all good things are wild and free

Henry David Thoreau

My grandmother died a few hours ago. It was a little sudden. But she'd been fading for a while. She went very peacefully, in my mother's arms. My mother was telling her it was ok to go, that everything was allright. She missed her favorite holiday by one day.

It's been a bad year for relatives of the people in my neighborhood. My neighbor across the street lost his father a couple of months ago, and my backyard neighbor also lost her grandmother this week. So much loss, so close to home.

I feel sorry that my grandmother didn't get to see the spring this year. She was always so happy to see the birds, flowers, and trees come back to life in the warming sun. She wasn't a big explorer, but she enthusiastically enjoyed the simple act of sitting on her porch and watching her small world of nature go about it's business. Her other passion, besides nature, was poetry. She loved the simple, sweet, honest words. She had a tough life. She grew up with lots of rough and tumble siblings on a farm in coastal Maine and not a whole lot of anything else. But even as a child, she loved to read. And write. Not too many years ago, my mother, grandmother, and I published a few issues of a zine together. Probably the only three-generation zine ever created.

Oh, and she voted for Nader in 2000. She was definitely no political activist, but she knew what was good for her family and friends.

She will be missed by many. Her quiet, but happy soul was always there, watching the birds and flowers in the yard. And in my memory, she'll always be there, even now that she's left us.

aha!

It turns out that Blogger lost my layout template for my blog. They didn't bother to tell me, though. So, I could post to my heart's content, and Blogger said that the posts were uploaded, but because the template didn't exist, the new page information could never be generated. It's better now, but I have to figure out how to get all my little customizations back in.

Anything?

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

nada

If anyone can read this let me know (e-mail address on the left). I haven't seen any of my last three posts.

tap...tap...tap...

Is this thing on? I posted yesterday and it still hasn't shown up. Let's see if the snak machine technique works here and this post will push the last one out...

marriage counselling

The whole world could use some serious "marriage counselling". No one is happy. But instead of trying to deal with their problems, people would rather just be pissed off and take out their frustrations on others, usually unwitting bystanders who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Its easier to lash out than to do the hard work that's required for real problem solving. This is true on both a personal and a political level. The fight or flight response still has a hard grip on our species, even after thousands of years of attempts at civilization.

Now we know where King George gets his ideas...

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same in any country."

- Herman Goering (good pal of Hitler) at the Nuremberg trials

Six degrees of seperation from a monopoly

Apparently, if you do a search on Microsoft's search engine for "Iraqi satelite photos" this site shows up at #8. On the surface this seems impossible. But it turns out that I spelled "satellite" wrong, so it's not as impressive as I thought.

I really will put up some photos of the protests/marches I've been going on. Maybe today...

the US military breeds crazy people

One ex-Army guy has managed to accomplish more disruption of business as usual in the nation's capital than 200,000 peace activists. He's driven his tractor into a manmade pond in the National Mall and refuses to leave, threatening the use of explosives (which he probably doesn't have). What's even more ironic, is that the police are treating him with the utmost respect, compared to the non-violent peace activists in NYC and DC in recent months. The police are going so far as to say "It's time, patience and lots of communication that is key to having a safe resolution". Hmmm, maybe they could say that a little louder so that King George might hear it...

The peace movement could learn a thing or two from this guy. (Just without any actual explosives.) We're huge, but almost completely impotent. We need to change that. (Again, in a peacful way, obviously.) I'd like to see more lawsuits, more aggressive media demands for fair and accurate reporting, more pressure on our locally elected officials, and a heck of a lot more boycotts/worker walkouts.

hope

It's only going to get worse.

But I have the slightest bit of hope that things won't be as bad as they could. I saw two programs on television last night that gave me a glimmer of something. CSPAN showed Iraqi satelite news and one of the chief Iraqi statesmen indicated that he realized that most US and British citizens were against their dictatorial leaders. At least someone is paying attention...

