Repost: Pick This Young Lady Up for Indian Ball Tourneys

All-Native Plus 1, anyone?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1268899/Worlds-tallest-teenage-girl-stands-6ft-11in-Marvadene-Anderson-basketball-ace.html

The jolly teen giant: Joking Jamaican basketball ace Bubbles, 16, is world’s tallest teenage girl at 6ft 11in

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 1:38 PM on 27th April 2010

* Comments (9)
* Add to My Stories

Towering over her teacher and friends this teenager stands an astonishing 6ft 11in tall and is the world’s tallest teenage girl.

The 16-year-old Jamaican Marvadene Anderson is, perhaps not surpisingly, a basketball ace and terrorises opposing school teams.

Marvadene, who is studying under scholarship in the U.S. is five inches taller than Michael Jordan , her idol in the sport.
Marvadene Anderson towers over her teacher Peter Richardson
Maravdene Anderson

Towering talent: Marvadene Anderson stands 15in over teacher Peter Richardson (left) and makes easy reach of the basketball net at Rutgers Preparatory School, New Jersey, where she is a starring member of the team

She is nicknamed ‘Bubbles’ by her team-mates because of her tall sense of humour.

More…

* Meet Britain’s smallest mum (whose 14-month-old son towers over her)

Weighing 15 stone and wearing size 11 shoes Marvadene comes from a large family and her sister Kimberly is 6ft 4in and calls her sister the ‘baby giant’.

‘Marvadene is wonderful addition to the school and the basketball team here,’ said JJ Quenault, 42, a teacher at Rutgers Preparatory School in New Jersey.

‘The other girls were stunned by her height when they first met her and I must admit so was I, but now she is almost irreplaceable in the team.
Marvadene Anderson with friends Rachel and Syvea McDaniel

Tall sense of humour: Marvadene with friends Rachel and Syvea McDaniel who call her Bubbles for her wit

‘She is going to be a star in the world of girls basketball and even though she has only recently adapted to basketball from netball, we expect a big future from her.’

Attending classes at the prestigious school, Marvadene is used to towering over her teachers.

‘I work in the school photographic department and so have taken a few pictures of Marvadene,’ said Mr Quenault.

‘To see her standing over her teacher Peter Richardson is quite amusing, as he ft 8in and she of course is the world’s tallest teenage girl at six foot eleven inches.’
Marvadene Anderson

Reaching high: Marvadene shoots another basket for her school team where she enjoys a scholarship

Having taken the title from Thai national Malee Duangdee who stands at 6ft 10in, Marvedene has become media shy since her appearance in an American television program about tall children.

‘People are friendly with me because of my height and my personality. If I was tall and mean, I think I’d have a problem,’ she said in an interview with an American paper recently.

‘The rudest thing anybody ever said about my height is that I’m not going to be able to find a husband.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1268899/Worlds-tallest-teenage-girl-stands-6ft-11in-Marvadene-Anderson-basketball-ace.html#ixzz0oLS44TDR

Smokin’ Hot Friday–Strippers for the Children!!!

See…don’t let people tell you that we ALL cannot contribute in our own special little ways. Next time I’m at Rick’s (RIP) or the Spearmint Rhino or Camelot’s in DC, please realize that I’m only doing it for the kids…

From Fox

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/news/local_news/long_island/strip-club-pitches-pole-tax-for-education-20100512

Strip Club Pitches ‘Pole Tax’ for Education
Updated: Wednesday, 12 May 2010, 6:14 PM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 12 May 2010, 6:07 PM EDT

By KATHERINE CREAG

MYFOXNY.COM – You won’t find many businesses or people who support more taxes, but some strippers on Long Island and the club they work for do — if the money helps schools.

Carmela Cioffi is a stripper and also a mom to a little boy. She says she worries about schools that are cutting programs because they’re struggling financially.

Carmela works at Illusions Gentleman’s Club in Deer Park, Long Island, where an idea came up recently: Charge patrons a fee of $5 to get in the club. Club workers say the fee could raise thousands, maybe even millions of dollars for public schools.

They are calling the fee the stripper pole tax, not only would customers be charged at the door, but the dancers who perform here on stage plan on donating part of their tips.

Illusions is giving the plan a whirl this weekend with an infamous guest to take the stage. Long Island Lolita Amy Fisher will take to the pole; the club says it’ll take the money to the state.

But some are wondering if this is a publicity stunt. These dancers say it’s all for education. In fact, they got the idea from a similar tax in Texas that has generated more than $13 million in the last two years to fund sexual assault prevention programs.

The governor’s office said the so-called pole tax is not under consideration.

Repost: Anti-gay rights activist resigns after trip with male escort

This is hilarious.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/12/anit.gay.activist.resigns/index.html?hpt=T1

(CNN) — The anti-gay rights activist who recently toured Europe with a male escort has resigned from a group that promotes counseling for people who “struggle with unwanted homosexuality,” though the man insists that he is not gay.

George Rekers resigned from the board of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, the group’s website said Tuesday.

