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sovereignty
By Derek Iippincott
Staff writer
Native nations’ rights and struggles with sovereignty - the belief
of superiority above others - will be examined today in a panel dis
cussion.
Sovereignty has an effect on everybody, including indigenous
groups, said John Snowden, a University of Nebraska law professor.
Today at noon in the NU
College of Law auditorium, three
representatives, including Louise
Hardy, a member of the Canadian
Parliament, will discuss issues of
sovereignty among American
Indians and Canadians.
The discussion is sponsored
by the Conservation Alliance of
the Great Plains.
“Sovereignty from native
nations has existed here forever,”
Snowden said.
“It is something constantly
struggled with every day. The
same thing is going on with
Canada to our north.”
The discussion will cover the
nature of native sovereign powers
in the United States and Canada,
native rights protected by treaty,
statute and the U.S. Constitution,
as well as the implementation of
those powers.
^ Sovereignty
from native
nations has
existed here
forever It is
something
constantly
struggled with
every day”
John Snowden
law professor
Hardy, a representative ot Canada s Yukon territory and mem
ber of the New Democratic Party and Aboriginal Affairs
Committee, will be accompanied at the discussion by Frank Lamere
of the Winnebago tribe and Ken VanPola, Winnebago tribal court
judge.
“Our organization is pleased to help sponsor this panel,” said
Tyler Sutton, president of the Conservation Alliance of the Great
Plains, in a press pelease.
“We are particularly pleased Hardy will be joining the panel
because she has not only been an advocate for native rights, but also
for the protection of the land and wildlife.”
Lamere will discuss sovereignty from the American-Indian per
spective, and VanPola will discuss the exercise of sovereignty in
Winnebago tribal courts.
“I expect people who are interested in the sovereignty of indige
nous nations to show up,” said Snowden, who will also be a panel
member.
“It is for the enjoyment and benefit of students or the general
public. It is not focused for just lawyers or law students.”
Students aid-efforts in park renovation
■ Lincoln Southeast High
students raise nearly
$150,000 for-Antelope Park.
By Matthew Beermann
Staff writer
Antelope Park will soon be getting a
facelift, thanks to the efforts of local
youth.
Students at Lincoln Southeast High
School have raised nearly $150,000 to
renovate the playground and make it
fully accessible to disabled children.
“I’ve worked on a lot of projects, and
this one has more energy than I’ve ever
seen,” said Jim Morgan, parks and recre
ation director.
The playground was originally con
structed in two sections, one accessible
and one not. But the equipment is old and
decaying, and the city wanted to create a
unified area. That’s where Southeast
came in.
“When the kids brought the idea to
me last June, I thought it was rather
ambitious,” said Southeast’s student
council adviser Brent Toalson. “But here
we are. The students are excited about the
project and anxious to get started.”
Southeast has raised $20,000 toward
the project and has secured grants and in
kind donations from private sources.
In addition, students participated in
the design process and will help install
the equipment this spring.
“The students are building a place
where all of Lincoln’s children can play
together,” Toalson said.
“Through this process they are learn- ?
ing some valuable lessons about the ;
importance of community sources.”
The project is still $50,000 short of
its goal, and Toalson said they need to
raise the rest by March 1. Construction
will begin in March and will be complet
ed by May.
Morgan and Toalson both encour
aged the community to help out.
“I’m going to ask all of my friends to
contribute,” Morgan said. “They have
done a miracle here.”
Contributions should be sent to the
Lincoln Parks and Recreation
Foundation, 2740 A St., P.O. Box 204.
There will also be a meeting for the
public to view the plans and comment on
the project at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Lincoln
Southeast High School, room HI03.
Six more weeks
of winter to go
PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa. (AP) - Groundhog
Punxsutawney Phil - weather prophet without peer
- saw his shadow shortly after sunrise Wednesday
predicting six more weeks of winter.
With 11 -degree temperatures and wind blowing
over fresh snow, even a groundhog could see that
winter wasn’t departing right away.
Forget that there was little sunlight in the over
cast skies to cast a shadow. Phil was greeted with a
chant of “Bring out the rat.”
