They Sure Sound Like Red Blooded Americans

…to me!

Alaska Villages Reject Venezuela Oil
In Alaska’s native villages, the punishing winter cold is already coming through 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 villages are refusing free heating oil from Venezuela, on the patriotic principle that no foreigner has the right to call their president “the devil.”
…”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.”

And ho-lee cow, are things tough up there for them.

…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.

Bless their hearts.
Remind me again why I should send money to Africa?

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