"Don't you hate it when, after 400 years, you still can't quite complete the genocide? Consider the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation.

Shouldn't they be wiped out, finally, if for no other reason than the inconvenience they present to your average speller?

Nope, they're just too pesky to fade away into the Connecticut gene pool, in which more than a few past and present politicians seem to dwell in the shallows.

And for no other reason than their continued attempt to fight the power, whether it's Attorney General Dick Blumenthal, U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, Gov. Jodi Rell or the two Indian casinos -- the state's two business partners -- we should be rooting for them to finally regain the official status they had for hundreds of years after the white Colonists shooed them away from the lucrative coast and back into the hills of Litchfield County, in 1736.

It's a classic David-and-Goliath story, the kind that even anti-gamblers like me (Isn't the daily ride to Hartford enough of an odds-against proposition?) can cuddle up to and support."

Get the Story:
Ken Dixon: Schaghticokes: 400 years, still here (The Connecticut Post 9/26)

2nd Circuit Decision:
Schaghticoke Tribal Nation v. Kempthorne (October 19. 2009)

Related Stories:
Supreme Court asked to hear Schaghticoke recognition lawsuit (6/29)
Court rejects Schaghticoke recognition appeal (10/20)