Reading Old Letters

I typically take a day every so often to re-read letters that I have either written or received, not as a way to reminisce, but to see if I can remember what people have meant to me over the years. It feels to me like it helps to see things in a different light, while appreciating the "glow" of those earlier realizations...the things I had valued and stood for. Since the age of seven I have kept letters that I thought were important, most of which, although tattered, have vital clues about who I truly am. In the future, these words may stand, but when I was a child, the written word, especially the hand-written word, seemed more than likely transient. I really truly thought, in 1969, that I would not live past thirty, so in essence I have had a whole extra lifetime so far, so to forget how much value I placed on issues and causes that I stood up for.

Now, like Bernie Sanders, I stand for the very same things I did when I first became aware.  Peace, love, justice and freedom. I am old enough to remember when the peace dividend, that was supposed to be reaped by ending the Cold War evaporated into four terrible "military" decisions. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the F-35 program and next-gen nukes, have cost every man, woman and child $30K. Those dollars invested in education and health care could have raised a generation smart enough to compete on the world market for the next generation of innovation and intellectual capacities. Who better to take on the science of the future, but a generation of young scientists. Computers and robotics continue to push employment of humans out of the workforce...when will the benefits of that be redistributed to "the masses"?

There is no mother-father god but by our steps, made by our feet, the work of our hands, our hearts. Our health is the result of how well we treat the land, so helping life to thrive in our immediate environment is crucial. What space would not be enhanced by having healthy soil and plants around? We call acting like animals act all the time, grace, only humans over think what their purpose is. Imagine how neurotic a rabbit would become if it just feared the unknown all the time, or worried about the future! Be Here Now, is the only choice. There are plenty of books written on the power of now, but perhaps taking the time to read them we find, yet another way to avoid our calling!

Letters from as far back as this little boy, were insightful and clear, almost unnervingly so. Still speaking truth to power, being a compassionate, kind humanitarian above all else.

Stand, but do not stand still!

Putting Out The Digital Welcome Mat

I have seen the writing on the wall for quite some time now. The fascist state that the U.S. has become seems not to be the sort of place world travelers want to spend their money. In spite of this, I am reminding folks both in and out of the U.S. that the hospitality we offer at our Air B'n'B is still the same as it ever was. Our guests are still planning trips to the U.S. because, in part they know we are real people, not corporate welfare recipients who probably side with the corporate state. Even though you may not like our leadership, there is still a vast majority who want nothing to do with the majority of members in Congress or the Administration. those seats have either been purchased outright, stolen from a generation of disenfranchised voters, or been won by cheating, gross redistribution of power through illegal redistricting or any number of hacks on out polling systems. a few nights ago, the major news outlets finally did a report on how unpopular a destination we (the U. S. of A.) have become. The only nation actually increasing tourism to the U.S. is Russia. The rest of the world is unified in just saying, No." to U.S. travel. Early conservative estimates in NYC (New York City) alone are that over 300,000 less visitors will come to their destination and with them not coming, the hundreds of millions of dollars those guests would have spent will stay away as well.

Our guests know we are real people, fighting the good fight to keep our nation free. Ours will come anyway and buy local products. they will revel in the ecology and geology and natural history of the western Great Lakes. Many will help us plant trees. we offer them blessings, abundance along their way and the knowledge that they are helping the next generation of those who practice permaculture and reward community upon community, upon community. Just the dozens of ECO-Tours we have been able to do in the backyard, managed for permaculture, has taught more to our guests, than I have ever seen presented in major media outlets. Person to person, respecting the fact that experiences are always worth far more than things, we teach and reaffirm what we all know, if we take the time to pay attention.

I write about unintended consequences of bad decisions almost as much as I write about solutions to imaginary problems, but my real concern is to share solutions to the very real issues of our day. This one will take a bit of time to figure out. I myself don't want to spend a single penny supporting the cut-throat commercial sector or the government which has been installed by the oligarchy. The warmongers have found a way to dupe the majority of ignorant people in our nation and just fix the numbers enough, in the right places to get their boy elected, now we are having to deal with our social safety nets, our ecological regulations and what is left of our educational system destroyed. We also seem to be required to deal with these things on our own. Apart from revolution, some feel there is no hope. As I recall, hope was the last thing that escaped into the world from Pandora's box! I'm not even sure if it is to be held out as a viable option in the world today. everything else in the box has brought woe and strife. If the founders of our nation were alive today, they would definitely see that we are experiencing taxation without representation, just as they were, however, there are just enough people left in the middle class, ruled by their own debt and cushy lifestyles to prevent that.

