Okay, here are a few information items from the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance of South Dakota regarding their ongoing effort to stop uranium mining in the Black Hills by Powertech. Take note that donations of ANY amount are requested by the Clean Water Alliance in order to enable the hiring of expert witnesses concerning the dangers of uranium mining. There is a link to an expert example. Take note that Powertech (p.31) wants water for FREE. Now if anyone else is using water we pay for it. Why should a uranium mining company get water at no charge? Oh and NO accountability or responsibility for any environmental damages either. What do I know? Not much. But Lilias Jarding of CWA knows a thing or two:
Last Friday, we had the prehearing on Powertech’s application for two water permits and a ground water discharge permit (to spray waste water on the ground). The good news is that the actual hearing on the applications before the state Water Management Board will not occur the week of March 18. It will be postponed, which gives us more time to prepare.
However, hiring the experts we need for the hearings costs money — lots of money. Our experts will talk specifically about how Powertech’s proposed project would damage groundwater and the land. We have to have experts to oppose Powertech’s applications effectively. We know who we want to hire, and it will cost over $15,000. So we need both small and large donations to help us raise that money.
We also need general operating funds. Clean Water Alliance is an all-volunteer organization, so your donations go directly to work against uranium mining in the Black Hills region. Every bit helps. Please give what you can.
Please CLICK HERE TO DONATE and pass this message along to others who might be willing to help.
Your support is gratefully received.
For anyone who hasn’t seen them, here is the link to the comments by Dr. Robert Moran on the draft Supplemental Impact Statement prepared by Powertech. These are the type of comments we would like our experts to do for the water permits hearing. And this is why we are raising money —
The next Heartland Film Society screening will be “Flow” on Monday February 25, 2013. It will be at the Elks Theatre in Rapid City at 7 pm. Admission is $7.00. The screening is co-sponsored by the Black Hills Chapter of Dakota Rural Action. The film is about water and how important it is to protect it from corporations, both in the U.S. and internationally. It documents how local grassroots organizing can be effective. There will be a panel discussion afterwards with Debra White Plume, Bruce Ellison, and Becky Leas. They will be discussing the proposed uranium mining by Powertech in the Southern Black Hills.
Please come out and support this very important event. Bring a friend or three. Thank you very much. Clay and Mary Ellen Uptain and your Heartland Film Society Committee. http://heartlandfilm.wordpress.com/
*******
Greetings —
The next Clean Water Alliance meeting will be held on Saturday, March 2, at 10:00 a.m. We’ll be meeting at Seattle’s Best coffeeshop’s meeting room again, as the library is not available. The coffeeshop is located at the corner of 6th Street and St. Joseph Street — on the first floor of the Alex Johnson Hotel in downtown Rapid City.
Powertech to raise $1.5 million from secret “strategic” investors
Posted February 18, 2013
Once again, Powertech CEO Dick Clement has saved the Canadian penny stock company from bankruptcy by convincing “strategic” investors to buy up to 15 million shares for $0.10 each, according to a February 12 news release.
The unidentified strategic investors would purchase units consisting of one common share of Powertech and one share purchase warrant. One warrant entitles the investor to purchase one additional share for $0.20 for a period of three years.
The gross proceeds of the proposed private placement are only $1.5 million, but would allow Powertech to survive for another four months, assuming a cash burn rate of $400,000 per month.
Unlike financial investors who invest solely to realize a return on their investment, strategic investors are typically operating companies in the same or similar industries that seek to create synergies with their investments.
Strategic investors often expect to assume a degree of control over the investee company, and in many cases intend to acquire the company.
Since Powertech is in the midst of seeking multiple federal and state permits for the proposed Dewey-Burdock uranium mine, one would think that the disclosure of the potential future management of the company would be of interest to affected landowners, regulators, and investors.
But in typical fashion, Powertech has chosen to conceal the identities of the strategic investors.
Interestingly, Powertech has changed the description of the company that appears at the end of its news releases. After repeated challenges on this website to provide supporting evidence, Powertech has removed the following statement from its news releases:
“The Company’s key personnel have over 200 years of experience in the uranium industry throughout the United States, and have permitted more than a dozen in-situ operations for production.”
The February 12 news release includes the new language:
‘The Company’s key personnel have in-situ uranium experience throughout the United States and worldwide.”
