Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

12/27/11 – Termination with therapist

So, at therapy today I brought up my reaction to Sabou hitting me in the face and asked him why I lose all my self-esteem. He looked at my reaction, and explained that I am reacting in a way that is part of the cause of the lack of self-esteem. He recommended that I act in a self-preserving way, getting out of the way of her hits, and respecting my feelings, so that if after the time-out I am still upset, then I don’t have to hug her. I can show her that I’m upset and refuse to hug her. He also said that I need to say less. No discussion. Just show her that it is bad and put her in time-out. He said that will help me feel better about myself.

I also told him about Youba’s school schedule, and we have three more sessions before we end.

That night when I got home, Sabou was at it again. Coming after me and trying to hit me. I got out of her way, and told her no. Youba intervened, telling her not to hit mommy and he was the one who put her in time-out and I felt completely loved in that moment by him.

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Picture copyright Washington Post

In My Mind’s Eye: January 20, 2012

Racism in America

by Robert Miranda

There are those who may believe that talking about race in American politics causes many Americans to feel uncomfortable and awkward. Well, during the GOP presidential debates this past week, the candidates looked in tip-top form espousing their racist undertones aimed against President Obama and African-Americans receiving food stamps.

Whoa nelly! You can even say that all of the GOP presidential candidates looked very comfortable spewing their subliminal racist message. Romney with his anti-immigrant slams and Gingrich with his food stamp references. Yes, these good ol’ boys were at the top of their racist mantra campaign—and much to the amusement of their audience, too.

You can detect this racist tone in the level of disrespect for the president.

Between Gingrich making an inaccurate and divisive statement that African-Americans should “not be satisfied with food stamps,” and Rick Santorum’s remark in which he appeared to single out African-Americans as recipients of federal aid, one has to wonder if Ron Paul would be the choice for the GOP.

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Make It Work Milwaukee/Mental Health Task Force Update January 17th, 2012

At Friday’s Make It Work Milwaukee meeting, we had a very informative presentation from Sandra Kellner and Michael Giugno of Milwaukee County Transit System regarding the 2012 Transit System changes, including the new MetroExpress Bus Service. The new service chances will be effective Sunday January 29th and will include many changes to bus stops and schedules.

additional information is on the web at rideMCTS.com. Click here to visit directly

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Safe Driving Is No Accident

By Ron Lee, Program Coordinator

I have no formal training as a teacher. My degree is Poli-Sci/Sociology. Even so, the YWCA hired me to instruct both a Basic Computer and Driver’s Permit class. That was somewhere in the late ‘90s; it was conducted in several Milwaukee County libraries. The program was de-funded after three years.

Although it took me more than 18 months, I found my own funding, took ownership of the Driver’s Ed program, added Adult to the title and relocated it with New Concept Self-Development Center, another non-profit.

Today in 2012, we are now in our twelfth year servicing the general public.

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Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

12/16/11 – This is your calling.

Today was the day that I’ve been dreading for a long time. It was my last and final all day training that I had scheduled at my former university, over an hour away by train. Because I had such a hard time keeping my energy up for the last workshop, and that one was only an hour, I really had no idea how this one was going to go, but I was not hopeful.

Four trains later, yes, somehow I got on the wrong train, even though I taught at that university for five years, and had to switch trains half-way through the trip. I was about 20 minutes late, and instead of the small class of nine people that I expected, I walked into a full house.

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FREE Birth Certificates to aid in obtaining a Voter ID are now available

@ Milwaukee County Courthouse, 901 N. 9th St. Rm. 103 (limit 5,000).

Bring mail with your street address on it and another form of ID (I.e. School ID, work ID, parent w/ a photo ID, etc).
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Emerging Global Community of Aquaponic Experimenters to India?

The key concept I submitted was that since my visit to Mumbai and Kolkata the
“emerging global aquaponics community of practice” had received some very
substantial support that has come much more quickly than I had anticipated.

Shajan John has won a small start-up grant for 10 University of Madison students
to learn about aquaponics at Sweet Water Milwaukee and visit the state of Kerela
to set the stage for small experiments linked to health initiatives. Dr. Mukherjee
has forged partnerships in Kolkata and Mumbia that may well manifest with an
aquaponics eco-park in Mumbai!

Here are 8 developments from 2011 that support the notion that Mother India is calling
the aquapons of the world to partner with her brilliant sons and daughters.

(l) IBM awarded Milwaukee a Smart City designation with a $400,000 in-kind grant
that brought 8 IBM professionals to inspect our aquaponics initiatives, which they
judged worthy of global diffusion.

The IBM report said “Milwaukee could become more economically
viable and help the world feed itself through urban agriculture and aquaponics—
water efficient systems that can transform abandoned factories and vacant lots into urban
farms that raise fish and vegetables.”

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/130096388.html

Short film re IBM Report(scroll down a bit)
http://growninthecity.com/2011/08/scaling-up-solutions-aquaponics-in-milwaukee/

(2) United States Department of Agriculture(USDA) Demonstration Grant to Train
Teachers in Aquaponics and Develop Credentialing Process

Sweet Water Foundation, the Milwaukee Teacher Education Center (MTEC) and Kennedy King College (Chicago) have received planning grant funding from the USDA to move forward with its Midwest Aquaponics Expertise Development Initiative (MAEDI) proposal. Starting in October 2011, SWF and Co. began rolling out an ambitious pilot project to support biology and social studies teachers in 5 high schools (4 in Milwaukee and 1 in Chicago) in developing and implementing customized, STEM-infused curriculum units for a total of 80 to 100 students around site-based mini-aquaponics systems. In year one, we will train 5 Instructional Coaches to support these teachers and project outcomes will include an aquaponics teacher training module, curriculum framework, and a bank of model lesson plans, to be developed by participating teachers. Next spring, teachers and students will share their mini-aquaponics system designs and what they have learned with each other at an “Aquaponics Symposium,” to be held at the Sweet Water Organics site.

The larger goal of this USDA grant is to develop a long term proposal detailing how we will take what is learned from this pilot project and expand it, so more youth can benefit from aquaponics as a learning tool and to create a “K-16 pipeline” of students prepared to become food science workers and graduate with STEM-related degrees/credentials. From initial discussions, this plan could include an aquaponics certification, virtual learning tools, and other types of innovative educational programming that help at-risk students access a broad range of inter-connected learning opportunities (mentoring, internships, summer programs, etc). For the MAEDI project to be successful, we will need partners of all types—schools, businesses, community based organizations, foundations and other funders. Send an e-mail to godsil.james@gmail.com if you would like to connect with the
Sweet Water Foundation leaders of this worthy project.

(3) Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel(previously President Obama’s Chief of Staff) hosts fund raiser for Sweet Water Foundation and Partners with Emmanuel Pratt, Executive Director of the Sweet Water Foundation and head of Chicago State U. Aquaponics Center

(4) U.S. Marines and Army Begin Aquaponics/Urban Agriculture Training at Camp Pendelton

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/us/06vets.html?_r=1&ref=patricialeighbrown

(5) Founding of the international Aquaponics Association, Fall 2011

http://theaquaponicsource.com/2011/10/05/aquaponics-association-2011-conference-highlights/

This included my panel on Indo American Aquaponics Initiative(IAAI)

(6) Publication of Sylvia Bernstein’s “Aquaponics Gardening”

http://aquaponicgardening.com/

(7) Accelerated Growth of International Aquaponics Collaboration Platform

Which had 600 members one year ago, now has over 3,500, with 10 new “partners”arriving every day!

http://aquaponicscommunity.com/profiles/members/

(8) Partnership with United Nations Global Compact Cities Project Coordinator, Liz Ryan

Liz has invited us to submit reports for their magazine and on-line platform.

http://citiesprogramme.org/index.php/projects/details/waterquality/

NAACP ONE MKE Summit

The NAACP Milwaukee Branch Young Adult Committee is pleased to host the NAACP ONE MKE Summit this Saturday, January 7, 2012. We are asking the entire community to join us for the Stakeholders Town Hall Meeting @ MATC Cooley Auditorium (1015 N. 6th Street) from 9:30am - 11:30am/Doors Open at 8:30am.

