The King County Medical Examiner’s Office is asking for the public’s help to find who donated three human skulls to a Bellevue thrift store.
There is no information about who donated the skulls to the Bellevue Goodwill or how they came to be in the donor’s possession.
The KCME said two of the skulls of from adults and were clearly used in a medical clinic or teaching setting.
The third skull is very old and appears to be the fragile remains of a Native American child.
According to state law, the Native American skull must be returned to its tribe of origin, but the ME needs more information to identify the correct tribe.
The office is asking that the person who donated the skulls come forward, without penalty, to provide more details about where the skull came from.
The skulls were donated in June to the Goodwill at 14515 NE 20th Street in Bellevue. Employees there realized the skulls were human remains and contacted the Medical Examiner’s Office and police.
TULALIP – The conservation and preservation of Native American poles, posts, and canoes will be the focus of the first symposium hosted by the Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve on July 21- 22, held at the Tulalip Resort Casino.
Poles, Posts, and Canoes will bring together Native American and non-Native museum professionals, and contemporary carvers to discuss the challenges in preserving and exhibiting wood carvings, while also examining the Native and non-Native viewpoint on preserving these historic wood items.
“When I first came to work here four years ago, one of the things that struck me most was the fact that we have a number of poles and canoes in the collections,” said Hibulb Conservator, Claire Dean. “These large wooden objects are a real challenge for museums everywhere, regardless of their cultural background. It is because these tend to be very big and heavy to move around. Actually they are quite difficult to display safely. If they are old, and deteriorated they become fragile. Here we have a disproportionate number of them, and that has to do with the fact that the community here, the poles and canoes, are a central part of the material culture here, and when you have a culture with that in its background, then you are going to run into them as more of a challenge than other cultures where they don’t exist. I am also very aware that we have carvers here in the community, and I like the idea of trying to involve them somehow.”
Dean explains the idea for the Poles, Posts, and Canoes Symposium developed from a conservator conference Dean attended, which highlighted the preservation of the Maori Waka Taua Project, or war canoe project, at the National Museum of Scotland. During the conference the issue of preserving cultural items such as wood canoes, a responsibility of Dean’s as a conservator at Hibulb, was examined. Dean learned how the war canoe, in derelict condition, was discovered during an examination to be a product of three canoes merged together, instead of one carving, making the preservation of the canoe difficult. With the help of highly-regarded Maori artist George Nuku, the canoe was restored using acrylic material to fashion a new sternpost, blending traditional materials with contemporary elements to safely preserve the canoe for display.
“We were already thinking about our conference and immediately I thought, ‘this is it! This is exactly what I have been thinking about. This idea of incorporating traditional carvers into the care of the collections.’ Not that I am suggesting that we are going to make lots of plexiglas poles, but it is this idea of working with artists who are very much a part of the community,” said Dean.
The two-day conference will feature a non-traditional conference format featuring informal presentations regarding the care of past, present, and future cultural
Photo courtesy/ Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve
items.
“I thought it was a great opportunity to have a conference where we could actually sit down and really talk about this, and while this isn’t the first time that a meeting has been held about this topic, it is the first time, that I am aware of, that it has been hosted by a tribal community and held on tribal lands,” said Dean.
“We will have little sessions where presenters will be giving 15 minute talks, so they are very short and to the point,” continued Dean. “I have asked the presenters to prepare their presentations to spark thought and discussion. We will have four or five of these 15-minute talks, then we take a coffee break and for at least an hour and half there is no program. It will be open discussion. It is a chance for the folks attending to ask questions of the presenters and the carvers. This is a bit of a risk, because it is not a conventional way of doing a conference, but I think it is more in keeping with how things are done in communities such as this one.”
Presenters will include George Nuku, Maori artist, Graeme Scott from the Glasgow Museums in Scotland, Richard Feldman from the Eiteligorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Costantino Nicolizas from the Ecole Des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in France, Kelly McHugh from the National Museum of the American Indian, Tessa Campbell from the Hibulb Cultural Center, and Sven Haakanson from the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, and many others.
Following the two-day conference Hibulb Cultural Center will host a three-day workshop featuring Michael Harrington, Felix Solomon, and Andrew Todd on caring for totem poles held on July 23 – 25, at the Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve.
Registration is open until the day of conference, and limited space available for the workshop. Registration fee for the conference is $350 with a discount fee of $250 for students, and the workshop fee is $350. Both events include breakfast and lunch. A special event featuring keynote speakers, Charles Stable and George Nuku, will be held on the evening of July 21, at the Hibulb Cultural Center free of cost and open to the public.
