Expectations

Normally here I'd make some apology about how I normally try to make things not so personal, even though a fair amount of posts of mine really are, but I've accepted that that's silly. I won't be doing that. There's something in this irritation that I think relates to more lives than just mine, actually I KNOW it does, but that is irrelevant. I just need to write it, & this is a fitting setting.

Okay, so last week I went "home" for a visit. Regardless of the circumstances, I ended up staying at my dad's house for the first night & the hours I was carless waiting to head to the airport. We haven't related well for a long time, & while the hostilities may no longer be wild & free (thank you to time & distance), we still don't really talk much or really get along that well. Evidence for this is the fact that I ended up suggesting we go out for dinner at 9:30 at night because I had gotten so tired of the "conversation" where he would ask me something, I'd respond, & then we'd sit in silence for a few minutes.

Through this mess, there was something that stuck with me & has still been grating on me a little in the back of my head since then. He asked me several times about my long-term goals, & offered that maybe I'd grow up in 5-10 years. (In the guise of how my education is helping me now, how long I plan to stay with my job, whether there was a man in my life, and directly by asking what I plan for my future.)

Back the fuck up.

Okay, so I work about three jobs, putting in about 35 hours/week combined, and don't have any insurance. HOWEVER, I really enjoy my jobs. And they do allow me to be able to afford to live in San Francisco, provide for myself entirely (he doesn't pay any of my bills), & actually pay down my credit card bills. This doesn't seem like it's too bad of an accomplishment for a 25-year-old who's in the midst of self-discovery.

I'm happy with where my life is right now. I like where I live, I like the things I get to do, I'm proud of the "green" tips that I've thoroughly incorporated into my life. I wish I was working fewer jobs, but I can't really complain about any of them though. They leave me pretty satisfied. And I know I won't be doing them forever, but everything changes so much that it seems silly to me to really do hardcore future planning. All I know is that I'd like to keep living in San Francisco for at least a few more years, & that I think I might want to teach someday (I'm just not ready for it yet on several fronts).

So, I had pointed out to him that I was responsible, I just thought it was silly to plan for the future with how uncertain the world is at this moment. He said he didn't think I wasn't responsible, but that didn't seem to close it up in a satisfactory way that made me feel accepted.


(I'm not sure how much of this relates...but on my last day [I think] he pointed out how mature one of my male friends has become [with me pointing out that it would be a surprise if he DIDN'T turn out that way], & how he wishes I was more "out-going" & "happy" like I used to be.

Oh, & a tiny note that it piques my sense of intrigue that there are pictures up of his wife's children & grandchildren, his two sons...but nothing from my mother's side...granted, that would be me, my brother who hasn't spoken to him in years, & my sister who's made a lot of bad choices. Just a pondering moment.)


Is this a common guilt trip that parents lay on their kids? (Possibly particular to parents of at least middle-class standing?) That they're not doing enough with their lives? (And possibly disappointed at the amount that their education impacts their employments?)

If so, that's absolutely disgusting.

If your child is managing to be happy, to be at least mostly clean, & is taking care of themselves (however that is defined) should be fucking good enough. Why can't THAT be the thing that you wish for your children instead of whatever fucking bullshit has been fed by the culture towards what your children should end up being like?!

Now it's my turn to shake my head in disappointment. For shame, parents. Your heart doesn't lie in the right place. Please take a step back & recognize your children as what they are & build bridges if possible. It'll make them feel less rejected & benefit everyone the world over.

Is It Really Stealing?

I know that there are several articles I have read or heard about over the course of the last few months living in San Francisco demonizing the people who scavenge from the recycling bins that people put out with their trash. (They traditionally take out cardboard or CRV marked cans/botttles for recycling to make some cash.) The argument is that it is ripping off the people who have paid for Sunset Scavengers to pick it all up.

Then last night I was checking out the green compost bins (to see if I could talk my landlord into getting one). I learned that if you pay for them to pick up the black trash bin, you can get the other two (the blue recycling & the green compost) for free. If that's true, then it's just people getting mad that people are going through their trash & finding enough stuff over time to earn money off of it.

Is this a hatred akin to the one for dumpster divers in most parts?

It's just strange to me to think about because there are lots of places around the city where people will also just put old things of theirs that they no longer want on the sidewalk for others to come along & pick up if they want it. (I've put out & picked up plenty of street clothes & such.) And there's the Really Free Market in Dolores Park every month where people bring things to freely trade.

So then why do we have problems with those taking from the bins? Is it because they are taking from our bins, rather than the bags we put out with the intention of people looking through them? Or is it because they are taking things we put out & managing to make money off of them (whereas few people would have the space to accumulate enough to earn a reasonable amount of money off of these items)?

I don't know. But it's an answer I'd be very interested in learning.


EDIT: after talking with my friend Jake (a long time dumpster diver), there are a few more tentative ideas I would like to add.
~I presume the trash companies are losing money from the stuff being scavenged because they will not earn the money from selling the recyclables. But I can't say for sure because this point would not be likely to be printed in an article. (Because a "boo hoo! we don't make as much money!" argument would not work so well.)
~I wonder if they are intended to incite more scorn for the homeless because they are most likely to be the ones scavenging (or thought to be scavenging...plenty in the Haight neighborhood clean out the recyclables from Golden Gate Park....where there is no recycle bins). As well as those without homes who recycle cans & bottles to earn money are not part of the City's Care Not Cash Program.
~I wonder if articles like this increase racial tensions because the drivers of the cardboard trucks I see are Latino.
~My neighborhood recycling center is under threat for eviction because they are being accused that many of their patrons are homeless gentlemen who are scavenging from the neighborhood's bins. One of the men in charge there said that they were having problems with Sunset Scavengers (the trash company) because also by having a recycling facility, less CRV containers were being thrown in the bins (although by California law there must be a recycling facility with a cash-back program within a certain number of miles of a major distribution center, ie. Safeway). He said they were going to have trouble if the issue got up to the level of the mayor because the head of the Sunset Scavengers is a former mayor, & had the present mayor as a deputy.