Panelists include:

Attorney James Hall, President NAACP Milwaukee Branch
Ralph Hollmon, President Milwaukee Urban League
Dr. Greg Thorton, Supertindent MPS
Regina Sims, Election Commission City of Milwaukee
Curtis Marshall, Department Health Services
Bishop McCleland, Word of Hope Ministries

Submit questions to ask the panelists to info@onemke.org

Join us after for the ONE MKE Mixer at the Rotunda at City Hall from 6p - 9p

Hosted by:
The NAACP Milwaukee Young Adult Committee
FUEL Milwaukee
National Pan Hellenic Council
JAAN
The Milwaukee Urban League Young Professionals
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Grace Lee Boggs, “Living For Change” January 1, 2012 Issue

2011 A YEAR TO REMEMBER

By Grace Lee Boggs

2011 opened with the Arab Spring when the people of North Africa decolonized themselves, thrilling the world with their nonviolent gatherings, ousting the dictators the United States has supported to secure its access to Mideast oil.

The world’s eyes next focused on the struggle to defend the collective bargaining rights of Wisconsin public workers against the right-wing attacks coordinated by Governor Scott Walker. The growing mobilization swelled to tens of thousands of union members, their families, and supporters.

By the fall of the year hundreds of thousands had participated in the Occupy Wall Street movement and its offshoots throughout the nation and across the globe., We./they were righteously and rightfully protesting corporate domination of our culture and the suffering that it is producing.,

“We/They were also taking back our government, taking back our humanity, ”
as Danny Glover put it at the Oakland Mall, on October 15.

The ongoing struggles of 2011, from the Arab Spring to Wisconsin and the Occupy/Decolonize movement and our current crises, were rooted in the decline of the empire which made possible the middle-class standard of living and the welfare state with its thousands of public employees to take care of tasks for which we, the people , must become increasingly responsible.

With the end of empire, we are coming to an end of the epoch of Rights. We have entered the epoch of Responsibilities, which requires new, more socially-minded human beings and new more participatory and place-based concepts of citizenship and democracy.

Now is the time for us to Re-imagine Work and Re-imagine Life. The new paradigms we must establish are about creating systems that bring out the best in each of us, instead of trying to harness the greed and selfishness of which we are capable. They are about a new balance of individual, family, community, work, and play that makes us better human beings.

This means that we need to practice visionary organizing. Every crisis, actual or impending, needs to be viewed as an opportunity to bring about profound changes in our society and in ourselves. Going beyond protest organizing, visionary organizing begins by creating images and stories of the future that help us imagine and create alternatives to the existing system.

Revolutionaries, Evolutionaries, and Solutionaries

In the spring of 2011 the first edition of The Next American Revolution, my new book with Scott Kurashige , was released. Since then it has been a true joy to see so many diverse people turn to this little book for help in understanding how and why another world is necessary, possible, and already in the process of being created.

We have met hundreds of people at book release events, where we have shared the stage with good friends and fellow visionaries like Ruby Dee, Danny Glover, Amy Goodman, Michael Hardt, and Lisa Lee. And we’ve continued the conversation through radio interviews with figures like Michael Eric Dyson, Celeste Headlee, Krista Tippett, Tavis Smiley, and Cornel West

Many readers have bought multiple copies of TNAR to share with family and friends. Teachers have begun assigning it to their classes. Faculty, students, and staff at several small colleges are reading it together. Activists have started study groups around the book. And because so many others in faraway places want to talk about The Next American Revolution, I have become a regular user of Skype.

Why is this book having such a deep resonance?

Maybe it’s because it is giving Americans in all walks of life a more people-friendly view of revolution as empowerment rather than struggle for political power.

Maybe it helps us view Revolutionaries as Solutionaries, working together to solve very practical problems of daily life, growing our souls by growing our own food and bringing the neighbor back into the ‘hood,

Maybe it’s giving us the new, more positive view of ourselves that we’ve been hungry for.

Maybe it helps us envision ourselves as Revolutionaries, moving away from the wrong side of the world revolution where we have seemed stuck since the Vietnam War.

Maybe it also helps us see ourselves as Evolutionaries, making the radical revolution of values that Dr. King called for during that war, transformimg ourselves from materialists, militarists, and individualists into a people who can be proud of how we are advancing humankind to a new stage of consciousness, creativity, and social and political responsiblility.

In My Mind’s Eye: December 29th, 2011

American Presidential Candidate Example of Extremism

By Robert Miranda

Republican candidate for president of the United States, Newt Gingrich, called the people of Palestine “terrorists.” They teach terrorism in their schools, says Gingrich; they have textbooks that say, if there are 13 Jews and nine Jews are killed, how many Jews are left? All of this nonsense is coming from a candidate for president of the United States.

Rightly so, Palestinian officials said that Gingrich’s allegations were based substantially on material produced by an Israeli organization, Palestinian Media Watch, which has published a long list of entries on its website under the heading “Promoting Violence for Children.” An article published in 2007 reports that Palestinian textbooks, that were paid for with US dollars, teach kids to deny Israel’s right to exist.

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Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

12/10/11 – Finding Volunteer Work that I can do.

So today, Sabou and I had a laid back morning, just chilling in the house and then I decided to take her on some errands, mostly to pick up her anti-Malaria medication, which just happens to be on the East Side of Manhattan. We wandered in and out of stores. I kept her occupied with snacks like bananas and Cheez-Its, and we got a lot accomplished actually. She was easy going, and we walked from 86th Street down to 59th Street and then back. That’s like 27 blocks each way. It felt good to walk, although by the end, the back was definitely acting up.

On the way home, we bump into someone from the Alternatives to Violence Project Bronx Area Council on the train. What a wonderful coincidence, because I had completely forgotten that the next meeting was today, and because I had kind of already decided not to go anyway because of feeling so useless to them at the last meeting. But, seeing him kind of inspired me, so Sabou and I went home, had lunch and I baked cookies to bring to the meeting.

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Legal Crusade Against Wisconsin Voter ID

http://www.wiseye.org/videoplayer/vp.html?sid=7409

USDA Supported Sweet Water Foundation Aquaponics 101 Training for Teachers

It’s official—Sweet Water Foundation, the Milwaukee Teacher Education Center (MTEC) and Kennedy King College (Chicago) have received planning grant funding from the USDA to move forward with its Midwest Aquaponics Expertise Development Initiative (MAEDI) proposal. Starting in October 2011, SWF and Co. began rolling out an ambitious pilot project to support biology and social studies teachers in 5 high schools (4 in Milwaukee and 1 in Chicago) in developing and implementing customized, STEM-infused curriculum units for a total of 80 to 100 students around site-based mini-aquaponics systems. In year one, we will train 5 Instructional Coaches to support these teachers and project outcomes will include an aquaponics teacher training module, curriculum framework, and a bank of model lesson plans, to be developed by participating teachers. Next spring, teachers and students will share their mini-aquaponics system designs and what they have learned with each other at an “Aquaponics Symposium,” to be held at the Sweet Water Organics site.

