• Tag Archives Sierra Club

  • The Times They Are A Changin’ (Still)

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                                             Waning Moon of the Cold Month

    Temps have come up.  Near freezing on Thursday.  Break out the beer cooler, the barbecue and the hot dogs.  Time for a picnic Minnesota style.

    Every once in a while I find myself driving in a part of the Cities I don’t know well.  Tonight was one of those times.  I needed to get the Urban League building at 2100 Plymouth.  Looked straightforward on the map, but, as usual, I wanted to try something, so I got off at the Olson Highway exit.  Hmm.  A bridge too far.  I had to wend my back north through side streets.  Finally found it and made it to the meeting.

    Senate District 58, Linda Higgins.  The Sierra Club’s first in-district meeting with members and legislators.  A good turnout and a lot of good dialogue, back and forth on environmental issues, peace and justice and taxes.  Back in the car, back home.

    How about that news that GM sold more cars in China last year than in the US?  Whoa.  Things change.  Our time at the top of the heap alone has come to an end.  I’m not with the dystopians who see us limping toward the next century, a much larger and sadder equivalent of Britain after the fall of empire.  Neither am I nervous about China.  Nothing in their 5,000 year history suggests to me that they will do anything more than shore up their borders and try to make as much money as possible while living interesting lives.

    My own feeling?  The world will be better served with two different, but equal powers.  Will we stay there with China for the long haul?  I don’t know.  I don’t care.  How we live our lives here has become interwoven with China as an economic power, yes; but, will the superbowl or the world series cease?  No.  High school proms and McDonalds?  No.  Car trips and love of our national parks?  No.  Our wobbly, creeky democracy?  No.

    Will the US change over the next 50 to 100 years.  Of course.  More Latinos.  Greater ethnic diversity.  More people in cities.  Sure. Will this makes us less American?  Nope. Will it change what it means to be an American?  Maybe.  But are we the same Americans as those in the first 13 states?  I don’t think so.  Different than Civil War America?  In substantive ways, yes.  So, it stands to reason that American will have a different flavor in 2111.  Not only am I ok with that, I celebrate it and hope my grandchildren and their grandchildren help make it special.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Asia Politics US History World History 📎and tagged

  • Retired at Last

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                                Waxing Moon of the Cold Month

    Kate’s sewing on the machine she keeps here at Jon and Jen’s.  We retrieved it last night and brought it back to the hotel room.  The room supplies an ironing board and iron, with her cutting mats and rotary cutters–and those $23 to transport scissors–she’s in her favorite place, sewing.  She said yesterday that her retirement couldn’t really start until she could start sewing.  Well, it’s officially started now.

    The Sierra Club legcom meeting is at 5 pm tonight, so I spent an hour organizing material for the agenda and sending it out.  That’s finished.  Good thing Jon asked last night what time the meeting was.  I said, “5 pm.”  “Oh, so at 4 pm our time?”  “Huh?  4?  Yikes.”  I would have missed it for sure.  Not used to this jetset lifestyle.

    Once again breakfast has cowboy hats and bluejeans.  One young boy, maybe 14, wore a t-shirt that read:  “Nothing’s more important than beating that COW COLLEGE on the other side of the state.”  Coach Bear Bryant  A clutch of young girls came up around his table where he sat with three slightly older boys.

    Then began the mock teasing, playful hits, frowns and cagey responses.  One blond headed girl leaned over a boy with a RockStar hat, whispered in his ear, then went across the room and got him a cup of  coffee.  They were prodigies among children.

    Tonight I plan to take Jon and Jen out to a country Japanese restaurant called Domo.  Sounds interesting.


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

  • Whoa

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter Solstice                                                Full Moon of the Winter Solstice

    Just to show you the power of the internet.  I sent this e-mail after I wrote the last blog entry and Professor Christian answered within 30 minutes.  From Australia.  How ’bout that?

    Hello, Professor Christian,

    Very stimulating material.  I love the large frame and the reframe.

    Here’s the question:  if the primary outcome of our uniqueness, the idea of collective learning logrolling adaptation into the future, is increasing energy consumption, is there any hope for those of us in the environmental movement who want to throttle back what now seems to me to be the defining characteristic of our species?

    I’ve just finished this lecture, so you may answer this question further on, but as a person responsible for the Sierra Club’s legislative work here in Minnesota, it gave me pause.

    Thanks for introducing really new ideas to me.  It’s a lot of fun.

    Charles,

    Delighted that you enjoyed the lectures.  I think the question you ask really is the key and where all this leads (at let for us humans).  If I’m right, collective learning has yielded huge benefits, but also got us in a serious mess.  But collective learning is also, as far as I can see, the only thing likely to get us out of this mess.  So, more funds fir education, research, and particularly research into sustainability in all its forms.  I’m not a politician and, stated like that I may sound simplistic, but I can see no other way of interpreting the story I tried to tell in my lectures.

