Category Archives: Politics

A Long Vision and Patience

March 17, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waning Moon of Winds

Politics requires a long vision and patience. These are not virtues of the young, especially those of us who came of age in the 60’s. We wanted change and we wanted it now! And said so, often. OUT LOUD.

Now I have come back to the table, after 15 years away. A strange thing has happened. I have a long vision and patience. I do not see this legislature as a make or break session. Our issues, the ones that matter to the Great Work, will have to come back and back and back until they are won. We still have to represent them with urgency, with directness and energy, intelligence, imagination and love.

It took a long time, a quarter of a millennium, to put us in the climate change bind we face now. We do not have that long, another 250 years, to fix it; but we cannot lose heart because the political climate now works against us. We have to re-group, deepen our alliances and coalitions and stay at it.

Great Work, Our Land and Home, Politics

Embrace Weedy Backyards and Undeveloped Lots

March 16, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waning Wild Moon

This is an opinion piece by Senator Ellen Anderson. I reprint it in full here because she addresses a critical problem for the Great Work. Almost.

Here’s what I mean. In referring to the work of the Lessard Council she defends metro area expenditures because, as she puts it, the DNR has used scientific principles to determine that the Metro area has 255,000 acres of undeveloped land with high ecological significance. (italics mine) She does this to defend these acres from those who would claim that there is “no habitat” to protect in the metro area. OK, so far.

The problem is this. In her genuflection to science and its degrees of high ecological significance she misses the urban forests, the front yards and backyards, the parks and boulevards, even the land most often neglected, the land beneath streets, highways, buildings, houses, railroad tracks and industry. It is as if these portions either do not exist, or, because they do not meet the definition of high ecological significance that they are somehow less worthy.

Yes, I know she makes this argument for a particular pot of money aimed at vanishing wilderness and other areas important to science and again, I say, that’s ok as far it goes, but it leaves us with the notion that these other lands, the lands of low ecological significance according to scientific criteria, are less than, underwhelming.

In fact, if the Great Work is to succeed, then we must embrace our weedy backyards and the undeveloped lot, our over-grassed lawns and our worn-out parks. We must find ways to love them and treasure them as they are all Mother Earth. In some ways this is a greater calling than struggling over the remaining areas of high ecological significance. Why? Because these humble patches of earth are where most of us meet our mother day-to-day. Because it is often these humble patches of earth that are the most degraded and in need of our care. Because it is these humble patches of earth, close to the bulk of the population that can be transformed into local food sources and beautiful flower and native plant gardens.

Senator Ellen Anderson’s piece:

“As one of the Senate members of the Lessard Outdoor Heritage Council, I have been impressed by the dedication and hours put in by all of the council’s members in the last few months. We are trying to come up with a good plan to protect, restore and enhance our natural resources, as we promised the voters who approved the Clean Water, Land and Legacy amendment in November.

Many legislators have expressed concern that the preliminary list of proposals is light on metro-area projects, well under 10 percent of the dollars and a very small portion of total acreage. Traditionally, the Legislature values statewide balance: Dollars spent should serve all Minnesotans, not just some. I agree with this principle. But if our primary concern is protecting natural resources and habitat, there are other critical reasons the constitutional legacy funds should not all be spent in greater Minnesota.

I’ve heard many people say there’s “no habitat in the metro area.” Not true. The state Department of Natural Resources used scientific principles to determine that the seven-county metro region still has over 255,000 acres of undeveloped natural land with high ecological significance. This is 15 percent of the region. Sixty-eight percent (174,139 acres) of these remaining natural lands is not permanently protected as regional park, wildlife refuge or natural area, or by other public designation.

To put this amount of land in perspective, one of the projects the council approved (and which I support) is the acquisition, by easement, of 187,000 acres of forestland in the area around the Mississippi River headwaters, for more than $40 million.

Clearly there is land of significant ecological value all around the state, and such land should be protected for future generations. The Statewide Conservation and Preservation plan recognizes that and should guide our decisions with the best science from University of Minnesota experts.”