Written by Dave Libert, one of the heroes of this project.

Profile of Success: Tracey Dent, Safeguarding Milwaukee Youth

By Patricia Obletz, Editor

www.MilwaukeeRenaissance.com/PeaceOfMind/HomePage

The energy that flows from Tracey Dent is gentle and filled with quiet passion and warmth. Tracey refers to himself as an ordinary person who wants to make a difference in his city, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. What’s ordinary about Tracey? Nothing. As a child, Tracey was alone a lot. His closest sibling in age was seven years older than he was. His mother had men on her mind, not her youngest son.

After school, Tracey played with neighborhood kids. Tracey didn’t realize that when these boys called him the “N” word that they were parroting the racism of their white-skinned parents and mainly white, middle class neighbors. By chance, an older brother of Tracey’s overheard the language his brother’s friends used, and made sure that they stopped that uncivilized behavior.

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NAACP Milwaukee and Voces de la Frontera Challenge WI Act 23

By James H. Hall Jr.

President

NAACP Milwaukee Branch

This Friday, December 16th, 2011, at 11:00am, at the Wisconsin State Office Building, 821 N. 6th Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Branch of the NAACP and Voces de la Frontera will announce their united legal challenge to the constitutionality of 2011 Wisconsin Act 23, also known as “Wisconsin’s Photo ID Voting Requirement.”

We are challenging Act 23 because it disenfranchises scores of thousands of qualified African-American voters. About half of all African-Americans in Milwaukee currently lack a driver’s license. This new law is tantamount to a denial of the right to vote for many otherwise qualified voters. There has never been a single prosecution or conviction of a Wisconsin voter misrepresenting his or her identity at the polls. This law is nothing but vote suppression of minority voters.

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Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

12/3/11 – Kid-event at Barnes and Noble and Time with Sam

Saturday morning, first thing, Sabou and I head up to the suburbs to hear my brother sing children’s music at a Barnes and Noble in the mall as part of a fundraiser for Sam’s nursery school. Well, you can’t make a girl any happier than a chance to ride in a car and to go and see Sam. She was very excited.

Everything was going fine in the car. I was driving fine. I don’t remember any pain and the vision was cooperating. I was feeling good about myself, and about the awesome day that Sabou was about to have.

Well, life happens, you know, and as we began the necessary snaking in and around the mall parking lot, it was just too much for Sabou and she puked up her entire breakfast all over herself, the car seat, and the car. So close, and yet so far.

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This Just In

Campaign to cut waste: Vice President Biden announces U.S. will halt production of excess dollar coins and Department of Justice recovered a record $5.6 billion in fraud in 2011

Department of Health and Human Services takes new steps to prevent Medicare fraud

As part of the Obama Administration’s Campaign to Cut Waste, Vice President Biden today announced the U.S. Mint would suspend the production of presidential dollar coins for circulation. Today, nearly 1.4 billion surplus dollar coins are sitting in Federal Reserve vaults due to lack of demand for the coins. By halting this unnecessary production, the administration will save taxpayers at least $50 million per year in production and storage costs. The vice president made today’s announcement at a Cabinet meeting focused on the president’s commitment to cut waste and eliminate misspent dollars across the federal government.

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This Just In

Facebook provides first-of-a-kind service to help prevent suicides

Via SAMHSA

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline collaborate with Facebook to help those in crisis

Facebook is announcing a new service that harnesses the power of social networking and crisis support to help prevent suicides across the nation and Canada. The new service enables Facebook users to report a suicidal comment they see posted by a friend to Facebook using either the Report Suicidal Content link or the report links found throughout the site. The person who posted the suicidal comment will then immediately receive an e-mail from Facebook encouraging them to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1–800–273-TALK (8255) or to click on a link to begin a confidential chat session with a crisis worker.

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If We Can Win a White House Garden, We Can Win a Nobel Prize

Might it not most likely be in the interest of sustainable agriculture for a real live person to win some well deserved recognition for their team’s efforts and accomplishments?

I would be interested in conversations about this theme.

Should we mobilize a Nobel Prize for one of our most renowned “partners?”

Who should that be?

Is is worth a conversation as to whether we should fix our minds on the prize of a Nobel.
for Big Will? Grace Lee Boggs? Michael Pollan?

If so, then should we not begin to systematically compile a list of the projects he and the
Growing Power team have inspired?

If our movement can win a White House Garden, we can most likely win a Nobel Prize
that brings honor to the good cause as well as the person and their team that win the
coveted Nobel Prize.

Godsil

Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

11/27/11 – The Pain Worsens and Is That Your Baby?

So yesterday morning after sorting through the laundry that I had picked up and all the items that we bought for the trip to Mali, I just got inspired and packed. Sabou is ready to go. It’s an easy pack because it’s basically all of the adorable summer clothes that she wore this past summer, and her bathing suits, a bunch of diapers and baby wipes, summer shoes, towel, facecloth, toiletries, and she is ready to go. That felt so good, it also helps me to clear space in her closet for the next size up of clothing and for the winter gear. So, now it’s just the waiting game until they leave, and I have a feeling that December will fly by anyway.

In the afternoon, it was back to the mall, for continued shopping, to pick up the items we didn’t get yesterday. I had called my friend to see if she wouldn’t mind going to the mall, and she came along. We got more stuff done, probably all of it, actually.

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In My Mind’s Eye: December 7th, 2011

If it isn’t racism, then it’s bigotry

By Robert Miranda

The race for Alderman of the 12th District has begun. As it stands today, the incumbent, Alderman James N. Witkowiak, is facing Jose Perez in what many believe will be a close race.

I mentioned this race on my radio program this past week. I spoke about how Latino leadership has begun to abandon Alderman Witkowiak, and I asked the question, Why?

Not all Latinos have thrown Witkowiak under the bus, there are some who stand with him. But there are those Latinos, who I believe have sent a bigoted kind of message, which puts the our community in a bad light.

During my radio show, a caller expressed his dissatisfaction with the wording I used when I questioned the endorsement made by Voces de la Frontera, an organization that endorsed Witkowiak’s opponent.
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Aquaponics

Milwaukee’s Critical 21st Century Industry

by Linda Sechrist

Although it may not be nice to fool Mother Nature, Rebecca Nelson and John Pade, founders of Nelson & Pade, Inc., in Montello, have learned that it is nice to imitate one of her grand designs: aquaponics. This sustainable process—feeding fish whose waste nourishes plants that clean the water for the fish—occurs naturally in healthy ponds and streams and is essential to life on Earth.

The man-made version of aquaponics is a food production system that combines aquaculture—raising fish or other aquatic animals—with hydroponics—cultivating plants in water. While the husband and wife team, authors of Aquaponic Food Production, were early pioneers in combining design theories of hydroponics with aquaculture and testing them in greenhouses in 1992, they were not the first to borrow the clever idea from Mother Nature. Humans first put the intricate sequence to work in China 1,500 years ago, and later, the Incas of Peru used it to raise fresh fish and super-rich, high-quality produce.

Read the rest of the article HERE at Natural Awakenings
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Welcoming a Will Allen Nobel Prize. Followed by Your Community’s Nobel Prize

I hope we will have some conversations about how to respond to…

Will Allen’s Nobel Prize

Sometime revolutions devour their children.

