title: Barings Bank

text: By December 1994, Leeson had cost Barings £200 million. He reported to British tax authorities a £102 million profit. If the company had uncovered his true financial dealings then, collapse might have been avoided as Barings still had £350 million of capital.


title: Barings Bank

text: Using the hidden five-eights account, Leeson began to trade aggressively in futures and options on SIMEX. His decisions routinely resulted in losses of substantial sums and he used money entrusted to the bank by subsidiaries for use in their own accounts. He falsified trading records in the bank's computer systems and used money intended for margin payments on other trading. As a result, he appeared to be making substantial profits. However, his luck ran out when the Kobe earthquake upset the Asian financial markets—and with them, Leeson's investments. Leeson bet on a rapid recovery by the Nikkei, which failed to materialise.


title: Barings Bank

text: On 23 February 1995, Leeson left Singapore to fly to Kuala Lumpur. Barings Bank auditors discovered the fraud around the time that Barings' chairman Peter Baring received a confession note from Leeson. Leeson's activities had generated losses totalling £827 million ($1.3 billion), twice the bank's available trading capital. The collapse cost another £100 million. The Bank of England attempted an unsuccessful weekend bailout, and employees around the world did not receive their bonuses. Barings was declared insolvent on 26 February 1995, and administrators began managing the finances of Barings Group and its subsidiaries. The same day, the Board of Banking Supervision of the Bank of England launched an investigation led by Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer; its report was released on 18 July 1995. Leeson was captured after spending 272 days on the run and sentenced to six years and six months imprisonment, served in Singapore's Changi Prison for his wrongdoings.


title: Barings Bank

text: Dutch bank ING purchased Barings Bank in 1995 for the nominal sum of £1 and took over all of Barings' liabilities, forming the subsidiary ING Barings. In 2001, ING sold the US-based operations to ABN Amro for $275 million and folded the rest of ING Barings into its European banking division. This left only the asset management division, Baring Asset Management. In March 2005, BAM was split and sold by ING to MassMutual, which acquired BAM's investment management activities and the rights to use the Baring Asset Management name, and Northern Trust, which acquired BAM's Financial Services Group. Barings Bank no longer has a separate corporate existence, although the "Barings" name still lives on as the MassMutual subsidiary Baring Asset Management. In March 2016, a merger was announced with other asset management subsidiaries of MassMutual, creating a new "Barings" headquartered in Charlotte, NC. Baring Private Equity International was acquired by its respective management teams, which today include Baring Vostok Capital Partners in Russia, GP Investments in Brazil, Baring Private Equity Asia and Baring Private Equity Partners India.


title: Barings Bank

text: On 5 April 2007, "The Guardian" newspaper reported that KPMG, the liquidators of Barings, had sold a trading jacket thought to have been worn by Nick Leeson while trading on SIMEX in Singapore. The jacket was offered for sale on eBay but it failed to reach its reserve price despite a highest bid of £16,100. It was subsequently sold for £21,000. In October 2007 a similar jacket used by Leeson's team but not thought to have been worn by Leeson himself sold at auction for £4,000.


title: Barings Bank

text: The 1999 film "Rogue Trader" is a fictionalized account of the bank's downfall based upon Leeson's autobiography "".


title: Barings Bank

text: In the historical novel "Stone's Fall" (2009) by Iain Pears, Barings and its role in the Panic of 1890 play a significant part in the story's structure.


title: Barings Bank

text: In the novel "Around the World in Eighty Days" (1872) by Jules Verne, Phileas Fogg's bet is guaranteed by a cheque for £20,000 drawn on Barings Bank:


title: Barings Bank

text: As today is Wednesday, the 2nd of October, I shall be due in London in this very room of the Reform Club, on Saturday, the 21st of December, at a quarter before nine p.m.; or else the twenty thousand pounds, now deposited in my name at Barings, will belong to you, in fact and in right, gentlemen. Here is a cheque for the amount.


title: Cat meat

text: Cat meat is meat prepared from domestic cats for human consumption. Some countries serve cat meat as a regular food, whereas others have only consumed some cat meat in desperation during wartime or poverty.


title: Cat meat

text: In some cultures of Cameroon, there is a special ceremony featuring cat-eating that is thought to bring good luck.


title: Cat meat

text: According to Humane Society International, Agence France-Presse, and the BBC, cat meat is not widely eaten in China. But in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces of the Lingnan cultural region, some—especially older—people consider cat flesh a good warming food during winter months. The Associated Press reported in 2008 that people in southern China's Guangdong province (population just over 113 million) ate 10,000 cats per day.


title: Cat meat

text: In Guangdong, cat meat is a main ingredient in the traditional dish "dragon, tiger, phoenix" (snake, cat, chicken), which is said to fortify the body.


title: Cat meat

text: Henan, Hubei, Anhui and Jiangsu provinces. On January 26, 2010, China launched its first draft proposal to protect the country's animals from maltreatment including a measure to jail people—for periods up to 15 days—for eating cat or dog meat.


title: Cat meat

text: With the increase of cats as pets in China, opposition towards the traditional use of cats for food has grown. In June 2006, approximately 40 activists stormed the Fangji Cat Meatball Restaurant in Shenzhen, forcing it to shut down. Expanded to more than 40 member societies, the Chinese Animal Protection Network in January 2006 began organizing well-publicized protests against dog and cat consumption, starting in Guangzhou, following up in more than ten other cities "with very optimal response from public." "Beijing News" reported in 2014 and 2015 of Beijing and Tianjin authorities respectively discovering feral, and stray cats to be used as part of the cat meat trade, which drew outrage from many Chinese netizens. A 2015 Animals Asia survey found that at least more than 70-80% of Chinese respondents agreed it was unacceptable to eat dogs and cats if they had been abused or tortured during feeding and slaughter.


title: Cat meat

text: In Japan, cats were sometimes eaten until the end of the Edo period. In Okinawa, it was believed to be effective against costochondritis, bronchitis, lung disease, and hemorrhoids, and was eaten in the form of a soup, such as "maya no ushiro".


title: Cat meat

text: According to "HuffPost" and a few Indian news outlets in 2016, cat meat was being served as mutton in parts of Chennai and being consumed mainly by the Narikuravar community in the city. There had been allegations made online in the same year that some Narikuravar people were hunting feral and stray cats for their meat in Bengaluru.


title: Cat meat

text: In Korea, cat meat was historically brewed into a tonic as a folk remedy for neuralgia and arthritis, not commonly as food. Modern consumption is seen and more likely to be in the form of cat soup, though the number of people who consume cat soup is considered minimal, compared to a relatively popular dog meat. Julien Dugnoille wrote in "The Conversation" that cat meat is mostly consumed by middle-aged working class women for perceived health benefits, and that usually 10 cats are needed to produce a small bottle of cat, or goyangi, soju (an alcoholic elixir thought to keep arthritis at bay for a few weeks at a time). According to In Defense of Animals, 100,000 cats are killed yearly to make cat soju in South Korea. Cats are not farmed for their meat in the country, so the trade involves ferals and strays. Nonetheless, the trade is mostly done underground, and the great majority of population is not even aware that cat consumption is common in the country. Moreover, eating cat meat is highly stigmatized throughout the country, unlike eating dog meat, which is often criticized but not universally stigmatized.


title: Cat meat

text: According to the Malaysian branch of Friends of the Earth, cat meat is not illegal in Malaysia. The organisation reported that some Vietnamese nationals had been selling dog and cat meat in a couple of cities, an allegation repeated by Coconuts Media. According to "The Star" in 2012, cat meat was popular among some Myanmar nationals in the country.


title: Cat meat

text: In October 2017, Taiwan's national legislature, known as the Legislative Yuan, passed amendments to the country's Animal Protection Act which "bans the sale and consumption of dog and cat meat and of any food products that contain the meat or other parts of these animals."


title: Cat meat

text: As of 2015, cat meat is eaten in Vietnam. It is generally seen on menus with the euphemism "tiểu hổ", literally "baby tiger" rather than the literal "thịt mèo". Cat galls have aphrodisiacal properties according to people in North Vietnam. In 2018, however, officials in the city of Hanoi urged citizens to stop eating dog and cat meat, citing concerns about the cruel methods with which the animals are slaughtered and the diseases this practice propagates, including rabies and leptospirosis. The primary reason for this exhortation seems to be a fear that the practice of dog and cat consumption, most of which are stolen household pets, could tarnish the city's image as a "civilised and modern capital". According to data from a market research study by Four Paws, approximately 8% of people living in Hanoi have consumed cat meat in their lives.


title: Cat meat

text: According to "The Independent" in April 2020, COVID-19 has led to increased dog and cat meat sales in Vietnam (and Cambodia) due to their perceived health benefits against the virus.


title: Cat meat

text: Section 6, Paragraph 2 of the law for the protection of animals prohibits the killing of cats and dogs for purposes of consumption as food or for other products.


title: Cat meat

text: In January 2011, the Belgian Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain stated that people are not allowed to kill random cats walking in their garden, but " nowhere in the law does it say that you can't eat your own pet cat, dog, rabbit, fish or whatever. You just have to kill them in an animal-friendly way."


title: Cat meat

text: In June 2008, three students at the Danish School of Media and Journalism published pictures of a cat being slaughtered and eaten in "Citat", a magazine for journalism students. Their goal was to create a debate about animal welfare. The cat was shot by its owner, a farmer, and it would have been put down in any case. The farmer slaughtered the cat within the limits of Danish law. This led to criticism from Danish animal welfare group Dyrenes Beskyttelse, and death threats received by the students.


