Hostelling Fun

I knew I would love spending time as the Mississippi Headwaters Hostel’s Guest Services Associate.  What a fun place to hang out!  I love all the people I’m meeting!  Interacting with such a wide variety of guests has been such fun.  And I think they like me too. 😉

So far I’ve met several people who are doing the Bike Across America thing – riding from Seattle (or some West Coast point of origin) to Bar Harbor (or some East Coast endpoint).  I even had a pair of guests recently who met at a local pub, realized they were both riding these long journeys, and were both headed to the Hostel  One called in a reservation and the other booked online (www.hiusa.org).  But they weren’t doing quite the same ride.  You see one was doing East Coast to West Coast while the other was actually doing a Ride AROUND America – taking the perimeter of the country from California down through Texas and back up and around the North Side and around the corner in Washington and back to California.  Whew!!

I’ve had families large and small and big (or small) groups who rent the entire Hostel.

We have 31 beds and I’ve yet see a group fill all the beds but I’ve had several large groups of teens and a great group of environmental folks who warmly welcomed me into their group activities.  We had a power outage during their stay… luckily on the night they planned to grill outside!  Thankfully, they invited me and Dan to dinner (he’d come down to check on me since we had no means of communication with the storm).  The rain passed quickly and they were able to create a feast that was enjoyed in the summer evening. And was it tasty!  They had a professional chef in their midst and we ate well that night.  It was a lot of fun dealing with the lack of water and power and they rolled with it like a bunch of camping pros.  The big joke was throwing the paper plates into the fire as we yelled, “Doing the dishes!”  They left me a beautiful thank you sign when they left and I feel like I made a bunch of new friends that weekend.

And speaking of Foodies, one weekend we had a family who cooked most of their meals on the campfire – or at the campfire on a camp stove – except for the French crepes they made that last morning of their stay.  We also had a pair of ladies there who shared all their good food, as did I, bringing in fresh squash from Merry Gardens Farm to cook up for the whole crew.  This was lucky for one couple who’d come to the Hostel without any food – they had such a feast!  And we had a father son & friends do some fishing and they prepared a beautiful Crappie for dinner.  The final evening of their stay, we grilled burgers and shared pickles and squash and berries and bananas, along with homemade granola and ice cream.  This gang, along with a solo older gent – we’ll just call him Santa Jimmy – had spent the afternoon at the Harn with Dan and me chatting away the rainy day on the porch.  It was fascinating conversation.

 

Families are fun whether they have younger children or are all grown up.  I had a hoot of a group recently – Mom and Dad and four grown boys (some of whom were retired) – that was so kind they brought me back a sweet roll from their breakfast visit at the Douglas Lodge!  The people who hostel are SO NICE!

I’ve really enjoyed finding the commonalities of our lives as I interact with guests from the various groups.  It’s especially fun to tell stories and share jokes.  Life is full of fun times and interesting experiences and perspectives and it’s a joy to listen to theirs and share my own.  I’ve learned of some great places to put on my bucket list and have shared stories of what Dan and I are doing here at the Harn.  I’ve listened to travel stories about Minnesota and around the world.

I think I especially enjoy the times when I find real connection.  Whether it’s a guest that also has Celiac and shares some of her Chocolate Cobbler or a fellow poet that shares some of her ideas and experiences, I love feeling like I’m at home with a bunch of family and friends.  You find a real intimacy as people open up around the fire and there’s something that seems so normal to see someone you barely know in their jammies in the kitchen as they fry an egg or have a late night snack.  Only at the Hostel…

If you want to come try some of the fun at the Mississippi Headwaters Hostel, you can make arrangements for a stay with us at hiusa.org.  Or call direct to make a reservation: 218-266-3415 ~  Office Hours are 8-10 AM and 5-10 PM.

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Major Climate Change Litigation in Bagley, Minnesota?

