Treesong's blog

This week, I'm making a donation to the Carbondale Climate Action Network.

http://carbondaleclimateaction.blogspot.com/

As some of you may remember, CCAN organized the Sustainable State of the City address in December of last year. This was both in response to the local State of the City address and the global climate conference in Copenhagen.

CCAN is still a very young organization, and I've been involved with the group since before it even had a name. Human-caused climate change is one of the most important issues facing humanity at this point in history. Our current levels of carbon emissions are rapidly shifting the global climate out of balance. This isn't some projection for the future; the negative consequences to human beings, and the ecosystems that all life depends upon, have already started. If you'd like more information on the science, check out websites such as Skeptical Science: Examining Global Warming Skepticism and 350 (parts per million of carbon dioxide).

Speaking on the state of the city was only the start of our community involvement. Since that day, we've been following up on some of the points mentioned in our presentation and looking into ways in which Carbondale and Southern Illinois can become regional models of social, economic, and ecological resilience.

Currently, I think the most promising lead is the Transition Towns initiative.

The Transition Towns initiative invites us to ask ourselves the following question: How can our community respond to the challenges, and opportunities, of Peak Oil and Climate Change? Once we ask ourselves this question, the Transition Towns network offers a variety of resources that many communities have used, and are continuing to use, in order to transition toward a more resilient community life that can take us beyond Peak Oil and Climate Change.

We've started a discussion group in order to examine the Transition Towns movement and what it might look like here in Carbondale. It will take us some time to read and discuss the material. In the meantime, we're working on other events such as a seed exchange coming up on February 20th.

Our expenses are minimal, but our budget is non-existent, so this donation may go toward securing meeting or event space while we study the Transition Towns material and develop future plans.

If you'd like more information on the Carbondale Climate Action Network, I encourage you to visit our blog at the link above. If you'd like to show your support with a donation of time, energy, or funding, I encourage you to come to one of our meetings or contact me for more information.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for any support you can send our way!

Once every three months, I select three local community groups to recognize as Featured Causes. We have many good groups here in Southern Illinois, and I feel that selecting these Featured Causes is a good way to bring them to your attention a few at a time, thereby offering them additional support through special recognition.

Here are the Featured Causes for First Quarter 2010:

Good Samaritan House Ministries : Good Samaritan House Ministries is a tax-exempt organization, established in 1985 by Carbondale Interfaith Council, to provide services to the needy in the Carbondale area. They provide an emergency shelter, a transitional housing program, a soup kitchen, a food pantry, and an emergency assistance program. Many of my fellow Real Life Superheroes focus on helping the homeless and needy in their communities. Learning from their example, I would like to do the same here in our community. Good Sam is one of the organizations right here in Carbondale that provides such services on a daily basis. I'm also open to suggestions about how to help the homeless, and people living below the poverty line, in other ways.

Gaia House Interfaith Center : I've chosen the Gaia House Interfaith Center for a second quarter of special recognition. This community center has been undergoing a renaissance in the past semester or two, bringing a renewed burst of progressive activity to life in our community. They've been an important part of the open, progressive, diversity-embracing community since the middle of the 20th Century. Their programs for Spring 2009 include the weekly InterVeg vegetarian dinner; Rice and Spice, a weekly international slow foods dinner; Progressive Christian Students meal and discussion series; Spiritual Not Religious, a series exploring spiritual life for university students; Gaia Gatherings, an informal monthly potluck to talk about the center's mission and vision; and a variety of other programs related to ecological living and social justice. The Center is home to the Labyrinth Peace Garden, an extensive lending library, a large community kitchen, and space upstairs and downstairs for meetings, dinners, and other events. You can support Gaia House by coming to one of their many exciting events or renting the Center to host an event of your own.

WDBX 91.1 FM : WDBX is a community radio station located in Carbondale, Illinois. With over a hundred volunteer DJs offering music, talk radio, and beyond, we are by far the most diverse and independent station in the region. I also co-host a show on WDBX called Your Community Spirit every Friday at 10 am. Your Community Spirit features local events as well as ecological and social justice news. We bring you the dirt, but we always do it with an upbeat focus and a goofy sense of humor. If you're not in Southern Illinois, you can listen through streaming audio on the website. If you are in Southern Illinois, you can join us for the WDBX Ball on February 13! See the website for more details.

Of course, I'm slightly off of the quarter cycle at the moment since I started the program a month into Fourth Quarter 2009 and didn't update it until a month into First Quarter 2010. Therefore, I will continue featuring these groups until mid-April, after which point we should be back on track.

I'd like to send out a big thank you to everyone involved in organizing these groups, and everyone else involved in supporting them. If you're not already involved, you can become a supporter too by making a donation or participating in their events.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me or the group in question. I look forward to seeing you out in the community!

In my previous blog entry, I talked about my definition of a Real Life Supervillain and listed three broad categories that I would group them into: corporations and their executives, governments and their officials, and private fanatics and their supporters. Now, I'd like to talk about the most prevalent, and arguably the most powerful, of these Real Life Supervillains: namely, The Corporation.

I've been involved in the Real Life Superhero movement for several months now. As far as I'm concerned, choosing a new name and wearing a uniform or costume isn't what defines a Real Life Superhero. What defines us is our vision for how we can improve and serve our community, and our ongoing efforts to act on that vision.

Recently, though, this definition has lead me to consider an ominous question: what defines a Real Life Supervillain?

I am an Ecstatic. I often talk about individual aspects of my Ecstatic path, but I rarely sit down and talk at length about my perspective on what Ecstasy is, or what being an Ecstatic means to me.

Today, though, that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Originally, I hadn't planned on seeing the movie Avatar while it was in theatres. Money is tight right now, and I don't go out to the movies as often as I used to. I heard so many positive reviews from friends, though, that I decided to see it.

