(the links for the seed shop and the foodbank’s blog can be found at the bottom of this post).
I am learning more everyday about the importance of eating locally grown food, especially food grown from heirloom seeds (a catchall term for seeds that have not been genetically modified). A few recent conversations with a close friend who is involved with Slow Foods and the Fayetteville Farmers Market reminded me about how I have been wanting to post some information about a great place to get heirloom seeds in Arkansas. Continue reading →
This month religious and human rights groups across the nation are drawing attention to the immoral nature of torture and sending a message to the president that the American people do not support torture.
While listening to a recent radio segment on Air America’s State of Belief (one of my new favorite radio shows), I heard about the National Religious Campaign to End Torture. This month churches around the nation are hanging banners that announce their belief that torture is not a political issue but a moral issue.
For more information or to order a banner for your organization, visit their site:
National Religious Campaign to End Torture.
The intersection of faith and social justice is particularly interesting on both a very personal gut level and on a folkloric one as well.
I am curious–from a folklore and belief perspective, what would Don Yoder and Primiano make of this campaign and this larger intersection between belief and action toward political change?
In conducting some preliminary research about Post Office Murals in Arkansas, I came across this helpful resource:
Arkansas Post Office Mural Project
The webpage is currently under construction, but still contains helpful information. I discovered that the Dardanelle post office mural was created by an artist who was originally from Armenia.
This mural plays important role in my life. I can remember my mother pointing out the artwork to me when I was a small child and telling me about my grandparents (her parents) who, just like the people in the mural, had picked cotton in the Cardon Bottoms.
I am currently beginning preparatory work for a radio piece about Dardanelle’s mural and what it means to those who live here. I am in search of personal stories and any deep background information that might be related. If you have any ideas, comments, suggestions, please let me know!
I will be updating this entry as the research continues.
See also:
“Off the Wall: New Deal Post Office Murals” by Patricia Raynorhttp://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/resources/6a2q_postalmurals.html
http://www.wpamurals.com/arkansas.htm
Democracy Now! aired an amazing program today with an interview with Utah Phillips from four years ago. This interview is wonderful.
He talks about being sent to Korea, the importance of feminism, becoming a pacifist, the importance of learning from elders, his inspirations and activists who inspire him, and the importance of maintaining hope. Really, you need to hear this. It’s wonderful.
Listen Here.
This radio program is an edited version of a talk by Harjap Grewal, an organizer with the Canadian-based group, “No One is Illegal.”
He discusses the ways in which NAFTA, the state sanctioned guest worker programs, and cooperations put profit before human rights and engage in a new form of Indentured labor and slavery. Likewise, he explores the legacy of colonialization and racialization of immigrants that is still very much with us today.
He describes immigration as a “political act,” and discusses not only immigration stories in the U.S. and Canada, but also the situation in Spain where over 6,000 northern African immigrants died last year trying to make the journey.
Most importantly he provides examples of ways to resist and provides examples of resistance from Vancouver.
The only problem is that there is some music playing in the background that can be very distracting. I can’t figure out why it’s there.
Listen Here.
More about the program Making Contact
Sign up for Making Contact Podcasts.
Barre Toelken always talks about the “So What? Question.” So…Some questions for folklorists and ethnographers that come to mind—
Continue reading →
A thoughtful and important essay from a 21 year old voter from Whitesburg.
Listen.
Rethinking Globalization:Teaching for Justice in an Unjust World textbook
I just read about this textbook from Rethinking Schools. It was published in 2002. This resource textbook teaches students 4th-12th grades social justice issues as an interconnected web. As the authors say in the introduction (which can be found online as well), Continue reading →
I just read this article in Dollars and Sense magazine. It discusses Agrentina’s experiment with job creation while also exploring the possibilities of the Employer of last Resort Proposal, a government job plan somewhat similar to the WPA. Although much explored, public folklore’s deep roots with the WPA has always inspired and interested me. I wonder what models for our own work can be found in the WPA and the murals, archives, and books they left behind? Sure it was a flawed program. But flawed models are still models and they can be used and rethought. Mistakes can be learned from. Similarly, the Employer of Last Resort Proposal seems to be something folklorists should know more about– a key economic issue for those of us working at the intersection of local economies and cultural production.
Continue reading →
According to a recent 67 page report published by Human Rights Watch, “although whites commit more drug offenses, African Americans are arrested and imprisoned on drug charges at much higher rates, the reports find.”
This report by Human Rights Watch also includes suggestions for how to help address this problem, including directing funding to inner city programs and:
Continue reading →
In working with a few different oral history programs, I have always been intrigued by how much information these interviews about rural life in North Carolina, Arkansas, or central Kentucky contain about climate change. When men and women in their 80s and 90s discuss their childhoods, they often recall extended winters, greater amounts of snow, creeks running so deep they would flood their banks, and trees so filled with robins that robin soup was a popular dish.
Continue reading →
