The Spark

Coming up on this week's edition of The Spark Weekly.

This year a report was released by the US Department of Interior on Indian Boarding Schools, and President Joe Biden issued an apology for conditions that Native Americans endured. Th institutions included the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Cumberland County. Dr. Amanda Cheromiah is the Executive Director of the Center for the Futures of Native Peoples and is a decent of some of the students who attended the school.

Also on the program,

Pennsylvania has rich military history shown through many memorials and museums in the state. The National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg is one of the largest museums in the world dedicated solely to the American Civil War. According to Jeff Nichols, Chief Executive Officer of The National Civil War Museum, visitors will explore a civil war one on one course.

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Friday December 13 is the final Friday the 13th of the year, which is considered unlucky across the world. The day has been associated with superstitions, and historically certain events have occurred on this date that has added to it’s reputation. According to Associate Professor at Shippensburg University, and historian, Christine Senecal, says the number 13 and date both have a different trajectory in unlucky sort of origins.

“In fact, there's a certain name for it. It's Triss Cadec, a phobia about that for and it's phobia from a Greek word. Yeah. And that means it's fear of 13. But I think it's interesting because although most people think, yes, everybody knows that Friday the 13th is unlucky, that fear really only took off in the late 19th century. So, the late 1800s. And the word for fear of 13 wasn't coined until 1911.”

The superstition surrounding the day really didn’t take off until after the American Civil War.

“So, it's the late 19th century and there are people that press against this. They don't want this fear. They think it's superstitious. And so, one person actually founded a society called the 13th Club. His name was Captain William Fowler. And he tried to fight against the rise in what he thought was problematic about these beliefs, superstitious beliefs. He decided to convince this club to bust on superstition in 1882. So, the 13 Club started on Friday, January the 13th, and he sat down with 12 other diners. Ooh, scary number because 13 if there was an idea that if 13 people sit down to dine together in the next year, one of them will die. And then he proceeded to do all kinds of things that ran counter to like in the face of superstition. So, people like spilled salt on the table deliberately. They lit 13 candles. They dined on lobster salad shaped into miniature coffins. So, they were like laughing at death. And then during the year, they did all kinds of other things that flouted superstition, like eating with open umbrellas, deliberately walking under ladders. And then then they did things like they count.”

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Our Journalist Roundtable segment for December 13, included reporters Charlotte Keith and Wyatt Massey from Spotlight PA to discuss their reports on Penn State Health halting their liver transplant program and suspending the kidney transplant program for the second time. Charlotte and Wyatt also did a report following up with a few patients who were impacted by the transplant programs being halted. Listen to the podcast to hear more from their reports.

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For 41 years, the PNC Bank has calculated the prices of the 12 days from the popular Christmas song, “The 12 days of Christmas.” The Christmas Price Index was originally established as a fun way of interpreting economic data into the holiday season according to Jim Hoehn, PNC Regional President for Central Pa.

“And here, 41 years later, we still have that fun. And there are some very meaningful themes behind it. But more than anything else, it's a lighthearted way of looking at economic data as we all face the rushes, and a little bit of the pressure is the holiday season.”

The Consumer Price Index comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Christmas Price Index comes from investment economics group at PNC.

“Well, this year what we're looking at is that the overall cost of the 12 days of Christmas in terms of all of those gifts, if you were to add them up, is 5.4% higher than it was in 2023. Now, if we look at and this actually came out I think today, is that the annualized inflation rate as of today is 2.7%. So, while we think that inflation was really high a couple of years ago and you're hearing less and less about it, you know that that pesky inflation is still out there and this kind of corresponds. But actually, our gifts cost more in an inflation rate than the overall economy at this point.”

CLICK HERE to see how much the 12 items cost that my true love gave to me.

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This week, the temperatures were higher in the morning compared to the afternoon. ABC 27 Meteorologist Dan Tomaso says when we think of the high temperatures in the afternoon, once the sun is up and warms the ground, the ground heats the air and that’s when we see the spike in high temperature.  Following the movement of the air tells a lot about the upcoming weather pattern.

