McKnight Youth Council to hold Public Safety forum on Friday

Sometimes it seems like we live in a "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" city. Mostly we ignore the potential for violence in our community, or complain and do little to prevent it. Then, when violence hurts or even kills someone, we complain about how nobody does anything.

Truth is, a lot of good people and agencies are doing a lot to prevent violence in Springfield.  Youth-led efforts, however,  are rarer, not because youth don't care, but because often they don't get the structural support they need to do good work.

The McKnight Neighborhood Youth Council.does get the full support of the McKnight Neighborhood Council, and the Youth Council has pulled together a pretty power-house forum on public safety this on Friday and, while focused on McKnight, is open to the community at large.
 

McKNIGHT NEIGHBORHOOD YOUTH COUNCIL HOSTS

                                    PUBLIC SAFETY FORUM

                                    Panel to include  MAYOR SARNO & CMR. FITCHET 

WHEN:           FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 2010;  6 TO 8 pm

WHERE:         REBECCA JOHNSON SCHOOL AUDITORIUM

                        55 Catherine Street, Springfield

The McKnight Neighborhood Youth Council will host an open forum on public safety at Rebecca Johnson School, 55 Catherine Street, on Friday, January 8, 2010, from 6 to 8 pm.

The forum will feature a panel including Mayor Domenic J. Sarno, Police Commissioner William J. Fitchet, Officer Reggie Miller and Kathleen N. Brown of Springfield Community Policing, Sgt. James Brown of the Neighborhood Watch, representatives of the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department, and Walter Kroll of the McKnight Neighborhood Council Public Safety Committee.

Panelists will be taking questions from the audience about what residents feel are the major problems that contribute to crime and violence in the city and what they want their city government and police department to do about it!

All of the newly elected and re-elected Springfield City Councilors have been invited, as have representatives of Mason Square community and youth organizations, businesses and churches.

The Youth Council, with the full support and backing of the McKnight Neighborhood Council, Inc., is responsible for organizing this major event in bringing greater citizen participation to the important issue of our common need for safety on our streets, in our schools and playgrounds, and in our homes.

The forum is open to all residents of Springfield, although the main focus will be McKnight and the neighborhoods surrounding Mason Square.

For information email mcknightyouthcouncil@hotmail.com, or call Youth Council Chair Jesse Lederman, 351-6785, or  Administrative Staff Kat Wright at 827-9526.

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Photo from Meanest Indian's photostream at Flickr.

The state of our forests in the state of Massachusetts

The Media Education Foundation has been sponsoring a series of films each Friday night-- free to the public-- but this Friday night is something special.

Chris Matera and Dave Gafney of Massachusetts Forest Watch will be presenting about the threats to our Massachusetts forests.  They'll be bring lots of photos-- and lots of passion-- with them, and engaging people in a discussion of how we can be involved in protecting our forests.                                                                    

January 8    7:00 PM

Media Education Center 
60 Masonic St, Northampton

Fighting the Massachusetts Chainsaw Massacre!                         

Learn about the clear cutting of State public forests, watersheds and parks, and the latest developments surrounding proposed wood burning Biomass plants in Western Massachusetts.

Sponsored by the Northampton Committee to stop the War in Iraq and Afghanistan

Oldest rocks on earth discovered

Once upon a time-- less than 100 years ago!-- most people, scientists included, believed that the universe was eternal and infinite.  It took Edwin Hubble's discovery that the universe was expanding for scientists to run the clock backwards and realize that the universe had to have a beginning-- now estimated to be about 13.7 billion years ago.

Our solar system, including the earth, was created about 4.5 billion years ago.  Although most of the original crust of the earth has long since been mashed up in the process of plate tectonics, last year scientists found what are believed to be the oldest rocks on earth on the shores of Northern Quebec, almost as old as the earth itself-- about 4.28 billion years.  Science Daily.

But here's what I love to think about:  ten percent of the atoms in our body are hydrogen, created at the moment of the Big Bang, and the rest of the elements in our body were created by the explosion of stars, many before our solar system was even formed.

We are older than the earth.

Homeless girl tells her story in new street newspaper

The Philadelphia Enquirer has a story about a thirteen year old girl who kept the fact she lived in a homeless shelter a secret-- until she was asked to write her story for a new street newspaper, One Step Away.  Then she was able to have the kind of opportunity for personal empowerment and political growth that we would wish for every homeless kid and adult.  You can read her story here.