Tags

activism

I  never would have dreamed that the next time I would see Bill McKibben in person might be Bagley, Minnesota.  Or that there would be potential to meet James Hanson ~ yes, the dude who challenged NASA for suppressing his work on Climate Change ~ in this tiny county seat!  But Bagley, a town of less than 1400 people, may very well become the place where Climate Change Activists make their next major step forward.

I had no idea what I was getting into when Dan and I agreed to attend the hearing for a couple women in Clearwater County.  I actually thought it was two young ladies who had been hanging with Winona LaDuke, one of whom I’d met, so I was anxious to show support.  If I hadn’t been so busy, I might have actually read the event, Googled the names, and realized how major this case was going to be.  And if I’d thought about it for a second, I’d have realized the girl I’d met was facing an issue in North Dakota, not Minnesota.  But I showed up, believing I was supporting folks in the Anti-Tar Sands Pipeline Climate Change movement.  And once things got rolling, I was amazed.

When the hearing began, it was to arraign a fourth defendant in the case, Benjamin Joldersma, who was late in being charged with a felony crime.  His role in the event would become clear in later testimony but first we walked through his getting consolidated into the case with the three other defendants, Annette Klapstein, Emily Johnston, and Steve Liptay.

So, what did these people do to warrant felony charges?  They carried out an act of civil disobedience in the name of protecting the planet.  They put their lives on the line to help increase awareness, among the rest of us, that the world is running out of time to make the changes necessary to prevent even more catastrophic climate events.  They put themselves at risk for arrest to show that we need to act now if we’re going to prevent the 100,000+ lives lost every year to Climate Change.

On October 11, 2016, the two women reportedly entered the Leonard, Minnesota valve station and started to shut down the pipeline.  This action was planned to coincide with the International Days of Prayer and Action With Standing Rock.  Along with their cohorts, they were able to shut down every tar sands pipeline entering the US in an act of love & solidarity.  In Leonard, Minnesota, a shut down of Enbridge’s line 4 and 67; TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline was closed in Walhalla, North Dakota; Spectra Energy’s Express pipeline in Coal Banks Landing, Montana was eliminated; and Kinder-Morgan’s Trans-Mountain pipeline in Anacortes, Washington, reportedly offline anyway, was also stopped.  Democracy Now! had a brief report.

Here’s the report from the industry… sounds like they are saying, if you use the Emergency Shutoff Valve, you could rupture the pipeline.  I think that is something we might want to investigate, don’t you??  Since Enbridge has shown us that they can take up to 17 hours to “realize” a ruptured line is a ruptured line and not a bubble they need to push from the system with increased pressure, it might be nice to think we citizens could, should a spill be happening, turn off the valve and save our town.  What we really need is to stop relying on fossil fuels and move to renewables with intensity.  NOW.

Back to our hearing…

Annette Klapstein took the stand and explained her history with the Climate Change movement.  She became active in 2009 and was one of the Seattle Raging Grannies that chained themselves together in rocking chairs to stop a Shell oil rig from heading out for Arctic Drilling. By the end of the summer, Shell sent ships back to Norway and abandoned drilling efforts in the Arctic.  Annette testified that she realized, in order to fight for social justice, it would require work in the arena of climate change.  In 2014, she was part of an effort to block oil trains in Anacortes, Washington and Shell subsequently dropped plans to add a rail spur… once an EIS was required.  Annette’s position: Civil disobedience is the only option citizens have left with a government beholden to banks and fossil fuels.

She explained that their intent in closing the line was to stop Tar Sands oil flow to prevent ecocide.  The operation was done safely by giving notification to Enbridge 15 minutes prior to closing the valve and again 5 minutes before the action happened.  In fact, when they began to turn the valve to close it, they could see the screw turning down as Enbridge closed down the line remotely.  When asked if there was an imminent threat, Annette explained that there is.  We have super typhoons increasing in the Philipines, Washington has had the worst air quality for the last two weeks, and there are fires raging in British Columbia.  Over 100,000 people are dying annually due to Climate Change, we’re in the middle of the 6th Great Extinction, and each year, the scientists explain that the trends are looking worse.  Climate Change is happening faster than we predicted every year.  Coastal cities are facing crisis and droughts continue to intensify.

