AP Images In this April 2011, file photo, professional golfer Notah Begay III talks to students in Albuquerque, N.M., about his mission to combat diabetes among Native American youth. The latest effort on the Navajo Nation, the country’s largest reservation, is to use the tax system to spur people to ditch junk food. A proposed 2 percent sales tax on chips, cookies and sodas failed Tuesday, April 22, 2014, in a Tribal Council vote.
Indian Country Today Media Network
Notah Begay III is recovering from a heart attack he suffered on Thursday, April 24, in Dallas, Texas. He is resting comfortably at home with his family and is expected to make a full recovery, according to a statement released by the Notah Begay III Foundation.
Begay was treated at Methodist Hospital, where doctors successfully inserted a stent into a blocked coronary artery.
The four-time PGA Tour winner and Golf Channel analyst is in good spirits and has expressed gratitude to his doctors and many supporters.
“I’m humbled by the outpouring of support and well wishes and am thankful for the excellent medical care I received,” Begay said. “I look forward to returning to my duties as a golf analyst and to continuing the important work of my Foundation. This experience has reinforced for me the need to urgently address health and wellness issues among Native America youth.”
Begay (Navajo, San Felipe Pueblo and Isleta Pueblo), 41, launched the Notah Begay III Foundation (NB3F) in 2005 to help reduce incidences of type 2 diabetes and childhood obesity among Native American youth. The nonprofit has increased access to youth sport and health and wellness programs across Indian country.
“This is the first generation of Native American youth that may not outlive their parents due to childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes,” Begay has said. “The epidemic of type 2 diabetes among our people is relative to the devastation that HIV/AIDS has caused in Africa. As Native peoples, we can’t afford to risk our future. We have to invest in the health, well being and leadership development of our Native youth.”
Fans and supporters of Begay and NB3F can send well wishes and prayers for Begay’s speedy recovery via the NB3F Facebook page, facebook.com/notahbegayfoundation, or directly to the Foundation:
The Notah Begay III Foundation
290 Prairie Star Rd.
Santa Ana Pueblo, NM 87004
Email: info@nb3f.org
Mark Mulligan / The Herald Vehicles kick up dust as they travel eastbound on the service road bypass of Highway 530 toward Darrington Tuesday afternoon. Photo taken 20140429
OSO — The single-lane access road that bypasses the debris field of the Oso mudslide opened Tuesday morning.
It didn’t take long for grateful commuters to line up. State Department of Transportation spokesman Travis Phelps said as many as 60 vehicles at a time queued up to make the trip past the slide zone on the first day.
The access road off Highway 530 is accessible around the clock to local traffic, providing a much-needed lifeline to Darrington.
All trips are escorted through with a pilot car, leaving eastbound at the bottom of the hour and westbound at the top of the hour.
In many ways, it’s like a ferry line for passage to a remote island, with cars queueing up and neighbors getting out to chat to await the signal for the convoy to move forward.
Naomi Lieurance had gone to an appointment in Mount Vernon Tuesday morning with her shi tzu, Harley, via the Highway 20 route.
She had heard about the road opening during the day and was now waiting in line in Oso to return home to Darrington, hoping the new route will improve her access to the rest of the county.
“It’s got to be better than the Mountain Loop Highway,” she said.
She chatted in line with fellow Darrington resident Jake Sowers, who came over the access road earlier in the morning with his wife and was now heading home.
“I didn’t think it was as bad as I thought it was,” Sowers said. Approximately two dozen vehicles, including several logging trucks, made the 1:30 p.m. trip past the slide area to Darrington.
The view along the two-mile access road is not for the faint of heart, however.
The route skirts the edges of the slide zone. Trackhoes and construction vehicles below are dwarfed by a surrounding sea of rolling hillocks of mud and giant piles of broken timber. An American flag hangs from halfway up a denuded tree trunk.
The convoy passes stands of birch trees with new leaves and a pile of mangled cars. Behind it all is the exposed slope of the 650-foot cliff that slammed down into the valley on March 22.
