Good Morning Sun!
The sun is beautiful after the snow.
Sun Over Vineyard, After Snow
Sun on Base of Madrone, After Snow
Sun in Madrone, After Snow
Smell This
Emgold announced in a March 4, 2010 press release that it is offering its creditors the “opportunity” to convert debt Emgold owes them into Emgold stocks, which have continued to fall in price (from 35 cents/share Canadian just after consolidation in December to 25 cents today) …
Read full story here.
Benefit Concert for Woolman and the Peace Center
BENEFIT CONCERT
for
and
Peace and Justice Center of Nevada County
ABOUT EMMA’S REVOLUTION
With hauntingly beautiful harmonies and powerful acoustic instrumentals that deliver the energy and strength of their convictions, emma’s revolution writes songs that become traditions. “Peace, Salaam, Shalom” is sung around the world and has been called the “anthem of the anti-war movement.” Their song, “If I Give Your Name”won Grand Prize in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and their music has been featured on NPR’s “All Things Considered” and Pacifica’s “Democracy Now!”
emma’s revolution has traveled around the world from Canada, Chile, Korea, Scotland, England, Israel/Palestine, Nicaragua and Cuba and throughout the US spreading their message of peace and justice. As a duo, they’ve performed at hundreds of peace and justice events over the last eight years and over a 30 year period, Pat’s numbers reach into the thousands. In the spirit of Emma Goldman’s famous attribution, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution,” emma’s revolution brings their uprising of truth, hope and a dash of healthy irreverence to concerts and peace & justice events around the world.
Their CD “roots, rock & revolution” has been called “inspiring, gutsy & rockin’!” emma’s revolution is also currently touring in support of their new CD “We Came To Sing!”, a collaborative with the legendary activist singer Holly Near.
Submitted to Sierra Voices by Kathy Runyan, Advancement Director, The Woolman Semester.
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Editor’s Addition:
Here are a couple of beautiful examples of their work that I found by searching YouTube:
First, Pat Humphries and Sandy O perform “Drivin’ 5 to the Polls:”
And finally, this treat: A simple and moving rendition of Pat Humphries’ song, “Swimming to the Other Side,” sung by the G-E-T Middle School 8th Grades (with lyrics attached below):
ARTIST: Pat Humphries
TITLE: Swimming to the Other Side
Lyrics
{Refrain}
We are living 'neath the great Big Dipper
We are washed by the very same rain
We are swimming in the stream together
Some in power and some in pain
We can worship this ground we walk on
Cherishing the beings that we live beside
Loving spirits will live forever
We're all swimming to the other side
I am alone, and I am searching
Hungering for answers in my time
I am balanced at the brink of wisdom
I'm impatient to receive a sign
I move forward with my senses open
Imperfection, it be my crime
In humility I will listen
We're all swimming to the other side
{Refrain}
On this journey through thoughts and feelings
Binding intuition, my head, my heart
I am gathering the tools together
I'm preparing to do my part
All of those who have come before me
Band together and be my guide
Loving lessons that I will follow
We're all swimming to the other side
{Refrain}
When we get there we'll discover
All of the gifts we've been given to share
Have been with us since life's beginning
And we never noticed they were there
We can balance at the brink of wisdom
Never recognizing that we've arrived
Loving spirits will live together
We're all swimming to the other side
{Refrain}
Good Argument for Socialized Medicine
How do the countries of the rest of the industrialized world manage to provide health care for all of their citizens for 9 or 10 percent of GDP while the United States spent 17.3 percent of GDP in 2009, and is on track — even with the current proposals under consideration — to reach as much as one-third of GDP by 2050?
The answer, as Robert Kuttner explains, is “universal, socialized insurance.”
Apparently, in the rest of the “club of affluent countries” (excluding the US), national policy embodies the wisdom that an unregulated market is moderately efficient at producing profits but not at producing a fair distribution of social goods.
Kuttner explains:
In all of the debates about health care reform, one of the stubborn realities is that neither the Obama plan, nor any of the Republican alternatives, will seriously alter the trajectory of relentless cost-escalation in health care. If you look at the Administration’s own projections of federal deficits in the next decade and after 2020, virtually all of the alarming growth in deficit spending is Medicare and Medicaid.