St. Petersburg, Florida has a new street paper, also, the St. Petersburg Homeless Image.  The blog Pushing Rope covers the story.

What's a street newspaper?  According to the North American Street Newspaper Association:

A street newspaper is a newspaper that primarily addresses issues related to poverty and homelessness and is distributed by poor or homeless vendors. Vendors sell the newspaper for a set price, usually $1, and have to pay the organization a fraction of the price (20% to 40%) for each paper up front. The self-employed vendor sells the papers on the street and keeps the money he or she makes. For many people, this is the opportunity they need to get back on their feet and into permanent housing.
 

The benefits of street papers go far beyond economic opportunity. For the vendor, they offer a positive experience of self-help that breaks through the isolation that many homeless people experience. They offer the public a means to reach out with their dollar to help a homeless person directly and, over time, form a caring relationship.

Most street newspapers also provide homeless and/or those living on the margins of society the opportunities for expression by publishing their articles, letters and artwork. These publications build a bridge between the very poor and the wider public by helping people to understand the issues and the personal stories of those on the lowest rung of the economic ladder.

For a look at street newspapers around the world, check out Homeless Street Newspapers.

Photo from debcha's photostream at Flickr.

Move Your Money!

Got an email from a friend this morning promoting this idea  and I think it's great and want to spread the word!  And do watch the video....funny...I've quoted some of these lines before.  Arise for Social Justice just switched its account to a community bank earlier this month.  Move Your Money!

JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS, a few friends were having dinner wondering what personal actions they could take to help limit the power of the big banks and create a more sane, stable financial system. How, they wondered, could they help end the era of Too Big To Fail? The financier at the table recommended that everyone could move their money out of the Wall Street banks and into community banks. Community banks are typically more conservative about how they manage their money, they’re more closely connected to the people and businesses who live near them, and they’re more inclined to make loans they know will get paid back. In other words, they have the values that more people would want banks to have.

The filmmaker at the table reminded the others of the story told in the classic film It’s A Wonderful Life — a tale about a small banker, played by Jimmy Stewart, who almost gets crushed by a big banker. In the end, though, the community rallies around the small bank and helps save it.

Three days later, the filmmaker made a short video, displayed on this site. The editor wrote a commentary about the idea. And others started pulling various resources together.

This site was set up as a modest home for the effort. A seed. But the idea will only have an impact if others take it from here.

How? For starters, you could move your money to a small bank. To do so, click on the button that says Find A Bank. But there are dozens of other possibilities: You can get your friends or organizations to do the same. You can use your online social networks to help broadcast the idea. You can look into where your town government keeps its money and, if it uses a big bank, you could try to get it to use a smaller bank. Start your own website (to improve upon or replace this one), dive into the research about smaller banks, and help give rise to a bigger, broader effort.

There is no official organization here. It’s a volunteer project. If you have ideas about how this idea can grow, send us a note and we’ll display the best ideas in the Updates section of the site.
We hope this idea will spread in a thousand different ways.
Thanks for whatever you can do.

Three years left in Patrick's plan to end homelessness

But homelessness has doubled in the last two years

Massachusetts gets a mention at Change.org's  Ten Most Notable Homelessness Stories of 2009.  Apparently one-third of all the homeless families sheltered by the state iofMassachusetts last year stayed at motels.  (Number Ten, however, is actually about the uncounted "hidden homeless" families who fly under the radar of homelessness by moving to a hotel when they've run out of other options. )

Paying for families to live in a motel is a crying shame; the only worse thing the state could do would be to leave these families on the street.  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts pays $2.8 million a month to house 1000 families.  Interestingly, the state would only spend $800,000 a month to takes those thousand families and put them in $800 a month apartments.  What's wrong with this picture?

Back in January, 2008, Gov. Deval Patrick announced his Five Year Plan to End Homelessness, which included the merger of  the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) emergency shelter services with existing Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).  The three main goals of the plan were to

• Identify and help people at risk of homelessness.
• Create more affordable housing.
• Help create economic stability for families to make sure they don't slip back into homelessness.