Political manipulation of facts (even when unintentional) is bullshit.

Thank you.

(All comments will be greatly appreciated.)

How Dare They Rip the Fourth Amendment?

Thursday 03 July 2008

by: Joseph L. Galloway, McClatchy Newspapers

Early next week the US Senate will vote on an extension of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, with a few small amendments intended to immunize telecommunications corporations that assisted our government in the warrantless and illegal wiretapping it has grown to love.

That such a gutting of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution even made it out of committee is yet another stain on the gutless and seemingly powerless Democratic majority in both houses of Congress.

That a majority on both sides of the aisle - not least of them the presumptive nominees for president of both political parties - intend to vote for such a violation of Americans' right to privacy and of the sanctity of their personal communications is a stunning surrender to those who want us to live in fear forever.

We are living in a time when the right of habeas corpus - which simply put is your right to be brought before a proper court of law where the government is made to prove that there is good and legal reason to detain you - recently survived by a margin of only one vote at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Now these bad actors are prepared to set aside your right to privacy - written into the Constitution as a key part of our Bill of Rights - with hardly a nod in the direction of the true patriots who rebelled against an English king and his army to guarantee those rights.

That they will do this while the last empty phrases of the political windbags at the Fourth of July celebrations are still echoing across a thousand city parks and the bright red, white and blue bunting and blizzard of American flags still flap in the breeze is little short of breath-taking.

How dare they?

Those denizens of the White House and Capitol Hill and all those gray granite buildings that line avenues with names like Constitution and Independence in the nation's capitol would have us believe that we must trade our rights, all of our rights, for some measure of security from the terrorists.

They would have us believe that a nation of 300 million people must surrender what a million other Americans gave their lives in war to protect in order to protect us from a couple of hundred fanatics hiding in caves in Waziristan.

Benjamin Franklin himself wrote of such a debate:

"Those who can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

The fact that British troops, operating on flimsy general warrants handed out by local magistrates, were kicking in the doors of ordinary Americans and rifling through their pantries and papers in search of smuggled, untaxed goods was a prime reason why our ancestors rebelled against their king and went to war.

This is WHY we celebrate the Fourth of July. This is why the vote on renewing the expanded version of FISA and whitewashing the egregious violations of the Fourth Amendment for seven long years by our government is important.

If neither John McCain, the Republican, or Barrack Obama, the Democrat, can find the courage to oppose such a violation of so basic a right then what are we to do for a president, a successor to George W. Bush, The Decider, who has since 9/11 decided what rights you are entitled to keep, what laws he will or will not obey, and whether you will be protected by these words of the Constitution:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

That's it. That's the Fourth Amendment. That is what these folks in Washington, D.C., have violated continuously and in secret for seven long years.

Somewhere across an ocean and a desert, hiding in his cave, a man of hate named Osama bin Laden is laughing up the sleeve of his dirty robe at the thought that he and a small handful of fellow fanatics could tie a great nation in knots - knots of fear stoked by our own leaders.

We have done incalculably more and greater damage to ourselves since September 11, 2001, than a thousand bin Ladens and ten thousand al Qaida recruits could ever have done to us.

Franklin D. Roosevelt famously declared that "we have nothing to fear but fear itself." Now it would seem that we have no one to fear but ourselves and our leaders.

The questions I pose are these:

How can even one senator on either side of the aisle in good conscience vote in favor of this law that does nothing to enhance our security and everything to diminish our rights as a free people?

How can both men who seek to become our next president cast such a vote when both should be standing shoulder-to-shoulder declaring that they would govern by our consent and with our approval, not by wielding the coercive and corrosive and corrupt powers that King George III and his latter-day namesake from Texas thought are theirs by divine right?

Happy Overthrow Your Government Day! (A Day Late)

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

hen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— John Hancock

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Faux Passion

The result of a lot of conversations lately have been making me think more about passion. Not like sexual passion, but having a love for an idea, one worth committing to.

Part of this has come from me discovering how wonderful it is to be surrounded by people who truly care about what they are doing to shape the world...be it (for me) environmentalism, political, cycling. There is a wonderful feeling being with these people celebrating their passion. And it makes me want to get more involved in those communities whenever they are celebrating their love.

Now this is where it gets a little scattered. (As if it hasn't been already.)


This is where I get to think on all those people who are lacking.

I ended a nearly seven year relationship partly because I realized that the person who I thought was going to help push me be more revolutionary wasn't that at all. He was anti corporate media, & was so against shopping at Wal*Mart that he would only go wearing something offensive. He was going to be a poet, & wanted his MFA to be focused on gender lit.
Where is he now? He works for a bank processing applications. I never bothered to invite him to political events (reproductive rights, environmentalism, etc.) because I was sure he wasn't interested in going, even if it was just to support me.
His idealism was weak. The words seem like they fell short, & ended up being just words instead of thoughts or actions. And that's no good for a person who wants to love more.

But what's more insidious is finding a person who is doing all the actions, & then discovering how expansive the lack of ideals is.

I met this person who seemed like he could be pretty good. He was vegetarian & was very good about having all his products be earth-friendly. Turns out that both of those are just because he worries about what he puts into himself, & not a concern for anything in the broader world. He told me recently about how he felt really conflicted because he wanted to see Tom Morello perform this weekend (because he's pretty awesome), but didn't like that the concert was a benefit for Cindy Sheehan's congressional run. The reason: "I don't like her politics." I know that she's against the Iraq War, what else is there? What is there to be offended by?
Especially with the first part, it just disgusts me to know that someone is going through the actions for selfish reasons & not for some altruistic purpose. Sure, it's better than not doing those things, but it still shows a person that I wouldn't want to hang out with.

