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Boy finds wedding ring, hopes to find the owner

Eric Stevick, The Herald

TULALIP —

was rummaging through the rocks and sand looking for creatures when his eyes happened on something shiny earlier this week.

It was one of those wonderfully warm sunny days of summer, idyllic conditions for a 10-year-old boy with plenty of time and curiosity.

Caleb found his spot to explore along the 3,300-foot shoreline that entices beachcombers to Kayak Point Park.

It was low tide, all that much better for poking around for sea critters and Caleb was near some pilings.

“I thought it was a fish hook,” the soon-to-be fifth-grader said of the gleam that caught his eye.

Upon closer inspection, the object was smooth and round.

“He came running to me and said, ‘Look what I found,'” his mother, Jackie Goulet said.

Caleb had recovered not only a ring, but a symbol of love.

He and his mother brought it to the attention of park maintenance workers or WSU Beach Watchers near the ranger station.

The boy and mom were told a man had been looking for a lost ring the day before near the boat launch. He was about to celebrate his 44th wedding anniversary and was hoping to find the ring before the momentous date.

Snohomish County Parks operations supervisor Rich Patton said parks employees have little information about the man who lost his ring, except that he had trouble launching his boat and may have lost the ring at that time.

Now, Caleb is hoping to reunite the man with his ring.

“I was really excited to find the ring and I was really excited he would be happy to get it back,” he said.

How excited is Caleb? On a scale of one to 10, this drama ranks a nine in his book.

Jackie Goulet said there are some distinguishing features to the ring that only the owner would know about.

She has taken out a lost-and-found ad on Craigslist: http://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/laf/3957638868.html

It reads:

Found Wedding Ring at Kayak Point

My son was digging for creatures and found a men’s wedding ring. One of the Beach Watchers told me that the owner was looking for it yesterday. If you are the owner, please contact me AND be prepared to describe it. I hope I get it back to the right person.

For Canada and First Nations, it’s time to end the experiments

Shawn Atleo(Vince Fedoroff/THE CANADIAN PRESS / WHITEHORSE STAR) — Shawn Atleo
(Vince Fedoroff/THE CANADIAN PRESS / WHITEHORSE STAR)

By SHAWN ATLEO

The Globe and Mail | July 25, 2013

Recent reports about the Canadian government’s experiments on hungry, impoverished First Nations children in residential schools have sent a shock wave through the country.

My reaction was deeply personal. My father attended one of the schools where these experiments took place. My family and countless others were treated like lab rats, some even being deprived of necessary nutrition and health care so researchers could establish a “baseline” to measure the effects of food and diet.

First Nations, while condemning the government’s callous disregard for the welfare of children, were perhaps the only ones not completely surprised. The experiments are part of a long, sad pattern of federal policy that stretches through residential schools, forced relocations and the ultimate social experiment, the Indian Act, which overnight tried to displace ways of life that had been in place for generations. All of these experiments are abject failures.

It’s time to end the experiments. Canada must start working with us to honour the promises our ancestors made in treaties and other agreements, to give life to our rights as recognized by Canadian courts and relinquish the chokehold of colonial control over our communities.

As I said on the day this report came to light: Canada, this is your history. We must confront the ugly truths and move forward together. And there is a way forward that requires a dedicated commitment across three key areas: respect, fairness and reconciliation.

Respect requires that Canada work with First Nations to give life to our rights, title and treaties. This requires true partnership. The government must stop making decisions for us and start working with us. First Nations want control over the decisions that affect their lives, to shape their own policies and institutions. They are putting ideas on the table and driving solutions.

We see this clearly in the commitment and clarion call for First Nations control of First Nations education. We reject unilaterally imposed legislation. We will exercise our right to create our own systems that are sustainable, that support our children’s success and value our languages and cultures. This is already happening in Nova Scotia, Alberta, B.C. and elsewhere – First Nations working together and pooling expertise to achieve graduation rates that exceed provincial norms. This is success we must support. It must be not the exception, but our collective expectation and commitment.

Fairness requires that we end the unequal funding that condemns too many of our people to a daily struggle to survive. The experiments on our children did not make us poor. Rather, the government experimented on our children because they were poor, an impoverished population suffering from malnutrition and deprivation. But like so much else, poverty was imposed on us. The research notes that government systematically cut back relief payments to First Nations throughout the Depression era. Non-indigenous Canadians received relief at a rate two and three times higher than First Nations. At the onset of the Second World War, relief was cut again and we were further deprived.