“The horrific magnitude of it doesn’t sink in until you’ve seen it,” said Sowers, who laid eyes on the slide for the first time Tuesday morning.
A former ship’s mate, Sowers said, “I’ve seen some sad things in my life. I once surveyed a sunken ship, and this is right up there with it.”
The unpaved route is steep in places, with the convoy kicking up dust as it creeps over the hills.
According to the transportation department, only local traffic will be able to use the access road, and logging trucks will be able to use the road between 5 a.m. and 5 p.m.
No vehicles pulling trailers are permitted. The speed limit is a constant 10 miles per hour, and no stopping is permitted along the two-mile route.
The pilot cars and security at the two ends of the road are staffed by contractors hired by the state. Granite Construction Co. of Everett has been awarded a $3.4 million contract to maintain the access road and drive the pilot cars. Another firm, Seattle-based Central Protection, is providing security services.
The route is expected to remain open until at least one lane of Highway 530 is reopened. When that will happen is not immediately known, Phelps said.
SHORELINE, Wash. — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday signed an executive oder aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The order creates a task force and charges it with deciding how to tax and cap carbon emissions at the state level. The task force will present a plan to the state Legislature at the beginning of 2015.
The executive order also calls on state agencies to work on phasing out coal power, improving energy efficiency in buildings and exploring the impacts of a low carbon fuel standard – among other things
The first-term Democrat surrounded himself with symbols of the green-tech future he’d like to bring about: he signed the document at a table made out of a solar panel with electric cars parked nearby. Along with politicians, the event was witnessed by the next generation of automotive techs looking on at Shoreline Community College’s Automotive Training Center.
“Today I’m signing an executive order that will determine how we reduce carbon pollution in our state because our grandkids won’t care much for our preamble or our speeches,” Inslee said during the event. “They will care about what is true and what we did.”
Inslee stressed the need for buy-in from business leaders in developing the plan.
Ada Healey, a vice president with Vulcan Real Estate Group, will serve on the task force. She said the company’s chairman, billionaire Paul Allen, and CEO Jody Allen are behind the push to address climate change.
“It’s troubling to them, as well as all of us, that we’re still debating whether climate change is a real concern rather than pulling together and deciding what we’re going to do about it,” Healy said.
Instituting a tax or cap on carbon emissions will require the approval of the state Legislature. That’s been hard to get so far.
Last year Inslee convened the bipartisan Climate Legislative and Executive Work Group. It was supposed to pursue the same agenda as that set by the governor for his new task force. But Democrats and Republicans on the work group failed to reach an agreement.
Democratic members of the panel issued a report that recommended many of the same strategies the governor is now pursuing through executive order.
Republicans on the panel issued their own minority report. It recommended incentivizing more hydropower generation in Washington, embracing nuclear power and promoting research and development of new energy technologies. Throughout the CLEW process, the Republicans cautioned that strategies to reduce carbon emissions in Washington could drive up the cost of energy and hurt the state economically.
Olympia environmental attorney Jay Manning was the head of the Department of Ecology from 2005-09 and then served as chief of staff for former Gov. Chris Gregoire. He said Inslee’s experience as a state and federal representative means he knows it will be tough to get a carbon tax or cap through the state Legislature.
“I don’t think anybody thinks it’s going to be easy but that’s how the process works. So I applaud the gov for putting together this process and then there will be a lively debate, without a doubt in the 2015 session,” Manning said.
So far, Washington is not on track to meet emissions reductions goals set by the state Legislature back in 2008.
Inslee’s order calls on his budget office to conduct a feasibility study of a California-style low-carbon or “clean fuel” standard. This is a requirement that transportation fuels like gasoline be blended with lower-carbon ethanol. According to Inslee’s office, transportation accounts for 44-percent of Washington’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
In recent months, Washington Republicans and the oil and gas industry have sounded the alarm about a low-carbon fuel standard, warning it would drive up the cost of a gallon of gasoline. Oregon is currently in the process of writing its own rules for a similar standard.
Washington, with its abundant hydropower, is considered a low greenhouse gas emitting state. In 2010, total emissions were 96.1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, according to the state’s consultant. Washington’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions is from gasoline burned by cars and trucks. Electricity from coal is the second largest source.
