Review of \u3ci\u3eIn the Shadow of Wounded Knee: The Untold Final Story of the Indian Wars\u3c/i\u3e By Roger L. Di Silvestro

The U.S. Army excused the killing of one of its officers, Lt. Edward W. Casey, by Plenty Horses, an Oglala Lakota, to maintain its official position that the incident at Wounded Knee was a battle, not a massacre. Roger Di Silvestro\u27s In the Shadow of Wounded Knee is the first full-dress history of this coda to the event at Wounded Knee during which between two hundred and three hundred and fifty Native peoples died, as well as forty-nine soldiers, many of whom were killed by friendly fire. Casey, ironically, was himself something of an Indian rights defender. He recruited scouts, and when some of them were accused of killing a white rancher, Casey paid their legal expenses personally because he thought the charges were a put up plan of rich cattlemen to oust the Cheyennes from their Reservation. This book\u27s title is overstated. Roughly its first half (six chapters) plows well-furrowed historical ground through the late years of the Plains Indian wars, focusing on the assassination of Sitting Bull and the massacre (or, as the U.S. Army still insists, battle ) of Wounded Knee. Beginning at chapter 7, the narrative becomes more specific, focusing on the two trials of Plenty Horses, who was charged with the murder of Lt. Casey (the first trial ended in a hung jury). The trials during the spring of 1891 were covered profusely by Joseph Pulitzer\u27s New York World, among other newspapers. The story was far from untold. It is also rather well-known among historians in our time. The trials became something of a sensation in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where many hotheaded civilians speculated that Plenty Horses might hang in the type of event that could become a spectator sport appropriate for picnics and souvenir sales of the hanging rope cut into small strips. Some days demand for seats in the stifling courtroom was so brisk that tickets were issued. The trial was described at the time as the center of the universe in Sioux Falls. The Army (most notably General Nelson Miles) had other ideas, because, sans a state of war, a conviction of Plenty Horses of murder could have opened the troops at Wounded Knee, many of whom had been decorated with Medals of Honor, to similar charges

Book Review: \u3ci\u3eLearning to Write Indian : The Boarding-School Experience and American Indian Literature\u3c/i\u3e

In a twist on assimilation, many boarding school students used the English language, a primary tool of colonization, to talk back to the system. As surely as the boarding-schools\u27 inventors understood that language is the vessel of culture, none of them gave much thought to the ways in which Native Americans would use English to critique the schools into which many of them had been unwillingly enrolled. Their writings, examined by Amelia Katanski, indicate that the boarding-school students were unwilling to surrender as victims. Learning English describes how Native American students in boarding schools often forged new identities, taking a degree of authorial control even as they were victimized by an intense campaign to deny them indigenous language, culture, and identity

Book Review: Learning to Write Indian : The Boarding-School Experience and American Indian Literature

In a twist on assimilation, many boarding-school students used the English language, a primary tool of colonization, to talk back to the system. As surely as the boarding-schools\u27 inventors understood that language is the vessel of culture, none of them gave much thought to the ways in which Native Americans would use English to critique the schools into which many of them had been unwillingly enrolled. Their writings, examined by Amelia Katanski, indicate that the boarding-school students were unwilling to surrender as victims. Learning English describes how Native American students in boarding schools often forged new identities, taking a degree of authorial control even as they were victimized by an intense campaign to deny them indigenous language, culture, and identity

Review of \u3ci\u3eAll Indians Do Not Live in Teepees (or Casinos)\u3c/i\u3e by Catherine C. Robbins

