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Why Madison Presidential Listening Tour: University Studies and College of Arts and Letters
President's Journal
"Why Madison?" Listening Tour
University Studies and College of Arts and Letters
The faculty brings valuable and needed perspective to "Why Madison?"
I have been visiting the colleges and academic unit heads during this fall semester, because the faculty perspective during the "Why Madison?" Listening Tour is imperative. Faculty members are the backbone of the institution; they are on the front lines and the heart of the educational process. They bring many different and extremely valuable perspectives to bear on the institution's challenges and opportunities. I have met recently with University Studies and the College of Arts and Letters department heads, coordinators and faculty advisory committees. I am averaging two meetings a week and finding them deeply rewarding. I plan to reflect periodically on the input I am hearing.
Teaching and mentoring students is important to our faculty
At our "Why Madison?" Listening Tour events with alumni, parents and employers, it is wonderful to hear how they herald the faculty commitment to teaching and mentoring students and JMU's educational values. It is exciting to hear now from the faculty, who are addressing many of the same things from their perspective -- about the importance of providing JMU's liberal arts foundation and about how much they enjoy teaching students, guiding their research, mentoring them as they develop as scholars and mature as human beings. Professors have said they have never had a boring day, in large part because our students bring new ideas and questions all the time, and also because they are in an environment in which they can try new things.
Alumni are echoing the importance of liberal arts foundation
It should be gratifying to our faculty that we've been hearing from alumni, parents and employers that they are appreciative of their efforts and have pointed out the importance of the liberal arts and of our General Education program. They said they received a true foundation with critical thinking and communication skills and excellent preparation for their lifelong learning and success in the workplace. We are very proud of the role our liberal arts programs play in preparing our teachers as well. We've heard that JMU's K-6 teacher candidates lead the pass rate of the PRAXIS II for teacher certification in Virginia and further that Virginia's exam has the highest cut rate, showing just how qualified our teachers are right out of the gate.
I'm witnessing a true commitment to constantly improve the JMU education
I am struck by the commitment to excellence that I am witnessing. Department heads, coordinators and professors say they do not want to rest on their laurels. They want to continue to improve the quality of what they do and contribute to the overall quality of the JMU education. For instance, to paraphrase the department head of one of Madison's most renowned programs (Center for Assessment and Research), if the learning objectives of our programs remain the same, we are going backwards. The Madison faculty is constantly exploring new ways to teach to meet new ways of learning. Among other things, we are also constantly asking how new technology can help enhance our teaching and learning.
Honors Program can help set the tone for academic excellence across campus
It was exciting to hear just a bit about the growth, expansion and future plans of the Honors Program. I plan to learn more about that soon because I think the Honors Program has the potential to help us set the tone across campus for the excellence and rigor of our academic programs and help raise awareness of the strength of JMU academics.
Faculty relationships are central to fundraising
During some of our visits with alumni on the listening tour, they told us that their interaction with professors was paramount during their student days. So I was delighted to hear ideas from the faculty about fundraising, one of which involved exploring giving some release time to senior faculty to participate in engaging with alumni. We need to consider this and other ideas that I hope will come from our ongoing "Why Madison?" Listening Tour. Faculty relationships are central to successful fundraising, and fundraising will be a major focus in Madison's future.
How should we describe ourselves?
One of the issues I have been raising on the listening tour is how we at JMU can meaningfully describe ourselves, as we have so many qualities of a small liberal arts college and many of the opportunities associated with a large research-intensive university, and yet we are neither. So we need to concentrate on being the best JMU that we can be. The description of JMU as a public comprehensive university that combines the best elements of these other types of institutions says all the right things, but it is rather unwieldy to use in many circumstances. I will look forward to ideas about how we can describe ourselves better. I'm hearing that one of the functions that shows off where JMU stands at the juncture of those institutional types is academic advising. Attention to advising is critical to maintaining the intimacy of the student experience, and it is becoming an increasingly complex function because of our size. We need to be intentional about ways we can give good and consistent advice and enable students to complete their degrees in a timely manner.
Despite our strengths, we can't expect input to be 100 percent positive
As I visit academic units I'm not surprised to hear from our faculty that there are aspects of our educational operation that we should improve. I would expect to hear nothing less than a frank assessment from our faculty. In order for us to make constructive changes, we first need to understand our challenges and to identify areas where we need to improve. Thus, it is important for us to hear the concerns from the people who know our institution the best. For example, we've heard that we could do a better job, especially internally, of promoting the importance of the liberal arts. It's important that departments have a common understanding of their value and a common commitment to them. They must be able to express the value of the liberal arts to our students, to whom it is not always obvious. Often it is not until later, when they've graduated and look back, that they appreciate that liberal arts foundation.
Maintaining that cherished Madison teaching/research balance
It is heartening to hear from our faculty just how much they enjoy teaching and mentoring undergraduates. In fact, many professors have said that's why they came to JMU. That said, some say they are straining to maintain that cherished Madison educational culture because of a host of factors related to the economy, the size of the university, and operational and budget infrastructure, and incentive structure. One of the reasons for the listening tour is that JMU has reached a critical time in our history. It's time to take a collective moment to reassess, reaffirm our values, prioritize through the strategic planning process and then direct resources. We have come a long way, but we know that we can't stand still and that we face significant challenges in public higher education (in part reflecting national pressures and trends). For example, we must pay close attention to the steps we need to take to maintain our cherished and delicate teaching/research balance in light of our particular institutional mission.
We've charged the Compensation Task Force to provide a thorough study
Faculty and staff salaries are another concern in light of the recent statewide salary freeze. Provost Benson and Senior Vice President King have charged the salary task force to provide a thorough and transparent study of this issue, including the university budget structure, within state policy guidelines. We want to leave no stone unturned in examining these issues; there should be no "sacred cows" as we look carefully at possibilities with regard to both revenue streams and expenses. We've clearly identified the problem, and now we need to work collectively to identify a set of solutions for the short, medium, and long term.
Early progress has been made on the compensation front
On the plus side, it's worth noting that we've already made some recent progress with some funds that have been diverted from other budgets for faculty salaries. Furthermore, we've had some significant bonuses awarded this year that provide real money for people's paychecks. These steps represent a good start as we turn the corner on a difficult and challenging economic period for all of our people.
The conversation continues with faculty, students, alumni, parents, donors and partners
There are many more upcoming visits to academic units this semester on the "Why Madison?" Listening Tour. I still have a lot of listening to do, with the faculty, students, staff, alumni, parents, donors and partners. The tour is really just the start of what will be an ongoing conversation involving our entire university community. The dialogue will continue as we proceed through the Madison Future Commission with strategic planning and the development of a vision and priorities for the years to come. We have great challenges but even greater opportunities as an institution, and I'm looking forward to working with everyone in our community to address these issues going forward. Together there's no limit to what we can do!
Published: Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Last Updated: Wednesday, May 24, 2017


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With over 150 events, a series of pop up exhibitions, installations, talks, performances, music and workshops, the festival is a showcase of cutting edge design from some of the biggest names in the industry.
This year the design community flocked to Clerkenwell with over 24,000 registered for the event!
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Wabash Students Engage Community on Abuseby Cole Crouch '17 • February 6, 2014 Share:
In 2012, Montgomery County was given a "Top 25 Percent" overall priority drug problem rating based on comparisons with all Indiana Counties," according to Montgomery County Community Conversations Initiative. Montgomery County rated in the top 25 percent of counties for marijuana, heroin, and cocaine use and arrests. The Indiana State Police seized 27 methamphetamine labs. There were 48 prescription drug overdose deaths. One community group is trying to take action.
Wabash College students involved themselves in meaningful action by facilitating conversations to determine the best approaches for solving the problem of substance abuse. Now, led by Wabash Rhetoric Professors and community organizations, the conversations have continued into 2014.
"These meetings were brought about by community members who expressed a need to learn more information about what is already being done in the community to address substance abuse and what are some of the challenges and areas of need," said Professor of Rhetoric Todd McDorman. "The purpose of these continuing meetings has been to expand the larger interest the college has in relations with the community, and also give students opportunities to engage in meaningful action."
In January, two separate educational meetings provided opportunities for community members to hear from law enforcement and treatment recovery groups. Jennifer Abbott, Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Department Chair, compiled all notes and information and made them available on the website.
