'A Pageant Where You Butcher Sheep'

Documentary film maker Billy Luther, left, and Crystal Frazier, former Miss Northern Navajo in 2005 AP Photo/Courtesy of ITVS/Independent Lens

'A Pageant Where You Butcher Sheep'

By Felicia Fonseca

ALBUQUERQUE (AP) — When young women head off to compete in the weeklong Miss Navajo Nation pageant, they bring along their evening gowns, jewelry, high heels, public speaking skills — and their butcher knives.

This is no ordinary pageant.

On the nation's largest Indian reservation where tradition reigns, contestants are required to speak their native language, make fry bread and butcher an animal that represents life to the Navajos — sheep.

"The pageant really gets people's interest because they say, 'Oh my gosh, a pageant where you butcher sheep.' That's really the grabber," said Billy Luther, a documentary film maker. "But I think people walk away learning the Navajo way of life and how much the Navajo people respect women."

Luther, whose mother was crowned Miss Navajo in 1966, offers a different take on what it means to be beautiful in his first feature-length documentary, "Miss Navajo," which aired Tuesday on PBS's Independent Lens. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.

Beauty is very much internal, Luther says. What Navajos perceive as beautiful might not be beautiful to others, he said.

"It's having the knowledge of your culture, it's having respect for your mothers and grandmothers, it's the language, fluency. As we say, that's harmony, that's what we strive for," said Luther, 32, who is Navajo, Laguna and Hopi.

Luther's documentary follows Crystal Frazier, a now-23-year-old Table Mesa resident, on her quest to become Miss Navajo during the 2005 pageant.

The pageant, held each year during the Navajo Nation Fair in Window Rock, Ariz., takes contestants of all shapes and sizes through skill and talent tests, and quizzes them on tribal government and Navajo beliefs.

For Frazier, a self-described introvert who raised chickens as a hobby, her insecurities centered on her ability to speak the Navajo language, which long had been passed down orally.

A panel made up of former Miss Navajos greets the contestants in one part of the film with the intent of finding out whether the girls truly know their Native language.

Frazier blanks on her turn. She wants the question repeated in English.

"I was just a deer in headlights," said Frazier, who was Miss Northern Navajo in 2004-05. "I remember being in the room and being in awe of seeing formal title holders. You feel the pressure, and you see all the lights from the cameras, and you just freak. I remember I didn't even hear a word."

The queen's panel was added in 2005 at the insistence of Sunni Dooley — the 1982-83 Miss Navajo.

"They know they are supposed to talk Navajo, but as you saw in the pageant, a lot of them entered without knowing their language," said Dooley, a storyteller from Vanderwagon. "They probably had memorized their clan, where they came from, who their parents are and who their grandparents are."

What the judges wanted was simple: Give the directions to your house, she said.

The pageant began in 1952 as somewhat of a popularity contest. The winner was crowned based on how much applause she got from the audience.

Until the early 1960s, two Miss Navajos were crowned, a traditional one and "one who looked like Jackie Kennedy," Dooley says.

Now only one queen is named and the contest is open to any Navajo woman age 18 to 25 who is single and meets other contest requirements, such as having a high school diploma or GED and no children.

Faced with a dwindling number of contestants, Dooley and other former Miss Navajos created a nonprofit group in Arizona this year to address how to make the pageant last.

"I think what's scaring a lot of these contestants is the sheep butchering part of it, also the Navajo," she said.

Ultimately, Dooley said she would like to see one girl representing each of the Navajo Nation's 110 chapter houses in the pageant.

"I think whoever wins that pageant, they can say, 'Yeah, not only did I compete against 110 girls but I can butcher a sheep with one hand,' " Dooley jokes.

Although his original intent wasn't to make a film about Navajo women, Luther sees the final product as an inspiration for young girls, some of whom consider Miss Navajo the ideal woman.

Some people who have watched the film consider it an important one about women, an unexpected story of a contemporary Navajo family or a language-in-crisis film, he said.

Luther says simply: "This is a film about a beauty pageant contestant, and there's a winner and a loser.

"But sometimes, as in life, the winners aren't always the winners and the losers aren't always the losers."

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says The Reactor Revival Is NOT Ready For Prime Time

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says The Reactor Revival Is NOT Ready For Prime Time

by Harvey Wasserman

A devastating blow to the much-hyped revival of atomic power has been delivered by an unlikely source—the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC says the “standardized” designs on which the entire premise of returning nuclear power to center stage is based have massive holes in them, and may not be ready for approval for years to come.

Delivered by one of America’s most notoriously docile agencies, the NRC’s warning essentially says: that all cost estimates for new nuclear reactors—and all licensing and construction schedules—are completely up for grabs, and have no reliable basis in fact. Thus any comparisons between future atomic reactors and renewable technologies are moot at best. And any “hard number” basis for independent financing for future nukes may not be available for years to come, if ever.