“So, this is all basically due to the balance of the jet stream. And so, when we mentioned the jet stream, the jet stream is just the main carrier of weather across the country and it's a zone of fast-moving winds. And it can meander, it can move around. And it sometimes is very straight across the country and sometimes it kind of snakes up and down. We were in a huge upswing of the jet stream as of yesterday, and that's what led to so much warmth coming from places like Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean. That was all allowed to flow in our direction. Well, now we're on the downswing and the downswing is really sharp this time around. So that allows cold air to basically replace the warm air. So, we go from one extreme to the next. Cold air comes diving in from the north, and all of a sudden, we start to get very cold. Sometimes we call this cross polar flow if it comes from the North Pole. But basically, that just means there's truly some Arctic air moving into the region.”

According to Tomaso, we are entering winter late. Compared to last December, this month is warmer and rainier than it’s been in the past.

“And so it really does shorten our winter in this area to January, February and maybe early March to see snow. I mean, it is very, very hard to get substantial snow any more in November in this region or excuse me, in December in this region.”

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This year a report was released by the US Department of Interior on Indian Boarding Schools, and President Joe Biden issued an apology for conditions that Native Americans endured. Th institutions included the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Cumberland County. Dr. Amanda Cheromiah is the Executive Director of the Center for the Futures of Native Peoples and is a decent of some of the students who attended the school. When she heard the news, she was surprised.

“I was actually in Hawaii when I heard I ran a marathon this weekend. And when I was there, I felt so excited. There's a lot of mixed emotions. Any time there's any information regarding an Indian school, it's always a spectrum of emotions, of joy and celebration, but grief and anger and pain. And so, it really is this kind of coming in and out of these emotions. But I'm so glad because ultimately our indigenous narratives are going to be amplified in a way that is going to bring so much light. And I think healing collectively for our Native people and beyond.”

The White House announced the creation of the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument. More than 900 Native children died at hundreds of government-funded boarding schools under forced assimilation policies meant to erase tribal traditions. Cheromiah believes this moment will help share the story of the school.

“think ultimately when you're on the Barack's camp is you're literally walking in the footsteps of our relatives, our indigenous relatives. And that is, again, a whole flow of emotion. But it shows you the spectrum of experiences because there were really bad experiences, but then there were also some positive experiences that some of our Native people had. And I think that's often negated and sometimes the larger media, larger stream of communication. And so, I think it's important to recognize that there is a plethora of experiences that make this whole system really complicated.”

So far, Cheromiah says there are six relatives that attended the school. She credits those relatives for having tenacity.

“If they didn't survive, I literally would not be here. So there has to be some kind of tenacity, some kind of grit, some kind of endurance, right. For them to navigate that place. And it's only a mile down the road from where I'm at, where I'm sitting right now. And in that, I know that our family in their DNA and the genetic makeup, that there's that endurance in there. So that's a personal story.”

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Hunters Sharing the Harvest is Pennsylvania’s venison donation program for hunters who share their extra venison via statewide network of participating butchers to food pantries and community assistance centers across Pennsylvania. Meadow Thompson, Produce and Agricultural Coordinator for Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwestern Pa says the foodbank has a partnership with Hunters Sharing the Harvest.

“We are very blessed to be able to receive, to have the capacity to receive large amounts of meat donations for us to equitably share with our food pantries and our neighbors in the 11 counties that we work in. And working with them has been very easy and has proven very fruitful.”

Hunters sharing the harvest originated in 1991. Since then, it has made a huge impact on communities across the state.

“So last year in 2023, we received about 4,500 pounds of venison from hunters sharing the harvest. And that is such a significant amount of food to be given to our neighbors in need and being able to work with hunters. Sharing the harvest has allowed us to access food that we would not have had otherwise.”

For those looking to participate, Thompson says its a very simple process.

 "So the very first step of hunters sharing the harvest is enjoying a safe hunt. So as long as everyone is safe and and following all of the rules that they need to be following for hunting and enjoying themselves, that's fantastic. And the next thing that they would do is carefully field dress their deer. They would legally tag it and report their harvest of the deer. So those are all things that you would normally do when hunting, but that is required when donating deer through hunters share the harvest. The next thing that they would do is on the website which is shared deer.org. I'll mention that again later. You can find which processor closest to you would be able to take the deer. Because we work with certain processors. So you would take your whole deer that you had field dressed and legally tagged and reported to this processor near where you live. And when you arrive, you complete a deer donor form. And that is truly it is as easy as that. So it is completely free. You do not need to pay the processor completing the donor. The deer donor form helps us because they actually at that point later will receive a letter of thanks and that letter of thanks qualifies them for for tax purposes, which is fabulous. So the entire process is very easily easy. It goes from hunting to donating at the at the processor.?

