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I can’t write about what I’m up to and not write about Dolly. She was buried yesterday and I feel her presence. I know we are all so moved by how far and wide the love for her was spread. My heart about burst when I saw a video of the Buckingham Palace guard playing “9 to 5”. As I shared on my Instagram post last week, I spent a good bit of time with Dolly…most especially when, soon after we wrapped filming on “9 to 5”, we spent 10 days together on her tour bus with 3 other friends of hers touring the mountains and hollows of Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas—Appalachia. Dolly wanted to help me prepare my next character, Gertie Nevels a wife and mother living on a rural farm in Kentucky in The Dollmaker, based on the beautiful novel by Harriet Arnow. It was her way of thanking me for casting her in her first movie. I ended up winning an Emmy Award for it. I spoke about this trip in the documentary about Dolly that I participated in.

But lying in bed last night, I thought of all the things I should have asked Dolly about but never did.

I should have asked her to tell me what it was like to live in a one room cabin, no electricity, no indoor plumbing, with her parents and twelve siblings. Twelve brothers and sisters!! She did tell me they made their own candles and soap. They must have learned the facts of life early on –all living together with babies coming one after the other. I should have asked about that. I should have asked if her parents were strict with them? Did they go to a town to buy groceries, or did they grow all their food? So many questions I should have asked.

So, I just want to pass on this lesson: Ask all your questions when you can cause you never know when it will be too late.

I attended the Middlebury Film Festival in Vermont with the documentary film GASLIT that I did with Greenpeace. It was my first time in that beautiful town. I have a true love for the old brick mill towns that built this country

My first night there I was able to have dinner with Amy Goodman who was also at the festival with her film “STEAL THIS STORY, PLEASE!”. You can watch the trailer and find a screening at: https://stealthisstory.org

My film, GASLIT is about what the LNG (liquified natural gas) industry and the plastics and chemical industries have done to the people and communities along the Gulf of Mexico and lower Mississippi River. …and to our planet. By the way in case you don’t know, plastics and many of the worst chemicals are derived from fossil fuels so when we phase out of the latter, hopefully we will be largely free of the former.

I have witnessed the human and environmental destruction in the mostly poor black and brown communities – the cancers, the destroyed estuaries that are so critical for wildlife, especially the migrating neotropical birds that need those marshy lands to rest and eat in preparation for their long flights north.

For generations, families along the coast have relied on fishing, shrimping and crabbing to support themselves. These sources of food and survival have almost been destroyed by the industries. I had read about what was going on but when I was there, witnessing the size of the LNG terminals, I was gob smacked. These metal monstrosities are the size of whole cities towering over small towns that appear to be largely abandoned, towns that were once thriving with stores and banks and homes built long ago by parents planning on leaving them to children and grandchildren, now gone. The fossil fuel industry calls these communities “sacrifice zones,” populated by people they consider disposable.

The doc focuses on the people fighting back and it is very powerful and moving. We’ve already won a number of awards as we bring it to festivals and do special screenings around the country, like Middlebury.

Jay Craven is co-founder and director of the Middlebury Film Festival and teaches filmmaking at the University of Vermont. I met Jay in 1971 while attending my very first anti-war conference in Chicago hosted by Clergy & Laity Concerned (CALC). I knew no one, felt lost, and Jay befriended me so I was very happy when he invited us to his festival.

If you were not able to catch on of the film screenings, I’m happy to share that for a limited time you can now rent Gaslit and receive access to an exclusive Q&A with me, Director Katie Camosy, Film Participant Jo Banner, and Author and Environmental Justice Advocate, Leah Thomas. We candidly share behind the scenes insights, tips on how to stay active in the fight, and ways you can get involved. Click here to watch or visit www.gaslit.com/watch. And — Gaslit will be available worldwide to rent or buy on Prime and other digital platforms later in September! Visit www.gaslitdoc.com/watch for updates on our exact launch date.

This festival was also special for me because my daughter, Vanessa, who is a Vermont farmer and has made documentaries, joined me. And my friend and climate activist par excellence, Bill McKibben, is also a Vermonter and moderated the post screening panel.

But first, Bill, his wife Sue, and I went hiking in the forest to the old cabin where Robert Frost did his writing.

Here’s a shot through the windowpane into where Frost did his writing.

Now I’m off to Venice Italy, more on that trip soon.

I am devastated. I just learned that Dolly has moved on. I know that millions are mourning and I want to say this – more than anyone I have ever known, Dolly will always be with us because she was so present, so powerful, so generous and playful that she is woven into all our lives and hearts forever. We have our memories of her, her songs, Dollywood, “9to5”, the millions of books she got into the hands of children, all the iconic images that bring her to us. And they are all blessings. Let’s be grateful for all that she has left us to ease our sadness now. I never knew anyone like her. She was simultaneously a naughty, playful southern gal from the hollows of Tennessee and a deep, soulful thinker who could see through people right down to their true selves. She was many things…lyricist, songstress, player of many instruments, writer, prankster, visionary, loyal friend, who’d never go to bed before she and her friends had laughed so hard they’d have to cross their legs.

She had a survivor’s instinct and seemed to always know just what to do, just what to say, to make things right...and then she’s stick her butt out the car window and moon Kenny Roger’s home. She was the voluptuous embodiment of empathy. That’s something of hers she’d want us all to take with us.