The final meeting is 6:30pm, tonight in the Crawfordsville Public Library Donnelly Room, and the conversation will focus on youth abuse. All community members and students are welcome to come and participate in the final conversation. Also, the final meeting will allow community members an opportunity to form action groups. These groups will form, "…to create social events, become mentors, or determine transportation coordination," McDorman said.
"This community has a wide range of people who are willing to contribute," said Brock Graham '09, Outreach Pastor at Rockpoint Church. "I think if I could go back to Wabash again, I would challenge and encourage guys to get out into the community. I think it is so easy while you're at Wabash to just stay in the Wabash Bubble. Instead, I would jump in and help us solve these problems."


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A winner was selected from 48 designs submitted by 11 freelance designers.
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Skyscraper (120x600)
Please design animated gif at the following sizes:Banner (468x60)Leaderboard (728x90)Square (250x250)Small Square (200x200)Large Rectangle (336x280)Medium Rectangle (300x250)Skyscraper (120x600)the banners are for our online trading platform 10PIPS.COM you should use animated gif banners no more then 50k file size Acceptable formats: .gif, .jpg, .png.you must use the same colors as our site and the same Logo as our site.use images or text of: forex, stocks, commodities (like oil, gold), CFD & indices.
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here are some examples of good banners (not related to our theme):
non professional looking design.
to much details
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We've had an on-again, off-again relationship for more than a decade. I guess if I'm going to come clean, I shoulder most of the responsibility for the spotty patches. Relationships require a certain amount of effort; I wasn't consistent about the maintenance needed to keep things running smoothly. I realized I was being lax, but just sort of took things for granted. It happens to the best of us - when it comes to our appliances.
My dishwasher and I existed harmoniously for months - even years - at a time.
He did the job he was purchased to do. I supplied him with dirty dishes and 97 minutes later relieved him of clean ones.
We had a perfect relationship - from my perspective. Until spots appeared. Not in front of my eyes, but on cups, plates and silverware. The first time this occurred, I learned spotty dishes are often caused by a phenomenon known as clogged dishwasher jets. The remedy for unclogging jets involves cleaning the dishwasher - which is perhaps the most counter-intuitive task I've encountered in years. Since I've never considered myself pro-clog (unless we're talking about footwear) I vowed to stay on top of my maintenance duties by flushing my jets on a regular basis.
This was a great theory - with one massive leak.
As long as the dishwasher kept up his end of the cleaning bargain, I forgot about the gunk building up in his jets - until they started spewing white spots on my cutlery and I knew I better initiate a therapeutic dishwasher intervention - again. (Cycle complete, and then repeat.)
One thing I've learned over the years is the best way to solve a problem (besides ignoring it until it goes away) involves peeling back the layers until you get to the core of the issue. In my situation, this meant dismantling the dishwasher part by part, screw by screw, jet by jet.
Over our 13-year relationship, I became intimate with the innards of my dishwasher and had a working - if not nearly personal - relationship with each of his jets. So, when white spots appeared on the dishes last week, I approached the situation with the calm of a yoga master on Xanax.
I took a deep, cleansing breath and proceeded to unscrew, degunk and de-clog with the prowess and flexibility of a woman who's done it all before. My husband even joined me in the act. I love when we bond over household chores. When complete, we put the machine back together and set him up for a test run (the dishwasher, not my husband).
Five minutes into the wash cycle, my husband took a peek inside and made an important and unfortunate discovery. Clogged jets were only the start of our spotty predicament. Even though we were mid-wash cycle, the inside of the dishwasher remained dry. We had a pump problem. Too complex - and costly - to warrant fixing on a 13-year old machine (which equates to 91 in dog years).
My on-again, off-again relationship with my dishwasher was officially off-again - for good. I now stare at the empty hole in my kitchen where the dishwasher stood sentry for over a decade. Another model will take his place upon delivery in five to seven business days, and a new relationship will begin.
Meanwhile, our old dishwasher has moved on to a better place (for now a semi-hidden spot in the corner of the backyard) where every dish is as clean and spot-free as a tabula rasa.
Best of all, I am secure in and comforted by the knowledge that he enters his new home with jets that are clear and completely gunk-free.
Follow Slices of Life on Facebook and hit Like. Jill Pertler is an award-winning syndicated columnist, playwright and author of "The Do-It-Yourselfer's Guide to Self-Syndication" Email her at firstname.lastname@example.com; or visit her web site at http://marketing-by-design.home.mchsi.com/.


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Blog of Dr. Miland Brown that features different aspects of world history. Not everything can be covered but sites dealing with any historical issue or topic are possible future posts. Also includes sites which discuss teaching history. Dr. Brown is an academic in North America.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Extra!: History of the State of the Union
This CNN article has some highlights on the history of the State of the Union Address. This is the annual ceremonial occasion when the American President gives a speech to Congress on how the country is doing.
Here are some highlights from the article:
- The address was not called the "State of the Union" until President Franklin D. Roosevelt used that phrase in 1935. Until then, the speech was referred to as the "Annual Message."
- From 1801 to 1912, the Presidents did not deliver a speech. Instead, they sent a report to Congress where it was read out loud by a clerk.
- In 1923, Calvin Coolidge became the first president to broadcast his speech on the radio.
- In 1947, Harry S Truman became the first president to deliver the address on television.
- An opposing party's first official "response" to the State of the Union speech was given in 1966.
Of recent note, Lewis Gould of the History News Network writes that we should Abolish the State of the Union Address. (As the State of the Union is required by the Constitution, this might require a constitutional amendment though...)
Other good links on the State of the Union:
State of the Union Addresses of the American Presidents
Wikipedia: State of the Union Address
C-SPAN State of the Union Videos and Transcripts
GPO: State of the Union
3 comments:
- k said...
Bush's State of the Union Address seemed to have more excuses than solutions for the problems in the Middle East. I don't know about anyone else, but watching the film The War Within has given me a new perspective on terrorism against the United States, especially from a possible terrorist's point of view. Whether the subject in the film is forced into it through brutal imprisonment or through conscience decisions the film gives a point of view rarely seen in the United States.
- Miland said...
"I don't know about anyone else, but watching the film The War Within has given me a new perspective on terrorism against the United States, especially from a possible terrorist's point of view."
I guess it is helpful to understand the terrorist view as long as we do not sympathize with it. Triumph of the Will helps us understand the Nazi view too but you do not sympathize with them do you?
Bush may be making mistakes and the Western world may have erred in how it has responded to Islamic terrorism, but the evil of 9/11 and other terrorist acts rests with the terrorists and terrorist alone.
Do not make excuses for the terrorists anymore than you would for Nazi party members.
Further, the West may not undertsand the Middle East very well but I think many in the Middle East understand us even less. The need for education goes both ways.
- Worst Weather Ever said...
found this in google blogsearch. i wasn't too into the speech honestly, but thats a cool article you found.


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Sigma DP3 Merrill for Amazing Close-up Details
The Sigma Dp3 Merrill is the newest member of the DP family, and the fourth camera in the Sigma line built around the amazing Merill Generation Foveon Direct Image Sensor. The Dp3 Merrill is fitted with a 50mm F2.8 DP prime lens that equates to 75mm on the APS-C stacked image sensor. And, in a first for the DP lineup, it offers 1:3 macro magnification.


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GAIA PAINT 051 NOTES FLESH 15ml
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Next Episode of World News Australia is
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- and it just happened to you.
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|Mixed stripey blanket crochet along 2012 progress
Friday, December 21, 2012
Crochet 2012 in pictures..(and a few words)
22 comments:
Beautiful colourful happy collages!!!ReplyDelete
Buon Natale,
xxxx Alessandra
Merry Christmas Jules! You've made a rainbow collection this year and my absolute favourite is the cushion at the top...you're a talent with the hook, that's for sure!ReplyDelete
Wow Julie, your collages look brilliant and happy and bright!! Yeah for the summer hols!!! My eldest is off to secondary in 2013 so it's all new for us : -) Enjoy the last few pre-Christmas days!!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousDecember 21, 2012 at 10:20 PM
I love your collage its beautiful.ReplyDelete
Hello Julie, you are a great inspiration to me, I really love the colors you use, they make me always happy! Wishing you a Merry Christmas and an inspirational new year, bye byeReplyDelete
Thanks Julie. Your page inspires me soooo much. Merry Christmas! xxxxReplyDelete
You are surely the crochet queen! It's so nice to see all your projects in the collage, being a latecomer to your blog. I love your use of colour in projects. I am hoping next year I may just attempt to learn crochet.ReplyDelete
What lovely colours! I hope you all have a lovely Christmas. Just one last minute fresh veggie shop for us and then I am not doing anything I don't want for a week!! xxxReplyDelete
Greetings from Poland :)
All so beautiful and colorful :)ReplyDelete
- AnonymousDecember 22, 2012 at 7:32 AM
Great looking photo collages, so colourful and inspiring.ReplyDelete
Merry Christmas Little Woollie :) Thank for sharing those collages, not only are they beautiful but there is yet another blanket I want to make!! Oooh and thanks for sharing PicMonkey, I'd never heard of it before but this will save me hours in photoshop :DReplyDelete
Merry Christmas xx
Hey Julie, fab collages, you certainly were busy with hook and yarn in 2012....finished or not.....ReplyDelete
All the best with time management for 2013, any tips let me know please.....