This is still happening. Funding for First Nations – for many of the same things Canadians expect, such as schools and infrastructure – has been capped at a 2-per-cent increase, per year, for 17 years, despite the fact that our population has boomed and inflation outpaces this amount. Provinces enjoy transfers closer to 6 per cent, and these are guaranteed.

Escaping the poverty trap requires fairness, an investment now so we can build stable communities today and stronger nations tomorrow. Research shows that healthy First Nations can contribute hundreds of billions to the economy, while saving more than a $100-billion in costs connected to poverty. Why would we not support this approach?

Finally, the way forward requires reconciliation. This means truth telling, and it requires deliberate and clear action. The government must come forward and disclose all documentation on residential schools to the national Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The government must be open and transparent in accounting for its spending on First Nations and the billion dollars that is poured into the bureaucracy each year. The government must stop stalling and release all documents related to its unequal funding of First Nations child welfare, the subject of a current complaint before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. It also means action to advance reconciliation through recognizing our inherent rights and responsibilities and clear commitment to honouring and implementing treaties and agreements forged between the Crown and First Nations.

Canadians are rightfully shocked by these revelations. It shakes the core of their belief in Canada as a fair and just nation. It’s time to be honest about our history. We can’t change the past but we must commit to change the present and work together to create a better, brighter and just future.

Feds hear about Indian tribe recognition proposal

Maura Sullivan, secretary for the Central Band of Chumash Nation, speaks about the proposed changes to federal acknowledgment regulations for Native American tribes Thursday in Solvang. — Maura Sullivan, secretary for the Central Band of Chumash Nation, speaks about the proposed changes to federal acknowledgment regulations for Native.American tribes Thursday in Solvang. Daniel Dreifuss/Staff

Federal officials heard testimony Thursday in Solvang on proposed changes to the process for Native American tribes to get recognized, a procedure speakers described as expensive, lengthy and burdensome.

July 26, 2013 LompocRecord.com

Julian J. Ramos/jramos@lompocrecord.com

In June, the Department of the Interior (DOI) released a draft of potential changes to its Part 83 process for acknowledging certain groups as American Indian tribes granted a government-to-government relationship with the United States.

At the moment, the U.S. has 566 federally recognized tribes, of which 17 have been recognized through Part 83. California has 109 federally recognized Indian tribes with between 70 and 80 seeking federal recognition.

The draft proposal, the subject of two sessions Thursday at Hotel Corque, is meant to give tribes and the public an early opportunity to provide input on potential changes to the Part 83 process.

Proposed revisions are intended to improve transparency, timeliness, efficiency, flexibility and integrity in the acknowledgment process, according to the DOI.

However, critics of the proposed rules are calling them the “Patchak patch,” a reference to Supreme Court decision last year in favor of David Patchak, a Michigan man who challenged the way the government takes land into trust for tribes.

They say the proposed rules are meant to drastically limit the uncertainties created by the Patchak decision by adding administrative barriers for potential litigants and rushing fee-to-trust acquisitions, which removes land from local jurisdiction and makes it part of an Indian reservation, under tribal authority.

Larry Roberts, deputy assistant secretary for Indian Affairs, said the presentation during the afternoon public meeting was the same delivered during the morning tribal consultation session.

The public session Thursday afternoon drew between 60 and 70 attendees, including Solvang Mayor Jim Richardson, in the ballroom of the hotel, which is owned by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians.

Roberta Cortero of the Central Band of Chumash Nation speaks her concerns about the proposed changes to federal acknowledgment regulations for Native American tribes Thursday In Solvang. Daniel Dreifuss/Staff

Many of the speakers represented California tribes seeking recognition, a process they described as cumbersome, costly and very time consuming, or as Mona Olivas Tucker, tribal chairwoman of the Yak Tityu Tityu Northern Chumash in San Luis Obispo County, put it, something she doesn’t expect to be completed in her lifetime.

Valentin Lopez, tribal chairman of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of Coastanoan/Ohlone Indians in the San Juan Bautista area, said the acknowledgment process is getting more and more difficult, is too lengthy, should be moved out of the hands of the DOI Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and the burden of proof for recognition should revert to the BIA from tribes.