On cross-examination, the Prosecutor asked a few main questions to each Defendant.  Side note, just after the Judge accepted a motion to join all the cases as one for efficiency,  the Prosecutor made a request to sequester the Defendants.  This means that they would not be able to hear each other’s testimony.  A discussion ensued with the Defense Attorney noting that allowing each Defendant to hear the other would prevent reiteration of details already explained by the other Defendants.  The Judge agreed that sequestration would defeat the purpose of joining all the cases and prevent the Defendants from their right to be present at each critical stage of their trial.  The Prosecutor’s request was denied.  I’m thinking he didn’t want them to hear his questions as he basically had the same questions for each Defendant:

• Are you a Scientist?
• Was there an active oil spill present?
• Were there individuals in immediate danger on the site?
• Have you engaged in letter writing or legislative contacts in Minnesota prior to this action?
• How much carbon dioxide did you prevent with the shutdown?

Annette also got extra questions: Can you define ecocide? and When will the world end?  Oh, yeah, and How did you get here? (implying that she is a fossil fuel user).  Annette had an excellent response to this question in noting that the system is set up to require her physical presence but that she was able to secure a ride from Seattle with a friend who was delivering a car to Minnesota.  So basically, she had very little carbon footprint above what was already needed for the friend’s original journey.

Emily Johnston was our next Defendant.  She has been active in Climate Change work since 2011 when she got involved with 350.org and participated in the Keystone XL protests.  KXL was subsequently denied by President Obama.  Sounds like that civil disobedience worked!  By the way, 350.org was named based on the fact that, if we want to keep the Earth viable, we need to remain below 350 ppm of CO2.  Where are we now?  About 410 ppm.

Emily was a part of the Kayaktivists who rode kayaks to prevent the Shell oil rig from leaving port.  This is not only risking arrest but literally putting her life on the line.  Emily was willing to risk a felony charge because when Activists take a personal legal risk, they show their vulnerability and this increases the chance that people will take their actions seriously.  She noted the science that says we have about 3 years until we hit 4.5°F (2°C), the point of no return… the point where we can’t really make a difference that will allow our planet to remain viable.   She contends that we have no time for small changes.  The solution is to reduce emissions by 15% each year as we begin reforestation and regenerative agriculture.

Emily also explained that Civil Disobedience is a derivative of English Common Law which allows if, say, a house is burning and a baby is inside, you to override the law of breaking and entering the private residence to save the life of the baby.  In other words, it’s acceptable to break the law for a greater good, a higher law.  [On cross-examination, the Prosecutor would ask her if there were any “babies attached to the pipeline”.]

Emily made clear that the Activists are not “fighting Enbridge”, they are “fighting Tar Sands”.  She believes that civil disobedience is required to increase consciousness of the danger of Tar Sands.

Benjamin Joldersma was our third Defendant to take the stand.  Benjamin has three children from 2-7 years old.  His most compelling testimony regarded explaining the tough decision he and his wife made in him being a part of this work.  I was in tears as he noted that he wanted to be able to look his young daughter in the eyes when she one day asked what he did to try to stop Climate Change.  I cried because I too feel an obligation to my son when I think about the work I do in water protection.  Ben discussed the effect the Paris Climate Talks had on him: even with agreement by 197 countries that we must to something, we will still bypass 2°C.  All legal efforts have been exhausted.  Civil disobedience is our only option.  He told a story of a 2015 camping trip where he met some climate scientists and, based on their stories, he realized we were out of time.  Ben’s role on October 11th was to call Enbridge with a notification of the pending action at 15 minutes out and 5 minutes out.

