[muawiyah]

It's about being a native American ~ any cash is secondary. The Oneida don't need to be "resurrected" ~ the are already there ~ what they need are more members of the tribe to show up.

What New York needs badly are more reservations covering more territory. It cannot help but be improved.

[Rockingham]

I see little point and much mischief in asking people to newly take up or emphasize a tribal identity and settle on reservations. And to offer large cash rewards to do so invites posturing, sham, and fraud.

I know of few instances of Indian reservations that are anything other than enclaves of poverty, social decline, and chronic welfarism. Even when there is a flow of cash from casinos, the underlying social pathologies tend to continue and may even become more destructive.

Moreover, I know that my boyhood was the better for two friends who were half Indian (Apache and Cherokee) in their ancestry. That meant nothing to them or me and we treasured our friendship. Call me selfish, but I would never have known them if they had grown up on a reservation instead of in suburban central Florida.