How Much--The Ginger Ninjas

How much
How much do I care about peace?
Do I care enough about peace to ride my bike to work?
To not say "it's too far", & instead just move closer and quit when I get there?
To say "Enough is enough is enough. I will not work for The Man anymore."
Do I care enough about peace to ride and ride and ride
Cleaning my mind until I find a real job working for everywhere everyone everything else in the world?
Not real like 9-to-5, real like keeps me alive.
Not real like Peter Jennings, real like Amy Goodman.
Not real like "somebody's got to do it", real like Earth Island Institute, Global Exchange, Doctors Without Borders, South Yuba River Citizens League.
Real like if I don't do it, who the hell will?
Do I care enough about peace to admit that inactions are actions, and all actions are votes, and not voting IS voting, not voting IS voting.
To vote with my mouth, my conscience & wallet, & my ballot while I'm at it.
To buy all organic all the time.
Always.
From sheets to roses to underwear to sprouts.
To cause a commotion at Safeway.
Say, "Let me know when you make the transition, and I might reconsider my decision to never shop here again."
To dig up my chemically-dependent, heavy-drinking lawn & replace it for good with a permaculture garden to share with my neighborhood.
To UPS 40 pounds of corn and 5 thousand gallons of water to my refugee penpal in Rwanda every day for a year before eating one more mouthful of pig, of chicken, of cow.
To build my house out of straw.
Make it small; fill it with compact fluorescents; super-insulate the water heater.
Make certain every splinter of wood is Jay Butterfly certified.
And once I built it, to stay home.
To not fly, to forsake air travel and it's out-sized, suicidal tendencies for warming up the planet; it's insatiable greed for there and here on the very same day.
Fuck those little plastic cups anyway.
Do I care enough about peace to let my fingers to the walking?
Right out the door of the business-as-usual yellow pages and into the national green pages every time the American in me can no longer resist the urge to consume.
To sell half my shit, then give half what's left today...except for the television must be destroyed before maiming the mind of one more little boy.
To have just one kid.
To adopt between one and eighty-eight.
To meditate on the origins of impatience, anger, & hate so that I may never yell at any of them or anyone else I love, or don't yet love.
To spend as much time with them as I do sending interoffice e-mail at my job (real or not).
To remember that the truth has been found.
I can't buy from Exxon without Prince William's Sound.
I can't buy from Chevron without hired helicopters gunning and going to the ground.
Not from Shell and that little thing with Ken Saro-wiwa.
Not from Unocal and their Ivy League pals
Shilling on Nightline, promoting the new Uzbeki-Afghani-Osama-Bin Pipeline.
And therefore to commit to a reduction in internal combustion.
To admit I'm addicted to my automobile.
My own two little axils of evil.
I keep finding myself back at the pump, with every finger on the trigger.
And I know, in that moment, they is me, I am them.
Pushed & sucked & pumped through a dirty oil filter.
Do I care enough about peace to sell my car?
To hitchhike, but refuse to ride in any SUV eight-commuter.
Range Rover, Range Rover, send our black soldiers right over.
Jesus Chrysler Honda Krishna!
I keep finding myself back at the outlet.
Ready to plug something else in or check something else out.
Do I care enough about peace to close the Gap?
Or at least stand in front of the Gap with a picket?
To never set foot in WalMart, Kmart, Waremart, Bi-mart, PetsMart, StarMart, or Starbucks again?
How about Home Depot?
To stop buying, stop buying, stop buying clothes made of oil sewn by 8-year-olds in dark factories on the other side of the planet;
Sold in stores built on wetlands, farmlands, once-quiet-lands, so-far-from-where-you-live-lands.
So hemmed in by asphalt, big trucks, broken glass, & mufflers;
So underserved by public transportation that driving there seems like the only reasonable way to get there;
But which are too cheap to pass up.
Do I care enough about peace to stop buying those clothes?
To shop instead at thrift stores?
To buy organic cotton, hemp, recycled clothes made by people I know who live on my street?
To acknowledge that peace is redwood trees standing.
Peace is worldwide family planning.
Peace is organic peach canning.
Peace is Maya Angelou in the Oval Office, sitting at the big desk.
Peace is live music in my kitchen.
Peace is your grandma riding her bike to the bus, to the farmer's market.
Peace is a living wage for the Columbian peasant who grew my cup of coffee.
Peace is the collective self-esteem of all the world's kids.
And I've got to wonder, if you took all the 10-year-olds in China, America, Afghanistan, Nigeria, & Mexico City & gathered all their self-esteem & put it in a laser beam of light & shot it into the night,
Would it make it to the Lincoln Bedroom?
Would it make it to the moon?
Do I care enough about peace to cut up my Discover card?
Send it back to the bankers who are using my money to finance the Three Gorges Dam?
To displace a million people?
Brown, voiceless people?
To drown the Great Yangtze and 5,000 years of cultural history beneath the largest chunk of cement ever conceived by Stanford University engineers?
To distrust scientists with technological cures for organizational problems, with DNA cures for tomatoes that ripen, and DDT cures for mosquitoes that bite, with nuclear cures for energy problems, nuclear cures for war problems, nuclear cures for nuclear waste problems.
This just in! Top scientists today have just announced that they have found a cure for ignorance!
All the newsmen blared, if Einstein was so smart, why didn't he see we weren't ready for MC to be squared?
To revolt every time some corporation commits an appropriation, steals a word, a plant, an idea, a gene, a famous face, a mental space, a sacred place, a 6th grade class.
Get the hell out of my watershed before I copyright our whole language & trademark your ass!
To boycott their labels.
Never worship their stars.
Carry scissors & markers, & stand in the street offering on-the-spot removal of swooshes from feet.
To educate myself in the arts of resistance by seeking out the real news in Boycott Action News, in WorldWatch, in Mother Jones, in AdBusters, in Yes! Magazine.
To climb & climb, up & up the ranks of the Ruckus Society.
To recycle, but only as a last resort after reusing, retreading, reducing, rejecting, rejoicing, & replacing our throw-away culture.
To carry a plate & cup in a bag on my shoulder
Ready to hold spontaneous nourishment without notice, without needing virgin old-growth disposable tableware.
And when the cashiers say: "paper or plastic?", I say "no, thank you."
To ask questions about everything I demonize, criticize, generalize, jeopardize, canonize, ostracize, memorize, advertise, or super-size.
About everything I say I can't live without.
About everything I stand for, sit for, work for, play for, pray for, pay for...live for.
About everything I eat, buy, do, make, facilitate, drive, consume, produce, wear, think, value, believe, throw away & leave behind.
Do I care enough about peace to light myself on fire on Las Vegas Boulevard?
To walk the talk.
To walk, and walk, and walk.
To walk to the White House.
To walk to Iraq.
To walk to no place in particular, holding a sign above my head that says:
"One Walker for Peace."
Ignoring mind closures and "no trespassing" signs, testosterone-fueled egos & the intentionally blind.
Planting tiny peace seeds in every fertile bare patch of human mind that I find.