title: Cat meat

text: In February 2010, on a television cooking show, the Italian food writer Beppe Bigazzi mentioned that during the famine in World War II cat stew was a "succulent" and well-known dish in his home area of Valdarno, Tuscany. Later he claimed he had been joking, but added that cats used to be eaten in the area during famine periods, historically. He was widely criticised in the media for his comments and ultimately dropped from the television network.


title: Cat meat

text: Cat consumption is a stereotype attributed to Vicenzans in Vicenza, Italy. They are jokingly called "magnagati", that means "cats eaters" in the local language.


title: Cat meat

text: According to the British "Butchers' Advocate, Dressed Poultry and the Food Merchant" of 1904, "Just before Christmas it is common for a group of young men in northern Italy to kill some cats, skin them and soak them in water for two or three days. They are cooked with great care on Christmas day and served up hot about 1:30p.m. after mass...Many people in Italy, 'on the quiet,' keep cats like the English do rabbits—to kill. A catskin there is worth ten pence, as the material for muffs for girls... Extraordinary care has to be taken in procuring the animals, for the Italian Society for the Protection of Cats is vigilant, and offenses against the law are followed by imprisonment only. We have no fines in Italy."


title: Cat meat

text: According to "The Dietetic & Hygienic Gazette" in 1905, "Italy cultivates the cat for home consumption as English people raise rabbits. It is to be done on the quiet, however, for in spite of the profit in the business and the demand for the delicacy, the law has to be looked out for, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Cats is vigilant. Offenses against the law are visited with imprisonment. Cats are raised for the market nonetheless. Fattened on the finest of milk, a choice specimen will attain the weight of fifteen pounds."


title: Cat meat

text: There are accounts of cat being consumed in the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis (southern France), in Spain in the 17th century, and during WWI and WWII.


title: Cat meat

text: According to the Food Safety and Veterinary Office, the sale of dog or cat meat is not allowed, but it is legal for people to eat their own animals. The Swiss parliament rejected changing the laws to protect dogs and cats from human consumption in 1993. An animal-rights group collected 16,000 signatures in 2014 to outlaw the consumption of cat meat in Switzerland.


title: Cat meat

text: Cats were sometimes eaten as a famine food during harsh winters, poor harvests, and wartime. Cat gained notoriety as "roof rabbit" ("Dachhase") in Central Europe's hard times during and between World War I and World War II.


title: Cat meat

text: Indigenous Australians in the area of Alice Springs roast feral cats on an open fire. They have also developed recipes for cat stew. Some other inhabitants of the area have also taken up this custom, justified on the grounds that felines are "a serious threat to Australia's native fauna". Scientists warned that eating wild cats could expose humans to harmful bacteria and toxins.


title: Cat meat

text: In two 1996 TV reports from different networks, Telefe Noticias and Todo Noticias, some citizens in a shanty town in Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina, stated that, during an economic crisis, they had to feed the neighborhood children with cat's meat, and commenting, "It's not denigrating to eat cat, it keeps a child's stomach full".


title: Cat meat

text: Although, the validity of these reports has been questioned in a book by journalists Gabriel Russo and Edgardo Miller these authors didn't produce any evidence nor taped confession of someone stating that was responsible for the forgery. Moreover it's been reported that the then Mayor of Rosario was the source of the rumor that the TV networks enacted a play just to discredit the city's municipal government. In 2013 Josefa Villalba a former municipal council member in 1996 stated that previously to the TV reports she denounced to the local municipal government the fact that children were being fed with cats but the municipal government heads tried to silence her. Contemporary reporting by the journalist Ricardo Luque of La Nación, a newspaper of record of Argentina, reproduced a quote from an inhabitant of the shanty town "When the kids come to ask for something to eat, there's no point in giving them anything, so we go out and hunt cats, anything to fed them".


title: Cat meat

text: Cat is not a regular menu item in Peru, but is used in such dishes as fricassee and stews most abundant in two specific sites in the country: the southern town of Chincha Alta (Ica Region, Afro-Peruvian mostly) and the north-central Andean town of Huari (Ancash Region). Primarily used by Afro-Peruvians. Cat cooking techniques are demonstrated every September during the festival of Saint Efigenia in a town of La Quebrada.


title: Cat meat

text: In October 2013, a judge banned the annual El Festival Gastronomico del Gato (the Gastronomic Festival of the Cat), which was held every September in La Quebrada to commemorate the arrival of settlers who were forced to eat cats to survive, citing it as cruel to the 100+ cats specifically bred for the event, which involves being kept in cages for a year prior the Festival. The judge also cited concerns over the safety of the meat, which drew criticism from residents who contend that cat meat is far richer than rabbit or duck, and that it has been long consumed globally without any deleterious effects.


title: Cat meat

text: That same month, magistrate Maria Luyo banned the festival of Curruñao in the small town of San Luis. Locals say that the festival, which sees cats being drowned, skinned and tied to fireworks and blown up, dates back to the practice of eating cat on the part of African slaves who worked on sugar-cane plantations in colonial times, and is part of the religious celebrations of Santa Efigenia, an African-Peruvian folk saint. Luyo stated in her ruling that the festival "fomented violence based on cruel acts against animals which caused grave social damage and damaged public health", and that minors could be "psychologically damaged" by watching the events.


title: Cat meat

text: In December 2018, the Dog and Cat Meat Trade Prohibition Act of 2018 was signed into federal law making the consumption of cat meat illegal and punishable by a fine of $5,000, except as part of Native American religious ceremonies. Previous to that bill, consuming cat meat was legal in 44 states.


title: Cat meat

text: Jewish Kashrut laws forbid consuming cat meat as it is a predator. As well as not being a predator, a mammal must both chew cud and have cloven hooves in order to be considered kosher.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: The Spirit is a 2008 American neo-noir superhero film written and directed by Frank Miller and starring Gabriel Macht, Eva Mendes, Sarah Paulson, Dan Lauria, Paz Vega, Scarlett Johansson, and Samuel L. Jackson. Based on the newspaper comic strip "The Spirit", by Will Eisner, and produced by OddLot and Lionsgate Films, it tells the story of a ghost-like superhero who defends Central City from the Octopus who competes with the superhero's childhood friend Sand Saref for the Blood of Heracles in order to become immortal.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: The film was released theatrically in the United States on December 25, 2008 to negative reviews and was a commercial failure. It was later released on DVD and Blu-ray on April 14, 2009.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Denny Colt (Gabriel Macht), also known as "the Spirit", learns about a major case from Detective Sussman (Dan Gerrity) involving his nemesis "the Octopus" (Samuel L. Jackson). The Spirit dons his costume and travels across rooftops, saving a woman before connecting with Officer Liebowitz (Frank Miller). At the swampland, femme fatale Sand Saref (Eva Mendes) rises from the water to shoot Sussman. The Spirit and Liebowitz find the wounded Sussman. Sand and her husband Mahmoud (Eric Balfour) had earlier fled with chests they recovered from the water. Shot at, Sand escaped, leaving one chest behind which was retrieved by Octopus. The Octopus beheads Liebowitz and his cloned henchmen (Louis Lombardi) attack the Spirit. His accomplice Silken Floss (Scarlett Johansson) flees with the chest as the two arch-nemeses fight.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: The next morning, the Spirit is awakened by his lover Dr. Ellen Dolan (Sarah Paulson), daughter of Commissioner Eustace Dolan (Dan Lauria). He is undeterred by his gunshot wounds. He notices a gold locket in Sussman's hand, which had been torn from Sand Saref's neck. The locket contains pictures of a much-younger Colt and Sand, and had been his gift to her. Sand had become disenchanted with the city's corruption following the death of her father, a police officer, and left for fifteen years. In a secret lair, the Octopus and Silken Floss discover their chest contains the Golden Fleece, not the Blood of Heracles, as expected. Sand and Mahmoud visit an underworld figure who sold them the location of the treasure, and it is implied he gave the location to the Octopus.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Having fully regenerated, Commissioner Dolan calls The Spirit away to a case and relates Sand's history as one of the world's great jewel thieves. While arresting her, he reveals he knows she is looking for the Golden Fleece, and she shoves him through a window, which he survives. The Spirit receives a tip on the location of the Octopus's lair, but is captured while investigating. The Octopus reveals that his and Floss's experimentation led to the creation of an immortality serum. The Octopus first tested it on Colt's dead body. Colt was revived and earned the ire of Death for escaping her clutches. Eventually, the Octopus injected himself with the serum, but he needs the blood of the demigod Heracles to perfect the formula. The Spirit escapes by seducing assassin Plaster of Paris (Paz Vega), who as a parting gift turns on The Octopus. When the Spirit mentions Sand's name, she stabs him out of spite.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: After recovering, the Spirit stumbles to the city docks and collapses into the water where Lorelei: Angel of Death (Jaime King) confronts him. He initially submits, but changes his mind after remembering the women he has known. As he swims to the surface, she vows to have him. At the projects, Sand, Floss, and their henchmen meet to exchange the Blood of Heracles for the Golden Fleece. Sand attempts to convince Floss to leave the Octopus before he kills her. Floss gains the upper hand and the Octopus asks Floss for the vase of blood. As the Spirit suddenly materializes, Floss drives off, unable to take a side.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: The Octopus shoots a series of progressively larger guns at the Spirit, apparently killing him, but Dolan's SWAT team storms the area and opens fire. The Octopus is maimed. As he desperately tries to drink the Blood of Heracles, Sand shoots the vase. The Spirit rises, shown to be wearing a bullet-proof vest and blows up the Octopus with a grenade while Sand uses the Golden Fleece to protect them from the explosion.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: The Spirit gives Sand her locket back. They kiss as Ellen looks on, feeling betrayed. The old flames bid each other goodbye and the Spirit convinces Dolan to release Sand in gratitude for helping to save the world. Nearby, Floss discovers one of the Octopus's severed fingers crawling towards her. She picks it up and departs with two of the clones. Meanwhile, the Spirit and Ellen make amends and embrace.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Frank Miller and DC Comics president Paul Levitz also have cameo roles in the film where Miller portrays Officer Liebowitz while Levitz portrays Onlooker #3.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Miller required auditions for the starring role, and Macht was able to attain the role in August 2007. The actress Eva Mendes told director Frank Miller that she wanted to work with him on "The Spirit" before she had even seen a script for the film.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Jackson was Miller's first choice for the role of the supervillain and was cast in May 2007. Jackson, Miller, and the costume designer developed elaborate costumes for the Octopus to wear; they are different for each of his scenes. They include a samurai robe complete with a wig, a full Nazi "Schutzstaffel" uniform, a Western duster-influenced outfit with an out-of-proportion cowboy hat, and a costume consisting of a karakul hat and a fur-lined coat influenced by 1970s blaxploitation pimps. When asked about the change from the Octopus being recognized in the comics by distinctive gloves, Jackson said, "It's just an opportunity to be larger than life to take the Octopus's theme of dressing the way he feels every day, or having a theme to his day to day life and making some sense with it. And hopefully, the audience will take the ride with us."


