Khwe,
You (TAMHA History Teachers list out of Wayne State University) have just had a discussion
concerning ethics in a classroom. This society always seems to wrap its ethics in neat little
packages, with dividing lines which depend on labels attached to them...At what point does a man
cease to be human (remains or live?) At what point does your ethics say remains cease to be
someone's grandparent??? and instead becomes an archaeological curiosity and therefore open
season for the scientific community? OR as in the excerpt from the article below, a sales item (legal in New York).
Your culture deals in labels..your media deals in labels.*offensive weapons* are wrong..but rename
the blighters as *defensive* and millions of dollars are procured to protect your backsides...open
your eyes folks...a label doesn't change the truth. But this culture treats it as though it does.
You name your sports teams with native names and claim them as *real*...what do you suppose
this label does to those who in Truth carry this name?
Why do you think mascots are an issue???
Ish
Store Owner Pleads Guilty to Selling Skulls of Indians
By DAVID ROHDE
NEW YORK -- The owner of a Manhattan boutique specializing in human and animal bones pleaded guilty Monday to selling the skulls of Native Americans illegally and operating what law enforcement officials said was one of the largest rings in the Northeast involved in smuggling the remains of endangered species.
The store, Evolution: Natural History in SoHo, prominently featured a sign that informed customers that all of its specimens were obtained legally and that no endangered species remains were being sold, investigators said. But the store's owner, William Stevens, sold Seminole and Peoria Indian remains, including six skulls, 10 skull fragments and one jawbone, and smuggled a wide variety of endangered species bones, such as gorilla and bald eagle skulls, in violation of federal law, according to prosecutors. Stevens, 49, pleaded guilty on Monday in federal court in Brooklyn.
Prosecutors said Stevens, who is o wrap its ethics in neat little pacould be sentenced to probation or up to 11 years in prison. He faces up to $600,000 in criminal fines, and prosecutors are asking that he be at least forced to pay the expense of returning the Native American remains to their tribes for reburial.
Native American and conservation groups expressed outrage over the practice. "A human being is a human being and it should be accorded a proper burial," said Billy Al Cypress, executive director of the Ah-tah-thi-ki Museum in Florida, which is operated by the Seminoles.
Among the illegal items found during a Sept. 16, 1997, search of the store were ashtrays made from gorilla feet, a stool made from an elephant foot, a chimpanzee skeleton, 35 lion claws, a walrus skull and tusks and a gibbon arm. The remains of a Seminole were displayed in a glass case inside the store.
The sale of human bones obtained under proper procedures is legal in New York state, law enforcement officials said. But decades of grave robbing prompted the passage of federal laws barring the sale of all Native remains.
Stevens' lawyer, Michael Golden, said the vast majority of the goods sold in the store -- known for a trademark, real human skeleton posted at its door -- were legal. Stevens, a former commercial artist, said when he opened the store in 1993 that he decided to make his longtime avocation of collecting fossils and skulls into a business.
[snipped]