Northwest American tribes and Canadian First Nations presented a united front to restore salmon above Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River and to southern Idaho via the Snake River.
Shoshone-Bannock tribal chairman Nathan Small says on this he’s long felt like he was beating his head on a wall.
“Now I feel maybe my head is going to raise a little bit because there is that possibility to be talked about.”
Tribes and other fish advocates see opportunity to gain traction in two forums. One is the federal relicensing of Idaho Power’s Hells Canyon Project dams. The other is the pending renegotiation of the 50-year-old Columbia River Treaty between the U.S. and Canada.
But stumbling blocks remain. Those include ratepayer objections to the cost of getting salmon around very tall dams and degraded spawning habitat upstream.
After 20 years of battling Monsanto and corporate agribusiness, food and farm activists in Vermont, backed by a growing movement across the country, are on the verge of a monumental victory — mandatory labels on genetically engineered foods and a ban on the routine industry practice of labeling GMO-tainted foods as “natural.”
On April 16, 2014, the Vermont Senate passed H.112 by a vote of 28-2, following up on the passage of a similar bill in the Vermont House last year. The legislation, which requires all GMO foods sold in Vermont to be labeled by July 1, 2016, will now pass through a House/Senate conference committee before landing on Governor Peter Shumlin’s desk, for final approval.
Strictly speaking, Vermont’s H.112 applies only to Vermont. But it will have the same impact on the marketplace as a federal law. Because national food and beverage companies and supermarkets will not likely risk the ire of their customers by admitting that many of the foods and brands they are selling in Vermont are genetically engineered, and deceptively labeled as “natural” or “all natural” while simultaneously trying to conceal this fact in the other 49 states and North American markets. As a seed executive for Monsanto admitted 20 years ago, “If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it.”
Proof of this “skull and crossbones” effect is evident in the European Union, where mandatory labeling, in effect since 1997, has all but driven genetically engineered foods and crops off the market. The only significant remaining GMOs in Europe today are imported grains (corn, soy, canola, cotton seed) primarily from the U.S., Canada, Brazil, and Argentina. These grains are used for animal feed, hidden from public view by the fact that meat, dairy and eggs derived from animals fed GMOs do not yet have to be labeled in the EU.
Given the imminent passage of the Vermont legislation and the growing strength of America’s anti-GMO and pro-organic movement, the Gene Giants — Monsanto, Dow, DuPont, Bayer, BASF, and Syngenta — and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), representing Big Food, find themselves in a difficult position. Early polls indicate that Oregon voters will likely pass a ballot initiative on Nov. 4, 2014, to require mandatory labeling of GMOs in Oregon. Meanwhile, momentum for labeling continues to gather speed in other states as well.
Connecticut and Maine have already passed GMO labeling laws, but these laws contain “trigger” clauses, which prevent them from going into effect until other states mandate labeling as well. Vermont’s law does not contain a “trigger” clause. As soon as the governor signs it, it will have the force of law.
Divisions Between Big Food and the Gene Giants
Given what appears to be the inevitable victory of the consumer right-to-know movement, some of the U.S.’s largest food companies have quietly begun distancing themselves from Monsanto and the genetic engineering lobby. General Mills, Post Foods, Chipotle, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and others have begun to make changes in their supply chains in order to eliminate GMOs in some or all of their products. Several hundred companies have enrolled in the Non-GMO Project so they can credibly market their products as GMO-free.
At least 30 members (10 percent of the total membership) of the GMA who contributed money to defeat Proposition 37 in California in November 2012, have held back on making further contributions to stop labeling initiatives in other states. Among the apparent defectors in the GMA ranks are: Mars, Unilever, Smithfield, Heinz, Sara Lee, Dole, Wrigley, and Mead Johnson. Under pressure from the Organic Consumers Association, Dr. Anthony Weil’s natural health and supplements company, Weil Lifestyle, pulled out of the GMA.
