A Time for Peace: Only one Argument against the Many to Block Betsy ...

A Time for Peace: Only one Argument against the Many to Block Betsy ...: https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/gefood/SmallWonders.php This link will take you to an essay entitled "A Fist in the Han...

Only one Argument against the Many to Block Betsy DeVoss' Nomination as Secretary of Education

https://www.organicconsumers.org/old_articles/gefood/SmallWonders.php

This link will take you to an essay entitled "A Fist in the Hand of God" written by Barbara Kingsolver, noted author of fiction, non-fiction, essays and poetry. All of Ms. Kingsolver's works reflect her education and experience in the field of biology and her concern for what is happening to the balance of life that is the foundation of our own continued existence. Her essay succinctly describes what is happening to our food supply not only as it affects our health but the health and sustainability of the natural laws governing the earth's ability to continue to sustain life. Ms. Kingsolver gives an eye-opening explanation of how the growth of agribusiness and its total disregard for these natural laws is destroying our food, air and water supply. This particular essay highlights the dangerous consequences resulting from the stripping of the natural life sciences from many school curriculums. It is thought provoking and somewhat disturbing in light of the nomination of Betsy DeVoss to head the Department of Education during the Trump Administration.

Water is Life #NoDAPL

This has become the slogan of the Sioux who are encamped at Sacred Stone trying to prevent the bulldozing of an area they claim encompasses sacred sites as well as protect the water in the Missouri River that runs through this area from contamination.  Morton County law enforcement has cited “the law” and moved in upon these protestors in the name of “the law” with recorded videos showing pepper sprays, attack dogs and water dousing in freezing temperatures.  Those journalists who recorded these events have been arrested and jailed under the guise of inciting the crowd that is breaking “the law.”

In addition, environmentalists and groups from areas all over the country affected by contamination of their own water supply have come in support and are labeled as interlopers who are interfering with officials sworn to protect the people being attacked. The people of the nation are listening as areas like Flint, Michigan and towns in West Virginia along the Ohio River have seen their drinking water poisoned with lead and other toxins from industrial sludge. Extreme droughts all over the country in California, Georgia and recently the Appalachian areas of western North Carolina and Tennessee are causing havoc in such a way that it has become impossible to ignore these realities.  But Water is Life is just one part of this controversy. The Native Americans have become the spokespeople for this movement because they know full well how their very way of life and culture was destroyed by the actions of government representatives who came in with the intention of destroying a culture that stood in the way of Progress and Manifest Destiny.

In 1849 gold was discovered in California. In addition, by a contrived, imperialistic war (Mexican American War), the United States gained control of New Mexico, Arizona and rights to control all the trade established along the Santa Fe Trail. In the 1860’s a transcontinental railroad to connect the United States to California and follow the route of the Santa Fe Trail was begun.  The United States “owned” all the prairie lands in between due to the terms of the Louisiana Purchase.  California had become a state in 1850 after the Compromise of 1850 determined it would be a Free State.  There was only one problem.  The Native American tribes that had been living in the Great Plains area for centuries were not happy when settlers, railroad employees and wagon trains began filing across their hunting grounds. Trouble followed because these Indians were not giving up without a fight, but the railroad conglomerate found a way to get rid of the problem. Destroy their economy by killing off the buffalo. Hired guns did just that and it wasn’t long before the Indians began to suffer accordingly. Therefore, when the government came to them with a peace treaty they were willing to sign. This was the Treaty of Ft. Laramie of 1868.

According to that Treaty, the Indians agreed to settle in an area that included the Black Hills (where Mt. Rushmore is located today) because that is where their sacred burial grounds were. They agreed to settle as farmers along the river banks that flowed through the area, including the Little Big Horn and Missouri Rivers as well as others.  In addition, so long as they were peaceful, the warriors were allowed hunting rights on unassigned lands. The Black Hills of Dakota are sacred to the Sioux Indians. In the 1868 treaty, signed at Fort Laramie and other military posts in Sioux country, the United States recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation, set aside for exclusive use by the Sioux people.

