CYBERSKINS: LIVE AND INTERACTIVE - by Buffy Sainte-Marie special to ATI On an airplane, my Powerbook is singing to me in Lakota, while the words to the song appear onscreen in both Lakota and English. In the Canadian Rockies, Indians carrying portable computers trudge through a herd of elk and into the Banff Center for the Arts where the "Drumbeats to Drumbytes" thinktank confronts the reality of online life as it affects Native artists. A week later in Bismarck, North Dakota, the American Indian Higher Education Consortium votes 'yes' to V-SAT technology that will facilitate distance learning in and out of various Indian communities and 30 Indian colleges. Across Canada, thousands of First Nations children network their observations and life experiences into mainstream education, as the Cradleboard Teaching Project/Kids From Kanata partnership provides both Native content and connectivity to schools as far away as Hawaii and Baffin Island. I make a commercial record in a tipi on the Saskatchewan plains, and CBC television films the event for international broadcast. Navajo E-mail markets crafts to 40 foreign countries. A six-foot high painting of Indian elders graces the front office of the American Indian College Fund in Washington, D.C.: it's digital and it's Indian made. The digital scene in Indian country at the moment is a microcosm of the way it is most everywhere else, with people at various stages of expertise and enthusiasm going through the big shift. Issues of sovereignty are often the first to come up among Native intellectuals, and the spectre of digital colonialism frightens some and challenges others. Questions of control and ownership arise of course, as they do in the mainstream, but with perhaps a sharper edge, given the facts of Native American history. Indian educators, artists, elders, women, tribal leaders and business people have plenty on our minds when it comes to counterbalancing past misinterpretations with positive realities, and past exploitations with future opportunities. The reality of the situation is that we're not all dead and stuffed in some museum with the dinosaurs: we are Here in this digital age. We have led the pack in a couple of areas (digital music and online art). Although our potential at the moment exceeds the extensiveness of our community computer usage, our projects are already bearing fruit, we expect to prosper and to contribute, and we will defend our data. Among Indian people online as elsewhere, we continue to observe the usual gangs of unknowledgeable non-Indian and/or "I-was-an-Indian-in-my-last-life" opportunists and exploiters, who now are upgrading their acts, trying to take advantage of rumored tax breaks and other scams in the cyber-sector of Indian country; but we are pretty much used to this 'vapor-speak' phenomenon, having lived with it lo these past 500 years. "Beware of White man bearing good ideas and grant proposals" is a tacet refrain we laugh about over the phone. However, I am glad to report that usually this observation does not interfere with honest deals among knowledgeable people of different races; and personally I do believe that we're smart enough to know who our friends are; and they come in all colors. Sometimes I am asked, where did all the brain and fire of the sixties American Indian activism go? In my observation, in Canada we went into every field; but in the United States, where things were far more dangerous, those of us who were not killed, imprisoned, put out of business or otherwise sacrificed to the uranium industry, went into education. If I have a message in this scant overview, it is this: real Indian people are rising to the potential of the technology, in school and out. We were born for this moment and we are solidly behind our pathfinders. / / /Glad you like CyberSkins: Live and Interactive./ /If anybody is interested here is a story that/ /appeared 3 days ago in the Philadelphia Inquirer/ Online at http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/98/Apr/30/tech.life/SKUL30.htm / Buffy Sainte-Marie / / / Hello, and welcome to ATI128.TXT the special 8-bit nostalgia page. A little bit of tchotchkas for everybody. It's the weekend of May 8-10, so we'll "lets..." http://www.downcity.net/sonj/contents.html /street muscians are/ /a treasure. Stop for/ /a moment and listen;/ / then leave a / / small donation. / / May 5, Tuesday / / from Life's little / /Instruction Calandar/ Hey look, man! It's.... Tickle-me Tara Lupinzki... AA TTTTTTTT IIIIII A A TTTTTTTT IIIIII AA AA TT II AAAAAA TT II AAAAAA TT II AA AA 1 TT 2 II 8 AA AA TT II AA AA TT IIIIII AA AActivist TTimes IIIIIIncorporated TOP 10 REASONS KURT VONNEGUT SHOULD WEAR SUNSCREEN TO THIS YEAR'S COLLEGE GRADUATION SPEECHES. 10 Eight to 10 9 Eight to 10 8 Eight to 10 7 Dance, sing, floss and eat Wheaties. 6 A chance for wife Jill to rub his body. 5 Slaughter House Five 4 Hoaxes. They're not just for breakfast anymore. 3 "Gingrich isn't fat; he's racist." 