Change

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Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels.com

My daughter was looking at my Instagram the other day at the little bio section. It says:

“Mama<3 Home Educator<3 Advocate<3 Christian<3”

“Advocate? Advocate for WHAT?” in the way only 15yo girls can say it. I told her I advocate for lots of things, as the situation arises. Healthy eating, reducing the stigma around mental health issues, home education, literacy, history education, wild mustangs, adoption issues, foster care, sustainable and native gardening practices… the list goes on and on.

Have you ever come across a situation where things were wrong, and change was needed? Did you know what to do to help bring the change? Today I’d like to talk about how to advocate for change, for any kind of change, really but particularly one in the public arena, a social or political change.

Take a Look at Yourself

I think the first and arguably most important thing is to look at yourself. Is the way you are living your life in line with the change you want to see? If not… now is the time to make that happen. Maybe that means you stop using Round Up weed killer and use a salt an vinegar mixture instead. Maybe it means you need to start being kind to people who you suspect have a mental health challenge. Maybe it means you carry water bottles in your car and start giving them out when someone asks you for a cash handout. The point is, you want your life to represent what happens when the change has been made so your words and actions match.

Find Like Minded People

Next step is to look around and find like minded people and get together with them. Learn from them and figure out how you fit in with them. One example from my own experience right now is advocating for wild mustangs. I started out just ogling some of the fantastic photography online of wild mustangs and a rescue group that returns the mustangs to health and wide open spaces. When I was perusing these sites I learned about the problems facing the mustangs, a broken horse adoption system, corrupt Bureau of Land Management practices, and I became very motivated to see change in these areas.

I’d love to be able to run a 10k acre ranch and rescue mustangs myself– it would be a dream come true. I’d love to be able to spend days and weeks out on the open range working on my photography skills and taking pictures of these magnificent beasts to raise awareness.

Unfortunately my plot of land is only a 10’x50′ suburban backyard barely big enough for my yappy little dogs– no room for a large animal no matter how much I love them. My time and attention are taken up with home educating my wonderful children, while they wouldn’t mind me taking off for the wild places and skipping school, it might become a problem at dinner time or when someone needs a ride to sports practice. So, what can I do, that would actually help?

Speak Up!

One thing I can do, and anyone can do really with the internet, is to speak up and let your voice be heard. If its a social or political issue, you can contact your government representatives, who, through making laws and fiscal oversight can have a tremendous impact. In the example about the mustangs, congress funds the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and sets their goals. If the people at the BLM are corrupt, congress is the one to investigate and clean it up, and change the needed policies. The only way your elected officials would know you care is if you contact them.

https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

When you contact them, it is important to be thoughtful and offer evidence and information. No one will respond positively to threats or cursing.

Another avenue of action is to write letters to the editor or opinion pieces to be published online or in print newspapers. By providing information and persuasive reasons why the change is needed, you can motivate even more people to align their personal behavior with the change that is needed, and to speak up and let their voice be heard.

https://www.theopedproject.org/submissions

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is this…. many people feel like our world, our country and our individual lives are spinning out of control, right now. They feel like their voices are not being heard, and that everything is becoming more polarized and vicious. But there is a way out. We can use the tools given to us by the illustrious founders of our country, and speak up politely, thoughtfully, clearly and persistently until the change that is needed actually come to pass. I hope you will join me in advocating, and being the change that is needed.

It’s all in the Atmosphere!!!!

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Photo by Ylanite Koppens on Pexels.com

“When the atmosphere encourages learning, the learning is inevitable.” –Elizabeth Foss

“Education is an atmosphere—that is, the child breathes the atmosphere emanating from his parents; that of the ideas which rule their own lives” (Charlotte Mason in Parents and Children, p. 247).

#MotivationMonday

McCullough Peaks BLM Makes No Sense

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“Wild Horses, grassland” by The Bureau of Land Management/ CC0 1.0

McCullough Peaks BLM is currently conducting a gather of wild horses, and none of it makes sense. The BLM published a “plan” to gather 35 wild horses under the age of 5 years. And the plan started on November 27th and was to be completed six weeks before the foaling season starts, which is February 1st. And yet here we are on March 2 and they are still operating the bait trapping stations, and say they will operate until March 15th. So far they have removed 13 young horses and 2 older horses while BLM representatives block the roads and access for anyone who wants to observe the process.

Removing the 2 older horses makes no sense because this gather is supposed to be focused on younger horses, under 5yo. The 15 yo band stallion known on the range as San Jose was removed along with his 14 yo mare, known as Wind Winglet or Black Beauty. These horses are older and as such they are usually harder to adopt, and harder to “domesticate” and often end up in long term holding by the BLM or as failed adoptions sent to kill pens. Why such a senseless removal, that goes against their stated plan?

As senseless as this is, there is more, much more that makes no sense

According to the H-4700-1  WILD HORSES AND BURROS MANAGEMENT HANDBOOK (Public), Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management p 56  policy says a female horse is a “mare” on January 1 the year after her birth, and they are gathering foals 4-6 months old and listing them as “mares”. Nowhere else is a female horse under 4 years old called a mare. A foal is newborn to 12 months, a yearling is between 12 and 24 months and a horse remains a filly or colt until they are mature at 4 years old. A mare is a female horse, typically one that is breeding age (4 yrs and up). By BLM logic a week old baby could be considered a “mare” if she was born in late December.

Of the first 13 horses gathered from McCullough Peaks this year there are 4 foals, 3 yearlings, and 6 under 4 years of age. Why would the BLM have a policy to change the established language referencing the age of young horses? What, exactly, are they concealing?