“This isn’t just about the conservation and preservation of old poles, posts, and canoes, which we have here in collections, it is also about the preservation of the tradition of carving these things, and how those two areas of interest intersect. How the collections here can be of help to contemporary carvers, and how the methods and materials in the knowledge of contemporary carvers can actually be of use to conservators.”
For more information on registration for the symposium or the workshop, please visit the Hibulb Cultural Center’s website at www.hibulbculturalcenter.org.
Brandi N. Montreuil: 360-913-5402; bmontreuil@tulalipnews.com
In an emotional ceremony Monday at the Burke Museum in Seattle, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe prepared to transport 14 ancient artifacts to the tribe’s heritage center in Port Angeles.
Arlene Wheeler, left, escorts artifacts pushed by Maurice Pitchford, 4, and the Burke’s Laura Phillips on Monday. STEVE RINGMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES
On Monday, members of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe realized a long-held dream, bringing some of the most spectacular belongings of their ancestors back to their home territory, for display in their own heritage center in Port Angeles.
Fourteen artifacts — just a fraction of more than 80,000 recovered from the site — were handed over to the tribe after a brief, but emotional private ceremony at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle, where the rest of the collection is still held for safekeeping.
“This is a long time coming,” said tribal Chairwoman Frances Charles, who made the trip to the Burke with her 4-year-old grandson, along with leaders of the Elwha Drum Group and prayer warrior Jonathan Arakawa to commemorate the transfer.
In a basement room with no windows, tribal members first lined up facing east, with two simple cardboard bankers’ boxes on a table before them, holding their ancestors’ possessions, dug up from their waterfront village.
Arakawa called down a blessing on the gathering, and offered thanks and prayers for a historic day, finally come.
Then Mark Charles, dressed in red and black ceremonial regalia, took deep breaths and focused his concentration for long moments, preparing to sing. He at last raised his elk-skin, hand-painted drum and began beating the stately cadence of an ancient song.
Charles’ deep, powerful voice boomed in the small room, which filled with sound as other tribal members joined in, and raised their hands to receive the song.
The objects selected by the tribe are among the most spectacular in the collection: A bone comb, carved on two sides, and found at the site virtually intact. Two blanket pins, carved in the shape of a fawn’s head, and a halibut. Seven etched stones — from more than 900 collected at the site, more than from any other village in the Northwest. The stones depict stories and teachings, and no two are alike.
Also included in the collection is a net weight, and a spindle whorl carved from a single whale vertebrae that Mark Charles found during the work at the site. At the time, he said he was guided by intuition to the location.
The village site was discovered inadvertently during construction of a state Department of Transportation project, which was ultimately shut down and relocated, after the discovery of hundreds of human remains, including many intact burials.
With the end of the project, the money that was paying for the archaeological analysis of the site was shut off, too.
So while the site was one of the biggest and oldest ever uncovered in the Northwest, with portions dating back 2,700 years, most of the collection has never been analyzed, and still awaits interpretation.
The tribe has long wanted to bring the collection home, for curation at the site, which has since been covered over and secured behind a fence. Human remains disturbed during the construction project were reburied as close to their original sites as possible.
The tribe has since built a heritage center in downtown Port Angeles, and will display the artifacts there. The exhibit, which will be on permanent exhibition at the heritage center, opens Saturday with a public ceremony.
“This is something we have talked about time and time again, it’s hard to imagine it is finally happening,” Frances Charles said. “These are priceless to us, in many ways. It’s closure for us, and all the people who were involved with this. It closes the circle.”
The hydropower dams, built without fish passage beginning in 1910, greatly diminished the river’s salmon runs, and starved the beaches at the river’s mouth for the sediment that used to be home to rich clam beds.
The recovery of the artifacts and the dam-removal project — the largest anywhere in the world — are part of the cultural renewal under way for the tribe.
In the past several years the tribe has built a language program to revive the Klallam language and teach it in the public schools. The tribe has published a tribal language and cultural curriculum, and its first dictionary.
And as the floodwaters behind the Elwha dam receded, the tribe recovered its sacred creation site, hidden underwater for a century.
A celebration of the completion of dam removal is scheduled for mid-September.
Meanwhile, Charles said she hopes the trickle of artifacts coming back to the tribe will eventually become a flood, as the tribe builds a curation facility at its village site to house the entire collection.
