• Tag Archives Sierra Club

  • In A World Far Away

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                                   Waning Bee Hiving Moon

    Spent the day in the world I’ve created, Tailte, a sister world to earth, but separated by several thousand light years.  It’s strange to spend time there, a place that exists only in my mind, yet populated with people, creatures, landscapes, mountain ranges, oceans, islands, gods and goddesses.  Strange, but in a good way.  It’s one of the joys I experience in writing fiction.  It takes me to a place I can’t reach in any other aspect of my life.

    I’m still typing in work I did at Blue Cloud Monastery though I’ve also advanced the word count by a few thousand words.  Plugging away.  Just have to keep at it.

    We only have a month left to go in the 2011 session of the 2011-2012 legislature.  The number of bad bills, outrageous legislation and outright strange bills (like cutting down walnut trees in State Parks to save the State Parks continues to pile up as the party out of legislative power for years flexes its muscle.  The callous disregard for the future of our rivers and streams, lakes and forests, wildlife and prairie’s just doesn’t make sense to me.  I don’t understand the political calculus that trades temporary economic gain for permanent disfigurement and toxification of wetlands, cutting down old growth forests, polluting the Minnesota, the Mississippi and wetlands around and possibly within the BWCA.

    Mark and I watched Salt, an Angelina Jolie spy flick.  Not bad, not great, but entertaining even with the cliches.  We also started watching a three part made for tv movie called Archangel.  It was good; we’re about half way through.


    📂This entry was posted in Cinema and Television Family Great Work Politics Writing 📎and tagged

  • Touring

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                      Waning Bee Hiving Moon

    A Titian tour this morning with students from Harding High School in East St. Paul.  My group was largely Asian, Hmong for the most part.  They were attentive and responsive.  At the end Peng and Veng, two boys who had shown a lot of interest, reached out and shook my hand.  An adult gesture.  Surprised me.  Made me feel surprisingly good, too.

    Second tour, also from Harding, had kids in a drawing class focused on a project to produce symbolic portraits of themselves.  An interesting tour to design, to think through.  Not sure how this group, also all Asian though with some Chinese students, too, reacted.  They were more closed off, but remained engaged through eye contact.

    After that, over to the Sierra Club to return the material from yesterday’s event at North Hennepin Community College.  Spent a half-hour talking to Margaret about mining, volunteers, fund-raising, then drove home in the heart of rush hour.  Bushed.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Great Work Politics 📎and tagged

  • Roots. Deep Roots.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                     Waxing Bee Hiving Moon

    By chance I had a sculpture tour today and went to a presentation by Steve Tobin at the Arboretum tonight.  He is the sculptor of the new steel roots works now on display there.  He said his ambition lies outside time and culture; his works, he hopes, will work in any place on the planet and in any era, including the past.

    This struck me because only this morning I took six Champlin sculpture students on a tour of the MIA’s sculpture and I began with the Woman of Lamouth.  What amazes me about her is that 20,000 years ago a paleolithic artist sat down with simple tools, probably little thought to the future beyond their own life, and made this object, a swollen belly, two milk-rich breasts and a round head with knit cap.  The most amazing part to me?  We recognize her as a woman.  In other words this sculptor worked in a visual language so universal that no one needs to identify this object in stone; we can see, even through the abstract elements of its form, its identity.

    Tobin’s ambition made sense to me in light of this ancient object, still speaking 20,000 years later in the corridors of the Minneapolis Art Institute.

    On a less positive note I went to a Forest Service information session on an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) on prospecting in the Superior National Forest.  A Forest Ranger wanted my comments, my opinions.  I said, no prospecting, no mining.  Therefore no need for an EIS.  Save everybody a lot of time, effort and money and would save vast acres of forest and the lifeforms it supports.

    She answered me by saying that they were required by law to develop the EIS without taking into account the probability of mining.  This is a splendid example of double think.  The EIS weighs such things as noise bothering animals, the intrusion of new forest roads, the impact of deep drilling.  When she asked me if I had a particular area in mind, I answered, “Northern Minnesota.”  To not take the environmental impact of mining into account when deciding whether or not to permit prospecting is like a teenager concerned about the possibility of STD’s without wondering about the consequences of producing a baby.  Drill, baby, drill.

    Makes me gnash my teeth.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Great Work Politics 📎and tagged

  • Habitus

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                                   New Bee Hiving Moon

    The dogs, that is, Sollie and Rigel, still have energy for the fight.  Damn it.  I’ve not yet figured out a foolproof strategy for keeping them away from flashpoints.  I will.

    Kate called and she says both Ruth and Gabe have had a change in habitus.  That’s pediatric speak for body change.  Gabe is taller and thinner.

    Ruth’s face has begun to elongate, moving from pre-school to school age.  This means, Kate says, that Ruth will hit puberty early.  Uh-oh.  She’s already lost a tooth.  This is stuff that usually happens around 6 and she was still 4, turning 5 on Monday.  Ruth is bright, athletic, blond and blue-eyed.  Can you imagine that combination in junior high?