FB seems to be the way to go for people promoting their art/craft. Good for posting new shop updates and
getting your work out to a wider audience alot quicker I think. Also nice to just post a pic and a sentence rather
than a whole blog post.
I ove the feeling of the school year being over and the freedom of school hols and no set routines.....enjoy it.
All the best for Christmas and to No. 3 at secondary school. Have a wonderful 2013.....
Claire x
Your page is so colourful and bright. Love the way the photos are set out. Interested to see your facebook page, as one of my resolutions for next year is to make a Ginx Craft facebook page. I have a personal one, but have realized that very few of my personal friends are into craft, and perhaps it would be best to keep the two things separate.ReplyDelete
I love all of these bright, happy colours! We've had a stressful morning and I needed something to cheer me up.ReplyDelete
Good luck with your baby starting high school! My baby starts primary next year and I reckon I'm probably older than you so I'm not sure if that should make me feel younger or even older still! Have a great holiday with your kids.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousDecember 23, 2012 at 11:02 AM
Love the collages, interested in how your bright tablecloth is coming along? (the one from the Japanese crochet book)ReplyDelete
Wow what wonderful colours. They are scrumtious. You sure did get a lot done. Makes me feel bad!ReplyDelete
Hope you have a great Christmas.
Rosie xx
Wow! It's so satisfying when you look back over the year isn't it. The colours are amazing. Well done!ReplyDelete
I love the idea of doing a recap of the past year. It really does give one a satisfying feeling to see it all laid out in front of you with a beautiful array of photos. I love your colors, they make me think of candyland or what I think candyland would look like LOL.ReplyDelete
I a going to have to try making the pillow that looks like the blanket you just finished. I love the look of a mixed crochet look. I just hope I will be able to pull it off the way you did :)
Happy New year and may it bring you and yours the best it has to offer.
Best regards,
Your new follower
Birgitta, Iceland
So so so lovely!ReplyDelete
I just love the cushion in the top left corner of your collage - really beautiful!ReplyDelete
Thank you for taking the time to add your comment, I love to receive comments and read them all, even if I don't get around to responding to you, I am just not that organised!


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The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requires all medical specialties to review and revise their residency program requirements on a regular basis. This year, however, the ACGME is implementing a new system dubbed the Next Accreditation System, which has drawn fire from the AAFP regarding women's reproductive health curriculum changes it would impose on family medicine.
According to AAFP Medical Education Division Director Stanley Kozakowski, M.D., "There was a goal to simplify many of the current prescriptive requirements across the breadth of family medicine to allow for greater innovation on the part of residency programs."
Program updates and revisions currently being written, revised and considered by review committees for all the medical specialties will, after being accepted, become the yardstick by which programs will be measured for the next decade, leading Kozakowski, on behalf of the AAFP Commission on Education (COE), to submit comments to the ACGME and the Review Committee for Family Medicine (RC-FM).
In an April 22 letter to ACGME Executive Director Eileen Anthony, Kozakowski said he was providing information to the ACGME and the RC-FM on behalf of the organizations of academic family medicine: the Association of Departments of Family Medicine, the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors, the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine and the AAFP's Residency Program Solutions consulting group.
The COE executive committee summarized organizational comments to provide feedback on myriad issues, including program director experience, patient encounters, care of hospitalized patients, procedural skills, core faculty definition and the board pass rate.
However, proposed curriculum changes in the area of women's reproductive health caused concern among a number of AAFP members, prompting AAFP Board Chair Glen Stream, M.D., M.B.I., of Spokane, Wash., to send an April 26 letter to RC-FM Chair Peter Carek, M.D., that made the AAFP's position crystal clear.
"We would like to communicate directly to the Review Committee for Family Medicine (the) concerns expressed by our membership regarding the removal -- from the draft Program Requirements for Residency Education in Family Medicine -- (of) the specific references to curriculum in family planning and reproductive decision-making," said Stream.
"The AAFP wants the RC-FM to understand clearly that we remain firm in our policy commitment to women's health and contraception as essential components for the family physician's scope of practice," said Stream.
Furthermore, "It is our expectation that as the new program requirements are implemented -- for those residency-sponsoring institutions lacking the resources or inclination to support individual curricular elements -- that they continue to be held accountable to provide all required components by using external resources and partners as needed."
Stream said the AAFP expected the RC-FM to enforce that requirement as it had done in the past.
The proposed changes to the program requirements for family medicine will be finalized in the fall and published late in 2013. The new requirements go into effect in July 2014.
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Judy Blume, literary icon and beloved author of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret; Forever; and Summer Sisters, returns with a story that's preoccupied her for the past sixty years. When Blume was a teenager in the early 1950s, a series of passenger airplanes crashed in Elizabeth, New Jersey within a three-month period. "These events have lingered in my mind ever since. It was a crazy time. We were witnessing things that were incomprehensible to us as teenagers." In the Unlikely Event traces the reverberations of these tragedies, through her own life and beyond. Blume returns to Chicago to discuss her new novel with one of the many readers she's inspired over the years, the Chicago Tribune's Heidi Stevens.
This program is presented in partnership with the Chicago Tribune's Printers Row series.


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Kanye West Speech @ MSG Glow In The Dark Tour "How Did Soulja Boy Kill Hip Hop? He Had One Of The Biggest Songs In The Summer"
MSG Glow in the Dark Tour NYC 8/5/08. Hear Kanye close out the show talkin' everything from nas to soulja boy to him being called a fag..etc.. classic Kanye!
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David R. Brower, who says that he has had a love for the Earth's wild places for as long as he can remember, began volunteer work for the Sierra Club 33 years ago ... and the enthusiasm, dedication, and energy he poured into that conservation group's projects led the organization to appoint him as the Sierra Club's first Executive Director in 1952. It was a wise move. During the next 17 years under Brower's leadership, the club's membership swelled from 7,000 to 77,000 and became a major voice in the environmental movement.
It would seem, however, that the very growth Brower created eventually led to his ouster from the conservation organization that he so dearly loved. As the Sierra Club became bigger and bigger, it was forced — as are all large operations — to become a little more careful, to do things "by the book" ... to have less and less patience with mad, impetuous Dave Brower, the very man whose whirlwind vitality had attracted so many members to the club in the first place.
It was a little like the settling of Dave's beloved West all over again: The mountain men's wild tales of extravagant wealth lured their less daring cousins across the Rockies ... and once those pedestrian relatives had built their stores and schools and churches ... well, the sheriff, mayor, and city council began to get a little nervous every time a buckskin shirt walked down the street. So they called a town meetin' and voted the mountain men out. The new, little metropolis may well have been the better for it, but ...
David Brower was voted out of the Sierra Club in 1969 and, luckily for the planet, immediately began founding or helping to found Friends of the Earth, the League of Conservation Voters, and a number of related environmental organizations. Friends of the Earth, although still relatively small and young, has already been credited with — among other accomplishments — being the major force in the defeat of the SST.
On March 24th, 1973, The Sun People — a small but extremely impressive ecology group — held an alternative energy conference in Cape May, New Jersey. Bucky Fuller, U.S. Senator Mike Gravel and many other well-known and obscure solar, wind, and water power experimenters, experts, and promoters were there. David Brower addressed the gathering on the subject of atomic energy ... and why, as an environmentalist, he is appalled at the prospects of introducing on a wide scale this "solution" to the coming energy crunch.
