Equinox Earth Day March 19

Just Do Something Even if it is just talking to your Pet Goldfish!

To Aradhana Airwaves Readers,

Equinox Earth Day, the original Earth Day based on the Economics of Peace of Henry George of “share the earth” fame is fast approaching this Tuesday, March 19th. I am compiling a list of events being held worldwide on all five continents. You still have time to DO SOMETHING to spread the word that The Earth Belongs to Everyone and how we can shift tax policy off of work and the good things that people do and onto the community created “commons rent.”

Here is what my friend Ginger just wrote:

From Ginger Metraux in Florida: My Equinox Earth Day Event is shaping up with a few people meeting in my backyard under the trees, enjoying a pot luck, and a Native American invocation, me talking about the land/tax thing and also how the corporations have taken over the environmental movement, essentially removing the love of nature from it and turning it into a fear-based climate change agenda and population control with the focus on carbon capture - kaching! I hope everyone will be able to handle me!
Then I'll share about how to use the power of the equinox and lead people on a meditation to envision a beautiful future for themselves and the earth.
Of course, I'll also ring a bell and have a moment of silence for peace.
The two people I've met here in Gainesville are both enthusiastically helping me on this. It will be a pretty sunny day in the mid-60's, possibly our last cool front of the season. I'm sharing all of this because until a couple of days ago, I didn't think I would be able to do anything at all on Tuesday. But now, it looks like something!

Here is the program of what some of us are doing on March 19th, please share this with your friends in New York and warmly urge them to come join us!

Equinox Earth Day March 19^th Program New York Invitation and Registration

Building an Economics and Culture of Peace

This is a free in-person event but pre-registration is required.              

Please register on Event Brite only if you can attend in person.                                                          

Register on Event Brite here: https://www.hgsss.org/equinox-earth-day/

Please arrive promptly by start time and bring with you a brown-bag lunch and a bell if you have one.

Venue: The Henry School of Social Science, 149 E. 38^th St. NY 10016 (Between Lexington and Third Ave.)

9:30 – Door opens. You will be welcomed with the live music of Ean Valte.

10:00 – Mary Carlin, Earth Society Foundation, on the original Earth Day (equinox) and the “earth rights” economics of peace of Earth Day founder John McConnell. Short video presentation produced by Henry George School educator Ed Dodson.

Music interlude - “The Earth is Our Home, It’s Where We Live”

10:30 – Climate and the UN Sustainable Development Goals – Who controls? Who pays?

Environmental and earth rights economists Marty Rowland and Polly Cleveland followed by Q and A, moderated by Ibrahima Drame, Henry George School Education Director

11:15 – Predator and Prey – The New York City Housing Crisis

Cherokee Black and Ed Lee (djelf7) will tell us about current and ongoing urgent struggles against evictions and for the basic right to shelter. Several respondents affiliated with the Henry George School will share the earth rights perspective on housing and land rights, problems and solutions.

12:00 – Open Microphone focus on housing and earth rights.

12:30 - Lunch break begins with an invocation by Rev. Yolanda Brown followed by song “Let It Be” and a recording of a composition by Richard Shulman titled Spring Equinox Piano Meditations.

Morning Moderator is Alanna Hartzok.

1:30 – Amazing Amy performs her “Yoga Equinox Earth Day Dance” contortionist act with the accompaniment of musician Ean Valte.

1:45 – Earth Rights Democracy and the Economics of Peace

Elizabeth Gould shares the “magical mystical” life journey of she and her husband Paul Fitzgerald from Afghanistan to Ireland, insights into the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and their “eureka” discovery of the political economics of Henry George.

Mitchell Cohen will focus on the war in Ukraine with a particular focus on land and resource grabbing and within the context of his decades of experience in environmental and peace activism in New York.

Lilian Calvache will talk about Colombia, South America, a land of rich history and diverse landscapes. In "Roots of Change: Unearthing Colombia's Land Problem and Cultivating Earth Rights Solutions" she will delve into the intricate tapestry of Colombia's land distribution and taxation and its profound societal impacts.

Music interlude – Sing along of Imagine with keyboardist Rick Ulfik. 

Quisia Gonzalez will speak on Human Rights, Earth Rights, Trauma and Love from the perspective of many indigenous people.

Alanna Hartzok will present an “earth rights democracy” perspective and narrative via a series of Economics of War and Peace charts.

Moderator Bruce de Torres will read original poems and highlight selected writings of the Economics of Peace panelists.

3:15– Music performance by bassist Ean Valte

3:25 – Where to from here? – Rick Ulfik envisions possibilities for expanding the earth rights democracy movement through working with his vibrant worldwide organization We, the World.