Now, these are great goals-- homelessness advocates support them--  but at least some of us were concerned, back then, that the state had little new money to help meet these goals and instead planned to fund them by cutting shelter services in a diversity of ways.  Western Mass lost its oldest family shelter, Jefferson House, as well as several other shelters in our area. Eligibility rules were tightened and stays were shortened.

The very next month, prefaced by the summer's  housing crisis, the recession hit.

If the five year plan was malnourished to begin with, two straight years of financial crises and budget cuts have been devastating.  We are entering year three of the five year plan and homelessness in Massachusetts has doubled. The bureaucracy has been as slow as as the Titanic in steering a new course for its strategy to end homelessness, and each time a recession recedes it leave more and more people like jetsam on the shore.  I don't see an end to homelessness coming any time soon.

Photo from Curtis Gregory Perry's photostream at Flickr.

Happy New Year! A few of my favorite lions, tigers and bears

Real-life Mowgli kept alive by cats -A one-year-old boy has been found living rough on the streets, apparently being kept alive by cats.

The boy, whose ordeal mirrors that of the character Mowgli from Rudyard Kipling The Jungle Book, was discovered by police in Misiones, in Argentina, surrounded by eight wild cats.
Doctors believe the animals snuggled up with him during freezing nights which would otherwise have killed him.
The boy was seen eating scraps foraged by the animals while they licked him, it has been claimed.
Policewoman Alicia Lorena Lindgvist discovered the child by a canal in the Christ King district of the city.
She said: "I was walking and noticed a gang of cats sitting very close together. It is unusual to see so many like that so I went for a closer look and that's where I saw him. The boy was lying at the bottom of a gutter. There were all these cats on top of him licking him because he was really dirty.
"When I walked over they became really protective and spat at me. They were keeping the boy warm while he slept."
The officer, who noticed scraps of food near the boy, added: "The cats knew he was fragile and needed protecting."
Police have found the boy's father who is homeless and said he had lost the boy several days ago while out collecting cardboard to sell. He told officers cats had always been protective of his son. Telegraph.uk.

From National Geographic's In the Womb series.

 Jasmine, the Mother Theresa Greyhound

In 2003, police in Warwickshire, England, opened a garden shed and found a whimpering, cowering dog. It had been locked in the shed and abandoned. It was dirty and malnourished, and had clearly been abused.

In an act of kindness, the police took the dog, which was a Greyhound female, to the nearby Nuneaton Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary, run by a man named Geoff Grewcock and known as a willing haven for Animals abandoned, orphaned or otherwise in need.


 Geoff and the other sanctuary staff went to work with two aims to restore the dog to full health, and to win her trust. It took several weeks, but eventually both goals were achieved.
They named her Jasmine, and they started to think about finding her an adoptive home.

But Jasmine had other ideas. No-one remembers now how it began, but she started welcoming all Animal arrivals at the sanctuary. It wouldn’t matter if it was a puppy, a fox cub, a rabbit or, any other lost or hurting Animal, Jasmine would peer into the box or cage and, where possible, deliver a welcoming lick.

Read the rest of the story at The Great Pet Net.

 

Finally...although you may have seen this before....Christian the lion was bought as a cub by two men in London.  Realizing after a while that the city was no place for a lion, they brought him to a wildlife sanctuary in Africa watched over by George Adamson.  A year later, the men returned to see how Christian was doing.

Design your own snowflake

Remember when you never were bored?  Go here and create your own snowflake!

Real snowflake image from SnowCrystals.

New Springfield City Council to be seated next Monday at noon

With a bit of pomp and circumstance, Springfield's new city councilors will begin their jobs on Monday, January 4, at noon. I do think it's worthwhile for Springfield residents to attend this organizational meeting. Let's let our new city councilors know we have high expectations of their performance.

C I T Y O F S P R I N G F I E L D - City Clerk's Office December 30, 2009

I hereby notify you that at twelve o'clock noon today the following items of business had been filed with this office and can be acted upon at the Organizational Meeting in the City Council Chambers, Monday, January 4, 2010 at twelve noon according to Section 12, Rules and Orders of the City Council.

