I was looking for software that could facilitate making a flip-book. Instead, I found a site where you can make a web-based flipbook on the spot. Who knew? It's amazing!
So I promptly made this:
http://www.fabrica.it/flipbook/flipbook_player.php?id=1135382226-68502125&r=index.php&keyword=&p=1&type=
It is silly. I highly recommend making one yourselves.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
Friday, December 16, 2005
miscredited
I get a call from my credit company. Apparently, they've spotted something questionable in my recent purchases. Turns out, yep, someone exploited my number somewhere and bought something with it.
I called them up and the automated voice listed all my recent and potentially suspect purchases. I immediately knew which one it was by the amount, but the descriptions were lacking. When I spoke with the operator, she also knew — it was the attempted purchase of an x-box listed as a "business service". She offhandedly mentioned that the Left Turn Bookstore purchase was mine, right? Now I'm not the most paranoid person out there when it comes to these things, but I'm not sure what it says about a. their tracking capabilities and b. my personality that the operator could determine that a medium-sized purchase from a lefty bookstore was clearly mine, and an x-box clearly was not. Perhaps I should pay cash for some things and charge different ones to keep 'em guessing. In this case, however, it really did work to my advantage to be predictable, even if that means I now don't have a credit card for holiday shopping. Go figure.
I called them up and the automated voice listed all my recent and potentially suspect purchases. I immediately knew which one it was by the amount, but the descriptions were lacking. When I spoke with the operator, she also knew — it was the attempted purchase of an x-box listed as a "business service". She offhandedly mentioned that the Left Turn Bookstore purchase was mine, right? Now I'm not the most paranoid person out there when it comes to these things, but I'm not sure what it says about a. their tracking capabilities and b. my personality that the operator could determine that a medium-sized purchase from a lefty bookstore was clearly mine, and an x-box clearly was not. Perhaps I should pay cash for some things and charge different ones to keep 'em guessing. In this case, however, it really did work to my advantage to be predictable, even if that means I now don't have a credit card for holiday shopping. Go figure.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Thursday, December 08, 2005
now for the actual update
Dear readers,
I am lapsed. However, I find you all to be forgiving in that way that only static, relatively anonymous audiences can be. It's a cathartic process for me, really -- but a boring or not frequently updated one for you.
Since I went to Indiana, (begin tangential anecdote) which also held a gay bar where a DJ doing his best to accomodate us attempted to mix "House of Glass" into bad house music into "Raspberry Beret" and on to the extended mix "Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go?" It was ugly, but not his fault. What were we thinking? (end anecdote), I've been a few places. Philly, Collegeville, and Philly again; back to a 9am flight to Durham, 48 hours later to a day in DC, and topping it off with Kalamazoo, MI all in the same 8-day span. I'm real glad to have not been on a plane for almost three weeks, and I'm not even supposed to be on one again until I head off to Cali to see my lovely Bay peeps.
Did I mention that the greatest irony about the Indiana trip is that (for those of you who know her) Mary Gray arrived in DC the same day I left for Indianapolis? And she's in Bloomington? We basically switched places during one of the few times we could see each other. But all's well that ends well, and we finally got to meet up on her trip out here to the AAAs last week. Whew! It'd been just over a year, after her lovely wedding to Catherine in Louisville.
Things that have happened:
I am lapsed. However, I find you all to be forgiving in that way that only static, relatively anonymous audiences can be. It's a cathartic process for me, really -- but a boring or not frequently updated one for you.
Since I went to Indiana, (begin tangential anecdote) which also held a gay bar where a DJ doing his best to accomodate us attempted to mix "House of Glass" into bad house music into "Raspberry Beret" and on to the extended mix "Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go?" It was ugly, but not his fault. What were we thinking? (end anecdote), I've been a few places. Philly, Collegeville, and Philly again; back to a 9am flight to Durham, 48 hours later to a day in DC, and topping it off with Kalamazoo, MI all in the same 8-day span. I'm real glad to have not been on a plane for almost three weeks, and I'm not even supposed to be on one again until I head off to Cali to see my lovely Bay peeps.
Did I mention that the greatest irony about the Indiana trip is that (for those of you who know her) Mary Gray arrived in DC the same day I left for Indianapolis? And she's in Bloomington? We basically switched places during one of the few times we could see each other. But all's well that ends well, and we finally got to meet up on her trip out here to the AAAs last week. Whew! It'd been just over a year, after her lovely wedding to Catherine in Louisville.
Things that have happened:
- I moved to a queer collective house just up the road. I now have six very nice housemates, seven including the cat, in the heart of a gentrification process that has us facing condos every which way. I hope we can hang on here for a while longer, I love it. This process also ate all remaining scraps of my free time and sanity for a while. Now I have things like a bed, and blankets, and even shelves, so it's settled.
- I had a relaxing and cooking-laden couple of days off with Elly's family attributed to the genocidal fiction we clal Thanksgiving. I refused to deal with my cell phone, and so did my cell phone service provider, during that time.
- The first snow hit DC, and I still haven't stopped biking to work. What's wrong with me? This is only my second Eastern winter. Someone talk sense into me before I lose my nose to the frostbite.
- Elly and I joined the local Y and it has a climbing gym. I spend time I should be writing posts scrambling up walls, whenever the work lets me.
- I will be going to Venezuela this winter. That is exciting.
- I have been working like mad and consequently neglectful of my friends. This is bad.
- As a sanity preservation maneuver, I watched the latest Harry Potter movie and liked it.
exercises in futility, aka the democratic process
I had one of those snaps the other day. Now, I owe y'all a post about what I've been up to, where I've been, etc. But I thought I would post this.
I did one of those automated action alerts about immigrants rights--I believe it was a DREAM act one, but I can't remember from whence it came. Honestly, I get so many action alerts in a day I can't keep track. So I get this asenine response from some hapless DiFi staffer and I don't know if it was the lack of sleep, the utter inanity of the response, or a lingering homesickness that wishes I could rid California of the plight she wreaks upon us through sheer electoral power alone; I simply HAD to respond. I'm sure whatever intern was stuck reading this immediately put it in the "wingnut" category, but this is what happens when I'm working at 2am and suddenly get this kind of email from DiFi's office. It's a task they signed up for, goddammit.
Anyhow. She wrote:
On 12/5/05 8:38 PM, "senator@feinstein.senate.gov" wrote:
December 5, 2005
Mr. Max Toth
[my mailing address]
Dear Mr. Toth:
Thank you for writing me about a possible blanket amnesty.
I appreciate hearing from you.
I do not support blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants. As
the daughter of a Russian immigrant, I understand the hope and the
optimism with which countless others view our country. I believe
America is rooted in a tradition of newcomers working hard and
building a better life for themselves and their families. We must
balance this tradition, however, with our ability to integrate new
immigrants into the American society that follow the proper
channels to legal immigration. Our ability to accept immigrants and
our immigration policy must support and strengthen families, create
economic opportunities, increase scientific and cultural resources,
and fulfill humanitarian commitments.
Again, thank you for writing to me. If you have any further
questions or comments on this or any other issue, please do not
hesitate to call my Washington, D.C. staff at (202) 224-3841.
Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator
http://feinstein.senate.gov
Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the Nation are available at my website http://feinstein.senate.gov. You can also receive electronic e-mail updates by subscribing to my e-mail list at http://feinstein.senate.gov/issue.html.
to which I replied, in a fit of pique...
Dear Senator Feinstein,
I appreciate that your office responded to my email. To be frank, we strongly disagree on a number of key issues. Given your stances on many concerns that I would find important, I'm basically appalled that you still identify as a Democrat, and I can't wait for the 2006 elections, and hope that an actual progressive candidate runs as a challenger to your post. When or if they do, I would gleefully work around the clock on their campaign until you are forced into the retirement that we, the people you purport to represent, so richly deserve. I find it particularly galling that your base of operations for years in the state of my birth is our beloved progressive bastion of San Francisco, home to many hardworking-if-undocumented people who are terrorized into poverty wages, otherwise known as a substantial portion of the economic base of California.
Until then, unfortunately, I am required by our supposedly democratic political system to beg you to bother to be progressive. We both know that will not happen unless poor people are able to scrounge the campaign largesse required to be properly represented. However, as I feel compelled to do what I find just in this society, I will continue to send you missives about what I'd like you to do were you to actually represent me and scores of people who live in this city, as well as the state. Were you to suddenly change your views around this issue and a number of others (say, your continually hawkish stance towards the war we're waging in Iraq, among others) I would vote for you. Lots of my friends would, too. But as of now, I apologize to people that I was sufficiently unaware of electoral politics such that I made the mistake of voting for you in the first election I was allowed to participate in. At the time I was under the impression that "Democrat" and "progressive" were synonymous. Thank you for showing me the error of my ways.
As a senior Senator who attended Stanford, you couldn't have possibly missed the ways that US immigration policy throughout the course of history has been terribly racist, arbitrary, and designed to supply a vulnerable and easily-exploited workforce that could be deported at will. The title "Chinese Exclusion Act" doesn't leave much room for nuance, for instance. Nor for hope or optimism, if your ancestors were Chinese immigrant men in the 1800s. Low-income immigrants to the U.S. not only built the infrastructure of this country (that wasn't being built by enslaved Africans) but had to fight, and many died, attempting to guarantee the freedoms that spawned many deferred dreams--usually through labor organizing. The Democrats are supposed to be the champions of struggles for justice such as these.
For a more current analysis, I'm not surprised when I hear from many undocumented workers that it was not, in fact, a desire to fulfill a romantic notion of an American dream that led them to, say, risk their lives crossing a desert to be greeted by armed guards or worse, but in fact, the total economic devastation of the agrarian economy of Mexico due to cheap US imports dumped on them through NAFTA, wrecking their only means of supporting themselves and their families. So I don't care where your parents immigrated from, but I bet they got a fairer shake than the people who clean your office building, or mine, because of the color of their skin and the US's foreign policy towards their countries of origin. I know my Hungarian immigrant relatives did, even though I'm the first person to graduate college on my mother's side of the family, nor were my ancestors spared lung-destroying, gut-wrenching work in Pennsylvania coal mines. Because our families immigrated from Europe, we had access to infrastructure that this country has never granted equally to immigrants of Color, either by law or by selective enforcement.
So now I'll ask you to change your position. Will you? You know it's unfair. There's still time for you to create economic opportunities for people by allowing them to work free from the constant threats of deportation that employers use to force inhumane conditions upon many of those who make our state function, not by denying them.
Your constituent,
-Max Toth
Her office's reponse to this was to re-send the original email. Go figure.
I did one of those automated action alerts about immigrants rights--I believe it was a DREAM act one, but I can't remember from whence it came. Honestly, I get so many action alerts in a day I can't keep track. So I get this asenine response from some hapless DiFi staffer and I don't know if it was the lack of sleep, the utter inanity of the response, or a lingering homesickness that wishes I could rid California of the plight she wreaks upon us through sheer electoral power alone; I simply HAD to respond. I'm sure whatever intern was stuck reading this immediately put it in the "wingnut" category, but this is what happens when I'm working at 2am and suddenly get this kind of email from DiFi's office. It's a task they signed up for, goddammit.
Anyhow. She wrote:
On 12/5/05 8:38 PM, "senator@feinstein.senate.gov"
December 5, 2005
Mr. Max Toth
[my mailing address]
Dear Mr. Toth:
Thank you for writing me about a possible blanket amnesty.
I appreciate hearing from you.
I do not support blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants. As
the daughter of a Russian immigrant, I understand the hope and the
optimism with which countless others view our country. I believe
America is rooted in a tradition of newcomers working hard and
building a better life for themselves and their families. We must
balance this tradition, however, with our ability to integrate new
immigrants into the American society that follow the proper
channels to legal immigration. Our ability to accept immigrants and
our immigration policy must support and strengthen families, create
economic opportunities, increase scientific and cultural resources,
and fulfill humanitarian commitments.
Again, thank you for writing to me. If you have any further
questions or comments on this or any other issue, please do not
hesitate to call my Washington, D.C. staff at (202) 224-3841.
Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator
http://feinstein.senate.gov
Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the Nation are available at my website http://feinstein.senate.gov. You can also receive electronic e-mail updates by subscribing to my e-mail list at http://feinstein.senate.gov/issue.html.
to which I replied, in a fit of pique...
Dear Senator Feinstein,
I appreciate that your office responded to my email. To be frank, we strongly disagree on a number of key issues. Given your stances on many concerns that I would find important, I'm basically appalled that you still identify as a Democrat, and I can't wait for the 2006 elections, and hope that an actual progressive candidate runs as a challenger to your post. When or if they do, I would gleefully work around the clock on their campaign until you are forced into the retirement that we, the people you purport to represent, so richly deserve. I find it particularly galling that your base of operations for years in the state of my birth is our beloved progressive bastion of San Francisco, home to many hardworking-if-undocumented people who are terrorized into poverty wages, otherwise known as a substantial portion of the economic base of California.
Until then, unfortunately, I am required by our supposedly democratic political system to beg you to bother to be progressive. We both know that will not happen unless poor people are able to scrounge the campaign largesse required to be properly represented. However, as I feel compelled to do what I find just in this society, I will continue to send you missives about what I'd like you to do were you to actually represent me and scores of people who live in this city, as well as the state. Were you to suddenly change your views around this issue and a number of others (say, your continually hawkish stance towards the war we're waging in Iraq, among others) I would vote for you. Lots of my friends would, too. But as of now, I apologize to people that I was sufficiently unaware of electoral politics such that I made the mistake of voting for you in the first election I was allowed to participate in. At the time I was under the impression that "Democrat" and "progressive" were synonymous. Thank you for showing me the error of my ways.
As a senior Senator who attended Stanford, you couldn't have possibly missed the ways that US immigration policy throughout the course of history has been terribly racist, arbitrary, and designed to supply a vulnerable and easily-exploited workforce that could be deported at will. The title "Chinese Exclusion Act" doesn't leave much room for nuance, for instance. Nor for hope or optimism, if your ancestors were Chinese immigrant men in the 1800s. Low-income immigrants to the U.S. not only built the infrastructure of this country (that wasn't being built by enslaved Africans) but had to fight, and many died, attempting to guarantee the freedoms that spawned many deferred dreams--usually through labor organizing. The Democrats are supposed to be the champions of struggles for justice such as these.
For a more current analysis, I'm not surprised when I hear from many undocumented workers that it was not, in fact, a desire to fulfill a romantic notion of an American dream that led them to, say, risk their lives crossing a desert to be greeted by armed guards or worse, but in fact, the total economic devastation of the agrarian economy of Mexico due to cheap US imports dumped on them through NAFTA, wrecking their only means of supporting themselves and their families. So I don't care where your parents immigrated from, but I bet they got a fairer shake than the people who clean your office building, or mine, because of the color of their skin and the US's foreign policy towards their countries of origin. I know my Hungarian immigrant relatives did, even though I'm the first person to graduate college on my mother's side of the family, nor were my ancestors spared lung-destroying, gut-wrenching work in Pennsylvania coal mines. Because our families immigrated from Europe, we had access to infrastructure that this country has never granted equally to immigrants of Color, either by law or by selective enforcement.
So now I'll ask you to change your position. Will you? You know it's unfair. There's still time for you to create economic opportunities for people by allowing them to work free from the constant threats of deportation that employers use to force inhumane conditions upon many of those who make our state function, not by denying them.
Your constituent,
-Max Toth
Her office's reponse to this was to re-send the original email. Go figure.
Friday, November 04, 2005
indiana's techno hookah
Tonight I arrived in West Lafayette, Indiana. I haven't been to Indiana before, and after a bit of getting lost with my two co-workers, we made it to our host's house. It was 11:15 or so and none of us had had dinner, so it was suggested we try the hookah bar, whose kitchen is open late.
We arrived at a strip mall-esque compound where a large sign proclaiming "hookah!" and two bouncers 'neath greeted us. Inside the bar, many a college student puffed away and we were seated in the warehouse-sized space. The special part though, was that it was playing classic suburban gay bar techno, complete with disco strobe light. And there were two, count them, two wide-screen TVs with the sports channels blazing away. So we ordered our late-night Lebanese repast and caught each other bobbing along to occassionally to the "whumpa-whumpa" soundtrack.
I was in DC for the three days prior to this, then in Philadelphia staying at Molly's house while she's away in New Orleans. I trucked around the area all that week, stopping only briefly to visit the beloved Kingdom of Vegetarians Chinese food restaurant, home of round-the-clock vegan dim sum.
Also, I moved this past weekend to a room in a queer collective house in DC, which means cool housemates + Elly and I have proper amounts of space to ourselves, which is healthy. I ran all over heck looking for a new mattress, but craigslist did me right and a free-but-in-great-shape queen size mattress is now mine.
