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(woman) "Prairie Mosaic" is funded by--
the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund,
with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota
on Nov. 4th, 2008;
the North Dakota Humanities Council,
a nonprofit independent state partner
of the National Endowment for the Humanities;
the North Dakota Council on the Arts,
and by the members of Prairie Public.
[bass, drums, and acoustic guitar play in bright rhythm]
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Hi, I'm Barb Gravel. And I'm Bob Dambach.
On this edition of "Prairie Mosaic,"
we'll listen to poetry read by a state champion,
investigate the tourism industry in Uganda,
and enjoy the electronic reggae sound
of a band from Minneapolis.
When you hear the name Charles Lindbergh,
most people think of the famous pilot.
But at the turn of the century,
it was his father that made headlines.
Charles Lindbergh, Sr. was a respected U.S. Congressman
from Minnesota, but his alliance with the Nonpartisan League
made him the target of antiprogressive forces
during the 1918 Republican primary.
[early 1900's swing band plays "Over There"]
(man) ¦ Johnny get your gun, get your gun, get your gun. ¦
In the spring of 1918,
the Nonpartisan League
and Accompanying Workers Nonpartisan League,
which had been organized in Minnesota,
chose to run Charles A. Lindbergh,
the father of the famous flyer for governor.
Lindbergh was a Republican; he'd served in Congress
for a number of years from Minnesota as a Republican,
but he opposed very publicly,
and very strongly opposed
American entry into World War I.
He blamed it on "The Money Trust,"
he invented that term, and wrote a book with that title.
And he was not exactly loved
by the large banks of the country or by
the banks in Minneapolis.
(James W. Gerard, 1917) And the time has come when every citizen
must declare himself American or traitor!
(Rhoda Gilman) He did, in 1918, undertake that, at a time when it took
a great deal of personal courage to challenge the hysteria
against antiwar people that had been built up in Minnesota.
The patriotism hysteria,
the fear of immigrants and of what were known
as hyphenated Americans like German-American
and with considerable courage,
he undertook that primary election
and campaigned in the state.
But Lindbergh won the hearts of the Nonpartisan League farmers
and the union laborers of Minnesota in that campaign,
and for good reason.
There was a tremendous amount of action
taken against the Nonpartisan League during that campaign.
Lindbergh not only was arrested, but he gave a speech,
and when he came out of the speech,
they had beaten up his driver and they shot at them.
And they left town and Lindbergh said,
"Don't drive too fast, they'll think we're scared."
The Minnesota Legislature under the Republican Party
created the Commission of Public Safety, which was a strange act;
it created this commission
that had dictatorial powers in Minnesota.
No foreign-born person could teach school in the state.
The German language was not actually outlawed,
but it was very much frowned upon.
The Town of New Ulm had a town meeting
to discuss the new draft law
and to question the constitutionality
of drafting young men and sending them overseas to fight.
That had never been done before in the United States.
By the very fact that they questioned the draft
and questioned the constitutionality of it,
the Governor, quite illegally,
removed the mayor and all of the elected officers,
anyone who had had anything to do with organizing the meeting.
Newspapers all over the state
railed against the traitors in New Ulm.
The Commission of Public Safety was a very dark time,
dark spot on Minnesota's history.
Civil liberties practically vanished in the state.
That brought a large element of people
who were normally very conservative,
Republican-leaning voters,
over to the Nonpartisan League, because the very bitterness
of being persecuted illegally in that way.
(Carol Jenson) So the climate was rather tense,
but became more tense as time went on.
The Public Safety Commission,
which had the authority to do things necessary and proper
to protect the public safety,
was very shortly interpreted to mean try to stop dissent,
'cause they were afraid of losing their political power
because they had heard that the Nonpartisan League
was starting to organize, and that was a threat to them.
They created something called the Home Guard,
which were these sort of local vigilante types.
They also worked in conjunction
with sheriffs and other local officials.
So when the Nonpartisan League started organizing,
they were sort of spying on them.
And then when the campaign got in higher gear
in the spring of 1918, all kinds of trouble took place.
(Rhoda Gilman) That was a very fierce
and pretty awful election.
A number of counties would not allow Lindbergh
to speak within the county.
They had already forbidden
Nonpartisan League organizers to enter the county.
There were a number of instances of mob violence.
There was shooting at Lindbergh, there were threats on his life,
hanging in effigy; it was a very ugly time.
