How about those Eskimo's?

Question

Shivering Alaskans to Hugo Chavez: Keep your oil
POSTED: 9:09 p.m. EDT, October 9, 2006
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- In Alaska's native villages, the punishing winter cold is already penetrating the walls of the lightly insulated plywood homes, many of the villagers are desperately poor, and heating-oil prices are among the highest in the nation.

And yet a few of the small communities want to refuse free heating oil from Venezuela, on the patriotic principle that no foreigner has the right to call their president "the devil."

The heating oil is being offered by the petroleum company controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, President Bush's nemesis. While scores of Alaska's Eskimo and Indian villages say they have no choice but to accept, others would rather suffer.

"As a citizen of this country, you can have your own opinion of our president and our country. But I don't want a foreigner coming in here and bashing us," said Justine Gunderson, administrator for the tribal council in the Aleut village of Nelson Lagoon. "Even though we're in economically dire straits, it was the right choice to make."

Nelson Lagoon residents pay more than $5 a gallon for oil -- or at least $300 a month per household -- to heat their homes along the wind-swept coast of the Bering Sea, where temperatures can dip to minus-15. About one-quarter of the 70 villagers are looking for work, in part because Alaska's salmon fishing industry has been hit hard by competition from fish farms.

The donation to Alaska's native villages has focused attention on the rampant poverty and high fuel prices in a state that is otherwise awash in oil -- and oil profits. In 2005, 86 percent of the Alaska's general fund, or $2.8 billion, came from oil from the North Slope.

The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, a native nonprofit organization that would have handled the heating oil donation on behalf of 291 households in Nelson Lagoon, Atka, St. Paul and St. George, rejected the offer because of the insults Chavez has hurled at Bush.

Chavez called Bush "the devil" in a speech to the United Nations last month. He has also called the president a terrorist and denounced the war in Iraq.(Watch former President Bush call Chavez "an ***" -- 2:10)

Dimitri Philemonof, president and chief executive of the association, said accepting the aid would be "compromising ourselves." "I think we have some duty to our country, and I think it's loyalty," he said.

Over the past two years, Citgo, the Venezuelan government's Texas-based oil subsidiary, has given millions of gallons of discounted heating oil to the poor in several states and cities -- including New York, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine -- in what is widely seen as an effort by Chavez to embarrass and irritate the U.S. government and make himself look good.

Maine Gov. John Baldacci, who approved an agreement last winter to buy discounted oil, said he had no plans this year to seek a similar arrangement. In Boston, Massachusetts, a City Council member wants a landmark Citgo sign near Fenway Park taken down and replaced with an American flag. In Florida, a lawmaker asked the state to cancel Citgo's exclusive contract to sell fuel at turnpike service stations.

About 150 native villages in Alaska have accepted money for heating oil from Citgo. The oil company does not operate in Alaska, so instead of sending oil, it is donating about $5.3 million to native nonprofit organizations to buy 100 gallons this winter for each of more than 12,000 households.

"When you have a dire need and it is a matter of survival for your people, it doesn't matter where, what country, the gift or donation comes from," said Virginia Commack, an elder in the arctic village of Ambler, an impoverished Eskimo community of 280 where residents are paying $7.25 a gallon for fuel.

For years, Alaska natives have accused the state and federal governments of sending too little money to their tiny, far-flung communities, where fuel and grocery prices are bloated by the high costs of delivery by plane and barge.

An editorial last month in the Anchorage Daily News bashed the Legislature's rejection in March of an $8.8 million state supplement to a federal program that helps poor Alaskans with home heating costs.

"It's embarrassing that residents in a state with so much oil wealth should be looking to a foreign nation for help," the newspaper said. "It's hard to blame villagers for accepting the gift."

A spokesman for Gov. Frank Murkowski, John Manly, said the governor believes Chavez's donation is a ploy to undermine Americans' faith in their government. But he said it is up to each village to make its own decision.

"It seems like a very strange irony that we produce the oil and yet every year there seems to be a chronic problem in getting the fuel to people that need it," Manly said.