OK, past my bedtime, more later.
We arrived at a strip mall-esque compound where a large sign proclaiming "hookah!" and two bouncers 'neath greeted us. Inside the bar, many a college student puffed away and we were seated in the warehouse-sized space. The special part though, was that it was playing classic suburban gay bar techno, complete with disco strobe light. And there were two, count them, two wide-screen TVs with the sports channels blazing away. So we ordered our late-night Lebanese repast and caught each other bobbing along to occassionally to the "whumpa-whumpa" soundtrack.
I was in DC for the three days prior to this, then in Philadelphia staying at Molly's house while she's away in New Orleans. I trucked around the area all that week, stopping only briefly to visit the beloved Kingdom of Vegetarians Chinese food restaurant, home of round-the-clock vegan dim sum.
Also, I moved this past weekend to a room in a queer collective house in DC, which means cool housemates + Elly and I have proper amounts of space to ourselves, which is healthy. I ran all over heck looking for a new mattress, but craigslist did me right and a free-but-in-great-shape queen size mattress is now mine.
OK, past my bedtime, more later.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
carving and baking madness!
I went to a pick-your-own pumpkins and apples farm with pals from g-town, elly, melissa & marissa. Yay! We returned triumphant and promptly carved pumpkins and made that apple pie, which unfortunately looked better than it tasted, but oh well.
coast to coast
That was the name of the local hardware store in the town where I grew up (for the first half). But that's not why you're reading my post.
Almost liek a pilgrimage, I returned to Boston about a week shy of when I'd gone a year ago. It had been my first campus trip, so this year I celebrated my anniversary of working for USAS at the Harvard campus giving workshops. It's a good time of year to visit - lots of brick and leaves, and the wind hasn't quite gotten bone-chilling yet. I tried in vain to go to a famous vegan restaurant near where our gracious host lived, but the timing didn't work out. We did go to a club with a candle-wick bowling alley where a truly flabbergasting performer, Leslie and the Ly's. At first, I had no idea what to think, and she could probably lose some of the karate-chops, but her ode to gem sweaters was truly amazing.
I also found a particular headstone in the famous Granary Burying Ground that had left an impression on me as a 13-year-old tourist. As I explained to my comrades on the trip, many times my family vacations included trips to the local cemeteries - it's a side effect of having somewhat goth parents. Later that day, I'd get on a plane and land that night in Los Angeles.
I was reunited after a year with my beloved sleeping bag, patiently awaiting my northward return, only to leave it behind in Los Angeles. Fortunately, my co-worker was notified that I'd left it behind in time to bring it back to me. Reunited, and it feels so good.
I got to hang out with Shana (see: friend blogs) at her place in Long Beach for a couple of hours, which was great becuase we had tons to catch up on. Other than cruising around LA in a ridiculous Buick rental car (they were out of compacts), I didn't get to see much outside of the UCLA campus (which is nice, don't get me wrong). I even missed seeing my aunt, which was a shame because I so rarely get to go to SoCal. I'm actually pretty fond of LA, and got to at least call my mom and get the story straight on where all she grew up down there. San Diego, mostly.
My returning flights left something to be desired, but it actually worked out better than planned. Plan A was that I'd fly back to Boston, sleep in the airport, and get on a flight to Baltimore. Yuk. So instead I got trapped at LAX having been directed by an airline-check-in-counter-person to miss my flight and rebook to DC directly for $100 - I was willing to do it, but apparently that was all fiction. Without car, a dead cell phone and no charger, I instead was stuck in an LAX terminal for six hours. There was an incredibly sweet Welsh guy on vacation who chatted with me about my iBook, then we wound up ranting about US's position in the global economy, arrogance, consumerism, and bad foreign policy. I love it when that happens! After he caught his flight, I made my way to a restaurant for a veggie burger (look, people, I was desperate) where I sat at the bar and got engaged in a conversation about police brutality, racism, the environmen, travel and government administration in suburban LA-sprawl with an awesome woman knocking back a couple of margeritas to ease a flight to Australia for vacation.
Now I'm in Philly again, I can't believe it was March when I was last here for work. Molly took three weeks off work to go down and help out in New Orleans, with my pal Catherine Jones at the clinic and with cleanup in general. What she's seeming is incredibly intense, and I hope she'll post it somewhere. In the meantime, I get to crash at her apartment.
Signing off...
Almost liek a pilgrimage, I returned to Boston about a week shy of when I'd gone a year ago. It had been my first campus trip, so this year I celebrated my anniversary of working for USAS at the Harvard campus giving workshops. It's a good time of year to visit - lots of brick and leaves, and the wind hasn't quite gotten bone-chilling yet. I tried in vain to go to a famous vegan restaurant near where our gracious host lived, but the timing didn't work out. We did go to a club with a candle-wick bowling alley where a truly flabbergasting performer, Leslie and the Ly's. At first, I had no idea what to think, and she could probably lose some of the karate-chops, but her ode to gem sweaters was truly amazing.
I also found a particular headstone in the famous Granary Burying Ground that had left an impression on me as a 13-year-old tourist. As I explained to my comrades on the trip, many times my family vacations included trips to the local cemeteries - it's a side effect of having somewhat goth parents. Later that day, I'd get on a plane and land that night in Los Angeles.
I was reunited after a year with my beloved sleeping bag, patiently awaiting my northward return, only to leave it behind in Los Angeles. Fortunately, my co-worker was notified that I'd left it behind in time to bring it back to me. Reunited, and it feels so good.
I got to hang out with Shana (see: friend blogs) at her place in Long Beach for a couple of hours, which was great becuase we had tons to catch up on. Other than cruising around LA in a ridiculous Buick rental car (they were out of compacts), I didn't get to see much outside of the UCLA campus (which is nice, don't get me wrong). I even missed seeing my aunt, which was a shame because I so rarely get to go to SoCal. I'm actually pretty fond of LA, and got to at least call my mom and get the story straight on where all she grew up down there. San Diego, mostly.
My returning flights left something to be desired, but it actually worked out better than planned. Plan A was that I'd fly back to Boston, sleep in the airport, and get on a flight to Baltimore. Yuk. So instead I got trapped at LAX having been directed by an airline-check-in-counter-person to miss my flight and rebook to DC directly for $100 - I was willing to do it, but apparently that was all fiction. Without car, a dead cell phone and no charger, I instead was stuck in an LAX terminal for six hours. There was an incredibly sweet Welsh guy on vacation who chatted with me about my iBook, then we wound up ranting about US's position in the global economy, arrogance, consumerism, and bad foreign policy. I love it when that happens! After he caught his flight, I made my way to a restaurant for a veggie burger (look, people, I was desperate) where I sat at the bar and got engaged in a conversation about police brutality, racism, the environmen, travel and government administration in suburban LA-sprawl with an awesome woman knocking back a couple of margeritas to ease a flight to Australia for vacation.
Now I'm in Philly again, I can't believe it was March when I was last here for work. Molly took three weeks off work to go down and help out in New Orleans, with my pal Catherine Jones at the clinic and with cleanup in general. What she's seeming is incredibly intense, and I hope she'll post it somewhere. In the meantime, I get to crash at her apartment.
Signing off...
Friday, October 14, 2005
the first step is admitting....
I'm addicted to sudoku, the logic-number-puzzle present in the commuter version of the washington post that our intern gives me every morning. I thought you should know.
I went to Nashville for the first time ever, and while I didn't get to see much of it, I was impressed! I'm off to Boston for a week, then Los Angeles, then Philly, then either Knoxville or West Lafayette, Indiana.
That is all for now.
I went to Nashville for the first time ever, and while I didn't get to see much of it, I was impressed! I'm off to Boston for a week, then Los Angeles, then Philly, then either Knoxville or West Lafayette, Indiana.
That is all for now.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
A lot can happen in a month...
And yet here I am, just updating you now. Well, here's the monthly update, because I'm tired of apologizing to people who've found my blog for the first time in such a state of disrepair.
Two days after my last post, I went to a Direct Action Medic training in DC (mostly to see who else was there, and it was organized by a pal), and then Elly and I decided to embark on an 80-mile bike ride to our friend Ginny's farm in Culpeper, VA. Yep, that's what I said, EIGHTY MILES. The first day we took off around 3pm, and were foolish enough to think that we'd make the whole trek during the day. It rained all day, which added to the insanity of it all. Most of the trip involved hugging the 10 inches of gutter on the side of some pretty hairy highways with Virginia drivers wondering what we were doing there. Crossing offramps on a bicycle is not for the faint of heart.
We made it to one of the town-landmarks as night fell, and decided to call it a night. Sloshily stumbling off my bike at the firs hotel we saw, the Days Inn Manassas had some bad news for us: they were booked up. We'd have to cling yet again to that scrap of concrete highway planners dare to call "shoulder" for another two miles up the road in the dark. When we arrived we decided that order-in Thai food and sleeping until 9am would be appropriate remedies for our ailments. I thought I'd never again be able to feel various parts of my body, including the left section of my right palm.
It was honestly about 10am the next morning by the time we hit the road, and slogged through to Culpeper. It wasn't raining so the ride was quite pleasant, after we got over the part where our quads were screaming. Er, and the part where the sun was pounding us into the concrete. I had to wring out the padding portion of my helmet, twice. Eww!
The town of Culpeper, after you bike past all the big-box stores on the outskirts, is kinda cute. Elly and I decided that it was time for an iced beverage of sorts. After crawling up to the first cafe and watching the proprietor lock the door in front of us, we got a hot tip on a good air-conditioned cafe. We sat for a bit, caught up on calls, and set out for the last 7-mile leg -- described to us in an email as "very hilly". Indeed it was, even my San Franciscan sensibilities were stopped short by the last mountainous hill, the top of which held the turnoff to Ginny's farm's 1/2 mile driveway. We were there! It was worth every aching, numbing, almost-breaking-up-or-turning-around moment. We were greeted by Ginny and a hoarde of smiling Georgetown folks, cooking lovely meals and telling us to shower/sit/make ourselves comfortable. Which we did. We also went swimming and jumping off rocks at a lovely creek out back.
The following week I went to my first DC United game with several folks from the Worker Rights Consortium. They trounced Salt Lake City, and Elly even got into it. It was pretty astounding to see how much these dudes whomp on each other in person. There were some very foul fouls.
Labor Day weekend found this student-labor activist shamelessly slacking. Elly and I had talked a lot of trash about getting to Six Flags, and gosh darnit, we did it. First we spent a whole day on apartment home-improvement, becuase we live together in a tiiiiiny studio. We had committed to find a bigger place by September, but that was just too crazy. So instead, we put up more shelves. Which has helped considerably. The next day, off to Six Flags we went. There was a crazy water park, and we went with Elly's childhood pal Amy and her 12-year-old sister. I let them do all the really crazy rollercoasters. I went on the pseudo-Pirates of the Carribean type ride (I'm fond of water and skeletons together, what can I say? Avast!) and the wooden rollercoaster. On the water-park side, there was the humongous funnel that had a feeder slide going into it - it was so huge, they'd only let people go on 4- or 2-person inner-tubes that looked sort of ilke waffle fries. I thought my heart was going to slide out of my nose during the drop, it was truly freaky. There was a huge wave pool that Elly eventually got to enjoy, any many twisty water slides. Afterwards, our pal Molly picked us up and took us back to the apartment where we indulged in an embarrassing pop culture movie viewing.
Monday we all trucked out in Molly's car to a beach on the western shores of the Chesapeake Bay. A hot tip from a local took us to the only free beach for miles, where it was us and maybe six locals. Elly was chased ashore by jellyfish, but by the time I waded out things were less dangerous. But all the people were sifting through the sand and combing the beach intensely, with what looked to be gold-panning operations involving collanders. Eventually I went up to a woman and asked what she was searching for, and she blunty replied, "shark teeth". Shark teeth? "No, really, that's it. Shark teeth." I believed her, but I wanted to know why, and what they looked like. They were little tiny, black, and she said they were prehistoric - teeth petrified in some unknown shark-dinosaur-graveyard long ago that washes up on this shore. Later on, another nice woman who brought her son and little dog down to the shore explained a bit more. There are many of the big teeth at the community center, she said, but most of those have been picked over so what's left are the little ones. She tried to get her son interested in the search to no avail. She also had thought it was busy that day at the beach - which had topped out at 15 people. The warmth of people there was amazing, and the search for shark teeth compelling. I brought home about ten.
Part of my slackiness was due largely to the realization that Labor Day weekend may be the last non-working weekend I have until January. I may be exaggerating, but according to my calendar right now the first unscheduled weekend is Oct 8-9th (which may still be booked), and then Elly's birthday weekend (the last one in November).
I spent the next week being in shock about Hurricaner Katrina, and feeling thoroughly useless. I've heard frmo most everyone I knew down there, and all the radical organizers are organizing, and reading every grassroots account and article I can get ahold of. I have quite an archive and I inted to post it here.
Sept. 10-11th, Elly went to her Grandma's house in South Carolina, and I hung out with the crazy kids at the Living Wage Action Center, checking out a series of workshops they'll be running on campuses all this next year. The next day I took a three-hour-each-way bus trip to Philadelphia to catch up with Mazzy, since she was out with her parents for a wedding of her childhood friend. We walked around Philly and talked for five or so hours before I got back on a bus and trekked into DC, accidentally missing a conference call while trying to catch the last train home.
Last weekend was our big national leadership gathering. Both spaces that we'd requested to host it fell through at the absolute last minute (despite having been requested in mid-August), giving us the very real possibility that we had 30 leaders, a half-day training and two trainers and nowhere to put us all. Sharon had given me the heads-up that The People's Institute was up and running despite their offices and the homes of most trainers being destroyed by Hurricane Katrina -- and they needed trainings to get their feet back on the ground. So I arranged to have them run an Undoing Racism training for our leaders, which was amazing, and I'm so glad it worked out. Given the space issues, we were all scrambling like crazy but a couple of contacts I'd made came through. Whew!
Now I sit at the Rennaisance Grand Hotel in St. Louis, where the national Jobs with Justice conference will begin in seven or so hours. Which means I should probably sleep, but instead I'm up working, and catching up - which includes posting here. So here you have it.
It's going to be a very busy October, I think - I'm in Chicago next week for a Fair Trade conference, then Boston for a week (brr!) and from there to Los Angeles (yay, Cali!) and back to DC for a bit before setting off to the Lehigh Valley an hour outside of Philadelphia. Indiana for a regional conference after, perhaps Michigan, possibly back to the SOA protest in Georgia. But it looks like our Winter Conference will be in San Francisco! Let's hear it for a hometown conference. Anyhow, if you don't get a post outta me soon, that's why.
Thanks to whatever audience perseveres in the face of my sporadic posting!
Two days after my last post, I went to a Direct Action Medic training in DC (mostly to see who else was there, and it was organized by a pal), and then Elly and I decided to embark on an 80-mile bike ride to our friend Ginny's farm in Culpeper, VA. Yep, that's what I said, EIGHTY MILES. The first day we took off around 3pm, and were foolish enough to think that we'd make the whole trek during the day. It rained all day, which added to the insanity of it all. Most of the trip involved hugging the 10 inches of gutter on the side of some pretty hairy highways with Virginia drivers wondering what we were doing there. Crossing offramps on a bicycle is not for the faint of heart.
We made it to one of the town-landmarks as night fell, and decided to call it a night. Sloshily stumbling off my bike at the firs hotel we saw, the Days Inn Manassas had some bad news for us: they were booked up. We'd have to cling yet again to that scrap of concrete highway planners dare to call "shoulder" for another two miles up the road in the dark. When we arrived we decided that order-in Thai food and sleeping until 9am would be appropriate remedies for our ailments. I thought I'd never again be able to feel various parts of my body, including the left section of my right palm.
It was honestly about 10am the next morning by the time we hit the road, and slogged through to Culpeper. It wasn't raining so the ride was quite pleasant, after we got over the part where our quads were screaming. Er, and the part where the sun was pounding us into the concrete. I had to wring out the padding portion of my helmet, twice. Eww!
The town of Culpeper, after you bike past all the big-box stores on the outskirts, is kinda cute. Elly and I decided that it was time for an iced beverage of sorts. After crawling up to the first cafe and watching the proprietor lock the door in front of us, we got a hot tip on a good air-conditioned cafe. We sat for a bit, caught up on calls, and set out for the last 7-mile leg -- described to us in an email as "very hilly". Indeed it was, even my San Franciscan sensibilities were stopped short by the last mountainous hill, the top of which held the turnoff to Ginny's farm's 1/2 mile driveway. We were there! It was worth every aching, numbing, almost-breaking-up-or-turning-around moment. We were greeted by Ginny and a hoarde of smiling Georgetown folks, cooking lovely meals and telling us to shower/sit/make ourselves comfortable. Which we did. We also went swimming and jumping off rocks at a lovely creek out back.
