Usually for Spirit in Action we are talking to a person or group who are engaged in some specific world-healing work, while today We'll be talking to John Bachman and Christina Yocca, former residents of Eau Claire, currently back for a short visit, who have been living in Italy for 2 years now, which is their permanent home. Our hope is that by talking with John and Christina, we'll form a clearer view of the strengths and the weaknesses of the two different countries, and to explore the possibilities for improving the world, and ourselves, by choosing a new home.

Ken Grossinger has written a compelling new book about the synergy and power possible between art and organizing. His book is Art Works: How Organizers and Artists Are Creating a Better World Together and it brings together many social change efforts of the recent decades and the various forms of art that empowered dramatic movement toward change.

4 more artists from Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, & Wisconsin, with songs of welcoming, Dreamers, cages, & loving our neighbors.

Diya Abdo is the founder of Every Campus A Refuge, and author of American Refuge: True Stories of the Refugee Experience. Diya was herself of a Palestinian refugee family in Jordan.

Three artists share songs of compassion & connection, reaching across our borders. In this 1^st installment, Randall Adams, Peter Alsop, & Anita Aysola sing of love for caged children, love of all children, and love of a new home, while facing off with fear, division, & disconnection.

Many hands were needed to help in the transition for the immense number of Afghans that fled Afghanistan with the fall of the government there to the Taliban last year. Among those answering the call was Sahar Taman, providing legal assistance to the 13,000 Afghans located to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, last fall. The personal situations & the legal requirements were complex, demanding deeply dedicated work of both the heart and head.

Most of the talking points about the current worker shortage play to conservative messaging about lazy folks living off the government teat, but Eau Claire's own Zoe Roberts, county board representative for District 27, has writt

Leslie Davis is from Milwaukee, WI, where she is a psychologist for the state’s largest free medical clinic, providing services to principally undocumented immigrants. In 2019 Leslie Davis expanded her compassionate outreach by making 4 extended sojourns on the US-Mexican border, starting with the Dilley Detention Center in Texas, attempting to provide much-needed service from both her general energy and compassion, and also from her skills as a clinical psychologist.

Tim Reed is active with a number of protests, witnesses, and helping hands to those in pilgrimmage across the Mexico/USA border in the Las Cruces NM area. He is active with Oak Tree Project and NM CAFé (Comunidades en Acción y de Fé), protested at Tornillo Dentention tent city, and sought communication with the authorities on the border.

Across the country, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) links energies of folks like Anne Barron of the Peace Resource Center of San Diego, the Truth & Poverty Tour in San Diego, and War Tax Redirection, and Larry Bassett, the curmudgeonly, conscientious, G