#ENDTHEDEATHPENALTY

Filmmaker hopes story of wrongful execution 'sparks change'

Carlos DeLuna (L) and Carlos Hernandez (R) looked so similar that DeLuna's family even had trouble telling them apart. Photos courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment

July 2 (UPI) -- Patrick Forbes, director of a new documentary about what many believe to be the wrongful execution of an innocent man, says he hopes the film "sparks change."

The Phantom, which premieres Friday in theaters, tells the story of Carlos DeLuna.

Texas executed DeLuna in 1989, nearly seven years after prosecutors said he robbed a Corpus Christi convenience store and stabbed an employee, Wanda Lopez, to death. DeLuna maintained his innocence until his execution, telling police that another man at the convenience store killed Lopez -- another Carlos who looked just like him.

Local investigators maintained they could never track down this second man, Carlos Hernandez. He was a phantom.

But more than two decades after DeLuna's execution, a report published by Columbia University's Human Rights Law Review, said Texas convicted and executed the wrong man for Lopez's death.

Not only was there really a Carlos Hernandez, but he looked remarkably like DeLuna and had bragged about getting away with killing Lopez.

Forbes said he was "fascinated" by the story, which he spent eight years bringing to theaters.

"The inherent bones of the story are incredibly dramatic," he told UPI. "They are the stuff of books. They are the stuff of films. They are the stuff of drama."

Not only that, but the story of Lopez's death, DeLuna's wrongful execution and a botched police investigation are "incredibly important," Forbes said. The death penalty, he added, "depends on certainty."

"If you can show it's uncertain, there's no way of going back," he said. The death penalty "is wrong and this movie demonstrates precisely why this is wrong."

Forbes said he felt it was important to tell DeLuna and Lopez's stories in a visually "exciting" way to make them "come alive." He didn't want to rely solely on stagnant interviews with a seated subject.

"In real life, people don't stay in one place. They move around and experience things in different places," he said.

This approach to filming paid off in an unexpected way one night while filming in Corpus Christi.

Forbes said he asked a police officer he was interviewing to crawl on the ground to re-enact the moment authorities arrested DeLuna after chasing him from the convenience store. DeLuna had tried to hide underneath a parked vehicle.

The filmmaker said he had the police lights going at the time to set the scene, and a crowd grew to watch.

"One of the people tapped a producer on the shoulder and said, 'Hey, I was there that night,'" Forbes said, adding that the man told him he saw two men running that night, presumably DeLuna and the "phantom" Hernandez.

"No one at the trial testified to that fact," that they saw "two men running," Forbes added.

He said he was able to get that key piece of eye-witness testimony solely because of his decision to film at the scene with the police lights flashing.

Forbes said he got the idea to make The Phantom from a producer who read about DeLuna's case. James Liebman, a professor at Columbia Law School, wrote the report on DeLuna that first piqued Forbes' attention. He's also interviewed in The Phantom about the case.

Liebman told UPI he was drawn to DeLuna's case because it hinged entirely on eyewitness testimony -- people at the scene of the slaying told police they saw a man run from the convenience store and later identified DeLuna as the suspect. Witnesses, though, described the suspect's clothes differently, indicating two men ran from the scene.

There were failures in "every single stage" of DeLuna's case, including at the time of arrest and throughout the investigation, Liebman said. He said the "great injustice" of DeLuna's wrongful execution, though, wasn't simply the result of a "bad guy" in the criminal justice system who had it out for someone to be executed.

"I think it's important for people to understand that a more common and mundane ... set of failures ... more commonly results in miscarriages of justice than the kind of evil person theory that most people have," he said.

Liebman says he thinks the movie will have an impact with audiences. He pointed to a recent decline in support for the death penalty across the United States.

In its latest poll on the issue, Gallup found that American approval of the death penalty is at its lowest point in more than 50 years, about when the United States resumed the punishment.

The survey released in November found that 55% of Americans support the death penalty, while 43% of Americans oppose it. Support is down from a peak of 80% in the mid-1990s.

That waning support is being written into law as more states ban the death penalty. Virginia became the 23rd state to abolish capital punishment in March, when Gov. Ralph Northam signed legislation.

And more than a dozen of the 27 states that still have the death penalty on the books haven't carried out an execution in at least a decade.

Liebman described this moment of change in Americans' opinions as a "watershed point."

"The balance is about to turn against the death penalty on a state-by-state basis," he said.

That change has been reflected across President Joe Biden's career. As senator, he supported the use of the death penalty, but in recent years his stance has shifted toward abolition.

"Since 1973, over 160 individuals in this country have been sentenced to death and were later exonerated," he tweeted in July 2019. "Because we can't ensure that we get these cases right every time, we must eliminate the death penalty."

The federal government hasn't held any executions since Biden took office in January, a stark change from the flurry of 13 executions former President Donald Trump carried out in the last several months of his administration.

It's unclear whether Biden will push for an end to federal executions, though, and indeed, his own Justice Department asked for the death sentence to be reinstated earlier this month for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the two brothers behind the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

Forbes said he hopes Biden will put an end to the federal death penalty and that The Phantom will help spark that change.

The death penalty "is wrong and this movie demonstrates precisely why this is wrong," he said. "It's the sort of film that you should make as a documentary maker."

Protesters topple Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II statues in Canada

Sam Courtney-GuyMETROFriday 2 Jul 2021 

Demonstrators gathered on Canada Day to highlight historical abuse of indigenous children

Canadian protesters have torn down and defaced statues of Queen Victoria and Elizabeth II in anger over the historical treatment of indigenous people.

Demonstrators gathered in Winnipeg, Manitoba to highlight abuses under Canada’s residential schools system, which saw at least 150,000 indigenous children forced away from their families to assimilate them into Canadian society.