2 Merger Madness; all our graduation speeches are INSANE!! and the number ONE reason V... should W... S... Rice University - Named after a starchy food, or Gary Hart's siren? PRESS RELEASE: 5-5-98 The Native American Music Awards will be open to the general public and take place in May 1998 during the national music awards season. Tentatively scheduled preproduction and rehearsal dates are from May 18 - May 22, with an event date to be held on Sunday May 24rd at the Fox Theatre at Foxwoods Resort Casino. The First Native American Music Awards, or the Nammy's will be nothing short of monumental. Awards show special guests and presenters will have mainstream appeal and be either of Native American heritage, or known supporters of Native American culture and the arts. The Awards will serve as a Who's Who in Native America, playing a major role in educating the general public about nationally renown artists of Native heritage who have achieved various levels of success. Some of these artists can range from Jimi Hendrix and Elvis Presley to Robbie Robertson and Rita Coolidge. Nammy winner presentations will be based on musical contributions released in the US throughout the 1997 calendar year. Two consecutive voting ballots are being distributed nationally in a variety of national publications including: Rhythm Music Magazine, Native Peoples, Indian Artist and others. Five to seven live performances will be interspersed with approximately 20 Awards presentations. Confirmed performers include: Robbie Robertson, Joanne Shenandoah, Robert Mirabal, and RedBone. Performance participants will incorporate both contemporary deliveries and some traditional influences in their music, traditional meaning; vocals performed in tribal dialect utilizing non-electric instrumentation ranging from drums, rattles, gourds, bells or flute. A special HALL OF FAME tributes will be made to the now deceased visionaries such as; Buddy Red Bow and Jimi Hendrix. This could take place in a speech form or as a live performance. As dance and song have played an important role to Native American culture, a leading dance troupe should be featured as part of the opening of this Awards ceremony. Additionally, the Awards show will showcase the music culture of its host, the Mashantucket Pequots. However, the Awards will avoid taking any political positions, as this is a forum only to commemorate and celebrate the survival and traditions of Native American music culture. /\/\ /\ /^ < () Now: The Activist Times won't avoid taking any political positions. As ours is a forum protected by God, the First Ammendment the Earth my mother, and some unnamed essences to name a few. So, how are you doing? ::::::::::::: :::::: :::: ::::: ::: ::::::::::::::::: I do believe that's the most unusual use of that expression for the most unusual event I've ever seen, but I've gotta report... "Looks like this one wants to grow another," says the construction worker just outside the administration building as he's straining his triceps to close a pair of bolt cutters that are about as tall as I am around a copper twist about the diameter of my wrists. That is the news from the Point, watching someone prune power at Plante's old palace. ,/ ,/ ,/ THE YUPPIE JOGGING CEREMONY: Notes From a Native Anthropologist. by Beverly Slapin. When we began our dig, we were not prepared for the enormous amount of material we found about this ancient civilization of previously unknown people, who were called "yuppies." No one knows what this name means or its origins. One of the more bizarre ceremonies we learned about came as a result of several pairs of shoes with the legend, "NIKE," assumed to be one of their gods. "NIKE" was found emblazened on many items of their clothing, but most notably shoes. From these artifacts we learned of the early morning "jogging ceremony," thought to be the only ritual in which they attempted to demonstrate their oneness with nature. The ceremony was said to have begun with a "shower.," in which the people simulated a short rainstorm, during which they took off all of their clothing symbolizing the innocence and vulnerability of birth, and allowed the water to wet their bodies. During this part of the ceremony the people often chanted to the spirits, an entreaty for magic powers. At the same time they rubbed their bodies with a sacred object which they called "So-ap." Perhaps named after another of their deities. It seemed to be a method of cleansing. After the cleansing ritual they would run and every so often they would stop and time their heartbeats, a way of asking creator to continue allowing them to live another day. Many did the cleansing ceremony again after jogging and then congregated in small groups where they feasted on sacred foods called "creosants," and "cappijeno," as a thanks offering to the spirits. | /|\ -- - -- \|/ | /and now / /a word / /from our/ /numbers / http://bulldog.unca.edu/~tmpeery http://www.greenpeace.org/~comms/nukes/chernob/rep02.html http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~stolal/silicon_snake_oil.html http://www.i1.net/~mega