Do I care enough about peace to ride my bike to work?

Mothers Are a Dear Thing

I hate hearing that friends' mothers are not doing well. They're in ICUs or fighting inoperable cancers. It's just not right.

Having lived through that pain, I know firsthand that it is not a pleasant experience in the least.

Especially when the children bearing it are still relatively young & could possibly miss out on their mothers being there for important moments in life. Like being there for weddings, or present for support during births...or even just as a comfort after a bad break-up.

This blows.

A Great Loss to the Comedy Community

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- George Carlin, the influential comedian whose routines used profanity, scatology and absurdity to point out the silliness and hypocrisy of human life, has died. He was 71.

George Carlin, here in 2007, kept up a busy schedule, performing as recently as last weekend in Las Vegas.

Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, died of heart failure Sunday, according to publicist Jeff Abraham. Carlin went to St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon, complaining of chest pain, and died at 5:55 p.m. PT.

Carlin performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, and maintained a busy performing schedule, which included regular TV specials for HBO.

"He was a genius and I will miss him dearly," Jack Burns, who was the other half of a comedy duo with Carlin in the early 1960s, told The Associated Press.

Carlin was "a hugely influential force in stand-up comedy. He had an amazing mind, and his humor was brave, and always challenging us to look at ourselves and question our belief systems, while being incredibly entertaining. He was one of the greats," actor and comedian Ben Stiller said in a statement. Slideshow: The life of George Carlin »

Carlin was often quoted, his best lines traded like baseball cards. "Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?" began one famous routine. Another pointed out the differences between the pastoral game of baseball and the militaristic game of football: "Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park! Football is played on a gridiron, in a stadium, sometimes called Soldier Field or War Memorial Stadium."

Then there were the non sequiturs: "The bigger they are, the worse they smell," he observed. Watch Carlin in action »

He filled three best-selling books, more than 20 record albums and countless television appearances with his material. Time.com: How Carlin changed comedy

He appreciated the impact his words made on fans.

"These are nice additional merit badges that you earn if you've left a mark on a person or on some people," he told CNN.com in 2004. "I'd say it's flattering, but flattery implies insincerity, so I call it a compliment."

Carlin was probably best known for a routine that began, "I was thinking about the curse words and the swear words, the cuss words and the words that you can't say." It was a monologue, known as "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television," that got Carlin arrested and eventually led to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The "Seven Dirty Words" bit prompted a landmark indecency case after New York's WBAI-FM radio aired it in 1973.

The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 that the sketch was "indecent but not obscene," giving the Federal Communications Commission broad leeway to determine what constituted indecency on the airwaves.

"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," Carlin said. "In the context of that era, it was daring.

"It just sounds like a very self-serving kind of word. I don't want to go around describing myself as a 'groundbreaker' or a 'difference-maker' because I'm not and I wasn't," he said. "But I contributed to people who were saying things that weren't supposed to be said." Watch the impact of Carlin's seven dirty words routine »

In November, Carlin was slated to receive the 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, given by the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

"In his lengthy career as a comedian, writer and actor, George Carlin has not only made us laugh, but he makes us think," Kennedy Center Chairman Stephen Schwarzman said in a statement. "His influence on the next generation of comics has been far-reaching."

In a typically wry response, Carlin said, "Thank you, Mr. Twain. Have your people call my people." Watch an appreciation of Carlin »

Carlin was born on May 12, 1937, in New York. He dropped out of high school in the ninth grade and joined the Air Force, where his misfit ways continued -- he received three courts-martial and several punishments.

After leaving the military, he spent a few years in radio, where he met Burns. In 1960, the pair left to pursue a comedy career in Los Angeles. Burns told the AP that the Carlin of those years was "fairly conservative," but things changed when the two saw Lenny Bruce in the early '60s.

"It was an epiphany for George," Burns told the AP. "The comedy we were doing at the time wasn't exactly groundbreaking, and George knew then that he wanted to go in a different direction."

Carlin remembered a similar feeling, he told CNN.com.

"[His career] represented a lot of such honesty on the stage, the willingness to confront a lot of sacred cows and expose them," he said of Bruce. "He did it with a great deal of irreverence and with a lot of brilliance."

