Bill and Dianne French are the king and queen of the 40th Moscow Renaissance Fair.

This year’s Moscow Renaissance Fair king and queen planted their roots here 25 years ago, and have been accepted locally as business owners and activists fighting to keep their kingdom pristine.

Bill and Dianne French grew up together in Lincoln, Nebraska, eventually moving to Indiana where Bill studied to be an optometrist.

“I got my eyes dilated a lot when he was going through optometry school,” said Dianne.  “…We knew that we wanted to be self-employed, so we started looking at communities around the country.”

The Frenchs were drawn to Moscow in 1988, because they said it was a good place to raise a family, affect local change, and be heard.

“And the downtown was alive,” Dianne said, “and we saw a lot of towns in ’88 where the downtown was boarded up.”

Together the Frenchs own and operate Palouse Ocularium and recently purchased Ex-Sightment Optical in Moscow.  Dianne is also a client. Continue reading →

Please join Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) and our Utah anti-tar sands allies for this truly seminal event.  We are excited to announce that WIRT and film distributor Gathr are hosting a Bidder 70 screening and live-streamed conversation with climate activist Tim DeChristopher at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Center, 508 South Main Street in Moscow, Idaho.  On Earth Day, Monday, April 22, the theater doors will open at 5:30 pm PDT, and the documentary will begin promptly at 6 pm, followed by Tim’s discussion.  Participants can buy $10 movie tickets for their friends, family, and selves online through Gathr Films or at the Kenworthy door, as a donation toward the almost 40 seats pre-purchased by WIRT to stage this event.

At a time when the debate over climate change is finally gaining post-election traction and hot topics such as fracking and the Keystone XL pipeline have captured public attention, the documentary Bidder 70 is poised to showcase a movement that has steadily gathered force, particularly among millenials, who harbor grave concerns for the increasingly perilous future.  The feature-length documentary chronicles how renowned activist Tim DeChristopher’s civil disobedience blazed new opportunities for the climate justice movement.

On December 19, 2008, University of Utah economics student Tim DeChristopher disrupted a highly disputed Bush administration Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oil and gas lease auction in Salt Lake City.  Not content to merely protest outside, Tim entered the auction hall and registered as bidder 70.  With no intention of paying for leases starting at $2 per acre, he outbid industry giants on 77 pristine Utah land parcels surrounding American treasures like Canyonlands National Park, and effectively safeguarded from drilling 22,000 acres of land worth $1.7 million, before the auction was halted.

Although incoming Interior Secretary Ken Salazar invalidated the auction two months later, Tim’s brave commitment and actions rewarded this remarkably principled young man with two federal felony indictments carrying penalties of up to ten years in prison and $750,000 in fines.  Awaiting trial with the threat of prison looming, the 27-year-old environmentalist escalated his activism and evolved into a charismatic and ingenious climate justice leader.  He co-founded Peaceful Uprising, a grassroots group dedicated to defending a livable future through empowering non-violent action. Continue reading →

Of the many frontline communities across the continent battling in the courts and the streets the myriad injustices of environmental and human health degradation and civil liberties violations wrought by dirty energy perpetrators, Moscow and the grassroots, direct action collective of Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) are well-primed for a tar sands forum.  One of our core activists, a Washington State University (WSU) chemistry professor and member of the Washington-Idaho Border Section of the American Chemical Society (ACS), informed us that a University of Idaho (UI) assistant chemistry professor and local ACS section chair, Jakob Magolan (jmagolan@uidaho.edu), has organized just such an upcoming ACS-sponsored guest speaker series.

On three April evenings between 6 and 7:30 pm in the UI Agricultural Sciences Auditorium, Room 106, ACS is hosting outreach events to address in a “fair and balanced manner” the complex, controversial, and politically-charged subject of Alberta tar sands mining.  Dedicated to promoting scientific literacy and knowledge, regional ACS members have invited three Canadian experts, each Alberta residents with personal involvement and varying opinions, perspectives, and interests in this contentious issue, to visit the Palouse.  We hope that you will avail yourself and our community of these opportunities to expand the awareness and activism of our growing dirty energy resistance movement.  Participants in all three public and free discussions on the UI campus can park after 5 pm in the ‘yellow’ lots on Rayburn Street in Moscow. Continue reading →

Wild Idaho Rising Tide Fundraiser is on Friday in Moscow

There are some people who believe nothing can be done to stop global warming.  Helen Yost, founder of the Moscow-based environmental activism group Wild Idaho Rising Tide, is not one of them.

The group, which was formed in 2011 and is part of the national Rising Tide organization, has conducted protests and public education campaigns on numerous environmental issues during the past two years, most notably the Imperial Oil/ExxonMobil megaloads that came through Moscow last year carrying equipment bound for the company’s tar sands oil project in Alberta, Canada.

“We are part of a network of people who take direct action to confront the root causes of global climate change,” Yost said.  “We call ourselves a direct action group.”

The group will host its Second Annual Celebration of Wild Idaho Rising Tide fundraiser on Friday in Moscow.

