March 2004

Vol.5. NO. 3 ......................................................Pages 10 and 11

EcoVersity Gears Up for
Earth-Vocations Certificate Course

Building on years of preparation and planning, Santa Fe’s own EcoVersity will formally begin their new certificate program in Earth-Based Vocations this month. A twenty-week course of study designed to turn regular people into “Sustainability Practitioners”, Earth-Based Vocations offers an interdisciplinary approach to tackling the unique challenges of sustainable design and building.

With a core teaching team of five faculty members, the course combines an introduction to the permaculture philosophy along with instruction in practical building techniques like straw-bale construction, renewable energy systems, land & garden design, and art and activism.

“Permaculture is a design system for approaching sustainability issues in building and land usage,” said Amy Pilling, EcoVersity’s dean. “It addresses everything from the practical issues of where to build and what materials to use on your site, as well as the more sublime considerations as to how humans, plants, and animals will interact with the land and the structures you put there.”

The course will combine the talents of all members of the core faculty, including Pilling, EcoVersity’s land and operations manager Nathan Houchin, renowned permaculture guru Scott Pittman, architect Alfred von Bachmayr, renewable energy systems consultant Bristol Stickney, permaculture, food, land &gardens specialist Joel Glanzberg, along with local uber arts activist Chrissie Orr, who will address the political and aesthetic concerns of alternative building.

“It is inherent within the approach of both permaculture in particular and alternative building and energy systems in general that we are engaging in something radical,” said Orr. “Our approach is to show that in addition to increasing energy efficiency and decreasing resource impact, the permaculture approach can also allow for an environment that incorporates healthier and more beauty-driven design aesthetics as well.”

In addition to this comprehensive certificate course, EcoVersity is also offering a shorter stand-alone course in permaculture design, taught by Scott Pittman, as well as a full roster of workshops, lectures, and short courses throughout the spring and summer. Some of these will include a six-week course in BioDynamic Gardening beginning in March, a lecture on Water Harvesting by local water activist Jeremiah Kidd in April, and a three-day bicycle maintenance and skills workshop in May with local bicycle activist Lawrence Malone. and Ian Mion.

“Our intention with the certificate program is to build strong-minded Sustainability Practitioners who will be able to apply what they’ve learned with us to providing holistic solutions to the many issues involved in the art and science of site design,” said Pilling.

For more information about EcoVersity and its programs, please visit http://www.ecoversity.org, or call (505) 424-9797.

Millions Against Monsanto

The Organic Consumers Association announces the launch of its new “Millions Against Monsanto” campaign. If you’re talking about PCBs, Agent Orange, Bovine Growth Hormone, water privatization, biopiracy, untested/unlabeled genetically engineered organisms, or persecuting small family farmers for seed saving, you’re talking about the Monsanto Corporation. Join OCA’s campaign to mobilize one million consumers to end Monsanto’s global corporate bullying. Send an instant fax to Monsanto, demanding the corporation: stop intimidating small family farmers, stop force-feeding untested and unlabeled genetically engineered foods on consumers. stop using billions of dollars of U.S. taypayers’ money to subsidize genetically engineered crops—cotton, soybeans, corn, and canola. (http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.html)

Parrot Language

A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird’s mouth was rude, obnoxious, and laced with profanity. John tried and tried to change the bird’s attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to “clean up” the bird’s vocabulary.

Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even ruder. John, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed. Then suddenly there was total quiet. Not a peep was heard for over a minute.

Fearing that he’d hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John’s outstretched arms and said “I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions. I’m sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior.”

John was stunned at the change in the bird’s attitude. As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird continued, “May I ask what the turkey did?”

Western Jurisprudence:
In the Old West,
the courts — not the gunfighters — were the real law of the land
By Johnny D. Boggs

It’s easy to picture the Old West as a lawless place. In New Mexico, one need look no further than Lincoln County, where a turf war left scores dead and propelled an affable killer nicknamed Billy the Kid into legend.

Images from movies, novels, and television are chiseled in our consciousness: The law of the land was the fastest gun alive. In reality, however, it proved more complicated than that. Sure, a gunman might settle his differences with a Colt .45, but not without potential — legal — consequences.

Take Billy the Kid, for example. In the spring of 1881, he was tried for the 1878 murder of Sheriff William Brady during the Lincoln County War. Originally, the Kid was to be tried in federal court for the shooting death of Buckshot Roberts, but attorney Ira Leonard got that charge quashed, arguing that the feds had no jurisdiction. The Kid wasn’t as lucky in his next court appearance. A jury in Mesilla convicted him of Brady’s murder, but he escaped before the execution date.
Even Sheriff Pat Garrett wasn’t exempt from the legal process. After Garrett killed the Kid in Fort Sumner, Justice of the Peace Alejandro Segura had a coroner’s jury impaneled. Six jurors ruled the shooting “justifiable homicide.”

Another famous lawman, Wild Bill Hickok, settled several disagreements with a six-shooter, but he also understood the reach of the law. After the 1861 shootout at Rock Creek Station, Neb., that sent his fame soaring, Hickok rode to Marysville, Kansas, to hire an attorney. Hickok needed a lawyer again in 1865 after killing Davis Tutt in a gunfight in Springfield, Mo. He was tried and acquitted of manslaughter.

Another popular Old West legend is the “miner’s court,” which certainly existed. In remote regions, settlers served as attorneys, judges, and jurors, pronouncing and carrying out sentences. The problem, as Jack McCall learned, was that the law didn’t always recognize those courts. A miner’s court in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, acquitted McCall of Hickok’s murder in 1876. Federal officials, however, voided that verdict and retried McCall — double jeopardy did not apply — in Yankton, where he was convicted and hanged.

Southern New Mexico saw one of the West’s most famous trials when Oliver Lee and James Gililland were charged with the murder of Henry Fountain, and throngs of press and spectators crowded into Hillsboro to watch the proceedings.

Nine-year-old Fountain had disappeared with his attorney father, Col. Albert Jennings Fountain, on their way home to Mesilla from Lincoln in 1896. It took three years for the territory to gather enough evidence — the bodies have never been found — to bring an indictment against Lee, a gunman and Sacramento Mountains rancher, and Gililland, Lee’s pal and fellow hardcase. Col. Fountain had suspected Lee of rustling.

In an era when most capital trials lasted two days, it took three days just to seat a jury. The prosecution and defense each had three lawyers, and planned on calling 75 witnesses. The trial lasted 18 days, but it took the jury only seven minutes to reach a verdict of not guilty.

An even bigger sensation occurred in Gallatin, Mo., in 1883, when Frank James — Jesse’s brother — was tried for an 1881 train robbery that left two men dead. Like the O.J. Simpson case more than a century later, the James trial became a media and legal circus. Six lawyers handled the prosecution, which relied on testimony from a former James Gang member and convicted felon. Eight attorneys worked for the defense in a 16-day legal affair.

Like Simpson, James was acquitted.

As Western singer-songwriter-novelist Jon Chandler says: “Justice, then and now, could be blind.”

Santa Fe resident Johnny D. Boggs’ latest novel about Western jurisprudence is LAW OF THE LAND: THE TRIAL OF BILLY THE KID. His other titles include the novel SPARK ON THE PRAIRIE: THE TRIAL OF THE KIOWA CHIEFS and a nonfiction book, GREAT MURDER TRIALS OF THE OLD WEST.

• Some people are like Slinkies . . . not really good for anything, but you still can’t help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.
• Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.
• All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

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