Meanwhile a number of the Gene Giants themselves, including Monsanto, appear to be slowly decreasing their investments in gene-spliced GMOs, while increasing their investments in more traditional, and less controversial, cross-breeding and hybrid seed sales. Still, don’t expect the Gene Giants to give up on the GMO seeds and crops already in production, especially Roundup Ready and Bt-spliced crops, nor those in the pipeline such as 2,4-D “Agent Orange” and Dicamba-resistant corn and soybeans, GE rice, and “RNA interference” crops such as non-browning apples, and fast-growing genetically engineered trees.
America’s giant food companies and their chemical industry allies understand the threat posed by truthful labeling of GMOs, pesticides, antibiotics, growth promoters and toxic chemicals. They understand full well that the GMO monocrops and factory farms that dominate U.S. agriculture not only pose serious health and environmental hazards, but represent a significant public relations liability as well.
This is why the food and GE giants are threatening to sue Vermont and any other state that dares to pass a GMO labeling bill, even though industry lawyers have no doubt informed them that they are unlikely to win in federal court.
This is also why corporate agribusiness is supporting “Ag Gag” state laws making it a crime to photograph or film on factory farms. Why they’re lobbying for state laws that take away the rights of counties and local communities to regulate agricultural practices. And why they’re supporting secret international trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership that will, among other provisions, enable multinational corporations to sue and eliminate state and local laws on matters such as GMOs, food safety, and country of origin labeling.
The bottom line is this: Corporate America’s current “business-as-usual” strategies are incompatible with consumers’ right to know, and communities’ and states’ rights to legislate.
Coca-Cola, Pepsi, General Mills, Kellogg’s, Campbell’s, Safeway, Del Monte, Nestlé, Unilever, ConAgra, Wal-Mart, and every food manufacturer with GMO-tainted brands, understand they’re not going to be able to label their products as “produced with genetic engineering,” or drop the use of the term “natural” on GMO-tainted products, only in Vermont, while refusing to do so in other states and international markets. This is why their powerful front group, the GMA, is frantically working in Washington, D.C., to lobby the FDA and the Congress to take away the right of states to require genetically engineered foods and food ingredients to be labeled, and to allow them to continue to label and advertise genetically engineered and chemically-laced foods as “natural” or “all natural.”
Industry’s Last Chance: Indentured Politicians
Conspiring with the GMA, Monsanto’s minions from both the Republican and Democratic parties in Congress, led by the notorious Koch brothers mouthpiece, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), introduced in early April in the House a GMA-scripted bill to outlaw mandatory state GMO labels and allow the continued use of “natural” or “all natural” product labels on a wide range of Frankenfoods and beverages.
The GMA’s federal offensive to prop up the dangerous and evermore unpopular technology of transgenic foods comes on the heels of two high-profile ballot initiative battles in California (2012), and Washington State (2013), where GMA members were forced to spend almost $70 million to narrowly defeat GMO labeling forces. The 15 largest contributors to stop GMO labeling in California and Washington include the following GMA members:
These “dirty tricks,” “dirty money” ballot initiative victories in California and Washington now ring hollow. If Congress or the FDA, prompted by these same companies, dare to stomp on states’ rights to require GMO labels on GMO food, if they dare to repress the rights of millions of consumers to know whether or not their food is genetically engineered, they run the very real risk of detonating an even larger and more vociferous grassroots rebellion, including massive boycotts and a concerted effort to throw “Monsanto’s Minions” out of Congress. The widespread furor last year over the so-called “Monsanto Protection Act,” surreptitiously appended to the Appropriations Bill, and then, after massive uproar, subsequently removed, is but a partial foreshadowing of the turmoil yet to come.
Likewise Congress or the FDA should think twice before legally sanctioning the patently outrageous practice of allowing companies to continue to label or advertise GMO or chemically tainted food as “natural” or “all natural.”
