Holiday Gifts - Images and products

Holiday Gifts - Images and products created with my images available here:
https://sites.google.com/site/mindscapeimages/

First Snow on a Larch Bog

New Hampshire Moose Poster

“The Distant Sound of a Different Drum”

Bar the Door! We're Here.

A Marine's Pride

As most of you know by now, my ancestors on my father's side were members of the Iroquois nation. To them we are all illegals. John Kelly's remarks on NPR made me wonder what the story was behind his own family history.

Here's a useful tidbit of information. File it under: "Bar the door! I'm here!" (General) John Kelly's ancestors, who arrived in America before we began classifying immigrants as documented and undocumented, included his Great Grandfather Giuseppe Pedalino and Pedalino's second wife Concetta. (Kelly's great-grandma died in 1898.)

Giuseppe Pedalino was a wagon driver. It is unlikely that he had more than a few years of schooling but we don't know this (yet) His wife was illiterate and could not speak English 10 years after arrival.

John Kelly's maternal grandmother Teresa is shown below as a child in the 1900 census. Her father, a day laborer named John DeMarco had been here for 18 years.

He had not become a citizen.
He could not read, write, or speak English.

The 1930 census shows his great-grandparents living with their daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren, one of whom was Kelly's mother.

John DeMarco had been here for 47 years and was STILL not an American citizen ("AL"). His wife Crescenza had been here for 37 years and STILL spoke no English.

pic.twitter.com/N9AfuLNvb1

These facts tell us a number of things: 

1. In only 3 generations this immigrant family went from "the great unwashed" to the ancestors of the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States of America. That is nothing short of a true American success story.

2. General John Kelly is either completely ignorant of his own family's history or a hypocrite - I'm guessing the latter. This is less of a disappointment than his behavior in not having the courage to speak out against the treatment of John McCain at the hands of his own Whitehouse Staff but it's right up there.

A Marine's Pride
https://www.redbubble.com/people/waynedking/works/2282692-a-marines-pride

Spirit Buffalo Before a Frozen Lake

John Kelly, General, hypocrite, Chief of Staff, POTUS, President, ancestry,

Wages continue to Stagnate

If you missed my column from 2 months ago about the Hidden Time Bomb in the unemployment numbers, I am reprising it today because 3 month have passed and the numbers still show the same troubling figures. . . and they will continue to until we face up to 45 years of stagnant wage growth.

"If you ever needed proof of the disconnect between Wall Street and average folks it is the response of the Markets to the unemployment numbers from last month. Not only were markets excited with the growth in the number of people employed but they were especially excited at the lack of wage growth. Their argument was that it means that inflation is not heating up; but lets call it what it is, a continuation of nearly 50 years of stagnant wages for middle class and working class families." http://bit.ly/WageStagnation

Adopt an Image and Raise Money for Your Non Profit or Small Business

Alton Washday Expressions

Alton Washday Expressions

Produced by special request in an affordable limited edition of 100 signed and numbered originals for the good folks at the Rumney Village Store - that would be George & Sheila - a beautiful 8" x 20" signed image with a certificate of authenticity. You can purchase this original art for just $95.00 at the Rumney Village Store on Main Street in Rumney, New Hampshire. If it's too far to travel and you'd still like an original signed print, you can order it right here and we'll see to it that the Rumney Village Store gets credited - but you can save the cost of shipping by stopping by RVS and buying it directly and maybe purchasing one of their great deli offerings! or grab a copy of Sacred Trust 😉 . http://bit.ly/AltonEXP

As a way to support local businesses and nonprofits I have created this Adopt-an-Image program. If you or your nonprofit have an interest in adopting your favorite image its easy, just click here: http://bit.ly/AdoptImage 

Finding the Center

This Week's View from Rattlesnake Ridge

"A serious and substantive discussion about lowering the voting age to 16 instead of 18 is also in order. Ten other countries now permit it. In Scotland the Parliament passed the franchise to vote for 16 and 17 year-olds unanimously after successfully testing the premise during their referendum on independence."

http://indepthnh.org/2018/03/18/finding-the-center-reversing-the-hollowing-of-the-political-center-in-america/

Colors of a Pike NH Home

Restoring the American Voice

http://indepthnh.org/2018/02/14/restoring-the-american-voice-from-rattlesnake-ridge-nh/

Stinson Brook Camus Poster

Wayne King’s New Novel Echos New Hampshire’s Own Ongoing Battle Over Northern Pass

News Release

For Immediate Release

1/23/18

For more information: 603-515-6001

“Sacred Trust” Now Available in Bookstores and on Amazon

Wayne King’s New Novel Echos New Hampshire’s Own Ongoing Battle Over Northern Pass

If the cover of “Sacred Trust”, created by Mike Marland, doesn’t clue you in, it won’t take long to realize that this novel is written as a vicarious homage to New Hampshire’s own ongoing battle over the controversial “Northern Pass” project and other similar projects.