To her gay and trans fans, I want you to know that she loved you. You know that without me telling you. She loved all her fans and they are legion. And you know she doesn’t want y’all to mourn now. Dress up and celebrate her spirit. But first, watch the final episode of Grace and Frankie where she’s an Angel, the head honcho working class angel in Heaven.

RIP, beautiful woman. We love you. ❤️

Do you know that from 2022 to 2024 in the U.S. alone, there were 73 extreme weather events, which cost us an estimated $461.6 billion. Trump calls the climate crisis a hoax. Call it what you want, but please notice what’s happening, please connect the dots. Please understand how what’s happening weather-wise is behind the huge increase in refugees. In many parts of the world already, people cannot grow food, earn a living, escape the epidemics being spread as disease-carrying vectors (mosquitoes, ticks, rodents) move out from their usual habitats. The UN Refugee Agency estimates that more than 250 million people have already been displaced due to climate and that 100 million more will join their ranks by mid-century. We in this country have a responsibility to address their plight instead of treating them like non-humans. Afterall, the U.S. is the largest cause of climate warming.

This existential challenge along with the erosion of our democracy which is also an existential challenge are what most occupy my time and thoughts because I believe we can do something about them if we refuse to accept what’s happening. I am not depressed –scared, yes, but not depressed—because I’m taking action, doing things about it. I hope you will too.

Okay, here’s a major change of subject --

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Mignon McCarthy and I were close back in the 1980s. For a while, she ran the Campaign for Economic Democracy (CED), the statewide organization in California that my then husband, Tom Hayden, and I started. The U.S. was facing a recession at the time and fundraising was hard. California is a big state. So, I launched the Jane Fonda Workout to fund it, and Mignon was a regular in my classes. We became friends. When she left CED, Mignon and I wrote a book together, “Women Coming of Age.” We both loved to walk and shared countless hours trekking through dense forests with our dogs. We were writing about getting old and we loved how the forests benefitted from old trees. She pointed out that even dead trees had a purpose. She was smart, curious, and had a great giggle.

But then I married Ted Turner and moved to Atlanta. Mignon and I didn’t see each other for over thirty years.

Then, several months ago at a memorial service for another colleague from the ‘80s, I was told Mignon had rapidly advancing Alzheimer’s and wanted to die. I got her address and drove there immediately. Turned out, she lived in the same apartment a block from the ocean that I’d found for her forty-some years ago (Santa Monica is rent controlled thanks to the organizing we did there in the 1970s).

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On June 14^th, Flag Day, which also happened to be Trump’s eightieth birthday, the Committee for the First Amendment (CFA) hosted an event at New York’s historic Town Hall: Rise Up! Sing Out! A Concert for the First Amendment. I think everyone in that theatre would agree that it was a smashing success.

And it wasn’t just the people in the theatre. The event was livestreamed. Justin Krebs, a terrific organizer, went to Christian churches, Jewish congregations, bookstores, comedy clubs, local theaters, libraries, community organizations, the American Library Association, the No Kings coalition, and Indivisible groups, and they organized viewing parties in 1,500 locations in every state, Hawaii, even Paris, from beer halls to church halls.

That night, we estimate 30,000 people were watching at these gatherings and many millions since then on YouTube. One viewer wrote us saying, “Everyone who came had a great time and we definitely achieved ‘collective effervescence!’”

The show was produced by Rob Nanus of Rigor Ruckus and Bruce Cohn, directed by Schele Williams and scripted by Bess Kalb. We focused on the five freedoms contained in the First Amendment: Freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition, which is an old-fashioned way of saying ‘protest.’

Our speakers ranged from Lily Gladstone, Julia Roberts, Joy Reid, Rev Adriene Thorne, Rabbi Rachel Timoner, Hussein Rashid and Tessa Thompson to Ms. Rachel, Robert De Niro, Ayo Edebiri, Wilson Cruz, and Pepermint.

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But I did get to know Atlanta and much of the rest of Georgia because in 1995 I founded GCAPP: The Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention, a statewide organization to empower teenagers and address the chronic problem of children having babies. Georgia had the highest rate of adolescent pregnancies in the U.S. when I moved there. While some young mothers turn out to be wonderful parents, too often this is not the case. A fourteen or sixteen-year-old girl likely hasn’t figured out her own life and having a child to raise will make it virtually impossible to take advantage of opportunities that may come along…like a job or schooling.

Here are key things I learned in the thirty years since GCAPP now known as The Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power and Potential was created:

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Twenty years ago, at 68-years old, I began working for L'Oréal Paris, the international skin and hair care company. The company’s CEO back then was a trans woman named Sue Nabi. She had transitioned while working her way up the corporate ladder to the very top which made me really respect the company.

Turns out, the year before, Sue had seen me promoting my latest book on a very popular national TV show. I had my dog with me, was speaking fluent French and making the audience laugh. She decided I would make a good brand ambassador.

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Last week I attended opening night of the TCM Classic Films Festival. The opening film was Barefoot in the Park, and I was invited to be interviewed on stage before the screening by Ben Mankiewicz, the host of TCM (Turner Classic Movies) and to talk about Robert Redford.

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