New Clear Vision

‘Heartstorming’ as an Antidote to Denial

by Priscilla Stuckey

We know it’s getting worse; we’re not climate deniers. We’re well informed and aware of the facts. And yet we go about our lives as if nothing has changed. We live the same way we lived five years ago, before the wealth of new climate science confirming that the situation is worse than first thought. Maybe we travel even more than before or live in a bigger house than we did then. (Guilty on both counts.) What’s wrong with us?

We’re obeying the hush-hush rule on climate change. When the President can’t even utter the word climate in his State of the Union speech, at a time when climate change presents emergency levels of economic, health, and national security risks — and that’s just in this country, never mind the millions of people in other parts of the world whose homes and lives are already lost and endangered — you know something is seriously wrong. Even Stewart and Colbert seldom devote time to it. (more…)

Nuclear Songs Remain the Same — Will We Listen?

by Randall Amster

In the early 1980s, a group of antinuclear activists and musicians put together an album of protest songs as a statement against the development of the Palo Verde nuclear power plant outside of Phoenix. The plant is unique in that it isn’t adjacent to a large body of water, meeting its cooling needs instead with treated sewage from nearby locales. The main turbines were supplied by General Electric, and the plant has been cited for a number of safety violations in its 25 year history. Situated near the sixth largest city in the U.S., the Palo Verde Station has been the site of heightened security as a potential strategic target in terms of warfare or terrorism. But back in the ’80s, activists had other concerns on their minds. (more…)

Youth Movements Confront Legislated Intolerance

by Joel Olson

As spring heats into summer in the desert, two Arizonas fight for supremacy.  One, lodged in power in the Arizona State Capitol, drafts anti-immigrant and “fiscally responsible” bills with glee. It is old, it is white, it is dour and narrow.  The other protests these bills from outside the capitol walls.  It is young, it is largely brown, it is hopeful but angry, and it aims to clash with the old Arizona.  And last Thursday it earned its first victory.

The day before that, a hundred youth from six weeks old to drinking age marched on the Capitol to protest a rash of anti-immigrant bills that, if passed, would have made Arizona’s notorious SB 1070 look like an act of charity.  These five bills challenged the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship and would have required every member of official society — from nurses to teachers to school secretaries to doctors to employers — to check a person’s immigration status before healing or educating or hiring them. (more…)

Traversing the Spaces in Between

by Mary Sojourner

la·cu·na; pl. la·cu·nae (-n?) or la·cu·nas

1. An empty space or a missing part; a gap

2. Anatomy: a cavity, space, especially in bone…

A guy I knew forty-five years ago lives in Thailand.  He somehow found my email address and wrote me.  He’s still a lush. He’s still brilliant.  He sent me a link to a Thai newspaper article.  The site was no longer there.  I wrote him back:

The newspaper article is gone.  Those damn tricky lacunae.  Lacuna has been my favorite word for a few years.  Lacunae are a characteristic of the black widow spider’s web. People?  By and large we are tedious in our predictability.  The black widow spider isn’t surprised that she spins an asymmetrical web or that there are ragged holes in it.  The web catches food.  What more could a hard-working spider want?  Found myself by luck and not settling for less, standing in the perfect place at the base of a little mesa on July 4 to watch the fireworks being launched from its top.  Galaxies and luminous jelly-fish.  Nobody singing about bombs bursting in air.  My gratitude was doubled, for what was and wasn’t there. (more…)

A Time to Keep Silence … and a Time to Speak

by Debbie Ouellet

The older I get, the more in tune I become with the finite measure of time — not just for me, but for the place and planet I call home. This earth calls to me — from the most basic joy of placing my hands in dirt to bring life into my garden — to considering the enormity of the threats against this planet’s future. My poet’s mind tries to reconcile the awe of nature and all she has to offer with the fear that this all could one day end. Generations to come may never know the abundance of nature as I have over my lifetime.

This April marks two events close to my heart and soul: National Poetry Month and, on April 22nd, the 41st anniversary of Earth Day. How are these two events connected?

The great bard himself, William Shakespeare, said, “And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.” If poetry isn’t about life, this earth, and our connection with it, then what is it about? (more…)

Can People Power Overcome Nuclear Power?

by Randall Amster

Search the news for the word “meltdown” these days and you’ll probably get one of three main hits: the situation in Japan; the U.S. economy; and Charlie Sheen. Take a guess which one is most likely to occupy peoples’ attention spans and fill the pages of tabloids going forward? Celebrity gossip is a powerful palliative for troubled times, and most of us know about as much behind the science of nuclear reactions as we do about the inner workings of the economy. Sheen? We know him all too well…

So it’s not surprising that calamitous events – from the BP gusher to the “long hard slog” of Afghanistan – slip beneath the collective radar and result in almost no widespread changes in modern society. The war drags on and the crude is in our food, yet few seem all that outwardly concerned. With the economy, at least there’s been a bit of push-back of late, but across America the malls are still open for business-as-usual and CEOs are laughing all the way to the bank with record bonuses. (more…)