Story Archives 2011

Ute Mountain Ute pottery factory tour

09/24/2021 - 09:12 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
mari
Original Body

We loved the Ute Mountain Ute Pottery Factory so much that we had to do a special piece just for this...

Dexter showed us around the factory and how the Ute Mountain Utes do the pottery from start to finish. They have many molds for pottery, and a favorite part of our when a woman was explaining what the symbols on the pottery.

Needless to say we bought some pottery for loved ones and some Indian Country Maps for our Indigenous Peoples Highway!

After we went to the Ute Mountain Ute Casino and ate the frybread buffet! I made a Indian taco out of sopapillas! yummy!

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Saw Dennis Banks and Traveled to Rachel's Basic Transformational Leadership Training in Denver!

09/24/2021 - 09:12 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
mari
Original Body

On March 2, 2010, we traveled up north to go to Rachel's basic transformational leadership training in Denver. Laughed alot, cracked jokes, and talked about being the source of transformation. We saw lots of mountains, and ate gas station food. We sang round dances songs all the way up there.

Earlier that day, we went to the Durango Film Festival where Dennis Banks was showing his film, "A Good Day to Die." Mari was able to ask him a question. Check the video to see our footage.

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Role of Native Hawaiians at the National Native American AIDS Prevention Center

09/24/2021 - 09:12 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
mari
Original Body

While Rachel was at the basic leadership training I went to the National Native American AIDS Prevention Center. I met with Tony and he is speaking about the work he was a recently a part of in Hawaii

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The Town with self-confidence-A story for Uncle Al’s Library

09/24/2021 - 09:12 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
Tiny
Original Body

 

I felt the hard rain dripping down my face while I was waiting for the bus after I got out of school.

 

It was a night to just relax – but I had too much on my mind

When I got home- I was exhausted and wet

 

The next morning I woke up and the sun shone outside and then I noticed everyone had a wide smile like a cut watermelon

 

At school I asked, “Why does everyone have a wide smile?”

 

My best friend responded, out of the blue, “It is because of a celebration for Pachamama.”

 

“Wow, what a day to do that!”, I said.

 

Then in a blink of an eye, he was gone.

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Ara Cruz breaking the silence with a poem about domestic violence

09/24/2021 - 09:12 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
mari
Original Body

Today is Day 2 of Rachel's Transformational Leadership Training, & since she was so happy we all gathered at the nearest IHOP to hang out. Everyone in this photo has gone through the same direct impact leadership trainings. My friend Ara Cruz (Chicano/Tiwa), Poet, and part of the Cafe Cultura Collective decided to share my favorite poem of his with us after much begging from the table.

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Denver Art Museum -American Indian Exhibit

09/24/2021 - 09:12 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
mari
Original Body

On this Saturday, I (Mari) went to The Denver Art Museum and was guided by Mat from the Center (see previous blog) and it was free first saturday! I saw so many things that inspired me but the most that stuck with me was seeing a old Ute bear dance growler. I also loved seeing the seminole patchwork as it reminding me about my upcoming trip to Florida!

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ROBOCOP (LIKE SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE) BELONGS TO US!

09/24/2021 - 09:12 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
Redbeardedguy
Original Body

Internet stories about a statue, dedicated to the dystopian science fiction movie hero Robocop, being built to stand somewhere in Detroit, Michigan, went all the way to the city's Mayor.  Despite being told there were no official plans for such a thing, a group of people raised $50,000 in less than a week (to have the thing designed and created) and pledged to continue to raise money until the end of March 2011.

Robocop: The Statue, created by a group of people with too much time (and too much access to money not-well-spent) on their hands, and not much political consciousness.  The Robocop future is one where Detroit is wholly owned by a mega-corporation and the Po'Lice are a private security force that protects the corporation and its executives and nobody else.

We are so close to this "future", or we live in it already, and anyone reading these words knows what POOR Magazine poverty skolahs think.  We know/feel this future in our bones, it is more true to reality than the pie-in-the-sky Gene Roddenberry fed us in the form of Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation, et al.

I liked a lot of the Star Trek stories, but Roddenberry's future somehow couldn't include gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender folk in his sci-fi paradise.  Star Trek fans got a few crumbs here and there, a lot like the crumbs Jerry the Gentrifier of Oakland, CA (now Jerry the Whatcha Gonna Do To Us NOW? Governor of California in 2011), licks his lips over while newspaper headlines help spread the "tough love" fear.

The truth of our reality is trumpeted from the offices of Congress and the Obama Oval Office in the Blight House.  The newspapers and on-line news dispensers can only ask the questions Who Will Blink First?  Who Will Lose If There's Another Government Shut-Down like back in the Bill Clinton Era.  "They say" the Elder Voters of the nation will be unhappy with the Republicans and Tea Baggers they voted for.

The Elder Poverty Skolahs of the Nation, and the Poverty Skolahs too, stand to lose a lot more than any political party or pol will, but, as POOR Magazine poverty skolah Gioioia Von Disterlo, stuck in the Akkkdemic Kampus of the University of Washington in Seattle is often told, the poor must be led by the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, which knows better than we do how to fix the problems we have.

Among other things, whither the Ten Year Plot To End Homelessness?  That is well more than half-way through its tenure in public policy of rat-racing many houseless and semi-houseless people into Poor People Housing that will cease to exist if the Federal Government goes all $100-billion-postal on us and the State of CA dances the Tango with them while the Robocop future becomes ever so much more painfully real.

The Robocop statue belongs to us.  It is a symbol that can't speak to any well-fed tourist who makes it merely a bullet-point on their Bucket List of Things To Do And See Before They Die.  "The Boss", Bruce Springsteen, wrote and sang "Born In The USA" as an indictment of Amerikkka, and had it's meaning culture-jacked by happy disco dancers and Ronald Raygun.

"They've Been Bought, We've Been Sold" is a slogan on a protest poster I used as an image attached to a recent article about Stage Three Child Care for poor mamaz in California.  The slogan has long legs, we get sold every day to corporations like Lennar (that own big chunks of San Francisco and are part of the dance of gentrification continuing to make this place less economically diverse), that write their own grafitti tags all over us.

This is our task--to make it harder for Them to steal things like Robocop and Slumdog Millionaire from Us.  Robocop belongs to the Poor.  Say it LOUD!

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Tocabe - An American Indian Eatery in Denver, CO

09/24/2021 - 09:12 by Anonymous (not verified)
Original Author
mari
Original Body

Today was a late start from the weekend of transformation... so we went to Tocabe and a free direct impact workshop they had this night. Had some great exercises... now back to Tocabe...

Tocabe is an American Indian Eatery where you can get frybread, and stuffed frybread. The stuffed fry bread is shaped like a calazone and is something i eat every time I go to Denver. We ordered the stuffed fry bread with the shredded bison. Rachel said, "The Meat is very juicy, and fresh."

Blaine then further told us of how the restaurant will be on the Food Network's show "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives." He also let us know that the Restaurant was named after the Owner's Mom's Favorite color, blue. Tocabe is the word for blue in Osage. An ode to the owner's mom, We honor you and the frybread you fed to your son.

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