    Thank you very much for your kind email.

    David Christian


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

  • Politics and Juicy Lucys

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter Solstice                                                           Full Moon of the Winter Solstice

    Matt’s juicy lucy’s are a gourmet treat to this Indiana boy.  There’s just something about hamburgers, a, and hamburgers with cheese, b, that makes me happy.

    Justin Fay, the Sierra Club’s new lobbyist, and I met there to discuss the upcoming session of the Minnesota Legislature and how we might work our issues in this new political world.  Justin’s a pro and we share a similar pragmatic outlook toward politics and government, be mostly right and win, rather than 100% right and lose.  That means he’s a good pick for a lobbyist.

    Lots of new twists to the political work this session, not the least among them, a friendly governor.  We don’t know how to work yet in a friendly governor, less friendly legislature setting, but we’ll learn.

    While I waited for Justin, I looked at the bar and tried to figure out what made them popular places.  Yes, alcohol, I know, but beyond that.  Matt’s has a lowered, dark ceiling, dim lighting and food.  Women serve men.  Entertainment–TV and jukebox–are the primary non-food/booze elements.  It looks like a cave.  You come in, blinking from the bright snow and the darkness and warmth creates a sort of instant intimacy, a feeling of safety and camaraderie.

    Mark Odegard’s introduction to his man-cave in his new place and Paul Strickland’s in his made me aware of the similarities between what many men value in decor and the inside of bars.  Pretty close.


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

  • A Northstar Solstice Party

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                              Waxing Moon of the Winter Solstice

    After a meal and some awards, members of the Northstar Chapter of the Sierra Club gathered around a bonfire under a clear sky lit by the almost full Winter Solstice Moon.  A poem was read; there were some reflections on Christmas in Santa Fe and the wonder of fire, then the annual solstice event began to break up with couples walking the quarter mile down a moonlit path to the parking lot.

    The potluck meal, served before hand, represented the various subcultures within the club.  Vegetarians, vegans and carnivores all had dishes.  My favorites were the creamed corn, the summer sausage and a vegan vegetable and bean soup I made earlier in the day.

    Dodge Nature Center is in West St. Paul, one of those spots south and east in the metro area, below St. Paul.  We live north and a bit west of downtown Minneapolis so we drove across most of the metro area to get there.

    It was nice to have Kate along and I hope we can begin to do things like this more and more once she retires.


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

  • Stumbling

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                             Waxing Moon of the Winter Solstice

    Hmmm.  The ablative absolute and the passive periphrastic did not get put straight into my brain.  I stumbled through my lesson today, learning by mistake, a common method for me.  Still, I added a few more verses of Ovid to my translated column, down to 52.  Greg is a patient guy, a good teacher.  I’m lucky to have found him.  He played the music at the Minnetonka UU when I preached out there two Labor Days ago.  We got to talking and he mentioned his Latin and Greek tutoring.  I’d never had a tutor, one on one teaching and I love it.

    A nap.  Then a lot of organization stuff, some for the Docent Discussion group I facilitate, some for the Sierra Club’s legislative committee, some for next year’s garden.

    On that last point I ordered leeks, kale, chard, cucumbers, tomatoes, cilantro, rosemary, spinach, lettuce and a Seed Saver’s Exchange calendar.  They’re on the docket now because cranking up the hydroponics is a before the end of the year chore and I need to have seeds to start.

    Most I’ll wait a bit on, but chard, lettuce, cilantro and rosemary I’ll start right away and grow them out in the hydroponic tubs for winter eating.  Then, around the end of February I’ll get other seeds started, some earlier, some later, getting ready for the start of the growing season.  Right now I’m happy it’s all under snow and out of reach, but come March, April I’ll be eager, looking forward to a new growing season.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Garden Humanities Hydroponics 📎and tagged

  • Emmer concedes governor’s race to Dayton

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                          Waxing Moon of the Winter Solstice

    Back up at 8 am for an 8:30 conference call with the Minnesota Environmental Partnership.  This concerned information we may use when defending against roll backs to current environmental policy.  The sound quality was poor, but the information, presented in power point slides via a webinar website, had a lot of good data.  I can’t discuss it, but it was far from discouraging.

    Here’s good news just posted at the Trib:  Emmer concedes governor’s race to Dayton.   A tip of the hat to the state Republicans.  They read the state right; we’re weary of recount wrangles.  Perhaps we can begin a more bi-partisan approach to Minnesota’s future.  I’d like to see it.  Bi-partisanship is good for environmental issues.