Joan Eddy, principal and teacher at Nelson Lagoon's school, said most buildings in town were erected 30 to 40 years ago, which makes them pretty old, considering how they get battered by the constant 20-25 mph wind coming off the ocean. Their heating systems are aging, too.

She noted the fuel barge is late arriving this year, and said residents are turning on their furnaces for only a few hours in the morning and at night.

"We're conserving as much as we can because we are concerned. It looks like it's going to be a snowy winter and cold," she said.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

O.K., Some think that the article is too long, or that there is no question contained within the article & one thinks that I am ignorant of the usage of the name "eskimos" , I have lived amongst the various Native peoples of the entire Aleutian chain and the mainland of Alaska. Heres the "Question" , Would you go without heating oil in this situation in order to show your patriotism? Hows that? Happy? GAWSHK!

Answer 1

I think they are cool. I found addresses to donate to, as well. (OK, an answerer gave them to me, and I'm willing to share.)

Here is the info he gave:

" Best Answer - Chosen By You

Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, Inc.
201 East 3rd Avenue
Anchorage, AK 99501
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]
http://www.apiai.com/default.asp...

Donations to help the villages affected can be made at a
Key Bank account titled:
“ Unangan Energy Assistance Fund” C/O Key Bank # 729681009001
Donations can be made at any Key Bank Branch Nationwide or Can be mailed to:

Unangan Energy Assistance Fund
c/o Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association
201 East Third Avenue
Anchorage, Alaska 99501

or

Unangan Energy Assistance Fund
c/o Key Bank
P.O. Box 110420
Anchorage, AK 99510

Donations are tax deductible as a contribution to a 501 c 3 Not For Profit TIN # 92-0073013 "

Answer 2

First, I could not recognize your question in this lengthy pamphlet.

Second (but not less), to call the Inuit "Eskimos" is exactly the same as calling black people "*******". It is not meant nice, it is a word used as insult, literally meaning "the raw fish/meat eaters" and it was not meant nicely.

You seem not to have researched that, among all the other "research" you did.

Chavez might have his own attitude,and I don't know enough about him to judge his governing style. But I do know enough about Bush and his criminal mates in the White House, and the name "devil" is pretty harmless for what they are doing in Iraq and elsewhere.

I feel very sorry for you poor monolingual americans who cannot get real news from other parts of the world, because you simply lack the languages to read those news. You are so brainwashed by your "news system" here, it is ridiculous. Local news for hours everyday, but nothing of importance.

Together with the incredibly low education the school system is achieving in your country, that should make some people think. Could it be that this is exactly what some want? Only dumb (uneducated) people will do what they are told to, will not question their given orders, and only those who can hardly speak their own language (and definately not a second one) will never find out what the free press and free media in Europe is reporting.

But just like us Germans, it will not help you saying later "But we had no clue this was going on". Many Germans did not know for years what went on in the camps where the minorities dissappeared. Still, all population got punished, and until this day german tax money goes to Israel. Whenever any politician attempts to suggest a discussion about the termination of that, he will be scandalized and forced to step down from his office. We are expected to pay for eternity, it is said.

Now, prepare yourself for the time when the survivers one day will take revenche on the USA. It is only a matter of time. It cannot go on like this forever, the world will eventually unite against you. And just like my german ancestors who claimed they had no clue, it will not help you either saying that you did not know.

Answer 3

I wasted about 2 minutes of my life reading this story in hope that there would be a question at the end that I could answer. Thats why this is called Yahoo answers. You put a news story on here and thats it? You could have put the point you was trying to make by putting the story on here.

Answer 4

This goes to show how little corporations in the US really care about it's citizens and are only after profit margins. Alaska is awash with oil but they charge the natives ridiculous prices just to make a buck.

Answer 5

Good post as usual. Good for the Eskimos

Answer 6

I respect them a lot for this.

To the idiot who said to stop pushing these articles down his throat, who is forcing you to read them?

Answer 7

good for them. I hope the US government can be as gracious as the Venezuelan so we can help those Arctic folk

Answer 8

Right on, Eskimos

Answer 9

Eskimos are cool

Answer 10

Good for them.