1/120

One one-hundred and twentieth is a realtionship. Is the same ratio as 44 feet is when compared to a mile. If you live in a climate where temperatures can rach 100 and also down to -20, the ratio is about the same as one degree of temperature would be compared to the whole range of possible temperatures you may experience n that location. Another way of thinking about this strange fraction is that it is a little less than 1%, about twenty percent less in fact. A handful of readers already know that I started a gofundme site late in the year and it has reached 1/120th of the goal! The project is to protect 80 acres of inholding, land completely surrounded by National Forest. Our local not-for-profit has reforested hundreds of acres already, but they were spread across ten counties and several dozen individual sites. This larger acrage will allow us to focus our efforts near the highest ppoint in Wisconsin and concentrate our ECO-Tours in a finite space so that people can more easily see the transformation, pretty much all at once. Over the last twenty years we have spent thousands of hours on logistics, making sure all of our needs woul dbe taken care of at hundreds of separate events. We have been able to plant over 60,000 native trees and millions more native perennial plants, but since they may be only a few acres, or perhaps even a site as small as a few hundred square feet, we know they are there, but it does not look like much when viewed by satellite. This 80 acre parcel will change that. target="_blank">

Now Or Never

How many times have we heard those words? I can think of dozens of times myself and oddly enough they were often the last words I heard before doing somthing pretty dumb actually. Get your driver's license they said, "It's now or never." I was twenty-five and my grandfather had never gotten his driver's license. I guess the people who cared about me most didn't want me relying on others for transport if I needed to move my body across the planet faster than walking, biking or busses might move me. I felt no compulsion to drive, no alacrity whatsoever. I had lived on the East Coast and had seen the genteel, efficient culture and lifestyle that often springs up around urban areas served by efficient transit. Walkable villages proximal to rail links, after generations of only having to have one car, can add up to tens of thousands, perhaps eventually hundreds of thousands of dollars, saved; plus time spent commuting can be infinitely more productive and rewarding than when just driving back and forth, moving your skin bag around.I have always figured that if people truly like the place they are, they won't feel th eneed to move about as much anyway. The irony of self-driving cars is they will continue to try to emulate mass transit, but they can never become as efficient or safe, because they are mixing it up on the regular streets, where accidents sometimes happen. This, combined with autonomous vehicles being small, you lose that shred of extra safety that comes from every other driver knowing, you don't want to hit a bus. You may be able to make self-driving cars not turn left into traffic, but one can never know another driver might do it to you. Another time these words were spoken was when the neighborhood kids had built a platform, high up in the largest tree on our block. There was a giant cable we had pulled out of the river that one of the crazy adults we knew attached to an even higher branch, so our "rope" swing was over sixty feet long and produced a huge swing arc. I'm not sure how, bu tsomeone managed to put a giant knot in th ebottom of the cable that even acted like a seat. Anyway, I climbed up to the top platform and the kids of the neighborhood gathered, one swung the cable to me. The idea was to hold on tight, let yourself fall off the platform and slide down thick plastic covered cable. Well, I just could not do it. I was th efat kid and the tiny knot of kids surrounding the rope swing had doubled and doubled again until I was sort-of the show. At least half the kids in the neighborhood thought I would chicken out. I probably thoguht I would too, but I knew it was safer than trying to climb back