Also, on CSPAN, I caught a debate about violence in Iraq that was rebroadcast from Saturday. There were two extremely well spoken journalist/professors who made an excellent case against violence, there was one guy who was on the fence, but generally supported a war, and there was one guy almost literally foaming at the mouth who spent his time degrading pretty much everyone, demanding the destruction of an entire country, and twitching a lot. Oh, and the moderator was doing a wonderful job mocking Bush, Blair, and the rabid vulture guy. It showed me that there are some powerful intellects proposing rational foreign relations.

One thing that keeps popping up, which I've never seen addressed, is the bizarre claim by the pro-violence crowd that "We've tried everything else! War is our last option!" Well, firstly, we need to identify what the actual problem is, before we can look at solutions. Unfortunately, the Bush Regime has yet to come up with a definitive problem in Iraq. They keep changing their story, and making up random lies to defend their position. We didn't start with a problem with Iraq - we started with a desire to start a war and then tried to justify our actions.

Secondly, lets look at what sort of solutions we've fully tried in a general effort to make Iraq a less hostile place:

1. War
2. Sanctions

That's it? Yup.

(We've also tried to conduct US inspections, but both times we've done so, no weapons of mass destruction were found, and, more importantly, both times the diplomatic inspections were abruptly halted by the US president.)

So we've tried two things. How can anyone in their right mind say that "we've tried everything"? All we've done so far is extreme violence and severe punishment. (War didn't work the first time, why do we thing it'll be any different this time?) What about trying one of the other thousand possibly solutions? How about legal action (through the World Court, or within the Iraqi legal system)? How about flooding peaceful Iraqi organizations with money, food, and other non-violent resources to give them strength to stand up to their dictator? How about just generally not acting like a big red white and blue asshole to people of a different race? Or, how about just ignoring them? (That's usually the preferred tactic with people who are acting up to get attention. Giving them attention generally just encourages them.) And, finally, have we even bothered to respect Iraqi citizens as human beings? (Heck the Bush administration doesn't even respect US citizens as human beings...)

Finally, for the sake of argument, let's pretend that Saddam is actually committing mass murder of the Kurds as we speak (as opposed to 15 years ago) and he's just made an appearance on tv to announced that he's figured out a way of combining nuclear weapons with biological weapons. And he's planning on attacking the US with nuclear germs no matter what we do. If this was the case, then, would we really be able to accomplish anything by attacking the country? Would it stop Saddam from wanting to use his weapons? Wouldn't it give him the excuse to use even more of them? A threatened, scared creature who feels cornered is a hell of a lot more dangerous than a puffed up creature who is angry but has a clear escape route.

Where's Waldo

King George is rumored to have declared that lovable red-striped sneak, Waldo, a terrorist spy. Children everywhere are being instructed to loot around in their parents' closets and drawers, find the guns and ammo, hunt down Waldo, and shoot to kill.

Oh, and some Brit named Terry Jones had this to say about Bush's foriegn policy.

bored?

Lists of things to do make my life a little better. When I get frustrated, overwhelmed, or just plain bored, I make lists of things I'd like to do (and some things I have to do). Writing the list alone makes me feel good about myself, and crossing stuff off the list is even better. Here is, for your reading pleasure, the latest list I've compiled for myself (an "x" means I've done it!):

x Enter Bicycling Mag contest
x Post rant about 69 year old crossing guard being hit by a car and the fact that the police aren't charging the driver with anything (on "Somerville Bikes" discussion list)
- Finish Somerville Bicycle Committee Guidelines
- Reprint "Bike City" zine and/or make new one for Boston zine festival
- Write a "slow is sexy" article for SCUL zine
x E-mail Commuter Biking course description to Boston Skillshare organizer
- Order/scavenge parts for making more recycled bike part jewelry
- Finish Bike Lane Dilemmas paper for Bicycle Power.net site
- Join the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals
- Upload peace march/bike pictures from 3/1/03
- Call the Somerville Journal's "Speak Out" to rant about police not prosecuting the driver who mauled the 69 year old crossing guard (When is the sun NOT in driver's eyes on Highland Ave?)
- Get Jim Hodgedon's new e-mail address (bike cop on bike committee)
- Send out bike committee's new subcommittee member list
x Update Friends of the Community Path's brochure
x Ask other Education subcommittee member for ideas for the year
x E-mail Bhupesh and get subcommittee list and 2003 member contact list
- Order MassBike Kids Club stickers
x Design and order Kids Club rubber stamp


