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My Page: Nick Gier

On May 4, 1493, at the urging of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, Pope Alexander VI confirmed their right of possession of all newly discovered lands in the Americas. Even at this point in time, 515 years ago this month, the Christian conquest of the world was well under way. Alexander’s papal bull was a continuation of what is now called the Doctrine of Discovery. The irony of "discovering" native people in their own land is a sad and tragic one. Read full article at http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/discovery.htm [more]

In 2004 I took an Elder Hostel tour to Napa Nui, better known as Easter Island. What was once a lush forest of wine palms and red ash is now just wind-swept grasslands. There is a lesson for all of us here, as the title of one book "Easter Island--Island Earth" indicates. For a text with my pictures, please go to http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/EasterIs.htm [more]

On Monday I interviewed a brave and powerful woman for 2 hours in a Moscow coffee house. Her name is Afelene Rosemond, a teacher from Haiti who has formed a theatre group whose themes are women's issues and social justice in the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. See a picture of Afelene and her three sons at http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/haiti.htm. [more]

Barack Obama has taken a real bruising by the press because of his association with Rev. Wright, but one wonders when McCain will get tough questions about his religious identity, about his misreading of the Constitution, and about why far right preachers he once condemned are now his friends. The longer version of this column can be read at http://www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/McCainReligion.htm. [more]

Greg Mortenson is the author of the best-selling book "Three Cups of Tea. Read about his school building project below. I have two tickets
to Greg Mortenson's talk tomorrow night at 7:30 in the UI Memorial Gym in Moscow. (Please
e-mail me off-line if you want them.) He will also speak at 1 PM at the Moscow
High School Auditorium and 3:30 at the Kenworthy Theatre. [more]

March is Women's History Month and I would like to pay tribute to Olympia Brown (1835-1926), a leading suffragette and America's first ordained woman minister. Fighting male privilege and discrimination her entire life, she was one of the few original women freedom fighters to vote in the presidential election of 1920. [more]

On the even of the 49th anniversary of the Dalai Lama's flight from Tibet on March 31, 1959, Tibetans are venting their frustration about 60 years of oppression by Communist China. Since the invasion, an estimated 1 million Tibetans have been killed and 6,000 monasteries destroyed. Read 1,100-word version at http://www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/tibet.htm. [more]

It's been a while since I've sorted through my Iraq file, so this column took more time than I thought. I also apologize for its length. As we continue to waste $12 billion a month and precious American lives, I have concluded that progress in Iraq is temporary, as the cases of Mosul and Basra demonstrate; or, as the rise of an Iraqi-Iranian Shiite alliance proves, illusory. [more]

I'm still gathering material for my column on the 5th anniversary of the Iraq war, but in the meantime I finally put down all the ideas that have been rumbling around in my head about "what if aliens invaded right down . . .?" Don't say it is not possible given my rather far fetched premise. [more]

In a previous post discussed the Yardley Report done for the University of Idaho. In a section of "Faculty Culture" Yardley Research Group insulted and libeled the faculty and its recommendations would undermine undergraduate education on the Moscow campus. This version is a little less serious. [more]