down the tree. The words were said,"It's now or never. Besides, you don't want the whole neighborhood to know you chickened out." Well, I leaned off and nothing happened I was suspended in mid air by my two hands clutching the cable and my underwear had gotten stuck on the head of a nail as I left the platform, so I was attached to the rope swing by me two arms and for a fat kid, that's scary enough, but my ass was nowhere near the wooden platform, so there was no way to go back. This may have been th efirst time in my life that time slowed down because what may have only been ten seconds seemed like half an hour. Those assembled were pointing and yelling, laughing and screaming. I saw my sister cover her eyes and knew that couldn't be good. One of the adults immediately started climbing up, bu tin th eend, the guy who chided me to "go!" stopped laughing and pointing long enough to release me, from the rear end and I came down fast, but safely. My hands burned from the friction with the great plastic sheath, but my face burned more from humiliation and disgust. No one enjoys being the butt of jokes, especially when it is because of somethnig so close to your butt! Nearly as often, though when I jumped off or got that driver's licnse, it was the start of something grand, somethnig that surpassed even my own expectations about what that decision was going to make in th erest of my life. Going to college was one of those now or never things. Making my first week long canoe trip and embarking on my Great Lakes Bicycle Trip all had that moment of fear and trepidation that comes from hearing thos ewords, so often paired with challenge and difficulties, most often unbidden. Who can know before we leap into the abyss what the future will bring? My family history is replete with stories like when we left The Coal Region of PA headed for Denver and the first day out the cooler got dumped and shorted out the main wiring harness of the car. It presented us a truly now or never choice. We would either make it back to Denver or not. That was the big question of the moment, but the repair had taken one of our three travel envelopes. We frequently travelled like that. We would add money to the envelopes equally, over a seriries of weeks or month, saving up for our trip. The envelopes were lovingly labeled Food, Fuel and Fun. The "Fun" envelope got it's contents removed, a full third of our budget for the whole trip evaporated on day one. The Sun had not even set yet and we expected to get to Iowa by nightfall. That was the start of a trip that re-introduced me to the first true love of my life. A friend from Middle School who is smart, beautiful and compassionate, exciting to be around, with high moral character and who had always been able to arouse my animal instincts. Had we not decided to go, as crazy as much of the rest of the trip was, my life would have never been the same. Sadly, I think it was me, not wanting to "now or never" something or other that led to our moving apart. All of this has been a convoluted preamble to NOW. Sometimes stories of old are not enough. They act as touchpoints, signposts or lighthouses, helping warn of the rocky shores and sandy shoals but sooner or later, we all need to leave the safety of shore and jump off, into the unknown. We need to do it before the echoes of the words "now or never" die out in our ears, we need to move! We can never plant the tree we needed to plant twenty years ago, we can only do this one in this moment. We cannot take back words not said, we can only offer what words we have now. It is impossible force opportunity to find a way back, when we find it is more conveinient for us or for us to bid opportunity wait unitl we actually feel ready. If those things were possible, we would all be famous and rich and living the life of Rilley. Strike while the iron is hot, change is gonna come, but only if we get with th eprogram and do our part. I promise, if you get caught up by the underwear, or are in over your head, I won't point and laugh, I will come to your aid. We can all see the predictions and trend lines. If we want to have seven generations revere and honor us, we have to do the same for them.