These key points have been raised in searing testimony before state regulators by Jim Warren of the North Carolina Waste and Awareness Reduction Network and Tom Clements of the South Carolina Friends of the Earth, and by others now challenging proposed state-based financing for new Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors. The NRC gave conditional “certification” to this “standardized” design in 2004, allowing design work to continue. But as recently as June 27, the NRC has issued written warnings that hundreds of key design components remain without official approval. Indeed, Westinghouse has been forced to actually withdraw numerous key designs, throwing the entire permitting process into chaos.

The catastrophic outcome of similar problems has already become tangible. After two years under construction, the first “new generation” French reactor being built in Finland is already more than two years behind schedule, and more than $2.5 billion over budget. The scenario is reminiscent of the economic disaster that hit scores of “first generation” reactors, which came in massively over budget and, in many cases, decades behind promised completion dates.

In North and South Carolina, public interest groups are demanding the revocation of some $230 million in pre-construction costs already approved by state regulators for two proposed Duke Energy reactors. In both those states, as well as in Florida, Alabama and Georgia, Westinghouse AP-1000 reactors have been presented to regulatory commissions to be financed by ratepayers as they are being built.

This astounding pro-utility scheme forces electric consumers to pay billions of dollars for nuclear plants that may never operate, and whose costs are indeterminate. Sometimes called Construction Work in Progress, it lets utilities raise rates to pay for site clearing, project planning, and down payments on large equipment and heavy reactor components, such as pressure vessels, pumps and generators, that can involve hundreds of millions of dollars, even before the projects get final federal approval. The process in essence gives utilities an incentive to drive up construction costs as much as they can. It allows them to force ratepayers to cover legal fees incurred by the utilities to defend themselves against lawsuits by those very ratepayers. And the public is stuck with the bill for whatever is spent, even if the reactor never opens—or if it melts down before it recoups its construction costs, as did Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island Unit Two in 1979, which self-destructed after just three months of operation.

According to Warren and Clements, Duke Energy and its cohorts have “filed some 6,500 pages of Westinghouse’s technical design documents as the major component of applications” to build new reactors. “Of the 172 interconnected Westinghouse documents,” say NCWARN and FOE, “only 21 have been certified.” And most of what has been certified, they add, rely on systems that are unapproved, and that are key to the guts of the reactor, including such major components as the “reactor building, control room, cooling system, engineering designs, plant-wide alarm systems, piping and conduit.”

In other words, despite millions of dollars of high-priced hype, the “new generation” of “standardized design” power plants actually does not exist. The plans for these reactors have not been finalized by the builders themselves, nor have they been approved by the regulators. There is no operating prototype of a Westinghouse AP-1000 from which to draw actual data about how safely these plants might actually operate, what their environmental impact might be, or what they might cost to build or run.

In fact, as the NRC’s June 27 letter notes, Westinghouse has been forced to withdraw key technical documents from the regulatory process. The NRC says this means design approval for the AP-1000 might not come until 2012.

The problem extends to other designs. According to Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, the “Evolutionary Power Reactor” proposed for Calvert Cliffs, Maryland, “is way behind in certification” causing delays in the licensing process. Similar problems have arisen with the “Economic Simplified Boiling War Reactor” design proposed for North Anna, Virginia and Fermi, Michigan. “All of these utilities seem to want standardization for the other guy, not for themselves, so most of them are making changes to the ’standardized’ designs, says Mariotte. “Even the ABWR,” being planned for a site in south Texas, which has actually been built before, “has design issues” that have caused delays.

The problem, says Mariotte, “is that the NRC is still trying to go ahead and do licensing even with the designs not certified. This is going to lead to a big mess later on.”

But in the meantime, Public Service Commissions like the one in Florida, have given preliminary approval to reactor proposals whose projected costs have more than doubled in just one year. Florida Power & Light’s two proposed reactors at Turkey Point, on the border of the Everglades National Park, are listed as costing somewhere between $6 billion and $9 billion. FP&L refuses to commit to a firm price, and is demanding south Florida ratepayers foot an unknowable bill for gargantuan projects whose costs are virtually certain to skyrocket long before the NRC approves the actual reactor designs. By contrast, the “huge” preliminary deal just reached between Florida, environmentalists and U.S. Sugar to buy some 180,000 acres of land to save the Everglades is now estimated at less than $2 billion, less than one-sixth the minimum estimated cost of the two reactors proposed for Turkey Point.

In the larger picture, the depth of this scam is staggering. With no finalized design, and no firm price tag, a second generation of nuclear power plants is now being put on the tab of southeastern citizens whose rates have already begun to skyrocket. These reactor projects cannot get private financing, and cannot proceed without either massive federal subsidies and loan guarantees, or a flood of these state-based give-aways. They also cannot get private insurance against future melt-downs, and have no solution for their radioactive waste problem. Current estimates for finishing the proposed Yucca Mountain national waste repository, also yet to be licensed, are soaring toward $100 billion, even though it, too, may never open.

By contrast, firm costs for proposed wind farms, solar panels, increased efficiency and other green sources are proven and reliable. These projects are easily financed by private investors lining up to become involved. Some $6 billion in new wind farms are under construction or on order in the United States alone. They are established and profitable, and can in many cases can be up and running in less than a year.

