Friday Homestead Dispatch
Tumbling Torrential Thaumaturgy
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1.
Our greatest need today is to transform that hate and violence, the toxic sludge that’s coursing through our information ecosystem, prioritized by American internet companies that make more money by spreading that hate and triggering the worst in us. Well, that just means we have to work harder. In order to be the good, we have to believe there is good in the world.
– Veteran journalist and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa
Ressa received the Nobel Peace Prize along with Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov on Friday, December 10, in Oslo, Norway. You can read the full text of her speech here or listen and watch the video below.
2.
If you’ve been to any of our Sunday Sessions led by Kevin Pakulis, or any other Kevin gig, you’ve seen the unassuming guy, usually sitting down, singing his velvety harmony vocals. He also is a standing member of the band Lost Hombres.
In other circles besides the Tucson music community, he is known as forensic psychologist Dr. Joel Dvoskin. Among other accomplishments, Dr. Joel has been an invited speaker to the Conference of Chief Justices, the National Association of Attorneys General, the National Tactical Officers Association, CIT (Police Crisis Intervention Teams) International, numerous universities, and hundreds of other professional organizations. He has twice been honored as the Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the University of California – Davis College of Medicine. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), and Past President of two APA Divisions, including the American Psychology-Law Society and Psychologists in Public Service. And, he knows the words to most country and bluegrass songs put before him!
On Wednesday, Dr. Joel was interviewed on PBS’ Here and Now regarding the impact and fear of gun violence on Americans' mental health. His interview starts at the 11:07 mark. Go, Joel!
3.
One of the Top Five Obits…ever.
El Paso, TX—A plus-sized Jewish lady redneck died in El Paso on Saturday. There will be a very disrespectful and totally non-denominational memorial on May 10, 2022, most likely at a bowling alley in Fayetteville, NC. The family requests absolutely zero privacy or propriety, none what so ever, and in fact encourages you to spend some government money today on a 1-armed bandit, at the blackjack table or on a cheap cruise to find our inheritance.
4.
Arizona attorney general Mark Brnovich, who has compared the Biden administration to Stalin and claims that vaccines aren’t effective and the data behind them is flawed, is the face of the state of Arizona who/what has asked the Supreme Court Tuesday for an emergency order reinstating a law passed earlier this year that imposes criminal penalties for abortions performed because of fetal genetic abnormalities. Lower courts, noting the law likely violated Supreme Court precedents entitling women to end unwanted pregnancies, have blocked enforcement of the measure while a challenge filed by abortion providers and allied nonprofit organizations proceeds.
According to SCOTUSblog, he told the justices that the law is intended to guard against “coercive health practices that encourage” people to obtain an abortion when genetic abnormalities are diagnosed and to protect “the integrity and ethics of the medical profession by preventing doctors from becoming witting participants in genetic-abnormality-selective abortions.” Brnovich added that the courts of appeals are divided on the constitutionality of laws like Arizona’s – a factor that the justices often consider in deciding whether to grant review. Moreover, he argued, Arizona’s ban is “consistent with the language and reasoning of Roe and Casey”: Roe, he contended, left open the possibility that states could restrict abortion, while Casey made clear that Pennsylvania’s ban on sex-selective abortion was not before the justices.
Brnovich was re-elected in 2018 with a narrow victory over Democrat January Contreras. 2022 is coming up so shall we cast some big fricking stones his way, please?
5.
Voice Above Water is the story of Wayan Nyo, a 90 year old fisherman who can no longer fish because of the amount of plastic piling up in the ocean. Instead he uses his fishing boat and net to pull trash from the water in hopes of being able to fish again.
This short film, by director Dana Frankoff, is a glimpse into how one human can use their resources to make a change and, like we are experiencing right now, a reminder that it takes all of us playing our part and coming together to accomplish something much greater than ourselves.
6.
I wasn’t familiar with the Canelo Hills in Southern Arizona until around 2004-05, when we bought our house from Ed Friedland and his wife at the time, Dawn Miller. They sold their midtown home to us as they had decided to give ‘country living’ a go by purchasing some property down there. Ed then commuted to Tucson to give bass lessons and to play music dates. That lasted almost two years before they picked up and moved to Austin. When Ed landed the bass chair with the Mavericks, they moved to Nashville for a bit…and now he’s back in Tucson. He can’t have his house back. (BTW, Ed can play technical rings around anyone I know but as he says in one of his own posts, “When I relocated from the bass-centric universe to a planet where the bass never solos, adjustments had to be made—and they’ve helped me appreciate music in a totally new way. My approach is to internalize the various parts being played, and lay down a thick layer of glue to hold them together—like a mosaic.”)
But I digress…our first time to visit that area was to see their new home shortly after they moved down there, and it was miles and miles of stunning beauty.
So, check out the Canelo Project, a small non-profit organization founded by Bill and Athena Steen in 1989 and whose work centers on the theme – Connecting People, Culture and Nature. The Canelo Hills connect the Santa Rita Mountains to the northwest, Patagonia Mountains to the southwest and Huachuca Mountains to the southeast, pretty much a straight shot south of Sonoita, Arizona. I would love to live in this region but it’s a dang long commute to Tucson.
Patagonia, a company known for its support of grassroots activism, produced a short film titled Raised From the Earth detailing the work of the Steens and others involved in their projects and workshops.
7.
If you’re wondering what the heck’s going on in this dingdang world, Rodney Norman seems to have the best grasp of anyone…
And now…
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Brnovich jeez