Growing Native with Petey Mesquitey

My Apsáalooke name is Iichiinmaaáatchilash - Fortunate with Horses and my English name is JoRee LaFrance. I come from the Apsáalooke (Crow) nation and from the Greasy Mouth clan and I am a child of Ties in the Bundle clan. I was born in Crow Agency, MT and was raised in Wyola, MT in the Mighty Few district. My parents are Lissa Whiteclay and Andre LaFrance. On my maternal side of the family, I am a Whiteclay, Tobacco, Horn and Bear Claw. On my paternal side, I come from the LaFrance, Knows His Gun, Good Eagle, and Spang families. My full last name is White Clay On The Forehead and it comes from my great-great-great grandpa who used white clay as his medicine when he went to battle. I am the 7th generation of Chief Pretty Eagle, the last principal chief of the Apsáalooke Nation and one of the first five Apsáalooke delegation members to travel to Washington, D.C. I graduated in June 2017 from Dartmouth College with a B.A. in Earth Sciences and Native American Studies. I currently reside in Tucson, AZ where I expect to complete my PhD in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the University of Arizona. 

Picture 1: Professional headshot (PC: Sings In The Timber Photography).

Picture 2: Photo taken in the Ewing Laboratory at Montana State University - Bozeman (PC: Dr. Stephanie Ewing).

Picture 3: Photo taken during the parade at my tribe's annual celebration, Crow Fair, in 2019. (PC: Tony Manolis Photography).

Whenever I do of my “pictures and stories” presentations I always show some photos of our chickens, followed by photos…

Tells the true story of a death row inmate, played by Jamie Foxx, who fights his unjust conviction with the help of a young lawyer played by Michael B. Jordan.

Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer, an African American, who founded the Equal Justice Initiative in 1989. The EJI provides legal assistance to prisoners on death row. Stevenson’s career expanded over the years to include involvement in a lot of civil and human rights issues. In 2014 he published a memoir that achieved considerable acclaim, “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.” Although the book profiles Stevenson’s early life and career in general, it focuses on one case in particular that he took on, that of Walter McMillian, a black pulp wood worker in Alabama who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1988. Now the story has been made into a film. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, it’s called Just Mercy.

The film opens with McMillian, whose nickname for some unexplained reason is “Johnny D.,” getting stopped by police as he is driving home from work in June of 1987. Right away, we see how he puts his hands over the steering wheel to show that he is unarmed, and how carefully and fearfully he weighs his words when asked questions by the officer shining a flashlight on him. After being ordered out of the car with his hands up, he learns that he’s been arrested for the murder of an 18-year-old white woman seven months earlier. Johnny D. is played by Jamie Foxx, and it’s Foxx’s alert and passionate performance that centers the film.

The movie now introduces us to the young lawyer Bryan Stevenson, played by Michael B. Jordan. A Delaware native and Harvard Law School graduate, Stevenson decides to go to Alabama to work with death row inmates rather than take the possibly lucrative career that is open to him. There’s a scene where his worrying mother pleads with him to be careful. It’s the 1980s, but it’s still dangerous for a black man to fight for justice in the South. What we don’t learn in the film is that Stevenson was awarded a MacArthur grant to help him do this vital work. In any case, he comes to Montgomery only to find that the person who volunteered to help him, Eva Ansley (played by Brie Larson) got the office she had rented pulled away from her when the owner found out what it was going to be used for. Eventually they set up shop somewhere else, and Stevenson gets down to his work at the state prison.

When he reads up on McMillian’s case, he realizes that the evidence was incredibly flimsy. Everything rested on one witness, a felon telling an improbable story in order to get a better deal; while at the same time there are several witnesses confirming McMillian’s alibi, witnesses who were ignored by a police chief and a D.A. anxious to get a conviction in a case, the murder of this young woman, that prompted a lot of rage in the community. Stevenson decides to work towards getting a retrial, and although he knows it won’t be easy, it still ends up being a lot more difficult than he had anticipated.

Michael B. Jordan has become a star in a pretty short time, and in this movie he has a strong, solid presence, playing someone who lives by a simple faith that justice must be served, no matter what. Brie Larson is also fine as his sidekick. Two of the supporting actors are very impressive. Rob Morgan plays another death row inmate who has PTSD from his time in Vietnam. This man’s agony over his own actions—he did kill someone—and the nightmares and self-doubt that he can’t escape, really packs a punch here. Tim Blake Nelson is also on hand as the white man whose testimony convicted McMillian. He’s mentally unstable, and comes off at first as a contemptuous low-life, but then Nelson and the screenplay invest the character with unexpected nuance. Most of all, tho

The Classic Pick of the Week for the week of January 27th, 2020 - They Might Be Giants 1990 debut album, Flood.

Whenever I do of my “pictures and stories” presentations I always show some photos of our chickens, followed by photos of some of the wildlife they’ve attracted over the last twenty-five plus years. “If you want to attract wildlife to your yard, just get yourself some chickens,” I say to the audience.

The four species of skunks found in Arizona are also found throughout North America and are in the family Mephitidae. The hooded skunk (Mephitis macroura) comes in a couple different color schemes from an all white back to an all black back with a couple narrow white stripes down its sides. We got the latter. Yay!

I can’t prove that I caught the rascal that killed our chicken. We have the striped skunk and hog nosed skunk around our place too (the hog nosed is an unlikely culprit, as it’s too busy turning our garden over) and maybe this hooded skunk just broke in for the yummy cat food bait. One thing is for sure; after twenty-five years it’s time to re-secure the chicken coop and yard!