EcoTours

I never thought to offer this short video here. I will have a complete series of short videos about all six steps required to make and use biochar available soon. They are in the works as I write this and will be ready just before planting season begins.
When we formed ECO-Tours of Wisconsin, it was literally a dozen friends and we used annual tax returns to buy as many native trees as we could, planting them wherever we knew they would thrive. We even found out ways of getting free trees that I have pledged to keep to myself. After 60,000 our focus shifted. We got tired of hauling around soil and we were using so many plastic landscaping pots that I needed to have a lot of space for storage. At one point we had tree nurseries in five different people's back and side yards! The way we typically do our work now, at least for the trees is by seed harvesting and re-distribution which has reduced our carbon footprint per tree immensely and eliminates the stress on the seedlings of re-potting and planting. This simple step has freed up vast amounts of time and allowed us to do more with less, again saving orders of magnitue on time freeing us up to experiment with beneficial ground covers and more forbs, native perennial food and medicinal plants. We plant far more native pioneer species, because so many areas are so degraded that they have become too harsh for trees. In many areas that have lost virtually all of their organic matter, we have to first build soil, before we can ever hope to get trees to live. Instead of focusing one all the reasons this enjoyable process is needed, let me instead tell you about our results. There are, of course, intangibles, but in very real ways, there is plenty to document in the way of positive impacts. One of our first plant-ins, over three hundred trees were scattered across less than 2 acres. Now, they create a small block of fifty foot tall, extremely young mixed forest with conifers dominating. In addition to eliminating the cost of mowing twice each summer, which was the management scheme before our plant-in, it has both reduced summer cooling and winter heating costs, provided a buffer to road noise and made the area around the house more like an oasis. Although the tree block is well away from th ehouse, it still gives delicious afternoon shade and has eliminated a major drainage problem in the area. Another place that we had planted very in our history is a natural area that has since become a wildlife corridor. Baird's Creek Parkway is the current name. in our early days, we just guerilla gardened it with thousands of trees, not waiting for "official" protection that was to come years later. One day, at a plant in, as our group had settled down for a mid morning break, a bird landed on one of the trees that we had planted there, not a half-hour before, it perched there for fifteen or twenty seconds, long enough for everyone to see it, then it squirted some fertilizer near the bas eof the tree and flew off. Today, there is a mixed young forest there, again improving the lives of th epeople as well as th ewildlife of the area, the soil life has re-establise=hed itself and dozens of gallons of fuel are not burned to mow the area, again, the previous management of this area was heavy on th efossil energy use. We offer thorugh as many outlets as possible, opportunities to improve efficiency, save money and time, stack functions and maximize quality of life. for those who are specifically interested in biochar and the sequestration of carbon, please check out our gofundme page: https://gofund.me/52fa3b77 look down past the video, and scroll down to "older updates", click there and scroll down to the oldest, that is my slide share Powerpoint that I use for the classroom portion of our biochar classes. Anyone who gives at least fifty to the land purchase campaign can get up to two hours of consulting to go with the Powerpoint, or to help you accomplish the six steps in your, unique situation. I ask people to give what they can so that we can continue sharing our stories of success and inspiring others to be involved with rehabilitating our planet and her soils.

Desperate Pleas For Help

 After several trips through the most lily white rural communities, my quarantine partner said, I don't want to live around a bunch of people who think Deceitful Traitor is a viable option. I have begun to think of him as Dodger to the fourth power, meaning he's a tax, draft, truth and responsibility dodger. It helps to understand who thinks what. To morph "being smart enough to not pay taxes" into we should elect this clown is a heinous crime against humanity. He's a criminal and he is the head of a criminal enterprise, his fabricated "wealth", just an elaborate shell game meant to con the casual rube. Under investigation, the veneer cracks and peels and The Donald shows his hand.

His only weapons are to lie or point the finger at someone else, most often when he is guilty of whatever the transgression is, himself. The point is, we desperately need to find ways to help people across the gap, between accepting a racist liar and seeing the real facts about the boss in charge. People often cling to their hate, as James Baldwin wrote, because on some level, they know that as soon as they abandon it, they will have to experience pain.

When I see evidence of  support for this terrorist-coddling Gong Show Reject, I see it as a call for help, another reason that mental healthcare needs to be covered under the same, single payer healthcare system as our teeth, our hearing and our eyes. Folks, it is globally, time to put on our proverbial adult pants and get down to work. We can blame our parents forever for leaving us a steaming pile of shit, but it wastes time we need to be spending doing the things that work. When we broaden our perspective, it helps understand the depths to which our very communities have been hollowed out. Their only value now exists on paper and shifts dollars far, far away.

Blessings.

RBG

 My industry, the now defunct entertainment industry has known RGB since the advent of color tee vee. Sadly, we lost a Supreme Court Justice who has become known as just three letters, RBG. The most cutting insult, FDR, JFK and MLK are just a few more to refresh your memory. I have never heard of RMN as a replacement for Richard Millhouse Nixon, or either Bush distilled down to just three letters. A lifetime of challenges met and to be reduced to three letters, it is almost laughable if it were not so sad. The fascist regime that has always existed just below the surface in our nation. Interestingly, the Kluxes were reduced to three letters, bu tin their supposed "anonymity" they thought themselves absolved of their transgressions. Heck, come to think of it, they didn't even see themselves as transgressors, oppressors never do. One thing that remains very strong in our culture is the concept of, don't speak ill of the dead. In Ruth Bader Ginsburg's case that surely makes sense. She served as a beacon to hundreds of millions of womyn, letting them know that their educated and compassionate opinions actually counted as much as their male counterparts. Instead of using three colors that blend in our eyes, she shined the bright light of prudent truth on more decisions of substance than many of us confront in a lifetime. Her contribution to our nation cannot be overstated.

