Glen Arbor Sun

September 13, 2007

Cooperative living in a college town

By Corin Blust
Sun contributor

Last fall, I moved into a broken-down yellow house on Kingsley Street in Ann Arbor along with 11 other people. Sound familiar to a reality show you’ve seen on television? The only difference was that we were not regular tenants.

Our goal was to fix up the house and make it the newest and best housing cooperative in our college town. This fall, a year after taking on this goal, I believe we might finally be on our way to success.

When we each walked into the Inter Cooperative Council — the organization run by the members of all the cooperative houses in Ann Arbor — and signed our individual contracts to live in the house, which we called Zeno, we had no idea what to expect. What we found in late August of 2006 when we moved in was that the previous occupants had not been particularly kind to the house.

There were piles of cheap, broken furniture everywhere; holes in the walls (including a particularly noticeable one that allowed small rodents 24-hour access to our pantry); unidentifiable stains on the carpets that caused even strong believers in bare feet to find shoes; we kept waking up to discover the power going out in the middle of the night; there were only two functioning bathrooms for 12 of us, and the plumbing would eventually cause a major flood in the basement.

However, there were a lot of good things about the house too. It had parking. It was in a great location and had those impossibly cute antique radiators in the rooms. And we each got our own bedroom, an extreme rarity in a cooperative situation.

The best thing, though, is that there is no landlord in a cooperative house. The house was ours to treat as we liked. We could paint the bathroom walls Day-Glo orange and the hallways silver, install shelves everywhere, hang pictures on the walls using nails, and plant whatever we wanted in the yard. It was up to us to make it homey, and it would stay that way until future coopers wanted to make it even better.

Even before we moved our personal things in, we worked for countless hours to clear out everything and make the house livable. We went to discount stores, thrift shops and garage sales and bought pots and pans and dishes and microwaves and radios and silverware and new carpets and shower curtains and paint and toilets and doorknobs and cleaning supplies and tried not to lose our minds in the chaos that Zeno had become. The end of the madness was in sight, and we would receive a great place to live in exchange for the hard work we put in.

We were proud of what we were doing, especially considering that we were all full-time students at the University of Michigan and fixing up the house was an extremely fulfilling challenge.

Why would we want to live in a coop, anyway? There are few ways of living with a large group of people that are as efficient or comfortable. We can sign leases that coincide with the school year, so people like me who want to return to Leelanau County in the summer can go home for those precious four months and come back to the same room in the house in the fall and know what to expect.

Part of the rent we pay each month goes toward purchasing bulk quantities of food, usually at the farmer’s market in Kerrytown, that we use to cook meals for the entire house Sunday through Thursday. The sense of community that is built by sitting down to a delicious meal with good people five nights a week is priceless, especially when you don’t have to cook or clean up.

Who cooks and cleans up? We each do five hours of work a week on maintaining some part of the house, whether it’s cleaning a bathroom, keeping the kitchen stocked with food, collecting rent checks and keeping the budget low, cooking or mowing the lawn.

As a result of our determination last year, this Fall I am pleased to announce that the bathrooms are generally clean, the refrigerators have tasty leftovers in them, and life is pretty good. There is little or no discussion about why something was not cleaned or put away because we made it clear who should be doing what. If they don’t do it, they have a house full of annoyed people to contend with. It’s the best-organized chaos one could think up, and having chores on a system helps the new coopers feel comfortable getting into the rhythm of the house.

Looking to the future, I would love to bring cooperative living to Leelanau County. It seems like a great option for people like me who want to live in the community but do not want to commit to a year-long lease, deal with a cranky landlord, or buy a lot of their own furniture, dishes and pots and pans. Plus, I can see a coop house blossoming into a great community asset. Here, at Zeno, we host monthly potlucks and invite people over for dinner all the time, and we encourage people to do anything to the house they think would make it better, from building a bonfire pit in the backyard to painting crazy murals on the walls. Cooperative living is a unique way to share space with a community, and I think it needs to come to our area.

Corin Blust, a Maple City native, is a student at the University of Michigan. If you have any thoughts or questions about cooperative living, please email her at corin.blust (at) gmail.com.

Posted by editor at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)

July 12, 2007

Immersion under the crescent: an exchange experience in Istanbul

By Codi Yeager
Sun contributor

“The city is CRAZY!” wrote Zambak Bayrakcan, aka Lily Springsteen. Her e-mail, dated June 10, was flowing and excited, a rush of words that, piece by piece, created a wonderful, jumbled picture of her Turkish home. For the past year Lily, a resident of nearby Long Lake Township, has lived halfway around the world, in Istanbul, as part of a Rotary Exchange program.

A culture shock unlike any other for an upcoming senior at Glen Lake High School, Lily says her exchange was, “not only U.S. to Turkey, but also small town to metropolitan city. Everything [in Istanbul] is unorganized and unexpected. The streets are in no pattern whatsoever.” Add that to the time, which seems only to exist because of the five Islamic calls to prayer, and a mass of stores, cafes and bazaars, and you have a tumbling, turbulent Eastern capital. “There’s lots of horn honking and yelling; the people are so dramatic, very passionate about everything. They worry about everyone and everything is their problem,” says Lily. “It can be overwhelming, and when I first got here it was unbearable, but I’ve gotten used to it and see now that it is because they care about everyone and want everyone to be happy and comfortable.”

Despite the initial alarm at the commotion, Lily found that she enjoyed the chaos and confusion, and especially liked the bazaars. “In each section of the city on a certain day, starting in the morning, they begin setting up their tables under big white tents. There are fresh fruits and vegetables, eggs, cheese, olives, fish, knick-knacks and vacuum cleaners and hair clips and clothes … anything you could want, you can find,” she said.

In addition to sifting through the traditional bazaars, Istanbulians do their shopping at modern malls and stores, much like in the United States. However, unlike in northern Michigan, in Istanbul the right clothes are absolutely essential. “Women dress very nicely here. They wear lots of makeup, skirts, jewelry and heels,” says Lily. “It is popular and not unusual to go to the hairdresser multiple times a week.” Istanbul’s male population is also concerned with fashion. “[They] dress nicely too, but not to my liking … they gel their hair and wear lots of purple and dress shirts with jeans and pointy black shoes. And lots of cologne,” she adds.

Taking a break from the busy streets, the average Turk might stop in at one of the many tiny cafés to socialize and drink tea. “Turks drink tea 24/7,” says Lily. “There isn’t so much to do during the day, so everyone goes to the café and sits for hours and chats with friends. It’s like a wasting-time method.” Like a mini vacation, teatime is a chance for relaxation, something that an eager, first-time visitor might find as a nuisance. “I didn’t like it at all when I came, but now it is wonderful to sit down and do nothing and have no plans to do anything for the next few hours.” Of course, you can’t take the break without the tea. “If you sit down for more than 10 minutes, you will be given a little cup of tea,” she explains.

In a Turkish home, not only tea that appears in front of you, but also endless helpings of delicious food. “If you even go to a friend’s house, just to say hello, you won’t get out of there without food in your belly. They love to give and serve. It doesn’t matter whether you are best friends and have known each other for years; you are a guest, and your food will come on a silver tray,” says Lily, who fell in love with the food as well as the city. “They have fresh everything. Fruits — they make lots of sugary desserts with them — and vegetables: they cook them with olive oil at every dinner, breads, pastries, cakes, desserts …” She pauses to explain baklava, which is “thin layers of crisp pastry with crushed nuts in between and is soaked in honey or sugary syrup,” then continues with a story about her friend’s mother.

“Last night at dinner, I finished my plate and she asked, ‘should I give you more?’ I said ‘no, I’m full.’ She asked again and again and then ended up putting more food on my plate even after I explained over and over that I couldn’t eat anymore.” In Turkish culture, Lily says, people may want the food, but to be polite they say ‘no thanks’ and decline over and over, so people just give them food anyway. “I told her that when I say ‘no’, it means no. But it is only because I know her well that I can say these things to her and not eat her food without being rude.” As the hours whittle away, either drowned in tea or food, the only reminder of real time is the muezzin’s fourth call to prayer, when the day is three-quarters over. It beckons devout Muslims to stop, face Mecca, and pray; once again revealing that Istanbul is an Islamic city.

“A lot of the culture differences that I see have to do with the religion. Turkey is 98 percent Muslim,” says Lily. Walking down the street, she observed that, on average, about half the women wear headscarves. Once, Lily decided to go to a mosque along with other Muslim women. “It was on a holiday, so it was FULL,” she remembers, “I covered my head and went in, but had to go up into the loft where the women sit. They aren’t allowed to sit in the main area; they have to walk up these tiny little stone stairs and sit in their balcony and watch. It was very interesting. The prayer is sung by the muezzin on a loud speaker and is very different [than anything in the Christian world], but pretty.”

In a primarily Islamic country, women’s rights are certainly different from those in our country. “There are places I am not allowed to go because I am a woman. I had never seen anything like that in the United States, and the first time I saw it, it freaked me out. There are also places I don’t want to go because I’m a woman,” Lily continues. However, the variations in rights between men and women do little to restrict a confident, Turkish female. “These places that I can’t, and that I don’t want to go, are few. If a woman says and knows she has rights (which she does by law) then she is respected and treated equally.”

This is especially true in the school setting, as both males and females receive an equal high school education. Lily, on the other hand, is restricted by another factor: language. “At school, I don’t actually do any classes. I tried at first, but all the teachers asked me why I was trying, and what was I doing? I knew no Turkish at the time, so I spent most of my time at school learning Turkish from a book and then practicing with the kids at break.” Of the 15 Rotary Exchange students in Istanbul, only five learned Turkish, including Lily. “I’m not fluent,” she says, “I can speak and have conversations and understand, but it is a very creative Turkish. I have people who understand me, and people who don’t at all.”

She offers as a contrast speaking with her friend Damla, who understands Lily and speaks slowly so she can understand, and speaking with Damla’s mother. “Her mom has NO idea what I’m saying. So Damla translates from Lily Turkish to real Turkish,” she says. What helped her learn the language the most though, since she had no formal Turkish schooling, was when, “I started going to the library. I spend all day talking with the librarian, Ijlal, who knows no English, so I speak only Turkish with her, and it is the best Turkish class ever. She is my best friend here.”

Lily has made many friends and many memories during her stay. In another e-mail she wrote, “I’m living up my last few weeks,” before her return to the United States on July 9, which is sure to be a bittersweet journey. And though it is difficult to leave a place that’s come to be home, especially a home as unique and vibrant as Istanbul, it is only by leaving that one can anticipate returning.

Posted by editor at 05:55 PM | Comments (0)

January 22, 2007

Death of a hero, yet her vision lives on

In recent years the Glen Arbor Sun has written about a humanitarian non-profit organization in Guatemala that has touched the lives of numerous northern Michigan locals and sent them on service-learning trips to Guatemala City to lend a hand in and around the massive garbage dump where Safe Passage is a guiding light for hundreds of destitute families. Last Thursday, that light flickered, though we pray it will not dim.

Photo credit: Beth Price, Priceless Photography

Hanley Denning, the founder of Safe Passage and a guiding light of hope for families in the Guatemala City garbage dump, was taken from us in a tragic car accident on the night of Thursday, January 18. She was returning from the capital city to her home in nearby Antigua after attending meetings to establish a day care center so that children in Safe Passage could leave their younger siblings in good hands while continuing their studies — an impossible luxury for most Guatemalan kids, yet one realized by more than 550 children who are now part of Safe Passage.

To those children and their families, Hanley was akin to Mother Teresa. In fact, she is often referred to in the Guatemalan media as the “angel of the garbage dump”. As the news of her passing spread through Guatemala City’s poorest slums, mourners gathered throughout the night at the hospital, and crowds packed the streets at a memorial service on Saturday, especially grieving mothers with young children. “Before meeting her, I never would have imagined that my children would go far in their studies,” Yolanda Campos, a 33-year-old mother of Safe Passage kids, told the national Prensa Libre.

Hanley’s body was flown to Maine for the funeral on Tuesday in her hometown of Yarmouth, which is also the program’s U.S. headquarters. Her vision and work touched so many, both in Guatemala and the United States, that the ceremony will be an opportunity for numerous Safe Passage board members, volunteers and friends from around the country to join hands with the Denning family and thank her for the humanitarian path she chose, and to ensure that her dream of combating poverty through education for Guatemala’s children will continue in her absence — which is what she would have wanted.