Author, former State Senator and 1994 Democratic Gubernatorial nominee Wayne D. King adroitly weaves a story with a familiar ring . . . the clash of ordinary people confronting money and power in an epic battle to protect the land they love.

“Sacred Trust” is the tale of a rollicking campaign of civil disobedience against a private powerline, pitting nine unlikely environmental patriots, calling themselves “The Trust”, against the “Granite Skyway” transmission line and its powerful, well-connected consortium of investors.

With an obvious deep fondness for both the people and the land, King weaves a fast-paced tale filled with both real and fictional stories from the political world and life in the Granite State.  In a rich tableau that includes sometimes hilarious and sometimes hair-raising stories of Senators driving North in a Southbound Interstate lane after a night of drinking at the Highway Hotel; Doctors sneaking a pregnant Llama into a hospital surgical ward for ACL surgery; A bear and a boy eating from the same blueberry patch atop Mount Cardigan as his father, the Ranger, watches helplessly from the fire tower, and more.

Among the heroes of the story is Sasha Brandt, an Iroquois woman from Canada. While hiking the Mahoosuc Range of the Appalachian Trail with her companion - a wolf named Cochise - Brandt meets Daniel Roy, a New Hampshire “boy” and now a guide and outdoorsman. After a unique first encounter they continue their trip together, eventually finding themselves camping with an unusual assortment of people including a former Olympic paddler, a conservative deer farmer, a retired spook, sidelined when he became the first US victim of Lyme disease; and an iconoclast and former Army Ranger named Thomas who lives in multiple backwoods abodes in the Great North Woods and rides a moose named Metallak – aptly named for the “Lone Survivor of the Megalloway” tribe, who in the late 1800’s was reputed to ride a moose himself.

The group quickly discovers that – despite their very broad range of ideological beliefs - they are united in their deep concern about the Consortium’s proposal to bisect the most beautiful parts of the state with massive 150 foot towers and clear cut forests for the sole purpose of transporting electricity from Canada to more affluent markets beyond its borders.  Like Oligarchs of the Gilded Age who minimized their costs by creating a legacy of polluted land and water, these modern Oligarchs stand to reap 100% of the benefits while passing off a large portion of their costs through the generations-long visual pollution of the public commons and all the economic shockwaves that result.

Determined to do more than shuffle papers and employ lawyers, the compatriots form a band of brothers and sisters - along with Cochise and Metallak. Armed with only their wits and a lot of heart they embark on a rollicking campaign of civil disobedience that would make Thoreau and Dr. King proud.

Although “Sacred Trust” is a work of fiction, King says that educators will find the novel a great classroom resource as well. Adding a new dimension and lively discussion to classes on the emergence of the renewable energy era, sustainability, and the American tradition of protest and its place in an “Era of Terrorism”.

“in the coming “Age of Electricity” “ King says, “a principal battleground will be over who controls the production and distribution of electric power. Across America today, the battle lines are being drawn. Utility companies, many in an existential battle for survival, are pitted against advocates of a new distributed energy paradigm where small, renewable power sources replace today’s large electricity generation plants.”

“Most Americans” King asserts, “notice that things are changing, but have yet to fully grasp what a sea change in life it will be for every American.”

“Sacred Trust” follows the trail of heroic citizens banding together to stop one especially egregious powerline. The citizens who stand to lose most are dead set against the project . . . but the political winds are against them. It is in this setting The Trust takes on the Consortium.

As the actions of The Trust gain traction and momentum, other citizens join in support including a wave of supporters on social media; “The Gazetteers”, a group of citizen activists writing in the style of the Federalist Papers; and journalists including one business writer who weaves together details of the historic record leading his readers through a virtual primer on the evolution of a post-carbon energy paradigm beginning with the 1972 election of Jimmy Carter and the passage of the National Energy Policy Act into which NH Senator John Durkin inserted an eight word amendment that rocked the world.

"Sacred Trust" is a hilarious and vicarious, high voltage campaign to stop the “Granite Skyway” leading the reader through the hijinks of The Trust, and the series of choices we all are currently confronted in the emerging “Age of Electricity”.

For each of the members of The Trust it is a sacred campaign fought against an impending legacy of steel towers and scarred lands - an existential threat to an entire way of life. The Trust is all that stands between the people and their worst fears . . . and they are willing to pay any price to prevail. 

                                                             

“Sacred Trust”

Paperback: 354 pages

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

ISBN-10: 1981490302

http://bit.ly/STPaper

Price: $14.95*

Sacred Trust Kindle eBook

http://bit.ly/STrust

Price: $2.99*

https://thesacredtrust.blogspot.com/

* Special discounts are available to schools, libraries, and nonprofits. Please contact 603-515-6001