I'm glad that I did!

Avatar is one of the most impressive movies I've seen in a long time. In fact, it's one of the most impressive movies I've ever seen! There are flaws to it, of course, and I'll get to those in a moment. Even with these flaws, though, I would say that it's comparable to the original Star Wars series in terms of its groundbreaking visual style and profound mythological themes.

So what do I find so impressive about this movie?

This week, I'm making a donation to the Carbondale Interfaith Council.

http://www.cdaleinterfaith.org/

The purpose of the Carbondale Interfaith Council is to make God’s love visible in our community by fostering interfaith cooperation, sharing religious experiences, engaging in service, discovering unity while respecting our differences, and speaking with courage and strength for justice.

I started going to the Carbondale Interfaith Council board meetings in 2009 and am happy to be involved in the organization. Two of our most prominent programs include our support for the Good Samaritan House and the Ralph Anderson Interfaith Dialogues.

The Good Samaritan House was established in 1985 by the Carbondale Interfaith Council to provide services to the needy in the Carbondale area. They provide an emergency shelter, a transitional housing program, a soup kitchen, a food pantry, and an emergency assistance program.

The Ralph Anderson Interfaith Dialogues offer a series of public panel discussions on a variety of social and spiritual topics. Each dialogue features a leader or spokesperson from several different faiths who discuss their perspective on the topic of the day in light of their faith. After the panel discussion, speakers are open to questions and ongoing dialog with members of the community.

In addition to these long-term programs, the Carbondale Interfaith Council and members of the interfaith community also recently sponsored a small delegation to the Parliament of the World's Religions in Melbourne, Australia. This delegation allowed local people of faith to interact extensively with members of the global interfaith community, sharing their experiences of faith and service here in Southern Illinois and bringing back knowledge and wisdom from the conference to the Southern Illinois community.

Even if you are an atheist or agnostic, you may find common ground with the Carbondale Interfaith Council's commitment to public service and promotion of dialog and peaceful co-existence among people of all faiths (or no faith).

These programs are certainly reason enough to support the organization. However, I'm also making this donation on behalf of the Southern Illinois Pagan Alliance.

The Carbondale Interfaith Council is primarily composed of members of the Abrahamic faith traditions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. However, they are open to engaging in dialog and shared community service work with people of all faith communities that are present in Carbondale and Southern Illinois. As a member of the Pagan community, I intend to make an annual contribution to the Carbondale Interfaith Council on SIPA's behalf in order to demonstrate our community's willingness to engage in community dialog and share in community service work organized cooperatively by people of many faiths.

If you're fortunate enough to have money in your pocket after you've paid for food, shelter, utilities, and so on, consider making a donation to the Carbondale Interfaith Council or the Good Samaritan House ( http://goodsamcarbondale.org/ ).

Thanks for listening, and thanks for any support you can send their way!

When I decided to do some blogging tonight, my original plan was to write an entry about my first few months as a Real Life Superhero. However, I'm also going to take a look at the course of my life in general.

First of all, a few words on my Real Life Superhero adventures.

These first few months as a RLSH have been a good start! There is still so much more to do, but I feel like I've been making progress.

This week, I'm making a donation to the Student/Farmworker Alliance:

http://www.sfalliance.org/

I'll be making this donation tonight at "Jam for Justice," an exciting music and art event brought to you by local SFA organizers in order to raise funds, raise awareness, and have a good time in the process.

Jam for Justice is tonight at 9 pm at Tres Hombres in Carbondale. Come have a drink (if you drink), listen to awesome music, and support farm workers all in one night! Bands include: The Ivas John Band, Nighty Night, The Jug Dealers, and Matt Mings on acoustic guitar. There will also be Live Art for auction by Justin Rosenfield and raffle tickets for sale. Raffle prizes include: a $50 Longbranch gift certificate, 2 free entrees from Global, fair trade chocolate from Town Square Market, gift certificate for Fat Patties, a two-topping Pagliais pizza, and more! Cover charge is $5 at the door -- and I know economic times are tough, but this is cheaper than a movie, and far more entertaining than anything Hollywood has to offer at the moment.

In case you're not familiar with them, the Student/Farmworker Alliance (SFA) is a national network of students and youth organizing with farmworkers to eliminate sweatshop conditions and modern-day slavery in the fields. They work in alliance with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a membership-led organization of mostly Latino, Haitian, and Mayan Indian farmworkers and other low-wage workers based in Southwest Florida. They understand their work - which formally began in 2000 - as part of larger movements for economic and social justice.

Most of my donations toward Causes will be going toward purely local organizations. However, the local supporters of the SFA and CIW have been very active and productive in this cause for several years now, and I want to support their local work in the service of a broader social justice cause. Their work has offered concrete material support for the SFA and CIW while also inspiring local people, especially young people, to get involved in this and other solidarity work. Solidarity with working people in other regions is very important, and these local organizers are leading the effort to ensure that our food and services aren't brought to us through the exploitation of workers in other regions.

If you're fortunate enough to have money in your pocket after you've paid for food, shelter, utilities, and so on, consider making a donation to Student/Farmworker Alliance, either by attending Jam for Justice or contacting local organizers Erica Dodt [ erica@sfalliance.org ] and Katie Lenza [ ktlenza@gmail.com ]. You can also contact them if you would prefer to get involved by volunteering, participating in future events, etc. They've done some great work for the cause, but that work will only reach its full potential with proper support from people like you.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for any support you can send their way!

This week, I'm making a donation to Food Works.

http://eatsouthernillinois.org/

Food Works was formed to draw attention to local food, local farmers, and issues of social and environmental health. Their mission is “Local, sustainable food systems development for Southern Illinois.”

I'm a really big fan of local foods and local food systems. Here are just a few reasons why: