From “The Angolite” the award-winning magazine from Louisiana’s maximum-security prison, available in the magazine rack on Cascade Tower’s fifth floor.
ALL TOO OFTEN, WE FORGET WHAT WE ARE SERVING TIME FOR HERE. WE, AS PRISONERS, get caught up in the daily minutia of our lives, or the manner in which we strive to improve ourselves. As a result, we tend to forget why we are incarcerated, why they sentenced us to the amounts of time they gave us. No distractions or loss of focus can ever replace what we have done to become members of this unique environment.
Yet, in the process, what we all too often forget is that, what we do every day here matters more than anyone comprehends. It does not really matter whether what we are doing is completely or even partially accepted, or even noticed by people out there. What we do here matters in ways that even the most jaded and arrogant here forget about. We can build, repair, or envision so very much, but if we cannot make the concepts work and last, what we have is an empty world of false hope.
Every day, somebody here remembers that another human being needs help, or just needs a little spirit lifting for their heart, their mind, and possibly even their souls. That is what we can always try to do, even if it is so small and hard to notice, that only one or two people know about it.
This issue will cover some concerns that many prisoners and their families face, plus ones of concern to criminal justice professionals. What is not completely apparent to everyone, is that every thought and process has been thought about, weighed, and rethought about.
So, while something might not make sense to one professional or prisoner, it has been considered and thought about by others. As such, for every goal, we truly believe that some and will come out a decision.
Posted inEssays|Comments Off on From those serving time
The Keychange Exchange on Pine Street. Photo: Nadia Lopez/Axios
Across San Francisco, colorful, decorated boxes stuffed with trinkets are popping up on street corners and on sidewalks, turning ordinary blocks into miniature trading posts.
The big picture: From the Outer and Inner Sunset to Noe Valley and the Castro, small trinket trade boxes stocked with everything from rings and rubber ducks, keychains, baseball cards, tiny ceramic animals, patches and custom pins are inviting strangers to take a tiny treasure and leave one behind.
The rules are simple: take a trinket, leave a trinket — or just open the door and look.
Inspired by Portland’s broader “Sidewalk Joy” movement, the local trend reflects a growing effort to create accessible, community-run spaces that help strengthen neighborhood ties.
“These are love letters from the person who makes them to their community and the way they’re treated is a love letter back,” said Rachael Harms Mahlandt, a Bay Area native and Portland-based artist who created a global map tracking these exchanges.
Catch up quick: Deanna Florendo launched San Francisco’s first trinket trade box in the Outer Sunset last November after “wanting to do something for our community that felt a bit more personal.”
As a vintage trinket collector, she was drawn to the idea for its simplicity and ease, being that it was affordable to create and could also withstand the neighborhood’s coastal climate.
Soon, visitors were lining up, bonding over their new finds and connecting online afterward to trace their trades.
“What I love most isn’t even the trinkets, it’s the experience,” she told Axios.
Now, she helps other residents start trinket exchanges in their own neighborhoods. She’s even created a collective via group chat so that owners can swap tips, promote new launches and step in to help maintain one another’s boxes when needed.
How it works: For those wanting to start their own, Mahlandt said the barrier to entry is lower than it looks. Many can be installed with minimal tools and in many cases, without a permit, she said. (continued on Page 2 or here)
By Arlisha R. Norwood, NWHM Fellow | 2017 — (thanks to Ann M.)
World renowned performer, World War II spy, and activist are few of the titles used to describe Josephine Baker. One of the most successful African American performers in French history, Baker’s career illustrates the ways entertainers can use their platforms to change the world.
On June 3, 1906, Freda Josephine McDonald was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Her parents, both entertainers, performed throughout the segregated Midwest often bringing her on stage during their shows. Unfortunately, their careers never took off, forcing the young Baker to look for odd jobs to survive. If she was unable to find work she would often dance on the streets, collecting money from onlookers. Eventually, her routine caught the attention of an African American theatre troupe. At the age of 15, Baker ran off and began to perform with the group. She also married during this time, taking her husband’s last name and dropping her first name, becoming Josephine Baker.