Carlin went solo in 1962. For most of the decade, he was a conservative-looking presence: clean-shaven, attired in jacket and tie, making his amused observations to audiences on "The Tonight Show" and "The Ed Sullivan Show."

But as the times changed, so did Carlin. He let his hair down, grew a beard and dressed in jeans and tie-dyed T-shirts. It was this Carlin who became a hit with college audiences in the early '70s and made such albums as "FM & AM" and "Occupation: Foole."

Carlin hosted the first broadcast of "Saturday Night Live" in October 1975.

He also appeared in movies, including "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" (1989), Kevin Smith's "Dogma" (1999) and "Cars" (2006). For the latter, he was the voice of Fillmore, the Volkswagen bus.

He starred as a cabdriver in his own sitcom, "The George Carlin Show," which ran from 1993 to 1995. He also played the character of Mr. Conductor on the PBS series "Shining Time Station" and lent his voice to two episodes of "The Simpsons."

Carlin was blunt about his own struggles. He suffered several heart attacks, one at Dodger Stadium during a baseball game. He also underwent treatment for drug and alcohol abuse.

He was relentlessly amused by humanity -- in one of his most famous lines, he pointed out that "if you're born in this world you're given a ticket to the freak show. If you're born in America, you're given a front-row seat" -- but refused to consider himself a cynic. He preferred "disappointed idealist."

It all went into his comedy. He was fascinated by language and euphemism, noting that "there's a reluctance to confront reality and a desire to soften unpleasant realities." In a different life, he said, he may have been a teacher.

Which he was, anyway.

"Part of what my impulse is with things I've said or done, I think it is an attempt to demystify these things, to take them out of the realm of the forbidden and the disgusting and the off-base, and to at least bring them into the discussion," he told CNN.com.

He is survived by his wife, Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin. Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997.

Free Bird

Okay, so this is a little more personal. (Which is hard to stomach because I hate blogs of self-centeredness...but I'll justify that this is general enough.)

Almost one year ago I moved halfway across the country in the effort to start my life over with a clean slate. I'd know only two people in the whole state, & would have no pressures on me to be the person that I'd been for I have no clue how long. I was tired of having to be so good & just being so nervous in being judged all the time.

I just don't feel like people are that open to friends of theirs experimenting with the idea of who they are once they've grown accustomed to them being a certain way...or at least not right in front of their eyes anyways.

There were so many things that I had been wanting to do or get involved in, but just didn't feel like I had the support to check them all out. (Not that no one cared about the same things as me, but they didn't have the motivation to do it with me.)

But when you have to go out & learn an entirely new place & find out what you want to do & where you want to try to make friends, I think it helps.

The changes that I've made in the last year have been noticeable.


But, I also have to wonder, how many others are trapped? Trapped in an existence where they are what they are expected to be, but never getting the chance to wonder if they really want to be all that or if they want more. I can't believe that I'm the only one. For a country of people who are stalked by the media for their low self-esteem, can I really believe I was the only one who was suffocated into something less than I am?

No. I don't.

I just wonder how many others will find their way out before it's too late.

Obesity Contributes to Global Warming--Reuters

By Michael Kahn

GENEVA (Reuters) - Obesity contributes to global warming, too.

Obese and overweight people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.

This adds to food shortages and higher energy prices, the school's researchers Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts wrote in the journal Lancet on Friday.

"We are all becoming heavier and it is a global responsibility," Edwards said in a telephone interview. "Obesity is a key part of the big picture."

At least 400 million adults worldwide are obese. The World Health Organization (WHO) projects by 2015, 2.3 billion adults will be overweight and more than 700 million will be obese.

In their model, the researchers pegged 40 percent of the global population as obese with a body mass index of near 30. Many nations are fast approaching or have surpassed this level, Edwards said.

BMI is a calculation of height to weight, and the normal range is usually considered to be 18 to 25, with more than 25 considered overweight and above 30 obese.

The researchers found that obese people require 1,680 daily calories to sustain normal energy and another 1,280 calories to maintain daily activities, 18 percent more than someone with a stable BMI.

Because thinner people eat less and are more likely to walk than rely on cars, a slimmer population would lower demand for fuel for transportation and for agriculture, Edwards said.

This is also important because 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions stem from agriculture, he added.

The next step is quantifying how much a heavier population is contributing to climate change, higher fuel prices and food shortages, he added.

"Promotion of a normal distribution of BMI would reduce the global demand for, and thus the price of, food," Edwards and Roberts wrote.

(Editing by Stephen Weeks)

Is There Power Left In the People?

After seeing a showing of rare rock video clips at the library, I thought it was only appropriate to go over to the Red Vic to watch "Chicago 10". (imdb article here...watch the videos.)

It was incredible. It really makes me want to go out & find the trial transcripts & read up about the people on trial.


But that wasn't the most important thought that came to me while I was watching it.


While watching footage of policeman beating demonstrators with their nightsticks & shoving them into the police vans & of all the talk of the anger of the masses against the Viet Nam war, I couldn't help but feel that this story is just a little too relevant to now. We're in the midst of another bad war, & with National Conventions taking place this summer in preparation of the election in the fall.

The stage feels similar.

And the question is: What would I do?

Clearly, I don't care enough to the point that I'm planning on taking off work to attend either one of the conventions. But, more importantly, would I show up for an event like the one MOBE & the Yippies planned? Would I stick it out knowing the likelihood of being gassed & beaten & perhaps killed? Do I believe in my voice that strongly, & know that my life's worth speaking my words?
I don't know that it is yet...But I want it to be. I want to be filled with that passion.


But this all supposes that there are people out there who would organize something like that. I'm holding some doubts. There's too much apathy, or working with the system (which would only keep it sanitized anyways), or whatever else excuse there is for people to sit around on their asses & complain about how bad things are but never really do anything about it. So even if I can say "Speaking my opinion is worth the most to me", would there be a movement to welcome me with like-mindedness?