While fighting back tears, Hanley’s father Michael told the Portland Press Herald on Friday, “Hanley’s only desire was to keep it going.”

Several Great Lakes Friends of Safe Passage will attend Hanley’s funeral, including Paul Sutherland, Chairman of Safe Passage’s Board of Directors and Sharon Workman, Vice President and coordinator of Great Lakes Friends. “Hanley’s life was an inspiring example of what one individual can accomplish in the cause of humanity if they dedicate themselves, work hard, and stay the course through headwinds and setbacks,” says Paul. “Hanley charged forward, with heart, intelligence and remarkable stamina to the cause of making the world a better place.

“Safe Passage is in good hands and the program will continue and grow stronger in the same spirit that Hanley brought to it.”

Hanley twice graced our presence in northern Michigan, most recently at a Fiesta at the Haggerty Center in Traverse City this past summer. Great Lakes Friends has raised over $50,000 for Safe Passage since Hanley’s first visit in 2005, and another 12 local volunteers will embark on a service-learning trip next month to Guatemala. They include Bob Heacox, a retired Emergency Room physician from Grand Rapids who will offer medical assistance, and Maggie and Kaitlynn Cassem from Lake Leelanau, who are the mother and sister of two adopted Guatemalan children. Sixteen-year-old Kaitlynn organized a drive at Lake Leelanau St. Mary’s school and filled several suitcases of donations to take with them.

Hanley Denning grew up in Yarmouth, Maine and graduated from Bowdoin College with a psychology degree in 1992. She later earned her master’s degree in education from Wheelock College in Boston and worked as a teacher for poor children in North Carolina. Hanley traveled to Guatemala to learn Spanish to help her communicate with those she was helping, and learned of the squalid conditions in the Guatemala City garbage dump through a friend. She sold her car and computer to fund a drop-in center for tutoring and shelter. Safe Passage was founded in 1999 and quickly grew to become a comprehensive support program that guides children into school and on to graduation.

A documentary called “Recycled Life” about those who live and work in the Guatemala City garbage dump is on the short list for an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Documentary, and it features Hanley, among others. The 38-minute film is directed by Leslie Iwerks of Santa Monica, California and narrated by Edward James Olmos (“Stand and Deliver”). The Oscar nominations will be announced on Tuesday, the day of Hanley’s funeral.

Today, more than 550 children who live around the Guatemala City dump spend their mornings or afternoons at the program where they receive assistance with school work, a healthy meal (often the only one they eat each day), access to a medical clinic, exposure to the arts, and vocational programs in a caring and safe environment. Many of the children in the program are the first in their families to attend school. This year, more than 10 students in the Safe Passage program will be enrolled in the most academically competitive schools in Guatemala.

“I want the next president of Guatemala to come out of Safe Passage, the next person who starts a business that employs a lot of people, great citizens that stay there and help their country,” says Paul Sutherland.

Also killed in the accident that took Hanley’s life was Safe Passage employee Bayron Aroldo Chiquito de Leon, who was at the wheel. Two Safe Passage volunteers, Beth Kloser of Indiana and Robert Tinsley from England, were injured but are expected to recover fully, though Kloser is undergoing an operation in the hospital. According to the Prensa Libre, a passenger bus commonly referred to by the ex-pat community as a “chicken bus” tried to pass another vehicle on the winding, sometimes treacherous highway between Guatemala City and Antigua and collided head-on with the car carrying our friends.

Donations in honor of Hanley Denning — to continue her legacy and sustain Safe Passage – can be sent to Great Lakes Friends, P.O. Box 621, Traverse City, MI. Great Lakes Friends are more determined than ever to see that Hanley’s legacy of combating poverty through education continues and that the programs she established flourish in the future. We will work together with you to ensure that Hanley is honored by our continued dedication to her mission. For more information about how you can support this work, contact GLF at safepassage.glf@yahoo.com, (231) 590-6072.

Links
Click here to read about the Safe Passage fundraising Fiesta last summer at the Haggerty Center

Click here to read about locals
Paul and Mike Sutherland visiting Safe Passage

Click here for the Safe Passage homepage

Posted by editor at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)

November 09, 2006

Art Forum Berlin In 1,000 Words or Less

By Steven Matthew Brown
Sun contributor

Steven Matthew Brown, a former Artist in Residence at the Glen Arbor Art Association, is a native Detroiter. Brown is currently pursuing his Masters in Fine Arts at the Bauhaus Universität in Weimar, Germany.

Photo by Norm Dagen

“121 galleries from 22 countries will show new works by their stars and new-comers at the beginning of the season in autumn in Berlin.”

After much hemming and hawing, I decided to take the train to Berlin for Art Forum 2006. It was a last minute trip but given the immaculate rail system here in Germany, it was as though I had been planning for months. The trip offered certain revelations as to the nature of Berlin as a modern city and arts paradise as well as a window into much of what is revolutionary, beautiful and commercial in contemporary art.

Was it worth it? Uh huh.

The exhibition was housed in Berlin’s premier exhibition/fair grounds, The Messe. Under a grey sky, The Messe appeared both hideous and magical, reminding me of something a Manga animator might dream up for after the apocalypse comes. Art Forum was installed inside of the sprawling North Hall of The Messe. It was not difficult to navigate as a visitor because there was really no way to navigate it. Despite the hyper-detailed map, people were forced to simply begin walking without purpose, viewing as they went, hopefully finding a way out in the end. I had to give myself over to the scale of the event in order to take anything away. Paramedics would have had a much tougher time in an emergency.

The exhibition was mostly white-walled and packed with a mixture of amazing work and deliberately dressed people. No more than five minutes after I entered, I stood modestly curious, as a nice couple from who knows where inquired as to the price of a small (12x16) ‘anonymous’ painting. After being told the work was priced at 26,000 Euro ($35,000) they politely asked if they could carry it out with them. I guess names aren’t always everything.

The event serves as a temporary and contemporary museum of the highest quality, as well as clearinghouse for just about any art form that can be bought and sold. The over-arching principles of Art Forum Berlin are newness and quality. Both were present in equally breathtaking amounts.

“This year at the 11th ART FORUM BERLIN, the entire spectrum of contemporary art will be represented: painting, photography, installations, media art, sculpture, works on paper, editions and multiples.”

True! The exhibition was so diverse I could imagine purists falling into fits and pulling their hair out in the corner. The work ranged from, oil on just about everything, to graphite on paper, to monumental c-prints (I mean 20 feet x 10 feet monumental), to the requisite neon installation, to video installation, to interactive design … name it and it was there.

Markus Oehlen’s work seemed to be everywhere. His giant oil on canvas compositions would stand out even in a Fourth of July parade, or, as was the case even at Art Forum Berlin. Performance artist William L Pope had a small work entitled “Salt Lick” represented by a London-based gallery whose name I didn’t get. The orange crusty surface was accompanied by instructions to lick the surface and spit the contents of one’s mouth onto the floor. By day 4 of Art Forum Berlin no one had followed his instructions. It’s understandable, really.

Birgit Dieker was a new name for me but I will certainly not forget it. The works presented by Birgit, who is represented in Europe, all utilized fabric and found clothing. I was most struck by pieces that looked like anthropomorphic humanoid forms made by ‘stacking’ old shirts like a Russian doll until a solid form was realized. The ‘heads’ of these forms were then excavated until the layers within were revealed. David Scher, (another new name for me) shows in the still-hot city of Leipzig. He reminds me of San Francisco-based artists like Shaun O’Dell. I am struggling to understand why exactly, but it may be that they blend an interest in formal and technical aspects of drawing and painting with the insane ‘abstract expressionist/Korean animation/Americana’ symbolism that I find more and more in contemporary painting.

All things considered I was really completely under-whelmed by the installation section. The area was used for works that were not installation but were too large to be exhibited in the main spaces, as well as ‘true’ installations that I found generally a bit stale.

The city of Berlin itself is as amazing as it is strange. My first impressions were of the new 700-million-Euro Hauptbahnhof train station (the largest in Europe) — a glass cathedral that accepts trains on two levels. It’s larger than most airports and busier too. Eight hundred years of history seem to still be active and alive all around the city. The touristy areas are still quite raw and it would seem everyone finds a voice there.

The city is in many ways a blank slate. It is ancient and contemporary, and many areas still bear traces of multiple invasions, regime changes, world-shattering bombing campaigns and geopolitical division. Award-winning architecture and still dead Soviet-era buildings stand together, roving bands of street-kids wait for trains next to rich Golden-Youth at the U-Bahn station, wurst sausage peddlers next to Middle Eastern kebob carts.... It seemed like strange things were afoot all around me AND the people are delightfully nice. There were areas where just walking around I felt as though I was on some high-grade synthetic black-market chemical. Even at the Reichstag and the Brandenburg Gate it was all a bit like a blurry dream of some “Soviet Brooklyn.” I was unprepared for the tarnished-polish of the city.

All things said it’s an amazing metropolis and host to a seemingly non-stop party circuit at a seemingly infinite variety of clubs, venues, squat-houses, hotels and galleries. There are no less than 50 museums in Berlin proper, including the Pergamonmuseum, Bode-Museum, as well as the Alte and Neue Nationalgaleries. These are all situated on the Museum Island, which is still reeling from a 400-million-Euro renovation project. There are more official and alternative gallery spaces than I can count, all presenting a variety of work befitting an international city such as Berlin. I was also lucky enough to catch Cai Guo-Qiang at Guggenheim Berlin. I was introduced to him through the Woodward Lecture Series a few years ago. I have seen him at the Corcoran in Washington D.C. as well, and I am never disappointed with his work.

Suffice it to say there’s too much to discuss in one sitting. Maybe next year I can offer some perspective on the changing face of Art Forum Berlin. But for now, like the 100,000 other visitors, I am still in the hazy neon thrall of the grand event.

Visit Art Forum Berlin on the web at www.art-forum-berlin.com.

Brown’s work has been exhibited at Thoreson Farm and the Lake Street Studios’ Center Gallery. He has traveled vast portions of the United States since leaving his Glen Arbor residency and made an immediate stop on the middle coast of Oregon for a residency at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. A Maggie Allese Scholarship Fellow, Brown spent a year traveling with Art Train USA. He has also spent extended time creating studio studies in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. When Brown is not internationally engaged, he frequently makes rejuvenation visits to Empire. Brown’s work on paper is currently represented at the Synchronicity Gallery the Glen Arbor. For more information visit www.stevenmatthewbrown.com.

Posted by editor at 08:13 PM | Comments (0)

July 28, 2005

Local artist falls deeper and deeper in love with Provence

By Jo Anne S. Wilson
Sun contributor

In the winter of 2003, I fell in love. I was living in one of five stone cottages on an old restored lavender farm in the Provence region of southern France. Several weeks ago, I returned from residing for 10 months at that same farm, and I’m still in love.

Like the human form of a love affair, this one started with subtle attraction and has had its ebb and flow for almost three years. I suppose you could say that the courtship is over and the flame of love burns with the steady heat of a mature relationship. I met wonderful people, both expatriates and native French, and the depth of my adoration for the country remains solid. I learned to separate the French from the government of France and fact from travel brochure hype.

My extended stay gave me time to paint the scenery, write about the people in the village, and truly experience life in France. In June and July, fields of lavender bloom with a luminosity I cannot describe. The rows of blossoms seem to vibrate in their brilliance. The air is filled with the sent of lavender and the buzzing of bees. Carts piled high with bunches of harvested flowers often block the narrow roads as they transport the crop to the local distillery for processing into lavender oil. These slow moving carts impeded my progress, if I were dashing off to meet friends at the café, but they served to remind me about taking time to stop and smell the roses, or in this case, the fragrance of lavender.

No place on earth is a real Garden of Eden, ask any Leelanau County resident what Glen Arbor is like in mid-February. There are inconveniences and tradeoffs in return for experiencing the beauty and culture of any area. Even the most handsome of all princes has his froggy warts.