Catherine C. Robbins\u27s highly personal tour of contemporary Indian Country begins with a moving description of 2,000 sets of human remains being returned from Harvard University to the people of the Pecos Pueblo and their kin at Jemez in 1999. The book then degenerates into a long rant of pet peeves that annoy its author. Robbins\u27s portrait of Indian casinos is not flattering (their glitziness spoils reservation vistas, she says). She doesn\u27t think Indians dignify themselves by lecturing whites about sovereignty. In Robbins\u27s view, Indians practicing their hunting and fishing rights under treaties bring an unwelcome din to the streams and woods. Put all of this together, and, according to Robbins, we have a new stereotype: the Casino Indian, wily, rich, fat, corrupt, ready to ruin neighborhoods. They, writes the author, have morphed from downtrodden, peaceful Indians to sovereignty- spouting bad neighbors. No Indian tribe or nation\u27s members should brag about sovereignty, writes Robbins, unless they are prepared to offer a full range of governmental services, including senior care

Review of \u3ci\u3eNew Indians, Old Wars\u3c/i\u3e By Elizabeth Cook-Lynn

In New Indians, Old Wars, Elizabeth CookLynn delivers a sometimes scorching critique not only of the United States\u27 pursuit of colonization through warfare (comparing it, in Iraq, to the Plains Indian wars), but also of superficial thinking and fuzzy argumentation that prevents scholars of Native American Studies from drawing a tight focus on the central issues of their discipline. Cook-Lynn, professor emerita of Native American Studies at Eastern Washington University, argues that the central focus of study in Native law, history, and literature should be colonialism and exploitation of resources. Hailing from a warrior family that reaches to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Cook-Lynn also sears the rubric of trust and wardship as a precursor of later wars far from the Great Plains. We continue to lose our resources and riches stolen from us by our greedy benefactor, she writes, the very thieves who have given us the reputation in history as being beggars

Imagined Pasts, Imagined Futures: Race, Politics, Memory, and the Revitalization of Downtown Silver Spring, Maryland

Title of dissertation: IMAGINED PASTS, IMAGINED FUTURES: RACE, POLITICS, MEMORY, AND THE REVITALIZATION OF DOWNTOWN SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND Bruce Richard Johansen, Doctor of Philosophy, 2005 Dissertation directed by: Professor John L. Caughey Professor Mary Corbin Sies Department of American Studies Through ethnographic interviews, participant observation, and archival research, this study explores differences in people's perceptions of an aging, inner-ring suburb, during a period in which revitalization has transformed its built environment, and its population has become more diverse. To examine how three sets of active residents have thought about and acted in response to transpiring material, social, and cultural changes, my interdisciplinary research draws on methodologies and literatures from anthropology, geography, urban and suburban history, cultural criticism, sociology, and political science. Subjects featured identify as historic preservationists, civil rights activists, and/or through affiliations with an organization devoted to making leadership and civic participation more representative of a multicultural community. I demonstrate that there are significant differences in perception among members of these three sets, and that these variations stem from divergent individual and collective constructions of reality that are rooted in a range of histories, cultures, values, imaginings, and needs. I show that these different orientations affect how individuals relate to their surroundings, which is then reflected in public discourse. I investigate how these differences are exacerbated by internal group dynamics and external political structures that have kept segments of the community divided during the twenty years that revitalization plans have been debated. I illustrate that a reliance on public hearings as the main form of public discourse deepens adversarial relations by inhibiting dialogue and consequently an understanding of the diverse array of perspectives on the commercial built environment that exist. I convey how internal group dynamics that exclude community members with contrary points of view mirrors what occurs in public hearings, further diminishing the effectiveness of civic groups. Finally, this dissertation argues that new processes must be designed to assist oversight of revitalization in multicultural communities like Silver Spring, Maryland, a subject that to date has been insufficiently investigated. I contend that unifying diverse segments of such communities is possible if areas of common concern are identified and new forms of cooperative dialogue and practices of leadership pursued

Wall-associated kinase 1 (WAK1) is crosslinked in endomembranes, and transport to the cell surface requires correct cell-wall synthesis