Given the fact that 80-90 percent of American consumers want genetically engineered foods to be labeled, as indicated by numerous polls over the last 10 years, and given the fact that it is obviously unethical and fraudulent to label or advertise GMO or heavily chemically processed foods as “natural,” even the FDA has so far declined to come to the rescue of Monsanto and Big Food. In the face of 65 so far largely successful national class-action lawsuits against food companies accused of fraudulently labeling their GMO or chemically-laced brands as “natural, “Big Food’s lawyers have asked the FDA to come to their aid. But so far, the FDA has declined to throw gasoline on the fire.
It’s clear why “profit at any cost” big business wants to keep consumers in the dark. They want to maximize their profits. The consumer, the environment, the climate be damned. But let’s review, for the record, why truthful food labeling is so important to us, the overwhelming majority of the people, and to future generations.
Here are three major, indeed life-or-death, issues that drive America’s new anti-GMO and pro-organic food movement:
(1) There is mounting, and indeed alarming, evidence that genetically engineered foods and crops, and the toxic pesticides, chemicals, and genetic constructs that accompany them, are hazardous. GMOs pose a mortal threat, not only to human and animal health, but also to the environment, biodiversity, the survival of small-scale family farms, and climate stability.
(2) Genetically engineered crops are the technological cornerstone and ideological rationale for our dominant, out-of-control system of industrial agriculture, factory farms, and highly processed junk food.America’s industrial food and farming system is literally destroying public health, the environment, soil fertility and climate stability. As we educate, boycott and mobilize, as we label and drive GMOs off the market, we simultaneously rip the mask off Big Food and chemical corporations, which will ultimately undermine industrial agriculture and speed up the “Great Transition” to a food and farming system that is organic, sustainable and climate stabilizing.
(3) Fraudulent “natural” labels confuse consumers and hold back the growth of true organic alternatives. Consumers are confused about the difference between conventional products marketed as “natural,” or “all natural”and those nutritionally and environmentally superior products that are “certified organic.” Recent polls indicate that many health- and green-minded consumers remain confused about the qualitative difference between products labeled or advertised as “natural,” versus those labeled as organic. Many believe that “natural” means “almost organic,” or that a natural product is even better than organic. Thanks to growing consumer awareness, and four decades of hard work, the organic community has built up a $35-billion “certified organic” food and products sector that prohibits the use of genetic engineering, irradiation, toxic pesticides, sewage sludge and chemical fertilizers. As impressive as this $35 billion Organic Alternative is, it remains overshadowed by the $80 billion in annual spending by consumers on products marketed as “natural.” Get rid of fraudulent “natural” labels on GMO and chemically tainted products, and organic sales will skyrocket.
With the passage of the Vermont GMO labeling law, after 20 years of struggle, it’s time to celebrate our common victory. But as we all know, the battle for a new food and farming system, and a sustainable future has just begun
NORMAN, Oklahoma – Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry, a group of Native parents and their allies from across the country were alerted to Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin’s daughter, Christina Fallin’s latest gaff when her band Pink Pony announced via Facebook “I heard Pink Pony was wearing full regalia tonight.” Protestors led by Choctaw musician Samantha Crain staged a protest at the Norman Music Festival in Oklahoma, as Native Americans were outraged on social media when Fallin wore a Native American-style fringed shawl with the word “Sheep” on the back and performed a fake war dance while her boyfriend Steven Battles ridiculed the protesters and flipped them off from the stage.
Earlier that day, Crain said on her Facebook page, “Publicity stunt or not, even if they are lying, their attitudes, their insincerity, their irresponsibility, their general lack of caring about anything other than the advancement of themselves deserve a protest. So I will be at the Pink Pony show at NMF tonight. Midnight. black watch stage. Peacefully and quietly picketing with signs to tell them how I feel.”
Some of the signs said: “culture is not a costume”; “with all your power, what will you do?”; “you still owe us an apology”; “don’t trend on me”; “I am not a costume” and “please forgive us if we innocently oppose you.” The last sign was a take on Fallin’s non-apology after she posted a photo of herself misappropriating Native America regalia reserved for highly honored leaders for a glamour shot to promote her career. Faced with more Native American protests Fallin attempted to have Crain and supporters removed by security, but they were allowed to remain on private land adjacent to the stage.