In 1869, however, gold was discovered in the Black Hills. Miners began pouring into the area.  1874 Gen. George A. Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills accompanied by miners who were seeking gold. Once gold was found in the Black Hills, miners were soon moving into the Sioux hunting grounds and demanding protection from the U.S. Army. Soon, the Army was ordered to move against wandering bands of Sioux hunting on the range in accordance with their treaty rights. In 1876, Custer, leading an army detachment, encountered the encampment of Sioux and Cheyenne at the Little Bighorn River. Custer's detachment was annihilated, but the United States would continue its battle against the Sioux in the Black Hills until the government confiscated the land in 1877. To this day, ownership of the Black Hills remains the subject of a legal dispute between the U.S. Government and the Sioux.

Total destruction of the Indians took place in the 1880’s when the United States government moved against Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull when the Indians began the practice of the Ghost Dance started by a prophet named Wovoka who had had a vision of restoring peace and prosperity to the Sioux People through the performance of this dance. Both Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were pursued as terrorists and both were gunned down by the US Army. It was then that the United States took away the lands given in the Treaty of 1868 and enforced the atrocious reservation system and the Carlisle Boarding Schools designed to “kill the Indian” not the man.

The Sioux encamped at Standing Rock are doing exactly what they did in 1874 and the times of the Ghost Dance. They are there standing tall for their water and land rights and joining in prayer to preserve what limited rights they still have and perhaps regain the land illegally taken from them in 1877.

Swing Kids Trailer

Parents rent and watch this movie with your children.

Jane Jacobs Walk

Representing Portland Now, I conducted the Jane Jacobs Walk through the historic loop of Portland on Saturday, October 22^nd. Jane Jacobs was a Twentieth Century urban planner involved in the planning of green areas and public spaces in New York City during the early part of the Twentieth Century. A group of students in the Urban Planning Program from the University of Louisville take a walk named after Ms. Jacobs through selected neighborhoods in Louisville each semester. This semester Danielle Story chose Portland for the walk.

A group of about 30 people comprised of students, neighborhood residents and other interested people from surrounding neighborhoods met Brenda at the Portland Library to begin the walk. The library, built with funds donated by Andrew Carnegie in 1912, was the first stop. From there, the group toured the blocks from 33^rd St. to 36^th St. along Northwestern Parkway and Rudd Ave to view the oldest house in Portland, the Squire Earick House, as well as examples of mansions built by steamboat captains and engineers and wealthy grocers. The group also saw smaller shotgun houses and Tudor style homes with Spanish influence built on the four acres of land purchased from the Sisters of Loretto during the Civil War period. The Sisters had operated the Mt. St. Benedict Academy until architect Peter Mock developed the land with houses for the influx of German and Irish immigrants who immigrated to work on the Portland Canal and other bridges along the Ohio River.

Other points of interest along Rudd Ave. included the store on the corner, an example of a typical commercial enterprise that included living quarters for the owner and family, and the Church of the Good Shepherd, formerly the Notre Dame du Port or the Church of Our Lady. At the corner of 35^th and Rudd the students saw the high water mark from the ’37 Flood on a utility pole in front of the Portland Wharf. The Flood’s devastation was such that many of the businesses that had flourished in the area were forced to close their doors leading to a decline in the fortunes of the neighborhood. 

The Portland Cemetery was the next to the last stop on the walk. The Portland Cemetery is the only cemetery maintained by Metro Parks as part of an agreement when Portland was incorporated into the city of Louisville. The cemetery reflects the segregation of ethnic groups even in death. Portland Elementary, the last stop, is one of the three oldest elementary schools in Jefferson County and is still standing because keeping the school was another condition of the incorporation into Louisville. The original school still stands but is inside a wrap around building done in 1969.