Michael Cordero, tribal chairman of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation, said criteria changes could make it easier to be recognized and tribes, such as his, could benefit from the acknowledgment.

A “Letter of Intent,” which begins the acknowledgment petition process, has been submitted for the tribe, he said.

During a break, Cordero said the session had been helpful in clarifying some issues on the process and requirements.

Across San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation has about 2,500 enrolled members, Cordero said.

Under the proposal, reviews of a petitioner’s community and political authority — criteria for acknowledgment — would “begin with the year 1934 to align with the government’s negation of allotment and assimilation policies and eliminate the requirement that an external entity identify the group as Indian since 1900,” according to the DOI.

No More Slots attorney Jim Marino asked why 1934 is being used in the criteria. He represents several groups against more Indian gaming and land acquisition through the fee-to-trust process, which removes land from local jurisdiction and makes it part of an Indian reservation under tribal authority.

The 1934 Indian Reorganization Act represented a “dramatic” shift in federal policy toward self determination for tribes and the use of that year as a benchmark is meant to reflect that change, Roberts said.

To block attempts to annex property into the Santa Ynez Reservation, opponents of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians have questioned whether it’s legally a tribal government and thus able to take land into trust via the fee-to-trust process.

The battle centers on Chumash efforts to annex almost 7 acres they own across Highway 246 from the tribe’s Santa Ynez casino.

Members of Preservation of Los Olivos (POLO) and Preservation of Santa Ynez (POSY) have presented documentation to the Bureau of Indian Affairs the groups believe prove the Chumash were not under federal jurisdiction in 1934, and do not qualify to take any land into trust.

By contrast, the Chumash tribe logo and flag says “Federally Recognized Tribe since 1901.”

Due to POLO’s continuing litigation, the group has been advised not to comment on the proposed rule change, POLO president Kathy Cleary said.

Other plans by the Chumash to annex property into the reservation, notably 1,400 acres they own about 2 miles east of the casino and an additional 5.8 acres in the casino area along Highway 246, have also been met with opposition.

Sam Cohen, legal and government affairs specialist for the Chumash, said the proposal is not applicable to the local tribe.

“The Department of the Interior has started to initiate the process of reviewing revisions to the federal acknowledgment regulations for Native American tribes that hope to be federally recognized,” he said in a statement. “Since the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians was federally recognized in 1901, the revisions don’t apply to the Santa Ynez Chumash tribe.”

Transcripts from both sessions will be available at www.bia.gov, officials said.

The discussion draft is available for review at www.bia.gov/whoweare/as-ia/consultation.

Interior officials will accept written comments on the draft until Aug. 16 by email to consultation@bia.gov or by mail to Elizabeth Appel, Office of Regulatory Affairs & Collaborative Action, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1849 C Street, NW, MS 4141, Washington, DC 20240.

Amendment makes it easier to process Cobell claims

By Alastair Lee Bitsoi
Navajo Times

FARMINGTON, July 25, 2013

Navajo allottees in New Mexico can now submit their Bureau of Indian Affairs probate document or state-issued small estate affidavit as a way to receive trust settlement claims from the class action suit Cobell vs. Salazar.

On July 16, Richard Levy, who was appointed by Judge Thomas F. Hogan as special master overseeing the Cobell payments, made an amendment to the class action suit, which had been in litigation between Elouise Cobell and the federal government for years.

Cobell (Blackfeet) had filed the largest class action suit against the federal government, on behalf of 500,000 holders of individual Indian trust accounts, for mismanaging and failing to account for billions of dollars in Indian assets it held in trust over the last century.

In 2010, the federal government approved a settlement worth $3.4 billion for the trust case, with the money being divvied up to compensate individual account holders, buy back lands and restore them back to tribal nations, and set up a $60 million scholarship fund.

Levy’s July 16 amendment allows for the BIA probate and small estate affidavit forms to serve as conduits to expedite payments to beneficiaries, both Individual Indian Money class account holders and trust administration class holders of the suit.

“This should help,” said David Smith, attorney with the Cobell class action suit, in a July 18 interview with the Navajo Times at the Farmington Civic Center.