3:35 - Open Microphone for remaining time.

Closing Remarks - Let’s Go!!! Live Music Send-Off!

Speaker and Performer Bios:

Cherokee Black as an actor was trained to “know that conflicts create drama while creating relationships is the heart of acting that is basic and essential. My entire journey has been in preparation leading me to my destiny which is to write, act, produce and direct.” Cherokee has had many magnificent teachers and mentors including Michael Shurtleff. See: https://www.facebook.com/cherokeeblackactress/

Rev. Yolanda Brown is an ordained Pastor, author, public speaker and prophetic voice of economic empowerment. She launched Imani’s Quest Ministries with the mission to revitalize and renew communities through self-sufficiency and sustainability. With a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the State University of New York, Rev. Brown has parlayed her professional financial experiences into a mission to effect change to communities in Texas, Chicago, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York. She advocates community transformation strategies that incorporate various components – from sports and recreation centers to affordable housing, small business and workforce development, financial literacy training and community banking. Her Linked-In page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rev-yolanda-brown-964487a9

Lilian Calvache is an international project manager from Colombia holding a Master's degree in International Business from EUDE Business School in Madrid, Spain. Her international journey has equipped her with a global perspective and business management skills. Her passion for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), cultural intelligence, social responsibility, sustainable development, travel, and photography intertwine with her work and dedication to humanitarian and environmental causes. Lilian has also assisted in the translation of the writings of Henry George into Spanish.

Mary Carlin has worked for several high-end corporations and also for many decades has served as a leader of the Earth Society Foundation founded by John McConnell and Margaret Mead in 1976. She has played a key role in organizing numerous Earth Day programs centered around ringing the Peace Bell at the United Nations at the exact moment of the Spring Equinox. Mary plays several string, flute and other instruments.

https://earthsocietyfoundation.org

Mary M. (Polly) Cleveland, Ph.D. is an economist focusing on wealth distribution and a long-time activist for social justice. Her blog, "Econamici," also appears on the Dollars & Sense website. She serves on the Dollars&Sense board. From fall 2007, through fall 2016 she was Adjunct Professor of Environmental Economics at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), where she taught a course on "Poverty, Inequality and the Environment." From 1969-1971, she worked for Ralph Nader investigating the power of large landholders in California. Through this she encountered the ideas of the great nineteenth-century American economist and reformer, Henry George. George attributed the persistence of poverty in the midst of economic growth to concentrated ownership of land and other natural resources. He advocated taxing the "rent" of land as a remedy. Her website includes her 2014 article on "Sustainability Squared" and the final draft  of her 2020 AJES article on "Homelessness and Inequality". Website: https://mcleveland.org/bio.html

Mitchel Cohen is the coordinator of the No Spray Coalition against pesticides. He's authored such books as The Fight Against Monsanto's Roundup: The Politics of Pesticides, What Is Direct Action?, An American in Revolutionary Nicaragua, and a series of widely distributed pamphlets under the aegis of "Zen-Marxism". Mitchel was a co-founder of the Red Balloon Collective at SUNY Stony Brook in 1969 and of the Brooklyn Greens / Green Party 25 years later and also chaired WBAI Radio’s local board. Frequently published in Counterpunch, and in Covert Action Magazine. See especially War Within the War: The Fight Over Land and Genetically Engineered Agriculture;  The World’s Most Evil Company May Lose a Few Court Fights­But Will Keep On Poisoning and Killing Millions of People with Its Carcinogenic Pesticide 'Roundup'; Environmentalists Owe an Enormous Debt to Julian Assange; How Bush Sr. Sold the Gulf War For many decades he sold his poems on New York City's subways and Brooklyn's streets, now published as One-Eyed Cat Takes Flight and The Permanent Carnival. and his latest The Rubber Stamp Man: Poems and Snippets.

Ibrahima Drame, Ph.D., is Director of Education at the Henry George School of Social Science. Prior to this, he held several research positions at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. He has an advanced degree in law (DEAG) from the Faculté des Sciences Juridiques et Économiques, Université Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar (Sénégal), a master’s degree in International Environmental Law from the University of Tsukuba (Japan) and a PhD in International Political Economy from the University of Tsukuba, and a master’s degree in information science from Touro College, New York. https://corafrika.org/en/profils/ibrahima-drame/

Dr. Quisia Gonzalez trained as a medical doctor in Brazil and is a United Nations NGO representative and Executive Council member of the International Union for Land Value Taxation. For several years she taught classes at the Henry George School of Social Science where she was also a board member of the School as well as for the Robert Schalkenbach Foundation. Quisia actively engages with her Honduran Garifuna people and other indigenous communities. She has a focus on holistic approaches to mental and physical health.

Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald, a husband and wife team, began working together as journalists in 1981 when they acquired the first visas to enter Soviet occupied Afghanistan for CBS News. They produced a PBS film (Afghanistan Between Three Worlds) and returned to Kabul for ABC Nightline. They published The Voice (2001). of Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story, (City Lights 2009), Crossing Zero The AfPak War at the Turning Point of American Empire, (City Lights 2011), The Valediction Three Nights of Desmond  (TrineDay 2021) and  The Valediction Resurrection (TrineDay 2022) and  See their website:  www.valediction.net

Amy Harlib – Amazing Amy - Eccentric Yoga Dance Entertainer, offers advanced yoga feats of flexibility, despite injuries all over her body: torn rotator cuffs in both shoulders, a disintegrated spinal disc and 2 hip replacements! At 69, she presents special theme- and character-based acts that challenge ageism and gender role stereotypes and flexibly freestyles to any genre of music live or recorded. She is a testimony to the benefits of an organic vegetarian diet, daily exercise and a healthy lifestyle. Please invite her to SPREAD THE YOGA LOVE at your event: amyharlib@e-activism.com https://www.reverbnation.com/amazingamycontortionistuniqueyogadancer

Alanna Hartzok is an earth rights visionary and a recipient of the International Earth Day Award and the Radical Middle Book Award for her book The Earth Belongs to Everyone. A former Green Party and Democratic Party candidate for Congress, Alanna initiated and guided the successful passage of tax reform legislation in Pennsylvania. She is the Administrator for the International Union for Land Value Taxation (theIU) having a focus on land value tax policy implementation projects. She enjoys playing guitar, piano and Native flute. Read her book and more here: https://theiu.org/books/ and

Ed Lee, aka “djelf7”, is a generational war victim (Korea) and survivor of revolution. He is a NYC housing and prisoner rights activist extraordinaire, a documentary producer and artist who coordinates a diverse and growing national movement. In the environmental sector he has unique testimony from people on the ground who are being used in a war between millionaires on both sides. He has unique electoral solutions to regain control. See http://tinyurl.com/PublicHousingFight and http://tinyurl.com/CorruptionPublicHousing for starters.

Martin Rowland, Ph.D. taught at Pace and Tulane Universities and has been a NASA environmental engineer, hazardous waste landfill operator, PACE University professor and NYC Parks environmental engineer. He is currently the task group leader for the American Society of Testing Materials where he is developing a standard of practices for infrastructure management as well as serving on the Sustainability Asset Management subcommittee of the ASTM. Marty is Special Editions Editor of the American Journal of Economics and Sociology and is on the board of the Henry George School of Social Sciences where he conducts classes and webinars. See: https://www.hgsss.org

Richard Shulman, keyboardist and composer, has performed at Carnegie Hall, Art Park, the UN and a wide variety of venues throughout the USA and Europe. Since Richard was not able to come to NY to perform live, a recording of his Spring Equinox Piano Meditation is included in our program.

Bruce de Torres is TrineDay Publishing’s marketing director, host of World Stage with Bruce de Torres on TNT Radio and author of God, School, 9/11 and JFK: The Lie that are Killing Us and the Truth that Sets Us Free.  As an actor he had lead roles in comedies, dramas and musicals in NYC and nationwide. As an entrepreneur he hosted hundreds of business networking meetings as he developed his marketing, sales and public speaking skills. Go to: brucedetorres.com.

Rick Ulfik is Founder of We, The World and the WE Campaign at WE.net, a global network of collaboration and action. He is Co-Creator and Principal Organizer of 11 Days of Global Unity – 11 Ways to Change The World, a platform for change agents worldwide to raise awareness and take action collectively. He co-produced  Visual Voices TV Series featured on the Dish Network and available in 15 million homes. Rick is a Nonviolent Communication workshop facilitator and an accomplished composer and musician (keyboards) who has written, produced, arranged, conducted and performed music for ABC TV, NBC TV, CBS TV, the Olympics, radio, feature films, commercials, records, other media, and for major recording artists including Queen Latifah, Phoebe Snow, Carlos Santana, Bernadette Peters and Judy Collins. See: https://we.net/founder/

Ean Valte is a talented bassist, songwriter, jazz player and a member of Carnegie Hall’s Future Music Project Ensemble. He is a graduate of The New School College of Jazz and Contemporary Music. Ean wrote “Sunshine” as a way to share his belief that a positive outlook can go a long way towards combating bigotry and hatred. See this inspiring video and more of his music on YouTube.