The Power and Influence of Big Money

Political junkies, news hounds, concerned citizens: a course for you is coming to a location in your own home via ZOOM. ZOOM is a video conferencing platform similar to SKYPE, but better. SAGE (Seniors Achieving Greater Education) is offering “The Power and Influence of Big Money.” Co-instructors Alice Bolstridge and Nancy Roe expect lively discussion in this class about effects of big money on legislative policy and people’s lives. Selected readings from research and Alice’s book in progress will provide discussion prompts. 

Reflections of a Pacifist Private in Maine's Culture Wars
ALICE BOLSTRIDGE

The book title, Through the Eye of a Needle refers to Jesus’ warning: “It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.” The subtitle, Reflections of a Pacifist Soldier in the Culture Wars, refers to Alice’s experience as a volunteer activist for peace and justice, including but not limited to observations of the Maine legislature in the spring of 2018.

The class will review some of the most exciting and contentious events of this legislature. Partisanship, referred to as tribalism in the book, interferes with solving problems, and in this session legislators fought in court and in the Senate about how to implement the Ranked Choice Voting law passed by voters in referendum. They fought about  the bill to give Bath Iron Works a 6-million-dollar tax subsidy. And they fought fiercely about the bill to adjourn the session on schedule or to continue to work on unresolved issues. We’ll talk about how corporate power influences legislative decisions in these and other important and continuing issues: income inequality, the environment, health care, education, and other concerns that affect our daily lives.

Delivering Petitions for Ranked Choice Voting 

Maine’s ideological conflicts reflect fights going on nationally and in many cases globally. We will discuss how these issues are continuing in the 2020 elections, and we will explore possibilities for solutions to the problems.

We like participants to bring their own interests and experience of the topics into discussions. “The personal is political and vice versa.” I don’t remember who said that.  

The class is limited to 10 participants plus the 2 instructors, so if you want to take this adventure with us, here’s how:  To register for the class from wherever you are in the world, go to https://msad1.coursestorm.com/course/sage-the-power-and-influence-of-big-money?page=3.  There is a $25.00 SAGE membership fee and a $5:00 course fee which you can pay online.

Nancy will offer tutorials in the use of  ZOOM. It is easy; you don’t even have to open a ZOOM account. You only need access to a computer with a camera and a microphone, an email address, and Nancy’s simple instructions and encouragement. What is Zoom and how does it work?  See https://sitelicense.ucr.edu/files/zoom_for_instructors.pdf.

Course Schedule: Tuesdays, February 4, 11, 18, 25; 9:30- 11:30 AM.           

ZOOM tutorial dates on line: Tuesdays, January 21, 28, 2020; 9:30-10:30 and other times as needed.

Instructor bios:

• Alice Bolstridge, Ph. D., is a retired English instructor, writer, and political activist. More information at https://www.facebook.com/aliceandmoore or https://alice1938.blogspot.com/. Contact bolstridgea38@gmail.com for questions and concerns about content of the course.

• Nancy Roe is a founding member of SAGE, a member of the SAGE Board of Directors, a lifelong learner, and a ZOOM enthusiast. For ZOOM or SAGE membership concerns, contact nancyproe@gmail.com . 

VOICES IN THE NORTH COUNTRY

Voices in the North Country

Writers Symposium

Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019

1:30-4 p.m., 7-8 p.m.

UMPI Campus Center

Designed for writers, literature lovers, and general enthusiasts, the University of Maine at Presque Isle's writers symposium, Voices in the North Country, is making its return after nearly two decades. The symposium will focus on the theme Writing What You Know, with readings by local students and published writers and a panel discussion and Q&A with Maine writers. The event concludes with a Distinguished Lecture at 7 p.m. by Dr. Ted Van Alst. An UMPI alumnus, Van Alst is the Associate Professor and Director of Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University in Oregon and author of the story collection Sacred Smokes. If you're looking to hone your writing craft, meet fellow writers, or just enjoy good writing, be sure to make plans to attend this symposium!

For more information about this event, which is free and open to the public, please contact UMPI's Marketing and Communications Office at 207-768-9452 or email umpi@maine.edu.

Schedule of Events

Afternoon

1:30 p.m. Welcoming Remarks: Deborah Hodgkins, UMPI Professor of English. Melissa Lizotte, UMPI English Alum, Planning Committee Chair.

2:45-3:45 p.m. Panel Discussion, “Writing What You Know:” Alice Bolstridge, Anthony Scott, Jenny Radsma, Ted Van Alst, Kathryn Olmstead—Moderator

Evening

7-8 p.m. Distinguished Lecture, Dr. Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr.