“This is just the beginning,” she said.
To make it happen, the tribe needs not only money, but to recover ownership of its artifacts through negotiations with the state. Charles said those conversations are beginning with Gov. Jay Inslee.
As the tribe’s song filled the building, Julie Stein, director of the Burke, came to the door. She watched, clearly pleased, as the boxes were carted to the loading dock, and carried by tribal members into a waiting van for the drive back to Lower Elwha.
“It always feels wonderful,” Stein said, “when artifacts go to the communities that love and use them, to teach people, and bring the ceremonies back to life.”
Lynda V. Mapes: 206-464-2736 or lmapes@seattletimes.com
Washington’s clean-water regulations to ensure the safety of eating fish from local waters are indefensibly lax, everyone agrees. That’s about to change, but without broader cleanup, water will still be polluted.
New proposed water-quality standards expected to be issued soon by the state are intended to more accurately reflect how much fish people eat. These fishermen were trying their luck for salmon running in the Duwamish River last September. MARCUS YAM / The Seattle Times, 2013
Eat only as much fish as the state assumes you do every day, and you’d starve, for sure: It’s a chunk not much bigger than a Starburst candy.
But that could be about to change, under new regulations in the works at the state Department of Ecology. Washington seems likely to follow Oregon’s lead and set a water-quality standard for daily fish consumption at 175 grams, or about 6 ounces, per day.
The level is set not to regulate how much fish people eat, but how clean water needs to be. The standard sets pollution cleanup and control limits for industry, municipal sewage plants and other dischargers to local waters.
While it sounds like a modest step forward, implementing more realistic fish-consumption standards — Washington’s current standards are based on an outdated national average — has been a battle, chewing up years of effort and the political capital of two governors.
That’s because municipal sewage plants, pulp mills and other dischargers fear the cost of tighter pollution standards. Boeing famously entered the fray last year in widely reported warnings about the potential effect of unreasonable standards on its continued business operations.
“We support a water quality standard that protects human health and the environment, while at the same time, allows for the growth of our business and the state’s economy,” Boeing spokeswoman Megan Hilfer wrote in a statement to The Seattle Times in an email July 1.
No one contests that the new levels will in some cases result in setting pollution-discharge limits too tiny even to measure with existing technology.
Gov. Jay Inslee and the state Department of Ecology are expected to announce the new proposed standard Wednesday and to work toward issuing a draft rule after that. The regulations will go through a lengthy public-comment period and be finalized only with the approval of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, probably sometime next year.
The importance of water-quality standards to human health is well known, especially to people who eat a lot of fish. Because pollutants find their way from the uplands to the water, ultimately everything, for better or worse, winds up in the tissues of fish. Pollutants such as mercury and PCBs can cause a variety of serious illnesses and impairments, from cancer, to permanent IQ reduction in children. Pregnant women, the young and the frail are most at risk.
As the state develops commercially, the abundance of healthy fish from the state’s home waters has been slipping away. Toxics are just part of the problem. Habitat, every scientific report on salmon recovery shows, is the most important thing to securing abundant runs of fish for people and wildlife.
Yet the state is losing ground, literally, in runoff caused by development of uplands and cutting of forests.
And even as Seattle and King County water and sewer ratepayers spend hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up Puget Sound, the city of Victoria, B.C., continues to spew untreated sewage directly into the Salish Sea — prompting a dust-up with Inslee, but still no resolution of the problem.
Inslee inherited the fish-consumption wrangle from former Gov. Chris Gregoire, who failed to implement new regulations amid scorching opposition from businesses. As the struggle to get the standards updated roils behind the scenes in Washington, regulators in Oregon, and business leaders, are carrying on with that work behind them.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has issued dozens of discharge permits since updating its standards in 2011, including permits for more than a half-dozen municipalities, a meatpacking plant and other industrial users. The path forward in Oregon required implementation of flexibility in setting timelines for compliance and variances, said Jennifer Wigal, water-quality program manager at the department.
A similar approach is in the works in Washington. Kelly Susewind, director of Washington Department of Ecology’s water-quality program, charged with drafting the regulations, said he wants to take the five-year time limits off compliance schedules and variances, to give regulators and dischargers a way to work out realistic solutions under new, more exacting standards.
Dennis McLerran, regional administrator for the Region 10 office of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, whose approval is required for Ecology’s regulations, said he backs flexible implementation.