I hope that by the time that I have found my level of sacrifice, that enough others have found theirs & will march with me.

A Developing Cyclist Complex

When I first bought my bike, I was talking to a friend of mine about it. She warned me against becoming one of those "aggravating" cyclists that have a total disregard for cars. I glossed over some of the things I'd already been doing, but tried to essentially tell her "yes, I won't do that."

That's easier said than done.


I do yield to cars when it looks like they're going to beat me through the intersection at 4-way stops (or if they don't see me & it'd be their right-of-way anyways), I don't run red lights (unless it's a T-intersection that doesn't cross me), & I have lights with me when I ride at night.

(Originally, I was going to try to stop at stop signs, but it seems to confuse drivers. Many of them are so used to bicyclists just running them that it actually seems to hold up traffic by not....due to the difficulty of communicating to each other.)


But it's hard not to want to get more aggressive. Lots of car drivers are assholes, & have little regard for me being there. It's more like I'm seen as an irritation just by existing, & have no right to be on the road.

I've stopped counting how many times that I've almost been hit (which is a pretty scary thing since I don't have health insurance). But I have had someone almost make a left hand turn into me into a parking lot, been cut off by a person on a cellphone pulling out, as well as someone pulling into a parking space. I regularly have people drive really close to me when I come up Fulton after work, which is why I now ride close to the dotted white line to force them entirely into the next lane (for my safety). And finally, for the first time, I got swore at last night. Some woman at an stop light yelled at me to get my "bitch ass off the street."

Wow.


It's making me want to get more involved in the SF Bike Coalition, & participate in Critical Mass. I want to really find ways to advocate that I have just as much right to be there as the cars do...& I'm way healthier than them for myself & the environment. (You'd think in a green city there'd be a greater appreciation for those truly helping curb pollution...but I guess not.)


There was also this billboard on Geary that I really wanted to vandalize. (For the record, I didn't.) It really pissed me off about it saying "healthy cars pollute less".


Sure. They do. And the convenient little website on the bottom gives you tips on how to help keep your car "healthy" so that it is better for the environment.

But is that really the answer?

Maintain your car & the world will smile down on you!

FUCK NO!

It might be less, but is that really what we should consider to be good enough?!




So, yeah. I'm getting the cyclist complex. Someone really trying to do some good, & getting looked on as a second-class commuter.




Just see if I don't fight back.

Leaving the Past Behind

It's been almost 5 months since ("presumably") our downstairs neighbors smashed our door in half & stole a ton of my roommate's & my belongings. (Including our TV, DVD player, my CDs, her movies, sugar, flour, tools, clothes, photo albums, CD-Rs...)

It was really shitty. We called up some friends & moved all of our stuff out that afternoon (after the police visited). I got to have the fun of filling out all the police forms & filing for insurance coverage & all.

But as much as it sucked, I still know that in the long run, it was not without an upside. It gave the two of us the chance to move out of Oakland & into San Francisco like we'd been wanting to do. We had set the date for sometime in the summer, but who knows if that is when we really would've.

Because we both have less stuff now, we've been okay with that. We know we don't need to have tons of things. It isn't important, & we wouldn't have the space for it.


And yet, today I tried taking a nap today because I'm exhausted, & I just couldn't because I was thinking again about all the things I had in the stack of burned CD-Rs that were stolen...Like all my papers, my photographs from college, all the e-mail letters from when my (now ex) boyfriend was abroad, my music backups of songs I bought or the tracks I wanted to keep from CDs I ended up selling before moving....Things that are nice to have around. And it's just all gone.

Maybe it's just being broken up over the things that I just can't replace. I've replaced my computer since college, so the files aren't hiding on this one. I have some of the photos on my computer, but not nearly as many as I took. And I've been really broken up over having my photo albums stolen because my dad had given me all of my pictures he had of me as a child, & so there aren't other ones hiding around somewhere.


Still, it would be really nice if I didn't have periodic moments when I daydream about taking them to court, recovering my stuff, or beating the shit out of them (without the obvious repercussions...like jail for me).


Some day?

CNN.com: Running on empty: With less in tank, more get stranded

AP -- Brent Saba had just dropped a church group off at Philadelphia International Airport on Sunday morning and was heading north on Interstate 95 when it happened: His 15-passenger van ran out of gas.

With gas prices hovering at $4 a gallon, motorists are putting less fuel in their tanks -- then run out.

Saba, a 24-year-old church pastor, made it to the shoulder just past the Ben Franklin Bridge and waited more than 30 minutes for someone to stop and lend him a cell phone. Then he waited a while longer for AAA to arrive with fuel.

With gas prices hovering at $4 a gallon, motorists like Saba are putting less fuel in their tanks -- then coming up empty on the highway.

Though national statistics on out-of-gas motorists don't exist, there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that drivers unwilling or unable to fill 'er up are gambling by keeping their tanks extremely low on fuel.

In the Philadelphia area, where the average price for a gallon of regular broke $4 on Friday, calls from out-of-gas AAA members doubled between May 2007 and May 2008, from 81 to 161, the auto club reported.

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"The number one reason is they can't stretch their money out from week to week," said Gary Siley, the AAA mobile technician who helped Saba.

"Some of them are embarrassed. ... They say, 'I was trying to make it till Friday,' and they couldn't do it," said Siley, who has assisted numerous out-of-gas motorists.

Saba blames himself for not paying enough attention to the fuel gauge, saying he doesn't normally let the tank get so low. But he said the spiraling cost of gas has led the church to reduce its use of the fuel-guzzling van.

And when he does get gas, he puts in only a half-tank.

"If the prices were lower, I'd probably just fill it up," Saba said.