The following week I went to my first DC United game with several folks from the Worker Rights Consortium. They trounced Salt Lake City, and Elly even got into it. It was pretty astounding to see how much these dudes whomp on each other in person. There were some very foul fouls.
Labor Day weekend found this student-labor activist shamelessly slacking. Elly and I had talked a lot of trash about getting to Six Flags, and gosh darnit, we did it. First we spent a whole day on apartment home-improvement, becuase we live together in a tiiiiiny studio. We had committed to find a bigger place by September, but that was just too crazy. So instead, we put up more shelves. Which has helped considerably. The next day, off to Six Flags we went. There was a crazy water park, and we went with Elly's childhood pal Amy and her 12-year-old sister. I let them do all the really crazy rollercoasters. I went on the pseudo-Pirates of the Carribean type ride (I'm fond of water and skeletons together, what can I say? Avast!) and the wooden rollercoaster. On the water-park side, there was the humongous funnel that had a feeder slide going into it - it was so huge, they'd only let people go on 4- or 2-person inner-tubes that looked sort of ilke waffle fries. I thought my heart was going to slide out of my nose during the drop, it was truly freaky. There was a huge wave pool that Elly eventually got to enjoy, any many twisty water slides. Afterwards, our pal Molly picked us up and took us back to the apartment where we indulged in an embarrassing pop culture movie viewing.
Monday we all trucked out in Molly's car to a beach on the western shores of the Chesapeake Bay. A hot tip from a local took us to the only free beach for miles, where it was us and maybe six locals. Elly was chased ashore by jellyfish, but by the time I waded out things were less dangerous. But all the people were sifting through the sand and combing the beach intensely, with what looked to be gold-panning operations involving collanders. Eventually I went up to a woman and asked what she was searching for, and she blunty replied, "shark teeth". Shark teeth? "No, really, that's it. Shark teeth." I believed her, but I wanted to know why, and what they looked like. They were little tiny, black, and she said they were prehistoric - teeth petrified in some unknown shark-dinosaur-graveyard long ago that washes up on this shore. Later on, another nice woman who brought her son and little dog down to the shore explained a bit more. There are many of the big teeth at the community center, she said, but most of those have been picked over so what's left are the little ones. She tried to get her son interested in the search to no avail. She also had thought it was busy that day at the beach - which had topped out at 15 people. The warmth of people there was amazing, and the search for shark teeth compelling. I brought home about ten.
Part of my slackiness was due largely to the realization that Labor Day weekend may be the last non-working weekend I have until January. I may be exaggerating, but according to my calendar right now the first unscheduled weekend is Oct 8-9th (which may still be booked), and then Elly's birthday weekend (the last one in November).
I spent the next week being in shock about Hurricaner Katrina, and feeling thoroughly useless. I've heard frmo most everyone I knew down there, and all the radical organizers are organizing, and reading every grassroots account and article I can get ahold of. I have quite an archive and I inted to post it here.
Sept. 10-11th, Elly went to her Grandma's house in South Carolina, and I hung out with the crazy kids at the Living Wage Action Center, checking out a series of workshops they'll be running on campuses all this next year. The next day I took a three-hour-each-way bus trip to Philadelphia to catch up with Mazzy, since she was out with her parents for a wedding of her childhood friend. We walked around Philly and talked for five or so hours before I got back on a bus and trekked into DC, accidentally missing a conference call while trying to catch the last train home.
Last weekend was our big national leadership gathering. Both spaces that we'd requested to host it fell through at the absolute last minute (despite having been requested in mid-August), giving us the very real possibility that we had 30 leaders, a half-day training and two trainers and nowhere to put us all. Sharon had given me the heads-up that The People's Institute was up and running despite their offices and the homes of most trainers being destroyed by Hurricane Katrina -- and they needed trainings to get their feet back on the ground. So I arranged to have them run an Undoing Racism training for our leaders, which was amazing, and I'm so glad it worked out. Given the space issues, we were all scrambling like crazy but a couple of contacts I'd made came through. Whew!
Now I sit at the Rennaisance Grand Hotel in St. Louis, where the national Jobs with Justice conference will begin in seven or so hours. Which means I should probably sleep, but instead I'm up working, and catching up - which includes posting here. So here you have it.
It's going to be a very busy October, I think - I'm in Chicago next week for a Fair Trade conference, then Boston for a week (brr!) and from there to Los Angeles (yay, Cali!) and back to DC for a bit before setting off to the Lehigh Valley an hour outside of Philadelphia. Indiana for a regional conference after, perhaps Michigan, possibly back to the SOA protest in Georgia. But it looks like our Winter Conference will be in San Francisco! Let's hear it for a hometown conference. Anyhow, if you don't get a post outta me soon, that's why.
Thanks to whatever audience perseveres in the face of my sporadic posting!
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Day of the Fire Alarms
OK, this is by no means a significant contribution to the world, but I'm sharing anyway. Today at the building which houses my cubicle, there were four false fire alarms. Apparently some folks were doing work on a floor and something they were doing kept setting it off. The first time was funny, and the rest got shut off quickly. Which was merciful.
So I go off to the gym, am almost through my workout, and what happens? Yep! There was a false fire alarm. Now, at the gym, the fire department sits right across the street. The firepeople out sitting in their lawn chairs laughed at us briefly, then got their equipment and sauntered across the street. It took about 10 minutes for them to turn it off.
So I go off to the gym, am almost through my workout, and what happens? Yep! There was a false fire alarm. Now, at the gym, the fire department sits right across the street. The firepeople out sitting in their lawn chairs laughed at us briefly, then got their equipment and sauntered across the street. It took about 10 minutes for them to turn it off.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Chicago, y despues Montréal
We had our big, all-USAS-all-the-time combination Regional Organizer Training, International Intern debrief and three-day National Summer Retreat. I basically got to see the inside of the UNITE-HERE building and lots of students for a week, on about 4 hours' sleep a night. Yipes! Whew, it's over. Now the semester begins.
After a leisurely week at the office (we get three days off after the confernece, I took the first two m-t) I got on a plane this morning headed for Montreal. I'm meeting with my (hopefully) future top surgeon, Dr. Brassard, today at 1:30pm. Since it was too expensive (and too much!) to flly back the same day, I get to bum around Montréal for a day.
The biggest problem is that what little French is left in my brain was replaced steadily by Spanish, so i keep wanting to respond to people with "gracias", etc. and it's taking me longer than usual to orient myself to maps. But I do remember a lot. I always seem to understand more of languages than I feel comfortable speaking, I'll have to get over that eventually.
I'll post pictures when I take them!
After a leisurely week at the office (we get three days off after the confernece, I took the first two m-t) I got on a plane this morning headed for Montreal. I'm meeting with my (hopefully) future top surgeon, Dr. Brassard, today at 1:30pm. Since it was too expensive (and too much!) to flly back the same day, I get to bum around Montréal for a day.
The biggest problem is that what little French is left in my brain was replaced steadily by Spanish, so i keep wanting to respond to people with "gracias", etc. and it's taking me longer than usual to orient myself to maps. But I do remember a lot. I always seem to understand more of languages than I feel comfortable speaking, I'll have to get over that eventually.
I'll post pictures when I take them!
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Where have I been?
Like, whoa. I haven't posted in waaaay too long. Many people have wandered up to me and mentioned it, which makes me giddy (I have an audience!) and yet here I am, driving you wall away with my utter remiss-o-rama calvalcade of absence.
Well, since July 11th, I've been everywhere. Firstly, I went on VACATION! Yep, a barely-checking-my-email, actual-quality-time-with-friends-and-family vacation. Elly was even there with me! I even have some pictures from it, and some day, perhaps in October, I'll have time to upload it here.
But the important bits are that I got three days in Sonora with my fams, and Elly and I cavorted around town, which was good. We then split up and saw a bazillion people, which was still not quite everybody I'd hoped to see, so if I missed you this time around, we're hoping to be back for a week in the Winter. Highlights include:
It quelled my homesickness for a brief moment, but since it was a whole week, I kept thinking that I'd moved back. So much love! So much to miss! But also, so nice to come back and see everybody.
Upon my return I worked my tail off pretty much around the clock until the following Wednesday, when I boarded a plane for the first annual Youth Encuentro de Immokalee of the Student Farmworker Alliance. The Encuentro was an excellent space with very dedicated and thoughtful folks in attendence. I had a great time hanging out with people and I had almost forgotten that it was my job to be there. Since our national conference is this coming week I had to be in and out of the space - between the church where everything was held and the SFA office, the site of what's likely the only high-speed wireless network in Immokalee, FL. Immokalee itself is amazing; it was very reminiscent to me of small towns in El Salvador (especially with the 3:00 daily rain shower and intense heat) and parts of Sonoma County - farmworker housing truly sucks in every agricultural space that I've seen. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers never ceases to inspire me, and we were given a walking tour of the town and the new space the offices are moving to. It's in the process of being refurbished with a new studio for their radio station (La Tuya!) that runs programs for kids and has several weekly hours of programming in indigenous languages of Guatemala. How awesome is that? The site of the SFA/CIW offices now runs a cooperative store that has community members streaming in all day long.
Satya had invited first Elly, then myself to help co-facilitate a seven-hour day-long anti-oppression training. Does that sound exhausting? It WAS. Despite that, I think it went pretty well. Due to each of our hectic schedules and Elly's flight being delayed, we were up until 4:30am the night before, and ran the whole darn thing on a whopping 2.5 hours' sleep. Yipes! Unfortunately, by the last section (patriarchy, the gender binary system, heterosexism and transphobia), I couldn't even define "transgender" - I think I lost a merit badge for that or something. Elly had to step in and define it for me. We had some work to do afterwards, and it could all use some work, but it was good to be back int he training ring. I hadn't trained about classism & capitalism before, and I felt it went off pretty well. Many thanks to Paul Kivel's latest book: You Call This a Democracy? Saved my tail, seriously.
The next morning I was on for a "Unions 101" but mercifully the lovely and talented Becky Wasserman of American Rights at Work and Marc Rodriguez of the SFA/GSA (UMass - Amherst) handled most of it. I was beyond toast by that point.
Elly and I returned today, and I fly to Chicago this coming Tuesday for our national conference. Wish me luck! Look for another posting, well, uh, early September. OK, I'm kidding. I'll get at least another one in this month, I swear. After we return post-conference, next Sunday, my co-workers take some well-earned days off, I hold down the office, and take an overnight trip to Montreal to speak with a surgeon. And we're not even in the semester yet!
Well, since July 11th, I've been everywhere. Firstly, I went on VACATION! Yep, a barely-checking-my-email, actual-quality-time-with-friends-and-family vacation. Elly was even there with me! I even have some pictures from it, and some day, perhaps in October, I'll have time to upload it here.
But the important bits are that I got three days in Sonora with my fams, and Elly and I cavorted around town, which was good. We then split up and saw a bazillion people, which was still not quite everybody I'd hoped to see, so if I missed you this time around, we're hoping to be back for a week in the Winter. Highlights include:
- Seeing Juliana for the first time in over two years, who drove up from Santa Rosa and arranged to be away from her two young kiddos in order to spend three hours with me
- Nicole M. and Mia throwing me a party at their swank new pad in Berkeley with tofu balls and delightful Greek salad (feta on the side)
- Attending a HeadsUp film night about Queers & Gentrification with all my comrades, and being recruited to facilitate on the spot (thanks, Mel!)
- Four hours of catching up with Sharon M, since we haven't been able to catch each other on the phone for months
- Lots of QT with that cutie Baby Anju and her lovely parents Michelle and Marc in Oak-town
- Flirty times at Mango with Jackie D. gettin' the ladies!
- Left Wing soccer practice with many a sweaty hug
- post-Soccer ankle recovery and bonding courtesy fo MC & Alex
- Pupusa madness with Sarah J. & Jill S.
- The fabulous Peta waxing poetic about Bay Area politics over Thai food in the Castro
- Jeff G with the brunch of Direct Action and Eastern Bloc talk
- Toddling off to San Mateo with Karl T, Lisa and Alicia. Whee!
- Bolinas and long talks on the beach about class, race and the work of Resource Generation with Cathy Rion, comrade supreme
It quelled my homesickness for a brief moment, but since it was a whole week, I kept thinking that I'd moved back. So much love! So much to miss! But also, so nice to come back and see everybody.
Upon my return I worked my tail off pretty much around the clock until the following Wednesday, when I boarded a plane for the first annual Youth Encuentro de Immokalee of the Student Farmworker Alliance. The Encuentro was an excellent space with very dedicated and thoughtful folks in attendence. I had a great time hanging out with people and I had almost forgotten that it was my job to be there. Since our national conference is this coming week I had to be in and out of the space - between the church where everything was held and the SFA office, the site of what's likely the only high-speed wireless network in Immokalee, FL. Immokalee itself is amazing; it was very reminiscent to me of small towns in El Salvador (especially with the 3:00 daily rain shower and intense heat) and parts of Sonoma County - farmworker housing truly sucks in every agricultural space that I've seen. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers never ceases to inspire me, and we were given a walking tour of the town and the new space the offices are moving to. It's in the process of being refurbished with a new studio for their radio station (La Tuya!) that runs programs for kids and has several weekly hours of programming in indigenous languages of Guatemala. How awesome is that? The site of the SFA/CIW offices now runs a cooperative store that has community members streaming in all day long.
Satya had invited first Elly, then myself to help co-facilitate a seven-hour day-long anti-oppression training. Does that sound exhausting? It WAS. Despite that, I think it went pretty well. Due to each of our hectic schedules and Elly's flight being delayed, we were up until 4:30am the night before, and ran the whole darn thing on a whopping 2.5 hours' sleep. Yipes! Unfortunately, by the last section (patriarchy, the gender binary system, heterosexism and transphobia), I couldn't even define "transgender" - I think I lost a merit badge for that or something. Elly had to step in and define it for me. We had some work to do afterwards, and it could all use some work, but it was good to be back int he training ring. I hadn't trained about classism & capitalism before, and I felt it went off pretty well. Many thanks to Paul Kivel's latest book: You Call This a Democracy? Saved my tail, seriously.
The next morning I was on for a "Unions 101" but mercifully the lovely and talented Becky Wasserman of American Rights at Work and Marc Rodriguez of the SFA/GSA (UMass - Amherst) handled most of it. I was beyond toast by that point.
Elly and I returned today, and I fly to Chicago this coming Tuesday for our national conference. Wish me luck! Look for another posting, well, uh, early September. OK, I'm kidding. I'll get at least another one in this month, I swear. After we return post-conference, next Sunday, my co-workers take some well-earned days off, I hold down the office, and take an overnight trip to Montreal to speak with a surgeon. And we're not even in the semester yet!
Monday, July 11, 2005
Wild horses, baby cows, Harriet Tubman, fighting CAFTA
Hey folks. So again, it takes me a while to post. But this time, it's not just the grueling schedule of my mode de emploi, it's that I actually took a vacation over the 4th! Yep, no internet access for me.
Elly and I are borrowing her family's car while they're off galavanting in Costa Rica, and we sprung on the opportunity to head for the beach over the 4th. In years past, the holiday has been marked for me by some lovely, US-foreign-and-domestic-policy-bashing, anti-imperialist soiree, but I'm not sure where those happen out here quite yet. Instead, we headed to Assateague Island National State Park, where wild horsies run around the island and, well, don't really care about you and your SUV. They'll happily prance right in front of it, thankyouverymuch. It was pretty amazing, and my first summertime at a beach on the Atlantic. Despite the fact that the ocean was facing the wrong way, we had a lovely time. Elly was convinced sharks would eat her, or bluefish would spontaneously feeding frezy around her, but instead we just spent several hours playing in the surf.
But rewinding a bit to the night before, I had been invited by my Georgetown Living Wage pals to a play put on in a barn by elementary school kids. They did a rather cogent version of "The Phantom Tollbooth", and it was adorable - singing routines, the smell of dairy farm, baby humans and baby kittens, I could hardly stand it. We got a tour of the barn with cows, one of whom had been born very recently and very prematurely, so it was the cutest, fuzziest, kneecap-high critter I'd ever seen. Our tour guide was explaining that it was calving season, and I looked over and saw some hoofs hanging out of a cow - yep, the miracle of life right there in front of us! And boy, is it a painful-looking process. We were all excitedly hanging out in the barn with root beers hoping to see the birth happen in front of us, but after an hour the farmer decided it was time to assist mom - which involved tying a rope around the soon-to-be-calf's legs and pulling with his whole body. Whoa! We were all flabbergasted, and the calf got to the point of almost standing within 15 minutes of being born.