The event will feature live music by Dan Maher, Kelly Emo, Sharon Cousins, Josh Yeidel, and Henry C. and the Willards, along with a potluck dinner, raffle drawing, no-host bar, and a slide show of the group’s activities.

Depending on weather conditions, the evening will begin at 6:30 pm with a parade from Moscow’s Friendship Square to the 1912 Center led by the Moscow Volunteer Peace Band. Continue reading →

The courageous and vigilant activists of Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) invite everyone to our Second Annual Celebration of WIRT, commemorating our second anniversary as a direct action collective and reinvigorating for another year of confronting climate change perpetrators.  Between 7 pm and midnight on Friday, March 29, revel in a benefit concert provided by two solo musicians and a band, along with a home-cooked, potluck dinner and desert, beer and wine for purchase, and dozens of raffle prizes donated by community members and businesses.  Please join dirty energy resisters at the 1912 Center Great Room (412 East Third Street in Moscow), for a well-deserved wild time full of spirited conversation and danceable, singable music played by these remarkable artists:

6:30 pm: Moscow Volunteer Peace Band

Depending on weather conditions, this year’s festivities will again begin with a parade converging at Friendship Square and circling through downtown Moscow to the 1912 Center.  Peace is more fun than fossil fuel wars, so bring your protest signs, chants, and instruments to gather up rebellious party-goers.  Check out When the Saints Go Marching In performed by the Peace Band for the 2013 Moscow Mardi Gras.

8 pm: Kelly Emo with Fiddlin’ Big Al

Playing a revitalizing mixture of American folk and socio-politically aware songs, songwriter, singer, and guitarist Kelly Emo offers listeners an enlightening, relaxing experience.  Accompanied by musical guest Al Chidester, Kelly draws from his recently released first album, All in the Name of Freedom, that reflects his unique perspective on 21st century dilemmas like war and fracking.  Hear Kelly’s Change the World and more.

9 pm: Dan Maher

Renowned musician Dan Maher started his folk music career as a Spokane teenager and Washington State University student.  Dan shares his tremendous knowledge of this genre on his weekly, three-hour Public Radio program, Inland Folk, regionally broadcast for more than thirty decades.  His rousing repertoire of traditional and contemporary, local and international folk songs performed throughout the Northwest always incites enthusiastic audience participation.  Consider Dan’s story and music.

10 pm: Henry C. and the Willards

Originally formed to play for a September 2012 birthday party, this regional blues/rock band features musicians Henry Willard on guitar, dobro, and harmonica, Jeanne McHale on piano and vocals, Doug Park on bass and mandolin, Nels Peterson on drums, Terri Grzebielski on acoustic guitar and vocals, and Donna Holmes on percussion and vocals.  Band members have played with Kelley Riley, Charlie Sutton, The Hot Flashes, and several other performers.  View their videos.

Sharon Cousins and Josh Yeidel

Core WIRT eco-activists Sharon and Josh will make a special musical appearance, like at our First Annual Celebration, when they provided the musical interlude of Everybody’s Mama’s Got the Blues.

With hearty thanks to Kelly Emo for coordinating the multiple entertainment aspects of this March 29 benefit concert/anniversary party, Wild Idaho Rising Tide eagerly anticipates another lively evening gathering of more than fifty people enjoying shared camaraderie, live music and dancing, and plenty of rowdy fun.  To savor our successes, hundreds of selected photos and videos of our demonstrations and initiatives will cycle through a background slide show, and WIRT will offer the last of our limited-edition, collectors-item, tar sands megaload protest T-shirts.  Do not miss this upcoming opportunity to support Idaho’s relentless frontline challengers of Big Oil, King Coal, and Gashole Frackers for only $5 or greater voluntary admission contributions.  Please visit the WIRT website for further information and print and post these flyers, Second Annual Celebration of WIRT Flyer 1 and Second Annual Celebration of WIRT Flyer 2.  Contact wild.idaho.rising.tide@gmail.com or 208-301-8039 to assist with preparations for the big night.

The Wild Idaho Rising Tide (WIRT) collective is celebrating its second anniversary on the last weekend of March.  Besides raising funds through a benefit concert on March 29, we have also entered one of WIRT’s co-founders and core activists in the 2013 Sustainable Leader Award contest offered by lur apparel.  When this company invited WIRT to participate, Sharon Cousins graciously nominated Helen Yost to win the $500 prize (to pay the WIRT Activist House rent), $500 in new clothes for WIRT activists (to ‘cover’ our winter protests), and some national exposure of our widely shared climate justice initiatives.

Through this endeavor, one of our tar sands megaload resistance photos, taken moments after the last convoy crossed Moscow, has gone nationwide! Almost a year after our relentless Highway 95 protests, we learned that the 2010-2012 struggles of WIRT and our allies against megaloads owner ExxonMobil/Imperial Oil in the streets and the courts cost the company two billion dollars in Alberta tar sands facilities construction delays (1, 2).  Imperial Oil also dismissed its CEO (3).  WIRT would appreciate the widespread recognition and greater involvement in the movement that winning the lur contest would further garner for successful direct actions that halt dirty energy development and climate change. Continue reading →