I came to this region of southern France for many reasons, but mainly for the climate. In winter, there’s almost constant sunshine and virtually no snow. But non-stop sun and provençal blue skies come with a price, and it’s called the Mistral. This cold, northerly wind swoops down the Rhone River valley and clears the air, but it often blows with gale force, for days on end. The incessant wind can be most unsettling, as shutters bang, windows creak, and doors slam shut. I began to understand why legend has it that this interminable wind drove the artist Van Gogh to cut off his ear. In schools, children are given added leniency, when it comes to matters of discipline, during prolonged visits from le Mistral.

On April 30, I left Provence and headed a few hours north to the Ardèche — a region in the foothills of the Cevennes Mountains on the edge of the Massif of Central France. Here’s where Robert Louis Stevenson wrote of his Travels With A Donkey. I first came here, about eight years ago, with now deceased Glen Arbor artist, Suzanne Wilson.

I stayed the month of May in a centuries old farmhouse where Traverse City artist, Jean Larson (www.jeanlarson.com), spends most of her year. Her studio was once the barn where silk worms spun their filaments. The Ardèche region is more wild and rugged and much less touristy than Provence. No more fields of lavender, just miles of vineyards and limestone rock. As much as I love sunny Provence, the Ardèche will always hold a special attraction for me.

Since my return to my home in Traverse City, I’m adjusting to my own culture and tripping over the Frenchness that has grown on me like a third foot. I’ve stopped the automatic greeting I gave new acquaintances and friends in France: a kiss on each cheek instead of a hug or hand shake. Last week, I was invited for cocktails with friends. My hostess circulated with a lovely tray of appetizers. About to help myself, my eyes momentarily widened in dismay and confusion as she said, “Would you like a canapé?” You see, in France, a canapé, is a sofa!

Posted by editor at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)

June 16, 2005

County native’s medical training takes her to rural, poor Mayan clinic

Liz Martin says three-month experience changed her life
By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

Part two in a two-part series on locals doing humanitarian work in Guatemala

RIO DULCE, Guatemala – In a setting as meager as the Ak’tenamit project site, located in the jungle of eastern Guatemala, a hike and a motorboat ride away from the nearest road, Dartmouth medical student Liz Martin learned that you make do with the resources you have available. That could mean reaching a diagnosis without the benefit of x-rays or cat scans; stitching up a serious wound without anaesthesia; or comforting a teenage girl by candlelight as she prepares to go into labor.

The daughter of John, a realtor at The Martin Company, and Wendy, a schoolteacher at Glen Lake, Liz is best known in northern Michigan for having lit up high school basketball courts in the mid-90’s. But in Guatemala this spring is where she and her boyfriend Dan made a difference that really counts. The two doctoral candidates volunteered at the Ak’tenamit clinic for three months, receiving Q’eqchi’ Mayan Indians, some of whom had walked for days, for medical help that we in the rich, developed world take for granted.

Officially, their role was to support Maria, the director of the clinic who speaks both Spanish and Q’eqchi’, and 10 volunteers. The two Ivy-Leaguers also trekked twice a week to surrounding villages, carrying huge backpacks full of medicine and setting up impromptu clinics by hanging sheets to make walls and sliding benches together. They would often spend a night there, dine with local families in their homes and see as many as 250 patients in a couple days. But the experience was reciprocal, Liz maintains.

“It’s really not that admirable,” she said over the phone after returning to the United States. “I took away so much more from my time there than the people I served in the clinics.

“In fact, we were still in school and didn’t have that much practical experience. The permanent workers there have lots of experience with common infectious diseases (like malaria or Giardia).”

Nevertheless, at least one family will always remember what Liz for them when it mattered most. On a day she will never forget, a 14-year-old pregnant girl named Marta arrived at the clinic with her mother, just hours shy of going into labor. Having a child that young is not all that uncommon in Mayan culture, but her mother had an anxiety disorder and couldn’t be present for the birth. Enter Liz, who had learned just enough Spanish during five weeks at the Probigua language school in touristy Antigua, to comfort Marta, by candlelight, as she lay in wait. “I was up every three hours to check on the poor woman,” Liz remembers. In the morning, she found Marta with her mother and sister in the room, overjoyed and relieved that the pregnancy had gone well.

The healthy baby’s name: Lisa, after the kind, white-skinned foreigner who had comforted Marta through the ordeal.

Years later, Liz says she will be tempted to return to Guatemala and check up on Lisa.

Other experiences at the clinic didn’t always have happy endings, or they were marred by logistical challenges and cultural differences.

“I had to speak to men about their wives’ health problems, even if a woman came in with months of vaginal bleeding,” Liz remembers. “Because only the men spoke Spanish. That’s why we wanted the girls from the rural areas to get better education.”

Another time a man arrived from the plantation after nearly chopping off his ear with a machete.

“This happened on a weekend, and one of the health promoters was running around, yelling ‘Emergencia!’ We walked in, and this guy’s ear was hanging from a thread. The nearest hospital was hours away, so we gave him 23 stitches on the spot.”

Liz added that, had the man traveled to the modern hospital in the Caribbean port of Puerto Barrios, he may have lay there for two days without getting any medicine.

After all, Mayan Indians are all but outcasts on their own land. Though Guatemala’s 22 indigenous tribes represent a majority of the country, it is the land-owning white oligarchy who have the power and the riches. Most of the victims during Guatemala’s brutal 36-year civil war were the Mayan Indians of the western highlands, who suffered one massacre after another at the hands of the U.S.-backed and trained military.

The Q’eqchi’ people are also native to the western highlands, but the armed conflict forced many of them to resettle in other areas of the country, or take refugee status in Mexico or the United States. Thus, the Ak’tenamit project was established 12 years ago near the Rio Dulce to care for a population of 7,000 relocated Q’eqchi’ Indians. In addition to the clinic where Liz and Dan treated people for malaria, births, machete wounds, scabies, lice, cellulitus and ulcers (stuff the Dartmouth students had never seen before), the “Proyecto” has a boarding school for children from surrounding villages, a conservation branch teaching self-empowerment, and its own lancha, or motor boat, that picks up volunteers or transports patients to a hospital.

Posted by editor at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)

May 26, 2005

In impoverished, war-torn Guatemala, county locals try to make a difference

Sutherland brothers encourage volunteers for trip next fall
By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

“Study is not the goal, DOING is.
Do not mistake ‘talk’ for action.
Pity fills no stomach.
Compassion builds no house.
Understanding is not yet justice.”
— Rabbi Pirke Avot

Part one in a two-part series on locals doing humanitarian work in Guatemala

GUATEMALA CITY — The shantytowns of humble tin shacks now stretch as far as the eye can see on the outskirts of this destitute and gritty Central American capital. The residents are hard-luck Mayan Indians and mixed-blood Ladinos who fled their native villages in the western highlands during the height of the civil war massacres in the 1980’s for the anonymity of la ciudad. The stories they share with each other are ones of loss, and terror, and fear of returning. They are terminal refugees. Yet they know they are better off than some.

For in Guatemala City’s garbage dump, thousands of people live and try to make every day lead to the next. They wander from heap to heap of trash, looking for tortillas or beans, or even meat that a rich family in Zona 10 may have thrown out. The father, if there is one, often wanders off for days to get drunk on high-octane and cheap Agua Diente firewater, while the mother leaves her infant in an old car tire with a piece of plywood over its head to keep out the sun’s burning rays while she looks for bags of glue she can sniff to dull the pain of hunger.

Though impossible for wealthy Americans like us to fathom, this story repeats itself every day here — every single day.

To combat this, Hanley Denning, a 1992 graduate of Bowdoin College and native of Maine, has established Safe Passage (Camino Seguro), a community of local and foreign volunteers, sponsors and a small Guatemalan staff working to provide hope and assistance to the children of families living in Guatemala City’s garbage dump. Safe Passage has about 40 employees, 25 of which are social workers. It also runs two orphanages and schools, but can only house up to 50 kids at one time — all on a budget of approximately $30,000 a month

Among those who have traveled to Central America to help Safe Passage are Traverse City-resident and financial consultant Paul Sutherland, and more recently his brother Mike, a building contractor who lives on the Crystal River in Glen Arbor. A huge proponent of philanthropy, Paul was wary of talking too much about himself when I interviewed him for this article, since Denning, who will visit northern Michigan in early June, deserves the lion’s share of the credit. Needless to say, the work has only begun.

Paul carries the above quote from Rabbi Pirke Avot in his wallet at all times, and refers to it religiously. “I mean, you could donate money for a new stained glass window in a church in the United States, but putting a roof over someone’s head down there means a lot more,” he says.

Putting roofs over people’s heads is just what his brother Mike hopes to do this coming fall if he can round up a trip of volunteers. “Hanley wants me to build a shelter in the dump where mothers can drop their babies off so they won’t have to leave them in abandoned tires,” Mike says.

Though he has traveled to more than 40 different countries and didn’t think that anything could surprise him, Mike admits he wasn’t at all prepared for what he witnessed at the garbage dump in Guatemala City. Over breakfast at Art’s Tavern earlier this month, he revealed that he sometimes wakes up at night, haunted, with the image of Astrid, a five-year-old girl he held in his arms for an hour. “She wouldn’t let me go,” he remembers. “She was hanging on for dear life.

“I didn’t want to admit to myself that this kind of poverty exists for some people. The Dali Lama says that people don’t really want to realize the extremity of it even though they say they want to help the world. ‘Where do you begin?’ they ask.

“’Start anywhere!’” he answers.

“As for me,” Mike summarizes, “I love to travel. I was blown away by the Guatemalan food; the culture; the people. So Guatemala was the perfect place for me to being.”

If you would like to join Mike Sutherland this fall on his trip to build shelters for the children living in Guatemala City’s garbage dump, he can be reached at 883-7890. Lodging in Guatemala will be provided. The cost of the flight, and food while there, are not included.

Glen Lake alum Liz Martin’s story about volunteering in a Mayan clinic in the jungle in eastern Guatemala will appear in the June 16 issue of the Glen Arbor Sun

Posted by editor at 09:52 PM | Comments (0)

November 11, 2004

Georgia or bust: Local couple braves the Appalachian Trail — Part 2

By Abby Noble
Sun contributor

Abby (Chatfield) Noble, of Leland, set out to hike the Appalachian Trail with her now-husband, Kenny, in the fall of 2003. The two-part tale of their awe-inspiring journey concludes in this issue of the Glen Arbor Sun. Abby honed her writing skills at the Interlochen Arts Academy. She and Kenny were married this year on June 27.

The entire trail only exists because thousands of individuals volunteer to maintain it and fight constant legal battles to ensure the Appalachian Trail keeps a secure passage. Near Caratunk, Maine, the Kennebec River rolls with such force that hikers are required to canoe across it. This would not be possible without the volunteers who sit at the river’s edge in shifts and wait to paddle hikers to the opposite bank. One hiker, determined to walk even the rivers, declined the canoe ride and attempted to swim against the Kennebec current with his pack above his head. We met him a few days later and learned that a man had plucked the hiker from the water about a quarter-mile downstream of the trail and saved his life.

We opted to accept a canoe ride and safely reach the biggest physical challenge along the entire trail, Maine’s Mahoosuc Range. Our lowland travels, broken only intermittently by random isolated peaks, turned into the most continuous series of ups and downs on the Appalachian Trail. The Mahoosuc alpine territory offers extensive views on clear days. From The Horn, the Atlantic Ocean is visible. From all peaks, I could watch the approaching weather. On Saddleback’s summit, we leaned into the 30 mph winds and observed, far off, rain showering down in metallic curtains, connecting the clouds to patches of hillside basking in the sunlight.

It rained a lot in the Mahoosucs, which forced us to slow our pace along the steep, bare rock trail. Luckily, we met the hardest mile of trail, Mahoosuc Notch, on a dry day. This lone mile took two hours to defeat, because we had to scurry over and under its piled boulders in a tunnel only 25-75 yards wide, enclosed by mountainous cliffs. Sunlight never touches the boulders’ bellies, so even in late July ice remains and creates cold air currents that circle around the hot air above.

There would not be another challenge like this until our first day in New Hampshire. We realized that we had completed 281 miles when we saw the blue hand-painted sign marking the Maine-New Hampshire border. We knew we were about to enter into a new challenge and found the scariest moment of trail along New Hampshire’s Rattle River.