Young Indigenous women are some of the most invisible and unrepresented people on Earth. That is one reason to read Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog, nowBrave Bird, with Richard Erdoes even though it was published in 1990. Another reason is that it won the American Book Award in 1991. Yet another reason is for the insight it provides into some of the tough issues young women on reservations continue to confront: violence, rape, alcoholism, drug abuse, racism, exploitation, poor education, grinding poverty. This is not a calm, quiet memoir of a certain time and place written by a woman looking back in nostalgia with some polite veneer of wisdom gained by mature hindsight. Lakota Woman offers the perspective of a very candid, blunt spoken, tough, and passionate young woman who makes no apologies for anything. This is a woman who now knows who she is, where she came from, and why. Part of her story includes giving birth to her first child during the siege at Wounded Knee in 1973 after refusing to leave in spite of the increasing danger. While Lakota Woman does not offer any in-depth analysis of the American Indian Movement, the Trail of Broken Treaties or the Native American Church, it does offer a no punches pulled, first person female perspective based on direct experiences with all of them– a young Lakota female perspective seldom encountered in the mainstream American culture.
I am a iyeska, a breed, that’s what the white kids used to call me. When I grew bigger they stopped calling me that, because it would get them a bloody nose. I am a small woman, not much over five feet tall, but I can hold my own in a fight, and in a free-for-all with honkies I can become rather ornery and do real damage. I have white blood in me. Often I have wished to be able to purge it out of me. As a young girl I used to look at myself in the mirror, trying to find a clue as to who and what I was. My face is very Indian, and so are my eyes and my hair, but my skin is very light. Always I waited for the summer, for the prairie sun, the Badlands sun, to tan me and make me into a real skin. (p.9)
Such are the words of Mary Brave Bird of the Brule Tribe from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. Consider the memoirs current teenaged women of Rosebud, Pine Ridge, Standing Rock and the Cheyenne River Reservations might share–if anyone dared put them into print. Lakota Woman might offend some, might make some very uncomfortable, and distress others. It certainly won’t bore anyone. It definitely offers a great deal to think about regarding women, culture, family, history, spirituality, politics, and values.
Maze of Injustice, the failure to protect Indigenous Women from sexual violence in the USA, PDF file of Amnesty International http://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/MazeOfInjustice.pdf Perhaps this report offers one explanation for the legistative difficulties faced by the VAWA. Why would non-Native men want to start allowing arrest and prosecution of the non-Native men who rape Indigenous women on reservations? No rocket science required.
Eco Watch featured David Lavallee’s very accessible film White Water, Black Gold and I could not resist sharing after viewing it online. It does more than bring the toxic waste of Canada’s Tar Sands into view because it also presents some clean green alternatives that are already being successfully utilized not just in Germany, but ironically in Canada as well. What are the rest of us waiting for? For the Big Oil Companies to milk out all the profits possible while creating waste toxic waste dumps that destroy fresh water all living things depend upon for life? We cannot drink oil. Oil cannot make food crops grow. Plants need water. No wheat crop means no bread.
Make no mistake that Big Oil and corporations like Monsanto do not comprehend the situation despite their public relations denial spins. They do indeed and they want to use it to serve their own ends. There are reasons that Monsanto wants to patent all seeds for their own profit. There are reasons some Americans are NOT allowed to “catch” rainwater in barrels for gardening. The reasons are profits for those who want to control all the natural resources that are basic to all forms of life. If ducks could pay taxes then they’d be taxed for swimming in ponds. Deer would be taxed for eating plants. Wolves would be taxed just for being alive. I suspect the predatory human population feels an innate threat from wolves who don’t care for domestication by humans as dogs do. Wolves don’t need or want us humans. I don’t wonder why not. Perhaps it’s their independence which has set off the curent war on their very existence in the states. Could be. Wolves don’t give a damn about the corporate human economy. They’re bound only by the laws of nature. Oh, come to think of it, so are humans. Because in the end–it will be natural law which decides the survival of our species. It’s about time we all came to terms with that reality. Denial will not change outcome.
Gee, it appears I’ve gotten off the Tar Sands water usage and energy alternatives track of White Water, Black Gold. It may appear so. But since everything is connected–and we are all ‘related’–then I haven’t really gone off track. I’ve just followed a stream of thought. Continuing downstream . . . .
What this boils down to is values. Yes, what do we value? Our lives? All living things? Clean air? Clean water? Oil? Gas? Our oil dependent modes of transportation? What matters most to each of us? Why should each of us consider such questions? Because we’re the ones who will either change our ways for the betterment of all living things or we won’t. Whatever the politicians and corporations do amounts to their choices. We are responsible for ours, what we think, what we do, what we say. Does the state of the Earth reflect our values or those of someone else? Positive change is possible. We can make it. We may have to work very hard for it though. What are we waiting for?
I think we need to do more than get the President of the United States to shut down the Keystone Pipeline. The Tar Sands in Canada need to be shut down. Big Oil needs to be shut down everywhere. It’s time for a healthy change.
