Friday Homestead Dispatch

Week Number Fifty-Seven

“I am begging my fellow politicians, my fellow Illinoisans, my fellow Americans to realize that right now in this country we are not fighting over policy or political party. We are fighting over whether we are going to be a civilization rooted in empathy and kindness—or one rooted in cruelty and rage. I love my country, (and) I refuse to stop. The hope I have found in a very difficult year is that love is the light that gets you through a long night.”
— Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker

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We lost Jessie Jackson this week. As one friend on Facebook said, “And the hits just keep on coming. C’mon, “god,” just give us one evil fuck. Pretty please.”

Of course, Dr. Stacey Patton had a ‘few’ choice words regarding the *rump’s ‘tribute’ to Jackson.

Y’all wanna see how tribute language can be propaganda? Here’s the formula: Praise → Self-defense → Self-insertion → Historical rewrite. And the reason this formula works is simple — it relies on the one audience that can never push back. Because once someone is dead, the story stops belonging to them — and starts belonging to whoever is bold enough to tell it.

Within hours of the news breaking that Rev. Jesse Jackson had died at 84, Donald Trump posted a long statement praising him as a “good man” with “grit,” “street smarts,” and a love for people. This is one of the rare Trump “tributes” that opens with something resembling baseline human respect. The restraint is real (no name calling, no gleeful cruelty, no “loser” energy), but the core impulse is still there: even in death, he can’t let Jesse Jackson be the main character for more than a few lines.

Then comes the pivot into self-congratulation, score-settling, and a bizarre historical rewrite that inserts him into the political lineage from the Civil Rights Movement to Barack Obama.

It’s just astonishing that there’s no end to his continual scabrous speechifying. What is even more astonishing is that many Americans find it refreshing.

3.
Another great loss this week was Isaiah Zagar, founder of Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens and prolific mosaic artist.

In his 86 years, Isaiah became one of the most renowned mosaicists on earth, working from sunrise to sunset each day; creating hundreds of public mosaics, dozens of buildings and facades, and thousands of drawings, paintings, prints, and photographs. One of Isaiah’s greatest joys was collaborating with other artists, specifically with folk artists and other art environment creators around the world. His other great joy was being with friends and family, particularly his two sons, Zeke and Jeremiah, and his wife, muse, and partner in visionary thinking, Julia.

I had the great fortune to work alongside Isaiah in 2009 when Jeanette Mare, the force behind Ben’s Bells, brought him to Tucson to create the first of hopefully many Kindness Murals to be realized near the University of Arizona area. If you go south on Tyndall from University Blvd, then take the alley to the east behind The Buffalo Spot, you can view the first mural.

Isaiah and Jeanette

The gang as the mural was halfway complete (me - far left)

Isaiah had also been previously commissioned to create murals in downtown Phoenix, which he constructed in Philadelphia and had shipped to Phoenix for installation. Since he had not yet seen them installed, Connie and I volunteered to escort him to Phoenix. I decided to shoot video of the event and posted the two part series on YouTube, which you can view below.

On the way home we thought he would appreciate touring the Guadalupe Cemetery, which is now surrounded by suburban homes.

He will be missed but his artwork will live on.

As Jeanette Mare wrote on Facebook, he shared more than technique. He shared a belief that art belongs to everyone and that when people create together, something powerful happens. That training shaped our murals, our studios, and the way we invite community into the work.

Because of Isaiah and our partnership with ACT, what started as collaboration became a lasting commitment to community-centered art. Today, hundreds of murals across Southern Arizona carry that vision forward. Each tile, each mirror, each piece placed by hand reflects the idea that broken pieces can come together to create something beautiful.

Isaiah’s influence impacts every volunteer who steps into our studio, every student who learns his mosaic method, and every mural that reminds us to practice kindness intentionally.

We are deeply grateful to Isaiah and to our partners at ACT. Together, murals like these are possible. His legacy will continue through education, creativity, and kindness for all.

Thank you for helping us build something that will keep growing.

4.
With the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and the announcement from the Supreme Court this morning that *rump could not invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to set tariffs on imports, are the walls starting to close in on the ol’ pedophile?

In that spirit, Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, a Substack writer and a former staff writer for The Boston Globe and The Los Angeles Times, was among the first to break the story of the Zorro Ranch in New Mexico, along with other New Mexico’s Latina progressive women lawmakers.

If you haven’t heard, this is Jeffrey Epstein’s former ranch where allegedly, despite several witness accounts of girls being raped to death and then buried on Jeffrey Epstein’s sprawling New Mexico ranch, no one ever searched the place. Not even after he died.

The new owners behind the shell LLC are Don and Mary Huffines, who have ties to Epstein, Trump and Israel. Don Huffines is a MAGA republican currently running for comptroller of the state of Texas, and is a former Texas state senator.

This week, New Mexico passed House Resolution 1, forming the Epstein Truth Commission” with a budget of over $2 million. The four member panel consists of Andrea Reeb (R), a former District Attorney and prosecutor specializing in sexual assault crimes; Andrea Romero (D), the Commission Chair who has already stated they will issue subpoenas to “persons of interest” without delay; William “Bill” Hall II (R), a retired FBI Special Agent who knows exactly how the feds “missed” the ranch for 20 years; and Marianna Anaya (D), the advocate for victims who is calling out the “Institutional Enablers.”

Supposedly over 4,000 mentions of the ranch are in the unredacted DOJ files, including former Governor Bill Richardson.