It was so crowded at the Island that we had a heck of a time finding somewhere to stay, and nearly had to drive two hours outside of it to get a hotel, which we did - eventually. On our way back, Elly turned off a road towards a wildlife preserve, we thought we'd see some more critters before hitting the beach. While en route, we saw a historical park service sign that said "Birthplace of Harriet Tubman, 5 mi". Of course we couldn't miss visiting a place of such significance! Off we went. Elly and I had a debate about which road it was on, since there were no follow-up signs to speak of. But sure enough, five miles later, there we were. It was a large, cast-iron sign at the end of a long dirt road to what was quite apparently an old plantation house. It was hard to tell if it was occupied, because there was a huge pile of firewood, but not much else would indicate that people had been there in a while. A corn field on one side, and wheat on the other, Elly and I couldn't help but notice the punishing heat in the field. We stayed for a little while and were quiet, I thought about what it would tkae in a person to escape this place and come back to get more people away from it. I took a picture of the sign and will post it here later. On the way out, the sign indicating that Ms. Tubman's birthplace was 500 ft. away had been peppered with bullets. It seemed like an appropriate place for us to spend a part of the holiday.
Much of this past week has been spent holding down the office - both my office-mates were out. In the meantime, the Senate approved the Central America Free Trade Agreement, which is crazy. We've been phonebanking against it in the House, and it may come up for a House vote as early as next week. This during a time when we're receiving daily updates from our international interns are relaying stories of abuse of workers' rights in factories across Central America. Hafta fight CAFTA!
Elly and I are borrowing her family's car while they're off galavanting in Costa Rica, and we sprung on the opportunity to head for the beach over the 4th. In years past, the holiday has been marked for me by some lovely, US-foreign-and-domestic-policy-bashing, anti-imperialist soiree, but I'm not sure where those happen out here quite yet. Instead, we headed to Assateague Island National State Park, where wild horsies run around the island and, well, don't really care about you and your SUV. They'll happily prance right in front of it, thankyouverymuch. It was pretty amazing, and my first summertime at a beach on the Atlantic. Despite the fact that the ocean was facing the wrong way, we had a lovely time. Elly was convinced sharks would eat her, or bluefish would spontaneously feeding frezy around her, but instead we just spent several hours playing in the surf.
But rewinding a bit to the night before, I had been invited by my Georgetown Living Wage pals to a play put on in a barn by elementary school kids. They did a rather cogent version of "The Phantom Tollbooth", and it was adorable - singing routines, the smell of dairy farm, baby humans and baby kittens, I could hardly stand it. We got a tour of the barn with cows, one of whom had been born very recently and very prematurely, so it was the cutest, fuzziest, kneecap-high critter I'd ever seen. Our tour guide was explaining that it was calving season, and I looked over and saw some hoofs hanging out of a cow - yep, the miracle of life right there in front of us! And boy, is it a painful-looking process. We were all excitedly hanging out in the barn with root beers hoping to see the birth happen in front of us, but after an hour the farmer decided it was time to assist mom - which involved tying a rope around the soon-to-be-calf's legs and pulling with his whole body. Whoa! We were all flabbergasted, and the calf got to the point of almost standing within 15 minutes of being born.
It was so crowded at the Island that we had a heck of a time finding somewhere to stay, and nearly had to drive two hours outside of it to get a hotel, which we did - eventually. On our way back, Elly turned off a road towards a wildlife preserve, we thought we'd see some more critters before hitting the beach. While en route, we saw a historical park service sign that said "Birthplace of Harriet Tubman, 5 mi". Of course we couldn't miss visiting a place of such significance! Off we went. Elly and I had a debate about which road it was on, since there were no follow-up signs to speak of. But sure enough, five miles later, there we were. It was a large, cast-iron sign at the end of a long dirt road to what was quite apparently an old plantation house. It was hard to tell if it was occupied, because there was a huge pile of firewood, but not much else would indicate that people had been there in a while. A corn field on one side, and wheat on the other, Elly and I couldn't help but notice the punishing heat in the field. We stayed for a little while and were quiet, I thought about what it would tkae in a person to escape this place and come back to get more people away from it. I took a picture of the sign and will post it here later. On the way out, the sign indicating that Ms. Tubman's birthplace was 500 ft. away had been peppered with bullets. It seemed like an appropriate place for us to spend a part of the holiday.
Much of this past week has been spent holding down the office - both my office-mates were out. In the meantime, the Senate approved the Central America Free Trade Agreement, which is crazy. We've been phonebanking against it in the House, and it may come up for a House vote as early as next week. This during a time when we're receiving daily updates from our international interns are relaying stories of abuse of workers' rights in factories across Central America. Hafta fight CAFTA!
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Feverish triathlons in Virginia
I realized I missed a bunch of happenings because of my hectic two weeks. Alas! So, not this past weekend, but the one before that, Elly competed in her first triathlon! The entire preceding week I'd been out of it and kind of fever-y, and finally bothered to take my temperature before we set out for Charlottesville, home of the C-ville Spint Triathlon. It was 102, but I decided that sitting in a folding chair and cheering was not strenuous enough to warrant not being present for this momentous event.
Elly had been training for several months. You'd think she'd, say, done other races before, since triathlons aren't exactly the easiest sport. You'd be wrong. Yep, this would be the first race of her adult (post-high-school) sporting life. She did great! She was solidly in the middle of the pack. Given that she had a virtually antique bike and only the information of her stalwart training handbook to guide her, this is pretty impressive. She did really well on the swim (not surprising, since she was a competive swimmer in high school) pretty darn good on the bike, and had a tough time on the run. We're thinking of doing a relay, which would be fun! Any bikers out there?
Anyhow, I got some pictures, and the tylenol took down my fever a fair bit, so I was only slightly delirious, and this made for lots of enthusiasm in my cheerleading style. A good time was had by all.
Elly had been training for several months. You'd think she'd, say, done other races before, since triathlons aren't exactly the easiest sport. You'd be wrong. Yep, this would be the first race of her adult (post-high-school) sporting life. She did great! She was solidly in the middle of the pack. Given that she had a virtually antique bike and only the information of her stalwart training handbook to guide her, this is pretty impressive. She did really well on the swim (not surprising, since she was a competive swimmer in high school) pretty darn good on the bike, and had a tough time on the run. We're thinking of doing a relay, which would be fun! Any bikers out there?
Anyhow, I got some pictures, and the tylenol took down my fever a fair bit, so I was only slightly delirious, and this made for lots of enthusiasm in my cheerleading style. A good time was had by all.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
Workin' my hiney off - discovering Baltimore
Train interns to go across the country and talk to workers in garment factories; Check!
Go to Baltimore for a week to help people get trained to work on various summer union organizing drives for a month;
Check!
I need a day off; my life is filled with amazing experiences. Both of these things are true at once. And I thought summer was supposed to be a slower time?
I also realized recently that I am incredibly homesick.
I walked into a cafe in Baltimore about half a mile from the training looking for internet access...there wasn't internet access at Johns Hopkins (at least not for conference participants) and I was getting desperate to check my email. The only words I can use to describe the sensation of entering the cafe was "coast warp". It was as if I'd walked out of Maryland and into Sonoma County. Other people I was with commented on it, too. Was it the vegetarianism? The mustard-colored walls and political 70s music? Perhaps the white verging-on-hippie counterpeople? There were things that reminded me that I was much farther east than this flashback would have me believe — I think our waitress actually sort of hippie-bashed at one point. I had to look at the weekly paper a few times to remind myself that I wasn't home in some new cafe that I just hadn't been aware of before.
This week was good but tough. We were in the dorms rooms of Johns Hopkins and the schedule was 8am to 9pm every day for a week. Since I had lots of my other work to attend to as well, I was sneaking off before breakfast (7:30 am. Yowza!) and sneaking back after the day was done, usually around 10:30pm. That made me a Tired Max.
We learned how to do traditional union organizing house visits (well, traditional according to that union) and everybody got to go out and practice the visits with co-organizers. The crowd was an amazing mix - it was 20 members of unions, most of whom had held some kind of leadership position (one person had been a shop steward for 19 years!). There were a handful of students (8 or so) who weren't very familiar with union organizing. We grew pretty close in for the week, and shared some powerful experiences. I expect that from a training, in a lot of ways, but this was a very multi-racial, multi-generational, largely-working-class group. I'm somewhat conflicted about pedagogy of the training, and I was kind of bummed not to go on a visit (but understandable - other folks needed more practice, and I'm not going out on a campaign) but I was otherwise impressed!
Other totally random and incongruous highlights:
Go to Baltimore for a week to help people get trained to work on various summer union organizing drives for a month;
Check!
I need a day off; my life is filled with amazing experiences. Both of these things are true at once. And I thought summer was supposed to be a slower time?
I also realized recently that I am incredibly homesick.
I walked into a cafe in Baltimore about half a mile from the training looking for internet access...there wasn't internet access at Johns Hopkins (at least not for conference participants) and I was getting desperate to check my email. The only words I can use to describe the sensation of entering the cafe was "coast warp". It was as if I'd walked out of Maryland and into Sonoma County. Other people I was with commented on it, too. Was it the vegetarianism? The mustard-colored walls and political 70s music? Perhaps the white verging-on-hippie counterpeople? There were things that reminded me that I was much farther east than this flashback would have me believe — I think our waitress actually sort of hippie-bashed at one point. I had to look at the weekly paper a few times to remind myself that I wasn't home in some new cafe that I just hadn't been aware of before.
This week was good but tough. We were in the dorms rooms of Johns Hopkins and the schedule was 8am to 9pm every day for a week. Since I had lots of my other work to attend to as well, I was sneaking off before breakfast (7:30 am. Yowza!) and sneaking back after the day was done, usually around 10:30pm. That made me a Tired Max.
We learned how to do traditional union organizing house visits (well, traditional according to that union) and everybody got to go out and practice the visits with co-organizers. The crowd was an amazing mix - it was 20 members of unions, most of whom had held some kind of leadership position (one person had been a shop steward for 19 years!). There were a handful of students (8 or so) who weren't very familiar with union organizing. We grew pretty close in for the week, and shared some powerful experiences. I expect that from a training, in a lot of ways, but this was a very multi-racial, multi-generational, largely-working-class group. I'm somewhat conflicted about pedagogy of the training, and I was kind of bummed not to go on a visit (but understandable - other folks needed more practice, and I'm not going out on a campaign) but I was otherwise impressed!
Other totally random and incongruous highlights:
- I set up a virtual Nation-State at nationstates.net thanks to my dear, geeky pal and co-worker Jilly. She has one and I became intrigured. So far, so good: it's a Democratic Socialist state with a reasonable economy, good political freedoms, and compulsory voting. It recently became a UN member. Hee!
- There's a lesbian bar in Baltimore. A nice one, at that! Some of us had a lovely time shakin' our groove thang there, and the DJ was very amenable to suggestions. It had much more floor space than the dear ol' Lexington Club - I guess that's what can happen when the square feet aren't located in the California real estate market.
- I learned the historic art of "duck-pin bowling" - it's a variation on bowling with much smaller pins and balls that was invented in Baltimore, and home to one of the few remaining and best-preserved alleys. It was a hoot!
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
MIA in blogland
OK, well, now it's really been too long since I've written. What happened? After the Memorial Day Weekend Lockout, I had some catching up to do. In fact, I'd planned on writing a bit for this very blog that weekend, but haven't scraped the time together since. I had gone to Philly the week prior for a meeting, and this past weekend I went back to Philly for my pal Molly's Training for Change workshop, "White People Confronting Racism 1". That was something of a whirlwind tour, and the training was 9am to 9pm Saturday type of affair. After a leisurely Sunday where I caught up on sleep, this week has been all about three intensive days of training my work's 16 international interns, who all leave Friday for their respective countries. Whew! Tomorrow's the last day of training, and boy, am I wiped. There are two more interns coming later, so we do it again for them in a condensed version over this weekend. If you haven't heard from me in a while, that's why. Not an excuse! But I am a little busy. June is pretty packed, and there's a seven-day trianing at the end of it that will take me away to Baltimore for a bit. Other than that, the travel has abated somewhat, and I've been mostly in DC.
On the not-work-related side of things, WHEW, is it HOT here! I'm having a hard time adjusting - I sweat pretty constantly. Not that all y'all need to know this, but hey, if you know me, you know I'm all about too much information.But as my dear mother often says, "It's not the heat, it's the stupidity." I don't think she's referring to herself, but I am — I think my brains melted out of me sometime mid-Monday.
There was a pretty serious thunderstorm here Tuesday, which was amazing. Safely ensconced in a Thai food restaurant on a date with Elly (where we had decided it was too hot for a picnic, and I'm glad we did) I watched, gape-mouthed, as hundreds of lightening bolts and sky-shattering thunderclaps raged outside. Which was all very lovely until it dawned on me that we had to bike home. Yipes! As much as I was convinced that I would be a human lightening rod, and that my nervousness about this fact would somehow encourage the lightening to find me, we were fine. The rain was refreshing. I'm worried about when actual summer hits, but I think this may be it. Elly and I need to invest in a fan that's talled that a foot & a half, which is what we've got now. This is your mundane weather report for the evening.
The life of my brain, when not melted out my ear, is doing better. I've gotten to plough through a book about the Weather Underground that I'd wanted to read for a while, the Ron Jacobs one. I'm also trying to embark on reading Das Capital, but it's tough without a study group-slash-cheerleading effort. I also just got Paul Kivel's new book about class, You Call This a Democracy? and I'm very excited to get started on it.
In other news, I've been drawing cartoons lately. Jeff G on my friendster testimonial mentioned that I might put them up on the blog some day (I had thought about it a while ago) but I think I'll actually do it. Huzzah!
That's all the news from maxland to report...
On the not-work-related side of things, WHEW, is it HOT here! I'm having a hard time adjusting - I sweat pretty constantly. Not that all y'all need to know this, but hey, if you know me, you know I'm all about too much information.But as my dear mother often says, "It's not the heat, it's the stupidity." I don't think she's referring to herself, but I am — I think my brains melted out of me sometime mid-Monday.
There was a pretty serious thunderstorm here Tuesday, which was amazing. Safely ensconced in a Thai food restaurant on a date with Elly (where we had decided it was too hot for a picnic, and I'm glad we did) I watched, gape-mouthed, as hundreds of lightening bolts and sky-shattering thunderclaps raged outside. Which was all very lovely until it dawned on me that we had to bike home. Yipes! As much as I was convinced that I would be a human lightening rod, and that my nervousness about this fact would somehow encourage the lightening to find me, we were fine. The rain was refreshing. I'm worried about when actual summer hits, but I think this may be it. Elly and I need to invest in a fan that's talled that a foot & a half, which is what we've got now. This is your mundane weather report for the evening.
The life of my brain, when not melted out my ear, is doing better. I've gotten to plough through a book about the Weather Underground that I'd wanted to read for a while, the Ron Jacobs one. I'm also trying to embark on reading Das Capital, but it's tough without a study group-slash-cheerleading effort. I also just got Paul Kivel's new book about class, You Call This a Democracy? and I'm very excited to get started on it.
In other news, I've been drawing cartoons lately. Jeff G on my friendster testimonial mentioned that I might put them up on the blog some day (I had thought about it a while ago) but I think I'll actually do it. Huzzah!
That's all the news from maxland to report...
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Accidental lockout
This past weekend was one of the first times I had three continuous days in DC off, and as it happens, Elly was out of town with her pal Tyger going hiking.
I had my weekend pretty set to not do much of anything. Which for me means reading, catching up on blog posts, responding to email, and engaging in one of the thousands of research projects I like doing when left to my own devices with a fast net connection.
I set of Saturday afternoon to get my bike fixed (the tire blew) and go on a long-ish ride. Ruond 1: I set out, thrilled to have the bike working again, get four miles out, the tire blows again. Now, it was a slow enough leak that I could limp my way back to the bike shop (at this point it's raining, but at least it was warm) and hand-pump the tire ever so often. I return, the guy apologetically fixes it again and finds the offending piece of glass. Off again for the C&O canal trail, and the weather has cleared up.
After a leisurely break at a park along on the way, happily reading a book about Weather Underground that I'd meant to read ages ago, I decide to see how far the trail goes. Pretty far, I find out, as I wind up in Bethesda, then Silver Spring, and wind my way back dow Rock Creek Park to my house.
I approach the door to the apartment with Elly's keys and realize to my dismay that it's not a complete set. Whoops! I'm locked out of the apartment, having just ridden 36 miles on my bike. I'm hungry, pretty tired, and not real sure where I'll sleep. At least I had the presence of mind to call up my pals the Georgetown students, who let me crash on their sofa for a couple of days.