Outrage over the system, which ran from the 19th century until the 1990s, has been fuelled by recent discoveries of hundreds of unmarked graves at the grounds of the schools.

Thursday marked Canada Day, which has traditionally been a celebration of the country’s independence from British rule in 1867.

The date has in recent times prompted mixed reactions following growing awareness of the government’s abuse of First Nation peoples.

Indigenous groups who made the gravesite finds say they have identified 1147 graves which mostly belong to children who attended residential schools.

Up to 6,000 children are thought to have died in the schools, which were funded by the government and administered by the Christian church.

Many were raped, beaten and suffered malnutrition in squalid conditions, according to a seven-year investigation concluded in 2015.

Winnipeg’s statue of Queen Victoria was toppled and defaced on Canada Day (Picture: REUTERS)

Demonstrators gathered to raise awareness of the historical abuse of indigenous children (Picture: REUTERS)

A seven-year report described the schools system as ‘cultural genocide’ (Picture: REUTERS)

Although compulsory attendance of the schools was introduced after Canadian independence, British royals are seen as symbols of the country’s colonial history.

A group which gathered near the local parliament in Winnipeg covered the town’s statue of Queen Victoria in red handprints and left a sign that read: ‘We were children once. Bring them home.’

A smaller statue of the current Queen nearby was also pulled down.

Wednesday saw the most recent discovery of human remains by an indigenous group when 182 graves were found at a Catholic-run school in British Columbia which closed in the 1970s.

Chief Jason Louie of the Lower Kootenay Band told CBC Radio: ‘Let’s call this for what it is. It’s a mass murder of indigenous people.

Hundreds of unmarked graves have recently been linked to the boarding schools (Picture: REUTERS)

‘The Nazis were held accountable for their war crimes.

‘I see no difference in locating the priests and nuns and the brothers who are responsible for this mass murder to be held accountable for their part in this attempt of genocide of an indigenous people.’

A former chief of the St Mary’s Indian Band and a survivor of the school said they had always known of the graves’ existence and called for caution over interpreting the finds.

Sophie Pierre told Global News Canada: ‘To just assume that every unmarked grave inside a graveyard is already tied to a residential school, we’ve got to be a little bit more respectful of our people who are buried in our graveyards.’

Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2015 called the residential schools system ‘cultural genocide’.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us

Canadians want governments working harder on Indigenous reconciliation: 

USask researcher

By Kelly Skjerven Global News
Posted July 3, 2021 6:27 pm

A majority of Canadians believe that their governments have not gone far enough in advancing reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, according to the annual Confederation of Tomorrow survey.


Yet a scholar involved in the study, Kurtis Boyer of the University of Saskatchewan, said the already compelling results would likely be even stronger given the survey was completed in January and February — before recent news of unmarked grave discoveries at the sites of former residential schools.

The Confederation of Tomorrow study, an annual survey conducted by an association that includes the public policy graduate schools at the University of Regina and the University of Saskatchewan, found that more Canadians feel like they have an individual role to play in reconciliation.


READ MORE: Backpack display in Regina in memory of unmarked graves at residential schools being donated

The survey found 70 per cent of Canadians feel they have a role to play in reconciliation, an increase of 15 per cent from 2020.

Boyer, a lecturer at USask’s Johnson Shoyama School of Public Policy, said those aged 18 to 24 are the most familiar with Canada’s residential school system. Boyer said that has an impact on the attitudes of younger, non-Indigenous Canadians.

“Older generations just didn’t really have the access to those Indigenous voices,” Boyer said.

“We’re seeing that more and more as Indigenous nations are beginning to struggle to have those voices heard but also take charge of their own affairs and we’re able to see that there are these opportunities for non-Indigenous Canadians to get involved in those issues.”


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Boyer added the research found there has been a general increase of awareness of the importance of reconciliation as well as an increase in opinions that governments need to do more to pursue reconciliation.

“One of the more interesting findings from this research that shows that there’s been a general shift in attitudes of Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples towards these issues,” Boyer said.

Boyer said that shift can be attributed to younger people, between the ages of 18 and 24, having a greater understanding and awareness of residential schools and other events in history that impacted Indigenous people.

“The greater awareness that is associated with the age bracket is actually associated with these opinions of having a greater and greater desire for getting involved and moving these issues forward,” Boyer explained.


READ MORE: A Day to Listen: Amplifying Indigenous voices and working towards reconciliation

Boyer said if the same study was done today, he believes even more people would feel they have a role to play in reconciliation.

“I think that it goes without saying that the horrific and sad discoveries of the unmarked graves of residential school students and victims is something that increases awareness towards these issues,” Boyer said.

Boyer also pointed to events like the Wet’suwet’en’s blockades and protests, and the disputes at Nova Scotia fisheries that boost awareness of issues faced by Indigenous communities.

“These are flashpoints that really get people — we’ve seen in the survey results — to look at these issues and to pay attention.”

Boyer also credits the shift in increased awareness age category to more learning opportunities in elementary, secondary and at a post-secondary level.

The 2021 study surveyed 5,814 adults online in the provinces between Jan. 25 and Feb. 17, and online and by telephone in the territories between Jan. 25 and March 1.

— with files from Kyle Benning
© 2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

A Day to Listen: Amplifying Indigenous voices and working towards reconciliation

Pia Araneta

 3 days ago

Wednesday marked A Day to Listen, a partnership between the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund (DWF) and radio stations dedicated to amplifying Indigenous voices.