Steven Liptay was our final witness and he was simply a cameraman documenting the activity.  He believed he was within his First Amendment rights to document the happenings and share the information with media outlets.  He had a pretty impressive array of Climate Change work to date including work as an intern on Everything’s Cool, cameraman on Do the Math, and he worked on the HBO documentary How to Let Go of the World And Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change.  And, he IS a scientist, having an MS in Environmental Policy and working as a Biologist for Audubon.  He believes that when mainstream media is not telling the story, it requires independent media to inform people on what is happening.  There is a Climate Change Emergency and he wants to inspire others to take action.

I was so impressed with each of these four people.  Not only for their courage to take a strong stand in fighting Climate Change, but for their coherent and articulate explanations of what they are doing and why they are doing it.  Their passion to save our planet from its imminent destruction is admirable.  Their commitment to civil disobedience is commendable.

In the end, each of the four Defendants plead Not Guilty to the charges.  They are claiming their actions are “Necessary” as the legal means for addressing climate change have been exhausted without response from our government and corporate leaders. As citizens, our only recourse remaining is civil disobedience.

I think the fact that 45 just disbanded an Advisory Committee on Climate Change is a good indication that they are on the right track.

Photo credit to Daniel Gaither.

Local News – Second Glance Farms

Tags

spirituality, sustainability, Women

Note: This article was published in the Farmers Independent last week. My second byline! Front page… below the fold. 😀

Second Glance Farms hosted an open house on Saturday, July 22^nd.  Visitors walked the many gardens, enjoyed the greenhouse that is the heart of the operation, and then gathered for a talk given by Nancy Kuhta. The presentation space, full of beautiful art, depicted Second Glance’s theme of Diversity: art, science, geometry, color, math, and even spirituality.  Everything is connected in this space where each task is done with contemplation and mindfulness to listen to the earth, the seeds, the sun.

Inspiration: An interactive contemplation area celebrating the intersection of Intention and Imagination.

Donnette Rizzo, a librarian from Chicago, spent the last few days at the farm and shared her experience of helping to create an interactive space from willow stems depicting the integration of Intention and Imagination as Inspiration.  This Venn diagram honors both the individual ideas and the confluence of the two, just as Second Glance Farms honors diversity as its key to success. Nancy once gave diversity presentations to Walmart employees but now she and her daughter Jannel are working on a diversity of tasks.

Jannel and Nancy Kuhta display an ear of Blue Eagle Corn and a jar of Rainbow Corn.

You may know the Kuhta’s from past adventures with Nature’s Gardens, which produced bedding plants.  Or perhaps you’ve seen some of their landscaping work.  If you have the new telephone book, the cover shows a flower garden they installed at Bemidji State University.  Or maybe you ran into them at Carlson Greenhouse.  More recently, they have begun to grow their farm, inviting others to share the beauty of their abundant flowers and vegetables.  After first linking to the farm-to-school program with Bagley Public Schools and working with Fireside and U of M at Itasca Park, they are now reaching out to the community at-large.

Nancy has been gardening for forty years, starting with digging in her mother’s garden in Chicago as a child.  Her focus is on protecting heirloom varieties that are nearly extinct.  Her goal is to lead by example and encourage others to replicate her efforts.  Nancy reflects, “We visited a seed bank and realized the importance of the North with the 12-hour day and we said, ‘We’ll help’.” With 1000 tomato plants in 25 varieties, they are going to offer U-pick so that people can experience a variety of heirloom vegetables at reasonable prices.  I tasted several of the lettuces and each was delicious in its own way; the crunchy, the buttery, and my favorite, the peppery arugula.

Jannel and Nancy Kuhta are passionate about seed-saving for endangered varieties like their Blue Eagle Corn.

Lincoln Lettuce, like that harvested at the Lincoln plantation, is available.  Or you can secure some Beauty Way Bean seeds to help bring these beautiful beans back to abundance. But Nancy’s true passion is Corn.  She will share with you in detail about Blue Eagle Corn, often called Peace Corn. It disappeared about the time of the Trail of Tears and in 2010, a group of Pawnee gave a Kansas farmer the last 25 seeds in known existence to plant, as his land was their old homeland.  For the first time in memorable history, that year the Pawnee ate the corn of their heritage.  It is said that when Blue Eagle Corn returns, it will bring peace.