Kat Ballou, a yearling but listed as a mare by the BLM in their records, was one of the first horses removed from McCullough Peaks, and she is dead now from acute head and neck trauma, according to a report from the Bureau of Land Management.  Kat Ballou had been separated from her mother and left unattended overnight with three other young horses who were also removed from their mothers and somehow sustained head and neck trauma and died right there in the BLM pen, alone and unobserved. This negligent treatment of federally-protected wild horses must not be allowed to continue.The BLM took only a few days to “investigate” and decided that they followed all their policies and did nothing wrong… Kat Ballou was just an oopsie and no need to change anything or look further.

Well that’s something, all right. They don’t follow their own policies. They change words to make themselves look better or conceal their real actions. They don’t allow outside observation of their operations. Young horses, a Federally protected species, are dying at the hands of the very agency charged with protecting them. Wyoming officials are well known to be anti-wild horse and burro, and very very hard nosed in their stance on these issues. My conclusion is that The Bureau of Land Management is corrupt and apparently beholden to private ranching interests, as that is who will benefit when the wild horses are gone.

As a voter, tax payer and human being, I am asking you and your colleagues to stop the out of control BLM by putting an immediate halt to the McCullough Peaks bait trap operation, return the still living horses who have been removed, and use the appropriate congressional oversight to investigate the corrupt BLM. Do it now, while we still have wild horses at McCullough Peaks, an iconic symbol of freedom, and the American West.

Sincerely,

Kristen Claussen {Sent to my representatives today)

I Remember

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I will never forget. I slept in that day, and got up feeling good. I had some extra time so I did something unusual and turned on the TV to see what was on. I knew it was going to be a good day.

And then I saw something I couldn’t believe was real… I didn’t believe my own eyes at first, but this was no movie. Real people jumping out of skyscrapers. Planes crashing into buildings. The whole world collapsing. Fear. Sorrow. Pride in my people who stood up under such terrible circumstances. Pain for all those who still carry the consequences of that day.

I can’t forget because it is seared into my heart and mind. I will always remember September 11th.

Just call me SparkyMom

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“Education Is Not the Filling of a Pail, But the Lighting of a Fire”

-William Butler Yeats

One of the first quotes on education to inspire me, Education is not the filling of a bucket but the lighting of a fire, has often been attributed to William Bulter Yeats, one of my favorite poets. Apparently there is some controversy over who actually said this, but the truth contained in the quote is undeniable. Education should light them up, not just fill them up with facts.

Some interesting perspectives from Psychology Today:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dont-delay/200805/education-is-not-the-filling-pail-the-lighting-fire

#MotivationMonday

What’s your goal, anyway?

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“The question is not, — how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education — but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?”
― Charlotte Mason, School Education: Developing A Curriculum

For years now I’ve had this quote on a note card hanging over my desk or tucked into a book as a reminder to myself every day of why I am spending all this time and effort to educate my kids myself instead of sending them off to school somewhere. I want them to not just have knowledge, but to know how to get more knowledge about any subject they want. I want them to have ideas, and really think and be able to connect their ideas and to find joy and excitement in their ideas. I want their lives to be full, so their education needs to be full as well. ❤ #MotivationMonday

Vets of the Afghanistan War– Please Read

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A statistic I read earlier…. 70% of the Afghan population are under 18 years of age, and that means they lived their whole lives under US occupation. Girls were being educated, men lived freer lives, elections were held, access to electricity went from a tiny fraction of the population to 97% during this time. Afghanistan even had athletes at the Tokyo Olympics. We made a real and tangible difference in the lives of the people in Afghanistan. 

The political stupidity that is happening now can never take away from the difference we made in those lives, and neither can the horrors the Taliban use to try to suppress the people. I pray for the Afghani people to be able to stand up under the crushing pressure, and for the rest of the world to have the courage to do the right thing by them, and our military vets to be able to see the real difference they made both for the Afghan people, and for our country as well by rooting out Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and reducing the threat of terrorism on our shores.

For more information: https://www.military.com/daily-news/opinions/2021/08/17/amid-complicated-emotions-over-afghanistan-veterans-should-remember-impact-of-their-service.html?fbclid=IwAR1HteK8YjXihQkLi0NtZnYXoX0rI3GeySBwn7LD2LvtUWIvtpDtOtXVOM0

Independence Day

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I wrote this in 2020, while in lock down and observing the rioting and racial unrest in my country, It breaks my heart to see all the problems, but my prayer is the same, if not more fervent now as it was then.

July 4th– Independence Day we celebrate this amazing document that was the first of it’s kind in history. For the first time a group of people decided to take a stand for this important truth– all people are created in the image of God, are of equal worth and value, and have the same right to life, freedom, and to pursue happiness. It wasn’t perfect by a long shot but it was the a significant step in the right direction. Since that time Americans haven’t always done right by these high ideals…. Ending slavery, ending racial discrimination, women’s rights, etc have been too slow to come. BUT they have come in large measure, and more are coming. Truth has been on the march since 1776. We aren’t done yet, and we won’t stop until we all can live in these truths… All men (and women) are created equal. It might not be until we are in heaven, literally, but, God willing, we will continue moving in the right direction together as one people, under God.

This 4th of July my prayer is that we don’t lose sight of our past, and how we got here. Our path forward and our goal only makes sense when we can see where we started and how far we have come and have yet to go.

Witold Pilecki – story of a Polish Resistance Fighter

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This incredibly brave man is one of the first to speak the truth about the horrors of the Nazi camps. A real hero in every sense of the word.

Jonas Salk

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We have come a long way from Dr.Salk’s vaccine, what an amazing man!

A snapshot biography of Jonas Salk