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck Chief Madeek (Jeff Brown), front left, hereditary leader of the Gidimt'en clan, and Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chief Namoks (John Ridsdale), front right, carry a flag while leading a solidarity march after Indigenous nations and supporters gathered for a meeting to show support for the Wet'suwet'en Nation, in Smithers, B.C., on Wednesday January 16, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

With more than 500 radio stations across Canada participating, stories will be shared from Indigenous leaders, artists, storytellers and residential school survivors.

Read more: ‘It was just never seen as truth’ — Indigenous stories are there. Are people ready to listen?

“The entire breadth and spectrum of Indigenous voices in Canada is being represented. (It’s) an opportunity to listen, learn and to act,” says educator and activist Bob Watts, who lives in the Six Nations of the Grand River territory.

With the recent estimated discovery of 751 unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School — which Al Jazeera called a “forced assimilation institution” — Watts says Canadians need to meet and better understand one another.

“For Indigenous people, it’s felt pretty lonely,” he says, “and over the last couple weeks this outpouring of support, emotion, outrage (and) frustration from everybody — Indigenous and non-Indigenous — I think is making us think and act and consider things in a way that we never have before.”

Video: #CancelCanadaDay

We have been provided with an opportunity to make reconciliation more than just a conversation within parliament, he adds.

Video: Canadian radio stations amplify Indigenous voices on ‘A Day To Listen’ (Global News)

To ensure the conversation continues, Watts recommends resources from the DWF website, your local Indigenous friendship centre and local organizations, as well as joining book clubs.

“Read a novel about the Indigenous experience in Canada,” Watts says. “Read the TRC (Truth and Reconciliation) 94 calls to action.”

Read more: Estimated 751 unmarked graves found at former Saskatchewan residential school

Downie, a musician and the late lead singer of The Tragically Hip, was an advocate for Indigenous communities before his death in 2017 from brain cancer. When it comes to the power of music and storytelling and its ability to heal, Watts says artists are leading the way.

“We have some real leaders in that world,” he says.

For more information on A Day to Listen, watch the full video above.

--

Anyone experiencing pain or distress as a result of their residential school experience can access the 24-hour, toll-free and confidential National Indian Residential School Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419.

For a list of Indigenous charities to donate to leading reconciliation efforts and supporting Indigenous communities, you can find a list on the CanadaHelps website.

You can read Canada's Truth and Reconciliation calls to action online.

Video: Radio broadcasters team up to tell Indigenous stories

How unmarked graves haunt the Indigenous community


For decades, beginning in the 1800s, thousands of Indigenous peoples from Canada were taken from their homes and families by the Canadian government, shipped thousands of miles away in some cases and placed into so-called residential schools.

The stated purpose of the schools, some of which date to the 19th century and the last of which closed in the 1990s, was assimilation -- ridding the students of ties to their communities and instilling European culture, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC).

There were reports from the TRC -- a commission funded by the Canadian government as part of a legal settlement to address the wrongs of the system -- of thousands of instances of abuse and mistreatment against students and many of the students did not make it back to their homes in what advocates for the Indigenous population and officials alternately term "injustice," "systemic racism" or even "genocide."

© Geoff Robins/AFP via Getty Images A family walks through a field where flags and solar lights now mark the site where human remains were discovered in unmarked graves at the former Marieval Indian Residential School site on Cowessess First Nation, Saskatchewan, June 26, 2021.

There have recently been a number of reminders of that grim past -- one which advocates say continues to haunt Indigenous communities.

Another 182 sets of human remains were found on June 30 near the former St. Eugene's Mission School for Indigenous children in the community of Aqam,, bringing the total found in the country in recent days to nearly 1,000.

A week earlier, 751 unmarked graves were found at the cemetery of the former Marieval Indian Residential School. It is unclear how many of the students died or what the causes of death were.

“It’s opened fresh wounds for a number of people,” said David Pratt, the second vice-chief of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations. FSIN is an advocacy organization that represents 74 First Nations in the implementation of treaties that protect Indigenous people and land.

© Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan via Shutterstock A historical photo from 1900 provided by the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan shows Catholic priests with students at the St. Michael's Indian Residential School in Duck Lake, Northwest Territories, now Saskatchewan, Canada.

MORE : As Deb Haaland creates unit to investigate missing and murdered Native Americans, a look at why it's necessary

The site at Marieval has the largest number of graves connected to a residential school discovered in Canada so far, according to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR), which archives and compiles the complete history of Canada's residential school system.

In a June 24 statement, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sent his condolences to Indigenous groups across the country following the Marieval discovery.

“They are a shameful reminder of the systemic racism, discrimination, and injustice that Indigenous peoples have faced – and continue to face – in this country,” the statement read. “Together, we must acknowledge this truth, learn from our past, and walk the shared path of reconciliation, so we can build a better future.”

However, Stephanie Scott, executive director of the NCTR, said that these problems continue to harm Indigenous communities to this day.

“The residential school system has impacted generations,” Scott said. “Take action, take responsibility to learn the true history, seek out survivors and indigenous people and start that dialogue.”


What are residential schools?

What are residential schools? In a 2015 report, the NCTR said there had been 150,000 First Nation, Métis and Inuit students in the residential school system. The first schools of this kind were formed in the 1860s and lasted all the way until the final school, Gordon Indian Residential School, closed in the late 1990s.

About 139 Indian residential schools were identified in the 2006 Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement.

For decades, Indigenous children in both Canada and the United States were taken from their families and sent to boarding schools, sometimes thousands of miles away, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

Scott, who was a student in one of these schools in the 1960s, said that many students were beaten and abused for speaking their language or practicing Indigenous traditions. She said there have been reports of physical and sexual abuse, neglect, and illness.

“We've even heard stories about young girls getting pregnant and the children being born and putting into incinerators,” Scott said. “We've heard stories of children being hidden in walls. We went to the community one time where there was a caretaker’s house where we found this strap that was covered in blood.”