title: The Spirit (film)

text: In the 1970s, director William Friedkin obtained the film rights to "The Spirit" and contacted Will Eisner to write a script for him. Eisner declined but recommended Harlan Ellison, who wrote a two-hour live-action script for the filmmaker. Friedkin and Ellison afterward had an unrelated argument, and the project was abandoned. During the 1980s, Brad Bird, Jerry Rees, and producer Gary Kurtz attempted to get an animated adaptation off the ground, though studio executives praised the screenplay, they thought the film would be unmarketable, and this version was scrapped.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: In the early 1990s, producer Michael Uslan and executive producers Benjamin Melniker and Steven Maier subsequently obtained the rights for a live-action film adaptation. The producer promised Eisner that he would not permit anyone who "didn't get it" to work on the project. Two ideas pitched to Uslan were to put the Spirit in a costume and to have the Spirit be a resurrected dead man who possessed supernatural powers. Screenwriter John Turman, a comic book fan, expressed interest in writing the script.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: In July 2004, financier OddLot Entertainment acquired the rights to the film. OddLot's producers Gigi Pritzker and Deborah Del Prete began a collaboration with Uslan, Melniker, and Maier working at Batfilm Productions, to adapt the story. Eisner, who was protective of the rights to his creations, said that he believed in the producers to faithfully adapt "The Spirit". In April 2005, comic-book writer Jeph Loeb was hired to adapt "The Spirit" for the big screen, but the writer eventually left the project. Later in April, Uslan approached Frank Miller at Will Eisner's memorial service in New York City several weeks after Miller's "Sin City" was released in theaters, interested in initiating the adaptation technique with Miller's film for "The Spirit". Miller had initially hesitated, doubting his skill in adapting "The Spirit", but ultimately embraced his first solo project as writer-director. Miller described his decision-making:


title: The Spirit (film)

text: In July 2006, the film trade press reported Miller would write and direct the film adaptation for "The Spirit" ; Miller and the producers publicly announced this at the 2006 Comic-Con International in San Diego, California. Miller said that he was putting together a film treatment that included large parts of "The Spirit" strip panels. As Miller described the project, "I intend to be extremely faithful to the heart and soul of the material, but it won't be nostalgic. It will be much scarier than people expect". Miller filmed "The Spirit" using the same digital background technology that was used for "Sin City" and "300". The film would also copy specific shots from the comic, similar to "Sin City".


title: The Spirit (film)

text: In February 2007, Miller completed the first draft of the screenplay and began work on a second draft. Principal photography was initially slated to begin in late spring 2007. Miller also planned to begin filming "" in spring 2009, and Uslan indicated that filming for "The Spirit" would begin before Miller started "Sin City 2". Following the casting of Gabriel Macht as the Spirit in August 2007, filming was re-slated for the following October.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Filming began in October 2007. Filming took place in Albuquerque Studios in New Mexico. "The Spirit" was shot using Panavision's Genesis digital camera. The film's release was originally scheduled for January 16, 2009, but on May 6, 2008, it was announced that the release date would be moved up to December 25, 2008.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: The film contains a number of references to Eisner collaborators and other comic book luminaries. These include "Feiffer Industrial Salt", alluding to "The Spirit" ghost writer Jules Feiffer; "Iger Avenue", named for Eisner & Iger partner S.M. "Jerry" Iger; "Ditko's Speedy Delivery", named for Steve Ditko, a comic book artist and writer; and the characters Donenfeld and Liebowitz, played by Richard Portnow and Frank Miller, respectively, who are named for two of DC Comics' founders, Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Producer Deborah Del Prete said that Miller wanted "elements of the '40s jazz sound married with iconic heroic music and even a touch of the spaghetti western." "The Spirit"s mysterious Henry Mancini-like soundtrack was composed and conducted by David Newman.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: There is an eerie, wordless soprano for Lorelei (Jaime King) that is performed by Newman's 19-year-old daughter Diana, a vocal major at the University of Southern California.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Christina Aguilera sings a cover of the classic "Falling in Love Again" in the closing credits of "The Spirit". The song dates to 1930, written by Frederick Hollander, with lyrics written by Sammy Lerner. The song was originally sung and popularized by Marlene Dietrich in the film "The Blue Angel" (1930) and has been covered by Billie Holiday (1940), Doris Day (1961), and Sammy Davis Jr. (1962).


title: The Spirit (film)

text: At the New York Comic Con on February 24, 2007, director-screenwriter Frank Miller and producer Michael Uslan were scheduled to present a panel for "The Spirit", though Miller was unable to attend due to recuperation from hip and leg injuries. Instead, Uslan, fellow producer F.J. DeSanto, and former "The Spirit" publisher Denis Kitchen presented a panel at which they described the history of the film and the film's progress.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Titan Books produced a making-of book, "The Spirit: The Movie Visual Companion" by Mark Cotta Vaz, featuring interviews with the cast and crew, photos, storyboards, and production art. It was released November 25, 2008. A second book, "Frank Miller: The Spirit Storyboards", was announced for release on May 6, 2009, but was never released.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: The film was rated PG-13 by the MPAA for "intense sequences of stylized violence and action, some sexual content, and brief nudity".


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Released in 2,509 theaters, "The Spirit" grossed $10.3 million in its opening four days, placing 9th in the box-office ranking for the weekend. The film grossed $19.8 million in the US and $18.6 million internationally for a worldwide total of $38.4 million. "Variety" estimated that the film's poor performance at the box office cost Odd Lot Entertainment tens of millions of dollars in losses, but Odd Lot Entertainment's CEO Gigi Pritzker denied rumors that Miller's other projects had been cancelled.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critical consensus reads, "Though its visuals are unique, "The Spirit's" plot is almost incomprehensible, the dialogue is ludicrously mannered, and the characters are unmemorable." Metacritic gave it an aggregate score of 30 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally negative reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C−" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film one out of four stars and said, "There is not a trace of human emotion in it. To call the characters cardboard is to insult a useful packing material".


title: The Spirit (film)

text: In a positive review, Ricky Bentley of the "Miami Herald" said, "Macht manages to meld macho with melodrama to make the Spirit come to life."


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Frank Lovece of "Newsday", a one-time comic-book writer, found that "gorgeous cinematography and design can't mask the hollow core and bizarre ugliness of this mishandled comics adaptation", and noted that while Eisner's own Spirit was "an average-Joe [...] in a rumpled suit—a vulnerable but insouciant everyman in humanist fables", Miller's Spirit "now has a superpower—a healing factor. Eisner's own spirit must be spinning in its grave".


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Chris Barsanti of "Filmcritic.com" stated, "It's a frankly gorgeous effect, liberated by the fact that Miller adapted freely from Eisner's panels—the two were longtime friends—to create an organic story instead of slavishly following the master's work", and calling it "one of the year's most refreshingly fun films."


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Owen Gleiberman of "Entertainment Weekly", found the movie a "ludicrously knowing and mannered noir pastiche, full of burnt-end romance and 'style', but robotic at its core".


title: The Spirit (film)

text: Ken Hanke of "Mountain Xpress" observed, "The film may not move smoothly—Miller's too fond of 'just damn weird' digressions for that—but it does move and isn't hard to follow. Its screwiness is deliberate and it's all a matter of taste."


title: The Spirit (film)

text: A. O. Scott in "The New York Times" summed up, "To ask why anything happens in Frank Miller's sludgy, hyper-stylized adaptation of a fabled comic book series by Will Eisner may be an exercise in futility. The only halfway interesting question is why the thing exists at all."


title: Dreidel

text: A dreidel, also dreidle or dreidl ( ; , plural: "dreydlech"; ) is a four-sided spinning top, played during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. The dreidel is a Jewish variant on the teetotum, a gambling toy found in many European cultures.


title: Dreidel

text: These letters are represented in Yiddish as a mnemonic for the rules of a gambling game derived from teetotum played with a dreidel: "nun" stands for the word ("nisht", "not", meaning "nothing"), "gimel" for ("gants", "entire, whole"), "hei" for ("halb", "half"), and "shin" for ("shtel arayn", "put in"). However, according to folk etymology, they represent the Hebrew phrase ("nes gadól hayá sham", "a great miracle happened there"), referring to the miracle of the cruse of oil. For this reason, most dreidels in Israel replace the letter "shin" with a letter


title: Dreidel

text: to represent the phrase ("nes gadól hayá po", "a great miracle happened "here""); however, many Haredi communities insist that the letter "shin" should be used in the Holy Land as well, because the reference to "there" means in the Holy Temple and not in the Land.


