Dori Monson’s Feedback Friday: ‘Learn your Native American history, Dori’

Welcome to Dori’s Feedback Friday feature, where we collect a sampling of comments received over email and Facebook on various topics throughout the week. Want the chance to have your comments included in Feedback Friday? Send your thoughts about any show topics via email or the Dori Monson Facebook page.

To heck with blood pressure

I turned you off after your last show of 2017. I took a hiatus to let my blood pressure drop. I got tired of the insanity that is Seattle/Washington and thought that if I tuned the world out, I’d be the better for it. I was wrong. I was less informed and still angry. So I’m back! I am now listening to my first show in approximately 15 months, and my soul is rejoicing. I can’t quit you.

(Please note — I kept my podcast feed going throughout that time so that your numbers wouldn’t drop … by one …)

– Ben in Snohomish

Dori, pause before you judge Native Americans

Don’t take away Makah Tribe’s treaty rights

Dori, I’ve listened to you for years. My son is the same age as your oldest daughter. You don’t know me, but I feel like you’re one of my friends. I believe you’re wrong about the Makah Tribe. The Makah gave up a lot when they signed their treaty back in 1855. They voluntarily gave up their whaling efforts in 1927 or so because the whale population was decimated by the white man whaling. No one can argue that the Makah were not a whaling tribe up to that time. It is important to them as a tribe and culture. A treaty right not exercised is lost.

In this case, the Makahs did it right. The tribe waited until the population of whales has recovered, and until their hunting would have no impact on the population. I personally can’t watch the hunting of the whales, but this is their treaty right. They’ve fought for years to reestablish these whaling rights, just as many tribes have again begun hunting buffalo outside of Yellowstone. The last time buffalo were hunted was back in the 1880s, and it is a spiritually moving experience for these tribes. Please don’t judge the Makahs’ spiritual purpose of hunting whales because a couple of stupid teenagers did flips off the dead whale. I can assure you that most of the tribe are deeply moved with the possibility of returning to their whaling life and culture. I am not Makah, but my nephew is marrying a Makah this May. Remember what the white man did to these tribes:

1. They took their land.
2. Killed their way of life.
3. Forced them to sign treaties that were not negotiated or written in their native tongue.
4. Forcibly took their children to “white man” schools where their native language was not allowed to be spoken. There are elders in the tribe who were in these schools.
5. Violated their treaties.
6. Killed them at will.

Dori – you most likely don’t know a Makah, you don’t know their history, or their way of life. You’re using the “white man’s” framework of what is right or wrong, and applying it to people you don’t know. I realize that killing a whale on TV with slow motion is upsetting to most white people (including me). The Makah specifically made an agreement with the U.S. government that they could continue to harvest whales. There was no time limit on the agreement. A deal is a deal. How would you like it if Native Americans would start videotaping the slaughter of the cow you’re going to consume in your steak dinner? Let’s videotape the chickens, pigs, and sheep that are slaughtered, and put it on TV every night. Fair is fair. You’ve spoken at great length about how much you like eating meat. It is part of your culture, just as the Makahs want to return to whaling.

– Andy in Tukwila 

Learn your Native American history

Again, learn your history, Dori. You had a student-teacher on the show saying Native Americans weren’t the first people here and our land wasn’t stolen. Okay. And you say salmon is spiritual to Natives like a religion. Again, learn what you’re saying before you trash Native Americans. I thought you fact-checked before you brought people on to help spread your hate? Why do you hate Natives so much? You used to be my favorite, but you have lost touch with reality. Your head is so big now because you have the number-one rated show. Seriously, listen to yourself and how great and influential you think you are.

– Jeremy in Stanwood 

False information in Ron Sims Big Lead

You say Ron Sims is a liar, but you are a liar as well. New York and Virginia do not allow infanticide. You are not pure in your heart, you are neither godly nor better then those you criticize. Your false prayers mean nothing while you continue to spread false information. You should be ashamed.

– Jess in Bremerton

Don’t choose this major

I agree wholeheartedly with you Dori, college students don’t have the right to expect other people to pay for their schooling. The one thing you left out is, if one is going to go to college and rack up tens of thousands of dollars in debt, get a major that will repay one’s student loans. Don’t major in something like lesbian dance theory.

– Hugh in Raymond

Addicts already ride the bus for free

Hi Dori, I appreciate your input to society. You are woefully off base when it comes to free Metro ride services for the homeless. I need you to understand that the homeless already ride for free, and the bus rides can be painful. For instance, this evening I paid to get on the bus as usual, and a homeless woman proceeded to yell profanities at me and all the passengers, taking up seats while we had to stand, and then took out an extra large beer can from one of her bags, cracked it open, poured some of it onto the floor of the bus, and started drinking. I got off the bus early for my safety. I told the driver what the woman was doing, and he said out loud, “You cannot drink on the bus, put that away.” Of course you can’t put away an open beer bottle. The woman needed to be kicked off the bus, but the drivers don’t do that. I watched the bus drive off to two stops, and she was not kicked off.

The drivers are afraid to assert themselves and reject vagrant riders. I have seen several incidents of heavy drinking, open vodka, and also assault. It’s a mess. This whole stupid thing of letting people ride for free is a ruse — they already ride for free. They just walk right in at the front; the bus drivers never ask for fare. I have had to get off the bus several times for my safety. My friend got off as a passenger smoked pot in the back — yes he lights it up and smokes on the bus, and that made her sick. She had to do a car rental when she got off the bus. Boy, do I really resent having to give up a ride that I actually need to get home, for a person on heroin who gets to stay on the bus. But that is the position the city has put us in. Ask your listeners, see if they really witness people paying their fares.

– Jennifer in Seattle

Carbon taxes are hard on agricultural sector

Thank you for speaking out on the carbon tax legislation that has returned as a carbon fee and the low-carbon fuel standard. I am a farmer who goes to the city for meetings. It has become difficult to find parking for my farm truck, so I take the train and see on my journey plenty of potential for carbon sequestration covered by garbage and un-maintained land. The policymakers who live in the city should look inward before they look to the rest of the state, who is likely sequestering more than they are using. But they are not thinking about the rest of the state as they load their plate at the salad bar, not giving a second thought to how their food got there. Harvest does not take public transportation to the city. Our overstock does not magically appear at food banks. Our field workers do not click their heels and appear at the farm.

Although dyed diesel for use on private property would be exempt, dyed diesel is not the only fuel farmers use. Higher expenses for Washington agriculturalists not only keep us from competing from our neighboring states for regional markets, but squeeze the agricultural sector of our state’s second largest economy, worth $10.6 billion. Biofuel is hard on older engines and small motors. As a first generation farm, like most Western Washington farmers, we rely on used equipment and older trucks, as we get one crop per six-month season, versus a state like California, which gets 2.3 crops. This legislation will cost farmers more in equipment repairs, not just at the filling station.

Legislators who dictate how rural folks operate and make their living, especially when it comes to feeding the cities, need some enlightenment. Farmers steward the land, maintain buffers, promote habitat (especially for migratory water fowl), store winter flood waters in winter, provide local food access and security, protect rural areas and open spaces, and sequester carbon, among many other benefits. Are we really going to tax the people who are doing good work for the environment? Agriculture has been under attack this legislative season, especially by Sen. Saldana, who can’t seem to see “the nexus to the public benefit” of agriculture, and Sen. McCoy, who is claiming farmers don’t pay taxes. There is no free lunch, but we should be mindful of the hand that feeds us.

Agriculture is our essential industry.

– Rosella in Auburn