All posts by Roger Straw

Editor, owner, publisher of The Benicia Independent

Ohlone People Rejoice After City of Berkeley Votes to Return Sacred Land to Tribe

[Comment by BenIndy contributor Roger Straw – This is GREAT news for all the People!! In 2006, I walked many miles with Sogorea Te’ co-founder Corrina Gould. I was surprised and sad that she was not in the photo, but then heartened to see her quoted at the very moving end of the KQED/AP article:
Corrina Gould, co-founder of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and tribal chair of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Ohlone, attended Tuesday’s City Council meeting via video conference and wiped away tears after the council voted to return the land. The mound that once stood there was ‘a place where we first said goodbye to someone,’ she said. ‘To have this place saved forever, I am beyond words.’

Others from the former Vallejo Inter-Tribal Council, including my old friend, Wounded Knee Ocampo and his extended family, and VIC Chairperson Midge Wagner had a lot to do with the struggle to save sacred indigenous sites over the years. – RS]

Berkeley buys Ohlone shellmound, returns it to Indigenous people

Melissa Nelson, chair of the board of directors of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, middle, gestures while speaking at a news conference in Berkeley, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. Berkeley’s City Council voted unanimously Tuesday, March 12, 2024, to adopt an ordinance giving the title of the land to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, a women-led, San Francisco Bay Area collective that works to return land to Indigenous people and that raised the funds needed to reach the agreement. (Jeff Chiu/AP Photo)

KQED News, Associated Press, by Janie Har, Mar 13, 2024

Ohlone people and others rejoiced Wednesday over the return of sacred native land dating back thousands of years, saying the move righted a historic wrong and restored the people who were first on the land now called Berkeley to their rightful place in history.

The 2.2-acre parking lot is the only undeveloped portion of the shell mound in West Berkeley, where ancestors of today’s Ohlone people established the first human settlement on the shores of the San Francisco Bay 5,700 years ago.

Berkeley’s City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to adopt an ordinance giving the title of the land to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, a San Francisco Bay Area collective led by women that works to return land to Indigenous people. The collective raised most of the money needed to reach an agreement with developers who own the land.

“The site will be home to education, prayer and preservation, and will outlast every one of us today to continue telling the story of the Ohlone people,” said Mayor Jesse Arreguín at a celebratory press conference on Fourth Street in Berkeley Wednesday. He said their history is “marked not by adversity, but more importantly, by their unwavering resilience as a community.”

Arreguín added that he thought it was “pretty absurd” that they had to buy the site to give it back to indigenous people “when this was theirs all along, and we stole it from them.”

“[I]t’s been a long effort … long, long legal battles, many meetings. People prayed, people protested. But all along, it’s been an incredible community effort. And I’m very grateful that we were able to do this today,” Arreguín said.

Cheyenne Zepeda from the Confederated Villages of Ocean Nation said that they’ve been praying and fighting for this recognition for over 25 years.

“We see a huge parking lot that’s been paved over, we’re looking towards the train tracks, there’s also the freeway that’s here off of university, and we don’t see the beautiful ground that it was before, but we will … we will again,” Zepeda said.

‘[W]e don’t see the beautiful ground that it was before, but we will … we will again.’Cheyenne Zepeda, Confederated Villages of Ocean Nation
The crowd cheered as speakers talked of a movement to restore other lands to Indigenous people. The site — a three-block area Berkeley designated as a landmark in 2000 — will be home to native medicines and foods, an oasis for pollinators and wildlife, and a place for youth to learn about their heritage, including ancient dances and ceremonies, said Melissa Nelson, chair of the board of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust.

“Thousands of years ago, this site was a thriving … urban center for Native Americans, for California Indians with their beautiful shell mounds dotted all around the bay,” Nelson said. “We want to be a place for global Indigenous leadership to come and gather in solidarity. We want to educate, we want to restore, and we want to heal.”

Before Spanish colonizers arrived in the region, the area held a village and a massive shell mound with a height of 20 feet and the length and width of a football field that was a ceremonial and burial site. Built over years with mussel, clam and oyster shells, human remains, and artifacts, the mound also served as a lookout.

The Spanish removed the Ohlone from their villages and forced them into labor at local missions. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Anglo settlers took over the land and razed the shell mound to line roadbeds in Berkeley with shells.

The agreement with Berkeley-based Ruegg & Ellsworth LLC, which owns the parking lot, comes after a six-year legal fight that started in 2018 when the developer sued the city after officials denied its application to build a 260-unit apartment building with 50% affordable housing and 27,500 feet of retail and parking space.