title: Dreidel

text: While not mandated (a mitzvah) for Hanukkah (the only traditional " are lighting candles and saying the full hallel), spinning the dreidel is a traditional game played during the holiday.


title: Dreidel

text: Astronaut Jeffrey A. Hoffman spun a dreidel made by Israeli silversmith Gideon Hay for an hour in outer space.


title: Dreidel

text: The dreidel developed from an Irish or English top introduced into Germany known as a ", which was popular around Christmas time and dates back to ancient Greek and Roman times.


title: Dreidel

text: The teetotum was inscribed with letters denoting the Latin words for "nothing", "everything", "half", and "put in". In German this came to be called a "", with German letters for the same concepts. Adapted to the Hebrew alphabet when Jews adopted the game, these letters were replaced by "nun" which stands for the Yiddish word ("nisht", "not", meaning "nothing"), "gimel" for ("gants", "entire, whole"), "hei" for ("halb", "half"), and "shin" for ("shtel arayn", "put in"). The letters served as a means to recalling the rules of the game.


title: Dreidel

text: This theory states that when the game spread to Jewish communities unfamiliar with Yiddish, the denotations of the Hebrew letters were not understood. As a result, there arose Jewish traditions to explain their assumed meaning. However, in Judaism there are often multiple explanations developed for words. A popular conjecture had it that the letters abbreviated the words ("nes gadól hayá sham", "a great miracle happened there"), an idea that became attached to dreidels when the game entered into Hanukkah festivities.


title: Dreidel

text: According to a tradition first documented in 1890, the game was developed by Jews who illegally studied the Torah in seclusion as they hid, sometimes in caves, from the Seleucids under Antiochus IV. At the first sign of Seleucids approaching, their Torah scrolls would be concealed and be replaced by dreidels. The variant names ' (destiny) and ' (a little throw) were also current in Yiddish until the Holocaust. In the wake of Zionism, the dreidel was renamed "" in modern Israel and the letters were altered, with "shin" generally replaced by "pe". This yields the reading ("nes gadól hayá po", "a great miracle happened "here"").


title: Dreidel

text: The Yiddish word ' comes from the word ' ("to turn", compare to ', meaning the same in German). The Hebrew word ' comes from the Semitic root ("to turn") and was invented by Itamar Ben-Avi (the son of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda) when he was five years old. Hayyim Nahman Bialik used a different word, "kirkar" (from the root  – "to spin"), in his poems, but it was not adopted into spoken Hebrew.


title: Dreidel

text: In the lexicon of Ashkenazi Jews from Udmurtia and Tatarstan the local historian A. V. Altyntsev utilised several other appellations of a dreidel, such as "volchok", "khanuke-volchok", "fargl", "varfl", "dzihe" and "zabavke".


title: Dreidel

text: Some rabbis ascribe symbolic significance to the markings on the dreidel. One commentary, for example, connects the four letters with the four nations to which the House of Judah was historically subject—Babylonia, Persia, the Seleucid Empire and Rome. A gematria reading yields the number 358, identical to the value of the four letters used to spell "Moshiach" ("Messiah").


title: Dreidel

text: Each player begins with an equal number of game pieces (usually 10–15). The game pieces can be any object, such as chocolate gelt, pennies, raisins, etc.


title: Dreidel

text: These rules are comparable to the rules for a classic four-sided teetotum, where the letters A, D, N and T form a mnemonic for the rules of the game, ' (take), ' (put), ' (nothing), and ' (all). Similarly, the Hebrew letters on a dreidel may be taken as a mnemonic for the game rules in Yiddish. Occasionally, in the United States, the Hebrew letters on the dreidel form an English-language mnemonic about the rules: "hei" or "H" for "half"; "gimel" or "G" for "get all"; "nun" or "N" for "nothing"; and "shin" or "S" for "share".


title: Dreidel

text: Thomas Robinson and Sujith Vijay have shown that the expected number of spins in a game of dreidel is O(n), where n is the number of game pieces each player begins with. The implied constant depends on the number of players.


title: Dreidel

text: Robert Feinerman has shown that the game of dreidel is unfair, in that the first player to spin has a better expected outcome than the second player, and the second better than the third, and so on.


title: Dreidel

text: Childhood enjoyment of dreidels has led to a growing interest in collecting them in adulthood. Jewish institutions such as the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, Yeshiva University Museum and Temple Emanu-El in New York, house dreidel collections, as do museums such as the Spinning Top and Yo-Yo Museum in Burlington, Wisconsin.


title: Dreidel

text: Antique dreidels are of increasing value and interest: different styles of dreidels are to be found across the world. Exemplars include dreidels fashioned in wood, silver, brass and lead. One particularly rare dreidel is cast from an ivory original by Moshe Murro from the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem in 1929. Rare collectible dreidels from Cochin are made from iron; they are black in colour decorated with silver markings, made by an intricate Bidriware style process.


title: Dreidel

text: The Guinness World Record for Most Valuable Dreidel was achieved by Estate Diamond Jewelry in November 2019 and was valued at $70,000. The design of Estate Diamond Jewelry's dreidel was inspired by the Chrysler Building in New York. Previous holders of the title were Chabad of South Palm Beach with a dreidel valued at $14,000.


title: Dreidel

text: Dreidel is now a spoof competitive sport in North America. Major League Dreidel (MLD), founded in New York City in 2007, hosts dreidel tournaments during the holiday of Hanukkah. In MLD tournaments the player with the longest time of spin (TOS) is the winner. MLD is played on a Spinagogue, the official spinning stadium of Major League Dreidel. Pamskee was the 2007 MLD Champion. Virtual Dreidel was the 2008 MLD Champion. In 2009, Major League Dreidel launched a game version of the Spinagogue.


title: Dreidel

text: In 2009, "Good Morning America" published a story on Dreidel Renaissance reporting on the rising popularity of the dreidel. Dreidel games that have come out on the market since 2007 include No Limit Texas Dreidel, a cross between traditional dreidel and Texas Hold'em poker, invented by a Judaica company called ModernTribe. Other new dreidel games include Staccabees and Maccabees.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (), also called Pine Ridge Agency, is an Oglala Lakota Indian reservation located entirely within the U.S. state of South Dakota. Originally included within the territory of the Great Sioux Reservation, Pine Ridge was created by the Act of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 888. in the southwest corner of South Dakota on the Nebraska border. Today it consists of of land area and is one of the largest reservations in the United States.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The reservation encompasses the entirety of Oglala Lakota County and Bennett County, the southern half of Jackson County, and a small section of Sheridan County added by Executive Order No. 2980 of February 20, 1904. Of the 3,142 counties in the United States, these are among the poorest. Only of land are suitable for agriculture. The 2000 census population of the reservation was 15,521; but a study conducted by Colorado State University and accepted by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development has estimated the resident population to reach 28,787.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Pine Ridge is the site of several events that mark milestones in the history between the Sioux of the area and the United States (U.S.) government. Stronghold Table—a mesa in what is today the Oglala-administered portion of Badlands National Park—was the location of the last of the Ghost Dances. The U.S. authorities' attempt to repress this movement eventually led to the Wounded Knee Massacre on December 29, 1890. A mixed band of Miniconjou Lakota and Hunkpapa Sioux, led by Chief Spotted Elk, sought sanctuary at Pine Ridge after fleeing the Standing Rock Agency, where Sitting Bull had been killed during efforts to arrest him. The families were intercepted by a heavily armed detachment of the Seventh Cavalry, which attacked them, killing many women and children as well as warriors. This was the last large engagement between U.S. forces and Native Americans and marked the end of the western frontier.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Changes accumulated in the last quarter of the 20th century; in 1971 the Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) started Oglala Lakota College, a tribal college, which offers 4-year degrees. In 1973 decades of discontent at the Pine Ridge Reservation resulted in a grassroots protest that escalated into the Wounded Knee Incident, gaining national attention. Members of the Oglala Lakota, the American Indian Movement and supporters occupied the town in defiance of federal and state law enforcement in a protest that turned into an armed standoff lasting 71 days. This event inspired American Indians across the country and gradually led to changes at the reservation, with a revival of some cultural traditions. In 1981 the Lakota Tim Giago started the "Lakota Times" at Pine Ridge; he published it until selling it in 1998.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Located at the southern end of the Badlands, the reservation is part of the mixed grass prairie, an ecological transition zone between the short-grass and tall-grass prairies; all are part of the Great Plains. A great variety of plant and animal life flourishes on and adjacent to the reservation, including the endangered black-footed ferret. The area is also important in the field of paleontology; it contains deposits of Pierre Shale formed on the seafloor of the Western Interior Seaway, evidence of the marine Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, and one of the largest deposits of fossils of extinct mammals from the Oligocene epoch.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: As stipulated in the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), the U.S. government built Indian agencies for the various Lakota and other Plains tribes. These were forerunners to the modern Indian reservations. The Red Cloud Agency was established for the Oglala Lakota in 1871 on the North Platte River in Wyoming Territory. The location was one mile (1.6 km) west of the present town of Henry, Nebraska. The location of the Red Cloud Agency was moved to two other locations before being settled at the present Pine Ridge location. Pine Ridge Reservation was originally part of the Great Sioux Reservation established by the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868); it encompassed approximately 60 million contiguous acres () of western South Dakota (all of what is now called West River), northern Nebraska and eastern Wyoming.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In 1874 George Armstrong Custer led the U.S. Army Black Hills Expedition, which set out on July 2 from Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory, with orders to travel to the previously uncharted Black Hills of South Dakota. Its mission was to look for suitable locations for a fort, find a route to the southwest, and to investigate the potential for gold mining. After the discovery of gold was made public, miners began invading Sioux Territory.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: "Custer's florid descriptions of the mineral and timber resources of the Black Hills, and the land's suitability for grazing and cultivation ... received wide circulation, and had the effect of creating an intense popular demand for more settlers to invade the Black Hills." Initially the U.S. military tried to turn away trespassing miners and settlers. Eventually President Grant, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Secretary of War, "decided that the military should make no further resistance to the occupation of the Black Hills by miners." These orders were to be enforced "quietly", and the President's decision was to remain "confidential".