Although not a stop on the walk, one of the residents pointed out the property that was the subject of a Supreme Court Decision in 1917 that declared restrictions on sales to African-Americans illegal. Discrimination still existed, however, and prohibited integration until the late 50’s and 60’s Civil Rights Movement. Integration led to the white flight which, in addition to the ’37 Flood further decreased the property values in the neighborhood. After the walk, the group drove to McQuioxte’s and the Tim Faulkner Gallery to see the revitalization of businesses along Portland Ave. They were also encouraged to drive by the Portland Museum, Shaheen’s and Ace Hardware, two of the oldest surviving businesses in the Neighborhood. The walk proved successful in demonstrating the origins of the neighborhood, its decline and exciting renewal that is building on the pride of the historic past integrated with 21^st Century Progress/         

Saying Good Bye to the Sixties

Life in the Sixties

As a baby boomer, I became a young adult in the 60’s, completing high school and college and starting to work in my career as that decade ended. I experienced significant change in society during this time as I saw the people of my generation speaking up about intolerable conditions in American society involving illegal wars, the denial of civil rights to those groups that had been disenfranchised from the start of our so called “experiment in freedom and self government,” i.e., women, African Americans, Native Americans and even Mother Earth and its other living creatures. Through these efforts, we ended a war, ended the draft, finally brought the right to vote and other civil rights to African Americans still in bondage one hundred years after the Civil War, and raised awareness about the environment, women’s rights and Native American rights to live in sovereign nations according to their cultural standards that had been destroyed by Manifest Destiny.

The sixties gave way to the seventies, eighties, nineties and the start of a new Century, during which time I became a teacher, married homemaker, parent, foster parent, divorced, single mom, business entrepreneur with a second husband, and widowed teacher. The beginning of the 21^st Century brought forced retirement and economic loss due to losing my career after becoming a whistle blower. That economic loss also resulted in physical, emotional and spiritual bankruptcy. All of this happened during my own twenties, thirties, forties and fifties. By the time I approached my sixties, I had regained my health and spiritual connection and faced my sixtieth birthday with the freedom of a caterpillar just emerging from her cocoon ready to experience the freedom of flight and soar into the life that was to be mine in “retirement.” Now approaching the end of my own sixties, I am taking these last few days to enjoy a Sentimental Journey through my sixties and share this decade with you through the medium of expression that I do best – the written word.  

I celebrated my sixtieth birthday on November 8, 2006 in Las Vegas, Nevada. My older daughter gave me a trip to Vegas to see the Cirque de Soleil Love Show which was a breathtaking performance of circus acts set to the music of the Beatles. What a great way to start! My sixtieth birthday also brought me the gift of some retirement benefits attached to my two marriages.

My own retirement had been severely affected by the whistle blowing experience. The law suit that had resulted from the whistle blowing had been settled just before my 60^th birthday, and although the settlement was far from being enough to make me whole, it did help finance the purchase of the tools I needed to venture into my second career, that of an author and playwright and to publish my first novel “The Peacemaker.”  The capital allowed me to learn and take advantage of the internet that supports individuals who desire to publish and market their own works. I developed my own platform for the marketing of my book and set up two websites for all the endeavors to follow; publishing and recording three songs left to me after the death of my brother, writing a musical that I adapted from a short story called “A Squeaky Wheel Gets Oiled – The Musical,” and a collection of four stories entitled “Celebrations from New Pangaea.” As I approach a new decade of life I look forward to publishing the completed manuscript of a sequel to “The Peacemaker” entitled “New Pangaea – An Evolution into the Fifth World.”

I completed “The Peacemaker” in 2009 and set off on my first cross-country book tour, driving from the West Coast to the East Coast and stopping in major areas that were settings in my book or places where I had connections to help me set up presentations in libraries, independent book stores, restaurants and Quaker meeting houses. I traveled through Oregon, California, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, and the Gulf Coast, Georgia, the eastern seaboard through Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Syracuse, New York (the home of The Peacemaker), Marietta, Ohio (the first settlement in the Old Northwest Territory and a crossing point for the Underground Railroad). I ended my tour in Louisville, Kentucky, my home town, for a Thanksgiving reunion before returning to Oregon.  I reminded myself that Colonel Sanders had done the same thing with his fried chicken recipe when he was sixty-five and created a not too shabby retirement for himself.  