“I am immediately resigning my membership in NARTH to allow myself the time necessary to fight the false media reports that have been made against me,” Rekers said in a statement posted on the group’s website. “With the assistance of a defamation attorney, I will fight these false reports because I have not engaged in any homosexual behavior whatsoever.

“I am not gay and never have been,” the statement said.

The association accepted the resignation, saying on its website Tuesday that it “would hope that the legal process will sufficiently clarify the questions that have arisen in this unfortunate situation.”

The group has scrubbed Rekers’ writings from its site, with a page that formerly featured his work now bearing the message, “Sorry, you’ve reached a page that doesn’t exist.”

Rekers, a Baptist minister, has been a prominent and effective foe of gay rights legislation across the country. He is a co-founder of the Family Research Council, one of Washington’s most powerful conservative Christian advocacy groups, and has weighed in on anti-gay rights legislation across the country.

He received about $120,000 to appear as an expert witness in a 2008 case challenging Florida’s ban on gays and lesbians adopting.

Rekers has written that gays are a “deviant segment of society.”

Revelations of Rekers’ trip to Europe with a male escort surfaced last week, shortly after he returned to the U.S.
Video: Anti-gay activist’s escort scandal
Video: Male escort and Baptist minister
RELATED TOPICS

* Family Research Council
* Gay and Lesbian Relationships
* Europe

The male escort who traveled with Rekers — who goes by the name Lucien, though that is not his given name — said that he advertises his service exclusively on the website rentboy.com, where visitors can choose from hundreds of male escorts in suggestive and revealing poses.

Lucien says Rekers first contacted him through the site. He was hired to give Rekers daily “sexual massages” on the trip, which took them to London and Madrid, Lucien says.

“He got excited,” Lucien said of the massages, adding that Rekers wanted Lucien to touch him, though Lucien said that he didn’t have sex with Rekers and that Rekers didn’t ask to have sex.

According to a contract Lucien showed CNN, he was hired to carry Rekers’ bags and to provide at least one hour’s worth of massage every day in their shared room, at a cost of $75 a day.

The contract also stipulated that Lucien spend at least eight hours a day with Rekers, including sharing two meals.

Rekers’ website provided a different account of how he met Lucien and of the trip, saying he needed help carrying luggage because of an “ongoing condition following surgery.”

The site said Rekers “found his recent travel assistant by interviewing different people who might be able to help, and did not even find out about his travel assistant’s internet advertisements offering prostitution activity until after the trip was in progress. There was nothing inappropriate with this relationship.”

Rekers’ site said he “was not involved in any illegal or sexual behavior with his travel assistant.”

Rekers is a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, according to his website.

He earned a Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, an M.B.A. from Southern Wesleyan University and a Doctor of Theology degree from the University of South Africa, his site says.

Lucien says Rekers told him about other boyfriends before the European trip. But Lucien says that in their ongoing conversations, Rekers continues to deny that he is gay.

“I actually asked him over the phone, ‘Do you think you’re gay?’ and he said, ‘no’,” Lucien said, adding that Rekers asked him not to share his story with the media.

In a statement on its website Tuesday, the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality said it stood by its work promoting therapy for gays who wish to be straight.

“(T)hese personal controversies do not change the scientific data, nor do they detract from the important work of NARTH,” the statement said. “NARTH continues to support scientific research, and to value client autonomy, client self-determination and client diversity.”

Repost: When Non-Native Participation in Pow-Wows Goes Terribly Wrong

From nativeappropriations.blogspot.com

This is hilarious–my repost doesn’t do it justice. Go to the Native Appropriations site to see the pictures for yourself. Funny thing? I’m sure there was some John Redcorn-esque Native dude that let them join his tribe…

Let’s set the scene: Friday afternoon, Stanford powwow–one of the largest powwow’s on the West Coast. Three Native powwow committee members and a friend are checking in on the vendor booths, making sure things are ready to go, and they come across the group pictured above. 6 non-Native girls, decked out in warpaint, feathers, fringe, and moccassins–playing Indian at its worst. I’ll let my friend Leon tell the whole story:

While we were walking around Powwow on Friday, checkin out the vendors, we saw this pack of little white girls come running in from the street. Now, needless to say, we were shocked at the sight. We pretty much all just stopped in our tracks, and were speechless for a minute, as we looked on in sheer disbelief. After going through a few (angry) options in our heads about what to do, we figured we should have a little fun with it first (especially since there was this crew of little like six year old Native girls who were already making fun of them)…anyways, me and Lisa devised a plan to get this picture of them for you and your blog. So Lisa approached the girls and said “Excuse me girls…” (silence fell upon the land)…”could we get a picture of you for our newsletter?” “Of course!!!” the girls replied with excitement…
So girls, here’s your “newsletter” debut.
After Leon and crew took the picture, the powwow security team talked to them and brought them over to the director of the Stanford Native Center for some education on the issue, so (hopefully) they at least walked away from the experience with a new understanding of their actions. If they didn’t, here, again, is my anti-headdress manifesto.