Yes, well that's all well and good, but now I've got a new list to work with. Check out Adbuster's list of things to do to avert a war. I'd add on to that list: listen to Christopher Hedges talk about the addiction of war, and what gives him hope amidst all the atrocities committed on a daily basis.

score 1 for Mother Nature

Wanna bet no one is going to be buying a car this President's Day anywhere on the east coast? Yay for blizzards!

happy "Stop King George from making his B movie into a reality" Day

The problem with protests is that there's a lot of effort put into them, but often there's no real progress. Standing around with a bunch of other people who agree with you is nice, but doesn't really accomplish that much. Imagine if all those people who are presently decending upon NYC (and 500 other cities around the world...) spent just a few hours actively advocating for peaceful solutions to world problems. What if, instead of standing around in the cold, these people met with their local legislators, mayors, news reporters, neighbors, school committees, etc. and simply talked about solutions more productive than violence? Better yet, what if these people mustered the courage to run for office on a platform of civility, with rational appoaches to politics and and a serious aim to put people before profits? Or how about if these folks quit working in corporate habitrails, broke their addiction to personal automobiles, vowed not to contribute to overpolulation, and spent their lives working to enrich society. Take that gut feeling of wanting the world to be a beautiful, happy, safe place and use it to effect change as a teacher, a holistic doctor, a writer, an artist, a political leader, a police officer, a lawyer, a city planner, a craftsperson, a baker, or a farmer. Think of the thousands of people who you could share your idea with in one of these jobs!

I used to think that I was accomplishing something by being an outspoken person in the corporate world. But, for all the good I was doing, I was also comtributing to business as usual. In my desire to have a comfortable job, I lost sight of the fact that the point in life is not to be comfortable, but to be alive. Sitting at a computer day after day working on making a product that no one needed is not what I want to do with my time here on the Earth.

Manufactured Joy

We hear more and more these days that depression, road rage, stress, and fear are becoming the norm, rather than an aberation. Some may claim that it's a result of the gaping rift between the rich and the poor, while others may blame terrorists or the media. And all of these problems are definitely causing society to feel pretty damn crappy. But I think that a cause even closer to the root is the fact that we humans have become so seperated from our human-ness that we feel completely unwhole. Everything from our friends and our enemies, to our joys and our sorrows, even to our genetically modified food and our excercise machines, is manufactured and approved and then served to us on a shiny platter by the people we've chosen (or had chosen for us) to be our leaders. We've become so addicted to the easy high of a far off war fought by someone else, or a mindless romantic comedy at the local megaplex, that we don't even want to want to know what is really going on in the world or even in our own communities. Sure, escapism is a necessary part of the human healing process, but we've become a nation stuck in the fantasy world that we work so hard to pay for. We sit in our hermetically sealed cars for two, three, or four hours a day, placated by "music" created by profit-enhancing algorithms, while the rest of the world is relegated to obstacles that threaten our very purpose in life (working and consuming). And when we finally manage to extract ourselves from protective bubble of the personal vehicle, we immediately scramble to return to the environmentally and emotionally controlled environments that are the buildings we work, shop, and live in.

But this isn't living. This is a coma. (Or perhaps an ill placed comma?) Deep down we all know that this is all fake (and may be why so many "normal" people enjoyed the movie the Matrix), but we're incapable of giving up the falsities that the Bush administration, the "news" media, and Hollywood in general are feeding to us (on pewter spoons that will eventually kill us). Why should we give up the manufactured joy of a successful killing spree on a video game for the unknown reality that might hurt us for real? Well, because this manufactured life is making us ill on a human level. It's destroying our hearts and our minds and even our bodies (US citizens are the unhealthiest on the planet, despite our vast medical resources). Plus, this fantasyland is just no comparison to the real joys of life. You can choose to be alive and human, and to be in charge of creating your own joys and sorrows, or you can choose to be plugged into the feeding tube of the masses.