Smith, along with Garden City Group CEO Jennifer Keough and Ervin Chavez, president of the association of Navajo allottees known as Shi Shi Keyah, saw more than 800 people turn out for meetings in Twin Lakes and Farmington last week. The meetings were a chance for Navajo allottees to hear updates on the Cobell case and the status of payments from the Garden City Group, the firm charged with administering settlement claims for the 500,000 Native American allottees.

Initially, the court had only allowed state and tribal probate forms to be used for allotment settlement claims, which only processed about 88 percent of them, Chavez said.

Chavez, who filed a friend of the court brief in the Cobell case on behalf of Navajo allottees, said that Levy’s amendment only helps allottees, most of whom already have the BIA probate documents in hand to process for their claims.

“The judge accepted that amendment to the settlement and that’s going to help a lot of families get money from the settlement,” he said.

With the special master’s amendment, Smith is hoping the 7,409 Navajo people whose whereabouts are unknown to the BIA get processed for payment. It’s also a way for heirs to process through the probate system to acquire payments of their deceased relatives.

One of the 800 people to show up at the GCG meeting on July 18 was 31-year-old Tim Beyale of Nageezi, N.M. He has allotments near Nageezi, N.M and Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

Beyale didn’t know if it was worth pursuing his claim through the Garden City Group, mostly because the $1,000 payment from his late father’s allotment would be split among his siblings and a stepmother he learned about at the time of his father’s death. The payment from his own allotment, he said, added up to a “Chiclet” amount.

The Garden City Group was on hand with computer booths and staff helping Navajo allottees like Beyale process their claims. Booths were also set up at the Twin Lakes Chapter meeting on July 17 for allottees from that region of the reservation.

For LaVone Royston, the amendment allows for her to fill out a small estate affidavit to expedite payments from her late mother’s allotments as well as mineral payments from oil companies that drill on the allotments.

“Her estate is still going through the probate process,” Royston said, which is due in part to the original terms of the Cobell settlement.

Royston, who is an accountant, attended the meeting in Farmington to also find out why the documents her mother used to receive from the oil companies ceased coming when she died in 2011.

“Since she passed away, I can’t get anything,” she said.

What Royston did learn, however, from GCG is that she can’t have access to her mom’s financial records because the land acquisition is still in probate and a federal privacy act prevents heirs from accessing that information until they get the probate document.

According to Chavez, the Navajo Area BIA office told allottees in Twin Lakes they were backlogged with probate cases for the next 13 years. Crownpoint District Judge Irene Toledo also attended the meeting in Twin Lakes to get clarity on the settlement and reportedly told Chavez, Smith and GCG officials most of her cases are tribal probate ones.

But with the option of filing a small estate affidavit with a New Mexico county, Royston is hopeful to process through the probate system more quickly.

“I am going to file,” she said. “I can do it a lot faster and don’t have to wait for a BIA hearing.”

The first round of payments was distributed in 2012 to Individual Indian Money Account holders, who held an account from October 25, 1994 to Sept. 30, 2009. These beneficiaries are also known as individuals of the historical accounting portion of the settlement. They each received a $1,000 payment.

Smith anticipates the second round of payments to be released this fall to those allottees who didn’t process through during the first round of payments. These allottees are known as the “trust administration” class, with an open account from 1985 to Sept. 30, 2009. The second round of payments will be no less than $800 for some allotees, Smith said.

Delores Hesuse, on behalf of her late father, Henry Hesuse, who founded the Shi Shi Keyah group, said she was glad that Judge Hogan agreed to the amendment in the suit.

From her experience and what she’s seen with other allottees, they would spend over a month within the legal system to get their land probated with the original terms of the case.

“I finally got what the Garden City Group and Cobell lawyers were saying,” she said. “Everybody was lost within our system. They only knew of the federal probate.”

Information: contact the Garden City Group at 888-404-8013 or visit www.indiantrust.com.

Contact Alastair L. Bitsoi at 928-871-1141 or by email at abitsoi@navajotimes.com.

NWIC’s big athletics fundraiser tees off soon

Golfers will have a chance to win Seattle Seahawks tickets with sideline passes

Last year’s Northwest Indian College Big Drive for Education Golf Scramble garnered $19,000 and this year’s goal is to raise $25,000. Photo courtesy of NWIC

Source: NWIC

On Friday September 6, Northwest Indian College (NWIC) Foundation will host the 11^th Annual Big Drive for Education Golf Scramble, the college’s biggest annual athletics fundraiser that supports student athletes and athletic programs.