According to a tweet by Chahta Summer, a Choctaw mother, and recent law school graduate Fallin’s shawl with “sheep” written on the back was
a direct swipe at Native Americans. “Their supporters were calling us sheep the last time, saying we called her out to be PC, not thinking for ourselves,” Summer said.
Cherokee EONM member and blogger Jennie Stockley posted to Pink Pony’s Facebook page, “Apathy towards the clear feelings of other people is cruelty. Her apathy based to Native culture is racist. No opaqueness in this issue. It is clear. We will not stand silent while she degrades honored and sacred symbols.”
The Fallin family has faced controversy with the Native American community both in Oklahoma and nationally last year when Governor Mary Fallin helped facilitate the forced adoption of a Cherokee girl, Veronica Brown, from her Cherokee family who were found to be fit parents by the courts 1,000 miles away to a white South Carolina couple who had used questionable adoption practices to dodge the Indian Child Welfare Act. That act seeks to protect Native American tribes from mass removal of their children; a potential violation of the Geneva Conventions on Genocide. Oklahoma has one of the largest Native American populations in the country and has 38 federally recognized tribes.
EONM asked the Riverwind Casino, Blackwatch Studios and Christina Fallin and Governor Mary Fallin to apologize for this direct attack affront to Native American concerns regarding the misuse of Native culture and purposeful insult to Native Americans in general.
New research from the U.S. Geological Survey shows some fish in the West’s pristine, alpine lakes like Lake Solitude in Grand Teton National Park (pictured here) have high mercury levels. | credit: U.S. Geological Survey/John Pritz
SEATTLE — Some bad news for backcountry in the West: Some of the fish in the region’s wild alpine lakes contain unsafe levels of mercury, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey.
In the broadest study of its kind to date, the USGS tested various kinds of trout and other fish at 86 sites in national parks in 10 western states from 2008 to 2012. The average concentration of mercury in sport fish from two sites in Alaskan parks exceeded federal health standards, as did individual fish caught in California, Colorado, Washington and Wyoming.
But perhaps more importantly, mercury was detected in all of the fish sampled, even from the more pristine areas of the parks.
The study, conducted jointly by the National Park Service and the USGS, found that mercury levels varied greatly from park to park and even among sites within each park. Overall, 96 percent of the sport fish sampled were within safe levels of mercury for human consumption.
“It’s good news that across this entire study area most of the fish were low,” said Collin Eagles-Smith, a research ecologist with USGS and the lead author of the study. “The concern is that there were some areas, and some fish, that did have concentrations that might pose a threat to either wildlife or humans.”
Spatial distribution of the 21 national parks sampled in this
study. Size of circle represents percentage of total dataset.
Credit: USGS.
Two percent of the fish sampled in Mount Rainier National Park exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s guidelines for safe human consumption. Fish sampled in Olympic National Park had a higher average mercury concentration than some other parks in the region, but none of the samples were above safe human consumption levels.
“Mercury concentrations in those fish in the Pacific Northwest were quite variable,” Eagles-Smith said. “Crater Lake had quite low concentrations in comparison to other parks, whereas Olympic National Park had some of the highest concentrations in comparison to other parks.”
The researchers were surprised to find some of the highest levels of mercury in a small fish called the speckled dace, which were sampled in Capitol Reef and Zion national parks in Utah.
“The concentrations in those fish were comparable to the highest concentrations we saw in the largest, longlived fish in Alaska,” Eagles-Smith said. He added that more research is needed to better understand how mercury is deposited from the atmosphere into the environment and then concentrated at varying levels in different species.
Speckled dace
There was some bad news in the study for birds: In more than half the sites tested, fish had mercury levels that exceeded the most sensitive health benchmark for fish-eating birds, Eagles-Smith said.
“People can regulate their intake of fish and wild fish-eating birds can’t. So, they’re going to take in more fish and more mercury as a result, and it can impact their behavior, ability to reproduce and ability to find food.”