It took a lot of courage to campaign
around the State of Minnesota, but he apparently had it.
He just quietly went his way and campaigned.
In the end he was defeated by Governor Burnquist,
who was an incumbent Republican governor.
So it was, it was a decisive defeat.
He did not run for public office again.
He became one of the organizers of the Farmer Labor Party,
but his health began to fail and he died early in the 1920's,
so he didn't live to see
the success of the Farmer Labor Party.
Poetry Out Loud is a contest
that encourages the nation's youth
to learn about great poetry.
This program helps students master public speaking skills,
build self-confidence, and learn about their literary heritage.
Janessa Hensrud of Northwood High School
was North Dakota's 2013 State Poetry Out Loud Champion.
Throughout the competition,
she learned more about poetry and herself.
[synthesizer & percussion play in bright rhythm]
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Poetry Out Loud is for high school students
who are interested in poetry, and you find poems online
at poetryoutloud.org and then you recite them
in front of audiences and it can take you to a lot of places.
First, it was an assignment in English class,
then I won for my class and then I did it
in front of the whole school in the gym, then there
they announced who was going on to State from our school.
Then at State, I won first place and was informed
that I'd be going to Washington, DC.
Nationals, I was pretty nervous throughout most of it,
but I made a lot of new friends and it was a great experience.
It was great to watch the talents that everybody else
can have and that I am equal to them in some way.
I chose my poems by going onto the website
and then just clicking a random letter and saying
my poem's going to be this letter, but then
pretty soon I was like, no, I don't like any of these poems.
So pretty much I went through the whole alphabet of poems.
It was a long process.
You have to have three poems, and then one of them has to be
pre-20th century and 20 lines or fewer.
The rules for performance is you stand straight and you either
have your hands in front of you or at your sides.
And you speak loudly and you'll get a good score
if you look confident in your poems.
You need to practice a lot, and it's not just in classtime.
You go home, you say it in the mirror, you look at yourself.
It's not only staring at the mirror for that amount of time,
it's looking like, inside yourself,
looking in the mirror and seeing who you are.
"These poems, these poems, these poems," she said,
"are poems with no love in them.
"These are the poems of a man
"who would leave his wife and child
"because they made noise in his study.
"These are the poems of a man who would *** his mother
"to claim the inheritance."
I was really nervous before the state competition and DC,
but the time I was most nervous was in the gym at my school,
'cause it's difficult when everybody that you know
is there and you see everybody sitting bored.
But at State I was most confident because you're
with people that are just like you and from the same state
and there for the same reason.
(woman) Congratulations to North Dakota State Finalists.
First Place is Janessa Hensrud, Northwood High School.
(Janessa) At State, my grandma, my mom and my dad came
and they all cried after my poems,
and then when they announced that I had won.
Nobody judges you if you had a bad poem or anything.
All the contestants gave me a high-five when I got back.
They were really supportive; everyone was.
I would encourage everyone to do Poetry Out Loud,
because not only does it help you with self-confidence
and get on stage, but it also gets your name out there
and it'll take you places.
I'm very glad that I did Poetry Out Loud.
It was tough and a lot of work, but personally I feel like
it made me a better person because I'm more confident
and feel like it's helped me grow as a person.
"This is not fantasy;
"this is our life.
"We are the characters who have invaded the moon,
"who cannot stop their computers.
"We are the gods who can unmake the world in seven days.
"Both hands are stopped at noon.
"We are beginning to live forever in lightweight aluminum bodies
"with numbers stamped on our backs.
"We dial our words like Muzak.
We hear each other through water."
My opinion of poetry before I started this whole process was,
it's too difficult, I don't want to read it.
It's just a short little piece of words.
But now, after Poetry Out Loud, I read poetry
and I can go and find something and if I look hard enough,
I can find something about myself in this poem.
That's what poetry is; it's beautiful.
And finding something that has a new beauty to it
is one of the best feelings in the world.
"When You Are Old" is by William Butler Yeats
and I picked that one because anyone can relate
to what he's talking about, especially in high school.
Pretty much the whole poem is about I love someone
who doesn't love me back, and so you can kind of relate to
you care for someone who doesn't care for you the same way.
We are at the Northwood Museum and I picked this location for
"When You Are Old," because when you're in love with someone,
you have a lot of memories and things that you can remember,
and that's just like a museum.
"When You Are Old, by William Butler Yeats.