City Clerk

1. PRECESSION INTO CHAMBERS
2. CALL TO ORDER BY PRESIDENT WILLIAM T. FOLEY, JR.
3. INVOCATION BY FATHER JUAN GARCIA
4. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

5. ELECTION OF PRESIDENT
6. OATH OF OFFICE TO PRESIDENT BY CITY CLERK WAYMAN LEE

7. REMARKS OF PRESIDENT
8. ELECTION OF VICE PRESIDENT - OATH OF OFFICE TO VICE-PRESIDENT BY CITY CLERK WAYMAN LEE
9. REMARKS BY MAYOR DOMENIC J. SARNO
10. OFFER OF PRAYER BY REVEREND GREGORY DYSON

11. DRAWING OF SEATS
12. ADOPTION OF RULES-2010
13. BUSINESS PROPERLY BEFORE CITY COUNCIL
14. APPOINTMENT OF STANDING COMMITTEES
15. APPOINTMENT OF THE FIRE PREVENTION COMMITTEE

16. APPOINTMENT OF THE MEMBER TO SCHOOL BUILDING COMMSSION
17. APPOINTMENT OF THE MEMBER TO THE DOG ADVISORY AND HEARING COMMITTEE
18. CLOSING BLESSING BY RABBI CHAIM KOSOFSKY
19. ADJOURNMENT

Photo from Steven Jareb's photostream at Flickr.

Battling with bears while smothered by lithium

Poor children four times more likely to be given anti-psychiatric drugs.

Yesterday when I went to visit my friend in the hospital, he had a new roommate-- a young, nice looking Puerto Rican man-- a boy, really.  His illness was not apparent but he seemed low-spirited.  Another addition to the setting was an aide who never left the room all the time I was there.

A few minutes after I arrived,  a young woman with earrings, high heels and a clipboard joined us and started  talking to the boy.

"HI!' she said in a chipper voice.  "I'm Jackie from Psych Services."

I tried not to listen but some words drifted over....Well, the doctors want to make sure you're not going to try to hurt yourself again......Now, what else do you take besides the lithium?

I told my friend I was going to get a coffee from the cafeteria and I'd be back.

Today when I visited my friend, I greeted the young man as well.  We had a different aide, a little chattier, who was trying to get him to order from the menu.

"I'm really not hungry," he said.  "If I was really trying to kill myself, I'd eat this food." He laughed.

Later, commenting on something he saw on television, he said, "I'd like to fight a shark. I'd like to give that a try.  And I'd like to fight a bear, and  a pack of wolves.  Not a stingray, though," he said, "they go straight for the heart."

I wondered if anybody in the psychiatric field had ever spent any time talking to this young man, or was it all drugs, drugs, drugs?   If I knew instantly he was talking about fighting his own demons, finding his own courage and, yes, risking his own life to do it, how could a more skilled  person have used this knowledge to engage him?

Recently the New York Times reported on a government study indicating that children receiving Medicaid-- that is, poor children-- were prescribed powerful anti-psychotic drugs at four times the rate of children who were privately insured.  Of course, it's cheaper for Medicaid to provide drugs than long-term therapy, although given the serious and sometime life-long side effects these drugs cause, it may be a penny-wise, pound-foolish steategy.  One doctor interviewed in the article suggested poverty may cause more mental illness.  Another doctor suggested that children on Medicaid are more likely to receive needed treatment because of higher out-of-pocket expenses than the privately insured.  If we accept that, then we have have to accept that it is appropriate for nearly five percent of all of our children to be medicated.

I've seen this push to medicate children for more than two decades.  I've talked to many mothers who have been told by their child's school administrators that they had to place their child on medication in order for the child to stay in school.  Some mothers fight it and some give in with relief.  Their children get fat, and dopey, and are even more likely to have trouble making friends if they had that trouble before.  Some parents actively seek to get their kids medicated, because they've been taught to believe unreservedly in the magic of pills and  they just don't know what else to do.

Does poverty create mental stress for families and children ?  Damn right!  If you're a kid and you know that you might have to move for the third time in two years because your folks are behind in the rent, you're affected.  If you have to sleep on the couch at night because your apartment is short a bedroom, you're affected.  If there's no quiet place to do homework and your grades start going down, you're affected.  The life around you and eventually your own life may be riddled with economic, emotional and intellectual malnutrition.  You may be tangled like a fly in a spiderweb with myriad institutions meant to help or punish you.  You might actually be in need of counseling and guidance and maybe, just maybe, some medication.  Or you might be just fine.

By pathologizing poverty, society lets itself off the hook.  Why tackle the structural issues when anti-psychotics, prison, addiction, family services and television can accomplish so much?