That’s why Grace Lee Boggs has inspired the notion of a
(r)Evolution to be co-created over the generations.

Will Allen deserves a Nobel Prize.

But humanity deserves a focus on the notion of communities winning a Nobel Prize.

Say, the emerging community of planetary urban agrarians and aquapons
densely connecting through myriad of patheways and making history increasingly
pleasing to Mother Nature.

I hope in the not too distant future, one shaped by how imaginatively we process Will’s
deserved award, it will be easy to say

Milwaukee Chicago St. Louis and Detroit Deserve a Nobel Prize.

Building upon the work of the comfoodies, Aquaponics Gardening, Blueberry Pancake
Moments, Victory Garden Initiative, and other net enhanced communities of practice
doing great work.

At Will’s acceptance speech moment, I hope he offers a dream of not just charismatic individuals
winning a Nobel Prize, but also charismatic communities of practice and cities, i.e. communities,
win nobel prizes.

Why not fix our eyes not only on helping inspire a Will Allen Nobel Prize,
but also a

Nobel Prize for Your Community

Howard Hinterthuer, Veteran’s Food Production Project

Howard Lewis here,

I am in the running to give a TED Lecture, one of five finalists. The topic is “Changing the Way We Eat.” I submitted the CVI (Center for Veterans Issues) Organic Therapy Program. (“It’s a good thing!”)

Besides the spiritually theraputic quality of organic gardening, the program is also designed to change the eating habits of the formerly homeless veterans now housed in CVI’s facilities, while offering exercise and job training. We are entering year number four for the Organic Therapy Program on a high note. We managed fresh tomatoes from the garden in November. There are still some ripening on the window sill. (For those of you not from Wisconsin, fresh tomatoes in November is a BIG DEAL!)

You may cast a vote for “4. Howard Hinterthuer, Veteran’s Food Production Project” by sending an email to: tedxmanhattanchallenge@gmail.com Kindly do it now or soon. The voting deadline is Dec. 5, 2011.

Thank you for your consideration and help,

Howard Hinterthuer
Communications Coordinator
Peer-to-Peer Mentor, Organic Therapy Program
Center for Veterans Issues
3312 W. Wells St.
Milwaukee, WI 53208
tel:(414) 345–4275 CVI
howardh@cvivet.org

Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

11/22/11 – Fun weekend, Blood Work, and Thanksgiving

So, I’m sitting here, all ready to write the next update, and I see that I left off on November 18, which was a Friday. And for some reason, I have absolutely no recollection of Saturday the 19th. I’d like to tell you what we did, but I really have no idea. Oh yeah, I just remembered!

Sabou slept really late, like till 9:30 I think, and so did I. She was screaming again, “Mama, Sam!” “Mama, Outside!” “Mama, Car!” “Mama, Apple!” So, I called my sister-in-law, the mother of Sam who has become Sabou’s favorite cousin, and asked what they were doing. She said not much but playing outside. I told her how much Sabou really enjoyed last weekend with Sam and being outside and taking the car ride and eating all those apples. She said we were more than welcome.

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Hope Gives Rise to That Which It Contemplates

These, for me, at least minor, perhaps major miracles, inspiring

Pragmatic Utopian Visions re Urban Agriculture & Aquaponics

A UN Conference Is Within Our Reach! Why Not?

Send e-mail to UNSolidarityUrbanAgAquaponics@milwaukeerenaissance.com to join in.

The meteoric rise of Will Allen and his Growing Power team,

Growing Power magic!

Michelle Obama’s White House Garden;

Photo courtesy of Treehugger.com

‘’‘Sweet Water, i.e. The Farm and the Academy!

Sweet Water Founding Vision

Commercial Upscale Experiment

Democratize Aquaponics

Internationalize Aquaponics Large and Small

Guiding Concepts

Marriage of Scientists/Artists, Artisans/Agrarians

Asset Based Sequential Development

Multiple Bottom Lines, Income Streams, “Chaordic” Pathways

Open Source Hybrid Enterprise

Co-Creating a Major Earth Friendly 21st Century Industry/Movement in Which

Aquaponics Gardening and Backyard Aquaponics platforms;

WSJ, NYT, NPR, and NBC news reports on Sweet Water;

IBM, State Department, Commerce, Marines, city governments awakening;

http://growninthecity.com/2011/08/scaling-up-solutions-aquaponics-in-milwaukee/

http://span.state.gov/jul-aug2011/eng/40-43-James-Godsil.html

Helping Veterans Trade Their Swords for Plows

By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN
Published: February 5, 2011 in The New York Times

Charlie Price and Sylvia Bernstein’s Sweet Water meet up

Sweet Water Foundation’s Director Emmanuel Pratt Heads Up Aquaponics at Chicago State University

Sweet Water Foundation and Friendly Aqupaonics to Advance Shajan John’s
and Subra Mukherjee’s Indian initiatives;

Sylvia Bernstein’s Book!

This gathering of over 200 at the founding conference of the Aquaponics Association!

and much more:

testimony to the fact that since around 2005

Our Visions Outpaced By The Facts.

So why not

Pragmatic Utopian Visions

India, China, Egypt Breakthroughs

Urban Agriculture & Aquaponics at Presidential Conventions

Major UN Conference on Aquaponics

Nobel Peace Prize for One World Aquaponics Community

Net Enhanced American Indian Aquaponics Initiatives

Connect Your Work With India Projects

Net Enhanced Pen Pal Exchanges!

Internet Empowering Interns Advance Collaboration Platforms

High School Aquaponics Miniature Project!

Advance UN Global Compact Cities, IBM, Commerce, and CIFE Collaborations

Live, Work, Tour Exchange Programs

ITC’s E-Choupal’s Internet Empowered 16,500 Indian Villages

Aquaponics TV Experiments

Introducing the Indo American Aquaponics Iniative(IAAI)

Five Thousand Sweet Water Sweet Soil American Indian Pictures

Sweet Water Foundation “Heavy Lifter” Jill Frey and Board Gearing Up to Advance

Links to Indian Pictures from June 2011 Visit

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ourrenaissance/sets/72157627628075836/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ourrenaissance/5938362922/in/set-72157627296034408/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ourrenaissance/sets/72157627416413002/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ourrenaissance/sets/72157627296034408/

Rural Scenes

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ourrenaissance/sets/72157626961315445/

Mumbai and Rathnigiri

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ourrenaissance/sets/72157626959080931/

Joyous Youth and Sweet Water Sweet Soil Moments

Sweet Water Foundation Harvests Hard Won Information

http://springintogreen.weebly.com/event-images.html

Sweet Water Sweet Soil Energy Centers for Every City In Every Nation

Sweet Water, the Farm and the Academy,
Is a museum alive, an evocative destination, and a science lab!

Sweet Water is a high tech, high science,
High craft, high art

Center for safe and delicious food production--
fresh fish and produce, locally sourced!

Sweet Water is a center for hands on education
For young and old.

A center for attracting and energizing
Inventors, innovators, enterprisers…active citizens!

Civic minded celebrators!

Transforming our great industrial cities
Into even more inspiring organic cities.

Every city in every country,
In all of earth’s great civilizations and cultures…

Deserves a Sweet Water!

Sweet Water, Sweet Soil.
To be, once again,

Our children’s birthright,
Our elders security.

Sweet Water, Sweet Soil,
A means of harmony and dignity,

For one human race.