As a result of my amazing physical condition due to a new lifestyle fomented by a health challenge, I had also obtained a part-time job as a fitness instructor for a women’s gym in Florence, Oregon where I lived at the time. The housing bubble of the early twentieth Century had resulted in a real estate boom in Oregon causing my home to quadruple in value by the time I was 60 in 2006. Refinancing my home provided me with capital to finish the repairs needed to an aging septic system, cut back tress and foliage to meet the urban forest requirements to prevent wildfires,  address the damage done to siding from invasive growth and finish the remodeling projects that had been set aside due to the loss of my job which included the creation of a dance studio on a separate structure that had been built onto the half-acre, wooded paradise that was my home. After the studio was completed, I opened Nightlife Dance Studio and taught social dancing to members of the community for 10 years. In addition, I did my own dancing at jazz festivals throughout the Northwest and Southern California. I played tennis with a group of retired enthusiasts twice a week, unless traveling and enjoyed quiet kayaking and hiking trips along Oregon’s beautiful lakes and wooded areas.

I have always loved to travel and in 2008 I had the opportunity to take a cruise through the Eastern Mediterranean along the Balkan Coast, an area I missed on my first trip to Europe in 1968.  I visited Naples and Sicily. I combed the bazaars of Turkey and danced with two young business owners for a you tube video they did, climbed the steppes of the beautiful Greek village of San Torino, shopped the Grecian stores for great bargains, rode in a local taxi (what an experience) to the Olympian fields and raced with my companions there. I biked through Greek cities and sat in the restaurants on cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean in Dubrovnik. I walked through peaceful streets filled with monuments to peace and free of evidence of violence or crime. The attention focused on the Middle East and terrorist activities in other areas of Europe has diminished the remembrance of the time of war and suffering that existed in this part of the world in the nineties. Visiting that area with that knowledge of that earlier time filled me with hope that perhaps peace might be possible in other “hopeless” parts of the world.

In 2012 I attended two major book festivals, one in Cleveland, Ohio and the other in Nashville, Tennessee. At that time, I added trips through South Dakota to visit Wounded Knee at Pine Ridge, South Dakota and the Crazy Horse Monument being carved into the  Black Hills just northwest of Mount Rushmore. I also visited that site along the way. I drove through the open range of Montana and camped at Yellowstone National Park – seeing wildlife (especially the buffalo) in its natural habitat as well as Old Faithful. I was sad to see so much scorched earth resulting from wildfire destruction brought about by drought and climate change. My trip through south central Kentucky and northeastern Tennessee that year renewed the call of Kentucky and home.

The housing market collapse of 2008 had resulted in my being upside down in my mortgage on my lovely home. In addition, the owner of the gym where I worked was caught in the collapse and had to close her operation in 2009. Although I had been fortunate enough to begin my career as an author, the income could not keep up with the mortgage payments resulting in a short sale on my home in 2013. At that time I began making preparations to move back to the Southeast. The process took two years and along the way, I lost my best friend and companion of the ten years that began with my whistle blowing in 2003 – my cat Babs. Initially, my plans were to find a home along the Appalachian Trail and settle in a cabin similar to my beach cottage in Oregon where I could hike, kayak, travel and write in semi-seclusion and peace. A friend of mine once said, “Life happens while you are busy making plans.” Instead of a quiet life of retirement in the woods of the Southeast, I have ended up in my old neighborhood in Louisville, an historic community on the falls of the Ohio River called Portland.

I am living in a charming studio apartment in the heart of Old Louisville – another revitalized district of Louisville that has the largest number of restored Victorian style homes in the country.  The first summer after my move in 2014, I jumped full on into projects designed to revitalize my old neighborhood. I became President and Treasurer of the Friends of the Portland Library, directed a summer writing program there, became a member of the Neighborhood Association and worked on two subcommittees, Picking up Portland and the Revitalization Committee. I started writing articles for the Portland Anchor – the oldest neighborhood newspaper in the area.

That fall I joined the mentoring program at Shawnee High School – my alma mater. In the spring of 2015, I took a road trip to Arizona with a friend and visited the Hopi Indian Reservation to do research for “New Pangaea.” That winter I taught an eight week remedial reading and writing program sponsored by the Neighborhood House on Saturdays. The program was called the Saturday Academy and was designed to help build reading, writing and math skills for the students in the Portland area. Post tests given at the end of the period showed an increase in every area tested. In November of 2015, I joined the staff of a newly opened, unique restaurant called The Table and have worked steadily as a volunteer since then. I continued the work on my manuscript with the intention to complete by the spring of 2015 when I could qualify once again to purchase a house. I had my intentions set on a vacant, brick home across the street from my old elementary school.