The settlement was reached after Ruegg & Ellsworth agreed to accept $27 million to settle all outstanding claims and to turn the property over to Berkeley. The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust contributed $25.5 million and Berkeley paid $1.5 million, officials said.

The trust plans to build a commemorative park with a new shell mound and a cultural center to house some of the pottery, jewelry, baskets and other artifacts found over the years and that are in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley.

Corrina Gould, co-founder of the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust and tribal chair of the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Ohlone, attended Tuesday’s City Council meeting via video conference and wiped away tears after the council voted to return the land.

The mound that once stood there was “a place where we first said goodbye to someone,” she said. “To have this place saved forever, I am beyond words.”

KQED’s Sara Hossaini contributed to this story.


Sogorea Te’ Land Trust Co-Founder Corrina Gould

Highly recommended: Queen Rania al Abdullah of Jordan on the Food Crisis in Gaza

[Note from BenIndy Contributor Roger Straw – The world is crying out for innocents in Gaza who are starving. Malnutrition and certain death is everywhere. The United States MUST stand up to the Israeli Prime Minister, and I would encourage all of us to join in the widespread call for an immediate and lasting ceasefire. Christiane Amanpour’s interview with the articulate Queen of Jordan, Rania al Abdullah is a call for heart and historical perspective, as well as food for the Palestinian people. – Roger]

Queen Rania al Abdullah of Jordan on the Food Crisis in Gaza

Amanpour and Company on Youtube, Originally aired on March 11, 2024  #amanpourpbs

On Sunday, the United States and Jordan conducted another joint airdrop into northern Gaza. Jordan’s Queen Rania has been outspoken in defense of Gaza civilians. She is urging the United States and other allies of Israel to use all their leverage to end what she calls Israel’s “deliberate effort” to deprive those in need. Christiane speaks with Queen Rania exclusively from King Abdullah II Air Base in Jordan, just ahead of another airdrop.


See earlier posts about the Israeli/Hamas war on BenIndy:

Your 2024 Guide to Covid Symptoms and Treatment

Roger Straw

[Note from BenIndy Contributor Roger Straw: Please know that COVID is still all around us: “Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated that, as of mid-February, more than 21,000 people were hospitalized with Covid, and there had been roughly 10,000 Covid-related deaths in 2024.”  Even when it’s relatively mild, COVID is no fun when you get it! And… it can be long-lasting. This article from the New York Times is a good update. Read on….]

Rest, fluids and medications are your friends.

New York Times, By Dana G. Smith, March 1, 2024

NYT: Getty images

We’re four years into the pandemic, and by this point, most Americans have had Covid at least once. But when the virus comes for us (again), it can still feel just as alarming as your first bout.

Here’s a guide to what Covid looks like now and how to treat it.

Symptoms

The most common Covid symptoms haven’t changed much since the start of the pandemic, and they remain consistent for the latest dominant variant, JN.1, said Dr. Soniya Gandhi, the associate chief medical officer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. They include fatigue, sore throat, congestion, runny nose, headache, body aches and cough.

“All or any of those in isolation can still be Covid,” Dr. Gandhi said.

Some people may develop conjunctivitis, also known as pink eye, or experience gastrointestinal issues, like nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, but those symptoms are rarer. Anecdotally, experts said, one of the most notable symptoms early in the pandemic — the loss of taste and smell — also appears to be less common these days.

“The biggest change is that people are having milder symptoms overall,” said Dr. Amanda Casto, an acting assistant professor of allergy and infectious diseases at the University of Washington. That’s because virtually everyone has some pre-existing immunity from vaccines, a prior infection or both.

While Covid is mild for most people, it can be dangerous and even fatal for some. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated that, as of mid-February, more than 21,000 people were hospitalized with Covid, and there had been roughly 10,000 Covid-related deaths in 2024.

Severe illness is a lot less prevalent now than during the first few years of the pandemic, “but we’re still seeing it,” said Dr. Stuart Ray, a professor in the division of infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. The people who are getting sickest tend to be those with compromised immune systems and underlying health conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes or lung problems. Adults over age 65 are also at higher risk for severe infections.

Since mild Covid can look like a cold or the flu, it’s important to test yourself if you have symptoms or have had a known exposure, Dr. Gandhi said. Knowing what you have can affect your treatment and how long you isolate from others.

On March 1, the C.D.C. updated its guidance for preventing the spread of Covid and other respiratory viruses. The agency recommended that people isolate until their symptoms have started to improve and they have been fever-free for at least 24 hours. The agency acknowledged that people may still be contagious at this point and should continue to take precautions, like masking and physical distancing, for the next five days.

