Could mining help build a bridge between conservatives and liberals?

Each day now we've been seeing more and more robins. No sightings of bluebirds yet, but we expect them any day now. The picture below was taken on April 1 a couple of years ago.

Eastern bluebird's arrival, a sign of Spring

Photo by J. Harrington

This morning we took a drive South along the flooding St. Croix River through Stillwater and Bayport. This year in particular we're glad we don't have a "riverfront" house and have sympathy for those whose garage or home is under water, quite literally.

Lots of raptors heading North. Lots of leaf buds starting to burst. The skies are even blue and sunny. Spring is settling in and getting comfortable in our North Country. Spring might be helping to temper our winter-weary grumpiness and that could account for our following request. Or, maybe Minnesota's former governor makes so much sense that we have no choice but to offer this.

In case you missed it, please read the recent opinion piece in MinnPost by former Governor Carlson and Janet Entzel on Copper mining dangers: Bold leadership is needed from Walz. At the time Carlson served as governor, we were working for the Twin Cities Metro Council. We don't believe we've ever agreed with the Governor's opinion more than we concur with this paragraph:

We are led to believe that somehow mining contaminates flowing into the St. Louis River and Lake Superior are healthy, but when they move in the direction of the BWCA they become highly dangerous. We are further being told that the permitting process for the PolyMet mine was “rigorous,” but the same process is inadequate for the second mine.

As far as we're concerned, the Lake Superior Watershed, including the St. Louis river and its tributaries, is every bit as worthy of  protection as is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. We remain puzzled why the state continues to do battle, mine by mine, instead of availing itself of the recently developed international standards for responsible mining which would help further establish, based on a common, statewide set of criteria, where mining should or should not be allowed. The Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance has developed and is implementing those standards. Minnesota should incorporate them into its mine permitting requirements. Those standards aren't a panacea, but they do provide better reasons to say yes or no to a proposed project than we seem to have at the moment, We again direct you to Governor Carlson's point above.

It’s Hard to Keep a Clean Shirt Clean

By June Jordan

Poem for Sriram Shamasunder
And All of Poetry for the People

It’s a sunlit morning

with jasmine blooming

easily

and a drove of robin redbreasts

diving into the ivy covering

what used to be

a backyard fence

or doves shoving aside

the birch tree leaves

when

a young man walks among

the flowers

to my doorway

where he knocks

then stands still

brilliant in a clean white shirt

He lifts a soft fist

to that door

and knocks again

He’s come to say this

was or that

was

not

and what’s

anyone of us to do

about what’s done

what’s past

but prickling salt to sting

our eyes

What’s anyone of us to do

about what’s done

And 7-month-old Bingo

puppy leaps

and hits

that clean white shirt

with muddy paw

prints here

and here and there

And what’s anyone of us to do

about what’s done

I say I’ll wash the shirt

no problem

two times through

the delicate blue cycle

of an old machine

the shirt spins in the soapy

suds and spins in rinse

and spins

and spins out dry

not clean

still marked by accidents

by energy of whatever serious or trifling cause

the shirt stays dirty

from that puppy’s paws

I take that fine white shirt

from India

the threads as soft as baby

fingers weaving them

together

and I wash that shirt

between

between the knuckles of my own

two hands

I scrub and rub that shirt

to take the dirty

markings

out

At the pocket

and around the shoulder seam

and on both sleeves

the dirt the paw

prints tantalize my soap

my water my sweat

equity

invested in the restoration

of a clean white shirt

         

And on the eleventh try

I see no more

no anything unfortunate

no dirt

I hold the limp fine

cloth

between the faucet stream

of water as transparent

as a wish the moon stayed out

all day

How small it has become!

That clean white shirt!

How delicate!

How slight!

How like a soft fist knocking on my door!

And now I hang the shirt

to dry

as slowly as it needs

the air

to work its way

with everything

         

It’s clean.

A clean white shirt

nobody wanted to spoil

or soil

that shirt

much cleaner now but also

not the same

as the first before that shirt

got hit got hurt

not perfect

anymore

just beautiful

a clean white shirt

It’s hard to keep a clean shirt clean.

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