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: As more settlers and gold miners encroached upon the Black Hills, the Government determined it had to acquire the land from the Sioux, and appointed a commission to negotiate the purchase. The negotiations failed, as the Sioux resisted giving up what they considered sacred land. The U.S. resorted to military force. They declared the Sioux Indians "hostile" for failing to obey an order to return from an off-reservation hunting expedition by a specific date. In the dead of winter, the Sioux found the overland travel was impossible.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The consequent military expedition to remove the Sioux from the Black Hills included an attack on a major encampment of several bands on the Little Bighorn River. Led by General Custer, the attack ended in his defeat; it was an overwhelming victory of chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse over the 7th Cavalry Regiment, a conflict often called Custer's Last Stand. US forces were vastly outnumbered.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In 1876 the U.S. Congress decided to open up the Black Hills to development and break up the Great Sioux Reservation. In 1877, it passed an act to make 7.7 million acres (31,000 km) of the Black Hills available for sale to homesteaders and private interests. In 1889 Congress divided the remaining area of Great Sioux Reservation into five separate reservations, defining the boundaries of each in its Act of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 888. Pine Ridge was established at that time.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek (Lakota: "Cankpe Opi Wakpala"). On the day before, a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment commanded by Major Samuel M. Whitside intercepted Spotted Elk's (Big Foot) band of Miniconjou Lakota and 38 Hunkpapa Lakota near Porcupine Butte and escorted them westward to Wounded Knee Creek where they made camp. The rest of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, led by Colonel James Forsyth, surrounded the encampment, supported by four Hotchkiss guns.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: On the morning of December 29, 1890, the troops went into the camp to disarm the Lakota. One version of events claims that during the process, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote was reluctant to give up his rifle, saying he had paid a lot for it. A scuffle over Black Coyote's rifle escalated and a shot was fired, which resulted in the 7th Cavalry opening firing indiscriminately from all sides, killing men, women, and children, as well as some of their fellow troopers. Those few Lakota warriors who still had weapons began shooting back at the troopers, who quickly suppressed the Lakota fire. The surviving Lakota fled, but U.S. cavalrymen pursued and killed many who were unarmed.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In the end, U.S. forces killed at least 150 men, women, and children of the Lakota Sioux and wounded 51 (four men, and 47 women and children, some of whom died later); some estimates placed the number of dead at 300. Twenty-five troopers also died, and thirty-nine were wounded (six of the wounded would also die). Many Army deaths were believed to have been caused by friendly fire, as the shooting took place at close range in chaotic conditions.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The site has been designated a National Historic Landmark and is administered by the National Park Service.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In 1882, at the urging of Valentine McGillycuddy—the US Indian Agent at the Pine President Agency—President Chester A. Arthur issued an executive order establishing the White Clay Extension, an area of land in Nebraska extending south of the reservation's border and wide approximately perpendicular to the road leading north into the town of Pine Ridge on the reservation. This road is today's Nebraska Highway 87. McGillycuddy lobbied for the buffer zone to prevent white peddlers from engaging in the illegal sale of "knives, guns, and alcohol" to the Oglala Lakota residents of Pine Ridge.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: A law passed in Congress in 1832 banned the sale of alcohol to Native Americans. The ban was ended in 1953 by Public Law 277, signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The amended law gave Native American tribes the option of permitting or banning alcohol sales and consumption on their lands. The OST and many other tribes chose to exclude alcohol from their reservations because of the problems for their people.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In 1887, when Congress enacted the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887—breaking up the reservations and allotting a plot to the registered head of each family—the Whiteclay Extension was specifically exempted. On March 2, 1889, the U.S. Congress enacted the "Great Sioux Agreement of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 888," breaking up the Great Sioux Reservation and setting boundaries for the six reduced reservations. In this act, the White Clay Extension was incorporated again within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Agency. "Provided, That the said tract of land in the State of Nebraska shall be reserved, by Executive order, only so long as it may be needed for the use and protection of the Indians receiving rations and annuities at the Pine Ridge Agency."


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: On January 25, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt signed an executive order returning the of the White Clay Extension to the public domain. The town of Whiteclay in Sheridan County, Nebraska, just over the border from the reservation, was founded in the former "Extension" zone. Merchants quickly started selling alcohol to the Oglala Sioux.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: On February 20, 1904, Roosevelt amended the executive order to return back to Pine Ridge: "the section of land embracing the Pine Ridge Boarding School irrigation ditch and the school pasture".


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In 1975 in "Cook v. Parkinson" 525 F.2d 120 (8th Cir. 1975) ruled that Bennett County was not considered part of the Pine Ridge Reservation. However, "the United States participated only as amicus before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in "Cook v. Parkinson", 525 F.2d 120 (8th Cir. 1975) and is not bound by that decision because it did not participate in the litigation. The United States was a party in "United States v. Bennett County", 394 F.2d 8 (8th Cir. 1968), in which the State of South Dakota had to obtain permission from the Department of Interior in order to fix roads or condemn property in Bennett County, consistent with the property's reservation status as well as "Putnam v. United States" 248 F.2d 292 (8th Cir. 1957) which ruled that "Bennett County is within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation created by the Act of Congress of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 888." The Federal Government recognizes Bennett County as being entirely within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. More recently in 2004, in State of South Dakota v. Acting Great Plains Regional Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs Docket Number IBIA3-24-A the State of South Dakota argued against an Oglala Sioux Tribal member's application to the BIA to return a 10-acre tract of land in Bennett County into Federal Trust arguing it was outside of the Boundary of the Pine Ridge Reservation. The judge ruled in favor of the applicant and Bureau of Indian Affairs' affirmant that Bennett County is indeed within the boundaries of the Reservation.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: During the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration made changes in federal policy to improve conditions for American Indians. In response to complaints about corruption and injustices in the BIA management of reservations, Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, permitting tribal nations to reorganize with self-government. It encouraged them to adopt a model of elected representative governments and elected tribal chairmen or presidents, with written constitutions. While tribes welcomed taking back more control of their government, this change eroded the power and structure of the traditional hereditary leaders of the clan system.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The Oglala Sioux Tribe developed a tribal government along democratic constitutional lines, with a chairman to be elected for a two-year term. This short term makes it difficult for leaders to accomplish longer-term projects, but the tribe has not changed its constitution. The BIA still has had the ability to oversee some tribal operations, including the police. Historically BIA tribal police were often assigned from other Indian tribes rather than representing local people and understanding their culture, which created tensions. Many traditionalists among the Oglala Lakota never supported the new style of government; tribal elders were still respected, and there were multiple lines of authority and influence among different groups on the reservation. Political factions also formed between those who were mixed-bloods or had urban experiences, and those who were full-bloods and tended to be more traditional in practices and culture.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The people continued to be under assimilation pressure: through the early part of the century, many children were sent away to Indian boarding schools where they were usually required to speak English and were prohibited from speaking Lakota; they were usually expected to practice Christianity rather than native religions. In the late 20th century, many of these institutions were found to have had staff who abused the children in their care.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In 1942 the federal government took privately held Pine Ridge Indian Reservation land owned by tribal members in order to establish the Badlands Bombing Range of (the largest portion is located in Oglala Lakota County). It also leased communally held Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) land for this defense installation.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Among the 125 families evicted was that of Pat Cuny, an Oglala Sioux. He fought in World War II in the Battle of the Bulge after surviving torpedoing of his transport in the English Channel. Dewey Beard, a Miniconjou Sioux survivor of the Wounded Knee Massacre, who supported himself by raising horses on his allotment received in 1907 was also evicted. The small federal payments were insufficient to enable such persons to buy new properties. In 1955 the 97-year-old Beard testified of earlier mistreatment at Congressional hearings about this project. He said, for "fifty years I have been kicked around. Today there is a hard winter coming. ... I might starve to death."


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Since 1960, the U.S. has returned portions of the bombing range to the OST. The 1968 Public Law 90-468 returned to the OST and set aside former tribal lands as the Badlands National Monument (the smaller Air Force Retained Area is within the boundaries of the reservation.)


