A Mandan-Hidatsa Elder and Civilian Warrior Speaks of Fracking

Today is Veteran’s Day.  Today we honor people who have placed their lives on the line to recover peace. Per Capita, more Native Americans serve in the U.S. military than any other ethnic group.  In recent data out of the Department of Defense (2010) the contrast shows up in the fact that while Native Americans make up 1.4% of the total U.S. population, they compose 1.7% of the country’s military.  Over 20%… Read More

Fracking — Any Hope of Listening Here?

NOTE:  Here’s a brief statement by a conservation writer and a response from a person with another opinion.  Both are residents of the same area of Montana.  My question to myself – to all of us – is how can these two people listen to one another?  How can they be in conversation toward some level of understanding – even action?  Is it possible? And before I leave you to read their… Read More

Unlikely Connection – Natural Kindness

On Wednesday of last week I heard a story.  It was a story of a little boy, a four-year-old skipping and playing and laughing because he had completed two chemo-therapy treatments and for the first time in almost as long as he could remember, he didn’t feel icky.  He felt great!  Despite his cancer, and almost as if he’d forgotten he had it, he wanted to jump and run and swing with… Read More

On the Road in Omaha

Yesterday I drove through rain at the end of 8 hours on the highway.  I drove I-80W again — through what this time I learned is the National Silos and Smokestacks Historic Area. I hadn’t noticed this three years ago and found myself tweeting ( a behavior I still can’t quite square with my sense of self), “Who knew?” Beyond the rain was Council Bluffs, Iowa and a family of four —… Read More

Gearing up for the Last Leg – 100 VOICES 2012 Road Trip

I’ve been on a rest stop 9000 miles down the road since March 3.  Whitewater, Wisconsin – a rural community between Milwaukee and Madison where the Sweet Spot Coffee Shoppe greets the morning; farms, families, schools, businesses (conventional and cyber) and a university fill the day; and the newly opened Black Sheep Restaurant brings culinary art to the evening.    In the two turns of winter to spring that I’ve spent here (last… Read More

March 4th has it all over Super Tuesday

I drove into Cincinnati from Manhattan.  How many times will I be able to say that?  Not many. And it was no minor feat.  I’m guessing this is not the least bit surprising to any of you.  Still, we say these things out loud to one another – partly as a request for validation – a “wow” that fits with the relative enormity of the accomplishment.  The vast majority of Americans don’t… Read More

EX:Change Gift Idea — 100 VOICES

Listen to the voices of your neighbors.  One hundred voices from across the U.S.  All talking about change.  All speaking their dreams. Give the book to yourself, to friends or family.  Join us in the EX:Change as it continues to offer its invitation to all of us — Listen to each other.  See what is there in those with whom you think you have nothing in common.  See what is there in… Read More

March Forth!

I’m not sure the first time I realized this day, March 4, is the only day of the year that doubles as a poem.  Poetry is, by nature an illusive combination of feeling and fact.  It is mysterious, powerfully so.  It is anchored in words, also pretty imprecise when it comes down to it.  There is certainly reality in it; otherwise poetry would never catch our attention at all, but it’s bigger… Read More

Change and Topography

Last year by this date, the EX:Change project had taken me, via Mini Cooper, across about 5000 miles.  That’s a lot a lot of miles…and I was only half way. Already and more times than I can begin to recount, I’d been swept into that American road trip bonus:  The mix of surprise and awe at another unfolding of landscape – even the stretches I’d seen so many times before.  The land of this country… Read More

Two Things

2-24-2009 A Starbucks near Jamaica Drive, Jackson, MS In Atoka, OK unleaded plus is selling for $1.89 a gallon. A bit farther down the road in Savanna, OK there’s an exit off OK65 for the US Army Ammunition Plant, followed immediately by an exit for Indian Nation Turnpike. In Savanna, I pass the John Deer place. It’s on the same side of the road as Country Quilts. By the time I get to McAlester,… Read More