Some MOTHER EARTH NEWS people attended the Cape May conference and, in the wee hours of the morning, finally cornered the tireless environmental activist Dave Brower long enough to interview him. It should be noted that, although Mr. Brower speaks with impressive authority and holds definite views on many environmental subjects, he always seems to deliver his thoughts in an easy, warm, human and lighthearted manner. It's impossible not to like the man and just as impossible to keep a straight face when he peppers — as he constantly does — his remarks with humorous and sometimes hilarious offhand observations. The following interview, you should be warned, does not at all capture the real Dave Brower.
Mr. Brower, thanks to your seemingly tireless work over the past 20 or so years with the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and other environmental organizations, you've become a rather legendary figure in the conservation and ecology movement. If you'll allow me to, however, I'd now like to strip away some of your larger-than-life image and introduce all of MOTHER's readers to the flesh and blood human being underneath. Please, if you will, give us a brief rundown of David Brower's existence to this point.
I was born in Berkeley, Calif. 60 years ago and I dropped out of college in my sophomore year. The rest of my education came a little more slowly. I went in the back door and was an editor of the University of California Press for eleven years, with time out for World War II.
How did you serve during the war?
As a battalion intelligence officer in the ski troops — mountain troops — in Italy ... and I had one experience there that still impresses me.
What was that?
Well, I don't want to bore you ... but I can vividly recall a day when I had gotten up on a little observation point to see if the enemy was in an area that we were moving toward. As usual, I didn't spot much because the Germans were very good at keeping themselves unseen. That was one of their tricks. We were always bustling all over and they were out of sight. Maybe I've got that backward: Maybe we were the ones who were out of sight, really out of sight.
Anyway, I sat down at the top of that hill in a slit trench or something that would protect me from rifle fire and, for some reason, I was looking back instead of forward ... when there was a click against the branch right over my head and I knew it was a shell.
Now I must explain that, at the time, we were losing a hell of a lot of troops because the Germans were very good at getting tree bursts. They didn't have, as we did, radar-activated or proximity-fused shells that would explode at a certain distance above the ground — so the resulting shrapnel could kill or wound soldiers over a wider area — but they got the same effect by aiming their 70mm shells at the trees above us.
And this particular shell just ticked a branch right over me but, luckily, the limb didn't touch the projectile's fuse. And the shell went on and — because I was looking back — I saw this dark circle get smaller and smaller and smaller until it hit a hill on the other side of a ravine and BANG! I figure from that point on, my life has been a gift. About this much variation (Brower measures a fraction of an inch between thumb and forefinger) in the path of that shell and I wouldn't be sitting here boring you tonight.
You're not at all boring. And after the war?
I sort of kept my hand in writing and went to work for the Sierra Club in `52, walked the plank there in `69, founded Friends of the Earth and the League of Conservation Voters after that, began working with the John Muir Institute and then started helping found Friends of the Earth organizations here and there in other countries. That pretty well brings us up to the present.
During your 17 years with the Sierra Club, you're credited with being the driving force behind that operation's growth from something like 7,000 members to approximately 77,000 dues payers. With that kind of a record behind you, why would the Sierra Club force you to "walk the plank," as you say?
It was just honest differences of opinion between myself and the rest of the Sierra Club's board of directors. Superficial differences about how international we should get, how far we should go into publishing ... and whether or not I was competent. Well, I was always incompetent and I told them so and we pretty much had ourselves a Mexican standoff on these minor issues when we found ourselves face to face on a major matter: atomic energy.
When Pacific Gas & Electric tried to locate a nuclear reactor at Bodega Head in California, most of the Sierra Club's board of directors refused to enter the fight against the installation. That battle was fought by David Tesonen's Northern California Association to Preserve Bodega Head and Harbor and, although I was still in the Sierra Club, I helped David's group as much as I could. My action ruffled some feathers but I was allowed to remain in the organization.
Then we came to the Diablo Canyon proposal where PG&E wanted to build a major nuclear installation on the last unspoiled bit of California coast between Cape Mendocino and the Mexican border. That's a long, long stretch and there was only this one little spot left and PG&E wanted it. Actually, the company really preferred to build at Nipomo Dunes — which is beautiful and which most of the other Sierra Club directors justifiably wanted to save — and had substituted the Diablo Canyon location only at the insistence of the club. But the decision to recommend the Diablo site was made in spite of the fact that none of the voting directors had ever seen it!
I urged that the decision be delayed until the Sierra Club's executives could at least inspect Diablo Canyon before reaching a verdict on the matter, but I was outvoted. A great deal of pressure was then built up to remove me from the club and my resignation was, finally, a forced one.
Well you certainly don't seem bitter about being squeezed out of an operation that you promoted so vigorously for 17 years.
Oh no. The Sierra Club is a very good and a very powerful force for conservation and, as a matter of fact, has grown faster since I left than it was growing while I was there! It must be doing something right. Besides, the club has changed and is now into many of the things that its other directors used to fuss at me for.
It should be quite obvious to anyone who heard you speak at the conference today that you're very much opposed to the use of atomic energy. Have you always felt this way?
Not at all. Until four years ago, in fact, I was absolutely in love with the atom. When I was heading the campaign to protect Dinosaur National Monument and the Grand Canyon, I was actually telling people that—by harnessing the atom—we could enter a new era of unlimited power that would do away with the need to dam our beautiful streams. Even as recently as `69, when I was fighting with the Sierra Club about the Diablo Canyon reactor, I was saying, "No, not there ... put it somewhere else on the California coast." I still had the illusion, you see, that atomic energy could be a safe alternative to damming all our rivers for power.
What changed your mind?
I began to get a little suspicious in the mid-fifties during a long session I had before the Senate Interior Committee when, once again, I was advocating the use of the atom. At that time a senator who was on the Joint Committee of Atomic Energy said rather quietly, "You know, we're having a little problem with waste these days." I didn't know what he meant then, but I know now.
He was referring to nuclear waste.
He was, of course, referring to nuclear waste ... which is lethal and which we have absolutely no way of disposing of. There is no place where we can safely store worn-out reactors or their garbage. No place! We tried burying the waste at sea and the concrete canisters that held it cracked open. We've pumped it into cavities in solid rock and found that it spread through the rock. We've put it in Kansas salt mines, only to learn that the mines leak.
Some otherwise sane scientists have seriously proposed that we tuck this deadly garbage under the edges of drifting continents ... but how can they be sure the moving land masses will climb over the waste and not just push it forward?
Other supposedly rational spokesmen want to drop our radioactive rubbish on the Antarctic and let it melt its way down about a mile and a half into the ice. Still others — in England, interestingly enough — want to dump it into the Irish Sea. Maybe they figure that will end the troubles in Ireland once and for all.
Yet another proposal would have us rocket the waste into the sun ... but, as you're probably aware, about one in ten of our space shots doesn't quite make it out of the earth's gravitational field. Apollo 13, as you may remember, gave us a reactor that is bubbling away right now somewhere in the Pacific. It's supposed to be bubbling away on the moon, but it's in the Pacific Ocean instead.
Perhaps most ridiculous of all is the suggestion that we "keep" our radioactive garbage for the use of our descendants. This "solution," I think, requires an immediate poll of the next 20,000 generations ... we must let them sit in judgment on the madness — or immorality — of the idea. Is the minor convenience of allowing the present generation the luxury of doubling its energy consumption every 10 years worth the major hazard of exposing the next 20,000 generations to this lethal waste?
Twenty thousand generations is a rather powerful span of time. Just how long is nuclear garbage dangerous anyway?
It depends. There are many different kinds of radioactive waste and each has its own half-life so, just to be on the safe side and to simplify matters, I base my calculations on the worst one and that's plutonium.
Pluonium's half-life is 24,000 years. This means that, after 24,000 years, it's only half as dangerous as it was when you started out. But this is still so bad that you've got to stretch its sequestering clear on out to 500,000 years . . . which is about five times as long into the future as Neanderthal man is in the past. And I don't think we have very good records about what they were thinking except, as I pointed out earlier today, that they did invent our political system.
The risk presented by these lethal wastes is like no other risk, and we should not be expected to accept it or to project it into the future ... in order for manufacturers and utilities to make a dollar killing now.
Agreed. And, as you and other ecologists have pointed out, that isn't the half of it. Nuclear power installations present even more immediate and horrifying dangers.
Yes. To name just one, there's the problem of cooling the plants. If a reactor loses its cool, it can quickly go out of control ... even if it's shut down promptly. Every reactor absolutely must have an effective emergency cooling system and the Atomic Energy Commission has made this requirement quite clear. But a year's hearing in 1972 — before the AEC's safety and licensing board — revealed a most alarming incompetence in emergency core cooling systems, engineering, and testing.
