers, or research consultant.

Obviously, communication is a two-way process. With effective and efficient communication it opens locked doors for it is a key. For older generations we are animated and articulated through our pencil and paper. We are stingy and overprotective with our compiled paper data, for it is leverage for job security.

But just imagine, young competent employees with specialized interpersonal skills and abilities equipped with advanced electronic communication systems and technology. One of their demands probably is setup of  massive, reliable databases where there is sharing and immediate secured access to information among various governmental service entities. These databases are libraries to be filled with history, reference, status monitor, time, cost, and resource factors, and accountability. Included, could extract from it research material, projections, predictability, knowledge of cause-and-effect, and reveal dynamic benefits or consequences of endeavors. Otherwise continuance is the tragic dark contrast in communication within our governing systems and across our communities.

It is this difference that breaks or makes us. Further, we wonder if we as a species really ever advanced beyond the Stone Age with our information exchange rituals and practices. Without courteous communication skills, practices, and ingenuity, figuratively, we would never go forward, but would have come full circle back to where we started, heavily consumed with insignificant nonsense.

In our unrefined communication we would be too busy throwing stones and making hand gestures at each other over petty disagreement, animosity, or simple misunderstanding. The point here is straightforward, strive for enhancements in our art of communication and social intelligence, for this is essential in social interactions. Through interactions then realization — we can integrate modern communication technology with our cultural values and traditional ethics to confront and untangle the difficulties and shortfalls that hinder our people from living in peace.

Robert L. Hosteen
Beclabito, N.M.

Don’t wait to ‘hit rock bottom’

All too often I hear friends and family say their loved one isn’t ready for treatment because they haven’t hit rock bottom yet.  The reality is that in most cases when rock bottom occurs, things transpire that someone cannot recover from.

The consequences from substance misuse are extensive and there are various consequences that can change someone’s life forever, and in some cases end it.  From serious legal trouble, to irreversible bodily harm, to death, every day we see victims of substance abuse that are changed forever. Whether it’s loss of liberty, loss of life or something in between, individuals have the potential to avoid these outcomes if they get help. Waiting for rock-bottom is a myth

because, unless someone dies, there is always something worse that

could happen. So, why do people wait?

The person addicted to substances waits because they’re afraid.  But family and friends wait because they don’t know how to help get their loved ones to go to treatment. Unfortunately, the ability to get someone into rehabilitation doesn’t rely on how much you love or care about the individual. It is a skill based on training and expertise on handling people with addiction.

That’s why intervention services are available, and they save lives.

If you or someone you know needs help, but efforts to help them have failed, it is in everyone’s best interest to seek out intervention services. Doing so may save their life.

Information on accredited rehabilitation & intervention services can be found on

SAMHSA & Addicted.org.

If this letter speaks to you, reach out to someone today because you never know what can happen tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Marcel Gemme
Lakewood Ranch, Fla.


 

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