The photo is of a page in my old…very old… 1959 edition Peterson, Field Guide to the Mammals. I don’t know why I didn’t get a photo as the skunk was leaving me in a foul mist…

Tucson Second Chance Community Bail Fund Executive Director Lola Rainey is an attorney, poet, writer, and activist. She discussed TSCCBF's work to address the disproportionate impact of the cash bail system on communities of color and vulnerable populations in Pima County.

TSCCBF  is a black woman lead, abolitionist, grassroots organization working to help restore economic justice and dignity to people by helping them return home, keep their jobs, retain custody of their children and fight their cases in court. The Fund is an outgrowth of Black Lives Matter (BLM) Tucson’s May 2017 “Mama Bailout Campaign” to help bail out mothers. Many people in jail have not been found guilty or sentenced and yet remain incarcerated because they are unable to make bail.

In a December 27, 2019 press release they claim that two recent jail deaths from excessive force encounters with correctional officers are linked to corruption, racism and a culture of violence in the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. “The community must reset its moral compass by demanding greater transparency and accountability from Sheriff Napier.”

They recently hosted a training with Tucson Standing Up For Racial Justice about risk assessment tools (RATs) and the pre-trial safety assessments (PSAs). They plan to roll out multiple campaigns over the coming months to address what they see as the problematic use of these “tools” and to further their ongoing fight to end pre-trial detention in Pima County.

Recorded and produced by Amanda Shauger.

Looking for a route into a canyon that seems inaccessible, can turn into a good day no matter what.

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Adam Sandler is excellent as a New York gem dealer in trouble for gambling debts in this high octane drama from Josh and Bennie Safdie.

I became a fan of the Safdie brothers, Josh and Benny, after I saw their previous film from a couple years ago, Good Time, which I reviewed on this show. Good Time covered a day or two in the life of a manic, risk-taking criminal played by Robert Pattinson. That was a propulsion rocket of a film in which each crazy predicament seemed to outdo the last one. The Safdie brothers write and direct their pictures together with screenwriting and editing help from their friend Ronald Bronstein. Their new film is called Uncut Gems, and its style and energy are similar to Good Time, but more so. Much more so.

Adam Sandler plays Howard Ratner, a gem dealer in the famed Diamond District of Manhattan. Howard is always on the move, always trying to make the next deal, while at the same time always trying to get out of whatever scrape he’s gotten himself into. He’s a gambling addict, making bets on basketball games with a recklessness that is pretty close to being deranged. Married with three kids, his wife his fed up with his antics and wants a divorce. He lives in a separate apartment with his much younger lover (and employee) Julia, played by Julia Fox.

The plot gets rolling when Howard buys an uncut Ethiopian black opal, a stone which contains brilliant differently colored gleaming gems on its surface. Boston Celtics basketball star Kevin Garnett—playing himself, and quite well, I might add—visits Howard’s shop and wants the opal, but Howard has committed it to a big auction dealer. Garnett pleads with him and then Howard unwisely lets him borrow the stone for a few days, holding his championship ring as collateral, which he then goes and pawns for money to bet on the next Celtics game. Meanwhile he owes a lot of money to a guy named Arno, played by a weary-looking Eric Bogosian, who has hired a couple of thugs to get the money back from Howard through threats and violence. Later in the film, at a Passover celebration at Howard’s family home, we are surprised to see Arno in attendance. Apparently he’s an in-law. Now, the plot description doesn’t do justice to this film’s relentless rhythm, as Sandler’s character scrambles through one tense scene after another in pursuit of the big score, almost always talking on his cell phone, while trying to avoid his enemies.

I’ve heard that some folks who don’t read film reviews—and I realize many people don’t—have gone to this movie expecting a typical Adam Sandler film, and ended up walking out. This is not a comedy. Now, once in awhile Sandler has tried doing something different than usual, such as, for example, Punch-Drunk Love or even Spanglish, and this one is played absolutely straight, although there’s a grim sense of humor at times if you pay attention. In any case, it’s excellent work by Sandler.

Howard is a maniacally driven individual, liable to lash out or do self-destructive things when he wants what he wants now, and Sandler’s intense, crouching presence really draws you in. The film is practically designed to raise your blood pressure, with not very much down time in between scenes of yelling and arguing, overlapping dialogue, intermittent fear, violence and bullying, all the while accompanied by Daniel Lopatin’s pulsating musical score.

The Safdies are very interested in urban Jewish life, and especially in restless and ambitious Jewish people, driven by neurosis and dissatisfaction, and they really capture that feeling in this film. Howard, and the film, seems always poised just on the edge of disaster, and the audience feels that something terrible could happen at any moment. This suspense reaches it

Nikki Tulley is a member of the Navajo Nation. She is a second year Ph.D. student in the Department of Environmental Science with a concentration in Hydroscience at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on ensuring that people living in Indigenous communities have access to clean drinking water to sustain their way of life in an ever-changing environment through sustainable practices, and water policies and management. She is an Alfred P. Sloan 2018-2019 Scholar, American Indian Graduate Center Fellow, and an American Indian Science and Engineering Society Sequoyah Fellow. Nikki received a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and a Master of Science in Water Resources from the University of New Mexico. She holds a deep passion for mentoring students living in underserved underrepresented American Indian and rural communities through STEM education. Nikki continuously works to support the enhancement of STEM understanding amongst American Indian communities and students.

The 31st Annual Undergraduate Biology Research Program Conference will take place on Saturday, January 25, 2020 from 10:00am to 3:00pm in the Environment and Natural Resources 2 Building (1064 E. Lowell Street) on the University of Arizona main campus.

Join us for a keynote talk by Oscar Serrano, MD from 10:00am – 11:00am. From 11:00am – 2:00pm, explore students’ research posters, the Symbiosis art exhibit, science outreach activities for the whole family, and enjoy refreshments. Awards and closing remarks will be given from 2:00pm – 3:00pm.

The Annual UBRP Conference is free and open to all interested!