The night before our Rattle River crossing, heavy rains flooded the riverbanks, and rapids continued to explode through slots between the boulders all along the riverbed. The trail requires hikers to pass through this normally docile current, and there is no way around it. After an hour, we had piled up enough dead logs to balance our way across the first shoot of rapids. If one log broke, it would send us down a jagged slide of bubbling foam. If we made it across, we would still have to walk through two more raging, yet shallower, sets of rapids. We succeeded by taking our time, and I cried as all my nervous energy escaped on the opposite bank.

We had safely entered a new state and a completely different atmosphere of higher altitudes, consistently rocky trail and continuous fees. From Imp Mountain to the New Hampshire-Vermont border, there are few sheltered places to stay in the exposed environment. Fees are collected at the few safe camping areas and used to maintain areas along the entire Appalachian Trail. Hikers must have enough cash to ensure safe passage through the most exposed areas. After the Carter and Wildcat ranges, we ascended Mount Madison and trekked south along the Presidential Range’s backbone well above tree line. Even though it can take a week to hike the long stretch of bare rock and Bigelow Sedge, most people never witness the amazing views only available about 25 percent of the their time above 6,000 feet. Mt. Washington, New England’s highest point, boasts the worst weather and strongest winds (231 mph) in the world. With such unpredictable shifts in weather, it is almost necessary to stay inside the infamous Presidential huts, like Lake of the Clouds hut a mile south of Mt. Washington. Huts cost tourists and hikers over $65 per night. But thru-hikers can sleep on dining room tables or the floor and eat the guests’ leftovers for free, if they volunteer a few hours to help hut staff with daily chores.

The weather cleared for us at many points in the Presidentials, and we made the list of volunteers in a few huts too. But the best view in New Hampshire was the 360-degree panorama atop Mt. Kinsman at the south end of the White Mountains. We observed the Presidentials’ jagged peaks on the northern horizon and looked south on the upcoming trail where the landscape melted from tall mountainous cones into rippling hills.

As we lowered in altitude and latitude the forest began to reappear and diversify. Within a day, we passed through mixed forest, White Pine woods, hemlock, birch, spruce and maple. As author and hiker Bill Bryson wrote in his book, “Into the Woods,” we had just completed only 15 percent of the entire Appalachian Trail but already put forth 50 percent of the needed effort, as we crossed the Connecticut River into Vermont.

Vermont trail is like a rollercoaster track. It mostly rolls in a way where speed from descent carries one up the next hill, and so on. The woods open up and trees grow spaced apart, yet still thick enough to question where it might end. At points when the woods broke open, we found hamlets like Manchester or old-fashioned diners by a roadside. Our appetites already rivaled that of anyone walking 20-mile days, so we took advantage of most diners without letting any of our dehydrated food go to waste. A breakfast of omelets, toast, potatoes and sausage could, unfailingly, be followed by two lunches each and a pot of lentils for dinner.

Besides the good food, Vermont offered a sense of achievement as our pace quickened along its gentle terrain through the Green Mountains. For over 100 miles, the Appalachian Trail shared the Long Trail’s corridor so, by the Massachusetts border, we had hiked one-third of the historic Vermont footpath and noted our location as halfway through the New England stretch.

Yet our hike along America’s acclaimed footpath through nature began to seem a lot less like nature and more like a nature walk through the town park. Massachusetts’ White Pine forests, with their filtered red light and soft floors clear of most underbrush, remained a quiet, soothing environment to hike. But signs of human life otherwise continued. One night, we actually believed we were lost and woke to find ourselves at the edge of someone’s backyard.

But by the second week of September, touches of color brushed across the treetops, and the change motivated me to keep moving forward. Fields of goldenrod, wildflowers and ferns broke the monotonous walk along riverbanks and cornfields. Historic sites began appearing in greater number, and we passed by old rock fences that marked historical property lines.

Everett was the last mountain we climbed in Massachusetts before descending into Sage’s Ravine, a deep river-cut gap marking the Massachusetts-Connecticut border. We climbed the ladder of rock steps out of the gap to Bear Mountain’s summit, where a sign claims this as Connecticut’s tallest peak. But according to a man we met there, who had already climbed to the highest points in all 50 states, Connecticut’s tallest peak is actually a neighbor to Bear Mountain.

Connecticut’s 83-mile Appalachian Trail stretch completed our New England hiking experience and remained as removed as we would be from daily human activities until Pennsylvania. We entered into the Mid-Atlantic corridor at the Connecticut-New York border and faced our biggest mental challenges of the entire journey.

New York was, by far, the least enjoyable hiking state between Maine and Pennsylvania and might have been responsible for our decreasing excitement about this hike. Human sound polluted the trail, and it was common to spot construction just outside the narrow, barely protected corridor. Power lines, telephone poles, turnpikes and neighborhoods surrounded us. After crossing the Hudson River on a busy bridge, we even followed the trail through the center of a small zoo. Hiking through a state that seemed to put more effort into a zoo that the trail calloused our thoughts so well that we showed no surprise at the miles of grey, seemingly dead woods or at Nuclear Lake, so named for its severe contamination by a large nuclear spill in the 1970s.

New York did have a lot of deer, porcupines and high ridges with open views. But our morale deteriorated the longer we remained there. Maybe this is why New Jersey looked so appealing upon our arrival, despite the noticeable manmade marks on the landscape. We expected black air and pocked hillsides from industry but only came upon cow pastures and small county roads. The land slowly lifted into the Kittatiny Mountains and the least obstructed views since Connecticut. Bird clubs from all over the region flocked here to watch hawks sail on air currents along cliff edges. Hunters stalked the trail to access nearby hunting spots. Deer and bear populated the state. In fact, there was such a high bear population that most hikers left New Jersey with at least one close encounter.

The active Kittatiny Mountain trails lowered into the fast-paced, well-used Delaware Water Gap, the border between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Semi-trucks thundered past us as we leaned over the bridge, rather risking a fall into the muddy Delaware River than losing a leg to a speeding vehicle. After almost 1,000 miles of continuous walking, the contrast between our rate of movement and the surrounding culture’s was very evident.

It remained easy to adapt into a simple life with only the bare necessities at hand, but the Mid-Atlantic region’s consistent blur between development and nature stole a lot of enjoyment from our experience. It became difficult to pass by a town without stopping in for a while, and the scenery became ordinary and human. In Pennsylvania, we experienced autumn’s peak beauty. All the way from the Pokeno Mountains to the southern part of the state, we walked along flat ridgelines for up to 20 miles at a time before a short trip down into a gap and then 500 yards straight up onto the next long ridge. The valley’s forests below us blazed red and orange and restored some excitement in the journey.

We witnessed the acclaimed view from The Pinnacle alongside a large Amish family. A patched quilt of farmland spread across the green, flat land between the forested hills to its sides. As beautiful as it seemed, there were a few obvious environmental issues. Within a two-day stretch, we passed by three Environmental Protection Agency clean-up sites at abandoned mines. It hailed on us one day, and our feet almost froze each night. By October, it seemed the season was already changing again, and we were not walking fast enough to reach Georgia by Christmas.

We knew we had to quit at Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania, because I contracted viral meningitis just north, near Duncannon. We spent almost a week there at a $15 motel while I recovered but knew the journey must end. We wanted to keep it a positive experience, so we had to be honest with ourselves. We had reached our limit at 1,065 miles, but we would, some day, come back to finish the southern half of the Appalachian Trail.

Posted by editor at 07:43 PM | Comments (0)

October 16, 2004

Together in the same Big Apple, the delegates and protestors lived a world apart

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

This journalist traveled to New York to cover the Republican National Convention for Utne Magazine, and chronicled both the perspectives of delegates as well as the anti-Bush protestors who took to the streets to show their opposition to the administration’s policies.

NEW YORK — For the delegates who gathered at Madison Square Garden at the Republican National Convention earlier this month to officially nominate George W. Bush to defend his throne in the upcoming presidential election, New York City was an unnerving place, and not just because America’s cultural Mecca lay thousands of miles from home for many of them.

Here, rats owned the subway tracks, homeless men owned the benches at night, mad-dashing foreigners in yellow taxicabs owned the streets, and, for the most part, stories of suffering outside America’s borders owned the newspapers’ pages. Worse, for the visiting delegates, much of New York’s populace viewed them as ignorant, inferior and everything short of arboreal. That is not uncommon of many large countries. Parisians look down on their fellow Frenchman. Londoners loathe watching a football match with someone from Manchester. And Madrideños know that the best Tapas bars are found in their own city.

But residents of the Big Apple openly consider themselves New Yorkers, first, and Americans, second, when they are traveling abroad, in the words of my friend Anthony, a playwright and actor who lives in Brooklyn. A framed poster of the well-known cartoon in The New Yorker, featuring the five boroughs in the foreground and little more than a flat wasteland between New Jersey and the West Coast, hanging in the kitchen of the apartment where I stayed this week on the upper-west side of Manhattan hammered home this point.

Pain endures at Ground Zero

It should come as no surprise, then, that there were only two places where the visiting delegates felt at home here. The first was inside the Garden, which was sterilized of all that’s liberal and worldly in New York, and cordoned off for several city blocks in each direction before the convention began on August 30 to keep the hundreds of thousands of anti-Bush protestors — from New York and the rest of America alike — at an arm’s length. The second was the area in lower Manhattan conspicuously absent of any buildings. Ground Zero, where the World Trade Center towers stood before terrorists rudely toppled them three years ago this month, was the obvious attraction for the Republican Party to hold its convention here since the event ushered in a new chapter in world history and gave Bush a license to plunge the country into two wars, and maybe more. He has also deprived American citizens of many civil rights and kept the nation in a state of paranoia. As such, many delegates have flocked to the sacred ground this week to weep and pay homage to the fallen.

Bush’s supporters from the heartland hark back to the attacks of September 11, 2001 compulsively, as if their right to continue breathing fresh air after this November depends on it. But many of the outsiders swarming the streets didn’t seem to get the message that New Yorkers had for them: “Don’t use our pain for your political gain!” (More than 80 percent of all New Yorkers registered with political parties are Democrats.)

The gaping hole here left a void in the hearts and psyche of many locals. Most cried; many screamed; some chanted “USA, USA, USA” when the commander in chief visited the wreckage three days after the attacks; and many supported the Bush administration’s decision to invade Afghanistan to root out the culprits. But a Republican National Convention boasting an oversimplified message to reelect an incumbent who is very unpopular in this city blending into New York City’s worldly, progressive and complex culture is like oil and water mixing. Don’t count on it.

“If using the legacy of September 11 is a publicity stunt, it’s a bad stunt,” Dorsett Santos told me during the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign march on August 30. “This is the only thing Bush can write on his presidential resume. But New York does not want to be known for that.”

Larry Nodarse touted a sign at Ground Zero the next day reading, RNC delegates, Stop exploiting the mass murder of 2,749 people on September 11, 2001. He talked to me about his rage as a homeless man nearby played “Amazing Grace” on his flute:

“Using the deaths of people to further a political cause is disgraceful. I don’t think that any political party should have held their convention here. Still, it wouldn’t be quite as appalling if the Democrats had, because they’ve done it before. At least they have a history of embracing New York.

“The Republicans have never embraced New York. I’m not talking about all conservatives, but a good majority of conservatives, especially in the heartland, have always looked down on New York, seen it as sin city: Sadom and Gomorrah — a lefty, pinko, Commy town. Suddenly when September 11 happened they tried to embrace New York and make it their own, and tried to adopt it as the symbol of their party. I think it’s sick that they tried to push the calendar as far back to nearly coincide with the anniversary of the terrorist attacks.

“[Former New York mayor] Rudolph Giuliani’s speech [on the convention’s opening night] really offended me, talking about a guy who jumped out of the 102nd floor [of the World Trade Center]. How dare he use somebody’s death to push forward George W. Bush’s re-election. Who knows who that guy was.”

Mass arrests of protestors

At St. Paul’s Cathedral next to Ground Zero on August 31, protestors from New York and all over the United States clashed head-on with the black-and-white message the Bush administration has forced on the people since that awful day three years ago: “You are in constant danger. Obey orders, and above all, conform.”