So instead of my grand internet plans, I hung out with Georgetown folks, and read a bunch (which was nice), and biked around. All told, I did pretty much what I set out to do, but without the luxury of daytime naps on my sofa. In some ways, it prevented me from staying home and cleaning too much, which is a weird habit I've acquired with old age.
Elly returned Monday afternoon, so I spent the rest of the day with her and Tyger after we all were able to clean up bit.
I had my weekend pretty set to not do much of anything. Which for me means reading, catching up on blog posts, responding to email, and engaging in one of the thousands of research projects I like doing when left to my own devices with a fast net connection.
I set of Saturday afternoon to get my bike fixed (the tire blew) and go on a long-ish ride. Ruond 1: I set out, thrilled to have the bike working again, get four miles out, the tire blows again. Now, it was a slow enough leak that I could limp my way back to the bike shop (at this point it's raining, but at least it was warm) and hand-pump the tire ever so often. I return, the guy apologetically fixes it again and finds the offending piece of glass. Off again for the C&O canal trail, and the weather has cleared up.
After a leisurely break at a park along on the way, happily reading a book about Weather Underground that I'd meant to read ages ago, I decide to see how far the trail goes. Pretty far, I find out, as I wind up in Bethesda, then Silver Spring, and wind my way back dow Rock Creek Park to my house.
I approach the door to the apartment with Elly's keys and realize to my dismay that it's not a complete set. Whoops! I'm locked out of the apartment, having just ridden 36 miles on my bike. I'm hungry, pretty tired, and not real sure where I'll sleep. At least I had the presence of mind to call up my pals the Georgetown students, who let me crash on their sofa for a couple of days.
So instead of my grand internet plans, I hung out with Georgetown folks, and read a bunch (which was nice), and biked around. All told, I did pretty much what I set out to do, but without the luxury of daytime naps on my sofa. In some ways, it prevented me from staying home and cleaning too much, which is a weird habit I've acquired with old age.
Elly returned Monday afternoon, so I spent the rest of the day with her and Tyger after we all were able to clean up bit.
Friday, May 20, 2005
The big apple bday update
Hey folks,
I realize I leave you hanging a bit with my last both. Foolish moi! I had a lovely birthday, thanks to my pals Alicia GB, the infamous mollyjean jellybean, the long-lost Kris and of course my lovely partner Elly. Not only did my co-retreat-goers make a surprise vegan birthday cake, I spent a couple of evenings with low-key revalry...a local (to Brooklyn) political hip-hop show one night, and a down-the-block house party the next.
Sunday we were on a train and back to work for Monday, although neither myself nor my co-workers got in particularly early. In fact, I would up a bit under the weather and stayed home mostly. I've fought off a nasty cold that's going around here.
There will be pictures forthcoming, but I left my camera connector at my parents'. It's on its way to me as fast as the postal service will carry it.
Thanks to all who sent me birthday wishes!
I realize I leave you hanging a bit with my last both. Foolish moi! I had a lovely birthday, thanks to my pals Alicia GB, the infamous mollyjean jellybean, the long-lost Kris and of course my lovely partner Elly. Not only did my co-retreat-goers make a surprise vegan birthday cake, I spent a couple of evenings with low-key revalry...a local (to Brooklyn) political hip-hop show one night, and a down-the-block house party the next.
Sunday we were on a train and back to work for Monday, although neither myself nor my co-workers got in particularly early. In fact, I would up a bit under the weather and stayed home mostly. I've fought off a nasty cold that's going around here.
There will be pictures forthcoming, but I left my camera connector at my parents'. It's on its way to me as fast as the postal service will carry it.
Thanks to all who sent me birthday wishes!
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Happy birthday to me
As I type, I'm on a train to New York. This year's birthday is celebrated on a coast I know not well with a present of an 8-hour portion of a retreat to help facilitate in New York. I'm trying not to be bitter, and part of me consented to it. The retreat itself is exciting - USAS's first-ever Alliance Building Committee strategy retreat. The ABC is the group that works on implementing anti-oppression work USAS-wide. It helps to be able to meet and strategize while doing that!
Tomorrow I turn twenty-nine, which I feel is a pretty unremarkable number. I question what I'm doing as an organizer with a student-run organization, but I think we both feel that I'm doing more good than harm, so hey, beats crappy nonprofit administrative work by tons.
Elly, Alicia, and my pal Molly will be gathering after the eight-hour retreat for a small birthday fete, that'll be fun. It seems like it would be hard not to have fun with a birthday in New York - so much happens all the time there! Heck, we could walk around and go to a bookstore and I'd be happy.
I've been something of a lug about my Taurean comrades' birthdays - Karl, Noah, Anju, Izzy - I owe ya somethin'. A little piece o' my heart.
Tomorrow I turn twenty-nine, which I feel is a pretty unremarkable number. I question what I'm doing as an organizer with a student-run organization, but I think we both feel that I'm doing more good than harm, so hey, beats crappy nonprofit administrative work by tons.
Elly, Alicia, and my pal Molly will be gathering after the eight-hour retreat for a small birthday fete, that'll be fun. It seems like it would be hard not to have fun with a birthday in New York - so much happens all the time there! Heck, we could walk around and go to a bookstore and I'd be happy.
I've been something of a lug about my Taurean comrades' birthdays - Karl, Noah, Anju, Izzy - I owe ya somethin'. A little piece o' my heart.
Goin' back to Cali
Back from Pella, I had three days to get my affairs in order to leave for my rapid-fire trip to visit my parents. I say "visit my parents" because that's as much time as I had...I'd originally planned for a two-week, half-with-family half-with-Bay-pals trip. Oh, no. Perhaps I didn't heed my own schedule, sense, or anything like that. I had exactly five days, and then back to DC for a couple of big meetings and a retreat.
So off were Elly and I! I think ours was perhaps the fourth flight in the history of Independence Air to go to San Francisco...that made me nervous, but it was actually quite lovely. It was the pilot's birthday and the flight attendants made a big to-do about it, sending around paper for us to write birthday greetings, and I found that seriously endearing. Taurus solidarity! I feel as though I can't endorse them becaue I'm sure the flights are that cheap due to non-union practices**, but geez, they're cheap and good. No movies, though. Be prepared.
Mazzy graciously put us up the first night, and then Cathy Rion lent us her car for the trip up. Highlights include good food, chill time with the fams, hanging out with my dad after an ill-fated attempt to see Kung-Fu Hustle with them (have I ranted about how much I like that movie here? I *heart* it), and Elly seeing her first rural Northern California town's rodeo parade. I guess Silver Spring, Maryland doesn't have rodeo parades. Go figure.
Upon return to the SF, I had 24 hours to see people and no prep time to call. If you're reading this and thinking, "Hey, Max didn't call me, that #&*(%^*!" You're right. I'm a baad person, and I feel pretty guilty for not having called (<— not sarcasm, actually true). My consolation prize is that I'm planning a bigger trip in August, so if you'll still speak to me then, I'd love to see you. But I finally broke the cell phone lost in California trip, but didn't realize how much my parents' house (and the entire town of Sonora) is out of range. Not having had my phone up there previously, I had a heightened sense of cell-phone use grandeur that was soon dashed upon arrival.
**Not true, not true! I stand corrected. After an employee commented on my blog, there's a little CWA FAQ about them. Hurray for union cheap airlines!
So off were Elly and I! I think ours was perhaps the fourth flight in the history of Independence Air to go to San Francisco...that made me nervous, but it was actually quite lovely. It was the pilot's birthday and the flight attendants made a big to-do about it, sending around paper for us to write birthday greetings, and I found that seriously endearing. Taurus solidarity! I feel as though I can't endorse them becaue I'm sure the flights are that cheap due to non-union practices**, but geez, they're cheap and good. No movies, though. Be prepared.
Mazzy graciously put us up the first night, and then Cathy Rion lent us her car for the trip up. Highlights include good food, chill time with the fams, hanging out with my dad after an ill-fated attempt to see Kung-Fu Hustle with them (have I ranted about how much I like that movie here? I *heart* it), and Elly seeing her first rural Northern California town's rodeo parade. I guess Silver Spring, Maryland doesn't have rodeo parades. Go figure.
Upon return to the SF, I had 24 hours to see people and no prep time to call. If you're reading this and thinking, "Hey, Max didn't call me, that #&*(%^*!" You're right. I'm a baad person, and I feel pretty guilty for not having called (<— not sarcasm, actually true). My consolation prize is that I'm planning a bigger trip in August, so if you'll still speak to me then, I'd love to see you. But I finally broke the cell phone lost in California trip, but didn't realize how much my parents' house (and the entire town of Sonora) is out of range. Not having had my phone up there previously, I had a heightened sense of cell-phone use grandeur that was soon dashed upon arrival.
**Not true, not true! I stand corrected. After an employee commented on my blog, there's a little CWA FAQ about them. Hurray for union cheap airlines!
A touch of Holland and white privilege
After London, where else could I have gone than the mysterious, retiring Pella, Iowa? My dear pal Chris Crass and the Catalyst Project, a small and dedicated group of anti-racism trainers from the SF Bay Area, invited me to be a panelist at the Sixth Annual White Privilege Conference. After the flight across the Atlantic I had to re-acquaint myself with small planes, but it wasn't too bad at all. It was a really great opportunity to meet folks from across the country centering racism, and institutional racism as that, as their primary political focus. I'd missed spaces like that.
It was majority white and older-people audience, but the young people there were awesome and a third of the conference. There were as many high school students as college students, and the youth track was entirely high-school students from what I could determine. There were good keynotes, a wide array of workshops, and I was put up in the hotel with all the guest speakers, so we all rubbed elbows with Peggy Macintosh, Paul Kivel, and Tim Wise and the like for breakfast. Mr. Kivel came out with a book about class not long ago, and was leading very good workshops about it; I attended one during the course of the conference. Our panels were pretty good, if I do say so myself. There was barely any room for audience participation (not good) and the groups were small, but younger and pretty excited to hear what we were saying. It was incredibly useful to articulate the ways I feel that the work USAS does as an organization is about challenging white supremacy in practice - which has challenges, and we've by no means worked it out. The work USAS does winds up being anti-racist by default, because the people with whom we stand in solidarity are ovewhelmingly low-income Women of Color. But our affiliates (and ourselves) aren't always doing this work ina consciously anti-racist fashion. Our concerns were pretty different from those of the older participants, many of whom work in what the People's Institute refer to as "gatekeeper" organizations - social services, education administration, nonprofit work. There the message was, "It's not that you have to quit your job, but you need to ask yourself who ultimately benefits from the work you do and do it in such a way as to conform to your principles". For us, as a movement-oriented student organization, we have different challenges: We get students for 3 years, maybe more if they become grad student rabble-rousers, but that's rare. How much can you do, how do you preserve wins and institutionalize work while retaining the democratic and student-driven nature of the organization and work, and with such high turnover, how do you create lasting accountable relationships? In a campus environment, students are temporary residents, often vastly economically and educationally privileged over their service-worker counterparts, often discovering political action and thought outside of the home for the first time. This is not an ideal setup for building long-term, lasting accountable relationships, but in some ways really similar to the big global justice mobilizations. For its part, USAS has done an impressive job rising to that challenge. Creating lasting relationships and establishing the Worker Rights Consortium, who can function basically as a global grievance procedure that communicates sweatshop abuses to a ready-to-mobilize constituency, is pretty darn smart. Establishing relationships with campus workers, campus unions, and being clear about the power univiersities have over their contractors and demanding ethical standards - that can firmly counter institutional forms of economic and racial oppression if done with the proper principles in mind. But of course, the organization has struggled for years with the changing reality of its foundation by middle and upper-class white college students. The thing that most impresses me is that the organization has undergone an anti-racist transformation process that's been slowly shifting who makes decisions, whether People of Color int he organization are in leadership positions and making organizational decisions, where scholarhsip resources go, how we develop leaders and whether there's an explicitly anti-racist training series available/mandated for students attending nationally-coordinated gatherings. We have a much-debated caucus and ally structure, and it continues to crete safe spaces for people experiencing forms of oppression to meet, set priorities, offer criticism, and shift the organization further. Hasta la victoria, siempre.
But I digress. My co-panelists were awesome, and here is the panel description and their bios (thanks to Chris, who fervently documents Catalyst's work)
We spent a fair amount of time meeting and talkin' politics with various awesome. I met a former USAS coordinating committee member, who had been a part of a SAS group at U of Kentucky adn I caught her up on the last few years. We went in search of more exciting coffee and found a lovely cafe in town with many forms of latte I hadn't previously thoguth possible, like "Snickers Bar Latte" and "Mint Chip Latte". Hey, and free wireless!
Pella's theme is "A Touch of Holland." I'm not entirely sure why, but I should've asked - I assumed it meant that the people originally colonizing this bit of the US were Dutch. As a consqeuence, we were a week early for the famed Pella Tulip Fair, and boy, were there tulips in this town! People could be seen in the requisite little wooden shoes and pointy hats. There were Dutch bakeries, Dutch-processed chocolate, and lots of white people. The town is still getting used to the conference, but at least I felt welcome.
I left with an hour of sleep at about 10am. We were scheduled from 8am to midnight and asked to speak at more panels than we'd planned, so it was quite a packed schedule.
It was majority white and older-people audience, but the young people there were awesome and a third of the conference. There were as many high school students as college students, and the youth track was entirely high-school students from what I could determine. There were good keynotes, a wide array of workshops, and I was put up in the hotel with all the guest speakers, so we all rubbed elbows with Peggy Macintosh, Paul Kivel, and Tim Wise and the like for breakfast. Mr. Kivel came out with a book about class not long ago, and was leading very good workshops about it; I attended one during the course of the conference. Our panels were pretty good, if I do say so myself. There was barely any room for audience participation (not good) and the groups were small, but younger and pretty excited to hear what we were saying. It was incredibly useful to articulate the ways I feel that the work USAS does as an organization is about challenging white supremacy in practice - which has challenges, and we've by no means worked it out. The work USAS does winds up being anti-racist by default, because the people with whom we stand in solidarity are ovewhelmingly low-income Women of Color. But our affiliates (and ourselves) aren't always doing this work ina consciously anti-racist fashion. Our concerns were pretty different from those of the older participants, many of whom work in what the People's Institute refer to as "gatekeeper" organizations - social services, education administration, nonprofit work. There the message was, "It's not that you have to quit your job, but you need to ask yourself who ultimately benefits from the work you do and do it in such a way as to conform to your principles". For us, as a movement-oriented student organization, we have different challenges: We get students for 3 years, maybe more if they become grad student rabble-rousers, but that's rare. How much can you do, how do you preserve wins and institutionalize work while retaining the democratic and student-driven nature of the organization and work, and with such high turnover, how do you create lasting accountable relationships? In a campus environment, students are temporary residents, often vastly economically and educationally privileged over their service-worker counterparts, often discovering political action and thought outside of the home for the first time. This is not an ideal setup for building long-term, lasting accountable relationships, but in some ways really similar to the big global justice mobilizations. For its part, USAS has done an impressive job rising to that challenge. Creating lasting relationships and establishing the Worker Rights Consortium, who can function basically as a global grievance procedure that communicates sweatshop abuses to a ready-to-mobilize constituency, is pretty darn smart. Establishing relationships with campus workers, campus unions, and being clear about the power univiersities have over their contractors and demanding ethical standards - that can firmly counter institutional forms of economic and racial oppression if done with the proper principles in mind. But of course, the organization has struggled for years with the changing reality of its foundation by middle and upper-class white college students. The thing that most impresses me is that the organization has undergone an anti-racist transformation process that's been slowly shifting who makes decisions, whether People of Color int he organization are in leadership positions and making organizational decisions, where scholarhsip resources go, how we develop leaders and whether there's an explicitly anti-racist training series available/mandated for students attending nationally-coordinated gatherings. We have a much-debated caucus and ally structure, and it continues to crete safe spaces for people experiencing forms of oppression to meet, set priorities, offer criticism, and shift the organization further. Hasta la victoria, siempre.
But I digress. My co-panelists were awesome, and here is the panel description and their bios (thanks to Chris, who fervently documents Catalyst's work)
Building Movement, Building Power: a panel discussion on lessons from younger generation anti-racists activists
We want justice. We want to build healthy, vibrant and sustainable communities that affirm life. We believe that white supremacy shapes the society that we currently live in and that white privilege has consistently undermined multiracial movements for justice. We believe that anti-racism is key to unlocking the power of our communities and our movements to build a free society. This panel discussion with younger generation anti-racist activists will focus on drawing out lessons from their experience. They will address the following questions: What are the goals you're working to meet both long-term and short-term? How have you put anti-racism into practice? What is your strategic orientation to your work? What are key lessons to share? What advice do you have other people who are trying to put anti-racism into practice?