… The consensus among the usual policy experts is that there is no good solution. The march of technology and demography will just continue to raise health costs.
But you can reach that conclusion only by ignoring how the rest of the club of affluent countries manages to insure everyone for 9 or 10 percent of GDP, and have a healthier and longer-lived population, to boot. They do it, of course, through universal, socialized insurance.
… The Canadians do it with a single payer system for the insurance part, but physicians are private. The Brits have an integrated National Health Service. The Germans achieve near-universal coverage through a system of nonprofit health insurance plans.
What every other nation has in common is that they have taken the commercialism out of their health systems. As a consequence, they can direct health spending to areas of medical need rather than letting the market direct health dollars to areas of greatest profit. And with everyone covered, they can use highly cost-effective strategies for prevention, wellness, and public health. That’s how you cover everyone for ten percent of GDP.
Kuttner has become uncharacteristically pessimistic. He feels that Obama has pretty much blown his best chance to succeed at health care reform.
Read the full article here: “The Cure That Dares Not Speak Its Name.”
Fascinating Water Talk at Wolf Creek Alliance
Nick Wilcox of NID addressed a full house at the monthly meeting this evening of the Wolf Creek Community Alliance. Nick, a water scientist and former member of the California Water Resources Control Board, gave his rapt audience a high-level overview — full of interesting anecdotes and packed with information — of water issues in California.
He began by describing California’s ten hydrologic regions, which all drain into the Delta (originally a freshwater marsh). He described the extraordinary history of engineering projects that led to the fragile, levee-encircled Delta we have today (fifteen feet below sea-level in some places).
“The Department of Water Resources has understood for a long time that the worst case scenario for the Delta is a significant earthquake centered there, which could collapse all the levees at once.”
“In five minutes,” he said, “the city of Los Angeles could lose its entire water supply.” He couldn’t venture a guess for how long.
For this reason, and others, he suggests that the Peripheral Canal would probably be a good idea.
He opposes the $11+ billion Water Bond on the November ballot, and he repeated the phrase I first heard from him at A.P.P.L.E.’s recent water presentation: “In California, water runs uphill toward money.”
Nick loves his subject, and he could have gone on for hours. He is so engaging that his audience could probably have also listened to and questioned him for hours.
Take heart, those of you who have not yet heard Nick Wilcox: He is one of the featured presenters on March 6th at the Nevada City Methodist Church for the conference, “Water: Sacred and Profaned.”
Water: Sacred and Profaned
Our friend and United Methodist clergywoman, Sharon Delgado, sent us the following information about an important upcoming conference at the Nevada City United Methodist Church.
Here are the details, followed by the poster.
A one-day Conference on “Water: Sacred and Profaned” will be held at the Nevada City United Methodist Church on Saturday, March 6, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The Conference will focus on the growing scarcity of fresh water, water as a right, and the need to preserve water for humans and all living things. It will feature presentations, discussion, film, Native American drumming, song, and ritual.
The Conference is being organized by Earth Justice Ministries, a local faith-based nonprofit, and cosponsored by the Church and Society Committees of Nevada City and Grass Valley United Methodist Churches, Unitarian Universalist Church of the Mountains Social Action Committee, Peace and Social Justice Committee of the Grass Valley Friends Meeting, and Pax Christi of Nevada County. Conference organizers have put forward the following premise which speakers will address:
“Water is sacred, essential for all life. Used as a sacrament in various religions, it is an expression of divine love. But now, Earth’s waters are being profaned. Our premise is that water should be held in trust for the common good and not monopolized, privatized, or sold as a commodity. Access to water is a basic right of humans and all living things.”
Sharon Delgado, a United Methodist clergywoman, will speak from a perspective of water as sacred, and will present an overview of threats to water — how water is being “profaned.” She will point to people’s movements for protection of water around the world.
Keynote speaker Nancy Price is from Defending California for Life, a project of Alliance for Democracy. Ms. Price will speak about global and statewide issues related to water preservation in the context of her understanding of water as sacred. She will cover the upcoming vote on the California Water Bond, climate change and the rights of nature, and implications of the recent Supreme Court decision that strengthens corporate rights. Find out more here.