The garden and nature speak to all ages and are wonderful places for the generations to connect.  Kathy Mitchell of Minneapolis expressed her appreciation of how nature has brought her and her father together.  A dedicated Catholic who once saw salvation only through the church, he’s begun to spend more time with trees and has found a connection that brings him closer not only to God, but also to his daughter.  Jannel shared about her experience with a child who explained to her that “the plants like you to sing to them”.  This youngster took Jannel to the Back Forty field so she could sing a song to the watermelons.  Later she let Jannel know she’d introduced the watermelons to the pumpkins.

There is beauty throughout the garden.  Flowers and hand-painted signs designate long rows of tomatoes.

 When asked about the name Second Glance, Nancy notes that the beauty of the farm will cause you to give it a Second Glance.  They are offering local produce, grown naturally, with a variety of tomatoes, squash, herbs and corn.  You can contact Nancy and Jannel at secondglancefarms@gmail.com to arrange a visit.

If you pay a visit to the farm at 19008 Highway 200, you’ll also get a chance to meet Corn Dog, about the most serene animal I’ve ever met. Found nearly dead among the corn in an Oklahoma garden and nursed back to life by Jannel, Corn Dog would not leave the garden area for months after being discovered.  He would greet Jannel every day at the garden gate.  If you see him here at Second Glance, take a moment to say hello and give him a scratch.  He will calmly look you in the eyes, and if you’re smart, you’ll follow his lead and spend some time in the garden.

Book Review ~ This is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century

Tags

activism, books

Before I begin, I want to put in a plug for the Bemidji Library because I happened upon this book there and I am often amazed at the progressive array of books they seem to always have facing out on the displays.  It’s pretty incredible how much I love the books I see as I walk through their aisles.  I don’t recall ever being in a library where I feel more resonance with the displayed books than I do in the Bemidji Library.  So thank you, Librarians!  You’re making this library great for me.

As an activist, I often struggle to comprehend how things work or how to best move forward, and I frequently feel like I can never do enough.  Change takes time.  And sometimes, like when a company wants to build a tar sands pipeline through your watershed, for the river that supports a large part of your nation, you can feel like you’re running out of time.  In This is an Uprising by Mark and Paul Engler, I found much solace, encouragement, and a feeling of empowerment.

This is an Uprising weaves itself around several examples through time, breaking down how the use of non-violent action has been, and is likely to remain, the best way to overcome oppressive governments and outdated cultural beliefs.  It discusses how we make change by being courageous and standing up for our beliefs, even when we seem like the minority.  In the end, we often find that people can be far more tolerant and open-minded as time progresses and we evolve as a society.  And that they are most likely to see our way if we approach with a message of non-violence.

The book does a review of the two main strategies of structurally based organizations and movements and how a hybrid of the two can be most effective.  The generally accepted founder of structural community organizing is Saul Alinsky, author of the 1971 Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals, considered by many to be the Bible for Activism.  His work is contrasted with that of Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward who co-authored the 1977 Poor People’s Movements: Why they Succeed, How they Fail.  Movements are more fluid and free-forming, often making the bigger and/or faster steps forward, while structural organizations have the capacity to build the communities and administrative practices that allow groups to hold gains as they progress.  The book’s discussion on the pillars that uphold the culture in our society depicts how they can be toppled in moving to a new evolution of our culture; one more tolerant and supportive of those whose voices were previously not being heard.