    We will probably spend more time on administrative and rule-making work for the next two years than we have in the past. We being the Sierra Club and our allies.

    In between I looked up Latin words in preparation for translating lines 40-45 of Book I, the Metamorphosis.  It’s something about water and the sky and sun, but I have yet to put it together.


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

  • Restored Wonder

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                             Waning Thanksgiving Moon

    “The one common experience of all humanity is the challenge of problems.” – R. Buckminster Fuller

    Once again, awake.  I know why this time.  Over stimulation.  The interview process at the Sierra Club has my head cranking over time, weighing this aspect and that, noodling out the implications, going over what ifs.  I’m familiar with this kind of insomnia, it happened a lot when I worked for the Presbytery, particularly when I had several projects in the air all at the same time, which was the norm rather than the exception.  Leaves my jaw a bit achy, not so good with my still healing wisdom teeth extraction.

    This is my (now mild) neurosis at work, continuing to work over nuances, much like the front tires on the Celica last night, trying, trying, trying, but gaining no traction, spinning in place, unable to move forward and accomplishing nothing moving backward.

    Added to the interviews, of course, was the commute home last night and my sling-shot derby trying to use momentum to move my car up the slope of our driveway.  Last night after I closed out my blog for the evening, our neighbor, Pam Perlick, called and offered a berth in her garage so our plow guy could work unobstructed.  A kind and thoughtful offer which I accepted.  That meant putting back on jeans, boots, parka, hat and gloves, taking my Berea College whisk broom out and sweeping two new inches off the car before moving it to safe haven.

    The night was dark and cold, the snow swept up and swirled as it fell.  Once outside, as is often true, I found the storm exhilarating, especially since Pam’s gesture meant the Celica would not interfere with the snow removal.  I could embrace the cold and the falling snow for what it was, rather than for the problems it brought into my life.

    Based on NOAA weather spotter’s it appears we got another 5 inches of snow.  Which would square with my guess.   Snow shapes itself to the objects on which it lands, often in unusual, even bizarre shapes.   I’ll put out some photographs today, once it becomes light.

    These kind of storms and the deep cold of January define the north for me.  They’re why I’m here and why I love this state so much, so I’m happy my neighbor restored my wonder.  Thanks, Pam.


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

  • Parked Outside. At Home.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                       Waning Thanksgiving Moon

    Yee Ow!  Into the Sierra Club for the final interview round.  Snow began coming down.  The interviews were good, and the after processing was good, but the snow continued to fall. When I googled MNDOT for road conditions, all roads were red leading home.  So.  I went over to the Merry Lanes and hung around while the Sierra Club staff engaged in team building by knocking (some) pins down.  It was fun, but I didn’t get me home.  Finally, around 5:40 I decided to come home anyhow.  It took me over an hour–a ride that took me 30 minutes just this morning–never going higher 30 mph and mostly 20 mph.

    Then, to sink the knife in deeper, the great unsolved problem of our homeplace confronted me, again.  That is, a sloped ascent packed with snow.  I tried for another half an hour to drive up and into the garage stall, but even with the help of the granite grit, I finally gave up, too tired from the day and the commute.  So the Celica sits about half up the driveway, a task for tomorrow.  Sigh.

    Once Kate retires I plan to drive the truck (4 wheel drive) in instances like this.  No problem crawling up the hill then.

    Latin went well this morning.  Decided to stay on a weekly schedule for now.


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

  • Good Tired

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Samhain                                                   Waning Thanksgiving Moon

    Two days of interviews plus a tour day and all the attendant driving, 3 trips in and back, has left me with a good tired feeling.  Participating on a hiring committee puts me in the guts of an organization again.  I like that, even if it is only a volunteers part.  It’s true, though, that in my work with the Presbytery much of my work came in situations where I had an extra-organizational role in what was happening, so this is not so different from that.

    My embarrassment of riches tour today went well.  Three folks came along and we spent our way wandering through the whole exhibit, talking and oohing and awing right along.  I like this smaller, adult tour where we can work it as a casual stroll, thinking together about the art, offering ideas as we go along.  I have two Thaw tours next week and I’m hoping for a better performance than with the Rochester Friends.

    Another snow storm appears imminent, coming tomorrow night and Saturday.  Thankfully I don’t have a commitment outside in that time frame.  That way the driveway can get plowed, I can do the sidewalk and spread granite grit if necessary afterward.  I’ll be able to enjoy the snow this time.

    One of these days, when life slows down a little bit, I need to get the chainsaw out and take out the cedar and the amur maples broken by the first heavy snowfall.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Art and Culture Great Work Politics Weather +Climate 📎and tagged