Local News Roundup

Maine Veterans for Peace meeting last Thursday

• National Veterans for Peace (VFP) activist/leader Tarak Kauff was in Maine this past week and came to our VFP meeting in Augusta.  I also got to spend time with him while in New York City last weekend.  It is always fun to be with Tarak and we did some brainstorming about organizing the national VFP project called 'Peace at Home, Peace Abroad'.  He taught MB and I a new card game that we'll be playing in the days ahead.  He is not in the photo above because he and another person were taking photos of us. 

Our VFP delegation in New York City peace march last weekend

• Also visiting at the same time was Jason Rawn (in top photo back row, 2nd from left) who just returned from a six-week peace walk that started on the west coast and ended up in New York City at the Peace & Planet protest to the United Nations last Sunday.  Jason is a key organizer in our next Maine Peace Walk (tentative date October 9-22) that will start in Ellsworth and end up in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  The theme will be the militarization of the seas and our route will be straight down US 1 along the coast.  Jason and I will drive the walk route the week after next to start mapping it all out.  (Our next walk planning committee meeting will be here in Bath on May 23.  Starts at noon with a pot luck lunch.  All are invited.) Jason is also going with us to Kyoto, Japan for the Global Network's 23rd annual space organizing conference at the end of July.

• MB and I are heading south today to Biddeford, Maine to listen to friend Richard Rhames play with his band at the Veterans Alliance.  He told me they might have to play more country than rock since this is a more conservative crowd.  I've been wanting to see brother Rhames in action for a long time and finally get the chance.  He was my last interview on my TV show This Issue.  Richard plays guitar and is the lead singer.  Going to be a real treat.

• Next weekend I am back on the train heading to New Jersey for the United National AntiWar Coalition convention.  I'll be on a plenary panel talking about Ukraine and then I'll do a workshop on the same theme.  Of course I will tie in the Pentagon's cancerous NATO expansion and deployments of 'missile defense' along the Russian border as key reasons for the coup d'etat and civil war.  I'll be rooming with long-time South Florida friend Will Van Natta.  Back in 1997 when I was organizing the Cancel Cassini Campaign (space mission with 72 pounds of deadly plutonium-238 on-board) it was Will the lifeguard that swam many miles in the ocean to oppose the launch.  He was a big hit with the media and his action helped us take that issue to the public.  See more about the conference here

• We had two cords of green wood delivered last week and I need to start stacking it soon.  Yesterday I spent alot of time on YouTube learning about round wood piles - in German Holz Hausen - which are really beautiful and take up alot less space.  So this is my goal and we'll see how well it turns out.