• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

North of CeNter WEdnesdAy, NOVEMBER 4, 2009 Free tAkE home and read VOlume I, IssuE 13 Lex. refugees in Silver Creek to the Great Recession Camp Nelson Is the American promise a reality? 3 Days on the Kentucky River, part 2 By Beth Connors-Manke After I finished that article, I sat By Troy Lyle night sky. One filled with many more wondering why it seemed natural to stars and planets, and a Milky Way, not In August, I began a series on refu- end by citing “the New Colossus.” Morning on Silver Creek to mention a moon of such immensity gees in lexington. In my first install- Obviously, the poem is attached to the there’s nothing like the smell of a few of us lost sleep. ment, I looked at the work of kentucky American icon of immigration and coffee and bacon in the morning. Refugee Ministries. the piece ended beckons to refugees who have been though the morning’s coffee Slipping Back Into the Silver by invoking the famous sonnet on the oppressed and ill-used. But why, when tasted a bit funny from my new perco- It didn’t take any of us long to break statue of liberty written by Emma we think about refugees, don’t we her- lator—like most things, the percolator down camp, repack the kayaks and canoe lazarus: ald the declaration of Independence or needed to be broken in before hitting and get back on the water. I was first the Constitution, the documents that its stride—the bacon was something in my dirigo. I paddled slightly ahead “Give me your tired, your poor, assure political and personal freedom? else. thick sliced and perfectly sea- and, while filling my bowl, floated upon Your huddled masses yearning to breathe Why is it the sympathetic Mother of soned. Otter had brought it back from three deer—a doe and two fawns—who free Exiles rather than the tenets of democ- his father’s farm in dixon, ky. As he had walked right up to the edge of the The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. racy that we trumpet? put it, “the hog was free ranged, fed creek for a good morning drink. they Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, One answer is that the image of the only corn and vegetables, no slop or didn’t mind the smoke rings I playfully I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Mother of Exiles is human and com- hormone boosted feed.” blew into the treetops, nor my foul forting while the Bill of Rights doesn’t you could taste the difference. the breath. I was an integral part of the river the poem, entitled “the New qualify as warm and fuzzy. true. One entire life of this hog was painstak- bottom now, one of the regulars. I felt Colossus,” sets a contrast between the may also be tempted to believe that ingly monitored so our morning’s sow- like their prodigal son being welcomed old and rich-with-tradition culture of America really is the Mother of Exiles belly reached maximum succulence. back to a kentucky River I had all but Europe and a more pragmatic, wel- to those who seek her shores; those in It all had purpose, right down to the forgotten in recent years. coming America. the poem rejects a that camp may find the sonnet an art- attentive butchering done by local Next came Otter and Pack. last “brazen giant of Greek fame” that stri- ful commemoration of the spirit of the Amish. Add in some locally harvested was Rush. After knocking clumps of dently conquers land after land in favor nation. eggs and bread, cooked in the remnant mud from our feet, the result of our of the “Mother of Exiles.” Just before As I’ve been working on this refu- bacon grease, and we ate like kings. hasty scramble down the mucky banks asking for tired, poor, and huddled gee series, I’ve been trying to under- masses, the Mother of Exiles declares, stand what the u.s. offers to refugees. “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” does America really give sympathy to the implication is that America has the temptest-tost? does the u.s. extend the ability to assimilate those who have its most prized possessions—political been expelled by more rigid cultures, freedom and economic stability—to cultures that eliminate the unwanted those who arrive on its shores? does rather than absorbing them into the life of the nation. continued on page 3 Bank funds MTR Demonstration aims to get people to close JPMorgan Chase accounts By Danny Mayer banks to get them to publicly urge their corporate headquarters in New DANNY MAYER Friday, October 30 york City to quit funding mountain Main Street top removal, and for bank-holders to Taking a breath just past Lock 9 on the Kentucky River. withdraw their funds from these banks Before should they fail to do so. About the time that the coffee of our campsite, we assembled at the 1:23 P.M. I am maybe fifteen yards here in lexington, the twenty and bacon smells saturated our sur- mouth of the silver for our morning behind them leaving from Phoenix demonstrators arriving to the bank rounding silver Creek campsite, Rush smoke fest. there’s nothing like being Park, but I am already on the Chase side several yards before me were about to returned from his morning jaunt. he high in the early morning at the junc- of the street, so really only a couple yards sit in front of Chase for three hours on awoke daily before any of the rest of tion of small and big bodies of water behind, at most. they number twenty, this windy fall day not just for reasons us and took long walks around the merging together. the rush of blood maybe, though more are on their way of awareness, but for reasons of action. fields and bluffs around our campsites. to the head, the awakening of the soul, once class lets out. In five minutes time, I found out this backstory when I having slept wrapped in a tarp and teases the mind, relaxes it. some will be sitting on the downtown bumped into Marty Mudd, a physics a sleeping bag seemingly purchased Acclimated to the wild after a night steps of J.P. Morgan Chase Bank, their graduate student at UK who was sta- in the 1970s, he could only manage of sleep, we each broke rank and paddled arms entwined; others will be holding tioned at Chase a little after 1:00 P.M. about 5 hours a night. to make mat- at our own pace, finding our individual up signs for passing automobiles. that Friday. he was waiting for the dem- ters worse the moon had played havoc rhythms within nature. Out front once “they” are largely a group of stu- onstrators to arrive from where they with him. As Rush put it, “that moon again, something deep within me began dent or student-age activists standing were gathering at Phoenix Park, ideally was intense…I was actually colder once to stir. For the first time in nearly 10 and sitting in front of Chase Bank in so that any other late-arriving demon- it went down…like it was radiating heat years I felt the call of the wild. I felt downtown lexington. they are here strators (or, as it turns out, journalists) or something.” a strong urge to paddle right out into together as part of a larger national would know where things would be the intensity of the night sky was the unknown forever. to a land that I day of action to call attention to—and taking place. he was going to withdraw something we all noted during our tilled, sowed and feed myself upon; to to stop—the practice of Mountain top funds from his account once the dem- breakfast meal. It’s amazing how many a small home I built from cedar posts Removal (MtR), a brutal and destruc- onstration began and hoped to meet more stars are visible when you get out- and mud; to a place where I hunted for tive practice of extracting coal that with a regional manager in the office. side city limits, outside the confines deer and turkey and fished for crappie has systematically managed to destroy he had started a list of names to get of light pollution. It is estimated that and trout; to a world that functioned the ecological, socio-cultural, and eco- pledges from other Chase bank custom- within a city the size of lexington, on some ancient circadian rhythm, in nomic landscapes of, among other ers to withdraw their funds. It was a bril- some 50 percent or more of the night harmony with itself and the land. places, large swaths of kentucky lying liant move. hit the fuckers in the only sky is lost in the glow of a sleeping city. In truth, I wanted to be harlan 100 miles east of here. place they care about: their bank vaults. And in maximum light areas such as hubbard. I had read how he and his Other people like themselves, in It was also a move with a his- downtown, that number can increase wife, Anna, spent 34 years living off a places like seattle and san Francisco tory: two decades ago, as our national to as high as 65 percent. At 65 percent riverbank on the Ohio River by tend- and Phoenix and huntington and government and many corporations you can barely make out the North ing goats, gardening, canning, fishing, Charleston, also gathered in front of located in the u.s.

Load more

  8

Copy Link