By Bob Banner
Even though we covered Impeachment (of both Cheney and Bush) in the last issue, I became very concerned that there has not been a dialogue about genuine healing of soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. It’s almost as if Vietnam never happened. The New York Times did a series of articles unveiling the report of 121 soldiers who have returned from Iraq and became involved in shootings and murders of close friends, spouses and associates. Granted, it’s always important to expose and unveil what has been unspoken. But to not report on the healings is unconscionable. Edward Tick, Ph.D, author of War and the Soul, has dedicated himself to exploring genuine healings for US soldiers returning from war areas. In this issue, we have excerpted a portion of the speech he gave at Bioneers last October. We also commissioned a story of a collective healing pilgrimage to Vietnam lead by Thich Nhat Hanh.
I had a semi epiphany. I realized I could actually give assignments to eager writers and reporters. This may seem pretty bizarre to some of you but when you are working with not much money, paying for material is an extravagance. Well, extravagant I became and started giving assignments left and right. In this issue we include stories about CodePink’s new tactic, Diane Wilson’s appearance on the central coast, a brief story about a new version of Pope: The Musical, more info about the Institute for Sustainable Living, the permaculture design course coming up, the Strauss Family Creamery, Nature’s Touch in Templeton, Peoples’ Self-Help affordable housing in SLO, a report about the new SLO investigative journalism’s website Uncovered SLO, the GreenHome Galleria and MadeinSLO storefront, Understanding the Current Financial Meltdown a report on the latest Eco Farm conference, a report on how Nestles buys up towns for their water, summarizing a NYT’s report about meat eating, linking animal agriculture to enviro concerns... and of course we hired a envir freelancer to cover water-restoration-master Jonathan Todd’s 2 day stint on the central coast. We had other reports lined up but they will have to wait for next issue. I got out of control! The columns are here and we added a new one by Larry Santoyo; the one by Daniel Pinchbeck is still in process. Book Reviews will continue next issue.
And films! I figured we are screening close to 10 films a month in 3-4 cities. We are expanding to cities other than SLO, but in Santa Barbara we might have to close shop. And we need money, especially since we are expanding. Now that we have increased our monthly hits on the website to almost 200,000, we have hired people to expand into the new market of social networking, new website design, and creating e-Newsletters, and seriously transitioning more and more from print to the website. When we ask filmgoers if they came because of something they read in the printed version of HopeDance, the answers have reached an all time low in SLO. In Santa Barbara it has been a consistent zero. If you are excited about reading this, if you wish for this to continue, if you need a publication and films to present your viewpoints, if you wish for others to know about these matters since you sense an urgency all around us, then please send us some of those green bills in the form of checks, money orders or via paypal at our website. We have 17 listservs all for free, we have a readership of close to 30,000 in 3 counties who pick up the paper for free, we have an excellent website that has free access to all the articles, we charge minimally for the films we screen, we have over 500 films at our film library where we charge a reasonable rent. Our advertising rates have not changed in about 8 years...
And since sustainability and being green is becoming more and more popular in mainstream media we need to keep playing the edge, especially the edge that is inclusive of sustainability AND social justice AND spiritual work AND working to create a strong vibrant Local and Living Economy.
Bob Banner
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