The antiviral pill Paxlovid is very effective against severe Covid, reducing the risk of death by 73 percent if taken within the first five days of an infection, according to a preliminary study conducted by the National Institutes of Health. Experts urged people who are high-risk to contact their doctors about getting a prescription as soon as they have symptoms or test positive.

“If you’re elderly or you have comorbidities, before you even get worse, you should already seek medical care,” said Dr. Bernard Camins, the medical director for infection prevention at the Mount Sinai Health System in New York. “Your health care provider will then evaluate you if you’re a candidate for antivirals.”

Paxlovid isn’t recommended for everyone. It can interact with several medications, including common ones used to lower blood pressure or prevent blood clots, and it’s also not advised for people with severe kidney disease. If you can’t take Paxlovid, the drug remdesivir could be an option, but it has to be delivered intravenously, so it’s less convenient and harder to obtain.

Paxlovid also doesn’t appear to provide much benefit to young, healthy adults whose risk of severe infection is low, so it isn’t broadly recommended for those groups.

For most people, Covid symptoms can be managed at home and treated like any other respiratory illness, with an emphasis on rest and staying hydrated. “If you have congestion or cough, you’re losing more fluids than you normally would,” Dr. Casto said. “So I would definitely recommend that people stay on top of fluid.”

If you have a fever or body aches, take acetaminophen (Tylenol) or ibuprofen (Advil or Motrin). You can also take over-the-counter cold and flu medicines with decongestants or cough suppressants, though the experts didn’t recommend them strongly because they don’t work for everybody and can cause drowsiness.

If you’re experiencing shortness of breath — meaning you can’t catch your breath or are taking quick and shallow breaths — it’s important to seek medical attention right away.

“The thing that I worry most about is the breathing,” Dr. Casto said. “That’s the most concerning sign, because people can get” worse really quickly. If you’re having trouble breathing, she advised going to the emergency room rather than to your doctor or an urgent care clinic. Experts also said you should see a provider if you experience confusion or chest pain.

If your symptoms don’t improve after several days, or improve and then regress, it could be a sign you have a secondary infection like pneumonia, Dr. Casto said. In that case, or if you’re concerned about your symptoms at all, don’t hesitate to call your doctor.

Dana G. Smith is a Times reporter covering personal health, particularly aging and brain health.


More COVID on the Benicia Independent…

.

TODAY! – Ask City Council to protect Benicia’s health and safety at the Dec. 19 Council Meeting

A Message from the Benicia ISO Working Group:

The crucial City Council meeting on whether Benicia should consider an Industrial Safety Ordinance will take place on TODAY, Tuesday, Dec. 19 at 6 pm at the City Council Chambers at City Hall, 230 East L Street. It is vital that supporters of a strong ISO attend and voice our support. Valero is gearing up to oppose this and may bring personnel to the meeting to voice opposition.

By attending and offering comments, you can offer support for the proposal by Vice Mayor Terry Scott and Councilmember Kari Birdseye, to be voted on by the Council on Dec. 19, instructing City staff to look into the possibility of Benicia adopting an ISO.

In addition, please voice support for not just the Scott-Birdseye proposal but for a strong ISO. This has become all-the-more important because of a problematic Benicia City staff report that, perhaps unintentionally, repeatedly presents incomplete and potentially misleading information that paints Valero’s refinery in a favorable light compared to Contra Costa County refineries covered by ISOs. The report neglects to mention evidence and experience to the contrary.

For instance, the report lists accidents that have occurred only at Contra Costa refineries. Yet it makes no mention of the many instances of severe violations by Valero, including the 2022 revelation about its Benicia refinery’s over fifteen years of unreported toxic emissions, hundreds of times regulatory limits.

In fairness, however, the report briefly notes, “In the years following [the Contra Costa County ISO’s implementation], it is believed to have contributed to a decline in accidents and releases at refineries in Contra Costa.”

The point is that voices for a strong ISO can help counteract any misimpressions that staff report might leave to the contrary.

If at all possible, your showing up early can help ensure that supporters of a strong ISO are near the front of the audience. But even if you can’t make it by 6 pm, that will be ok as the discussion of this matter probably won’t start until close to 6:30 pm (or possibly even later if the Council does not move this priority item to early in the agenda).

Also, participation by Zoom is an option. You can find the link that explains how to access the meeting here: https://granicus_production_attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/benicia/5f807fdd4c4cce692977198f6f31acd30.pdf. 

Thanks very much for considering all this and for any support you can show for making Benicia safer and healthier for our kids, our older adults and all of us.

See www.bisho.org for more information.