Baker flourished as a dancer in several Vaudeville shows, which was a popular theatre genre in the 20th century. She eventually moved to New York City and participated in the celebration of black life and art now known as the Harlem Renaissance. A few years later her success took her to Paris. Baker became one of the most sought-after performers due to her distinct dancing style and unique costumes. Although her audiences were mostly white, Baker’s performances followed African themes and style. In her famed show Danse Sauvage she danced across stage in a banana skirt. Baker was multitalented, known for her dancing and singing she even played in several successful major motion pictures released in Europe.
When Adolf Hitler and the German army invaded France during World War II, Baker joined the fight against the Nazi regime. She aided French military officials by passing on secrets she heard while performing in front of the enemy. She transported the confidential information by writing with invisible ink on music sheets. After many years of performing in Paris, Baker returned to the United States.
Her return home forced Baker to confront segregation and discrimination that she had not experienced since she was a child in St. Louis. She often refused to perform to segregated audiences, which usually forced club owners to integrate for her shows. Her opposition against segregation and discrimination was recognized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1963, she was one of the few women allowed to speak at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Her speech detailed her life as a black woman in the United States and abroad:
“You know, friends, that I do not lie to you when I tell you I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad.”
Baker continued to fight racial injustices into the 1970s. Her personal life was a testament to her political agenda. Throughout her career, she adopted 13 children from various countries. She called her family “the rainbow tribe” and took her children on the road in an effort to show that racial and cultural harmony could exist. Baker remained on stage late into her life and in 1975 she performed for the last time. The show was sold out and she received a standing ovation. Baker passed away on April 12, 1975.
Watch Josephine Baker perform “J’ai deux amours” during WWII at thislink. Experience Her Legacy On March 15 in Seattle, chanteuse Jacqueline Tabor joins Music of Remembrance to perform songs Baker made famous, including “J’ai deux amours.” Echoes of Conscience | March 15 | 3:00 PM | Benaroya Hall Click here to purchase tickets.
On February 12, 2026, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on a podcast called The Past Weekend with comedian Theo Von. “I’m not scared of a germ,” said RFK Jr. “I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats.” If you can get past the fact that this statement was made by the nation’s leading public health official, let’s discuss whether it makes sense.
We’ll start with the toilet seat, by which I assume he means the toilet seat cover, which is where the snorting normally takes place. Toilet seats are wrongly considered to be a place where people can be infected with sexually transmitted germs such as HIV, gonorrhea, syphilis or chlamydia. These pathogens require warm, moist surfaces; all will die almost instantly when exposed to the cold, hard surface of a toilet seat. RFK Jr. was right not to be concerned about them. Surprisingly, other items in the bathroom are more dangerous than toilet seats or toilet seat covers. For example:
• Faucets: More than 300 different types of bacteria can be found on faucet handles, far more than would be found on a toilet seat cover.
• Soap and Paper Towel dispensers: Refillable dispensers are often heavily contaminated with bacteria when replaced.
• Hand Blowers: Hand blowers take in air from the restroom and blow bacteria directly onto your hands. Levels of bacteria on hand blowers are 27 times greater than those found on paper towel dispensers.
• Money: I’m going to assume that RFK Jr. snorted his cocaine through a rolled-up dollar bill (or $100 bill). Money is highly absorbent and contains bacteria from tens of thousandsof people who previously touched it. Of interest, one study found that 79% of paper currency in America contains traces of cocaine, more than any other country in the world.
In summary, RFK Jr. shouldn’t have been terribly scared of the toilet seat. But what about other germs? RFK Jr. and I were both born in the early 1950s. If his parents cared about him as mine did about me, he would have received the smallpox, diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis, and polio vaccines as a child. Neither RFK Jr. nor I need to worry about polio. Like most children born in the early 1950s, RFK Jr. probably suffered measles, mumps, rubella (German measles), and varicella (chickenpox). Surviving those infections provides lifelong protection. So, RFK Jr. and I don’t need to worry about them, either.