The only kind of revolution that can come from the poor is one of conscience.

Instead of a war machine crushing the rest of our economy, what we need is for the majority to continue to eke out enough of a living that we can continue to share our hospitality with one another and the few people of the world that are willing to come visit. Part of the code of every major world religion is to be graciously hospitable to our neighbors. That brings me to my primary message, that is, every good thing that Air B'n'B represents for the traveler. First and foremost, when you stay at an Air B'n'B, the majority of your stay will be in a relaxed atmosphere, with real-life hosts who respect your wishes and who want you to get the biggest bang from your travel dollar. When we began as hosts, we thought there would be some benefits from the experience, but we never imagined how luck we would be. Getting to hear stories and meet people from around the world has enriched our lives in ways that money never could.

These links will take you to descriptions and reviews of our rental units.
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/4015085?guests=1&adults=1&children=0&infants=0&s=Qddoz9w1
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/11567882?guests=1&adults=1&children=0&infants=0&s=Qddoz9w1

We also have options that include more or less involvement with your stay. As hosts, we want to make your time in Green Bay as wonderful as possible, so if you have special needs in your diet, we could shop for you and stock the fridge, or if you are interested in hiking, biking or other outdoor activities, we can guide or assist you in finding waterfall hikes, fishing opportunities, canoe trips or other diversions during your stay. If you want to come for a poetry retreat, a class in gardening or to learn how to make and use biochar, this is the place to stay! We have managed the yards at our rental and home right across the street, for permaculture and most seasons of the year we could give tours of our landscape/food forest. We have some snowshoes for those who might like to try their hand at that, canoes, recumbent and regular bikes, great trails right across the street, basketball and tennis courts nearby, etc. We also offer folks the privacy of being right across the street at our home, so we can be as hands off, or as involved as our guests wish. One of our next major purchases will be a cover for our tipi, which weathered away after being up for a decade (we got it when it was twenty years old to begin with) Yes, my first tipi was a used one! (it was all I could afford)

Humbly we offer what we can to make our guests as comfortable as possible.

Sagarmatha (Mt. Everest) to the Marianas Trench

I saw a great visual aid for understanding just how important the topsoil of our planet is. Let me thank the filmmaker of One Man, One Cow, One Planet, for showing this very exercise to help understand the Earth and her biosphere. In this example, or mind exercise if you prefer, it helps to understand that an apple when representing the Earth, has a skin about as thick as the zone within all life flourishes. The apple skin is actually true to scale as if it were to represent the thickness of a zone, it represents the distance between the top of the atmosphere, where life can live, around the height of Mt. Everest 8,848m (about 29K feet); to the deepest point in the ocean, nearly 11,000m (36Kfeet) below the sea level the Challenger Deep (part of the Marianas Trench). This becomes important later on, when the end of the example comes up. Keep in mind that within this thickness, all life we know of exists. Soil thickness within that tiny sliver of life is rarely more than a few feet deep, out of that peel of the apple nearly twelve miles thick. 20,000m (65Kfeet) in a few places soils are mere inches thick and places where chemical agriculture has predominated, the humus is nearly non-existent, leading to bankrupt soils that can only grow crops with massive chemical inputs.

This ECO-Tour of the mind requires us to imagine the Earth as an apple.

 Concentrate on how much of the apple goes away. These portions are unavoidable physical facts.

 First, cut it in quarters, eat three, representing world oceans. It is unavailable for crop production.

 That last quarter cut in half, eat one it represents mountains, desert and ice; again non-arable land.

 The last 1/8, cut into four parts, eat three, they represent areas too wet or too dry for crops, rocky areas, and places too heavily forested or urban to be farmed. All of these are non-arable as well.

 So, this 1/32 represents the portion of the planet we need to focus on. But first, cut off the peel...

Representing our nearly twelve mile thick biosphere, soils might max-out at just a few feet, thick; the area we need to focus on is even smaller than the peel can represent. The actual part we need to focus on is probably only as thick as a single water molecule within this tiny slice of apple. Biodynamic agriculture and using biochar actually build soils long term into healthy productive land. Besides healthy food, the biochar helps reduce irrigation protecting water resources as well. this is the sort of revolution we need to turn the tables on the petrochemical industries. We typically only have to build enough soil for healthy root systems in our plants, and we can sustain life, generate income for communities and pass along the information, genetic and otherwise for sustained yields throughout the ages. Nature can take a hundred years to generate a single inch of soil. On my land I built three to five inches in a single year. Creating lush abundance is not difficult, anyone can learn the techniques, it also instills an immense feeling of pride when you can stand back, look at a trouble free, fecund acreage and know it is taking care of itself and you because it has been provided everything it needs.