“We are interested in working with the state on a package of implementation tools that includes compliance schedules, variances, intake water credits, even how you look at some chemicals. But we want to make progress. Otherwise, why do it?”
One place he is not inclined to budge, though, McLerran said, is cancer risk, because implementing a higher risk would allow bigger inputs of some pollutants to local waters. That could put people who eat a lot of fish at higher risk — and compromise treaty-protected fishing rights.
“Some of our high fish consumers when they signed on to transfer (their) lands, signed on to continue to harvest and eat fish, and when and if they can’t, then the treaty right is a bit vacuous,” McLerran said.
“From my perspective we want a standard that is protective, and protective of all people.”
A daily consumption standard of a little over 6 ounces of fish as set forth by Oregon — the highest standard in the country — is less than a typical half-pound filet an adult would have for dinner. And it’s a snack, compared with the estimated 2.2 pounds a day that the ancestors of Washington tribes were counting on when they signed the treaties with the U.S. government ceding tribal lands for non-Indian settlement.
People shouldn’t be afraid to eat fish now, Susewind said. The increased risk of cancer from eating fish today is almost zero — compared with a background risk of cancer from all causes of about 1 in 2 for men, or 1 in 3 for women.
And many common foods, from butter to chicken to tuna, have more PCBs in them than Puget Sound coho, according to an Ecology analysis.
The ubiquity of pollution is one reason Christie True, director of King County Natural Resources and Parks, said she hopes new state regulations don’t just crank down on pollutants at tiny levels in sewage discharges and other so-called point sources, but instead go after bigger sources of trouble in Puget Sound, including stormwater.
Just making compliance schedules workable doesn’t address the problem if the regulations misdirect spending and effort, she said.
“We want to make sure whatever investments we are making make a substantial improvement in water quality,” True said. “If we just focus on the point-source discharge, we are missing huge opportunities. All of these things, arsenic, PCBs, dioxins, those are coming through our watershed through street runoff and rain runoff, these are getting washed into our water without any kind of control.”
Dianne Barton, water-quality coordinator for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, which pushed Oregon to get started on updating its standards, and is deeply involved with other Washington tribes in setting new standards in Washington, said tribes want progress, but not at any price.
In many rural and suburban areas of the Northwest, tribes are among the largest employers, running all kinds of industries themselves, and they want cost-effective solutions that make a true difference too, Barton said.
“The tribes have always believed that this is not something we are going to achieve overnight,” Barton said. “We can get creative.
“Whether as we move forward that includes variances or resources we haven’t developed yet, we are committed to being actively engaged so we can move the (Columbia) Basin forward.”
The Rez Runners’ Hunter Osceola dribbles against Cheyenne Arapaho’s Kiahree Kerns in an early round of the Native American Basketball Invitational.Mark Henle for Al Jazeera America
PHOENIX — Coach Andrew Bowers was exhorting his players on the court at the US Airways Stadium, his voice cutting through the din of cheering spectators, the squeaks of basketball shoes, the shrill blasts of the referee’s whistle.
“Defense!’’ he roared. “Lock it up! Lock it up! Lock it up!’’
The 18,422-seat stadium is the home of the Phoenix Mercury, a Women’s National Basketball Association franchise. But that wasn’t the team on the court. Bowers is the coach for the Rez Runners, a team of young men from the Seminole, Miccosukee and Winnebago tribes from Hollywood, Florida, where their home court has an audience capacity of just about 200.
By halftime on Saturday, they were tied 31-31 against the Cheyenne Arapaho team in the final game for the gold championship at the Native American Basketball Invitational (NABI).
The Cheyenne Arapaho, representing the tribe of the same name from Oklahoma, have been NABI champions five times. The Rez Runners had made it to the quarterfinals before but never this close to the big prize.
The two teams knew each other. Well.
“It’s a rivalry. It’s not friendly at all,” said Trewston Pierce, an 18-year-old Seminole tribal member and a Rez Runner. “We’re looking to smash ’em.”
At halftime, a victory for Pierce and the Rez Runners was fragile but within grasp.
For five days every July, 128 high school teams from the United States, Canada and New Zealand compete in the nation’s largest Native basketball tournament. The prizes: a trophy, T-shirts, hats and — most important — bragging rights.
For many in Indian Country, basketball is the game of the gods, just as hockey is to many Canadians or soccer to many Brazilians. It’s not clear how it gained such a foothold or why — it just is — but it does have a style and name among those who have been initiated: Rez Ball.
