Okay, I’m not the most sociable human at the present time so I’ve not been playing much in blogland. While I’m not about to commence running rampant from blogcasa to blogcasa, I really want to share this recent Nature program with anyone interested in the interconnectedness of all things. What Plants Talk About offers some incredible insights into the living Earth we call home. I think it also serves as a huge positive statement regarding why we MUST preserve the ‘natural’ environment widely and learn to re-integrate our human species with our plant and animal relations quickly in order to ensure our own survival. If we don’t, I suspect we may find Earth less than welcoming of our continued presence. Mother Nature will find a way to deal with us as hostile creatures and create a new healthy balance. No, I’m not kidding.
It is very well worth an hour of your time to watch and learn what’s going on with all the leafy green things above and below ground. This is a very accessible program about some serious science. It’s also features beautiful photographic film work.
Most of us enjoy some positive news to break up the monotony of all the negative malarky–don’t we? The following update from the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary offers a glimpse of what humans can do to help our animal relatives. In this case it’s Mustangs. It’s a labor of love to give wild animals the opportunity to live and thrive in a world which currently seems to be all about destroying nature in so many ways.
February, 2013
SANCTUARY OFFERS
SAFE HAVEN FOR STARVING MUSTANGS
Saturday was a busy day at the Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary. For the past three weeks the Sanctuary has been host for several horses that were recently rescued by local authorities. We allowed these horses time to rest and regain their strength before it was time for them to move onto new lives.
As part of our mission to provide freedom for unadoptable wild horses, we are devoted to giving unwanted horses a “quality of life”. We are proud to have served as temporary hosts for these horses.
Truck and Trailers
Trucks and trailers lined up near the corrals in preparation to receive their precious cargo and take them to their new homes.
Time to load
After being sorted it was time to load the horses onto the trailers. The horses seemed to know better things awaited them down the road. Everyone loaded calmly and quietly in preparation for the ride to a better life.
Is hay served on this ride?
Noses and faces peek out of the trailer as everyone is secured for the ride.
Down the road..
To new lives! The owners anxiously wait as the trucks leave the Sanctuary.
Still Waiting
We have six horses still waiting for their turn to begin new lives. This coming Saturday will be the day for them. Some of their “horsey friends” have left them and they seem unsure of what to do or where to be. We continue to provide clean water and hay as they grow stronger daily. Soon they will be in the hands of caring new owners.
Terri
Black Hills Wild Horse Sanctuary
605-745-5955
Won’t you help us continue to help Mustangs in Peril?
Chasing Ice website http://www.chasingice.com/ Complete with link to James Balog’s photography and much more.
With all the ways there are to share information and communicate in this time of technological multitasking galore “mail” remains a constant source as both snail mail (those hard copies that are deposited in your own private hard copy mailboxes) and email (all the electronically created and delivered “soft” efforts to communicate via cyberspace complete with “in boxes” and mailing options. Anyone else recall the attempt by the American government to charge US all five cents per email we sent? Have I got that right? So far that effort to get a slice of the internet mail pie has failed. So far. I think. I may be wrong about this failure to milk us.). Why do we so enjoy getting all our forms of “mail”? One reason I enjoy my mail is because of the information it brings to my attention that I may well have otherwise missed or overlooked or simply never discovered. There is something to be said for “subscribing” to business websites for updates and notifications. Are you all bored and wondering what the heck any of this has to do with the Chasing Ice video? Okay. I subscribe to the Tivoli Cinemas in Westport (an area of Kansas City, Missouri) and as a result I receive a weekly email regarding which films are being shown and when at the hard copy theatre complete with big screens, comfy seats, and the rare option to buy or bring your own yum yums for consumption while viewing all sorts of films. If I did not have this subscription I probably would never have known that Chasing Ice is appearing exclusively at the Tivoli for the Kansas City area. Heck, I might not have even known it was appearing in any theatres if not for this email. Luckily the Tivoli is within reasonable driving distance for moi–who, as you’ve all guessed by now has the “yappy yaps” this morning.
Hey, they’re even offering The Nutcracker performed by the Royal London Ballet on December 23. Yes, a movie theatre will show a ballet film. If that’s not enough to raise your highbrows a notch or two then maybe The Royal Opera of London show of The Marriage of Figaro on December 30 will do the trick.
