About 130 museums have reported they are ready to return 13,471 Native American human remains and 330,991 objects found in burial places. That means that this story will touch just about every major museum in America.
The Denver Post reported in an excellent in-depth article:
Some of America's most celebrated institutions — including Harvard's Peabody, the Field Museum in Chicago and the American Museum of Natural History in New York — are indicating for the first time in reports to the U.S. government that they were more involved in the looting of Native American burial grounds than they have previously admitted.
Those institutions now are in the process of returning hundreds of thousands of artifacts and human remains to tribal groups around the country. Historians and anthropologists have acknowledged for years that various burial objects, human remains, and other sacred tribal items somehow made their way into museum collections. But a growing cache of federal documents reviewed by the Denver Post shows the widespread scope of the practice and the complicity of museums in acquiring Indian items, for both scientific reasons and financial gain. …
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The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 requires federal agencies and museums that receive federal funding to inventory certain Native American belongings in their possession, then publish lists of those items. Tribes that can show an affiliation with the sacred items, human remains, or other relics may then request that the item be returned.
The law also requires museums to detail how Indian items arrived at the institutions. Their findings are now being reported to the federal government. Documents indicate that some of the most vaunted museums — the Field Museum, the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology at Phillips Academy in Andover , Mass. — bought Native American items, including human remains, from collectors who had just dug them up from graves. …
Museums and federal agencies together have counted 27,312 human remains and 543,081 burial objects.
In 2000, ABC News said, "The bones of nearly 200,000 other American Indians still sit in drawers and wooden boxes of American museums across the country."
Cops Try New Ways to Catch Speeders
Police have gone way beyond sitting behind bushes to catch speeders. In Maryland they perched in cherry pickers. Here in St. Pete, Fla., I have seen traffic cops pose as political candidates waving campaign signs on the side of the street. Another one a couple of years ago posed as a senior citizen in a walker — but had a radar gun hidden in the walker.
The Baltimore Sun says:
In Alabama, some state police officers are disguising themselves as construction workers. In Virginia, as in Maryland, state police routinely patrol highways in unmarked red Chevrolet Camaros. Maryland troopers have also been known to drive sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks." …
Of course, there are plenty of critics of hidden speed traps.
"If their purpose is to write as many tickets as possible and bring in as much revenue as possible, they are succeeding," said Eric Skrum of the National Motorists Association.
"But if they're trying to slow down traffic or encourage people to drive safely on a certain road, being hidden doesn't accomplish that. Studies and common sense tell you that when you're trying to make a road safer, you need police visibility."
Naturally, police disagree and say these techniques help keep motorists aware that an officer could be anywhere at any time.
Military Buglers (Follow-up)
About my Tuesday story on Al's Morning Meeting, I got this note from Andy Dunning, Beverly Review, Chicago:
Concerning your military bugle tip, I thought you may be interested to know that there is an organization, Bugles Across America, that offers live buglers for military funerals. The president is Tom Day, of Berwyn, Ill., (suburban Chicago) whose organization has several hundred volunteers. You can reach Day at (708) 484-9029 (and find his Web site here).
Alcohol Industry to Target Kids Less
The Beer Institute and the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States said their members plan to limit advertising to media with 70 percent adult audiences. AP reported:
The current standard is a majority adult audience — over 50 percent — and the Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday, in its own report, that the industry has improved to 99 percent compliance.
The FTC study was issued at the request of Congress because of the suspicion that newly popular flavored alcoholic malt beverages were being targeted at youth.
The FTC concluded that was not the case but noted that young legal drinkers and the underage tend to watch many of the same shows and read the same magazines.
Media Info Site
Here is a fine site launched by the Media Info Center. It is really useful. It includes media metrics, news about major media companies and so on. I bookmarked it.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, story excerpts, and other materials from a variety of websites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed, and a link will be provided, whenever possible.