In the face of this revelation, it is certainly odd that the AEC board has ruled "irrelevant" the questions addressed to the AEC's regulatory staff about present reactor safety criteria. Well, the AEC may wish to think that such questions are irrelevant ... but the public had better not dare think so.
Do you know what a runaway reactor can do? It can produce a radioactive cloud that extends 100 miles downwind and kills everything — that could include anywhere from 10,000 to one million people — in two weeks flat. The fallout from the accident, of course, can cause major injury and damage even further away than that.
Imagine what Con-Ed's Indian Point reactor — which, by the way, has already had a one-million-dollar fuel leak — could do to Manhattan. If they hadn't caught that fuel leak in time and the Indian Point reactor had run away and the wind had been wrong ... how many civilians could have escaped Manhattan? Or even known which way to go? Very few. Indian Point could wipe out Manhattan. Just kill 'em all. There's no point in messing with that kind of risk ... there just isn't that much reward in it.
OK. But let's say that the designers and engineers lick the emergency cooling problem. Let's say, in fact, that they design a perfect reactor.
Even if you build the perfect reactor, you're still saddled with a people problem and an equipment problem. What happens when the guy who runs the reactor gets out of bed wrong or decides, for some reason, that he wants to override his instruction sheet some afternoon? What happens when a part breaks down somewhere inside that piece of machinery and it isn't perfect anymore?
If you'll look at the records that the AEC has of the little accidents — the lesser disasters — that have already taken place, you'll see that incidents of this nature are almost common. There was one reactor mishap where a whole series of 32 things that "couldn't go wrong" did. One fed the other, fed the other, this wasn't going, that valve wasn't quite ready to work and so on. It is just too much to expect perfection and the risk of anything less is just too enormous.
What about the coming breeder reactors that many nuclear scientists are now pushing so strongly?
The breeder reactor has all the problems we've just discussed — in spades — and introduces a few brand new ones all its own. The threat, I think, has best been described by the AEC itself which recently pointed out that breeder reactors should not be developed until a safe fission reactor has been built ... and, of course, that hasn't happened yet.
Over and above the "ordinary" nuclear power plant dangers, however, you must realize that breeder reactors—which produce plutonium at the same time they generate usable power — would throw us right into the middle of a plutonium economy. This is the same plutonium that must be isolated from all living things for 500,000 years ... and once the breeders are introduced, we'll soon be shipping it back and forth across the country from one nuclear installation to another by the ton.
Now this is a very dangerous undertaking. First, there's the increased risk of exposing innocent bystanders to that lethal cargo and, second, it practically invites the criminal element to wreak all kinds of havoc by hijacking the material. As Dr. Donald Geesaman of the AEC has documented quite vividly, the transportation system of this country is so heavily infiltrated by the Mafia that they can divert any shipment of anything they want, at any time. (I've just learned that, for exposing this danger and otherwise criticizing lax AEC policies, Dr. Geesaman has been discredited and fired by the Atomic Energy Commission. This is the same action that was taken by the AEC against two other courageous scientists — John Gofman and Arthur Tamplin — who recently spoke out against what they believed to be extremely dangerous nuclear policy. Maybe it's about time for a Watergate-type investigation of the AEC. — MOTHER EARTH NEWS. )
Now it only takes about 15 kilos (33 pounds) of plutonium to make a Nagasaki-type bomb. I don't know how to do it and I don't want to know how ... but other people do. People in organizations like the Black September Movement. People who are extremely clever and who are willing to sacrifice anything to get their way. Once we open the door to the plutonium economy, we expose ourselves to absolutely terrible, horrifying risks from these people.
We don't need all those dangers. The additional energy isn't worth it. The breeder program should be forgotten ... stopped!
I take it, then, that you are now against nuclear power in any form.
At this point, I don't want to see any atomic plants operating anywhere with fission energy until 1), we find a very large group of absolutely infallible people to build reactors; 2), we have a still larger group of infallible people to operate them; 3), we've turned every one of the Black Septembers in the world white and persuaded God to stop acting. When all that happens, atomic energy will be safe. Until then, forget it.
And what about fusion?
It's very hard for me to know what to say about fusion right now, in as much as it is not yet scientifically feasible. I just can't understand how so many people are able to predict so much about something that still isn't scientifically possible.
I will say this, though: If it is true that fusion will put unlimited amounts of energy into our hands, then I'm worried. Our record on this score is extremely poor. It seems that every time mankind is given a lot of energy, we go out and wreck something with it. Make a plot chart of our uses of power and you'll find that we use about one percent to help the environment and the other 99% to do quite irreversible damage. It scares me to think of what we could — and undoubtedly would — do with unlimited amounts of force at our finger tips.
I remember a discussion I once had with a man I respect very much. He was the head of the AEC's fusion reactor program at the time and he was telling me about all the great things we would be able to do with fusion's vast amounts of low-cost energy. "We won't have to worry anymore about solid waste," he said. "We'll be able to disintegrate it into its atoms."
Well, my friend was quite pleased by that thought and I was frightened ... because I don't know who's going to go around sorting all those atoms into their proper cubbyholes. When you've knocked things down to their atoms, you know, you've taken molecules apart ... and I have a sort of strong sentimental attachment to molecules. I use them myself.
Well you've certainly built a strong enough case against atomic energy ... and you haven't even mentioned thermal pollution or DNA once.
All I know about thermal pollution is that if we continue our present rate of growth in electrical energy consumption it will simply take, by the year 2000, all our freshwater streams to cool the generators and reactors ... and I'd rather do something else with that water.
DNA is another matter. This is the miraculous coding, you know, that makes all life possible. It only takes up one-half of one percent of the two half cells from which each of us begins and it's the most condensed information that there is, anywhere. Understanding how DNA transmits all it knows about cancer, physics, dreaming, and love will keep man searching for some time and it is absolutely imperative that we protect, preserve, and pass on this genetic heritage for man and every other living thing in as good a condition as we received it.
Unfortunately, however, reactors and genes don't mix very well. Radiation can cause genes to mutate at a speed incredibly more rapid than their ordinary, orderly evolvement down through the eons. We have no idea what that can mean.
It's a criminal act of the highest order, then, when the reactor producers and operators now ask us to submit our DNA to the possibly enormous and barely comprehended consequences of radioactive bombardment from their proposed nuclear installations. For our electrical convenience and their profit, they will play reactor roulette with our genes. This is reckless radicalism at its worse.
I would assume that the people who are promoting atomic energy have considered this problem and decided that the risk is justified.
Look at it this way: You would probably have taken a rather dim view of me if I had picked up a machine gun this afternoon and sprayed the audience at the conference while I said, "Boy! I certainly hope nobody gets hurt."
That's just about what's happening when we allow these guys to play with radioactivity. They simply don't know that much about what they're doing. There isn't enough control. There isn't enough capability in ordinary people to tinker with such a complicated piece of machinery. It's like turning the space program over to the Long Island Railroad.
But what about the argument that — like it or not — we have no alternative but to use nuclear power? Bill Cherry, the solar energy expert from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, stated at the conference today that — at best — the sun and other "clean" alternative energy sources can supply something like only 20 percent of the power we're going to be using 30 years from now. Do you think he was being realistic?
No ... and "realistic" is a loaded word for me. Anyone who uses the word "realistic" is all bad. When people say, "You're not being realistic," they're just trying to tag some thoughts that they can't otherwise handle.
But to get back to Cherry: Why, for God's sake, does he have to assume that our energy consumption will be at such-and-such an increased rate by the year so-and-so? Why do we double our consumption of power every 15 or every 10 or every 8 or whatever-we're-down-to-now years? Why don't we cut it 10 percent each year? Why don't we trade in our standard of using and go back to a standard of living?
We could do it, you know. When I was in high school, the population of the earth was half what it is now ... yet we used only one-tenth the energy we now consume. And the world worked. There was employment, there was beauty, there was good air, there was open space. I'm not necessarily saying that we should return to the world of my high school years ... but we might learn something if we looked back once in a while to the days when we still lived within our environmental income.
Maybe, if we thought about it, we'd begin to ask some questions. Why, for instance, have we accepted the idea that we have to use as much electricity — for our air conditioning alone — as 800,000,000 Chinese use for everything? It's not really as if China never had a civilization, you know ... or doesn't have one now.