The Arabidopsis thaliana wall-associated kinases (WAKs) bind to pectin with an extracellular domain and also contain a cytoplasmic protein kinase domain. WAKs are required for cell elongation and modulate sugar metabolism. This work shows that in leaf protoplasts a WAK1-GFP fusion protein accumulates in a cytoplasmic compartment that contains pectin. The WAK compartment contains markers for the Golgi, the site of pectin synthesis. The migration of WAK1-GFP to the cell surface is far slower than that of a cell surface receptor not associated with the cell wall, is influenced by the presence of fucose side chains on one or more unidentified molecules that might include pectin, and is dependent upon cellulose synthesis on the plasma membrane. WAK is crosslinked into a detergent-insoluble complex within the cytoplasmic compartment before it appears on the cell surface, and this is independent of fucose modification or cellulose synthesis. Thus, the assembly and crosslinking of WAKs may begin at an early stage within a cytoplasmic compartment rather than in the cell wall itself, and is coordinated with synthesis of surface cellulose

Pectin activation of MAP kinase and gene expression is WAK2 dependent

The angiosperm extracellular matrix, or cell wall, is composed of a complex array of cellulose, hemicelluose, pectins and proteins, the modification and regulated synthesis of which are essential for cell growth and division. The wall associated kinases (WAKs) are receptor-like proteins that have an extracellular domain that bind pectins, the more flexible portion of the extracellular matrix, and are required for cell expansion as they have a role in regulating cellular solute concentrations. We show here that both recombinant WAK1 and WAK2 bind pectin in vitro. In protoplasts pectins activate, in a WAK2-dependent fashion, the transcription of vacuolar invertase, and a wak2 mutant alters the normal pectin regulation of mitogen-activated protein kinases. Microarray analysis shows that WAK2 is required for the pectin activation of numerous genes in protoplasts, many of which are involved in cell wall biogenesis. Thus, WAK2 plays a major role in signaling a diverse array of cellular events in response to pectin in the extracellular matrix. © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

An Arabidopsis cell wall-associated kinase required for invertase activity and cell growth

The wall-associated kinases (WAK), a family of five proteins that contain extracellular domains that can be linked to pectin molecules of the cell wall, span the plasma membrane and have a cytoplasmic serine/threonine kinase domain. Previous work has shown that a reduction in WAK protein levels leads to a loss of cell expansion, indicating that these receptor-like proteins have a role in cell shape formation. Here it is shown that a single wak2 mutation exhibits a dependence on sugars and salts for seedling growth. This mutation also reduces the expression and activity of vacuolar invertase, often a key factor in turgor and expansion. WAKs may thus provide a molecular mechanism linking cell wall sensing (via pectin attachment) to regulation of solute metabolism, which in turn is known to be involved in turgor maintenance in growing cells. © 2006 The Authors

Bacteriocin-mediated competition in cystic fibrosis lung infections

Bacteriocins are toxins produced by bacteria to kill competitors of the same species. Theory and laboratory experiments suggest that bacteriocin production and immunity play a key role in the competitive dynamics of bacterial strains. The extent to which this is the case in natural populations, especially human pathogens, remains to be tested. We examined the role of bacteriocins in competition using Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains infecting lungs of humans with cystic fibrosis (CF). We assessed the ability of different strains to kill each other using phenotypic assays, and sequenced their genomes to determine what bacteriocins (pyocins) they carry. We found that (i) isolates from later infection stages inhibited earlier infecting strains less, but were more inhibited by pyocins produced by earlier infecting strains and carried fewer pyocin types; (ii) this difference between early and late infections appears to be caused by a difference in pyocin diversity between competing genotypes and not by loss of pyocin genes within a lineage over time; (iii) pyocin inhibition does not explain why certain strains outcompete others within lung infections; (iv) strains frequently carry the pyocin-killing gene, but not the immunity gene, suggesting resistance occurs via other unknown mechanisms. Our results show that, in contrast to patterns observed in experimental studies, pyocin production does not appear to have a major influence on strain competition during CF lung infections