New York City Police arrested upwards of 200 activists who sought to march from St. Paul’s Cathedral, next to the epicenter of the post-September 11-world, to Madison Square Garden to protest the Republican Party’s abuse of this city’s pain as a means to get reelected in two months. Though they didn’t have a permit to march, organizers were given temporary permission to do so by the NYPD as long as they stuck to the sidewalks and didn’t disrupt traffic. After walking one block, the arrests began. Ironically, the police used the pretext of marchers crowding the sidewalks to shut the march down in its infancy stage, as they closed off the street, themselves, to facilitate the arrests.

In what then became ordinary scenes all over New York during the convention, the police roped in protestors with an orange net, slowly condensing the crowd as if they were rounding up cattle, then made them wait for hours as paddy wagons and tour buses with NYPD labels on them came to take the activists away. Some were not even part of the march, just unlucky pedestrians caught up in a police action whose message was handed down through the Secret Service in Washington D.C., which takes over for local police whenever the president comes to town. Representatives of the National Lawyer’s Guild in their light green baseball caps were also among the fenced-in.

A young man wearing a F—— Censorship shirt yelled to journalists, “I don’t think Bush should be here manipulating 9-11” as the police handcuffed him. A policeman nearby was overhead admitting that he has the same shirt at home.

All over the city, anti-RNC activists were getting the picture. Now that the convention had started, there would be no more permits, no more marching, no more opportunities for mobile free speech. The successful and peaceful half-a-million-man march held the day before the convention began was a thing of the past. A four-block area around Madison Square Garden had been closed off, and the city’s police force had been ceded to the Republican Party. Battle lines had formed.

Police arrested more than 900 on August 31, alone, The New York Times reported — at the New York Public Library, at a “Die In” protest on 28th Street just south of the convention, at Ground Zero, even inside the Garden, where Medea Benjamin, a member of the feminist, anti-war organization Code Pink, got within spitting distance of Dick Cheney before she was subdued.

By the time Bush arrived on stage for the convention’s final evening on September 2, the NYPD had detained some 2,000 people, forcing most to sleep on cement floors reeking of oil, other chemicals and asbestos in the now infamous Pier 57 on the Hudson River, and feeding them a paltry few apples and stale bologna sandwiches during their ordeal. Many, though, were vegetarians.

The incarcerated found other uses for the unwelcome gifts. They reportedly played soccer, using the bologna sandwiches as goalposts and paper cups rolled up into soccer balls. The protestors also sang and danced with each other to keep their spirits high.

Protestors register moral and legal victories

Activists were released en masse from the Criminal Courts Building on the convention’s final day as New York judge John Cataldo ruled that the city was in contempt of court for denying thousands their legal rights during cruel incarcerations that lasted as many as 60 hours. He fined the NYPD $1,000 for every protestor jailed during the week without charges who had not been released by 6 p.m. on September 2.

A crowd of hundreds congregated near the Courts Building on Centre Street in lower Manhattan that morning to show their solidarity with fellow activists, and cheered as they exited, one by one, onto the street. “There was a big crowd of protestors in the courtroom who weren’t allowed to cheer because it was a court environment, but after my hearing took about 30 seconds, I turned around and they all gave me a thumbs up and a smile,” said John Cheatwood, an activist who traveled here from Florida and missed his ride home because of his incarceration that lasted almost two days. When Cheatwood exited onto the street, cheers and hugs from strangers were there to greet him instead. “It really helped being in there knowing that all of these people were out here fighting for us. We weren’t just forgotten.”

Meanwhile, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union explained to the crowd waiting outside the Courts Building for the release of their friends and family that the detainees essentially “didn’t exist” and “had no rights as citizens” until they were formally charged by the city. Once they regained their rights as citizens, some protestors faced prosecutors for as few as14 seconds before they were released onto the street, uncharged.

Americans inside the convention are a world apart

Perhaps the Republican delegates shouldn’t be faulted for misunderstanding how they were perceived by New Yorkers who either left town in dismay, took to the streets in protest or simply sucked in their pride and waited out the storm when the invaders converged in Manhattan. Large tour buses carted the delegates around all week, from their hotels, to Madison Square Garden, to Times Square, shielding them from the public, as they took in Broadway shows. How were they to know how New York really felt? And how were they to know that the Big Apple largely opposed the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq, using the gaping hole at Ground Zero as its impetus, when their young stallion from Texas had beaten the horrors of September 11 into their brains over and over again for three years?

Two hours before Bush was to speak on Thursday night, I noticed Johnny Horn, staring toward the arena of Madison Square Garden with tears streaming down his cheeks. Horn is an African American, a Vietnam veteran and a candidate for state representative in Chattanooga, Tennessee on the Republican platform. “My emotions were set off out watching the protestors,” he said candidly. “I’m perplexed that we’re not all one accord like in every other war we’ve fought except for maybe Vietnam. The Republicans are saying we have to proactively fight terrorism. The others are saying we have to take a softer approach. But what happens to the guy in the middle? Many people have no idea how ruthless our enemies really are.”

Horn applauded Bush for going into Iraq because now the terrorists “are busy defending their home turf, so they can’t focus on us in New York.” Horn is convinced that if John Kerry wins the election in November, “they” will strike within six months.

On the prowl before the gala was to reach its climax, I asked other delegates about the decision to invade Iraq given what information we have now, and most of their answers always seemed incredibly rehearsed, as if they had recited them each morning upon waking up … or heard them rehearsed on Fox News. Nowadays, most delegates paid as much attention to the question of the Weapons of Mass Destruction as they would a tip jar at a café.

“So what if we didn’t find the WMD’s. Freeing 25 million people is justification alone,” said Bruce Motheral, a delegate from Texas.

Helen LaRue, an alternate delegate from New Jersey, said she didn’t want to get into a discussion over the war in Iraq, just seconds after admitting to me that, “we do lack debate here” at the convention. “Iraq is a tough topic,” she said. “I don’t want to discuss it because I know that not everyone agrees with me, and I don’t like to debate. But I do have my personal feelings.” She followed that with, “I’m not saying we shouldn’t talk about it, but my personal opinion is that we have very good elected officials who know all the ins and outs of this situation. They’re the ones who should be on top of it. I believe in George W. Bush.”

And with that, the commander in chief walked onto the stage and encouraged his constituents to continue supporting him in the war on terror.

Posted by editor at 09:52 PM | Comments (0)

August 26, 2004

Georgia or bust: Local couple braves the Appalachian Trail — Part 2

By Abby Noble
Sun contributor

Abby (Chatfield) Noble, of Leland, set out to hike the Appalachian Trail with her now-husband, Kenny, in the fall of 2003. She recounts their awe-inspiring journey in this (and in the next) issue of the Glen Arbor Sun. Abby honed her writing skills at the Interlochen Arts Academy. She and Kenny were married this year on June 27.

The Appalachian Trail is the oldest continuous long-distance hiking path in the United States, stretching over 2,160 miles through 14 states from Maine to Georgia. For six months, my fiancé and I studied stacks of maps and books in preparation for our first long-distance hike. The goals: To complete the entire Appalachian Trail, “thru-hike” it in hikers’ lingo, while we learned the challenges of subsisting outdoors and experiencing the East Coast’s physical geography.

We began the journey in San Francisco, overlooking the Pacific Ocean from our apartment balcony one last time before a long drive across the country. Everything we owned fit into our 1992 Nissan Pathfinder, but everything we would soon need fit into two hiking backpacks.

In Leland, friends helped us through 24 hours of vacuum-packing and boxing 500 pounds of dried food into 14 strategically planned mail drops. These goodie boxes could sustain us along the trek if we correctly calculated how much food we needed between drops. While studying maps in our cozy living room, we had to guess how far our legs could carry us each day for five months. Based on the terrain, our fitness levels and an obscure Knowles equation, we stuffed each box with enough food to last us until we received the next package. My mother would mail them to specific zip codes along the trail about two weeks before our estimated arrival at each town.

Just two weeks after leaving the west coast, Atlantic waters swept over our feet in Hampton, New Hampshire. A Connecticut friend volunteered to drive us to the Appalachian Trail’s northern terminus in Baxter State Park, Maine. The night before we began the hike, the three of us and a black lab stayed at a campground near the Atlantic Ocean. This campground more resembled someone’s backyard, and its occupants seemed solely there to hang out in comfort. It became obvious what liberal meaning people use to define the word “camp.” Our camping supplies consisted of two outfits each, rain suits, sleeping bags, a tent, water filter, propane stove, bug lotion and ten-day supply of dehydrated food. The Hampton campers stocked up on fast food, refrigerators, televisions, picnic tables, and full-size inflatable couches inside their nylon mansions.

Our reality struck hard the next afternoon when a park ranger refused to let our vehicle inside Baxter State Park as long as there was a dog present. The only viable alternative meant hiking for one and a half days from outside the park borders just to reach the Appalachian Trail’s actual start at Mount Katahdin’s summit. So, our friend and his dog left us at a green log cabin store under a fluorescent “Schlitz Beer” sign with no trails in sight. Immediately, we walked in the wrong direction and found ourselves only 200 yards from the general store just an hour later. Thanks to a passerby, we uncovered a trail that supposedly leads into the park, although no signs actually confirmed this. We did not know that we were on the right trail until we passed a sign four miles later. A local soon told us he was glad the trail was hard to navigate, because it kept the visitors away.

After seven and a half miles carrying 40-50 lb packs, we stumbled into Katahdin Stream Campground with bruised hips, tight shoulders and throbbing feet. Only one day down, and I had already learned some lessons. First, we can all survive, and even thrive, with much less than we carry. Second, always break in boots before beginning a 2,000-mile hike. Finally, flying insects are a great motivation to keep moving, even when the body feels like it might shatter under a heavy pack’s pressure. Trudging through forests of Paper Birch, Yellow Birch, Red Birch, Black Birch and Cedar along swampy grounds provided abundant mosquito breeding grounds but an entertaining show of diversity we would continue to find the entire trip. That day, as every day, we walked trails constructed of roots, rocks, boards, bridges, logs, dirt, pine needles and leaves. In just one day, we had already spotted moose, frogs, snakes and butterflies; wild raspberries and strawberries breaking into bloom. We saw six rabbits that first day, and I contemplated the potential meaning in this. According to some Native American tribes, rabbits symbolize facing one’s fears, so I made a note to remain brave and meet this adventure with an open mind.

I needed this insight the next morning, when we climbed 5.2 miles up the Appalachian Trail just to reach the actual terminus and then turn around and walk back down again. Mt. Katahdin offers some of the best views along the Appalachian Trail, but a grey mist surrounded us and limited our vision to 15 feet in all directions. We ascended through conifer forest, ash, maple, birch and cedar before reaching a mile of massive boulders at tree line. We scaled the rocks by gripping small cracks and strategically placed iron hooks. It occurred to me then, and many other times, how much the Appalachian Trail journey is based on faith. White blazes mark the entire trail’s route, and hikers just trust these spray painted lines will lead them to the intended destination. With such limited views on this mist-shrouded mountain, we threw our faith into the maze of white blazes. A week prior to our climb, a teenage boy died of dehydration on the mountain. We kept this grim fact in mind as we reached the Appalachian’s northern terminus, marked only by a peeling wooden sign that said, “Springer Mountain, Georgia: 2,100.2 miles.”

We made it back down safely, and figured that the 5.2-mile descent was the only distance that officially counted out of the 18 miles we had already hiked. The next day met us with another adventure into the 100-Mile Wilderness. At its entrance, a sign warns hikers who dare enter that they must carry at least 10 days’ supplies to safely complete the 110 miles of trail between the Penobscot River and Monson, Maine. Just minutes into the wilderness, all unnatural sounds cease as the conifer forest closes in around the trail. The trees increase in size and human interaction transforms into a novelty.

“Wilderness,” like the word “camping,” is malleable in definition. The 100-mile wilderness remains the most isolated stretch along the Appalachian Trail, but it is a far cry from the deep, mysterious wild one might expect. We followed the root and rock pathway through miles of forest and lowland lake areas, meeting our first friend somewhere in the middle.

