Listen to Nici Peper and you'll know why she won the title of Minneapolis's most authentic artist at the Wholly Guacamole contest. Whether performing solo, as part of Firefly, with The Big Smooch, or in other configurations, Nici radiates. Titles like indie, Americana, folk, etc, do not capture the reality of this love-based, Lutheran-raised, intense and deep woman who delights in performing in rowdy dive bars.
David HB Drake has deep Wisconsin roots, and deep knowledge of Wisconsin's music, wonderfully exhibited in his Wiscon-Sing history of the state's music. His decades of endeavors have included his years dancing with the Milwaukee Ballet & Betty Salamun's Dance Circus, and serving as shantyman on the tall ship, HMS Bounty. He leads music & worships with the Congregation of the Great Spirit.
Scott MacLeod is founder & president of World University and School (WUaS), an effort to make a high-quality, versatile, free education available to all who desire it, via the Internet. Drawing on wiki technology and with a tremendous supply creative commons-licensed open courseware from MIT & Yale, WUaS is launching its first 4-year class this fall. This project aims to make the education and learning available in a vast number of languages, eventually all languages from all countries - always free to the student. While the vision is breath-taking and the goals lofty, the plan draws on established and tried tools, and overlapping projects like Stanford Online High School and other ground-breaking implementations.
Featured Music:
It's time for a super-charged, profoundly-rooted, sustainable and transformative revolution, and Chris Moore-Backman has an inspired take on the needed way forward. He is the author The Gandhian Iceberg: A Nonviolence Manifesto for the Age of the Great Turning, loaded with thoughts, words, and images which will radically enrich the path of all who read it. Chris has a couple decades experience with nonviolent action and training, most recently with an emphasis on efforts to end the age of mass incarceration.
A vital part of improving the world is organizing people by getting the word out, which is the work of The Progressive Populist and its editor/founder, Jim Cullen. The populist movement and it's message prioritizing people over corporations has be transforming this country since the 1880's, and continues to do so today.
Email populist@usa.net or call 800-205-7067 for your free sample copy. The magazine is produced in Manchaca, Texas, and printed/distributed in Storm Lake, Iowa.
J.E. Sunde is a sensitive, creative, inspired singer/songwriter who combines the influences of the folk greats of earlier generations with the broad indie canvass of his own. Currently a resident of the Twin Cities, J.E. does solo work now after 10 years with The Daredevil Christopher Wright.
We care about & for that which we know, so B.J. Hollars leads us into Flock Together: A Love Affair with Extinct Birds. While captivating & enjoyable, B.J. also narrates a story that is deeply compelling in how we live in relationship to our world. He is founder of Chippewa Valley Writers Guildand associate professor of English at UW-Eau Claire.
Among his other books:
Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence and the Last Lynching in America
Opening the Doors: The Desegregation of the University of Alabama and the Fight for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa
Students of higher education have valuable knowledge & skills to offer to organizations outside of school walls, and rural areas can provide real-life opportunity & experience to such students, while helping bridge the town-gown gap. Nicholas Holton is co-editor of The Landscape of Rural Service Learning & What It Teaches Us All, and Eva Hagenhofer is a contributor, both with decades of experience in the field and active with The Rural Alliance for Service Learning.
Another valuable resource for campus civic engagement is Campus Compact.
The Landscape of Rural Service Learning was co-edited by Randy Stoecker, Nicholas Holton, and Charles Ganzert.
Ash Kyrie spent 18 months serving the USA as a Wisconsin National Guardsperson sent to Iraq, and it changed him. The road home to fullness includes time with other vets, support from family & community, and a long peace march in Japan, plus lots of subsequent Japanese connections. And art that helps bridge the gap from soldier to civilian, and war zone to back home.
Watch a few videos, including a slideshow with narrative of Japanese peaceworkers Ash has met, and a walk-through of several of Ash's art projects related to understanding war, and a video about Ash's OSU MFA Thesis exhibition.