Why does the wet rice agriculture of China return five times as much energy as is put into the crop while the wet rice agriculture of the U.S. returns only one-fifth the energy invested? Somewhere between those two sets of figures there must be a more rational way for us to grow wet rice.
That last one is a particularly good example. Many people now know that we consume far too much energy to air condition poorly designed tract houses and automobiles that should never have been built in the first place ... but few of us realize the ridiculous and unnecessary quantities of power that we currently pour into farming on this continent.
Yes, it's a vicious spiral. The more we pour the big machines, the fuel, the pesticides, the herbicides, the fertilizer and chemicals into farming, the more we knock out the mechanism that made it all work in the first place. Then we have to invent still more energy-intensive synthetics which further spoil the natural processes that were doing all the work for free in the beginning. And every time we go around we say we've got to double the power we'll use on the next circuit ... when, for God's sake, what we should do is just stop dead in our tracks.
Bring diversity back to agriculture. That's what made it work in the first place ... before we started to intercept all the natural systems and chop off the interflow that gave us free maintenance. It's not just Shell Chemical or Standard Oil that's to blame ... not as long as we continue our genetic mining. We play around with certain strains — such as miracle wheat — and make them more and more energy-intensive in order to get more production per acre ... forgetting every ecological law in the book.
When I say that "we" forget the ecological laws, I mean the people who are running the United States Department of Agriculture and the people running the Food and Agriculture Organization. They're positively geared to the energy-intensive disruption of the earth's fertility. They're putting it on a half-life basis ... playing around to handle the immediate requirement at an enormous and unknown cost to the future.
What's even more unsettling is the way these people hide what they're doing from the public. They strip the labels off miracle wheat when they ship it, for instance, and say, "Watch out. Don't plant too much and don't depend on it too much." This is where we're making frightful mistakes and I know of no ecologist who will disagree with what I've just said and no one in the USDA or FAO who will pay any attention to it.
Why the hell don't we just go back and design by nature. There isn't anything we need that hasn't already been designed so well that it's just sitting there waiting for us. And if it's not there, forget it, because if it was going to work, it would be there. Like miracle wheat ... it would be here if nature intended it to work, but it's not here.
They're finding that out, you know, right now in some of the Western States. After years and years of trying to grow better pasture and breed more efficient cattle, they're starting to learn that they can grow more pounds of meat per acre — and do it easier —i f they'll just let the native grasses come back and then use that forage to raise buffalo.
I didn't know that, but it's very interesting.
The ranchers who've tried it claim that the native grasses — although so scrubby that cattle can't fatten on them — are better for the soil. Buffalo, however, will gain weight on the scrub forage. Not only that, but the bison meat commands a premium price and is supposed to be tastier than beef. As a matter of fact, it is better ... I ate some last summer. Maybe the Indians had the right idea all along.
They just didn't know that their buffalo herds were less energy-intensive crops than the white man's cattle.
Right! Which brings up another question: How are we going to get everyone to reduce his or her consumption of energy, even if we all agree that the idea is a good one? Who goes first, in other words? Why should I try to live a less energy-intensive life unless I'm sure you'll do the same?
That's just the point. We're all in the same boat — or on the same Spaceship Earth — together. It's time that we all got out the pledge cards and made a pact with each other. I'll turn off my lights if you will. I'll overheat and undercool my house and office half as much, drive half as wasteful a car half as far — or ride the train instead — if you'll do the same.
It's just imperative that each one of us solemnly swears to buy half as much over-packaged, disposable, obsolescent merchandise as we have been and to stop reading ads until the advertisers begin spending money to tell us how to waste less ... or eat half as many calories ... or drink only half as much.
I doubt that we'll ever do it. I mean, do you really think that the general public will give up anything for some nebulous concept called "ecology?" Unless, of course, we just run head-on into catastrophe and have no other choice?
I think they will. I believe that the average guy in the street will give up a great deal, if he really understands the cost of not giving it up. And remember, I'm talking about lowering the standard of use rather than lowering the standard of living. In fact, we may find that, while we're drastically cutting our energy consumption, we're actually raising our standard of living.
Trees, you know, are such good air conditioners and are so pleasant to have around that it seems a shame to knock them down, build a house and then cool it with an impersonal, energy-hungry box stuck in the wall. Perhaps we should tell all architects and planners that they may not build another thing or even plan another thing until, as Garrett Hardin says, they've spent a year in Venice to learn what a city is like when it's built to human scale. Or we might tell those designers to go and stay in the warmer countries of southern Europe until they understand how their counterparts of centuries ago used the natural wind patterns and circulation to make a building comfortable without the kind of air conditioning that comes in a box.
I agree with you, of course, but I still think that it's going to be a tremendously difficult job to get the message across. In time, anyway.
Oh yes. It'll be difficult, and we don't have very long to accomplish the job ... but it can be done. Look at the SST.
Yes, tell me about the SST. Friends of the Earth is still a relatively young and small organization ... and yet it seems that your group defeated the multi-billion-dollar political, labor, and corporate force behind the SST almost single-handed.
Well it's nice of you to say that, but it wasn't that way at all. Although Friends of the Earth did more or less spearhead the drive, the work that defeated the SST was done by a coalition of several environmental groups. We were just sort of nominated as leader of that particular joining of forces, in the same way that The Wilderness Society has coordinated the actions of ecology organizations that have brought suit against the Alaskan pipeline. It's sort of like musical chairs.
How many groups usually join forces for one of these environmental-action coalitions?
That depends. Sometimes we get three out of five and, on the next issue, we'll come up with eight out of five.
Is each organization expected to contribute a certain amount of personnel or money or time or whatever to every coalition it enters into?
No, we all just do the best we can. Friends of the Earth was actually kind of an "also ran, me too" in the pipeline suit. The Wilderness Society and Environmental Defense Fund picked up the legal costs on that one and we've tried to help out in other ways.
Such as?
Well one thing we did was publish a big book called Earth and the Great Weather: The Brooks Range. It has a lot to say both about the mechanics of how much oil is used by whom and about what the hell we're doing to the oldest culture by far—Eskimo—that we have on the North American Continent.
Are these alliances just chummy gatherings of ecology groups, or do you welcome the help of "outsiders" when you're getting ready to do battle against a despoiler of the environment?
There are no outsiders in these fights and we always welcome all the help we can get ... although I'll admit that we sometimes do a better than usual job of bringing additional strength into the fold. It depends a lot on who's in charge.
George Alderson, for instance, is the legislative director in our Washington office and he's a very good man. He knows how to just kind of play things cool — instead of coming on like gangbusters the way I sometimes do — and he can really bring people around to believing in what he's doing. For the SST fight, George put together a coalition of 30 organizations that included laborers, businessmen, economists ... people with widely divergent backgrounds.
How did you get the economists?
People sometimes come in by strange routes. We were joined by Paul Samuelson and, I think, 16 other economists because of Barbara Heller ... the daughter-in-law of President Kennedy's economic advisor ... and, collectively, they just riddled the economic arguments for the SST that the administration was putting forward. They didn't leave the administration an economic leg to stand on.
OK. Your economists, businessmen, other environmental groups — all the divergent organizations and power blocs that joined Friends of the Earth — added up to a lot of muscle in the fight against the SST. Are the environmental battles always fought and either won or lost on that lofty plane? Has the ecology movement become big business-like almost everything else — and forgotten the little man?
Oh no! All our 30-group coalition did was dig up the facts and figures that told the environment's side of the story. The public — a lot of little individuals — did the rest. All our lobbying, the talks we had with politicians, the ads we ran, the personal appearances we made, the televised debates, the magazine and newspaper articles — all this work — would have been wasted if the public hadn't flooded their senators and representatives with cards, letters, and phone calls against the SST.
The little guy is still important then?
Extremely important. Every single individual counts ... and, sometimes, it doesn't take that many to make a difference. Let me give you an example.
President Nixon came up, a while back, with potentially the most important speech on population control that any president, any world leader, has ever made. He said that the earth's rapidly expanding hoards of people were on a collision course with the planet's finite resources (that was for our side) but we mustn't do anything about it that would make anyone feel upset or worried (that was for the other side). In other words, the President cancelled out. He was fishing. He wanted to find out how we felt about the population problem and he was ready to go any way the majority ruled.
The only trouble was that this particular speech was a real dud at the box office. Nobody much responded at all, for or against, one side or the other. I tested this myself on a recent speaking tour by asking everyone in my audiences who had written to thank the President for his bold stand or to call him down for his misinformed statements—or anything—to raise a hand. Maybe one in a thousand responded. That's about the ratio I got . . . and that's nothing. Bear in mind, now, that I hadn't written either. I was as guilty as all the rest, and together, our inaction had helped shape Mr. Nixon's attitude on that vital environmental problem . . . and don't you forget it!