    Meanwhile I have a quiet weekend to devote to the novel and to Latin.  Novel first, then Latin.  Probably a trip to the grocery store and definitely another go at seed starting.  I still have some tricks.

    A conference call at 5:00 pm about making a Sierra Club endorsement in a special election, the seat, Senate District 66, vacated by Ellen Anderson when she took a position on the Public Utility Commission.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Dogs Humanities Politics Writing 📎and tagged

  • Path of Most Resistance

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                         Waning Bloodroot Moon

    I have a new round of resistance work underway in addition to the Tai Chi.  This work I got from Brad at the Y.  It involves squatting on a balance board while doing curls, then shoulders followed by a second round, also squatting, focusing on the chest and triceps.  Every other day I do crunches, too.  That plus the aerobics and the Tai Chi, plus the Body Flow I attend with Kate should be quite enough for now.  My goal with the Tai Chi is to learn it well enough to practice it while on the cruise.

    (in case you couldn’t tell, this is not me.)

    As to the cruise, I’m buying books, reading, talking to friends who’ve been to various spots, trying to figure out the logistical possibilities for trips other than the usual shore excursions.  At Stefan’s suggestion I’m going to look into a day flight to one of the Galapagos Islands as well as the potential trip to Aerquipa.  Part of travel’s allure for me lies in this preparation, the ingestion of different places, cultures and histories, different natural and environmental histories, different literature and art.

    Meanwhile we work at the legislature, the Sierra Club and the committee for which I am responsible, the folks keep coming to the MIA, the Woolly’s meet and talk, the Latin continues to flow and Kate and I learn more and more about retirement.  The novel?  Well…  Not so much right now.  You see, there’s the garden, too, and next will be the bees.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Family Politics Travel World History Writing 📎and tagged

  • Stay In It

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                    Waning Bloodroot Moon

    As winter loosens its grip on our state, the legislature begins to tighten theirs.  In the last half of the first session of the 2011-2012 legislature, budget bills dominate the news.  From my perspective as both a liberal and an environmentalist, the news is grim.  Environmental permitting, a public process designed to tease out and prevent negative impacts, has been weakened.  A bridge over the St. Croix, negotiated to a smaller, less intrusive version, has suddenly come back to life, bigger and more expensive than ever.  Up until the Japanese disaster, the nuclear moratorium in the state seemed headed for repeal.  Last night, in what must be one of the more peculiar–not to mention outrageous actions–an amendment passed attaching to an omnibus environmental budget bill a provision to fund state parks by cutting down black walnut trees in two of them, White River and Frontenac.   Let’s see, cutting down trees to save the state parks.  Like selling the children to support the family or auctioning off the planes to save the airlines.

    Since the halcyon days of the 60’s, it’s been tough for those of us with liberal to radical political sympathies.  Victories have been few and defeats numerous.  It is possible to despair, to wonder if a sense of communal responsibility will ever again influence policy; but, it is in precisely these circumstances where those of us with a historical perspective and active engagement must not allow despair to over run our convictions.  To shuck off politics now is to insure that the field is left to those whose politics create the need for us.

    No, as the conservative hand closes around the gavel in state after state and in Congress as well, those of us in the opposition must be more vigorous, more active, more vocal.


    📂This entry was posted in Commentary on the news Faith and Spirituality Great Work Politics US History 📎and tagged

  • Clean Teeth. Legislation. Western Civ.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                                       Waning Bloodroot Moon

    Dangerous driving conditions tomorrow. Winter storm warning.  Who stole my spring?

    Into the city twice today, once to get my teeth cleaned and a second time for a Sierra Club meeting on legislative basics.  The teeth cleaning, an every 6 months visit, has become routine by now.  Mary, the dental hygienist I saw today, complimented on my teeth-brushing.  That feels a bit to me like being told, good boy, you cleaned your plate.  Mary has a gentle way with her and worked hard to convince me to take extra good care of my teeth.  It’s important for overall health, especially as we age.

    On both trips listened to another lecture series, this one on Western Civilization, part II.  It focuses on the 500+ years in which modernism arose.  This is ground I’ve been over from several perspectives over the years, but each time it gets a bit clearer and the puzzle pieces seem to fit together better.  Modernism and the Enlightenment are key to understanding our current political, cultural, social and economic conditions, so it’s hard to become over educated about them.  What I enjoy now is finding connections between, say, Chinese history and Western.

    I’m on lecture 9 already.  Just finished the Reformation, ground I know pretty well, but it never hurts to hear it put in the larger socio-political context.

    The economic and environmental situation we find ourselves in now can be traced back to this period, both the good and the bad.  More later.  I’m tired.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Great Work Health Politics Weather +Climate World History 📎and tagged

  • They’re just being Republicans

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                          Waxing Bloodroot Moon

    Latin.  Subjunctives, indirect questions, tense sequences.  Done in a bit of a fog, almost like school.  The verb conjugations still have not taken full root in my mind, though at this point I have had exposure to all of them, for all four tenses.  I’ve had exposure likewise to five noun declensions, comparatives, superlatives, pronouns, interrogatives, adverbs, adjectives, ablative uses, dative uses, participles and participial clauses, and subordinate clauses of several types with more  to come.  I’m almost three-fourths through Wheelock and have now translated  75 verses of Ovid’s Metamorphosis.