“We’ve been playing this way for decades,” said Tahnee Robinson. “It’s in our blood.”
Robinson was the first Native American drafted into the WNBA, after a fruitful career playing college ball in Nevada, and has been playing professionally overseas the last few years — Israel, Bulgaria, Ukraine, China and now Poland.
“Depending on where you go overseas, they play a fast pace, and some other places they like to really play with more finesse and set the ball up and things like that,” she said. “Rez Ball is a fast-paced game where anybody on the court can bring up the ball at any time.”
Guards, shooting guards, posts, forwards — it doesn’t matter what your position is; in Rez Ball, anyone can take the ball up, and everyone is on the hook to pass, break and rebound.
“It’s just good court sense,” said Robinson. “Just knowing that that person is going to be there without you even having to look.”
In other words, Rez Ball is more democratic — or more chaotic, depending on how you want to look at it.
Coach “Big John” Andreas, center, celebrates with his team, Apache Nation, after it defeated Brotherhood, representing the Winnebago tribe, 43-42, in the first round of play.Mark Henle for Al Jazeera America
The air conditioning roared in the modest Phoenix College gymnasium. Outside, the temperature hovered in the triple digits, but inside, brown faces and black hair filled the stands as Northern Thunder squared off against NN Lady Magic for the title of Girls Silver Champion.
“A lot of people in Indian Country love basketball,” said John Andreas, a coach from White Mountain Apache, Arizona. “It’s a part of life. Navajos, they herd sheep. Cowboys they get the cows together. Natives, they love to play basketball. That’s just the way it is.”
“It’s very important to remember that this is all about the youth,” said Andreas. “This is our way of life.”
There are myriad Native basketball tournaments across the country during the year. The NABI is the largest and is focused entirely on high school students, with the purpose of attracting scouts. By allowing only 128 teams per year to compete — 64 each for boys and girls — organizers hope to keep the quality of games high and to match NCAA brackets.
Roughly 1,600 student athletes attend annually, and teams must apply to play and follow guidelines. All players must be tribally enrolled and in high school and must attend educational seminars while participating.
“You can teach so much through the game of basketball,” said Yvonne DeCory, manager of the South Dakota Many Feathers team. “You can build character. You can build self-esteem. You can teach math.”
Because of NCAA rules, the big division schools don’t recruit at the NABI — only community and tribal colleges. However, the very prospect of a college career is enough for many coaches to push their kids.
“A lot of these kids are onsika. That means kind of poor, a little bit,” said Many Feathers coach William Good Eagle Jr. “Most of these kids don’t get a chance, or they’re too scared. We just want them to get out and try it.”
Overwhelmingly, coaches said basketball was also a way to keep kids off the street and out of trouble. With so many depressing statistics available to describe day-to-day Native life, a basketball game can be a huge breath of fresh air as well as an unassuming nod to a brighter future for the next generation.
“We may be seeing future councilmen or tribal chairmen on these courts,” said Martha Tommie, a Seminole tribal member and spectator. “Why wouldn’t we want our kids to blend together and our tribes become friends as youth? Then when they’re older and wiser — ‘Hey, remember us? Let’s help each other out.’”
Rez Runners Matthew Winsett, left, and Ryland Moore get ready for their championship game at the US Airways Center.Mark Henle for Al Jazeera America
It was quiet in the locker room, save for the sound of a few basketballs bouncing. The boys stretched as the sounds of music and the muffled voice of an announcer filtered down the halls and through the concrete walls of the stadium.
Ryland Moore had A$AP Ferg on his headphones, Mathew Wingett listened to J. Cole, and Trewston Pierce listened to a mix of 50 Cent and traditional Seminole hymns.
Coach Bowers had something to say to the Rez Runners.
“Intensity — let’s start it out from the beginning,” he intoned. “Punch ’em in the mouth, like we always say. Make ’em not want to play anymore. Intensity. That means on offense and on defense.”
The boys nodded. They knew what they had to do.
“We said ‘one game at a time’ the whole way here,” said Bowers. “We’re at that last game. Go get what’s yours. Go get what’s yours. Let’s go! ‘Win’ on three.”
The boys huddled up and in unison yelled, “One, two, three, WIN!”
Hori Poto, center, girls’ coach for New Zealand’s Nga Hau E Wha, with his team during pool play against Fort Yuma, an intertribal squad.Mark Henle for Al Jazeera America
Basketball is important not just to Native communities in North America; it has made its way to tribes in other parts of the world.