The official report from TRC reiterates stories of children being strapped, beaten, and forced into crawl spaces.MORE: Why Native American children have higher rates of disability

Scott said her mother got pregnant while attending the residential schools, and child welfare authorities took her away and put her in a separate residential school.

“I was adopted out yeah into a community with that forced assimilation and those policies where I didn't have access to my culture and community,” Scott said. “I grew up without my language.”

Why are there so many unmarked graves?

Many students never returned home from the schools, according to the NCTR. The NCTR reports that the deaths of more than 4,000 children have been connected to residential schools, as graves of young children continue to be uncovered -- but Scott said that there are likely more left to be found.

Researchers have been used ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to discover unmarked burials, like the St. Eugene's Mission School and the Marieval Indian Residential School.

THE NUN

© Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan via Shutterstock A historical photo from 1900 provided by the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan shows a Roman Catholic nun with students at the St. Michael's Indian Residential School in Duck Lake, Northwest Territories, now Saskatchewan, Canada.

In May, researchers also found the remains of 215 students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia. Some children buried onsite had been as young as 3 years old.

The NCTR has found that many of the children died from illness and malnourishment, among other causes. Scott said she’s heard stories from old school attendees who claimed illnesses and injuries went untreated.

It is unclear how all of the children have died, and who they were.

For many, the discovery of graves is a time of grief, as many can remember the days when residential schools were still around. Pratt said the discoveries of unmarked graves bring up a lot of emotion, trauma and heartbreak for those who’ve been lost and called on the Canadian government and the Roman Catholic Church to help.

“They need to apologize and they need to take responsibility and ownership on the trauma and the chaos they've caused amongst indigenous peoples of this land,” Pratt said.

Who has taken responsibility for these?

The residential schools were run by the Canadian government, the department of Indian Affairs and churches, including the Roman Catholic Church at various points in their histories, which has been connected with the recent unmarked grave discoveries.

The St. Eugene's Mission School, for instance, was operated by the Roman Catholic Church from 1912 to 1970. The Marieval Indian Residential School was also run by the Church from 1899 to 1997.

The Kamloops Indian Residential School was run by the Church until the late 60s when it was taken over by the federal government.MORE: 215 bodies discovered at former residential school for Indigenous children in Canada

Pope Francis plans to meet in December with Indigenous survivors of the residential school system from the First Nations, Metis and Inuit groups.

But the Roman Catholic Church has yet to issue a statement on the discoveries. The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops did not respond to ABC News’ requests for comments.

According to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, the United States also had more than 350 government-funded boarding schools across the US.

In 2000, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Kevin Gover apologized for the trauma and violence against children at the American residential schools.

Trudeau, in his recent statement following the discovery of the Marieval graves, said he promised to help Indigenous people in Canada heal.

“The government will continue to provide Indigenous communities across the country with the funding and resources they need to bring these terrible wrongs to light,” the statement read. “While we cannot bring back those who were lost, we can – and we will – tell the truth of these injustices, and we will forever honour their memory.”

In the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history, reached in 2007, Canada promised funding, support, and the formation of federal commissions to help the community heal. The settlement of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement was a step, activists say, but many are demanding stronger action.

High incarceration rates, poverty, addiction, trauma, and climate change have plagued Indigenous communities, and Pratt links them to the lasting effects of residential schools.

Scott agreed, saying the unmarked graves have opened up an opportunity to discuss what Indigenous communities are owed and what they continue to experience as a community. Scott said education and dialogue about these atrocities are just the first steps.

“Canada must claim responsibility for the genocide and it has to show a commitment to sharing these truths with all people in Canada,” Scott said.

Existing memorials may lack mainstream embrace


The toppling and beheading of a Winnipeg statue erected in the likeness of Queen Victoria has sparked widespread debate about defacing colonial monuments.

But in the wake of vandalism, one academic has been far more focused on who is missing entirely from the inventory of statues on the Manitoba legislature grounds.

"In general, we’re talking about settlers of one kind or another — and typically, European settlers. (The roster) certainly doesn’t represent Manitoba in this moment," said Melissa Funke, an assistant professor of classics at the University of Winnipeg.

Indigenous erasure and white supremacy have been encoded in both the legislature building and surrounding statues, said Funke, who has researched the influence of the classic world on the grounds.

Ionic columns and pediments in the structure itself are nods to Greek and Roman architecture. In 1913, at the time the building was being constructed, leadership in Winnipeg wanted to draw parallels to ancient civilization — and in turn, colonization — because the Manitoba capital was expected to become a major city, or "the Chicago of the north," said Funke.

"It’s very essential that as Manitobans, especially as Manitobans in 2021, we understand how the classical world is used — and misused — in representations."

Carved into the east side of the legislature building is an installation of a man wearing a feathered headdress and a Roman soldier, separated between a war chest.

To pair a romanticized mythological figure alongside a nondescript Indigenous man is problematic in it suggests they are both equally historic, said Funke, noting the latter is the only Indigenous representation in the external architecture of the building.

Notably, there are no bronze statues of Inuit or First Nations leaders at 450 Broadway. The only Métis representation pays tribute to Manitoba’s founding father, Louis Riel.

There is currently a campaign underway to erect a memorial for Chief Peguis on the grounds, to pay tribute to the Saulteaux chief who was known as a defender of First Nations rights and a key signatory of the Selkirk Treaty of 1817.

Given many of the existing memorials symbolize values that are no longer embraced in mainstream Manitoba, Funke said she sees no reason why the statue of Queen Victoria should go back up anytime soon. In fact, she said it is worth considering the ancient practice of damnatio memoriae: the condemnation of Roman elites who were deemed unworthy of praise after their deaths to preserve a city’s honour.