1:35-2:30 p.m. Readings: Alice Bolstridge, Pat Karpen, Anthony Scott, Manish Pandey, Jenny Radsma, Ted Van Alst

2:30-2:45 p.m. Break, Book sales

Symposium Presenter Biographies

Alice Bolstridge is an UMPI alum and retired English teacher. Born and raised in Portage, she has published more than one hundred poems, stories, and essays in magazines and anthologies. She won the 2013 Kenneth Patchen award for Experimental Fiction for her book Oppression for the Heaven of It published by JEF Books. Her chapbook of poems, “Chance & Choice,” was published in 2015 by Finishing Line Press.

Pat Karpen graduated from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. a long time ago. She is grateful to UMPI and her professors for showing her how to take decades of jottings on scraps of paper, cocktail napkins, and the margins of newspapers and begin to try and write.

Anthony Scott teaches literature, creative writing and composition at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics, and he taught at the University of Maine at Presque Isle for a number of years. He has an MFA from Wilkes University. In addition to his chapbook, The Year Things Came Apart, his work has been published in Echoes Magazine, Upcountry Literary Journal, the Star Herald, MSSM Literary Magazine, and The Write Life. He finds the rivers and rocks, the dark spruce and white snow, all ideal settings for creating and plans to spend the rest of his life writing and teaching in northern Maine.

Manish Pandey is a sophomore at UMPI majoring in business administration. He is from Nepal and has only recently started writing fiction. His chosen story for the Voices symposium, “Threshold,” was written for his creative  writing course and revised for UMPI’s student literary journal Upcountry.

Jenny Radsma is a native of Alberta, Canada, who teaches nursing at the University of Maine at Fort Kent and writes on weekends. She is one of five women who met at a writer’s workshop and decided to continue meeting as a group dedicated to chronicling the lives of their mothers. The result was the anthology Compassionate Journey: Honoring Our Mothers’ Stories, published in 2018 by Maine Authors Publishing. Her work has appeared in The Sun, Echoes, and Goose River Anthology.

Dr. Theodore C. Van Alst, Jr. is Associate Professor and Director of Indigenous Nations Studies at Portland State University. He is coeditor and Creative Editor for Transmotion (an open-access journal of postmodern indigenous studies). His novel in stories about growing up in Chicago, Sacred Smokes, was published in 2018 by the University of New Mexico Press, which also published his edited volume The Faster Redder Road: The Best UnAmerican Stories of Stephen Graham Jones. His academic work appears in collections such as Seeing Red, Visualities, and The Routledge Companion to Native American Literature. His fiction, essays, and photography have been published widely.

HOUSE FOR SALE BY OWNER

33 Cedar St. Presque Isle, Maine
$88,000 or best offer

Contact 207-768-5827.

Garage, Enclosed Breezeway, Deck, Kitchen, Dining Room, Living Room, Library/Den/Office, 

3 Bedrooms includes finished attic, 2 bathrooms, full basement. 

front

back with raised garden, deck

garden shed

living room

library,den, or office

kitchen

dining room

master bedroom

master bath

2nd bedroom

2nd bath

finished attic/3rd bedroom

House for Sale

33 Cedar Street, Presque Isle, Maine

1,296 Square Feet: 

• 3 bedrooms includes a finished attic
• 2 bathrooms
• kitchen
• dining room
• living room
• den or office. 

Blown hot air heat plus heat pump.

Appliances included: 

• refrigerator
• electric stove
• dish washer
• washer/dryer
• heat pump water heater.

Call for appointment: (207) 768-5827

$88,000

OR BEST OFFER

Abortion

Life begins before conception. Sperm and ovum are each alive, and they go back in an unbroken line to some primeval ooze that created the first live cell. Each is a potential person. Nature is profligate with the deaths of individual sperms and ova. When a fetus becomes a person depends on how one defines "person." As far as I know when a potential becomes a human person has no scientific date and entirely depends on religious or political interpretation. The pertinent question is not when does life begin nor when does a fetus become a person but who has control over women's bodies. Imagine attempting to make a law controlling men's bodies and what they do with sperm they produce as the biblical prohibition against spilling seed upon the ground suggests. Or restricting the use of condoms or viagra. Or forced sterilization as has been practiced on women. Clearly, the unborn embryo or fetus is a part of the woman's body until it is born and takes its first breath. Gloria Steinem asks, “Should Women’s bodies be nationalized?” She argues that the political attempt to control women’s bodies and reproduction is historically patriarchal, racist, and sexist, and that the attempt is out of step with the majority opinion of the people.

LOCAL WRITERS @ THE LIBRARY

DEFINING BOUNDARIES OF AFFECTION

I have not written about my “me too” experiences with the intention of publishing. Those times have only appeared in private journals which I have since destroyed, and I will not be reviving those that still make me cringe here either. However, accusations against Joe Biden of inappropriate touching and his defense compel me to explore and speak out on my experience of this boundary issue. This problem doesn’t only happen with politicians or celebrities. It happens wherever men and women interact.

I have for many years shared close warm hugs with some male friends. And I have all my life also been touched by some men in ways that make me uncomfortable and suspicious of motives. What is the difference? What are appropriate boundaries?  