“It doesn’t matter what we want. It doesn’t mat
ter what Phil wants. It’s what he reads in the skies,”
said Bill Cooper, president of the Punxsutawney
Groundhog Club Inner Circle, who is charged with
interpreting Phil’s predictions.
The crowd for this year’s Groundhog Day on
Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney was smaller than
in recent years. Inner Circle members estimated
that the mixture of families and college students hit
the predicted 15,000, but the Punxsutawney
Chamber of Commerce said it was closer to J2,000.
The Groundhog Day tradition is based on a
German superstition that an animal casting its shad
ow on Feb. 2 - the Christian holiday of Candlemas o
- means another six weeks of winter is coming.
Otherwise, it suggests an early spring.
In this central Pennsylvania town of 6,700 peo
ple, Phil sees his shadow most years. Wednesday
was the 90th time Phil has seen his shadow in
past 114 years.
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Mice aid HIV-dementia research
ByJohnHejkal
Staff writer
Research at the University of
Nebraska Medical Center is gaining
ground in the fight against HIV, and
mice are helping out.
University of Nebraska Medical
Center researcher Jenae Limoges con
ducted the study, which involved
implanting infected human cells into
the brains of mice.
Each mouse was injected with one
of five drugs being tested.
The study focused on finding out
how effective different drugs were at
crossing the blood-brain barrier and
destroying HTV in the brain.
Limoges, principle investigator of
the study and assistant professor in the
Department of Internal Medicine
Infectious Diseases, said research is
needed to discover what drugs can reach
possible HIV reservoirs in the brain and
other areas.
HIV in the brain can cause HI V
dementia.
Larry Bierce, educational director
at the Nebraska AIDS Project, said HIV
dementia can cause severe handicaps
for people who are otherwise physically
healthy.
HIV-dementia resembles Alz
heimer’s disease, he said. It can affect
memory and motor movement.
“Dementia is one of the most insid
ious complications of HIV diseases in
that it is one that we’ve had some of the
most difficulty in treating,” he said. “It
can be quite debilitating.”
Limoges voiced a similar concern.
“We’ve gotten all these new drugs
that treat HIV very well in the blood, but
we don’t know how well they work in
the brain,” she said.
The blood-brain barrier is a natural
defense mechanism of the brain. Some
drugs do not cross the barrier well,
resulting in a lower exposure to anti
HIV drugs for the virus in the brain.
Exposure to low levels of the drugs
can allow HIV to form into mutant
viruses that are not responsive to the
drugs, Limoges said.
Another danger of the reservoirs is
the possibility that the virus can hide
until the drug treatment is stopped and
then reemerge into the body.
Two of the drugs tested, abacavir
and lamivudine, also known as 3TC,
were most effective. They reduced viral
levels in the brain by 80 to 95 percent.
The results of die study were pub
lished in the January issue of
Neurology.
All five drugs were nucleoside
reverse transcriptase inhibitors, which
work by halting the viruses’ reproduc
tion.
Twenty percent of adults and 50 per
cent of children with HTV develop HTV
dementia.
Limoges said the study was innova
tive because of the mouse model used.
Mice are cheap, and research can be
done quickly, she said.
“We could get information very
quickly, within seven to 14 days, as
opposed to human studies, which might
take years,” she said.
Another benefit of the model was
^ It’s one of the
first studies we
know of that’s
actually been
tested on intact
tissue.’’
Jenae Limoges
UNMC researcher
that tests could be done on tissue. Tissue
tests of human brains must be done
either on a dead patient or through a
brain biopsy, Limoges said.
Brain biopsies are risky because of
high possibilities of a stroke, and they
may not be accurate in testing for HIV
levels because the virus exists only in
some areas of the brain, she said.
For these reasons, the effects of HIV
on the brain are usually measured
through neuropsychological tests,
Limoges said.
“It’s one of the first studies we know
of that’s actually been tested on intact
tissue,’’ she said.
Limoges stressed that the differ
ences between mice and humans do not
allow the results of the study to be
applied directly to human treatments..
But she said the performance of drugs1
such as 3TC was encouraging.
“It’s nice to know that that’s proba
bly going to be a very effective drug in;
the neural system,’’ she said.