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: A 2008 USAF & OST agreement initiated "a three-month $1.6 million project to remove unexploded ordnance" from the bombing range.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In the early 1970s, tribal tensions rose and some members turned to the American Indian Movement (AIM) for help. Longstanding divisions on the reservation resulted from deep-seated political, ethnic and cultural differences. Many residents did not support the elected tribal government. Many residents were upset about what they described as the autocratic and repressive actions by the tribal president Dick Wilson, elected in 1972.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: On February 21, the tribal council was called into session to consider impeaching Wilson. Five hundred Oglala members were in attendance. He was criticized for favoring family and friends with jobs and benefits, not consulting with the tribal council, and creating a private militia, known as the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs), to suppress political opponents. He used tribal funds to pay for this force. Wilson's response was to screen a right wing propaganda film. After a series of meetings held in the Calico community near the Pine Ridge Agency, the old traditional chiefs and the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO) called down to AIM in Rapid City and asked them to come to Pine Ridge. A meeting was arranged between Wilson and Russell Means. Five of Wilson's supporters cornered Means in the parking lot. Means escaped. Women elders such as Ellen Moves Camp, founder of the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO), called for action. They organized a public protest for the next day.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: About 200 AIM and Oglala Lakota activists occupied the hamlet of Wounded Knee on February 27, 1973. They demanded the removal of Wilson, restoration of treaty negotiations with the U.S. government, and correction of U.S. failures to enforce treaty rights. Visits by the U.S. senators from South Dakota, FBI agents and United States Department of Justice (DOJ) representatives, were attended by widespread media coverage, but the Richard Nixon administration was preoccupied internally with Watergate.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: As the events evolved, the activists at Wounded Knee had a 71-day armed stand-off with U.S. law enforcement. AIM leaders at the site were Russell Means, Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, and Carter Camp; traditional spiritual leaders of the Lakota, such as Frank Fools Crow, were also prominent. Fools Crow led Oglala Lakota spiritual ceremonies and practice in their ways for participants. Joseph H. Trimbach of the FBI and Steve Frizell of DOJ led the government.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Casualties of gunfire included a U.S. Marshal, who was seriously wounded and paralyzed; and the deaths of Frank Clearwater, a Cherokee from North Carolina, and Buddy Lamont, a local Oglala Lakota. After Lamont's death, the Oglala Lakota elders called an end to the occupation. Some Lakota have alleged that Ray Robinson, a civil rights activist, was killed during the Wounded Knee occupation, as he disappeared there.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The stand-off ended, but Wilson remained in office. The U.S. government said it could not remove an elected tribal official as the Oglala Sioux Tribe had sovereignty.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Ensuing open conflict between factions caused numerous deaths. The murder rate between March 1, 1973, and March 1, 1976, was 170 per 100,000; it was the highest in the country. More than 60 opponents of the tribal government allegedly died violent deaths in the three years following the Wounded Knee Incident, a period called the "Reign of Terror" by many residents. Among those killed was Pedro Bissonette, executive director of the civil rights organization OSCRO. Residents accused officials of failing to try to solve the deaths. In 2000, the FBI released a report regarding the 57 alleged unsolved violent deaths on pine ridge reservation and accounted for most of the deaths, and disputed the claims of unsolved murders. The report stated that only 4 deaths were unsolved and that some deaths were not murders. AIM representatives criticized the FBI report.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: During this period of increased violence, on June 26, 1975, the reservation was the site of an armed confrontation between AIM activists and the FBI and their allies, which became known as the 'Pine Ridge Shootout'. Two FBI agents, Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams, were killed and executed at close range. The agents had been following a car when they were shot at by its occupants and others. AIM activist Joe Stuntz was later killed by responding police. Stuntz was found wearing Coler's FBI jacket. In two separate trials, the U.S. prosecuted participants in the firefight for the deaths of the agents. AIM members Robert Robideau and Dino Butler were acquitted after asserting that they had acted in self-defense. Leonard Peltier was extradited from Canada and tried separately because of the delay. He was convicted on two counts of first–degree murder for the deaths of the FBI agents and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life in prison.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: On February 24, 1976, the body of Anna Mae Aquash, a Mi'kmaq activist and the most prominent woman in AIM, was found in the far northeast corner of the Pine Ridge Reservation. Missing since December 1975, she had been shot execution-style. At the time, some AIM people said that she was a government informant, but the FBI has denied that. In 1974 AIM had discovered that Douglas Durham, then head of security, was an FBI informant. Three federal grand juries were called to hear testimony on the Aquash murder: in 1976, 1982 and 1994, but it was more than a quarter of a century before any suspects were indicted and tried for the crime. Two AIM members, Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham, were convicted of her murder in 2004 and 2010 respectively, and sentenced to life in prison. Bruce Ellison, Leonard Peltier's lawyer since the 1970s, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and refused to testify at the grand jury hearings on Looking Cloud or at his trial in 2004. At trial, the federal prosecutor referred to Ellison as a co-conspirator in the Aquash case.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Alcoholism among residents has been a continuing problem in the life of the reservation since its founding. Since 1999, activists from the Pine Ridge Reservation, AIM, and Nebraskans for Peace have worked to have beer sales shut down in nearby Whiteclay, Nebraska, a border town. Whiteclay sells millions of cans of beer annually, primarily to residents from the reservation in South Dakota, where alcohol possession and consumption is prohibited. In 2008 the documentary "The Battle for Whiteclay," about the toll of alcoholism and activists' efforts to control beer sales, was released, which has attracted wide attention. The Nebraska legislature allocated funds in late 2010 for increased police patrols in Pine Ridge by the county sheriff's office, based away in Rushville.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: While other tribes and reservations also prohibited alcohol at one time, many have since legalized its sales on their reservations. They use the revenues generated to improve health care and life on the reservation, and they prefer to directly control the regulation of alcohol sales and police its use. A 2007 survey found that 63% of federally recognized tribes in the lower 48 states have legalized liquor sales on their reservations. They include the nearby Sicangu Oyate or Brulé Sioux at the Rosebud Indian Reservation, also located in South Dakota. In 2006, the Omaha Nation in northeastern Nebraska started requiring payment of tribal license fees and sales taxes by liquor stores located in towns within its reservation boundaries in order to benefit in the revenues generated by alcohol sales.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Activists at Pine Ridge have worked to persuade Nebraska to enforce its own laws and support the tribe's prohibition. In 2004 the Oglala Sioux Tribe voted down a referendum to legalize alcohol sales, and in 2006 the tribal council voted to maintain the ban on alcohol sales, rather than taking on the benefits and responsibility directly.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: At a discussion at Bellevue University on April 2, 2010, Lance Morgan, CEO of Ho-Chunk, Inc.—the development corporation of the Winnebago Reservation—said the Oglala Sioux needed to concentrate on economic development. He believes that poverty is at the heart of its people's problems. The Winnebago used revenues from a casino and alcohol sales at their reservation in eastern Nebraska to build an economic development corporation. It now employs 1,400 people in 26 subsidiaries. With its revenues, the Winnebago have been able to build a hospital, a new school and $1 million in new housing. Kevin Abourezk reported that Stew Magnuson—the author of "The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder", a study of issues related to the Pine Ridge reservation and its border towns—described alcohol prohibition at the reservation "as a complete failure." Magnuson said, "Whenever you have prohibition, you're going to have places like Whiteclay." He thought prohibition contributed to bootlegging on the reservation.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: On February 9, 2012, the Oglala Sioux Tribe filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court of Nebraska against the four liquor stores in Whiteclay, Nebraska, as well as the beverage distributors and the brewery companies who make it. The suit, "Oglala Sioux Tribe v. Jason Schwarting, Licensee of Arrowhead Inn, Inc. et al", sought $500 million in damages for the "cost of health care, social services and child rehabilitation caused by chronic alcoholism on the reservation, which encompasses some of the nation's most impoverished counties." The suit claims that the defendants knowingly and willingly sell excessive amounts of alcohol, knowing that most of it is smuggled onto the reservation, in violation of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and Federal law. The defendants listed in the suit are the following:


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: On August 14, 2013, voters voted to end prohibition and legalize alcohol, so the tribe can use the profits for education and detoxification and treatment centers.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In a 2005 interview, Cecilia Fire Thunder, the first female president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, noted, "[Sixty-eight] percent of the college graduates on the reservation are women. Seventy percent of the jobs are held by women. Over 90 percent of the jobs in our schools are held by women."


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The reservation is governed by the eighteen-member Oglala Sioux Tribal Council, who are elected officials rather than traditional clan life leaders, in accordance with the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. The Executive Officers of the council are the President (also called Chairman), Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer. Primary elections are held in October and the General election in November.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The President and Vice-President are elected at large by voters to a term of office of two years; the Secretary and Treasurer are appointed by the Tribal Council. Council members serve a term of two years. There are nine election districts on the reservation. One representative is elected for each 1,000 tribe members.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: A Constitution was approved on January 15, 1936, with amendments approved on December 24, 1969; December 3, 1985; July 11, 1997.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: While many residents have continued to struggle with the tribal government, BIA and other federal representatives, some have become more politically active in other ways. In 2002, the Pine Ridge Reservation was part of a statewide voter registration campaign organized by the Democratic Party. That year, Oglala Lakota candidates won offices in Bennett County; since the 1990s, Native Americans (mostly Lakota) have become a majority of the county's population. Charles Cummings was elected as county sheriff, Gerald 'Jed' Bettelyoun to one of the positions as county commissioner, and Sandy Flye became the first Native American elected to a seat on the county school board. Statewide turnout by Native Americans helped elect the Democratic candidate Tim Johnson to the U.S. Senate by a narrow margin.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In 1992, John Yellow Bird Steele was elected president of the OST, the first of what would become a record-setting seven terms as president. Despite winning seven elections, Steele only won re-election once, in 2002. In most cases, he was defeated when seeking re-election, only to come back and defeat his successor in the next election (or, in the case of the 2006 election, to defeat the person serving out the rest of his successor's term).