All right. Next I'd ask the members of each audience to show me how many had cared enough about defeating the Timber Supply Act to write their Congressmen. Out of each 1,000, maybe seven hands would go up. And I'd say, "Wait a minute. Think about that. The lumber industry, the paper industry, the Forest Service, the Department of Agriculture and the President were all telling Congress 'you've got to pass it, you've got to pass it' ... and here, out of this audience — which is a skewed group if I ever saw one, since you all came to hear a buddy environmentalist — when just a handful out of a thousand took the time to send in a letter ... we won in Congress by a margin of 2-to-1!"
OK. Then I'd ask how many people thought we needed an SST: Not a hand. How many thought we didn't? A lotta hands. How many wrote to Washington to say so? Still a lotta hands. Thank you very much! Because this was the turnaround. This was the first time the United States citizen—just one little guy multiplied a million times over — ever stood up against billions of dollars of vested interest and said, "I don't want it bigger and faster. That's not better anymore."
The democratic process is still alive and well in this country.
It's still alive and, if we'll only take the time to learn how to use it, we can make it work for us. Politicians like to get elected and re-elected. Talk to them in language they can understand and they'll listen.
OK. After fighting environmental battles for over 20 years—only to come face to face with burgeoning stocks of atomic waste, artificially created demands for energy, agribiz that mines the soil, human overpopulation and God knows how many other potentially planet-killing forces — you're still optimistic. You still believe that we can trust the average citizen to mend his wicked ways before it's too late ... and you're confident that all us little folks can still win the big skirmishes in the political arena.
All right. What's your Master Plan for turning mankind around? How can we bail out of the spiraling merry-go-round we've built and get ourselves back in touch with Mother Earth? How can we rediscover — if we ever knew — our true rights and responsibilities?
Well, as the Welshman Allen Reese puts it, "At the edge of the abyss the only progressive move you can make is to step back." The mountaineers say the same thing in a different way: "When you're lost, retrace your steps to the last known landmark."
We are at the edge of an abyss and we're close to being irrevocably lost. We've got to search back to our last known safe landmark. I can't say exactly where it is, but I think it's back there about a century when, at the start of the Industrial Revolution, we began applying energy in vast amounts to tools with which we began tearing the environment apart.
Perhaps, once we've gone back — at least in our thinking — and we've found our bearings again, we'll take a look at what's been happening to the earth's biological resources while we've been preoccupied with all these mechanical things. And if we look very carefully, maybe we'll see that there is nothing more important on this planet than life. While we've been so busy measuring this distance and that diameter and the forces over here and those light years out there ... we've forgotten that none of these little, nonsensical things matter if there's no life to perceive it.
And then we might peer into the future at the generations yet unborn and ask ourselves if we're really trustworthy custodians of their heritage. Do we have the right to tell them that they can never see a whale, for example, because we would rather hunt down and kill the last of these greatest of all mammals for our lubricants and cosmetics? Or do we want to say that we're going to do everything in our power to give those who follow the gift of whales?
And as we think about it, perhaps we'll realize that each of us has not one vote ... but ten thousand ... or a million. For how many people do you think might yet stand on this planet before the sun grows cold?
That's the responsibility we hold in our hands.


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For those of us who come from traditions where we bring the Holy Light home after the Paschal Liturgy (or if we're really tired, aftre the start of the Paschal Matins!), I was wondering if anyone still had their Holy Light going. This is the first year my Holy Light has made it through Bright Week. It involves having a candle stick near the vigil lamp to transfer the flame while the lamp is refilled and trimmed.I have a Aunt who is able to keep her vigil lamp going all year long this way, and she would only extinguish it on Holy Saturday. Apparently, this was my Pontian grandmother's custom who, even during the Nazi Occupation traded ouzo for olive oil to keep the family vigil lamp going. I think that in times of distress and dire need, when our resources are stretched to the limit is precisely the time we need a reminder that God is with us, and that we were created for better things, so I can understand the need to keep a vigil lamp going even when times are tough. It reminds me of that beautiful poem by Shirazi:"If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,And of thy meager storeTwo loaves alone to thee are left,Sell one, and with the doleBuy hyacinths to feed thy soul."
This is so beautiful! But tell me, olive oil? From whom may i learn more?
But tell me, olive oil? From whom may i learn more?
I couldn't help but laugh as people drove home at 3am balancing a candle between their legs as they steered. But now I know why they do it. Maybe I'll start the tradition when I grow older.
Then IF we get it home, I burn ashes into the top of the front doorway of the house and my dad has a second flip-out because we have to repaint it again.
...and he starts a schpeel on how dangerous it is.
Not everyone has a gas stove but almost everyone has a gas hot water heater.
but the hot water heater that came with the house is electric.
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Gwynn's influence felt far and wide
As players, coaches and managers arrived for work Monday afternoon, thoughts of Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn's passing echoed in each Major League clubhouse -- the place Gwynn spent so much time honing his craft over two decades of excellence.
Somewhere in each clubhouse, there was a video station with players and coaches studying up for the game. Somewhere, someone was heading off to hit off a tee, swing after swing after swing. And someone was connecting on a human level with a fan, a reporter, a teammate.
As players, coaches and managers arrived for work Monday afternoon, thoughts of Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn's passing echoed in each Major League clubhouse -- the place Gwynn spent so much time honing his craft over two decades of excellence.
Somewhere in each clubhouse, there was a video station with players and coaches studying up for the game. Somewhere, someone was heading off to hit off a tee, swing after swing after swing. And someone was connecting on a human level with a fan, a reporter, a teammate.
They were all following in the footsteps of Gwynn, whose work ethic and dedication to his craft were matched only by his infectious personality and ability to communicate.
The first thought echoing through those clubhouses Monday afternoon, of course, was that a great man of the game was gone.
"He was just a good person," said Tigers manager Brad Ausmus, who played with Gwynn from 1993-96. "As great a player as he was, he was just a good, regular guy who would talk to anybody like you were his next-door neighbor."
Said Angels manager Mike Scioscia, a longtime opponent with the Dodgers and teammate for a brief time: "What he did on the field speaks for itself. He had no peers as far as what he did in the batter's box to be a pure hitter in the era that I saw him. He worked very hard at this game. Everything you can see he did on the field pales in comparison to the type of person he was. He was such a nice guy with an infectious laugh. He wanted to help anybody, talk about hitting or any part of the game. He was just a special, special person."
In the setting where he loved to work -- the Major League clubhouse -- Gwynn also was remembered as being unparalleled in his preparation as a hitter, and a pioneer of what now is a common practice of using video to find pitchers' weaknesses and hone his own swing.
The result: a career .338 average, eight batting titles, a plaque in Cooperstown -- and a lasting influence on the game.
"It wasn't the average that stood out, but how hard he worked at his craft," longtime Padres teammate and former closer Trevor Hoffman said. "The work in the video room, breaking down his swing, breaking down pitchers -- he understood what he was trying to do and then did it. This wasn't happenstance; he earned it."
In fact, Gwynn is considered by many to be the godfather of video analysis in baseball.
"He was doing his own video of opposing pitchers and his at-bats long before video was ever a part of this game," said Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland, a teammate of Gwynn's in San Diego in 1992 and '93. "He would take a VCR on the road and record the games. Numerous times I'd see him climb up on lockers to hook up the VCR to a little TV in the clubhouse, home and road."
The work didn't stop there for Gwynn, as anyone who played with or against him knows. He took a lot of swings in a batting cage, or off a tee in front of a net beside the Padres' dugout. It was a career-long obsession for Gwynn.
Said Brewers manager Ron Roenicke, a teammate of Gwynn's on the 1984 Padres team that went to the World Series: "I thought I worked pretty hard, but I can remember in Spring Training driving up to the complex in Yuma, and when I drove by Tony was in the batting cage hitting. At that time, they didn't do a lot of early work; it was mostly afterward. So after our workout, I did my extra work, I showered, I got in my car and drove out by the batting cage, and Tony Gwynn was in the batting cage hitting. And it wasn't only once it happened."
Another teammate on that '84 team, Rangers bullpen coach Andy Hawkins, said, "He was the reason we got a batting cage in San Diego, because he was always taking more batting practice than anybody else. He loved the game."