The practice, which involved both removing and at times, burying statues, was not about forgetting history, she said, but about collectively saying a figure no longer reflects societal values.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie

Maggie Macintosh, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Winnipeg Free Press

Opinion: Kamloops and Marieval findings shouldn't surprise anyone

Gary Geddes 

Why are so many surprised about the findings at the Kamloops and Marieval Indian Residential Schools? Indigenous folks have been telling us this was happening for the last hundred years. They sent letters to the government of John A. Macdonald and to his deputy superintendent of Indian Affairs, Duncan Campbell Scott, about missing children and conditions in the schools, but no one paid any attention.

© Provided by Edmonton Journal Edmonton Indian Residential school, Edmonton, Alberta. 1924.

What’s so troubling is that all the information needed to have made such claims credible and worth investigating is there in the historical record. Start at the top. John A. bragged in Parliament that he was keeping Indians near starvation level to save money. And many of those same Indians died from neglect, lack of food, or food that was rotten.

Go down the chain of command a notch to Scott and you find him ignoring the complaints and dismissing Indians as fat and lazy. When Dr. Peter Bryce was sent out in 1907 to assess the health of students in the residential schools of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, he reported back to Scott that conditions were so appalling the death rate in several schools was in the 40-60-per-cent range.

Scott shelved the report and made the good doctor’s life very difficult, but six years later he would admit: “It is quite within the mark to say that fifty per cent of the children who passed through these schools did not live to benefit from the education, which they had received therein.” Why they did not live is left unmentioned, as if to imply it was a result of their own failings and alleged higher susceptibility to disease. However, their “education” was killing them.

His cynical comment delivers exactly the average death-ratio provided earlier by Bryce, who had also warned him the government could well be charged with manslaughter for creating such deplorable conditions. Not in the habit of listening to reason when it came to his pet project, Scott wrote: “It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habitating so closely in these schools, and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is geared towards the final solution of our Indian Problem.” If the reference to a “final solution” doesn’t send chills down your spine, the cavalier dismissal of those appalling conditions should.

Video: Kamloops Nation sees itself on forefront of residential school truths (The Canadian Press)

While interviewing elders for Medicine Unbundled, I kept hearing about the disappearance of children and family members, including the hundreds of Inuit children and adults taken by ship or plane from the north to hospitals in Quebec, Hamilton and Edmonton. Without warning or proper explanation, without careful recording of names and home place, many were never to be seen again by families, their deaths and place of burial remaining a mystery.

I received several emails from Eleanor James Robertson in Winnipeg, about her aunt Christina Grieves, a beauty and a family legend, who at age 15, was sent to Ninette Sanatorium with TB and died a year later. Her relatives received no explanation for the cause of death or indication of where Christina was buried. Other patients claimed she was in good health and that the surgery was minor. Was it an abortion or involuntary sterilization that was botched? I spent some time in the Manitoba Archives looking for answers but drew a blank. In an email, Eleanor said: “It’s quite sad how many Aboriginal people died in these institutions without any care for the families who lost loved ones. They believed that we were savages, so ‘what is another loss?’ ”

It’s more than sad; it’s criminal. George Muldoe from Kispiox in B.C. was an inmate at the United Church-run Edmonton Residential School near St. Albert, where he was drafted at age 13 to dig graves for bodies arriving regularly from the Charles Camsell Indian Hospital, no easy task in dead of winter. He recalls carrying the tiny coffin of an infant to be buried with no marker in one of the haphazardly placed graves. George knows the names on the memorial plaque represent only a small portion of those buried in the surrounding area. He tried to tell this story for more than 25 years, but no one was interested or prepared to believe him. Now his phone is ringing off the hook.

While I was having trouble with my research, Songhees elder Joan Morris said: “The problem I have with white people is they don’t know how to listen.” The comment was directed at me as well as others. Non-Indigenous ally Hugh Brody adds a further dimension to this observation: “Listening is difficult; hearing, even more so.”

After the Truth and Reconciliation hearings we started to listen. Perhaps now we’ll actually begin to hear.

Gary Geddes is the author of Medicine Unbundled: A Journey Through the Minefields of Indigenous Health Care and The Resumption of Play.

THE LOGICAL CONCLUSION OF 2ND AMENDMENT FETISHISTS

Candidate Running To Primary Elise Stefanik Says People 'Should Be Able To Own a Nuke'


A Republican challenger hoping to succeed House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik in the U.S. House of Representatives believes that Second Amendment rights should include the ability to "own a nuke."

Lonny Koons, a Republican challenger to Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), recently told a local paper that members of the public "should be able to own a nuke" under the Constitution's Second Amendment. Stefanik, the House GOP Conference chair, is pictured during a press conference in Washington, D.C. on May 14, 2021.

Carthage, New York resident Lonny Koons argued against legal limits on the ownership of guns and other weapons in an interview published by The Watertown Daily Times on Friday. Koons admitted that allowing ordinary citizens to own nuclear weapons would be "obviously extreme craziness," but maintained that the Constitution demands that citizens have unfettered access to any arms available to the military.

"In all technicality, if you wanted to own a nuke, you should be able to own a nuke," Koons told the paper. "That's obviously extreme craziness, but at the same time, if the whole point of the Second Amendment is to stand up to the government, if the government has nukes how can you stand up to that with a musket?"

Koons insisted that no limits of any kind could be imposed on what weapons citizens could own unless a new amendment to the Constitution were to go into effect.

An Army veteran, Koons moved to the area because he and his wife wanted to be close to the nearby Fort Drum Army base—although he had never personally been stationed there.