The high-profile campaign to paint atomic energy as some kind of answer to America’s energy problems has hit the iceberg of its economic impossibilities. The atomic “renaissance” has no tangible approved design, and no firm construction or operating costs to present. There are no reliable new reactor construction schedules, except to know that it will be at least ten years before the first one could conceivably come on line, and that its price tag is unknowable.

In short, the “nuclear renaissance” is perched atop a gigantic technical and economic chasm that looms larger every day, and that could soon swallow the entire idea of building more reactors.

Harvey Wasserman’s SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030, is at www.solartopia.org. He is senior advisor to Greenpeace USA and the Nuclear Information & Resource Service, and writes regularly for www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared.

AFP/Illustration Photo: Authorities evacuated the airport terminal in Vladivostok, in Russia's far east, after a flight arriving...

Radioactive Russian woman sparks airport evacuation

Thu Jul 24, 12:05 PM ET

MOSCOW (AFP) - Authorities evacuated the airport terminal in Vladivostok, in Russia's far east, after a flight arriving from Seoul set off a radiation alarm.

The alarm was called off when security officials pinpointed the source -- a woman who had just received radiation therapy, Interfax news agency reported Thursday.

The woman was released when it was established that South Korean doctors had treated her with iodine-131, a radioactive isotope used in nuclear medicine, giving her a level of radioactivity 15 times greater than the norm.

"Iodine 131 is a short-lived isotope, so the passenger should be back to normal in a month," Interfax quoted a customs spokeswoman at Vladivostok airport as saying.

Pakistan Warns That US-India Nuclear Deal Could Lead To New Arms Race

Pakistan Warns That US-India Nuclear Deal Could Lead To New Arms Race

by Jeremy Page

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan has warned the international community that India’s historic nuclear deal with the United States could accelerate a nuclear arms race between Delhi and Islamabad.

The warning was made in a letter addressed to more than 60 nations as the Indian government, having survived a no confidence vote on Tuesday, dispatched diplomats to clear the deal with international regulators.

India must still negotiate a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has a board meeting on August 1, and obtain the blessing of the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers’ Group (NSG).

But Pakistan warned key members of the IAEA and the NSG in its letter that the safeguards agreement would impair non-proliferation efforts and “threatens to increase the chances of a nuclear arms race in the sub-continent”.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since they gained independence from Britain, and have been de facto nuclear weapons states since conducting tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998.

A peace process begun in 2004 has stabilised relations, but has made little progress on the most divisive issue — the disputed region of Kashmir - and the two sides remain deeply distrustful of each other..

Mohammad Sadiq, a spokesman for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, confirmed the contents of the letter, which he said was distributed to IAEA members in Vienna, but not released to the media.

“There are a number of questions about the deal, not only for Pakistan, but for many other countries,” he told The Times.

“There should be a model agreement that could be signed with any country that meets the criteria. It should not be country-specific.”

The US Congress must also approve the deal, which lifts a 34-year ban on selling US nuclear fuel and technology to India even though Delhi has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Indian and US officials say that all three steps could be completed in the next few months - although the White House has said that it could be pushed to get Congressional approval before President Bush steps down.

Meanwhile, the Indian government announced that it had sent its top diplomats to Germany, which holds the rotating chair of the NSG, and to Ireland, which has objections to the nuclear deal.

Ireland is one of the strongest proponents of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which was proposed by Frank Aiken, Irish Minister for External Affairs, in 1958.

The Nuclear Suppliers’ Group - founded after India tested its first nuclear device in 1974 - is an informal grouping of 45 nuclear-exporting countries designed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and dual-use materials.

Its guidelines ban the export of nuclear fuel and technology to countries other than the five official “nuclear weapons states” - the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China - that do not have a specific agreement with the IAEA safeguarding their nuclear facilities.

India has submitted a draft safeguards agreement to the IAEA, under which it would separate its civilian and military nuclear facilities and allow IAEA inspections of the former.

But Pakistan said in its letter that the draft agreement had not listed the exact sites that would be safeguarded.

“What is the purposed of the Agreement if the facilities to be safeguarded are not known?” it asked.

Pakistan is not a member of the NSG, but it does sit on the current 35-member board of the IAEA - a United Nations agency - and is expected to vote against India’s draft safeguards agreement at the August 1 meeting.

A two thirds majority is required to approve the agreement.

Among Pakistan’s other objections are the date of the board meeting, which comes less than the required 45 days after a country starts circulating its draft.

The letter said that more time was needed because the agreement “is likely to set a precedent for other states which are not members of the NPT and have military nuclear programmes”.

Every Vote Counts

Every Vote Counts

By April Gregory and Adelle Watts

Wakonda, a town of about 400 in South Dakota, is one of Clay County's smallest polling places. Voters drive in from as far away as Irene, S.D., to cast their ballot. Two students of the American Indian Journalism Institute talked to a few voters in Wakonda on June 3, primary election day in South Dakota.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This audio slideshow was a class assignment at the American Indian Journalism Institute and was originally published on AIJI: Freedom Forum Diversity Institute.]