The scramble will begin with a 1 p.m. shotgun start, in which all golfers tee off at different holes at the same time. The event will take place at the Sudden Valley Golf & Country Club on Lake Whatcom in Bellingham.

Last year’s event garnered more than $19,000 and this year’s goal is to raise $25,000. The Golf Scramble provides financial resources, such as athletic scholarships, for NWIC student athletes, and supports the development of the college’s health and fitness programs.

NWIC sports include: women’s volleyball, men’s basketball, women’s basketball, co-ed softball, cross country, canoeing, tennis, and golf.

Registration rates are $800 for teams of four golfers or $200 for individual registrants who would like to be placed on teams. Costs include registration, carts, green fees, range balls, dinner and raffle tickets.

This year’s Golf Scramble will include a silent auction and a raffle with prizes that include Seattle Seahawks tickets with sideline passes. Players will also have an opportunity to win the “hole-in-one” car.

Winning teams will receive the President’s cup trophy and NWIC Golf Scramble jackets. There will be a jackets awarded to the top women’s team as well as medals to the winners of the side games.

Sponsorship opportunities for this year’s Golf Scramble are:

Premiere: $10,000

Reserved table and seating for eight at golf awards banquet
Name listing and logo in promotional literature
Golf registration for two teams of four (eight golfers)
Signage with logo at the event
Honorable mention throughout the event

Soaring Eagle: $5,000

Reserved table and seating for eight at golf awards banquet
Name listing and logo in promotional literature
Golf registration for two teams of four (eight golfers)
Signage with logo at the event
Honorable mention throughout the event

Hawk: $2,500

Reserved table and seating for four at golf awards banquet
Name listing in promotional literature
Golf registration for one team (four golfers)
Signage at the event
Honorable mention throughout the event

Birdie: $1,250

Reserved table and seating for eight at golf awards banquet
Name listing and in promotional literature
Golf registration for on team (four golfers)
Signage at the event
Honorable mention throughout the event

Tee Sponsors

$500: Name listed in promotional materials, signage at tee and green
$250: Signage at tee and green
$150: Signage at tee OR green

For sponsorship and registration information or for questions, email mariahd@nwic.edu or call (360)392-4217.

Teaching Indigenous Solutions to Modern Agricultural Problems

Alex Jacobs, Indian Country Today Media Network

For 18 years, Clayton Brascoupe, director of Traditional Native American Farmers Association, has taught a course called Indigenous Sustainable Communities Design. The stories of how people and communities have been affected are powerful.

• There were the South American students who took back their knowledge and heritage seeds to create gardens and build a new community house. They grew a certain yellow watermelon and when presented to the elders at a fiesta, they began to cry because they hadn’t tasted the fruit since they were children. They were also recognized at the national level for this community work.

• Then there was the phone call Clayton received from the mother of a young man from Arizona. She asked what they had done to her son, because he had completely changed from a game-playing couch potato into an engaged busy gardener.

• Another young man returned home to Los Angeles to start urban gardens, but his story was not quite that simple: As it turned out, he was hard-core gang member who took it upon himself to change his community by providing fresh food.

• On another occasion, the course provided a natural solution when mother nature wreaked havoc: A Mayan group from Belize learned to preserve surplus garden-grown food and marinated chicken. When hurricanes damaged everything, they still had the preserves to feed the community.

Clayton Brascoupe. Photo by Alex Jacobs

Clayton Brascoupe — known around Turtle Island as Clayton or “Scoobie” — is Mohawk and Anishnabe, and was raised in Tuscarora, NY. He married Margaret Vigil from Tesuque Pueblo, NM and they have four daughters, which is also the name of their farm “4 Sisters”. He served an appointed position on the Tesuque Pueblo Tribal Council, and has been involved in community gardens and marketing for years. We travelled together with White Roots of Peace/Akwesasne Notes on the 1973 Wounded Knee trip; Clayton returned to NM to marry Margaret, and our fellow traveler Tom Cook returned to Pine Ridge, SD to marry Loretta Afraid of Bear. I went on to become an editor of Akwesasne Notes, co-founder of Indian Time and Akwekon, Tom is now a respected member of his Lakotah community and participates in the Sun Dance. Clayton’s older brother Simon Brascoupe, was an important artist in the early development of marketing Canadian Native Arts.