"When you are old and gray
"and full of sleep
"and nodding by the fire,
"take down this book
"and slowly read and dream
"of the soft look your eyes had once
"and of their shadows deep.
"How many loved your moments of glad grace
"and loved your beauty with love, false or true,
"but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you
"and loved the sorrows of your changing face.
"And bending down beside the glowing bars,
"murmur a little sadly
"how love fled
"and paced upon the mountains overhead
and hid his face amid a crowd of stars."
[piano & drum play in bright rhythm]
Tourists are beginning to discover
the rich travel experiences
in the heart of Uganda's rainforests.
As part of a 6-year project,
the University of Manitoba's National Resources Institute
helped 3 Ugandan communities in sensitive areas
forge their own paths.
I'm currently wrapping up a 6-year CITA project in Uganda
where we're working to enhance rural livelihoods
with sustainable tourism.
Agriculture has always been the number one industry in Uganda,
but tourism is a very close number two.
The concept is that by providing incomes
based on the wildlife capital of Uganda,
the local people will generate income and therefore,
support conservation initiatives in the country.
We currently have 3 community projects,
they're in various stages of development.
The first community that we defined the project for was
Ruhija in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park.
We were actually doing an analysis in Winnipeg,
trying to determine which communities we were
going to be working with, when we received a phone call
from Ugandan Wildlife Authority, letting us know
that Ruhija was going to be opened up for gorilla tourism.
It's really quite an exciting opportunity,
really nothing quite like it.
I think it's really important that people think, you know,
why am I paying this amount of money to see gorillas?
Well, there's really, there's one gorilla on the planet
for every 10 million human beings, just to give people
a sense of how rare they actually are.
Ruhija had previously not had any tourists,
other than a few birders coming through.
Tourists didn't stay there, and we knew that once gorillas
were habituated in the area, and tourists started coming,
there'd be a bit of a land rush.
So we immediately engaged the community to say
what is it you'd like to do as a tourism initiative?
And through a process of a number of community meetings,
group workshops, we came to the concept
that the first thing we would fund
was a community tented camp.
The largest is the Ruhija Gorilla Friends Community
Rest Camp, which was the first one to be funded.
As a condition of funding, 20% ownership
of the Gorilla Friends Tented Camp
belongs to the community at large
to help fund other initiatives in the community.
In Kibale National Park,
many of the communities
surrounding the park are agricultural.
And Kibale National Park is known for its primate population.
They're fairly clever animals, which frequently raid crops.
So it sets up a fairly significant conflict
between local communities and wildlife in the park.
But by developing income based upon that wildlife,
and having the people recognize that their income is coming
because tourists are coming to visit the wildlife,
they become more tolerant of some of these activities.
There's a strong community champion Kemigisa,
who really set the stage for things moving forward.
(Michael Campbell) Margaret has organized the community members,
the women in her community, into craft development groups.
She has over 250 women working in her group,
producing crafts for sale at zoos across North America,
and for a very short period of time,
in Banff National Park as well.
(Margaret)
(Michael Campbell) The third project is occurring in Katanguru,
which is in Queen Elizabeth National Park.
It's actually right on the border of the park,
it's a small fishing community,
and it has very, very low educational capacity.
Very few people in the community have completed even primary 6,
there's only a few people in the community who speak English,
and it's been a real challenge to develop a proposal for them
that would allow them to engage in tourism.
Early on in our discussions with that group, we were able
to work with Ugandan Wildlife Authority and got permission
for them to operate a boat launch on the channel,
which had the potential to generate a lot of income,
but would be very costly to get started
and very difficult to bring that community up to the capacity
where they'd be able to manage it.
It's still there as a possibility for the future,
as they begin developing other initiatives.
But for the time being,
the women actually decided what they'd like to do
and what they felt comfortable doing was taking
some of the land that they have been given by the park,
rehabilitating it-- it's a former sand and gravel quarry--
and turning it into a hostel
for Ugandan school children who visit the park.
Which seems like a very good idea given the fact that they
speak the local language, the students from Ugandan schools
will be speaking the local language, and they won't have to
raise the expectations in terms of what their deliverables are.
The Ugandan people are warm, open, friendly,
incredibly happy to see tourists in their country.
The most recent statistics from the Ugandan Tourism Board
show that about one million, close to a million tourists,
maybe 800,000, 900,000, visited in 2011.
And those numbers have increased
almost tenfold since the late 1990s.
