NASA Image of the Day

Thursday, August 30, 2018

PRIORITIES - the how, when's and why's.......

Well, a few of you might be thinking....."Dawn, I have not seen your campaign signs up yet."

To be quite honest, before what I am about to tell you, I thought long and hard about the usefulness, viability, and appropriateness, green-wise, of signs. I wasn't totally convinced I was going to get any, and, if so, only a select number of them, and then..............a test of priorities:

1. As often happens just after you commit to something financially and timewise.....my car suddenly threatened to explode on my way home from picking up a new computer for work, in order to replace the harddrive that was, as one gentleman I work with described with gentle pith, "totally fried." In case you did not know, I work fulltime from home, on quite a complicated computer program, as a Customer Care Specialist, booking hotel rooms worldwide, for Marriott Hotels. I have been with the company - an amazing, inspiring, pioneering "helps me make miracles happen" kind of company - since 2005. As part of a pioneer project which I can only describe as my childhood dream of living with the Jetson Family (and no, not necessarily Rosie the robot maid...wink...or Astro the dog), they made the dream of living in a rural area and making a living happen, for me, for the last three years. It has not been without its hiccups - we are still going through technological stepping stones, in the midst of the biggest ever merger with Starwood Hotels - but after my husband broke his back two years ago, had it not been for them and the ability to work swing shifts as well as caring for my spouse and two dogs, I would probably have either lost my house, or my husband - or both, with the kind of schedule I had to keep in order to meet my responsibilities and have him at home. I cannot describe to you what it is to feel like you are in space, running up and down the stairs to your office, only escaping for needed supplies once every few weeks, struggling to encourage yourself, make all of those payments......and work just one more hour of overtime to make that payment. I should state upfront that I do not intend to leave my position with Marriott, only offset my total focus and dedication, by including my community in my normal hours of work, as I did in a volunteer capacity, and have done, since my early 20's. I am able to work between 20 and 80 hours a week, depending upon available shifts, at my position, and this flexibility, along with the encouragement from my employer, means changing things for the better in one's community is a huge part of "Spirit to Serve" - our company ethos. Company ethos? you say....you bet. I work for a company who really believes it - and who inspires us to do the same, top to bottom. This is what they call "empowerment."It works....and so do I. Ask them for a little record of that, if you would like some stats. I'm quite sure they will be only too willing to share those numbers with you.   My average work week is 65 hours, week in, week out. 

Expense total: just shy of $2,000.00 However, it should last me another ten years, what with the almost total rebuild, counting this repair. Thank you, in retrospect, to the deer I hit which caused the intial damage to my car. I think we now have pretty much rebuilt the Eggmobile. I trust you will all excuse the personal artistic license, paint job wise, which is more a relief than anything else, to be quite honest....plus, you know it's me. Isn't that comforting? "The Bird in the Eggmobile." Seems appropriate.

2. Over six months, starting last October, we paid off a brand new roof.....to the tune of (deep intake of breath, here)....$10,000.00. And yes, I worked double shifts for the last three months so we could hand him one last cheque for $3,000.00...no plastic for these jobs. I remember I slept for two solid days afterwards, and did not answer the phone at all.  But....I did it.

3. Brand new furnace. This one's hubby's baby, but....it just shows, along with our paid-off mortgage, somewhat of a sense of community, investment-wise, along with the approximately $30,000 I have spent in phone bills since moving to Inwood in 1995, and becoming a member of the Co-op, even while I was in Korea....

And my car might not be brand-new, but, just like my hub's....it's mine.

But....I have said all that, to say all this: I had to make a choice:

1. Fix my car, so I could ensure mobility- Egg mobility.
2. Pay our property taxes before engaging in anything "extra."
3. Order signs.

So, what did I do?

1. Fixed the car.
2. Paid the property taxes for the whole term, not just August, just in case. We are paid up till January, and I have an opportunity to work some serious overtime between now and Christmas...but the important things are paid.