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?
Quick and dirty is the way this book review post goes today.
Who wants a werewolf story?
Who wants a love story?
Who wants a horror story?
Who wants a lot of free verse?
Who wants a L.A. story?
Who wants a dog story?
Yes, indeed, Toby Barlow’s Sharp Teethserves up horror tacos filled with hot she wolf women, blonde surfer dudes, dogs galore, mystery men, several varieties of criminals and features some very sharp teeth indeed. Add a dash of the unexpected humor along the lines of bad boys playing bridge with blue haired old ladies and this razor blade of a novel via verses will have you wondering whose really howling at the moon rising above the waves lapping sandy beaches everywhere. Is there anything easier to read than free verse? I doubt it. If you’re searching for a guilty reading pleasure please go ahead and take a bite. Beware: Barlow’s verse is served bloody rare liberally seasoned with sex and violence.
Hmm, it’s Sensual Saturday and sometimes that means a musical posting. Tell you what, if you click the link to Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith there’s music at the other end via the video playing on the novel’s homepage. Music covered now, okay? Now for those of you searching for something sensual for your Saturday there’s this lovely little novel just stuffed full of stories of scopes large and small. Alexis M. Smith has inked a wickedly sweet little tome with an expanse far beyond its 174 pocket-sized pages. Some folks might be inclined to savor this book tidbit by tiny tidbit over a week’s time. Some other folks, like myself, may savor it whole in the course of a single day of word craft pleasure-seeking. While there’s nothing erotic about Smith’s Tin House Books publication, her prose elicits a certain sort of response some of us experience when stimulated by wordcraft so easy-going that one has no sense of any effort on the writer’s part at all. Glaciersreads like gently flowing stream water encountering a rapid or two along the way to keep you on your toes.
So what’s it about? Love, longing, the past, the future, Amsterdam, war, families, Portland, storytelling, Alaska and glaciers of several sorts. Smith writes about a young woman, a young man, a library, and a war. Yet another anti-war book of the most subtle yet most earnest kind.
Her eyes close, and she begins to drift. She thinks of these things: Spoke and the war; the oil in Alaska and the oil in the Middle East’ the glaciers melting’ and the water that connects them all. the glaciers will melt and the water will rise. Everything will be washed though. All the young lovers in their hats and party dresses. All the plane trees and the elms. All the tall houses. All the narrow brick lanes and city squares. Glaciers take the cities, cities take the architecture, the architecture takes the bodies. (p. 151)
Glaciers melt. Glaciers are melting. Keep in mind ever-expanding scopes.
Take note: I discovered this literary delight via World Book Night 2013–it’s one of the selections for the free books being given away. What a wonderful reading gift! http://www.us.worldbooknight.org/books/2013
The various thoughts, and Simon’s poem, posted concerning time in “a temporal tidbit’ are so delightful to me that I’m giving them a posting all their own. Thanks to everyone who visits my blogcasa–those who leave their cybertracks via comments and those who remain invisible. All are much appreciated.
“For us convinced physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion, albeit a persistent one.” ~Albert Einstein
What happens when we let go of the human construct of “time”?
Given how dependent people are upon their mobile devices to maintain contact with…a connecting in time behavior…such a suspension would no doubt create utter chaos for many.
Thought, linear thought, ceases As time ceases. Identity of self Ceases Story ceases Focus ceases. Human ceases But Perhaps not Awareness Perhaps not Amusement. Centre Becomes circumference Ever expanding Or eternal A flower Blooming On a prairie Containing galaxies. Time Being nothing But a measure Of space. Space, The time it takes Between The reaching of edges.
I’m counting on Einstein and the illusion of time – I like the idea that from birth to death is like a piece of string in time – always there in the space time continuum and able to be accessed at any point if given the right conditions; and maybe the strings of life can overlap and we can jump between strings and vice versa (or something like that – hahaha) – what I am sure of is that humans are wrong about most things.
Time is an illusion built by men to create the basis to a society of order in every possible way. But I do understand that a lot of people would get vertigo just by the thought of that.
Certainly chaos would follow, however, once everyone calmed down, we might find we are present in each moment more instead of deferring to some other point in the future.