“Our major sport in New Zealand is rugby,” said Ramari Leonard, the delegation head and a coach for Nga Hau E Wha. “Our Maori youth grow up dreaming of becoming an All Black, so usually, basketball becomes secondary.”
Nga Hau E Wha, or “four corners,” is named that because team members represent Maori tribes from across the island nation. Essentially, it’s a Maori all-star team.
“For Maoris, when we come to do our tournaments, we have a cultural night, and it’s an expectation that each tribe will perform,” said Leonard. “That is a highlight of the tournament, and that’s what we expected, so we’re a little bit intrigued that it doesn’t happen [at the NABI].”
At the NABI, Native culture isn’t front and center like at other events, at least not what one might easily identify as Native culture. Instead, basketball is the culture, and despite the difference in basketball customs, tribes from both sides of the Pacific are finding more similarities than differences.
“I’d like to think our interactions with the Native Americans would be positive so they think well of Maori people,” said Leonard. “It’s more about the social context. The game is just a reason why we come together.”
Rez Runners basketball coach Andrew Bowers.Mark Henle for Al Jazeera America
Three minutes left on the clock, and the Rez Runners were ahead, 60 to 47.
Timeout.
“Try and run the clock if you can,” said Bowers as the boys gathered around him. “If they give it to you and it’s there, take it. If not, pull a Steve Nash. Go in, dribble it back out. All right?”
The 30-second timeout buzzer blared, and players from Cheyenne Arapaho began trickling back out onto the court. The crowd screamed.
“Three minutes,” yelled Bowers. “Three minutes until you get what you deserve. Challenge all shots. Let’s go, guys.”
Fans called out to the team, “Goooooooo, Rez Runners!’’ Top 40 hits blared over the stadium’s sound system, and the Rez Runners did exactly what they were supposed to: They ran down the clock and took shots when they could.
With about 10 second left on the clock, Cheyenne Arapaho suddenly lost energy, like runners who had crossed the finish line and had no reason left to run. The buzzer rang, and then a cheer rose from the crowd.
The final score: 66 to 51. The Rez Runners had their first NABI title.
The boys claimed their shirts, hats and trophy, then moved on for photos. The next day, some of the Rez Runners would fly back home, while the rest would drive — a two-day journey back to the tip of Florida, the homeland of the Seminole tribe.
“Our young people are just like the whites, the blacks, the Mexicans, whatever,” said Yvonne DeCory. “They put their sneakers on just like them, one at a time, and lace ’em up. But Natives? We got game.”
The Oneida Indian Nation and the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), which lead the national Change the Mascot campaign, responded today to reports that the blogger hired just two weeks ago to defend the Washington NFL team’s use of a racial slur is resigning.*
Oneida Nation Homelands, NY (PRWEB) July 08, 2014
Oneida Indian Nation Representative Ray Halbritter and NCAI Executive Director Jackie Pata said in response to this latest development*:
“The growing opposition to the team’s name is about far more than any one person—it is a civil rights and human rights issue and it is time for the team and the NFL to stand on the right side of history and change the mascot.
“In trying to continue profiting off of a racial slur, Washington team officials have attempted to assemble a political attack machine, but that has only underscored their insensitivity. Dan Snyder selected a person who financially harmed Native Americans to run a foundation to defend his team’s name.** Then Snyder hired a blogger to defend the name, even though that person previously publicly insulted Native Americans and also references the team’s name in a list of racial slurs.*** The fundamental lesson in each of those humiliating episodes should be obvious: there is simply no way to justify promoting, marketing and profiting off of a dictionary-defined racial slur.
“The only tenable solution for the team is to recognize that the R-word racial epithet is deeply offensive to Native Americans, to quit pretending that this word somehow honors them, and to stop using this slur. If Dan Snyder wants to stop embarrassing himself, his team, its fan base and the NFL, then he should approach the issue of the name from an honest and genuine standpoint.”
*Blogger hired to defend Redskins name resigns after two weeks, 7.8.14, cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/24610931/blogger-hired-to-defend-redskins-name-re-signs-after-two-weeks
**Redskins foundation head drew criticism in I.G. report, 3.17.14,
usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2014/03/27/washington-redskins-orginal-americans-gary-edwards-inspector-general/6983217/
***Washington’s blogger-turned-lobbyist faces scrutiny, 7.8.14, http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/07/06/washingtons-blogger-turned-lobbyist-faces-scrutiny/
A new study from Colorado School of Public Health shows that despite some modest improvements, poor oral health remains a major problem in the Navajo Nation and among American Indians overall.