Sweet Water Theorem

FW + BB = SW + SV + SF + WWWW

where

F is fish

W is water

BB is beneficial bacteria

SW is sweet water

SV are sweet veggies

WWWW are world-wide wisdom workers web

Sweet Water WWWW Holiday Gift Designers

Sweet Water Theorem for Sweet Water Aquaponics Miniatures in Our Schools

for 10% of Great Lakes Schools, i.e. Sweet Water seas, by 2020, starting with Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and Toronto
5% of the planet’s schools by 2030, with focus on arid and rainforest nations

Grateful,

Aquaponics Association International Conference Exceeds Fall 2010 Vision

Sweet Water/One World Aquaponics Item Number One: FARM Shop

Here is Charlie Price, the creator, along with Rebecca Bainbridge, describing FARM Shop:

the idea is basically take a farm and put it into a shop in central London… we were given a lease free for a year from Hackney council in london, and basically regenerated a disused building into a hub for urban agriculture, demonstrating aquaponics in the front room, as well as mushrooms in the basement, chickens on the roof, and a polytunnel cafe/cinema in the garden… with offices and meetings rooms on the first and second floor… anyway its a bit of fun, but we’re hoping to connect up a number of FARM:shops with a cetralized commercial hub, and then from the FARM:shops have a number of outreach growers, growing in their homes, greenhouses and gardens…

Click here for the FARM Shop Summary pdf (2373K)

NBC Nightly News Story on Sweet Water Accelerates Expanded Vision

Here is a link to Brian William’s, Anne Thompsons’s, and Garrett Haake’s great contribution to the good food ®Evolution!

http://sweetwater-organic.com/blog/sweet-water-on-nbc/

Sweet Water Organics is the “main frame.”

We are preparing to roll out “Sweet Water Miniatures” asap.

Let us “apple” Sweet Waters! Simple, cheap systems for fresh tasty fish and produce!

Every city, every school,spiritual community, and gifted families can replicate Sweet Water!

A 21 century organic technology industry! For all of God’s children!

Partnering across the planet for:

One World Aquaponics

We also have our eyes on the prize of sparking collaborations among biologists, engineers, MBAs, and worker creatives to develop ancillary industries, e.g. cultivating soldier fly larvae for fish feed, raised bed gardens from compost grown with organic urban waste streams like leaves, wood chips, fruit and veggie wastes, urban agriculture implements like green and hoop houses, cold frames, worm bins, and more.

New organic technologies explored in creative worker owned enterprise experiments, Mondragon inspired!

Please keep track of Sweet Water Organics Developments and keep in touch w. me for news re on-line and in the real workshops, support, etc.

Grateful,

Godsil

“Mondragon USA” One World Aquaponics Experiments

Dear All,

There are springing forth urban agriculture experiments across the planet, many of which combine some form of self-managed or cooperative legal/management/ownership structure with cutting edge, high yield “organic engineering experiments” in fish and plant growth.

Some of the people in this mix are in conversation across the continents eye on the prize of introducing aquaponics miniatures to 1 per cent of the planet’s schools in the next 5 or 10 years.

Please send an e-mail to oneworldaquaponics@milwaukeerenaissance.com if you would like to spend time, when the Spirit moves you, in some on-line brainstorming, for starters, perhaps workshop gatherings down the line.

Thanks!

Godsil
Sweet Water
http://sweetwater-organic.com/blog/news/

Democratize Aquaponics!

“Apple” Sweet Water Miniatures!

Dear Earth Friendly Citizens of One World,

Please consider the democratization of aquaponics for your city, eye on the prize of providing this inspiring methodology for growing fish and plants year round in school science labs, as well as providing hands on experience for students, faculty, families, and the school’s neighborhoods toward increased food security and self-reliance in the context of community building.

Sweet Water Miniatures on Brian Williams NBC Nightly News Next Week?

Sweet Water Organics, i.e. The Farm, has an associated non-profit called Sweet Water Foundation, i.e. The Academy.

The Farm is like the old computer main frames at universities.
The Academy is working to equip young and old learners with aquaponics competencies for home, school, spiritual and community centers, restaurants, elder care facilities, and more.

The Academy hopes to collaborate with the nation’s biologists, engineers, and MBA’s, to find them adopting miniature aquaponic systems in 2 per cent of the nation’s schools in the next 5 years, eye on the prize, not only of hands on aquaponics learning that enhances science, math, mechanical, artisinal, enterprising skills and spiritual aptitutudes, but also provides a more competent and civic city culture to advance this 21st century high yield, local, fresh, and earth friendly agricultural methodology.

Organic Engineering Systems
Urban Agriculture Architecture

“Let’s ‘Apple’ Sweet Waters!

Why not raise fish and growing greens
in schools, factories, homes, and food enterprises?

Godsil

In My Mind’s Eye: October 24, 2011

Support Hispanics, Because?

By Robert Miranda

I was recently approached by a young, very naïve Hispanic woman who asked me why I am supporting Jim Witkowiak for Alderman. Like many up-starts her age, she seemed to know everything about politics and Latino unity. She gave me the run-downon why Hispanics should support Hispanics at all costs.

After listening to this pipe-dreamer give me her take on the elections, I promptly responded and gave her my point of view of the myth of Latino unity.

I said to the young Latina that Hispanic unity is a lie brought forth by Hispanics who are either naïve or on a hustle. I said to the young lady that, when it comes to money, some Hispanic leaders will join forces to find a way to make a few dollars. When it comes to self-gratification and emperor status, there are Hispanic leaders who turn their backs on the community and there are others who are blacklisted for standing firm in their commitment to the community.

Read the full article here
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Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

11/14/11 – Playing Catch-up

Oh dear, it’s been a while, so I guess I need to catch you up. I took Election Day when work was closed, but daycare was open, and treated myself to a grown-up movie complete with popcorn, and a day in Greenwich Village, just like I used to do in my youth. It was awesome, and yes of course, I found time to do some cute shopping for Sabou as well.

The movie was “Midnight in Paris,” by Woody Allen. The whole movie was based in Paris, with lots of time changes between different eras in the art and literary world of Paris. As a former French major, it just opened up this whole other realm of myself that I haven’t been too much in touch with lately. The movie was adorable and it inspired me to get Sabou to Paris someday, when she’s old enough to remember and before it’s just uncool to be with Mom. I’m thinking like 7 or 8 or 9?

Click here to read the full entry
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In One Another

By Megan Dwyer-Cossou

Mortgage companies get greedy,
Bailed out Fanny Mae,
Bailed out Freddy Mac,
Yet the rest of the pack must suffer,
Find their way on the poverty track.

Work harder,
See these young grads on the streets,
Tell them to go to school,
Tell them to stay in school,
And they will ask you for what.

Work harder,
Let me deduct that cost of living,
Let me deduct every increase,
Taken out of our pockets,
Given to the banks,
For their profits.

Click here for the rest of the poem
Click here for more Peace of Mind

Greed loses key whips November 8, 2011

By Patricia Obletz, Editor

www.MilwaukeeRenaissance.com/PeaceOfMind/HomePage

Public workers keep their collective bargaining rights in Ohio.
Women keep control of their bodies in Mississippi.
Voters still have the right to register and vote on the same day in Maine.
But Voter ID still shackles tens of millions of Americans in seven states, including Wisconsin.

In this Second American Revolution that Wisconsin public workers ignited, consciousness raised by unprecedented lust for money inspired We the People to speak out on our own behalf and vote to rid American life of tyranny. We the people also can overcome voter suppression, another root of evil in greed.