Clayton’s course is a two-week hands-on grassroots workshop — it’s also, frequently, a life changing experience. Class size ranges from 20 to 25, with the most ever being 35. Locals from New Mexico, Arizona, and elsewhere in the southwest make up most of the class. There are urban Natives, as well as Natives from Canada, Central and South America. Many students return to become instructors — the staff is 98% indigenous, and many of are women. Recently there’s been a Midwifery component — the thinking being, if we can grow clean food in a non-industrial way, then why not our children?

Traditional foods ready to eat. Image courtesy Clayton Brascoupe.

What Clayton says is important for these students, is it to develop a resource base of knowledge in the affected communities and to become experts in their respective communities. Identify resources, land bases, elders’ knowledge, youthful energy, water sources, urban parks, markets and outlets, recycling discarded resources and discarded people too. Identify problems and solutions and use local resources to fix them, and if there aren’t enough local resources, go out in wider and broader networks to find more. Its base knowledge is agriculture, but it’s not just about planting gardens. Health care is everyone’s biggest issue and expense, but fresh food dramatically changes diet and lifestyle, positively affecting diabetes and heart disease. Food, health, economies, energy, housing, spiritual well-being, elder care, raising children, education — it all becomes inter-related.

Clayton had originally started the course as Permaculture Design but each group had different issues, so the course grew outward and became its own living organism, adapting and changing. Citing examples around Indian country, he talked about ecology and borders and what he terms eco-tones, where two environments come together. These “edges” are where things happen and exchanges are made, where there is more diversity of plants and animals. It’s the difference between a riparian area with a meandering river or a re-created “seaway”, dug out and made straight for industrial traffic. Communities become just like these traffic lanes — dollars don’t stay, they leave immediately like out a pipeline fast, instead of percolating around families. In most communities, dollars are replenished in grants instead of recycling via local diverse economies. Just like a riparian wetland or our own digestive system, there needs to be more meandering, more edges where things meet, interact and exchange, to yield more nutrients, more bang for the buck, rather than having everything of value be extracted by corporations and outside markets.

Growing heirloom seeds. Photo courtesy Clayton Brascoupe.

Although the course is designed for and made up of indigenous peoples, non-Natives have been students and there are usually around 5 spots for non-natives who pay the full course fee. Sometimes Native organizations or benefactors will sponsor individuals to come and learn and then go back to Native communities to teach. Participants can camp nearby, children are allowed but there’s no daycare, and there’s local food catering from San Juan (Ohkay Ohwingeh). The 2013 session of Sustainable Communities Design runs from July 28 through August 9 in Santa Cruz, New Mexico. Those interested should visit tnafanm.org/TNAFA.html for more information.

One final story: An El Salvadoran farmer comes every year driving his cooking-oil fueled pick-up truck. He fills up at restaurants (which usually have to pay to have their oil picked up), the best fuel oils are from Taiwanese, Chinese, and Mexican restaurants. The McDonalds waste cooking-oil clogs his vehicle’s engine, it won’t run; so think about that for awhile.

Alex Jacobs, Mohawk, is a visual artist and poet living in Santa Fe.

Charlie Angus on racists in cyberspace

By CHARLIE ANGUS

July 25, 2013 NOWTotornto.com

Now, I know online commentary isn’t generally known for its erudite reflection. After all, troll culture revels in trashing everyone.

But whenever an article is posted about Idle No More or treaty rights or First Nation poverty, the comments section is quickly overwhelmed with abusive attacks. It is impossible not to recognize a relentless pattern of malevolence. In cyberspace the racists are loud, proud and determined to define the terms of discussion around aboriginal issues.

Let’s compare these responses to those following recent natural disasters in Oklahoma, Bracebridge and Alberta, which prompted outpourings of heartfelt and moving comments.

And yet when two communities in my region, Attawapiskat and Kashechewan, were hit by flash flooding earlier this spring, the pages were filled with vicious glee. Online consensus was that the families who were flooded out by failed sewage lifts were actually responsible for the flood – either because of deviousness or mental decrepitude. The idea that government agencies might send aid to help these Canadian citizens sent commentators into a rage.