Tonight, belatedly, whoever is in charge decided the young man deserved some privacy and my friend was moved to a room two doors down.  Will he actually be better off alone?  I don't know.  I'm a bit uncomfortable myself that I'm invading his privacy by telling his story so that I can tell this larger story.  But I wish him well.

Image from smiteme's photostream at Flickr.

Pun sentences (don't groan too loud)

Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.

If you don't pay your exorcist you get repossessed.

When the electricity went off during a storm at a school the students were de-lighted.

She was only a whisky maker but he loved her still.

He often broke into song because he couldn't find the key.

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.

Ancient orators tended to Babylon.

A pet store had a bird contest with no perches necessary.

A toothless termite walked into a tavern and said, "Is the bar tender
here?"

More at t Whimsy.

Massachusetts regulators limit churches' ability to shelter homeless

Couldn't they have timed this for Christmas Day?

On December 1, new regulations by the Massachusetts boards of Building Regulations and Fire Prevention Regulations decreed that houses of worship could not shelter the homeless for more than seven consecutive days, and for no more than 35 days total between September 15 and June 15.  They must now also apply for an occupancy permit and then have inspections by the building, fire and health departments.

Other new regulations affecting churches that shelter (or are considering sheltering) homeless people, such as the necessity for smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and for an occupancy plan that clearly details aisles and exits, are only common sense and are already in place in most churches.

But what is to happen when a cold snap hits and the shelters are full? And what if the cold snap is longer than seven days?   Are churches-- and homeless people-- really to wait through the often-lengthy occupancy permit process?  Are churches to turn away the homeless on the 8th day?

Some churches said they've already been turning away from directly housing the homeless, focusing instead on working in coalition with more traditional institutions and on prevention and  permanent solutions.  All of that is to the good, but need it be an either/or situation?

Springfield, Massachusetts' Warming Place shelter, when it was operating, rotated each night to a different house of worship; more than two dozen parishes and congregations participated at the program's peak.  Later the program settled down at the old York St. jail. I worked at the Warming Place in its first incarnation and found myself deeply spiritually moved by the generosity and kindness I saw toward the homeless.

Later, however, when assisting the homeless with shelter became fraught with political tension, many houses of worship fell away from this sense of mission rather than feel uncomfortable with those in power.  Others have gone on to play different, significant roles in helping the homeless; some have fallen silent.

Will churches be able to follow their conscience if it contradicts a state regulation?

The Rev. Gregory S. Dyson, pastor of Church in the Acres in Springfield, said churches that would provide shelter for the homeless are not waiting for anyone’s permission and are low-key in their approach.

“They’re sleeping one or two or three people, so it doesn’t become an issue,” he said. Springfield Republican. 

 

Rev. Dyson leads up street outreach and is also looking for more permanent solutions.  Yet in these economic times, with more and more people becoming homeless,  why create restrictions now on emergency solutions?

 

What does it mean to build an institution around Christ and yet forget these words?

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me,

naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.

The Joy of Baystate

I have a very dear friend who's been at Baystate Medical Center since the week before Christmas after taking a tumble down some stairs.  He has some underlying  health conditions and since entering Baystate he's been in a downward spiral.

Last Wednesday, when I called his room to speak to him, I was told he was in the emergency room!  Apparently Baystate had attempted to transfer him to Wingate nursing home for rehabilitative therapy, but Wingate sent him back because he hadn't moved his bowels in the six days he'd been hospitalized and they said they couldn't deal with it.  By telling the patient advocate I reached by phone that my friend had been inappropriately transfered to Wingate and I wanted to find out what was happening with him (and making sure the patient advocate checked with my friend to make sure I could have access to information),  I managed to get a callback from the head of the emergency room saying, No, he was inappropriately refused by Wingate, and that he'd spoken to  the administrator there and my friend was going to be sent back-- as soon as an ambulance was available, an unpredictable number of hours away.

Shortly after, apparently the Baystate doctors changed their minds and decided they should deal with my friend's situation in-house.  Of course his room had been given away, and he spent a miserable day in the emergency room before he could be re-admitted. After two fruitless days of enemas, laxatives and a colonoscopy, they determined that he had a bowel perforation.  (Before the treatments?  Because of the treatments?) He had emergency surgery Christmas Eve and has been fighting for his life ever since.