I have no memories of growing up in the 1940s and early '50s with models of innocent touching. My family was not demonstrative with affection, neither verbally nor physically. The only touching I remember from that time was aggressive fumbling of bigger boys who scared me, and I ran away from them. In adolescence in the mid '50s I grew to enjoy cuddling, kissing, and “making out” in back seats of cars if it was with someone I was attracted to. Indeed, I grew to crave it though I knew it was a prelude to expected sex and I would have to fight to protect my virginity. Which I did many times, as fearful of getting pregnant as I was desirous of affection and of “going all the way.” I responded to this dilemma by marrying at 17.

I promptly became pregnant and by 23 had 3 children. Likely it was Dr. Spock who taught me the importance of physical affection for children to thrive, and I must have begun then to distinguish affection from sex.

Flash forward 15 years to the mid-'60s, still reserved about physical affection except with children, I started college and dived into psychology, anthropology, and literature and learned of various cultural attitudes about touching. I remember clearly hugging a female friend for the first time in college. By the early '70s I was divorced and the sexual revolution was stirring which barely got started for me, it seemed, before AIDS came along and put a big damper on that. By the late '70’s I had read Touching: The Human Significance of Skin by Ashley Montagu and many other sources which emphasized that physical affection is an important human need. Babies can die from lack of it.

By the early 1980s I had gone through therapeutic situations that encouraged hugging for healing. I learned to enjoy with abandon giving and receiving affectionate hugs. And I regret I also learned to push aside feelings of discomfort with certain hugs.

Now, a Joe Biden fan for many years, I am at this Joe Biden moment, and I ask myself would I feel comfortable with the touching he is accused of.

It turns out that I am in a similar situation now with a man I have known for about 15 years. At first I did not think much about his arm around my shoulder, always in a venue with other people around. In hindsight, I realize I never returned his gestures in any way. I only remember one occasion when I touched him; I was visiting him in a hospital bed. As I was leaving and wishing him a full recovery, I placed my hand briefly over his.  

He also made verbal demands of me sometimes: “Get me a cup of coffee” or “Give me a drink of your coffee.” In conversation he would bring his face too close to mine for comfort.

Inconsequential? These were “funny feeling” moments it took me a while to question. His behavior did not seem overtly sexual, but then there was the time a female friend confided that he was touching her knee with his under the table where they sat in his home. When she removed hers, he reached out his until his knee found hers again.

By the time of this conversation, long before this Joe Biden moment, I was asking myself questions. Why was I only tolerating his touch and not returning it? Why was I increasingly backing off? And when I did, why would he come forward? Eventually I told him to get his own coffee, and I said, “no,” when he demanded a drink from my cup. When he joked about his female employees protesting when they discovered men got double plied toilet paper in their bathroom while women had to make do with single plied, I told him that was sexist. Eventually, I began to avoid him. I stopped accepting invitations to go to their home for group activities. I quit one group activity we were both involved in on a weekly basis.

I couldn’t avoid him entirely; our interests overlap too much in this small community. But after a time, at other places he seemed to have gotten my silent messages about touch. Just as I was beginning to feel a little more comfortable when I couldn’t avoid him wherever I went, he sat down beside me at an event last week, reached out his hand, and squeezed the back of my neck.

Now, at this Joe Biden moment, I need to define my boundaries with him more explicitly than I have so far. I don’t yet know how I will do this. My discomfort with confronting him with other people around has so far outweighed my need to take care of myself in the immediate situation. If I call or send a message, I risk hurting his wife if she should happen upon my call or message. I could write a note to carry in my purse to give him when or if it happens again. I could say,  “I was very uncomfortable when you squeezed my neck in our senior education class. I have been uncomfortable for years with your touch without my permission or encouragement. Don’t do it again. Learn from Joe Biden.”  See how I make excuses and try to avoid a face to face confrontation with him? I am working on this this need to be braver.

I don’t know if any of his intentions were sexual, and it doesn’t matter. Exploring feelings of vulnerability and powerlessness in this situation leads me to conclude that his behavior is not to express affection or respect but intended instead to express his sense of power and privilege as a male to own power over women. Whether he understands this or not this touching behavior with women is sexist.

What is the difference between touches that are affirming and life enhancing and those that are not? Permission and sensitivity are 2 important ones for me. It is probably best to ask for permission, but it doesn’t always need to be voiced. If a man reaches out spontaneously to touch me and I respond by returning his reach, I give permission. If I turn away or sidestep, I am denying permission. And if I merely tolerate without returning the gesture, I am either thoughtlessly people pleasing or ambivalent, trying to figure out what is going on. If he responds by clutching anyway or tries the same approach another time, he is insensitive to unvoiced signals, or doesn’t care, or is responding to patterns of learned behavior he is not aware of, or all of the above. At that point I need to define and voice my boundaries.  

So we need this Joe Biden moment.