Billy Flip-Flop inspired us to walk 16.3 miles one rainy day. He earned his name because he hiked in flip-flops but could still keep a pace twice as fast as anybody else. He carried an umbrella, which gave an appearance like he just walked out of his front door for an afternoon stroll. Although we were in so-called wilderness, the sound of boats carried across the ponds, and we crossed over several old logging roads. The biggest surprise was word of a secret camp two miles off trail across Pemadumcook Lake. After a long day with soar legs and wet clothing, we found a landing on the lake with an air horn strapped to a tree. A sign said, “Blow horn just once.” Within five minutes, a man in a plaid hunter’s cap snaked across the water by boat and motored us to his lodge and home called White House Landing, This man in the cap named Bill, his wife and son were the only folks who lived in the 100-mile wilderness but, contradictory to the sign at its start, there were other ways to permeate this wilderness besides by footpath. Bill made the point clear when he said, “Any place you can drive a Cadillac to five points is not a wilderness.” If this were wilderness, I would have slept in the rain that night instead of in front of a woodstove fire under a roof.

However, this might be the closest place to wilderness the Northeastern United States has, and it was still beautiful. The remaining stretch of wilderness led us out of the lowland woods onto several mountainsides that required free climbing, such as Chairback, Moxie Bald and Pleasant Mountains. Wild blueberries, strawberries, watermelon berries and Lilly of the Valley spilled over the trail. Loons yipped and wailed from the ponds. We found the best swimming holes in clear, snowmelt streams cut into granite and slate hill slopes, before we stumbled out of the forest into the blinding sunlight on the highway near Monson nine days later.

Maine’s Appalachian Trail passes through several small towns like Monson and Stratton, where we met some of the kindest folks along the entire hike. In one day, we met Monson’s preacher, postmaster and general store clerk, Tim. Just to buy a bag of groceries, Tim required us to pause between checking through each item and listen to in-depth stories. In Stratton, some locals invited us to play pool and join in their weekly Friday night karaoke party. Across the eight states we hiked, locals greeted us with unmatched kindness. After living in a city for almost two years, where people get accustomed to walking past each other without so much as a glance, the Appalachian Trail restored my faith in human kindness. Whenever we needed a ride into a town or a place to lay our heads, some thoughtful stranger pulled through.

In fact, the entire trail only exists because thousands of individuals volunteer to maintain it and fight constant legal battles to ensure the Appalachian Trail keeps a secure passage. Near Caratunk, Maine, the Kennebec River rolls with such force that hikers are required to canoe across it. This would not be possible without the volunteers who sit at the river’s edge in shifts and wait to paddle hikers to the opposite bank. One hiker, determined to walk even the rivers, declined the canoe ride and attempted to swim against the Kennebec current with his pack above his head. We met him a few days later and learned that a man had plucked the hiker from the water about a quarter-mile downstream of the trail and saved his life.

We opted to accept a canoe ride and safely reach the biggest physical challenge along the entire trail, Maine’s Mahoosuc Range. Our lowland travels, broken only intermittently by random isolated peaks, turned into the most continuous series of ups and downs on the Appalachian Trail. The Mahoosuc alpine territory offers extensive views on clear days. From The Horn, the Atlantic Ocean is visible. From all peaks, I could watch the approaching weather. On Saddleback’s summit, we leaned into the 30 mph winds and observed, far off, rain showering down in metallic curtains, connecting the clouds to patches of hillside basking in the sunlight.

— Abby and Kenny continue their trek down the Appalachian Trail in the September 16 issue of the Glen Arbor Sun

Posted by editor at 09:09 PM | Comments (0)

In addition to Carpe Diem, “Be Prepared,” in beautiful Provence

By Jo Anne Wilson
Sun international correspondent

SAIGNON, France — Greetings from Southern France . . . land of lavender, honey and heat! For the second year in a row this region is experiencing extremely high temperatures and no rain. Intense heat and low humidity create an oven-like atmosphere. My days are devoted primarily to being the guardienne of some local vacation properties. I take care of the five stone cottages on the Domaine de Claparèdes, a restored lavender farm outside of Saignon, the grounds and two swimming pools. I also watch the owner’s house and small stone Cabanon. So far we’ve had a broken window, a pulled out pool gate, a non-functioning hot water heater, and a melted down light fixture. I’ve had a slam dunk introduction to the various repair services.

I interact with hard-working service people as well as the couples and families who are here for holiday (we say vacation). It makes me think of how much this area has in common with Leelanau County. Life goes on at two levels. There are those who come for days or weeks to relax and enjoy, completely absorbed in having a good time. Also, there are those who live and work here. Like the workers in Leelanau, most workers here find great satisfaction in the beauty of the area that surrounds them, more than in the wages. Others, I suspect, stay because they were born and raised here and they do what they can to make a modest living.

July and August are fiercely busy. The French have a very strict government policy on vacations: 35-hour workweeks and four to six weeks of vacation. Everyone has time off. Many of the tourists I see are French. They come to Provence the way people from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and southern Michigan come to Leelanau. Others arrive from elsewhere on the European Continent as well as the U.K. There are also a few Americans around (usually detectible by white sneakers and loud voices — why do we Americans talk louder than the rest of the world?)

I’m meeting a sizeable group of English speaking expatriates for whom this area is home. Temporarily, I’m housed with Meg and Stephen Parker. Meg’s a Brit and Stephen an American. They’ve renovated what was a tumbled down old farmhouse into a lovely stone provençal home. The house is on the side of a hill overlooking a splendid vineyard with mountains and lavender fields in the background. I’ve been here four weeks and the view still stuns me. I’m in one of two apartments on the lower level of the house. There’s a terrace just outside the door. From dawn ‘til after sunset I am treated to a view that makes me feel as if I’m watching a travelogue on the big screen. With morning coffee or evening wine I stare, and still cannot quite believe such beauty.

I must add, however, that along with the beauty and the charm goes a huge assortment of bugs. The little old Michigan mosquito pales to the variety and abundance of provençal insects. These days with temperatures in the 90s, the chirping and humming of the cicadas is almost deafening and borderline annoying. I’m learning about jumping spiders, wasps, hornets, scorpions and other bizarre and grotesque looking beetles. The beetles are harmless, if the mere sight of them doesn’t cause cardiac arrest. And unless you’re allergic to bee stings, there’s no need to worry. They’re too busy with lavender nectar to bother with human flesh. With acres of purple blossoms, they’re consumed with gathering pollen. Talk about bee heaven. The most delicious honey is sold at local farms and in the markets. Ask Mary Rokos at Bittersweet to tell you about our visit to the honey farmer last fall. Wine tasting has nothing on honey tasting. Yummy and sticky!

Most of the lavender has been harvested. Today I passed two big farm carts, stacked high with tied up bunches of harvested flowers. These will be taken to local factories and processed into oil. There’s a distillery just outside Saignon and I can see the smoke from its chimney across the valley. Some lavender oil has medicinal purposes; it’s good for skin irritations such as bee stings.

Speaking of bee stings (I do seem to be dwelling on bugs, don’t I?), yesterday I stopped at the pharmacy. A pharmacy here can be like a walk-in-clinic in the States and pharmacists are much like our physician's assistants. I went for advice on medicine for my allergies. (I refuse to think I might be allergic to lavender.) In addition to the recommended allergy tablets, I also bought a small venom extractor. Meg says she and Stephen carry one when they hike in the countryside, in case of snakebite. “SNAKES, I YELPED! “ Meg quickly assured me they also work for bee, wasp and hornet, or spider bites, which I’m far more likely to get than a snakebite.

So from sniffles to snake bites, I am all set. Meg has invited me to go hiking with a group of friends and their dogs. We leave tomorrow morning at 7:30 a.m. and the venom extractor is already in my backpack. Not that I plan to need it you understand, however, to Sun readers who already know my motto: Carpe Diem, let me also add: Be Prepared.

P.S. Several of you have asked about the name of this village. It looks like Saigon, but it’s Saignon, and pronounced say-nyoh.

Posted by editor at 07:16 PM | Comments (0)

August 12, 2004

Hidden beneath all the hype exists a great Democratic divide

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

Despite presenting a unified front at their convention in Boston last month, many politicians, delegates and progressive voters swearing allegiance to the Democratic Party to rid America of George W. Bush find themselves torn between the party line and their true beliefs on volatile issues like the war in Iraq and civil liberties. Glen Arbor Sun founding editor Jacob Wheeler was in Boston for the week of the DNC, reporting for Utne Magazine on the happenings at the convention, itself, but also chronicling the mood at progressive seminars, workshops, debates and organized protests elsewhere in Beantown.

BOSTON — By the time the 2004 Democratic National Convention kicked off in a puff of pomp and patriotic smoke, much of New England had already grown sick and tired of the whole ordeal. A three-city-block radius of prime expressways and urban thoroughfares around the Fleet Center downtown had been closed off, as well as sections of the city Transit line to deter any would-be terrorist mischief. Senior citizens living in the neighborhood were told to keep forms of identification on them at all times, lest they be mistaken for Al Qaeda sleeper cells. Worst of all, the state security apparatus had erected a “free speech zone” in damp quarters hidden under the train tracks and surrounded by barbed wire and netting, into which the authorities sought to confine the thousands of protestors expected to crash the big party.

Analogies to Guantanamo Bay — even Auschwitz — abounded.

“I would expect to see this in other countries, but not in America. This is not what we’re about,” said John Tompkins a Bostonian whose family of three was legging out a three-mile detour on their typical evening stroll for ice cream.

“It doesn’t sound very good,” echoed Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, after speaking at a panel at the Boston Social Forum two days before the convention. “It doesn’t sound very consistent with a Democratic society.”

Before the Convention got under way on Monday, approximately 60 organized protestors gathered in the Free Speech Zone at 9 a.m. to act out scenes of oppression reminiscent of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Activists wearing DNC shirts ordered others in street clothes to don black hoods while their hands were bound behind their backs. The “prisoners” were then forced into the Free Speech Zone and forced to kneel in uncomfortable positions. Sound familiar?

According to Gan Golan, a graduate student majoring in urban planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a local member of the Save Our Civil Liberties group, the “prisoners” wore civilian clothing and not the orange suits of Guantanamo Bay infamy to show that they are normal, everyday people.

“This insulting protest pen proves that Democrats are unwilling to differentiate from Republicans on issues relating to civil liberties and our inherent right to protest,” Golan said. “Many of us naively thought this wouldn’t happen in Boston, but the lockdown is becoming an established pattern at mass protests. Over the last few years we’ve seen police gradually increase security and the potential for violence, even though the U.S. protest movement is one of the most nonviolent in the world.

“By trying to put free speech in a cage, Boston has unwillingly declared the whole city a protest zone,” Golan foreshadowed.

Sure enough, roughly two hours after the powerful street theater display, city police used physical force to pry Medea Benjamin, founder of the women-against-war organization Code Pink, away from a “Bring The Troops Home” banner, before removing it from a fence adjacent to the Free Speech Zone outside the perimeter of the Fleet Center.

“First they give us a concentration camp, and then they won’t even let us hang our signs!” the well-known activist protested. “In this post-September 11 atmosphere, free speech is equated with terrorism.”

This journalist heard an officer radio in for reinforcements, and just when arrests appeared imminent, the banner was moved to a different wall, and Code Pink’s anti-war speech was allowed to continue. An emotional Fernando Suarez, of San Diego, told of losing his son Jesus, a Marine who was killed in Iraq on March 27, 2003 when he stepped on unexploded U.S. munitions. The Mexican family had emigrated from Tijuana in 1997 so Jesus could reap the benefits of serving in the American military.

“My son and 900 other boys and girls died for Bush’s lies, and my question is ‘why?’” Suarez asked in passionate, heavily accented English.

Why the Orwellian Free Speech Zone, Why the war in Iraq and Why not a just, democratic society are questions protestors were asking here all week.

Boston Social Forum

America’s attention naturally centered on the Fleet Center, where the whose-who of the Democratic Party and celebrities including everyone from Michael Moore, to Bono to Sarah Jessica Parker gathered for one big cheerleader session.

But Anyone looking for discussions on the direction the Democratic Party is taking, and exactly what kind of platforms should replace the Bush administration next year, should not have wasted their time listening to the canned and scripted speeches that lulled Boston’s Ground Zero to sleep all week. The real brain action kicked off the weekend before at the Boston Social Forum on the University of Massachusetts at Boston campus, where thousands of activists, intellectuals, anarchists — anyone who wants change and is willing to engage in dialogue about how to reach it — gathered for three days of convocations, panels, workshops and powerful open-air exhibits.

