Native economy essay reminder - $10,000 for six winners!

(click on image to make bigger)

Just a reminder that this contest put on by the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN), partnered with the National Congress of American Indians and Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, has a deadline of Sept. 15 - just a month away!

SIX Native winners - three Alaska Native and three American Indian/Native Hawaiian, from what I understand - will win $10,000! From the Web site:

We invite all Native individuals or collaborative teams to submit their 500-1,600 word original written work addressing one or more of the following questions:

1. How can the Native community best participate in the process of economic renewal? What unique contributions can we make to help jumpstart the US and international economies?

2. Are you confident that economic growth will be restarted in 2009/2010? Describe your views on how the economic recovery will take place.

3. How must our economy change to fully recover from this economic crisis? What additional steps do President Obama and the Congress need to take to make these changes happen? How can Native Americans step up to help make these necessary changes and build sustainable economies?

A chance at $10,000 for 500-1,600 words? Seriously, folks, pass the word! I've done about half a dozen versions of an essay, myself. Not a strong writer, but have some good ideas? Partner with someone who is a good writer, but just needs the idea, or research!

I'm starting to sound like an ad, I know, but I think this is a great thing AFN is doing. They've been doing some interesting things with business idea prizes and things in the last few years, and this kind of sounds like an extension of the spirit of that - Native ideas on business, economy and the future.

Essay contest from the Alaska Federation of Natives

Open to all Alaska Native, American Indian and Native Hawaiians - six winners will receive $10,000 each! You can also submit as a group.

Another village in trouble

When I spotted this in the ADN Newsreader, I had a sinking feeling becoming very familiar. I've talked about a few dying villages, and villagers just trying to make it this winter. This story is one of the more heartbreaking.

Originally in the Bristol Bay Times, the article is actually about a letter written by an Emmonak resident, asking for help for his village. Short of fuel, short of money, short of food, he talked to 25 of the 200 households in the area, and every one of them had a grim story to tell. Just one:

P. R: Single, separated, with five children. (He chokes occasionally, holding back crying.) He and his children are staying in the same household with his brother’s family. Cost of fuel is so high and everything else and we’re able to get just a few things at a time. We have no other subsistence food left. Only thing we’re surviving on moose meat alone and it is almost gone. Everything is so high – only able to get little bit. We can’t catch up on our bills. We’re really hurting even we are given some from other people. Right now, we can’t eat during the day, only at supper time. And, it is still not enough. If there had been no school lunch, our kids would be starving. It is going to get worse in two weeks when our new heating fuel supply is airlifted in. Price of fuel will go way up again. I am lucky that the Women’s Shelter is able to give me some coffee.

Yes. This is America today.

I was privileged to meet with a family from Emmonak last month, getting to know them. Although going through a tough time, a death, I had no idea of the rest of this. This also makes me wonder how much the economic situation is affecting the alarming news of the suicides in the area. Although the area, and the area just above, are the two highest in Alaska for suicide rates - and Alaska the highest in the nation - lately there has been even more than usual.

This is just one village. I wrote before about a village on the Aleutian chain being told they should leave because the village couldn't power itself. Despite an article proclaiming that it's not as bad as people have said... it seems pretty bad.

The letter left some information on where to go to help. As he says in his letter though - these are just the ones he was able to talk to - how many more are remaining silent?

UPDATE: I've had some requests about where to send money, donations, etc. Although it is in the above letter (the link,) it is a really long letter and easily missed:

To help, please call:
City of Emmonak, (907) 949-1227/1249
Emmonak Tribal Council, (907) 949-1720
Emmonak Corporation, (907) 949-1129/1315/1411
Emmonak Sacred Heart Catholic Church Pastoral Parish Council Chairman, (907) 949-1011.
To assist with offsetting heating fuel costs, call Emmonak Corporation.
For distribution of food, I would suggest Emmonak Tribal Council handle this.

To send directly:

Emmanok Tribal Council
P.O. Box 126
Emmanok, AK 99581

Here's another way to give, and it could payout bigger even than the rest. Dennis Zaki of AlaskaReport.com will be heading out to Emmonak on Friday to shoot video of the situation. His coverage has some big possibilities for further national coverage, and could play out big (with big donations, big attention) with millions, not just those watching the blogs. He needs $2000 to get out there though, so if you can give a few bucks, I think you'll find your dollars will multiply in worth!

He's also donating anything above the travel costs to the people of Emmonak.

_

New financial strategy - cross my fingers and ignore the ulcer

All right, all right, I'm back. I promise I'm back to posting every day again.

I finally had the last push today to get back on the horse and start writing again. After all, I can't stare at the news in abject horror and digust - with spurts of elation - all day...