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/41234342.html?elr=KArksc8P:Pc:U0ckkD:aEyKUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU

Faith and Spirituality, Our Land and Home, Politics, Writing

After the Service

March 15, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waning Moon of Winds

To follow up on the morning jitters. At the end of my American Identity sermon I received an unusual and rare compliment: everyone clapped. I took time on the way in to center myself and become part of the beautiful day underway. As I got more centered, I remembered that I had never served and never intended to serve as a parish clergy.

Why? Because my views occupy one end of a spectrum, the far left edge. In the Presbyterian community they perceived me as a prophet, so much so that when I left back in 1990, the Presbytery bought a large print of a Jewish prophet and gave it to me in a nice frame. Oh, yeah. That was my place.

I recall a 1972 sermon at Brooklyn Center United Methodist Church on July 4th. After I got done calling the congregation to patriotic resistance to the war, I went back to stand by the door and shake hands. The congregation split like the Red Sea and went everywhere but where I was. I’m that guy.

This sermon has a radical message to and it received resistance today, but in a much gentler and more dialogical way than that one 37 years ago. I’ve learned some and this community of people knows me well, so we can disagree and still remain friends.

As Popeye used to say, I y’am what I y’am.

Faith and Spirituality, Humanities, Letters, Our Land and Home, Politics

With Apologies to Canada and Mexico

March 13, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waning Moon of Winds

I edited and revised American Identity today. It needed a paragraph indicating what I believe to be similarities between the ante-bellum USA and our current era. National identity was weak during the ante-bellum period and is weak now.

In ante-bellum America the Unitarians William Ellery Channing and Ralph Waldo Emerson made a strong push for American letters. On the one hand they wanted a break with the European dominance of American literature, painting and scholarship; but more, they wanted American letters, literature rooted in the American experience, painting using American themes and flowing from the genius of American talent and scholarship trained in the new nation and carried out by American academics.

American identity is weak now for several reasons. Increasing Mexican immigration has raised a potent challenge to the Anglo-Protestant traditional US culture. We are now a multiethnic, multiracial society, but our identity has only made tentative steps to say what that means. We lost a prime enemy in the USSR and now have no one over against whom to identify ourselves. Since the 1960’s there has been an erosion of trust in the basic institutions of our society: business, government, the church, education. Each of these challenges the old ethnic, racial and Anglo-Protestant consensus that underwrote US identity through the 1950’s.

Like the ante-bellum USA this is a time for a new American letters, a new American literature, a new American painting and sculpture and music, a new American poetry and a new American scholarship, one that reflects the multiethnic, multiracial society we have become.

Politics, Weather +Climate

The Little Legislature That Could

March 11, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Full Moon of Winds

Kate tweaked her neck at work. Ouch.

The temperature has gone below zero one more time, -4. I heard on MPR today that the National Weather Service averaged all the highs and lows across the country. This winter was .5 degree warmer than last year. Not here in Minnesota, or the Upper Midwest, but highs in the Southwest and West balanced us out.

The little engine that could has begun to huff and puff its way up the halls of the Minnesota Legislature. There’s a lot of I think I can, I think I can, I know I can, I’ll try going on over there. Unlike the children’s book however, this is a massive moving body with many interchangeable parts. I’m pulling for it to get up the hill. We all need it to make it.

The cold weather can leave us now. The proud Minnesotan part of the winter is over; we’ve made our stand, yet another successful one, but now it’s time for a little warm weather. Coming Saturday I understand.

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Great Work, Our Land and Home, Politics

I Love the Midwest

March 5, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Moon of Winds

Finished the Asmat tour and a visual thinking strategies (VTS) tour for 3rd graders. I give them tomorrow morning.

Put together the legislative update for the Sierra Club blog and a morning entry for the Star-Trib. Soon, it will be nap time.

This afternoon and over the weekend I’ll dig back into the American Identity piece for the 15th. It’s been fallow since Monday, but it has not disappeared from my consciousness. I’m leaning now toward a definite geographic hook, an addition to the more usual psycho-political work I’ve read in Huntington and some of the other essays. I’m not sure yet whether I consider it an equivalent to those notions or whether it is a more important category.