I used to think trolls wrote their crap because they could post it anonymously. But now I see people not only willing to sign their name to it but even to supply a headshot. The purveyors of these false stereotypes seem to be hijacking the public conversation away from issues like chronic infrastructure underfunding, third-class education and the inability to share in economic development.

So why the lack of action?

It’s not as if Canadians haven’t taken impressive steps to fight cyber-bullying. And yet whenever I hear about the wonderful efforts being made to protect young people online, I think of the trauma experienced by children in Attawapiskat from online attacks. When the media began reporting on their struggle to have a school built in the community, online haters again took over the comments pages. A teacher in Attawapiskat told me the children were shaken by commenters calling them “lazy Indians,” “losers,” “gasoline sniffers,” etc.

How is it that school boards, parents, police and editorialists rightly tell young people to speak out against the humiliation by individual youth online but don’t seem to notice when the hate is directed at First Nation children?

Canada is one of the most digitally literate societies in the world. The task before us isn’t just about challenging stereotypes of First Nation people, but correcting the emerging and inaccurate image of the ugly Online Canadian. There is simply too much at stake to allow important issues and stories to be poisoned by trolls. So when you see examples of these hate comments, please be Idle No More.

Charlie Angus is the Member of Parliament for Timmins-James Bay.

Facebook looks to the future with Prineville ‘cold storage’ facility

Facebook's data center in Prineville. The main data halls are in the center of the picture. The cold storage facility is the L-shaped building on the lower right. (Facebook photo) — Facebook’s data center in Prineville. The main data halls are in the center of the picture. The cold storage facility is the L-shaped building on the lower right. (Facebook photo)

By Mike Rogoway, The Oregonian
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
July 25, 2013

Facebook users post 350 million photos on a typical day. On a holiday, like Christmas or New Year’s Eve, they post more than a billion.

Altogether, Facebook now hosts more than 250 billion photos — and it’s seeking new technologies to store those old pictures efficiently and reliably at its data centers in Prineville and elsewhere around the world.

“These are the precious memories of people around the world,” said Jay Parikh, Facebook’s vice president of infrastructure. “We can’t lose them.”

Parikh was in Portland today to deliver a keynote address at OSCON, the annual O’Reilly Open Source Convention at the Oregon Convention Center. He spoke about the company’s “Open Compute Project,” an effort to build collaboration among data center operators to improve performance and efficiency.

Facebook says 82 percent of its traffic is focused on just 8 percent of its photos, generally the most recent posts. It plans to put older images into “cold storage,” data centers that host older photos in more efficient — albeit a bit less speedy — facilities.

Data centers use enormous volumes of energy. Facebook’s Prineville facility consumed as much electricity last year as 13,000 homes.

If Facebook can store photos more efficiently, it can substantially cut its energy use, operating costs and environmental impact.

OSCON back again in 2014 and 2015

The O’Reilly Open Source Convention will return to Portland in 2014 and again in 2015.

The state’s largest annual tech conference attracts more than 3,000 people to the Oregon Convention Center each year. It first came to Portland in 2003, then moved to San Jose in 2009. The following year, Portland signed a four-year deal to bring OSCON back.

That deal expires this year, but OSCON says it plans to return next year and in 2015. Next year’s conference will run July 20-24.

The cold storage concept isn’t new. Parikh talked about it early last winter, and I wrote about it in February after visiting the cold storage construction site in Prineville.

On Wednesday, Parikh offered more detail about Facebook’s vision for the future. Construction on its Prineville cold storage facility is due to wrap up this fall, he said in a conversation following his OSCON keynote. Substantial testing will follow, he said, before it begins hosting older photos.

Each cold storage data hall will hold 1 exabyte of data — equivalent to 1 million of the 1 terabyte hard drives now common in PCs. Facebook will fill each cold storage data hall with 500 racks of servers.

Most of those servers will be idle most of the time. Facebook will keep just a small number of hard drives running, and spin up additional ones when it needs to retrieve the photos they store from cold storage.

Waking up those hard drives is a slow, energy-intensive process. Parikh said Facebook hopes a new technology will emerge that’s both faster and more efficient. He calls it “cold flash.”

It’s the same flash memory technology that stores the songs on your smartphone, and the documents you carry around on a thumb drive.