Technology, fantasy, even drugs are rarely bad in and of themselves, as they are merely tools. The danger lies in the user. Even duct tape can be used to kill.

baited breath

I can see yours in the cold...

Ok, so it all seems to have boiled over, onto the stove, and settled, finally, on the floor in a cool mushy puddle. Things got worse, then kind of stayed in limbo for several excrutiating days, and now you'd barely know that WWIII had happened in my house. We are a bunch of drama queens, aren't we? (I'm definitely much less dramatic than I used to be, though.) I don't think all the roommies are particularly happy, but things seem to be pretty damn civil these past few days, thank goodness.

I've been spending a lot of time with my homeboys and homegirls (ewww, that just sounds gross) at SCUL. These people really are great, and kept me sane while my world seemed to be rapidly falling apart these past couple of weeks. My favorite neighbor also just lost his dad, and the gang has been really supportive of him, too. People who bike, I think, are just a little more cool than the rest.

Speaking of biking, I got a call at the MassBike office today from a writer at Bicycling magazine. He was looking for some quotes and info about commuting, of all things. Usually Bicycling is incredibly boring (and that's coming from someone who LIVES biking), but they are going to do a big section on commuting for Bike Month this year. I gave him some really dull, but honest, quotes and thanked him for writing the article. I neglected to mention that I just cancelled my subscription, beceause I thought the mag sucked...

Finally, I want to leave you with a little story about what I did while half the country was watching big men in little pants running around with a funny shaped ball. It turns out that one of the SCUL ladies is a scientist at a sprem lab. No kidding. She invited a bunch of us over to her place for dinner and realized that she needed to go to work to do a couple of things. Instead of just leaving, we all decided to tag along. One of our gallant young men offered to donate a bit of his manhood's progeny for our experimentation. So we got to watch his sperm flit about under the microscope looking forlorn without their egg. I sort of knew that there were different types of sperm cells, but you could really tell that they had different shapes and mannerisms. It's funny to think that all of these individual creatures live inside of a guy, and are, for all intents and purposes, part of the man. (cue Eric Idle...) While we were at the lab, we actually were even more excited to get a chance to play with the liquid nitrogen that they freeze the tiny 1/2 humans. We froze one of my bananas and shattered it on the sidewalk, and then ate some of it (it tasted shockingly similar to a non-tortured banana). We splattered the liquid nitrogen on the floor and watched it slither all over the place (it behaves a lot like mercury and doesn't seem to have any friction at all). And then one of the guys decided to try to burn his wart off with the stuff (which he knew was fairly safe because his doctor had done it to him before). All in all, we agreed that it was one of the best field trips we'd ever been on. Nothing like getting a bunch of geeks in a science lab...

who would you eat?

We're not so different. This little excercise is interesting in a number of different ways. I like to confront anti-abortion folks with these pictures of embryos from different species and ask them which ones are sacred, and which would you happily kill and eat? But the similarity could also be useful in illustrating the idea that humans, pigs, and chickens are pretty damn similar when you really get down to it. We're all just blobs of cells that have decided to organize themselves into shapes that have a head, some legs, eyes, heart, brain, and some other random stuff that has managed to keep us reproducing for millions of years.

Happy half moon day, everyone.

hope

"When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered...

America, the richest, most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war."

Dr. Martin Luther King, April 4, 1967

but keep trying!

I did my best to make my life a bit more tolerable last night (and thanks to some really great people, and too much beer) I was actually happy for 8 hours or so. Alas, several of my roommates had different plans, and managed to make my life pretty damn miserable. The thing is they made themselves miserable in the process. They actually asked me to move out because they think I'm causing all their problems. And I'm certainly no roommate saint, but I'm convinced that there's a lot more to it than just me (they complain that I'm too messy, but they also complain when I clean!). So I'm hoping to stay put (and I'm certainly willing to compromise even more). A similar situation happened to me about 12 years ago, and I did reluctantly move out, only to discover that within a couple of months so did everyone else, because after their scapegoat left they realized that they all hated eachother. Why does life have to be so difficult? As the writers for Buffy drilled into us all last season, "The hardest thing about the world is living in it."