...and....lastly.....yesterday I caved, and ordered some signs....and some other neat stuff I am going to enjoy giving to people, frankly.......so....

.......what was important? You. Your kids. My responsibilities.

Get the picture?

Pretty pictures aside......I'm thinking this might bode well for the future...what do you think?

Chances are, if I feel this way NOW.....I'll feel this way TWO MONTHS FROM NOW.

Stay tuned: this week it's "Part 2: Getting to know your Mayoral Candidate."

I want you to know more about me. Saves time, when you talk about things that are important. And clearly there are much important things than telling you about me....but you should know it all beforehand, anyway. So....let's have a little fun doing that, shall we? 

Later, y'all!

...and don't forget to practice the "Chickeneers" Song, whenever you feel a little blue....grin. It worked for me!

Monday, August 27, 2018

Thought for the Day - "What are you Looking for?'

The extent of suspicion rampant, regarding local, and politics in general, really drew me up short the other day, when a woman walked past me, muttering, "You're not a farmer." I looked around. She could only have meant me.

I didn't get a chance to respond, earnestly, and with intent, to that surly mutter, so here goes:

You're not looking for a farmer. You're looking for a Mayor. That would be me.

....although I do know where you can find yourself some mighty fine farmers, if you need any....I'm thinking the mayor might do well to be able to listen to their thoughts and considerations, problems and ideas.....just like you do, day in, and day out......don't think I haven't been paying attention. 

...ah....kind of perfect, wouldn't you say? Wink. 

Hopefully we'll do more than grab at each other's words, flung into space, next time.

In fact, I've  done my best to set some wheels in motion that way, just today....tune in for more, in the very near future!

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Thoughts on Pots - and "The Experience of Life"

GOD.   ....No, don't stop reading. Be Brave. Keep going. Resist eye rolling. THERE. You did it!

 Seriously, though....think about how people react to that word, now: God.

I believe we are given opportunities, every day, for renewal, growth, and reconsideration in our lives. Some call it a Second Chance. Some call it Thoughtful Thinking. I call it giving in to the Spirit of Hope and Possibility, despite all odds, and all agendas which are quite content and complacent about  the idea of our demise as a species. And I have never been more serious about that last word...demise.

You have just rejected the idea that Divinity has forgotten us. This makes you different. It means you want to live.

Read on.....

We are, in this country, at the brink of a very brave reclamation of life called the Greening of a Nation.It is going to open doors in many areas, and it will shake the sensibilities of the status quo. But if we are brave, the immediate effects will be seen, with effort, ingenuity, and entrepreneurial spirit, in the following areas:

1. Environmental Impact
2. The Real Birth of Green Industry as vital and sustaining
3.The reclamation of the Auto Industry
4.The true return to the focus on the Health of a Nation and its People
5. The economic Stabilization of national health, social and educational infrastructures. 

How will all of this happen?

Environmental Impact

Apart from the sin tax industry everyone normally associates with the hemp/cannabis production, we will be replanting the lungs of the planet. In the face of the horrific destruction taking place on California's coastal forest regions, and the seemingly insurmountable environmental damage caused by chemical, industry and fossil fuel mismanagement, this is, as Einstein would say, the equal and opposite, focused and determined, effort to reclaim the wilds needed to sustain us. This is, literally, grabbing hold of the rope hauling us back to perspective, sanity, reflection, and sober second thought.

There are many people who think that ignoring the reality of environmental degradation will simply make it go away; that by restoring the status quo in existing industries, we will somewhow reclaim the lost exuberance and spirit of industry that made North America the envy of nations. That is not so. With this, literal "Second Chance", there comes a very serious warning to heed the ethos of conscience-driven industry: we must, by default, include the forgotten, dispossessed, exploited and undeveloped areas of the world in the progress of our species, and the Greening of our Lives.

There are immediate and obvious effects of this shift in focus: it will stabilize the planet, geopolitically.

This scares some people, because it does not feed into the politics of war, or the concept of repetitive arms proliferation as a balancing mechanism. It will not feed the war machine, create paranoia or discord needed to sustain it, or have, at its focus, death as the solution to economic disparity. It will open the door to what man has the capacity to do: Heal his World, and Himself.