So numbers of tourists are increasing rapidly.
Some of research shows, however, that a lot of those tourists
aren't the typical nature-based tourism.
About 50% of them are actually here as volunteers, working
in the country with NGOs, religious organizations, etc.
And probably only about 25% are actual nature tourists.
So what that says to me is that there's tremendous potential
to expand the nature-based tourism offerings in Uganda.
[snorting of a hippopotamus]
Midwest reggae rockers, Jon Wayne and the Pain,
blend the unique psychedelic sounds of pop, rock, and reggae
with electronic dubs
that emphasize their passion for music.
Sit back and enjoy the best of Jon Wayne and the Pain.
[guitar picks the intro]
[drums and bass join in reggae rhythm]
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[guitar solo]
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¦ Bangout the beats see the people on the streets ¦
¦ I'm feeling fine for a while with a Friday night smile ¦
¦ Fine smellin' ladies wanna drive Mercedes ¦
¦ If we don't make bank they don't need us ¦
¦ If there's no shoes you gotta fill ¦
¦ If there's no time you need to kill ¦
¦ And karma is real it's not a fake ¦
¦ Your destiny's what you make ¦
¦ So ¦
¦ Spread some love tonight ¦
¦ 'Cause good vibes shine a light ¦
¦
¦ Yeah and season up your mind ¦
¦
¦ With the spices that you find ¦
¦ Yeah eh ah ¦
¦
¦ Well I've been in jail once or twice ¦
¦ And it wasn't too cool no it wasn't too nice ¦
¦ But I'm bound to the law like I'm bound to have flaws ¦
¦ And I don't know nothing 'bout y'all ¦
¦ If there's no shoes I gotta fill ¦
¦ If there's not time I need to kill ¦
¦ And karma is real it's not a fake ¦
¦ My destiny's what I make ¦
¦ So ¦
¦ Spread some love tonight ¦
¦ 'Cause good vibes shine a light ¦
¦ Yeah to season up your mind ¦
¦ With the spices that you find ¦
¦ Yeah eh ah ¦
¦
[tempo increases]
¦
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¦ Huh huh you know the feeble minds and feeble grinds ¦
¦ And all that's real to me ¦
¦ Opinions slight and those uptight are not what I will be ¦
¦ Comin' up I'm gonna shake it down to the happens often sound ¦
¦ Look at all the love we found ¦
¦ Inside this shady messed up town ¦
¦ Say look around, say look around ¦
¦ Inside of Fargo North Dakota 58103 ¦
¦ My friends are the same as my family ¦
¦ If you don't like that then you don't like me ¦
¦ So look at them then you might see ¦
¦ But I ain't got no time ¦
¦ No I ain't got no time ¦
¦ Ain't got no time up in my life ¦
¦ To sit around and whine ¦
¦ No I ain't got no time ¦
¦ No I ain't got no time ¦
¦ Ain't got no time up in my life ¦
¦ To sit around and whine no no no ¦
[guitar solo; wah-wah effect]
¦
¦
¦ Well I'm gonna come in here to the Fargo yo ¦
¦ And I'm gonna get down with y'all ¦
¦ I'm gonna get down with y'all 'cause every time I came down ¦
¦ You all get out your seat and jumped around ¦
¦ Every time every day we got the freestyle ¦
¦ Flow when you don't 'cause I know we're somethin' to see ¦
¦ With the itty-bitty job we flow ¦
¦ Thanks for coming to the show ¦
¦ Bangout the beats see the people on the streets ¦
¦ I'm feeling fine for a while with a Friday night smile ¦
¦ Fine smellin' ladies wanna drive Mercedes ¦
¦ If we don't make bank they don't need us ¦
¦ If there's no shoes you gotta fill ¦
¦ If there's not time you need to kill ¦
¦ And karma is real it's not a fake ¦
¦ Your destiny's what you make so oh ¦
¦
So spread some love.
If you know of an artist,
a topic, or an organization in our region
that you think might make for an interesting segment,
please contact us at...
I'm Barb Gravel. And I'm Bob Dambach.
Thank you for joining us for this edition of "Prairie Mosaic."
¦¦
(woman) "Prairie Mosaic" is funded by--
the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund,
with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota
on Nov. 4th, 2008;
the North Dakota Humanities Council,
a nonprofit independent state partner
of the National Endowment for the Humanities;
the North Dakota Council on the Arts,
and by the members of Prairie Public.