Stefanik said that she "will always stand up for the Second Amendment because our constitutional right to keep and bear arms is fundamental to preserving our liberty" in a statement after President Joe Biden issued a series of executive orders on gun control earlier this year.

Koons conceded that his chances of victory were slim due to Stefanik's popularity. He said he was hoping to "primary" Stefanik because her staff had ignored his repeated attempts to contact the congresswoman while allegedly telling him that his "issues weren't important."

"For four and a half years, I have been trying to get in touch with Representative Stefanik," Koons said. "All the calls I've made and the times I've shown up to their empty offices, I have spoken with one person, and was told my issues weren't important. I don't want anyone else to experience that."

Stefanik was easily reelected in 2020 and is a clear favorite to retain her seat in 2022. Her allegiance to former President Donald Trump paid Republican dividends this year when she became the House GOP Conference chair after the ouster of Trump critic Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

Koons, like Stefanik, agrees with at least some of Trump's false claims that massive voter fraud was a factor in the 2020 election.

Newsweek reached out to Stefanik's office for comment.

3 structural engineers explain why a building like the Surfside, Florida condo might suddenly collapse

awoodward@insider.com (Aylin Woodward) 

 Search and rescue personnel work in the rubble of the 12-story condo tower that crumbled to the ground on June 24, 2021 in Surfside, Florida. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A condo in Surfside, Florida collapsed unexpectedly on June 24. At least 128 people are missing.

Insider spoke with three structural engineers to find out why such a building might abruptly fall.

Common causes include poor maintenance or eroding soil under a structure's foundation.

At least 20 people are dead and 120 are missing after the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Florida abruptly collapsed last week. As rescuers continue to search for buried victims, investigators have started sifting through building records, videos, and physical wreckage to determine what, precisely, caused the structure to fall.


While it's extremely uncommon for a building to collapse in the absence of a natural disaster like an earthquake or hurricane, there are a handful of reasons why it could happen, three structural engineers told Insider.

Some of the most likely causes include poor maintenance or overloading part of a structure with too much weight. Buildings are designed to hold up to twice as much load as is deemed necessary - but that strength decreases as a building ages and deteriorates over time.

"Very simply, structures collapse when the load that is placed upon them exceeds the strength of the structure," Ronald Hamburger, a structural engineer with the national engineering firm Simpson, Gumpertz, & Heger, told Insider. (A member of that firm, not Hamburger, is helping investigate the Surfside condo disaster.)

Erosion under a building's foundation, a corroded exterior, or a design flaw could also make a structure more vulnerable to collapse.

Here's how five problems may contribute to building collapses like the one in Surfside, Florida.
The building isn't properly maintained

© Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty A cracked concrete balcony in Odessa, Ukraine. Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty

Most often, a sudden collapse can be traced back to poor maintenance, experts said. That may include a lack of new paint, or a failure to shore up cracks in concrete and eliminate rust and stagnant water.

"You can have a perfectly designed building, and a perfectly constructed building per the engineer drawings, but if that building doesn't receive proper maintenance, that is an issue," Joel Figueroa-Vallines, a structural engineer from Orlando and member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, told Insider.

"Buildings are like anything else - the cars we drive, or even ourselves as human beings," he added. "If we don't maintain ourselves, we don't age well."

In Miami-Dade County, where Champlain Towers South is located, buildings are recertified 40 years after their construction. Builders finished the condo in 1981, and it was due for its 40-year inspection this year.

Some experts said that's too long to wait.

"If maintenance or inspection happened every five years, think of how much safer that would be," Kit Miyamoto, a structural engineer with Miyamoto International based in Sacramento, California, told Insider.
Part of the structure gets overloaded

Biraj A factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh collapsed in 2013. REUTERS/Andrew Biraj

A collapse can occur if there's more weight on one part of a building than the structure is designed to handle - what's known as overloading.

In 2015, six people died in Berkeley, California when an apartment balcony collapsed during a party. While part of the balcony had rotted, Miyamoto said, the excessive weight catalyzed the fall.

Overloading also contributed to a factory collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh eight years ago.
Land underneath the foundation moves or erodes

A building collapse in China in 2015. Carlf Zhang/Reuters

Buildings "very rarely naturally fall," Miyamoto said, adding, "maybe every five years or so you hear of an abrupt collapse worldwide."

But sometimes, wind and running water can erode the soil underneath a building's foundation, or cause the land to sink. When these events happen, "it creates a vacuum that would definitely cause an instability," Miyamoto said.

In the case of the Surfside condo - which is built on top of reclaimed wetlands - it's possible that a large amount of groundwater is flowing back and forth under the building, which could exacerbate erosion, Figueroa-Vallines said.
Steel and concrete deteriorates over time

Two men inspect the bottom of a balcony in Champlain Towers North in 2020. 

Fiorella Terenzi

All three engineers agreed that deterioration could play an outsized role in building collapses like the recent disaster in Surfside.

As building materials interact with chemicals in the air around them, those materials start to break down.

"Buildings and structures located in coastal environments where they are repeatedly exposed to salt-laden air experience more corrosion than structures located in central US," Hamburger said.

After four or five decades, a concrete and steel structure is vulnerable to substantial rusting, he added.

That's why continually repainting a seaside building is critical, because the coating protects it from damage.

"Salt essentially melts away the concrete," Figueroa-Vallines said.
The building has a design flaw

A crowd looks on as a rescue worker operates a bulldozer in the search for bodies in the rubble of a collapsed building in Lagos, Nigeria on July 26, 2017.