No really, I wasn't just doing that. Though when the financial guy responded to an anchor's concern about the DOW plummeting with, "Well, the real financial experts aren't scared about the DOW. (here I start to feel reassured) They're looking at credit lines for a real indication, (I can breathe again) and you know, they're REALLY scared about that! (and I black out.)"

Okay, my real financial problem is that I looked at my 401(k). I didn't even care about that until earlier this year when a financial guy met with us. Then I realized I had a little bit of money in there, and that if I wanted to stop working while I still had, you know, vision and the ability to walk, I would have to invest at least 10% of my income while I still could. So I did.

My punishment for this came a mere six months later. When, supremely ironically, 10% of everything in there was stripped away in less than a week. Granted, I only had a few years worth in there, compared to some people with decades, but still. They told me not to look, but I did. I regret it.

I then vowed not to look at the thing until I was at least 40. When I used to be REALLY poor (okay, yeah, that was about two seconds ago) I would hide an extra $20 from myself in a book or something, when I had the rare surplus. Then I would find it months later, and had a bonus $20 (because I was almost certainly even more broke than before.)

This was my new financial strategy. Hide it in the account, lose my password, and not look at it for a few decades. Then, when I'm in my middle-ages (that sounds a bit historical...) I can discover it again, be surprised at all the money that's racked up (because of those fabulous eight years of an Obama administration, of course) and plan the rest of my life accordingly. All the financial genuises on TV say that people my age shouldn't even be worried about it, right? I mean, our jobs may be the first to go, but, should we ever get them back, our 401(k)s would be the first to recover...

So that strategy lasted less than a week. I peeked again, and soon thereafter developed an ulcer.

Now, my new strategy is taking the sage advice of Sen. Obama and just simply "not panicking." My oh-so-newly acquired savings is being threatened, but instead of pulling everything out and making my mattress my new retirement account, I'm crossing my fingers and hoping Bush can't actually make us even worse off in the few months he has left. I mean, really, what else can he screw up?

No, don't answer that. I feel my ulcer coming back.

Begich and Comeau make sure Palin knows this is an emergency

I first saw this bit of news in the public newsletter I receive from the Mayor's office.) I don't know how familiar non-Alaskans are with our Anchorage Mayor, but Mark Begich is currently running against LONG time Sen. Ted Stevens for U.S. Senate.)

There has been a bit in the news - as well as my blog - about the migration and extremely high fuel costs of the Alaskans villages (Bush). Basically, think about the highest price you would ever pay, and then triple it. People have been leaving the villages in droves, because they just can't afford it. Teens moving in by themselves, now homeless, because they can't afford to live in the village. Most of this population is Alaska Native.

Even more recently, I was trying to report on a small village in Alaska, Adak, in which the residents were flat out being told to leave. They had run out of cash to pay for their fuel, and were going dark. Few, including our governor, seemed to be paying much (or any) attention to this story. I am still having something of a time trying to find out information, but from what I hear there has been a temporary agreement - including the corporation supplying the fuel requesting the mayor step down for the town to receive it - and they have electricity temporarily.

In any case, not a small problem. Begich and Comeau (Anchorage's school superintendent) have released a letter sent to Gov. Palin addressing the issues of out migration from the villages, and some of the problems this is creating. From the mayor's newsletter:

Anchorage Officials Call for Action to Help Rural Communities.

With numerous indications of a migration from rural to urban Alaska underway, Mayor Mark Begich and Anchorage School Superintendent Carol Comeau are urging the governor to form an emergency task force. In a letter to Gov. Sarah Palin today, the two say deteriorating economic conditions in many rural villages are forcing families to move to Alaska’s cities. “A prosperous, culturally diverse Alaska depends on both flourishing villages and thriving cities, so we cannot stand by and tolerate the deterioration of rural Alaska,” they write. Comeau says Anchorage school district enrollment from rural communities is increasing as village families are hard-hit with $2,000 monthly home heating bills. Begich and Comeau say they want to work on an emergency task force with other local, state and federal officials.

I agree so heartily with the stress that THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. The $1,200 has not done much for rural families (as was argued about before Palin pushed for this stop gap) and this is something that cannot take a theoretical or casual approach. People, families, lives are in need right now.

Anchorage Daily News article about the letter, and some of the migration issues.

ADN provided the pdf copy of the letter.

Letter to Gov. Palin from Mayor Begich and School Superintendent Comeau

A bit from the letter -

Dear Governor Palin:

We write to express our deep concern over what appears to be an unfortunate realignment underway in our state where challenging conditions in many rural communities are forcing a migration to urban cities. A prosperous, culturally diverse Alaska depends on both flourishing villages and thriving cities, so we cannot stand by and tolerate the deterioration of rural Alaska.