Panelists: Cindy Breunig, Max Toth and Betty Jeanne Rueters-Ward Moderator: Chris Crass of the Catalyst Project
Cindy Breunig grew up in a farmhouse outside of Cross Plains, Wisconsin. She got involved in social justice organizing in Washington DC focusing on student activism, literacy work and Central American solidarity work. Her path to consciousness and action around institutionalized racism was profoundly shaped by relationships to families she worked with in D.C. for four years as a literacy teacher. Since coming back to Wisconsin she has worked to educate and organize other white people in her circle of influence, and support local work for racial justice. She is a Medical Spanish Interpreter.
Betty Jeanne Rueters-Ward grew up in a suburb outside Boston, Massachusetts and has been most involved in student activistm and anti-racism/anti-oppression efforts at her college in Ithaca, New York, and through various Unitarian Universalist communities. She currently serves as one of the Youth Programs Specialists for the Unitarian Universalist Association (the administrative headquarters for a liberal religious denomination), where she coordinates social justice resources and conferences for youth ages 14-20. Betty Jeanne's key issues of involvement have included struggling against student apathy and building community and solidarity among college activist communities, as well as promoting multicultural education reform as a social justice issue among high school, unschooled and homeschooled youth. Betty Jeanne is a trainer with the National Coalition Building Institute, a nonprofit leadership training organization based in Washington, D.C.
Ingrid Chapman is a young community organizer, direct action activist and core member of Catalyst Project. Her roots within radical left organizing began as leading member of the global justice movement in the late '90s. She was a founding member of "Active Solidarity; a collective for anti-racism education" and has led workshops with thousands of activists around the country. The last 2 years she has worked with Oakland residents in struggles for tenant rights, community safety and alternatives to incarceration and policing.
We spent a fair amount of time meeting and talkin' politics with various awesome. I met a former USAS coordinating committee member, who had been a part of a SAS group at U of Kentucky adn I caught her up on the last few years. We went in search of more exciting coffee and found a lovely cafe in town with many forms of latte I hadn't previously thoguth possible, like "Snickers Bar Latte" and "Mint Chip Latte". Hey, and free wireless!
Pella's theme is "A Touch of Holland." I'm not entirely sure why, but I should've asked - I assumed it meant that the people originally colonizing this bit of the US were Dutch. As a consqeuence, we were a week early for the famed Pella Tulip Fair, and boy, were there tulips in this town! People could be seen in the requisite little wooden shoes and pointy hats. There were Dutch bakeries, Dutch-processed chocolate, and lots of white people. The town is still getting used to the conference, but at least I felt welcome.
I left with an hour of sleep at about 10am. We were scheduled from 8am to midnight and asked to speak at more panels than we'd planned, so it was quite a packed schedule.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Countering Wilmington's Coke Habit
This week Allie and I drove up to Wimington, DE — home to many credit card companies and corporate headquarters, due to something special about Delaware's tax law. Who knew I would be back to Delaware so soon? The Coca-Cola Corporation decided this was an appropriate place to hold a share"owners" meeting (that's shareholders to all you non-corporatespeak types). Given Coke's human rights and environmental abuses in Colombia and India, we decided this was an appropriate place to protest! It's actually the second year for our visit to Coke, and the deck was fully stacked with proxies ready to lambast Coke's eternal dodge of responsibility for their bottling plants "happening" to employ paramilitary thugs to kill union leaders. The CEO even saw fit to address these abuses in his opening remarks, hoping to weasel out of it with a report from a notoriously ineffective monitoring agency, CalSafety. CalSafety didn't find any wrongdoing, much as they hadn't during an inspection of the infamous El Monte, CA sweatshop where workers were forced to work at gunpoint behind barbed wire. Fancy that!
Outside the hotel, a small but stalwart group of us picketed and chanted such things as, "Diet, Cherry, or Vanilla! Coca-Cola is a Killah!" again. The nice thing about Coke as a target is that it really gives rise to activist creativity. I'd give my left nostril to never hear "Hey hey, ho ho! Something bad has got to go!" One of our students gave a wonderful treatise on why CalSafety is wholly inadequate. The meeting went an hour over, and nothing other than our agenda got in edgewise. Remember kids, just say no to Coke (and Minute Maid, Odwalla, and Dasani).
Outside the hotel, a small but stalwart group of us picketed and chanted such things as, "Diet, Cherry, or Vanilla! Coca-Cola is a Killah!" again. The nice thing about Coke as a target is that it really gives rise to activist creativity. I'd give my left nostril to never hear "Hey hey, ho ho! Something bad has got to go!" One of our students gave a wonderful treatise on why CalSafety is wholly inadequate. The meeting went an hour over, and nothing other than our agenda got in edgewise. Remember kids, just say no to Coke (and Minute Maid, Odwalla, and Dasani).
London to MD
Upon my re-entry to the States, I collapsed and slept. Then I had a weekend with The Elly and Her Family, as her Grandma was visiting. I got to meet said Grandma, go out to dinner at a lovely Vietnamese restaurant somewhere in Maryland, and watch Elly's little sister Kate perform an amazing high school production of "Sound of Music." Whose high school play has a *pit orchestra*? And a GOOD one, at that? Kate was Maria, and all the singing was wonderfully professional. She was a real trooper, especially since she'd had mono for most of the rehearsal time and was still recovering at the point we caught her on stage. Maria is a very enthusiastic role, with insane quantities of singing. Fun was had by all, and now I've had "The Lonely Goatherd" stuck in my head for about a week.
We then attempted to see Elly's sister Sara's soccer game, but it was not to be - occassionally time management skills are lacking.
We then attempted to see Elly's sister Sara's soccer game, but it was not to be - occassionally time management skills are lacking.
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
My 24-hour London Tourist Extravaganza
Today was the one day that I wasn't filming, so I tried to cram in all the London exploration I could handle. I didn't get very far, but it was lovely what I managed.
I dragged myself out of bed to meet up with Amanda at 9:45 am, and ran into Masha on my way out of the tube. Brilliant! We went to the First Out cafe - a very cute queer cafe that was, in fact, the first of its kind. We wandered about SoHo and got lunch at an all-veggie restaurant. Amanda and I proceeded to the metro and due to schedules, I was on my own until 4:30. During that time I managed to go *back* to the Tower of London, and take one of the guided-tour thingies. I jumped on a bus over to the Dungeon, but didn’t have enough time before I reconvened with Masha/Amanda for dinner. Thus concludes the super-typical portion of my touristing.
Dinner was an amazing Turkish restaurant, where Masha and I surveyed our options for going out. Not much on a Wednesday, I’m afraid. Amanda, Maria, Masha and I all headed to the queer film festival to hang out at the packed cafe for a bit. There was lovely eye candy, but Masha and I set out to wander around by the Thames. We ended up coming across the London Eye, The Tate Modern, the Old Globe, London Bridge — all closed, but it made for nice views. We continued on to a bar but they wouldn’t let Masha in - “gentlemen only”. Masha encouraged me to go back and so I walked her to the metro and headed back for a bit but the tube closes early and I have an early morning tomorrow — and the dance floor was totally empty. I uneventfully stood at a bar, drank a ginger ale, and left early.
The exciting bits were catching up with Amanda after seven years, hearing about her regular travels to Greece to learn Greek and bar-tend in a town on Lesbos (also called Mytilene). Yowza! And Masha is here doing research for her book, courtesy of Cornell (where she’s a professor) — and until recently, not finding decent food here. Amanda set her right about places to eat, though.
OK, just ran out of commentary - I’m off to bed now. Here’s pictures of the
trip!
I dragged myself out of bed to meet up with Amanda at 9:45 am, and ran into Masha on my way out of the tube. Brilliant! We went to the First Out cafe - a very cute queer cafe that was, in fact, the first of its kind. We wandered about SoHo and got lunch at an all-veggie restaurant. Amanda and I proceeded to the metro and due to schedules, I was on my own until 4:30. During that time I managed to go *back* to the Tower of London, and take one of the guided-tour thingies. I jumped on a bus over to the Dungeon, but didn’t have enough time before I reconvened with Masha/Amanda for dinner. Thus concludes the super-typical portion of my touristing.
Dinner was an amazing Turkish restaurant, where Masha and I surveyed our options for going out. Not much on a Wednesday, I’m afraid. Amanda, Maria, Masha and I all headed to the queer film festival to hang out at the packed cafe for a bit. There was lovely eye candy, but Masha and I set out to wander around by the Thames. We ended up coming across the London Eye, The Tate Modern, the Old Globe, London Bridge — all closed, but it made for nice views. We continued on to a bar but they wouldn’t let Masha in - “gentlemen only”. Masha encouraged me to go back and so I walked her to the metro and headed back for a bit but the tube closes early and I have an early morning tomorrow — and the dance floor was totally empty. I uneventfully stood at a bar, drank a ginger ale, and left early.
The exciting bits were catching up with Amanda after seven years, hearing about her regular travels to Greece to learn Greek and bar-tend in a town on Lesbos (also called Mytilene). Yowza! And Masha is here doing research for her book, courtesy of Cornell (where she’s a professor) — and until recently, not finding decent food here. Amanda set her right about places to eat, though.
OK, just ran out of commentary - I’m off to bed now. Here’s pictures of the
trip!
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Off to Oxford
Today was the big testing day - we were off by noon, which was merciful becuase I couldn’t drag myself out of bed this morning. We started it off with the good ol’ MMPI-2 - a 597-question series of true-false questions to sort out my personality. Am I depressed? Do I hallucinate? Am I paraniod? I seriously doubt it. We’ll know for sure by Thursday. Then onto short and long-term memory tests, verbal, visual, numerical, and otherwise; pattern-matching, finger-tapping-speed, emotion and age differentiation, grip-strength, analogies, gestalt-picture-interpretation, line-angle discernment, spatial 3-d object rotation, peg-board completion, and top it all off with a functional MRI. It all took about four hours longer than it was supposed to because of a bit of red tape, but I still get a day off tomorrow to go tourist-ing, whihc is good because for a moment I thought that was lost. The BBC folks are all really nice, as was the test administrator. The doctor I was supposed to meet had his flight canceled, so I see him Thursday for the results. My head feels a bit funny - I can feel the MRI while it’s happening, and I’m not sure if that’s a standard phenomenon. I have no idea about the tests, I don’t think the memory ones went so well (ah, well. Gettin’ old...) and the only response I got was the guy testing me asked if I’d ever been diagnosed with dyslexia. Well, no, but I’ve suspected I was mildly dyslexic for years. I reversed letters quite a bit on one of the tests, which prompted his commentary.
Things I like about London
Last night as I was eating lunch/dinner (not quite adjusted to the time difference yet!) I pulled up a copy of the Independent’s Media commentary. How lovely to be reading a paper that has a media commentary section, but what they have to say about US politics is hilarious! So much Bush-and-Blair bashing, it really made me smile. The very nice young lady who was sort of bored working at the restaurant came over to ask me where I’m from - it was a good thing I didn’t lie and say I was from Canada, because she was. She was apologetic about describing her dad as “very anti-American,” and asked why people hated the US so much (rhetorically). I think it surprised her to hear me chime in. “There’s a lot not to like!” She mentioned that people were very nice, but she was talking about Seattle. [West COAST! (Whut! - or, Wot! as the case may be) - but I digress]. I made the classic distinction between the people and the government, and she maintained that the people were better there than here. I think that depends on who you meet, but who am I? She referred me to places to hang out - “where the weirdos are - that’s my neighborhood.” So far, I find people here to be very nice! Although I definitely get some funny looks.
Another exciting thing about London is that it houses my old roomie and pal Amanda, who I get to see for the first time since, well, basically 1998. She’s going to be a bit of a tour guide which I appreciate! I’m still sort of a sucker for those cheesy tourist things. Apparently another dear friend, Masha, is in town and we haven’t seen eachother for ages as well.
Another exciting thing about London is that it houses my old roomie and pal Amanda, who I get to see for the first time since, well, basically 1998. She’s going to be a bit of a tour guide which I appreciate! I’m still sort of a sucker for those cheesy tourist things. Apparently another dear friend, Masha, is in town and we haven’t seen eachother for ages as well.
Monday, April 11, 2005
London calling
Last night I got on a plane at 10pm, and landed in London this morning at 10am. Hey, it’s only a 6 hour time difference, but who’s counting? I made it through the 1-1/2 hour queue at the airport without the dreaded “SSSS” security screening marker and thought I was OK...until the clerk comes after me on my way to drop off my bag tot he x-ray machine. “Wait Mr. Toth! I forgot to put something on your boarding slip!” Blast. Random screening my ass. I don’t know whose list I’m on, but it’s somebody’s, I can tell you that. The screener was nice about it though, he could tell by the way I sat down and put my right foot up that I’d been through this once or twice.
On the plane I got to watch Vera Drake, which I’d been meaning to see. International flights always have better accomodations, even in the crammed economy sections. I couldn’t eat anything and slept my way through after some unremarkable TGIFriday’s fries for dinner (bleah) and landed to have the BBC waiting for me with camera already on. I walk out, look for my sign, and see a camera - oh, that’s for me! Of course everyone’s wondering who I am, and we film me coming out of the doors like, 5 times - geez I was tired. I tried my best to appear fresh after a red-eye and was repsonding to questions about my gender early in the morning for all of Heathrow to hear. Max Toth, International Tranny. I get a good feeling from the director I was working with this morning, but we’ll see. They then film me getting into the cab, film me walking to it twice, interview me in the cab. Cabs in London are cute, I’ll try to include a picture at some point. Then to the hotel, film me getting out, same interview questions times five, my responses getting more cogent and refined as I wake up a bit, up to the room, film me in the room unpacking (which I don’t normally do - I sort of live out of the suitcase) and an extended interview. Lunch is room service, the film crew is off (they’re very nice) and I’m on my own.
On my own! So I’ve no idea how to use the phones or to find internet access, which in a way is a blessing. There’s a small map and I know a good street to walk to. I know I’m centrally located, but that doesn’t mean much to me yet. I get up the oomph to walk down to the street, and it’s pretty cute - there are shops and cafes and internet access places everywhere. I find a tube stop, get a map, figure out where the Tower of London is and to familiarize myself, decide to venture forth. I found it - the tube is really like the NY subway but cleaner, and I guess all subways have pretty similar principles. I wander around, taking pictures like a dorky tourist, decide that the remaining hour isn’t worth the 14.50 (US$27 something - yowza!) and that I’ll come back, and walk a bit around London Bridge. It’s nice to know I can get my way around.
Back near the hotel, I get an adaptor for the power outlet and find a vegetarian restaurant that has a lovely fake chicken satay sandwich. I’d had a pretty hard time staying awake in the tube so I took a nap, and here I am writing. That’s probably way more detail than you needed, but jet lag will do this to a person. I’m off to Oxford for fMRIs tomorrow, and I need to figure out where to get my nosering out beforehand. I’m sure there are piercing shops here? I’m not used to bbeing in places where wireless access is limited and mostly paid - and stuff here ain’t cheap! But so far it’s a good time. Stay posted!
On the plane I got to watch Vera Drake, which I’d been meaning to see. International flights always have better accomodations, even in the crammed economy sections. I couldn’t eat anything and slept my way through after some unremarkable TGIFriday’s fries for dinner (bleah) and landed to have the BBC waiting for me with camera already on. I walk out, look for my sign, and see a camera - oh, that’s for me! Of course everyone’s wondering who I am, and we film me coming out of the doors like, 5 times - geez I was tired. I tried my best to appear fresh after a red-eye and was repsonding to questions about my gender early in the morning for all of Heathrow to hear. Max Toth, International Tranny. I get a good feeling from the director I was working with this morning, but we’ll see. They then film me getting into the cab, film me walking to it twice, interview me in the cab. Cabs in London are cute, I’ll try to include a picture at some point. Then to the hotel, film me getting out, same interview questions times five, my responses getting more cogent and refined as I wake up a bit, up to the room, film me in the room unpacking (which I don’t normally do - I sort of live out of the suitcase) and an extended interview. Lunch is room service, the film crew is off (they’re very nice) and I’m on my own.
On my own! So I’ve no idea how to use the phones or to find internet access, which in a way is a blessing. There’s a small map and I know a good street to walk to. I know I’m centrally located, but that doesn’t mean much to me yet. I get up the oomph to walk down to the street, and it’s pretty cute - there are shops and cafes and internet access places everywhere. I find a tube stop, get a map, figure out where the Tower of London is and to familiarize myself, decide to venture forth. I found it - the tube is really like the NY subway but cleaner, and I guess all subways have pretty similar principles. I wander around, taking pictures like a dorky tourist, decide that the remaining hour isn’t worth the 14.50 (US$27 something - yowza!) and that I’ll come back, and walk a bit around London Bridge. It’s nice to know I can get my way around.