I was telling my mom about the incident, and she said, “Honey, you can’t be too hard on them. Clearly they just didn’t know any better.” The thing is, they should have known better.

These girls are students at Palo Alto High School. Definitely one of the best high schools in the area, if not the state. It is a high school that turns out tops students who go on to top colleges, and enrolls children of professors, stanford employees, and other well educated silicon valley execs. To top it off, the school is literally across the street from Stanford. Across the street from a school that hosts the largest student run powwow in the nation for 39 years running, that is home to nearly 300 Native students, that has one of the strongest college Native communities in California.

I would like to think that the combination of those factors would equate some level of understanding, that a high school of their caliber would incorporate some type of curriculum on Native history, or at least a basic level of cultural sensitivity. Clearly, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

If these girls survived a talking-to by Winona (the director of the Native Center), they know what they did was wrong, and why. I feel posting their picture and story is enough of a public shaming. But as I struggle to find an analogy to another community event to analyze this incident, I’m still left scratching my head.

Why did these girls think it was ok to dress up like ridiculous “Indians” to come to a Native community event? Would these girls have dressed in blackface to go to a African American community gathering? Wear a sombrero, poncho, and drawn on mustache to a Ballet Folklorico concert? No.

But powwows, at least in areas that are not majority-Native, tend to invite non-Native spectators, encourage their participation in things like intertribal dances, and allow time and space for education about Native history and powwow traditions. I think that’s a great thing. Powwows show the vibrancy and currency of our cultures and evolving traditions; they show we are still here, that traditions are strong, that our communities exist and will continue to exist. They expose thousands of people to Native cultures that they may not ever encounter otherwise. They allow for Native artists and craftspeople to make a living selling their jewelry and art.

However, this openness and encouragement of non-Native participation creates a fine line–we want you to come, to learn, to watch, to engage; but that doesn’t mean it’s ok to mock our cultures in your attempts at participation.

I felt like that line was crossed a couple of weeks ago at the Harvard powwow, where our MC (a well respected MC throughout Indian country, great man, very focused on the educational aspects of powwow) called for a “Spectator Special”. He invited the non-Indian spectators out to for a dance competition at the end of the afternoon, to real contest songs.

There were separate songs for men and women, and multiple rounds–semi-finals, finals, ect. The winners were chosen by the audience, and given a cash prize (like $5). As I stood on the sidelines and watched, I couldn’t help but feel extremely uncomfortable. It was like we had just given these men and women permission to mock us.

They hopped and ran around–one man even took off his socks to spin around like the fancy dancers. The thing was, it wasn’t like they were clowning, or smiling, or being silly. They were dead serious. They had looks of concentration, were sweating, breathing hard. I think I would have felt better if it was a joke–a chance for the Native dancers to take a break and poke fun at the spectators, almost like the switch dance where the men dance like women and women like men. But instead, these spectators reverted to the worst of stereotypes, jumping around like “war dances” around the fire from a spaghetti western.

I want to share the video I took on my cell phone, but beware, the quality is, well, what you would expect from a cell phone. And the sound was so bad I had to plop a Northern Cree contest song behind it so you could still get the effect. In sum, don’t judge the filmmaker, judge the content of the film.

Repost: What Does a Justice Kagan Mean for Indian Country?

From turtletalk (turtletalk.wordpress.com)

I have some thoughts on this, but that may be a post for another day.

The answer at this point is — nobody knows, or could possibly know.

Solicitor General Kagan has almost no paper record of scholarship on Indian law, no judicial opinions, and little else in the way of a paper trail. Her most intimate association with Indian Country is her membership (now likely former) on the board of the American Indian Empowerment Fund (as noted here), which probably came about as a concomitant duty related to her Harvard deanship and duties in filling the Oneida Chair at Harvard Law. As is well known, Harvard Law has had some difficulty in completing the requirements of the Oneida endowment (hiring a full-time Indian law prof), as the Chair is always filled by visitors. What this means is anyone’s guess, though some of my former law school colleagues are certain it is a bad thing she had trouble hiring minority law profs.

The only known impact of Kagan’s nomination if she is confirmed, is that she will likely be forced to recuse herself in the 2010 Term’s lone (so far) Indian law case, United States v. Tohono O’odham Nation (No. 09-846). Who knows how that will affect the decision, though the T.O.N. would only have to find four Justices to prevail (as would happen in a 4-4 tie). Once the T.O.N. case is decided, we may hear much more from a Justice Kagan, who perhaps will be tapped write some of the Indian law decisions (as junior Justices often are).

Which leads to my final comment. A Justice Kagan is yet another player from the elite of the legal profession, an elite that rarely has even more than a passing interest in Indian law and Indian Country. From Justice Brennan referring to Indian law cases as “chickenshit” (page 435 of The Brethren), to the modern and open hostility of most Justices to Indian cases, this does not bode well. It could, if a Justice Kagan is open-minded and willing to listen and learn, but more likely than not, she (as do most or all of the other Justices) may find her Indian law assignments a burden. That would be a shame.

Perhaps we’ll see.