Recently I shared with some friendlies that I was reading Nick Turse’s Kill Anything ThatMoves, The Real American War in Vietnam. So far only one friendly has responded to my friendly email and that was basically to share the information that they had already read some of the many books on the Vietnam War–hence, implying that they weren’t interested in reading another tome. So I thought, yes, why indeed would anyone whose has attempted to make some sense out of a seemingly senseless waste of lives want to read Turse’s latest book? Why? I believe the answer involves the Vietnamese Civilians all too often callously dismissed as Casualties of War. Damn this sounds familiar. Care to insert Afghanistan Casualties of War? Iraqi Casualties of War? Pick any war and couple it with casualties. Civilians as totally expendable human resources is not a new concept. It’s been around a very long time. By the way, if you think this doesn’t pertain to you in any way, shape or form, please do think again. Why? Because unless you are part of the military forces you are indeed a civilian to be treated with absolute contempt by those with no regard for the tenets of the Geneva Convention–that nice little old-fashioned little agreement about how to treat people during any modern war. Somehow I doubt the Geneva Convention agreement is part of either a drone’s programming or of the human charting its course. It certainly has no value to those who send soldiers to wars. Hmm. Might it be helpful to consider the military forces at work in Vietnam as precursors to current drones? Perhaps. But there are serious limitations to drones conducting military strikes as drones are incapable of rape and torture. At least I think they are –so far. Have no doubt that some computer programmer somewhere is hard at work solving these drone limitations. Too bad that creative brainpower isn’t invested in something like combating pollution.
Now back to Turse’s tome which is all about the standard operating procedure of murder, rape and torture of Vietnamese civilians whose “hearts and minds” were supposedly being saved from the communist menace. Why read this book?
In Vietnam, where the “lives” of the deceased are believed to be inextricably intertwined with those of the living, it is thought that those who die a “bad death” may be forced to suffer as “wandering ghosts,” trapped in a limbo between our world and the land of the dead. In this shadow land, they forever reexperience the violence that ended their lives, unable to attain peace until the living truly acknowledge them and the fate they suffered.3 The idea of such wandering ghosts is an unfamiliar one for most Americans, but we should not be too quick to dismiss it. The crimes committed in American’s name in Vietnam were our “bad death,” and they have never been adequately faced. As a result, they continue to haunt our society in profound and complex ways. (p. 261)
Turse makes the case that it’s high time Americans quit turning a blind eye to the dark side of our history in war, politics and business. It’s time we all took a long hard straight on look at the military industrial complex that strives to rule the world with an iron fist. With knowledge, however nasty and unpleasant it may be, comes power. There’s a very important war emerging in the world involving everyone on the Earth. It helps to know one’s enemy. The enemy has left quite a few revealing footprints. Some of them lay in the history of the war waged on the children, women and men of Vietnam. There are older footprints, newer ones and ones currently underway. What will it take for “us” to change how we view casualties of war–and war itself? What will it take for “us” to refuse to play the game of murder, rape, torture of our fellow human beings just because some power-hungry egomaniacs demand we play? Don’t forget “we” are all totally expendable–our sons, husbands, wives, daughters, mothers, fathers, all our relations are absolutely of no account in the war games.
So yes, read Nick Turse’s book — and learn why the Winter Soldiers threw their medals at Congress. It’s not a fun read. It’s not enjoyable. It’s not a “feel good” book. It is an important book.
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slpmartin said,
January 21, 2013 at 8:55 pm ·
Given how dependent people are upon their mobile devices to maintain contact with…a connecting in time behavior…such a suspension would no doubt create utter chaos for many.
simonhlilly said,
January 21, 2013 at 10:33 pm ·
Thought, linear thought, ceases As time ceases. Identity of self Ceases Story ceases Focus ceases. Human ceases But Perhaps not Awareness Perhaps not Amusement. Centre Becomes circumference Ever expanding Or eternal A flower Blooming On a prairie Containing galaxies. Time Being nothing But a measure Of space. Space, The time it takes Between The reaching of edges.
Gabrielle Bryden said,
January 23, 2013 at 4:33 am ·
I’m counting on Einstein and the illusion of time
– I like the idea that from birth to death is like a piece of string in time – always there in the space time continuum and able to be accessed at any point if given the right conditions; and maybe the strings of life can overlap and we can jump between strings and vice versa (or something like that – hahaha) – what I am sure of is that humans are wrong about most things.
labellestudio said,
January 23, 2013 at 10:09 am ·
Time is an illusion built by men to create the basis to a society of order in every possible way. But I do understand that a lot of people would get vertigo just by the thought of that.
roos said,
January 23, 2013 at 7:51 pm ·
Freedom; eat when you feel hungry, sleep when tired, work when you are full of energy or inspiration, no more dead-line, no more burn-out.
Brad said,
January 24, 2013 at 7:39 am ·
What happens when we let go of the human construct of “time”? According to Einstein, everything happens at once.
artistatexit0 said,
January 28, 2013 at 5:06 pm ·
Certainly chaos would follow, however, once everyone calmed down, we might find we are present in each moment more instead of deferring to some other point in the future.