National Park Resistance Day

Resistance At The Parks

Join protests all across the country at National Parks near you, loosely connected by the Resistance Rangers (park rangers working covertly).

We’re organizing our own local event in Western Massachusetts to support the rangers and staff at our Springfield Armory National Historic Site, which is also one of the main locations where the Shays’ Rebellion/Resistance movement came to a head against the federal government in the years after the American Revolution when citizens felt the federal government was not heeding the collective will and wishes of the people.

Sound familiar?

Protest Signs for National Parks

If you in the area, please join us in a peaceful protest. This spreadsheet has information about National Park site protests around the country.

Here is what we sent to the local press:

The Springfield Armory National Historic Site is the sole National Park site located in all of Western Massachusetts, and the park rangers and staff on the hill overlooking all of Springfield do an outstanding job at interpreting our country’s history for local residents and visitors all over the country. The staff also hosts educational programs in local schools and in communities all over Western Massachusetts.

With all National Parks now targeted by the president and his unelected Department of Government Efficiency, local residents are invited to join a National Day of Resistance on Saturday, March 1, at noon, at the Springfield Armory to show public support for the park and its staff. All across the country on Saturday March 1, Americans will be standing up in a peaceful show of support of National Parks.

In the 1780s, Daniel Shays and others led a resistance against a federal government that refused to listen to the will of the people in the aftermath of the American Revolution. One famous event in what is known by some as Shays’ Rebellion – and others, as Shays’ Resistance – took place at the site where the Springfield Armory now stands. While Shays and others were not successful, their efforts forced the federal government to comprehend the anger rising at the local level, eventually leading to the Constitution Congress that forever changed our country’s trajectory as a nation of democratic ideals.

Come join us in a more modern-day, and more peaceful, protest on March 1, channeling Shays’ and his followers’ push to be seen and to be heard by a tone-deaf government.

What: Public show of support for National Parks

Date: Saturday, March 1

Time: Noon

Where: Springfield Armory National Historic Site

            One Armory Square, Springfield

            (site of Springfield Technical Community College)

Peace (in numbers),
Kevin

Blogging4Life: Favorite Posts

 

This is the last of a series of posts answering some questions about a life of blogging that started (I believe) via Tom Woodward, (maybe via this blogger) but that I first saw via Alan L, Sarah H and Martin W through a renewed push to return back to blogging spaces and away from corporate social media platforms. I am breaking down the series of questions into different blog posts.

What’s your favorite post on your blog?

How about some favorite posts and not just one single choice?

I wish I had a better way to curate/remember the various projects that I have done, with my blog as an anchor point of reflection. Here are a few posts/projects I’d like to highlight here in this act of personally celebrating and remembering (particularly as I have moved my blog to a new domain here). You will notice that collaboration and music are often key focus areas on these, as I have often tried to use technology and digital media to connect and create with others in my various networks:

  • The CLMOOC Poetry Re-Mixer Machine (a riff off an audio project from Alan Levine, who was so helpful in guiding me through the process of creating this project). This was a real learning experience for me, and I was grateful for the support and the contributions of others, and the time I spent, diving into something new and pretty cool, if I don’t mind saying so myself.
  • My Bird Song Remix inquiry in which I tried to use AI tools and others to learn and use bird songs, including this final project in which I wrote, recorded a bird song song.
  • I’ve done plenty of explorations of AI because I am trying to understand it. I am resisting the urge to demonize or celebrate it. This post about making music took me some time to carve out. I am still not sure where I sit on the issue of what is music and what is not.
  • Years back, I took part in another collaboration, this time off Mastodon, called A Whale’s Lantern, that matched two musicians/songwriters together from different parts of the world, to create original music together. (see a post about deconstructing the process) After the first round, I did a series of interviews with the people, and wrote it up as an Oral History. Here is part one and here is part two.
  • I guess birds are a common concept, too. I once created an arc of poems called Birds In Flight, and this post is my reflection on the process of all six pieces of that project.
  • For one year’s Write Out project, we had more than 100 people contribute lines of poem to a Where We’re From project, and then I had people record audio, which I stitched together into an audio poem. I love how the many voices are woven together here.
  • Here is a post about a poem I wrote for five different voices, with friends helping out with the recording.
  • I often collaborate with Terry Elliott, and here are two that I think are good examples of what we have been doing over the years we have been friends. First, our Liminal Adventures (which led to a picture book creation) and then, more recent, using some of his writing as my inspiration for media, Signals And Noise.
  • On Songwriting — this was the seventh and last of a series of posts about writing songs as I walked through the process of a new song. These process notes are a reminder to myself that all art starts somewhere, but needs focus and creative vision

Peace (pondering it),
Kevin

Waiting On The Corpse Plant To Bloom

The video livestream above captures the Corpse Plant in Sydney, Australia, as it approaches its bloom, and then it will likely die, after using up so much of its energy. More about the plant below.

The Botanical Garden of Sydney estimates that the flower, which can take seven to ten years to get to this stage, will be blooming tonight (Monday) so I am going to keep tabs on it throughout my day here on the other side of the world, in hopes of seeing it in bloom (but, alas, the smell feature on YouTube is not yet working). There were nearly 2,000 other people watching when I was watching just now. (Thanks to Kate B for sharing the link on Mastodon).

Peace (across the world),
Kevin

Write Out: National Park Explorations

Collage of National Parks

My students are completing the final stages of work on a research project, where they chose a National Park as a topic and then gathered information and built a presentation for sharing. These are the final stages of our work for Write Out 2024. The college here is part of a Padlet site, so that all students across the classes could get a glimpse of what others have been doing.

Peace (in the park),
Kevin

Write Out/Daily Create Collaborative Poem

Digital Forest Poem

Yesterday’s prompt for the DS106 Daily Create and Write Out poem was an invitation to collaborate on a tree-themed poem. We used Etherpad.

Here is the full poem — thanks to all collaborators.

A spark beneath
the brittle soil,
a seed awakes
and stretches out
towards the sun above
Fibers thread their paths 
burrow in soil, joining themselves 
feeding and forming 
Here, the roots begin,
dressed in a coat of
microscopic filament, 
a network emerging
an anchor, grounding
its home
a conduit, conveying
sustenance to the stem
seeking the warmth of the sun
Each independently stretching,
reaching for sun and sky, 
separate in communion, gathered 
together against the wind 
Hear that song: I am the Sun,
the celestial one 
who brings such light to leaves,
and joy to this land of trees

Peace (rooted),
Kevin

Writing Outside for Write Out 2024

Writing Outside for Write Out

We went outside to write haiku poetry on a beautiful day, for Write Out.

As students writing, so, too, was I. These come from my little poetry journal.

Crinkled, like paper;
the edges of a small leaf,
disintegrating

White clouds, whispering
secrets to the distant sky
like signals in smoke

Tree-limb picture frame,
like arms reaching for the stars;
a focused beauty

An ant crawls, pauses;
balanced dancer in the wind
on a stage of grass

Young poets, quiet
writers pondering nature
on a notebook page

Peace (in lines of three).
Kevin