Mercury can come from natural sources, like volcanoes. However, since the industrial revolution atmospheric mercury levels have increased three-fold because of the burning of fossil fuels. Recent studies have shown that particulate pollution from China, which could result from the burning of coal among other sources, can and does make its way across the Pacific Ocean to North America.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns that exposure to high levels of mercury in humans may cause damage to the brain, kidneys and the developing fetus. Pregnant women and young children are particularly sensitive to the effects of mercury.
Friday, May 2, 2014 6-8:30 pm
Totem Middle School Cafeteria, 1605 7th St. Marysville
Come celebrate Latino culture and the rich diversity of our Community in an evening of food, music, dancing and fun for all ages – FREE!
Our planning for the eighth annual Cinco de Mayo Celebration is almost complete and the event should be FUN-tastic with something of interest for all ages. It will be Friday, May 2 from 6- 8:30 PM in the Totem Middle School cafeteria and gymnasium. All Marysville and Tulalip community members are invited to participate. Dr. Becky Berg and Mayor Jon Nehring will give opening remarks.
The free event will include Mexican food, music, dancing, and activities. The food will be prepared by the Marysville School District food service students in the School House Café program. Music and entertainment will be provided by the local band, Arrecife Norteño, and other local groups. Several activities will be geared specifically toward children, such as playing soccer and other games, breaking piñatas, and exploring police and fire vehicles. Again this year, Molina Healthcare will bring a stationary bike that guests may pedal to make frozen non- alcoholic drinks; it was a huge hit last year. Dr. Cleo, their mascot, will also be at the event again this year.
Thanks to several generous donors we have received enough funding so we can offer it as a free event again this year. Monetary donations have been received from Marysville Rotary, Marysville YMCA, Molina Healthcare, Marysville Free Methodist Church, and Marysville Ford. In-kind and volunteer support has also been instrumental in making this event happen; it has been received from the Marysville School District, Molina Healthcare, Marysville Printing, Belmark Homes, Arrecife Norteño band, Sea Mar Community Health Center, and various student groups.
This community effort has been lead by Marjorie Serge, with support from Jim Strickland, Victor Rodriguez, Susan Stachowiak, Wendy Messarina Volosin, Anastasia Garcia, Rhonda Mohen and others.
Questions in English should be directed to Marjorie Serge at 425-350-2064 or Marjorie_serge@msvl.k12.wa.us Questions in Spanish should be directed to the school district’s information line 360-657-0250.
Following last month’s tragic landslide in Oso, communities all around the nation have come together to show their support for the victims.
Quiznos is urging Washington residents to attend a silent auction and dinner benefitting Oso victims this Sunday, April 27, at Nature’s Connection Place in Arlington. Quiznos is donating subs for the event and is also collecting monetary donations in area stores.
Nipun Prashar is the owner and operator of the Everett Quiznos and was personally affected by the tragedy. For days immediately following, he donated a percentage of store proceeds to the relief effort. In addition to providing food and auction items for the benefit, his restaurant is currently collecting customer donations that will go directly to the relief effort.
Tickets for the event are still available, and the organizers are still accepting auction items and donations. For more information, contact the event organizers at 530slidebenefit@gmail.com or (425) 308-2183.
The Quileute Tribe is suing a manufacturer of movie collectibles over products that have been sold to fans of the Twilight films using the Tribe’s name.
The trinkets include the Quileute Metal Cuff, Quileute Leather Wrap Bracelet, Quileute Hoop Dangle Earrings, and Quileute Tribe Pendant/Choker. The Quileute feature in the popular (and obviously fictional) series of vampire films as the Tribe of the character Jacob Black, played by Taylor Lautner.
In a complaint filed March 28, the Quileute Tribe has accused the National Entertainment Collectibles Association (NECA) of violating the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, which was established to protect the integrity of Indian Tribal names as brands. The gist of it is, if you are selling Navajo necklace — or, if you’re Urban Outfitters, Navajo panties — it had better have been made by a Navajo.
In this case, the Quileute Tribe is demanding NECA cease using the Quileute name in connection with its products, and is seeking monetary recompense for damages to the Tribe’s integrity and livelihood. To read the full complaint, visit TurtleTalk.