The things Gwynn did are part of the daily ritual now for team after team, and his influence works on both ends of the game, as you can see from former teammates now on the Rangers' coaching staff.
"A lot of the routines I do with our guys in the [batting] cages are related to the discussions I had with him," said hitting coach Dave Magadan.
Said Rangers pitching coach Mike Maddux: "I learned a lot about pitching from him. If I got stuck on a hitter, he would break down the guy's swing and tell you how to pitch to him. He was one of the best sources of baseball information I ever played with; a true baseball rat."
Gwynn never shied away from sharing his thoughts about hitting with anyone -- just ask. That included opponents, although he'd never give out a trade secret, just help a fellow athlete.
"I look back now and sometimes you take things for granted," said Mariners manager Lloyd McClendon, who competed against Gwynn from 1987-94 with the Reds, Cubs and Pirates. "But to think this guy took time out of his day every time we came to town or they came to town to sit down and talk to somebody like me about hitting and the game of baseball, it just blows your mind."
Added Braves hitting coach Terry Pendleton, who wrested a National League batting title from Gwynn in 1991: "He was just always there for you. When you got to San Diego, if you needed to talk to Tony about anything, he was always available for you. That was just special."
For those fortunate enough to wear the Padres' uniform either with him or after his playing days, the memories are of a friendly figure who was a legend in his own time.
"No matter if you were a rookie or a veteran, he treated you the same way, with a lot of respect," said Sandy Alomar Jr., who came up with the Padres a huge prospect as a catcher early in Gwynn's career.
Said John Baker of the Cubs, who got to know Gwynn just in recent years when he played for the Padres: "Tony talked to you like a regular person, which I think sometimes doesn't happen with some of the superstar players and the Hall of Famers."
Very few in or out of the Major Leagues can say they were able to spend as much time in recent years with Gwynn as Orioles center fielder Adam Jones. He grew up in San Diego and became friends with Tony Gwynn Sr. and Tony Gwynn Jr. in offseason workouts over the last decade, less so this past winter while Gwynn was "fighting the fight."
"He was never a guy who wanted all the fame and praise," Jones said. "He could have left San Diego after his career, but he knew San Diego was his home. He was a man of many talents. He was a knowledgeable guy. I learned a lot about life, not just baseball, how to be a man in this industry and how to take it all with a grain of salt."
When it comes to how Gwynn influenced people -- past, present and future -- it's a lot like what he did at the plate: he connected. He connected with former players, current players, fans, media, and frankly an entire city in mourning right now.
"You know what, I've played and been around superstars and he is single-handedly the nicest, most genuine superstar ever, and I think that's going to be across the board. I think most people are going to say that," said former Braves pitcher John Smoltz, now a broadcaster.
For those who walked the same road to Cooperstown, Gwynn was as representative of the ideal of a Hall of Famer as can be.
"He was just a really humble guy and obviously very talented," said Twins coach and Hall of Famer Paul Molitor. "But I think in times like this, you think about the man and not his ability. He was very gracious and gave back to the community throughout his life. He was able to keep balance in his life."
As any baseball fan who ever saw him knows, Mr. Padre did it with a smile, something that won't be forgotten by those in the game who got to know him.
"I know it's a sad day, but whenever somebody talks about Tony, it brings a smile to my face," Roenicke said. "This was a really nice guy. He loved to talk about baseball. He was in a great mood all the time. He had an infectious smile. And he worked as hard as anybody I've ever seen. He just was a pleasure to be around."
John Schlegel is a national reporter for MLB.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @JohnSchlegelMLB. Reporters Jordan Bastian, Rhett Bollinger, Mark Bowman, Corey Brock, Brittany Ghiroli, Greg Johns, Dick Kaegel, Carrie Muskat, Adam McCalvy, T.R. Sullivan and associate reporter Matt Slovin contributed to this article.


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i've created a tutorial for all of those who want to install a TS3-Server on a BananaPi (and probably other ARM-Devices) using Lubuntu and Exagear Desktop:
(BTW: Any tipps for layouting this? I've created this in a Office-Document and copy&paste is messing this up, actually :/
Installing Teamspeak3-Server on BananaPi:
(and most likely other (supported) ARM-Devices)
BananaPi with Lubuntu
Exagear Desktop (http://eltechs.com/product/exagear-desktop/ - about 30,-$)
Installing Lubuntu
First of all, you have to install Lubuntu on your BananaPI, to do so, download the image of the OS directly from LeMaker.org and install it with Win32DiskImager (Windows) or with dd (Unix).
Sometimes, you have to make the upcoming scripts executeable (if there is an error on first execution), do this by:
sudo chmod +x <FILE>
When finished, boot up your device and configure it for your needs. In this tutorial i only changed the hostname.
Download Exagear Desktop, unpack it and copy the licence key into the folder of your Exagear Install-Folder.
Run the Install-Script with elevated privileges:
sudo ./install-exagear.sh
This may take a while and install the guest-System onto your host.
When finished, start Exagear with
Create a new user (you dont want to run the Teamspeak-Server with root privileges)
Users are shared in Host and Guest – see manual for more information, thats the reason we dont have to create another user on the Host later
To add a user, type the following:.
sudo adduser teamspeak
sudo passwd teamspeak
The first line will create the Teamspeak User, the second one will prompt you for a password for the new account.
Now create the folder where teamspeak will be installed and give the user teamspeak some rights for it, for example
mkdir /usr/local/teamspeak
chown teamspeak /usr/local/teamspeak
Login as teamspeak and download the Server-Version of Teamspeak (his may vary, check the path to the file on the Teamspeak Download-Page) and unpack it:
su teamspeak
cd /usr/local/teamspeak
wget http://dl.4players.de/ts/releases/3.0.1 ... 1.3.tar.gz
tar –xzvf teamspeak3-server_linux-x86-126.96.36.199.tar.gz
rm teamspeak3-server_linux-x86-18.104.22.168.tar.gz
Let's start the Server, using the following command:
This takes some time now.
Important: DON'T forget to copy the output oft he runscript, yourAdmin-Account and also the token for the Admin-Rights is listed in there!
Now you can already connect to your server and configure it to your needs, but keep in mind that the starting of the server may take some time (be patient – i reinstalled my system once because i thought i messed something up )
Probably you want to run the server without being logged in, so you have to start the Background Service of it:
/usr/local/teamspeak/teamspeak3-server_linux-x86/ts3server_startscript.sh start
After a while, your server should be back up and running. You probably also want to run the server on startup, to do so follow these steps (these onces are a bit tricky because you want to start it on booting up IN YOUR HOST and not the installed (Exagear)guest).
Exit your Exagear-Session by typing
I had to type it a few times because i changed the user-sessions via su, so make sure you are really working in your Host-System (otherwise you wont find the /opt/exagear/….. path anyway)
Check that you are in host ARM environment by typing
You should see 'armv71' in the output.
Create a new file with
sudo vi /etc/init.d/teamspeak3
and insert the following text:
- Code: Select all
# Provides: teamspeak3
# Required-Start: $local_fs $network
# Required-Stop: $local_fs $network
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Description: Teamspeak 3 Server
# INIT Script by http://www.SysADMINsLife.com
# Customize values for your needs: "User"; "DIR"
###### Teamspeak 3 server start/stop script ######
case "$1" in
su $USER -c "/usr/bin/exagear -- ${DIR}/ts3server_startscript.sh start"
su $USER -c "/usr/bin/exagear -- ${DIR}/ts3server_startscript.sh stop"
su $USER -c "/usr/bin/exagear -- ${DIR}/ts3server_startscript.sh restart"
su $USER -c "/usr/bin/exagear -- ${DIR}/ts3server_startscript.sh status"
echo "Usage: {start|stop|restart|status}" >&2
exit 1
exit 0
Make sure your USER is set to "teamspeak" and your DIR refers to
Make the script executable
sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/teamspeak3
Now, we can make the Script run automatically:
sudo update-rc.d teamspeak3 defaults
Thats it! – The TS3 Server should start up automatically after reboot.
All the credits goes to "Patrick Shoyswohl" from http://www.sysadminslife.com for creating the german tutorial and especially his startup script where i made some changes for Exagear, here are the (german) Articles i used to create this How-To:
http://www.sysadminslife.com/linux/ubun ... ntu-linux/
http://www.sysadminslife.com/linux/team ... ntu-linux/
Also a thank you to "Chrimi8" for some hints