After the GOPers revealed their intention to wipe out birth control as well as abortion, to decimate healthcare, education and collective bargaining rights for pubic worker unions, a friend said that the social programs that make America a true democracy are the aberration and that we now have reverted to the old order. Happily, the November 8, 2011, election proved her wrong, setting the stage for 2012.

Click here for the full article
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Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

10/30/11 – An Awesome Day followed by Hurtful Comments

So, yesterday was an awesome day. I got together with a friend and her family, after about five years. We got to meet each other’s kids for the first time, and reflect on how entirely different our lives are now. She’s got three kids – one and a set of twins. And I was completely impressed by her and her husband and how they navigate that. And I was also so thankful that I only have Sabou. She is more than enough, and sometimes more than I can handle anyway.

We went to the Children’s Museum of Manhattan, where Sabou and I had celebrated Curious George’s birthday back in September. Sabou had fun coloring, playing with glue, and climbing on everything, driving things, playing with the blocks and the balls, feeding the alphabet eating dragon all the different letters, etc. etc. My friend’s twins are 18 months, which was also perfect. It was like we could completely understand each other’s frustrations and exhaustion. Sabou had her temper tantrums in the morning, before lunch, and one of the twins had one in the afternoon, after lunch. And we just both sat through each one with complete understanding. While it was a very exhausting day, because remember it snowed this wet slushy disgusting snow in NYC yesterday, yeah, you try pushing a stroller in that ugly wet slushy snow the many blocks it takes to get to the subway station, it was so completely worth it to me.

Click here to read the full entry
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Medicaid Savings Initiatives Updates

Update! 11/08/11

Click here for a summary of the changes being proposed!

DHS Milwaukee Town Hall Meeting on Medicaid Savings Initiatives pdf (10/21/11)

Stop the Violence Self Development Workshops

Click here for more Peace of Mind

Make It Work Milwaukee/Mental Health Task Force Update: October 31st

Click here for more Peace of Mind

Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

10/17/11 – Nightmare and More Tests in Saying No, or at least, Maybe

Wow, I didn’t think it possible, but I had a Lupus nightmare. Two fingers (pinky and ring) on my left hand were getting so swollen that they actually fused together making it look like I only had four fingers. And the pain was incredibly intense. They would come back to normal for a short while, only for the process to happen again and again. Then sometimes instead of the fusing, the ring finger on the left hand would swell up like a balloon from the palm to the tip and turn like a bluish purple. Then it would do the opposite by de-swelling from the tip to the palm, also very painful, and freaky to watch. Yeah, I didn’t go back to sleep, and I am proud to report that for today, my fingers look fine and are all working.

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A great day for the Great Lakes urban agriculture industry/movement!

Ex. Dir. Sweet Water Foundation, Emmanuel Pratt, at Chicago MK restaurant gathering on urban aquaponics, agriculture, and chefs, sitting with Mayor Barrett of Milwaukee, Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, Obama family chef and White House Garden co-creator Sam Cass, MK proprietors Lisa and Michael Kornick.

Make It Work Milwaukee/Mental Health Task Force Update:

Paratransit and Unfinished Business

by Barbara Beckert, Executive Director
Milwaukee Disability Rights Wisconsin

Update!

The Finance committee continued their budget deliberations today with “Unfinished Business.” Paratransit was first on the agenda.

Two amendments were put forward to reduce the proposed paratransit service increase from $4.50 per one way trip to $4.00 per one way trip.

The amendment proposed by Supervisors Dimitrijevic and Broderick used $458,000 of property tax levy to offset the increase. It passed 5 – 1. Supervisors De Bruin, Mayo, Johnson, Romo West, and Thomas voted for the amendment – Schmitt voted against.

Click here for the complete story and resources
Click here for more Peace of Mind

The Second Annual Fruity Nutty Affair

From the Journal of an Artist

By Patricia Obletz

The phone rang one night in late April 2010. Cousin B has the most aggressive and lethal form of leukemia. He’s a loving, encouraging and supportive medical doctor who once worked for NASA.

My hand grabbed the sketch pad lying on the floor where I’d left it after coating it with black gesso yesterday. When next aware, I had a white oil pastel drawing of a robed figure pushing an IV pole with its poisonous bag of chemo heading to a hospital bed.

Read the full article here
Click here for more articles from Peace of Mind
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Will Milwaukee Become the Arugula City of America?

Well me and my brown thumbs have not killed the arugula… they are ACTUALLY thriving. My kids have loved watching them grow and my 8 year old took some leaves, washed them, and actually ate them the other day. He liked it so much he immediately wanted me to research uses for Arugula. So later that evening we made tortilla pizzas with diced arugula on it. We have all been snacking on the Arugula. I am sharing the joy by giving a plant each to two of my friends to grow and get their children to try.

This has gone so well I have convinced my husband to give us a small space in the basement to take some storage tubs and plant the arugula to give it more room and I also started some lettuce and herbs so we will be replanting those if they actually sprout. We picked up a small grow light to help with the plants.

The entire family is really getting into growing our own produce. Who would have thought that a tech obsessed, former failures at growing ANYTHING, family could have so much fun and, so far, relative success, growing our own food.

Redman original to MK.

Sweet Water, the Farm and the Academy, will be presenting Lisa and Michael Kornick of Chicago’s renowned MK Restaurent this Redman original in gratitude for their Sweet Water Foundation Benefit, which is also sponsored by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, to mark the urban agriculture and aquaponics legal breakthrough the Mayor’s team advanced this month.

Megan And Ok Jeyifo came up to gather Sweet Water perch and veggies for the event.
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Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

10/15/11 – Pushing limits that I didn’t know I had, and learning to stop

Then on to Saturday, you know the day that I am alone with Sabou all day while Youba goes to school. Well, this time we already had a plan. My nephew’s birthday party, in the suburbs, not too far, so I know I can drive there, followed by a family meeting.

So, we left the house early and headed towards the burbs. It was a lovely fall day, and I have to say that fall is my favorite season, and living in the concrete of South Bronx that I do, it’s hard to get a sense of fall without blowing leaves and changing colors and all that, and it was just great to see the colorful leaves lining the sides of the Hudson River.

And I was feeling so strong, no pain, and like I could just keep on driving. So, we did. We drove past my brother’s town and to the town where I grew up. Sabou has never been for a walk in the woods. She’s never seen a deer or had any of the experiences that I had as a child growing up in the burbs. So, we went to a park I haven’t been to in a million years to walk on the trails in the woods. It was awesome and amazing.

Click here to read the full entry
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Here is our life

By Megan Dwyer-Cossou

the world
sanity,
a cause,
praying for the sign,
pacing for a bill,
scamming for a test,
speaking out in harmony,
writing the next law,
living out of touch,
morality have you no place,

Read the full Poem here
Click here for more articles from Peace of Mind
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Your eyes and ears won’t betray you. Watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGRXCgMdz9A&feature=youtu.be

Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

10/7/11 – not much Lupus going on

I haven’t written in a week now. I haven’t had much to say. Life goes on between work and baby. The aches and pains are random and still nothing compared to before, so they don’t deserve much note. Although there have been these very annoying back pains each morning that seem to subside by lunch for the last two days, and today I had the blurry vision like all morning, which sucked during meetings and when it was time to edit documents. But even that seemed to subside before lunch.