It is insane to allow a new Justice to be seated when Senator "Moscow" Mitch McConnell refused to hold a vote on President Obama's nomination. Our racist and fascist power brokers are in the desperate death throes and are grasping at anything they can to prop up their decrepit lies. The majority understand that "All men are created equal" meant something completely different nearly two hundred and fifty years ago. The oligarchs are only using the racist network that exists, the institutionalized racism to continue their fight against the impoverished.

When we look to the future, we don't need more people who like beer and throw fits sitting on our august bodies in halls of justice. We need more people who behave respectably and whose credentials and ethics are beyond reproach. The fact is, any valuable traits to have as a judge, the current Administration hates. They want opinionated idiots who bought their way through law school and have, for the most part avoided prosecution for deceitful fraud and tax or draft dodging. We have a current President who pardons war criminals, accuses the innocent and defends the guilty. We need a full Court system of honest Judges, people who believe in our nation and the Constitutional Rights that so many have fought and died for, not conspiracy theorists, gun fetishists or religious zealots. If we let the current idiot-in-charge pick the next Justice, it will be like inviting homegrown terrorists to inflict their demented holy war on all of us. 293 days Obama's Supreme Court Justice Nominee sat on Moscow Mitch's desk. Racist did all he could to stop the Black man from doing good for our nation, but now that we have a dyed in the wool, genocidal racist doing the nominating? Let 'er roll!

The early reports have four Republican Senators saying that they will not vote for a replacement until the new President is sworn in. At least a portion of our leaders exhibit some level of morality and ethics.

The fire will burn tonight in honor of RBG!

Good Trouble

 As far back as I can remember, People called me many things, a handful, outspoken, rambunctious, inquisitive. All of these names had some affect on my future behavior. Many people who become stagehands (ie theatrical technicians) have spent their life trying to bend the limits of various rules and social "norms". Not necessarily because we want to, but because creatives almost always test limits, check out what is going on in the bowels as well as center stage. Monitoring and taking delight in the subtle contributions we can make to the whole performance. Because we literally hide giant things in plain sight, we also learn a lot about perception. When I was a younger man, there was a "groundbreaking" study that found eye-witness testimony is often unreliable and extremely subjective. It seems the often, we see what we want to see. Looking at each moment as a challenge, every rule as an opportunity to express a creative sidling up to limits, makes life more bearable for those who are often made to follow regimented protocols each night, day after day, often for years on end.

Good Trouble lets you stand out amongst your peers. Quick wit, paired with deft hands on the levers and knobs of the industry's tools can make or break whether you get called back or not. When you help express an emotion, or are the cue for the audiences response, it is extremely heady. My first pro-peace action was handing out literature about the Vietnam War and talking to Green Bay citizens Downtown, by Prange's about how important it was to bring the soldiers home. I got in some Good trouble when I announced to the children of my neighborhood, at age four or five, that calling Fat Mary, Fat Mary was mean and that they needed to call her by her real name. I didn't realize how good the trouble was for many, many years. I knew that part of that girl was hurting, but I wasn't sure what it was, but her name could have been it. Sadly when she said, "What's wrong with that? It's what my Mom and Dad call me." my blood ran cold and I remember running home almost as if I was outside my body, hovering over myself.

Other times I got in good trouble, my voice quaked with emotion, when I spoke. I have held many a protest sign and walked many miles to call attention to crucial issues that have been put on hold for decades. When we lost the fight against the Rocky Flats nuclear reprocessing facility, whose radioactive plume can be seen here:

Even though we organized and gave dozens of presentations about what the potential risks were, we never really took our work to the Good Trouble level.

This top image shows the radioactive plume that left the site and continues to spread, nearly fifty years later. Just a reminder, these images are post seven-billion dollar Superfund clean up. The bottom map is from 2005 but, not to worry, the half life of plutonium is only 24,000 years. This second map was created from soil sampling, so the surface is contaminated and some decision-makers are pushing to develop even closer to the site than has already been done, moving more people into closer proximity to an invisible threat to their health.  