 Pius Utomi Ekpe/AFP/Getty

Typically, buildings are designed with redundancies - if part of the structure fails or weakens to the point that it can't support the building's weight anymore, that load gets redistributed somewhere else. If the floor of an apartment building caves in, for example, it shouldn't drop to the floor below it.

These local accidents can be caused by several factors - a fire, corrosion, or even a truck backing up into a weight-bearing column in the building's basement, Hamburger said.

Normally, they shouldn't cause a catastrophic failure like the one at Champlain Towers South, he added. But some older buildings lack redundancies that stop local accidents from cascading into bigger, building-wide problems.

Amazon's new management principles

 are a sign of the times for corporates
sjones@insider.com (Stephen Jones) 

Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, voted against forming a union, but the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, under which they would have unionized, challenged the results. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images

Amazon has added two new leadership principles to its longstanding management code.

Following public criticism, Amazon pledged to be a better employer and to ensure responsibility.

The changes are a sign of corporates publicly adopting progressive values.

Amazon appears to be reappraising its purpose. In an update on its website , Amazon explained two new statements would be added to its 14-point list of longstanding management principles - to Strive To Be The Earth's Best Employer; and Success And Scale Bring Broad Responsibility.

The exact reason and choice of timing - just a few days before founder and CEO Jeff Bezos hands over the reins to Amazon Web Services boss Andy Jassy - behind the change is unclear, but echoes commitments made by Bezos in his final shareholder letter to make the company a more inclusive and better employer.

The changes follow widespread criticism over Amazon's treatment of in-house staff, and its impact on the environment. Amazon staff have also been calling for the addition of a management principle that directly addresses inclusion for some months.

While Amazon's critics will no doubt continue to feel the company should do more, the update to its core principles reflects a wider trend.

No company, even one as dominant as Amazon, can continue to ignore the interests of both its consumers and employees, many of whom value purpose and ethics when thinking about how they make and where they spend their money.
Amazon knows employees are influenced by ethics

"Increasingly, employees want to invest their time, energy and skills in an organization that is actively engaged on topics that directly impact their lives and align with their beliefs," said Joe Wiggins, director of communications, at employer reference firm Glassdoor.

"Today's candidates, especially younger job seekers, want to work at companies that take a stand and take action," Wiggins added.

Consumers also increasingly care about purpose and values.

According to research by McKinsey, 40% of US consumers said seeking brands that matched their values mattered to them, while 34% claim they have switched brands for purpose-driven reasons during the coronavirus pandemic. Some 9% of these more directly because of perceptions over how a company treated its staff.

A separate poll by Edelman in 2020, of 22,000 global respondents showed that whether they trusted a brand was the second-highest priority. 52% of US consumers believed that companies actively owe it to their employees to speak out against systemic racism.

"In this day and age, anything that leaves a slightly sour taste in your mouth, and that can come from lots of different responsibility issues, is just a reason for people not to use you," said Giles Gibbons, CEO and cofounder of Good Business, a consultancy.

The extent to which consumers say they'll do versus their actions is hard to say - value and convenience are still ranked as the most likely reason behind why a consumer said they're likely to switch products in both studies.

Nethertheless, companies have a desire to project a clean image.
Well-loved companies are expected to influence for the good

Amazon's decision is more likely a reaction to what it will believe is a perceived poor reputation in terms of employee welfare rather than simply just a convenient time of transition, says Gibbons. "The role of a principle is to set the direction of travel and then over time review against it. An organization like Amazon wouldn't be saying it if it didn't genuinely mean it."

It is in every organization's long-term self interest to care for its stakeholders, said Alex Edmans, professor of finance at London Business School and author of "Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose And Profit."

"We often think that social issues should be addressed by governments through minimum wages, health and safety legislation, taxes etc - but global corporations can be more powerful than some countries, and this is the case for Amazon," Edmans told Insider.

Amazon declined to comment further.

Court strikes Trump EPA rule for full-year 15% ethanol sales

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A federal appeals court on Friday threw out a Trump-era Environmental Protection Agency rule change that allowed for the sale of a 15% ethanol gasoline blend in the summer months.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The decision deals a significant blow to the ethanol industry and corn farmers who grow the crop from which the fuel additive is made. They had anticipated increased ethanol demand through year-round sales of the higher blend.


Most gasoline sold in the U.S. today is blended with 10% ethanol. Corn farmers and ethanol refiners have pushed for the government to allow the widespread sale of a 15% ethanol blend.

The Trump administration made the change to fulfill a campaign promise to Midwest farmers. The EPA under President Donald Trump announced the change in May 2019, ending a summer ban on the E15 blend. Provisions of the Clean Air Act have prohibited the sale of certain fuels with a higher volatility from June 1 through Sept. 15 to limit smog. Congress has allowed 10% ethanol, and the EPA in its 2019 ruling revised the interpretation of the exemption to federal law to include the 15% ethanol blend.

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Ethanol supporters contend that using more of the corn-based renewable fuel is better for the environment and helps meet federal climate change goals.

Three judges on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued Friday's decision. They said it's clear from federal law that Congress balanced “wide-ranging economic, energy-security, and geopolitical implications” and that the wording of the law “reflects a compromise, not simply a desire to maximize ethanol production at all costs.” They concluded Congress did not intend to allow ethanol blends higher than 10% to be widely sold year-round. They said the EPA overstepped its authority.

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, the trade group for the petroleum industry that challenged the EPA decision, said the court simply followed government's interpretation of the law in effect for 30 years.

“There is no ambiguity in statute and the previous administration’s reinterpretation overstepped the will of Congress,” said AFPM President and CEO Chet Thompson.

The Iowa Corn Growers Association said it will continue to work with the Biden administration, Congress and state officials to maintain consumer access to E15 year-round.