http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1998-04/11/016l-041198-idx.html http://www.copvcia.com http://www.mojones.com http://www.danwinter.com/yarrow/ http://www.angelfire.com/wi/kokopeli/tek.html http://digital.net/~cheshire/zap/murphy.htm http://www.teleport.com/~obu/hell.html http://www.nativeamerican.com http://pw2.netcom.com/~sleight/interactivemagic.html http://www.pacificnews.org/jinn http://www.rotten.com http://www.geocities.com/researchtriangle/lab/5851 http://www.interactive.net/~bridget http://www.prensalibre.com http://www.vfemmes.com/letters_html/43.html To the Editor of ATI: Has anyone seen the fake drugwar footage on TV? I haven't yet. s/ Mark Weisenheimer (401) Year 2000 Compliant Since 1965 "IC," said the hacker; as he picked up some cobol and basically saw. (PAWN) Austrialialia - Austrialialian police have been unable to recommend a prosecution for the following scam: A company takes out a newspaper advertisement offering imported hard core pornographic videos. As their prices seem reasonable, people place orders and make payments by check. After several weeks, the company writes back explaining that under the present law they are unable to supply the materials and do not wish to be prosecuted. So they return the customer's money in the form of a company check. However, due to the name of the company imprinted on the checks, few people ever bother to present these to their banks. The name is "The Anal Sex and Fetish Perversion Company." http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html AND HOW a poem from Da Rellik (you send it, we print it; it's that simple.) How do they get the fish to grow so perfectly for eating. How do they get the grass to grow so perfectly for weeding. How do they make the stouffers food so readily for heating; And how do they paint those little grains, kernels, husks, seeds greenly green for seeding? How do they cut the stones so stone-wall shaped. How do they eat all that meat, all that meat that they so eat. How do they cover for, so coveringly, The land that they so raped. And how do they eat all that meat, All that meat, All that meat that they so eat. And how. HEADLICE THAIS CELEBRATE BUDDHIST HOLIDAY AUSTRALIA MAY SEE TOURISM DROP COUNTRIES GET RICHER, EARTH POORER MALAYSIAN RESIDENTS WITHOUT WATER DEATH BLAMED ON BASQUE SEPARATISTS TRANSSEXUAL WINS EUROVISION CONTEST MEXICAN PRIEST KILLED, FOUND IN CAR BOMBS HARDEN EMOTIONS IN SRI LANKA We end ATI128.TXT with a Parody. Because a Pair of D's Beats a Royal Pain In The Butt anyday. WANNASEE to the tune of Wannabe, by Spice Girls. Yo I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want, So tell me what you want, what you really really want, I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want, So tell me what you want, what you really really want, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really really really wanna eat-a-fig ha. If you want my supper forget my lunch, If you wanna get with me 'ya better make a bunch, Now don't get wasting my precious eggs, Get your act together we could be just legs. I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want, So tell me what you want, what you really really want, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really really really wanna eat-a-fig ha. If you wanna see my navel, you gotta get with my seeds, Make it last forever foodstuff never feeds, If you wanna see my noodle, you have got to slurp, Talking is too easy, but that's the way to burp. What do you think about that now you know how I feel, Say you can handle my lemon, or I'm gonna peel, I'm really tasty, I'll give you a try, If you really bug me then I'll have to pie 'ya. Yo I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want, So tell me what you want, what you really really want, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really really really wanna eat-a-fig ha. If you wanna see my nectar, you gotta eat tangerines, Make it last forever like some real good dreams, If you wanna see my hooter, you have got to wink, Staring is too easy, don't be rinky dink. So Here's a story from 1 to 3, you wanna get with me you gotta eat-a-real-big-peach, We got Em in the cafe who likes salt water taffy, We got J like a B who likes it on her knees. Easy V doesn't come free, she's a real shakey tree, And as for me you'll see, Crunch it with your teeth and pop it in your mouth Crunch it like a meat and slurp it in your mouth If you wanna see my tabasco, you gotta get in my cup, Make it hot as Hades friendship drinks it up, If you wanna see my poison, you have got to lap, Taking me's too easy, but put it in your mouth. If you wanna see my lovely, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta, slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp, Slurp your lovely down and chaser all round Slurp your lovely down and wind her up for sound Slurp it slippy down and wind her all around Slurp my body down eat-a-fig ah. If you wanna see my figleaf Send all everything to ati@etext.org Letter to the editor to editor@intst.com Confused? primeanarchist@thepentagon.com