The summer of 2016 was taken with weekly tennis, my volunteer work, work on my manuscript, work with the youth group at Unity of Louisville and the search for funding for the project of restoring my 19^th Century shotgun house to its former glory. The summer ended with a great road trip to visit my daughter Gina in San Diego accompanied by my niece Amy who is just a few weeks younger than Gina.

In a few weeks, I will celebrate my 70^th birthday and I don’t intend on slowing down. I will begin the new decade with the publishing of my second novel and the exciting project of working with the Plato Academy to finally start the restoration work on my Portland home. I am grateful that I have my health, a strong faith, well-established loving children and other extended family as well as my new family in Portland. I look forward to more dancing, tennis, kayaking, biking and traveling. My first trip will be to add the three remaining states I have not visited to the “been there” list. These include Alaska, Minnesota and North Dakota. I envision even more international travel and will be renewing my passport at the end of this year in anticipation of that. My second husband had a hat that he wore that said, “life is a journey, not a guided tour.” I never did like guided tours; I have always enjoyed the adventure of setting out on my own and creating my own adventures. I am excited about the next decade and the adventures that await me. And so, with some trepidation and joyful tears I say good bye to the sixties and hello to another decade.

    

The Nuremburg Trials - Making Sense (Justice) of Nonsense (War)

        I watched “Judgment at Nuremberg” again last night and thought I would write another brilliant blog about my conclusions of how Hitler came to power and did what he did and relate that to the current political situation in the United States today. After spending the afternoon doing a lot of introspection and thinking about the overwhelming tide of political rhetoric from both sides of the aisle and doing some more research about the Hitler phenomena and its aftermath, I decided that historians still don’t have the answers about what happened, but in their attempts to find justice, some kernels of truth gleaned by those seeking justice emerged. I decided to post the YouTube video made in the year 2000 that uses actual film footage and testimony from the trials that were conducted at the end of World War II in an effort to establish an International Court of Justice for crimes committed during war in light of the Jewish experience as well as the introduction of nuclear weapons into the fighting of war. I am posting a link to that movie for you should you choose to read beyond the “empty platitudes” we see posted every day on our face book page. I am, however, posting a few direct quotes from some of the defendants during the course of the trial that I found thought provoking. I will begin with one about “empty platitudes” mentioned above.

            “Germany was built on empty platitudes. Why? Because on hearing them you can give any meaning you want.”

            From Herman Goering answering this question: “How did the idea of a single, all-powerful leader come to be?”  Answer:  “We took our model from the similar dual roles of the President of the United States.”

            When asked about the rounding up and extermination of the Jews Goering answered: “What was Hiroshima? Our protective custody laws were no different than those enacted against the Japanese. Segregation laws in your country are the same as our Anti-Semite laws.”

            When another defendant was asked how he could go along with such atrocious murder, he answered, “I have always been taught that the Jew was an enemy of Germany. Does a rat catcher think it is wrong to kill a rat?”

            One military man spoke this in his defense, “I am a soldier and the most important code for a soldier is obedience. I did what I was told to do.”

            There was a Jewish psychiatrist who did individual interviews of all the defendants to try to come up with an explanation of a moral flaw that existed among these men to explain their actions. Near the end of the movie, the psychiatrist reported:

“The nature of evil is a lack of empathy, an incapacity to feel with ones fellow man.”

            The most prophetic words were spoken by Dr. Albert Spier an industrial scientist who was asked to give a statement before receiving his sentence. “Hitler was able to do what he did because of mass communications. He had the technology to issue an order from one single place that would affect the lives of thousands of people miles away. The more technical the world becomes the more the individual freedom and self-rule of mankind becomes essential.. . This trial must contribute to (make it possible for) the elimination of future wars.” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnqgCQ7Uk8g