Back near the hotel, I get an adaptor for the power outlet and find a vegetarian restaurant that has a lovely fake chicken satay sandwich. I’d had a pretty hard time staying awake in the tube so I took a nap, and here I am writing. That’s probably way more detail than you needed, but jet lag will do this to a person. I’m off to Oxford for fMRIs tomorrow, and I need to figure out where to get my nosering out beforehand. I’m sure there are piercing shops here? I’m not used to bbeing in places where wireless access is limited and mostly paid - and stuff here ain’t cheap! But so far it’s a good time. Stay posted!
Flowers are pretty and other earth-shattering revelations
Before heading out to the UK, I spent the weekend with Elly. In between work, laundry, and assorted other chores, we made it to the famous DC Annual Cherry Blossom Festival. It was a completely perfect day - sunny, not too windy, blossoms at their peak, and we biked there so as to enjoy the sun and avoid the Metro traffic. It was definitely crowded, but it was a lovely relaxed setting - everyone with some sort of photographic device, all asking someone else to take their picture. So many toddlers! Anyhow, here’s an album of pictures for you to see.
Sunday, April 03, 2005
Philly Phish Phace
While I was in The City of Brotherly Love, I stayed with my pal Molly and this was a dignified moment of fish-face-making forever enshrined in pixels.
tofu hoagies, yurts in delaware, tar heels
Since last I wrote, I went on a campus tour of Philadelphia with my co-worker. I was going to "photo blog" pictures of that trip, so it may be forthcoming. Man, I'm somewhat seriously bummed that Philadelphia isn't a strategic location for national USAS...it's so much more vegan friendly than DC! Ya-Ping of SEAC let me in on the wonder that is three-dollar tofu hoagies at a convenience store/deli. My dear pal Molly took me, Alicia, and Dan Berger out for late-night vegan dim sum at (I kid you not) "Kingdom of Vegetarians". Who knew?
It was a whirlwind tour, some ridiculous number of campuses in a weekend, but really great - I miss Molly a bunch and it was a real treat to get a whole weekend. While I was in town, we went to an event honoring the re-release of Toni Cade Bambara's The Black Woman: An Anthology, where friends of hers shared readings and reflections on the work and her life at the Scribe Video Center, which was amazing. My pal Alicia who works at CISPES in New York came down to talk with folks, and we got to hang out as well...good times!
I returned late on a Saturday, dropped off the car, woke up in DC and picked up another rental with Elly to go off on our four-day vacation. First we spent time with her family on Easter after packing, and engaged in such silliness as chocolate bunny decapitation. We then set off to a yurt on a state park in Delaware. It was quite fun, if a little cold. It was raining like crazy on the first day, so we drove down the length of the state to Rehoboth Beach. Just like us to stumble upon a big gay beach in Delaware, without even meaning to! Other festivities included kayaking on the lake next to our yurt, a five hour hike, and playing card games in random places. Oh, and we went to see "Miss Congeniality 2". I admit it, it was my selection.
After a lovely bit of time there, we headed back and I panicked about having been without internet and cell access for days. Well, the cell's a bit of a stretch, but really we were busy vacationing most of the time. Elly long-sufferingly-y guided my panicky person to a cafe where I begun to catch up on email. The next morning I was on a plane to Durham, where I now write this post instead of sleeping, as I should be doing. The NCAA championship games are happening, and the only reason I know this is that UNC, where a huge effort to support dining workers' organizing is underway, is a finalist. Baby blue "go tar heels" paraphernalia as far as the eye can see. Have I mentioned that since understanding the relationship between college sports and collegiate apparel licensing, I've started vaguely following this basketball season? Who knew that organizing would lead me there? But I'm pretty darn fond of the Durham-Chapel Hill area, so it's a great place to spent the Student Labor Week of Action, fer sure.
OK, I sleep now.
It was a whirlwind tour, some ridiculous number of campuses in a weekend, but really great - I miss Molly a bunch and it was a real treat to get a whole weekend. While I was in town, we went to an event honoring the re-release of Toni Cade Bambara's The Black Woman: An Anthology, where friends of hers shared readings and reflections on the work and her life at the Scribe Video Center, which was amazing. My pal Alicia who works at CISPES in New York came down to talk with folks, and we got to hang out as well...good times!
I returned late on a Saturday, dropped off the car, woke up in DC and picked up another rental with Elly to go off on our four-day vacation. First we spent time with her family on Easter after packing, and engaged in such silliness as chocolate bunny decapitation. We then set off to a yurt on a state park in Delaware. It was quite fun, if a little cold. It was raining like crazy on the first day, so we drove down the length of the state to Rehoboth Beach. Just like us to stumble upon a big gay beach in Delaware, without even meaning to! Other festivities included kayaking on the lake next to our yurt, a five hour hike, and playing card games in random places. Oh, and we went to see "Miss Congeniality 2". I admit it, it was my selection.
After a lovely bit of time there, we headed back and I panicked about having been without internet and cell access for days. Well, the cell's a bit of a stretch, but really we were busy vacationing most of the time. Elly long-sufferingly-y guided my panicky person to a cafe where I begun to catch up on email. The next morning I was on a plane to Durham, where I now write this post instead of sleeping, as I should be doing. The NCAA championship games are happening, and the only reason I know this is that UNC, where a huge effort to support dining workers' organizing is underway, is a finalist. Baby blue "go tar heels" paraphernalia as far as the eye can see. Have I mentioned that since understanding the relationship between college sports and collegiate apparel licensing, I've started vaguely following this basketball season? Who knew that organizing would lead me there? But I'm pretty darn fond of the Durham-Chapel Hill area, so it's a great place to spent the Student Labor Week of Action, fer sure.
OK, I sleep now.
Monday, March 21, 2005
#4 - Ramblin' and readin'!
While I've been in the air constantly, it's provided an opportunity to catch up on reading I've wanted to do for years. I mean, like, since I was in my late teens. It's a preferable diversion to clutching my armrests to semi-frequent turbulence, and man, I never get used to that.
What I've been reading:
What I've been reading:
- I'm currently barreling through Living In, Living Out: African American Domestics and the Great Migration by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis. I was assigned this book in college, but shamefully enough I didn't finish it. I was working like crazy at the time, but it's not that great an excuse. Anyhow, I always intended to finish it, and here I am. It's a wonderful account of the life stories of African American women workers from the early-to-mid 1900s. It's particularly crucial history given that my job is building student solidarity with campus service workers, the vast majority of whom are Women of Color, usually of African descent or immigrants from Central America.
- For St. Patrick's Day, I read How the Irish Became White by Noel Ignatiev. Another book I'd intended to read for a while, it's a pretty depressing account of the ways that recent Irish immigrants to the U.S. took the side of the slaveholders and shifted identities from Irish (or often as from a particular county in Ireland) to "white", with all the oppressiveness that whiteness entails in the U.S. It also draws out the story of the foundation of labor as racist protectionism through the examples of political manuevers in Philadelphia (a city with a large Irish immigrant population in the mid 1800s). Yikes. Positive things include the St. Patrick's Brigade - a group of Irish immigrants to the US sent to fight Mexico who defected and fought on the Mexican side. But that's not much in the grand scheme of things. I'll mention here that I'm part Irish - actually a pretty large part, but ya can't tell by looking because I'm also Hungarian, which makes me olivey and dark-haired and stuff. But more on myself, presentation/perception, background, and complicated stuff like that later.
- I blazed through This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (eds. Gloria Anzaldúa & Cherríe Moraga). I had read about a third of it long ago, and re-read that third two years ago. While I feel guilty to admit it, I had never finished it until recently, but it was incredibly refreshing to read it in its entirety. It's one of those books I forget to recommend to people because I assume that everyone I talk to has read it, because they SHOULD. But therein lies my hypocracy, until recently. I had read later bits as copied readings for various study groups, but reading it in a single sitting is a different experience. While I was reading it, I was inspired, corrected, challenged, and elated - my favorite being Pat Parker's essay at the very end (Revolution:
It's Not Neat or Pretty or Quick.) But I also had a new reaction - there was one piece by hattie gossett about Bilie Holiday (Billie Lives! Billie Lives!) and the song "Gloomy Sunday" that caused me to seriously examine aspects of my Hungarian-ness. I don't actually agree with the piece (which is healthy) but understand where the artist was coming from. I think that my reaction and thoughts warrant their own post so I'll spare you here. - Guns, Germs & Steel (Jared Diamond). This 400+ page tome was actually a real page-turner for me. Now, I'm a total geek (this may have become apparent by now) so that may have had something to do with it. But now when I sit down to eat, I think about all the places the ingredients were first domesticated and their impact on human societies. One person said to me offhandedly, "Oh, you mean, the book about how white people aren't responsible for imperialism?" I can understand that perspective on it, for sure. But the primary thesis of the book is how environmental factors (not deficiencies in people themselves, as racist premises go) account for the different trajectories of human societies and their massively consequential impacts - like, how people in Europe wound up resistant to smallpox while people indigenous to here weren't. He doesn't get into the stuff where then invaders from Europe deliberately spread it as a weapon after realizing this impact, and that's for sure problematic. I'm interested to read his next book and see where he goes from here.
California Soul
I spent this weekend in the Bay Area, it was sooooo good! And such a tease. I had, like, two seconds to see anybody.
Firstly, I think I have a small curse that I have to ward off. During my tight connection at Dallas-Ft. Worth airport, my cell phone fell out of my pocket on the plane as I was running to catch the next one. ARGH! This was my second time back in Cali since I left, and again I'm without a cell phone! American Airlines found it and held it for me, but there wasn't enough time to run back to the terminal and get it before my connection left. So if you didn't get a call from me (or even know that I was in town), that's why...it wasn't for lack of trying. I picked it up on my way back through Dallas.
Gosh I miss EVERYBODY in California. And the weather. It was raining, but still a lovely 60º out! I stayed with Miz Mazzy for two nights, and that was quite good. It was wonderful that she came to get me at the airport, because otherwise I wouldn't have had enough change to call her and let me in the house...at least I lose my phone in places where people support me.
I ate too much vegan food, went to this sort of weird, spread-out student conference at Berkeley - we'd been invited to speak at a panel there, which they set for 9am Sunday morning - and saw some of my people! It's handy that there was a big anti-war rally, so I dropped by with my rolly luggage in tow and gave hugs all around. Man, it's nice to come home!
My pal Cathy Rion put me up for a night, and we wandered around the Albany landfill and ate dumplings at Shan Dong. Later we went to a big benefit for Critical Resistance that my pal Sarah threw, and tons of people I know were there. While it was way too brief, it was still so lovely to see folks. She dropped me off at the airport after playing cello for the Unitarian church she belongs to in Oakland.
As I announced to all my folks at the time, I'll be back! I'm planning a longer and not-work trip to California (one where I have enough time to see my parents, and, like, everybody) at the end of April - beginning of May. See some of ya soon!
Firstly, I think I have a small curse that I have to ward off. During my tight connection at Dallas-Ft. Worth airport, my cell phone fell out of my pocket on the plane as I was running to catch the next one. ARGH! This was my second time back in Cali since I left, and again I'm without a cell phone! American Airlines found it and held it for me, but there wasn't enough time to run back to the terminal and get it before my connection left. So if you didn't get a call from me (or even know that I was in town), that's why...it wasn't for lack of trying. I picked it up on my way back through Dallas.
Gosh I miss EVERYBODY in California. And the weather. It was raining, but still a lovely 60º out! I stayed with Miz Mazzy for two nights, and that was quite good. It was wonderful that she came to get me at the airport, because otherwise I wouldn't have had enough change to call her and let me in the house...at least I lose my phone in places where people support me.
I ate too much vegan food, went to this sort of weird, spread-out student conference at Berkeley - we'd been invited to speak at a panel there, which they set for 9am Sunday morning - and saw some of my people! It's handy that there was a big anti-war rally, so I dropped by with my rolly luggage in tow and gave hugs all around. Man, it's nice to come home!
My pal Cathy Rion put me up for a night, and we wandered around the Albany landfill and ate dumplings at Shan Dong. Later we went to a big benefit for Critical Resistance that my pal Sarah threw, and tons of people I know were there. While it was way too brief, it was still so lovely to see folks. She dropped me off at the airport after playing cello for the Unitarian church she belongs to in Oakland.
As I announced to all my folks at the time, I'll be back! I'm planning a longer and not-work trip to California (one where I have enough time to see my parents, and, like, everybody) at the end of April - beginning of May. See some of ya soon!
#1 - Dr. Translove
Or, how I stopped worrying and learned to love ANY healthcare provider who would deal with me.
This is one of those threads in my life that I kept meaning to post, but somehow was so frustrated by that spending the time to get it in words seemed insurmountable.
OK, first off, I got the memo that I would never have access to the kind of trans-friendly healthcare that I had in San Francisco...so I stocked up on my necessaries so I'd have some months to track down whatever doctors would deal with me. What I didn't really get was just HOW BAD it would be. Don't worry - this story ends with a partial victory.
Mid-December: I contact Whitman-Walker clinic like everyone told me to, and leave a message asking about transgender health care. I know it's been a while since I've landed but heck, I had a whole overwhelming job to do, so yeah. I get a call back from a guy who says "the trans group is on break for christmas, we'll call if it gets started again." I think, okay, I've got a bit of time and I can just reach them after break. He warns me that it's expensive to go through them if I already have health insurance, which I knew would be an issue. Just why am I so darn honest?
Later December: I come down with (what seems to me to be) strep, and embark on the excitement of flexing my Kaiser benefits for the first time. I meet Dr. Cooper, my new primary doctor (and the only other white person I've seen in the hospital during my visit). I explain that I'd like a throat culture. He asks if I'm on any medication, and I think to myself, "Here we go!" I explain myself, he says "whoa, I don't know nothin' about it, but okay, what do you need?" I'm pretty excited he's willing to work with me, and he gives me an order for bloodwork (for which I'm overdue) and I try to remember everything that needs to be included - cholesterol, liver panels, testosterone, anything else? No, I guess that'll do. (for any other folks in my situation, you need a CBC as well, as I was reminded later). He also gives me a referral to a Kaiser endocrinologist with the theory that they can prescribe me more testosterone and needles. I walk away hopeful that Kaiser can deal with me, I know they treat FTMs in San Francisco. It turns out I don't have strep.
Early February: Still no word from Whitman-Walker, I try calling the HIV testing hotline (I'm overdue and get tested regularly on principle) and nobody picks up. I search their website for the number (or any information) about trans healthcare and don't find anything.
Late February: Finally, after a month and change of waiting, my appointment with the endocrinologist arrives. Gosh, I'm nervous but hopeful. Dr. Bryan walks in, more nervous looking than I am, and says "Gosh, we're going to have to talk about some things. I sure wish your doctor had called me to talk about this beforehand!" It's very apparent to me that the translation of this is, "Fuck, I just read your chart 5 minutes before walking in here and had no idea what I was getting into." I say, "yes? Well, I made this appointment a month and a half ago...." He proceeds to explain that he has no idea about how to treat me (medically) and that as a consequence, he doesn't feel comfortable seeing me. I explain that there are very few doctors int eh DC area who do, that I had tried contacting Whitman-Walker, but that becuase I have healthcare, it would be very expensive to go to them. He gets more distressed (as do I) and keeps insisting that he doesn't know anything. I offer to get him phone numbers of either
1. A doctor in the Kaiser system who does;
2. My old primary doctor in San Francisco;
3. A doctor in the DC area who does.
He says he can't do that. I explain that he could be doing me harm by not prescribing me testosterone...if my ovaries fire up again, I can wind up with increased uterine and ovarian cancer risks. He says he has no idea and goes to call the presiding endocrinologist for the Kaiser system (the guy above him). When he comes back, I'm pretty freaked out at theis point, the only information he has for me is that Kaiser doesn't cover any transgender care. I explain that I'm used to paying for the testosterone out-of-pocket, but he knows and I know that doctor visits are way too expensive. He says, "yeah, I know, but I can't do this...maybe you can try another endocrinologist in the Kaiser system who knows more than I do?" Again, I call him on it - we both know that I'll get similar answers to the ones he's giving me. He admits that that's true. He goes and gets a referral for me - to a doctor at Johns Hopkins. I said that while I appreciate the effort, I don't have a car or the income to go out to Johs Hopkins and pay for a doctor visit out-of-pocket, that it's hundreds of dollars. He guiltily admits that this is also true - but reaffirms that he won't do anything for me. At some point, he mentions to me that my T levels are too high - above a "normal man's". I explain that the bloodwork was done very shortly after my shot, which totally effects the reported levels, but this sort of freaks me out as well (I've since confirmed with a doctor about that, and I was correct about that). He offers to refund me the $15 co-pay for my visit, because, as he states, "I've done nothing for you." It's a very weird interaction where he's very guilty about it all but unwilling to take any of my suggestions. I feel like he's trying to buy off his conscience and I decline the offer and leave, shaken. The message was clear: "I don't know what you are and I don't care to deal with you." This doesn't put me in a good mood for the day. There were points in the conversation I thought I was going to cry, and people near me these days know that that doesn't come easy.