However, RFK Jr. and I should worry about vaccine-preventable diseases for which men in their 70s are at highest risk. For example, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) causes as many as 160,000 hospitalizations and 10,000 deaths every year in the United States, primarily in those over 65. Pneumonia caused by the bacterium pneumococcus causes 150,000 hospitalizations in the elderly with as many as 1 in 4 dying within a year of hospitalization. Influenza causes at least 470,000 hospitalizations and 28,000 deaths every year; those over 65 are disproportionally infected. Lastly, COVID caused about 270,000 hospitalizations and 32,000 deaths last year; again, the elderly suffered the most.
RFK Jr.’s successful snorting of cocaine off toilet seats doesn’t protect him against any of these vaccine-preventable diseases. Were he a responsible Secretary of Health and Human Services—and not a comic actor in a bad Saturday Night Live skit—RFK Jr. would use his considerable platform to urge all elderly Americans to vaccinate against RSV, pneumococcus, influenza, and COVID instead of reassuring us that if we can survive snorting cocaine off toilet seats, we have nothing to worry about.
Posted inHealth, Vaccines|Comments Off on The Toilet Seat Challenge Test
Ed note: Think about war — easy to start, hard to finish. Not unusual for a more radical regime to take over. The students have no weapons. The Iranian government structure is broad and deep. There will be unanticipated consequences. Can the US Congress grow a backbone?
Last night, the Trump Administration employed military force against Iran. I will continue to share updates on this situation, so please subscribe to my newsletter to stay up to date on future statements, media appearances, and events. “Overnight, the President ordered preemptive military strikes against Iran. Let me be clear that I oppose these preemptive strikes and am concerned the situation is prone to rapid escalation that puts Americans at risk and threatens to drag us into a war of choice with no strategic endgame.
“This offensive use of military force against Iran, absent congressional authorization, is contrary to domestic and international law. Our system of checks and balances is crucial to ensuring that we adhere to the law and, hopefully, learn from the mistakes of our past.
“There is no question that the Iranian regime is guilty of horrific crimes against its own people and conducts destabilization activities in the region. That is why the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was so important for limiting Iran’s nuclear ambitions and allowed access into the country to monitor their nuclear activities. The Trump Administration’s abandonment of that agreement, which was overwhelmingly beneficial to U.S. and regional interests, has left us without a key point of leverage at a critical time.
“We absolutely should exert pressure on Iran in order to ensure that they don’t build a nuclear weapon. However, the far more appropriate options for exerting that pressure are continued diplomatic engagement, coalition building with partners and allies in the region, and enforcement of targeted economic sanctions. These options are also far more likely to succeed without risking war with a country with advanced weapons systems and a demonstrated willingness to use those systems against thousands of American service members in the region and beyond.
“Make no mistake, the president’s actions have dragged the United States into a war of his choosing. Regardless of my opposition to the course of action the president has unilaterally taken, my thoughts are with the brave men and women in uniform, and their families.”Thank you for taking the time to read this message. Subscribe to my newsletter for future updates. Sincerely,
Posted inGovernment, War|Comments Off on Employing Military Force Against Iran
From BBC written by Max Matza (Seattle) – thanks to Ed M.
Wallace Nagedzi Watts had been going to Seahawks games for almost three decades when a historical discovery helped supercharge his fandom – and deepened his connection to his indigenous roots.
“It kind of changed my whole life,” says Watts, a prominent fan of the American football team who goes by the name Captain Seahawk.
“Because of the Seattle Seahawks I started getting back into my culture.”
Speaking to the BBC while driving down to attend the Super Bowl game in Santa Clara, California, where the Seahawks are due to take on the New England Patriots, Watts says “it’s been my life’s mission for the last 12 years to notify everyone that the Seahawks logo was copied from the Kwakwaka’wakw tribe on Vancouver Island”.