I have long felt the need to share more about my experiences, if anyone has questions about my experiences in Denver, or what I knew about Rocky Flats in the mid-Seventies, I would be happy to share more. If you are one of the people who saw the presentation, or are continuing to protest for healthier and more efficient technologies than the nuclear fallacy of fossil free energy, let me know, I would love to continue to have open discussions. Getting in Good Trouble requires that we continue to do what we can to spread truth instead of lies!

Beginning 90-day Challenge

 As we continue past second harvest and into winter's grasp, I am striking out, anew working to spread the knowledge our ancient ancestors taught one another before the advent of written language. I recently made a campaign device that helps spread the inner philosophy behind my campaign for Congress. This may not have happened without joining many others in their commitment to projects of their own. In my tradition of using as much obtanium, as possible, cast off items that were corporate throughput or made to eventually garbage that results from planned obsolescence. This is but a wrinkle in the fabric of the net that captures larger fish. Upon a Popsicle stick, perhaps the ultimate obtanium, (you can't have a Popsicle without it, but from the start it is doomed to be waste, just like the packaging.) I made a saddle, like a tent sign of paper and I made a re-useable business card for my campaign. People can pass them on, and on, and on. Since my platform has been the same since age seven, many truths have come to light. A large number of my posts are speaking to those issues, but upon this tiny note reads:Saladino 4 District 8 True Security Debt-free Education and Healthcare End Corporate Welfare!
The back side reads:the URL for this page and my phone number. I have stood on the front porches of several hundred thousand people across Northeast Wisconsin, talking about Environmental issues mostly but also, working on get out the vote campaigns or campaigns of local interest. Using an item that would normally be trash, but that has been wrought by human effort begins the process of catching those bigger fish. Instantly, the recipient can be informed of the source. You don't do that typically with business cards. I have made thousands by hand, but each one is a one off and it shows. All share the same messages. If they could each fit my platform, they would be at least the size of a postcard, but rather small print, but to understand it, you must read and understand the Earth Charter. 

The Earth Charter is a document that lays out the basic strategy to which we must all lean to create hope for the future being tenable for our species. I do not like gloom and doomers preaching so I won't either, but when we know the score, but refuse to admit time is running out on the clock, I scream FOUL! It is a crime against humanity to either throw up our hands and say, "We're fucked, it's gonna happen no matter what." especially when we know what works. We need to do everything we can to make the best of what we've got and in our world. We've got more of virtually everything than anyone who ever existed for most of human history had before. What we have today, all the world's knowledge at our fingertips, running water, fossil fueled slave machines, these are all new to humanity. Stretching back over nine thousand years ago, there were guys teaching others to grow twice as much produce from their soil, sequestering carbon and improving soil quality for millennea. Before the advent of written language, human beings taught one another how to do this. I teach the old ways, using modern technology.

                                                                    Campaign patches!

My three months, which two weeks has passed already, is turning into a bigger deal than I ever imagined. Not only did I commit to making ten kilos of char, but recording the process of all the steps required to make top quality biochar. With the intent to make a video series of short steps to take to get the best results. My motivation is that I have watched dozens of online biochar videos, spent dozens of hours watching the ways people try to teach about it, and in each one there were several things that were not covered, incompletely expliained or just glossed over. Potentially fatal flaws if someone has not yet understood the goal. My videos will showcase the need for understanding the idea of strength through diversity and that the best biochar fulfills the needs of the greatest number and more importantly the greatest variety, types and kinds of microbes. This in turn boosts the CEC of the soil, making nutrients and minerals available to plants, but also mediates and moderates extremes, which is essential in destabilized climates. This has implications depending on how many local sources of nutrients you can find, or produce onsite. Locally available technologies, feedstocks and nutrients are literally money in the bank. I want to get across the importance of emulating soil in as many ways as possible. 

A am putting together a team for getting the film done and my book is nearly ready to publish!