“The oral health among Native Americans is abysmal with more than three times the disease of the rest of the country,” said Terrence Batliner, DDS, MBA, associate director of the Center for Native Oral Health Research at the School of Public Health. “The number one problem is access to care.”
The study, published recently in the Journal of Public Health Dentistry, showed that 69.5 percent of Navajo children had untreated tooth decay. While that’s better than the 82.9 percent in 1999, it’s still unacceptably high.
“The percentage of children with untreated decay appears to have declined in the past decade, although it remains today substantially higher (three to four times) than national averages,” the study said.
Batliner and his colleagues, including Patricia Braun, MD, MPH, who directed the study on the Navajo Nation, looked at 981 children in 52 Head Start classrooms on the reservation. Of those, 89.3 percent had oral disease in the past and 69.5 percent had untreated tooth decay.
That 69.5 percent of untreated decay compares with 20.48 percent among all other race and ethnic groups.
The Navajo Nation is the largest reservation in the country, stretching over 25,000 square miles. Much of it is remote with 22 dental clinics serving 225,639 residents. The dentist-to-patient ratio is 32.3 dentists per 100,000 residents, among the lowest in the country.
The researchers found that half of all Native American children need to be treated in the operating room due to the severity of their oral disease.
To increase access to care, Batliner advocates the creation of dental therapists for the reservation.
“They learn how to do fillings and extractions along with providing preventative services,” Batliner said. “This program has proved to be a raging success among tribes in Alaska. The quality of care is good.”
The American Dental Assn. opposes dental therapists and has filed suit to block their use on tribal lands.
“The American Dental Association is fighting the idea of dental therapists,” Batliner said. “But many of us perceive dental therapists as a Native solution to a Native problem. Children and adults are suffering and this is a solution that can help.”
A new DHM Research survey of Northwest residents finds that support for coal exports through the Northwest is up from where it was last year, when the issue was the subject of public debate and news coverage. | credit: Heidi Nielsen/GoodWorks
More people in the Northwest support coal export terminals than oppose them. Those are the results of a new survey. But people who took the survey didn’t feel very strongly about why they supported coal exports.
For the third year in a row, a public opinion poll for EarthFix asked Northwest residents how they felt about transporting coal through the region. That coal would then be exported to Asia.
DHM Research surveyed 1,200 residents in Washington, Oregon and Idaho from June 25-30. The poll found 47 percent of Northwest residents say they support coal exports. That’s up a little bit from last year’s survey, which showed 41 percent or respondents supporting coal exports. 34 percent opposed Northwest coal exports, and 19 percent didn’t know.
John Horvick, DHM Research director, said many people who responded didn’t have very strong opinions about why they support coal terminals. Those reasons include supporting local economies and more property tax revenue.
“These arguments aren’t quite as persuasive as they were in the past. Maybe people are becoming a little bit more cynical, they’ve heard them before, or they’re asking some questions, or the landscape has changed on the issue,” Horvick said.
The survey also found many people aren’t paying close attention to the issue, Horvick said, another possible reason they don’t feel very strongly about why they support coal export terminals.
One survey respondent who felt strongly about opposing coal export terminals was Robert Schuman. The Pullayup, Washington, resident is a 32 year old truck driver. He said he’s not necessarily opposed to coal, but he doesn’t like it being shipped to Asia.
“I don’t like the coal going over there mainly because they don’t have any environmental controls. It’s getting pumped out in the air over there without even basic scrubbers or anything like that. It’s just pumping ash in the air,” Schuman said.
Environmental groups look at less intense support as good news to their cause. They say as people learn more about coal exports, they start to support them less.
Kerry McHugh, Washington Environmental Council spokeswoman, said exporting coal would harm communities along the railroads and where terminals are built.
“It just really starts to add up that it’s not worth it,” McHugh said.
Over the past three years surveys have shown public support for exporting coal dipped as state agencies hosted large meetings and reviews about the terminals.
Fewer meetings took place this year. Support has risen. Opposition has stayed about the same.
Tuesday will be the first day that Washington stores can legally sell recreational marijuana. Even though the state has been preparing for this day for nearly two years since it passed Initiative 502, it still could be unclear to some people exactly what the rules surrounding pot are.
Here are some answers to the biggest questions that will arise when pot officially goes on sale this week:
Who can buy marijuana and how much can they possess?