    As unintended outcome, I have found myself metamorphosed, changed.  Just how, right now, is not all clear, but it has something to do with facing a challenge, a language, and coming to grips with it, incorporating it into myself.  Just why I waited until I was 63, I don’t know; fear, yes, time, yes, but the largest barrier was lack of purpose.  When I began to want to know what was behind the translator’s veil, and, in particular, when I wanted to know what was behind the translations of Ovid’s master work, the purpose emerged and a teacher appeared.  There is no time when we stop growing, learning.

    Later in the day I prepped for and ran the Legislative Committee for the Sierra Club’s weekly meeting.  This political season will not be kind to our lakes and rivers, our forests and wildlife, our prairies.  The burden will be laid at the foot of the Republicans, but really, they’re just being Republicans, giving political expression to the wills of those who support them.  No, the burden lies squarely at the feet of those of us who want to see our forests, rivers, moose, wolf, prairies and lakes healthy and whole now and into the future.  We have not fought with the same passion today as the Tea Party folk or the Christian Right or the Libertarians.

    Over the retreat at Blue Cloud I read two novels focused on the political life of Cicero.  At the end of a brutal period for his political perspective he said, “All regimes come to an end.”

    I agree.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Commentary on the news Faith and Spirituality Great Work Humanities Minnesota Politics 📎and tagged

  • A Good Birthday

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                     Waxing Bridgit Moon

    Relearning old lessons.  Today I went to the capitol to do some lobbying.  While there, Justin (Sierra Club lobbyist) and I met with a member of the legislature whose outline was a bit murky relative to our issues.  We found an ally, someone we can work with who has the ear of folks we can’t reach directly.  It was a fun and helpful meeting.birthday-stupa-james-johnson

    A lot of people sent wishes for a good day on my birthday.  Nothing is a better present for me than finding an ally in unexpected places.

    Kate made me two wonderful shirts, both short sleeved, Hawaiian like shirts.  When it gets warmer, you’ll see them.  Having a wife that sews and quilts is a great gift.  Oh, and she’s good at diagnosis, too.

    Thanks to everyone who sent birthday wishes.  Brother James Johnson, aka Dusty, sent me a birthday stupa:


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Family Politics Woolly Mammoths 📎and tagged

  • Mr. Ellis Goes To St. Paul

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                                                          Waning Moon of the Cold Month

    Got in the Celica this am and took off for the MNDOT building where I parked.  Three hours for $4.50 in quarters, paid at a central pay station.  The only argument I had with it was that the pay station was outside when there was a perfectly warm building within 20 feet of its location.  Anyhow it gave me plenty of time to have lunch in the MNDOT cafeteria, favored of lobbyists, with Justin Fay, the Sierra Club lobbyist.  We talked politics, a favorite activity of mine, somewhat akin to fly fishing or racquetball for others, I imagine.

    The cafeteria has a wide expanse of windows, a hundred feet by 30 foot room full on non-descript tables.  Files and briefcases and blackberries sit slumped by chairs or flat on a table, folks hunched over them as if they had the latest news of breaking legislation.  And, who know?  They might.  I suspect one of this places charms is its distance from the capitol since it sits about three blocks away from the capitol itself, connected by the very sensible tunnel system that passes through S.O.B–nope, not that, State Office Building–then to the capitol and at the other end of its run the State Supreme Building.

    After lunch Justin and I walked through the tiled and dimly lit tunnel to the S.O.B., an office building that houses Representatives and Senators, especially now the DFL senate, here for the first time since partisan politics began in the state thanks to the Elephant stampede last fall.  In SOB and in the capitol the hallways and benches, elevators waiting rooms filled up two and three gathered together, huddled and discussing this or that fine point of pending legislation or a Superbowl party.  Suits are the garb d’jour, but there are plenty of us non-suited folks wandering the halls, too.  That way it’s easy to tell the players from the audience.

    We met with a member of the House of Representatives after a brief stop in the Senate DFL Siberia to check on talking points on legislation due for a floor vote soon.  This member, a liberal from Minneapolis, welcomed us into his office and we chatted for about an hour, sharing talking points, questions to ask about this legislation and that, getting his reading of the legislature this first day of February.  When we were done, we left, headed for the elevators, down to the basement, through the tunnel back to the MNDOT building and back out to our cars.  Time to go home.

    Politics, especially legislative politics, is all about relationships and relationships are all about showing up.  It’s so physical, immediate that you can forget the essential matters being dealt with.  It is, as one veteran lobbyist said, high school.  Never ending high school.


    📂This entry was posted in Great Work Politics 📎and tagged