As you know, Alaska’s rural communities are facing school closings, record high energy prices, lack of economic opportunities and public health and safety concerns, which are resulting in an unprecedented out-migration to urban centers. We urge your administration to form an emergency task force with local, state and federal officials to take immediate steps to stem this trend taking place in our state. We would like to participate on this task force.

Certainly, the recent distribution of Resource Rebate and Permanent Fund Dividends checks may help in the short term. But we fear we are seeing only the first wave of families leaving rural Alaska because they cannot cover the record energy and food costs they face this winter. ...rural communities pay about 40 percent of their annual income on home energy use, compared to just 4 percent in Anchorage... Today, fuel oil prices in some remote villages have reached $11 a gallon, forcing some families to pay more than $2,000 a month to heat their homes. High fuel prices also make travel to subsistence hunting and fishing grounds prohibitive while also raising commercial food prices...

(the highlighting is mine)

There was also an interesting opinion piece in the ADN following the news piece. It talks about what needs to be done in Anchorage right now to address the influx, and that the real emergency is here in Anchorage with the people coming in.

My vote? Both. And I think that's some of the point. I do know there have been efforts to address the people moving in, including literature as resources, a "guide" to Anchorage specifically for rural migrators, the new charter school is geared around introducing a lot of rural students to a big city school, and so many of the Native-based non-profits have been hitting this pretty big in the last few years. I also know there have been efforts to address some of the migration, but I think before it's not been in quite such an urgent voice, probably because it hasn't happened quite this rapidly - the migration I mean.

Opinion in ADN about the Begich/Comeau letter

Why would anyone except the people this directly affects care about what is happening in some remote villages in Alaska? Because this is happening in your country, in a modern world. Because although now it is only people you can't imagine having their lives upturned, literally moving from places some families have lived for millenia - all because of the state of our economy - it is an indication of things to come for everyone else.

The Bush who cried wolf

With the economic apocalypse looming, I find myself in a strangely reflective mood. Could be that things are just so campaign-crazy I have checked out, but a lot of it has to do with witnessing a bunch of people thousands of miles away fighting like school children over my money. It is watching them try their darndest to afix blame, and I honest to goodness don't care if it was the Democrats, Republicans or the Easter Bunny - I'd just like them to talk it out.

What is most striking to me about the whole thing is how completely irrelevant Bush's influence is. When he speaks, you want him just to please, be quiet and don't make things worse.

I try and imagine what it would be like if there was a strong leader in his shoes. One who had... what's that word...?... oh. Respect. I mean, the infamous "fool me once" gaffe Bush made eons ago is tragically applicable here. After crying wolf so many times, how can he expect anyone to listen to what he wants?

After 9/11, people were so scared and the country in such shock, we said hardly a word as we were quickly stripped of so many civil liberties. I mean, hindsight is 20/20, but I try to imagine a president who, instead of constantly reminding us of how much danger we were in and telling us to go shopping, was both realistic and reassuring, and gave us real, helpful suggestions on what to do to help the cause. It's not as if our intelligence was bad to begin with - we had the memo. I have no doubt the government has stopped many bad situations we don't know about both before and after 9/11 - but I don't think that Americans living in a constant state of fear has done a bit of it any good.

Then, of course, the Iraq war. We MUST do something now. Or else.

Or else what? I remember a whole lot said at the time of some mighty big weapons that were going to rain down on my head if we didn't act immediately. So soon after being atttacked in such a horrific way, how easy was it to believe that such a thing could be possible?

Now Bush actually really, really needs that credibility. I honest to goodness do not know if what his administration's plan has cooked up is the right thing - though unfettered control over something sounds eerily familiar - but I do know that if he honestly believes acting right now, immediately, no questions asked is the best thing for the country, he used up that argument quite a while ago. As I watched him arguing his case on CNN, I couldn't help but think of the boy who cried wolf. When the wolf was actually breathing down his neck, nobody would believe him.

Unfortunately, the wolf is not breathing down his neck so much as 99% of the rest of us. I think the top dogs, the ones who can afford to lose a few million, are going to be just fine. But I made the unfortunate mistake of looking at my 401(k) and confirmed that I'd lost about 10% of what I had. And it's not even "the worst" yet. The wolf is breathing down my neck, and it seems there's not a whole lot I can do about it but hope our elected representatives get a handle on things. Soon.

In the end of the fable about the boy and the wolf, it is not the boy who gets eaten by the wolf after all. It is the flock.