Early March: I get an evaluation call from the Kaiser system and give them a piece of my mind (while of course being nice to the lady who's giving the call). Even she's kind of appalled at what I have gone through. I join an FTM listserv and ask questions, I get one doctor referral out in Virginia and lots of flamewars that were the sorts of things that made me run screaming from FTM-based organizing.
A week ago: After searching the Whitman-Walker site for a billionth time, on a whim I go to the "Lesbian Services" section. Who knew I was still a lesbian after all these years? But there it was, information about transgender health! I call, get a response later that day, and have a conversation with a very nice woman who knows about my healthcare issues. YAY! I now have an appointment with them, but first I have to wrest my bloodwork results from Kaiser...it'll cost me the first time, but it's not too bad after that. I mention that the website isn't the most forthcoming to trans people, and she replies that they darn well know it and are working to fix that. I laughingly offer that a flashing "Trannies click here!" button might be appropos.
Stay tuned for more adventures in tranny healthcare...
This is one of those threads in my life that I kept meaning to post, but somehow was so frustrated by that spending the time to get it in words seemed insurmountable.
OK, first off, I got the memo that I would never have access to the kind of trans-friendly healthcare that I had in San Francisco...so I stocked up on my necessaries so I'd have some months to track down whatever doctors would deal with me. What I didn't really get was just HOW BAD it would be. Don't worry - this story ends with a partial victory.
Mid-December: I contact Whitman-Walker clinic like everyone told me to, and leave a message asking about transgender health care. I know it's been a while since I've landed but heck, I had a whole overwhelming job to do, so yeah. I get a call back from a guy who says "the trans group is on break for christmas, we'll call if it gets started again." I think, okay, I've got a bit of time and I can just reach them after break. He warns me that it's expensive to go through them if I already have health insurance, which I knew would be an issue. Just why am I so darn honest?
Later December: I come down with (what seems to me to be) strep, and embark on the excitement of flexing my Kaiser benefits for the first time. I meet Dr. Cooper, my new primary doctor (and the only other white person I've seen in the hospital during my visit). I explain that I'd like a throat culture. He asks if I'm on any medication, and I think to myself, "Here we go!" I explain myself, he says "whoa, I don't know nothin' about it, but okay, what do you need?" I'm pretty excited he's willing to work with me, and he gives me an order for bloodwork (for which I'm overdue) and I try to remember everything that needs to be included - cholesterol, liver panels, testosterone, anything else? No, I guess that'll do. (for any other folks in my situation, you need a CBC as well, as I was reminded later). He also gives me a referral to a Kaiser endocrinologist with the theory that they can prescribe me more testosterone and needles. I walk away hopeful that Kaiser can deal with me, I know they treat FTMs in San Francisco. It turns out I don't have strep.
Early February: Still no word from Whitman-Walker, I try calling the HIV testing hotline (I'm overdue and get tested regularly on principle) and nobody picks up. I search their website for the number (or any information) about trans healthcare and don't find anything.
Late February: Finally, after a month and change of waiting, my appointment with the endocrinologist arrives. Gosh, I'm nervous but hopeful. Dr. Bryan walks in, more nervous looking than I am, and says "Gosh, we're going to have to talk about some things. I sure wish your doctor had called me to talk about this beforehand!" It's very apparent to me that the translation of this is, "Fuck, I just read your chart 5 minutes before walking in here and had no idea what I was getting into." I say, "yes? Well, I made this appointment a month and a half ago...." He proceeds to explain that he has no idea about how to treat me (medically) and that as a consequence, he doesn't feel comfortable seeing me. I explain that there are very few doctors int eh DC area who do, that I had tried contacting Whitman-Walker, but that becuase I have healthcare, it would be very expensive to go to them. He gets more distressed (as do I) and keeps insisting that he doesn't know anything. I offer to get him phone numbers of either
1. A doctor in the Kaiser system who does;
2. My old primary doctor in San Francisco;
3. A doctor in the DC area who does.
He says he can't do that. I explain that he could be doing me harm by not prescribing me testosterone...if my ovaries fire up again, I can wind up with increased uterine and ovarian cancer risks. He says he has no idea and goes to call the presiding endocrinologist for the Kaiser system (the guy above him). When he comes back, I'm pretty freaked out at theis point, the only information he has for me is that Kaiser doesn't cover any transgender care. I explain that I'm used to paying for the testosterone out-of-pocket, but he knows and I know that doctor visits are way too expensive. He says, "yeah, I know, but I can't do this...maybe you can try another endocrinologist in the Kaiser system who knows more than I do?" Again, I call him on it - we both know that I'll get similar answers to the ones he's giving me. He admits that that's true. He goes and gets a referral for me - to a doctor at Johns Hopkins. I said that while I appreciate the effort, I don't have a car or the income to go out to Johs Hopkins and pay for a doctor visit out-of-pocket, that it's hundreds of dollars. He guiltily admits that this is also true - but reaffirms that he won't do anything for me. At some point, he mentions to me that my T levels are too high - above a "normal man's". I explain that the bloodwork was done very shortly after my shot, which totally effects the reported levels, but this sort of freaks me out as well (I've since confirmed with a doctor about that, and I was correct about that). He offers to refund me the $15 co-pay for my visit, because, as he states, "I've done nothing for you." It's a very weird interaction where he's very guilty about it all but unwilling to take any of my suggestions. I feel like he's trying to buy off his conscience and I decline the offer and leave, shaken. The message was clear: "I don't know what you are and I don't care to deal with you." This doesn't put me in a good mood for the day. There were points in the conversation I thought I was going to cry, and people near me these days know that that doesn't come easy.
Early March: I get an evaluation call from the Kaiser system and give them a piece of my mind (while of course being nice to the lady who's giving the call). Even she's kind of appalled at what I have gone through. I join an FTM listserv and ask questions, I get one doctor referral out in Virginia and lots of flamewars that were the sorts of things that made me run screaming from FTM-based organizing.
A week ago: After searching the Whitman-Walker site for a billionth time, on a whim I go to the "Lesbian Services" section. Who knew I was still a lesbian after all these years? But there it was, information about transgender health! I call, get a response later that day, and have a conversation with a very nice woman who knows about my healthcare issues. YAY! I now have an appointment with them, but first I have to wrest my bloodwork results from Kaiser...it'll cost me the first time, but it's not too bad after that. I mention that the website isn't the most forthcoming to trans people, and she replies that they darn well know it and are working to fix that. I laughingly offer that a flashing "Trannies click here!" button might be appropos.
Stay tuned for more adventures in tranny healthcare...
#2 - Gosh, I have comments!
Here's my deal with #2:
I have friends who read my blog. Likely, you're one of them. Howdy, friend!
A while ago, I hooked up one of those free commenting systems. Then, it mysteriously broke. Sometime thereafter I got up the gumption to fix them, and forthwith ceased to read comments. In fact, the whole idea that not only are people reading my blog, but *commenting* on it was sort of overwhelming.
BUT NO MORE! I went through and read the various comments, and have been systematically replying to them. Don't be discouraged! Comment far and wide! Ask me obscure questions, remark on my ceaseless use of exclamation points! Critique my frequent habit of beginning sentances with the word "so"! I will reply. No longer will this be an exercise in futility for you, my dear blog-reader.
I have friends who read my blog. Likely, you're one of them. Howdy, friend!
A while ago, I hooked up one of those free commenting systems. Then, it mysteriously broke. Sometime thereafter I got up the gumption to fix them, and forthwith ceased to read comments. In fact, the whole idea that not only are people reading my blog, but *commenting* on it was sort of overwhelming.
BUT NO MORE! I went through and read the various comments, and have been systematically replying to them. Don't be discouraged! Comment far and wide! Ask me obscure questions, remark on my ceaseless use of exclamation points! Critique my frequent habit of beginning sentances with the word "so"! I will reply. No longer will this be an exercise in futility for you, my dear blog-reader.
So much catch up!
I know it's bad when I write lists to myself of things I want to post in this blog. I've been thinking (a dangerous thing) and reading, and, well, traveling constantly. The list I wrote was:
1. My health care tangle
2. Gosh, I have comments!
3. California fun
4. Reaction to reading
5. Photos forthcoming
So you will see, in some order, some of these topics will be dealt with forthwith. Yay!
1. My health care tangle
2. Gosh, I have comments!
3. California fun
4. Reaction to reading
5. Photos forthcoming
So you will see, in some order, some of these topics will be dealt with forthwith. Yay!
Sunday, March 13, 2005
for whom the bell tolls
I arrive, after a particularly cumbersome train-to-Baltimore, connection-through-Philly flight to Louisville, at the U of L. There’s a student conference that was originally building for a huge protest yesterday, a culmination of the efforts of four years of struggle and boycott by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers against Taco Bell and their parent company, Yum! Brands.
But instead of more settling in for another round of chanting, marching, picketing, and leafletting, we were CELEBRATING! It was announced last Wednesday that Taco Bell and Yum had conceded to ALL of their demands, the most central of which is a raise of 1¢ per pound for each pound of tomatos picked.
To see more details of this historic accomplishment see the Coalition of Immokalee Workers website.
One of the particular significances of this agreement is that it’s the first time a fast food company has taken responsibility for the profits they reap through exploitation in the supply chain. Now that they’ve conceded, Yum! will definitely be pressuring other brands to step up; I’m sure they don’t want to lose the ‘competitive edge’ of profits that child labor and modern-day slavery conditions has gained them thusfar.
It’s been inspiring to be in the company of so many luchadores. We got a sneak preview of a movie that will no doubt be coming out soon, although perhaps not to the big multiplex theaters near you...track it down, it’s work watching.
During the conference there was a panel called “New Models of Organizing” which included representatives of Worker’s Centers from Minnesota to Mississippi, and the MST (Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazil). Facing the INS, the Klan, the police, poverty, homelessness, and myriads of divide-and-conquer mechanisms, workers are coming together and fighting for their rights/lives. The most exciting part is, they’re winning! Everybody was clear that this work is far from over, we have a long way to go - but what a way to keep going in the meantime!The keynote speaker was Anne Braden, it was amazing to get to hear her in person.
It’s hard to leave the celebration. The CIW organizers go back to picking tomatoes in pesticide-laden fields that my friends and relatives will eat, and live in trailers with collapsing floors. I go back to an apartment in Washington where I sleep, do laundry, eat food other people prepared, grew and harvested for me, and get ready to travel (again) courtesy of dues from service workers’ paychecks. How do we remain honest about the exact situations of our world while struggling for justice? How are these truths reconciled? I don’t know that they are, but I hope to never stop asking myself that question.
But instead of more settling in for another round of chanting, marching, picketing, and leafletting, we were CELEBRATING! It was announced last Wednesday that Taco Bell and Yum had conceded to ALL of their demands, the most central of which is a raise of 1¢ per pound for each pound of tomatos picked.
To see more details of this historic accomplishment see the Coalition of Immokalee Workers website.
One of the particular significances of this agreement is that it’s the first time a fast food company has taken responsibility for the profits they reap through exploitation in the supply chain. Now that they’ve conceded, Yum! will definitely be pressuring other brands to step up; I’m sure they don’t want to lose the ‘competitive edge’ of profits that child labor and modern-day slavery conditions has gained them thusfar.
It’s been inspiring to be in the company of so many luchadores. We got a sneak preview of a movie that will no doubt be coming out soon, although perhaps not to the big multiplex theaters near you...track it down, it’s work watching.
During the conference there was a panel called “New Models of Organizing” which included representatives of Worker’s Centers from Minnesota to Mississippi, and the MST (Landless Workers’ Movement in Brazil). Facing the INS, the Klan, the police, poverty, homelessness, and myriads of divide-and-conquer mechanisms, workers are coming together and fighting for their rights/lives. The most exciting part is, they’re winning! Everybody was clear that this work is far from over, we have a long way to go - but what a way to keep going in the meantime!The keynote speaker was Anne Braden, it was amazing to get to hear her in person.
It’s hard to leave the celebration. The CIW organizers go back to picking tomatoes in pesticide-laden fields that my friends and relatives will eat, and live in trailers with collapsing floors. I go back to an apartment in Washington where I sleep, do laundry, eat food other people prepared, grew and harvested for me, and get ready to travel (again) courtesy of dues from service workers’ paychecks. How do we remain honest about the exact situations of our world while struggling for justice? How are these truths reconciled? I don’t know that they are, but I hope to never stop asking myself that question.
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Specific near the Pacific
I'm now in Seattle for a brief northwest tour. This fills me with tremedous guilt, as any time I'm in this time zone I feel as though I must visit ALL of my Bay peeps, but it so wasn't happening this time around. Sheesh! I may get to see pals I haven't seen for three years, and I've never gottent o see much of Seattle nor Portland.
I walk into a coffee-house, and on a lark ask the counter-worker if any of their baked goods are vegan. Kind of off-handedly, she mentions that the doughnuts are. WHAT!? I ask in disbelief. VEGAN DOUGHNUTS? Geezus, where have you been all my life? I've had four since I landed here. I hadn't realized that while the main political thrust in my life doesn't allow me to prioritize such things, gosh I missed vegan doughnuts. I didn't know how good I had it in ol' SF.
The other thing I missed: fellow genderqueers and trannies. I almost wanted to run up and hug all the various non-gender-conforming critters I see wandering around the place where our training was held. At least I stopped myself, since I at least recall that I would've found that weird were I to be lovingly accosted by a stranger in my town.
It's a rough lot for trans-dudes in DC that I've found. If someone can prove me wrong, please do - write me, call me, make a blog disproving these claims. But after a two-month wait for an appointment with an endorinologist who basically told me "I don't know what you are, don't want to learn, and won't do anything for you" it's really nice to be in a town where that's not the apparent norm.
I wrangled with a title for this post. It's not the be-all, but it's nice to be in a place where I feel like I can be all the weirdness and complexity that I am. I assert myself as such in DC, but here there's no asserting that needs doing. More just ascertaining.
Hey, if you're reading this and you're one of my Bay peeps, call me before March 3rd. I'm in your time zone! I'll try to call you, too! Yeah, I think I'm a little homesick. Signing off...
I walk into a coffee-house, and on a lark ask the counter-worker if any of their baked goods are vegan. Kind of off-handedly, she mentions that the doughnuts are. WHAT!? I ask in disbelief. VEGAN DOUGHNUTS? Geezus, where have you been all my life? I've had four since I landed here. I hadn't realized that while the main political thrust in my life doesn't allow me to prioritize such things, gosh I missed vegan doughnuts. I didn't know how good I had it in ol' SF.
The other thing I missed: fellow genderqueers and trannies. I almost wanted to run up and hug all the various non-gender-conforming critters I see wandering around the place where our training was held. At least I stopped myself, since I at least recall that I would've found that weird were I to be lovingly accosted by a stranger in my town.
It's a rough lot for trans-dudes in DC that I've found. If someone can prove me wrong, please do - write me, call me, make a blog disproving these claims. But after a two-month wait for an appointment with an endorinologist who basically told me "I don't know what you are, don't want to learn, and won't do anything for you" it's really nice to be in a town where that's not the apparent norm.
I wrangled with a title for this post. It's not the be-all, but it's nice to be in a place where I feel like I can be all the weirdness and complexity that I am. I assert myself as such in DC, but here there's no asserting that needs doing. More just ascertaining.
Hey, if you're reading this and you're one of my Bay peeps, call me before March 3rd. I'm in your time zone! I'll try to call you, too! Yeah, I think I'm a little homesick. Signing off...
Monday, February 21, 2005
shy-town
Hangin' out with students for fair trade, getting a whirlwind tour of Chicago. I'm getting to spend lots of quality time with my fabulous co-worker, B, and visit veggie sites here (which is a challenge - Chicago is a meat-packing town. 'Nuf said.) I thought it was going to be so cold I would DIE, but not at all! Either I've acclimated or it's particularly mild out these days.
I love this town, but there's not enough down time at the conference...I haven't had a weekend off in a bit, and it's starting to get me cranky. Good conversations with folks though. This is going to be a funny, reporting-back listing post.
"Chicago is a gritty town. New York is dirty, but Chicago is gritty." quoth my host/ess.
I love this town, but there's not enough down time at the conference...I haven't had a weekend off in a bit, and it's starting to get me cranky. Good conversations with folks though. This is going to be a funny, reporting-back listing post.
"Chicago is a gritty town. New York is dirty, but Chicago is gritty." quoth my host/ess.
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