Society seems to successfully break down one hurdle to survival, only to replace it with another hurdle. What happened to the life of leisure that the industrial revolution promised us :-)

not dead yet!

I'd pretty much given up on this journal thing, as I've just been too busy, and I'm kind of tired of staring at a computer screen these days (maybe it's a symptom of cabin fever). But I've been feeling shittier and shittier lately, and it occured to me that venting might be a good idea. So here's my vent list!

1. People suck. Last night, one of my roommates asked me one of those ridiculous hypothetical questions that I hate where a human and a cow are about to die, and who would I choose to save? Obviously, there's no one answer to this sort of unrealistic query, it really depends on all sorts of variables (had either one pissed me off lately, does one have a better chance of saving him- or herself, do I have a personal interest in saving either, would either of them be likely to die soon anyway, or would I really even be capable of saving anyone at all as I'm such a klutz?). But, if you boil the question down to what I think he was really curious about - Do I think that a human is more worthy of life than a cow? - then I have a bit of an easier time giving an answer. Short answer? No. For any number of reasons, the world is not better because the average person exists, and neither is the world significantly improved by the life of a cow. And if you want the long answer, then I would probably go futher and say that a human is more likely to do harm than the cow is, so it probably would be better for me to save the cow.

2. I live my life with a few simple beliefs. Things like caring about others, trying to give back more than I receive from the earth, and looking to make things better than they already are. It's sort of like a religion, without the silly omnipotent or semi-omnipotent creatures lurking about in some other dimension. My philosophy isn't set in stone, and I know that my modern, technophile lifestyle doesn't quite mesh with my ideals, but it does help me when I get confused or have trouble making a decision. Unfortunately, it also makes me extremely depressed when I do my best to live a good life and some of the people around me totally screw me over because of it.

3. I know I'm not perfect, but I get the distinct impression that most people are just incredibly superficial, selfish, uncaring, and utterly clueless. Example: I reluctantly invite a woman who also has cats to move in to our home, and her cats not only take over the house, leaving my poor kitty cowering under the bed 90% of the time, but she also leaves me a four page note telling me to keep my cat out of the living room! The note also declared that she thought that I was rude to ask her a (very benign) question while her boyfriend was in the room. In other circumstances I might have chalked up her cluelessness to being in a bad mood, but she'd literally just found out that she'd gotten a job she'd been wanting for months, and she was really happy. Added to all this stress with that roommate, I've also got to live with the moodiest man I've ever met, who has randomly decided (after fawning over me when he first moved in) that I am completely intolerable, and am apparently incapable of doing anything right.

4. Forget Iraq, there's a warzone right here, all around us in America. It's called the roads. Every time I step, or roll, off the curb and into the street - to go to work, perhaps - I fear for my life. I've been hit by idiots in cars at least four times in the past year. And no one seems to care. "People just don't look where they're going." was how the last police officer consoled me when I reported the SUV that ran through a stop sign and right into me in the middle of a crosswalk. It's become acceptable, even encouraged, to operate a motor vehicle dangerously. (The aforementioned roommates spend months on end playing Grand Theft Auto, a video game where the goal is to kill as many people as possible while driving around in stolen automobiles). The last time I had enough courage to get on my bike, I had to scream bloody murder at some asshole who just couldn't wait 5 seconds and decided to squeeze his 7 foot wide, 2000 pound, armored vehicle into the 4 foot wide space between myself and oncoming traffic.

I'm once again getting to a point where it's all becoming a bit too much for me to take. Time to cuddle up with my favorite feel-good movie, Contact, and see if I can't drag my terrified kitty out and give her a hug.