The discovery was made during the Seahawks last Super Bowl sting – coincidentally also against the Patriots – in 2014.
Amid city-wide excitement,the Burke Museum in Seattle decided to investigate the origins of the Seahawks logo, which was chosen by the team’s manager in the mid-1970s. A black-and-white photo of a ceremonial mask in an old art book revealed the inspiration behind the design, which was then traced to a collection at the Hudson Museum in Maine.
The museum sent the mask to Seattle on loan, where a ceremony was held featuring both tribal members and team representatives.
The mask has been repainted in the years since leaving western Canada.
The mask, which was created in the late 1800s and was carved from cedar, had been in private collections since leaving Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where it was created by members of the Kwakwaka’wakw Nation, says Katie Bunn-Marcuse, the curator of Northwest Native Art at the Burke Museum. (continued on Page 2 or here)
The carving, which is known as a “transformational mask” and depicts the ancestral origins of one’s family, was created around the time that Canada introduced a ban on many indigenous practices, in a move which decimated many tribes in western Canada.
Using the mask for its intended purpose, at large gatherings called potlaches, became a crime. Many people went to jail for their cultural practices, however, the Kwakwaka’wakw people continued to hold underground potlaches.
“The Indian Act banned people gathering and performing their songs,” says Bunn-Marcuse, adding, that “the potlatch was the economic and legal system of the coast”. The ban was lifted in 1951, and in 2015 Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that it was part of a “cultural genocide”, which also included the notorious residential school programme, which separated families and erased local languages.
Watts had been going to games for decades before discovering his own tribal connection to the team.
Watts grew up on a reserve in Port Alberni on the west side of Vancouver Island, in his father’s tribal community. But after the discovery of the logo’s Kwakwaka’wakw origins, he decided to look into his mother’s family history on the other side of the island.
Travelling back to Vancouver Island, he set out on a series of tribal canoe journeys, where he reconnected with Kwakwaka’wakw family members and learned more about their cultural practices.
During one trip, he was invited to take place in a ritual in which he was declared a “warrior”, or guardian of the tribe’s culture.
“I had to dance half-naked in front of a thousand people, and then I came back in warriors clothing. To me it’s like being baptised as a Christian. It really changed my life.”
The ‘transformational’ mask opens to show a human inside.
Bruce Alfred, an artist living in Alert Bay, British Columbia, recalls when his cousin started showing up, inspired by his commitment to the Seahawks and his cultural heritage. He says that Watts is not the only person who has been inspired by the NFL team to look into their family history.
Alfred was part of the Burke team that surveyed the mask, and confirmed that it was indeed Kwakwaka’wakw, and had been used in spiritual ceremonies before going into a private collection.
“After the potlatch ban they took everything away from our people,” he says, adding that the goal of the government and missionaries was to “annihilate and assimilate us – either one”.
The Seahawks are popular throughout Canada’s western coast, where no other NFL team exists. Alfred says that many people in his village are Seahawks supporters, and that more people have been inspired to look into their heritage after discovering the team’s connection. It comes amid a larger tribal movement to reconnect with the past.
“There is a resurgence of our people that are stepping up and they’re learning the language, the culture, their own identity,” he says.
Alfred, and other indigenous people who spoke to the BBC, say that unlike other major league sports teams, the Seahawks logo has not sparked backlash because it respectfully borrows from indigenous culture, rather than plays in to racist stereotypes.
The display of indigenous cultural materials as artworks has been criticised by some tribal people, who see these as sacred tools for worship.
At the Kwakwaka’wakw exhibit at the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, one mask is kept under a sheet to symbolically show how some believe these objects should not be displayed, and only taken out for important occasions.
The debate is always ongoing for museums that display indigenous relics, says Bunn-Marcuse.