Here’s what I mean. The notion of a nation is abstract, in the instance of a nation as geographically large as the USA, it can become even more abstract. My hunch is that, as all politics are local, so are all experiences of national identity. In other words, my experience of my land, my hometown, my home state or region is, both of necessity and emotional depth, the basic ingredient of my affection for my native land.

That is not to say that This land is my land, from California to the New York Island doesn’t also inform my national identity. I feel the Rockies and hollers of Appalachia, the rain forests of Washington State and the glaciers of Montana have a place in my sense of national identity, some of them in spite of my never having visited them. They recede in importance for me, however, when I compare them to acre after acre of corn and wheat. They do not have the emotional resonance for me the Great Lakes have, especially Huron, Michigan and Superior. My life has been lived in the towns and cities of the Midwest and I love the Midwest. When I think of my US identity, I think first of the Midwest.

Meeting on the Phone

March 2, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waxing Wild Moon

The environmental groups with whom I have begun to work more and more do something I really like. A lot of the committee meetings happen over the phone.

At first I thought, how impersonal. I need body language, facial expressions. Won’t work.

Then, I thought. Wait a minute. I don’t have to drive into the city for a one-hour meeting, at least a 2.5 to 3 hour overall time commitment. Both groups with whom I’m working closely meet once a week since the legislature is in session. That means I save 3-4 hours a week in both drive time and fuel expenditure.

There is still, though, the personal factor. I think of Alvin Toffler, high tech-high touch. At some point I’m going to want to see the people I’m meeting with over the phone, if for nothing else than to match face to voice.

Now if we could just get those video conference deals set up I might never have to leave home. What this does free me up to do is to spend an afternoon or so at the capitol, covering hearings live. Much more direct benefit to my work than the meetings themselves.

Art and Culture, Politics, Weather +Climate

The Moon of Winds Delivers

February 26, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc New Moon (Moon of Winds)

The moon of winds has already begun to deliver. We’ve had gusts up to 15 and average windspeeds of up to 5.6 mph. All the air and clouds running before a snow storm coming to us from the west.

The legislative situation has begun to pick up speed. I’m not sure what all the momentum will do when it hits the wall of the new revenue forecast, anticipated to raise our state deficit by some billions more.

Two China tours tomorrow. I’m doing my 8 dynasties tour for these Chinese language students from Highland Park High School in St. Paul.

Off to Costco. No, not again. Never made it Tuesday. Gotta go today. The dogs need food.

Art and Culture, Great Work, Politics

I Can Get Satisfaction

February 19, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waning Wild Moon

I don’t yet feel a time crunch in my life, but I have sensed the increasing speed with which events zoom onto my radar. I may have to alter my daily schedule, for example, I have worked out around 4 pm for several years now, but shifts in other events now make that difficult. Workouts may have to move back to the mornings, where they were for many years.

The Sierra Club political work satisfies a deep need I have for agency in the political process. Long, long ago I integrated “if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” into my Self. I’ve tried to decide against it from time to time, but that has always proved futile. Resistance is futile.

The Docent work satisfies another deep need, this one for constant contact with art and opportunities to learn and think about it. The two year training program allowed me to put down medium roots in global art history; now I spend time pushing those roots deeper into the soil of the world’s artistic heritage and spreading them out across continents and movements.

So, change. The only constant. Again.

Aging, Politics

Working Myself Out Of A Glum Mood

February 18, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waning Wild Moon

It’s cold again. 8 degrees with 3 for a windchill. I’m always glad when the weather gets in synch with season, at least the seasons as I knew them.

I had drifted away from working out over the last ten days, too afraid I’d fall over on the treadmill or bonk myself with free weights. Whenever that happens, I can get glum, down. I did, but after a workout on the treadmill this afternoon my mood lightened. Partly because I did not fall off.

The legislative committee for the Sierra Club meets via conference call every Wednesday night at 7pm. I’ve chaired two meetings now since Dan, the chair, is also a lobbyist for Clean Water Action. Some of our bills have begun to pop and the politics look complicated already. Gonna be a good spring.