I'll give you one small example: pressboard/particle board made from hemp fibres are among the strongest and most reasonably priced in the world. Treated for mold and insects, it could erase homelessness and make rebuilding after devastation a reality for the world's poorest. It is "healthy building made real" - particularly in very warm climates where building material scarcity and the reality of building costs make simple shelter impossible. Hemp solves this problem. Period. There is simply no excuse for homelessness except the neglect of nations, and their inability to be moved to solve it.

Milk made from hemp seeds is a nutritious and sustaining product that could ease third world hunger.

People cannot help themselves when they are starving. They simply die.

But do they stop spraying insects, and start collecting, roasting, pickling and eating them as a found food source? Rarely. The irony of this, and the very costly delicacy now served up in gourmet restaurants featuring just that food source, while people in Africa bemoan another attack of locusts and the threat of life in a refugee camp due to another infestation of dwindling farm crops in an arid near=desert climate, and the chasm of approach widens.

On a positive, rather than negative note, however: an immediate availability of it, in conjunction with a "hands-on" 2-litre plastic pop bottle rooftop- sunlight-water-baking could turn guinea-worm ridden drinking water sources into a powdered milk reality, and a literal "birth of bread and roses."  ...within a year. Granted, the technology isn't perfect, and residual trace amounts of leeching are a valid concern, .....but hemp coffee filters, distributed,  could strain that trace water baked on rooftops and make it cleaner by up to SEVENTY PERCENT. And seventy percent is life...and life means POTENTIAL REALIZED.

 Imagine: the LEAGUE OF EARTH NATIONS, if you will. We must first understand the terms "third world", Keynesian economics, and newly required selfrestraint with new eyes - before we erase ourselves, for all time.  Insects.....how do you taste, ground into flour, and make into tortillas?

2. The Real Birth of Green Industry

When I talk about the "Real Birth of Green Industry", I think of it as the renewal of ones that we have eroded and/or destroyed, with a combination of human rights abuses, replacement of inferior substitutes, and a misunderstanding of what might be at "risk" when they - green industries - are born.

Let's start with the textile industry. A return to the availability of textiles and the textile industry will, by default, immediately result in all of the creative impulse that comes with it: the ways, means, and craftsmanship by which we cloth, cover, and create the places where we live, work, and play - along with ourselves. We relearn our sense of traditional design, learn new skills, create new traditions, and rediscover that creativity is a million-dollar offshoot business.

Not only that: studies have shown that, like cotton, hemp is healthy. Ask any dermatologist, and they will tell you that cheaply produced synthetic based clothing does two things: it inhibits you from sweating properly, and actually traps moisture and bacteria against the skin. Simply put, this makes you, your skin, and your body encased in an impenetrable non-porous item, sick. You develop irritations, allergies, sensitivities, infections, and skin conditions which never existed, before you covered yourself in something that does not allow your body, and you, to breathe. And when your body cannot sweat and breathe properly when you work - you smell funny! You are a bacteria incubator. Do you want to be an incubator - for anything besides a rebirth of yourself, and Hope?Maybe it's about time you started to believe you were worth it. Look at yourself again - you still have dreams....they're not quite bullied, stomped, beaten down, or mocked out of you yet, are they?

And did I mention Hemp paper? Durable, more resistant to moisture and mold damage, when treated, it is an old Technology, reborn, for when "plugged in" might wish a quiet page flip, and words leaping off the page again, newly understood.

Hemp production must bring with it deep lessons from the Deep South cotton industry, and a developed sense of developed potential, too - not a repeat of the abuse of the most vulnerable sector of society. We must create jobs associated with this industry, working in tandem - but not as a replacement for - human beings, when we put technology to work in the boom of agribusiness which will make "joyful offshoots" of entrepreneurship possible, along with dreams of a Better Life - literally.