Oh and a film ticket stub will knock 50% off the price of one drink at the Broadway Cafe –which, in my opinion, offers The Best Cafe Mocha–bar none– anywhere. Definitely the best I’ve tasted in several states. (No, sorry, folks trying to staff the little upstart coffee shop in Pierre, SD, that’s not a legit cafe mocha you’re proffering. Not yet anyway. Keep trying though. Practice may pay off in time.) Broadway Cafe site http://www.broadwayroasting.com/
So, guess where I will venture, safe driving conditions being extant, during the week of December 21-27? Yep. I’ll be chasing Chasing Ice with a delicious cafe mocha accompanied by a honey soaked croissant. I’ll be enjoying what this world offers while it lasts.
Now, about all the ice chasing and film festival awards and climate change etc. . . .
I’m a library grazer. Yep, I confess it. Each time I visit my local public library I can’t help but shop the shelves for all the new arrivals in all genres–even the entertainment ones that often astonish me with their very existence. The downside of this book/dvd/cd grazing is that it about triples the time I spend in the library’s physical location. It also generally about triples the number of items I haul to the self check out computer and from there to the ever overflowing parlor couch where they get to catch their breath. One of the items my grazing discovered was this book of photographs from one of America’s dark actions against its own people–Japanese Americans. (Btw, there was talk of rounding up German Americans too, but that never got going. Don’t believe that? Check out the holdings at the National Archives, KCMO–oh yeah.) Not only were people forced into camps but their personal property was confiscated and they lost everything–for nothing. Is this bit of American history more than a tad disconcerting? It should be considering all the lip service paid to “human rights.” The Native Americans had/have prisons without walls via the reservations. Japanese Americans had prisons with barbed wire. As I viewed Bill Manbo’s photographs I was struck again and again at the incongruity of everything in them about people trying to maintain some sense of normalcy in a decidedly NOT normal situation–a downright irrational situation to my thinking. Usually prison/confinement is the end result of doing something “wrong”–illegal–criminal. But these families had done nothing at all — except be Japanese Americans. There’s definitely something askew in thinking that leads to such treatment of people innocent of any wrongdoing. I wonder about the American population at large that was aware of people being taken from their communities and yet allowing it, accepting it, agreeing to it. And I wonder if our current prison system is just another sign of this confining mentality. Maybe it is. Or it’s something even darker? At any rate, here is one man’s photographic record of history which shames the Americans who created and implemented this action. It also shames all those who knew it was wrong and watched it happen in silence.
Much thanks to the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University for this Vimeo film featuring Bill Manbo’s photographs.
Colors of Confinement, Rare Kodachrome Photographs of Japanese American Incarceration in World War II, Editor Eric L. Muller with photographs by Bill Manbo. Published by the University of North Carolina in association with the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, 2012.
Tis the season of snow, wind, rain and cold for those of us without warm sandy beaches under our feet. Tis the season of shopping too. Many folks use the gift giving holy days to update clothing needs for growing children. In the Kansas City Metro area there’s a yearly winter clothing drive–”Project Warmth”–where people donate gently used coats at specially designated locations–check it out here –>>> http://www.projectwarmthkc.com/news-events/ . Well, Cheryl Locke’s third graders do not live in the Kansas City Metro area, they live on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and hence will not be receiving any coats or blankets from “Project Warmth.” Having learned that approximately half of Ms. Locke’s students have no winter coats at all –that’s right these children have no coats to wear for a winter in South Dakota–I figured it’s worth putting out a call for a few coats for them. So if your child is getting a coat upgrade this winter please consider sharing their outgrown winter wear with a coatless child. There’s no donation button. There’s no middleman. There’s just Cheryl Locke’s address, coat sizes and eight children in need of some winterizing like the little one in Yi-Ching Lin’s photograph. Thank you.
POST UPDATE: This particular Coat Crusade is Complete thanks to the Volunteers at the New American Shakespeare Tavern. See the Huzzahs! post for them. But if you’ve got coats which need children, please see the One Spirit Needs list via the Okini list link here http://nativeprogress.org/index.php/en/ .