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In 2004, Cecilia Fire Thunder became the first woman elected president of the OST, defeating the incumbent Steele and Russell Means. In 2005 she led negotiations with Nebraska to strengthen law enforcement in Whiteclay by hiring more Oglala tribal police and having them deputized by Nebraska to patrol in the town. The town sells massive quantities of alcohol to the Lakota, although it is illegal on the reservation. The "historic agreement" was signed by Fire Thunder following approval by the tribal council, the Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman and State Attorney General Jon Bruning.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: On March 21, 2006, Fire Thunder announced her plan to bring a Planned Parenthood clinic to the reservation to improve health services to women. The South Dakota state legislature had recently passed a stringent abortion law. In May 2006, the Oglala Sioux tribal council unanimously voted to ban all abortions on the reservation, regardless of the circumstances. The council also voted to suspend Fire Thunder for 20 days pending an impeachment hearing. On June 29, 2006, the tribal council voted to impeach Fire Thunder: it said that founding the clinic was outside her authority and she had failed to consult with them. Her two-year term would have expired in October 2006. In November 2006, state voters reviewed the law passed by the state legislature, and they overwhelmingly defeated the ban on abortions without exceptions, by 55.57 percent to 44.43 percent. A ban with exceptions was proposed in 2008, and state voters rejected that by a margin of 55.21 percent to 44.79 percent.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The U.S. Congress supported Fire Thunder's tribal law enforcement initiative, earmarking $200,000 over two years to pay for the increased cost of OST police patrols in Whiteclay. By May 2007, the tribe had spent none of the money. Fire Thunder's impeachment and tribal political conflict appeared to prevent its implementing the agreement. However, during 2006 and 2007, tribal activists tried to blockade the road inside the reservation to confiscate beer being illegally brought in. The OST police chief complained of having insufficient money and staff to control the beer traffic. The tribe lost the earmarked funds and let the initiative lapse.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In November 2008, Theresa Two Bulls, a Democratic State Senator for South Dakota since 2004, became the second woman elected president of the OST. She succeeded Steele and defeated Russell Means. When the reservation had a rash of suicides in late 2009, she declared a state of emergency and organized a call-in to President Barack Obama. She organized services during a blizzard to assist residents in outlying areas on the reservation.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Steele was re-elected in 2010, defeating Two Bulls. Bryan Brewer was elected as Tribal president in November 2012, defeating the incumbent Steele with 52% of the vote. A retired educator and school administrator, he was new to tribal politics. He worked to develop housing and discourage alcoholism, even leading a protest against Whiteclay alcohol sales. The journalist Brian Ecoffey noted that Brewer represented a "new direction" for the tribe, as he had not held political office before. Steele then defeated Brewer in 2014, starting what would be Steele's last term.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Troy "Scott" Weston represented the Porcupine District in the 2010 and 2012 administrations; Weston was elected OST President in 2016 beating Steele, the incumbent, in a landslide victory. The "Rapid City Journal" reported that nearly 2/3 of voters at the polls cast their ballot for Weston.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The Oglala Sioux Tribe maintains legal jurisdiction over all crimes committed on the reservation by tribal members, non-reservation Indians, and those willing to relinquish authority to the tribal courts. Felony crimes and others which have been specifically assumed by the federal government, as defined by various acts of the U.S. Congress, are outside their jurisdiction and are prosecuted by the BIA and FBI. The ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in "Ex parte Crow Dog" (1883) marked the high point of Indian sovereignty in law enforcement on reservations; since then federal legislation and subsequent Supreme Court decisions have reduced Native American sovereignty in this area.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Public Law 280, enacted by Congress in 1953 and substantially amended in 1968, allows for states to assume jurisdiction on Indian reservations if approved by referendum by the affected reservations. In South Dakota, Public Law 280 is applied only to state highways running through reservations.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In traditional Sioux society, law enforcement was performed by members of the warrior societies, such as the Kit Foxes, Badgers and Crow Owners, known as the "akicitas." They maintained order in camp and during communal buffalo hunts. Each band would appoint one society as the official "akicita" group for the year. This custom prevailed for a short time after the Sioux were forced onto the reservations. In 1878 Congress authorized the formation of an Indian police force to provide law enforcement in Indian territory and upon reservations. They were superseded by police assigned and managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The BIA police force is composed of members of various Native American tribes from throughout the United States, and personnel often do not belong to the nations they oversee.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Since the late 1970s, the Oglala Sioux Tribe has received Federal funding to maintain its own reservation police, supplemented by BIA personnel. The FBI has jurisdiction for any felony crimes committed upon the reservation. After the reservation police respond to the initial call, a BIA police person initiates the investigation and notifies the FBI.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The OST is developing a new Tribal Justice Center, to include the tribal courts and a restorative justice courtroom. The latter concept relates to traditional Lakota ideas about restoring the victim and offender to balance within the community. In practice, it is intended to bring together the affected parties in facilitated communication, together with members of the community; to settle on a form of reparation or compensation by the offender that is satisfactory to the victim, which may include money, public apology, and/or community service work; and to bring the offender quickly back within the community with its support for the future. As the process is being used at Kahnawake, a Mohawk reserve in Canada, the First Nation community works to intervene and settle issues before arrest.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Pine Ridge is the eighth-largest reservation in the United States and it is the poorest. The population of Pine Ridge suffer health conditions, including high mortality rates, depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, malnutrition and diabetes, among others. Reservation access to health care is limited compared to urban areas, and it is not sufficient. Unemployment on the reservation hovers between 80% and 85%, and 49% of the population live below the federal poverty level. Many of the families have no electricity, telephone, running water, or sewage systems; and many use wood stoves to heat their homes, depleting limited wood resources.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The population on Pine Ridge has among the shortest life expectancies of any group in the Western Hemisphere: approximately 47 years for males and 52 years for females. The infant mortality rate is five times the United States national average, and the adolescent suicide rate is four times the United States national average. Members of the reservation suffer from a disproportionately high rate of poverty and alcoholism. By 2011, a gang culture formed among Native American teenagers on the reservation. Young residents leave the reservation for larger cities. When they return to the reservation, they bring gang culture with them.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The Pine Ridge Comprehensive Health Facility is the on-reservation hospital run by the Indian Health Service. The inpatient hospital also has an outpatient clinic, dental clinic, and a surgery suite. The emergency room is staffed by two physicians as well as two physician assistants and a hospitalist in triage. The "Sick Kids" clinic is also based at the facility, with pediatricians on staff. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the hospital increased its capacity to provide respiratory and critical care, with assistance from Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In June 2011, the OST broke ground on a long-planned 60-bed nursing home facility, to be completed within two years. It was developed in cooperation with the federal government, the states of Nebraska and South Dakota. In October 2016, the Oglala Lakota Nursing Home, $6.5-million, 80-bed nursing home for the care of their elderly, opened in White Clay, South Dakota. The tribe borrowed money for a loan for the facility from the Mdewakanton Shakopee tribe, agreeing to "an independent advisory board and an experienced outside management firm." It is working with Native American Health Management, LLC (NAHM), to gain training for staff and oversight of operations until people gain experience.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Alcoholism is widespread on the reservation, affecting an estimated 85 percent of the families. Tribal police estimate that 90 percent of the crimes are alcohol-related.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Because of historic problems with alcohol use by its members, the Oglala Sioux Tribe has prohibited the sale and possession of alcohol on the Pine Ridge Reservation since 1832. The exception was a brief period in the 1970s when on-reservation sales were tried. The town of Whiteclay, Nebraska (just over the South Dakota-Nebraska border), previously had approximately 12 residents and four liquor stores, which sold over 4.9 million 12-ounce cans of beer in 2010 almost exclusively to Oglala Lakota from the reservation (nearly 170 cans per person). The Whiteclay liquor stores were shut down by the state of Nebraska in 2017, though the store owners are appealing to have the stores reopened.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is a spectrum of anatomical structural anomalies, and behavioral, neurocognitive disabilities resulting from the exposure of a fetus to alcohol in the womb. The most severe manifestation within this spectrum is fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). A quarter of the children born on the reservation are diagnosed with either FASD or FAS, resulting in lifelong challenges.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The state of education on the reservation is severely lacking in multiple areas. The school drop-out rate is over 70%, and the teacher turnover rate is eight times that of the U.S. national average. Red Cloud Indian School is located in the area.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In 1971 the tribe founded the Oglala Lakota College, one of the earliest tribal colleges in the nation, and part of Native American institution building of the last 40 years. First started as a two-year community college, it has expanded to offer four-year baccalaureate degrees, as well as a master's in Lakota leadership. It is operated by tribal people, with a tribal board. In 2011, it had an enrollment of 1,400. Since 1994, tribal colleges have been classified as land-grant colleges by the U.S. Congress.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Oglala Lakota County School District (formerly the Shannon County School District) serves areas in Oglala Lakota County. It includes:


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Globally, there are currently only 2,000 Lakota language speakers, and fewer than 1,000 at Pine Ridge, and the age of the average Lakota speaker is 60, making it a "critically endangered" language. In the fall of 2012, a new program was founded to combat the loss of the language and create a young generation of fluent Lakota speakers. Peter Hill, a former elementary teacher at the reservation who speaks Lakota, started the early childcare language immersion program from his own basement, serving just five students with crowdsourced funding. In the program, students and teachers speak exclusively Lakota, with children eventually learning English as a second language. Over the last six years, the childcare program has expanded significantly to serve students ages one to five, and has additionally begun offering kindergarten and first grade. A continuing challenge for the school is creating teaching materials, since textbooks and other teaching resources are not typically printed in Lakota. Thus, creating new materials like children's books, apps, or videos, as well as translation of existing works into the language is crucial. Beyond the immersion childcare, other efforts are underway to bring Lakota into community members' lives in relevant ways: basketball games are frequently announced in Lakota, after new words were coined and the coach began using them in practices and drills with the teams, and the first news website written entirely in Lakota was launched in 2016.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: As of 2011, the reservation has little economic development or industry. No discount stores are located on the reservation. But, its people receive $80 million annually in federal monies, such as Social Security and veterans benefits; they spend most of this money largely in stores located off the reservation in Nebraska border towns, creating no benefit for the tribe. As the journalist Stephanie Woodward noted, little money changes hands within the reservation. As an example of the money that goes outside the reservation to border towns, the owner of Whiteclay's grocery store, Arrowhead Foods, said he "did more than a million dollars in business last year, with an entirely Native American clientele." Similarly, Nebraska State Senator LeRoy J. Louden, whose district includes Whiteclay, noted the recent construction of a Walmart superstore at Chadron, Nebraska, another border town. He said, "That store was built because of the reservation."


