What we have here is a lack of communication.

Or accountability.

Or ethics.

Or all of the above.

But what we do not have here any longer are the thousands and thousands of dollars spent to fly, wine and dine as many as 400 Navajo representatives who decided to attend the National Indian Education Association Conference in Hawaii instead of using the money on desperately needed students, schools and supplies.

The Navajo leadership, both in the government ranks and in the education administration ranks such as school boards and special committees, should feel shame for this outrageous waste of dollars intended to help the Navajo schoolchildren where help is needed most.

At least 362 people claiming ties to the Navajo Nation are known to have paid money to preregister for the conference. Dozens, if not hundreds more, might have registered on site during the October conference in Honolulu; those numbers are not being made available.

If most of that money, as believed, came from public taxpayer money meant primarily

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to further education, then a federal investigation should be conducted to explore what the Navajo Nation leaders apparently are unwilling to do on their own, and that is to find out for certain how much money was wasted and by how many, and take action to fix the problem.

Instead, even on the top level where Navajo President Joe Shirley is rumored to still hold office but has refused interviews to prove it, the only thing issued to justify the massive waves of apparently uncoordinated travel is a two-page press release that reads like a public relations pamphlet for the conference.

No ownership of any problem, nor any kind of acknowledgement that there could be an issue with this, has come from the president's office or any other high office within the Navajo government.

The Navajo people as well as all American taxpayers deserve better, and most certainly the schoolchildren deserve better supervision than this seemingly obvious lesson of selfishness.

While attendance at the conference may have proven beneficial if qualified, well-trained Navajo educators attended and came back to share what they learned, having 362-plus there should be considered a crime.

If a smaller number of qualified people attended, say 50 or fewer, and could not accomplish the mission of teaching others back home what they learned, then perhaps the administrators and lawmakers who approved the travel list should consider sending only real teachers.

After all, teachers know how to teach.

They're pros at it.

They care.

They are the ones who deal with No Child Left Behind policies every day, who deal with trying to talk American Indian students into the hope of a bright future, who try to convince students to stay in school, who live with these children every day of the school year.

So send 50 teachers, let them return and teach the remainder of those interested, and get at it. If the 362 people wanting to go to Hawaii showed as much interest as spending that same amount of travel time in their nearest school instead, imagine what improvements could be made.

That, however, is not what happened. Politicians, school board members and who knows what else instead jumped to the front of the line for this junket, and for those who did not need to be there, junket is the only thing you can call it.

We've said it before: You can put perfume on a skunk all you want, but it doesn't change the smell.

One observer, making reference to the ever-present fight to protect the Navajo land itself, subtly put it this way:

Mother Earth is crying from all the jet engines that polluted our air for so many who traveled to so far away.

Sadly, it's not just Mother Earth crying about this selfish waste.