3. The Reclamation of the Auto Industry 

After public bailouts in the billions of dollars, I sincerely believe that the Auto Industry has a debt to pay: they must realize that, though they are of continued, and vital importance, in the New World, they have become complacent. The reality of a 2008 PT Cruiser running on biohemp fuel is simply possible, with a few simple changes in combustion engines, and focused research, investment, and self-sustaining industrial automaking which has, at its core, the idea of hemp fuel, and the determined effort to bring back, not destroy, our world as a very real, very possible, and very doable part of business success. You owe us - and you owe yourselves and your children to make this happen. Look at what you have achieve in 20 years in automaking? Stop considering Heaven's Hemp as your Competitor: you were born for this - just DO IT. Even the tanks are there. When that diesel smell is the hemp oil fuel of tomorrow because of your effort - while you drive towards the destination you have preserved, there will be no more room for "at odds with the industry" in your vocabulary. You will, once again, be Leading its Creatvity, and progress....and exuberance and success.
But you need to make this happen - no one else can. And you have the tools. The shift can be yours, along with the success, and rest assured....we are gonna love that sweet new ride, my friend. Driving the green, making the green.....life in motion. Sounds like poetry, doesn't it?

4. The return of the Health of a Nation and its People

So....we're clothed, and fed with nutritious hemp based food, and seedpod milk which eases the strain on traditional sustainable beef and meat industries, while creating another complementary agribusiness alongside of it, and replanting the lungs of the world, while we begin to allow Nature to slowly, but inexorably, begin to heal and free itself of the poisons we have inflicted upon it, and upon ourselves, with our lack of vision, and our refusal to enter into the "start to end" concept of industry. Where does your old computer, microwave, electrical appliance go, anyway? Does the industry care that made millions off of it? Have they recontributed to the rebuilding of the grid system upon which it relies, without water diversion, damaging ecosystem, and an inability to build into grid strengthening buildings which self-generate electricity in their designs? Steve Jobs knew: we need to "Think Different." We need to think differently, too. New architectural and industrial design must begin to include, by default, these types of considerations in their blueprints: the solar roof, the living walls.....the idea that we are "part of" the landscape - not is replacement.

What else can hemp do? It can ease pain management in cream, lozenge, capsule, and ..yes....a little smoke. Welcome pharmaceutical, cosmetic and naturopathic subindustries. We have only just begun to get you unhooked from oxycontin. You are not on the precipice, chained. You can manage this again!

5. A Return to Stability 

Healthy people are hopeful people. How can they not be, when jobs, wellbeing, creativity and freedom are re-embraced as the Conscience of a Nation?When government budgets can meet the needs of its people without huge tax burdens, and the theft of livelihoods as the result of unbalanced politics, excesses of greed, and the crushing of the success that should come after hard work, with absences of Conscience? 

As we reach out with Canadarm into the Great Beyond, let's show the wider universe, and ourselves, another Can Do. The other one might take us into Space - but this one might mean we still have something to which hearts will return to, in their most cherished moments: the inexpressable joy at the sight of the Garden of Home.

There's still time......and God is watching, as we stumble, and persist, and wait for The Miracle.


.

 



  




The Chautauqua Movement - What is it?

http://www.chautauquatrail.com/the-chautauqua-movement

Election UpDate: "What would you like to accomplish as Mayor?"


n 8/14/2018 9:56 AM, melanie derochie wrote:
Dawn,
What are you looking to do if you were elected mayor what changes should be made which should be kept the saying thank you ,
Melanie

Sent from my iPhone 

Reply from me:


Hi Melanie. Thanks for your message. Here is a list of some of my ideas:


1.Seek input from the public about what they would like to see as 1 year, 5 year, and 10 year goals, acquisitions, developments and community building moves and ideas.

2. Establish a regular Mayor/Public interaction once monthly, online, for "open chat". I think we would get a lot done, amazingly quickly - and get to know each other! These days, this is wonderfully possible in a unique way, and makes even remote members of the community "accessible".

3. Work on attracting industry and job-creation in the county, and help existing ones prosper, expand and provide more jobs locally!