“In community, many of these masks are not brought out until the moment that they are needed,” she says.
“Whenever we do our exhibits we do them collaboratively with input and advising by community members. So there are some masks that we no longer show because community has said those are not appropriate to be shown ever outside of their ceremonial context.”
Others have critiqued the artwork for originating from a tribe that is hundreds of miles from Seattle, halfway to Alaska. The artwork of local peoples such as the Coast Salish could be used instead, they argue.
The logo has been redrawn by local Washington artists, including this one by Qwalsius-Shaun Peterson, in their own indigenous styles.
Qwalsius-Shaun Peterson, a Coast Salish artist from the Puyallup Tribe near Tacoma, Washington, is among many indigenous artists who have redesigned unofficial Seahawks logos in the style of their own local culture.
“People within the tribal communities are just really excited about native iconography of any kind,” he says.
“Nobody takes offense” to the official logo, he adds, adding that it is not a “misrepresentation” and instead “borrows from” indigenous art.
Watts, who proudly boasts that he’s the first person to arrive at games and the last to leave, is using his celebrity status as a superfan to fund raise for multiple charities.
He also cooks at a food bank, and mentors Native American youths in prison.
“I really had a different outlook on my entire life” after connecting with the roots of the logo, Watts says.
“We’re supposed to be the guardians of our tribe. We protect and provide.”
Ed Note: Rebecca Crichton started her ‘Encore Career’ as ED of NWCCA in 2012 after 21 years with The Boeing Company. She refashioned her skills and knowledge as a writer, curriculum designer and leadership development coach to offer programs related to Creative Aging at many venues in the Seattle area. Her website and newsletter cover a wide array of life enhancements from dementia care to book clubs: https://www.nwcreativeaging.org/
A recent, standing-room-only presentation by Dr. John Zeisel at the Frye Art Museum focused on the many resources related to dementia in our region. Dr. Zeisel, the founder of the I’m Still Here Foundation, shared a hopeful vision of the future of dementia care in our region.
Dr. Zeisel listed fifteen local organizations and groups that provide care and services for people with cognitive loss. The number is impressive for any city. Equally impressive is the level of coordination and mutual support the various entities provide.
This is reassuring information. I know I am not alone with concerns about my cognitive abilities. Many of my friends and colleagues worry about dementia and whether they might be on a road with dementia as the destination.
Most of us can recount stories of the misplaced keys (as well as cars in parking lots), missed appointments, and scrambled dates and times as indicators that set off internal alarms about our changing mental capacities.
In tandem with our fears about the possibility of our own dementia is the discomfort we feel around people dealing with dementia. Although most of us know people who have it, I will venture to guess that frequently we don’t know how to behave and interact with them. Our own fear creates stigma, which in turn creates distance, discomfort, and avoidance.
I am trying to learn more about dementia for both my personal and professional benefit. The more I learn, the more comfortable I am with the people in my life who are directly touched by the disease.
I want to be more compassionate and hopefully supportive in their lives. Destigmatizing dementia is a goal I share with the many organizations and groups that remind us that people with dementia are still here.
We know much more about our brains than ever before. And the more we learn, the more we realize how much we don’t know and are still learning.
My March essay highlights how I think about my own thinking. To the extent that you can be aware of your personal Internal Broadcasting Company, and know which files you open regularly, the more you can understand and recognize your own mental state.
I’m looking forward to my conversation at Town Hall on March 9 with Dr. Jim deMaine. He is a longtime advocate, author, and presenter on end-of-life issues. Our discussion will explore his work and his thoughts as he navigates the challenges of aging.
March brings us longer days, brilliant blooms, and the gifts of spring. Enjoy the light!
Reload document 
Open in new tab 
“Overnight, the President ordered preemptive military strikes against Iran. Let me be clear that I oppose these preemptive strikes and am concerned the situation is prone to rapid escalation that puts Americans at risk and threatens to drag us into a war of choice with no strategic endgame. 