Adults who can legally buy marijuana can purchase up to 1 ounce of plant material or 72 ounces of marijuana-infused liquid, such as oils. It’s also legal to buy as much as 16 ounces of edible pot products, such as cookies or brownies, but officials at the state Liquor Control Board say no vendors in the state have yet obtained all of the licenses necessary to sell edibles — so, they won’t be in stores initially.
Of the nearly 200 stores in Seattle that applied for a license, only one — Cannabis City — received approval Monday morning. State officials say that’s because many stores there simply failed to meet licensing requirements in time. Customers near Puget Sound will also have options available in Bellevue and Tacoma. Elsewhere in the state, stores could open as soon as Tuesday in Bellingham, Kelso and Spokane. The full list of retailers who received the state’s first licenses is available online.
This is an area where it’d be easy for marijuana users to run afoul of the law. I-502 makes it illegal to consume pot in public view. That means no visits to nearby parks, no smoking in your vehicle, and definitely no sampling product inside a marijuana retailer. The Seattle Police Department gives a good rule of thumb and describes it like open alcohol container laws. Basically, don’t use pot anywhere you’re not specifically allowed to do so. You may not get arrested just for public consumption, but you can receive a fine.
And while we’re on the topic of consumption, Oregonians and other out-of-staters should be aware that crossing state lines with Washington pot isn’t legal. I-502 does allow residents of other states to buy cannabis, but it has to be consumed in the state. If you try to take pot out of Washington, expect to face the penalties for drug possession in whatever state you enter.
Will legal marijuana be cheaper than stuff on the black market?
No, at least not initially. Supply is still pretty limited in the state, which means that demand — aka prices at the register — are probably going to be steep.
So, what kind of prices can users expect in the early days? That’s likely to vary from store to store. Ramsey Hamide, manager of Main Street Marijuana in Vancouver, told the Columbian he expects initial prices on their shelves to be “maybe $90 to $100 for a 4-gram bag and $45 to $50 for a 2-gram bag.”
But Hamide also said he expects those prices to go down to near street costs in the weeks and months after the first sales as growers throughout the state begin to meet demand.
Does I-502 change state DUI laws?
It’s still illegal to drive while under the influence of marijuana or any other intoxicant. If you get pulled over by an officer, they can conduct a field sobriety test on you to see if you’re intoxicated. Because there aren’t yet any fancy tools — such as a Breathalyzer for alcohol — to figure out if you’re high, the officers can take you back to the station and seek your permission for a blood test if they think you’re driving high. That goes for medical marijuana too. And if a driver gets in an accident while driving high, those blood tests are mandatory.
The first legal marijuana stores in Washington are scheduled to open Tuesday. The Liquor Control Board issued the first 24 retail licenses early Monday.
Rick Stevens stopped by 420 Carpenter, a marijuana retail location in Lacey, Washington, to see if it was open yet. The retired TSA worker is looking forward to making some homemade edibles and listening to Pink Floyd.
Credit Austin Jenkins / Northwest News Network
But state officials warn of high prices and short supply in the beginning. Even so that’s not keeping away some would-be customers.
420 Carpenter is a recreational marijuana retail location that has received its license – one of the first in the state. There’s a surveillance camera out front. The deadbolt is locked. And nobody is answering knocks at the door.
The location seems out of the way in the back of an office park.
Bobby Johnson, who was scouting this location on behalf of some local users of the social networking site Reddit, said, “It’s very nondescript, but I’m sure everyone will know where it’s at very soon.”
The store’s owner said he plans to open on Friday. Johnson said he’d like to be one of the first customers.
“I might drive by and see if there’s an insane line,” he said. “If there’s not then, yeah, I probably will.”
Another would-be customer, retiree Rick Stevens, said he has used marijuana medically for a bad back. Now he’s ready to become a recreational user.
“It makes food taste better and music seems to sound better and all of those things,” he said.
But Johnson said, “I’m a little more excited about the edibles — once that becomes available. I’m not really a big smoker.”
Eventually, legal pot shops will sell edibles. But that part of Washington’s nascent legal, recreational marijuana marketplace isn’t ready yet. For that matter, much of the legal pot crop isn’t either.
Randy Simmons, deputy director of Washington Liquor Control Board, called it “a real issue,” and he expects some grumbling.
“I would just say give it time,” he said. “This is day one of this infant starting to walk.”
Simmons also said the state will be running stings to make sure stores don’t sell to underage customers.