4. Identify immediate areas of concern locally where we can work in tandem with provincial and federal funding to make both 1. and 3. really happen, as well as bolstering the immediate agricultural concerns and areas of funding challenge for local farmers, on a short term, medium, and long term basis. This approach really promotes "generations planning", which is very important for the longevity of agriculture in the province, and in the country.

5. Create regular "community happenings" where we can solicit local community talent to hold "skills building workshops" in informal settings, which enhance, bolster, and make more possible the  informal "know hows" which help make rural life more independent, interesting, and possible again. There is a huge amount of experience and talent (from making pickles properly to properly seeding a realistic vegetable garden you can maintain, even while working fulltime, to learning how to knit your own Christmas presents again, to how to build a vegetable storage container from scrap wood...just a few simple ideas! It's amazing what we can learn, and how we can help, each other.)

We need to bring back the "folk tradition" - including revolving house concerts with minimum donations ($5 - 10) and a 20-40 seat limit, alcohol free, and overnight accomodation for musicians in house), which made things like The Chautauqua Movement a welcome part of harvest time, live entertainment a reality for rural people, and the opportunity to see live folk musicians play, learn new skills,  and earn a living as artists a reality. It is no good to complain about "the terrible state of poisoned minds"....we have to encourage and promote healthy, family-friendly arts activities in dance, music, and art which enhance and celebrate rural life. (** Skills workshops need to be accessible, period: carpentry, masonry, basic how-to's, as well as the foundations and oral presentation opportunities to discuss developments in science and technology, in order to ensure that ethics keep pace with capability. Are we using our technological advancements in ways that benefit society? What can we do to encourage and promote what Einstein said were the "moral responsibilities of progressive thought" to ensure good advancements are not twisted for damaging purposes as the primary reason for their existence? Chautauqua was also a forum for discussion of ideas - and an important one. Attending speaking engagements is not simply an important forum for those whose lives include university esoterics. Inventions and patents and dancing classes came from Chautauqua, too. **)

6. I would like to establish a rural art cooperative for county residents, manned by volunteer staff as part of a mandatory 4 hour a month stint on the sales floor for every contributing artist.

7. I would like to establish a wholly rural "Empty Space" Theatre or which would also serve as space for 5 and 6. This could ideally be an existing space. It could also provide for extra income for crafters and artists on commission to make money with square foot space booths of items which are tagged and marked. These artists might just be "stay at home", but they want a market and opportunity to make a little extra income, with their own creations, by making them available for sale in a central cooperative. St. Jacob's huge outdoor/indoor building is a testament to busy hands and "nowhere else in the world" items, and we could do it, too!  I was actually involved in several activities like this, and was one of the committee members who started the Sarnia Lambton Artists Cooperative, which has a permanent spot in the downtown Bay Side Center, and has been in existence, albeit in a smaller format, these days, since the late '80's.

8. I would like to see a drive in theatre and a repertory cinema house situated in the county. Both are inexpensive ways to "get out once in a while for something special", for relatively inexpensive amounts of money, without disrupting the "green ideal", as well as providing old-fashioned, family-possible opportunities for arts interests and development in the rural community, and just a "fun night out", apart from the usual community fairs and agricultural displays - rather a "complement" to them.

9. This might sound really funny......but I would like to look into the possibility of the local arena being outfitted for roller skating - with recorded music as accompaniment. If there is interest, we might be able to attract modest investment for a permanent, small facility to bring back a really fun tradition that is great exercise, and a great "seasonal strength builder" for off-season figure skating champions and hockey player stars of tomorrow - all year long, and without the expense of ice management, after the initial floor outlay.! Way fun....

Well, you picked my brain for some thoughts....these are just a few rolling around in there. Smile. Keep in touch.....and please share with your friends!

God Bless.

Dawn M. Nevills

N.B. ** this section was added for the purpose of expanding on what, exactly I meant by the The Chautauqua concept of the social and intellectual exchange of ideas and possibility.