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The tribe has prohibited sale and consumption of alcohol on the reservation, but Pine Ridge residents support four liquor stores at Whiteclay, which in 2010 paid federal and state excise taxes (included in liquor's sale price) of $413,932, according to the state liquor commission. Some residents have argued that the continuing rate of alcoholism on the reservation shows the failure of the prohibition policy. They say that if the tribe legalized alcohol sales, it could keep much of the revenues now flowing to Nebraska and to state and federal taxes, and use such monies to bolster the reservation's economy and health care services, including building a much-needed detoxification facility and rehab services.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Despite the lack of formal employment opportunities on Pine Ridge, considerable agricultural production is taking place on the reservation. Only a small percentage of the tribe directly benefits from this, as land is leased to agricultural producers. According to the USDA, in 2002 there was nearly $33 million in receipts from agricultural production on Pine Ridge. Less than one-third of that income went to members of the tribe.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Most employment on the reservation is provided by community institutions, such as the tribal Oglala Lakota College, and other schools; the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA); and the U.S. Indian Health Service (IHS). In October 2016 the tribe opened an 80-bed nursing home; at full operation it will employ 100 staff. The tribe is working on a justice center and has advertised an art competition for works for its spaces, to include the tribal courts and a restorative justice courtroom.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Enterprises owned by the Oglala Sioux tribe include the Prairie Wind Casino, a Parks and Recreation Department, guided hunting, and cattle ranching and farming. The Oglala Sioux Tribe also operates the White River Visitor Center near the Badlands National Park. It has one radio station, KILI-FM in Porcupine.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In 1973 at the time of the Wounded Knee Incident, not one Native American worked for a South Dakota newspaper. In 1981 the Lakota journalist Tim Giago founded and published the independent "Lakota Times" on the reservation. (Most such newspapers have been owned by tribal governments.) He renamed it "Indian Country Today" in 1992, as he was providing more national coverage of Native American news.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: In 1998 he sold the paper to the Oneida Nation; it was then the largest independent Native American paper in the country. It continues to operate the paper as part of a media network; "Indian Country Today" features regular political coverage that notes the increasing number of Native Americans gaining office at the local and state levels. Giago founded the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA) and has worked to recruit Native American students into journalism through its foundation, as well as to establish Indian studies in journalism schools.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Connie Smith started the "Lakota Country Times," a weekly newspaper which she owns. It is the official legal newspaper for the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations. It also publishes material online. In 2009 it won first place for general excellence of its website from NAJA, and in 2010 won three prizes, including two for best articles.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Lakota Federal Credit Union, established to serve the financial needs of residents of the reservation, was established in 2012.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: After doing research and noting the worldwide market for hemp, in July 1998, the Tribal Council approved 'industrial hemp agriculture' for the reservation. With demand high for the crop, three Lakota farmers, Tom Cook, his wife Loretta Afraid of Bear and American Horse, grandson of Chief American Horse, formed the Slim Butte Land-Use Association. To emphasize the issue of Sioux sovereignty in land use, they publicly announced the first planting of industrial hemp seeds on April 29, 2000, on the 132nd anniversary of the signing of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, which established the reservation. The Association believed production of industrial hemp-based concrete could help solve the severe shortage of suitable dwellings on the reservation, as it is a sustainable construction material, and work for the unemployed. Hemp can also be processed to yield oil for cooking and other products.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Congress in 1968 prohibited the cultivation of "Cannabis"-related crops, including hemp, as part of anti-drug legislation, although hemp does not have the psychoactive properties of cannabis as a drug. Industrial hemp is legal in Canada. The law in the U.S. is enforced by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). In August 2000 and July 2001, federal DEA agents destroyed industrial hemp crops on the Pine Ridge reservation. After the raid destroyed his crops, the farmer Alex White Plume appealed a DEA court order that prohibited his growing the crop, but the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court ruling in "United States v. White Plume" (8th Cir. 2006), that the Lakota had to comply with DEA registration process and get a permit to cultivate hemp. The former crop is currently growing wild in the area.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The North Dakota legislature has authorized hemp growing statewide and issued the nation's first two state licenses to grow hemp. The licensed farmers may face DEA legal problems if they do not acquire DEA permits. As the DEA had not yet acted on their requests, in June 2007 the men filed a lawsuit seeking federal court permission to grow the crop without being subject to federal criminal charges.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Members of the tribe have developed varieties of private enterprise, from arts to modern technologies. Numerous artists maintain private studios and use diverse media in both traditional Lakota artforms, such as parfleche and beadwork, and contemporary styles.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Oglala are becoming involved in modern technologies in start-up companies, such as Lakota Solar Enterprises (LSE), started on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 2006 by Henry Red Cloud (a fifth-generation descendant of Chief Red Cloud) with help from the non-profit Trees, Water and People. Lakota Solar Enterprises is active in education and training for the advancement of renewable and sustainable energy and technology with a focus of bringing employment opportunities to members of OST as well as other tribal nations throughout the United States. Such technologies include: solar heating and electricity; compressed earth blocks for structural use; geothermal heating; solar assisted irrigated farming, cellulose insulation, and wind generated power.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The Oglala Sioux Park & Recreation Authority offers eco-tours and hunting trips on the reservation as well as engaging in wildlife conservation work.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Prairie Wind Casino, which began operation in 1994 in three doublewide trailers, was upgraded with the completion of a $20 million casino, a 78-room hotel and a full-service restaurant in early 2007. The casino provides 250 jobs, most held by tribal residents, with revenues helping support education and social welfare efforts.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Located in southwest South Dakota, the reservation takes of space. The nearest urban center, Rapid City, South Dakota, is from the center of the reservation.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The most inland point in North America in located within the reservation, near the town of Allen, and is from the nearest coastline.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The topography is generally rolling mixed grass prairie, interspersed in various location, especially to the north, into typical badlands topography. The higher elevations of the prairie are covered by wind blown sands that form dunes, blowouts, and thin sheets. The southern part of the reservation is crossed by Pine Ridge, which is probably a fault scarp, and which supports the growth of scattered pine and cedar trees. Well-developed sandhills are the dominant features along the southern boundary of the reservation, which extend into the sandhills region of Nebraska. Only of the more than of the reservation are considered land suitable for agricultural uses, and the climate, soil and water conditions are challenging. Many farmers among the Lakota can do little more than gain a subsistence living from the land.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The White River flows through the reservation. It was named for the water's white-gray color, a result of eroded sand, clay, and volcanic ash carried by the river. Draining a basin of about , the stream flows through a region of sparsely populated hills, plateaus, and badlands. It flows west to east through the reservation.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Deposition of sediments in the Badlands began 69 million years ago when an ancient sea, the Western Interior Seaway, stretched across what is now the Great Plains. After the sea retreated, successive land environments, including rivers and flood plains, continued to deposit sediments. Although the major period of deposition ended 28 million years ago, significant erosion of the Badlands did not begin until half a million years ago.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The mixed grass prairie contains both ankle-high and waist-high grasses, and fills a transitional zone between the moister tall-grass prairie to the east and the more arid short-grass prairie to the west.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Biologists have identified more than 400 different plant species growing in Badlands National Park. Each plant species is adapted to survive the conditions prevalent in the mixed-grass prairie ecosystem. The climate here is one of extremes: hot, cold, dry, windy and stormy with blizzards, floods, droughts, and fires. Grasses dominate the landscape.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The short-grass and tall-grass prairies intergrade just east of an irregular line that runs from northern Texas through Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska, northwestward into west-central North Dakota and South Dakota. The perimeter is not well defined because of the array of short-stature, intermediate, and tall-grass species that make up an ecotone between the short-grass and tall-grass prairies (Bragg and Steuter 1996). In general, the mixed-grass prairie is characterized by the warm-season grasses of the short-grass prairie to the west and the cool- and warm-season grasses, which grow much taller, to the east. Because of this ecotonal mixing, the number of plant species found in mixed-grass prairies exceeds that in other prairie types. Since 2000, hemp has grown wild here, following a failed attempt in growing it commercially, as a local ordinance allows. The attempt was shut down by the DEA and several other agencies.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: The mixed grass prairie is home to a variety of animals. In Badlands National Park, scientists have recorded the presence of 37 mammal species, nine reptile species, six amphibian species, 206 bird species, and 69 butterfly species. The rare swift fox and endangered black footed ferret are among two of the various mammal species found in the Badlands region. Both species feed on the black-tailed prairie dog.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: Pine Ridge Airport, owned by the Oglala Sioux Tribe, is located two miles (3 km) east of the town of Pine Ridge. The unattended airport has four asphalt runways; runways 12&30 are , runways 6&24 (currently closed) are . The airport is in poor repair and is used predominately for government flights. The nearest commercial airport to Pine Ridge is Chadron Municipal Airport (CDR / KCDR) in Chadron, Nebraska, approximately south. The nearest major airport is Rapid City Regional Airport, in Rapid City, South Dakota, approximately NE. The closest international airport is Denver International Airport in Denver, Colorado approximately SW.


title: Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

text: On January 30, 2009, the Oglala Sioux Tribe of Pine Ridge held the grand opening of their public transportation system, a bus service with multiple vehicles to cover the entire reservation.


title: Amphitrite

text: In ancient Greek mythology, Amphitrite (; ) was the goddess of the sea, the queen of the sea, and the wife of Poseidon. She was a daughter of Nereus and Doris (or Oceanus and Tethys). Under the influence of the Olympian pantheon, she became the consort of Poseidon and was later used as a symbolic representation of the sea. Her Roman counterpart is Salacia, a comparatively minor figure, and the goddess of saltwater.