It’s a three-day weekend, and whereas in the past I would have filled the days with fun activities, or went somewhere far away from where I live, this time, I took the opportunity to fill up that third day with doctor appointments so I don’t have to take time off of work. Yup, the new me with new priorities, and there you go.

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Victory Garden Initiative Recent photos

Blitz day installation 2011 on Buffum Street

Melissa T does the compost thing in the heart of winter.

Concordia Garden Plans the first Edible Forest in Milwaukee.
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The Resistance

If the big money profiteers worry you, join the Resistance launched a few years ago by a group that has named itself “Anonymous.” For more information, visit these two sites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP9q61Fjlqo&feature=youtu.be

http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/675166/occupy_wall_street_news_round-up%3A_new_york_times_shifts_blame_for_mass_arrests%2C_occupations_spread_worldwide/#paragraph3

Back to Op-Ed.
Back to peace of mind
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Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

9/25/11 – Always an Adventure

So, knowing that Youba would again be headed to school on Saturday, I made myself and Sabou a little plan for the day. A co-worker had told me about a kid-friendly diner she had gone to that was quite loud and she thought it would be perfect for a rambunctious toddler. So, I Googled it and found the easiest one to get to – one right near Union Square. Now, I’m happy about that because in Union Square, one can also find a Babies R Us, and a Children’s Place, and it’s not far from the Party City that we went to when we were buying stuff for her party back in August, and maybe, just maybe they have Halloween costumes. So, off we went.

We landed in Union Square, and the first thing I notice is that the NYPD are like everywhere. Their cars are lining the roads, surrounding Union Square. I take note, but not that much, and we head north towards the diner. It was easy to find and everything my co-worker said that it would be: loud, lots of high-chairs, and very welcoming staff to kids in general. Perfect. She took her time eating, as she always does, and when she was finally full, we headed towards the children’s shops.

Click here to read the full entry
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Photo Essays of Milwaukee’s Good Food ®Evolution

Walnut Way Vigil Celebration Blocked Junk Food Franchise on 17th & North

Here are some wonderful photos of one of Milwaukee’s top good food movement stories of the decade, i.e. Sharon and Larry Adams’ joyous vigil that stopped a greasy fried chicken joint from adding to the health challenge of their community. I hope to win some memories of this great event from the people who were there.

Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

9/18/11 – Another Great Day with Sabou

So today was a surprise birthday party for one of my sisters-in-law. Youba is deep into school work now, so I knew that if I was going, I would be the one driving. Now, I haven’t driven a long distance since the dizzy spell on Route 95 in August. A little nervous, yes, but my brother is just 45 minutes from me, and I just felt confident that I can do it. I feel like my brain is just back for the time being and I need to take advantage of it. And I am so glad I did.

There were tons of little girls there, like two-and-a-half, three, five, and Sabou fit right in. She was playing with them all, and the bigger kids too. She was running around in the backyard, pushing the play lawn mowers, driving the little play cars, and climbing up the jungle gym and down the slide.

Click here to read the full entry
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Mind Body Health and Healing Archive

Social Movement Archive

My First Generation Sweet Water Business Plan

Sweet Water is a museum alive, and a lab!

A high tech, high science,
High craft, high art

Center for safe and delicious food production--
fresh fish and produce, locally sourced!

Sweet Water is a center for hands on education
For young and old.

A center for attracting and energizing
Inventors, innovators, enterprisers…active citizens!

Civic minded celebrators!

Transforming our great industrial cities
Into even more inspiring organic cities.

Every city in every country,
In all of earth’s great civilizations and cultures…

Deserves a Sweet Water!

Sweet Water, Sweet Soil.
To be, once again,

Our children’s birthright,
Our elders security.

Sweet Water, Sweet Soil,
A means of harmony and dignity,

For one human race.

Godsil

Michelle Obama Meets Aquaponics Assocation at Her Alma Mater’s Sweet Water Miniature

IBM Video Advances Globalization of Grand Milwaukee Urban Agriculture Alliance Aquaponics and Farming Methods

There’s an inherent tension in the local food system movement: what is the proper scale? Some, for example, promote the radical home economics approach, encouraging hyper-local, backyard farming for self-sufficiency. Others advocate for the Community Supported Agriculture model, which begins to use economies of scale to spread the risk and reward involved in local production and consumption while still maintaining personal connections to the farmer. More recently, however, there’s been a shift toward examining the possibility of local food production as a viable job training and economic growth tool in places with large swaths of vacant urban land and high unemployment such as Detroit, Philadelphia, and Milwaukee.

Milwaukee has long been at the forefront of the local food movement, with McArthur Genius Grant winner Will Allen’s Growing Power leading the way. The organization “develops Community Food Centers, as a key component of Community Food Systems, through training, active demonstration, outreach, and technical assistance.” As Allen, the organization’s CEO notes, “If people can grow safe, healthy, affordable food, if they have access to land and clean water, this is transformative on every level in a community. I believe we cannot have healthy communities without a healthy food system.”

In recent years, Milwaukee has been increasingly focused on Aquaponics. Urban farmers, policy makers, economic development specialists, and local food proponents make pilgrimages to Milwaukee to meet with Growing Power and Sweet Water Organics staff to see the closed-loop aquaponic systems, where fish waste is absorbed as nutrients by edible plants that clean the water, keeping the environment in homeostasis.

Click here for the rest and be sure to watch the great video:
http://growninthecity.com/2011/08/scaling-up-solutions-aquaponics-in-milwaukee/

Godsil and Acting Public Affairs Officer of the U.S. Consulate in Hyderabad, Elizabeth Jones (second from right), interact with people in Cuttack, Orissa.

Photograph by STEVEN JONES

State Department to Mainstream Urban Agriculture and Aquaponics?

I believe the good food movement is on the edge of a “moment” that will mark a new phase in our development. There may well be an emerging “Grand Alliance” of supporters from most social sectors and a growing number of very, very powerful institutions and enterprises, large, medium, and small.

The State Department might be on the edge of providing much needed resources for some our experiments, as this article re Sweet Water in India in a State Department magazine suggests:

http://span.state.gov/jul-aug2011/eng/40-43-James-Godsil.html

The Marines and Army are funding exploratory organic farming and aquaponics projects. Large and medium sized corporations are checking us out. I’m not feeling ridiculous with visions of our movement offering the Bishops of Rome an opportunity for restorative justice by turning over lots of underused church land and buildings to community agriculture demonstration projects and community gardens. I am a graduate of a Jesuit high school and university and feel it entirely possible that Jesuit schools in India will provide a breakthrough for the India American Work Learn Tour Project Dr. Subhrankar Mukherjee and Shajan John are advancing.

A couple of years back I wrote a “Community Roofing truck poem” with what I thought back then was a utopian vision of 10,000 food gardens in Milwaukee. That now appears pragmatic and modest. Last year I threw out a quest for 5% of our nation’s schools with small aquaponics or vermiculture experiments w/in 5 years. And 5% of the world’s schools w/in 10 or 20. Seems less utopian and more possible today.

Reality checks and confirmation/negation conversation appreciated.

Godsil

Father of Organic Farming, Sir Albert Howard: India America Work Learn Tour Project

There are some Indian scientists and eco-enterprisers, most notably Dr. Subhrankar Mukherjee

http://www.sankalpacmfs.org/general/essem.pdf

developing a project that would offer Americans an inspiring work learn and tour experience. India taught the “Father of Organic Farming” a couple of generations ago. Much to learn for current generations. Let me know if you would like to co-create this “collaboration of civilizations.”

