Remembering Pete

A Lincoln Memorial concert in 2009 ended with legendary folk singer Pete Seeger singing Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land Is Your Land.” He was joined by Bruce Springsteen and Pete’s grandson Tao Rodriguez-Seeger. They sang the song complete with the rarely performed verse "I came to a sign that said 'Private Property,' but on the other side it didn’t say nothing. That side was made for you and me!"

Judy and I last night watched the Democracy Now! tribute to Pete Seeger. One of our heroes. Really beautiful program about a great man. See & hear at http://www.democracynow.org. We're remembering a few years ago at the annual Ft Benning demonstration he did a concert, saying he couldn't sing but he did, and as always got us thousands to sing with him. And to get up and dance, in place and around and around the hall. Judy regrets not following up with Pete, must have been around '95, at a People's Music Network gathering people were trying to get Pete to go to Savannah during the Atlanta Olympics, and she said to him how about coming to Atlanta instead, we'll get network people together and sing peace songs at Marta stations, and he said "You get it organized and I will come." But she didn't get it organized. I recall at a demonstration in DC in ’85 his being there and being surprisingly friendly and accessible, I got close enough to speak to him, probably said something like, “Thanks for being here, Pete.” And he smiled and nodded.

Judy has jotted down what she could remember of the last things Pete said in the last live interview he did with Amy Goodman:

—Children know—you can’t live without love,

            You can’t live without laughter and play

            You can’t live without friends. . . .

And, on the Amy Goodman show about 4 months ago—Oct. 2013?—he also saluted teachers of children; women and children will help men know it’s not about seeking power or making money. . . .

Harvey Wasserman at EcoWatch has a very moving story about Pete and Toshi:
SO LONG, PETE & TOSHI SEEGER, IT’S BEEN AMAZINGLY GREAT TO KNOW YOU …

Excerpt, about a visit with Pete & Toshi at their home on the Hudson:

They chopped wood and made preserves and it was all so comfortably grounded. Toshi had a deeply affecting grace, an irresistible combination of firm direction and gentle wisdom. And those sparkling eyes. What a glorious partnership!

But I had an agenda. I wanted a song for Solartopia, a vision of a green-powered Earth. And who was a pischer like me to ask?

Pete’s response was instant, warm, enthusiastic. He whipped out that legendary banjo of his and within five minutes he had a song. A good one.

He asked me to write some verses, then gently informed me that as a songwriter, I should keep my day job (which would’ve been great if I had one!).

So he handed me a set of envelopes carefully addressed to various lyricists. We kicked the thing around for a year or so.  

Then his wonderful colleague David Bernz came up with verses Pete liked. Joined by Dar Williams and a chorus of “Rivertown Kids,” they recorded it in a single take, and it found its way on to an album that won a Grammy.

Something only Pete Seeger could have done. Because for all the catalogue of his political battles, his unshakable integrity and his giving nature, this was a guy with an astonishing talent.
http://ecowatch.com/2014/01/28/pete-toshi-seeger-great-to-know-you/

Connecting the dots . . . . . . .

I just yesterday sent out issue #23 of the Free Fredonia Times, the newsletter I do for the Fredonia community. Trying to make the "paper" educational, I've started including a weather report. Here's what I did this time:

Connecting the dots 
The Weather Report

In September, 2014, a Danish freighter, the Nordic Orion, made the first successful commercial crossing of “the northwest passage” across a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean, from Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada to Finland. The cargo: coal. (Reported by foxnews.com and other sources.)

Temperatures reported by The Weather Channel at 7:58 am on Jan. 24, 2014 –
15°F in Five Points, Alabama.
36°F in Nome, Alaska.

Gov. Robert Bentley has declared a state of emergency in Alabama over the threat of a propane gas shortage, suspending the rules and regulations on sale of propane gas and lifting federal transportation motor carrier laws to allow more flexibility in delivery to homes, schools and businesses. Bentley said price gouging is illegal under the state of emergency and “We make sure if that takes place, those people are prosecuted. We also make sure that people who need propane can buy it from different individuals, so all of the rules and regulations are waived.”
(al.com, January 24, 2014)

“December 2013 was exceptionally cold in North America (9°F colder than the 1951-1980 average), and exceptionally warm in northeast Europe and Sibera (16°F warmer than the 1951-1980 average). Predictably, these weather patterns, which continued into January, caused many in the North American media to question the reality of global warming, but in fact the global December warming above the 1951-1980 average (1.1°F) was the same as the annual global warming for 2013.” (Dr. James Hansen, columbia.edu/~jeh1, data from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies)

Editor’s Note: Dr. Hansen says “There is substantial likelihood of a record global temperature in 2014 or 2015.” Of course he means a record warming, not cooling. We must realize this is just another prediction by a scientist and that our weather is highly variable – especially in a time of globally fossil-fueled economic growth.

The Times goes to around 250 people in the Fredonia neighborhood. What we call "Greater Fredonia." People seem to like the paper. I get many compliments and thanks for doing it. But I don't get much response to my educational efforts. And I doubt that many of my readers will see the picture these dots outline. Such obvious runaway positive feedbacks. And the Governor waves his hands, lifting all regulations to make for easier delivery of something we don't actually have – if there is a real shortage. Recognizing that making the propane market even freer will likely lead to profits so much higher the voters might care. But that happens in conjunction with demand shooting up, homeowners (and chicken farmers) getting panicky and wanting to "top up" before supplies run out. So the kind of thing that might actually help would be more regulation, like telling propane companies they can't deliver anything to anyone who isn't actually out of propane, or maybe within a day or running out, something like that.

Speaking of connecting the dots, I also included in this issue:

Just one dot in the Big Food picture: A recent report out of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences shows that U.S. agricultural exports from 2000 to 2009, valued at $55 billion, actually resulted in a net loss to the country of $13 billion if the accounting included the health costs (including 5,100 pre-mature deaths) of ammonia emissions, just one of the air pollutants from the exported crop and livestock production. Find details in Mother Jones magazine: motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/01/are-agriculture-exports-killing-us.
The article has a link to the original Harvard publication.

A high-resolution color PDF version of this issue of the Times is available at:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7oda8isjx769jzp/XT9VNstWLe