Open Letter to U.S. Congress

To whom it is supposed to concern.

I would like to welcome you back from your vacation and point out the fact that the last session of Congress spent less time, than any in recent memory, in Washington. This session has been scheduled to spend even less time doing the work of governing (repesenting We the People) and allowing you even more time to raise funds, so it will be even more important to try to be effective while you are in D.C. Please understand that your opinions and votes matter, perhaps more than you know.

Regarding HB 69, Ending Wildlife Protections. Wildlife is the closest thing we have to a canary in a coal mine. The species that are threatened by habitat loss, human assault and ecological poisoning frequently indicate the health and quality of the environment. Scientists have known this for over a hundred years. The protections that we have created since the early seventies have led to several come backs of indicator species and it is irresponsible to neglect the care of the planet for short term benefit. Fattening your campaign coffers at the expense of the natural environment is not only short sighted but dangerous for humanity generally and the survival of our species as well.

HB 83 Sanctions against Sanctuary Cities. Under the well-established rule of law, any law broken to stop the commission of a greater crime is defensible. The Necessity Defense has been repeatedly used to protect otherwise law abiding individuals when they take the heroic act of preventing even more heinous crimes from being committed. The general public has seen the results of taking children from their parents, punishing those who are gainfully employed and actively in pursuit of the "American Dream". The American people want nothing to do with bringing the pain and dislocation punitive measures have on families or those who have been living among us and abiding by our laws, in some cases for decades. Sanctuary cities are a form of local control that must be afforded the population. Cracking down on municipalities that feel the moral obligation to help their neighbors can only have dire consequences.

HB 147 Criminalizing Abortion is not only historically proven to be unconstitutional, but ignores the fact that a large number of abortions have been prevented through education, the removal of the stigma placed on unwed mothers and the greater availability of birth control services. I was the first in my family to survive illegal abortion. The amount of suffering and negative impact on womyn's health caused by making this surgical procedure illegal is immeasurable. Although not a single person I have ever met is pro-abortion, the implications of removing choice from any person regarding their health and welfare is beyond the reach of government.

This bill is also tied, wrongly so, to HB 354 Ending funding of Planned Parenthood. Womyn's health services need to be available and free of charge, especially for those who are living in rural areas, poor or poorly educated because Planned Parenthood has helped to prevent far more abortions than they have ever facilitated. The only negative that I have personally witnessed within their organization is the siege mentality of those who work there because they are continuously under assault from so-called X-tian terrorists. I would like you to introduce, or support, legislation that includes any crime against Planned Parenthood in the category of hate crime. Those who oppose the provision of low-cost and free health services and education (the vast majority of work that this organization does) are using their personal, often religious, beliefs as a tool for violence and hate. These are the kinds of crimes are the most heinous and inhumane.

HB 370 Repealing the ACA (Affordable Care Act) will throw tens of millions of Americans back into the status of being uninsured. I have spent my entire life uninsured, except for workplace injuries and at nearly fifty five years old have finally gotten health care coverage for the first time through the ACA. Our family of two would have to pay over thirteen hundred dollars per month to receive health care coverage without the ACA. That is more than we pay for housing and food combined! I resent the fact that we do not yet have Single Payer coverage. It was an embarrassment when the Clinton Administration tried to reform health care and if we had gotten single payer back then, trillions of dollars of unnecessary cost increases could have been avoided. As much as I dislike the fact that the ACA amounts to nothing more than corporate welfare for insurance companies, until we have a plan to implement single payer, it is perhaps the best we can hope for in that it helps people receive care that otherwise could not afford it.

HB 610 Increasing the availability of school vouchers has been proven to not only reduce the performance of students on standardized tests, but increase the costs of education generally. We need to face the facts. This legislation is designed to further undermine the educational system. Many want the public schools to fail so they can have a good reason to only fund private schools. The fact that we allow federal dollars to flow to institutions indoctrinating students into a particular religions is a violation of Constitutional protections that prohibit mingling of church functions and state functions. As a taxpayer, I resent being made to pay for private schools that not only are allowed to pick and choose their students, but to push particular agendas, especially if they are either intellectually inept, unscientific or outright lies.

