Category Archives: Uncategorized

We finally completed our planting today – for the time being (we plan to do a fall planting of peas and leafy greens). We still have a lot of cultivating to do all over in both gardens. Our back garden is full of plants from which we are harvesting seeds – spinach, lettuce, chard, and carrots. Today I harvested quite a few spinach seeds.

Here are photos:
Garden

I am going to be attending the National Green Party Convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma July 21 – 24. I am eager to put faces with names (from national discussion lists) and attend the workshops that are being offered. Tom and I are offering this workshop on the 21st:

The Facts of Nuclear Testing and Waste Transportation – It Affects Us All!

Many Utahns are all-too-painfully acquainted with the deadly legacy that decades of nuclear weapons testing left our nation:
Toxic and radioactive waste from nuclear weapons manufacturing
Deadly fallout from atmospheric and below-ground testing
A lingering mistrust of the government resulting from their assertions that testing would be safe.
Workshop participants will receive an overview via a multi-media presentation describing the “safety myths” of nuclear testing and radioactive waste storage and transportation which affects not only Utahns but everyone in our nation. Participants will learn what they and their State Green Parties can do to help in the effort to prevent renewed nuclear testing and place moratoriums on the transportation of nuclear waste.

We are fortunate to have the help of some local environmentalists who works on these issues full time. We will have a power point presentation, other visuals, and lots of handouts.

Other workshops we hope to be able to attend, aside from the daily plenary sessions:

Private Prisions workshop
Green Tempest Workshop
Campaign School
Reyes Anti-War Workshop
Right To Vote Act (speaker Asa Gordon)
Green Alliance Iraq workshop

This will be a wonderful opportunity to network and brainstorm with Greens from around the U.S.

I have created a website for a business I would like to start. It is called Sunflowers Now!

I never thought I’d be purchasing a car again (I haven’t had one for a couple of years), but Tom’s truck is dying and we need to travel about the country this summer. Flying didn’t appeal to us and I received a small inheritance from my recently deceased grandmother’s estate, so I decided to get a small used car with it. It is a 1999 Mitsubishi Mirage with 69,000 miles on it. I purchased it from a car rental company going out of business.

I still plan to take the bus, walk, and bike as much as I can. I really would have like to have something with which I could use biodiesel, but I couldn’t find one. Someday we won’t have a choice…. Until then, I will use a vehicle when I have to and try not to have one that has a lien on it.

Thanks, Grandma! I miss you….

My daughter Emily poses with my new car.

Well, the day finally arrived ~ Brian’s high school graduation. Here are a few photos from the event last night. We are all very proud of him.

I have heard that the school tv news program, “Channel One” is showing military ads every day in school.

Channel One has been around a long time. It automatically comes on and students are required to watch it. It is produced by the Pepsi Company.

If you have kids in middle or high school or know of any, call the school and ask if they show Channel One – Then loudly complain. This is not right.

More and more parents and schools are protesting the clause in the No Child Left Behind Act which states that schools must hand over all student records to military recruiters upon request. This hidden clause also states that parents can opt out by submitting a letter to their students’ school.

If schools refuse to comply with this provision, they lose all federal funding.

And now there is a movement to target middle school students by the military. Additionally, the Pepsi Company’s “Channel One” student news program that is shown in hundreds of schools across the nation, has military ads on it every day. Schools who subscribe to this program require their students to watch it.

The military industrial complex is desperate for recruits. It is becoming increasingly apparent that they will go to any length to recruit, including targeting young impressionable minds and especially those in poor populations.

I am involved with an organization that will be showing the Veterans for Peace film “Arlington West” on June 18th. We will have opt-out forms for parents and students to use to submit to their schools. This is just one way that our community can protest this provision in what is supposed to be an education act.