While I sport no tattoo art on my own skin nor have I yet converted a public surface to a canvas I have great respect and admiration for artists who do so with bold creativity and style. Yeah, I ‘get’ the mainstream culture’s issues with the “illegal art” of graffiti and I render that about as much credibility as I do the notion of human beings being “illegal.” Shouldn’t great art increase the property value of a building or other surface that has been chosen as an artist’s canvas? I’ve seen many a bland brick wall transformed into bright beautiful living color that brings art out of climate controlled galleries and into the everyday lives of everyone with eyes willing to appreciate it. As for tattoo artists whom people entrust with their own hides for spreading ink–I’m continually impressed with their inventive ways of collaborating with the human form. It’s not a requirement to pursue either art form in order to enjoy what they offer. Even if you’re just mildly curious I highly encourage you to sneak a peek between the covers of Graffiti Tattoo, vol. 2 by Alan Ket and Don Karl aka Stone. They’ll take you around the world via introductions of tattoo artists with graffiti backgrounds who work with skin and ink from Oakland, CA to Queensland, Australia. One of my favorites is Fishero from Ostrava in the Czech Republic. I adore his incredible illusions of 3D art. Each artist speaks for him/herself about their art and personal history. Contact and online information are provided for each artist: websites, Facebook, emails and addresses. Yes, if you’re wandering about Copenhagen, Denmark, you can get some ink from Franz Jager. Marco Wagner aka Sheas can be found at Lucky Six Tattoo in Berlin, Germany. Eaz One tweets from San Jose, California. Turkesa is in Barcelona, Spain. This photographic record is lush and brilliantly vibrant. The book offers a means for viewing the global scale of arts of workaday world people. The art is as varied as the artists’ thoughts on mentoring, writing, images, drawing and life. It’s great out of the box art all around offering trains, the Pieta, Sitting Bull, skulls, dragons and much much more. See for yourself at From Here to Fame Publishing http://www.fromheretofame.com/books/tattoo2.html
Click image to view film teaser and to contribute.
The Impact
Our documentary explores the sacredness of water and how the industrialization of the Navajo Nation continues to disrupt our traditional way of life. We feel it is important for our audience to visually experience a piece of the Navajo Way Of Life. It is vital to the documentary to include the connection between Navajo Mythology and the importance of the lands that have been desecrated by industrial development.
Many Navajo families do not have access to potable running water and are forced to haul unregulated and untreated water for their daily needs. Many elderly Navajo’s are forced to allow livestock to drink from toxic water sources, thus contributing to numerous health risks among families throughout the Navajo Reservation.
From a youth perspective we’re telling a story of a Navajo Philosophy that is being endangered by an overwhelming change in politics, resource management and modern society. We understand the obligations our ancestors passed onto us and have devoted much of our time to tell this story about our people.
Jake and I have been working on the documentary since Mid-2010. Throughout our travels we have met people who have been exposed to uranium and have since developed cancer. It’s heartbreaking for us to witness how close to home this issue has become. We feel so connected with these issues, that we have dedicated nearly all of our time and personal resources to this story.
Both Jake and I have lost grandparents to uranium, to cancer, and we each feel an obligation to use our skills as filmmakers to capture the stories of our people. So that somewhere down the road, when we ourselves are old, we can tell these stories of the importance of the land, and the water that binds us together.
Water is Life is an inside film job by Deidra Peaches and Jake Hoyungowa. Please consider putting some fresh water in their film tanks. Change adds up when we share. Time is short so share however you can now. Where’s that Tweety-bird?
What’s in your water?
Shemekia Copeland’s “Dirty Water” at the Blue Mountain Blues Festival in Danielsville, PA, 2011.
Violating copyright births bad karma---imagine a mad hacker you'll never see coming--nor catch going. Respect = my work is my work and your work is your work.
Everything posted here is my work, copyrighted, unless otherwise noted. Comments aside. Om
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For Kili 90.1 fm, Pine Ridge, SD, click the image below for The Voice of the Lakota Nation.
Kili 90.1 fm The voice of the Lakota Nation
Native America Calling ~ Native Voice
Native America Calling on Native Voice
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Pantry Goods
Cemetery Hill, Wounded Knee, Mugged by a Squirrel for a plum, Ed's driving, Art for Art's Sake, painting nudes, Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, KKFI, Crazy Horse, Reading, Marry, Critical Path, Political Missionary, White Wolves, teaser (1), We Shall Remain Shallow, Winter Fox Frank, Wes Studi, The Only Good Indian, Spotted Elk, naked woman centered, devotees (Crazy Horse), Blue Heron, Critical Path, An Adaptable Woman, and other plums ripening and Tanka Bars.
om mani padme hum jewel in the lotus wahupa qi prana universal life energy