I hadn't meant to write all this, but it's the context for a minor thing, a very minor thing, that pushed me over the edge to anger today-- even though I didn't show it.

I went to visit my friend and found him in restraints because he's been having terrible hallucinations (the medication, the nurse told me) and had tried to remove his central line and colostomy bag.  (He's not terribly aware of what's been happening to him, but told me he hallucinated he'd been mutilated-- not far from the truth.)

Next to his bed is a dry erase board where the names of the nurse and assistants for the day are written down.  Near the bottom is the line "Expected Discharge Date" and someone had written "Not soon enough."  I called it to his nurse's attention, and we realized it was written in pen, probably by a former patient.  But I asked her to find a way to remove it lest my friend, who was constantly apologizing for any trouble he was causing,  see it and think it was directed toward him.

I know myself well enough to know that some of my anger toward Baystate, not just for my friend but also for my sister's and  my own experiences, (and I didn't write the half of it) is misdirected fear.  But why does it seem so impossible to Baystate to provide excellent medical care, excellent nursing, great supportive services and a dignified setting all at the same time?  At least one element and sometimes more has been missing every time.

Keep my friend in your prayers.

Tony Bellamy: Come and Get Your Love

Redbone's lead guitarist Tony Bellamy passed away on Christmas Day at the age of 69.  I'm sitting here listening to one of my favorite songs of all time,  "Come and Get Your Love", with a smile on my face and tears in my eyes. The embedding  has been disabled, but you need to go and listen to this song right now at
YouTube.
The following press release is from the Native American Music Awards, a wonderful site where you can hear that Native American music is alive and well.


REDBONE'S TONY BELLAMY PASSES AT AGE 69


New York, NY – The Native American Music Awards (N.A.M.A.) organization is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Redbone's Anthony Bellamy, who has died on Christmas morning, December 25th, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada with his family by his side. Anthony, or Tony "T-Bone" Bellamy, who attended the 10th Annual Native American Music Awards and was inducted into the N.A.M.A. Hall of Fame with Redbone in 2008, was a Mexican-American Yaqui Indian who became the lead guitarist, pianist and vocalist for the Native American band.. He was a beloved and endearing friend of the "Nammys" since its inception, and will be greatly missed.

Redbone became established as a Native American rock group in the 1970s. They reached the Top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in 1974 with the hit song, "Come and Get Your Love."

Originally formed in 1969 in Los Angeles, California by brothers Patrick Vasquez (bass and vocals) and Lolly Vasquez (guitar and vocals), the name Redbone started as a joking reference to a Cajun term for a mixed-race person ("half-breed"). The band's members were of mixed blood ancestry.  According to Patrick Vasquez aka Pat Vegas, it was Jimi Hendrix who talked the musicians into forming an all-Native American rock group . The band consisted of Patrick Vasquez, Lolly Vasquez, drummer Pete DePoe and Anthony "Tony" Bellamy.

The group signed to Epic Records in 1969, and released their debut album, Redbone, in 1970. The follow-up album, Potlatch, featured the song "Alcatraz," which dealt with the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island. Their first commercially successful singles were, “Maggie,” and "Witch Queen of New Orleans" (1971) which also became a huge hit in the United Kingdom. In 1973, Redbone released the political, "We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee” which reached the #1 chart position in Europe.

By 1974, Redbone had reached the Top 5 of the Billboard Hot 100 charts with "Come and Get Your Love”. The Pop/Funk/Disco song was certified Gold by the R.I.A.A for selling over one million copies and is still heard today on radio stations and commercials throughout the country. Drummer DePoe was replaced by Arturo Perez on Already Here (1972). Perez was replaced on Wovoka (1974) by Butch Rillera. (Wovoka contained the band's most successful single, "Come and Get Your Love,") In 1998 members of the group appeared as special guest performers at the inaugural Native American Music Awards and returned in 2008 as NAMA Hall of Fame inductees..

Tony Bellamy grew up in a family of dancers and musicians and learned to play the flamenco guitar as part of his musical education. Before joining the band Redbone, Tony Bellamy had performed with Dobie Gray, and a was a member of the San Francisco band, Peter and the Wolves, that evolved into the psychedelic band Moby Grape.

Born as Anthony Avila, Tony Bellamy died at age 69.