Research from The Nielsen Co. shows that drivers have been making more frequent trips to the pump but limiting how much they put in the tank.

Convenience stores, which sell about 80 percent of the nation's gas, are seeing fewer fill-ups, said industry spokesman Jeff Lenard.

"When the pump hits a certain dollar amount now, you're seeing more customers stop," said Lenard, with the National Association of Convenience Stores. "They're purchasing fewer gallons."

And that means playing Russian roulette with the gas gauge.

In Dallas, Courtesy Patrol -- a roadside assistance program operated by the sheriff's department -- reports a doubling in the number of daily fuel calls from stranded motorists in recent months. Sheriff Lupe Valdez herself recently came to the aid of a mother and her two children who had run out of gas along an interstate.

In some cases, motorists have gotten stuck in the middle of the highway, creating a dangerous situation, said Lonnie Lankford, a Courtesy Patrol shift leader. "It's just breaking the backs of the people, these gas prices," he said.

Transportation officials in Oregon and Tennessee also report increasing numbers of stranded motorists in need of gas.

AAA Mid-Atlantic, which has nearly 4 million members in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia, reported a 15 percent year-over-year increase in calls from members with empty tanks.

"We're seeing a lot of frustrated motorists who are trying to cut corners, and this is one way they're doing it," said AAA Mid-Atlantic spokeswoman Catherine Rossi. "But they're shooting themselves in the foot, or the wallet, in the long run."

That's because perpetually running on fumes can damage a car's fuel pump -- requiring repairs that make a full tank of $4 gas seem like a bargain.

As for Saba, he was just thankful he made it back to North Philadelphia in time for his 11:30 a.m. church service.

"What I was thinking to myself was, at least the weather's nice," he said. "It was beautiful outside and that made things a lot better."

U.S. Cancels Fulbright Grants to Paliestinian Scholars

U.S. cancels Fulbright grants to Palestinian scholars
By Ethan Bronner
Thursday, May 29, 2008

GAZA: The State Department has withdrawn all Fulbright grants to Palestinian students in Gaza hoping to pursue advanced degrees at American institutions this fall because Israel has not granted permission for the students to leave Gaza.

Israel's restriction is in keeping with its policy of isolating this coastal strip, which is run by the militant group Hamas.

The United States consulate in Jerusalem said the grant money had been "redirected" because of concern that if the students were forced to remain in Gaza the grant money would go to waste. A letter was sent by e-mail to the students Thursday telling them of the cancellation.

Abdulrahman Abdullah, one of the seven Gazans who received the letter, was in shock.

"If we are talking about peace and mutual understanding, it means investing in people who will later contribute to Palestinian society," he said. "I am against Hamas. Their acts and policies are wrong. Israel talks about a Palestinian state. But who will build that state if we can get no training?"

The State Department Web site describes the Fulbright, the U.S. government's flagship program in international educational exchange, as "an integral part of U.S. foreign relations." It adds, "the Fulbright Program creates a context to provide a better understanding of U.S. views and values, promotes more effective binational cooperation and nurtures open-minded, thoughtful leaders, both in the U.S. and abroad, who can work together to address common concerns."

Some Israeli lawmakers, who held a hearing on the issue of student movement out of Gaza on Wednesday, expressed anger that their government was failing to promote educational and civil development in a future Palestine.

"This could be interpreted as collective punishment," said Rabbi Michael Melchior, chairman of the Education Committee in Parliament, during the hearing. "This policy is not in keeping with international standards or with the moral standards of Jews, who have been subjected to the deprivation of higher education in the past. Even in war, there are rules." Melchior is a member of Meimad, a small party allied to the Labor Party.

The committee asked the government and military to reconsider the policy and get back to them within two weeks. But even if the policy is changed, the Fulbright scholars in Gaza are out of luck for this year. Their letters urged them to reapply next year.

Israel's policy appears to be in flux. At the parliamentary hearing Wednesday, a Defense Ministry official recalled that the cabinet had declared Gaza "hostile territory" and decided that the safety of Israeli soldiers and civilians should be risked only for humanitarian concerns. Higher education, he said, was not a humanitarian concern.

But when a query about the canceled Fulbright grants was made to the prime minister's office Thursday, senior officials said that they did consider study abroad to be a humanitarian necessity and that when cases were appealed to them, they did everything they could to facilitate them. They suggested that American officials had not brought the Fulbright cases
to their attention.

Still, despite their contention, they argued that the policy of isolating Gaza was working and that Palestinians there were starting to lose faith in the ability of Hamas to govern. Since Hamas, a radical Islamist group that opposes Israel's existence, carried out what amounted to a coup in Gaza one year ago against the more secular Fatah party, hundreds of rockets and mortars have been launched from there at Israel and numerous attempts to kidnap Israeli soldiers have taken place.

While Hamas says the rockets are in response to Israeli military incursions into Gaza, it also says it will never recognize Israel.

"We are using the rockets to shake the conscience of the world about Israeli aggression," Ahmed Yusef, political adviser to the Hamas foreign minister, said in an interview. "All our rockets are a reaction to Israeli aggression."

The Israeli closure on Gaza has added markedly to the difficulty of daily life here, with long lines for cooking gas and a sense across the population of living under siege. Israel sends in about 70 truckloads per day of wheat, dairy products and medical equipment as well as some fuel, and permits patients to exit in the case of medical emergencies.

But Israel's stated goal is to bolster moderates among the Palestinians so that Hamas will lose power and even some security-conscious hard-liners said the policy of barring students with grants abroad was counter-productive.

"We correctly complain that the Palestinian Authority is not building civil society but when we don't help build civil society this plays into the hands of Hamas," said Natan Sharansky, a former conservative government official. "The Fulbright is administered independently and people are chosen for it due to their talents."