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New research into the uses of Psychedelic drugs in the fields of mental health and addiction raises several issues, especially when it comes to how these drugs are regulated by the federal government. Dr. Dominic Sisti, Associate Professor of Medical Ethics & Health Policy in the Perelman School at the University of Pennsylvania, and Holly Fernandez-Lynch, Associate Professor of Medical Ethics and an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania joined The Spark to discuss challenges of crafting guidelines for the ethical use of psychedelics.  Listen to the podcast to hear the discussion.

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There has been a continued concern over what is know as HPAI, also known as bird flu that has been affecting large and small poultry populations in several states including Pennsylvania. Recently there was an outbreak in Lancaster County.

“HPAI is a devastating disease for chickens. And in fact, it's something that you can imagine the worst case cold that you've ever had and just amplified. That is just terrible, terrible, terrible for these birds. So, our main thing that farmers do in our area, in Pennsylvania and across the country is we try and keep our birds safe. We try to keep them healthy. And the best way to do that is to keep our farms bio secure, to keep the outside diseases that can be out there from coming inside of our barns, “said Jim Shark, owner of Silver Valley Farm.

Dr. Greg Martin is an expert in poultry management at the Penn State Agricultural Extension Service. Penn State works with many farmers throughout the commonwealth teaching about biosecurity.

“ Well, we have been working throughout the commonwealth and in fact, with neighboring states surrounding Pennsylvania on teaching folks about biosecurity, helping them write plans for biosecurity on their farms and helping farmers, actually during an outbreak with expertise in composting and other things, cleaning and disinfection and other logistical things that we have been working in partnership with the Department of Agriculture in the state of Pennsylvania, as well as with USDA. So it's been a multifaceted approach. There is a number of our poultry team members that were deployed during the last outbreak that we had. And so it's a supportive role that we take very seriously, “said Martin.

Biosecurity includes keeping animals separated from one another and helps to prevent the spread of bird flu.

“So we keep them in housing, for example. And if they're going to visit the birds, then they're going to don, they're going to put on clothing and special shoes that they can wash before they go into the house where the birds are. And then the same thing as they're coming out, they're going to wash. They're going to change their clothes and move on to other things. And so they don't co-mingle birds. Meaning that they don't. But while birds and domestic birds mix together, “said Martin.

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Pennsylvania has rich military history shown through many memorials and museums in the state. The National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg is one of the largest museums in the world dedicated solely to the American Civil War. According to Jeff Nichols, Chief Executive Officer of The National Civil War Museum, visitors will explore a civil war one on one course.

“If you think back to your college days, you get a little a little bit of a deep dive as you go through and you learn about the secession movement, how the states of the South left the union, the reaction to that, get into some of the battles of the war. As you go through the galleries, you learn about individuals, both well-known generals, for example, George McClellan from the U.S. Army or Robert de Lee from the Confederate side, but also individual soldiers. And it really takes you through this narrative ending eventually with the conclusion of the war, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the creation of the constitutional amendments. The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendment to our Constitution in the 14th is very relevant to this very day.”

Tourists come from all over the world to experience the civil war museum. The museum was founded by former Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed in 2000. It’s now known as a city collection.

“We're fortunate to have thousands of artifacts, 10,000 that we've added since we opened in 2000, one, for example. And as you go through, you'll see everything from armaments that were used, different types of weapons from swords to handguns to muskets and carbines and all these other experiences that accrued from on that the soldiers would have carried. You also, again, learn and see images of certain individuals at the very beginning. There's a very moving and powerful section about slavery. In our collection, we have, for example, a pair of pants that were worn by an enslaved child in the South in the 1840s. This is a pretty rare artifact to have something that that really was a tattered and at the time thrown away a garment.”

As you pass through the museum, it is a very interactive experience. There’s various audio and visual components that tells a story of several people from the north, south, white soldiers, black soldiers, and civilians.

“They're composites of real people. So, it's not an actual person that live, but the stories are accurate. And then we have these other dioramas where we have, for example, again in the slavery section, an entire scene that's dedicated to a slave market that was just outside the White House in Washington just before the Civil War.”

CLICK HERE to visit the museum.

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