"It does not make sense to reinstate barriers that could inhibit market access to a cleaner-burning fuel choice that combats climate change,” said Carl Jardon, a farmer from Randolph, Iowa, and president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association.

The decision is the second major court defeat for the ethanol industry in a week. On June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court said some petroleum refiners may exempt themselves from requirements to blend ethanol into the gasoline they produce, further cutting into the amount of ethanol blended into the national fuel supply.

Ethanol supporters could ask the full D.C. Circuit Court to review the decision of the three-judge panel. They also could ask Congress to change the law to allow for year around E15 sales.

The industry is hoping this year's sales will not be curtailed because by the time the court issues its mandate and the EPA is required to comply most of the summer season will have passed.

This is the third summer E15 sales have been allowed and there were indications sales were increasing. Sales jumped 24% in Iowa from 2019 to 2020, surpassing 60.5 million gallons in 2020, the Renewable Fuels Association reported. That increase was despite a 14% drop in the state's overall petroleum consumption from 2019 levels due to fewer people driving because of he coronavirus pandemic.

David Pitt, The Associated Press

NEW AGE AYN RANDI$M

Jeff Bezos believes multibillion-dollar failures are actually a good thing: 'If the size of your failures isn't growing, you're not going to be inventing at a size that can actually move the needle'

insider@insider.com (Ben Gilbert)

© Alex Wong/Getty Images 

As Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos said he made big bets that sometimes ended as, "multibillion-dollar failures."

This view lines up with Bezos' approach to life: Failure is better than never having tried at all.

Bezos will step down as Amazon's CEO on Monday, July 5.

What's the point in making billions if you can't make a multibillion-dollar mistake every now and again?

According to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, those types of failures are actually critical to Amazon's success.

"Amazon will be experimenting at the right scale for a company of our size if we occasionally have multibillion-dollar failures," Bezos wrote in the company's 2019 letter to shareholders.

"If the size of your failures isn't growing, you're not going to be inventing at a size that can actually move the needle," he said.

© Flickr/TechStage The Amazon Fire phone. Flickr/TechStage

He cited Amazon's infamous Fire phone as an example of a failure - but pointed out that work on the Fire phone assisted in the development of Amazon's Echo smart speakers and the Alexa digital assistant.


"While the Fire phone was a failure, we were able to take our learnings (as well as the developers) and accelerate our efforts building Echo and Alexa," Bezos said.

This philosophy - that it's better to have failed than to never have tried in the first place - is core to how Bezos looks at his own life.

"I knew that when I was 80, I was not going to regret having tried this," Bezos said in a 2001 interview with the Academy of Achievement. "I was not going to regret trying to participate in this thing called the Internet that I thought was going to be a really big deal. I knew that if I failed, I wouldn't regret that. But I knew the one thing I might regret is not ever having tried. I knew that that would haunt me every day."

© Amazon; Samantha Lee/Business Insider Amazon Dash buttons are no longer sold by Amazon. Amazon; Samantha Lee/Business Insider

In the case of Amazon, Bezos applies that same philosophy on a much larger scale.

"This kind of large-scale risk taking is part of the service we as a large company can provide to our customers and to society," he said. "We will work hard to make them good bets, but not all good bets will ultimately pay out."

Of course, this being a letter from the CEO of a publicly-traded company to its shareholders, Bezos has reassurance and tempering to offer as well.

As Bezos put it: "The good news for shareowners is that a single big winning bet can more than cover the cost of many losers."

Bezos will step down as Amazon's CEO on Monday, July 5. He's being replaced by Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy.

SEE 

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-bezos-theory-of-value-is-deeply.html

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CORPORATE GURU SAYS WORK FOREVER SUCKERS

Jeff Bezos says work-life balance is a 'debilitating phrase.' He wants Amazon workers to view their career and lives as a 'circle.'
insider@insider.com (Katie Canales,Zoë Bernard) 

© Provided by Business Insider Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Alex Wong/Getty Images
Amazon's Jeff Bezos said in 2018 that the term "work-life balance" is a "debilitating phrase."

A top piece of advice he offers to staff is not to view the two as a strict trade-off.
Instead, he sees his personal and professional pursuits as a "circle" rather than a balancing act.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos isn't a fan of the phrase "work-life balance."

At an April 2018 event hosted by Insider's parent company, Bezos said new Amazon employees shouldn't view work and life as a balancing act. Instead, Bezos said that it's more productive to view them as two integrated parts.

"It actually is a circle," Bezos said. "It's not a balance."

Bezos said his new hires should stop trying to find "balance" within their professional and personal lives since that implies a strict trade-off between the two. Instead, Bezos envisions a more holistic relationship between work and life outside the office.


"This work-life harmony thing is what I try to teach young employees and actually senior executives at Amazon too," Bezos said. "But especially the people coming in. I get asked about work-life balance all the time. And my view is, that's a debilitating phrase because it implies there's a strict trade-off."

Bezos said he doesn't compartmentalize his career and his personal lives.

"If I am happy at home, I come into the office with tremendous energy," Bezos said. "And if I am happy at work, I come home with tremendous energy."

The billionaire Amazon founder will have to adjust to a new kind of workflow starting July 5, when he steps down from his role as CEO of the e-commerce giant. He will be replaced by AWS CEO Andy Jassy and will direct his focus to other endeavors, like being catapulted into space for 11 minutes on July 20.

Historically, the world's richest man has taken a nontraditional approach to work: He has said he made time for breakfast every morning with his family, doesn't set his alarm before going to bed, schedules surprisingly few meetings, and set aside a few minutes every day to wash his own dishes.

Read - and watch - the full interview with Bezos here.

SEE 

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2021/07/the-bezos-theory-of-value-is-deeply.html

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