In fact, research done by Erica Chenoweth (University of Denver Professor of Political Science) and Maria Stephan (U.S. Department of State Strategic Planner) showed that nonviolent movements have been twice as likely to succeed as violent insurgencies. In fact, while violent insurgency may occasionally succeed, non-violent uprisings bring about more lasting and peaceful results.  Old data claimed that if 5% of a population stood up, they could successfully challenge their government.  Evaluating a database of social movements worldwide over the last 100+ years, Chenowith and Stephan discovered that a mere 3.5% of the population is needed to challenge it; no government can withstand a movement of this small size.   In the United States, that would be 11 million people.  Mass non-cooperation CAN bring change.  Just ask Slobodan Milosevic.  And by allowing people of diverse backgrounds an ability to participate, civil resistance, as opposed to physical violence, can more easily make peaceful and lasting change.  Erica asks in her Tedx talk:

What if our history courses emphasized the decade of mass civil disobedience that came BEFORE the Declaration of Independence, rather than the war that came after?  What if our social studies textbooks emphasized Ghandi and King in the first chapter, rather than as an afterthought?  What if every child left elementary school knowing more about the Suffragist Movement than they did about the Battle of Bunker Hill?

This takes us to the ideas of the Pillars of Support.  Education is one of the key pillars supporting our culture.  If we change how we educate, the focus of cultural knowledge changes, ideas of how things work expand.  Other pillars include Media and Religion.  When the Media finally broke the stories on Standing Rock, the movement gained recognition, validation, and a mass influx of new funding and supporters.  Subsequent to the camp being dismantled, several new camps have arisen, carrying on the cause.   Standing Rock is like a plant that, having blossomed and sent out its seeds, created exponential growth in its influence by recreating itself many times over.

The Marriage Equality Movement was greatly helped as Religions continued to incorporate more ideals around the acceptance of people without regard to their sexual orientation. Once the old bias of the faithful against homosexuality had become less and less acceptable, the numbers of people supporting legislation for gay marriage overwhelmed those who continued with the old tenets of intolerance.

Other pillars are more coercive and controlling: the Police, the Courts, and the Military.  These groups are made up of individuals who, when face with immoral and violent acts against peaceful protesters, will likely side with the resistance, rather than the oppressors for whom they work.  In order for an Empire to maintain control over its citizens, they must  be obedient and the powers that be rely on the above three groups to maintain obedience.  Any action to upset the status quo be must be quelled.

Interestingly, while Police and Military showed some support for the Water Protectors at Standing Rock, it remains to be seen whether there will be successful civil suits filed in the Courts against the likes of TigerSwan, a firm working security for Dakota Access without license in North Dakota.

Gene Sharp writes, “Obedience is at the heart of political power.”  The book contends “And if popular disobedience is sufficiently widespread and prolonged, no regime can survive.”

In the second half of This is an Uprising, the focus is on how non-violent groups move forward successfully and the techniques and shortcomings that can cause efforts to backfire and/or lead to downfall.  There are two major concerns that can derail movements, infiltration and violent disruption.

With regard to the temptation to turn to violence, Michael Albert, leftist activist warns:

It’s really quite simple.  The state has a monopoly of violence.  What that means is that there is no way for the public, particularly in the developed First World societies, to compete on the field of violence with their governments. That ought to be obvious.  Our strong suit is information, facts, justice, disobedience, and especially numbers.  Their strong suit is lying and especially exerting military power.

A contest of escalating violence is a contest we are doomed to lose.  A contest in which numbers, commitment, and increasingly militant nonviolent activism confronts state power is a contest we can win.

Ghandi argued that to resort to violence is to “cooperate with the Government in the most active manner.”  Which brings us to the other concern: infiltrators, or agent provocateurs.  Did you know that a paid FBI informant supplied the first firearms to the Black Panthers?

A friend of mine has asked, when attending meetings of the new movements forming since the election of 45, “When will we be having training in non-violence?”  She understands that, for a movement to succeed, the participants must be trained formally in civil resistance.  Once emotion rises, it’s too easy to revert to violent response.  Training is vital to developing skills needed to not succumb to reactionary tactics in the heat of the moment.  For true success, there must be a total commitment to non-violence, and it must include training that practices with mock demonstrations.  This is where the structured organizing tactics are critical as they have designated practices for bringing in new members.  The Movement supplies the passion but the Organization administers the path to success.

Activists and concerned citizens alike will find this book a readable explanation of how non-violent civil resistance can bring about change.  It may very likely give you hope a bit of for the future.