Speaker Roberto Garcia is the Board President of the local Tsi-Akim Maidu nonprofit organization. He will speak on the value of water from an Indigenous perspective, and on local issues that the Tsi-Akim Maidu are working on, including healing the waters from mercury pollution caused by past mining, their annual Calling Back the Salmon ritual, and attaining federal recognition for the tribe.
Afternoon speakers include local hydrologist Steve Baker, producer of KVMR’s series, “Living Water,” NID Board members Nick Wilcox and Nancy Webber, SYRCL Board President and CLAIM-GV Board member Heidi Hall, and David Edwards of the Nevada City Water District. They will address the themes of the conference and apply their understanding to local issues of water preservation.
Native American drumming will be provided by local group Three River Drum, with Mignon Geli on flute. Hilary Marckx, a United Church of Christ pastor and songwriter from Geyserville, will perform and lead singing. The day will include a “healing the waters” ritual and a film. Lunch will be provided.
Admission to the Conference is by voluntary donation from $0 to $25. For information go to www.earth-justice.org. Pre-registration is desired but not required. To register email water@earth-justice.org or call 274-1320.
Science is the Poetry of Reality
Here’s the latest of John Boswell’s creations for his “Symphony of Science” series.
He explains it this way:
“The Poetry of Reality (An Anthem for Science)” is the fifth video in the Symphony of Science series. This new video differs slightly from previous ones, in that it features many more scientific thinkers than usual. It includes (in order) Michael Shermer, Jacob Bronowski, Carl Sagan, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Richard Dawkins, Jill Tarter, Lawrence Krauss, Richard Feynman, Brian Greene, Stephen Hawking, Carolyn Porco, and PZ Meyers, all contributing their personal views on what science means to them and how important it is in our daily lives.
Young Man Sitting in the California Vietnam War Memorial
During a break in the rain this morning, I wandered through the California Vietnam War Memorial in Sacramento’s Capitol Park.
I was startled by the quiet intensity of this young man, who was doing nothing more than sitting on a bench in the center of the Memorial, looking thoughtful.
He was in military garb, and it had just been raining, so it was hard to distinguish the rain drops falling from his forehead from sweat.
Maybe he had just been working.
Or fighting?
Maybe he sat there to rest?
He looked like he had lost someone.
A friend?
Himself?
His lithe, taught frame reminded me of all young men eighteen years old, even of myself at that age. Casual, ordinary beauty we all take for granted, until it’s gone.
So many young men lost in Vietnam.
So many young men lost in all wars.
THE NAMES ON THE MEMORIAL WON’T ALL FIT IN ONE PHOTO
An Odd Place to Have Breakfast This Morning
Here’s the view from the MVP Sports Bar near the State Capitol in Sacramento, where I’m sitting eating breakfast while my wife attends an Urban Greening Project grant workshop all morning. This is not the rustic world I’ve become used to in the last few years. I’m reeling from a bit of culture shock, if you want to know the truth. But, it’s nice to experience a longing for our home in the mountains. Lately I’ve wanted to kiss the ground every time we come back.
Money and Career Opportunities in Climate Change Denial
In his review of the forthcoming book, “Merchants of Doubt,” by historians of science Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, Jeffrey Sachs reports that “today’s campaigners against action on climate change are in many cases backed by the same lobbies, individuals, and organisations that sided with the tobacco industry to discredit the science linking smoking and lung cancer.”
Later, they fought the scientific evidence that sulphur oxides from coal-fired power plants were causing “acid rain.” Then, when it was discovered that certain chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were causing the depletion of ozone in the atmosphere, the same groups launched a nasty campaign to discredit that science, too.
Later still, the group defended the tobacco giants against charges that second-hand smoke causes cancer and other diseases. And then, starting mainly in the 1980s, this same group took on the battle against climate change.
What is amazing is that, although these attacks on science have been wrong for 30 years, they still sow doubts about established facts. The truth is that there is big money backing the climate-change deniers, whether it is companies that don’t want to pay the extra costs of regulation, or free-market ideologues opposed to any government controls.
Read Sachs’ full review here.