N.A.M.A. and its Advisory Board contingency would like extend their condolences to the Bellamy family. N.A.M.A. will forever honor this legendary performer who has been both a leading force in the mainstream music industry and an inspiration to the Native American community.

http://www.myspace.com/tonybellamyformerlyofRedbone

New England's (possibly) oldest elm soon to be no more

This morning's Boston Globe tells the story of Herbie, an approximately 235 year old tree in Yarmouth, Maine, which is finally succumbing to Dutch elm disease and will be removed by the town on January 18.  The tree has had the disease for more than 50 years, but careful tending by volunteer tree warden Frank Wright, now 101 years old himself, added another six decades to the tree's life.  Now the tree's time as a tree is ending.  Read more.

The same edition of the Globe has an opinion piece about the  Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation's promotion of clear-cutting in our state's forests.  I've learned a lot about clear-cutting recently, but until reading this article, I hadn't also heard that Massachusetts lost its "green certification" from the Forest Stewardship Council.  Hundreds of acres of forest have been clear-cut around the Quabbin Reservoir, which supplies Boston's water but is located here in Western Massachusetts.

Do we have to anthropomorphize trees to save them?   I don't recall ever having named a tree but I certainly have had close relationships with a number of memorable trees throughout my life.   I didn't learn to truly love them as a species until I lived in Maine and began to understand their importance.  But loving a single tree is not a bad place to start.

A hundred years ago, even in a city like Springfield, children could name their favorite climbing tree, and knew where to find apples and chestnuts.  The modest mulberry tree still thrives, but do Springfield children even know their berries can be eaten?

Photo from McPhloyd's photostream at Flickr.

Homeless Memorial Day: remember the living as well as the dead

Tonight is the longest night of the year; today more than 100 cities in the U.S. and Canada are commemorating the deaths of people who died in 2009 without a home to call their own.

If you examine homelessness deeply, you can learn to understand everything that needs to change in our country and our world.  Today, however, we can think of the individuals who have suffered, and we can think about the individual acts of kindness that can make a difference.

Remember the dead:

Most people think of warm summer vacations when they think of Hyannis, Massachusetts but tonight at 6 pm., candles will be lit for a service at the Federated Church for the nine homeless people in the Hyannis area who have died this year.  People in Hartford, Connecticut will be gathering at 5 pm. to read the names of the dead. Springfield, Massachusetts' service took place at 1 pm. today.

Remember the living:
 Annie Gafney in Colorado Springs posted an ad on Craigslist, saying she wanted to spend her birthday distributing hats and gloves to the homeless at an area tent city, and dozens responded with offers of help.    The Help Portrait movement's chapter in Denver, Colorado treated homeless people to a haircut and   shave or makeup session, and then took their pictures that people can share with family who may be far away-- a real boost to people's self-esteem.   Nichola Prested, founder of Wardrobe Refashion, organized a sewing bee to make warm clothing items for an area shelter.


Remember the dead:
 Richard Casper, only 44 years old, was found dead in a field in Macon, Georgia  last week.  The coroner said he died of "natural causes."  A homeless woman in Hoboken, New Jersey passed away recently and the  Hudson Reporter has printed a tribute and apology from a community woman who knew her and felt like the community hadn't done enough to help.  Many of the homeless people who've died this year will die alone.

Remember the living: 13 year old Andrew Mitchell was paralyzed in a drive-by shooting  seven years ago, but that's not stopping him from  collecting 100 sleeping bags and a hundred dufflebags filled with toiletries for a local tent city.   11 year old Casey Rogers in Dallas founded a charity for homeless people three years ago after seeing a homeless man rebuffed while asking for spare change.   A formerly homeless man is walking across Canada from the west to the east coast with his dog to raise awareness about homelessness.

I ask those of you who are fortunate enough to have a home this year to be kind.  What can you do to help a homeless person? 

“There are certain things that are fundamental to human fulfillment. The essence of these needs is captured in the phrase 'to live, to love, to learn, to leave a legacy'. The need to live is our physical need for such things as food, clothing, shelter, economical well-being, health. The need to love is our social need to relate to other people, to belong, to love and to be loved. The need to learn is our mental need to develop and to grow. And the need to leave a legacy is our spiritual need to have a sense of meaning, purpose, personal congruence, and contribution”
-- Stephen R. Covey

Photo of Maria from  the Hudson Reporter.