Cold flash, Parikh said, would be a low-grade, high-capacity storage technology. It wouldn’t need the durability that flash memory in a thin laptop requires — most of the cold storage material stored on it would sit unused forever.

It will likely be a year or two before anyone develops suitable flash memory, Parikh said. And perhaps it’s impossible to do it at a price that would be cost-effective for Facebook.

But through its Open Compute efforts, Parikh said he hopes to demonstrate that Facebook and others would provide an eager customer base for whoever invents cold flash.

All kinds of businesses, he said, need electronic cold storage for old records they may never need — but must retain, just in case.

“Write once,” he said. “Read never.”

— Mike Rogoway; twitter: @rogoway; phone: 503-294-7699

Search for Native American remains and historic sites in Hillsboro, OR

Crews with SWCA Environmental Consultants dig in a field east of Northwest 253rd Avenue in search of Native American remains or remnants of the historic Methodist Meeting House. The contract is now significantly more expensive, according to city officials (Andrew Theen/The Oregonian)

By Andrew Theen, The Oregonian
July 24, 2013

Hillsboro’s ongoing search for human remains and historic sites in a field and along a gravel road earmarked for development has thus far turned up “two indistinguishable pieces of metal” and nearly $140,000 in unforeseen costs, according to public works officials.

The city hired SWCA Environmental Consultants to use ground-penetrating radar along Northwest 253rd Avenue in May to survey for historic sites. The initial contract was for $38,215. The new contract estimate is $177,813, according to a staff report presented to the Transportation Committee on Tuesday.

Local historians and some nearby residents believe one of Washington County’s oldest buildings, the Methodist Meeting House, used to be in that area. Descendants of Joseph and Virginia Meek, the famous Oregon frontiersman and his Nez Perce wife, are believed to have been buried near the meeting house too.

The ground-penetrating radar survey identified more than 600 anomalies that necessitated excavation to determine their historical significance, according to a staff report. So far crews haven’t started to analyze the anomalies deemed of “highest interest,” due to permitting delays. That’s where the additional costs come into play.

“So far, we haven’t found anything,” Bob Sanders, assistant public works director, said on Tuesday. “But we still have to go through that process.”

That process, Sanders said, has been frustrating.

It will also likely push back Hillsboro’s schedule for widening and paving 253rd Avenue, a road that city officials call key to opening up the 330-acre North Industrial Areafor development.

The road, Sanders said, also has a more immediate need, as an escape route for residents on nearby Northwest Meek Road, who will lose access to Northwest Brookwood Parkway once a $45 million interchange project is scheduled to begin later this fall. Hillsboro initially hopes to break ground on the road project this summer, using $6.3 million from the interchange project and another $1.8 million in traffic impact fees to fund the road work.

Beyond analyzing the cultural resources along Northwest 253rd, which includes an 1890Queen Anne-style home built by John W. Shute, the city is going through a concurrent natural resources permitting process related to two creek crossings on the rural property.

Sanders said he’s now planning for a situation where the entirety of 253rd can’t move forward in time for Meek residents. He said the city is looking at another options, the extension of Northwest Huffman Street from 253rd east to Brookwood, as another route for Meek Road residents.

— Andrew Theen

It’s A Record: Native American Gambling Revenues For 2012

By KURT GWARTNEY

KGOU.ORG July 24, 2013

Revenues from gambling at Native American gaming centers across the nation hit a new record in 2012, bringing in nearly $28 billion dollars, a 2.7 percent increase over 2011.

The two fastest growing regions in the country were in Oklahoma. The Tulsa Region, which includes parts of Kansas and eastern Oklahoma, had the greatest revenue growth, increasing 6.6 percent.

The Oklahoma City Region, including Texas and the western parts of Oklahoma, were in second place with gambling revenue growing 5.8 percent in 2012 as compared to the year before.

The annual report from the National Indian Gaming Commission shows those two areas outpaced all others in the country in 2012. The Tulsa area showed gross gaming revenue of $1.9 billion. The Oklahoma City Region came in at $1.8 billion.

“In 2012, the Indian gaming industry saw its largest gross gaming revenues ever,” Tracie Stevens, chairwoman of the commission, said. “For those who judge casino spending as an indicator of increased discretionary spending and economic recovery, 2012 revenues certainly display economic encouragement.”

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