Teaching potlatch principles

Fourth grader Eugenia Fernandez plays the part of a Native American mother during the “Indian Lullabye” song at Dry Hollow’s Native American Potlatch celebration Wednesday. Students sang songs, performed native dances and displayed historical, miniature Indian dwellings they had spent months building. Sam Craig photo

Why no flags?
Weather shift frustrates Scouts on flag code

By KATHY GRAY
of The Chronicle

     When spectators turned out to watch the annual Veterans Day parade roll through downtown The Dalles on Nov. 11, they noticed a few things missing from the usual holiday landscape.
     “Where are the flags?” asked one bystander and others echoed the question later in The Chronicle’s letters to the editor.
     Flags were abundant in the patriotic parade itself. However, the flags that line downtown streets on holidays in The Dalles were conspicuously absent.
     The changable weather was the culprit, according to Mark Mullins, who works with Boy Scout Troop 352. The Scouts have been posting flags on 11 holidays each year for at least 50 years, Mullins estimates.
     When Scouts and their volunteer adult drivers turned out around 6 a.m. on Veterans Day to continue their tradition, the weather was drizzly and looked like ongoing rain. The drivers made the call not to post the flags out of respect for the flag code.

Wal-Mart hearing set for 6:30

Two quasi-judicial public hearings related to the proposed Walmart development near Interstate 84 and River Road are on The Dalles Planning Commission’s agenda for their 6:30 p.m. meeting Thursday, Nov. 20 at City Hall council chambers.
The subject of the first hearing is a request to subdivide the 67-acre land parcel into five lots known as the Chenoweth Station Subdivision and add a public street. City staff has recommended that the preliminary plat application be approved, subject to a list of conditions including development in accordance with the Land Use and Developement Ordinance (LUDO), submission of a final subdivision plat, street improvements and approval of construction plans by the city engineer, among others.

Obama taps Daschle for HHS, eyes Napoitano for Homeland

By KEVIN FREKING
Associated Press writer

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle speaks during the Democratic National Convention in Denver in this Aug. 27, 2008 file photo. Daschle has accepted President-elect Barack Obama's offer to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, Democratic officials said Wednesday. AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

     WASHINGTON — Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, an early Barack Obama supporter from the southwestern part of the country, is the likely choice for the job of secretary of homeland security, a top Obama adviser said Thursday.
     The adviser cautioned that no final decision has been made on the position, which involves directing the massive department created by Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
     The adviser agreed to discuss the situation only on grounds of anonymity because of the private nature of the screening process for Obama’s Cabinet.      Napolitano, who once was Arizona’s attorney general, was among the first of the Democratic governors to commit to him.
     Several news organizations reported Thursday that Chicago businesswoman Penny Pritzker, who was Obama’s national campaign finance chairman, is his leading choice to become secretary of commerce. But the Obama adviser disputed the reports.