Father of Organic Farming Taught by India Farmers’ 3,000 Year Methodologies

The British botanist Sir Albert Howard is often referred to as the father of modern organic agriculture. From 1905 to 1924, he worked as an agricultural adviser in Pusa, Bengal, where he documented traditional Indian farming practices and came to regard them as superior to his conventional agriculture science. His research and further development of these methods is recorded in his writings, notably, his 1940 book, An Agricultural Testament, which influenced many scientists and farmers of the day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_organic_farming

Howard worked in India as agricultural adviser and was in charge of a government research farm at Indore.

Howard observed and came to support traditional Indian farming practices over conventional agricultural science. Though he journeyed to India to teach Western agricultural techniques he found that the Indians could in fact teach him more. One important aspect he took notice of was the connection between healthy soil and the villages’ healthy populations, livestock and crop.

Howard has been called the father of modern composting, for his refinement of a traditional Indian composting system into what is now known as the Indore method. He went on to document and develop organic farming techniques, and spread his knowledge through the UK-based Soil Association, and the Rodale Institute in the US. His 1940 book, An Agricultural Testament, is a classic organic farming text. It was his first book aimed at the general public, and is his best popularly known work.

However his 1931 book The Waste Products of Agriculture, based on 26 years of studying improved crop production in Indian smallholdings, is considered by some as his most important scientific publication. His 1945 book Farming and Gardening for Health or Disease was also intended for a general audience, and was republished in 1947 as The Soil and Health: A Study of Organic Agriculture. Howard’s work influenced and inspired many farmers and agricultural scientists who furthered the organic movement, including Lady Eve Balfour (the Haughley Experiment, The Living Soil) and J.I. Rodale (Rodale Institute).

Howard advocated studying the forest in order to farm like the forest. He devoted the last half of his career to understanding that end, presaging those contemporary ecologists who advocate the understanding of the interface between ecology and agriculture. Indeed, Howard is grouped, along with Sir Robert McCarrison and Richard St. Barbe Baker, as one of three progenitors of the organic agriculture movement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Howard
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Turn Your Front Yard Into a Food Garden

If you would like to learn how to compost and grow your own food on your front or
back lawn, send an e-mail to godsil.james@gmail.com
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There Are Now Bees Along With the Fish and the Plants at Sweet Water

Permaculture Theory Makes It to the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/garden/permaculture-emerges-from-the-underground.html

If you would like to learn how to raise bees at your place, be it home, school, faith community, or business, send an e-mail to godsil.james@gmail.com
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Detroit, Chicago, & Milwaukee: From Industrial to Organic Cities

Chaordically!

Principally, a chaordic organization is a self-organizing and self-evolving entity, which ends up looking more like a neural network (like the Internet) than a hierarchically-organized bureaucracy in which decision-making power is centralized at the top and trickles down through a series of well-regulated departments and managers. Chaordic organizations do not fear change or innovation. They are, by their very nature, supremely adaptive. They also tend to be inclusive, multicentric, and distributive and, ultimately, strongly cohesive due to their unshakable focus on common purpose and core principles. If you can’t quite visualize it, there’s a good reason, which Hock will explain in the following interview.

http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j22/hock.asp

Chaordic Theory Foundational to Milwaukee Urban Agriculture Industry & Movement

The “Grand Alliance” that is making Milwaukee famous for its urban agriculture/aquaponics initiatives, developmentally speaking, was given a great boost when Julilly Kohler and Ron Doetch, pulled together the Milwaukee Urban Agriculture Network(MUAN). Julilly introduced MUAN as a “chaordic experiment,” which would network enterprises advancing urban agriculture. MUAN organized the world’s first international urban agriculture conference and did the foundation building for our recent legal victories and the wider appreciation of Growing Power, Victory Garden, Sweet Water, etc.

to be continued

Godsil

Most Worthy Small Businesses

Most Worthy Social Enterprises and Movements

Milwaukee Open Housing Marches
Milwaukee Open Housing Planning

Milwaukee Renaissance

Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

12/27/11 – Termination with therapist

In My Mind’s Eye: January 20, 2012

Racism in America

by Robert Miranda

Make It Work Milwaukee/Mental Health Task Force Update January 17th, 2012

Safe Driving Is No Accident

By Ron Lee, Program Coordinator

Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

12/16/11 – This is your calling.

FREE Birth Certificates to aid in obtaining a Voter ID are now available

Emerging Global Community of Aquaponic Experimenters to India?

NAACP ONE MKE Summit

Grace Lee Boggs, “Living For Change” January 1, 2012 Issue

2011 A YEAR TO REMEMBER

Revolutionaries, Evolutionaries, and Solutionaries

In My Mind’s Eye: December 29th, 2011

American Presidential Candidate Example of Extremism

By Robert Miranda

Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

by Mary Kay Diakite, LMSW

12/10/11 – Finding Volunteer Work that I can do.

Legal Crusade Against Wisconsin Voter ID

USDA Supported Sweet Water Foundation Aquaponics 101 Training for Teachers

Profile of Success: Tracey Dent, Safeguarding Milwaukee Youth

By Patricia Obletz, Editor

NAACP Milwaukee and Voces de la Frontera Challenge WI Act 23

By James H. Hall Jr.

President

NAACP Milwaukee Branch

Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

12/3/11 – Kid-event at Barnes and Noble and Time with Sam

This Just In

Campaign to cut waste: Vice President Biden announces U.S. will halt production of excess dollar coins and Department of Justice recovered a record $5.6 billion in fraud in 2011

Department of Health and Human Services takes new steps to prevent Medicare fraud

This Just In

Facebook provides first-of-a-kind service to help prevent suicides

Via SAMHSA

If We Can Win a White House Garden, We Can Win a Nobel Prize

Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

11/27/11 – The Pain Worsens and Is That Your Baby?

In My Mind’s Eye: December 7th, 2011

If it isn’t racism, then it’s bigotry

By Robert Miranda

Aquaponics

Milwaukee’s Critical 21st Century Industry

by Linda Sechrist

Welcoming a Will Allen Nobel Prize. Followed by Your Community’s Nobel Prize

Howard Hinterthuer, Veteran’s Food Production Project

Beyond the Absurd: Life with Lupus

11/22/11 – Fun weekend, Blood Work, and Thanksgiving

Hope Gives Rise to That Which It Contemplates

These, for me, at least minor, perhaps major miracles, inspiring

Pragmatic Utopian Visions re Urban Agriculture & Aquaponics

A UN Conference Is Within Our Reach! Why Not?

Sweet Water Founding Vision

Commercial Upscale Experiment

Democratize Aquaponics

Internationalize Aquaponics Large and Small

Guiding Concepts

Marriage of Scientists/Artists, Artisans/Agrarians

Asset Based Sequential Development

Multiple Bottom Lines, Income Streams, “Chaordic” Pathways

Open Source Hybrid Enterprise

Co-Creating a Major Earth Friendly 21st Century Industry/Movement in Which

Helping Veterans Trade Their Swords for Plows

Our Visions Outpaced By The Facts.

Pragmatic Utopian Visions

Net Enhanced American Indian Aquaponics Initiatives

Connect Your Work With India Projects

ITC’s E-Choupal’s Internet Empowered 16,500 Indian Villages

Aquaponics TV Experiments

Introducing the Indo American Aquaponics Iniative(IAAI)

Five Thousand Sweet Water Sweet Soil American Indian Pictures

Links to Indian Pictures from June 2011 Visit

Rural Scenes

Mumbai and Rathnigiri