The Boston Social Forum is the first such forum in North America and builds on the model of the World Social Forum, first held in Porto Allegre, Brazil, in February, 2001. “This is a reaction to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, wealthier governments like the United States and their large corporations proposing economic policies that forced cuts to social spending and privatization of social services in an effort to reduce debt and encourage investment which results in humanitarian disasters and economic collapse,” said Sean Donahue, a BSF organizer. “We felt it was important to bring people from various social movements to Boston in an open-ended process. We wanted to encourage conversation between people from different social movements and different ways of life to try and share their ideas, experiences and strategies to build new coalitions, develop new ideas and hopefully move forward with more comprehensive responses to the problems we’re facing.

“What we want to do is find a common ground where someone who spent the winter working for (Vermont Governor) Howard Dean in Iowa or New Hampshire can get together with someone who locked out a Lockheed Martin plant or someone who traveled to Iraq to document the bombing. And when you find that common ground, you begin to find ways to move forward together.”

At UMass-Boston there were no delegates waiting on the edges of their seats for four cumbersome days to nominate the man we’ve known for months will run for President. Nor was there the menacing security in and around the Fleet Center that naturally curtails free speech. The Boston Social Forum featured no video monitors, no elevator music, no balloons waiting to fall from the ceiling at the climax of an anti-climactic week.

But it did feature spontaneous, original dialogue and conflicting opinions, and lots of them.

“Buying a lot of ketchup”

There was Peter Miguel Camejo — Ralph Nader’s running mate in 2004 — questioning John Kerry’s soul and the Democratic Party’s ability to survive if American voters began supporting third parties en masse. The controversial third-party candidate was both applauded and lambasted by the packed audience afterwards.

There was Winona LaDuke, Nader’s running mate four years ago who is focusing more on educating people about wind energy this time around. LaDuke called herself a critic of John Kerry and had words of praise for Nader, who “still sends little letters to me on his portable, manual typewriter.” But when asked who she would encourage people to vote for this November, LaDuke joked, “I’m a big Ralph supporter but I’m buying a lot of ketchup (presumably in reference to Teresa Heinz Kerry’s cash cow food product).”

There was former Marine Sergeant Jimmy Massey testifying to a stunned audience about how his platoon mowed down innocent Iraqi civilians amidst very little actual enemy resistance on the march toward Baghdad last year, followed immediately by the always cool and collected Dennis Kucinich — the only superstar Democrat to attend the Forum. The speaking styles of Massey and Kucinich differed like night and day.

There was the Frida Bus, an old Greenpeace school bus that runs on grease or straight vegetable oil. A contingent of activists from Maine drove her down to Boston where her couches served as an inviting space for “open dialogue and community connections,” as Alec Aman put it. The Frida Bus featured a Zine and literature distribution area and a lending library. Aman and his friends will help feed the Convention protestors in Boston this week. “We’re totally inclusive,” Aman said. “We believe everyone has something worthwhile to offer when they visit us here. We think this space appeals to people from all backgrounds.”

Aman added that just voting is not enough. “I think a lot of people become disempowered by voting because they feel that they’ve done their job every 2-4 years. They feel that they are affecting real change, yet we see the same rifts in society, the same fundamental problems, over and over again. Where you need to start addressing our social problems is at the local level, which is why the Boston Social Forum is so empowering.”

Shandra, a volunteer with the local chapter of Food Not Bombs, which is teaming up with the Frida Bus activists this week, took advantage of a blossoming discussion on the state of politics in the United States today and told how many Americans — especially minorities, the poor and those with criminal records — are excluded from this country’s political discussion. “It’s unfair. My friend Tanisha won’t vote in an election because three of her cousins have felonies and they are not allowed to vote.”

The Boston Social Forum wasn’t immune to criticism. Shandra noted that admission to the alternative convention cost $20 for those not part of the media or speaking at the panels — a burden to many African-Americans like herself and anyone struggling to pay the bills and a clear contradiction, given that the Forum was intended as a venue of open dialogue for all.

Still, the Boston Social Forum provided a breath of fresh air before the masses marched into the Fleet Center to the tune of “John Kerry, John Edwards, no questions asked.”

“Get a backbone”

Lauren Haldeman, a 25-year-old delegate from Iowa, felt the great divide within the Democratic Party in the pit of her stomach when she walked past anti-war protestors outside the perimeter of the Fleet Center on Monday afternoon to attend the opening ceremonies of the convention. The graduate student at the University of Iowa poetry program — one of the best in the country — was wearing a pink “Delegate for Peace” scarf around her right arm, and that immediately set her apart from most of her fellow Democrats.

“They asked me why I was going into that building if I supported peace,” Haldeman recalls. “It made me cry, and I felt torn over whether to go inside or join the protestors, because I agree with what they are saying. I said ‘I’m going in there because of Dennis Kucinich.’ I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.”

The young woman was swept off her feet by the congressman from Ohio, an outspoken critic of the U.S. decision to invade Iraq even as most of his fellow Democrats crossed party lines and fell in line with their commander in chief. Haldeman discovered Kucinich on his campaign website and was so moved that she showed up at her precinct on January 19 to support Kucinich. She even plays the accordion for the “Kucinich polka” on his website’s culture corner.

But her faith in the party is not so crystal clear. And what she heard at the DNC did little to change that, as speech after speech and song after sterile pop song have buried the issue most important to many delegates — the decision to support the Bush administration in going to war. A Boston Globe report claimed that a whopping 95 percent of all DNC delegates oppose that decision.

“I think we need to get a backbone,” said Haldeman. “We’re not unified, though we should be unified around the idea of change. And our elected officials need to be courageous enough to question the status quo.”

She added that the decision to vote for a party devoted wholeheartedly to peace vs. unseating the current war-mongering president is a difficult one because she has two brothers of drafting age, and she is worried what will happen to them if Bush is reelected in November.

“First and foremost we need to focus on the giant elephant in the room. Though it’s racking me inside, we need to do as Dennis has done and give Kerry our support, for the sake of party unity.”

Keeping the pressure applied

Jim Hightower, the well-known progressive columnist and author from Texas, agrees, calling the battle ahead a two-folded one. “First we need to get Bush out of office, then we can fight for our progressive values again. But we can’t lay back and make the mistake we did in 1992 after Clinton beat the elder Bush and then ran away with our progressive values, untouched for eight years.”

This time around, with another Bush on the dartboard, Hightower is happy to say he sees profound differences in the Democratic Party. The Dean and Kucinich campaigns, the backlash generated by the current Bush administration’s Draconian foreign policy, but especially the role of the Internet have democratized the process and helped grassroots campaigns bypass those “good ole’ boy blockages,” he says.

On a national tour for his new book “Let’s Stop Beating Around The Bush,” Hightower can’t help but notice that people are organizing grassroots campaigns like he’s never seen before. Still buoyed by the fantastic turnout during global antiwar protests on February 15, 2003 as well as the legacies of Seattle, Cancun and Miami, progressive activists are proving themselves a force to be reckoned with at major political and economic events everywhere.

“Our ultimate goal may not be John Kerry in the White House, but to take back our country. We’ve got to work with the tools we have right now,” Hightower said. “We as progressives need to do the heavy lifting of democracy and apply the pressure, either with websites, blogs (online diaries) or even street action, if necessary.

In Boston the activists were out in gale force, breaking free from the oppressive, barbed-wire bonds of the Free Speech Zone and taking their act to the Boston Common park for the Real, Real Democratic Bazaar on Tuesday. The Black Tea Society activist group set up shop in a well-organized headquarters near Copley Plaza. Critical Mass cyclists biked all over Boston, distracting and confusing police officers.

Though not stated openly, one got the impression that the demonstrations were a prelude to a much bigger event — one that will be protested with even more fervor — the “hats-off-to-George W. Bush and his neo-conservatives” party coming at the end of this month to the Republican National Convention in Manhattan.

Stay tuned for street coverage of the Madness in Manhattan in a future issue of the Glen Arbor Sun. Jacob Wheeler can be reached at jacobrwheeler@gmail.com

Posted by editor at 09:14 PM | Comments (0)

July 29, 2004

Greetings from the south of France

By Jo Anne Wilson
Sun international correspondent

SAIGNON (Provence), France — I can scarcely believe that I’ve been here for two weeks. My travels from Traverse City to this remote hamlet in southern France went without a problem. The trip is not difficult, just long. A jet to Paris via Detroit and the high speed train, right from the Paris airport to the city of Avignon. From there, a 45-minute car ride east to this area of Provence known officially as the Département de Vaucluse. The closest official governmental division we have in the states would be a county. Informally, the immediate area is known as the Luberon, the name of the surrounding mountain ranges.

I’ve met a great assortment of international folks (and in that assortment, I include a few from New York City). The current guests at the Claparèdes include folks from Ireland, England and Texas. Talk about an international flair. There are many similarities to those of you who are spending your time basking in the beauty of Leelanau County. The shops and stores are crowded, the roads are full of traffic and the beauty of the countryside is the topic of many Kodak moments.

I’ve managed to arrive just as the lavender hits its peak. The color is absolutely astounding. It truly defies description and even the best photos do not convey the brilliance. It seems to vibrate in the fields. Driving around the country roads, the scent is everywhere.

Driving, however, does have its challenges and navigating through the nearby town of Apt (only slightly smaller than Traverse City) poses all the frustrations of Traverse City during Cherry Festival. This is a huge tourist area and the Europeans take their “holiday” in July and August.

I’ve found the best time to hit the supermarket is during the lunch hour, which, here, is from noon until 3 p.m. In a very civilized manner (at least in my opinion), shops and stores close and folks take a nice long lunch break. This means, however, that one can shop until 6 or 7 in the evening. The supermarkets do stay open and thus noontime shopping for groceries is a good idea.

Let me tell you how clever the French are about grocery store carts. Carts are all parked outside in the lot and chained together. To release a cart, you insert a one-Euro coin (about $1.25). When you return the cart, push in the little holder and back comes your coin. No shopping carts rolling around the lots in this country!

Another little idiosyncrasy is that you bag your own groceries. In some stores, the clerk will help, if there’s a line and you have a lot, but the other day, as I was gathering my first load of provisions, the flame-haired young woman clerk (henna red is big over here), sat patiently until I finished the bagging and then took my money.

The daily cost of living is pretty much comparable to Leelanau and Grand Traverse Counties. Property is very expensive and grocery prices are equivalent to home. The only things that are truly a bargain are fantastic bread and superb wine. A great baguette can be had for the equivalent of 75 cents (Bob Pisor, take note.) and if I want a nice local white or red wine, I can expect to pay $7 a bottle. Truth be told, some of the great local wines cost around $3.

So here I am in the land of lavender, cicadas, chilled rosé wine and the Tour de France. I can scarcely put one foot in front of the other in the intense heat from the provençal sun. I cannot imagine pedaling a bicycle along any road, least of all up the mountainside.

The French do love their cycling and they do take it very, very seriously. It is both a national sport and a national pastime and the name of Lance Armstrong is on the lips of all.

Since I’m located only 45 minutes from the historic and bustling city of Avignon, I went with a friend on Monday, to do some serious shopping for supplies for the Domaine. The big supermarché is called Auchaun, and the clerks make their way from one end to the other on rollerblades. Talk about a BIG store.

In direct contrast to the giant stores are the many fruit and vegetable stands popping up at every turn. Today, on the usual drive to the village of Saignon for my daily bread/baguette, I noted a new sign propped up along side the road. Vente de melons (Melons for sale). The small cantaloupe melons from this area are Cavaillon – the city nearby. Local apricots are also hanging ripe from the trees. My baguette was baked this morning and tomorrow it will be replaced with a fresh one.

People live closer to the earth here. There’s much less time from harvest to table. There are weekly Marché Paysan where the local farmer comes in a truck with whatever he has grown this week. It may not be much, but he brings it in hopes of selling for whatever he can. There is a flavor of such markets at the Traverse City in the summer, however, the faces, the language and the products are not the same.

Life is simpler, slower and more personal here. I stopped for lunch at one of my favorite spots. Opting to eat on the terrace, I was in the company of a couple of other guests and the three resident dogs. Dogs are king in France. They go everywhere and the French dote on their pets like a favorite grandchild. I well recall the day I saw an older couple with their tiny white terrier, in the grocery store. The dog was riding along in the child’s seat in the cart. I suppose he got to pick out his favorite brand of kibble.