HB 785 The National Right to Work takes the lowest form of attack on the American family. Trade unions have brought us so many benefits that it would be impossible to enumerate them here. Those who study trade unions find that the highest standards of living we Americans have ever enjoyed were during the time when the highest number of us were represented by trade unions. Pushing to make us all wage slaves, exploited by our owners, in constant competition to be willing to work the hardest for the least wages ignores the fact that people who travel around the country absolutely hate having to work with people in right to work states. Because most just don't care to do an honest day's labor because they know full well that they will not be earning an honest day's wage.

In reference to HB 808 Sanctions against Iran, our last President got verifiable agreements with the nation of Iran. Reneging on those diplomatic advances only proves to the world that our word means nothing. Imposing sanctions on a nation that has only recently seen the light, so to speak, is counterproductive in the extreme. Nuclear proliferation needs to be of the highest priority and trying to punish nations to keep them from doing the right thing only assures that they will make poor choices in the future. The American people are beloved by the people of Iran, they are cosmopolitan, well-educated and believe it or not, in favor of a nuclear free nation. When our government acts as if their nation is a rogue state, it only proves that the people we trust with making laws are out of touch with both history and current reality. Far too much effort has been made in reclaiming the hearts and minds of the people of Iran to throw away for a wrong-headed belief that they are somehow enemies of our nation.

HB 861 Elimination of the EPA. When Richard M. Nixon created the EPA and signed the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts, it was because of massive public outcry. We the people do not want  a return to pre-1970 environmental conditions and this bill would force that upon our nation. I live along a river that had floating mats of algae and fecal waste when I was a child. My home would be worth less than half what it is today if those conditions returned. The health of hundreds of millions would be threatened by the elimination of EPA. I am over fifty years old and have seen that every time we attempt to reduce pollution, jobs are created. Additionally, as we create a more habitable planet and our standards of living increase. The lies being told in an attempt to reduce regulations on corporations undermine our health welfare and quality of life.

Finally, HB 899 calling for the elimination of the Department of Education is one of the saddest aspects of the current Congress. Codifying ignorance may seem like a good idea to people who do not think, or prefer not to be questioned, but it is both wrong-headed and deceitful to millions of young people coming up at this time. When I was young, I thought that getting federal dollars out of education was a good idea until I began to understand how parochial education would become. Having basic national standards is not only good but essential when we have a mobile society that seeks upward mobility. Allowing regions or individual states to educate their children in ways that undermine their ability to perform in other parts of the country is short-sighted and immoral. Even with federal oversight and standards, there is still difference between the various states that allows some students to fall through the cracks. I know because I moved around a lot as a school-aged child. In the states and regions that want to opt out of requirements imposed by the federal government, they should be allowed to pay for their own alternative methods or ideas about what education could or should look like, but raising the next generation to think, study data critically and to express themselves so that others can understand them is too important not to warrant federal involvement.

I do not expect a response to this letter, but I will be watching your voting record to understand how you personally feel about these issues.

May you always be guided by good conscience and compassion,
Tony C. Saladino

The Long View

They say that all truth passes through three stages. First, it is categorically denied, then questioned and finally it is accepted as fact. The situation we are probably most familiar with is when there is a death. The initial response is "No!" Then, we are asked, "How did it happen?" Later still the very same person tells someone else. This has always been the way truth works. Sadly, each and every one of us has got to confront truth anew. Lies, on the other hand are far too often formulated to bypass this process. People accept them as fact without question because of several interesting facets. Lies are a amorphous group of suppositions, ad hoc "solutions" to non-existing problems and reflections of other lies that have come before them.

Like the theme from Billy Jack points out, the truth cannot be found without asking the right questions or having the resources to know what is ultimately of value or makes sense. The greatest treasures can be squandered if we don't know how to share our abundance with others.  Islamic cultures are some of the greatest hosts, like the hill people in the song, One Tin Soldier (the theme from Billy Jack) "With our Brothers, we will share, all the secrets of our mountain, all the riches buried there." means more than just coin.

It is time for each and every American to ask themselves serious questions about who we want to appear to be on the world stage. True leaders of a free world would never squander their wealth in hopelessly fighting, but rather finding a common path to abundance for all. Our nation epitomizes the shell game of capitalism, the injustice of oligarchy.  Would not the entire world benefit if we changed our stance to one of good hosts? Perhaps as honored guests around the world, we could learn to ask the right questions.

This link will take you to an advertisement, and then the song of which I speak. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh-JoW_8qw0