Stay tuned…

5.
Aarghhh…the RTA Next vote in Tucson is coming right up (Election Day is March 10), which are propositions 418 and 419. Many of my intelligent acquaintances in town have quite differing views. The Arizona Luminaria published a pretty thorough outline of the props. Here’s a pdf with the breakdown of where the money will (supposedly) be going.

My long-time friend Kylie Walzak posted a video that sums up her difficult and exhausting work behind the scenes for several years. (I think you can still view this without being logged in to FB)

This is her statement:

For 17 years I’ve dedicated my life’s work to advocating for safe streets for everyone, no matter how they get around in Tucson. And, it’s been demoralizing to see our traffic fatalities of all types steadily increase. I’ve watched many friends give up on bike commuting all together saying it just feels too dangerous out there.

For much of that time I’ve followed the work of the RTA because in the years following the Great Recession it was one of the few sources of funding for bicycle and pedestrian safety improvements. I watched when that category of funds was swept to pay for over-budget road projects that value engineered out safety measures for people traveling outside of cars.

I watched when the RTA Board realized the deficit they were in and swept all non-RTA regional funds to backfill budget gaps for road projects, a practice that will continue if RTA Next passes.

The problems of the last 20 years of regional transportation funding are many and well-documented. But it’s the next 20 years we are being asked to approve. I’m voting No and my closing argument is this: Tucson can do everything laid out in RTA Next for our city and more by passing its own half-cent sales tax.

For the privilege of being a “good regional partner” and continuing to participate in the RTA, Tucson will “donate”more than $400 million in revenue generated within city limits to outside communities over 20 years. Our suburban neighbors typically reject taxing themselves or incorporating, and they have twice the annual median income of people in Tucson.

This is a colonial extraction model recreated right here in the 21st century and the only way to stop this is to reject Props 418/419 and prioritize investing in Tucson first. Send the RTA back to the community and back to the Board to craft a plan worthy of our support and worthy of our children’s future.

A few months, or even a year of short term pain is better than the future this RTA Next plan keeps us locked into for 20 years. Tucson deserves better.

In the video she suggests there already exists an opposition plan which is Move Tucson.

ON THE OTHER HAND, Kate Hotten and Kathleen Kennedy, co-executive directors of the Coalition for Sonoran Desert Protection, say that the propositions include $50 million for critical regional conservation projects such as wildlife crossings. The Sonoran Desert depends on movement. Mountain lions and desert bighorn sheep move between ranges in search of mates, mule deer follow seasonal forage, and black bears travel long distances during dry years. Even smaller species — from skunks to Sonoran Desert tortoises — rely on connected habitat to survive.

RTA Next would continue this successful, science-based work with the same sales tax that is already in place. It would fund research and infrastructure for wildlife linkages that still urgently need solutions, including Interstate 10 at both Avra Valley Road and Cienega Creek, as well as Rattlesnake Pass in Marana. With RTA Next, our community can finally connect these fragmented parts of the landscape and secure additional funding, including from sources such as the federal Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program.

However, the Tucson Sentinel article did not address whether there exists other funding pathways to these projects. Also, voting YES due to the wildlife crossings issue, my friend Karen Greene wrote that it’s not enough. Having lived through downtown links the process is flawed and we have been lied to over and over. I don’t trust anything coming out of RTA’s mouth. And citizen advisory groups are a joke, having spent 100s of hours attending those meetings. They ignore what the people want, don’t follow through with requested materials, do whatever they want. I am a hard no on this.

6.
Stepping back one more time to the walls possibly closing in on the orange pedophile, check this out.

Chuck Baldwin is a right-wing preacher in Kalispell, Montana, an area known for its anti-government and white supremacist extremists. In his own words: “I believe homosexuality is moral perversion and deserves no special consideration under the law. … I believe the South was right in the War Between the States, and I am not a racist. To take away an American’s right to a semi-automatic rifle is to fully disarm him. … There is no liberty without the semi-automatic rifle. … We are not going to surrender our semi-automatic firearms, period.”

So, it’s pretty interesting that a fellow named Roland Martin, who calls himself the Voice of Black America, posted a speech by this preacher defaming D *rump on his YouTube channel.

“Donald Trump is a lifelong gangster. He’s a lifelong Zionist. He’s a lifelong philanderer. He’s a lifelong cheat. He’s a lifelong hedonist. He’s a lifelong felon. He’s a lifelong blackmailer. He’s a lifelong bully. He’s a lifelong malignant narcissist. And he’s a lifelong sexual predator. And since he’s been president, he has now joined the ranks of international war criminals and mass murderers.”

“If you have taken the time to look at even SOME of the newly released, I’ll call them ‘e-files,’ you know what I’m talking about — if you have taken the time to look at even some of the newly released e-files, you know that Donald J. Trump, along with the rest of the rich and famous predators in those files, should spend the rest of his life in prison.”

I guess we have to take the wins in whatever form they’re given…

7.
30 years ago in 1996, the Mollys were just getting off the ground with 67 venues played that year. (We hit it harder in 1997 with 117 venues) St. Patrick’s Day that year was at the Southwest Center for Music in Tucson, which is now the Tucson Symphony Center.

Highlights for the year included the Bottom Line in NYC (opening for Bill Kirchen), the Old Town School of Music in Chicago, the Folk Alliance in DC, an eleven date tour of Canada including the Winnipeg Folk Festival and the Jasper Heritage Folk Festival, and our most beloved first gig at the Blue Moon in Kasota, Minnesota.

The Mollys will be reuniting Friday, March 13 at Monterey Court in Tucson, Arizona with Nancy McCallion, Catherine Zavala, Dan Sorenson, Danny Krieger, and me. Hope to see you there!

And now…