I am fortunate, as I begin this year as a property guardienne. I’m here for the lavender harvest and will also be here for the annual vendage, when the grapes make their way from vineyard to vat. As always, friends, remember when opportunity comes your way, Carpe Diem.

Readers are encouraged to visit Jo Anne’s website at www.meetmeinprovence.com

Posted by editor at 08:33 PM | Comments (0)

May 27, 2004

Springtime in Provence: A Sequel to Carpe Diem

By Jo Anne Wilson
Sun correspondent

SAIGNON, France (March 18, 2004) — It’s the middle of March and I’m in Southern France. I needed a break after a bitter Northern Michigan winter. Here, the climate is mild and the sun shines three hundred and twenty days a year. Serious snowfall happens a couple of times a season and may amount to three inches. After this month of rest and relaxation, I’ll return to the States.

In July, I’ll leave my two cats in Michigan, follow my dreams, and come back here to live for a year. I’ll reside in one of five stone cottages on the Domaine de Claparèdes, an old restored lavender farm. Fields of lavender surround the cottages, and the original farmhouse is now called Les Lavandins (Lavender House). Each cottage serves as a vacation destination and I’ll be acting as the guardienne. I’ll oversee the running of the property and have the unique opportunity to meet guests from all over the world. Claparèdes literally means “rocky pile” and there are a lot of them around. Many of the stones remind me of Lake Michigan beach stones. I suppose a geologist could tell me why, but I’m content with them as reminders of my Michigan home.

The property sits on a plateau above the medieval village of Saignon. It’s a five-minute drive or a half hour walk down to the village. The road twists and turns through fields of lavender with spectacular views of the Luberon Mountains and Mt. Ventoux in the distance.

There’s not too much in Saignon: church, school, post office, bakery, a couple of small restaurants and the Auberge du Presbytère. The Auberge, a small hotel, was an old monastery and is listed in the Hôtels du Charme. I go to the bakery each day for a fresh baguette and buttery croissant. Most of the village sleeps in the winter and comes alive during the summer tourist season, much like Glen Arbor.

For groceries and other needs, I drive an additional five minutes into the valley and the town of Apt. Apt has 3,000 fewer inhabitants than Traverse City and is settled around an 11th century cathedral, not a bay. One section of the town has a cobblestone street constructed over an old Roman road. Apt is also the site of a large outdoor Saturday market, which goes on year ‘round. The town has supermarkets, restaurants, bakeries, a superb art supply store and plenty of cafés. Even in mid-winter, it’s possible to sit outside in the sun and enjoy an espresso.

Looking out of my window, with its blue shutters, I see yellow forsythia. The almond trees are in bloom and their blossoms create a pinkish haze against the sunny provençal sky. It may only be March, but it’s already springtime in Provence,

Readers are invited to explore Jo Anne’s website www.meetmeinprovence.com and the Claparèdes site www.provencecottages.com.

Posted by editor at 08:21 PM | Comments (0)

November 13, 2003

Carpe Diem: Local woman leaves winter behind for greener pastures

By Jo Anne Wilson
Sun contributor

“I’m moving to Provence,” I announced.

“Provence?” My neighbor stared at me. “As in Southern France?” I could see her mind going. Me, the retired teacher of French had finally gone over the edge.

“Not forever,” I hastened to add, “Just for a year or two.”

“But you just retired. You have a house and two cats! What are you going to do in Provence?” She was still staring.

“I’m going to be the official on-site manager of five rental cottages on an old restored lavender farm. In France this is called being a guardien. In return for doing this, the owners are going to give me my own stone cottage rent free.” I explained. “They’re off to Australia for a few years.”

“But what will you have to do?” she asked. I could see she was still a bit baffled.

“I’ll have to meet and greet the guests and be sure that the pool man, gardener and housecleaners all do their jobs. How bad can it be? Fields of lavender, the Luberon Mountains in the distance and besides, the sun shines 320 days a year!”

I could see she was still not 100 percent convinced, but I had her attention. She’s known me for a long time and by now has learned never to be entirely surprised when my life takes a hard left at the crossroads.

I’m what is often referred to as a late bloomer. I do things out of order and I keep getting life’s lessons out of their normal sequence. Lessons learned by most toddlers and teenagers, I waited to grasp until middle age … like the lesson that when you’re upset, eating lots of cookies and ice cream may make you feel better, but it also makes you fat, and you may throw up first. I quit doing that.

Maybe I’m in perpetual reverse. When I was in my late teens, people always guessed me to be older than I was. And now, as une femme d’un certain âge (the French have such a nice way of labeling older women), I’m continually told I look much younger than my all too many hard-earned years. I also still keep getting these opportunities for change in my life at a time when I should be rubbing my Social Security check like a magic lamp, waiting for the genie to pop out.

“Sit back. Stay put. Enjoy,” the voices urge. And here I am, sitting on the doorstep of Opportunity and Big Changes. My very own Year In Provence. Yep, just me ‘n Peter Mayle. (He’s the wildly popular British author who immortalized his years in the villages of Provence, much to the horror of the townsfolk when hordes of tourists appeared on the scene.)

“But you’re retired.”whispers the voice of Doubt. “You finally have no demands on your time. No consulting or writing contracts, no job to go to, no business to run. What the hell are you thinking? You can read, paint, write, walk, bike, dance, dream, garden, or NOT, just as you wish. Have you lost your mind?”

And then, for just a moment, I’m terrified. Perhaps I have, indeed, gone completely mad. Off hormone therapy for six months now, who knows what weird short circuit has happened in my body. What? Do I think I’m 20 years old again? In your twenties, that’s when normal people seize chances for change and do things like move to France for a year.

I try to remember what I was doing when I was 20. Then, I remember. I try to forget. Being 20 (or in my case, even 30 or 40), was not a little like an extended bad episode on “Days of Our Lives”. I was mildly miserable, slightly overweight, insatiably insecure and about to leap into the first of my many attempts to control my world and fix it.

That was many years ago. In those years I’ve had opportunities to move on and do things differently than most women my age; chances to re-create myself. I also kept getting lessons, mostly about giving up control and trying to fix it.

I could go on with details of the reverse nature of my life’s opportunities and the lessons: two marriages, and another relationship, maybe too late, but maybe too soon. Major career changes when most of my counterparts were settling in to ride it out to retirement. A major relocation from one part of the state to another. I’m a bit like a kid on a merry-go-round. Someone keeps handing me the brass ring. And, thank God, I keep grabbing it. (That is when I haven’t been trying to control the speed of the merry-go-round and fix the ponies on the platform.)

So what’s my point? It is never to late to listen to your heart, and you are never too old to try something new. That’s heady philosophy, don’t you agree? Hey, I figure when the opportunity comes to move into the new space-station nursing home, I’m gonna’ sign up. Listen to your heart. Make a change. I’ve also become increasingly aware that I cannot control most things, nor can I fix many of them. Someone else is in charge.

And that’s exactly why I’m going to Provence. I’ve learned many lessons. . . some late, some early, some yet to come. It makes me sad to see anyone turn a blind eye as well as their backs on the chance to recreate themselves because our society says, “You are too old.”

There are lessons in all of our experiences. Many of my lessons have had to do with opportunity and age. Age, smage. My theory is that when Opportunity knocks, tell the Voice of Doubt to shut up, grab Opportunity by the nape of the neck and shout, “COME ONNNNN IN!” I can change. I can adjust.

Maybe I am the victim of hormones run amuck, just like some pimply faced adolescent who dreams of being a movie star. I’ve already said I seem to be living my life in some distorted version of reverse. Except I don’t dream of being a movie star. . . (well, not today anyhow, but if the talent agent calls…hey, who am I not to answer the phone.) In the meantime, I have a more modest “call”. Carpe diem. Seize the moment. Move over Peter Mayle. I’m moving to Provence.

Posted by editor at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)

Baseball curses, howler monkeys and evening the score with Mayan gods

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun International Correspondent

UTILA (Islas de la Bahia), Honduras – How he found me down here I have no idea. But I have no doubt it was he who renewed the hex.

The two Chicagoans and I were as far from Wrigleyville as possible (a sleazy sports bar in the Guatemalan highlands, in fact) to watch Game 6 of the National League Championship Series on Tuesday, October 14 – an affair that we expected would vault our beloved Cubs into the World Series for the first time since the Second World War. Everything was going according to plan: Mark Prior still on the mound with a 3-0 lead in the eighth. One out, thus five outs away from the dance.

Then disaster struck.

He didn’t look imposing, nor hell-bent on breaking our hearts. Just a short Mayan Indian with dirty jeans and an old San Diego Padres cap pulled over his greasy hair. But he walked into the bar with one out in the eighth, ordered some drink that shamans use to curse rival villages, looked me straight in the eye and tipped the cap – the logo of the team that beat us in ’84, the last time the Cubbies were on the verge of the Series with a two-game lead, and lost three straight. Then it all fell apart. Déjà vu all over again.

The foul ball that the blundering idiot in the leftfield seats prevented Moises Alou from catching; the easy groundball that ate up Alex Gonzalez; and, of course, the waters flooded the earth once again.

We knew it was over. We knew the Cubs couldn’t rebound from that demoralizing loss and take Game 7 the following night. But like widows at a funeral, witnessing the burial is an obligation.

I read Nietzsche after Game 6 and showed up the following night in an existential mood, denying curses or the presence of any supernatural forces. (BLEEP) FATALISM! GO CUBS read the napkin at our table.

But by the sixth inning the Marlins had chased Kerry Wood and we were resorting to paganism ourselves. David, Greg and I began calling friends located in all four geographical directions of Chicago, asking them each to take a shot of liquor and throw it over their right shoulder: Minneapolis, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Guatemala. We even placed shots of whiskey on the alter in front of the Mayan drinking god, Tekún.

Nothing worked. It turned out later the whiskey shots were merely water. The waitress at bar Salon Tekún was clearly in cahoots with baseball’s powers that be.

We were forced to stomach a miserable loss and an early winter. Sammy Sosa had told me, himself, in Mesa, Arizona last March that he would play in the World Series this October. But it was not meant to be. We were clearly dealing with supernatural forces here.

So I promised David and Greg, and Cubs faithful everywhere that I would travel through the Mayan world, hunt down the cause of our curse and slay the dragon before its fiery breath could speak again next summer.

The ruins at Tikal

My roommate Jessica, a Guatemalan-American, told me that Mayan gods like high places, so I should take an overnight bus north from Guatemala City into the Yucatan Peninsula and climb the pyramids at Tikal, which were built long before the white men arrived in the western hemisphere with their bats and balls and leather mitts.

But my quest nearly ended before it had begun. A near mugging in the capital’s dark, deserted streets; forced at gunpoint to eat wretched, fried Pollo Campero chicken (the pride of Guatemala, though it is an exact replica of KFC). What match was I for this dog-eat-dog mentality in a country where chaos prevails? The elections this Sunday will almost certainly result in a coup de’ etat and corpses lining the streets.

Nevertheless, I pressed onward.

A 10-hour bus ride to Flores, on beautiful Lago de Petén Itzá, another 45 minutes in a rickety pickup to the Tikal National Park, where Jessica convinced the ticket salesman that we were all native Guatemalans to avoid paying the exorbitant $6.50 “gringo” cover charge. We hired a guide who spoke moderately good English and asked him to take us to the highest pyramids in addition to giving us the regular tour. He obeyed.

But I was distracted and couldn’t concentrate enough to follow his description of Mayan astronomy. I just wanted to find Temple IV, the highest of the ruins according to the map, climb to its lofty perch and consult Hasaw Chan K’awali, the great ruler who reversed a century of subjugation in 695 AD by defeating Calakmul, the other “superpower” state to the north.

Sports writers in K’awali’s time used to refer to a curse placed on him, that is, until he won the big one and silenced the critics. I figured he could offer me a word of advice regarding the Cubs’ woes, or maybe even open his official copy of the Popul Vuh (the Mayan bible) and cross out the line that says “the baseball team from Chicago, to the north in the kingdom of the rich white man, will bestow no wine, only tears on its supporters.”

Edgar, a Red Sox fan from Rhode Island, begged to accompany me to the top of Temple IV, claiming his team was cursed as