Sari Bashi, who directs Gisha, an Israeli organization devoted to monitoring and increasing free movement of Palestinians, said, "The fact that the U.S. cannot even get taxpayer-funded Fulbright students out of Gaza demonstrates the injustice and short-sightedness of a closure policy that arbitrarily traps 1.5 million people including hundreds of Palestinian students accepted to universities abroad."

She said that their education was good not just for Palestinian society, but for Israel as well.

Taghreed al-Khodary contributed reporting.

Recommended Books (with ongoing updates)

"A Peoples' History of the United States" by Howard Zinn
"We Don't Need Another Wave: Dispatches from the Next Generation of Feminists" edited by Melody Berger
"Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo
"Shooting War" by Anthony Lappe
"V for Vendetta" by Alan Moore
"Minimum Security" by Stephani McMillan

As Gas Goes Up, Driving Goes Down--From CNN.com

(CNN) -- At a time when gas prices are at an all-time high, Americans have curtailed their driving at a historic rate.

Americans are not driving as much as they did a year ago as gas prices skyrocket.

The Department of Transportation said figures from March show the steepest decrease in driving ever recorded.

Compared with March a year earlier, Americans drove an estimated 4.3 percent less -- that's 11 billion fewer miles, the DOT's Federal Highway Administration said Monday, calling it "the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history." Records have been kept since 1942.

According to AAA, for the first time since 2002, Americans said they were planning to drive less over the Memorial Day weekend than they did the year before.

Tracy and Adam Crews posted on iReport that their annual Memorial Day weekend has traditionally involved camping and fishing.

"Well, due to the continual rise in gas, we felt our only recourse was to nix the idea this year and stay home" in Jacksonville, Florida, they wrote.

Instead, the couple said they "decided to camp out in the backyard. We set the tent up, just finished installing our above ground pool, and cleaned up the grill. ... We have ourselves a campsite! It's been a blast!"

Nakeisha Easterwood of Smyrna, Georgia, said with gas prices on the rise, she sometimes catches rides with friends, and doesn't drive into town more than once a day. "It's crazy," she said.

According to AAA, the national average price for a gallon of regular gas rose to a record $3.936. That compares with an average price per gallon of $3.23 last Memorial Day.

"With it being near $4 a gallon, you definitely have to drive slower and pick and choose when you're going to do it," said Steve Kahn of Roswell, Georgia, at a Memorial Day festival in Atlanta.

Some Americans have turned to public transportation. Ridership increased by 2.1 percent in 2007, in part because of rising gas prices, according to the American Public Transportation Association.

Americans took 10.3 billion trips on public transportation in 2007, the highest level in 50 years, the group said.

The Energy Information Administration says gas consumption for the first three months of 2008 is estimated to be down about 0.6 percent from the same time period in 2007.

For the summer season, gas consumption is expected to be down 0.4 percent from last year.

China & Tibet

After my Socialist meeting last Friday, we went out for drinks to "carry on the conversation". (I was really skeptical that anyone actually would continue to discuss politics...and this was one time I was pleasantly proven wrong.)

A couple of the guys brought these two girls back to the table, in what you'd think would be the standard pick-up. The one who was closer to me, that I could actually hear, was getting questioned a lot about what she thought about the political system in Sweden (which is where the two of them were from).
And then they hit her with questions about China. She argued against, & they argued for. (One of the great things was that the guys afterwards said that they knew they were taking a more extreme view for the sake of debate, & did agree with her on some points & don't believe that China should be held up as the ideal Socialist state.)

What does this have to do with me?

Just another opportunity where I feel totally ignorant of the world around me.

I've stopped reading the newspapers for what's going on because I know that it's so filtered & carefully evaluated that I feel it can barely be trusted as the truth. But that means that I'm totally in the dark about it all.

Like China & Tibet.


When I was in India, the town I lived near, there were a large number of Tibetan refugees. I remember seeing the postcards at the Cultural Fair with pictures of activists hanging a sign asking China to stop the genocide on the Tibetan people.

The whole thing sounded absolutely horrible. So I had no problem when I got the decal for "Free Tibet" to slap it immediately onto my car.

Now I kind of feel like I'm one of "those" kinds of liberals. And that makes me feel icky inside.


I did some reading. And while I know that I'm not getting the whole story, I feel like I'm getting a little more. (And if anyone had any more to let me know to help me be more educated about this subject, I'd be more than happy to hear it. Honestly.)

The issue doesn't seem to be as easy as a country that is being held against it's will by another one & is demanding autonomy. Tibet has long been a part of China. Recognized by Tibetans as part of China. It sounds like Tibet is wanting China to let Tibet preserve their cultural & religious heritage (or at that is at least the demands by the Dalai Lama).

This isn't what I'd think of when I think of "FREE (insert country here)".

Sure, there are plenty that think that China has no right to be involved in Tibet, but when is there ever a consensus on international relations anywhere?

And maybe it's just my skepticism, but just knowing that the CIA was involved with Tibet fighting China makes me pull back a bit.



I hope to learn more about the relations to cure my dreadful ignorance. But this is just a first start.

From "Taboo Tunes"

"On the ballroom floor you allow liberties to men that you never allow them elsewhere. You grant them liberties on the ballroom floor that if a man other than your husband would attempt them in your home & hour husband would find you at it, he would have no trouble securing a divorce, & if he shot the man no jury in the world would convict him for it."

~Reverend Billy Sunday, on the Tango, 1915


Also see:

From the Ballroom to Hell
The Immorality of Modern Dances
Taboo Tunes

Repulsive Item of the Day

A bumper sticker on a car that said "They had to call it PMS. 'Mad Cow Disease' was already taken."

Stupid sexist fuckers.